—
Nancy Quill was a tall, severe-looking blonde who spoke in short, precise sentences that were delivered in paragraphs.
“I never saw Barth use any drug. Not even aspirin. He didn’t care for wine, although he took a glass from time to time. That was his effort to be social. He didn’t use hard alcohol, with one exception. He did spend some money on tequila. He’d sip a glass of it at night, before bed, by himself. Cocaine seems unlikely. But, if he were to have a drug of choice, and I were asked to guess what it was, I would guess cocaine or one of the amphetamines. He would look for a drug that would intensify focus, not blur it.”
“You never saw any hint that he used cocaine?” Trane asked.
“Never. He made it clear, though, that I wasn’t welcome in his office,” Quill said. “It looks messy in there, but actually everything had its place and everything was put in its place. I had my own office, in a spare bedroom. I moved my effects here when I left him. I have no idea what the signs of cocaine abuse might be, other than having seen some actor inhale some white powder in some movie.”
Virgil asked, “Did he have any friends or associates that you saw who seemed, mmm, to strike a false note? Somebody who might have supplied him with the cocaine or might have been a connection to that world?”
“Barth didn’t have close male friends, people he would confidein. He married three times, of course, so it seemed that he should like women, although I’m not sure he did. He needed us for sexual release, to be frank about it. I’m not sure he wanted us around for anything else.”
“A misogynist, then?” Trane asked.
“Oh, I wouldn’t use that word,” Quill said. “A misogynist is someone who thinks of women as inferior. He didn’t. He quite respected a number of women in his own field, for their work. He regularly corresponded with them. You have his home and office computers. I believe if you closely examine his emails, you’ll find their names.”
Trane said to Virgil, “We’ve done that. There were female academics among the people he wrote to, but I didn’t see anything there that struck me as personal rather than professional.”
Virgil to Quill: “To get back to my original question: what about false notes?”
“I’ve been thinking about that. Actually, there is someone. A lawyer, John Combes. Everybody calls him Jack. He and Barth had a regular weekly handball game over at the RecWell. Their relationship was... not exactly a friendship. They never socialized other than on the court and once a year at the Combeses’ Christmas party. Jack always struck me as a bit sleazy—a criminal law attorney and not wildly successful. He does come from a prominent family. Perhaps their relationship went back to childhood, to school, I don’t know. I do know that he’s an excellent handball player.”
That was all they got from Quill. If her husband had been using cocaine, she never saw any signs of euphoria or withdrawal. “Barth was incredibly even-tempered. With his job, I’m sure he must have felt stress, disappointment, anger, but he never showed it.”
As they were leaving, Virgil asked Quill, “Did your husband like cowboy music?”
“What?”
“You know, cowboy music.”
“I doubt that he ever listened to a cowboy song in his entire life. He liked Bartók.”
“Jimmy Ray Bartók?”
“No, Béla... Oh, you were joking.” She looked disappointed in him.
—
In the elevators on the way back down, Trane said, “Jack Combes might be something. I know who he is, but he’s a small-timer in the legal world. Never handled a homicide, as far as I know. Or, if he did, not a big one. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he got a lot of work through court appointments for drug defendants. That would be about his speed.”
“You want to do him or do you want me to?”
She thought for a moment, then said, “Why don’t you take him? He sounds like a jock, and you’re obviously a jock. Maybe you’ll bond. I want to ride herd on our pubic hair. It could be critical.”
“You gonna do DNA on all three of them?” Virgil asked.
“Think we should?”
“Yeah. They’re probably all from the same person, but it would be very interesting if they weren’t. If you’ve got a guy who takes a personal interest in women only because he wants the sex, as Nancy Quill says he did, and if he has a logical mind, like most scientists, then... why not a hooker? Or two or three? Be a lot cheaper than two-year marriages followed by divorces.”
“As you would know as well as anybody,” Trane said.
“Right. Thanks for mentioning it. Another thing: hotels have eyes for hookers and that might be a reason he’d take one to the library. And where you find hookers, you’re gonna find drugs. And you might even find blackmail. You might find all kinds of things. Like motive.”
“Good point,” Trane said. “We’ll do the DNA on all the hair.”
“I’ll find this Combes guy tomorrow,” Virgil said. He looked down at his shoes for a moment, ruminating.
