Page 58 of The River We Remember
“He was not lost that way.”
Brody waited, but she didn’t elaborate.
“Did he stay long?”
“Sometimes he came into the field where I was working and talked to me a long time.”
“About what?”
“Nothing, really.”
“Jimmy Quinn just shot the breeze with you?”
“I think he didn’t talk to many people.”
“But he talked to you?”
“Didn’t I just tell you he did?” It was said quietly, but there were splinters in her voice.
“Did he ever touch you?”
The night before it had been a question out of the blue and, if Graff had characterized her reaction correctly, had been one that frightened her. Not this time.
She said, “No. Never.”
“There was bad blood between James Quinn and your husband. Quinn fired him last week. How did your husband feel about that?”
“My husband didn’t like Mr. Quinn. Mr. Quinn didn’t like my husband. But many people in this world don’t like each other and still they find a way to work together.”
Hector and the Bluestones’ dog had wandered into the young orchard, and Hector had begun to bark. Brody glanced that way, then back at the woman.
“That doesn’t really answer my question,” he said.
“My husband wasn’t upset about being dismissed.”
“But he was upset about something.”
Brody could see tension entering her face now, the shadows of lines forming at the corners of her eyes.
“Wouldn’t it be better for you to ask my husband these things?” she said.
“Right now, I’m asking you. What was your husband upset about?”
“Mr. Quinn accused him of being a thief.”
“Of stealing gas?”
“Yes, that.”
“That’s hardly reason to kill a man,” Brody said.
She looked at him, then at the troubled sky behind him, then where the two dogs had become interested in something in the orchard.
“Was James Quinn here last Thursday night, the night before Memorial Day?”
The woman hesitated, then shook her head.
Brody said, “Look at me, Mrs. Bluestone.”
