Black Night Falling by Rod Reynolds Page A

closed one eye, thinking. ‘It was light outside so I’d hazard at afternoon.’
    Tuesday was the day of the fire. Robinson on a mid-afternoon drunk, supposedly talking suicidal, hours before he died in the blaze. A third possibility emerging: could Robinson have set the fire in his room on purpose?
    I tried switching gears. ‘You said you saw him around some. Ever see him talking with anyone?’
    ‘So many questions, mister, must make you thirsty. You oughta take a drink to keep your throat oiled.’
    I took his meaning and slipped a bill across the bar, asked for a coffee.
    He folded it into his shirt pocket, placed a blue mug in front of me and poured. ‘You say this fella died in the fire down at Duke’s?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘So what’s behind all these questions? He owe you money?’
    I tried the coffee. It was cold and stewed. ‘Something like that.’
    ‘Have to ask you to elaborate on that “something”.’
    ‘What’s it to you?’
    ‘Answer the question first.’
    I pushed the coffee slowly to one side. ‘He was a friend of mine. I want to know what he was doing here and what happened to him.’
    ‘All right.’ The bartender looked at me hard as if he was trying to make me confess something. Then he said, ‘Reason I ask, I seen him with someone and I ain’t of a mind to put a stranger onto her if I think you gonna bring trouble to her door.’
    I leaned forward, my forearms on the bar. ‘I didn’t come in here shouting the odds, did I?’
    He rose up to his full height, easily topping six feet. ‘No, sir, you didn’t. But now you been fair warned.’
    ‘Noted.’
    ‘All right. I was outside taking the liquor delivery, so this would be Monday. Saw your man coming down the street talking with Ella Borland, used to work around here. I only took notice because I know her a bit – he was just another face at the time. Wasn’t till he came in here the next day I remembered it was him I seen her with.’
    I had my notebook out and was scribbling the name. ‘You know where I can find her?’
    He pursed his lips and shook his head. ‘Nope. You could try Clay Tucker. Owns Duke’s, he might tell you. Maybe.’
    ‘Why him?’
    He looked at me as if I was being stupid. ‘She used to work there.’
    I knocked on the bar as a thank you. ‘You know where I can find Tucker? He wasn’t there a while ago.’
    He shrugged. ‘He ain’t there, who knows?’
    I took the photograph of the dead woman from my pocket. ‘Any chance you can tell me who she is?’
    He squinted, then shook his head. ‘No one I know. What’s it to you?’
    ‘Forget it. Thanks for the pointer.’
    *
    I steamrolled back to Duke’s determined to wait out Clay Tucker, feeling like he’d been playing games with me. I wondered if he knew about Robinson stepping out with this Borland woman and that’s why I’d got the feeling he was holding out on me. I tried not to let anger take over, put myself in his shoes – I was a stranger asking questions about a dead man; why would he drag her name into it?
    Turned out there was no call to wait on him. The saloon was open when I got there and Tucker was inside, pushing a broom again. He looked up when he saw me come in, startled, as though I’d caught him doing something he shouldn’t.
    ‘You back again,’ he said, his tone flat.
    ‘I’d appreciate five more minutes of your time. Couple things I forgot to ask you earlier on.’
    ‘Look, I don’t mean to be inhospitable, but I got my hands full here right now.’ He gestured to the debris all around him. ‘Don’t know what else I can tell you.’
    ‘The name Ella Borland familiar to you?’
    He hesitated and it looked like he was thinking to say no, but then he got smart and said, ‘Sure.’
    ‘I heard tell my friend might have passed some time with her. I’d like to talk with her about it.’
    He shrugged, pulled a face as though he didn’t know what it had to do with him. He was more jittery than when I’d seen him