Sinister Heights by Loren D. Estleman

over the other and channeled Father O’Malley. The dog was asleep on its bed, snoring louder than it barked. It had heard all this before.
    Carla Willard Witowski shut her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, Leland Stutch looked out at me. If her mother had just taken her to court and let her look at the judge, the case would have gone to the jury. “Do you realize, Mr. Walker, that if I’d been born forty years earlier—about the time my father turned twenty-five—I would not have been permitted to teach school in the state of Michigan? My bastardy might have polluted the entire seventh grade.”
    I made a note on my brain to look up bastardy when I got home. I’d never heard it used before, but being an English teacher and a bastard both she seemed to have the provenance. I said, “So hooray for the twenty-first century. You don’t need a crank to start a new automobile built in the Stutch plant either. When can you meet with Mrs. Stutch?”
    She worked her hands on her thighs. It wasn’t quite a rubbing motion. “Exactly how much money are we discussing, Mr. Walker?”
    â€œThat’s what the meeting’s about. Is Thursday good?” I didn’t know if Thursday was good for Rayellen Stutch. If it wasn’t they could work it out. I wanted to be somewhere else than in that pleasant room with those eyes, down on the docks where all you had to stare down were belly guns and rats the size of chimpanzees.
    â€œWho else will be there? Her lawyers?”
    â€œNot if you don’t want them. You may want a lawyer there yourself. A witness anyhow. People sometimes forget things they said without someone to remind them, preferably with a writ. Your daughter’s invited too, of course. Mrs. Stutch wants to take care of all the heirs. I’m looking for her, too, to deliver the same message. Do you have her current address? I couldn’t find a listing.”
    She lifted her right hand to stroke her left upper arm, as if it tingled. I wondered if she had a weak heart. The leg of her slacks where she’d been gripping her thigh was a crush of wrinkles.
    â€œI’m not sure.” She stopped the stroking, but left the hand on her arm. “We haven’t had contact in more than a year. The last I knew she was living in Toledo. She may still be, if that animal she married hasn’t killed her. My daughter made an unhappy match, Mr. Walker, just like her mother. Perhaps your client’s late husband acted in my mother’s best interest after all, when he refused to make an honest woman of her.”

CHAPTER
SIX
    I looked at the dog asleep on its bed, for no other reason than the thought that staring too long into Carla Witowski’s eyes might give me cataracts. The dog’s legs twitched and now and then a little whimper made its whiskers ripple. Somewhere it was chasing rabbits and barking in a deep basso profundo .
    â€œI liked David Glendowning when Constance introduced him to me,” Mrs. Witowski said. “He was a rough cob, but I’ve been around those most of my life. You don’t have to dig back more than a generation in this town to find a blue collar in every family. He drove a truck for a cartage firm in Toledo, a solid occupation and decent pay. He was running for shop steward then. Wanted to make the union his career, so he had ambition, and he watched his manners around me. They seemed to be in love. I didn’t see any reason to meddle beyond that.
    â€œThe wedding took place in Toledo, a small affair in a Methodist chapel. My ex-husband and I were on our best behavior, which means he didn’t try to feel up the maid of honor and I didn’t throw any crystal at him at the reception. We even posed for pictures. If you knew what our marriage came to be, which you won’t because it isn’t any of your business, you’d know what a minor miracle that was.”
    None of this was any of my