The Spook Lights Affair by Bill Pronzini, Marcia Muller Page B

the boyishly charming sort Sabina instinctively distrusted. It was the first time she had set eyes on him, though he had been described to her by Virginia St. Ives’s mother. Mrs. St. Ives considered him “a slick and devious fortune hunter,” though she seemed never to have met him, either. Whether or not the appraisal was apt remained to be seen.
    “Yes, Madam, what may I do for you?”
    “My name is Sabina Carpenter.” She presented him with one of her cards. “I’d like to speak to you privately, Mr. Whiffing.”
    “I don’t understand,” he said when he finished peering at the card. “A woman investigator?”
    “You find something wrong with that?”
    “Wrong? No, not at all. What is it you wish to speak to me about?”
    “Virginia St. Ives.”
    His only reaction was a wry twist to his smile. He seemed not to know yet of the girl’s suicide or the strange disappearance of her body. Nor to have recognized Sabina’s name.
    “What about Ms. St. Ives?”
    “In private, please. It’s important.”
    “Well … Mr. Ellerby doesn’t like employees using his office when he isn’t here, but we can talk in the storeroom.” He ushered her through the rear doorway and into a narrow room lined with well-filled shelves and redolent of leather, rubber, and linseed oil. “If you’d like to sit down, Miss Carpenter, I can fetch a chair—”
    “Mrs. Carpenter. No, that isn’t necessary. I’m afraid I have some bad news for you about Virginia St. Ives, if you haven’t already been informed.”
    “Virginia? No. Has something happened to her?”
    “I’m afraid so.” Briefly and with a minimum of detail she told him what had happened the night before.
    He reacted with shock, bewilderment, distress—all of it seemingly genuine. He leaned heavily against one of the shelves, shaking his head, his eyes moist and glistening. “My God, are you certain she couldn’t have survived the fall? If her body wasn’t found, then she might still be alive.…”
    “I can’t explain the missing body, but no, it’s virtually impossible for her to have survived such a plunge.”
    “But why would she do such a thing? She was so young, so full of life.…”
    “You have no idea?”
    “No. Absolutely none.”
    “I’ve been told you and she were quite close.”
    “We were keeping company, yes, until her parents refused to allow her to see me any longer.” A touch of bitterness underlay the grief in his voice. “They consider me beneath her station. ‘A lowly clerk who lives in the squalor of Carville,’ in her father’s words. I may be only a clerk and stockboy at present, but Mr. Ellerby is planning to open a second store and has promised to make me manager. And whatever Carville may be, it’s certainly not squalid.…” He broke off, scrubbed his face with his palms.
    Sabina asked, “How serious was your relationship with Miss St. Ives?”
    “Not as serious as it might have become had we been permitted more time together. I may one day have asked her to be my wife.”
    “But it hadn’t reached that stage of intimacy yet?”
    “No. If only she hadn’t listened to her father…” The hands came down and he frowned at Sabina as if just struck by a thought. “I suppose he’s the one who hired you. To make sure Virginia didn’t disobey his orders.”
    “While he and his wife were away in Sacramento, yes.”
    “Why were you chaperoning her last night? Did you think Virginia might try to sneak off to meet me somewhere?”
    “I didn’t think anything, Mr. Whiffing. I was merely attending to my duties.”
    “Not attending to them well, if you weren’t able to prevent her from hurling herself off that cliff.”
    “I had no idea what she was planning to do. I truly wish I had.”
    “So do I.” He sighed heavily. “Oh, God, poor Virginia,” he said then. “She was … downhearted the last time I saw her, but I thought it was because she’d been forced to end our relationship.”
    “That was at your