He was beginning to drop the tension in his tone and he sounded more resigned than angry. Lyle buttered another brick with soft mortar and set it in place. The sun felt good on my back and I settled on my elbows, leaning back on the tarp.

"What's your theory?" I asked.

He looked at me slyly. "Maybe she killed herself."

"Suicide?" The thought hadn't even crossed my mind.

"You asked. I'm just tellin' you what I thought at the time. She sure was hung up on him."

"Yeah, but enough to kill herself when he died?"

"Who knows?" He lifted one shoulder and let it drop.

"How did she find out about his death?"

"Someone called her and told her about it."

"How do you know that?"

"Because she called me up. At first she didn't know what to make of it."

"She was grieving for him? Tears? Shock?"

He seemed to think back. "She was just real confused and upset. I went over there. She asked me to come and then she changed her mind and said she didn't want to talk about it. She was shaky, couldn't concentrate. It kind of made me mad that she was jerking me around, so I left. Next thing I knew, she was dead."

"Who found her?"

"The apartment manager where she lived. She didn't show up for work for two days and didn't call in, so her boss got worried and went over to her place. The manager tried peeping in the windows but the drapes were shut. They knocked some, front and back, and finally got in with a passkey. She was lying on the bathroom floor in her robe. She'd been dead for three days."

"What about her bed? Had it been slept in?"

"I don't know. The police didn't give that out."

I thought about that for a minute. It sounded like she might have taken a capsule at night, just as Laurence Fife had. It still seemed to me it might have been the same medication – some kind of antihistamine capsule in which someone had substituted oleander.

"Did she have allergies, Lyle? Was she complaining of a head cold or anything like that when you saw her last?"

He shrugged. "She might have, I guess. I don't remember anything like that. I saw her Thursday night. Wednesday or Thursday of that week when she heard that attorney was dead. She died on Saturday night late, they said. That much they put in the paper when it happened."

"What about this attorney she was involved with? Do you know if he kept anything at her place? Toothbrush? Razor? Things like that? Maybe she took medication that was meant for him."

"How do I know?" he said testily. "I don't stick my nose where it doesn't belong."

"Did she have a girl friend? Someone she might have confided in?"

"Maybe from work. I don't remember anyone in particular. She didn't have 'girl friends."'

I took out my notebook and jotted down the telephone number at my motel. "This is where I can be reached. Will you give me a call if you think of anything else?"