Beware the Solitary Drinker Read Online Free PDF

to be. I didn’t know if he thought me the best witness or the prime suspect.
    â€œYou’re the beneficiary on her life insurance policy.”
    â€œI’m what?”
    â€œShe had a five thousand dollar life insurance policy from the restaurant where she worked. She named you beneficiary.” He sat back in his chair, tilted his head to the side, and watched me from this vantage.
    â€œWhy did she do that?” I didn’t want money from Angelina being dead.
    â€œYou won’t get the money until we find the killer.”
    â€œI don’t want the money.” When I said this, it occurred to me he might think I killed her for the money. “What do you want from me?”
    â€œWhat can you tell me?”
    â€œNothing. I don’t know who did it.”
    â€œTell me anything you know, anything you think might be helpful.” His face held an open, guileless expression you might mistake for simplicity, but his questioning was purposeful and measured.
    â€œI don’t know anything.”
    â€œWhen did you see her last?”
    I wanted to tell him, but Oscar had sworn me to secrecy. It was a stupid delusion of Oscar’s that the cops wouldn’t figure out that she’d been in the bar. But at that moment Oscar carried more weight in my life than Sergeant Sheehan. “I don’t remember,” I said.
    â€œWas she in here Wednesday night?”
    â€œI don’t remember.”
    He looked me in the eye long enough for me to avert my gaze. “Do you want the person who did this to be caught?”
    I didn’t want to tell him the truth, which was that I really didn’t care. It wasn’t going to help Angelina—so I didn’t say anything.
    He waited, looking me in the eye whenever I looked up at him, his expression patient.
    â€œWere you in love with her?” he asked, really taking me by surprise. He looked right into my face when he asked, and I’m sure my face registered the changes I went through like a computer screen.
    â€œI wasn’t in love with her,” I said, but my voice wavered.
    Oscar had been rubbing the same section of the bar with the bar rag for about ten minutes watching us. When Sheehan left, Oscar came out from behind the bar. “What did you tell him?”
    â€œI told him you did it.”
    Oscar didn’t get immediately that I was kidding. His eyes went wide and his face lost some of its color. For all I knew, he had done it.
    â€œI didn’t tell him anything, Oscar. But he’ll be back. Someone else will tell him she was here.”
    â€œWe can say no,” said Oscar, still scheming. This was the same Oscar who, when he burned the top of the Quiche Lorraine in the broiler, served it upside down on a bed of lettuce. “It’ll be their word against ours.”
    The cop found me again the next morning at my apartment. It was almost noon but I’d drunk too much and hadn’t gone to bed until six. My health was going downhill fast. If I didn’t let my system flush itself out, I’d start shaking soon. Drinking in the morning to stop the shakes—a new horizon loomed. Looking at Sheehan through the peephole in the door, I imagined what had happened. He discovered that Angelina used to live with me, that everyone in the neighborhood thought we had something going. He’d found out she’d been in the bar talking to me most of the night I said she hadn’t been there. Next, he’d check the FBI records and find out my father was a Communist. Everyone knows Communists never tell the truth.
    â€œSorry,” he said when I opened the door. “I thought you’d be up by now.” Once more, he had me at a disadvantage; this time, I was embarrassed because I was so obviously hung over. He seemed chipper, despite a probable lack of sleep, wearing the same rumpled gray suit but a fresh blue shirt, with a red knit tie replacing the blue knit tie of the night