Natural Causes Read Online Free PDF

parted in the middle
and knotted in back, at the nape of her neck. A wing of hair had
fallen across her cheek and she brushed it savagely with her hand.
    "I should have known this was going to happen,"
she said angrily and switched her gaze from Marsha to me. She had
cold blue eyes and her skin was as pale and powdered as Marsha's was
tan. "Are you Stoneman?"
    "Stoner," I said.
    "You do good work, Stoner," she said
sarcastically.
    "I wasn't hired to look after your
daughter-in-law." The woman tossed her head at me, as if that
were beside the point. "Come on. Let's lug the sack of guts
upstairs."
    I carried Marsha Dover up to a bedroom. Her
mother-in-law turned down the covers on the bed and I put her on the
sheets.
    Connie Dover stared at the girl for a moment. "She's
a beautiful thing, isn't she? Beautiful but, oh, so dumb." She
flipped a blanket over her body.
    "Maybe you should call a doctor."
    "Why? Have they discovered a cure for stupidity
now?"
    "Her feet," I said. "She cut them
pretty badly."
    "She'll be all right," the woman said. "Her
problem isn't with her feet anyway. It's up here." She tapped
her head. "And in her groin."
    She flipped off the light and we walked back down the
staircase.
    "I suppose she flashed her rear end at you?"
Mrs. Dover said. "That's her usual routine."
    "She was pretty drunk and pretty shaken up."
    "And tomorrow she'll be sober and contrite, and
tomorrow night she'll be drunk again. It never stops. I don't know
how Quentin could stand it. That girl's got a personality like house
current. On again, off again. When she's on, she's little Miss
Polymorphous Perversity. When she's off, she's what's left over when
you take her toys away. Which isn't much, believe me. In either case,
she's a child and has to be treated like one." The woman gave me
a pointed look. "She's not to be trusted, you know. She's an
inveterate liar. Quentin rescued her from a life of dismal poverty,
and she repaid him with public drunkenness and countless adulteries.
God knows how many men she must have had. She probably qualifies
under state law as a public utility."
    "You really like her, don't you?" I said.
"I mean deep down inside."
    The woman eyed me coldly. "That's not funny. I'm
trying to do you a favor, Stoner. Jack tells me that you've been
hired to investigate my son's tragic death. I don't know what there
is to investigate. The police have already ruled it an accident. But
if you're going to go traipsing through Quentin's life, I can at
least put you on the right track. To listen to Marsha, you'd think I
was a monster and my son forced her to live a life of sinful luxury,
away from the bosom of her family. Her family! Well, if you ever want
to make a case for heredity affecting I.Q., take a good close look at
that brood."
    "And what was your son really like, Mrs. Dover?"
    She stood very still, at the foot of the stairs. "He
was a bright, witty, generous man," she said and her eyes teared
up. "He was good to everyone. And it's a sin for anyone to say
otherwise."
    Connie Dover began to wobble unsteadily on her feet.
I reached for her arm.
    "I'm all right," she said quickly. "I'm
quite all right." She wiped the tears from her eyes with her
fingertips. "Really. You can release me. I won't fall."
    I let go of her arm, and she braced herself against
the stairpost.
    "It's just been such a terrible week," she
said. "And I'm worn out."
    "Do you feel up to talking to me? I have a few
questions I'd like to ask. But I could come back some other time, if
you want."
    She dropped her hand from the post and drew herself
up quickly. "I'd be happy to talk to you. In fact, there is
nothing I would rather do, especially after what you must have heard
from Marsha. We'll go to the kitchen. I need a cup of coffee, and you
look like you could use one too.
    I also looked like something that would leave a stain
on Quentin's brocade loveseats, and the kitchen stools were wood. I
sat down on one of them, while Mrs. Dover brewed a pot of