Murder on Location (30 page)

“It would have finished him. Can you imagine him, stuck with a family?”

“A lot of people would still be alive if he had married Dulcie. But back then it seemed to Furlong that the best choice was to saw through the brake-fluid line. It doesn't take much of a mechanical aptitude. He worked in a garage for a while before he began to rise in the arts. He knew she'd kill herself driving at her usual speed along that road with no brakes. It was a lead-pipe cinch that he could remain unencumbered with a wife and family for a few more years.”

“You mean he killed Dulcie?”

“Why not? Furlong didn't let people get in his way. He didn't even let his own lack of talent get in his way. He had drive and ambition all wrapped up in a cover of charm, and not a scruple or a damn for anything else. Billie, where do you meet these people?”

“Well, I won't meet any more like that, I hope.”

“Tell Lowell I'll be sending him my bill.”

“You can't take credit for my going back to him, Benny. It wouldn't be ethical. I went back of my own free will. I'm not a car or a horse. I'm not a child or a runaway teenager. I'm not a
thing
being returned to its rightful owner.” She looked at me with her big blue eyes and her mouth turned down in a pout. I could have easily thrown her down my twenty-eight stairs without a pang.

“Billie, get out of here. Go home. Leave your husband's business to your husband.”

“I won't stand by and see Lowell ripped off, Benny.”

“I know where there is a fat part for the right actress that hasn't been cast yet.”

“Benny, why didn't you tell me when I came in?” She lost that look of being the stout sentry at the gate. “What's the part? Who do I talk to?”

“Drop around to the Water Board and talk to Ned Evans. He's looking for a Millwood in
The London Merchant
. For you, Billie, it's the perfect part.”

ALSO AVAILABLE FROM PENGUIN CANADA

EAST OF SUEZ

Howard Engel

A BENNY COOPERMAN MYSTERY

Left with short-term memory loss and unable to read, Benny Cooperman is ready to pack in his career as a private investigator. But an old schoolmate convinces him to locate her missing husband—or at least the family savings. Benny's quest takes him to the seductive environs of Murinam, a former French possession in Indonesia, where nothing is as it appears to be. The heat is on as mayhem and murder ensue among the colourful denizens of the tropics, but Benny keeps a cool head.

Find out more about Howard Engel mysteries at

www.penguin.ca/mystery