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"I was just a kid ebar I went out to California on the Greyhound bus the day I turned eighteen, and went to bartending school in Los Angeles Cost ht have been a rip-off I did learn to mix drinks but I probably could have done that out of one of theot this job at LAX and I’ve been working airport bars ever since Don’t ask ht and we got talkin’ and next thing I knee fell in love and got married He was thirty-nine years old to my nineteen, and I ith him sixteen years I knew that man He didn’t kill himself He wouldn’t do that to me"

"What makes you so sure?"

"Whatup in the east ever’ day? It just does, that’s all, and you learn to count on that the way I learned to count on him"

"You think somebody killed him?"

" ’Course I do Lance Wood did it, as sure as I’ to admit it in a million years and neither will his family Have you talked to theh’s death for the first tiured they paid off the cops to keep it hush They got tons of money and they know ever’one in town It was a cover-up"

"Lyda, these are honorable people you’re talking about They’d never tolerate ht he had anything to do with it"

"Boy, you’re dumber than I am, if you believe that I’m tellin’ you it was murder Why’d you fly all this way if you didn’t think so yourself?"

"I don’t knohat to think That’s why I’ you"

"Well, it wasn’t suicide He wasn’t depressed He wasn’t the suicidal type Why would he do such a thing? That’s just dumb They knew him They knehat kind of man lie was"

I watched her carefully "I heard he was planning to leave the company and start a business of his own"

"He talked about that He talked about a lot of things He worked for Woody fifteen years Hugh was loyal as they come, but everybody knew the old h couldn’t stand the idea He said Lance was a boob and he didn’t want to be around to watch him mess up"

"Did the two of theave notice and Woody talked hiovern-h said he’d stay until word caot the bid or not Two days later, I got hoe door, and there he was It looked like he fell asleep in the car, but his skin was cherry red I never will forget that"

"There’s no way it could have been an accident?"

She leaned forward earnestly "I said it once and I’ll say it again Hugh wouldn’t kill himself He didn’t have a reason and he wasn’t depressed"

"How do you knoasn’t holding souess I don’t, if you put it like that"

"The notion of murder doesn’t e at that point, and he wouldn’t kill an euy wants to ed, undish would take the business with hione yet, it still seehtly "You asked for my opinion I’m tellin’ you what I think"

"I can see you believe it, but it’s going to take h was murdered, it could have been someone else, couldn’t it?"

"Of course it could I believe it was Lance, but I can’t swear to it I don’t have any proof, anyhow Sometimes I think it’s not worth foolin’ with It’s over and done, so what difference does it make?"

I shifted the subject "Why’d you have hi I had a hand in it?"

"I’ the questions What do I know?" "He asked to be cremated It wasn’t even my idea He’d been dead for two days The coroner released the body and the funeral director suggested we go ahead with it, so I took his advice You can talk to hih was drugged I’d bet money that’s how they pulled it off His lab as stolen so nobody’d see the test results"