“You and he were pretty close friends, weren’t you?” I asked, puzzled by her blankness.
“We had been—yes.”
“What do you mean by had been ?”
She pushed back a lock of her shortcut brown hair with a lazy hand.
“I gave him the air last week,” she said casually, as if speaking of something that had happened years ago.
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“Last week—Monday, I think—a week before he was killed.”
“Was that the time when you broke off with him?”
“Yes.”
“Have a row, or part friends?”
“Not exactly either. I just told him that I was through with him.”
“How did he take it?”
“It didn’t break his heart. I guess he’d heard the same thing before.”
“Where were you the night he was killed?”
“At the Coffee Cup, eating and dancing with friends until about one o’clock. Then I came home and went to bed.”
“Why did you split with Gilmore?”
“Couldn’t stand his wife.”
“Huh?”