Martin frowned. “Sounds like gossip.”
“Gossip!” Hooth exclaimed. “Exactly the word. Gossip. Small talk. Gossip. Wheelau carried gossip from person to person.”
Martin’s face twisted. “But people get mad if you gossip about them. Hell, there might be a thousand people who would want to kill Wheelau if they knew he was gossiping about them.”
Hooth’s eye stalks wavered agitatedly. “Gossip is what binds our community together! How do you do your job if not by gathering gossip? What are we doing now? 1 am telling you about Wheelau. I am gossiping about Wheelau. You will pick out the tilings you need and act on them to catch the individual who… killed Wheelau. How could it be otherwise?”
Reluctantly, Martin nodded. “OK, I see your point. Still, some humans won’t like it.”
“Hooth,” I put in, “I see what you’re saying, but Martin has a point, too. Some humans may not see the necessity of what Wheelau did. You said that Wheelau had some human friends. Could you give us their names?”
“He had one friend above all the rest. Boyce Coleman. You should talk to him. Boyce was nearly as good at gossip as Wheelau. He was the one who found out that his neighbor, Mrs. Airlie, was back from visiting with her daughter. We are,” Hooth swung his neck in a circle as though to indicate the Erintie scattered around the meadow, “a gregarious species. We enjoy seeing humans interact with their families. It reinforces our sense of community with humans.”
“Have you ever had any kind of trouble with humans belbre?”
“Well, there was an unfortunate incident three years ago, in which a car struck a young Erintie as he was playing in the road, but that was an accident, and the human driving the car felt truly bad about what had happened. The youngster lived, but is crippled. We take care of him. Other than that, no.”
“It’s just that people, humans that is, don’t often react well to being talked about,” Martin said. “I don’t see how you’ve managed to avoid conflict.”
“I understand your concern, but we simply provide much the same service as a newspaper in a small town. I fail to see how that could cause anyone to be upset.”
Martin frowned. “It might depend on the information being passed. Let’s say that Wheelau found out about something illegal going on and was telling people.”
“But Wheelau had not gone to the police, or I would have known. You see, that, too, would have been news, and would have been passed around.”
“What if Wheelau didn’t realize that the information he had was so important. He might have thought that it was just a piece of ordinary news, when, in fact, it was very important to someone else. Lots of people have been killed for knowing too much.”
“Perhaps it is not that humans have known too much, but that they have known too little. If everyone knew what everyone else was up to, then there would be less crime, would there not?”
There was nothing Martin could say to that.
Looking for Boyce Coleman’s house, we came to Mrs. Airlie’s first. Martin paused in the street. “Should we?”
“Wouldn’t hurt.”
Martin pulled his car over next to the white picket fence that surrounded her house. A limb from the large maple overhanging the gate caught Martin on the forehead, causing him to mutter a lengthy string of words that I’m certain he didn’t learn from his mother. Sometimes being three feet tall has its advantages.
The woman who answered the door was on in years. “Ma’am, are you Mrs. Airlie?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Are you acquainted with Boyce Coleman?”
“Yes. He’s my neighbor.”
“My name is Victor, and this is Martin Crofts. We’re assisting the police in an investigation into—”
“I know who you are, Victor. I read about you all the time. Is this about Wheelau?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She shook her head sadly. “I just don’t know why anyone would want to kill Wheelau. He was better than most humans.” She made a face. “I know that’s not saying much these days, but he really was just wonderful. Did you know him?”
“No, ma’am. We’ve only met Hooth so far.”
She nodded sagely. “Hooth’s a good ’un, too, but I got along with Wheelau. Oh, and the way they sound! Reminds me of organs in church. I like to listen to their voices, even if I don’t know what they’re saying. I’d like to hear them sing, just once. I just know it would be heavenly.”
“So you liked Wheelau?” Martin asked gently.
“Liked him?” She seemed truly surprised. “I fed him some of my jelly, and that’s not something I do for just anyone, you know. That stuff’s for my grandson. Got to use the right kind of apples… just one kind will do.” Her eyes misted. “Wheelau said it tasted better than anything he’d had since he’d been here on Earth. ’Course, maybe he was just being polite. He was, you know. Polite, that is. Why, he’d come over here, and we’d just sit and talk. Sometimes Hooth would come with him. Sometimes Ianna or Benait. Usually just Wheelau. Lord, I’m going to miss him. It’s not everybody that will take time to talk to a woman living alone. He was special, that one.”
“Do you know anyone who might want to kill him?” Martin asked.
Her lips compressed, and she shook her head. “The world isn’t what it used to be when it isn’t safe for someone like Wheelau. No, I don’t know why anyone would do a thing like that. I’ll tell you how special he was. I’ve always wanted to ride a horse. Now, that’s just not something I should be doing. A woman my age gets on a horse—no better balance than I’ve got—and falls… doctors wouldn’t know how to begin to put me back together. I was telling Wheelau this last August, no… September… let’s see, it was just alter my good friend Jeannie got her new car. Anyway, the next thing I knew, he had me up and was riding me around the yard! Me! Riding an Erintie just like it was something that everyone did! Holding onto his neck for dear life, too. Oh, we had a grand time.”
“What can you tell us about Boyce?” Martin asked.
“Well, I’ve known his mother since before he was born. His father’s from down around the lower end of the county. Boyce and his wife moved up here after they got married about four or live years ago. They’ve been good neighbors, I guess. If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t have met Wheelau.”
We chatted for a few more minutes, then went down the street to the Colemans’s. Boyce opened the door when we rang. He was nearly as tall as Martin, but more heavily built; clearly a weight lifter. After we explained who we were, he invited us in.
“Man, I hope you guys find out who did it. Anybody who would hurt an Erintie is just plain sick. And Wheelau was the best of them all. You just tell me when you find out who did it.” He made a wringing motion with his hands, shoulder muscles straining the fabric of his cotton T-shirt. “I’ll take care of ’em.”
“Do you know anyone who might have wanted to kill Wheelau?” Martin asked.
Boyce shook his head. “That’s the part that doesn’t make any sense. I’ve heard all that nonsense about gossip, but if you’ve met one, you know that the Erintie are more like a big, old-fashioned family that keeps up with their kin. They aren’t just dabbling in peoples’ lives because they’re bored, they care. I’ll tell you this—I like the Erintie better than I like people. They’re decent, honest folk who’ll do anything for you. Any one of them. These days, if you can name five humans who would drop everything and come running when you need them, you’re a lucky man. Every Erintie is like that.”
Martin nodded. “That’s what we keep hearing, but the fact is that someone killed Wheelau. Somebody didn’t like him.”