Consider my enemies, for they are many.
âPsalm 25
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When Amos Cadbury came to St. Hilary's rectory to go over recent events, the venerable lawyer was visibly unhappy. He had
met and admired Charlotte Priebe and found the story of her suicide incredible.
“No container for sleeping pills was found in the apartment I am told,” Father Dowling said.
“It is as likely that it walked out of there as it is that Charlotte Priebe committed suicide.”
“Was she religious?”
“I wouldn't go that far.”
Amos felt somewhat foolish giving this testimonial for Charlotte Priebe on the basis of their one encounter, but that had been an occasion when so many of the difficulties facing the Athanasians seemed to lift. And then came the murder of Father Nathaniel and now that of Charlotte Priebe. Who would not think that there was a connection between these deaths and the compromise Charlotte had broached? But a surprising call from Lars Anderson addressed that very issue.
“We owe it to Charlotte to carry it through, Cadbury.”
Business as usual seemed a strange memorial, but doubtless Anderson was right. Amos assured him that nothing was changed so far as he was concerned and that he would be speaking to Father Boniface that day. But he had allotted time for this visit to St. Hilary's first.
“I cannot regret old Corbett's prodigality, Father, but it has created circumstances he could hardly have foretold.”
“The incidental effects of our intended actions.”
On any other occasion, Amos would have welcomed this opening to philosophical reflection, but he had come for more pragmatic reasons. Before he talked with Boniface, he wanted to know the latest results of the police investigation, and Father Dowling was almost sure to know them. Amos was reluctant to go hat in hand to the police asking for information. That was to run the risk
of getting some condensed version. And he wanted to supplement what he could learn from the ineffable
Fox River Tribune.
“Does Dante have a place in hell for yellow journalists, Father?”
“I am afraid he has a place for all of us if we misuse our freedom. That is what, in his letter to Can Grande della Scala, he gave as the allegorical meaning of the Comedy.”
Another tempting tangent, but Amos was due to see Boniface in an hour. Tetzel had written a saccharine story of the suicide of a young woman, broken under the stresses of ruthless capitalism. He had found that she had once been a student of the liberal arts at the University of Chicago and conjured up an image of corporate recruiters descending like roaring lions on such lambs, seeking whom they might devour. The suggestion was that Anderson Ltd. had diverted Charlotte Priebe from the life of the mind, exploited her talents, burned her out in a few years until she bade good-bye to all that in the manner of a Roman Stoic by slipping out of life in her bath.
“That would have been written before doubt had been cast on its being a suicide,” Father Dowling said.
“Don't be too sure. That man and the truth are strangers. At least it has gotten him off the subject of Father Nathaniel.”
“Stanley Morgan cannot be blamed for the death of Charlotte Priebe.”
“And there is a connection between those deaths, Father. I am sure of it. They should release the man.”
“Morgan still doesn't have a lawyer.”
“Have you seen him?”
“He asked for a priest.”
Father Dowling's tone of voice suggested that was an avenue they could not pursue. “Why doesn't he have a lawyer?”
“He refused to get one. He has suffered much because of lawyers.”
“Who is the judge in the case?” He was putting the question to himself, and he gave himself the answer. “Holmes. Christina Holmes.”
“Apparently she has been having trouble assigning a lawyer to Morgan.”
“I will talk to her. There are young people in the firm ⦔ The firm of Amos Cadbury was not one any judge would regard as a pool of publicly appointed defenders, but Amos could alter that with a word. And suggest names.
“Phil Keegan dismisses the notion that the two deaths are connected, which is why he sees no reason to reconsider holding Stanley Morgan.”
“It is logically possible that they are not connected. But life is not that logical.”
“And the link would be the Corbett estate?”
“Exactly.”
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Amos went off to meet with Boniface, leaving Father Dowling to puff meditatively on his pipe and reflect on recent events. A unified theory attracts the logical mind, and Amos Cadbury was a man of reason. But the theory faced imposing obstacles. Stanley Morgan had to be seen by the police as a plausible murderer of Father Nathaniel, and Phil showed great reluctance to give weight to the strange behavior of the Georges, father and son. The father had revealed that Michael had come out of the maintenance shed as he ran to it to report the body of Nathaniel at the grotto. When it was discovered that the shed had been hurriedly cleaned up,
the son admitted that he had done this. An attempt to destroy clues as to what he had done to Father Nathaniel there? That was the implication. But another and more poignant possibility had arisen. Michael had seen the body at the grotto when he arose early and was on the way to the shed, to see if his father had already gone there. He was surprised the old man was not still in his bed at the lodge, sleeping over the long session with retsina wine he had enjoyed the previous evening with Stanley Morgan. He came upon a shed that indicated to him that a great struggle had taken place there. When he came out and met his father the dread that had prompted him to clean up the shed seemed verified.
Phil Keegan had listened to Cy Horvath recall the actions of the Georges and drew another conclusion.
“Morgan sits up drinking with the old man, the old man goes to bed. Morgan lures Nathaniel to the shed, buries an ax in his back, and then returns to the lodge. That would have been around two in the morning. The scene for the Georges to suspect one another is set. When we arrive, Morgan disappears. Why? Cy picks him up right here, Roger, in the school. He has been in jail ever since, which is where he belongs.”
“So who killed Charlotte Priebe?”
“That is a whole 'nother matter.”
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Father Boniface tried unsuccessfully to take an interest in the murdered young woman that Amos Cadbury told him of. Obviously this meant a good deal to the venerable lawyer, but Boniface could summon little more than generic sympathy several times removed. Until the relevance of Charlotte Priebe's death to the
affairs of the Athanasians became clear. She had worked for Lars Anderson, she had presented Amos with a proposal that seemed the solution to all recent troubles.
“I would ask the Order to surrender very little in return for a great deal. As a not-negligible bonus, it would get you off the front pages of newspapers.”
“Of course we would be guided by you, Mr. Cadbury.”
“One of the lamentable effects of this young woman's death is that it prompts the police to release the man they have had in custody, under suspicion of murdering Father Nathaniel.”
“Stanley Morgan.”
Amos nodded. “While it would be absurd to suggest that an imprisoned man could commit another murder, it is equally absurd to think this exonerates him of the murder of which he is already suspected.”
Of course, Amos Cadbury was right in rejecting any connection between the dreadful thing that had happened to Nathaniel and the death of this unfortunate young woman.
“Now I suppose the police will take a different attitude toward the Georges, father and son.”
“The Georges.”
“Would it occur to anyone that either of them could have done harm to Nathaniel?”
Amos Cadbury was not being ironic. Perhaps he didn't realize how threatening to the Georges all the talk of selling Marygrove must have seemed. However, that did not mean that â¦
“Why would the police think such things?” Boniface erased the question with an impatient gesture. “What do they think?”
“Only what they were invited to think.”
How odd that Amos Cadbury should bring to him news of such matters on the grounds of Marygrove. The venerable lawyer
adopted elegiac tones to tell the story of the son who suspected his father and the father who suspected his son. The strange condition in which the police had found the maintenance shed was now explained. Insofar as he had thought of it before, Boniface assumed that Andrew George would have taken the first opportunity to clean up the shed. Nothing sinister about that. The man had a passion for order and neatness. But to learn that Michael had hurriedly cleaned the place up, even slapped paint around to cover bloodstains, put a new face on events Boniface had almost succeeded in consigning to a locked compartment of memory. His heart was wrenched with agony thinking of the reactions of father and son. But surely their doubts had been lifted when Stanley Morgan had been arrested. And just as surely the release of Morgan would bring back their doubtsâas well as the curiosity of the police.
“Father Dowling visited him,” Amos Cadbury said.
“Morgan?”
“Yes. He had asked for a priest. I suppose he meant you.”
Boniface had the sense that one, if not the main, purpose of Amos Cadbury's visit had been reached. The lawyer was of the opinion that Father Boniface owed it to himself, to his Order, to the Georges, and to the prisoner himself to pay a visit to Stanley Morgan before he became a free man once more.
To You, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
âPsalm 25
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Fingerhut from the lab stood in Phil Keegan's doorway, chin on chest, looking over his glasses, combing his beard with fat fingers until he was noticed. Phil jumped.
“How long have you been there?”
“What day is it?”
“Come on.”
Chortling, Fingerhut crossed to Phil's desk. “Boy, have I got something for you. Where's your computer?”
“Computer? I don't use one.”
“Ye gods, a Luddite. You're going to have to come to the lab, then.”
Phil went with him to the lab. Fingerhut never exaggerated the importance of what he found, quite the opposite; he was wary of creating false hopes in detectives. He waved a disk. “I took this from Charlotte Priebe's laptop.”
“Laptop.”
Fingerhut smiled wistfully behind his russet beard. “She could have been my laptop any day. A laptop is a portable computer, Keegan. Let's look at the file on the computer since you're here.”
Most of the files had to do with Charlotte's work at Anderson Ltd. and would have to be gone through for whatever light they cast on things. An operation Fingerhut now regarded as superfluous.
“I was just running down the contents of her hard drive when I saw this.” He highlighted an item on the screen: IN CASE I DIE. Fingerhut waited for Keegan's reaction as he had waited in his doorway.
“Is that it?”
“It's the name of a file.”
Fingerhut clicked the mouse and there on the screen was a statement bearing the title
In Case I Die.
Again he waited in vain for a response.
“You want to read it on the screen or should I print it out?”
“I can't read anything but the title.”
“That's because of where you're standing. I'll print it out.”
He connected the laptop to a printer, clicked on an icon, clicked again, and the lights on the printer lit up. There was a whirring sound and then a page began to emerge from the printer. The first was followed by another.
“I made one for myself as well.” He handed the first one to Phil.
In Case I Die
Â
I have never felt afraid before, but I am afraid now. To explain why, I will set down a story that Lars Anderson told me on two separate occasions. The second time was today, and I am sure it was meant as a warning.
Many years ago, when the enterprise that is now Anderson
Ltd. was just beginning, Lars had a partner named Beamish. His story is that Beamish tried to squeeze him out of the business by enlisting the help of a local family whose reputation is well known, the Pianones. Lars got wind of it and went to the Pianones, made his own deal, with the result that Beamish ended up in a cement mixer and was poured into the foundation frames of the Wackham Building. I should say that Lars did not in so many words say that he dealt with the Pianones, but that Beamish's supping with the devil had ended in the way just described.
What is wrong with this story? I checked the contemporary issues of the
Tribune
and found that Beamish had indeed been reported missing. A national search was undertaken, without results. Mrs. Beamish was given a sizeable amount of money and moved to Sarasota where eventually she died. How would Lars know the whereabouts of Beamish if he had not been instrumental in doing his partner in?
What is the relevance of this to me? I suggested a compromise to Amos Cadbury, who represents the owners of a property Lars is determined to get. Leo Corbett, the grandson of the man who gave the property to its present owners, the Order of St. Athanasius, had become the client of a local lawyer, Tuttle, who engineered a series of devastating articles in the
Tribune
aimed at claiming the entire property. The chances of this succeeding were virtually nil, however much harm the articles did to the present owners. I was asked by Lars to contact Leo Corbett, the grandson, and I did, persuading him that a compromise was his best hope of getting
some of his grandfather's property. Lars told him he would get the original estate buildings, mainly the mansion and the original gardens and lodge. Whether or not Lars was sincere, Leo Corbett took the bait. It was then that I proposed a compromise to Amos Cadbury, who was open to the possibility. But I did more.
I took Leo into my apartment, to make him inaccessible to Tuttle, and Leo and I fell in love. In all frankness I cannot say whether this happened before or after another idea occurred to me, one beneficial to myself. As Leo's wife, I would gain twiceâthe bonus Lars promised me if the compromise went through, and coownership of what Leo got. Fatally, I did not tell Lars of this. Nor did I tell him that the safe house I had put Leo in was my apartment. Lars found out about that and must have surmised that I was working on behalf of myself as well as Anderson Ltd. That is when he told me the story of Beamish for the second time.
As I write this, Leo has left my apartment. I do not know where he went. But I suspect that Lars persuaded him to go. The scene is set for something to happen to me, the sort of thing that happened to Beamish. Perhaps I am being paranoid. Perhaps not. I think not. Hence this statement which I trust will be discovered and read if I should die mysteriously.
â
Charlotte Priebe
“It's not dated,” Keegan said, after he read it.
“The computer dates it. She wrote it the night before she was found dead.”
Phil took the second copy of the printout from Fingerhut.
“Lock up that laptop. This is going to be kept utterly confidential. The whole statement is a time bomb. You got that? Don't tell anyone about this.”
Fingerhut looked sad. “You don't have to tell me that, Keegan.”
“I'm sorry. I know I don't. But it's just as well that we both understand that whatever we do with this is going to have to be cleared. And I don't have to tell you the complications of that.”
“Robertson?”
“Robertson.” Robertson was chief of the Fox River police, a sinecure he held thanks to the Pianone family and others. From the point of view of these patrons, Robertson's principal function was to deflect legal attention away from them.
“And there is Anderson. If we take this statement seriously, we would bring him under suspicion of two murders, Beamish and this girl. And Amos Cadbury is mentioned in a way that might sound compromising to some.”
“So you're going to sit on it?”
It was Keegan's turn to look sad. “I didn't say that.”
“Sorry. I know you didn't.”
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Before leaving the lab, Phil folded the two printouts carefully and put them in an inside pocket, patting them as if to prevent any telltale bulge. Then he went back to his office and told his secretary to get hold of Cy Horvath.
It is not a pleasant thing to spend one's career in a police department that is more or less in the hands of the enemy, but such was Phil Keegan's fate. When he had first learned of the influence of the Pianones on the force, his impulse was to resign
and then raise public hell about it. His wife was alarmed at the prospect, he had her and his two little daughters to think of. There was no way he could sound the alarm about the inroads the Pianones had made into the department and then settle down peacefully to run a cigar store, say. The certainty he had of what would have happened to him made Charlotte Priebe's fears more than realistic. There had been rumors for years that Anderson's way with the building trades had been smoothed more than once by the intervention of the Pianone family. While he waited for Cy to come he thought of Beamish immured in the foundation walls of the Wackham Building. And he thought of Charlotte Priebe, submerged in her own bathtub with an overdose of sleeping pills in her system.
“Close the door,” Keegan said, when Cy arrived. He began to take the folded sheets from his pocket, then stopped. He stood. “Let's go for a ride.”
In his present mood, he did not consider even his own office secure. He and Cy went down to the garage and checked out a car. Horvath did not question this. He was one colleague Keegan would trust with his life. When Cy's athletic career at Illinois went aglimmering and he got on the force, Keegan had taken him under his wing. The integrity of the huge Hungarian was untouchable.
Keegan drove. He got on the interstate and headed for the Belevedere Oasis where he parked. Over coffee in the franchise restaurant, he handed Cy a copy of Charlotte Priebe's statement.
“That was on her computer. Fingerhut found it.”
Cy read the printout without any change of expression. His eyes lifted to Keegan's.
“What are we going to do?”
“That's what we came here to talk about.”
Cy nodded. “There isn't a clue in her apartment. The woman who sounded the alarm saw no one come or go during what would have been the relevant time.”
“Was she paid off?”
Cy thought about it. “I don't think so. Her name is Matilda Szabo.”
“Hungarian?”
“Only by marriage. I don't think she could keep her mouth shut.”
“Maybe we better provide her with some protection.”
“And take out an ad in the
Tribune
?”
“Okay, what do you suggest?”
“Checking out the basement walls of the Wackham Bulding.”
“And take out an ad in the
Tribune
?”
Cy never laughed, but he wrinkled his nose and that was a seismic event in his facial expressions. “There are pretty simple ways to detect human remains. Pippen was telling me about them.”
“Does she know how to do it?”
“I would say yes.”
“Do you trust her?”
“I trust her.”
“Then do it.”
It made sense. If the Beamish story was only something Anderson used to scare young ladies and nothing more, the statement would be half discredited.
“Can I show her this?” Cy tapped the printout.
“You said you trusted her. Make sure she knows how explosive all this is.”