Requiem for a Realtor (19 page)

“I can't believe she would have me now.”

“Why don't you let her decide that?”

Jameson looked down. “The truth is I wouldn't want her now. I am so ashamed.”

“Have you seen her since…”

“Of course. I flew to her side as soon as I heard what had happened to her husband. You must have noticed me at the wake and funeral.”

“There you are. I am sure she appreciates your loyalty.”

“She is going to come into a good deal of money. Will she think me mercenary?”

Socrates started a good deal of trouble when he said that the unexamined life is not worth living. Father Dowling had met too many like David Jameson, who examined their lives to a fault. Introspection is a trap for some. Father Dowling reminded himself that as a confessor, he was not acting in his own name, and he wondered what Our Lord would have done with such a penitent as this.

“I will give you absolution now, David.”

Jameson fell to his knees on the study floor and Father Dowling pronounced the formula of absolution.

“And what is my penance, Father?”

His tone suggested he was hoping to be assigned a barefoot trip in sackcloth to some sacred place, the more distant the better.

“Say a rosary for the woman involved.”

“Father, I pray for her every day.”

When he helped David to his feet, he could not help remembering the graphic description the penitent had given of the failed tryst in the Frosinone Hotel. Finally, he sent him on his way. He must have canceled appointments to come to the rectory. It wasn't Wednesday.

So, when Phil Keegan mentioned that Phyllis Collins had checked into a hotel with David Jameson, Father Dowling could not indicate that this was already known to him.

“How about that guy? I never did trust him. Too pious.”

“There but for the grace of God, Phil.”

“I know, I know. But isn't that a heck of an alibi for Phyllis Collins?”

“She's off the hook?”

“No matter what you say, I agreed with Agnes that she was a likely prospect. God knows she had motive. And I don't mean his philandering. She was no Easter lily herself. But all that money could prompt her to run him over.”

Would the police discover that the errant couple had spent only an hour in that hotel room? What would Phil say if he knew that Phyllis Collins might have had opportunity as well as motive?

“The question is, who else is there?”

“You must have a list.”

“It turns out those keys weren't as incriminating as they seemed.”

“Oh.”

“There was another set, at his office.”

“Really.”

“That's three sets. One was found on the body.”

“Did Agnes find out about the ones in his office?”

“The office manager told Cy. A girl named Shirley.”

28

Tuttle kept in close touch with Phyllis Collins lest Amos Cadbury make a move that excluded the lady's lawyer. It was all too easy to imagine what the patrician Amos Cadbury might say about Tuttle that would prompt Phyllis Collins to cut him loose. He said all this aloud to Peanuts and was almost surprised to find that his old friend was actually listening to him.

“They sent her out to interview her.”

“Her?”

“Her!” Peanuts snarled, and it was clear that he meant his black nemesis on the force, Agnes Lamb.

“She went to interview Mrs. Collins days ago.”

“This was today.”

“Today?”

Peanuts nodded. It wasn't that Peanuts was anxious to work for his salary nor that normally he cared about being the beneficiary of Negative Action so far as the Fox River police department was concerned. But his racist reaction to Agnes's rise in the detective division did not require consistency to be vehement.

“When?”

“She's probably there now.”

They had been on their way to lunch but now Tuttle gave Peanuts directions to the Collinses' house.

“I thought we were going to the Great Wall?”

“We will, we will. But I have to see my client first.”

At the house, he left Peanuts in the car and hurried up to the door. There was no other vehicle on the street that suggested Agnes was there. Phyllis Collins looked out at Tuttle through the screen door.

“Have the police been here?”

“Come and gone.”

“We have to talk.”

“Are you the one who told them?”

Aha. So it had been about her night at the Frosinone with Dr. Jameson.

“Let me in.”

She hesitated but finally unlocked the screen door. Tuttle hurried inside.

“Do you wear that tweed hat all year round?”

Tuttle took it off. “It's good luck. It was Officer Agnes Lamb who came, wasn't it?”

“You should know, you sent her.”

“Whatever I did or didn't do, it was to protect your interests. I told you how the police mind works. It was important for them to learn that you were in the clear.”

“If they take my word for it.”

“Tell me all about it.”

Tuttle listened as to a script he had written. Sooner or later, the police would have learned that she and Jameson had been to the Frosinone the night her husband was killed. This had been a preemptive strike. The fact that the couple had left the hotel before midnight had seemed to blow the alibi out of the water, but Tuttle was sure that Phyllis Collins had convinced Agnes that she and Jameson had a quarrel, he took her home, and that was that.

“Have you any idea how embarrassing it is to talk about it with a stranger?”

She meant Agnes. She wasn't embarrassed enough for Tuttle. Imagine a married woman going off to a hotel with her dentist, even if her husband had been unfaithful. The relations between men and women baffled Tuttle, and the predatory Hazel did not increase his understanding. Of course, most people do dumb things, but there is dumb and there is dumb. The woman had this nice house, security, a husband who kept coming home whatever else he did. What good did it do her to compete with him in the running-around department?

“Well, it's all behind you now, and that's the main thing. Has Cadbury called?”

“No.”

“Good. I will call on him. There's no reason for any further delay.”

“Delay? It's hardly more than a week.”

There was a photograph on the mantle of the late Stanley Collins, a portrait of a successful Realtor.

“And I will be talking to George Sawyer as well.”

“What for?”

“Mrs. Collins, your husband was in business with Sawyer. We will want to work out some settlement.”

“Stanley was insured.”

“Insured?”

“They both were. In case anything happened to either of them.”

Interesting. “So George Sawyer benefits from your husband's death?”

“Stanley would have if anything happened to George.”

“Of course. Any idea how large a policy we're talking about?”

“A million dollars.”

“A million dollars! Are you sure?”

“I heard them talk about it often enough. Susan and I hated it when they did, but they didn't care.”

“Susan.”

“George's wife.”

Tuttle was thinking that a policy that size could be motive enough to dissolve the partnership.

When he left Phyllis Collins, warning her not to discuss her pending inheritance with Amos Cadbury without her own lawyer being present, he asked Peanuts to take him to Cadbury's office.

“Not until we eat.”

“Of course not.”

His own appetite made this delay acceptable. It was two in the afternoon when they arrived at the Great Wall, and their waitress seemed irked that they would delay her afternoon break. But the wife of the proprietor came to take their order, displaying her beautiful teeth in a smile that had not required the enhancement of Dr. Jameson's skill. Their order was taken, half a liter of red wine was brought, and surliness lifted from Peanuts's simian countenance. During the meal, Tuttle reviewed for the unheeding Peanuts the case he would make for the transfer of money from the trusteeship of Amos Cadbury. And then inspiration struck. He would suggest that he himself be named the trustee of Mrs. Collins's wealth. Peanuts nodded uncomprehendingly. Tuttle got out his cell phone and called Hazel.

“What's that paralegal's name, Hazel?”

“She's engaged.”

“Can't she do two jobs at once?”

“I meant she has a fiancé.”

“So what?”

“Tuttle, you're an idiot.”

It said something of the emerging modus vivendi between his secretary and himself that Tuttle ignored this remark. He told Hazel that he wanted all the relevant law on the trusteeship of a client's fortune. Hazel's voice softened.

“We're talking about Mrs. Collins?”

“I have just come from talking with her. Her misbehavior with Dr. Jameson has put her in the clear, and there is no obstacle to her inheriting that money immediately. Of course, if she had been indicted Cadbury would have stonewalled.”

“I'll call right now.”

Hazel hung up unceremoniously and Tuttle returned his cell phone to his pocket. Peanuts watched it disappear with wary apprehension. But Tuttle himself had no understanding of the technology of the cell phone. For that matter, he did not understand the internal combustion engine. Peanuts was sprinkling rice with soy sauce, the stem of his wine glass held firmly in his other pudgy hand. It was a treat to dine with Peanuts and see untrammeled appetite in play.

*   *   *

Maud Pinske watched Tuttle remove his hat, but she wished it were his head. Tuttle had taken the precaution not to call Cadbury's office in advance to warn of his coming.

“Mr. Cadbury is golfing.”

Tuttle's eyes went to the closed door of Cadbury's office. Was he in there practicing putting? Long experience with rejection suggested that he was being told a white lie. A man who golfs will tell white lies, and Maud Pinske would have abrogated the decalogue in her service to Amos Cadbury. Not that she was likely to be required to do this. Tuttle grudgingly conceded the flawless rectitude of his adversary.

“Where does he golf?”

“I wouldn't advise disturbing him at play.”

“Why, what does he do?”

“I wouldn't know. I am not in the habit of disturbing him ever.”

“Perhaps I should make an appointment.”

“I will tell Mr. Cadbury you called. Do you have a card?”

Tuttle had cards in the crown of his tweed hat, but he was disinclined to waste one on Maud Pinske, fearing that it would end in the wastebasket beside her desk.

“I'm in the book.”

Outside, Peanuts was asleep at the wheel of the unmarked police car. It would have been cruel to interrupt his post-luncheon nap, and more dangerous than disturbing Amos Cadbury on the golf course. Tuttle's own office was six blocks away, out of the high-rent district. He stood contemplating the dozing Peanuts and felt indecision. Peanuts would not feel abandoned if he left him here. He might not even remember why he was parked where he was. He had drunk most of the red wine himself. Tuttle began to hum as he stood there and with the melody came memories of his boyhood and inspiration. Bailey Street and the Rendezvous were a block and a half away. Still humming, Tuttle sauntered off in the direction of the bar.

29

Cy Horvath was seated at the bar with a beer before him talking with Joe Perzel when Tuttle joined them and ordered a Dr Pepper.

“You know Tuttle, don't you, Joe?”

“Everyone knows Tuttle.”

The little lawyer beamed at this supposed praise and sipped his Dr Pepper with relish when it came. “I understand that Agnes Lamb has been pestering my client.”

“Who's your client?”

“The question is, who is your suspect?”

“What were you doing that Thursday night, Tuttle?”

“Innocent citizens don't remember things like that. I can give you a lead.”

Perzel was summoned by another customer, and Cy listened while Tuttle told him of the insurance policies George Sawyer and Stanley Collins had held on one another.

“A million dollars, Horvath. I have it direct from the widow's mouth.”

Cy did not indicate that he found this information of interest, but, of course, he did. Hadn't Sawyer mentioned insurance? Like Collins, Sawyer had been a frequent presence at the Rendezvous. In any case, he would have known his partner's habits. The ignition key? Cy remembered his conversation with Shirley Escalante, the secretary at Sawyer and Collins who had also told him of the stormy relation between the partners.

“Thanks, Tuttle,” Cy said, finishing his beer and getting off the stool.

“Don't tell him I told you.”

It was odd to come out of the dim interior of the bar into afternoon sunlight. What Tuttle had told him could not compete with something Perzel had said before the lawyer showed up. Joe had been telling Cy of the transformation in his oldest daughter.

“At her age, she's still single and no wonder. Look.” Perzel smiled and waited for Cy's comment.

“Look at what?”

“My teeth, for crying out loud.”

There was a gap between Joe's front teeth that might have been his fortune as a comedian if his eyeteeth weren't out of alignment with everything else, giving him a slightly Dracula-like look.

“What's it matter in a man, Cy? But a woman. Well, all that's been changed. The wife read this story in the paper and showed it to me, and I agreed with her. This was the solution for Estelle. I didn't care what it cost. It was either that or have her on our hands forever. Estelle didn't want to do it. For days we argued about it, her mother crying, Estelle crying. I'm offering to pay for it, and she's crying! Anyway, finally she agreed to see Dr. Jameson. Well, by God, it worked. Cy, the girl is someone else. Her smile is a miracle. And she's finally got a boyfriend!”