Requiem for a Realtor (13 page)

In a booth at the Rendezvous he told Collins of his visit to Amos Cadbury. Collins was devastated.

“So it can't be done.”

“Of course it can be done. It will be done. You have my personal guarantee. Think of it. If Amos Cadbury had immediately fallen in with it, he would be, in effect, admitting that he had chiseled you. Now he will begin to consider the effects of that becoming known. A lawyer's reputation is his chief asset. This was just round one.”

Wanda joined them after she had finished a set, and it was clear she and Collins were pretty close. Tuttle was shocked. Wanda was a knockout, even an old bachelor like Tuttle could appreciate that, but there was a Mrs. Collins, after all, and Tuttle associated the songs Wanda sang with marital fidelity and a loving couple doing dishes in the kitchen in an apartment on the south side.

*   *   *

There had been no occasion for a second visit to Amos Cadbury. Without warning, the grim reaper had come for Stanley Collins. So now it was on to Plan B, the widow, and Tuttle had an idea she would be even more eager than her late husband to get at that money.

“He was run over by his own car,” Peanuts had told him. Then as now they were in a booth at the Great Wall.

“Come on.”

Peanuts nodded. “It's true. They took it downtown.”

“You're sure?”

“I'm telling you, ain't I?”

Tuttle stared at his ungifted friend. But Peanuts usually got things right when he reported to Tuttle about what was going on downtown.

“What's wrong?”

“Let's have another pot of tea.”

14

Father Dowling was given a ride from the cemetery by Amos Cadbury. From behind tinted glass it took an act of faith to believe that the people he looked out at could not look in at him and Amos.

“In the case of the widow, it's just as well,” Amos was saying. “I was there as a duty to the father rather than the son, may they both rest in peace.”

“What of the widow?

“It is only partly confidential,” Amos began, and on the drive to St. Hilary's he told Father Dowling of the widow's inquiry about her right to Stanley's inheritance. “Well, now she will get it all.”

“When she is fifty?”

“No. That proviso lapses with the death of Stanley.”

“So she is a wealthy woman?”

“She will be very comfortable,” Amos said. “If such a person is ever comfortable.”

“Have you told her?”

“Oh, no. I am under no obligation to rush to her with such venal news.” He began unwrapping a cigar with great concentration. “Indeed, I shall proceed with deliberate speed to tell her. Much as it will ease the grief of her loss.”

Father Dowling had never heard Amos so censorious, however obliquely. But then he himself had met Phyllis Collins and was able to appreciate Amos's judgment of the woman.

“She might have lost it all,” Amos said, after lighting his cigar with all deliberate speed.

“How so?”

“If Stanley had divorced her when he was not in possession of the inheritance, it could hardly figure in any settlement.”

“Not even if it were coming to him when he was fifty?”

“Any lawyer could have sequestered the money from the settlement.” He let cigar smoke slide from between his lips, smiling. “Even your friend Tuttle.”

“My friend?”

“You like everyone, Father Dowling. All us sinners.”

“Just like attracting like.”

“Ho, ho.”

“It's been a while since I've seen Tuttle.”

“I cannot say the same.”

The visit from Tuttle as Stanley's putative legal representative was recalled by Amos with something approaching relish.

“He may have no difficulty wishing to break a will, but he could scarcely enlist me to break a will I myself had made.”

So each of the Collinses had approached Amos about the inheritance, only to be disappointed, Phyllis perhaps most of all. Whether it was Stanley who divorced her, or she who divorced Stanley—Father Dowling still had not decided which of the aggrieved spouses had told him the truth when they had visited him separately at the rectory—Phyllis would thereby be cut off from the fortune awaiting Stanley when he turned fifty.

“One might say that Phyllis Collins is the great beneficiary of the unhappy accident that made her a widow.”

“Accident?” Amos's eyebrows rose expressively.

“I suppose a hit-and-run involves some element of intention.”

“Haven't you heard that it was Stanley's own car that ran him down?”

“But who would have been driving?”

After a long silence, Amos said, “It could be that the widow might not inherit after all.”

They fell silent as the great car purred along on the way to the St. Hilary's rectory. Had Phyllis Collins come away from her meeting with Amos Cadbury with a motive to end her marriage in a manner that would not cut her off from her husband's inheritance?

“Did you tell her what might happen in the event of Stanley's death?”

“Certainly not. But it is something that could easily have been ascertained. Perhaps by her apparent protector, David Jameson.”

Amos was in a rare mood, no doubt of that. Here was an almost catty side to the distinguished lawyer that Father Dowl-ing would not have suspected. And then his motive became clear.

“I myself would hardly be the one to bring such matters to the attention of the police, Father Dowling. Assuming that they deserve attention. But you must admit that learning it was Stanley's own car that ran him down does set the mind going.”

“You must come in,” Father Dowling said, when they arrived at the rectory.

“Thank you, no, Father. But give my regards to Mrs. Murkin.”

Watching the large black car with tinted windows drive away, Father Dowling had the impression that Amos had accomplished what he had set out to when he offered him a ride from the cemetery.

*   *   *

The following day, Father Dowling passed on to Phil Keegan the burden of Amos Cadbury's communication. He devoted some thought to it before doing so. What he was providing was a motive for Phyllis Collins to kill her husband, but it was a long stretch from that motive to the opportunity and execution of any such desire, and Father Dowling, of course, had no idea whether Phyllis Collins could have used her husband's car as a murder weapon and then returned it to the parking lot of the Rendezvous.

“Returned it?” Phil said. “Who says it was there?”

“I thought Stanley had been in the Rendezvous.”

“So why was he walking down the street? Where the body was found does not suggest that he was on the way to the parking lot. That was in the opposite direction.”

“Why indeed?”

“To find a cab? To hoof it to the apartment of Wanda Janski?”

It appeared that not only his car keys were found on Stanley but house keys as well, not all of them to the house he shared with Phyllis. He now brought the pastor of St. Hilary's up to speed on what had been learned in the past twenty-four hours.

The scarf found on the front seat of Stanley's car was his wife's, and she had no explanation of why it happened to be there.

“No big deal,” Phil conceded. “She might have left it there at any time.”

“Is that what she said?”

“There was no need to. She was happy to have it back when Agnes Lamb gave it to her.” Phil sighed. “Well, now the poor devil is safely underground.”

But the mystery of Stanley's death had not been buried with him, and Father Dowling was sure that the police would pursue the matter.

“I suppose the wife had a set of keys to the car?”

Phil smiled. “I suppose.”

After Phil left, Father Dowling sat in his study. It was here that he had spoken with Stanley and later with his wife. His proposal that they come together to see him had not been acted on. Their troubled marriage had been terminated in a way neither must have foreseen when they came to him. Now Phyllis Collins, the woman who dressed like a girl, had come into the wealth she coveted. Did that mean that the way had been smoothed for David Jameson?

15

After the funeral David Jameson came back to the house with her, George Sawyer, and his wife Susan as well. It was nice of them, and Phyllis would not have wanted to be left alone. She had spent sleepless nights since the terrible news of Stanley's death was brought to her last Friday morning by one of the policemen who had found the body. How had she gotten through that unreal encounter?

She had been watching television, something she had been doing a lot of since Stanley had begun to spend entire nights at Wanda Janski's apartment, a studio on the top floor of a building not two blocks from the agency. From the street, you could see the lights of the apartment, as Phyllis had discovered when she began to spy on her husband. She had parked several doors away and tried to make herself as small as possible. What would anyone who noticed make of a woman just sitting in a parked car at night on a deserted street? Ten minutes after she parked, she had told herself that this was stupid and demeaning. What need did she have of proof that Stanley saw other women? That was something she had known for years, and Stanley had known she had known and didn't care. He expected her not to care either.

“Phyl, it's not important.”

“Not important!”

“It's the way of the world, for God's sake. I didn't invent it. You know I love you.”

“Love me? What does that mean?”

“That you can raise hell with me about this, go ahead, but when all is said and done, you're my wife and I'm your husband.”

“You're a monster.”

“A tired monster, then. And a little drunk.”

And he had gone off to bed. She would have expected him to deny it or pretend he was sorry, anything but that casual sloughing it off as if it really didn't matter.

She should have left him then. If she had any pride at all, she would have. But even to think the thought had filled her with terror. What would she do? The job she'd had before they were married had bored her to tears, and it had hardly paid enough to keep her when she was single. She could not stand the thought of being on her own again. It would not have been the same thing anyway. She would have been a wronged wife, abandoned. And, of course, there was that constant point of reference of their marriage, the money Stanley would come into when he turned fifty. Once she had worried that Susan Sawyer might become an object of Stanley's insatiable appetite. Now, that would have seemed like keeping it in the firm.

What a cruel provision in his father's will that had been. To leave him money and then not let him get at it until he was middle-aged. The worst part was that Stanley accepted it. He seemed to like the thought of postponed prosperity. God knows he wasn't much at real estate. George Sawyer had several times threatened to end their partnership, his point being that he was carrying Stanley. In any case, the insurance the two partners carried on one another was an expensive bond between them. Whenever they had that argument, Stanley would become a whirlwind and sell half a dozen houses and be on top of the world. But it never lasted. It was as if he already had a fortune and needed only to wait for it.

“There must be a way to get it sooner.”

“I doubt it. Twice I put it as a hypothetical case to old Hoover who used to do work for the agency. He showed interest until I told him who had drawn up the will. Amos Cadbury? Hoover just shook his head. Not even dynamite could break a will Amos Cadbury had written.”

“Then go to Cadbury.”

“And beg?”

“How can you beg for what is yours?”

Their marriage had been like that. Not marrying in the Church was the beginning. Phyllis's mother was devastated. She did not come to the civil ceremony. No one did. The witnesses were strangers pressed into service on the spur of the moment. The idea was that it was kind of a trial marriage. Later they would have it blessed and everything would be all right. But that meant that in the meantime they really weren't married. It occurred to Phyllis that this was an escape hatch for Stanley. She hadn't wanted time to be sure she wanted to marry him. It was hard to believe, sometimes, how much in love with him she had been. So much in love that she had agreed to his suggestion that they begin with a civil marriage.

“I talked with a priest and he suggested it.”

“A priest?”

“People get married in the Church and then that's it. But a civil marriage is different.”

“Don't you want to be really married?”

He took her in his arms. “What difference does the kind of ceremony make?”

He knew as well as she did; he had been raised Catholic, too. After their marriage, they had not gone to church. From the Church's point of view they were living in sin. That thought bothered Phyllis more than she would have expected. More and more as time went on. What were they waiting for? She began to fear that Stanley was waiting until he found an interesting replacement for her. But the women he went out with were not women he would likely marry. Certainly not Wanda Janski. But Phyllis had come to doubt this.

He would meet women in bars, or they were divorcées who were setting up on their own and wanted to rent an apartment. Stanley must have looked pretty attractive to someone suddenly on her own and a little frightened by the thought. They were vulnerable and Stanley took advantage. The first one Phyllis found out about was a client of Stanley's. But Wanda had become almost permanent.

And then, at last, she had come to know David Jameson. It was pleasant having him so attentive and respectful; he never really tried anything, but then he was shy. Phyllis had the feeling she could easily lead him on into a more serious relationship. Talking with him about her problems was already a species of infidelity. How encouraging it was to have him take her side without question. When he heard about the inheritance, listening in silent attention, he took her by the arms.