Trace (Trace 1) (15 page)

“Have you seen Mr. Carey?”

“I go up to the sanatorium once in a while. I used to go every day, but he doesn’t do anything but lie there and it gets depressing. Now I send flowers.”

“What do you think of the sanatorium?”

“It’s a horseshit place to visit, but it beats the hell out of living there.”

“I heard that Mr. Carey was getting better at the hospital.”

“That’s right,” Winfield said, “and then he went to the sanatorium and he got worse right away, like always in a coma.”

“Why do you think that is?” Trace asked.

“I think after his daughter died and all, I, I don’t know, I just don’t think he gives a shit anymore.”

“You know Dr. Matteson? He runs the place.”

“Seen him around,” Winfield said. “Seems all right to me. You got a rotten job, mister.”

“I’ve got a rotten life too,” Trace said. “Does Mr. Carey have any enemies?”

“You know, maybe you ought to talk to me.” Winfield stopped talking for a moment and gazed past Trace through the glass window. Trace turned and saw the blond secretary stretching like a cat waking from a nap. “Peanut butter,” Winfield said. “You know, I was saying, you say that maybe somebody’s trying to kill Mitch ’cause he told you up at the cuckoo-clock factory he’s in. But that doesn’t explain why you’re in town. You didn’t come here just so you could stumble over Mitch in the hospital and have him talk to you. Why don’t you talk to me?”

Trace thought a moment, then said, “It goes like this. There was some old guy up at Meadow Vista named Frederick Plesser. He died, and all of a sudden they find out that Dr. Matteson is the beneficiary of his insurance policy. A big policy. All right, so now Mitchell Carey goes up there. His wife is a friend of my boss’s. They went to school together. And that girl who’s living with the Careys, I think she got Mrs. Carey worked up, and she mentions to my boss that she’s afraid that somebody up at the hospital is going to get Carey to change his insurance or his will or everything and then pull the plug on him. So my boss asked me to check it out.”

“What did you find out?” Winfield asked.

“Nothing. The Plesser family isn’t much.”

“I know that family since I was a boy. They never amounted to anything.”

“Right,” Trace said, “and I think he changed his insurance out of his own free will and left the money to Matteson just to spite his family. So nothing checks out. Then I talk to Mrs. Carey and Melinda—”

“That’s the girl living with them?” Winfield asked.

“Yeah. Muffy they call her. A school chum of the dead girl or something. It’s obvious that she’s pushing Mrs. Carey around and trying to run the world, but I can’t find out anything. Carey’s still up there and still alive and he’s got round-the-clock nurses now, I think.”

“Maybe you ought to go home,” Winfield said.

“Except Mr. Carey told me somebody was trying to kill him, and somebody beat me up.”

“Must’ve been one big sucker to beat you up.”

“Actually, it was two of them and they dropped a piece of paper with Meadow Vista’s name on it. And I find out that Jeannie Callahan is the Careys’ lawyer, and your business lawyer, and she’s also Matteson’s lawyer in that insurance suit, and I don’t know what’s going on. So I’m asking you. Anybody want Mr. Carey dead?”

“Try a for-instance,” the old man said.

“You, for instance, to keep control of your company?”

“It’s a possibility,” the old man said. His eyes did not even blink behind the thick lenses.

“Or maybe because you’ve been stealing from the company for years and now you’re going to be found out if it gets sold?”

“Not bad,” Winfield agreed cheerfully. “Except Mitch is a genius with numbers. I stole a dime, he’d find out in ten minutes. Anybody else?”

“Matteson, because he wants the money.”

“He won’t get anything unless he gets a will or insurance or something made out to him,” Winfield said. “Anyway, don’t you people check that out, all you insurance companies? Wouldn’t it look funny if he suddenly started showing up on a lot of insurance?”

“I guess so,” Trace said.

“Try somebody else. You’re really cooking now.”

“Mrs. Carey or Melinda. Maybe they want to inherit a lot of money and don’t want to wait. Especially Muffy. Melinda.”

“Wouldn’t put it past her. She’s a nasty little bitch. Was up here one day, nosing around, and I threw her the hell out. But she’s not an heir, and Amanda’s not the sort.”

“Jeannie Callahan,” Trace said.

“Why her?”

“Maybe her old man looted the company when he was the lawyer and she’s covering it up by stopping the sale. Maybe she’s hooked up with Matteson.”

“I think if that was so, Mitch’d probably be dead already, don’t you?”

“You’re not helping a lot. I wanted you to answer everything for me and you didn’t do me a bit of good,” Trace said.

“Sorry. If I think of anything, I’ll give you a call.”

“You do that.”

“Maybe I’ll give you a call anyway if I feel like talking to somebody about peanut butter.”

“I forgot to ask you. What is it you do here? What is Carwin Enterprises?” Trace said.

“Computers. We used to make big fat heavy adding machines. Now we make little skinny light computers. Not nearly as much fun.”

“Nothing is, anymore,” Trace said.

Outside the office, he stopped at the desk of the blond secretary, who looked up, then smiled at him.

“Can I help you?”

“You can help yourself,” Trace said. “I just want to give you a tip.”

“Go ahead.”

“Mr. Winfield was just telling me he’s looking for somebody to fill a new job, like head office manager. I think he’s got his eyes on you for the job.”

She started to glance around toward Winfield’s office, but Trace said, “Don’t look now. It’ll look fishy.”

“Why are you telling me this?” she asked.

“’Cause you look like a nice girl. You can probably handle the job. So maybe you ought to be even better around here than you are now. You know, help Mr. Winfield make up his mind.” He winked.

“You’re serious, aren’t you?” she said.

“I’ve never been more serious,” Trace said.

Trace liked mirrors behind bars. He could watch, without appearing to, what was going on around and behind him. And if his ex-wife and her litter should come in, he might spot them before they recognized him, dive over the bar, and hide in the ice chest until they had gone.

He was thinking about this, looking in the mirror of the golf course’s bar, when he saw a familiar face. He turned in his swivel seat and looked toward the far corner of the room.

Jeannie Callahan was leaning across a table, talking very warmly with Dr. George Matteson. Her left hand was on the table and Matteson’s hand was resting on hers.

Trace pursed his lips. So much for love. So much for lawyers. And he felt rotten.

He had a very strong urge to get up, go over, and punch Dr. Matteson in his bearded face.

In the mirror, he saw Jeannie lean farther across the table and kiss Matteson on the forehead. Trace had turned and was looking down into his glass when her voice said, “Hello, Trace.”

He turned and saw her smiling at him, her dark-brown eyes looking liquid and mirthful. She reached out to touch his sleeve.

“Well, if it isn’t the ubiquitous barrister.”

“You make me sound like a margarine.”

Biting off the words, wishing them back even before he said them, he snapped, “The low-priced spread.”

Her hand dropped from his sleeve. “What’s the matter with you?”

“Shouldn’t you be getting back? Your playmate back there must be getting impatient.” He turned away.

“Playmate? Oh, George. My client, remember. You came to my office snooping around about him?”

“I remember you telling me he was a client. Just a client. Is the huggie-feelie therapy part of the new lawyer-client relationship?”

“Will you stop? God, I feel a fool standing here talking like this to a man who won’t even look at me,” she whispered angrily. “Look at me, dammit.”

“Sorry, lady, I don’t think I’d like what I saw.”

He stood up, scrawled his name on the bar check, and without turning to the woman, walked from the bar.

He hoped that out in the parking lot, he would find some besotted teenager tap-dancing on the hood of his rented car. Because he wanted to hit somebody.

Anybody.

Both Carey cars were in the garage, but there was no answer to the doorbell. Trace leaned on it a long time before giving up, then walked to the end of the garage, whence he could look down on the rest of the Careys’ sprawling property.

He saw Mrs. Carey sitting on the ground at the edge of the small pond, seemingly staring out at the water. A moment later, Muffy broke the surface of the water, wearing a face mask and on her back a scuba tank. A moment later, she submerged again beneath the waters of the pond.

Trace thought a moment. Neither had seen him. Not even the two Gordon setters in their kennel had barked. He stepped back quickly and, inside the garage, found a door that led into the Careys’ house.

It was unlocked and he walked inside.

“Hello?” he called out. “Anybody home?”

When no one answered, Trace turned on his tape recorder and, as he started through the house, began to describe the contents.

“Here I am, breaking the law again, for no good god-damn reason at all and where’s my brains. Hello. Anybody here? Good. Nobody here.”

He glanced quickly into the rooms on the first floor, a formal dining room, a large living room, the study where he had met with Mrs. Carey and Muffy, then he bolted up the stairs. At the landing window, he looked out.

“Muffy’s still underwater. Maybe she’ll drown. That’d be too good luck, not for me, not the way my life’s going.”

There were only two very large bedrooms on the second floor, each with its private bath.

“The Careys’ bedroom, all flowers and chintz, and I feel like a fucking ghoul doing this.”

He walked down the hall and entered the second bedroom.

“This must be Muffy’s bedroom, and I guess before she died, it was the kid’s. Two large beds. Beatles posters on the walls. This corner of the room looks lived in. A partially made bed. A desk with a lot of papers lying around on it. Somehow I don’t think Muffy stays in this bed in this corner out of any respect for her friend’s memory. Probably it’s just easier to keep the room clean this way. So Muffy’s desk, what’ve we got?”

He glanced out a window, overlooking the rear property and the roof of the long one-story wing of the house that extended back alongside the swimming pool and tennis court. Muffy was just walking toward the bank of the pond.

“Better hurry. So what have we here? A receipt from the Harmon Hills Photo Center. What does it say, copy negative? So what? And a photo album. Look quick, Trace, they’re coming back. This must be Buffy. Funny—in college she had the big head of hair and Muffy wore hers straight. The two of them on the merry-go-round. On the steps, I guess, of the college. This must be Muffy as a cheerleader. Do they have cheerleaders in college? No, probably high school. She’s young. And a page that’s blank. It says Petey and there used to be a picture here, but there’s no picture anymore. They’re coming back to the house. A lot of blank spots in this book, all of them Petey. Who the hell’s Petey? Put that away.

“Interesting book on the shelf.
All About Making Wills
. She’s got wills on the mind, this girl. Oh, oh, the dogs are coming back to the house with them. Let’s get out of here, Trace. She must fill her scuba tanks from this big green tank in the corner. Isn’t it dangerous having this crap around the house?

“Hurry up.”

Trace took the steps three at a time, ran through the kitchen, down the hallway, and out into the garage.

As he went into the garage, one of the black and rust Gordon setters came padding, big-footed, around the corner of the garage. It stopped short when it saw Trace, then its long feathered tail started to wag and it galloped toward him and licked his hand.

“Good watchdog, Fang,” Trace said as he walked out toward his car.

Trace leaned against the fender of his car, idly petting the dog’s head and smoking a cigarette until he figured the two women had had enough time to get back into the house. Then he flipped out the cigarette and rang the doorbell again.

Muffy answered it. She was still in her bathing suit, and close up now, Trace saw that she filled it nicely.

“Hi, Muffy. You didn’t have to dress for me,” he said.

“Oh. Still in town, huh?”

“Apparently. Mrs. Carey in?”

Before she could answer, Mrs. Carey called out, “Who’s that, dear?” and Trace called back, “Devlin Tracy. From the insurance company.”

The woman appeared in the hallway. “How are you today, Mr. Tracy?”

“Fine, Mrs. Carey. I was talking to Bob this morning and he told me to give you his regards. He said that when he comes back from Europe, he’ll stop in and see you.”

“Isn’t that nice? He’s in Europe, is he?”

“Yes, ma’am,” and because he didn’t really want to hear how Bob Swenson always loved to travel, he said, “I was going up to the sanatorium today to see Mr. Carey.”

“Oh, so are we,” Mrs. Carey said.

“When?”

Muffy seemed annoyed at being talked across and she said, “In an hour.”

“Well, good. I’ll see you there,” Trace said.

“That’d be very nice,” Mrs. Carey said.

“Sure,” said Muffy without enthusiasm.

Trace was hungry, so he stopped at a tavern on the way to Meadow Vista and ate four chili dogs. Chico always complained that he never ate, but if he could get chili dogs everywhere, he’d do nothing but eat.

He killed an hour eating and watching a rare daytime baseball game on television, then drove to the sanatorium, where he breezed past the guard waving his stolen parking pass and met Mrs. Carey and Muffy in the parking lot.

Mrs. Carey was holding a paper bag and Trace carried it for her as they strolled toward the entrance of the East Building. Muffy had gone ahead and she didn’t bother holding the door, but just walked inside.

Nurse Simons was at Carey’s bedside when Trace and Mrs. Carey arrived. Muffy was already in a chair, next to the coffee table, looking bored. Mitchell Carey’s eyes were open, but he was just staring blankly at the ceiling. The nurse was fluffing up the pillows under Carey’s head and she said pleasantly, “How are you, Mrs. Carey?” but her expression chilled over when she saw and recognized Trace. “You?”

“Friend of the family,” Trace said. “Nice to see you again. How’s Patient doing?”

“You’ll have to ask Doctor,” she said, and left the room.

He stood at the foot of the bed next to Mrs. Carey, looking at the unseeing, unfeeling form of her husband. The old man’s eyes seemed to stare off, unfocused, into space and his body was so still it might have been made of plastic.

Mrs. Carey said, “Do you think he looks a little better? Maybe his complexion is brighter?” There was a terrible request in her voice for confirmation and Trace said, “I think so, from the last time I was here.”

But his mind told him, No, he doesn’t look any better. He looks the same. He looks dead. He looks like all the dead I’ve ever seen. Life has a lot of forms but death always has the same face and he’s got it. Only the accident of a heartbeat and respiration allows him to be called alive.

He put his arm around Mrs. Carey’s shoulders and squeezed her affectionately, then stepped back and sat in the other chair at the small coffee table. He watched Mrs. Carey, but she seemed to have forgotten everyone else’s presence in the room. She stood, still holding her bag in her arms, staring at her husband. Muffy looked disgusted.

“I guess you don’t like this much,” Trace said softly.

“What’s to like? He’s a vegetable. He’s always going to be a vegetable.”

“Shhhh,” Trace said.

“She won’t hear. She’s in a trance,” Muffy said. “I see it every day. Listen.”

She was silent and Trace could hear the soft voice of Amanda Carey.

“…brought your new pajamas, the ones with the silly-looking cuffs on the sleeve. I remember how angry you were when you bought them and I thought they were funny-looking. You knew I was fooling, didn’t you, Mitch? Anything you wear is all right with me. Actually, they were kind of dashing. Just as you always are. You’re very handsome, you know. You just swept me right off my feet. So long ago…” Her voice trailed off and got softer, and Trace felt as if he were under a bed listening to two people make love. He looked at Muffy, but she showed no sign of embarrassment and Trace chalked it up to a generation that seemed to have reached its high point of elegance with bathrooms that no longer had locks on the doors.

He got up. “I’ll be outside,” he said, and he took his cigarette out into the hall and sat on a long bench, next to the ashtray.

He wished he had a case to solve, something to put his mind to. This whole job was a nothing. It was as if Bob Swenson had sent him here to wait for Mitchell Carey to die and there was nothing Trace could do about it. There was no murder plot, no reason for him to hang around.

All right, then. Why don’t you go?

Because, dammit, I can’t. Because Mitchell Carey told me they’re killing him. Because Amanda Carey is an old gray lady who has no home. Leave me alone.

He stared off emptily into space as he smoked, his mind far away, until he noticed a pair of men’s shoes on the floor in front of him.

It was Dr. George Matteson.

“Tracy, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“You all right?”

“Just daydreaming. I’m here to visit.”

“Good. I wanted to talk to you a minute. Mind if I sit down?”

“It’s your hospital,” Trace said.

Matteson sat down alongside him and Trace noticed again how thick and muscular the man’s wrists and forearms were.

“I wanted to talk about Jeannie. Jeannie Callahan.”

“She send you?” Trace asked.

“Not exactly. Her last words about you, as I recollect, were, I think, ‘Screw that rotten bastard, I hope he dies.’”

“Oh. That was at lunch today?”

“Yeah. She was upset when she came back to the table,” Matteson said.

“I hope she wasn’t so upset that it interfered with your game of kneesies.”

“You know, Jeannie was my lawyer when I bought this place and opened it up two years ago. She’s my friend as well as my lawyer. I guess she was my first friend in town. That’s all. Friend. Not lover. Not ex-lover. Not girlfriend. Friend.”

Trace pressed the record button on his tape recorder.

“You looked very friendly at lunch,” he said.

“I can’t believe it,” Matteson said. “That’s what she told me you thought and I told her she was crazy. Because I held her hand across the table? For Christ’s sakes, I hold my mother’s hand when I take her out to eat. Don’t you?”

“I don’t. My mother’s hand is as cold as her heart,” Trace said.

“Listen, Tracy,” the doctor said, “I don’t care what you think about me and I don’t care if you’re miserable for the rest of your life, it’s all no concern of mine. But Jeannie’s my friend, so I care about her. If she had any sense, I think she’d walk around you like an open sore, as far as I’m concerned, but she seems to like you for some godawful unknown reason.”

“I don’t like Gilbert and Sullivan,” Trace said. “I can’t be all bad.”

“Maybe not. All I want you to know is that nothing’s going on. Didn’t go on. Won’t go on. I don’t like redheads, actually.”

“Then I’m an idiot,” Trace said.

“I thought that’s what I was just telling you.”

“You were kinder than that,” Trace said.

“My bedside manner. You here to see Mr. Carey?”

“Yeah. Mrs. Carey’s inside. And the kid.”

“Kid?”

“That Melinda who’s staying with them. Muffy. How’s he doing?”

Matteson shook his head. “No change and not well. You know, three times a day, I have him respirated with pressurized oxygen. It’s a totally new technique. At night, he sleeps in an oxygen tent. Shit, if he doesn’t get better, he should at least stay the same. He shouldn’t be going downhill.”

“Maybe your oxygen theory doesn’t work,” Trace said.

“It works. It just doesn’t work now on him and I don’t know why. He’s stabilized physically. There should be some improvement, but nothing. I don’t understand it.” Matteson got to his feet. “I have to check somebody else down the hall, then I’ll be in.”