Colleen Gallagher did not go into work. She was up and dressed and ready to leave when she heard the news on the radio and stopped. My God. She was assailed by a flurry of dreadful thoughts. Last night she had been with Mario, commiserating over the injustice that had been done him by Mallard and Bill, and again Colleen had suggested he contact her brother Tim. He shook off the suggestion.
“I never thought I would be rethinking my life, but that's what I have to do.”
“What do you mean?”
“Of course I am now back at square one. Only it is not as it was when I got out of law school. There were all those interviews and then the offer from Mallard and Bill. When I decided on that, the whole future seemed to fall into place.”
Colleen was frightened. In the immediate aftermath of Mario's summons to the office of the founding partners, she had been prepared to release Mario from his commitment to her. But it was he who had brought it up and he had been so relieved when she simply dismissed the suggestion. But time had passed since then; time when not all his thoughts had been known to her. It went without saying that their marriage-preparation sessions with Father Dowling would have to be postponed. She was fearful now that Mario regarded the
prospect of marriage in another light. And of course now he knew of her family.
Her family. That is when the dark thoughts began. Aggie's body had been found near her father's condo and of course that meant suspicion would turn on him. Aggie had been as bad as she claimed. Imagine, pursuing a man her father's age, a man who had always been vulnerable to flattery. He was only human to have succumbed to what Colleen was sure had been a deliberate and relentless campaign on Aggie's part. She remembered when her father had left Mallard and Bill with Aggie on his arm, and had thrown her a little smile that only she could have understood.
“It's all my fault,” she said aloud. “I threw them together. I invited him to the office specifically so he could meet Aggie and talk sense into her about Tim.”
She had reached the nadir of her fear and dread: Tim. Tim, who had once accused his own father because he had heard of his philandering at the station. It was all too easy to see whatever had happened at Western Sun Community as the sequel of that long-ago suspicion. Only this time the target was not Jack Gallagher.
The phone rang and she snatched it up, certain it was Mario, but it was Tim on the line.
“Have you heard?”
“Just now.”
“I've canceled all my appointments in order to be with Dad. I couldn't talk to him when I called the condo because the police were with him so I am going out there.”
“I'll come with you.”
“No.” A silence on the line. “I want to have a serious talk with him. I'll call you from there.”
“As soon as you can.”
“I have an errand to do first, but I'll call as soon as I can.”
“Tim, what is going to happen?”
“Who knows? God, what a mess. Mario and I may be in the same spot before this is over.”
He left her with that dismal thought when he hung up. She called Mario then, but he did not answer the phone. Normally at this time of day, he would be walking in the door at Mallard and Bill. But there would be no rush this morning. He could be still asleep or in the shower. Five minutes later he called her.
“Mario! I just telephoned your place.”
“I'm on my cell phone. Are you going to work?”
“No.”
“I didn't think so. I'd call in and leave a message, though. Can I come over now?”
“Of course.”
“Good. That's where I'm headed.”
Her earlier doubts fled and she was waiting expectantly when he rang the bell. She pulled open the door and then she was in his arms. Oh, thank God for him. Thank you, thank you, Saint Anne. She had not prayed that prayer in weeks, but it had been answered and was not rescinded.
“Colleen, what you have to do is avoid reporters.”
“Reporters!”
“Think about it. They're bound to want to talk to you. You have to get out of here. Quick, pack some things and I'll take you to a motel.”
“A motel?”
“There's one in Fox River where we have had conferences. The Hacienda Motel. That way you'll be near your dad and no one will be able to find you.”
She realized how much she had wanted someone to tell her what to do. She ran into the bedroom, got a small suitcase out of the closet, and began to pack.
“I'm going to steal a cup of your coffee,” Mario called.
“Of course. Go ahead.”
She packed only casual things; what she was wearing would be nice enough forâShe stopped the thought. For what? Did she think she and Mario would be enjoying candlelit dinners at a time like this? She was going into hiding to avoid the press. This thought spurred her on, and in several minutes she emerged with her suitcase. Mario grinned.
“Did you have that packed and ready to go?”
“Ha.”
He took the suitcase. Colleen slung her computer bag over her shoulder, picked up her purse, and followed Mario down the back stairs to the garage and then outside where his car was waiting. Colleen began to believe that she really was being pursued by vultures of the press who would dig up every humiliating thing they could to add spice to their stories about Aggie's death.
“Of course they'll talk to the girls in the office.” She had pulled the door shut but Mario cursed his frosted windshield and then got out to scrape it clear. When he slipped behind the wheel, she mentioned the girls at the office again.
“If I know Mallard and Bill, they will have forbidden everybody to speak to the press.”
“Isn't this ironic, after the fuss about your brother-in-law?”
“I am trying to think of that as liberation. Do you know what suddenly occurred to me last night? A lifetime at Mallard and Bill would have been stultifying. We'll come up with something far more exciting and interesting.”
She huddled against him as he maneuvered toward the side street and then found the expressway that would take them west to Fox River. Alone, she had been so full of dread and apprehensionâand she still was, but it was different now that she had the reassuring presence of Mario. He had never seemed more confident and sure, and he could believe that the tragedy at Mallard and Bill was no longer the devastating rejection it had seemed at first. Of course, it would be necessary for him to get past it and face the suddenly redefined future.
When he turned off the expressway, which had been cleared of snow by highway crews, they came onto roads that required more driving skill. Colleen remembered the Hacienda Motel. She had not attended the conferences the firm had held here, but she had been in on the preparations. Only lawyers had been involved, of course. It was when Mario pulled into the parking lot and stopped that Colleen was suddenly overwhelmed by what had happened.
“Poor Aggie,” she cried, and then she began to sob helplessly, finally finding an object for her grief and anxiety.
“She was heading for a fall.” But he took her in his arms and comforted her. Aggie was now beyond any human appraisal of her life.
“May she rest in peace,” Colleen murmured.
“Amen.”
Inside, he took a seat as she registered and then rose to go with her to her room. When the door of the unit was shut behind them, he said, “This place is as nice as I remember it.”
A sudden thought gripped Colleen. “Did Aggie attend that conference?”
“Not that one. Not everyone did. Albert Fremont was here.” That thought reminded Mario of the eminence from which he had fallen, and a shadow passed across his face.
“Tim called,” Colleen said.
“Has he talked with your father?”
“He was on his way to the condo.”
“Colleen, if it comes to that, and your father needs an attorney ⦔
“Oh, Mario.” And once more she was in his arms.
It was a dangerous moment. She had seldom felt so vulnerable, and here they were in a motel room alone, unbeknownst to anyone. But Mario was stronger than she was and he released her. He picked up a packet of matches with the motel number on it.
“You just stay put. I'll keep in touch.” At the door he paused. “Better not call anyone, Colleen.” He hesitated again. “Or if you do, don't mention where you are. That would defeat the purpose.”
“Bless you.”
This almost surprised him. “You too.”
And then he was gone.
When Peanuts had been woken at his vigil by the arrival of his cohorts, having slept through the arrival of the paramedics, his first thought had been to get the hell out of there. His second had been to let Tuttle know that something was up; maybe he thought this had been the purpose of the stakeout. But Tuttle had had to get the news of what had happened from police radio. Tuttle was not really surprised that his almost autistic friend really hadn't had the faintest idea that the body of a young woman had been found only twenty yards from where he had been parked in the unmarked vehicle from the Fox River Police Department. The one thing Peanuts was sure of was that he had not had an adequate night's rest.
“I gotta get some sleep.”
“Aren't you on duty today?”
“I can rest up in the newsroom.”
“Keep your ears open, Peanuts.”
“While I'm sleeping?”
Tuttle wasn't sure that one's ears closed while one slept. If they did, Peanuts never would have been roused and got out of the stakeout. After a suitable interval, Tuttle drove out to the scene of the crime with one thought succeeding another in his mind. A picture of the young woman on television made clear who she wasâthe girl Tuttle had met in the clubhouse when he had showed up with Jack Gallagher's neighbor Isabel. She was also the girl Tuttle had seen go into Jack's apartment, and had not emerged by one o'clock when Peanuts came to relieve him.
“There's a woman in there with him, Peanuts,” Tuttle had said.
“Who?”
“It doesn't matter. What matters is when she comes out.”
But the significance of this had been lost on Peanuts, who probably had fallen asleep as soon as Tuttle drove off. Now Tuttle wished he had given Peanuts daytime duty and reserved the nights for himself.
Where the body had been found was staked off and there was a uniformed officer on duty. Tuttle got out of his car and sauntered over to the cop.
“Tuttle,” he said, tipping his tweed hat.
“Who?”
“I am Jack Gallagher's lawyer.”
This failed to impress the officer. Peanuts might be on the bottom rung of the force but there were others not much higher.
“Quite a mess,” Tuttle said, looking at all those footprints in the snowy interior of the marked-off area.
“I don't know anything about it.”
Tuttle left him. The scene of the crime had been trampled all to hell. Not much would be learned from it. As he headed for the door of Isabel Ritchie, snow began to fall again. Great. At least it wasn't a thaw. Tuttle rapped on Isabel's door.
“Just a few questions, ma'am.”
“Oh, it's you. I have only just now learned what has been going on beyond my pulled drapes.” She let Tuttle in. There was the aroma of coffee in the apartment.
“That smells good.”
“Would you like a cup?”
“Absolutely. What have you heard?”
“They keep mentioning Jack but that's ridiculous. Apparently this woman wasn't his niece.”
“Is that so?”
“So what does she have to do with Jack?”
“Good question. I gather you didn't hear anything.”
“No.” She seemed indignant that Jack Gallagher's name would be
associated with anything unsavory. Well, what is there to hear when a woman is being strangled? Tuttle opened his coat and loosened his scarf.
“Would you like milk and sugar?”
“I would.” The coffee was that bad. “Jack had a lot of visitors this morning?”
“The police have been pestering him, of course.”
“It was the girl we met at the clubhouse, sitting with Jack.”
“But the girl they found wasn't his niece.”
“I thought you saw her picture on television.”
“That was some lawyer from Chicago.”
It was too bad for Jack that there weren't more Isabels in the world. But others who had seen the girl at the clubhouse would know that the story of her being Jack's niece was bunk. Tuttle was in a difficult spot ethically, you might say. He had been keeping a watch on his client so as not to be surprised by anything Amos Cadbury might come up with as to Jack's character. What Tuttle had seen was damaging to his client, not to say demolishing. Big Bertha would have Jack's scalp if she learned that the plaintiff was leading a life of dissolution and vice.
Tuttle himself was scandalized by Jack's behavior. It was one thing for an old man to get a kick out of having a few laughs with a young woman, a drink or two, but it was pretty clear Jack had been shacking up with her. Now he was the bull's-eye of the investigation into the death of Agatha Rossner. The woman had spent the night, or a good part of it, with Jack. Her body was found almost outside his door. And then Tuttle remembered the little sports car. She had arrived in that last night but she sure hadn't left in it. She had left in the meat wagon on the way to the morgue. In his pocket Tuttle had a notebook in which he had scribbled the license-plate number of the little car. Finding out about that seemed more important right now than paying a call on Jack. What could Jack tell him but a bunch of lies? Tuttle had no desire to tell his client that he knew all about it. But that little car bothered him.
After he drank half a cup of what Isabel had the nerve to call coffee, he got to his feet.
“No rest for the wicked.”
“Are you going to call on Jack?”
“Not right away.”
After he got outside, he sidled toward his car, half fearing that he would be noticed and Jack Gallagher would call his name. But he was ignored, or at least unsummoned. He drove downtown and found Peanuts, out like a light in the pressroom.
“A favor.”
“Go away.”
“After you do me this favor.”
“What is it?”
Tuttle gave Peanuts the license-plate number. “Do a check on this plate for me.”
Grumbling, Peanuts toddled off. Mendel took notice of Tuttle.
“You going to drop that suit now, Tuttle?”
“What's the latest on the body found out at Western Sun?”
“She's dead.”
“I wondered about that.”
“Jack Gallagher won't wiggle out of this one.”
“How much does the
Trib
carry in libel insurance?”
“I can wait for the indictment.”
“How's the novel going?”
Mendel glared at him. It was clear that he regretted the day he had confided his literary ambitions to Tuttle. “The chapter in which you appear has bogged down.”
“Ha. You got any portions I can read?”
“If you can't read, what do you care?”
“I think of you as catapulted out of here into sudden fame, the toast of the town, all that. âLocal Scribe Hits Best-seller List.'”
That Mendel was driven by such dreams was clear from the anger he showed. “Go to hell, Tuttle.”
“Will your novel be on sale there?”
Peanuts came back and handed Tuttle a printout. The little lawyer folded it twice and put it in his pocket.
“What's that?” Mendel asked.
“A letter from my editor about my novel.”
“Get out of here.”
The car was registered to Agatha at an address on the near North Side. Well, why not? There were times when following whim and caprice was the reasonable thing to do.
One look at the street lined solidly with parked cars told Tuttle that any resident who counted on finding an open space when he needed it was an idiot. Agatha had been a lawyer, therefore she wasn't an idiot. He drove around until he saw Kopcinski's parking garage. He pulled in and flashed a badge Peanuts had purloined for him. He then held up the printout on which he had circled the plate number. The badge had come and gone but the printout bore the heading of the Fox River Police Department.
“You guys always check out one another?” the attendant asked.
“How long ago was my colleague here?”
“I don't know. Earlier.”
“Big guy, linebacker type, face like a blank page?”
“That's him.” That would be Cy Horvath.
“Have they taken the vehicle away yet?”
The kid had never learned how to tie a necktie. It hung like a noose down the front of his wrinkled shirt, which was visible because his leather jacket was unzipped.
“You ought to zip up. You'll catch cold.”
The kid bent over to look at his fly.
Tuttle drove in and found the little car. It looked like it had been through a car wash. The doors were locked and there was nothing particularly interesting visible inside the vehicle.
On his way out Tuttle called to the necktie, “We'll be back for it.”
Where to now? For some reason, he still did not want to see his client. These recent events might have shaken Jack Gallagher's eagerness to take Austin Rooney to court. Back to headquarters again, where he would try to pick Cy Horvath's brain, if he could get at it through his thick Hungarian skull.