Jane Gallagher, with Tim off to work and the kids put on the school bus, returned to her kitchen and the cup of coffee that was usually the best one of the day, but not this morning. She had hesitated about letting the children go to school, fearful of their grandfather's plight being known to the other kids, but Tim had dismissed this. He had flown in early that morning and come home to shower and change. Fresh clothes and a shower and he was ready for the day, no matter how little sleep he could have caught on the red eye from wherever. She had given up trying to keep track of his business trips.
“The teachers may know, but they aren't likely to say anything.”
“Tim, what is going to happen?”
“God only knows.”
“I can't believe that your father would get involved with a woman that age.”
He held her and kissed her forehead and told her he would be in touch. Sipping her coffee, Jane considered the events of the past week which had completely altered her impression of the father-in-law she had thought she knew. Jack Gallagher, after he became a widower, had been an unusual grandfather, playing the role as if it were just that, a role. Imagine Jack Gallagher a grandfather. Jane's parents had been fans of Jack's and he had been something of a legend when she and
Tim married, his presence all but eclipsing the bridal party, somewhat to Tim's annoyance.
“Imagine what he would be like if he were famous for something important.”
But the day had been far from spoiled, she had laughed and danced and wept, she and Colleen crying like schoolgirls before she went off to the airport with Tim and the flight to the Cayman Islands. Tim's success had lifted them out of their former surroundings and there were new friends and activities, but Jane had always remained close to Colleen, watching with apprehension as the years passed and Colleen remained unmarried. Of course she was a whiz at what she did, but did she want to be a paralegal all her life? And then she had met Mario Liberati.
Jane had liked Mario instantly and told Colleen how wise she had been to wait for Mr. Right. Had it been even a month since she and Tim had met Mario? Since then the world seemed to have fallen down around Jane's ears. The absurdity of Jack's getting into a fight over a woman with Uncle Austin at a dance for old people at St. Hilary's parish was the beginning. As far as Jane knew, the woman was as old as Jack and Austin. Something Tim had said then came back to her now.
“Old or young, it doesn't matter to him. He's like Don Giovanni. As long as they wear a skirt ⦔ He actually sang a few bars of Leporello's aria. How like his father he was, despite the undertow of animosity between the two men. With Aggie, Jack had apparently turned once more to the young.
That the woman was younger than herself gave Jane a creepy feeling. Jack had always been affectionate with her. He liked to have his arm around a woman, he liked to punctuate his talk with little kisses on her hair; sometimes she thought he was trying to annoy Tim, as apparently he had annoyed Austin. But with a man that age, and a man who was her father-in-law, it would have been ridiculous to take offense.
“Don't encourage him,” Tim said once, ambiguously. Had he meant being too ready to listen to his father's reminiscing, or his playful displays of affection? Jane had liked the thought of her husband as jealous, however innocent the cause.
That morning second thoughts came. The young woman had stayed overnight with Jack before; presumably that had been the case last night as well. Jane had always assumed that with age people got over that sort of thing.
“He must be on Viagra,” Tim growled.
Mornings had always been cherished by Jane. As soon as the kids had begun school, her house became in a special way her own. All day long, she could enjoy it. She was forever redecorating, imagining how a room could be more attractive, rearranging. But mainly just enjoying it. But this morning she did not want to be alone. Not that she could have been comfortable with any of her friends. What she needed was family. Colleen.
Good GodâColleen. How awful for her, with the dead woman a lawyer employed at Mallard and Bill. All this on top of the dreadful news Tim had told her before changing to begin a new day.
“Mallard and Bill have canned Mario.”
“What? I thought he was their star.”
“So he was. But it seems his sister is married into the mob in Milwaukee.”
“Can they let a man go for that?”
“Image, my dear. Image. Of course he will be said to have resigned, and he will be more than amply compensated for the inconvenience. Nonetheless he will be out on the street. Of course, if he had mentioned it in the interview or on his application he never would have been hired.”
How casually he took all this. The world in which Tim lived was ruthless, people rose and fell, but the march went on, the stragglers shot like those on Napoleon's retreat from Moscow. One of Jane's secret daytime vices was to watch videos on the VCR. She had just finished
for the second time Anthony Hopkins in
War and Peace
, a wonderful movie despite the fact that Natasha looked old enough to be Pierre's mother. Jane had been reminded of the description of the little woman over whom Austin and Jack had quarreled at the dance. Now she thought of Mario, propped against a tree and, as the column moved on, the crack of a rifle. Could such an imposing and intelligent man be put out on the street for such a reason?
Her hand had gone to the phone and now she dialed Colleen's number, half reluctantly. She had to speak to her and yet she dreaded it. The phone rang and rang and then the recorded message came on. But at the sound of the beep, Jane said nothing, putting the phone back in its cradle. She was in the den, trying to decide between
Pride and Prejudice
and
Emma
, passports into the eighteenth century and out of her present concerns, when the phone rang.
“Jane?” It was Colleen!
“Colleen, I just called you but I didn't leave a message. Where are you?”
“In hiding. Mario wanted me to be out of reach of reporters.”
“Are you at his place?”
“No! I'm in a motel.”
This seemed an unnecessary precaution. What possibility was there that reporters would seek out the daughter of a man perhaps implicated in an incident in Fox River?
“Colleen, you should come here. You can be sure I wouldn't let any reporters in.”
“Well, I'm here now. Jane, isn't this awful?”
“Tim told me about Mario.”
“Don't worry about Mario.”
“Has he really been let go?”
“Yes. I think he is already getting used to the idea.”
“Colleen, tell me about this woman.”
Colleen's account was given in angry tones. “I know I should
speak well of the dead, and may she rest in peace, but Jane, she was dreadful. One of those women who imagine men are making conquests right and left and figures she has to do the same. And then brags about it. She was notorious at the firm, holding court in the ladies' room where she recounted her latest victim.”
“But a man your father's age!”
“Jane, I blame myself for that. I invited Dad down to see the officesâhe had never been thereâand he met her. She actually walked off with him on her arm, but fool that I am, I didn't suspect a thing. I suppose his age added spice to it.”
“And his name.”
“She hadn't known about his career.”
“But he would have told her.”
Colleen laughed but it was not a happy laugh. “When I think that if I had not asked him to the office and he had not met Aggie, none of this would have happened.”
“You don't think your father killed her?”
“Jane, I don't know. I just don't know. Suddenly everyone seems to be a stranger, not at all what I thought they were.”
“Oh, Colleen, I wish you were here,” Jane said at the sound of Colleen crying into the phone. Had Mario's connections in Milwaukee come as a surprise to Colleen as well? The poor girl. Jane's heart went out to her. Mario could handle this, men can, but Colleen, for all her success in the workplace, had never lost her feminine softness.
“I talked to Tim about Mario.”
“I know.”
“I mean about another job.”
“Tim said this morning that the two of them may be in the same boat with your father in the news this way.”
There was a ringing on the other line and Jane asked Colleen to hold. It was Tim.
“My father has confessed.”
“Confessed?”
“He said he killed that woman.”
“Oh my God. Where are you?”
“On my way to police headquarters.” Tim made an angry noise. “Why couldn't he keep his mouth shut? He should have had counsel.”
After Tim hung up, Jane hesitated before going back to Colleen. It seemed awful that she should be the one to tell Colleen this. She inhaled deeply and pressed the button.
“That was Tim. Colleen, brace yourself.”
“What is it?”
“Your father has confessed.”
“Oh my God.”
“Colleen, just stay on the line. We'll talk. You don't want to be all alone in a motel room now. Tell me where you are.”
“Jane, it doesn't matter.”
“Can you come here?”
“I better not stay on the line. Mario may call.”
With great reluctance Jane hung up. The sense that the world was giving way beneath her feet increased.
There was a convergence of lawyers at police headquarters. Tuttle learned that Tim Gallagher was already there, as well as Mario Liberati, the hotshot courtroom performer from Chicago, when he asked to see his client.
“Get in line.”
That was when he heard that Tim Gallagher and Mario Liberati were in conference with Jack. Tuttle debated the wisdom of joining the party. It had its attractions, just walking in there and taking Jack's hand in his. The faded celebrity should know that his dollar had
bought him the loyal services of Tuttle no matter what developed. On the other hand, Tim Gallagher might take that amiss. He could guess what the son had said when he heard his father had put himself into Tuttle's hands in the Austin Rooney matter. Tuttle sat and pulled his tweed hat over his eyes, his thinking cap, his lucky Irish tweed. But he did not pull it so low that he did not see Amos Cadbury enter. He felt the patrician eyes on him and awaited some scathing remark. But when he tipped back his head slightly, he saw Amos being admitted to the conference room. Tuttle felt like a little boy with his face pressed against the candy store window. The fight at St. Hilary's had promised weeks of publicity, and now with Jack confessing to murder, Tuttle would fight any effort to keep him out of it. The thought of himself, Tim Gallagher, and Mario Liberati as the defense team had the promise of the O. J. Simpson trial; Tuttle did not care if he were cast in the role of the schlemiel who hit the prosecution witnesses with every dirty trick in the book.
“Tuttle?”
Tuttle pushed back his hat to see Skinner before him. “What's going on?”
“I am pondering the defense strategy.”
“You're still his lawyer?”
Tuttle didn't like the implications of the question, but then Skinner had put him on to a good thing, a good thing that now seemed to be slipping from his grasp.
“I've been assigned the case,” the assistant prosecutor said. There was triumph on Skinner's narrow face but his next remark did not seem to bolster it. “Everyone else begged off when they heard that Amos Cadbury will be involved.”
“Let's go to your office.”
And off they went, two men low on their respective career ladders, but Skinner with a better chance of rising.
“I think we've got the bastard this time,” Skinner said without preamble
as he scooted behind his desk and sat. Tuttle saw in the mien of the prosecutor all the professors and devisors of bar exams who had tried to keep him from fulfilling his father's dream of having a son as lawyer.
“My client?”
“Surely you jest, Tuttle. Step one is they will have you dropped as counsel. In any case, you were not hired to defend Jack Gallagher from a charge of murder.”
“Murder?”
“Murder one, or my name isn't Flavius.”
Tuttle had wondered what the F stood for. “You're confident of your case?”
Listening to Flavius Skinner lay it out, Tuttle had to agree that Jack Gallagher was in an unenviable position.
“Item: He has been engaged in hanky panky with the deceased. Item: He has a reputation for inciting violence and being involved in same.”
“Rooney knocked him on his ass.”
“With provocation. Believe me, I know the type. The first blow is often a matter of body language.”
This was a phrase with which Tuttle had often had difficulties. Stomach rumblings, belches, other unmentionable gaseous emissions had an arguable claim to be called body language. But that is not what Skinner meant. Turns of the head, unreadable gestures, posture, and movements of the limbs had a lesser claim on the label “language.” Whatever else, Tuttle thought such extrapolations had only dubious grounding in the law.
“Item: The woman is known to have spent that last night, or a significant portion thereof, with Jack Gallagher. Item: She is found strangled on his doorstep. And item the last: The son of a bitch has confessed.”
“I wonder why?”
“What?”
“Why would any sane man confess to a murder while the investigation is still under way?”
“How about because he's guilty and knows that he is cornered?”
“That's a possibility.”
“It's a reality.” Skinner sought and found, then flourished, a sheaf of paper. “This is his confession.”
“You sound confident.”
Apparent agreement subdued Skinner. “My question is, why has all this high-caliber legal talent rallied to his defense?”
Tuttle knew the feeling. For a week he had been imagining himself in the pit of the court, matched against Amos Cadbury. But Skinner would face Amos and Mario Liberati, to say nothing of the son, Timothy Gallagher.
“Well, I wish you luck.”
“I need your help.”
“You have the whole Detective Division at your beck and call.”
Skinner emitted a barking laugh. “They don't really believe what Jack Gallagher has told them.”
“I wonder why.”
“You know why, Tuttle. They are the establishment and they have decided that Jack Gallagher is one of their own.”
Different juices began to flow in the slumped figure of Tuttle. Skinner was appealing to him as underdog, not a bad idea, given his status in the local bar. Cadbury's bar. More than once the paragon of legal rectitude had sought to disbar Tuttle, failing each time for reasons Tuttle ascribed to his father's interventions from the next world. Tuttle
père
had not scrimped and saved and sacrificed to see his son at last a lawyer only to be driven forth from the professional status he had won.
“So what do you want?”
“What do you have on Gallagher? I know you and Pianone have had him under surveillance.”
“Peanuts is a member of the Detective Division.”
“And your bosom buddy. I know all about it. One or both of you were there last night, weren't you? You saw what went on.”
“Peanuts told you this?” Tuttle knew this to be impossible.
“I will call you as a witness.”
“I'll save you the embarrassment. I was not on stakeout last night.”
“So it was Peanuts?”
“You want to put Peanuts on the stand?”
Skinner paled at the prospect. “Whose side are you on, Tuttle?” “That depends.”
“Aha.”
Tuttle saw Skinner as his darker self, a zealot who thought he was interested in justice but was really driven by the basest of motives.
“Let me ask you this, Flavius. Do you think Gallagher would have been arrested and indicted if he hadn't confessed?”
“You don't?”
“Not on what they have so far.”
“Have you talked with Pianone?”
“Anything he might have told me would be confidential.”
“What do you want, Tuttle?”
“I haven't heard an offer yet.”
They hammered one out in the next twenty minutes. Tuttle would be hired as special counsel, and investigator, for the prosecutor's office. Peanuts was already ex officio on Skinner's side. The fee proposed would have to be approved by the prosecutor.
“I'll be waiting to hear.”
“Tuttle, this is a done deal.”
“Sure it is. When it's done.”
The air outside Skinner's office seemed more breathable. Jack Gallagher might be guilty as sin but a prosecutor like Skinner could make any jury sympathetic to the accused.
“He should have been a hangman,” Tuttle concluded. “But he probably would have made a slipknot for a noose.”