Rawley had shampooed his beard and it looked even fuller than usual. His eyes were bright with the terrible happenings at Western Sun as he talked with George Hessian.
“The guy who killed her must have driven right past the shack, not a foot or two from me, when he escaped, and all I saw was the back end of the car as it turned into the street.”
“How can you know a thing like that?”
“It was her car.”
George Hessian groaned. No need to ask who “her” was. Rawley had degenerated into a Kierkegaardian aesthete, carrying on an imaginary affair with the young woman who came to see Jack Gallagher. There was something unsavory about Rawley's description of the lissom way in which the young woman walked from her little car to the door of Gallagher's apartment, of the sight of the two of them, December and May, going arm in arm through the snow toward the distant glow of the clubhouse lights. There is a second adolescence as well as a second childhood.
“But Jack Gallagher has confessed to killing her.”
Rawley's eyes crinkled and several teeth appeared in a separation of whiskers. He was smiling. “An attempt to grab center stage.”
“That's crazy.”
But there was something wistful in Rawley's tone, as if Gallagher had beaten him to the punch. But Rawley's facial hair was back in its accustomed arrangement and his eyes no longer glittered. Indeed, they became moist.
“Till my dying day I will think of her, lying out there in the snow, perhaps still alive, while I sat in my snug little guard shack, reading.”
Of course it would be only imaginatively that Rawley would write himself into the unfolding drama. Still, it was an eerie thought, the one who might have strangled the girl using her car for his getaway, driving within inches of Rawley.
“Did you wave?”
“I did. After the car had gone by. He couldn't have seen it.”
If George Hessian had world enough, and time, he might have listened to Rawley reenact what had and had not happened. There was the unstated implication that somehow his
amour fou
for the girl had placed her in danger, jeopardized her life, somehow led to her death by strangulation.
“âIn vain does the watchman watch â¦'” George murmured, but he could not remember the words of the psalm.
“Indeed, indeed. I had come to regard this job as a joke. Gate guard! The only thing that menaces the inhabitants of Western Sun is death. I waved cars in and out, I paid no attention to anything but my book. You and I chipped in with the others and we put in a Mr. Coffee. FM radio, coffee, a book, and a very comfortable chair. This is work? No wonder I was derelict on the one occasion vigilance was needed.”
On and on. George's shift was over and he excused himself and went on to Assisted Living to visit his mother. Pathetic old people inched along in wheelchairs, looking up in confused expectation as he passed on the way to his mother's room. George was a firm believer in the sacredness of life in all its stages, but there was irony in seeing these ancient people adding hours and days and months, sometimes years, to lives that were essentially over, while Agatha Rossner had
been violently killed a short distance away. He thought, too, of the other young woman, who had been pushed into traffic, a horrible death. A suspect had been returned from St. Louis in that case, but who would answer for the more recent death? Jack Gallagher? Why not? Away from the mesmerizing voice of Rawley, George could imagine that his friend had only imagined the girl's sports car being driven past the shack; Rawley felt an overwhelming need to connect himself with the dreadful event.
“I want to go home,” his mother said. She gripped the arms of her wheelchair and glared at the television screen. He leaned over and kissed her on the head.
“Of course you do.”
“There is absolutely nothing to do here.”
“You've earned the rest.”
“Rest? I'm tired of rest.”
“For now, it is better for you to be here.”
“Better for whom?
And so the old quarrel went on, George feeling as much sympathy for her side of it as his own. Why shouldn't she resent the fact that she now spent her day with incontinent oldsters mewling and drooling their way through the day? Blame him if she wished; he felt guilty enough that she was here. But he would have felt worse if she were not. It was a problem without a solution. There must be crimes like that. What if it never would be known who had strangled the girl and left her lying in the snow twenty-five yards from the shack in which Rawley had read on, warm as toast, sipping coffee?
Austin Rooney had spent the day in his apartment, trying not to listen to the radio or television, both of which he had on. Even if he had wanted to, he couldn't get Jack Gallagher out of his mind, though he would have much preferred to think of Maud. It seemed the gentlemanly thing not to show up at the Center and embarrass her after last night.
When the news of Jack's confession came, Austin fixed his first drink, a very mild gin and tonic, a drink he did not particularly like in season and which therefore seemed safe as a daytime drink. Two days ago Austin had been sure that the suit Jack had brought against him would reduce his income to only his Social Security check; a court might award Jack the amount of his retirement fund, but they couldn't touch Social Security. He had faced the prospect of retrenching as the Woodhouse family had in Jane Austin's
Emma,
only it wouldn't be idle luxury at the equivalent of Bath. More like a room at the Y. Not quite that maybe, but one of the minuscule apartments available on campus for emeriti. He could eat in the student dining hall and avail himself of the entertainment and lectures on campus. Not all that bad a prospect, if he chose it freely, but that it might be imposed upon him by Jack Gallagher enraged him.
They had married one another's sisters and both sisters were dead, dissolving, as Austin thought, the relationship between them; like marriage, it lasted only until death. The news that Jack had confessed had given Austin only temporary relief; then the doubts set in. It made no sense that Jack would offer himself up as a sacrifice, so he had to have some ulterior purpose in mind, but what could it be? The relief Austin felt when it occurred to him that Jack was no longer in a position to press his suit, brought home to Austin how the prospect of falling afoul of the law had oppressed him. How could Jack feel otherwise when a far greater charge was laid against him? But he had rushed to accept it. It made no sense. Austin found that he was far more uneasy than he had been as the target of Jack's ridiculous suit.
His image of the dead woman was inseparable from the memory of Tim turning in that crowded bar and seeing his uncle there. Tim's expression had been eloquent of guilt but the girl had been unaware of Austin's presence. Even so, her image had been etched indelibly in his memory. That had been enough, he was sure, and he had left the bar without confronting his nephew. Only it had not been enough. The liaison with Tim had not been immediately discontinued and then she had turned her attentions to Jack.
The whole thing was mixed up in Austin's mind with his own infatuation with Maud Gorman, in escrow now, and his jealousy when Jack had sought to invoke droit du seigneur in her regard. The blow Austin had struck seemed to have been in reserve for years, through encounter after encounter with Jack when Austin's resentment, while concealed, was building to a flashpoint. When they were both left widowers, there should have been an opportunity to begin again, on a note of common bereavement, but the very sight of Jack had repelled Austin. Of course, sights of him were rare, and when Austin discovered the Senior Center at St. Hilary, it had seemed just the sort of thing he had been looking for. Getting together with former colleagues had its attractions, but how often could one relive the past and lament the present fallen condition of the academic world? At the Center he had found people he had known when he was a child, and others with whom he had nothing in common save the day-to-day diversions of the Center. And of course there was bubbly little Maud, making him feel like a man again. It was that innocent idyll that Jack Gallagher had sought to destroy. Austin regretted many things but he could not regret having felled Jack with what might have been a lucky punch, if he had not repeated the feat in the parking lot.
The young woman lawyer seemed Jack's retaliation. Austin could have Maud Gorman, Miss Haversham and her eternal youth; Jack would counter by getting involved with a truly young woman. After Austin's effort, in response to Colleen's request that he speak to Tim
about Aggie, it was a bitter turn of events that he had released her for Jack.
The thought of Colleen prompted Austin to pick up the phone. He pushed away his third gin and tonic, thrice as potent as the first. But Colleen did not answer her phone. When the recorded request that he leave a message came on, he hung up. She must be at work. He looked up Mallard and Bill, rang the number, and asked for Colleen Gallagher.
“One moment, please.”
A full minute later an apologetic male voice came on. “I am taking Colleen's messages today. Can I help you?”
“This is her uncle, Austin Rooney.”
“Colleen didn't come in today. She called and left the message that she would not be in.”
“With whom am I speaking?”
“Albert Fremont. Colleen and I work together.”
“She doesn't seem to be at her apartment, either.”
“The fact that she does not answer her phone ⦔ Fremont's voice trailed away.
“Of course. Thank you.”
After he hung up, he thought of Colleen, alone in her apartment, not answering the phone, overwhelmed by the events that had become the news of the day. He decided he would go there and, since he'd had three gin and tonics, he decided to go by public transportation.
He came to curse the decision not to drive, although the traffic at this time of day was probably as jammed as the CTA car he boarded. There were travelers coming from O'Hare, with their baggage taking up room, causing snarling comments from the other passengers. Austin stood gripping a pole, trying to keep his mind on his wallet. The train stopped endlessly at each station and then went on in a hesitant way, as if acceleration were merely prelude to another stop. When Austin escaped from the car, he went immediately into a bar and ordered a
martini on the rocks. He would stay with gin, but he needed a restorative after his journey from Fox River.
Walking to Colleen's building, he was filled with the conviction that this trip was in vain. Colleen could be anywhere. If she had not gone to work, it was not to brood alone in her apartment. After all, she was engaged. Her fiancé, Mario Liberati, would not just leave her to her own devices at a time like this.
When he turned in to the apartment, a man came toward him. They passed and then the man said from behind him, “Are you Austin Rooney?”
Austin was flooded with confusion. Why would a stranger know him by name? He turned as if to face a raging lion, but there was only an ineffectual-looking fellow.
“Fremont. We talked when you called the office.”
“Of course.”
“We seem to have had the same idea. She doesn't answer her bell. I rang the manager and he offered to go up and see if she is in. Apparently she isn't.”
“I was just telling myself I had made this trip in vain.”
“Well, now you know where she isn't.”
Austin felt an impulse to ask the fellow to come have a drink with him. But the moment passed, Fremont disappeared up the street, and Austin returned to the bar where he'd had the martini. He only drank in moments of stress.
The apparent indifference of the seniors to the plight of Jack Gallagher was only thatâapparent. It was as if someone had to break the ice before they all acknowledged that their thoughts were full of the news of the day. The television set in the center always drew a crowd when the news came on, but today a cable station brought regular bulletins
whenever there was a break for local news. When the news that Jack Gallagher had confessed to killing the young woman whose body had been found near his condo was announced, a great cry of protest went up.
“They know how to get confessions out of people.”
“God knows what torture Jack has been subjected to.”
Desmond O'Toole looked at Edna and lifted his brows. Not for him to tell these innocents that Jack had volunteered the confession. Edna had passed on to him what Father Dowling had been told at the rectory. The police had been surprised by the confessions and there was much skepticism about it.
Edna went back to her office, not wanting to get involved in the dozens of excited conversations. Desmond had shaken off his reluctance and was now holding court on the matter. Maud ignored the voice of authority, turning whenever the door opened, as if she were expecting someone ⦠. Austin Rooney?
Having closed the door of her office, Edna sank into a chair and stared across the office. The only disadvantage of her job at the Senior Center, for which she thanked God every day, was Father Dowling's friendship with Phil Keegan and the frequent presence of the captain of detectives and his lieutenant Cy Horvath at the parish. Of course Edna resented the role of the police in her husband Earl's arrest and trial. The events that had led to his conviction and sentence were in one way irrefutable but there was a real sense in which Earl was innocent, technically innocent, of the charges brought against him. That he had not actually done what he set out to do was not a moral defense, and the fact that the deed had in any case been done, made his conviction inevitable. It had fallen to Edna to keep the family together, their two daughters and son, and to prevent them from becoming estranged from their father. That Earl did not want them to see him in prison, Edna understood, but that meant he had become a mythical person, someone she described to them and they reconstructed from their own memories.
The day when he would be freed drew nearer but meanwhile the children grew so swiftly that Edna did not see how he would recognize them when he got out. He pored over the photographs she brought him, but it was the pictures of them as they had been when he was arrested that meant most to him. And in their different ways the children resented not having a father in the home, resented the need of their mother to work, were constantly evading questions about their father. No wonder Edna felt seething anger that Jack Gallagher should confess to murder almost casually.
Did he count on his prominence cushioning the effect of that confession?
There was a tap on her door, and for a moment Edna considered not answering. She had the sense that she was hiding from events, that even the undemanding routine of the Center was oppressive. But the thought of someone reporting to Marie Murkin that Mrs. Hospers could not be found decided her. But the door opened before she got to it and Desmond O'Toole peeked in.
“Busy?”
“Come in, Desmond.”
But he was already in. He wore a tortured, theatrical expression. “I have to talk with someone.”
“Of course.”
He went to the chair across from her desk and Edna seated herself in her desk chair.
“I can't talk to Maud about this, she is too good-natured to credit.”
“Good heavens, what is it?”
But Desmond was not to be hurried. “I suppose I should go to the police about it, but I wanted to talk with someone first.”
“Why would you want to go to the police?”
Desmond settled his bony frame in the chair, looked over her head, and seemed to be humming.
“It's Austin.”
Edna managed not to groan. Was Desmond bothered about competition
for Maud's attention again? But the police? “Has Austin come?”
“That's just it. He's not here today. Mrs. Hospers, you know what happened last night, to that young woman, outside Jack Gallagher's condo.”
“Of course I know.”
“Have you given any thought to who might have done that?”
“Jack Gallagher has confessed.”
Desmond made an impatient motion with his hand. “That's just a play for attention. If we grant the story that he and the young woman, were, well, you know, why would he strangle her?”
“You always hurt the one you love.”
“The Ink Spots.” For a moment Edna feared that Desmond would burst into song. “Theirs is the only worthwhile version of that song.” He brought his mind back to his reason for coming here. “Austin knew that young woman. He went downtown to talk to her. He told Maud about it.”
“I didn't know that.”
“Now that you do, what does it suggest?”
“I haven't any idea.”
Desmond grew patient. “Think back over the past weeks. Remember the brawl the night of the dance. The brawls. Austin was in a rage because of Jack Gallagher.”
“Go on.”
“The fact that he hasn't come in today got my mind going. Austin's blood was up. I never saw a man with such murder in his eye.”
“Are you suggesting that Austin Rooney strangled that young woman?”
“It makes sense when you stop to think about it, doesn't it?”
“No, it doesn't. I never heard of anything so far-fetched in my life. But I'm glad you came to me with your suspicions.”
“There's more. As you say, it sounds far-fetched. But I checked with the manager of the building in which Austin lives. He didn't get home until dawn.”
Desmond's speculation had seemed absurd; now it seemed dangerous. Edna had watched the way Desmond had pitted the two brothers-in-law against one another, holding Jack's coat, so to speak, so the two men could have it out. The prize would be Maud, and the prize would go to Desmond.
“What do you think I should do?”
“Nothing.”
“Mrs. Hospers, this is very important information. What we know is not known to everyone, but his being out all night ⦔
“I meant you should do nothing. It's good you brought this to me. Let me take it from this point.”
“You will let the police know?”
Edna nodded, as if this were less than a real agreement. “You've done what you think is right, and now let me handle it.”
Desmond actually sighed. “What a relief.”
“It was wise not to tell Maud. Let's just keep this between us until we see what the police think.”
Desmond rose slowly from the chair, the picture of a man who had just laid down his burden.
“I can't thank you enough. I wouldn't want to be the one who pointed the finger at Austin Rooney. You understand.”
“I understand perfectly. That is why we won't tell Maud about it.”
He actually made a little circle with thumb and forefinger. Edna got up and went with him to the door. Before she could open it, he swooped at her and pecked her cheek. Then he was gone.
It felt like a Judas kiss. With the door shut, Edna vented her anger at Desmond. What a silly old busybody he was. But now she had a problem. If she didn't pass on Desmond's story he would keep after her until she did.