Tuttle let Cy Horvath set the pace without protest because it was the quickest way to get briefed on his client. Harry and Cy were now the best of friends, with the lean man in the ponytail babbling away to the detective as if they were on the same side.
“Harry,” Tuttle said at one point, “remember Horvath is a cop. He intends to put you in prison and throw away the key.”
“He can't.”
“That's good to hear.”
“Because I'm innocent.”
“That's good too.” Good for nothing. But the trip out to the motel and meeting all the cleaning ladies had given Tuttle a sense of how anyone who knew Harry hated his guts. They were sure he had killed the girl and they looked like a jury to Tuttle.
Harry told him about the bank account and the reason for meeting Linda where the accident had occurred. Not that he accepted the term “accident” for what had happened.
“The guy did it on purpose, shoved her right into the path of oncoming traffic.”
Harry's expression as he said this might work with the jury. Of course Tuttle assumed his client was guilty. Why else would he be his client? But having Harry to deal with took the sting out of being given the boot by Jack Gallagher.
“Of course my father will drop the suit against my uncle,” Mr. Timothy Gallagher, all grand in his five-hundred-dollar suit, had said to Tuttle. “You can send me your bill.”
“There's no need to withdraw it. You never know.”
“It will be withdrawn. Thank you for your services, Mr. Tuttle. My father faces a far more serious problem now.”
“If you need any investigative work done ⦔
No deal. He was being dumped and that was that. No surprise, of course; as soon as he had seen the two prosperous young lawyers and learned that Amos Cadbury too was in on the defense, he knew it was
Sayonara, Tuttle.
Jack Gallagher was making it look as if the surest way to rally everyone to your support was to confess to murder. If Harry confessed, the result would be something different.
“At least he's innocent,” Tuttle said to Horvath, when the lieutenant got back to headquarters.
“Until you get him convicted.”
“Hey, I'm his defense attorney. You're thinking of Skinner.”
“As little as possible.”
Skinner confided, at the top of his lungs, that the Detective Division was not taking the strangling of Agatha Rossner seriously. “If you're going to get killed, Tuttle, don't be from out of town and have the killer a local boy.”
“I see what you mean.”
“Now they're trying to nullify the confession.”
“The Detective Division?”
“No, the platoon of prima donnas who have risen to Gallagher's defense. I don't suppose they have offered you any help with the crook you're defending.”
“He's innocent, Skinner.”
“Of what?”
If Timothy Gallagher had reacted differently, Tuttle might have told Gallagher what he knew about his old man and Agatha Rossner.
Mentioning that he had someone on stakeout all night when it happened would have melted some of that starch. He was not yet inclined to pass it on to Skinner. All he had to do was mention that it was Peanuts out there in the car that night and Skinner would scoff.
On a lark, Tuttle again went downtown to the garage in which Agatha had kept her car. The adenoidal attendant with the tie as wide as his face remembered him. “Anyone else checked on that car?”
“Another one of your guys.”
“But it's still here?”
If Horvath knew the car had been given an A-1 wash that morning, he would put two and two together. The trouble with Jack Gallagher's confession was that it did not account for the return of Agatha's car to the garage on the near North Side.
“I been trying to reach you all day,” Hazel said when he got to his office, sounding like a schoolteacher.
“You should have paged me at the courthouse.”
“They should have booked you at the courthouse. What's going to happen with the case we've been working on?”
We.
There it was again. If she kept this up, he would have a contract taken out on Hazel. Just kidding. Nothing less than a stake in the heart would do anyway.
“Gallagher decided to drop the suit against Rooney.”
Hazel wailed. “I was afraid of that.”
“Make out a bill and send it to the son. Timothy Gallagher. A very comprehensive and detailed bill.”
“Say no more.” Hazel settled at her computer. “By the way, I cleaned up your office.”
Tuttle closed the door behind him and looked around. His office looked like a magazine ad. Desktop clear, wastebasket empty, a vase of artificial flowers on the windowsill. And his bookcase was unrecognizable.
All the books lined up, none on their sides or jammed in any which way. Damn that woman. How would he ever find anything? In a spirit of rebellion he got on the phone and called Peanuts.
“Stop at the Great Wall and get me some hot-and-sour soup, shrimp fried rice, and tea. Order whatever you want and get over here.”
“Is she gone?”
“If you mean Hazel, she is in her own office where she belongs. My office is my castle.”
“I don't want to,” Peanuts said.
“You'd rather have Italian?”
“She reminds me of Agnes.”
“Hazel is white as your whatchamacallit. You going to let some woman decide whether you going to eat Chinese with an old friend?”
“I'll meet you at the Great Wall.”
He hung up. Well, maybe Peanuts was right. It was food they wanted, not to make a territorial point.
“I'm going out.”
“Bring me something to eat.”
“What do you like?”
“Chinese. Anything. And tea.”
Tuttle just stared at her. Was this his destiny, to eat Chinese food in his office with Hazel, Peanuts no longer his friend? He was going to slam the door when he went, but what the heck, why be childish?
When Nusbaum, the prosecutor, learned what the police had on Harry, he switched Skinner to that, saying he himself would take the high-profile case. All eyes would be on the trial of Jack Gallagher and one misstep could spell disaster. City hall would be watching, the press would be all over it; this was no case for the second team. Nusbaum
said all this with no consideration of Skinner's feelings. Skinner seethed but kept his peace. The prosecutor was called “Noose” Nusbaum in the press, in ironic recognition of the number of convictions he failed to get. But then Mendel had been addressing Skinner as “Mule” so maybe he was better off out of that spotlight. He would bet a ticket to a Cubs game that with Nusbaum on the job, Jack Gallagher would end up a free man. Probably sue the city for wrongful arrest.
In the press room Skinner was told that Peanuts had gone to meet Tuttle at the Great Wall. The thought of Chinese food made Skinner salivate and he decided to have his conference with Tuttle there among the fortune cookies.
Tuttle, wearing his hat, but with a paper napkin tucked into his collar, was facing away from the door when Skinner came in. But Peanuts saw him and scowled.
“Move over,” Skinner said, giving Tuttle a bump. Peanuts had stopped chewing and stared at Skinner. “I thought we could talk about the case while we eat.”
“We're already eating,” Peanuts said.
“I'll catch up.” He waved for the waitress, ordered rapidly, adding, “Bring chopsticks.”
Both Peanuts and Tuttle attacked their food with the usual utensils, but Skinner had mastered the art of chopsticks and was conscious his dexterity won the attention if not the admiration of his companions.
“Nusbaum wants me to prosecute your client.”
“Which one?”
“Ha. I heard you got dumped by Gallagher.”
“You saying we're on different sides?”
“Only on Harry Paquette. You indicated that you had stuff on Gallagher that would be very helpful in prosecuting the case.”
“I don't remember that.”
“Oh, come on, Tuttle.”
“I thought Nusbaum was prosecuting Gallagher.”
“If he is ever prosecuted. Look, Tuttle, I work for Nusbaum.”
“I'm not doing your boss any favors.”
“That's my point, Tuttle. He's my boss. I want him to fall on his face. Anything you got that could help me do that, I'd appreciate.”
“You're prosecuting Harry.”
“I figure a two-day trial.”
“Yeah? I'm pleading him innocent.”
“Of course you are. What else?”
“He denies killing that girl.”
“Does he really? Well, that ought to be enough. We'll just drop the charges.”
“You may get a surprise in court, Skinner.”
“It hasn't happened yet.”
It was difficult to eat and talk while Pianone sat immobile on the opposite seat of the booth, looking at Skinner the way primates look at visitors to the zoo. He seemed to be waiting for him to finish and go.
“Well, it was good food, anyway,” Skinner said, getting up.
“This your treat?”
Skinner thought about it. Why not? “We'll call it a pretrial conference.”
At the cash register he looked back to see Peanuts wading into his food at last. Strange fellow. But then all the Pianones were strange.
Back at his office, he was shown a message:
Talk to Edna Hospers at St. Hilary's if you want to know who killed Agatha Rossner
.
“What the hell is this?”
“That's the message.”
“Who is Edna Hospers?”
“I'll check on it.”
When he learned that she ran the Senior Center where Jack Gallagher had been clobbered by Austin Rooney, Skinner thought it worth a trip. If Tuttle had been around, Skinner would have asked the little lawyer what he thought of the message. As it was, he would just see what he would see.
Skinner had been born and raised in Poughkeepsie, attended law school at Northwestern, and stayed on in the Midwest because he found it an exotic place. He did not have the native's understanding of things, and of course one would have to be both native and Catholic to figure out how a parish school had evolved into a hangout for the retired members of the parish. It seemed like a good idea, but when he crossed the parking lot and pulled open the door which was a school door no matter where you were raised, and looked into a very large room that still had basketball hoops mounted on either end and was filled with old folks, Skinner decided that it couldn't be a barrel of laughs running this operation.
“May I help you, sir?” a lanky man with the compensatory stoop of the very tall asked him.
“Mrs. Hospers?”
“Right up those stairs and the first door on your right.”
His hand sought the railing as he mounted the steps; schools are schools and age does not dull the habits they ingrain in us. There was no legend on the first door on the right. Skinner knocked. An attractive-looking woman opened it, her brows coming together but not affecting the smile.
“Edna Hospers?”
“Yes.”
“I am Flavius Skinner from the prosecutor's office. Could I have a minute of your time?”
She was wary, backing around behind her desk and indicating that Skinner should take the chair that faced her.
“I have been told that you have information about the Agatha Rossner murder that would be helpful to us.”
Her face brightened. “Father Dowling talked to you?”
Father Dowling? Skinner decided not to lie. He got out the slip of paper that contained the telephone message and handed it to her.
“Desmond O'Toole did this!” she cried.
“What is it all about?”
She was on her feet. “Wait right here. Desmond is here and I'll bring him up.”
Skinner would have liked to have a cigarette but schools had been the first smoke-free zones and he thought better of it, no matter that the building was now put to a different purpose. A full five minutes went by. Skinner was beginning to wonder if Edna Hospers had skipped on him, when the door opened and the lanky fellow who had directed him to the office was brought into the room by Edna Hospers, who had a firm grip on his elbow.
“Desmond, this is the man who got your anonymous message. Perhaps you would like to tell him what it is all about. I will leave the two of you alone.”
“Geez,” Desmond said, when the door closed emphatically after Mrs. Hospers.
“You sent this message?”
He handed Desmond O'Toole the slip and he read it several times. “I told Mrs. Hospers about it. The idea was that she should tell the police. Even when I told her, I knew she wouldn't do it. So I called your office.”
“Where did you get my name?”
“From the newspaper. You were going to prosecute Jack Gallagher. Well, he was guilty of hitting Austin Rooney, but he didn't kill that girl.”
“But he's confessed.”
But O'Toole was on another tack. He wanted to tell Skinner about the dance they'd had here, a tremendous night, great music and
singing. Jack Gallagher was the star of the show, but it was all spoiled when Austin tried to break in on Jack and Jack just ignored him.
“You had to see the fire in Austin's eye. Murderous hatred.”
“I know about that fight.”
“The one in the parking lot was worse. If Maud Gorman hadn't been there, Austin would have killed Jack.”
Skinner wondered why he had been chosen to be the beneficiary of this stick figure's power of total recall. No wonder Edna Hospers had left.
“The suit against Austin only added to the fuel. So what happens next? Jack starts fooling around with that young woman and Austin went downtown to meet her. He will say he was on a family mission, to save Jack from himself. Anyway, that's number one: Austin knew that girl. Second ⦔ Desmond paused and opened and shut his mouth several times, making a smacking sound. “Second: Austin was out all last night. He did not get home until dawn.”
That was the QED. Desmond leaned toward Skinner, waiting for him to get it.
“He was setting Jack up.”
“You mean Austin killed the girl?”
“Think about it.”
“So why did Jack confess?”
Desmond smiled slyly. “It's like a game of checkers.”
Skinner felt like crowning him. He thanked the man and got up. They reached the door at the same time. Desmond seemed to be waiting for Skinner to open the door. Skinner outwaited him. But when Desmond opened the door he went out first and Skinner had to catch the door before it hit him in the face. Maybe he should have shown more interest in Desmond O'Toole's theory.
“Well?” Edna Hospers said, when she met him on the stairway.
“Nutty as a fruitcake.”
Her look of relief was reward enough. She called good-bye after
him. He hurried past the gym and out to his car. But he sat behind the wheel for a moment. There was no way in the world he could find out if Austin Rooney was hanging around Jack Gallagher's apartment last night, waiting to spring on the girl when she came out, but he could find out if Austin had been sent on a family mission to talk Agatha Rossner out of seducing Jack Gallagher.