Triple Pursuit (29 page)
“Father Dowling!”
Recognizing Tuttle was a matter of recognizing his tweed hat which concealed the facial features that might otherwise have identified him. Father Dowling had turned when he heard his named called, and there was the tweed-topped lawyer coming toward him.
“Father Dowling,” Tuttle said excitedly. “I've seen him. I've seen the murderer.”
“Where?”
“He just went into that building.”
“Just as I feared.”
“But how would you know ⦔
Father Dowling unfolded the photograph that Gloria had identified at the Hacienda Motel. “Are we talking of the same man?”
“That's him!”
“And he entered this building?”
“Just minutes ago. Who is he?”
“A lawyer at Mallard and Bill in the Loop.”
Father Dowling had started toward the entrance of the building with Tuttle in tow. The door was locked but there was a bell marked MANAGER. Father Dowling pressed it and turned to look up and down the street. He had the sense he was on the threshold of danger, and Tuttle was not an imposing companion. Would Cy be able to retrace his steps to the Hacienda Motel and, having talked with Gloria, come here?
“This is where Colleen Gallagher lives,” he said to Tuttle.
There was a clicking sound, and Father Dowling tried the door. It opened. The manager awaited them inside and was suitably affected by the sight of a Roman collar.
“Could you take me up to Miss Colleen Gallagher's apartment?”
“All you have to do is ring that bell.”
“I'd prefer it if you'd take me up.” He turned to Tuttle. “Will you find a phone and call the rectory and tell Mrs. Murkin where I am?”
“You think he's up there?”
“Did he let himself in the door?”
“Yes.”
“Please make the call.”
The manager was both fascinated and annoyed. From the open door of his room came the roar of a television. Tuttle hesitated. “Will you wait for me?”
“What floor does she live on?” Father Dowling asked the manager.
“Eight. Eight-oh-nine.”
Father Dowling said to Tuttle. “When you return, just come up to eight-oh-nine.”
“How'll I get in?”
“Use my phone,” the manager said as he pushed the elevator button.
Father Dowling decided that the phone call would be insurance enough.
The elevator door slid open and he stepped into the car. “Come up after you've called,” he said to Tuttle.
As the door closed, the manager was taking Tuttle toward the open door of his apartment.
The car lurched upward when the door closed, and seemed to grope up the shaft as if finding its way. Cloudy mirrors on the sides of the car made it seem full. A sign announced that the elevator had a capacity of five.
At the eighth floor the door slid open and Father Dowling stepped into a narrow hallway running east and west with a window at either
end. Sunrise, sunset. Ceiling lamps gave a grudging light. He found eight-oh-nine and rapped firmly on the door. A minute went by and then another. He knocked again, more loudly. Finally there was the sound of a lock turning and the door opened several degrees. Looking at him over the chain was Albert Fremont.
end. Sunrise, sunset. Ceiling lamps gave a grudging light. He found eight-oh-nine and rapped firmly on the door. A minute went by and then another. He knocked again, more loudly. Finally there was the sound of a lock turning and the door opened several degrees. Looking at him over the chain was Albert Fremont.
Sometimes, in her heart of hearts, Marie Murkin wished that Father Dowling would get out of the rectory more often, leaving the house as her unequivocal domain, but she fretted more in his absence than when he was ensconced in his study reading, praying, whatever he did there when no one came to see him. Actually it was more trying when he had someone with him behind closed doors and she was not privy to what was going on. But today his absence was particularly trying, since he had left the rectory on an enigmatic note. She really had no idea why he would go off to the Hacienda Motel.
Of course, it was the place where so many strange things had happened of late, as she had managed to learn as much by indirection as by any confiding from the pastor. After he had left, she tried to convince herself that she was glad he was not in. Of course, when he went over to the Center she was always uneasy. The thought of him chatting away with Edna about who knew what was unnerving. She had never been able to convince him that Edna was more or less her assistant. This was a suggestion that Edna resisted, of course, but Father Dowling should understand Marie's need to be kept informed of everything that was going on in the parish plant itself. Of course there were things that were confidential, she had no real problem with that, but surely there was nothing about the Center that she did not have a right to know.
Sitting at the kitchen table, having tea, thinking of recent events, she felt an impulse to review them. What the pastor did not seem to see as absurd amazed Marie. For example, that Maud Gorman should be such a queen bee at the Center, with men hovering around her as if she were half a century younger than she was, should have provided a rich source of those mordant exchanges Marie had come to cherish in her relations with Father Dowling. That a man with the background of Austin Rooney should be smitten by Maud was beyond belief, but Father Dowling had not encouraged Marie's critical remarks on that subject. When things had flared up with the advent of Jack Gallagher, she had surely had a right to expect that he would appreciate her negative attitude toward Maud, and he had certainly been concerned that the parish might come under a cloud after the fiasco of the senior dance. The brawl should have put the kibosh on that brilliant idea, but Father Dowling had encouraged Edna to think that the dance was the beginning of a Center tradition. The dance had been the first of a chain of happenings. The next thing they knew, Jack Gallagher was confessing to having murdered a young woman found dead in the development where he lived, and rumors had spread through the Center, fomented by Desmond O'Toole, that Austin Rooney might have done it. Marie went to talk to Edna.
“Desmond says that Austin's landlord said Austin was out all night when the girl was killed,” Edna said.
“That makes him a murderer?”
“He had been asked by Colleen to speak to the girl.”
Edna's mouth closed as if she had just locked her lips and thrown away the key. Well, Marie wasn't having any of that. But Edna did not really open up and give Marie the kind of report she could sink her teeth into. It still sometimes surprised her that people had lives beyond their involvement in the parish. Suddenly everybody seemed to have been busy about so many things she hadn't known.
“Anyway, Austin had an alibi.”
“What was it?”
“He had spent the night with his bride-to-be.”
Edna's eyes widened and that was all. Marie was flabbergasted. Maud was a pain in the neck but it had never dawned on Marie that her coquetry was anything more than that. Some women cling to men, mooning around the sun, basking in borrowed glory. The marvel was that Maud had remained single so long since becoming a widow. But had her flirting been serious? Marie rapidly reviewed the arms to which Maud had clung in recent months. Had she granted them all the favors of her bed?
“He slept with her?” Marie whispered the words as if she had never before used any of themâand probably had not, in this combination.
“He spent the night at her house.”
“Are you suggesting that he was there all night and ⦔
“Marie, I am suggesting nothing. I am sorry the subject came up.”
Edna. had never been a person with whom you could have a good talk. “The subject,” as she called it, had enough gristle on it to be chewed on for hours. But it was clear that Edna did not want to dwell on this shocking revelation. Honestly, Marie thought on her way back to the rectory, people are a mystery and an enigma. Maud Gorman. Honestly. And of course Marie's attitude toward Austin Rooney had been irrevocably altered. It would be too much to say that Marie felt scorned, but she had thought that Austin Rooney had regarded her with, well, with something beyond the respect due the housekeeper of St. Hilary's rectory. He was welcome to Maud, that's all she had to say.
The phone was ringing when she came into the house. Without stopping to stamp the snow off her shoes, Marie tracked across her kitchen floor and picked up the phone. It was Tuttle.
“Marie, Father Dowling asked me to tell you that he is at Colleen Gallagher's and the murderer is up there.”
“What!”
“I have to get up there myself. Father Dowling wants you to tell Keegan and Cy Horvath where he is.”
“What murderer?”
“Tell them. I have to go.”
He hung up and Marie stared at the phone.
Murderer?
The little lawyer's excitement, as well as what he had said, made Marie's heart flutter with fear. She hung up the phone, then snatched it up again and dialed Cy Horvath's number.
Murderer?
The little lawyer's excitement, as well as what he had said, made Marie's heart flutter with fear. She hung up the phone, then snatched it up again and dialed Cy Horvath's number.
When Albert Fremont opened the apartment door, he seemed mesmerized as he looked over the chain at Father Dowling. But then he began to close the door. Lowering his shoulder, Father Dowling threw himself against the closing door, then he stepped back, his shoulder smarting, and again hurled himself at the still-open door. There was a splintering sound as the chain came loose. Father Dowling was carried by his momentum into the room and nearly tripped over Fremont, who had been knocked backward by the door. Colleen Gallagher, a gag over her mouth, hands behind her back, was tied to a dining-table chair that had been pulled into the room. Father Dowling started toward her but her eyes widened and she shook her head. Father Dowling turned to receive the full force of Fremont's fist. The priest staggered backward and received another blow, in the stomach, which doubled him up. He sank to the floor, gasping for breath.
When Dowling was able to breathe again, Fremont was walking Colleen from the living room. She was still tied to the chair and moved awkwardly, and Fremont pushed her savagely along, crying, “Move, move, move!” Finally he pushed her through another door and closed it on her. Then he turned to Father Dowling.
“Who are you?”
“Well, you're Albert Fremont. That's the important thing. You've come to the end, you know.”
Fremont's mouth assumed a smile. “The end of what?”
“People at the Hacienda Motel can identify you as the man who importuned Linda Hopkins.”
“âImportuned'?” He laughed.
“She was your first victim, wasn't she? It must have seemed easy, just pushing her into oncoming traffic, one little shove from the midst of a crowd. You were recognized there too.”
“How do you know these things?”
“The police know them too, Albert.”
“Don't call me Albert.”
There was a sound from the hallway. The door hung crooked on its sprung hinges. Tuttle looked in. “What happened?”
Father Dowling got to his feet and Tuttle came around the door, looking warily at Albert Fremont.
“Did you make the call?” Roger Dowling asked.
“Yes. You all right, Father?”
“Better off than Mr. Fremont's other victims.”
“Where's the Gallagher girl?”
Fremont sprang at Tuttle, grabbed his wrist and twisted it behind his back. In the same motion he began to propel him to the door he had shut on Colleen Gallagher. He pulled it open and was about to push Tuttle inside when he yelped with pain. There was another yelp when Tuttle once more drove the heel of his shoe into Fremont's shin. Fremont let go of Tuttle's arm and danced backward on one foot. The little lawyer went in a swift fluid motion across the room to a position behind the couch.
“What's going on?”
“Colleen is in the other room. I have been confronting Albert Fremont with his sins,” Father Dowling said.
“Sins!”
“They are that as well as crimes, you know.”
“You don't know what you're talking about.” He glanced at Tuttle. “Who are you?”
“A man who will bring charges of criminal assault against you. Father Dowling witnessed what you did.”
But Fremont's mind was on other things. There were three witnesses in Colleen's apartment, if not to the murders he had committed, at least to the fact that he was beginning to unravel.
“Were you going to add Colleen to your list of victims?” Father Dowling asked.
Fremont looked at Father Dowling distractedly. Then, his mind made up, he started toward the priest, a grim look on his face. Father Dowling held his ground. Courage came more easily because he could see Tuttle scrambling over the couch. Fremont hooked his fingers into Father Dowling's Roman collar and ripped it free just as Tuttle brought the statue of Saint Anne down on his head. The first blow sounded like a bong. The second shattered the figure so that pieces of it fell to the floor with Albert Fremont.
Father Dowling knelt beside the fallen Fremont and quickly ascertained that he was merely unconscious. Nonetheless, he whispered the Prayer of Absolution. Fremont might not believe in God, but God believed in him.
“Call 911,” he said to Tuttle. “No, I'll do that. Go untie Colleen.”
Cy was in his car when Marie's message was transferred to him, and he immediately set off for Colleen Gallagher's apartment. The murderer must be Mario Liberati. But he had no urge to interpret the message. He wished he were in a car with a siren so that he could clear traffic from his path. He called in to ask if Phil Keegan had been given the same information.
“He's on his way there.”
Marie Murkin had spread the word. Had she called Phil first? That possibility brought his foot down on the gas pedal and he leaned on the horn as he wove through traffic and got through an intersection on a red light just as the traffic from left and right began to accelerate. He half hoped a patrol car would flag him down so he could use it as an escort.
But it was the maze of one-way streets rather than traffic that was the final obstacle. Finally Cy turned and went the wrong way to a corner where he could reverse direction and go to Colleen's address. Coming toward him was a patrol car. Lights flashed at him; there was the warning purr of a siren. Cy got out of his car to explain just as Phil Keegan hopped out of the patrol car. The two men stared briefly at one another, then decided to act as if the meeting had been planned.
“Take care of his car,” Phil shouted at the uniformed cop. To Cy he said, “I hope you left the keys in it.”
“The motor's still running.”
“What's the address?”
“There.”
Cy got to the door before Phil and held it open for the puffing Captain of Detectives.
“I gotta exercise more.”
Lazenby the manager emerged from his room, wild-eyed, when Cy and Phil pushed through the inner door.
“How did you get in?”
“By the door. Who are you?” Phil growled.
“Me? Who are you?”
“Has the building inspector been here yet?”
Lazenby turned to Cy and stared. “You!”
Cy flashed his identification, but Lazenby grabbed his hand and studied the badge. “Fox River? Where's that?”
Phil gripped his upper arm and felt mainly bone. The manager winced. “I want you to take us up to Colleen Gallagher's apartment.”
“A priest is up there. God knows what they're doing.”
“What floor is it on?”
“Eight.”
Cy took Lazenby's other arm and they hustled the protesting manager onto the elevator. When they came to the eighth floor, they found Father Dowling standing in the hallway.
“Thank God you've come.”
“What's happened?”
Cy pushed past the priest and into the apartment where he stopped. Colleen Gallagher sat on the couch, wide-eyed, in semishock. A man lay sprawled on the floor, facedown.
“I called 911,” Father Dowling said. He knelt down beside the man. “He's been out for several minutes.”
“What happened to him?”
“Tuttle stopped him when he was attacking me.”
“Tuttle!”
The little lawyer took off his tweed hat and moved the brim nervously through his fingers.
“Tuttle. He acted heroically. God knows what would have happened to Colleen and me if he hadn't come.”
Phil and Cy looked as if they would need time to digest this description of Tuttle. The prone man groaned and Cy knelt on his other side. He lifted a shoulder and gently turned the man onto his back.
“Who the hell is he?” Phil Keegan demanded.
“Fremont,” Colleen whispered from the couch. “Albert Fremont.”
“He's a lawyer with Mallard and Bill,” Cy said.
Keegan went to the kitchen, brought back a glass of water and dashed it in Fremont's face. With sputtering indignation the lawyer came to. He sat up and looked around. Just in time to duck. Colleen had hurled one of the couch cushions at him. Now she stood, grabbed
another cushion and began to beat him over the head with it. He yelped and covered his head with his hands.
another cushion and began to beat him over the head with it. He yelped and covered his head with his hands.
It seemed only right to allow her to vent her anger at the colleague who had so disrupted her life. Cy gently took her arm after she had hit Fremont a dozen times with the cushion.
Sirens announced the arrival of paramedics and soon they swarmed into the room. Cy pointed at Fremont, still seated on the floor.
“Check his head.”
“Inside or out?” Cy asked.
“He was out for some minutes,” Father Dowling said.
“That's it?” said a paramedic whose huge belly seemed on display, his unbuttoned jacket suggesting curtains just drawn aside.
“He was hit with a statue.”
Phil was talking to the other paramedic and apparently reached an agreement. While they strapped Fremont onto a stretcher, Phil said, “Go with them, Cy.” He stepped close to his lieutenant and whispered. The slightest nod was the extent of Cy's Hungarian reaction. And then the crew, Fremont, and Cy went through the shattered door.
Lazenby looked in. “What's going on?”
“Get out of here,” Phil growled, and the manager scooted away.
Father Dowling was sitting on the couch with Colleen, listening to her first account of her ordealâkidnapped by Fremont, tied up and locked in her own apartment.
“Why would I have suspected him?” she asked.
Other books
Odd Girl Out by Elizabeth Jane Howard
Loud is How I Love You by Mercy Brown
Escape from the Past by Oppenlander, Annette
I Ain't Scared of You by Bernie Mac
Pretty Dark Sacrifice by Heather L. Reid
14 Years of Loyal Service in a Fabric-Covered Box by Scott Adams
Scarlett's New Friend by Gillian Shields
The Name of the Game by Jennifer Dawson
The Wilt Alternative by Tom Sharpe
BWWM Interracial Romance 1: Professional Relations by Elena Brown
