A Man to Die for (15 page)

There was no way she could have anticipated what she found.

Deciding that the front door was the quickest route to an answer, Casey climbed the front porch, her crepe soles swallowing her footsteps. She saw Helen standing before the picture wall in the living room. She couldn’t see who she was addressing as she lifted a hand to one of the exhibits. She heard the rumble of an answer, though, and knew it was male.

Both of them came to a surprised halt when she opened the front door. Catching sight of Helen’s guest, Casey followed suit. She didn’t exactly drop her bags to the floor, but she forgot she had them in her hands. Her eyes were riveted to the man who stood next to the piano on the old oriental rug, a glass of iced tea in his hand, his greeting made hesitant by his exposure to her mother.

Casey’s greeting wasn’t in the least hesitant. “What are you doing here?” she demanded, and finally remembered to walk in.

HIS STOMACH WAS
killing him. The last few days had been unrelenting frustration, from the moment these two women had left his office to the last interview he’d conducted at nine-thirty down on the stroll. He’d stood in on the Washington autopsies, even though one look at the scene photos had pretty much told the stories. He’d come up empty on witnesses who might tell him what everybody knew, that Cleona’s husband had slashed her and her little boy in a fit of crack-induced rage. He’d lost the trail on the gun in the Gray shooting, and fought without success to get a court order for a search on one of the suspects. When he’d come up empty on Crystal tonight, he decided that the only way to complete a perfect evening was a visit with the McDonough ladies.

Only one of them looked glad to see him.

“And this,” the little old one said, plucking at his sleeve and pointing to yet another sepia-toned photo on her long white wall, “is Amelia. She was a teacher, you know.”

This had to be her house, all shiny surfaces, chintz, and doilies. Scanlon couldn’t imagine the younger one having much patience with the Sacred Heart pictures scattered about, the bisque Madonnas with plump, placid faces, and the pile of Liguorian magazines on the table.

And the incense. Scanlon could swear he smelled it, and that was an odor he’d remember in hell, pungent and ancient and mystical. He’d actually looked around when he’d come in the door, afraid he’d see a red votive light betraying a hidden altar. He’d only seen the pictures. Maybe the old lady swung a thurible at them like a Taoist praising ancestors or something.

“I came to talk to you about Crystal,” Jack told the daughter where she stood at wary attention.

She hadn’t moved from the doorway, braced like a sailor in a high wind with a look of outrage in her eyes. Somehow in the uniform she didn’t look as distracted and ineffectual as she had the other day. There was a wiriness to her, a tough determination that reminded Jack of some of the female cops he knew.

“I think I need a beer first,” she said without apology. Casting an eye at the iced tea, she lifted an eyebrow. “Interested?”

Scanlon took a look down himself. “Yeah, thanks.”

She dropped her gear right there in the doorway and stalked into the kitchen. Left behind, Scanlon was once again commanded to the family album.

“And the twins,” the old lady was saying, her voice bright and chirpy. “They both died in childbirth, bless them. They were such lovely, frail things.”

Scanlon did his best to cut the soliloquy short. “This all your family?” he asked with a vague gesture of his glass.

“Oh, yes.” She sighed with a smile to the collected faces. “All mine. I remember when I bought each one.”

Scanlon had just noticed the black woman on the wall up toward the ceiling when he heard that. He looked down at the top of that scarfed head. “Bought them?”

Mrs. McDonough bestowed a beatific smile on him. “Of course. I’ve collected my family for years. Garage sales are the best places to find them. And book sales, of course.”

Scanlon couldn’t come up with any better answer than “Uh huh.”

He was vastly relieved to see a can of beer appear before him.

The younger Ms. McDonough also offered the wryest of smiles. “Mother has no family of her own, so she collected one. Didn’t you, Mom?”

“God gave them to me,” she answered in that vague way of hers. “I was just showing them to the father here.”

“I’m not—”

“He’s a sergeant,” her daughter interrupted impatiently. “Not a priest.”

The old lady faced right off with her daughter as if Jack weren’t even there. “Then why did you call him a bishop?” she demanded.

Both of them turned to him then. Jack scowled, weighed the beer against the tea, and decided that he was going to have to face this one without fortification.

“Past transgressions,” he admitted.

The daughter’s eyebrow lifted again. “You were a priest?”

“Not diocesan,” the old lady insisted vehemently. “It would be sacrilege. He was reading one of those Dutch heretics.”

“Jesuit,” he admitted.

Both of them stared.

“Oh, my,” the little lady breathed.

“Oh, brother,” her daughter echoed.

For a minute the three of them just stood there. Jack finally set the tea down on a doily and concentrated on his beer.

“Beautiful piano,” he observed, motioning stiffly to the baby grand in the corner. “Do you play?”

The young woman darted a quick look in that direction. “No. That was my brother Benny’s talent. I just dust the thing.”

“Your—”

She actually managed a wry smile. “Genetic, not acquired.”

Little Mrs. McDonough stiffened a little. Jack recognized the pose and knew better than to pursue it. All that was left was business. He took a good enough slug of beer to ignite new fires and faced the daughter.

“Would you like to sit for a minute, Ms. McDonough?”

She seemed amused. “I should have probably said that first.” Even so, she sat on the couch. The mother fluttered for a bit and then alighted onto the other end. Jack decided not to stand. He wasn’t after intimidation here, just expediency. He chose the wingback, and perched on the edge.

“I was down on the stroll tonight,” he said without preamble, the beer resting on a knee, his jacket unbuttoned. It occurred to him that he should have left his tie in the car. Pulling it off in this atmosphere would be like stripping for Sunday dinner at Aunt Rosa’s. Quelling the discomfort, he got the bad news over with. “Nobody recognized your doctor.”

Jack was surprised by Ms. McDonough’s reaction. He expected frustration, maybe contention. What he got was relief. He was sure of it. She’d been bracing herself for something, and he hadn’t given it to her. Nobody could accuse her of having a poker face, and within seconds of his announcement, no fewer than five reactions passed over it, any number of them adding up to confusion. “You don’t think it could be him?”

Hope? He couldn’t figure it at all. “It’s still pointing right at her pimp. There’s one more possible witness who’s skipped, but since it’s one of the pimp’s ex-stable girls, I expect her to name him. Nobody else down there placed the picture of your man.”

She seemed to fold into herself a little. Fingering the can on her lap, she gave her attention to the crowd on the wall, as if culling opinions.

“You came all the way out here to tell me,” she said, turning back to him. “You didn’t even take down my name the other day.”

Jack was tempted to do his own perusal of the adopted McDonoughs. “I called Mother Mary. Commendations for initiative and complaints about initiative. But you were right,” he allowed. “No recorded flights of fancy. I try never to overlook the possibility of a legitimate lead.”

That appeased her. Still, she seemed to be fighting some internal battle. Jack was smart enough to wait it out in silence. Over on her end of the couch, the mother kept her own counsel, her eyes raised and unfocused. Probably praying for his Jesuit soul. A cat had made its appearance, a fat, gray thing with yellow eyes. Mrs. McDonough didn’t seem to notice it rubbing against her bare leg.

“You’re not discounting Hunsacker completely,” Casey finally stated.

“I never discount anything completely,” he said. “I just got the idea the other day that you were gonna head off on some kind of crusade, and I don’t think you should lose your job over it. There isn’t any evidence that says your doctor killed Crystal.”

There wasn’t any physical evidence at all, which stuck hard in Jack’s craw. No prints, no hairs or fibers. Somebody had beaten Crystal to death and then vacuumed, showing more presence of mind than Jack had ever credited Moses Willis with. But that was something he’d decided didn’t need sharing with the ladies from Webster Groves.

Ms. McDonough eyed him, sharp as a lawyer, almost predatory. “You have a nice car.”

Jack arched an eyebrow. “Thanks.”

“If you decided to leave town for good, would you leave it in a tavern parking lot?”

He smelled the trap, but followed for the information. “Not unless Kathleen Turner was driving me away in one just like it.”

Her mouth quirked and she nodded. “Wanda Trigel has a black Firebird. Hotter than your Mustang.” She didn’t insult him by repeating the story. “She had it put in her will that she was to be buried in that car. The morning after she disappeared, the Firebird was found in the parking lot of the Ramblin’ Rose.”

Jack was already shaking his head. “I don’t want to hear about it.” Folding his hands around the still-cold can, he leaned forward and thought about how bad his stomach was going to get. “My chief is a funny guy,” he said. “He wants me to spend my time on murders that happen in the city. Crystal was murdered in the city, so that’s the one I’m investigating.”

“But it could be related.”

“The only thing that relates is that Hunsacker knew two of the women and you heard a story that he might know the third,” he retorted carefully, even as his gut churned in protest. “And I haven’t gotten anything to prove that. Otherwise, you have a woman who left, which doesn’t surprise anybody, and another woman who ended up at the wrong corner and got shot, which I’m afraid isn’t unusual there. There were two other murders that night in East St. Louis alone. And not one of them had any report of a white man in the vicinity.”

She stiffened, eyes even more torn. “You checked?”

Jack sighed. “I told you. I try not to overlook a legitimate lead. There weren’t any witnesses to your friend’s shooting. But believe me, somebody would have remembered a rich white guy strollin’ around down there with a twenty-two in his hand.”

“A twenty-two?” Casey echoed. “I heard it was an AK47.”

Jack tried not to smile. “Sorry, it wasn’t that exotic. Saturday Night Special, missing wallet and wedding ring. Nothing surprising.” Except that the physical evidence didn’t add up there, either. Again, no hair, no fibers, no prints of any kind, and that was even more unsettling in an opportunity snatch like that.

Jack had come hoping to allay Ms. McDonough’s fears while allowing himself a little more room to do his own quiet look. He had the feeling he wasn’t going to have any luck. After her initial reactions of relief at his announcement, he’d hoped he’d walk out with a concession on her part that she’d just retreat into her nice big house here with Madame DeFarge and leave the problem to him. For some reason, his news had only stiffened her spine.

He was going to have to keep an eye on her. If her doctor was anything like she feared, she had no idea what kind of fire she was playing with.

Reaching into his jacket pocket, he pulled out a card. “Do me a favor,” he offered, handing it across. “Hang on to this. Before you think of doing something stupid, call me so I can talk you out of it.”

Getting to his feet, he set down the mostly full beer can on another doily. Ms. McDonough followed suit, the card still in her hand.

“Why?” she asked.

Jack sighed. He didn’t even realize his hand had strayed, betraying the strain. “Because if I were shot I wouldn’t want a cop working on me. He’d have the best intentions, but he’d probably screw something up.”

A wry grin broke through all that frustration and uncertainty. “Nicest insult I’ve ever suffered,” she acknowledged. “All right. I’ll call.”

Pulling her gaze from the ethereal plain, Mrs. McDonough, bent to pick up her cat and stand. Her smile was just as vacuous, but she seemed to be trembling a little. “I bet you’d like to play with my pussy, wouldn’t you?” she asked.

Jack was glad he’d left his beer can on the table. Otherwise he would have just dropped it on the floor.

“Not when he’s on duty,” the daughter assured her mother with a painfully straight face. “I’m not sure he’s much of a cat man, Mom.”

“Maybe,” Jack managed in a strangled voice, thinking that the daughter was enjoying his discomfort much too much, “next time.”

Five minutes later Jack was back out sliding into his car. Usually he kept to the ritual, settling into the old vinyl, slipping the Charlie Parker tape into the deck, and turning over the engine to listen to the counterpoint a moment before putting the car into gear and backing out. Tonight, he couldn’t get his mind off just what it would take to leave a favorite car behind. Charlie Parker never did see the inside of the tape deck.

Casey closed the door feeling even worse than when she’d opened it. She should have been relieved to hear that Hunsacker wasn’t tied into Crystal Johnson’s murder. After all, she’d walked up that driveway fully intending on absolving the man of guilt for anything but a creepy personality. Well, she’d almost intended it.

She’d wanted someone to let her off the hook, and Scanlon had tried his best to do just that. Only she hadn’t let him. The more he’d tried to convince her that she’d be right to just let the whole thing drop, the more she’d argued. Even as she’d remembered what Hunsacker had looked like after the surgery, she’d heard the whispers of doubt.

In the end, no matter what Hunsacker had done that day, Casey just couldn’t shake the feeling that he was involved in those two deaths. And she couldn’t back away from them until she knew for sure. Even if Scanlon couldn’t help her.

“It’s nice to entertain gentlemen in the parlor again,” Helen said from where she was collecting the remnants. “I’d forgotten.”

“It was hardly entertaining,” Casey countered instinctively, flipping off the porch light and locking the door. “When did he show up?”

Her mother dusted at the dustless tables with fluttering hands. “We’ve just become two old maids in this house, Catherine. Just rattling around.”

Casey stopped in the door to the living room, her eyes on where her mother hummed and cleaned, as coquettish as a schoolgirl. Even the drab brown couldn’t dim her surprising sparkle.

“You should invite people over more often, Mom.” And drop that pussy line on all the men. It could turn into a great party game.

“And a priest, too,” Helen said to her pictures, the glass of tea in her hand. “Imagine that.”

“He’s not a Jesuit anymore,” Casey retorted, sighing in capitulation and reaching to turn off one of the lamps on her way to bed.