Harry Dolan (10 page)

“I see. So this does have something to do with Tom’s murder. But if I didn’t want to get anyone in trouble then, the same would be true now.”

“You don’t need to worry about that,” said Shan. “If you tell us who it was, we’re just going to talk to him. We’re not going to haul him in for murdering Tom Kristoll.”

Valerie laid open her palms. “The thing is, I was never sure. He might not have done it.”

“Who was he?”

“Someone I dated back then. Well, it was never really dating. We had lunch, we went to movies. He wanted it to be more than that. When I told him I wasn’t interested, he reacted badly. He never got angry—he was just sort of brooding. It was a few days later that the thing happened with my car.”

“What’s his name?”

“I don’t know that it was him,” Valerie said. “Afterward, I convinced myself it wasn’t. He’s been all right since then.” She took off the black-framed glasses. “If I tell you, are you going to let him know I told you?”

“Not unless we have to,” Shan said.

“That’s not what I wanted to hear. You ought to lie and tell me he’ll never know.”

“We need his name.”

“It’s Adrian. Adrian Tully.”

 

 

 

Adrian Tully lived in a dumpy apartment. The furniture was secondhand, the bookshelves made of cinder blocks and wooden planks. Books overflowed the shelves and were piled on chairs and sofa cushions. Tully himself was neat enough. He had a shaved head and a close-trimmed mustache and goatee. His polo shirt and slacks were unwrinkled. He sat Elizabeth and Shan down at his kitchen table.

“I’m afraid I never had much to do with Mr. Kristoll,” he said. “I don’t think I’ll be any help to you.”

“That’s all right,” said Elizabeth. “We have to talk to everyone who worked at
Gray Streets.
I’m sure you understand.”

“I’ve wondered how the investigation’s going,” Tully said. “Do you have any leads? I guess I shouldn’t ask. You can’t really tell me, can you?”

“Not really.”

“It’s always fascinated me—how someone goes about solving a crime. I mean, do you go strictly by the evidence? Do you have hunches?”

“I have hunches,” Shan said. “Detective Waishkey has theories. Hypotheses.”

There were groceries in the middle of the table: cans of soup, boxes of macaroni and cheese. Tully moved them off to the side.

“I’ve been reading a book that says you can solve anything, answer any question, if you just ask enough people,” he said. “The idea is that we know things collectively that none of us know individually. It’s not as strange as it sounds. Researchers have done experiments. Take a jar of jelly beans and have random people guess how many beans are in the jar. If you take their answers and average them, you’ll get a number that’s very close to the actual number, probably closer than any one person’s guess.”

Carter Shan seemed to listen eagerly. Elizabeth, who knew he was acting, was half convinced that he was fascinated by Tully’s conversation.

“I never thought of that,” Shan said appreciatively. “You’re saying we should ask people to guess who killed Tom Kristoll.”

“Well, it sounds frivolous when you put it that way,” Tully said.

“No, it makes sense. We ought to try that,” Shan said. “Maybe we could start now. Who do you think might have killed him?”

“I don’t know. Anything I tell you would be a guess.”

“That’s fine.”

“I don’t know. I suppose—David Loogan.”

Shan looked surprised. “Now why would you pick him?”

“It’s only a guess.”

“It must be based on something.”

“Well, I don’t like to talk out of turn, but I think he may be having an affair with Laura.”

Elizabeth broke in. “Is that right? What makes you say that?”

“Just the way they act around each other.”

“Do you spend a lot of time with them?”

“No.”

“But you’ve observed how they act around each other,” Elizabeth said.

Tully shrugged his shoulders. “During the summer, Tom and Laura had parties at their house. David Loogan came to some of them. He would go off with her alone sometimes and talk. And I saw him with her once on campus.”

“Did you ever ask Laura about it?”

“She’s my dissertation adviser. It’s not my place to ask about her personal life.”

“Of course,” Elizabeth said. “Do you think Tom Kristoll suspected his wife was having an affair?”

“I couldn’t say. I didn’t know him that well.”

Shan had gotten up from the table unobtrusively. From an open cabinet over the sink he took a glass and filled it from the tap. Carrying it with him, he wandered into the living room.

Elizabeth asked Tully about his work in the English department. She let him ramble on a little about the subject of his dissertation.

Then she said, “You were an intern at
Gray Streets
this past spring.” “That’s right.”

“What does an intern do, at a magazine like that?”

“Some light copyediting, some proofreading. But mostly you read slush—manuscripts that come in unsolicited.”

“You worked there in the office?”

“Usually I brought things home.”

“So you never saw much of the boss.”

“Not really. Like I said, I’m afraid I can’t be much help.”

“Just a few more things,” Elizabeth said. “When was the last time you saw Tom Kristoll?”

Tully considered the question. “It would have been at one of those parties they had at the house,” he said. “Early September, I think.”

“When was the last time you went to the
Gray Streets
office?”

“I haven’t been there since May, when my internship ended.”

“We’re trying to nail down Kristoll’s movements in the days leading up to his death. You didn’t see him in the past week, or talk to him?”

“No.”

“And for the record, where were you Friday afternoon and evening?”

“I was here,” Tully said. “I graded papers and worked on a chapter of my dissertation. I’m afraid there’s no one to vouch for me. I live alone.”

Shan had wandered back in from the living room. He emptied his glass into the sink and left it on the counter.

“That’s fine,” Elizabeth said. “I think that’s all we need.”

 

 

 

A drizzle of rain spotted the sidewalk in front of Tully’s apartment building. The sky was darkening. Shan started the car and pulled away from the curb.

“Well, you’ve had a look at him now,” he said.

“I have,” said Elizabeth.

“What do you think?”

“I think if we asked a lot of random people if Adrian Tully is a weasel, they’d say yes, yes, yes.”

“He was eager to steer us toward David Loogan,” Shan said. “But he didn’t want to seem eager. You figure he has a thing for Laura Kristoll?”

“She’s an attractive woman,” Elizabeth said. “And she’s his adviser.”

“Hot for teacher. And he has it in for Loogan because Loogan was having an affair with Laura Kristoll?”

“Suppose he wasn’t sure about the affair. So on Friday he followed her to Loogan’s house. His suspicions were confirmed. He was angry. He slashed Loogan’s tires and keyed his car.”

“Did he go beyond that?” Shan said. “Did he kill Tom Kristoll? It seems like a stretch. If he was mad at Loogan, why would he kill Kristoll?”

Elizabeth wound a finger through the string of beads around her neck. “Try it this way. Tully feels rejected. If he can’t have Laura Kristoll, at least he can ruin what she’s got going with Loogan. He goes to her husband’s office to tell him about it. But Tom Kristoll doesn’t buy it—his wife and his friend having an affair. So he tells Tully to go to hell. Tempers flare. Tully knocks Kristoll over the head. Now Kristoll is unconscious. Tully panics. He didn’t mean for this to happen. He eases Kristoll out the window and tries to make it look like a suicide.”

Beside her Shan was nodding. “With a suicide note courtesy of Shakespeare,” he said. “ ‘I am more an antique Roman than a Dane.’ Tully had a copy of
Hamlet
on his bookshelf.”

“Is that right?”

“I paged through it. There were a fair number of lines highlighted—including the one about an antique Roman.”

 

 

 

The light on the porch was glowing when Elizabeth got home. In the kitchen she found a casserole warming in the oven, a bowl of salad covered in plastic in the refrigerator. Two soda cans—Pepsi and Mountain Dew—at the top of the recycling bin.

In the living room her daughter was sitting on the floor with her back to the couch. A math text and a notebook were open on the coffee table.

“I should be cooking
you
dinner,” Elizabeth said.

“That’s true,” said Sarah. “Sometimes I tell people I come from a broken home.”

“I should be helping you with your homework too.”

“I don’t know about that. It’s trigonometry.”

“I wouldn’t be any use then. We didn’t have triangles when I was in school.”

Sarah got up and together they set the table and sat down to eat. The salad was elaborate: three kinds of lettuce, tomatoes, slices of onion and carrot and apple, cashews, and shredded cheese.

“You could have invited him for dinner,” Elizabeth said. “I bet he would have been impressed.”

“Who would that be?” Sarah asked.

“The boy you’re having an affair with. Billy Rydell.”

“Oh. You saw the Mountain Dew can.”

“I did.”

“You know, I told him we could live a secret life, if only we were willing to give up soft drinks.”

“When was he here?”

“He came by after school. We sat on the porch for a while.” Sarah went to the oven and brought out the casserole. Rice and broccoli and chicken—she spooned it onto their plates. “What did you do today?” she asked.

“Talked to people,” Elizabeth said.

“You can tell me who. I won’t squeal to the press.”

“One of them was a man who might have killed Tom Kristoll.”

Sarah speared a piece of broccoli with her fork. “Tom Kristoll is the publisher who got defenestrated.”

“Yes.”

“And you talked to his killer. Was it the man with the sliver in his palm?”

Elizabeth had told her daughter about her encounter with David Loogan.

“Not him,” she said. “We ruled him out.”

“I thought you might have ruled him back in.”

“No. The man I talked to is a student of Kristoll’s wife. His name is Adrian Tully.” She sketched the theory that she and Shan had worked out.

“How do you prove it?” Sarah asked.

“Tully gave us an alibi. He said he was home Friday afternoon and evening. We’ll try to prove he was lying. We’ll show his picture to people in David Loogan’s neighborhood and in the area around the building where Kristoll was killed.”

“What if no one remembers seeing him?”

“It might mean he didn’t do it, or it might just mean no one remembers him.”

“Maybe he’ll confess.”

“It would be nice if someone would.”

“Maybe he’ll be racked with guilt,” Sarah said. “When will they have the funeral?”

“I don’t know if it’s been scheduled. The medical examiner hasn’t released the body yet.”

“Tully—if he’s the murderer—he’ll go to the funeral.”

“He’ll probably go either way.”

“If he’s the murderer, he’ll feel compelled to go,” Sarah said. “You should be there. He’ll stand with the mourners at the grave, and he’ll feel tormented. If you’re there, he might confess to you.”

Chapter 11

NATHAN HIDEAWAY WAS A TALL MAN, BROAD OF SHOULDER, THICK OF neck. His face was all strong features: piercing eyes, formidable nose, wide mouth, square jaw. A lined forehead and a crown of curly white hair. David Loogan had seen the face before: in photos on the jackets of mystery novels. And he had met the man once, at a party at the Kristoll house on the Huron River.

At a few minutes past eight on Tuesday night, Loogan knocked on the door of the Kristoll house. The door swung inward and there was Nathan Hideaway, extending a great mitt of a hand in greeting. He was dressed in a suit that might have been black or might have been a very deep blue. His face betrayed no sign of recognition. He said, “Mr. Loogan, I presume.”

He led Loogan back through the house and into the study. Laura Kristoll came forward as if she might embrace Loogan, but in the end she only trailed her palm down his arm. She said, “Thank you for coming, David.”

There was another woman with her—a woman Loogan had met before, at the same party where he had met Nathan Hideaway. Her photo had also appeared on the jackets of novels. She was scarcely over five feet tall. Loogan estimated her age at forty, though she dressed as if she were fifteen years younger. Her white blouse hugged her slim form, and her skirt ended well above her knees. Her brown hair was cut short and disheveled, pixielike.

“This is Bridget Shellcross,” Hideaway said. “Bridge, meet David Loogan.”

“We’ve met,” Loogan said. “It’s a pleasure to see you again.”

Bridget’s smile made slits of her eyes. It revealed small white teeth.

“Of course,” she said. She plainly had no idea where she was supposed to have seen Loogan before.

The room was as Loogan remembered it. The desk at the far end, the rows of bookshelves, the four upholstered chairs. Three weeks ago he had stood here with Tom, and they had talked about disposing of a body.

The same bottle of Scotch, or one very much like it, stood on the side table.

Nathan Hideaway settled into a chair, gesturing for Loogan to do the same. Laura and Bridget followed suit.

“Well, let’s begin,” Hideaway said. “I think I speak for us all—”

Bridget Shellcross interrupted him. “Before you start speaking for us all, Nate, maybe Mr. Loogan would like a drink.”