Suicide Season (14 page)

I ran a finger down the hairline scar that led to my upper lip. The guard had a clear look at me in the shadowless glare of that flashlight, and it was a good thing there wasn’t a mug shot somewhere in Denver police files or I’d be standing in a line-up right now. The next time, we’d have to go formal—a stocking over the face.

I tossed the newspaper aside and once more spread the Haas folder across my desk to search out all the “tee-off” times and days. The computer had come up with no correlations for any of the names on the Aegis directory, and the D.N. initials that I remembered simply sat on a blank square for a day in September and told me nothing. That left the golf games, real and supposed. I had located a couple and was entering their dates and times into the computer when the telephone rang and Margaret asked if she was interrupting anything.

“Not at all. I’ve been thinking of you.”

She paused as if to interpret that, then said, “That’s nice to know.”

The voice had a soft note that did something warm in my chest, and I heard myself ask if she would like to see a play that I happened to have a pair of tickets for. Or at least I would as soon as we hung up. “It’s a comedy—it’ll help brighten a dull week.”

“I could use a little comedy.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Elaine Ewald—remember her? You met her at Ricci’s.”

The restaurant where the blond woman came over to the table to snoop. “I remember.”

“She called me last night. Apparently someone’s going around the neighborhood asking things about me.”

“What things?”

Margaret hesitated. “Questions. About the night Austin shot himself. What did anyone see or hear. Did they ever hear Austin and me quarreling. Would there be any reason I might want Austin dead.”

I watched a wisp of steam lift out of the dark shimmer of my coffee cup. “It’s nothing you should get upset over, Margaret.”

She said quietly, “That sounds as if you know something about it.”

“I think I do. Please don’t let it worry you.”

“Don’t let it worry me! Devlin, Elaine said it sounded as if someone were almost accusing me of killing Austin. If you do know something, I want you to tell me.”

“I think I know who it is.”

“Well, who? And why is he doing this?”

“Take it easy, Margaret. I want to find out a few things first. Why don’t I pick you up about seven and maybe I’ll have something definite then.”

“I … I suppose so. Yes, all right. I’m sorry I sounded shrill—it’s just such a horrible accusation.”

“And we both know it’s a damned lie. I’ll see you this evening.”

The Vincent Landrum Detective Agency was over on Pennsylvania in an old mansion that had been remodeled for offices. The two floors at the front of the building were occupied by lawyers who gave Vinny some work now and then; visitors who wanted the detective were directed along a narrow sidewalk to the back and then up a flight of worn stairs to a small alcove tucked under the slope of the shingled roof. From the ground floor came the steady clatter of a quick-print shop, and the office facing Landrum’s bore the sign
TRIPLE A ANSWERING SERVICE.

“Busy, Vinny?”

“Well, well. My day is complete. And so early, too.”

I closed the scarred door behind me. The room was small; a desk and two wooden chairs facing it took up most of the space. Dusty metal filing cabinets stood here and there, and in one corner was a coat rack dangling a wrinkled trench coat and topped by a brown fedora. A half-open door showed a tiny washroom with toilet and sink. Landrum lowered his feet from the desk and rocked forward in the creaking swivel chair. On the desk stood a tape recorder with a wire that ran to the headset clamped against one of Vinny’s ears; scattered across a stained blotter were strips of negatives and color Polaroid shots of a man and woman busy with each other and unaware of the camera. “Something you’re selling, Kirk? Or are you just trying to be Mr. Sunshine?”

I leaned an elbow on the tall filing cabinet that crowded the doorway. “I’m not selling. And I’m not smiling. I understand you’re working over in the Belcaro area.”

“I heard a rumor you liked to play detective.”

“Some of the questions you’re asking come close to slander, Vinny.”

“Up yours, Kirk. I can ask what I want, where I want. It’s called First Amendment freedoms.”

I moved toward the desk and Landrum looked up, suddenly wary. “Not true, Vinny. It may be legal, but it won’t be safe.”

“Don’t pull any shit, Kirk. I’m warning you.”

“You didn’t find out anything, did you?”

“Never mind what I found out. You don’t want to work with me, I’m not working with you.”

“You didn’t find out anything because there’s nothing to find out.” I grabbed the front of his jacket and lifted him out of the chair. “And now you’re going to stop harassing.”

“Let go, goddamn it—you’re wrinkling my skin!”

“Mrs. Haas doesn’t know anything about her husband and Carrie Busey. You don’t want to be the one to tell her, Vinny.”

He grinned up at me. “Yeah? You worried about that?”

“Vinny … “

“Goddamn quit it! That hurts!”

“Hear me, Vinny: she’s a nice lady with two nice kids and nice memories of her husband. Don’t bring them any pain.”

“I hear you—let go!”

I sat him back in the creaking chair and smoothed his jacket and gave him a tap of manly playfulness under the chin. It was a corny act but I really believe he expected it; it matched the trenchcoat in the corner. “I’ll be watching, Vinny.”

The rest of the day was spent with Bunch at AeroLabs on a final walk-through to compare the security system diagrams to the actual site. There were always changes that had to be made on the diagrams, and it was a little after seven before I pulled up at the Belcaro gatehouse to tell the guard who I was visiting.

“All right, sir. That’s really a nice car. What kind is it?” This guard was a new one, in his late teens or early twenties, probably a college kid, and sure enough I caught sight of a book propped open on a shelf just inside the door.

“An Austin-Healy 3000. I only use it for special occasions.”

“It’s a classic, all right. Have a good evening.”

Margaret was reading to the children when the babysitter let me in. They looked up briefly and then back to the brightly colored pages of the book. She smiled without breaking the quiet rhythm of the lines and nodded me to a chair. When she finished, she asked the children if they remembered Mr. Kirk.

Austin, Jr., slid off the couch from his mother’s side and held out a small hand. “How do you do.” Shauna, the toes of her pajamas flopping loosely, said “Hello” and settled more firmly on her mother’s lap.

“All right, now,” she said. “Story’s over and up we go.”

The girl clutched more tightly as the babysitter, a teenage girl who had been studying me from the corner of her eyes, came forward to lift her from Margaret’s lap. “Come on, Shauna. I’ll read to you upstairs.”

“I want Mama!”

“I’ll come up with you. But I’ll only stay a minute,” Margaret said.

“Hey, we’ll all come up. We’ll make a parade—Austin, you hop in front and be the leader.”

A few minutes later as we came back downstairs, Margaret smiled. “You’re very good with children. I’ll bet you were the oldest.”

“I was the only. But I have a lot of cousins—I used to visit my Uncle Wyn and stay over with his kids.” I held her wrap and she slipped it over her shoulders in a faint breath of familiar perfume.

“Do you know where we’re going? I’d like to leave a telephone number for Tammy.”

I told her and gave her the seat numbers and she jotted it down on the pad beside the telephone. Once we were clear of street traffic and on the freeway leading downtown, she apologized again for being so nervous this morning. “It was just such an ugly, ugly thing to hear.”

“I don’t think you have to worry about it anymore.”

“Did you find out who it was?”

“Yes, but let’s talk about it at dinner. It’s not worth talking about now.”

The theater was inside the hulking concrete walls of the performing arts center, and we mingled with the crowds that filled the long, echoing galleria leading from the parking garage to the brightly lit foyer. Occasionally a man’s eyes lingered with admiration on Margaret and followed her through the crowd, and I felt good about the light touch of her hand on my arm as I guided her toward the entry. We settled into the plush seats and Margaret glanced at the rows of faces banking up each side of the auditorium. “These are very good seats.”

“My uncle’s. He always buys season tickets to support the theater, but he doesn’t use them much. His children have moved away.”

That led to questions about my family and I asked about hers. Her mother and father lived in Chicago and although he was officially retired, he was still very active as a consultant. Haas’s parents had recently been transferred to San Francisco where he was manager for the Pacific Coast region of a retail chain. “They’ve asked me to move out there. They want to be near their grandchildren. That’s all they have left of Austin.”

“Are you going?”

“I don’t know. I like this area, but that’s the only thing that keeps us here now. If we’re going to move, I suppose it should be fairly soon, before the children start settling into school and friendships. It’s so hard for them to leave those things behind and start again when they’re older.”

“It’s not something you’re going to decide right away, is it?”

“No. There’s no real rush.”

“That’s good.”

She didn’t follow up and I didn’t press. The lights over the open thrust of the stage began to dim and, as the audience noise ebbed, an actor entered from the wings.

Later at intermission, as we stood in a quiet eddy at the edge of the crowd and sipped a glass of wine, Margaret asked more about my family.

“I see now,” she said, “why you’re so kind toward Austin and Shauna.”

“That may be part of it.”

“Was your father a good friend of Professor Loomis?”

“They were business partners more than friends. And not too long at that.”

“Still, it seems a bit callous of him not to at least offer you some of your father’s stock.”

“In the kind of partnership they had, all stock from a deceased partner reverted automatically to the company to be purchased by the surviving partners. Technically, it wasn’t his to offer. Besides, it wasn’t worth all that much when Dad died. The real jump came a little later.”

“But you still see a lot of the professor?”

“No—as a matter of fact, I hadn’t seen him since the funeral until he called me a few months ago.”

“He had a job for you?”

“Not him. An acquaintance.” Someone, the words crossed my mind, who wanted me to investigate your husband. An act that probably contributed to his suicide. “You know Loomis, don’t you? He told me you were a graduate student of his.”

“Oh, yes—at Columbia. I was working on my MBA, but that was years ago, and I was just one of dozens of his students.”

“It couldn’t have been too many years ago—you don’t have that many.”

“My, aren’t you gallant, sir!”

“It depends on my inspiration, ma’am.” The bell signaled the end of intermission and I stuffed our thin plastic wine glasses into the rapidly filling trash can and joined the eddy back into the auditorium. “You decided not to get your MBA?”

“I met Austin. After that, graduate school didn’t seem so important. Nothing did, except … Well, as things turned out, I would have been wise to complete my degree, wouldn’t I?”

“You still can.”

“I’ve thought about it. I’m going to have to do something. But the children are so young. And you saw how Shauna acted when I was getting ready to leave; they’re still quite insecure—I think they’re afraid they might lose me, too.” She added, “Fortunately the insurance settlement has been enough so that I don’t have to think about working for awhile.”

And Haas had elected the option that paid off the house in the event of his death, so she didn’t have that large bill to meet every month. I knew the details of the settlement as well as she did; and although the amount was comfortable for now, it would gradually be eaten away by inflation and by growing children. But not for awhile—not before she could decide on some career of her own. Or someone married her. And given the quick laughter that chased away the lingering pain in those deep green eyes, given the supple womanliness beside me and the tiny fragrance from her black and gleaming hair, she would not lack for suitors. Nor did the idea of marriage seem so foreign a thought.

It wasn’t until after the theater when we had settled behind the quiet table at the restaurant and scanned the menu with its handwritten list of the evening’s few entrees that she asked about Vinny Landrum.

“You did find out something about the person who has been intimating those things, didn’t you?”

I had been trying all evening to frame words that would tell the truth but leave out the worst. And still did not have them. “A little bit. Enough to know that you don’t have to worry about him.”

“Please tell me, Devlin.”

I sipped my wine. “It’s a private detective—one Vinny Landrum. He told me he was hired by someone who doesn’t think your husband committed suicide.”

“But he did!”

“Everyone knows that—almost everyone. Landrum’s the kind of p.i. who’ll make as much as he can off a person’s delusions. It was a suicide and he knows it.”

Margaret leaned back to let the waiter top off her glass and settle the wine back into its ice bucket. “Do you know who hired him?”

“What difference does that make? There’s no truth in it.”

“I want to know.”

I flicked a bread crumb from the linen near the butter dish. “His secretary. Miss Busey.”

“Carrie? Carrie hired this man?”

“Yes.”

“But why?”

“Because she doesn’t think he killed himself. She doesn’t think he was the kind to do something like that.”

Margaret in turn studied the bleached tablecloth in the glow of the candle and her long fingers stroked one of its dim wrinkles.

“Landrum asked those questions because he figured you were the only one in the house with your husband. You were the only alternative.”