Triple Pursuit (12 page)
Tuttle, who was serving in tandem with Peanuts at this juncture of the stakeout, witnessed these comings and goings. Not that he recognized Tim as he did Aggie, but both their visages were registered on the hard drive of his memory.
“Know him?” he asked Peanuts.
“Nope.”
“Know her?” he asked sometime later.
“Nope.”
Tuttle had recognized the girl who had been with Jack Gallagher in the clubhouse when he had first introduced himself to his eventual client, in company with the adhesive Isabel. This gave him an idea, bolstered by the fact that he too had noticed that fluttering drape. He could enlist Isabel's help to keep current on Jack Gallagher's activities.
And then Jack emerged with the young woman on his arm and they traipsed off through the gently falling snow toward the clubhouse. Soon they were lost to sight.
“I'll be right back,” he said to Peanuts.
“Where you going?” But there was disinterest in Peanuts's voice. Indeed, he yawned as he asked the question. They had consumed a bottle of Chianti done up in plastic webbing with their pizza and Peanuts had the air of one about to slumber. Tuttle shut the door gently on his somnolent colleague and strode through a snowy world to Isabel's door, where he pressed the bell once and then again.
“Jack doesn't answer his door,” he said, when she peered out at him over the security chain.
“I didn't see you knock.”
“Perhaps you've heard that he is my client.”
“Are you a lawyer?” Her voice rose with the question. He had earned distinction in her eyes.
“I thought you might have heard it on the news.”
She undid the chain and opened her door. “Tell me about it.”
It was sweet to give her an account of the suit he had filed on Jack Gallagher's behalf. Isabel was a good audience, in contrast with, say, Hazel, who listened to his braggadocio with a look of scornful skepticism. Still, Tuttle detected in Hazel's manner the growing conviction that she had boarded a ship that would not sink. Isabel was more forthright in her admiration.
“Someone actually assaulted him?”
“You can read all about it in the papers.”
“But I would rather hear it from you.”
“I'd be delighted. By the way, I was surprised not to find Jack home.”
“You just missed him. He and his niece went over to the clubhouse. I was thinking of going over there myself.”
“Niece?”
“Yes, he explained all about it. I think he was feeling badly about the way he received us when we went up to his table that night.”
“I don't blame him at all. No man likes to be interrupted when he is having a drink with a girl like that, even if she is his niece.”
“Her name is Aggie.”
Tuttle resisted her suggestion that he accompany Isabel to the club. “Maybe you're right,” she said reluctantly. “Once was an accident. Twice might seem suspicious.”
“I envy you your sensitivity.”
“Oh, Mr. Tuttle.”
Peanuts was asleep when he got back to the car. The permanent occupant of the bottom rung of the Fox River Detective Division had crawled into the backseat and was now violating the winter quiet with sonorous snoring. This afforded Tuttle a welcome opportunity for thinking.
The news that Amos Cadbury was representing Austin Rooney had shaken Tuttle. He had no illusions about his own courtroom presence, but to go up against Amos Cadbury was to invite unwelcome comparisons from a jury. They were as unalike as comic and tragic masks. Tuttle had the unsettling feeling that Jack Gallagher would be advised to entrust his suit to a more prepossessing lawyer than himself. The young man who had stopped by had had a legal look about him. Perhaps the treachery was already under way. Tuttle was no stranger to rejection. Time and again when he had seemed to grasp the nettle success, or whatever it was, the prize had been snatched from his grasp. Jack Gallagher had listened avidly when Tuttle explained to him what a litigious opportunity Austin Rooney had presented him. The idea was new to Gallagher and he had found it easy to identify the project with Tuttle, the one who had explained it to him. But at the urging of others he could be persuaded to exchange attorneys. It would be explained to him what a formidable adversary Amos Cadbury was. It would be explained to him that, on the other hand, Tuttle was ⦠No
need to complete the thought. Tuttle was not without self-knowledge. Keeping an eye on his client could thus serve a double purpose: the original one, and as a hedge against being dumped by Gallagher.
need to complete the thought. Tuttle was not without self-knowledge. Keeping an eye on his client could thus serve a double purpose: the original one, and as a hedge against being dumped by Gallagher.
He jotted down the tag number of the car the young woman had come in, as he had that of the young man. Maybe she was Gallagher's niece, and maybe not. Isabel had not shown an ounce of doubt about it. But then her eyes were clouded by the brilliance of her next-door neighbor. In the backseat, Peanuts turned over, with much snorting and blowing, and then slid down onto the floor. A moment of silence, and then the rhythmic inhalations and exhalations began again. Peanuts was a barrel of laughs on a stakeout, all right. It would have been nice to just voice his thoughts, consider all the angles out loud. Tuttle smiled at what must have been Amos Cadbury's reaction when he found out who had filed the suit on behalf of Jack Gallagher. But then his earlier suspicions began again.
The young man who had come earlier indeed had the look of a lawyer. Don't ask Tuttle what exactly that was, but he could recognize another lawyer at a distance of a hundred yards. Whether they saw their ilk in him, he did not know. The trouble with sitting in a parked car, looking out through steamed windows at a snowy world, was that there was no protection against wild surmise. It got into Tuttle's head that the man had been an emissary from Amos Cadbury, sent to brief Jack Gallagher on the less-than-illustrious career of Tuttle. Tuttle told himself he had been frank with Gallagher. He didn't claim to be Perry Mason but they had one helluva complaint and he was sure he could win. Not that he thought it would be necessary to go to trial. He hadn't mentioned this to Gallagher, since the old ham seemed to relish the thought of publicity. Publicity was a grand thing, of course, and Tuttle craved it as much as anybody, but a settlement would be better all around. Tuttle would settle for a couple hundred thousand, if pushed. His slice of that would be a pretty good paycheck. This had come up when Hazel's eyes widened at the amount of damages being sought.
“You're nuts,” she said. “Not a nickel less than a million.”
“Do you know how much two hundred thousand is?”
“Do you know what the Cubs are paying that no-good Folwell with an ERA of six-point-three who has lost more games than he's won?”
“There is no chewing-gum empire involved here.”
“They made that bum a millionaire! Four-point-five for three years! And you want to settle for two hundred thousand miserable dollars.”
“It is just a contingency plan.”
“Well, you better think again.”
Who was working for whom here? It was getting more difficult to tell. Somehow Hazel's imposing presence brought in business too, a few wills, a divorce case.
“I don't handle divorces.”
“You what?”
“I don't handle divorces. My father was against them.”
“Your father.”
“He's the Tuttle in Tuttle and Tuttle.”
“Which one?”
“Reading from right to left.”
“You don't have to approve of divorce to help someone with it legally, do you?”
“I would feel I was betraying my father. He put me through law school.” That simple phrase covered the six and a half years it had taken Tuttle to get through law school, plus another seven while he tried to pass the bar exam. Finally he had hired someone to take it for him. Between Tuttle and the memory of his father there was a link that approached the religious. Sometimes he thought his penchant for Chinese food disposed him to ancestor-worship.
“Was your father divorced?”
“No!” The thought shocked Tuttle. Hazel might have been suggesting he was illegitimate, or adopted. He didn't remember his mother, but according to his father she had been a saint. Well, his parents were
together now, strumming on those harps or whatever you do up there, and while it was his father he thought of as smiling down on his lawyer son, he supposed his mother was proud of him as well.
together now, strumming on those harps or whatever you do up there, and while it was his father he thought of as smiling down on his lawyer son, he supposed his mother was proud of him as well.
“That was your son,” Aggie said.
“That's right. Timothy.”
“I've met him.”
“I know.”
She squinted at him as they walked into the swirling snow. She had pulled the hood of her long coat over her head but snowflakes sparkled here and there, got caught in her eyelashes and were batted away. Jack found her even more attractive than he remembered her. “How do you know that?”
“Don't all lawyers know one another?”
“That's it. We met at a seminar. His name made me think of Colleen so I spoke to him and he was her brother!”
Inside the clubhouse they stamped their feet, took off their coats, and then were drawn toward the open fire.
“It's a night for eggnog,” Jack said.
“I couldn't drink it.”
“Why not?”
“Calories.” And she ran a long-fingered hand down her side, through the indentation above her hip, over the gorgeous thigh, and then down her leg to her shoe which she removed.
“To avoid calories you'd have to drink water.”
“Scotch and water.”
There were no waitresses here, so he went for their drinks. When he returned, she was staring into the fire, a leg drawn up under her, the shoe lying on its side. Jack Gallagher became wary. Thoughtful women were trouble and she looked almost melancholy staring into the fire.
She took her drink and sipped it. “There's more about your son.”
“I know.”
“What do you know?”
“Colleen told me what you told the girls in the ladies' room.”
“Colleen! I never said anything to her. It was ⦠well, impulsive.”
“My son has a wife and family.”
“Oh, God.” She pouted. Was he going to preach to her?
“Maybe that was the attraction.”
“What's that supposed to mean?”
“Think about it. And, of course, to zing it to Colleen.”
Her smile engaged only one side of her mouth. “Have I been under investigation?”
“Colleen was worried about her brother. It is difficult for women to believe the folly of men.”
“Is it?”
“She talked to her uncle about it, and he went to the bar where you and Tim had formed the habit of having a drink. Tim saw his uncle there and looked like a boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar.”
Aggie's smile had turned pensive. “So that's what happened.”
“Your last drink together?”
“Then I met you.” She got her leg out from under her and pressed her knee to his. Ah, the flesh is a traitor. After the drink, they hurried through the snow, arm in arm, back to his apartment.
Snow fell gently for hours and lay like a disguise on buildings that had not existed three years before. Once this had been farmland. Before that it had been a prairie full of wildlife and Native Americans, its rivers awaiting the first probes of Europeans. But for centuries these coordinates of space had known the wisdom and folly of the human animal. He and Aggie were not setting any precedent.
At three in the morning, Aggie slipped from Jack Gallagher's
condo and hurried, head down, to her car. It came to life and she drove off, past a car behind whose steamed windows a hatted figure slumped not quite out of sight.
condo and hurried, head down, to her car. It came to life and she drove off, past a car behind whose steamed windows a hatted figure slumped not quite out of sight.
A secret of Cy Horvath's success as a detective was his ability to replicate the nutty thought processes of the guilty. The incident at the El station had been labeled a copycat deed by Phil Keegan, and that was the accepted wisdom. But Cy had a hunch that Harry was back and was attempting to create just the impression that Phil had formed. Cy drove over to the Hacienda Motel to have another talk with Ruby.
“I read about that,” Ruby said. “It brought it all back.”
“I wonder if Harry is back.”
The whites of her eyes glistened. “Do you think so?”
“It's possible.”
“What's wrong with a guy like that?”
“It's been wrong for a long time, whatever it is.”
He told her to go on working, and he sat in a chair while she made the bed, took the plastic bags from the baskets, carried an armful of towels from the bathroom. Next would come the vacuuming, but she put that off. All the while she had been telling him again what she had told him before, about the honey-blond girl from rural Wisconsin, the only white girl on the crew. Large blue eyes and an oval face and teeth like an ad.
“She didn't know she was beautiful. But the guests did.”
“Did she ever go out with a guest?”
“Not from want of being asked. She thought they were kidding. She was so innocent.” Ruby stared down some corridor of memory toward the image of her own prelapsarian self.
“Anyone in particular?”
“Sometimes they're here for days. For meetings. There was one man especially ⦔
“When would that have been?”
“Two, three months ago. They was lawyers, I think. It was when Harry was trying to get her to move in with him. She had actually thought he had an extra room that would be hers.” Ruby rolled her eyes. “That girl. You wanted to protect her, you know. Like a daughter. One of my girls has sort of blond hair.”
“So what happened?”
“With her, nothing. But, once, they went up the road to a restaurant, after Linda was through for the day. Then he came back several times, but she was always working then, and I told him she couldn't be goofing around while we were cleaning.”
“So you'd recognize him?”
“Oh, sure.” Ruby looked at him. “But nothing happened. She was shocked when she found out what he was after, and told him he ought to be ashamed of himself. Can you imagine? She found out he was a Catholic like herself and she reminded him of what they both believed. That was the last of him.”
Lawrence, the assistant manager, had the look of a man trying to seem busier than he was. Of course there were records of past events held in the motel; why did Horvath ask?
Cy showed him his badge. “Just routine.”
Two and a half months before, there had been a legal conference at Hacienda. Cy went down the list of registered guests for those days and came upon the name of Tim Gallagher. It caught his eye because of the fuss Jack Gallagher was raising.
Cy went out to his car.
The former motel in which Harry had lived was still operating as a rooming house. There were pickups and semi cabs parked in the lot. In the manager's office a middle-aged man sat sneering at the television.
“Did you ever see such crap?”
“I don't get much chance to watch daytime television.”
“Well, that's what it is.” He gestured at the inanities on the screen, then pushed the MUTE button on his remote control. “What can I do for you?”
For the first time he looked at Cy. “Not you again.”
“I wondered if Harry had come back.”
The man shook his head. “They almost never do. A month or two in this dump is all they can take.”
“How long have you been here?”
“I told you before.”
“Remind me.”
To the manager's disgust, Cy went through all the questions he had asked him weeks before.
“If you wrote this down it would be easier to remember.”
“I remember. So far, your story is the same as before.”
“âStory.'”
“You remember that the reason I came was that a girl Harry had been going with was pushed into the path of a car and killed.”
“And you thought Harry did it.”
“He disappeared, didn't he?”
“You bet he did. He owed me for two weeks' rent. But I'll keep his things until he pays up.”
“His things?”
“What was in his room. I packed them up so I could put someone else in there.”
“You have them in storage?”
The manager had jammed what Harry had left behind into a cardboard box and a large shopping bag.
“You want me to go through those here or take them downtown?”
“I told you why I kept them.”
“I'll give you a receipt.”
The manager hesitated, as if searching for a way he might benefit from this.
“I'll forget you didn't tell me about this stuff before,” Cy said.
“Take it. I don't think even Goodwill would want it.”
“You looked it over?”
“It's all there.”
The sound of the television began as Cy closed the door of the manager's office. His name was crudely lettered on the door with a magic marker:
P. J. Sherman. Mgr.
P. J. Sherman. Mgr.
Cy turned the box and the bag over to the lab, where Lapin looked up at him with pink, nearsighted eyes. “What am I looking for?”
“I don't know.”
“I can't get at it right away.”
“When you can.”
He went past the press room where Tuttle was sleeping, slumped over a table, his tweed hat fallen to the floor. Cy went in, picked up the hat, and put it on the lawyer's head, waking him up.
“Horvath, how are you?”
“You ought to sleep nights.”
“Thanks for the suggestion.”
“How's your big suit going?”
Tuttle looked sly. “It will all come out at the trial.”
Cy pulled up a chair. “What do you think of Jack Gallagher?”
“What's to think? He's got a just complaint and I'm representing him.”
“You're up against Amos Cadbury.”
“Not even Cadbury will get Austin Rooney off on this.”
“They're brothers-in-law.”
“I know that.”
“How many kids does Jack have?”
“Two. A boy and a girl. Of course they're a man and a woman now.”
“What do they do?”
“Both involved in law. The son lives over in Barrington.”
“Timothy Gallagher?”
“That's the one.”
Cy thought of it as the Gallagher tangent. Any investigation, however halfhearted, turns up unusual things. He had no reason to suppose that Gallagher was the lawyer who had tried to put a move on Linda Hopkins. He could easily find out; if he had a picture of the man, he could show Ruby. Maybe he would do that, while he waited for the lab to see if the junk he had brought from Harry's motel could tell him anything he didn't already know.
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