“Not so often these days,” he admitted. “I’m surprised someone your age knows that old song.”
“Then we’re even,” she said, getting into the car. “I’m still amazed that you listen to the Stones.”
He had no trouble keeping up with the noisy convertible. As it pulled out of the parking lot of the Express, he saw another car’s headlights come on. A BMW. Not the kind of car one usually saw parked in the alley near the paper. The fellow in the shadows? he wondered. It seemed to move forward as she made the turn, then stopped as O’Connor’s car followed hers.
He watched for several blocks, but he didn’t see the Beemer again.
O’Connor followed her to a quiet suburban tract, one of the ones built in the postwar boom. Her street was lined with modest homes and well-kept lawns. The grass was a little long in the yard of the house where she pulled in, parking next to a red Mustang. The house itself looked neat and well cared for, so that he thought the neglect of the yard was recent. Lights were on, and as he rolled down his window to wave good night to her, he could hear the sound of laughter.
She waved back to him from her front porch, but still he waited until she had gone in.
He went to a pay phone and called Helen. She wasn’t home.
He thought of calling Lillian, decided against it, and drove back to the paper. He looked down the alley and saw, as expected, that the BMW was gone. He drove to a small Irish bar he liked, a place about five miles from the paper, and hoped that no one from the Express would trouble to travel that far to drink tonight.
No one from the Express was there, but he saw a familiar figure sitting at the bar.
“Have a seat,” Lefebvre said to him, motioning to an empty bar stool next to him. “I’ll buy you a drink.”
“Am I supposed to believe you’re here by luck?”
He shook his head. “No. I asked Norton where you liked to drink.”
O’Connor laughed. “And of a dozen places you picked this one?”
“I asked him where you liked to drink when you wanted to get away from reporters. He named three of them. I checked them out and took a chance that it might be this one.”
“You frighten me, Detective. And if I hadn’t shown up?”
“I’d have a drink, go home, and think of another way to find a chance to talk to you.”
O’Connor ordered a pint of Guinness on tap. “All right, Lefebvre. The luck was with you. What can I do for you?”
“It’s been a bad night for you, I imagine.”
“Not entirely.”
“Ah. Miss Kelly.”
“Now just a minute-”
“Relax. She’s a nice kid, but she’s too young for me, O’Connor. And for you, too, I assume.”
“Definitely.”
“I’m concerned about her-the Yeagers might have taken notice of her visit to the coroner’s office today. And she made Woolsey nervous.”
O’Connor smiled. “Good for her,” he said, hiding his own worry.
He took a long drink, and another. Lefebvre didn’t say anything, but the silence between them was comfortable. When O’Connor had drained the pint, Lefebvre ordered another one. O’Connor noticed Lefebvre wasn’t drinking much himself. That didn’t bother him. O’Connor knew his own head to be a damned hard one.
“You can tell me about them,” Lefebvre said. “It will help.”
“Whom?”
“Todd and Katy Ducane.”
“I mean, whom will it help?”
“It will help me find their killer, I hope.”
“Read the paper.”
“I will,” Lefebvre said. And waited.
O’Connor took a drink of stout and said, “You’ve been a pain in my ass for five years now.”
“That bad? I apologize.”
“No,” O’Connor admitted in fairness. “Not that bad. You’ve never lied to me or intentionally sent me off on a false trail. You’re just far less willing to talk to me than most. Are you offering to help us out now?”
“Not to an extent that will allow a murderer to escape prosecution. But otherwise, yes. And you have a reputation for being trustworthy. Norton swears you will keep a confidence.”
“No kidding. But somehow I think you already knew that. So why the change of heart about talking to me?”
“Thank one of your fans.”
“Norton?” O’Connor said, and laughed.
“No, Ms. Kelly.”
“She didn’t talk to you about me.”
“No. I watched how you treated her. That’s all.”
O’Connor took another drink and thought about the fact that if Lefebvre had seen him at a dinner party a few nights ago, he probably would have wanted to knock him off the bar stool.
He stayed quiet, but Lefebvre didn’t move, just bought him another round. He began to admire Lefebvre’s patience.
What the hell, he thought. I owe something to those bastards for Katy and for Jack. And the child. The poor child.
“Norton said Todd Ducane was a lady’s man,” Lefebvre said.
O’Connor looked over at the detective. “Jack always called him ‘the Toad’…”
32
T WO THINGS KEPT ME FROM GETTING MUCH SLEEP THAT NIGHT-THINKING about what I had seen in the trunk of a buried car, and reading Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire. I was close to the end of the book, and until that evening, it had been scaring the bejesus out of me in a delicious kind of way. It was due back to the library the next day, and I had planned to try to finish it that night, but finding the remains kind of put me off reading about dead people. I decided I’d turn it back in and buy the paperback and read it when I could handle the idea again.
The living person named Max Ducane-or Kyle Yeager, take your pick- called me at work the next morning. He asked if he could meet me for lunch.
“I’m not even sure what to call you,” I said.
He sighed. “Max. Legally, it’s my name now.”
“Max it is, then.”
O’Connor came over to my desk, carrying his “Jack” box. I motioned him to take a seat. He was looking a little bleary-eyed.
Into the phone, I said, “So why, exactly, do you want to meet me for lunch?”
“I don’t suppose you’re allowed to date anyone you might be writing about?”
“No,” I said. I could see O’Connor watching me more closely now, shamelessly eavesdropping. I held the receiver a little closer to my ear.
“Okay,” Max said. “Not a date. I’ll tell you more about what’s going on when I see you-if I can see you?”
“All right. When and where?”
“How about if I meet you in the lobby there at noon?”
“Okay. See you then.”
I hung up and wondered if I was making a mistake.
“Who was that?” O’Connor said.
“He says his name is Max Ducane.”
“Oh, the former Kyle Yeager, is it? Well, I hope he’s nothing like his adoptive father, or you had better take a bodyguard.”
“You’ve met him-I think I’ll be fine, don’t you? Or do you want to come along?”
He seemed to space out for a moment when I asked-seemed so distracted I wondered if he had heard my question. But then he said, “Thanks, but no. I’ve already got lunch plans today.”
“When you said I should have a bodyguard-did you mean I’d better take a chaperone?”
“No. I meant bodyguard, but forget it. Kyle Yeager isn’t much like Mitch.”
“You think I’d need a bodyguard with an old man like Mitch Yeager? He’s a just a rich businessman.”
“That’s what he’d love for everyone to believe, isn’t it?” O’Connor said bitterly.
I stared at him. Clearly I’d struck some nerve.
“There is more than one way of doing business,” he said. “People complain of politicians being crooked? They’ve got nothing on certain members of the business community.”
“So why don’t you write about him?”