Cindy McCabe had at last stopped sobbing. She sat on the couch with her hands in her lap and her knees primly together. She spoke only when spoken to. Her voice was low and almost indistinct. Once again, for the benefit of Captain Colder, she told her story. Dill then repeated his, and Anna Maude Singe hers. Colder looked questioningly at Sergeant Meek, who by then had already heard the same stories three times. The Sergeant gave the Captain a small nod.
Colder looked thoughtfully at Dill. “Let’s you and me go in the kitchen.”
“Officially?” Dill said.
“What d’you mean, officially?”
“If it’s official,” Dill said, “she goes with me.” He nodded at Anna Maude Singe.
“You want your lawyer along, bring her along,” Colder said and started toward the kitchen. Dill and Singe followed. They stood and watched Colder open the freezer, remove his pint of ice cream, find a spoon, sit down at the kitchen table, twist the top off the pint, and begin eating the fudge ripple, offering them only the explanation “I didn’t have any dinner.”
They also stood and watched as Colder finished almost half the pint, rose, put the top back on, and replaced the container in the freezer. As he sat back down at the table, he looked up at Dill and asked, “What d’you know about Harold Snow?”
“Not much.”
“Felicity ever write you about him?”
“No,” Dill said and turned to Singe. “You want to sit down?”
She shook her head. “I’d just as soon stand.”
Colder pushed a chair out from the kitchen table, but neither Singe nor Dill sat in it. “We started checking into Harold right after Felicity died,” Colder said. “And guess what we found?” He answered his own question. “Harold was all bent out of shape.”
“Dishonest, you mean,” Singe said with a small polite smile.
“Very,” Colder said.
Dill shook his head in apparent disbelief. “He told me he was a home-computer salesman.”
“He was, part of the time,” Colder said, “but he worked strictly on commission, and if he didn’t feel like working some days, well, he didn’t have to. He could stay home. Or go somewhere else and be what he was really good at, which was a thief.”
“What’d he steal?” Dill said.
“Time.”
“Time?”
“Computer time,” Colder said, “mainframe, which is pretty valuable.”
“So I understand,” Dill said.
“Well, Snow would locate it, figure out how to steal it, and sell it. He was sort of a computer and electronics genius. Some people are like that. They might not be too bright about most things, but they’re real technical geniuses. You’ve known guys like that, haven’t you, Dill?”
“I don’t think so,” Dill said.
“What about you, Miss Singe?”
“I haven’t either.”
“Huh. I thought everybody had. Well, when Snow wasn’t stealing and selling computer time, he was doing something else that wasn’t too nice either. He was tapping people’s phones and bugging their offices and bedrooms and stuff like that, although I doubt if we could really prove it now. But guess who his last customer was?”
“You don’t want me to guess,” Dill said.
“You’re right. I don’t. Well, his last customer was Clay Corcoran — who dropped dead at your feet yesterday in the cemetery. And now poor old Harold drops dead at your feet here tonight. How’s that for coincidence, Mr. Dill?”
“Strange and rare,” Dill said. “But let me ask you this: what the hell’ve Snow and Corcoran got to do with who killed Felicity?”
Colder stared for several seconds at Dill. It was a stare that Dill felt contained nothing but distrust and dislike. “We’re working on that,” Colder said finally. “In fact, we’re working on that very, very hard.”
Colder rose from the table, took his pint of fudge ripple out of the freezer, and headed back toward the living room. Dill and Singe followed. Cindy McCabe was still seated on the couch, her hands in her lap, her knees pressed tightly together. Colder went over to her.
“Miss McCabe?”
She looked up at him. “Yes?”
“Is there anyone we can call for you — about Harold?”
She dropped her eyes. “There’s his brother,” she said.
“What’s his name?”
“Jordan Snow.”
“Do you have his number?”
“No, but you can get it from long-distance information. Back home, he’s the only Jordan Snow in the book.”
Colder turned to Sergeant Meek. “Have somebody call the brother and tell him what happened.”
“Where’s back home?” Sergeant Meek asked.
“Kansas City,” Colder said.
“Right,” Sergeant Meek said.
Chapter 31
They argued all the way to the Hawkins Hotel. It turned nasty as they got out of the rented Ford in the hotel basement garage and headed toward the elevator. They fought in the elevator. They were still fighting when Dill unlocked the door to room 981 and held it open for Anna Maude Singe, who sailed into the room, trailing the accusation “goddamned fool” behind her.
“It’ll work,” Dill said, closing the door.
“Never,” she snapped.
“Watch,” he said and crossed to the phone. After picking it up he looked at her questioningly. “Well?”
“What is it with you anyway?” she demanded, her tone furious, her face pink and angry beneath the tan. “Do I owe you something? For what? Because we fooled around a couple of times? I don’t owe you anything, Dill. Not one damned thing.”
Dill was dialing now. “Sure you do,” he said. “You’re my sweetie.”
“Your sweetie! Christ, I don’t even like you anymore. I’m your lawyer. That’s all. And all I have to do is give you sound advice. Well, here’s some: don’t make that call. You want to call somebody, call the FBI.”
“Somebody’s already called them,” Dill said as he listened to the phone ring. “In Washington. If I called them and I’m wrong, it would just screw up the deal the Senator’s got with them. This way — well, if I’m wrong, nothing happens.”
“Nothing good,” she said as Daphne Owens answered the phone on its fifth ring. Dill identified himself and a few seconds later Jake Spivey came on with “I got your message, Pick, there at the tail end of the tape. I think you kinda shook old Chief Strucker up some. You really think he knows who killed Felicity?”
“He thinks he does.”
“So what’s on your mind?”
“How would you like to get Clyde Brattle off your back for good?”
Spivey didn’t answer immediately. When he did, it was with a cautious question: “Do a deal with him, you mean?”
“Something like that.”
“What kind of deal?”
“Not over the phone, Jake. But I think I’ve got an idea you two should sit down and talk about — just you, him, and me.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow night after you’re both through with the Senator.”
“Where?” Spivey said. “Where’s gonna be important, Pick. In a sitdown with Clyde, where’s gonna be almost as important as what we’re gonna talk about. So where’s where gonna be?”
“Just a second,” Dill said. He pressed the phone against his chest and looked at Anna Maude Singe, who was now lying on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. “Well?” Dill said.
She didn’t look at him. She was still staring at the ceiling when she said, “Okay. My place.”
Dill put the phone back to his ear. “I’m thinking of Anna Maude’s place in the Old Folks Home, but there’re still a couple of details to work out. Let me call you back in fifteen or twenty minutes.”
“I’ll be here,” Spivey said and hung up.