He’d made two calls, first to the law firm that had handled the closing on his house. He had been transferred to a John Farber, who had listened, then said excitedly that it was an interesting case. The squad was the state; the state had deep pockets, and Farber probably had six’digit figures dancing in his head. “Although I doubt it’ll get very far,” Farber had said a little regretfully. “Unless they’ve really got something on you, which I gather they haven’t.”
“Nothing,” Adam said with perfect confidence. “Nothing at all.”
“Then they’ll come off it. I guess that’s what you want?”
An upswing in the tone, and Adam had thought John Farber was hoping it wouldn’t be that simple.
“That’s what I want,” Adam had said firmly.
“Well, as I said, unless they got something, a phone call and a follow-up letter’ll do it. Cops cover their asses these days.”
It had been a very satisfactory conversation and Adam was sure he was free of Latovsky.
The best defense is a good offense, his mother used to say.
Then he’d called Mrs. Alan Rodney, owner of the house on Raven Lake, and that was much less satisfactory. She didn’t know the last tenant’s name offhand, would have to look it up, she’d told him. He’d said he’d call back and she’d said to give her half an hour.
Half an hour was too short to get involved in something else, too long to sit staring at the wall or the page of a magazine. He went to the fountain and drank to get rid of the tinny taste in his mouth, then went downstairs to see if Davis had the results of Ellen Baines’s lymph-angiogram.
Davis stuck the floppy film on the light box and smiled hugely. “Real pretty,” he told Adam. “Lady’s clean as a whistle. Good news.”
Fabulous news, and Adam wanted to run up and tell her. But he needed more time to explain to her what was going to happen next. Sykes wanted to do prophylactic chemotherapy and Adam agreed; better safe than sorry, his mother would say. God, what a banal woman she must have been. A perfect match for the old man.
The drugs would make Ellen sick, but there were good antiemetics these days. She’d also probably lose her hair and that bothered some women more than the constant nausea and fear of death, but he’d found a beauty shop right here in Glenvale that sold human hair wigs at a decent price.
“What?” Latovsky snarled into the phone.
“It’s Lydia Rodney, Lieutenant. I do hope this isn’t a bad time.”
“No, of course not, ma’am.” He softened his tone. “I’m sorry.”
“I just had a very odd call that I thought you’d want to know about. From Raven Lake, from a little dry-goods store there. It seems someone charged a couple of hundred dollars, signed for it, then didn’t pay the bill. Whoever it was left the address of our house on the lake, but when the store called, there was no answer, naturally. Now they say they can’t read the signature and would I give them the name and permanent address of my last tenant. I can understand the signature being illegible. I’m afraid penmanship’s gone the way of sloe gin.”
“You told...” Latovsky choked.
“I did no such thing, Lieutenant.” She sounded insulted. “I told them I’d have to get back to them. But they said it was long distance, and since I was doing them the favor, they’d call me. Very odd, as I said. I know Nan Linz, the owner, and I can’t imagine her letting someone take two hundred dollars’ worth of merchandise with nothing but a signature or worrying about my phone bill. I remembered you were interested in the house, and surmised you might be interested in this.”
“Good, Mrs. Rodney, good and bless you,” he said weakly. “Now tell me about the caller.”
“Nothing to tell, really. He sounded perfectly ordinary.”
“He.”
“Definitely.”
Fuller.
Latovsky made his mind move as fast as it could and Mrs. Rodney had the sense not to keep saying, “Hello, hello... anyone there?” She just kept quiet and let him think.
Fuller was hunting for Eve. He’d found the house and something in it. Whatever it was hadn’t led to Eve yet or he wouldn’t have bothered with the store or Mrs. Rodney. But he’d found the old lady and would know she knew the name and address. If she refused to tell him, he’d wait until she and her maid were out, then he’d break in, pry open the pretty little antique desk in the sitting room or a mission oak file cabinet in another room, and there would be the last lease on 300 Lakeshore, signed by S. Klein of Bridgeton, Connecticut.
Or Fuller wouldn’t wait until the old lady was out, but would break in in the dead of night because two more murders wouldn’t bother him.
“Mrs. Rodney?”
“I’m still here, Lieutenant.”
“On no account give him that name.”
“I won’t.”
“There’s more, Mrs. Rodney. You’ll have to lie to him.”
She didn’t say anything.
“I want you to tell him you don’t know the name—don’t remember or never did know it. I want you to tell him you can’t get it either, because you burned all the papers connected with the house by mistake. Then, Mrs. Rodney, I want you to burn them.”
“What an odd request.”
“You’ll do it?”
“You think I’m in some kind of danger, don’t you?”
He didn’t answer.
“It’s hard to see what could constitute danger at my age, but I’ll do exactly as you ask.”
Adam’s face felt as if he’d been in the sun too long and his heart thudded against his ribs. Maybe it was just anticipation of getting his own way, but that seemed too mild for what was going on inside him.
He deposited the quarter, dialed, and the phone started to ring. He imagined the old lady (she’d sounded ancient) crossing a room and, rustling in her gnarled hand that couldn’t keep itself still, was a sheet of paper—a lease, a list, a rental record—with the name he’d been waiting for for what seemed like his whole life.
Her legs were thin, shot with bulging black veins, and the trip to the ringing phone was slow and difficult. She was almost there, he thought... three rings... four. Come on, old lady. He drummed his lingers on the shelf under the phone. “Come on!”
Then she answered and, with a few words that he couldn’t believe he was hearing, she demolished everything.
All he got for all his trouble was a hatful of rain. All he got for all his trouble...
“I’m so sorry,” she dithered. “It was a dreadful mistake, but the leases are ash and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“But surely, surely—” It took all his control not to shout at her (and he was amazed that he wanted to). “Surely you remember who was living in your house last week.”
“Surely, surely, I should,” she said, “but I seem to forget everything these days. Why, just last week...”
She launched into a long, rambling, Alzheimer’s-sounding tale, got lost in the middle of it and petered out in midsentence.
“Is there someone else who’d know?” he asked. He’d gotten some control back, his voice sounded all right. “It was a very expensive item... cashmere, you know.”
“Cashmere! I saw a cashmere sweater at Rosner’s, right in Glenvale. Right on Main Street, and they wanted three hundred dollars for it. Imagine! And this is Glenvale, not Monte Carlo. I think it was three hundred dollars... I think it was cashmere.”
“Maybe a member of your family...”he said desperately.
“My family? What about my family?”
“Would one of them know?”
“Know what?”
“Who rented the house.” His voice was scaling out of control again. He wrenched it back with an effort, concentrated on keeping it steady.