I also needed to make a separate list of those he’d been blackmailing, the names on the manila envelopes I’d handed out tonight. Last names only. I’d been able to guess correctly which family member bearing the name was being blackmailed. Logic and familiarity dictated a husband in one case and a wife in another, whereas the third had been determined by my favorite scientific method, the lucky guess.
“Your handwriting is worse than mine.”
She slipped onto the counter stool next to me. Her perfume set off an alarm in my trousers.
“It was good enough for the nuns,” I said.
“The nuns always gave boys the benefit of the doubt.”
“That’s not true.”
“Sure it is. Think back. I went to Catholic school, too.”
“Since when are Sykeses Catholics?”
“My dad saw this movie when he was in Italy during the war. You know, one of those corny things where there’s a miracle in the end?”
“I always hated those movies. They always embarrassed me.”
“Me, too. But they didn’t embarrass my dad. He wrote my mom that he wanted all of us baptized Catholic right away. He’d already been baptized. So, anyway, after seventh grade, I went to Catholic school. And the nuns preferred the boys.”
I saw her looking at the list on my notebook page. I flipped the cover closed.
“I already saw it. I do the same. Make out a list of suspects.”
The night man came and took her order for coffee and a piece of buttered toast.
“So how’d it go with Rob Anderson?”
“He now has a lawyer, and a damn good one. Frank Pierson. Des Moines.”
“Yeah, he is good.”
“Pierson allowed us half an hour and he did most of the talking. Anderson just sat there and smirked. God, he’s a jerk.”
“You ask him about the tar baby?”
“Of course. Pierson answered that one, too, and said that it was just a prank and that it hadn’t even been constructed.”
“Because he couldn’t find anybody who’d do it for him.”
“According to Pierson, even if it had been built, it wouldn’t have any bearing on the case.”
“I’d like to hear him try that one in court. You could take him apart with it.”
“I did. In fact, that was the only point I scored. I said it spoke to state of mind and to motive — how much he hated Leeds.”
“What’d Pierson say?”
“Said it was tangential and a waste of time.”
“So I don’t suppose you learned anything new?”
Her coffee and toast came. She ate fast. “Haven’t had anything since lunch.” Then she turned to me and said, “Even if I did learn something new, I can’t share it with you, Sam. Remember?”
“Oh, right.”
“So it’s no fair asking me. I wouldn’t want to damage our relationship.”
“Some relationship.”
She swallowed the last of her toast. “You know your problem?”
“No, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”
“You love being in love. A lot of people are like that. And it’s fun. In the beginning, anyway. It’s like you’re high all the time. Everything is new and exciting — even though you’ve been through it with a number of people before — and it’s like you’re living in this state of grace. And that’s what you’re after.”
“I probably am. So what’s so wrong about that?”
“Nothing at all, Sam. I love that feeling, too. But I’ve been through too many ups and downs with men. For once in my life, I want to take my time. And you don’t. You want the exhilaration immediately. Two dates and we’re sleeping together and living in this Technicolor romance. And then in six or seven months it all falls apart.”
I gave it some honest thought. Because the night man was listening so carefully, I almost asked him what he thought. Maybe we could have a vote and he’d be the tie-breaker.
“I’ll tell you what. I think after the big heartbreak of my life — a beautiful girl named Pamela Forrest — I think I probably was like that. But I don’t think I’m like that anymore.”
“You know what, Sam?” She rested her hand on my arm. “I was sort of the same way. Rush into things and then watch it all fall apart. So why don’t we make a pact?” She glanced up at the night man. “How does that sound, sir? A pact?”
He smiled, wiped his hands on his grease-spotted apron. “I get up late in the mornings and my old lady always has soap operas on. This is just like one of those. A pact sounds great.”
“Do I get to know what this pact is all about?”
“Why don’t I tell you outside? We have some business to discuss, anyway.”
As we were leaving, the night man said, “Stop back, you two, so I know how it works out.”
We all laughed.
“Were you ever in that little wading pool over there, Sam?”
“Oh, sure.”
“I’ll bet you were cute.”
“Skinny, that’s for sure.”
“I can picture you, actually.”
We were sitting on the steps of the bandstand in the middle of the town square.
“So how about that pact, laddie?”
“Laddie?”
“I heard Maureen O’Hara say that on the late movie last night. If it’s good enough for Maureen, it’s good enough for me.”
“Yeah, I mean, sure, the pact I mean. Slow and easy.”
She put out her hand and we shook. We sat silent in the darkness then, watching a lonely dog sniff around the grounds and the teenagers roar by in their custom cars, radios blaring, Roy Orbison and Jan & Dean and Lesley Gore providing the soundtracks for all those high school lives that would make sense only years later to those who had lived them.
“Did you used to drive up and down the street like they do?”
“Sure.”
“Did the beautiful Pamela Forrest ever go with you?”
“Sometimes, when she was mad at tall, dark, handsome, and very rich Stu.”
“Her boyfriend?”
“Up several notches. Her god.”
“I had one of those in high school. My girlfriends always said that when he was looking into my eyes, he was actually looking at his own reflection.”
I smiled. “Maybe sadomasochism is the essence of all romantic love.”
“As long as I get the ‘sadist’ part, I’ll be happy.” Then: “You ready for some business talk?”
“Sure. Because ‘laddie’ here is getting a little chilly.”
“C’mon, then, you can walk me back to my hotel and we can talk along the way.”
And talk we did.
“Did you talk to the judge today?”
“No. I tried to get in to see her but she still doesn’t want to talk to me.”
“She’s going to the clinic in Minnesota.”
“Yes. I’ll drive her if she wants me to.”
“I know how much you care about her. But since she’s going there, it seems to me that we can go on with our original plan and work together.”
“I’ve been thinking about that, too.”
“Good. Have you also been thinking about who might have killed Leeds and Neville?”
“I keep going back and forth between Anderson and Hannity.”
“So do I, actually. But I’m not one hundred percent sure about either of them. I’ve been thinking about the senator, in fact.”
“The senator. He had the most to lose.”
I’d been wondering if I should tell her about what had happened in my office tonight. I did.
“I didn’t notice any bump on your head.”
“It’s gone down a lot.”
“You don’t think you should have it checked?”
“I’m fine.”