“The doctor is going to release you today,” she said, without turning around. “Lieutenant Plinnit said he’d be happy to arrest you down in Chicago, if I don’t decide to charge you with something up here first. Best you leave town before I change my mind.”
“Haven’t you ever been curious why Darlene stayed on, after her sister Alta died? Don’t you want to know why someone would live out in that shack, for forty years?”
“There’s those of us who love Hadlow,” she said and stepped out into the hall.
CHAPTER 46.
I’d had much time to think, and to imagine, chained to my hospital bed.
Motives I understood. It was money, for Darlene and Koros. It was money, too, with Sweetie. She threw it away as she ran, to stop the killing.
Means, though, troubled me. I didn’t understand the clown.
I called Miss Mason from my wheelchair, out front, while a nurse assistant and I waited for Leo to bring around faster transportation.
“Did you talk to Darlene?” Miss Mason asked.
“I didn’t find her at home.”
“I heard you got shot.”
“Yes.” News like that would have traveled fast across Hadlow. “I’m still interested in that story Rosemary Taylor wrote in high school.”
“I found it, and read it again, last evening. Quite remarkable.”
“About a man who entertained kids.”
“Yes.”
“The man was a clown, wasn’t he? And he fell off a roof?” It was one of the things I’d become certain about, chained to my bed. Young Rosemary Taylor had written about a clown who’d gone off a roof.
“How did you know?”
“I’d really like to read it,” I said.
“So you said earlier. You also said you’re here on an insurance matter.”
“I can’t tell you what I’m working on.”
“Is Rosemary in trouble?”
“Yes.”
“Would the manuscript help or hurt her?”
“I don’t know.”
For a moment, there was only silence. Then she said, “I’m on my way out. I will leave it in an envelope outside my front door at home. I would like it returned tomorrow.” She gave me directions and hung up.
A blue Chrysler minivan pulled up under the canopy. The nurse’s aide started pushing me toward the curb, having recognized Leo. I hadn’t, not at first, not in such a vehicle. I told her I could manage by myself, and pretty much did, though there were moments when all three of us held our breaths.
“What were you doing, jabbing the sheriff about that long-ago murder?” Leo asked after I eased in. It was the first time we’d been alone since my chat with Ellie Ball.
“For a guy whose regular ride is a Porsche, your idea of a fun vacation rental is perverted.”
“Don’t sidestep. Though for your information, I thought you might need to be carted horizontally back to Rivertown, especially if you’d ceased breathing. Hence, the minivan. What was that with the sheriff?”
“As you said, I was jabbing, and doing it blindly. Motive, for Koros and Darlene, I can understand: control of Sweetie’s millions. What I can’t quite figure is means. What did they have on Sweetie Fairbairn, and how did they use it?”
“Something to do with that clown’s death.”
“That I think I’m about to understand. That can’t be all of it, though. There’s that gas station killing, and how Georgie Korozakis left right after, and then Sweetie, at the end of the school year.”
A smile played on his lips. “Shall I start this fine vehicle, drive us back to the motel, then on to the airport? Or do you think driving down to Chicago would be easier?”
“Driving will be easier on me, physically,” I said, adding slowly, “We’ll get back in the wee hours.”
“Yes.”
“About the time Ma will be firing up her new speakers.”
There was silence. Then he said, “I’m being played. You’re going to suggest an alternative?”
“More of a diversion.” I signaled for him to start up.
Miss Mason’s house wasn’t far. An envelope was leaned against the front door, as she’d promised.
“What’s this?” Leo asked, after he’d retrieved it.
“Confirmation, I think.”
We stayed in the driveway while I fanned the manuscript. It was thin, mimeographed in faint blue ink, and less than a hundred pages. I found what I’d expected quickly.
“Now what?” he asked, when I set the manuscript on my lap.
“Now, a return.”
Leo nodded like he’d been given a choice.
“Just a quick drive-by, to see if she’s home,” I said, when we were a mile away. It was an hour before sunset.
“You’re crazy.”
“Nobody’s said she’s been around.”
“Darlene’s around. Touch your shot flesh if you don’t believe.”
“She’s not being smart. She should be here, acting innocent, visibly renewing her vows of poverty until it’s safe to take off with the half million.”
“Unless she doesn’t want to be questioned, a frail sixty-year-old, for beating the crap out of you.”
“There is that, yes.”
We got to the cottage. There was no car parked in front.
“She could still be home,” Leo said uncertainly. “With another gun.”
He was nervous. So was I.
He pulled to a stop. I opened the car door.
“What the hell, Dek?”
I eased onto my feet. It was like standing in a rowboat, in a squall. I hung on to the outside rearview mirror.
He killed the engine, got out, and came around. “Didn’t I just remind you that you got shot here?”
“The memory is fresh.” So was the pain in my side. I started walking up to the cottage.
“Not to mention beaten, by that frail, older…?” He let the insinuation dangle.
“I believe I’m not the only one troubled by older women,” I said, dangling my own insinuation next to his.
He sighed, a fine confirmation that he was thinking about his mother and her friends, all of whom were no doubt jiving in the bungalow basement at that very moment.
He followed me to the door. I knocked. Then I banged.
No one answered. I tried the handle. It was locked.
“Maybe she went to town, to buy another gun,” Leo offered.
“Plan B,” I said.
“That would be?”
“You going through a window, to unlock the door.”
“Into a creepy cottage, to be confronted by a madwoman with a gun?”
“Just to see if she’s packed up and left for good.”
“Why pack? She’s got half a million dollars to buy new things.”
“She’s not home. Let’s at least look.”
“What if she comes home? She’ll call the cops.”
“No; she’ll shoot us with that new gun you said she’s buying. Best to hustle, Leo.” I pointed to the window covered by taped cardboard.
He went over to it. Sun rotted and soggy, it fell inward with a faint push. He hoisted himself up and dropped into the blackness behind it.
I waited by the front door, feeling every beat of my heart grind into the torn flesh at my ribs. The sun was setting. The road and the fields around the house were getting darker. I didn’t want to be there; I didn’t want to see a pair of headlights working their way down the road toward the cottage.
The lock on the front door clicked, and the door swung open. Foul air came out.
“Jeez, Dek, it’s bad in here,” Leo said from inside the gloom.
Memories of Andrew Fill in his trailer came back. “Bad-housekeeping bad?”
“I hope.”
I hobbled in, and he shut the door. “What are we looking for?” he asked.
“Fast enlightenment,” I said. The dark house seemed to be darkening by the second.
“Shit,” he said and went to the back.
The tiny front room was a mess. Soiled plates, crusted with ancient food, were stacked on an end table. One leg had broken off the couch and been replaced with a split piece of a log. Stubs of candles were everywhere, stuck to mismatched saucers and one in a ridiculous plated candelabra.