“Sit down, Mr. Cross,” she said wearily. “I understood you to say a moment ago that you intend to keep this matter quiet.”
“I will if I can.”
“What does that mean?”
“If you or your son are involved in these crimes in any way, obviously the facts have to be brought out.”
“Involved in crimes? The very idea is ridiculous, outrageous.” She scratched with carmine nails at her throat, the weak spot in her illusion.
“The facts are outrageous,” I said.
“Are they not? The most outrageous of all is the fact that you can’t get away from the past. It’s built into one’s life. You can’t wall it off or deny it or evade it or undo it. It’s inescapably and inevitably there, like a deformed child in a secret room of one’s house. How I’ve paid for my foolishness.”
“Foolishness?”
“In marrying George Lempke, against my parents’ wishes. I was just twenty, and a very spoiled young girl. I met him at a sorority ball in Champaign. He was handsome and charming – my story is quite banal, isn’t it? – and a returned war hero. Any young officer was a war hero in those days, if he had actually crossed the Atlantic Ocean. I fell in love, and married him. A few months after my child was born he was arrested and sent to jail. My father arranged a divorce, and I thought I was rid of George, free to raise my child in peace. But when he was released he found us again. He came to the apartment in my absence and stole Larry from me. They were missing for four days, living in a wretched hotel on the south side. Those were the most dreadful days of my life. My father hired the Pinkerton organization, and finally they caught him. Larry was safe.”
“What happened to your husband – your ex-husband?”
“We had him put away. In order to avoid publicity – my father was a leading figure on La Salle Street in those days – father had him committed to a state hospital. Unfortunately they let him go within a year.”
“Was he insane?”
“How could there be any question about it? Of course he was insane, criminally insane. A man who would kidnap his own three-year-old son, such a man–” Her voice broke off in a harsh discord. Her hand went to her throat again, kneading the loose flesh between the red-tipped fingers.
“Maybe he simply wanted his son to be with him.”
“If he had wanted that, he could and should have led an upright life in the first place. He was unfaithful to me before Larry was born. George Lempke was never anything but an evil man.”
“I suppose you know what he did yesterday.”
“I know. I realized when Larry described the man he had seen in the mortuary. George came to me back in November, you see. Somehow he’d discovered that we were living here and sought us out. I suppose he thought that he could get some money out of me. I told him flatly that if he ever approached me or my son again, I’d have him jailed.”
“Does Larry know that?”
“Certainly not. We never discuss his father. I explained the situation to Larry when he was a boy. Neither of us has ever mentioned it since.”
“And he doesn’t know that the man is his father?”
“Not from me. Can I depend on you not to tell him?”
“It might be good for him to know.”
“Good? How could it benefit anyone to rake up those dreadful things?”
“It’s on his mind,” I said. “He told me about his father yesterday, as much as you’d let him know. I think he may have recognized the dead man, more or less unconsciously.”
“Impossible. He was only three when he last saw his father.”
“Childhood memories often go back as far as the second year.”
“Not Larry’s. He has very little recollection of his childhood.” She pulled herself upright and leaned towards me tensely. “Mr. Cross, if you have any mercy for a woman who has suffered miserably, you will not tell my son the truth.”
“If he asks me for it, I’ll tell him.”
“No! You’ll drive him into insanity if you do, into suicide. He’s a sensitive boy. All his life I’ve had to look after him and protect him.”
“How old is he?”
“Thirty-four.”
“He’s not exactly a boy, Mrs. Seifel. He’s a man. If he isn’t a man now, he never will be.”
“He never will be,” she said.
“Not if you have your way.”
“How dare you speak to me like that?”
“It isn’t kind, I know. But kindness is out of place in some situations. It’s possible to kill a man with kindness.”
She rose, a dark, slim figure against the window. “I’m at your mercy, of course. I made one serious error thirty-five years ago, and I’ve been at the world’s mercy ever since. I promise you, however, if you do anything to harm my son – I have powerful connections in this county.”
“This is where I came in.” I got up and moved to the door. “Where is Larry now?”
“I have no idea. Your little blonde person came here about an hour ago–”
“Miss Devon?”
“Is that her name? She literally forced her way into my house. They drove away together in her car.”
I found them, still together, at the mortuary. Larry Seifel was standing over the table where the dead man lay. Ann was at his side, her arm around his waist. When they turned to look at me, I saw that both their faces were marked with drying tears. Seifel looked thinner and older.
Ann detached herself from him and crossed the room to me. “You know who he is, Howie?”
“Yes. Does Larry?”
“I told him, just now. I was talking to Mr. Forest this afternoon, and some of the things in Lemp’s record – well, they fitted in with other things that Larry had told me about his father.”
“How did Larry take it?”
“I don’t know. I’m waiting. But I think he already knew. He simply couldn’t admit it to himself.”
“What do we do now?”
“Nothing now. Please, Howie.”
She looked up anxiously into my face. Apparently there was nothing there to worry her. She went back to Larry Seifel. He was gazing down into the dead face, trying to descry the lineaments of the past.
chapter 26
My testimony to the Grand Jury took up most of the morning. I expressed my doubts about Fred Miner’s guilt, but I didn’t say anything about a red-headed woman. She was hearsay evidence, anyway. Molly Fawn was scheduled to testify in the afternoon, and it could wait till then.
From the tenor of the District Attorney’s questioning, and the comments of individual jurors, I judged that Miner’s guilt was taken for granted. The fact that he had died violently in an attempt to escape seemed to the jury to be proof of his complicity. Because he had been on probation under my supervision, they considered me a prejudiced witness. I was accustomed to that.
When I came out of the jury room, Sam Dressen was waiting for me. His nose was red and his eyes were moist with excitement. Behind him, on a bench against the wall, Amy Miner was sitting with a matron.
The door closed with a shushing sound. Sam grasped my arm:
“Howie, she’s run out on us.”
I thought for a bad moment that he meant Helen. “Who’s run out?”
“Molly Fawn. I left her here with Mrs. Johannes, about an hour ago.” He cocked an accusatory thumb at the matron. “The D.A. thought he might have time to put her on this morning after Mrs. Miner. I went downstairs to the office for a while, and when I came up she was gone.”