Okay, so she was talking in the present tense. That was how she was handling it. Tom wasn’t dead yet. Even if she had just read me his obituary.
She was saying, “When he got the chance to take on those questionable clients, with the connections to this Hoffa gangster, I could have said no. But the money was good. The money was very good. We bought a new home. We put money away for Mike and Susie’s college. If I had just said, ‘No, Tom, not those people.’ If I had said that, I wouldn’t have had to go to that nasty-smelling place today and look at him on a tray with a tiny hole in his chest.”
I thought that might unleash the torrent, but it didn’t. The gloved hands strangled the purse.
“Do you think,” she said, “that this big shot Hoffa or the gangsters he runs with are responsible for Tom’s death?”
“I don’t know. It’s possible.”
“May I tell you what’s not possible? A Chicago police detective, and to his credit he tried to be as gentle as he could, indicated the official theory is that Tom had a woman in his room, and that she robbed and killed him.”
“Yeah. I don’t buy that.”
“I would understand if you did. Businessmen on out-of-town trips, they sometimes see women. Girls they meet in a hotel bar. Girls they pay for it. Sluts. Whores. But not Tom. You see, we’re still very … this is embarrassing to say … but there is … there’s nothing wrong with our sex life.”
I raised a hand to indicate she needn’t say more. “Jean, normally I might tell you that anything is possible, even in a good marriage. Good men slip, the best husband can make a mistake. But I don’t believe Tom was killed by a woman.”
“You seem very sure.”
“The evidence indicates a male assailant, no matter what the Chicago police may say. But it is possible that it was a robbery.”
“How so?”
I explained my bellboy theory.
“That seems a little … elaborate,” she said. “The planting of the glass with the lipstick, the Trojan wrapper and so on. Improbable, but not impossible.”
“No argument.”
“Still, Nathan…” Her eyes had a glint now. “It could have been something else … couldn’t it?”
She was smart. Tom had married a beautiful woman but she was much more than that.
“Yes,” I said. “A professional killer might well plan to leave behind a false trail … like the lipstick glass, the prophylactic wrapper. That’s not improbable at all.”
“A cold-blooded, premeditated murder, you mean.”
“I do. If the errand Tom ran on Friday night turned him into a loose end, then … that’s very possible.”
She nodded, as if I had just told her, Your car needs an oil change.
“What kind of loose end had Tom become?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t. Possibly that money being traceable back to Hoffa’s man may pose somebody a problem. That’s just a guess. And I may be a loose end now myself.”
Neither of us said anything for a while.
Lou filled the silence with a question I should have asked. “Mrs. Ellison, when did you last speak to your husband?”
“Sunday evening. He’d eaten at the hotel. Must have been around seven. We didn’t talk long. He just said he felt stupid, this mess with the Bears ticket, especially how dull the game had been. We talked about the kids, some events coming up.”
A football game. A school musical.
She was saying, “I talked to him Friday night, too. After that burlesque club fiasco. And we spoke Saturday night. He’d taken a client and his wife to a matinee at the Shubert. I forget what was playing.”
They’d spoken every night he was away. I believed they really were still sweethearts. And it didn’t seem soppy to me. Not at all.
She turned from Lou to me. Sitting straight, business-like, purse firm in two hands. “All right, Nathan-what can we do?”
“Jean, it’s not going to be easy. If he was killed by a professional, for the kind of people we’re talking about … it can be hard, even impossible, to prove.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Tom says you’re an interesting man. He says people tell stories about you.”
Lou gave me a look, and I said, “Really. What kind of stories?”
“Tom says that you are a very tough hombre. That’s what he said, isn’t it funny? Tough hombre. That you sit in a fancy office in Chicago, but you’re more like some kind of … Bogart kind of detective.”
Lou grinned.
“I really don’t know what Tom meant by that,” I said.
“Tom meant that you have your own sense of justice. Your own way of doing things. That people you don’t like have been known to … just kind of go away.”
Lou stopped grinning.
I could have dissuaded her. I’m not sure why I didn’t. I could have said those were silly rumors, and just talk, people’s imaginations running away with them.
But I didn’t.
“Let me just say,” I replied gently, “that if the long arms of the law prove a little … short … I might sometimes find a way of evening a score. In certain situations.”
Lou’s eyes were wide. He was obviously surprised by what I was saying-not by the content of it, but that I uttered it out loud.
“I like the sound of that,” she said.
“You need to understand that I wouldn’t be able to tell you about it. And it might take years. Sometimes many years, before a score can be settled.”
“But maybe you could call me on the phone some night.”
“Maybe.”
“And just say, I don’t know, something like, ‘I think Tom would be pleased.’ Just something like that.”
I half smiled at the new widow. “I think that’s a phone call I might be able to make. Someday.”
She smiled back at me.
Then she lifted her chin, her expression regal now. “Well, I would very much like to hire you, Nathan. Things are obviously a little topsy-turvy right now, but I feel confident I’m well off. Tom has a big insurance policy, you know, his business is flourishing, and-”
I raised a stop hand. “Jean, no. This investigation was already paid for, by Tom.”
“No, I insist-”
“I’ll let you pay any expenses I incur. How’s that?”
“… All right.”
“And I’ll need your full cooperation. If any of my people come around wanting information about Tom or access to his private papers or anything at all, you have to provide it.”
“All right.”
“Good,” I said, rising. “I need to discuss the particulars of this assignment with Mr. Sapperstein … so for now, I’ll just show you out.”
I came around and helped her out of her chair, and she looked up at me and her lower lip began quivering. “Please, Nathan. Do something about this.”
“Count on it,” I said.
I walked her through the bullpen, which had cleared out by now. Lou trailed after. Gladys was framed in her office door, watching.
The reception area was empty, just a faint hint of Mildred’s perfume remaining-Joy, Jackie Kennedy’s favorite.
“Do you need someone to drive you?” I asked.
“No, I’ve done quite well today.”
“You have. But it’s going to hit you.”
“Oh, I know,” she said.
She took my hand, squeezed it, and-the picture of composure-stepped out into the hall, shutting the door behind her.
Lou was at my side suddenly. “Somebody should drive her back to Milwaukee. You want me to?”
“She says no. She seems strong.”
That was when I heard something fall.
I went into the hall and she’d collapsed, she was curled up against the wall, one shoe off, the purse discarded, weeping, moaning, grief coming up out of her in wrenching wails. I picked the little thing up in my arms like a bride and crossed the office’s threshold and rested her on the reception-area couch.
I sat next to her and she crawled over and hugged me, hard, and wept into my clothes.