“Well, I hope that these questions won’t take up too much of your time.”
“Time. Heck, I’ve got nothing but time. There’s no job to do until they decide what they’re going to do with me, so I’ll be on sick leave for a week anyway. And it was a shock, you know. I’d been with him for more than five years. They always say, ‘Ask Martha. She knows where all the bodies are buried.’”
“And do you?”
“Well, that’s forthright! You’re doing fine. Maybe, to save you time I should tell you that I was the last person to see Mr. Yates alive. I left at five to five. It had been a scorcher and everybody took off when I yelled ‘Quittin’ time.’ I always yell that; it’s an office joke. But usually it’s closer to five.”
“Was he alone when you left?”
“M’yeah.”
“Was his bar open? Did he have a drink going?”
“You know Chester pretty well, don’t you? Right, he often had a drink on the way by five, but that day, Thursday, he had been out most of the afternoon, and only got back to the office at quittin’ time so he shot himself with an unclouded brain, if that’s what your little head is thinking.”
“When the police got through with their investigation, did you notice anything missing from the office?”
“You should get points off for hinting to the witness. There was a bar towel gone.”
“Anything else?”
“That’s all. Do I get a free trip to Los Angeles if I hit the right answer? It should be easy: I outfitted that bar myself, got the set of eight glasses from Birks, kept the bar stocked …”
“… and the books dusted?” She grinned at me a lopsided friendly grin that was half shrug.
“As far as you know, he hadn’t planned to meet anyone after five?”
“Search me. He sometimes did, but he never told me half of what was going on.”
“Speaking of knowing what was going on, did you ever hear him say anything about ‘C2’?”
“‘C2’? What’s that?”
“I think it was something on his mind. He doodled a ‘C’ with a two and I wondered whether it meant anything to you. It doesn’t click?” She shook her head.
“Nope,” she said.
“As you know, the police are calling Mr. Yates’ death a suicide. Did you think that he was at the edge? Was he all that depressed as the papers are saying?”
“That’s leading the witness again. You should learn the rules. But no. Between me and you and the gatepost, Chester wasn’t depressed enough to kill himself. He had had a lot of business worries during recent weeks, but that man loved living too much to go and shoot himself. He was in a corner of some kind, but he was more the type to worm his way out of it, or change the rules, or something, than to take the way out he took. I thought I knew him pretty well, but that just shows to go you, doesn’t it?”
“Ms. Tracy …”
“Call me Miss Tracy. I’m a Miss not a Ms. I’m not one of those women’s libbers.”
“Miss Tracy, then, I want to thank you for being so helpful.”
“You’re breaking my heart. I told you I haven’t anything else to do, except try to find a hat to wear to the funeral on Monday. I used to have one around here someplace. Oh, well. Now, before you get on your high horse and hightail it out of here, what’s all of this in aid of? Who are you working for? You beating the bushes for Bill Ward?”
“Why do you think I might be working for him?”
“William Allen Ward moves in mysterious ways his wonders to perform.”
“And …?”
“Well, I’ve never seen him ask any questions, so I always guessed that he had other people collecting answers for him. He’s organized that way, if you know what I mean.” I had finished my coffee and had memorized the view of her long rectangle of backyard visible through the kitchen window. We both got up and she walked me to the front door. “You think that there’s something that’s not kosher about Chester’s suicide, Mr. Cooperman, if you’ll pardon the expression?”
“Miss Tracy, I don’t know.” I shifted my weight and held the screen door open.
“Somebody did the bugger in, eh? Well, it figures. It could make very good sense, Mr. Cooperman. Goodbye, and let me know how you make out.”
“I will,” I shouted over my shoulder as I went down the walk to my Olds at the curb.
I drove across the CN tracks on a rickety wooden bridge and kept on past more stucco fronts and kids playing jacks and marbles in the sunshine out Pelham Road. Beyond the rooftops, the ridge of the escarpment hogged the horizon, with the green water tower on the edge commanding the best view of the city below. The creek valley followed me out on my left. Gradually the curbing came to an end, the houses gave way to deserted farms and acre upon acre of former vineyards, all cultivating real estate signs. Occasionally, the stream below curved, and I could catch the glint of it in the sun. After a couple of miles of this, I could see the ten blue pipes running down the scarp to the creek. It was a domesticated
Niagara Falls, where nearly the same amount of water fell nearly as many feet as the famous cataract, but encased in steel, so it was a wash-out as a tourist attraction. Nobody was interested in falling water as long as it was in pipes.
Zekerman had his name stencilled on his mailbox in such good taste I nearly drove by his gate. It was a big, rambling house, what they still call “ranch style” in the area even if it rises to two floors. There were three cars in the carport, which was an extension of the line of the green roof. I drove up his lane and blocked at least two of the cars from getting out. There was an Audi and two Mercedes-Benzs.
I got out of the car, stretched my back muscles and walked up to the aluminum screen door. A red-faced woman with tortured red hair answered the bell, and told me that the doctor was down at the potting shed by the creek or in the shed behind the house. I thanked her and walked around the left side of the house, past half a dozen green garbage bags stuffed with the outlines of cans and cartons, and a sick-looking Irish wolfhound with swollen joints in his legs. He gave me a quarter-hearted wag of his tail, then went back to his worries. By now I could hear Zekerman, or somebody, making a racket in the aluminum-sided shed. In the gloom at the far end, he was bashing a piece of machinery on a workbench.
“Dr. Zekerman?” I said as I came up behind him.
Zekerman filled a tall track suit with a college letter on it without letting middle age spill through the middle. He was balding the same as I was only I was doing it more neatly. He had let his remaining hair grow into long ringlets of protest against the unfairness of his genes. His foxy nose was sweaty, as was his brow. His eyes hid behind fashionable lenses that he had paid a bundle for. The face, concentrated now, looked ungenerous, unyielding, as though the cords which pulled down the corners of his mouth would never relax, and the lines which scored his face had disappeared over the edge of stubbled chin into those of his neck knew something far more serious than any good news you might tell him.
“Blasted sump pump gave out. I think it’s this valve, but I’m not sure.” He was looking suspiciously at the thing which seemed to have outlets and intakes all over it. He looked up at my face. I frowned encouragingly. “You know anything about this make?” he asked, and I denied it in a way that suggested even to me that I knew all other makes on the market. “I bled it for an hour, but it didn’t do any good.” I tried to deal with a picture in my mind of the doctor treating his sump pump to a jar full of leeches. I could see I was going to be a big help. “Hold this.” He thrust a flashlight at me and indicated that I was to shine it up the hole his screwdriver had disappeared down. I stood that way for three minutes or more, while he clanked about down below. “That’s it,” he said at last as he removed a clod of muck from under the flap of the valve, “I got it!” We exchanged grins, and I gave him back his flashlight. “Now, that we’ve got this fixed, maybe you can tell me who you are and what your business is.”