So far Tom had said nothing at all about Bob Bandolier, and all of this seemed like an unnecessary indirection. I had mentioned the boy, maybe vaingloriously, to give Tom some insight into the way I worked, and now I had begun feeling a bit impatient with him, as if he were ignoring some splendid gift I had laid before him.
"Do you know what movie was playing at your old neighborhood theater during the last two weeks of October in 1950?"
"I don't have any idea."
"A film noir called From Dangerous Depths. I looked back at old issues of the paper. Isn't it interesting to think that everyone we're talking about might have seen that movie over those two weeks?"
"If they went to the movies, they all did," I said.
He smiled at me again. "Well, it's a minor point, but I'm intrigued that even when you're doing my job for me, going around and investigating, you're still doing yours—even when you're in the basement of the Green Woman."
"Well, in a way they're the same job."
"In a sense," Tom said. "We just look through different frames. Different windows."
"Tom, are you trying to let me down gently? Don't you think Bob Bandolier was the Blue Rose killer?"
"I'm sure he was. I don't have doubt about that. This is a great moment. You know who killed your sister, and I know the real name of Blue Rose. Those people who knew him, the Sunchanas, are finally going to tell the police what they've been sitting on for forty years, and we'll see what happens. But your real mission is over."
"You sound like John," I said.
"Are you going to go back to New York now?"
"I'm not done yet."
"You want to find Fee Bandolier, don't you?"
"I want to find Bob." I thought about it. "Well, I'd like to know about Fee, too."
"What was the name of that town?"
I was sure he remembered it, but I told him anyhow. "Azure, Ohio. The aunt was named Judy Leatherwood."
"Do you suppose Mrs. Leatherwood is still alive? It would be interesting to know if Fee went off to college, or if he, what, killed himself driving a stolen car while he was drunk. After all, when he was five years old, he all but saw his father beat his mother to death. And at some level, he would have known that his father went out and killed other people." He interrogated me with a look. "Do you agree?"
"Children always pick up on what's going on. They might not admit it, or acknowledge it, but they understand."
"All of which amounts to substantial disturbance. And there's one other terrible thing that happened to him."
I must have looked blank.
"The reason his father murdered Heinz Stenmitz," Tom said. "Didn't that woman you liked so much say that Bob sent him to the movies? Fee went alone to see From Dangerous Depths, and who should the boy meet but his father's partner in a business arrangement?"
I had managed to forget this completely.
"Do you want to see what I found?" His eyes sparkled. "I think it'll interest you."
"You found where Writzmann lives?"
He shook his head.
"You found out something about Belinski or Casement?"
"Let me show you upstairs."
Tom bounded up the stairs and led me into his office. He threw his robe on the couch, waved me to a chair, and went around the room, turning on the lights and the computers. Suspenders went up the front of the pink shirt like dark blue stripes. "I'm going to hook into one of the data bases we used the last time." He put himself in front of the desk computer and began punching in codes. "There's a question we didn't ask, because we thought we already knew the answer." He turned sideways on the chair and looked at me with a kind of playful expectancy. "Do you know what it was?"
"I have no idea," I admitted.
"Bob Bandolier owned a property at Seventeen South Seventh Street, right?"
"You know he did."
"Well, the city has records of all leaseholders and property owners, and I thought I'd better make sure that address was still listed under his name. Just watch, and see what turned up."
He had linked his computer to the mainframe at Armory Place and through it to the Registrar of Deeds. The modem burped. "I just keyed in the address," Tom said. "This won't take long."
I looked at the blank gray screen. Tom leaned forward with his hands on his knees, smiling to himself. Then I knew. "Oh, it can't be," I said.
Tom put his finger to his lips. "Shhh."
"If I'm right…" I said.
"Wait." RECEIVE flashed in the upper left corner of the screen. "Here we go," Tom said, and leaned back. A column of information sped down the screen.
17 SOUTH SEVENTH STREET
PURCHASED 04/12/1979 ELVEE HOLDINGS CORP 314 SOUTH FOURTH STREET MILLHAVEN IL
PURCHASE PRICE $1,000
PURCHASED 05/01/1943 ROBERT BANDOLIER 14B SOUTH WINNETKA STREET MILLHAVEN IL
PURCHASE PRICE $3,800
"Good old Elvee Holdings," Tom said, virtually hugging himself in gleeful self-congratulation and smiling like a new father.
"My God," I said. "A real connection."
"That's right. A real connection between the two Blue Rose cases. What if Bob Bandolier is the man who's been following you?"
"Why would he do that?"
"If he tried to kill the Sunchanas after seeing you in Elm Hill, he didn't want them to tell you something."
I nodded.
"What is it?"
"They knew that he killed his wife. They told me about the roses."
"The Belknaps could have told you about the roses. And a doctor signed Anna Bandolier's death certificate. She's been dead so long that no one could prove that she had been beaten. But the Sunchanas knew about the existence of Fielding Bandolier."
"But anyone who asked the Sunchanas the right questions would find out what he had done."
"And find out that he had a son. I think the person who followed you was Fee."
I stopped breathing. Fee Bandolier had tried to kill the Sunchanas. Then I realized what a long leap Tom had made. "Why do you even think that Fee came back to Millhaven? He's had forty years to get as far away as he can."
Tom asked me if I remembered the price Elvee had paid for the house on South Seventh.
I looked at the screen of the monitor, but the letters and numbers were too small to read from across the room. "I think it was something like ten thousand dollars."
"Take a look."
I walked up beside him and looked at the screen.
"A thousand?"
"You saw ten thousand because you expected to see something like that. Elvee bought the house for next to nothing. I think that means that Elvee Holdings is Fee Bandolier. And Fee protects himself here, too, by putting up a smoke screen of fake directors and a convenience address."
"Why would Bob give him his house? He sent him away when he was five. As far as we know, he never saw him again." Tom held up his hands. He didn't know. Then another of Tom's conclusions fell into place for me. "You think Fee Bandolier was the man in uniform, the soldier who threatened Frank Belknap."
"That's right. I think he came back to take possession of the house."
"He's a scary guy."
"I think Fee Bandolier is a very scary guy," Tom said.
19
"I want to see if we can talk to Judy Leatherwood," he said. "Go down the hall to the bedroom and pick up the telephone next to the bed when I tell you. In the meantime, I'll try to get her number from Information."
He pulled a telephone book out of a drawer and started looking for dialing codes in Ohio. I went into the hall, pushed open the door to a darkened room, and went inside and turned on the light. A telephone stood on an end table at the side of a double bed.
"Success," Tom called out. "Pick up now."