8
When I got into John's office, I turned on some lights, made up my bed, and got Colonel Runnel's book out of the satchel. Then I slid the satchel under the couch. After I undressed I switched off all the lights except the reading lamp beside the couch, lay down, and opened the book. Colonel Runnel stood in front of me, yelling about something he loathed and despised. He was wearing a starchy dress uniform, and rows of medals marched across his chest. After about an hour I woke up again and switched off the lamp. A car went past on Ely Place. Finally I went back to sleep.
9
Around ten-thirty Tuesday morning I rang Alan Brookner's bell. I'd been up for an hour, during which I had called the nursing registry to ensure that they had spoken to Eliza Morgan and that she had agreed to work with Alan, made a quick inspection of April Ransom's tidy office, and read a few chapters of Where We Went Wrong. As a stylist, Colonel Runnel was very fond of dangling participles and sentences divided into thunderous fragments. All three Ransoms had been eating breakfast in the kitchen when I came down, John and Marjorie in their running suits, John in blue jeans and a green polo shirt, as if the presence of his parents had changed him back into a teenager. I got John alone for a second and explained about the nursing registry. He seemed grateful that I had taken care of matters without bothering him with the details and agreed to let me borrow his car. I told him that I'd be back in the middle of the afternoon.
"You must have found some little diversion," John said. "What time did you get home last night, two o'clock? That was some walk." He allowed himself the suggestion of a smirk.
When I told him about the man who had been following me, John looked alarmed and then immediately tried to hide it. "You probably surprised some peeping Tom," he said.
The usual reporters were slurping coffee on the front lawn. Only Geoffrey Bough intercepted me on the way to the car. I had no comments, and Geoffrey slouched away.
Eliza Morgan opened Alan's door, looking relieved to see me. "Alan's been asking for you. He won't let me help him get his clothes on—he won't even let me get near his closet."
"His suit pockets are full of money," I said. I explained about the money. The house still smelled like wax and furniture polish. I could hear Alan bellowing, "Who the hell was that? Is that Tim? Why the hell won't anybody talk to me?"
I opened his bedroom door and saw him sitting straight up in bed bare-chested, glaring at me. His white hair stuck up in fuzzy clumps. Silvery whiskers shone on his cheeks. "All right, you finally got here, but who is this woman? A white dress doesn't automatically mean she's a nurse, you know!"
Alan gradually settled down as I explained. "She helped my daughter?"
Eliza looked stricken, and I hurried to say that she had done everything she could for April.
"Humpf. I guess she'll do. What about us? You got a plan?"
I told him that I had to check out some things by myself.
"Like hell." Alan threw back his sheet and blanket and swung himself out of bed. He was still wearing his boxer shorts. As soon as he stood up, his face went gray, and he sat down heavily on the bed. "Something's wrong with me," he said and held his thin arms out before him to inspect them. "I can't stand up. I'm sore."
"No wonder," I said. "We did a little mountain climbing yesterday."
"I don't remember that."
I reminded him that we had gone to Flory Park.
"My daughter used to go to Flory Park." He sounded lost and alone.
"Alan, if you'd like to get dressed and spend some time with John and his parents, I'd be happy to drive you there."
He started to push himself off the bed again, but his knees wobbled, and he sank back down again, grimacing.
"I'll run a hot bath," Eliza Morgan said. "You'll feel better when you're shaved and dressed."
"That's the ticket," Alan said. "Hot water. Get the soreness out."
Eliza left the room, and Alan gave me a piercing look. He held up his forefinger, signaling for silence. Down the hall, water rushed into the tub. He nodded. Now it was safe to speak. "I remembered this man in town, just the ticket—brilliant man. Lamont von Heilitz. Von Heilitz could solve this thing lickety-split."
Alan was somewhere back in the forties or fifties. "I talked to him last night," I said. "Don't tell anybody, but he's helping us."
He grinned at me. "Mum's the word."
Eliza returned and led him away to the bathroom, and I went downstairs and let myself out of the house.
10
I crossed the street and rang the bell of the house that faced Alan's. Within seconds, a young woman in a navy blue linen suit and a strand of pearls opened the door. She was holding a briefcase in one hand. "I don't know who you are, and I'm already late," she said. Then she gave me a quick inspection. "Well, you don't look like a Jehovah's Witness. Back up, I'm coming out. We can talk on the way to the car."
I stepped down, and she came out and locked her door. Then she looked at her watch. "If you start talking about the Kingdom of God, I'm going to stamp on your foot."
"I'm a friend of Alan Brookner's," I said. "I want to ask you about something a little bit strange that happened over there."
"At the professor's house?" She looked at me quizzically. "Everything that happens over there is strange. But if you're the person who got him to cut his lawn, the whole neighborhood is lining up to kiss your feet."
"Well, I called the gardener for him," I said.
Instead of kissing my feet, she strode briskly down the flagged pathway to the street, where a shiny red Honda Civic sat at the curb.
"Better start talking," she said. "You're almost out of time."
"I wondered if you happened to see someone putting a car into the professor's garage, one night within the past week or so. He thought he heard noises in his garage, and he doesn't drive anymore himself."
"About two weeks ago? Sure, I saw it—I was coming home late from a big client dinner. Someone was putting a car in his garage, and the light was on. I noticed because it was past one, and there are never any lights on in there after nine o'clock."
I followed her around the front of the car. She unlocked the driver's door. .
"Did you see the car or the person who was driving it? Was it a black Mercedes sports car?"
"All I saw was the garage door coming down. I thought that the younger guy who visits him was putting his car away, and I was surprised, because I never saw him drive." She opened the door and gave me another second and a half.
"What night was that, do you remember?"
She rolled her eyes up and jittered on one high heel. "Okay, okay. It was on the tenth of June. Monday night, two weeks ago. Okay?"
"Thanks," I said. She was already inside the car, turning the key. I stepped away, and the Civic shot down the street like a rocket.
Monday, the tenth of June, was the night April Ransom had been beaten into a coma and knifed in room 218 of the St. Alwyn Hotel.
I got into the Pontiac and drove down to Pigtown.
11
South Seventh Street began at Livermore Avenue and extended some twenty blocks west, a steady, unbroken succession of modest two-story frame houses with flat or peaked porches. Some of the facades had been covered with brickface, and in a few of the tiny front yards stood garish plaster animals —Bambi deer and big-eyed collies. One house in twenty had a shrine to Mary, the Virgin protected from snow and rain by a curling scallop of cement. On a hot Tuesday morning in June, a few old men and women sat outside on their porches, keeping an eye on things.