‘We don’t have time for this,’ she says. ‘We can talk about all that later. Right now I need to know a few things. This charge against your client. I need to know whether there’s anything you can do to get her off without Kathy’s help.’
The way she says this makes me wonder who’s asking the question, Marcie or Kathy Merlow?
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘A trial is a crap shoot. This one I wouldn’t want to bet on.’
Maybe she’s testing the ante, I think, trying to find out how much her information is worth.
‘Do you know where the Merlows are?’ I say.
She turns to the bag she’s been carrying. It’s on the desk. I think maybe I’m finally going to get some answers.
She opens it. Takes out a package, wrapped in waxed paper. Peanut butter and jelly on white bread.
‘You want half?’
‘No, thanks.’
‘How much do you know about Kathy and her husband?’
I know that they lived next door to the house where the murder occurred. I think they saw something that night.’
She gives me a face, no confirmation. But she has told me enough already for me to put the pieces together.
‘Then they haven’t told you,’ she says.
‘Told me what? Who’s “they”?’
She seems mystified, like there is something manifest, an obvious item I have missed. Part of the equation.
‘What do you know?’ I ask her.
‘I know your client didn’t do it.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Because I know who did it, and why.’
‘Kathy Merlow told you this?’
Her expression is a stone idol, but I can read yes in her eyes.
‘What did she tell you?’
‘Someone was hired to do it.’
‘The murder?’
She nods.
‘Who hired the killer?’
‘You want more, you gotta talk to her, to Kathy.’
‘Fine. Tell me where she is.’
A lot of deep sighing from across the desk, nervous hands all of a sudden, fingers to the mouth. I notice that her nails are chewed to the quick.
She studies me for a long moment, quiet contemplation. Then she reaches down and slides open the center desk drawer. She pulls out a small white envelope, the kind that carry little thank-you notes. I can see a penned scrawl on the outside.
‘I got this about a week ago,’ she says. ‘It’s a note from Kathy. Nobody else knows about it. I don’t think George even knows she sent it. She wanted something she left behind. I mailed it to her yesterday. I have to have your word that if I tell you where she is, you won’t tell anyone else. You’ll talk to her yourself. You won’t send somebody else.’
I give her a face, consternation. ‘Depends where she is,’ I say. ‘I’m preparing for a trial. Usually we use an investigator.’
She starts to slip the envelope back into the drawer.
‘Okay,’ I tell her. ‘I’ll talk to her alone. Nobody else. But I may have to subpoena her.’
She gives me a smile. ‘Good luck.’
There’s a rap on the glass behind my head. Cramped quarters. I look at her.
She is white as a sheet, more than a little fear. She’s looking at the shadow through the glass.
She silently mouths a single word: ‘Haslid.’
I read her lips.
But the light is on. Whoever is outside can see us through the translucent door.
He knocks again.
She gives me a little shrug, a concession like we may as well open it up and take our licks.
I do the honors. I get the door open just enough for the guy to stick his head through. It’s the mail carrier from the loading dock.
I can hear her breath of relief from this side of the desk. Marcie is hyperventilating.
‘Goddamn it, Howard — you took five years off my life.’
‘Good,’ he says. ‘Maybe you’ll get the hell out of here and go back to work.’
‘What do you want?’
‘Courier with a package for you.’
‘For me?’
‘That’s what he says.’
I get up, move the chair away from the door. Outside is a guy in another uniform — dark blue, with white running shoes, a white stripe down the side of his uniform pants, a private courier. He is young, maybe late twenties, good-looking, square jaw, hair cut close like something from the military. He’s either wearing an undersized shirt or maybe he does weights in his off-hours.
‘Got an express packet,’ he says.
‘This is looking like a fucking convention.’ Howard is pissed. ‘I’m supposed to be in charge when the man’s gone, and you put me on the spot,’ he says. ‘Finish up and get the hell out of there. He’s not supposed to be in here.’ The guy’s looking at me. ‘And you’re not supposed to be in that office.’
‘Just a couple more minutes,’ Marcie tells him.
Howard is the kind who screams and yells a lot, uses profanity like it is a second language. But he lacks a command presence. In any shouting match I suspect that infants probably throw up on his shirt and dogs lick his face.
Marcie looks at the courier. ‘Who’s sending me a package?’ she says.
‘Sign here.’ The deliveryman is in the middle. He just wants to do his job and run. He can’t get through the door, so he hands me the letter pack and a clipboard with the form to be signed.
‘She’s number eighteen.’ He puts an X on the line for her signature.
The package is heavy, bowing out the seams of its cardboard container.
‘And you’ — Howard, the postal employee, is looking at me’ — somebody wants to see you at the loading dock.’
‘Me?’
‘Is there anybody else in there?’
‘Nobody knows I’m here,’ I tell him.
‘Good for you,’ he says. ‘All I know is that somebody wants to talk to the guy who’s inside meeting with Marcie. Somebody knows you’re here.’
‘Who is it?’
‘What am I, Western Union?’ he says.
Marcie’s finished with the clipboard and I hand it back. The deliveryman is gone like a shot. At a quick jog he’s headed for his van. Howard looks at him, shakes his head, a mocking grin, like he’s seen the kind before, some butt-licking hustler looking to make an impression with his employer. Howard’s civil service. Besides, he knows there isn’t a hope in hell of his owning the post office one day.
I follow him out toward the loading dock. This time we take the direct route, through the center of the sorting area. Employees looking at me. Little sniggers. I can see Howard’s head shaking from behind. Like he’s running a tour and escort service.
We get to the dock. Howard’s friend is still loading the other van. Except for Howard and me, he is alone on the dock.
‘Where did he go? The guy who wanted to see me?’
Howard scratches his head, walks to the edge of the dock, and looks down the alley. Nobody. He asks the other carrier.
‘I dunno. Here a minute ago. Musta got tired waiting and left,’ he says. He gives us the government-issue shrug.
I look up the alley the other way. The courier is at the curb, standing at the open door of a vehicle, looking back over his shoulder in my direction. There’s no one else in sight, just an old lady and a vagrant walking down the sidewalk that cuts the alley at Seventh Street.
‘If he comes back, tell him to wait.’ I’m looking at Howard.
‘What am I — your messenger?’
‘I’m going back inside. Unfinished business,’ I tell him.
Howard gives me the look, the face of authority, withering like blossoms in a drought. He makes no effort to stop me. Alas, the man is not management material.
I head back through the door, wondering who could have been looking for me here. I didn’t tell the office where I was going. It couldn’t be Harry. One of those nagging things, like a ringing phone in the night, with nothing but heavy breathing on the line. An annoyance. I try to put it out of my mind.
As I clear the mail-sorting area, I am still filtering the sights from the loading dock, like light through a camera lens set on a quick shutter speed, fading images being processed, the man’s silhouette at the curb. Why, I think, would a private courier be getting into the backseat of a dark sedan?