“I hope you don’t think I’m terrible,” she said, “being so concerned about money and everything. First and foremost, I want Joe’s name, his memory, cleared. We’re good Catholics, Mr. Heller, and I couldn’t even bury my husband in consecrated ground.”
Her voice was firm, her eyes clear. There would be no tears today. The death of her husband was over two years ago. This was about dealing with the aftermath.
“You have a right to worry about your own welfare,” I said, “and your children’s. That insurance policy would have brought double indemnity, making it...”
“Five hundred thousand dollars,” she said. It was a number she’d become familiar with. “As it was, we got nothing.”
I said, “No payout in the case of suicide is standard.”
“But it wasn’t suicide.”
“From what little I know so far, I’d be inclined to agree. But I’d like to hear more about why that’s your opinion.”
“Certainly.” She cleared her throat. “First of all, we have three children, Mr. Heller. Our son Alec is ten, Judy is six, and Beth is two and a half.”
“Beth was born shortly before Mr. Plett’s death?”
“That’s right. Joe was giddy over that little girl, loved her to pieces. He loved all his kids, and he loved me. We were happy. He was making good money, and we were very compatible, in... well, in every way.”
“How old was your husband, Mrs. Plett?”
“Please call me Marjorie, Mr. Heller.”
“Marjorie,” I said, and smiled. “That’s a very pretty name. One of my favorites.” I’d known a girl called Marjorie once. “And call me Nate, please.”
She showed me the smile again, briefly. “Yes, Nate. Well, Joe was thirty-one. A healthy, happy thirty-one, with everything to live for.”
“Husbands and wives can have secrets from each other, Marjorie.”
“The only secrets he had, if he had any, would have been related to business. It’s obvious this Billie Sol Estes individual was a bad sort.”
“He’s a con man. But he’s not a murderer.”
That puzzled her. “How can you say that, Mr. Heller?”
“Nate. Well, he wasn’t brought in by the cops on the Marshall killing, at least as far as we know, and he was already behind bars when the other suspicious deaths occurred. Including your husband’s. Had Joe ever suffered from bouts of melancholy?”
She shook her head. “Nothing unusual. Who doesn’t get blue from time, Mr. Heller? Nate.”
“No, you’re right. We all have our dark days. But did you ever see him get really low? Did he ever drink to excess?”
“No,” she said, with no hesitation, “and that’s one of the suspicious things that the police, damn them... I’m sorry... but they just ignored it.”
“What is?”
She raised a hand as if it held something invisible. “There was a half-empty bottle of whiskey on the front seat next to Joe, in the car. But the coroner said there was no alcohol in his body.”
I glanced at Lou, who just nodded a little. He’d obviously already heard the basics from her.
“I understand there was a note,” I said.
“Yes, Nate. Would you like to see it?”
“Please,” I said, but she was already digging in her purse.
She handed me a well-worn, folded-in-four photostat of the note. It said: BELLS EVEN TOLL WHEN A RAT DIES. THE BURDEN OF GUILT IS ON MY SHOULDERS. NO ONE ELSE IS TO BLAME. ALL OF YOU LIVE AND BE HAPPY WITH A CLEAR CONSCIENCE.
“Typewritten,” I said softly. “Unsigned.”
Lou was just shaking his head.
She said, “Joe was a letter writer, Mr. Heller. Handwritten letters. He wrote his parents and his sister at least once a month. He never used a typewriter except at work. And hardly ever there, because he had a secretary. If he were going to do something crazy like this, he’d write it out. He’d sign it. But he never would!”
I’d been wrong. Tears did come. She got some tissues from her purse and Lou edged his chair over to slip an arm around her. I waited. Didn’t take her long to settle down.
“I found him in the morning,” she said. Swallowing. “In our garage. When I went to bed, he was working in his little home office, in the den. He said he was expecting some phone calls from the federal agents who he’d been talking to about this Estes criminal. Did I mention that? That federal agents had contacted him?”
“No. FBI?”
She nodded vigorously. “Yes. Anyway, he was still up when the kids and I went to bed. The garage is on the other side of the house, and the front door, too, so if he let somebody in, or if somebody broke in and did this, you know, quietly? We’d never know.”
“Were there any signs of a break-in?”
“No. But if someone came around and it had to do with business, Joe would let them in. I’m sure he would. He would never have guessed that... well, that’s just not how he was.”
“He was talking to FBI agents. He must have known there might be danger.”
“But that Estes louse was in Texas. And Commercial Solvents is headquartered in New York.”
I wasn’t sure I followed that logic, but I nodded. “Marjorie, what’s your situation now?”
“I sold the house, but we didn’t have much in it. Still, it paid off the mortgage and gave us enough to go on for a while. We’re living with my mother now. Dad’s gone, as I think you know. You were friends, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I work odd shifts as a waitress not far from where we live. Back in Geneva now, so Mom can babysit. I’d like better work, but all I have is a high-school education. If we had the life-insurance money, possibilities would open up. Maybe I could go back to school. Or just live on it till the kids are grown.”
I raised a hand. “We’ll look into this, Marjorie.”
She sat forward so far she almost fell off. “I understand this will be expensive. Is it possible I could pay you on a time schedule? I know a retainer is standard, but—”
“Marjorie, we’ll take this on, on a contingency basis. Reasonable expenses and ten percent of what we get out of the insurance company.”
Her eyes grew very large. “You would do that?”
“Yes. But there’s no guarantee we’ll get anything out of them. So you’d be on the hook for the expenses.”
“That’s fine. That’s fine. Do you think there’s a possibility that...?”
“I do. These other suspicious deaths, two with carbon monoxide poisoning as the murder method, make proving foul play a real possibility.”
She smiled. For the first time I couldn’t see the scream behind the smile. “Thank you, Mr. Heller. Nate. Thank you. This is the first glimmer of light my family has seen in a very long time.”
“Family’s important,” I said, Sam smiling at me from his picture on my desk. Even the ex had a smile for me.
I came around and walked her to the door, then let Lou take her to do the paperwork in Gladys’s office. We worked through a lawyer’s office when client cases had sensitive issues that might benefit from confidentiality.
A few minutes later, Lou was shut back inside my inner office and seated across from me again.
“A third of that insurance money on a contingency case is standard,” he reminded me, grinning. “If it gets around that Nate Heller has a heart, we’ll be out of business.”
“Fuck you,” I said. “What did you think of that suicide note?”
“You first.”
“Everything in it seemed aimed at silencing other potential witnesses — ‘bells even toll when a rat dies’? If you talk and get killed, it says, ‘the burden of guilt’ is on your own shoulders, ‘no one else is to blame.’”