‘May I help you?’
And then she did it. She raised her left hand and upon a certain finger was enshrined a certain kind of ring, one generally associated with the institution called marriage.
‘I’d like to see Detective Fogarty.’
‘Your name, please.’
After I told her, she said, ‘Why don’t you take a seat over there. She’s got somebody with her right now. But she shouldn’t be long.’
This was the same speech you heard in dental offices.
I sat down on a tufted dark blue couch that was so comfortable I had to resist the impulse to close my eyes and take a nap. Detective Fogarty would no doubt be impressed if she had to wake me up.
She appeared in a few minutes, a slender black woman barely tall enough to pass the height requirement. In her white blouse and black skirt and somber black-framed glasses she resembled a grad student more than a detective. Of course there were clues as to her real profession: the badge and gun clipped to her belt. She didn’t look much older than thirty.
‘My office is right down the hall. If you’ll follow me, please.’
She stood aside to let me walk in first. She pointed to a chair in front of her small metal desk. She was apparently a woman of few words. She closed the door then walked around to her own chair and sat down.
Numerous degrees, plaques, and a few photos of officials looking important covered the east wall. The right was given to framed photos of her family. All ages. A history there. If your eye was careful enough you noticed that the backdrop for many of the shots — including the two of her as a teenager — was the inner city.
She caught me looking. ‘Vanity.’
‘Not at all. The vanity is all those photos with you and those city officials. The family pictures are great.’
‘You know I never thought of it that way. But you’re right. That’s a very good point.’
‘I’m not as dumb as I look.’
She laughed. ‘That remains to be seen.’
‘Good one.’
She picked up a yellow Ticonderoga pencil and began to tap it against her left hand. ‘I dragged you down here because you appear to be the last person James Waters talked to before he was murdered.’
‘The last person you know of, you mean.’
‘The last person we know of so far.’ Then: ‘I’m told you and he were going to meet for dinner.’
‘He didn’t show up.’
‘Did he contact you to say he wouldn’t be there?’
‘No. The next time I heard his name mentioned was when I heard about his death.’
‘That’s when you met Lieutenant Neame, I suppose.’
‘Right.’
‘I’m taking over the case. The lieutenant is busy with two open cases that the mayor is very concerned about.’
‘I see.’
She dropped the pencil in her pencil holder and then folded her hands on the desk. ‘I realize that you didn’t have much of a chance to talk to him. I’ve already figured out your itinerary for the day.’
‘I probably spent seven or eight minutes talking to him in total.’
‘But he still wanted to go out and have dinner.’
‘Nothing notable about that, Detective Fogarty. Political people love to talk. War stories about old campaigns, kibitzing about how the new one is going. From what I’ve been able to gather he was a pretty lonely guy. Probably needed the company.’
She nodded and then gave me one of those assessing looks that are meant to intimidate. ‘What if he knew something he wasn’t supposed to?’
‘If he did I don’t know what it was.’
‘But he wanted to go out to dinner. You’d met him in a meeting for a very little time and yet you invited him to dinner.’
‘Well, “invited” is a little strong. We were going to have a little food, that’s all. It wasn’t anything formal.’
‘Did you get the sense that he wanted to tell you something? Was there any urgency when he talked to you?’
In fact, there had been. ‘No — I mean, I didn’t notice any.’ She wanted to keep me talking in case I’d accidentally say something she wanted to hear. I had to be careful. As much as I hated it, I needed to protect Ward, at least for now.
‘I see. You weren’t concerned when he didn’t show up?’
‘There was no chance to be concerned. Lucy Cummings called and woke me up from a nap and told me what had happened. That changed everything.’
‘The staff people I interviewed this morning said that they were worried about James Waters. Said that he had seemed agitated lately.’
‘Again, I knew him so briefly I had nothing to judge that against. He seemed anxious I suppose, but everybody gets that way when a campaign is this tight. And Burkhart has a lot more money than the Ward people do.’
‘They’re both wealthy.’
‘True. But Burkhart has access to a lot of right-wing money. They’re spending millions this election cycle.’
‘That’s what I hear.’ She gave me the police stare again. ‘So you’re a hired gun.’
‘In a way. I’m here as a favor to Jeff Ward’s father. He saved my father’s life back when they worked together. Tom Ward was my father’s protege.’
Her phone buzzed. She hit the intercom button. ‘Yes?’
‘Just wanted to remind you that you have the meeting in the chief’s office in less than ten minutes.’
‘Thanks, Julie.’ Her full attention came back to me. ‘So you’re here just as a favor. You’re an established hired gun who’s seen all kinds of problems with campaigns over the years. I have the sense that you’re also good at reading people. Picking up on their moods, maybe even their thoughts through their expressions and body language.’
‘You’re giving me way too much credit.’
She brushed aside my humble pie. Irritation crackled in her dark eyes. ‘But somehow you don’t pick up on somebody who to everybody else is clearly in some kind of distress. And he asks to talk to you and you don’t sense any urgency.’
‘I told you, you’re giving me too much credit. I’m no mastermind.’
She stood up. ‘If I didn’t have a meeting I need to go to I’d keep you here until you started telling me the truth. I have pretty good instincts, Mr Conrad. To me it’s obvious that there’s something you’re not telling me.’
‘I don’t like being called a liar.’
‘Well, now you know how I feel. I don’t like being lied to. And holding something back is a lie any way you look at it. If you want to get technical, you left campaign headquarters before our people could interview you — after you’d been ordered to stay.’
‘Requested to stay. Not ordered.’
‘You also lied to the apartment house manager about Mr Waters wanting you to pick up something in his apartment. You got there ahead of the police.’
‘A good lawyer, and I have access to one, would be able to show that neither of those are violations of law. A) I’ve made myself available to you and other detectives and I’ve answered all your questions. And B) yes, I lied to the apartment manager but at that time there was no indication that Waters’ apartment was part of a police investigation.’
‘What were you looking for in Waters’ apartment?’
‘I’ll be honest. I wanted to make sure his apartment wasn’t some kind of drug den or sex den. Things the press could make something of. Very bad for our campaign.’
‘How did you get in?’
‘Somebody at headquarters loaned me a key.’
Bitter amusement in her intriguing eyes. She touched her sternum as if her stomach was sending up fiery spears of pain. ‘No wonder people are cynical about politics with consultants like you running around. You’re not cooperating one damn bit and you know it.’
She walked around the desk to the door. She opened it and stood back for me to pass through. ‘I want a call before you leave town.’
Our gazes clashed.
As I started to walk through the door she said, ‘And that’s an order.’
TWELVE
I drove straight to the hotel.