I waved it off and she showed me into Tripp’s big office and sat me in the leather chair by his desk. The office was done in green. The walls and woodwork were green. The rug was a green Oriental, the furniture was cherry, the high-backed swivel chair behind Tripp’s desk was cherry with green leather upholstery. The long desk had a red leather top, with a gold leaf design around the edges of it. There was a wet bar at the far end of the office, and a fireplace on the wall behind Tripp’s desk. It was faced in a sort of plum-colored tile with a vine pattern running through the tiles, and it was framed on each side by big cherry bookcases. The books looked neat and mostly unread. A lot of them were leather-bound to match the room. In two of the four corners there were cherry corner cabinets with ornate tops, and gold leaf dentil molding highlighting them. The corner cupboards were filled with designer knickknacks, and in the middle shelf on one of them was a picture of Olivia Nelson, or whoever the hell she had been, as a younger woman. Tripp’s desktop was empty except for the onyx pen set, a telephone, and a big three-check checkbook. The checkbook was set square in the center of the desk as if to demand reconciling as soon as you sat down. I picked it up and opened the ledger pages, and ran back through them looking for my check. As I read, I noticed that there was no running balance. Each check was carefully entered, numbered and dated, but there was no way, looking at the checkbook, to know how much you had. I found my check, right below a check to Dr. Mildred Cockburn. I read back further. There were checks every month to Dr. Cockburn. All the entries were in the same thin hand. I’d seen it on my check. Most of the other checks were obvious. Telephone, electricity, insurance, cleaners, credit card payments. The only recurring one that was not obvious was Dr. Cockburn. Many of the check entries had Returned written across the original entry, in red ink, in the same hand, including several of Dr. Cockburn’s. I looked a little harder. There seemed to be no checks rewritten to make good the ones that bounced. Something else was off in the check register. I didn’t get it for a minute. I went back through more pages. And then I saw it. There were no deposits. In the whole ledger, there was no deposit entry. I put the checkbook back, and sat, and thought about that, and in a while, Tripp came into his office carrying a folded copy of The Wall Street Journal.
“Spenser,” he said. “Good of you to come.”
We shook hands, and he went around his desk and got into his padded leather swivel. He put the paper on the desk next to the checkbook, which he straightened automatically so that it was exactly square with the desk.
“Do you have a report for me?”
“Not exactly,” I said. “Maybe a couple of more questions.”
“Oh, certainly. But I am disappointed. I was hoping you’d have something.”
I had something all right. But what the hell was it?
“Have you ever met any of your wife’s family?” I said.
“No. She had none. That is, of course, had she one once, but they all died before I met her. She was quite alone, except for me.”
“Ever been to Alton?” I said.
Tripp smiled sadly.
“No. There was never any reason.”
I nodded. We were both silent for a moment.
“Sometimes,” Tripp said, “I think I ought to go down there, walk around, look at the places where she walked, went to class, had friends.”
He gazed past me, up toward the ceiling. Far below us, where State Street met Congress, there was traffic, and tourists looking at the marker for the Boston Massacre, and meter maids, and cabbies. Up here there was no hint of it. In Tripp’s office you could just as well be in the high Himalayas for all the sound there was.
Tripp shook his head suddenly.
“But what would be the point?” he said.
There was something surrealistic about his grief. It was like a balloon untethered and wafted, aimless and disconnected, above the felt surface of life.
“How well do you know Senator Stratton?” I said.
“Bob’s a dear friend. I’ve supported him for years. He was a good friend to Livvie as well, helped her get her teaching appointment, I’m sure. Though he never said a word about it.”
“And you and your wife were on good terms?” I said.
Tripp stared at me as if I had offered to sell him a French postcard.
“You ask me that? You have been investigating her death for days and you could ask me that? We were closer than two people have ever been. I was she. She was I, we were the same thing. How could you…?” Tripp shook his head. “I hope I’ve not been mistaken in you.”
I plowed ahead.
“And you were intimate?”
Tripp stared at me some more. Then he got up suddenly, and walked to the window of his office, and looked down at the street. He didn’t speak. I looked at his back for a while. Maybe I should investigate other career opportunities. Selling aluminum siding, say. Or being a television preacher. Or child molesting. Or running for public office.
“Look, Mr. Tripp,” I said. My voice sounded hoarse. “The thing is that stuff makes no sense. I know you’re sad. But I’ve got to find things out. I’ve got to ask.”
He didn’t move.
“There’s pretty good evidence, Mr. Tripp, that your wife’s name is not, in fact, Olivia Nelson.”
Nothing.
“That she was sleeping with Senator Stratton, and maybe with others.”
Still nothing. Except his shoulders hunched slightly and his head began to shake slowly, back and forth, in metronomic denial.
“I’ve seen pictures of two different people, both of whom look like your wife.”
His head went back and forth. No. No. No.
“Have you ever heard of anyone named Cheryl Anne Rankin?”
No. No. No.
“Your retainer check bounced,” I said.
The silence was so thick it seemed hard to breathe. Tripp’s stillness had become implacable. I waited. Tripp stood, his head still negating. Back and forth, denying everything. I got up and left.
chapter thirty
QUIRK AND FARRELL and Belson and I were in Quirk’s office. Quirk told us that while he was in Alton he had learned exactly nothing.
“Everybody agrees that Olivia Nelson is married to a Kenyan citizen named Mano Kuanda and living in Nairobi. Embassy guy talked with her, took her fingerprints. We’ve compared them to her Peace Corps prints. She hasn’t been in the United States since 1982. Never been in Boston. Has no idea who the victim is.”
“She know anything about Cheryl Anne Rankin?” I said.
“No.”
“Never heard the name?”
“No,” Quirk said.
“You talk to Stratton?”
“Yeah.”
“And?”
“He says he was sleeping with Tripp’s wife regularly, and that he wasn’t the only one.”
Quirk raised his eyebrows.
“Our Bobby?” he said.
“Shocking,” Belson said. “And him a Senator and all.”
“That’s why he tried to chase you off?”
“So he says. Says he was afraid I’d find out about them and it would spoil his chances for the nomination next year.”
“For President?” Quirk said.
“Yeah.”
“Jesus,” Belson said. “President Stratton.”
“How about Tripp?”
“I talked to him.”
“And?”
“He says everything was perfect.”
“You got anything, Lee?” Quirk said.
Farrell jerked a little, as if he’d not been paying close attention.
“No, Lieutenant, no, I don’t.”
“Why should you be different?” Quirk said. He kept his eyes on Farrell for a long moment.
“One thing,” I said. “I don’t know why you would have, but has anyone run a credit check on Tripp?”
“Worried about your fee?” Belson said.
It was two-thirty in the afternoon and his thin face already sported a five o’clock shadow. He was one of those guys who looked cleanshaven for about an hour in the morning.