“Oh, we weren’t pretty, believe me. Not to ourselves, anyway. We really thought we were homely. We didn’t even have a soda shop date until we were well into high school. My folks took me to Iowa City, where this doctor really helped me with my complexion. And by that time, Karen was so beautiful even she had to admit it to herself. I’m pretty enough, I suppose, but I’m plain compared to my sister.” Then: “God, I miss her. There isn’t a day goes by that I don’t think about her and kind of talk to her.”
“Did she ever mention a certain letter to you? It probably had something to do with Roy Davenport or David Raines.”
Over the picket fence in the back yard, a bald man called out Lynn’s name and waved. She waved back. The man dipped down and moments later a power mower roared to life. “That’s Mr. Nelson. He’s a very good neighbor. Unlike the old bitch down the street. You represented her, remember? Against me?”
“You ever forget that? This is the second time you brought it up.”
She smiled. “I’m just kidding you. But she really is an old bitch, and Mr. Nelson and his wife are really very nice people. And no, I don’t know anything about a letter. Why are you interested in it?”
“Because Roy Davenport was interested in it. And so is Raines.”
“All I know about Roy Davenport is that Karen and I were afraid of him. We’d heard all the rumors. I shouldn’t be speaking ill of the dead, but we were always told that he had a record and that Lou had hired him to do his dirty work. Lou didn’t want to spoil his image, you know. But it was fine with him if Davenport did things. Karen got a threatening phone call one night. About seeing Bryce. The man said that something bad would happen to her if she didn’t stop seeing him. She was convinced it was Davenport, that he’d just muffled his voice somehow.”
“Did you tell this to Cliffie?”
“Now, what do you think? Of course I did. But what good did it do me? He said it was probably a prank call. And he said that my information was hearsay since I hadn’t heard the call myself. So we just dropped the subject.”
“How long between the phone call and the fire?”
“That was another thing. Several months.”
“And that was the only call Karen told you about?”
“Yes.”
“And there weren’t any other threats?”
“Not threats like that. Just the usual from the family to Bryce, and then Bryce would tell Karen about them. And I shouldn’t say ‘threats’ as such. They were really warnings about how Bryce was screwing up his life. Which meant that he was screwing up Lou’s life. Lou wanted royal blood in the family line. Or what he considered royal blood, anyway. Which is funny when you think about it. How much royal blood is there in Black River Falls?”
“Well, there are a few people who think they’re royalty, so I suppose that could pass for the real thing.” I set my mug down and eased myself up. I could see the back yards of several houses. White houses and white garages against green grass and yellow and orange and pink lilies and various other flowers. A man in a straw hat and a pipe in his mouth leaned against a fence talking to a neighbor. It all looked like a Norman Rockwell painting for a Saturday Evening Post cover.
“I wish somebody had tried to warn me off my ex the way Lou tried to warn Bryce off Karen.”
She’d never explained the reason for her split with the Chicago banker, but it was clear she wasn’t over it. She was bound to him by love or hate, it was hard to tell. Maybe both.
“If you think of anything else, I’d appreciate a call.”
“I feel sorry for that poor dumb Pauline. She’s sweet, in a weird way. I wonder what’s going to happen to her.”
“Yeah,” I said as I started to leave. “I’ll bet she’s wondering the same thing.”
19
“So you have no idea what’s in this letter?”
“No.”
“What do you think might be in it?”
“Since when are you interested in speculation?”
That earned me a rubber band fired from the slender hand of Judge Esme Anne Whitney. Perched on her desk in a light-gray linen suit with matching pumps, Her Honor was firing at an angle and she missed. Which was why I’d taken the chair farthest away from her.
“It’s hardly speculation. We have two people dead. And you’ve been doing research on the fire that killed Karen Shanlon. So unless you’re completely wasting your time and mine, you see a connection between the two.”
“Fair enough. But I still have no idea what’s in the letter.”
“But you’re thinking it bears on the fire.”
“Maybe. But then again, who knows. The more I find out about your esteemed friend Lou Bennett, the more I realize that he had a lot of questionable business interests. There’s always the possibility that the fire had nothing to do with these deaths. Bennett and Davenport were in business together. Maybe they made somebody very angry. One of the people I talked to told me that Davenport had been hired because he was muscle. If Bennett needed muscle, he could have been involved in just about anything.”
I was enjoying the courthouse air conditioning. Balmy electric breezes made me want to close my eyes and sleep. But then I felt selfish. Not only did I have to deal with this case, I also had to deal with my father. I was bitching about losing sleep; he was facing death. And my mother was facing a kind of death of her own.
“I have to admit I envy you the privilege of seeing David Raines afraid. He’s one of those people who always sweeps into a room and takes over. He was amusing the first few times I invited him to my parties. But between chasing after half the wives there and patting me on the behind, I got tired of him very quickly.”
I laughed. I knew I shouldn’t laugh. I tried not to laugh. But I couldn’t help myself. The image of anybody patting the Ice Maiden on her “behind” was hilarious. I’m surprised she didn’t pull out a gun (she has several) and kill him on the spot.
“Go ahead and laugh, McCain. That’s your sordid little world, not mine. All four of my husbands had their flaws, but they were all gentlemen and behaved accordingly. And you’d damned well better never share that story with anybody, do you understand?” For a striking woman of noble bones, she had the ability to suddenly turn into Joseph Stalin when she threatened you.
“DePaul interests me, too. He was the one who signed off on the fire. Said it was an accident.”
“And why would he do that?”
“Money, why else? I have a call in to a friend at the credit bureau. The bank won’t help me because I don’t have a badge. But this woman will because we’re old friends.”
“I’m sure you’re sleeping with her or have slept with her or plan to sleep with her, and I don’t want to hear anything about it.”
“Believe it or not, we’re just friends. She’s happily married to a very nice guy. But I’ve known her since we went to grade school together.”
“Oh, yes. That Catholic school.”
As a good patrician, Judge Whitney is of the belief that papists, if they had any couth and courage, would be Episcopalians. A certain harshness comes into her voice when she pronounces the word “Catholic.”
“So it’s completely innocent. I do have women friends who are just that.”
She sighed and slid off the desk. She walked behind her desk and sat down and picked up the phone. She dialed without hesitation and then said, “John, it’s Esme. I’m about to ask you something that you can never share with anybody. I’d like copies of Ralph DePaul’s banking records for the past five years. Xerox copies. And at the moment I can’t explain why.”
No amenities; no small talk. John could only be John K. Bridges, president of First National.
Whatever he said took less than a minute. She said: “Thank you, John. If you would have somebody bring them to my chambers as soon as possible, I’d appreciate it. Will I see you on the links tomorrow?” Pause. “Good. I’ll be breaking in my new clubs. Thank you very much again, John.” She hung up.