“But there’s a catch.”
“There is?” She was suddenly a little girl afraid of hearing some imminent bad news. “Like what?”
“Like you won’t give more than twenty percent of your check to Turk.”
“How much will that be?”
“It doesn’t matter. We’ll figure it out. But I want you to make that agreement with me. No more than twenty percent. And that goes for every check I give you.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. C, but I don’t think Turk’ll like that.”
“Fine. Tell him to come and see me.”
Her cheeks bloomed pink. “Well, I don’t think you’ll want to see him after you get the letter.”
“What letter?”
She folded her hands and sat up straight. I’d never seen eyes cower before, but that’s exactly what her eyes were doing. Cowering. “You know Mr. Dodsworth?”
“John Dodsworth, the lawyer here in town?”
“Umm-hmm.”
“What about him?”
“Well-” Her gaze fell to her lap. “Well, Turk says that Mr. Dodsworth is going to send you a letter suing you for what happened to Turk. You know, in your office here.”
The phone rang. Relief replaced the fear in her eyes. She even managed to address the caller properly. “Good morning, the law offices of Sam McCain.” Pause. “Oh, good morning, Mr. Hughes. Just a moment, please.”
I had to clear my anger before I had enough room in my head to register surprise that William Hughes had actually called me back. I’d called him half an hour ago at the Bennett estate and left a message. I’d have to deal with Turk later. I had plenty of time to murder him. I didn’t even have to buy extra bullets. I planned to strangle him. After breaking several of his more critical bones.
“Thanks for returning my call, William. I appreciate it.”
“What can I do for you, Mr. McCain? The funeral’s tomorrow morning, and we’re all pretty busy around here.”
“I just wondered how well you knew Roy Davenport.”
“He was Mr. Bennett’s business partner for several years. Naturally I got to know him. Why?”
“Did you ever see him with Fire Chief DePaul?”
“Of course. Chief DePaul and Roy were out here a lot, using the tennis courts and going to parties.”
“Were they friendly?”
“I’m not sure what that means, Mr. McCain. I never saw them argue, if that’s what you’re talking about.”
“Do you think they spent time together when they weren’t at the mansion?”
“Now, how would you expect me to know something like that? I didn’t follow either of them around.”
“DePaul and Lou were good friends, though.”
“Yes. But Mr. Bennett was good friends with people he thought could do him some good. I don’t say that as criticism. That’s just the way business is done.”
The obvious question-obvious to me, anyway-was did Bennett know DePaul well enough to ask him to lie about the origins of a fire?
Then Turk was there, and I had to force myself to concentrate on talking to William Hughes. Jamie grabbed her purse. Lunch time. She waved good-bye to me. And so did Turk. The devious prick. Bye-bye, McCain. I’m going to be taking you for everything you’ve got.
“Mr. McCain, I really am busy. There’ll be a gathering here after the burial, and we need to get everything in order. I’m sure you can understand that.”
“Do you recall seeing Chief DePaul out at the estate close to the date that Karen Shanlon was killed in the fire?”
He didn’t answer right away. “Exactly what are you asking me?”
“I’m just wondering if DePaul was hanging around out there after the fire.”
“That’s an accusation, not a question. And I resent it for Mr. Bennett’s sake.”
“People have speculated about the fire, William.”
“No, they haven’t. You have speculated about the fire.”
“Bennett didn’t think she was suitable for the family.”
“Not wanting her in the family is very different from wanting her dead. The man just died, McCain. At least give him his due and let him rest in peace.”
He was gone then. He didn’t slam the phone. He hung up quietly, which was his style.
Then all my anger about Turk came flooding back. Good old Turk, shiftless no-talent bum and wanna-be surfer. I’d give him the honor of drowning him in the river, which was as close to an ocean as he’d ever get.
21
She was parking her blue Schwinn bicycle as I left the office. In a Western-style red shirt and Levi cut-offs, she appeared older than she had at her stepfather’s house. Or maybe it was the hair, which she’d managed to turn into a pageboy. The heavy glasses worked against all of it. She was still the lonely kid who loved The Great Gatsby.
“Hi, Mr. McCain.”
“Hi, Nina.”
“My stepfather’d kill me if he knew I was here.”
“I think you’re probably right about that one.”
She approached me with the awkward grace of a leery animal. “I heard what you and my stepfather were talking about. He and my mother really got into it after you left. Then she found out he had a gun in the house.”
“Let’s talk inside. You like a Pepsi?”
“That’d be great. It’s so hot.”
“C’mon in. It’s cooler there.”
The first thing she did inside was look at my books. She passed quickly over the law tomes and went to the small bookcase where I kept novels. “We sort of have the same taste. Hemingway and Carson McCullers and Steinbeck and Fitzgerald and Malamud and Algren. But who’re these writers, Jim Thompson and Charles Williams?”
“They write crime fiction.”
“Is it any good?”
“Some of the best writing in America, but the critics are too snobby to review it. They think it’s trash.”
“Some of the covers are pretty wild.” She was examining a copy of All the Way by Charles Williams.
“The covers are usually a lot wilder than the books themselves.”
After getting her seated and pushing a Pepsi into her hand, I sat down behind my desk and got a smoke going. “You were telling me that your stepfather has a gun in the house. Doesn’t he usually?”
“No. Never. My mother’s little brother was killed when he found her dad’s pistol and accidentally shot himself. My mother absolutely won’t tolerate a gun in the house.”
“Not even a hunting rifle?”
“Huh-uh. She made Ralph promise that before they got married. And my mother’s never let him forget it, either.”
“Did he say why he thinks he needs a gun?”
She sipped her Pepsi. Her face still gleamed from the sweaty ride over here. She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. “He’s afraid of something. I’ve never seen him like this. You know how he is. I’m not putting him down-not exactly, anyway. There’re a lot worse stepfathers than Ralph.”
“That isn’t a great declaration of love.”
“Oh, I don’t love him. I’m not even sure my mother loves him. But most of the time he’s all right. My mother’s very pretty. I think that after his first wife left him, he decided to pay her back by finding the best-looking woman he could and then kind of flaunting her. My mother always laughs when she tells me about how he used to drag her to all these places just so his ex-wife would see them. But that’s how he is. He usually gets his way whether my mom’s comfortable with it or not. But the reason I came over here to talk to you was because after they got into this big fight about the gun she found in his suit coat pocket, I heard him say, ‘Honey, I’m scared. I need to protect myself.’ Boy, if you know anything about Ralph, him saying that he’s scared is really something. He always acts like he’s not afraid of anything or anybody. You know?”
“Did he say what he was scared of?”
“No. She asked him a bunch of times, but he said he couldn’t tell her. He said it was better that she didn’t know. Then he went out to the garage. That’s his haven when he wants to escape. She almost never goes out there, but today she did. And they started arguing again. I was upstairs reading with the radio on, and I could still hear them.”
“Could you hear what they were saying?”