“If Pauline is telling the truth, Raines and Davenport set the fire that killed Karen Shanlon. You remember that one?”
“Yeah. The wife knew her from church. She was a nice woman.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with it, Sergeant. He’s lying, and so is that drunken whore over there.”
“They apparently did it on orders from Lou Bennett. His son was still in love with Karen. Lou didn’t think she was good enough to wear the Bennett nametag. And he was afraid that someday Bryce would divorce his wife and marry Karen.”
“The lady in that chair over there told you all this?”
“Lady?” Raines laughed. “Are you blind, Tomlin? Look at her. She’s an old bag of a slut if I’ve ever seen one.”
“And there’s a letter,” I said. “Somehow it ties into the blackmail scheme they were running on Bennett.”
“But weren’t they all in it together? That doesn’t make much sense.”
“You’re damned right it doesn’t, Sergeant! McCain doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
“I don’t understand it yet either, Tomlin, but somehow they ended up with Bennett paying them extortion money. That’s why Raines needs to be held for questioning. There’s a lot to go into.”
“There sure as hell is. So, who killed Bennett and Davenport?”
“I’d like to say Raines. But I think all we can nail him with is murdering Karen Shanlon.”
“And that leaves us with who, then?”
“Somebody who plans to kill everybody who was involved in the fire. Somebody who cared about Karen enough to pay everybody back. I think Raines here is the next victim on the list.”
“So that’s everybody?”
“One more. DePaul.”
“The fire chief?”
“Lou paid him off. Or maybe he had something on him. DePaul wrote an assessment report claiming the fire was accidental. That means he falsified a legal document.”
“The chief and DePaul are good friends.”
“I didn’t say this would be easy, Tomlin. But I’m pretty sure you’re interested in the truth. So you’ll help me. You’ll keep this thing on track.”
“I want to call my lawyer.”
“As soon as we’re done here, Mr. Raines.”
“Say everything you’ve just said is true, McCain. Or most of it, anyway. You have any idea who killed Bennett and Davenport?”
“You can’t stop me from calling my lawyer.”
“I have an idea, but it’s not solid enough to talk about yet.”
There was more. By the time we finished, Raines had slung himself horizontally on the couch and had covered his eyes with the back of his hand. When you just laid out the facts cold and hard, the case sounded pretty damned convincing, especially if Pauline could be turned into a sober and articulate witness.
“I’m sorry I had to drag you into this, Bill. If we stick to our story-”
Bill Tomlin said, “Aw, hell. Let’s not try to fool the chief. I owe him my loyalty. I’ll call him now and bring him over.”
“Well, I did ask for him, but he wasn’t in.”
“That’s a lie. That’s a damned lie,” Raines said without moving the back of his hand from his face. He sounded wasted. He’d spent his anger. He was likely thinking about life in prison.
Tomlin said, “You can call your lawyer now, Mr. Raines.”
He pulled his hand back, tilted his head toward us and said, “Maybe I better call my wife first.” The glamour boy had run out of glamour.
22
Lynn Shanlon’s small house blazed white under the searing sun. When I pulled into the narrow drive, I saw Jimmy Adair, the next-door neighbor, just emerging from his own house with his big sloppy St. Bernard. He waved at me, then walked down his sloping front yard to the mailbox.
I knocked on the front door twice and waited for a response that didn’t come. Against the faultless blue sky, a jet trail could be seen. I could hear the plane but not see it. I knocked for a third time, then decided to walk around back.
When I reached the back yard, I detoured and went over to the side of the garage. I peeked into a small dusty window. Her Dodge station wagon sat inside.
I went over to the back stoop, passing an outdoor grill as I did so. There was still a faint scent of burgers on the air. There were several blouses on the clothesline. I went over and touched two of them. Still damp. Given the heat, I knew they hadn’t been hanging here all that long.
I knocked on the screen door at the back of the house. No reply. I opened the door and put my ear to the glass portion of the other door. A houseful of hums and clicks and snaps. The house robots doing their duties.
There wasn’t any particular reason to be suspicious about her not being here. She might be visiting a neighbor, though she didn’t seem to be the neighborly type. She might also have gone for a walk, though at ninety-three degrees it struck me as unlikely. But a friend could have picked her up and taken her somewhere.
I knocked again, waited a few minutes, then walked out front again. Jimmy Adair was down on the street with a fistful of mail, talking to an elderly bald man in scotch-plaid walking shorts and a lime-green golf shirt.
I went over and leaned against my ragtop and smoked a cigarette. The smoke was just about finished by the time Adair and the old man separated. When Adair and his St. Bernard were halfway up the slope leading to his house, I wandered over and waited for him.
“It’s a son of a bitch of a day,” he said, shaking his mail at me. “I wish I could handle it as well as Chauncey does.”
Chauncey. I’d been trying to remember the dog’s name. Chauncey came over for a pat on his massive head. I gave him three. He looked up at me with those sweet dopey eyes. He was drooling as usual, but I probably had some habits he didn’t like, either.
Adair wore a red-and-white-striped shirt and jeans. He still carried himself like the jock he’d been in high school, that sense of swagger. But there wasn’t any threat in him. He just clung, like many of us do, to the memories of better times. I wondered if he ever got jealous of the kids he coached at the high school, wanting the thrill and glory of being in there himself. I would have.
“I was looking for Lynn. Wondered if you’d seen her.”
“Earlier I did. Around breakfast time. I was getting the paper and she was pulling out in her car. She waved and said she was going to do some early shopping. Everything all right? You seem a little tense.”
“Everything’s fine. I’m tense because of something that happened a little while ago. Nothing to do with Lynn.”
Chauncey barked basso profundo. I was surprised the front window didn’t shatter.
“Ol’ Chauncey’s hungry. It’s lunchtime for both of us, I guess. The summer’s going by too fast. Pretty soon I’ll be eating the cafeteria food at the high school. That’s one way I keep my weight down. I can’t eat very much of it. I don’t know what the hell they do to it, but whatever it is, the Reds could use it for torture.” He grinned. “I like the gals in the cafeteria. I always feel a little guilty knocking them like that.”
For me, the pitiless sun precluded any more small talk. “You know Lynn pretty well. Does she talk about Karen’s fire a lot?”
He watched as Chauncey nuzzled his leg. “She was pretty mad at herself after the fire. But these days, she talks about her ex more than she talks about the fire. The three of us were all pretty good friends. It’s that kind of neighborhood. I think the whole block pitched in to help her with Karen dying. But it’s different with her ex. Not much we can do about that except sit and listen to her. The guy sounds like a jerk.”
“Does she go out much at night?” I wanted to keep him talking. He’d started blinking a lot and licking his lips. I wanted to know what he was afraid of.
He started to speak, then stopped. He gave me one of those looks that he hoped would take him into the deep dark recesses of my mind. “What’re you trying to find out here?”
“Just trying to get to know Lynn better.”
“Why?”