But I did know that the only connection between what seemed like two separate cases, but probably wasn’t, was Marvin Conroy. He was connected through the bank to the Smiths and Soldiers Field Development and that side. He was connected through Ann Kiley to Jack DeRosa and Chuckie Scanlan and that whole side, where people were getting killed. If I believed Bisbee, and there was no reason not to, Conroy and Soldiers Field and Pequod Bank were involved in some kind of swindle. The need for an inflated appraisal made me wonder if it was a land flip. But in wondering that, I exhausted my expertise. Rita would know. Or she would have somebody in the firm who would know.
At 4:53 my car phone rang.
“I’m on the seventh floor,” Vinnie said. “She’s in room 7112. He’s in there with her.”
“Here I come,” I said.
As I headed for the stairs to the lobby I looked down and saw Bobby Kiley’s Lexus. When I got to the seventh floor, Vinnie was standing outside the elevator, looking like a man waiting to go down.
“Turn right,” Vinnie said. “Halfway down the corridor.”
“He wonder about you when you rode up with him?”
“Maybe. But what’s he going to do?”
I nodded.
“How you going to get in?” Vinnie said.
“Maybe I’ll knock on the door, like in the movies, tell him there’s a message?”
Vinnie grinned. “And he says slip it under the door.”
“And I say he’s got to sign for it.”
“And the dope jumps up and opens the door.”
“Or he tells me to blow,” I said. “Especially if nobody knows he’s here and how could they send him a message.”
“Always works in the movies,” Vinnie said.
“I can take it from here,” I said to Vinnie.
“You don’t want me to shoot nobody?”
“Thank you for asking,” I said. “Another time.”
“Sure.”
“Guy named Bobby Kiley is parked across the street from the lobby entrance in a black Lexus sedan, vanity plates say ”Lawman.“ Send him up and tell him I’ll be outside the room or in it.”
“Kiley,” Vinnie said.
“Girl’s father,” I said.
Vinnie nodded. He pushed the button for the elevator. The door slid open. The same car I’d come up in was still there. Vinnie got in, pushed the button for the lobby, and the door slid shut. I walked down the hall to room 7112 and stood opposite the door and leaned on the wall and waited. I was still there when Bobby Kiley came down the corridor.
“Is he in there?” Kiley said.
“Yes.”
“Have you knocked?”
“I was waiting for you.”
Bobby Kiley took a deep breath and let it out slowly through his nose.
“I’ll knock,” he said.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
It was probably two full minutes, and Kiley had knocked three times when Ann opened the door with the chain on.
“Daddy?”
“Open up, Ann,” Kiley said. “We need to talk.”
“Daddy, not now.”
“Now, honey.”
Through the narrow space produced by the barely opened door I could see Ann Kiley’s eyes shift briefly to me, and back to her father.
“Daddy, I’m busy.”
“I know,” Kiley said. “And I know who you’re busy with. Open the door, Annie.”
“Daddy,” she said, emphasizing the two syllables, stretching out the second one.
“Annie, you’re a full-grown woman. Who you sleep with, and how often, is your business and not mine. But we’re dealing with four or five murders here… and you’re involved, and I am going to get you uninvolved. If we have to kick this thing in, we will.”
I think he meant that I would. But it was not a time for quibbling over pronouns.
“I have to close it to take the chain off,” Ann said.
Kiley nodded. The door closed. The chain bolt slid. The door opened and we went in. Ann was wearing a hotel-issue white terrycloth bathrobe. Her hair was mussed. Her clothes were haphazardly draped on the hard chair in front of the desk by the window. On the desk was a bottle of champagne and two glasses. The king-sized bed was still made, but it was badly rumpled and the pillows had been pulled out from under the spread. There was no one else in the room. But a man’s clothes were carelessly folded on the armchair to the right of the door. I walked to the bathroom and opened the door. Marvin Conroy was standing behind the pebbled glass door in the shower stall with only his pants on, the belt still unbuckled.
“Who would think to look here,” I said and held the shower door.
It is hard to look dignified when you’re caught hiding in the shower with your pants unbuckled. Conroy did his best as he came out of the bathroom, but it didn’t seem to me that he succeeded. He buckled his pants as inconspicuously as he could, and stepped into the brown loafers with the black highlights, which he had left neatly at the foot of the bed. Shirtless, he looked kind of soft, not fat exactly, but like a guy who makes his living shuffling money. I could tell he was holding his stomach in. He saw his shirt hanging on one arm of the soft chair and retrieved it and put it on, though he didn’t tuck it in. As he dressed, he rejuvenated. By the time his shirt was buttoned he was nearly back to bank CEO. Ann sat on the side of the bed without a word. Her head was down, and she looked at nothing.
“Bobby,” Conroy said. “What the hell are you doing?”
Kiley didn’t say anything. He went to the bed and sat beside his daughter. Conroy fumbled with his cuff links. He turned his gaze from Kiley and focused it on me.
“And what the hell are you doing here?” he said.
He was getting tougher by the minute. By the time his cuff links were in he’d be threatening me. I leaned against the door.
“Here’s what I’ve got,” I said. “I know you were looking into Nathan Smith’s sexual preferences.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Conroy said.
“And I know you had Jack DeRosa hire a couple of mulligans to beat up a real estate appraiser named Bisbee to make sure he didn’t tell anybody that you were asking him to inflate appraisals. And I know you got Jack DeRosa from Ann Kiley, and I know you got Ann to go down and straighten things out when the mulligans got arrested. And I know that you were in business with Soldiers Field Development, and I’m pretty sure I can prove that you were involved in some sort of land flip with them. You worked with Amy Peters. She’s dead. You worked with Jack DeRosa. He’s dead. You were snooping on Nathan Smith. He’s dead. Sooner or later I’ll tie you to Brinkman Tyler.”
I stopped. Conroy was silent. I didn’t blame him. There was a lot coming down. He didn’t say, “Who’s Brinkman Tyler,” and he probably should have. After a moment, he stood.
“I’m leaving,” he said firmly.
I shook my head. “No,” I said. “You’re not.”
“Are you saying you’ll prevent me?”
“Yes.”
He stared at me, trying for outrage. He fell a little short. He was thinking about whether he could force me to let him go, and deciding that he couldn’t. He was correct.
“You can’t-”
“Sure I can,” I said. “What we’re trying to decide here is how much we can keep her out of it.”
For the first time since he’d come out of the bathroom, Conroy looked at Ann.
“There’s no it to keep anybody out of,” Conroy said. “You haven’t got anything worth listening to.”
“What do you think?” I said to Ann.
Still staring emptily at nothing, she shook her head.
“You haven’t any right,” she said without looking up. “Neither of you has any right.”
“I can’t help you if I don’t know what I’m doing,” I said. “Tell me what you know.”
“I know I love Marvin,” she said.