The Riverview Murders

by Michael Raleigh

  He put the burger down and wondered what Sandra was doing in England. In his mind’s eye, he saw her taking in the sights, the British Museum, the castles, the pubs, Piccadilly Circus. With her friends, or had she run into a Brit with a charming accent and winning ways? She’d told him once, to his surprise and consternation, that other men still called her and asked her out. Up to that point, he hadn’t given much thought to the competition.

  A woman had once told him that a man in a relationship that’s getting serious has trouble imagining the existence of other men, and Whelan now guessed she was right. He thought of Sandra across “the pond” and now seemed to recall an acquaintance whose girlfriend/fiancee of ten years had gone to Europe, met a Frenchman and never come back.

  Well, that proved nothing except that you couldn’t trust the French.

  He sat at the window counter, took a couple of bites and then put the burger down, distracted. For several minutes he watched the traffic and forced himself to think about Mrs. O’Mara’s case. So far, this one wasn’t turning out like any he could remember. He seemed to be learning about a dozen different things, and none of it was what he’d hired on for. None of it or all of it, he told himself. It was beginning to remind him of one of those children’s coloring puzzles, where you colored in all the numbered spaces and nothing seemed to be happening—till you saw that the spots left uncolored were forming a picture.

  In the case he had before him, Joe Colleran was the blank spot in the center of the drawing; things around him were beginning to take color and shape, but not the missing man. The more Whelan thought about that, the more he realized what it probably meant.

  Back in his office, he picked up a pile of unpromising mail from the floor and dropped it again when it contained no postcard. He crossed the room and opened his windows.

  The first call was a quick one to the Herb Gaynor on Addison, who turned out to be a man in his thirties who knew none of the people Whelan mentioned. The second was an older man and, by the sound of his wheezing voice and deep cough, a sick man. Whelan mentioned Mrs. O’Mara by her maiden name, and the man grew more animated. When Whelan explained the reason for his call, the man began to sound confused.

  “I haven’t seen Maggie in…thirty years, it’s got to be. Maybe more. And Joe’s dead.”

  “How do you know that if she doesn’t?”

  He heard the man’s slow, labored breathing. “That’s what I heard.”

  “Can I talk to you for a few minutes? I won’t stay long—I’ve got a couple of other calls to make this afternoon.”

  The man wheezed and cleared his throat and when he spoke again, he was panting. “Maybe when my wife’s here. She’s not home,” he said in the tone of one accustomed to relying on other people.

  “This’ll take a few minutes at most.”

  The man breathed into the phone and Whelan asked, “When will your wife be home?”

  “Three o’clock, three-thirty. She’s shopping with my son.”

  “I’ll come by around then.

  “Arright,” the man said. He breathed into the phone for a moment and then repeated, “Arright,” and hung up the phone. Whelan heard the phone drop off the receiver and he thought he heard the old man mutter something. Then Herb Gaynor slammed the phone down, and this time it stayed.

  Whelan swung by the Sulzer Library, where he fed microfilm into a machine and found himself back in the postwar world of 1946. As he sped through the Chicago Tribune for June of 1946, he ignored the ads and tried not to dwell on the sports stories—the real players had come back from World War II, and the great Joe Louis had won his long-anticipated rematch with Billy Conn—and then Whelan found what he’d come for—in the Chicago Tribune for June 28, 1946.

  The story ran on page two, in the first column, under a small headline that read HOMECOMING SAILOR SLAIN IN RIVERVIEW. Whelan scanned the article, then read it twice more. It confirmed the general outline of the story Mrs. O’Mara had given him: that a returning sailor had been stabbed to death in Riverview Park, with robbery as the apparent motive. The article identified the dead man as “S1C. Raymond Dudek of 3132 N. Oakley,” then went on to say that Dudek had seen duty on several ships and had recently returned from a tour of duty that included “mopping-up” operations in the Philippines and six months in the occupation force in Japan. Dudek had been currently assigned to Great Lakes Naval Base and was due to be discharged in December. There were believed to be no witnesses and the exact time of death was uncertain, according to a police spokesman. Whelan looked long and hard at the name of the police sergeant and smiled, for the man quoted was Sgt. Walter Meehan.

  “The great Walter Meehan,” Whelan said aloud.

  On his way out, Whelan found a phone and called Meehan without having to look up the number. Four rings later, a serene voice, a cultured voice, the voice of Arthur Godfrey reading Scripture, answered.

  “Hello.”

  “Walter? Paul Whelan.”

  “Well, hello, Paul. Good to hear from you. Are you calling to see if I’m still alive?”

  “No, I’ve always assumed that you’d outlive me. I need some information.”

  “I’m afraid you’ve caught me at a poor time. I’m going out shopping with herself.”

  “Wouldn’t want to get in the way of that.”

  “Would tomorrow do? I’m free tomorrow. We can have lunch!”

  “One of my favorite things, lunch.”

  “I remember. Say one o’clock?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  Whelan hung up the phone and smiled to himself. Just the sound of Walter Meehan’s voice brought reassurance that there was yet order in the universe. He had no idea whether Meehan would remember this case from the hundreds he’d investigated, but it was worth a shot and, after all, the prospect of lunch with his mentor and personal hero was better than a sharp stick in the eye.

  Time had done no favors for the Gaynors’ house: it needed a fresh coat of paint and a couple of new boards in the front staircase, and the whole neighborhood would benefit if somebody stripped the ugly tar-paper facade. Whelan remembered when false brick facades of various types had been the fashion, just after the war. This one was a study in ugliness and it was beginning to peel off in places. The Gaynor house didn’t really stand out, though—this was a neighborhood in need of an infusion of cash or jobs. Many of the old frame houses lining both sides of the street needed work, as did half a dozen or so men sitting on porches. A trio of them sat in sleeveless T-shirts on the porch next to the Gaynors’ and stared at Whelan as he got out of his car. The three men shared the same flat faces, reddish hair, and beer bellies threatening to burst free and go rampaging through the neighborhood.

  Before he could knock, the door swung halfway open and a man in his late thirties wedged himself in the opening. A bit under six feet tall, he had blondish hair beginning to show gray, a flat nose and hazel eyes. He tilted his head to one side, as though Whelan had just said something hard to swallow, and either the pose or the facial expression reminded Whelan of someone he knew.

  “Can I help you?” the man said in a monotone.

  “My name is Paul Whelan. I’m here to see Mr. Gaynor.”

  “I’m Mr. Gaynor,” the man said, and the trace of amusement showed in his eyes.

  “Then it’s your father I’m here to see.”

  He nodded. “You’re the one who called earlier, right?”

  “Right. Paul Whelan.” He held out one of his business cards.

  The man studied the card and frowned at Whelan. “A detective? For what? I mean, can you tell me why you need to see my dad? He’s pretty sick. He has emphysema.”

  “I’m looking for someone that your father knew in the old days. I’m not going to stay long.”

  “Let the man in, Dan,” a woman’s voice said with a touch of exasperation. The man in the doorway closed his heavy eyelids in the briefest show of resignation and stepped back to let Whelan pass.

  “I was just asking
a question, Mom. Come on in,” he said, and stepped aside to allow Whelan inside.

  A handsome older woman of medium height leaned her head out of the kitchen and studied Whelan with undisguised interest. She had dark silver hair, small, regular features and large brown eyes that gave her an air that mixed inquisitiveness with shrewdness. Whelan could see that, like the older women of his youth, she fought off her wrinkles with nightly applications of cream that never quite left her skin. At a distance, she could pass for fifty and was probably proud of it. In her hands she held a plastic grocery back that sagged with the weight of several cans.

  “Hello. I’m Paul Whelan.”

  She smiled and came out of the kitchen, hand extended. “I’m Mrs. Gaynor. Come in, sir.” She carried herself with a stiff elegance and seemed to glide slowly toward him, like a model, except that she wasn’t tall enough. She flashed her son a look that she’d probably been giving him all his life and nodded toward the living room.

  “Are you a police officer or a reporter or—what?”

  “I’m a private detective.”

  “Oh. We’ve never met one of those.” She blinked and gave Whelan a puzzled look. “And you were asking about Joe Colleran?”

  “That’s right. His family hired me to find him.”

  Her eyes widened. She blinked several times and looked distressed.

  “I was told that your husband knew Mr. Colleran and—”

  “Well, of course he did. So did I. We all grew up together. But Joe’s…dead. He’s dead ten years now, at least.”

  Whelan nodded and tried not to look shocked. “It’s quite possible, ma’am, but—”

  “You say you’re working for his family? I didn’t think he had any except his sister.”

  “That’s who hired me.”

  Now she smiled. “Maggie? You know Maggie Colleran.”

  “Yes. It’s Maggie O’Mara now. She’s doing well.”

  “This is the first time I’ve heard her name in years. She moved to New York years ago. We were great friends in the old days, we went to grade school together—St. Bonaventure’s.”

  Whelan smiled. “I went there for about four years.”

  “Really? Well, what do you know. And Maggie…you know, she moved away and she just…” Mrs. Gaynor waved one hand in the air in a gesture of helplessness. “She fell off the end of the earth! We never heard from her again. My goodness, this is hard to believe. Well. Where does she live? I’m sorry, this is like Twenty Questions. You came to see Herb, and he’s in there, Mr. Whelan, but he might be dozing. I don’t know what he’ll be able to tell you, though.”

  “I’d like to talk to him all the same.”

  “Go ahead in, then. I’ll be with you in just a second.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  Whelan paused at the arched doorway to the living room and squinted into the semidarkness of the room. In spite of the closed blinds, he could see that the room was a masterwork of clutter, a salute to bygone notions of decorating: a piece of furniture every few inches, and no blank walls. Several of the bigger pieces—the sofa and an antique platform rocker—were covered with thick plastic gone cloudy with age, and though there were at least four lights in the room, only one was on, a small table lamp with an elegant fringed shade. At the base of the lamp lay a pair of bifocals. The lamp gave off a pale yellowish light that barely encompassed the man in the dark armchair beside it. Anyone could have seen that he was a very sick man, a dying man. He didn’t appear to be awake. Whelan took a couple of hesitant steps in and then stopped. A moment later, the woman came out of her kitchen.

  “Nice house,” Whelan said.

  The woman looked around at her crowded house and shook her head. “It’s always so crammed with things. Clutter, a lot of clutter. I always wanted to get a bigger place. But we never really needed one.” She watched her husband for a moment and then walked over to him and put one hand on his shoulder.

  “Herb? Herb. The man is here to see you, Mr. Whelan.”

  “I’m really sorry to be bothering you. I promise I won’t stay long.”

  She looked at Whelan and frowned. “Don’t be silly. You have your work to do. Herb takes his nap every day but he doesn’t mind talking, and it sounds like you have interesting information. We haven’t heard Maggie Colleran’s name in twenty years. He needs to ask about Joe Colleran, Herb.”

  The man in the chair stirred as though seeking a more comfortable position, then opened his eyes. He stared at Whelan for several seconds and then pulled himself upright in the chair.

  “Joe Colleran,” the man repeated through his throatful of gravel.

  “Sit down, Mr. Whelan,” Mrs. Gaynor said. “Here.” She pulled a straight-backed chair close to Herb Gaynor’s easy chair and pointed to it.

  Born to command, Whelan thought. “Thanks, ma’am.”

  “Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

  “No thanks, I’m fine.”

  She nodded and left the room.

  He lowered himself onto the chair and looked at Gaynor.

  “Maggie Colleran’s here? In Chicago?”

  “Yes. She lives here.”

  “We thought she was long gone. What do you know?” His voice dropped and Whelan thought he was talking more to himself than to anyone else. He nodded slowly and fixed Whelan with a long stare. “Now…you want to talk about Joe Colleran?”

  “Yes. Maggie lost touch with him years ago and she’s trying to see if anyone knows anything about him.”

  The older man shook his head once, then reached over to his side table for his smokes and lit up in what seemed like slow motion.

  Of course: emphysema and he still smokes.

  Whelan used the time to pull out his own and look around for an ashtray. He found one on a table across the room and returned to his chair.

  Herb puffed on his Camel for a moment and seemed lost in thought. Then he looked at Whelan.

  “What was it you wanted to know about Joe Colleran?”

  “First of all, have you had any contact at all with him in recent years?”

  The question seemed to take Gaynor by surprise. He frowned and his breath caught in a long low rumble, a sick man’s cough, and Whelan found himself looking at his own cigarette. When he looked up again, Gaynor was shaking his head.

  “Far as I know, Joe’s dead. Car accident, I think.”

  “What? A car accident? Do you know when?”

  “Oh, no, I sure don’t. Long time ago, though. How long would you say, Ellen?”

  Whelan was surprised to see Mrs. Gaynor standing a couple of feet behind his chair, watching her husband. He hadn’t noticed her returning to the room. Her eyes were very animated and he got a glimpse of the youthful good looks Chick Landis had spoken of.

  “I was telling Mr. Whelan when he came in, I think it’s been ten years or something like that.”

  The man nodded. “Ten years at least. More, maybe.”

  “Where did it happen?”

  “Oh, downtown someplace.”

  “We didn’t even know he was back. He was in the South for a while,” Mrs. Gaynor added.

  Herb Gaynor nodded. “He got hit by a car. Some kid, they thought it was.”

  Whelan considered this for a moment. “How did you hear?”

  Gaynor looked at his wife. “Who was it that told us? Did you read that in those obituaries?”

  The woman came several steps farther into the room and made a little gesture of uncertainty. “I read the obituaries.” She seemed embarrassed about it. “When you’re older and you start to lose some of your friends—you know, people you haven’t seen in a long time—it’s the only way to find out sometimes. But I don’t think we saw an obituary, or we would have gone to the funeral. We heard about it later. But I can’t think of who might have told us.” She looked at her husband. He shook his head weakly.

  “Could it have been Michael Minogue?”

  Mrs. Gaynor shook her head slowly. “Poor Michael. You heard about w
hat happened to him?”

  “Yes.”

  She was silent for a moment and seemed to be turning this over in her mind. “Well, you know, it could have been. They were great friends. Partners in a tavern in Florida. Do you think it was Michael, Herb?”

  Herb Gaynor coughed and raised one hand in a gesture of uncertainty. “Coulda been.”

  She seemed to notice the cigarette for the first time and gave him a well-practiced look of irritation. “You don’t need that, Herb.”

  He gave her an equally ritualized wave of dismissal and took a puff of his cigarette.

  “Do you remember when this was?” Whelan asked.

  Mrs. Gaynor gave him a stricken look. “You mean the actual year? Oh, no, I don’t, I just know it was ten years ago at least. I’m sorry.”

  “Do you remember the time of year?”

  “Fall. I remember it was fall.”

  Whelan pondered her words and realized that he was disappointed. He’d told himself all along that there was no chance for this man still to be alive, but one little compartment of his mind had hoped to bring good news to Mrs. O’Mara. Now the best he could do would be to find someone who could tell her something about Joe’s passing. If Mrs. O’Mara was living in New York and unaware of her brother’s passing, then perhaps friends had handled the arrangements. Perhaps Michael Minogue.

  “Do you know anyone who went to the funeral?”

  “No. I never heard about it.”

  The younger Gaynor stepped into the room. He had a cigarette in one hand and a mug in the other and a look of curiosity on his face. When he saw Whelan looking at him, he stopped short and held up the hand with the cigarette.

  “I’m sorry. I was just wandering.”

  “It’s not private, and it’s your house. Come on in.”

  Dan Gaynor set down his cup and allowed himself to flop into a battered armchair.

  “Well, if you’re certain about Joe Colleran, I guess my work is just about done. Can you think of anyone I might talk to who was in touch with Joe Colleran before he died?”