“Tommy Friesl. There were two boys in that group who didn’t come back, the two Tommys—Tommy Friesl and Tommy Moran—and she was in love with Tommy Friesl. And he was great, he was just right for her. A good guy, Mr. Whelan, a real good guy. That’s who she should have wound up with. They were a fun couple, she was a witty, charming girl.” She looked away. “I hope she was happy while her husband was alive.”
“I got the impression that she was pretty…content, and he left her comfortable.”
“I don’t know how much that counts for, Mr. Whelan. Wouldn’t count for much with me.” She leaned forward with a look of urgency. “Now I want to know about this, Mr. Whelan. I’ve answered all your questions, now answer mine.”
“I wish I could tell you something to make it sound less harsh. But I believe that the person who killed Ray Dudek is still around. Still here. I think he killed…the man on the lakefront, the one the cops thought was Ray Dudek, and I think he probably killed…other people.” For a moment he couldn’t meet her eyes. He fumbled with the cigarette pack for another smoke and looked at her when he heard her sigh.
“How horrible. Oh my God, how horrible. After all these years.”
“Yes. I think so, too. One more thing I need to know—in those days, did you know a man named Hoegstra?”
“I don’t think so but I know that name. Oh. Was he the man they—” She stopped and waved one helpless hand for him to finish.
“Yes, he’s the guy they robbed back in 1941. But you didn’t know him?”
“No. Is that what you’ve really been investigating?”
“No. I was really trying to figure out what happened to Joe Colleran.”
“Will you tell me how this turns out?”
“Yes. You’ve been very helpful, and I appreciate your coming here.”
She got up and frowned slightly. “Are you working with the police investigation now?”
He laughed. “Not exactly ‘with’ them. But I’m working on a case that happens to be connected to theirs. They don’t exactly like it, but I’m giving them what I find.”
“You have a strange line of work, Mr. Whelan.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
She nodded as though he’d given the correct answer, then extended her hand. He shook it and showed her to the door. In the hall, she turned and gave him a small smile that seemed to show relief. He nodded and closed his door.
I’m glad if I made you feel better, Mrs. Torgeson. You sure didn’t make me feel better.
Whelan sat down and finished the cigarette he’d started and looked for the silver lining in Betty Henke’s new cloud. When he decided there wasn’t any, he took out the phone book, looked up a number and called St. Joseph’s Cemetery. It took the office staff at St. Joseph’s a few minutes to find a name for him and when they did, he felt worse than he’d felt since the beginning. He depressed the receiver button, then made another call, to Mrs. Margaret O’Mara.
Fifteen
She met him at the door with a wary look and said, “Come in, Mr. Whelan.”
“Thanks. I hope I’m not keeping you from the shop. We could have met there.”
“Antique dealers usually close on Mondays.” She led him into a small, intensely cluttered living room bathed at the moment in bright sunlight. Mrs. O’Mara’s home was a crowded treasure trove of Victorian furniture, knickknacks, pictures in ornate frames, standing lamps. In one corner she had a Victrola. Whelan pointed to it.
“Is that walnut? I’ve never seen a walnut one.”
She nodded in approval. “Sit down, Mr. Whelan. Anywhere you like.” She ushered him into an overstuffed armchair.
“Would you like a cup of coffee?”
“Sure.”
He listened to the rhythmic ticking of her wall clock and the kitchen noises of Mrs. O’Mara trying to forestall the inevitable, and he tried to find another answer to it all. A moment later, she bustled in with a tray holding cups and the paraphernalia of coffee. In the center she’d placed a little plate of butter cookies. She set the tray down on a small inlaid table, handed him a cup and sat down.
“Good coffee,” he said. Then he took a quick look around the room. “Your living room reminds me of my grandmother’s house. She had big fat chairs like these and a sofa like yours and a Victrola that you cranked up. You have a few nice things she didn’t have, but then she had wax fruit. Bowls and bowls of wax fruit.”
“I had wax fruit in my home when I was a young woman. It’s very pretty, but it melts and gets scratched and discolored.”
“Doesn’t taste good, either.”
She paused in midsip. “You ate your grandmother’s wax fruit?”
“Only the grapes. I was four. And a slow learner.”
She smiled and made a little befuddled shake of her head. He watched as she set down her cup with a shaking hand, and he was on the verge of making more soothing small talk when he decided to get it over with.
“Mrs. O’Mara, I’m very sorry to tell you that Joseph is dead. He died as the result of a hit-and-run accident on October nineteenth, 1975. I believe he probably died instantly, he suffered no pain.”
She made the tiniest of nods and sat stiffly with her cup and saucer poised on her lap, waiting for more. Whelan looked down at his cup.
“He had a wake and a decent funeral, and all the arrangements were taken care of by Michael Minogue, his lifelong friend. A very good friend, it seems to me.”
“Oh, Mike was a good friend to him, always. They were the best of friends, ever since they were just babies.”
“Joseph was buried in St. Joseph’s Cemetery. His grave is well tended. But you knew that—because you take care of it, as you have done for years.”
A stricken look flashed in her pale eyes and then she looked quickly away.
I have no stomach for this, he told himself. He took a deep breath and went on.
“You took over the care of your brother’s grave from Mike Minogue, I don’t exactly know when, but you did. You know when he died and I suspect you know how he died, and you’ve been watching me jump through hoops for reasons that you probably don’t want seen in the light of day.”
She shook her head and kept shaking it for several seconds, refusing to meet his eyes.
“Mrs. O’Mara…”
She turned her face farther away and he could see that her cheeks were wet, and he decided to get it all out.
“Did you kill Michael Minogue?”
She swung her head abruptly to face him, eyes staring and mouth agape, and for several seconds he thought she’d faint. She had gone pale and he could hear her raspy breathing, and he told himself this was not the time to be solicitous of an old woman’s feelings.
“Well?”
“What kind of man are you?” she said in a harsh voice.
“Just answer the question. You’ve lied to me about everything else. This one, you answer. If I don’t like your answer, I’m walking. Not far, just up Belmont to Area Six Police Headquarters. You know, right up there where Riverview used to be.”
“Bejesus, you’re an awful man.”
“Consider the kind of people I work for.”
She set her cup and saucer down on a table and glared. “I don’t know how you expect me to pay you…”
“You haven’t given me a dime yet, so don’t let the money worry you.”
“I have the money, sir. I don’t need you to be telling me whether to be worried about money. And money for what, that’s what I want to know. You call yourself a detective, running around for days, and all you can come up with is, ‘Did I kill Michael Minogue,’ as if a daft thing like that even makes sense. Get out of my house, sir.”
He nodded. “And that completes the circle, lady. I’ve been running around talking to your old cronies from the bad old days and they’ve all given me the gate. Only fitting that you should.”
“What cronies? Who did you talk to?” Her face softened, as though she’d momentarily forgotten her r
ighteous anger.
“All of them. I’ve talked to Ellen Gillette and Herb Gaynor, to Betty Henke, to Gerry Costello, to Fritz Pollard, to the delightful Mr. Chick Landis, even to an old hood named Hoegstra.”
She gave him a disoriented look. “I don’t know any Hoegstra.” She looked down, frowning and shaking her head, and he thought he could see her lips moving.
He started to explain. “Hoegstra was a gambler from—Mrs. O’Mara, I just hit you with a bunch of names from your past, but you still haven’t answered my question.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Mr. Whelan, are you a mooncalf? Do you think I’m the kind of woman who could…” She waved her hand helplessly and just said, “Poor Michael Minogue, of all people.”
Whelan said nothing for a moment, assessing her performance. He pictured himself in Fritz Pollard’s room with its slaughterhouse smell and ravaged walls and could not imagine this old woman there.
“No, I don’t. Not really. I’m not certain exactly what you are, Mrs. O’Mara, but I don’t think you’re a murderer. What I think is that you’re a liar—and maybe an actress. A very good one, but that doesn’t make it better.”
“I wanted someone to be my investigator, I wanted to find the truth. I wanted to know who killed Michael.”
“So this was never about your brother.”
“Yes, it was, but I knew he was dead. I found Michael Minogue when I came back to Chicago. The people at the Veterans hospital—Hines—gave me an address. Both Michael and Joe had been out at Hines Hospital. Michael told me about poor Joe. He told me how he’d given him a nice funeral and all of that. He was a great friend.”
She sighed and looked at Whelan. “I called the police when I read about Michael, Mr. Whelan. But the policeman I talked to just said they had no leads. He talked to me that same way you do sometimes, like I’m an old ninny without the sense God gave her. I thought maybe a man like you, an independent man, would be able to find something out.”
“So you fed me information and hoped I’d come up with Michael Minogue’s killer.”
“And Joseph’s,” she said after a long silence. “Michael told me he thought they were trying to kill him when they ran poor Joe over in the street. What a terrible thing.”
“Who, Mrs. O’Mara?”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t do any good now. You investigated and you couldn’t find a thing. I’m not going to make a fool of myself naming names.”
He sighed. “Mrs. O’Mara, it’s about Ray Dudek, isn’t it?”
She gave him a quick look. “Yes.”
“Let me try something out on you. Michael knew who killed Ray Dudek. He was supposed to meet Ray that night at Riverview. And Michael was killed—your brother was killed—because they knew the killer.”
She blinked several times and studied him, and he was beginning to see the faintest glimmer of approval in her eyes.
He leaned forward and spoke quietly. “You hoped I’d find the killer, and I think I know the name you hoped I’d come up with. Chick Landis.”
Her eyes took on a glittery look, as though she was suppressing something. “He was there. To meet Ray.”
“Why?”
“Money. He said Chick owed him money, a lot of money, and he was going to get it. It was over money.”
He thought for a moment, then shook his head. “That’s what I thought. But it wasn’t about money. I’m just not sure what it was about. And it wasn’t Landis. It was Casey Pollard, Mrs. O’Mara.”
She frowned. “What? Casey Pollard? He was just a boy.”
“He was old enough to do this. Maybe not on his own, but I think it was him.”
“Why Casey?”
“I don’t know why. I was hoping you’d tell me. Casey took Ray’s discharge papers from his body. He had them on him when he was found.”
“Found?”
“He’s dead, too.”
“Oh, dear Lord.”
“The police found a body down at the lake over the weekend, and I’m pretty sure it will turn out to be Casey. I think he killed Ray Dudek, and now he’s dead because someone murdered him. And his brother. And I know Fritz is dead because I found him.”
She shuddered and seemed dumbfounded.
“Are you going to be all right?”
“Yes. What a terrible thing. All these men dead…”
She let the thought trail off. For a second she tried to busy herself with her cup and then she flashed him a sudden look. “It’s him, then, Mr. Whelan. Him that put Casey up to it, and him that killed them.”
Whelan was already shaking his head before she finished.
“No, it wasn’t Landis. He’s a creep, but I can’t see him as a killer.”
“No, I’m not talking about him. Herb. Herb Gaynor. He was there that night.”
“I know. He was working the main gate. But why? Why would he?”
“Because of Ellen. Because of Miss Ellen Gillette.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I never liked him, I always felt like he was watching everybody, and he was, when it came to Ellen. Looked like a hawk, he did, with his long nose and his dark eyes. I never trusted him. I never knew what Ellen saw in him, but she didn’t have much sense about boys, Miss Ellen Gillette. He was a little older than everybody else, Mr. Whelan, he had pocket money and a car before anybody else did, and she was impressed. But she had eyes for Ray.”
“Well, Betty Henke told me Ellen once had a crush on Ray…before her relationship with Herb Gaynor.”
“Ah, that’s just like Betty, always looking for the good in people. Ellen had a crush on Ray Dudek before, during and after. But…but he never really took her seriously.”
“How do you know?”
Mrs. O’Mara fixed him with a proud look. “He wanted me, Mr. Whelan.” Embarrassed now, she looked away. “She looked like a movie star—you should have seen her—and she had such lovely clothes. Men used to stop and watch her walk by. You didn’t see her then, and you can’t tell from that old picture—something happens in pictures, you can’t see what’s really there. She was a beautiful girl, but he didn’t want her.” She paused for a second. “He wanted me.”
“And you were there to meet him that night. To tell him you couldn’t see him anymore.”
She looked embarrassed. “Who knows what I would have told him? But that’s what I planned. And then he was dead.”
He thought over what she’d revealed and sank back into the chair. He wrestled with all of it, the limping killer, the dark figure in the overcoat outside his office, and the story about the girl singer caught in the rain with the courtly bandleader. He put it together with something that had bothered him from the beginning and knew he had one final stop to make.
He set down his cup and got up from the big chair. “I’m going to finish this, and I’ll give what I have to the police. When I’m done. I’ll call you.”
“Yes, please. And don’t worry about your money.”
“I never do. I never worry about it at all. A defect in my character.”
As he drove, he was hearing Bauman’s voice reciting the list of people seen on the beach the evening of Michael Minogue’s murder. “Old man in an overcoat,” he could hear Bauman saying, just before he got to the man in the windbreaker and hat.
Old man in an overcoat.
He drove the short distance to the Gaynor house and pulled up across the street. At first there was no sign that anyone was home, but a light was on in the back of the house and another in the living room. For several minutes he sat in his car and listened to music, trying to decide how to handle this final conversation. He thought about giving it all to Bauman and reading about it in the papers, but he had his own questions to be answered, and he thought he had a right to the answers.
When he noticed the furtive movement of a drape, he knew it was time to finish this.
Ellen Gillette Gaynor opened the door for him as he’d expected. She smiled, but there was a tension in her eyes. She leane
d halfway out through the opened door as though greeting a salesman.
“Mr. Whelan. You’ve got more questions for us?”
“A few. May I come in?”
“Oh, of course. But my husband is lying down. Do you need me to get him up?”
“No, ma’am. I can just ask you, and then I’ll be going.”
She relaxed a little and moved back to open the door for him, then led him into the living room.
Whelan sat down, declined her offer of a cup of coffee and waited as she lowered herself into a chair. She shifted her weight awkwardly, trying to find a comfortable position, and then leaned expectantly toward him.
“Is the gun here?”
She wet her lips and went wide-eyed, an aging Kewpie doll.
“The gun? You mean Herb’s gun? Well, I hope so, unless somebody got hold—”
“Nobody got hold of it, Mrs. Gaynor. Heavy weapon, though, for someone your size.”
“You’re talking crazy, Mr. Whelan. My lord, what are you saying?”
“Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe that man lying down in there is a killer.”
“My husband is no killer, Mr. Whelan. He’s got his faults but he’s no killer, unless somebody threatens his family. Then you better watch out.”
“That’s exactly how I’ve come to think about you, Mrs. Gaynor. I think if somebody threatens your family, they’d better watch out. What I’m not sure about is why these old men had to be killed—Michael Minogue and Joe Colleran, after all this time. They seem to have been just a couple of simple guys, harmless people. A couple of old guys in rented rooms—why would anybody kill them?”
“Why ask me? It was terrible, but…Anyhow, Joe was killed in an accident. I think we talked about that. I’m almost sure we did. Car accident.”
“Nope. No accident. Somebody ran him down in the street. It could have been a drunk, a panicky stranger, but I doubt it. I don’t know if that was you, but I know you’re responsible for the death of Ray Dudek and I know why.”
“This is just craziness!” She held up both palms in a helpless gesture.
“You were having his child.”
She blinked and made a sudden sharp intake of breath and her mouth stretched wide in a rictus of shock. She began shaking her head, and he leaned forward.
The Riverview Murders Page 23
