I scooped up the newspaper on my way out and told Dex to holler if he wanted anything more from me. Then I left his office door open a crack. That way, I reasoned silently, I’d be able to hear if he did indeed holler. I didn’t dwell on the fact that it also made it easier to hear what was going on in there.
The flatfoots didn’t waste any time. I was still rolling paper into the typewriter when they started up. “We heard you was at a party last night, Theroux.”
“Yeah, sure.” Dex is good at seeming relaxed and comfortable around the law. It’s one of his gifts. “What can I say? I like a social gathering. Helps me hone my people skills. Maybe you and the missus here should attend one once.” I sucked in my breath soundlessly. O’Reilly and Houlahan. We knew they weren’t the sharpest chips off the edge of a dull block. Still, poking at them with a stick didn’t seem such a good idea.
I was relieved when one of the cops picked up the conversation apparently unperturbed. Maybe he’d missed the insult. Or maybe he was used to it.
“Party you was at? Someone got fogged.”
“Yeah,” said the other, “good and fogged.”
“I heard,” Dex said, still sounding comfortable. “It’s in all the papers.”
I threw some typing into the mix here. Rapid-fire: rat-tat-tat. I could hear them getting warmed up. I figured I may as well fulfill Dex’s request before they got to the good stuff; and I did have a feeling that good stuff was coming.
“People say they saw you there.”
To my surprise, Dex laughed outright at this. I took the opportunity to fire another round of rapid typing into the breach. “What’s with the fishing expedition, boys?” he asked good-naturedly. “Way I understand it, you’ve already landed the big one. What the hell do you need me for?”
I was glad Dex had asked it. I’d been thinking the same thing: Wyndham had been arrested. Why question Dex?
“You’re lucky we got someone in custody, Theroux.” It was the same voice and it held an edge. I didn’t much like it. “If we didn’t, we’d sure as hell be looking at you more closely.”
“Well, you’re here, ain’t you? Any closer and we’d be doin’ the tango.”
“Boys, boys, c’mon.” I think this was O’Reilly. There was a placating note in his voice. “No need for any of that. Theroux’s right, anyway, ain’t he? This is a fishing expedition. ‘Course it is.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t like the bait you’re usin’.” This was Dex.
“Well, you was there. We figured you was there for a reason.”
Dex laughed. “Sure, there was girls there.”
“That’s not what we mean.” Houlahan. I could imagine his intense face. Under the right circumstances—or the wrong ones—I knew it was a face that could scare me. “To be there, at that party with those people, we figured you had to have a special invite.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Dex wanted to know. “A ‘special’ invite. This fishing is lost on me, boys. If you’re figuring something, maybe you just oughta say it.”
“Face it, Theroux,” this was Houlahan again, “this ain’t a crowd you run with. Too swell.”
“I clean up pretty good,” Dex said. “You should see me after I pull a comb through my hair and a razor across my face. Hell, even you apes could pass for human after a trip to the barber.”
If either cop took offense at this I didn’t hear it in their voices. Maybe they were too focused on their goal.
“Anyhow,” Houlahan said, “what we’re getting at is this: we figured you had to have been there for a client.”
“Is that what you figured?” Dex said. I could imagine him eyeing both flatfoots as he said it. “Well you figured wrong. I mean, if I did have a client—and I ain’t sayin’ I did—but if I did, I sure as hell wouldn’t tell the two of you about it. And I know I can say it all straight up and honest to you like that because you knew that before you ever walked in the door.”
“OK, it ain’t just that,” Houlahan said.
“It never is.”
“We also wanted to know what you seen while you was there.”
“Say it plain, boys. What you really wanna know is did I see anything that will help you nail Wyndham. Am I right? Fact is, I didn’t. I saw Wyndham on and off all night. Always alone. Sometimes with a phone pressed to his ear. But never with a girl. He looked … he looked like he maybe had a lot on his mind, but he didn’t look crazy or anything else you might find helpful. I’d say he wasn’t even drinking, or else he was drinking, but so little it won’t be of use to you.”
“He didn’t look mad or anything? Like he was ready to snap?”
“Naw. Not even close.” A pause, and then, “In fact, when I think of it, I’d say the opposite. He looked very far from snapping. More like maybe he was worried about a business deal or something. If you asked me, I’d tell you: I’d say it had nothing to do with a girl. But listen, while I got you here, the papers didn’t say how the girl died.”
“We’re not at liberty to say.”
“Ah, sure you are,” Dex said. “‘Course you can. That way if I get information, I trade it right back to you, see? Otherwise, what’s the point in me telling you anything at all?”
Did the two cops see how flawed Dex’s logic was in this? I was guessing maybe not, because after a brief hesitation, O’Reilly replied. “Neck was broke,” he said in a confidential tone.
“Broke neck,” Dex commented, just to say something, I guessed, because the guys would be expecting it and because he wanted to bring them along.
“We ain’t supposed to talk about that part,” Houlahan reprimanded his partner mildly.
“Well that’s that then,” O’Reilly said. I could hear the end of the interview when a chair scraped back on the scuffed wood floor. Then another. “We won’t take up any more of your time.”
“Too bad I can’t get the last ten minutes back,” Dex said with a smile in his voice. “Maybe I’d do something useful with ‘em, ‘cause I sure as hell wouldn’t want to spend them with you two again.”
Whatever answer they might have made was lost in the smatter of rapid typing I sent into the air, hoping it would keep Dex’s mind from the fact that I hadn’t done much typing at all while he was in with the two cops.
“Call us if you think of anything, Theroux.” The flatfoots were moving through my office area now, putting hats back on and puffing themselves back up with the importance they understood about themselves. “Anything at all that might help.”
“Sure, sure I will,” Dex said, escorting them out. “You two will be the first I call.”
And when the door closed behind them, Dex added quietly, “when hell freezes over and Christ needs a crutch.”
CHAPTER FIVE
ONCE THE COPS were gone, Dex slunk back to his office and closed the door with a nice solid thunk. Whatever life I’d managed to breathe into him with coffee and cleanup had puffed away like the angel’s share on a glass of single malt. There was a grayness around his edges. Tinged with green. I figured only part of that had to do with all the firewater he’d put away.
I stayed at my desk and determined to fill what little was left of the work day with normal tasks. Clearly, there was no more typing to be done. Ditto filing. I tried Xander Dean again. No dice. I contented myself with sweeping the scuffed wooden floors, polishing the brass on the desk and the door and doing other chores that were clearly more housekeeping than secretarial. But it felt right somehow on this odd day. Anyway, it filled the time. I’ve never been a girl who could spend much time filing her nails and there simply wasn’t any other type of filing to do.
An hour passed. Maybe a bit more. I hadn’t heard even a peep from Dex. I was thinking about going in and checking on him when the front door opened and in walked Xander Dean with enough of a puff to his breath that I figured the elevator must be acting up again. Five flights of stairs will put anyone’s wind back, especially someone who’d skipped as few meals as Dean obviously had.
The spiteful child who lives in each of us was sorely tempted to turn him down flat. To tell him Dex was out on a job and would he like to make an appointment? That was how it was supposed to work, after all. Not just show up like he figured Dex would just be sitting in his office with nothing really to do and never mind that this was pretty much the truth.
“I’m … I’m not certain, Mr. Dean,” I said, and it was only half a lie. This wasn’t a day when anyone was getting in to see Dex unannounced. “Please have a seat and I’ll see if his schedule can accommodate you.”
I didn’t hang around to watch Dean shoehorn his bulk into our waiting area again. Instead I made a beeline for Dex’s office, slipping through the door while opening it as little as possible, just as I had the day before.
I tried not to let Dex see the relief on my face when I found him sitting up at his desk. Though he had a drink in front of him and I knew for certain it was far from his first of the day, he looked coherent and relatively presentable.
“Xander Dean just showed up again, Dex. He’s waiting to see you.”
“Is he now?” Dex said, kicking back in his chair and lacing his hands behind his head. “Well, don’t stand on ceremony, Kitty. Send him on in.” It was impossible to read anything at all from his affable tone.
“I’m not standing on ceremony, Dex. I… oh, never mind,” I said.
“Oh, and Kitty …” Dex said, just as I was about to leave his office.
“I know, I know … typing, right?”
“Thanks kid,” Dex said, preparing to top up his drink as I headed out the door.
Dean was standing next to my desk, right where I’d left him. I guessed he hadn’t wanted the challenge of trying to fit back into the waiting room chair.
“Mr. Theroux will see you now,” I told him as I took my own seat. “You can go right on in.”
“Thanks,” Dean said, moving toward Dex’s office. I was disappointed when he closed the door tightly behind him. I wouldn’t be able to hear anything.
Oddly enough, not everyone did close the door. Most of Dex’s clients seemed to take me for part of the furniture and they’d talk away to him like I wasn’t even there. That suited me fine as it meant I got to hear a lot of things with my own ears that I had no business hearing at all. Not today, though. I wouldn’t be able to hear the conversation, but I knew that Dex would be able to hear typing—or lack thereof. I sighed deeply, took the piece of paper I’d been using when the flatfoots were there out of the typewriter, turned it over, rolled it back in, clean side up and started thinking about activities for quick brown foxes. And lazy brown dogs.
CHAPTER SIX
AFTER DEAN WAS gone, I waited until I’d heard his surprisingly light footsteps recede down the hall before I ventured into Dex’s office. Things in there had gotten worse. Much worse. Worse than they had been for a while.
There was more grayness in Dex’s face. I figured it was not entirely attributable to the booze. When I plunked myself back in my usual chair, Dex once again didn’t even turn toward me from the window. That was always a bad sign. And I noted a fresh coating of booze in his glass. The smell of it was back hard in the room. Rye this time, I thought absently, not even questioning when I had acquired the connoisseurship necessary to make that determination by the vapors alone.
“What did he want?”
Dex didn’t answer right away, but sighed deeply and finally turned away from the window, though I noticed he didn’t meet my eye.
“I’m still not sure,” Dex said finally. I didn’t believe him. I told him as much.
Another sigh. Another sip. Another smoke pulled from the pack on his desk. Finally, he pulled open his desk drawer and pulled out a small stack of bills. They were green and clean and crisp. They looked good enough to eat.
“How much?” was all I said.
“Two hundred,” Dex replied.
“What for?”
“He didn’t say. Just he’d be in touch. I don’t like it, Kitty. I don’t like it one bit.”
“Yet you took the money?”
Dex nodded. Something like embarrassment flitted across his face. “I did.”
“But it must have been for something, Dex. He can’t just pay you for nothing at all. Did he say anything else?” It was like pulling fish through a tiny hole in a barrel. I knew the fish were in there all right. It was just taking some work to get them through the hole.
“Sure. He said a bit.”
“And …” I prompted.
Dex shrugged. Dragged on his smoke. Cast his eyes back out the window. “Wanted to know what I saw.”
“What you saw,” I repeated.
“You know,” he said.
I nodded. I figured I did. “What you tell him?”
“Wasn’t much to tell,” Dex said.
“Oh,” I said, finally understanding, “but you told it all, right? And you’re not sure if you should have told it quite that way.”
“It don’t feel right, Kitty. What I saw, I mean. It didn’t feel right to me then. It doesn’t feel any better now.”
“But you said you didn’t see anything.”
“I didn’t,” Dex agreed, “nothing I felt was significant. Xander? He’s got other ideas.”
“I don’t understand, Dex.”
“Wyndham going into the room. Coming out again, like I told you. He seemed to know I’d seen that. And he made sure I was able to describe it precisely.”
“The girl, right? Your date. You said you’d felt like she was putting you in place there.”
“Did I say that?”
“Not in so many words. But that was the idea I got. That you figured she was lining you up; making sure you saw Wyndham going into that bedroom.”
“But if that was true, Kitty …” Dex’s voice trailed off.
“If that were true …” I prompted.
“Well, it’s just… why me? You know, out of all the dopes at that party, why single me out?”
“Well, did you look especially dopey?”
“C’mon, K: this ain’t the funny papers.”
“Well then, I guess it’s possible she was looking out for you.”
“Is it?” Dex asked.
“Seems like.”
“But why me?”
“There’s that extra dopey thing again.”
“Kitty …”
“I’m just statin’ the obvious. But, really, if the place was as crowded as you say …”
“It was.”
“OK then,” I stopped. Thought hard. “Well then, it would seem to follow that your date was the only person who knew you’d be there. And Xander Dean. Aside from me, of course, and I didn’t tell anyone.”
“You think Xander Dean told her to make sure I saw? But why?”
It was a good question. “What we’re thinking is that someone wanted you to witness something. Something anticipated—or more—by them.”
“That’s a helluva accusation, Kitty.”
“It’s not an accusation. It’s a thought, that’s all. We’re just thinking here right now.”
“Anyway, I was already watchin’ Wyndham. Why make sure I see what I’m already being paid to watch?”
“My guess would be that someone wanted to make absolutely sure you saw the right thing at the right time. You said there were a lot of people there, right?”
Dex grunted.
“Well,” I went on, “who’s to say you’d have your mug pointed in the right direction when things went down.”
“Maybe,” Dex said, sounding skeptical. “I guess.”
“And here’s something else,” I pointed at the stack of bills on the desk, “the fact that he’s givin’ you money alone says something, doesn’t it?”
“What’s it say?” Dex asked. I was pretty sure that he knew and he was pretending not to get it, though I couldn’t tell if the pretense was for my benefit or his own. Either way, I didn’t really want to say what was on my mind: I was about one hundred and ten percent sure Dex
wouldn’t like it.
“Well, think on it,” I said finally. “He gives you more money and doesn’t ask for anything in return….”
Dex just looked at me. Waited for me to go on.
“Well, no one gives nuthin’ for nuthin’, Dex.”
“C’mon, Kitty: you got something to say, then say it.”
I found myself looking quickly to my left and right, as though for a way out. There wasn’t one. “The only reason I can think of that he’d give you money as described is to keep you employed by him and saying the stuff he wants you to say. I mean, he hasn’t asked you to follow anyone new or anything, right?”
“You’re saying he’s … he’s buying me as a witness?”
“I guess.”
“Well, for someone to have wanted me to witness something, they’d have to have been cooking up something worth witnessing, if you follow.”
“I do,” I said, nodding. “That’s what I was thinking. It’s not a good thought though, Dex. Because, it means that you suspect your client of murder.”
“Did I say that?” Dex asked, thought for a minute, then answered his own question. “I did not say that.”
“But it’s what you’re thinkin’.”
“Either way, we’re going way beyond actual fact,” Dex said. I could hear him trying for a reasonable tone. “But here’s something that is actual. Xander pumped me for information, as much as I could give him anyway. As much as the cops asked for, too, come to think of it. Which wasn’t much. Then Xander thanked me and said he’d like to keep me on retainer, which he gave me,” he patted the bills in front of him. “And that’s that.”
“That’s what?”
“That’s the end of it,” and then with more conviction, “that’s all she wrote.”
“Sorry?”
“Well,” Dex said, sitting up looking suddenly brighter. I wonder if he was even aware of pushing his lowball glass to one side of his desk blotter. “I took his money, but what’s to stop me from giving it back?”
Death Was in the Picture Page 5
