The Last Coincidence (The Nero Wolfe Mysteries Book 4)

by Robert Goldsborough

  Wolfe eyed our visitor for several seconds without stirring. “Sir, you may indeed be, as you term it, ‘dead meat.’ And my services may patently be superfluous. Your sister, however, seems unswerving in her conviction of your innocence.”

  “What would you expect of a sister?” Michael asked, smiling sourly. “I mean, she’s not about to hang me out to dry.”

  “But you appear more than willing to hang yourself out to dry,” Wolfe remarked.

  “What can I say? I bashed the guy, and I’m not sorry about it. He did something—all three of us here know exactly what it was—and then I did something. I’d do it all over again, with a tire iron, or with my hands, or with anything else I could find. Now, I know guys like you make out big on retainers, which is fine, I guess. And I also know that Nor can afford you, but she’s wasting her time. Give her back her money, and I’ll pay you the same amount, and then you can drop all of this because, believe me, it’s hopeless. They got the right guy.”

  “Mr. James, yours is not an unattractive proposal,” Wolfe conceded. “Indeed, given certain circumstances, I might be inclined to consider such an offer, but I must in this situation respectfully decline.”

  “What’s the matter—don’t you believe I have the money?” Michael challenged.

  “On the contrary, Mr. James. I don’t doubt for a moment that you do.”

  “Then what’s the problem? You said under certain circumstances, you’d be—what?—‘inclined to consider the offer,’ I think, is the way you put it. What the hell are the circumstances?”

  Wolfe readjusted his bulk. “Borrowing loosely from the language of the Bible, the first and great circumstance under which I would ponder such a proposition is if its giver were guilty. And you, sir, are manifestly not guilty.”

  Michael James started to get up, glared at Wolfe, who glared back, and then sat down again. “Listen, Wolfe, you may be a genius, but you’ve blown it this time. Do you mean to say that even with me admitting to offing Linville, you guys are going to go ahead and take my sister’s money? I think that stinks.”

  I must interrupt here to report that “stinks” is not the word young James used, but my practice is to keep these narratives relatively free from what Wolfe has referred to as “the desecration of the language.” So “stinks” will have to do, and if you think another word works better, feel free to make the substitution—you might even be correct.

  Anyway, after Wolfe got told off, he looked at James and sniffed. “I am of the opinion that your sister is firmly in the possession of her faculties. Were I a charlatan, she would doubtless see through me in an instant and react accordingly. However, you may wish to share your analysis of my motives with her.”

  “You’re damn right I will,” Michael yapped, this time getting up in earnest. “Where is she?”

  I steered him toward the front room, leaving Wolfe to his devices—which is to say, beer and a book—and ushered him down the hall to the front room, opening it ahead of him. Noreen popped to her feet as he entered, and brother and sister just looked at each other for several seconds.

  I finally broke the spell, telling them they were free to remain in the front room and discuss the situation together. I think Noreen would have stayed, but Michael was in no mood to hang around the brownstone for another minute. The rain had stopped, but the smell of dampness was in the air as he hustled her out the front door and down the steps to the street. She turned back to me with an “I’m-sorry-but-that’s-Michael-for-you” look as I stood in the doorway.

  “Well, what do you think of our young suspect?” I asked Wolfe back in the office.

  “Pah. The man is as diaphane as a pane of plate glass,” he huffed.

  “Uh-huh. If he ever set foot in that garage, then I’m a nuclear physicist.”

  Wolfe made a face at my phrasing and opened his new book, A Brief History of Time, by Stephen W. Hawking. For him, the working day, such as it was, had ended, and I was in no mood to badger him any further. After all, I already had my assignments for tomorrow, and he was just perverse enough to cancel them if I became what he terms an insufferable nuisance.

  FIFTEEN

  ON SUNDAYS, THE BROWNSTONE’S BY-THE-NUMBERS schedule gets a breather. For Fritz, it’s a free day, although sometimes he stays around and he and Wolfe whip up something together for lunch. More often, though, he takes off, leaving His Largeness free to run amok in the kitchen, where he actually prepares his own meals on what is for him a haphazard timetable. The plant-room schedule also flies out the window. Theodore usually visits his sister in New Jersey for the day, and Wolfe may make one or even two random voyages to the roof to putter. But he spends most of the day lazing in the chair at his desk, wrestling with the Sunday Times, particularly the “Week in Review” section and the magazine, whose crossword puzzle is no match for him.

  My day is likewise generally unstructured. I also do a bit of improvising in the kitchen, at least in the morning, and after plowing through my own copy of the Times, I’ve been known to amble over to Lily’s penthouse. Sometimes the two of us have lunch at her place and dinner out, other times we reverse the procedure or maybe go to a concert or a ballgame. And when Lily isn’t available, I wing it, as I thought I was doing by taking in the Mets double-header with Saul. But you already know what happened to that plan.

  Actually, I’m not averse to working Sundays because, whatever faults I find with Wolfe, he is flexible regarding time off, and he has mellowed to where he feels a Sunday spent toiling is worth two days of freedom at another time. All of which helps make it possible for me to occasionally escape with Lily to her not-so-humble country place up near Katonah for extra-long weekends without eating into my vacation time.

  I decided to tackle Douglas Rojek first on that overcast Sabbath morning. It was just past eleven when, after having consumed scrambled eggs, link sausage, whole-wheat toast, orange juice, two cups of coffee, and all I wanted of the Times, I stood up from my desk, stretched, and announced to Wolfe that I was about to venture forth on behalf of the Family James. He grunted an acknowledgment but did not look up from the paper, so I made a witty remark about not being appreciated and slipped on my suit coat, reminding him to bolt the door behind me. After all, Wolfe has made enough enemies through the years to fill Madison Square Garden, and a goodly number undoubtedly know our address.

  The day was pleasantly cool for late July in New York, and it looked like rain again. I briefly considered getting the Mercedes from the garage for the trip across the East River, but decided in favor of a cab, which I hailed on Eighth Avenue. The driver balked at going to Brooklyn Heights, but when I asked his name and started writing his license number in my notebook, he growled for me to get in, and we drove through the nearly empty streets in silence, which suited me fine.

  Twenty-two minutes and one bridge later, I found myself on a hilly tree-lined block that could be termed gentrified, which is real-estate shorthand for expensive. The buildings on both sides were three- and four-story brownstones, and they all looked as if they had been given a face lift in the last few years. There were no children in sight, hardly a surprise considering the neighborhood’s prices.

  Rojek’s building was a three-story number, every bit as nice as any on the block, and judging by the name on the mailbox in the foyer, he lived alone, in 2-N. The young man either came from money or was doing very well indeed across the river in Wall Street’s canyons. I rang his bell and got another squawky “Yes?” through the speaker. When I told the voice I was a friend of Noreen James, I was promptly buzzed in. I climbed the wallpapered stairwell to the third floor, where a thin face wearing a quizzical expression peered from behind a partly open door. “What do you want?” it asked.

  “Are you Douglas Rojek?” I said with what I hoped was a friendly, nonthreatening voice to go with my most earnest smile.

  “Yes. Who are you?” The door came open a little farther and I could see earnestness, although without a smile, looking back at me in the form
of a long face with prominent cheekbones topped by sandy hair that spilled over one side of a high forehead. He wore khaki pants and a blue button-down shirt open at the collar. A college ring with a dark blue stone gleamed from his finger.

  “My name is Archie Goodwin, and I am in the employ of Nero Wolfe, of whom you may have heard. Mr. Wolfe is investigating the death of Barton Linville, and his client is Noreen—”

  “Noreen?” he cut in, shaking his head. “I … Oh, come in, come in. I can’t get over what’s happened.” He directed me into a good-sized, light living room furnished with some pricey contemporary pieces. The Sunday Times was stacked in two neat piles on the floor. “Please, sit down,” he said, gesturing toward the sofa and moving his angular frame to a chair. Douglas Rojek was all of six-three, but if he weighed one-sixty, it would have to be with all his clothes on, including a fur-lined overcoat and thick-soled boots.

  “All right, Mr. … Goodwin, isn’t it?” Rojek hunched his shoulders and shifted nervously as he sat with his legs wide apart. “Tell me what’s happening. I’ve seen the papers and watched the TV news, of course, and I’ve tried to phone Noreen, but her mother answers and says she can’t be disturbed. And Michael—he’s, what, out on bond? God, I just can’t believe any of this is happening. It’s incredible. A nightmare.” He shook his head and yanked a cigarette pack from his pocket, lighting up with a match and offering me one, which I declined.

  “It certainly seems like a nightmare to all the Jameses,” I agreed. “You know Michael well, very well from what I gather. Do you think he’s capable of murder? Specifically, of murdering Sparky Linville?”

  “Well … the papers are saying he did it because of … well, something that happened between him—Linville, I mean—and Noreen.” Rojek kept his eyes on the stack of business magazines on the glass coffee table.

  “I know what the papers are saying. I want to know what you think.”

  Rojek ground out his cigarette in the ashtray although it was barely a third smoked, then ran a long-fingered hand over his face and chin. “I don’t know what to think. At this point, the whole thing is more than I can understand.”

  “How would you describe your relationship with Noreen James?”

  He went through the cigarette-lighting ritual again. “A terrific person,” he said. “But then, I don’t have to tell you that; you know her.”

  “I do indeed. Right now, though, we’re talking about you and her.”

  He took a long drag and watched the smoke waft toward the ceiling. He was apparently one of those who’d seen too many Bogart movies, which was all right—so was I. I waited, knowing the pressure was building; I was prepared to give him thirty seconds, but as it turned out, twenty was enough.

  “I’m really awfully fond of Noreen,” he said self-consciously. “We’ve gone out quite a lot the last few months, and …”

  “And?”

  Rojek let his bony shoulders bounce a couple of times. “And we get along wonderfully,” he said as though he meant it. “Wonderfully.”

  “So let’s go back to Michael. Do you think he killed Linville?”

  He shook his head. “I really don’t know. It’s hard for me to believe, but …” He turned his palms up.

  I was done fooling around. “Mr. Rojek,” I said, “precisely what do you know about the relationship between Barton Linville and Noreen James?”

  He stubbed out another cigarette and frowned at the ashtray. “I know they went out a couple of times or so,” he said, spacing the words. “But that was Noreen’s business.”

  “Did it bother you?”

  More shoulder bouncing. “Oh, I guess so, but after all, I have no particular claim on her. She’s free to do whatever she wants.”

  “That’s noble, Mr. Rojek. Did you have any long-range plans involving Noreen James?”

  “You mean like marriage?”

  “Whatever.”

  “Well … yes, dammit. I mean, I’d thought about it.”

  “Did she know that?”

  “You’re getting awfully personal,” he said stiffly.

  “The police are likely to get a lot more personal if they talk to you,” I said. “Let’s quit dancing around the subject. When did you find out what had happened to Noreen?”

  This time Rojek looked at the floor rather than the coffee table, rubbing his hands together between his long legs. “Michael told me in so many words when we were having lunch,” he muttered.

  “And your reaction?”

  “I don’t know. Stunned, I suppose. Not that something like that couldn’t happen to anybody, you know, but …” He looked up at me, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. “Is Noreen okay?”

  “She’s fine, probably better than you are at this moment. So you knew what had happened to her while Linville was still alive?”

  That one took a while to sink in, and he didn’t field it particularly well when he did answer. “I guess I did, yeah, I suppose. But so what? What does that mean?”

  “Just an observation. When was the last time you talked to Miss James?”

  Rojek screwed up his face. “Like I told you, I’ve tried to call her the last few days.”

  “What about before that, before Linville was killed?”

  Maybe the guy was twitchy all the time, but I doubted it as I watched him brush his hair out of his eyes and scratch his cheek and then his chin, and then make another pass at his hair. “I don’t feel, well, comfortable, discussing this, you know? I mean, talking about Noreen this way.”

  “Suit yourself. Chances are, though, that you’ll eventually have to talk to somebody, as in the New York police.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Michael James did not murder Sparky Linville. Believe it.”

  Rojek locked his elbows onto his knees and looked at the dirty carpet below, head in hands. “All right,” he said without conviction, looking at me and inhaling twice, as if the room lacked oxygen, “I haven’t been with Noreen a whole lot for a couple weeks. She … hasn’t really wanted to talk to me—or see me, for that matter.”

  “Care to speculate on the reason?”

  “I think it goes back to when she and Linville … You know. Michael told me it happened … what, God, about a month ago? That would have been about the time Noreen started … avoiding me.”

  I watched Rojek without saying anything, which made him even more self-conscious. Finally he jerked to his feet and jammed his hands into his pants pockets. “God, so what happens now?” he said plaintively, giving me his back and looking out the window onto the Brooklyn street.

  “What happens is you tell me where you were late last Wednesday night and in Thursday’s early hours.”

  He spun around, hands still in his pockets, and leaned toward me, squinting. “That’s a tacky thing to say, really cheap.”

  “I guess that makes me both tacky and cheap then,” I told him, standing so that we were more or less on the same level. Like Wolfe, I don’t like to have to crane my neck to maintain eye contact. “Look, Mr. Rojek, I admit that you don’t have to tell me a damn thing; I’m only a private investigator. But I do know a number of members of the New York Police Department fairly well. Now, that’s in no way meant to be a threat, but—”

  “But that’s exactly what it is,” Rojek muttered, letting himself drop back into the chair and pulling out another cigarette, which he didn’t light. “We both know I don’t have to tell you a thing, but I will,” he said, his voice suddenly gone icy. “On Wednesday nights, I always play softball, in a park near here. That’s what I did this week too. Lots of people can vouch for me.”

  “You play your games on a lighted field?” I asked, also sitting again.

  “Not us. It’s just an after-work league, nothing fancy.”

  “So you were done before nine?”

  He shrugged. “About quarter of, I suppose. I wasn’t bothering to check my watch.”

  “Which means the night was still young.”

  “That
’s right,” he snapped, looking at his cigarette. “And then about six of us went to a local bar, like we always do after a game. Want the name of the place?”

  “Maybe later. How long were you there?”

  “An hour, maybe a little more. I had a grand total of two beers, like I usually do.”

  “And then?”

  “And then, Mr. Goodwin, I came back here, read for a while, and went to bed—alone. So I have no alibi at all. Anything else you want to know?”

  “Nice place you’ve got,” I observed, looking around. “Live here by yourself?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You must do well.”

  “Yes, I do pretty well,” Rojek said, standing again and pressing his lips together. He tossed the unlit cigarette into the ashtray. “And also, although God knows it’s no business of yours, I have generous parents. Now, if you don’t mind—”

  “Hey, say no more,” I told him, smiling and holding up a hand. “I know when I’ve overstayed my welcome, and I have a suspicion that’s what I may have done here. But you’d better be prepared for more knocks on your door in the near future, from the police or—who knows?—maybe even from me again.”

  I didn’t get an answer, nor did I expect one. Mr. Personality went to the door without a word and held it open for me. I walked out, giving him one last smile and getting a sneer in return. He wasn’t happy, but then, in this business, it’s hard to leave ’em laughing.

  SIXTEEN

  BACK OUT ON THE STREET I looked around, wondering how easy it would be to find a taxi in Brooklyn at a little past noon on a Sunday. I walked three blocks to the nearest busy thoroughfare, Flatbush Avenue, and my luck held as a yellow swerved to the curb. Less than fifteen minutes later I found myself on King Street in the Village, just west of Sixth Avenue. The block had good-size trees and was similar to Rojek’s neighborhood except all of the buildings here were brick and some were still undergoing gentrification. At least two were gutted and had scaffolding clinging to their facades.