He turned away.
“Does this mean we don’t get an autograph?” I said.
He slammed the door behind him.
“Is it him?” Schanno asked.
“I don’t know, Wally. I thought if it was, I could bluff it out of him.”
“He had me convinced,” Schanno said.
“Either he’s telling the truth or he’s a very good actor.”
The kid with the Bissell snorted.
Pollard turned his way. “You know him?”
The kid looked up at us and feigned surprise. “What?”
Pollard walked toward him. “Do you know Preston Ellsworth?”
The kid watched her approach and thought about it. “Oh yeah, I know him,” he said with a smirk.
“Was he lying?”
“Hey, I don’t—”
Pollard was very close to him now. “Was he lying?”
The kid leaned on the handle of his Bissell. “What you just witnessed was a performance.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“Here’s something else for you. He drives a Ferrari. He does seasonal melodrama for a living, but he drives a Ferrari. How do you figure that?”
“Yes,” Pollard agreed. “How do you figure that? I think we’ll go back and talk to Mr. Ellsworth further.”
The kid shrugged—no big deal to him—and went back to cleaning the lobby. “Through that doorway and down the hall. His dressing room’s on the right. His name’s on the door,” he said without looking at us again.
The door was unlocked, and we went in without knocking. Ellsworth was at his dressing table. He’d removed his sport coat and was in his T-shirt. He was in the process of wiping cold cream off his face when he saw us in the mirror. He was clearly startled, then angry.
He swung toward us. “What the hell do you think you’re doing here?”
“We came to congratulate you on a pretty good performance,” I said. “And to get the truth from you.”
“If you don’t get out of here, I’m calling the police.”
“Fine,” Pollard said. “And when you do, maybe you can explain to them how an actor in local theater gets the kind of money it takes to buy a Ferrari. And if the police aren’t interested, I have friends with the CRA who’d love to follow up on that.”
“I pay my taxes.”
By that time, I’d had enough. I was on him in two long strides. I grabbed a handful of his T-shirt, bunched it at his throat, and shoved him against the back of his chair. I put my face an inch from his. I could smell the greasepaint, the cold cream, the ghost of whiskey on his breath. His eyes bloomed with surprise and fear.
“I’m tired of being fucked around,” I said. “That goon Morrissey followed me back to Minnesota and tried to kill my friend Henry. Morrissey’s dead, but I want to know if there are going to be any others trying to make sure the killing gets done. I swear to God, what I’m about to do to you isn’t a performance you’ll soon forget. You want that face to be in shape for the stage tomorrow night, you’ll answer my questions now. Who hired you?”
Ellsworth gave me no answer. I lifted him out of the chair and slammed him against the wall. The drywall behind him crunched.
“I can’t tell you,” he squawked.
“Can’t?”
“Breach of contract. If I tell you, I lose everything.”
“Everything’s already lost, pal. The gig is over. We’re busting Wellington wide open, and I’ve got no problem busting you open first. Who hired you?”
“Wellington,” he said.
“Henry Wellington?”
“Yes.”
I eased up a bit, let him off the wall. “Tell me about it.”
“Six years ago. He called me to the island and laid out what he wanted.”
“Which was?”
“Somebody to be him.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. He offered me a deal I’d have been a fool to turn down. But there was a stipulation. I could never reveal the agreement, never tell anyone about my role.”
“His idea to be so eccentric?”
“More or less. He said he’d been compared to Howard Hughes all his life. No reason to stop now. He thought it would be a good way to keep people at a distance. So I studied Hughes.”
“He’s okay with this character?”
“I assume. Once I signed the agreement, I never saw him again.”
Meloux walked forward. Ellsworth shifted his eyes toward the old man.
“What was he like?” Henry said.
Ellsworth thought a moment. “Rather cold. Unhappy.”
Meloux nodded.
“Who pays you?” I asked.
“I get a monthly amount deposited into my bank account. A retainer. And for each performance, I get something additional.”
“How often do you perform?”
“A couple of times a month, usually. I make an appearance at twilight for the benefit of the gawkers. Every once in a while, like when you showed up, I’m called to make a special appearance. I use the darkened room and the mask bit to keep people from looking too closely.”
“Wellington’s never on the island?”
“As far as I know, he hasn’t set foot there in six years.”
“Where is he?”
“I haven’t the foggiest.”
“You know his brother, Rupert?”
“I know who he is. I’ve never met him.”
“The money that’s deposited in your account, where does it come from?”
“On my bank statement, the notation reads Entertaintec, Inc.”
“You don’t know anything about the company?”
“No.”
“Who contacted you for my performance?”
“I have a cell phone dedicated to gigs on Manitou. Whenever they want me, they call me on it.”
“Who’s they?”
“I don’t know. A voice I don’t recognize.”
“Has it always been just a voice?”
“At first it was Wellington himself. That lasted a couple of years. Then it was a different voice.”
“No name?”
“No.”
“And so no face to go with it, right?”
“That’s right.”
“What if you decided to contact your contact? Can you call him?”
“Yes. There’s a number.”
“He answers?”
“No. I leave a message. I don’t do it often. They don’t like it.”
“If I had the number, I could have it traced,” Pollard said to me.
“Give it to her,” I told Ellsworth.
He went to his sport coat and took a pen from the inside pocket. He wrote the number on the back of a program lying on the dressing table and handed the program to Pollard.
“What can you tell me about Morrissey?” I said.
“Nothing. He sometimes rides out with me in the launch and sticks around until I go back. If there’s anything special about the gig, he explains what Mr. Wellington wants. He told me you were coming and what he wanted me to do.”
“Which was?”
“Listen to what you had to say and hold on to the watch.”
“Did he tell you the importance of the watch?”
“No.”
“And after I left, you told him everything I told you?”
“Yes.”
“He passed the information along to Wellington?”
“I don’t know. I’d done my part. Benning took us back to Thunder Bay. That’s all there was to it.”
“You said Morrissey comes out sometimes but not always. Who usually takes care of the details of your appearances on the island?”
“Benning and Dougherty.”
“Why not that time?”
He shrugged.
I thought to myself, Because that time, Meloux had to die.
“Look, I’ve told you everything I know. I’ve probably screwed myself good.”
“I think you can count on an
end to the engagement,” Pollard said. “When the police understand the nature of your involvement with the dead man, they’ll want to talk to you, and as soon as they do, you’re headline news. You’re finished impersonating Henry Wellington, Mr. Ellsworth.”
I thought it would hit him hard, facing the end of the luxurious ride he’d managed to get out of Wellington. But he brightened.
“Hey, I could get great publicity out of this. ‘The man who was Wellington.’ The media will love it.”
“I’ll contact the police,” Pollard told him. “Where can you be reached?”
He gave her his home address and phone number.
“Stay available,” she cautioned him.
“I’m all theirs,” he said and opened his arms magnanimously.
In the lobby, the kid had finished sweeping the carpet. He watched us as we trooped past.
“How’d it go?” he asked.
“He brought down the house.”
“That’s a first. Was he really playing Henry Wellington?”
“He was.”
“And he got a Ferrari out of it?”
“It appears he did.”
As we walked out, the kid shook his head and grumbled, “No fucking justice.”
FORTY-TWO
We headed back to the marina to take Pollard to her boat.
“What are you going to do now?” she asked along the way.
“Get rooms for the night,” I said. “These wet jeans are starting to chafe.”
“You’re welcome to stay at my place,” she offered.
“Don’t think we’d all fit in the cabin of your sailboat, Trinky.”
“I have a house. I’m not there much during sailing season, but it’s a perfectly fine place. I’ve got a guest room, a sofa, a cot.”
“We’ve already imposed enough,” I said.
“Nonsense. This is the most fun I’ve had since I retired.”
“Guys?” I said.
“I’m game,” Schanno replied.
Meloux said, “Migwech.”
Pollard said, “Eh?”
“Ojibwe,” I told her. “Means thank you.”
Instead of returning to the marina, we went directly to her little bungalow on a tree-shaded street northwest of the downtown district. I parked in the drive, we grabbed our bags, and headed toward the front door along a walk lined with flowers. We climbed four steps up to a small, covered porch with a swing. When we stepped inside the house, everything looked simple, neat, and clean.
“Nice woodwork,” Schanno noted.
“That’s what sold me on the place,” she said. “I’d be happy to make coffee. Decaf, I suppose, at this time of night. And I’ve probably got frozen pizza I can throw in the oven. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m starved.”
She gave Meloux the guest room. From the hallway closet, she pulled a cot, which I set up in the living room. She brought in linen for it and for the sofa. Schanno offered to take the cot, but I could see that big as he was, his feet would hang over the end, and I argued him out of it.
By the time we’d changed into dry clothing, Pollard had the coffee ready. She pulled the pizza from the oven, and we sat around her dining room table, feeding our faces and talking about plans for the next day.
“We still haven’t located Henry Wellington,” I said. “I think we should talk to his brother, Rupert.”
“Think he knows what’s been going on?” Schanno said. “Sounds like it was Henry who set up the whole charade.”
“Rupert can’t be clueless. He probably knows where his brother is. Or at the very least, how to contact him.”
Pollard said, “The contact number Ellsworth gave me, I’ll have that checked, see if it leads us anywhere.”
“Thanks, Trinky.”
Meloux looked tired.
Pollard saw it, too. “We should all get some sleep,” she suggested, rising from her chair. “Tomorrow’ll be another busy day.”
I woke in the night. I wasn’t sure if I’d heard something or dreamed it. I lifted my head from the pillow and saw that the front door stood ajar. Through the open window overlooking the front porch, I heard the gentle scree of the chains as the swing went slowly back and forth.
I was about to check it out, just to be safe, when Schanno got up and shifted himself so that he could look through the porch window, which was directly behind the sofa. He stared awhile as the swing kept up its quiet rhythm. He glanced my way, and I pretended sleep. He slipped from the sofa and padded to the front door. After a minute of hesitation, he pushed the screen door open and stepped outside.
The regular beat of the porch swing ceased. I heard their voices, hushed. I heard rain dripping from the eaves. I heard a car drive past, its tires sighing on wet pavement.
Then the swing began again.
Wally Schanno did not return to the sofa that night.
In the morning, I found Schanno and Pollard in the kitchen. Crisp bacon lay on a plate on the table, eggs were frying in a pan on the stove, coffee was fresh and hot in the brew pot, and bread was ready to be dropped into the toaster. The rain had long ago ended, and the sun was rising in the sky like a bubble in a champagne glass. Pollard wore a white terry-cloth robe. Her feet were bare, her hair brushed, her eyes happy. Schanno had on a T-shirt, plaid sleep bottoms, and a big grin.
“Morning, sleepyhead,” Pollard said. “Coffee?”
“Thanks.”
“Sit down.” Schanno wielded a spatula, which he aimed at the small kitchen table.
I sat. Pollard poured coffee while Schanno tended the eggs.
“Hungry?” she asked.
“Give me a minute. But probably.”
“Hope you like your eggs over easy,” Schanno said. “Only way I know how to cook ’em.”
“Over easy’s fine, Wally.”
“How’s that toast coming, Trinky?”
“Going down,” she said.
Then she laughed, as if it was the funniest thing she’d heard in forever. Schanno laughed, too.
“You guys sleep okay?” I asked.
“Marvelously well,” Pollard said.
Marvelously was drawn out and affected, the way Tallulah Bankhead might have said it. They both laughed some more.
“Henry up yet?” I asked.
“Gone for a walk,” Schanno replied. “He said he’d be back for breakfast.”
I heard the front door open, and at the same time, the toast popped up.
“On cue,” Pollard sang. “What timing.”
Meloux came in looking refreshed. He was beaming just as brightly as the other two. Everyone seemed to have had a better night than me.
“It is a good day,” Henry pronounced. “On this day, I will see my son.”
Schanno lifted the coffee cup that sat near him on the counter. “To this day,” he toasted.
Trinky Pollard did the same.
Despite the sunny morning and dispositions, I’d awakened with a sense that we were all swimming upstream against a current of doom. Why, I didn’t know. But I didn’t want my concern to infect the others. Who was I, anyway, to blunt their optimism?
I raised my cup. “To this day, Henry,” I said and hoped it was true.
Over breakfast, we talked specifics. I proposed that Meloux and I go together to see Rupert Wellington.
“I’ve spoken with him before, so he knows me. Henry will tell his story, and we’ll see what Wellington does.”
“What if he refuses to see you?” Schanno’s elbows were on the table, and his coffee cup was lost in the grip of his big hands.
“When I trot out Preston Ellsworth’s name, I’m betting he’ll want to talk,” I said.
Pollard said, “In the meantime, I’ll see what I can run down on that contact number Ellsworth gave us. And also the company that’s been paying for his performances.”
Thunder Bay (Cork O'Connor Mysteries) Page 25
