[Maggie Sullivan 02.0] - Tough Cookie Page 6

  “Maybe not,” I said. “There’s talk he had a partner.”

  Both men looked stunned.

  Wildman recovered first. “Where did you hear this?”

  “A little green parrot.”

  “Did it tell you a name?”

  Wildman’s voice warned he didn’t like getting the run-around. Or maybe the flippancy. I shook my head.

  “Perhaps I need to apologize, sir,” Hill said stiffly. “It does seem strange, however, that I never heard so much as a whisper about a partner.”

  “It’s not necessarily true,” I said.

  “However, it would make any coincidence about Draper’s death even less likely.” Wildman looked at me expectantly.

  “If the police decide they’re not interested, I’ll continue the investigation,” I said. “On one condition.

  Wildman frowned. He was accustomed to setting conditions, not hearing them.

  “What is it?”

  “From now on both of you are truthful with me.”

  “Truthful!”

  Once again I’d caught both off guard. Wildman looked angry, Hill indignant.

  “Miss Sullivan, I assure you neither of us–”

  “Neither of you bothered to tell me Charles Preston was dead when you gave me that list.”

  “It didn’t occur.... I regret to say it had slipped my mind.” Wildman redirected his gaze to the fire.

  “I’m afraid I wasn’t even aware of it.” Hill lowered his head and rubbed at his temples.

  “Yet Mr. Wildman relies on you to be up to date on people, deals, opportunities, gossip and rumors.”

  “Yes! Yes. I was remiss.” His hands clamped his head.

  “And the list of investors, which you compiled together, made no mention of Rachel Minsky.”

  Hill looked at me, flabbergasted. “Rachel Minsky! Where on earth did you–?”

  “Rachel Minsky? That – that impertinent little Jewish woman whose relatives went to prison? Surely she couldn’t afford an investment like Draper’s! She – it’s absurd!” Wildman sputtered.

  Rachel Minsky had told me the truth about one thing: She didn’t appear to be included in their social circle.

  Eleven

  I hadn’t touched the sherry I’d been offered. Nevertheless, my brain felt slightly off-kilter as I drove home past trolleys letting off weary passengers and street lamps haloed by mist-laden darkness. I’d gone to Wildman’s thinking it was the end of a case. Instead, one with twists and complications which I hadn’t yet had a chance to contemplate seemed to be opening before me. That was assuming my client knew what he was talking about when he said the police weren’t going to be interested in Draper’s death. If he did, I was going to be plenty mad. It would mean Wildman had an in somewhere up the ladder which ordinary people didn’t have. I didn’t like rich people having more pull than salesmen or waitresses.

  As I came down the quiet street where Mrs. Z’s two-story white house snuggled under a linden tree, I saw my favorite parking place was occupied by a car I didn’t recognize. Probably a boyfriend calling on one of the girls. I parked on the other side of Mrs. Z’s sidewalk and got out. A man stepped from the shadows, startling me so that I swore.

  “Jesus, Connelly! What are you doing skulking around like a burglar?”

  “Waiting to talk to you. Have you had supper?”

  “No. Why?” I said warily.

  We’d met up under a street lamp. By its yellowish glow I could tell from his coat that he wasn’t in uniform.

  “Because I have information on Draper. I reckon you have some too. I thought you might like to go somewhere and compare notes. What do you say? Share and share alike?”

  It wasn’t like any cop to offer to cough up information but I took about half a second deciding.

  “Yeah. Sure. Okay.”

  With a grin I could see in the street lamp, he grabbed my hands.

  “Let’s see the crossed fingers.”

  I jerked away with guilt burning my skin. What made him think he’d catch me pulling a kid’s trick? I’d only been crossing them mentally.

  “Were you that fresh with girls back in Ireland?” I asked indignantly. “Catching hold of them whenever you took a notion?”

  “Yeah, probably. Can’t recall any of them objecting, either.” He gave me a wink, completely unfazed. “So. Fancy a plate of stew or the like?”

  “As long as I buy my own.”

  “If that’s how you want it.”

  * * *

  We went to a joint on Fifth that had been there since before the Indians. A long bar led from front to back, but we went through to a room on the right. It was raining again, midway to freezing, and the long windows in the brick wall facing the street let in plenty of chill. We settled ourselves at a table back by the fireplace instead.

  “So.” Connelly swirled his whiskey and water. “How likely do you think it is Draper was killed?”

  The bluntness of it surprised me, as had his earlier offer to divulge information.

  “You’re the cop. You tell me.”

  “No way of knowing, at least not for sure. The back of his head had taken quite a knock.”

  “Before or after he went in the river?”

  “There was water in his lungs, so he was alive when he went in. But it could be he was unconscious. If the poor soul came to at all he was too befuddled to save himself.”

  “Not that many manage to save themselves if they go in accidentally.” A series of dams built after the big flood of 1913 tamed fluctuations in the Great Miami’s water level. They also created patches of turbulence.

  “I think Freeze would like to look at it closer. But nothing we’ve turned up gives good reason.”

  “And no one’s even willing to implicate him in a crime.” It was more statement than guess.

  Connelly lounged back and rubbed a hand up the back of his hair.

  “Right on the money. Only one fellow on that list of names you provided would even admit to Freeze that he’d been swindled by Draper. Freeze figures him for the same one who hired you.”

  I was silent a minute.

  “Frank Keefe?”

  He nodded, grinning.

  “Nope.”

  “Shite.” The grin faded.

  It didn’t surprise me that Wildman hadn’t acknowledged his loss to Draper. He might be leery of looking guilty, but I suspected it had more to do with the reason he’d hired me: protecting his reputation.

  “Freeze send you to see what you could pry out of me?”

  “He did not.”

  “So why this invitation to chat?”

  He crossed his arms on the table and leaned forward, so close I could feel the energy crackling from him.

  “Because you’re smart, Maggie, and you may know things we don’t. And I know whatever you choose to tell me will be true. Festooned with malarkey around the edges, most likely, but somewhere there’ll be a grain of truth.”

  I sipped some gin, as much to escape the heat he gave off as how well he assessed me.

  “Freeze is okay,” he said. “Has a poker up his backside, but he’s good at his job. I know you two tangled some in the past, but now he appears to trust what he hears from you. More or less.”

  “‘More or less’?”

  He saluted me with his glass again. “As much as any sane man should.”

  I tried to hear the compliment about Freeze’s opinion, but Connelly’s amusement ruffled my feathers.

  “Wouldn’t hurt you having Freeze in your corner now and again,” he said.

  “And what do you get out of us exchanging tidbits?”

  “The pleasure of your company, pretty Maggie.” He winked. “And down the road, when there’s a promotion slot comes empty, maybe I’ll have earned Freeze’s good opinion.”

  We paused while our meal was delivered.

  “The man who hired me is convinced Draper was murdered,” I said at length. “He thinks once I started hunting Draper, someone shut h
im up so he wouldn’t spill something.”

  Connelly looked up sharply. “About what?”

  I shook my head. “I have no idea, and I don’t think my client has either. As near as I can tell, he’s sore because he got hoodwinked. He thought if he found Draper it would show the business community that neither Draper nor anyone else could make a fool of him. I guess it was, in his eyes anyway, a matter of honor.”

  “Ah, yes. Honor. The lives that’s cost.”

  Connelly’s eyes were like stones, seeing far away. All the way to Ireland, perhaps. His voice was uncharacteristically harsh.

  “He seems to believe the police will write Draper off as an accident,” I said after a moment. “So he wants me to find out who killed him, and why. That hadn’t come up when I talked to Freeze.”

  Connelly grunted. He seemed lost in thought.

  “Freeze said you identified him by papers found in his wallet.”

  “Then had his secretary come in.”

  It hadn’t occurred to me to talk to someone at Draper’s office. Then again, I hadn’t even worked my way through the list of names I’d been given before he was inconsiderate enough to turn up dead. I picked at a morsel of crust and made a decision.

  “There’s one thing I didn’t tell Freeze this morning. One of the people I talked to said he had a partner.”

  “Draper had?” Connelly frowned. He gave it some thought. “Why would only one person mention it?”

  I wondered too.

  Rachel Minsky didn’t have any reason I could think of to help me. She could have plenty of reasons to hinder me.

  Twelve

  It irked me that I hadn’t so much as thought of talking to Draper’s secretary. When Wildman had told me the man had disappeared months earlier, I’d assumed Draper’s office had been locked up, and that anyone who might have worked with him had moved on. That was sloppy on my part, and I didn’t like it. Right after my oatmeal next morning, I set out to correct my mistake.

  The frosted glass on the door to the office said Draper Development. When I tapped, the voice that invited me in sounded startled.

  Draper’s secretary was a circumspect looking blonde in her mid-thirties. The eyes that sized me up were tired and slightly apprehensive.

  “I’m Maggie Sullivan,” I said handing her a card. “I’m very sorry about your employer.”

  “Oh, mercy,” she said, looking from the card to me. “Now what?”

  Her manner was that of someone absolutely wretched. I smiled to reassure her.

  “I know this must be awfully tough. Mr. Draper disappearing, and the scandal–”

  “There wasn’t any....” she began loyally, but she couldn’t finish.

  “– and then him drowning. Worse, with you having to deal with it all yourself, I expect.” With the cops asking her to identify the body, I had a good guess the last part was true. She didn’t contradict me. “I won’t bother you much,” I assured. “It’s just that before Mr. Draper died, someone hired me to find him. Since I couldn’t do that, I thought maybe I could at least learn a little more about him disappearing.”

  She shook her head curtly, not to dismiss me, but because she was fighting tears. Fumbling in her pocket she brought out a hanky. It had a violet embroidered on one corner. She dabbed at her eyes.

  “One of the men he owed money.” Her voice was tight. “That’s who wanted to find him, I suppose. I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can tell you. He always treated me very well....” Her voice cracked. “He – people liked him. No one ever appeared dissatisfied with any of their business dealings. And then one day he – he just didn’t come in–”

  The crack in her voice became a break and she sobbed. She hadn’t offered me a chair, but I sat down anyway. I’d been softening her up when I offered sympathy about her being left on her own to deal with Draper’s mess. Now I saw the strain she’d been under and figured she deserved a shoulder to cry on. I guessed that yesterday had been a nightmare for her, but as her sobs wound down and she rested her elbows on the desk as if exhausted, I recognized the entire interval since Draper took off had taken a toll.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said at last. “I managed to hold myself together yesterday when the police were here asking questions. Even when they asked me to – to look at the body. I’d never had to do something like that. Well, when my husband died, of course, and that was awful, too, but he’d been ill....” A few remaining tears welled up. She was too tired to fight them.

  “You’re not exactly needed to type any letters or take dictation,” I said, getting up. “Why don’t we go somewhere and get a cup of tea?”

  “Oh.... Yes. I could do with that. But there’s a hotplate in that little closet. I can make–”

  “You sit still. I’ll do it.” I patted her shoulder.

  It took a while for the water to heat, but I figured she could do with some time to compose herself. When I brought out the tea she was powdering her nose.

  “I think everything must have caught up with me,” she apologized. “The – the enormity of it. I’m sorry Mr. Draper’s dead, of course I am. But I’m afraid I was having a wallow in self-pity, too. With him gone, with it definite now, I-I’m out of a job. And it’s not just me to think of. I have a son.”

  Setting her tea down, she dabbed at her eyes again. This handkerchief was fresh, with no embroidery.

  “How long had you worked for Draper?” I asked.

  “Ten years. Almost since he started his business.” She managed a smile. “I’m Cecilia, by the way. Cecilia Perkins.”

  “You were pretty loyal, sticking around for going on four months after your boss went missing.” Something nudged me. “How’d you manage to keep this office open? Who paid the rent and such?”

  “Oh.... Mr. Draper. He’d paid ahead.”

  Cecilia Perkins studied her teacup. For the first time I suspected she was lying to me.

  “Three months in advance?” I said slowly.

  She bit her lip.

  “Doesn’t seem like much of a way to run a business, tying up that much money when it could be invested – or might even be needed.”

  When she raised her eyes, they were pleading.

  “Mr. Draper had paid in advance, but only for two months. I thought – hoped, really – that it meant he’d be coming back. When men started showing up demanding to see him – angry men – I knew there was some kind of mess. I thought maybe he’d just gone somewhere until he could straighten it out.”

  It seemed optimistic, but when you’re desperate you can believe a lot of things.

  “And after two months?” I asked.

  She picked her hanky up again, but instead of dabbing her eyes she held it tightly.

  “I paid it. I used one of his checks. I know it was wrong, but I’d started to realize I’d have to find a new job. I wanted to buy some time.”

  “So you forged his signature on blank checks he kept on hand to pay bills?”

  “No!” For the first time since I’d come in, a touch of color reached her cheeks. “I didn’t forge anything! See? Look.” With jerky movements she opened a drawer and took out a checkbook and pushed it toward me. The top three checks in the pad held Draper’s signature.

  “Mr. Draper didn’t like having to sign things. Actually, it was having to undo his cufflink that he didn’t like. He was always fretting he’d get ink on his cuff. He liked to sign all his correspondence at once, every morning. And every few weeks he’d sign a batch of checks for me to fill in for the usual expenses. Supplies, donations to charity, dues for this and that, even cash when he didn’t want to go to the bank.”

  The fact that Draper had paid in advance did suggest he’d intended on coming back. Or maybe he’d only wanted to make it appear that way while the trail grew cold. Either way, for the first time I was actually getting some cards to shuffle to find an answer to this case.

  “What about your salary?” I asked. “Did you write checks for that too?”

  She no
dded miserably.

  “Two rather large ones. But only for what I’d be owed. You can check the ledger. I suppose – I suppose it was stealing all the same. But please, please don’t tell the police! My little boy is ... he’s not right. He’ll never learn like other children, or-or talk very well. I pay a woman to stay with him, and she’s wonderful, but if I don’t have a job ... and if I went to jail–”

  “I’m not looking to get you in any trouble with the police. As far as I’m concerned, you were a loyal secretary, keeping things going.”

  I heard her sigh of relief. She took a sip of tea. The cup rattled.

  “I have been looking,” she said. “For a job, I mean. Answering advertisements. Sending out letters. I started as soon as I realized it was ridiculous to think things would change. But you know what times are like. So many need jobs. And without an employer I have no letter of reference, and when someone who might hire me realizes I worked for a crook–”

  “No one’s likely to know that unless you tell them. No one knows but the men your boss swindled, and none of them want it known they fell for his bait.”

  She digested it for a moment.

  “Are you saying the police don’t know what he did?”

  “They know, but since no one lodged a complaint, they can’t do anything. Did he have any relatives?”

  “A sister in Cleveland. They weren’t very close.”

  “Girlfriend?”

  “No, I don’t think so. I’m sure he didn’t.” She smiled sadly. “I had hopes last spring. A woman called him here several times. She never gave her name, but he always seemed happy after they talked.”

  “You’ve no idea who she was?”

  “I’m afraid not. She had the loveliest voice, though. So soft. I didn’t even notice when the calls stopped. They just did, at some point.”

  I had more questions she might have answers to, but I’d already put her through plenty. She’d been scared to death about what she’d done, left in a rotten spot and toughing it out on her own. Right now she was probably feeling the utter exhaustion that hits after you’ve survived an ordeal and can finally let down. I’d get more from her in the long run if I went easy now.