Dead Heat (5 page)

“See that?” Mary murmured softly. “Didn't even ask me if I wanted to play out the hand. Imagine what rotten cards he must have had!” She shifted her focus abruptly to her nephew. “You look sleepy,” she said, as if the very idea of sleep at three in the morning was absurd. “Coffee to keep you awake or wine to further sedate you?”

“No coffee.”

“Wine, then. If you overindulge, you can sleep it off in the tower room.”

“No.”

“Seems a logical plan to me.”

“No.”

“It
is
your room, in
your
house—”

“Aunt Mary, I don't want breakfast in bed tomorrow. I don't want all my clothes to mysteriously disappear during the night and turn up tomorrow morning washed, pressed, and brushed, with all the missing buttons sewn on. I want to go home and collapse on my unmade bed in my own disarray and wake up and find everything just where I left it.”

“I'll explain to Dora that you prefer to—”

“Why not get me drunk first and then try to persuade me to stay?”

Her eyes accepted the challenge. She hesitated for perhaps five seconds, smiled sweetly, and said, “How long has it been since you've tasted any of your very own 1968 Holloway Hills Private Reserve Cabernet?”

He smiled, recalling more than the rich, earthy taste of wine, remembering an entire hectic autumn laced with the heady smell of crushed grapes, the musky scent of Kate Holloway's perfume. “It's long gone,” he said. “I doubt we made over a hundred cases that year.”

“I received a present today.”

“It's not your birthday.”

“At my age, one celebrates whenever one can. For instance, I intend to celebrate the receipt of a half case of '68 Private Reserve Cabernet direct from Miss Holloway herself.”

“And why is Kate so nice to you and so rotten to me?”

“Sex rears its ugly head. But, alas, I must tell the truth. I was instructed to share the booty with you.”

“In a letter I'm not supposed to read?”

“Personal, I believe she termed it.”

“Personal about her or personal about me?”

Aunt Mary arched one eyebrow. “Where were you tonight, my dear?”

“You're too polite to ask, remember? Don't you think the Cabernet should be saved for a dinner? What about something lighter for tonight?”

“Perhaps. Of course, Dora did make pâté to go with it—”

“Done,” Spraggue said. “Bring on the wine.”

Mary nodded in Pierce's direction and he stopped shuffling cards and retreated silently, closing the double doors behind him.

“Now,” Mary said with a smile of quiet satisfaction, “I wish to speak to you about real estate.”

“That is not the way to keep me awake and alert.”

“Both your father and your grandfather found the subject endlessly fascinating.”

“I must have been a changeling.”

“Nonsense. Look in the mirror and then look at the portrait of your grandfather in the foyer. You're exactly—”

“Only on the outside,” Spraggue said.

“It's a good thing for you that I find matters of finance fascinating.”

“No argument. Why don't I give you power of attorney and then I won't have to listen?”

“Michael,” Mary said firmly, “while I am planning to live forever, as you know, they tell me money can't buy that, and some day you may have to figure this mess out on your own.”

“I'm listening,” Spraggue said in what he hoped was a suitably chastened tone of voice. He swallowed another yawn and was sure Mary saw him do it.

“Besides,” she said, “this may intrigue you. It smacks of illegality.”

The doors eased noiselessly open, ushering in Pierce bearing a laden silver tray. A crusty loaf of French bread steamed in a wicker basket lined with white cloth. A cut crystal decanter bounced colored prisms of light off two wineglasses and a blue ceramic bowl. The butler placed the tray on the coffee table, and, dismissed by some imperceptible sign from his employer, left them to fend for themselves.

“For some time,” Mary said, between sips of wine, “I have been interested in purchasing a building on Commonwealth Avenue in the Back Bay. 312 is the address. It's located next door to two buildings already owned by the Spraggue Foundation. With the third building secured, the entire trio could be modernized, improved—”

“We're not talking condo conversion here, are we?”

“You vetoed that last year. Still the building is attractive.”

“If you think it's a good deal, go ahead and—”

“No, Michael. It's complicated. The price of that building is being arbitrarily raised.”

“How do you arbitrarily raise the price of a building? A building is worth whatever somebody pays for it.”

“Ah. You do learn what I teach you. In this case, the property is being passed back and forth among a series of “straw” owners. No money is actually changing hands, but the figures on deeds are skyrocketing.”

“So somebody found out that you're after the property,” Spraggue said. “You've got a leak in the organization.”

“I think the assumption of a gossipy employee is invalidated by the fire.”

“The fire?”

“Just a small blaze in the basement of this overpriced edifice. One of our tenants, a dear man in the garden flat, noticed an odd smell and called the fire department before anything drastic occurred. I wouldn't have even known about it if the superintendent of our building hadn't mentioned it.”

“So?”

“So now I'm worried that they are not kicking up the price in order to get money out of me. I'm worried that their target may be some insurance company, that they may be planning to burn the building down. I have called the police and the fire department, and both have treated me like a dotty old lady.”

“A mistake.”

“I have phoned the Registry of Deeds, the Tax Assessor, the Insurance Commissioner. And I have come up against a brick wall; I am utterly stymied. I know no more about this property than I did on the day I first viewed it. I can find no trace of the principal owners; they are not in the phone book nor do they drive cars licensed in Massachusetts—”

“A lot of honest folk prefer to register their cars someplace with less extortionate insurance rates.”

“And one of the so-called owners is a firm, a holding company, whose lawyer will not respond to my lawyer's questions.”

“Undoubtedly what they pay him for,” Spraggue said.

“Would it interest you if I said there was a very good chance that the fire was caused by someone spilling a pool of lighter fluid directly underneath a radiator?”

Spraggue swallowed a bite of bread and pâté, took a long drink. “Mary,” he said, “listen to me. I'm a working actor. I do a minimum of five shows a week, sometimes eight. I play five different roles. I know what you're trying to do. You're trying to get me back into investigation work. You never give up, do you?”

“Seldom.”

“I know you preferred my former career.”

“Call me a busybody old lady. I deserve it. The arson squad intimated as much. But I would like you to bring the situation to the attention of some of your police department cronies; I thought maybe that nice Captain Hurley …”

“I'll ask him,” Spraggue said. “But that's it. That's all.”

“Do you like the pâté, dear?”

“Does that mean business is over?”

“Compliment Dora if you do like the pâté. She's been threatening to leave again. Go somewhere more exciting, somewhere with young people who entertain. Open a restaurant.”

“She's been threatening to leave ever since I can remember.”

“She'd love to have you move back in. You were always a challenge to her—”

“Forget it.”

“If she quits, it will be on your head.”

“There's enough on my head. I have a performance tomorrow and you neglected to pass on to me your secret gift of needing next to no sleep.”

“It's no gift, believe me.”

“Thanks for the food, and when you write Kate, tell her the wine made me think of her in positively indecent ways.”

“The tower room awaits you. It's all made up.”

“No,” Spraggue said. “Thank you, but no. I have a room in a house that belongs to me, bought with money I earned. It ain't the tower room, but it's mine.” He'd almost made it back to the car when she leaned out the door and called his name.

What now? he thought.

She hurried down the stairs, leaving the door ajar. “I forgot to tell you about the phone call,” she said breathlessly. “It's not important, I suppose. Just odd. I don't even know who it was that called; and yet I can't rid myself of the feeling that I ought to know his voice.”

“Whoa,” Spraggue said. “One of us seems to be rambling.”

“Nonsense. A man called a little after five this afternoon. He did not ask to speak to you. He asked
about
you. Specifically, he asked, and I quote, if you ‘were on a case.' I hesitated, asked him again whom he wished to inquire about. There could very well be, and probably is, a Doctor Sprague in the vicinity. I thought the man might be attempting to reach a doctor. But he merely repeated his request and when I didn't answer immediately, he hung up.”

“But you thought you recognized the voice?”

“One of those feelings … Yes … I'm sure I've heard it before.”

“Do you remember a friend of mine named Pete Collatos? A cop?”

“With an unmistakable Boston accent? It was not he.”

“What about Brian Donagher then?”

“Senator Donagher? He was shot at today, right at the reservoir, if you can imagine such—”

“Did it sound like him?”

“No. Not at all. Why? What's going on? You're not—”

“I am not investigating the Donagher shooting, Aunt Mary. Remember? You want me to call the senator and tell him you're available?”

“Do not tease a harmless old woman.”

“Hah,” Spraggue said, closing himself into the shell of the Porsche. “I'd be doing the guy a favor.”

SIX

Anyone who goes to bed at five in the morning ought to have the sense to take the phone off the hook. That was Spraggue's first coherent thought after the harsh jangling jarred him into a sitting position. He swore as he staggered across the room to the table on which the offending instrument shrilled. Kathleen, he thought, and his mood improved markedly.

He grabbed the receiver, said “Hang on,” then carried the phone back to the bed and sat, Indian fashion, lifting his feet off the cold wooden floor. He wrapped the comforter snugly around his body.

When he finally said “Hello,” all irritation was gone from his voice.

Instead of returning his salutation, the distinctly male voice on the other end of the line said sarcastically, “So you're out of the business, huh?”

“Pete?”

“Why the hell were you creeping around the Chestnut Hill Reservoir at three in the goddamn morning?”

“What time is it now, Pete?” Spraggue said flatly.

“Eleven. I waited until I thought you'd be up.”

“Very considerate.”

“You just want to work the case alone, is that it? No partners?”

“Pete, does this have anything to do with a big dark Buick, license plate 365-890? Because I'm planning to call Hurley to get the plate traced.”

“No need to bother, Spraggue.”

“I'd have to have a better reason to ignore that car than your say-so.”

“Well, that's why I'm calling, to invite you over for a chat about the reservoir and the poison-pen letters Donagher's been getting.”

“Pete, I meant it when I said I wasn't working the case.”

“Dammit, Spraggue, Donagher almost got killed!”

“And I'm sure that the Boston Police have a ring around him so tight he'll have to get a note from Mom to go to the bathroom.”

“Don't bet on it,” Collatos said bitterly. “He's an independent cuss; won't put up with any of that. Wants to go out and mingle with the people. Doesn't want the electorate to think he's running scared. When the cops suggested he give the marathon a miss, he blew sky-high. Look, the house is in Brighton, one of those big Victorian jobs on Sparhawk Street—”

“Not interested, Pete.”

“Well, I'll bet a certain Captain Menlo would be interested in the fact that your car was parked out by the reservoir at three in the morning.”

“Which reminds me, did you happen to mention my name to the dear man yesterday?”

“I wouldn't tell him if his hair was on fire.”

“But you'd use him to blackmail me into coming over.”

“That's a nasty word, Spraggue. I'm trying to help you out. Get you interesting work, answer some questions for you before you go shooting your mouth off to the cops about some car parked at the reservoir that's got no bearing on—”

“Look, Pete.” Spraggue knew that if he didn't interrupt, Collatos would go on forever. “I'll come for fifteen minutes, but that's it.”

“I want your opinion of those letters and—”

“And you'll tell me who belongs to the dark Buick.”

“55 Sparhawk Street,” Collatos said.

The phone clicked.

SEVEN

Spraggue considered alternatives—two of which, ripping the phone's umbilical cord out of the wall and diving back under the down comforter, seemed particularly attractive. Then he sighed, stood up, and resolutely sank to the floor for his customary twenty-five push-ups, only to discover the full extent of the damage inflicted by yesterday's sudden spurt of running. He lay flat on his stomach, trying to convince his calf muscles that they were not too tight to allow him to flex his feet and tuck his toes under. After a brief, painful struggle, he abandoned the push-ups, rolled over, and did twice his usual number of sit-ups to compensate.