Requiem for a Realtor (21 page)

“Gallantry is not dead.”

“Maybe not. But Stanley Collins is. Cy kept on it and guess what he found out? Jameson turned up at the Rendezvous that night. So he was in the neighborhood at the crucial time.”

“Cy suspects David Jameson?”

“It's pretty hard not to. He said he had been on Bailey Street to return a car he had rented in a failed attempt to cover his tracks, but the car wasn't turned in until the following day. In any case, we know he was in the Rendezvous.”

The case against David Jameson was circumstantial, but there was a powerful motive. Not only had he been advising Phyllis about her marriage, he went with her to Cadbury's office to find out what a divorce would do to her prospects of getting at the money Stanley would come into when he turned fifty. Cadbury told them a divorce would cut her off completely from that money.

“Cadbury says she didn't take that very well. Her fear was that Stanley would dump her. He had become involved with the singer at the Rendezvous and talked marriage to her, apparently moved by what Jameson had told his wife about the state of their marriage.”

Human deeds, looked at from the perspective of the law, can seem almost abstract. Father Dowling could match the main elements of Phil's accounts with his own memories, and how different they then seemed. Amos had told him of the visit to his office by Jameson and Phyllis Collins. Wanda Janski had confessed her affair with Stanley Collins. And Jameson had abased himself in recounting the truncated night at the Frosinone. In these memories, there were notes of pathos, remorse, and contrition one had to assume were genuine. But to Phil the antics of Jameson were simply one more instance of lust and greed turning a hitherto upstanding citizen into a criminal.

Jameson's liaison with Phyllis gave him access to the ignition key to Stanley Collins's car. Stanley's death put Phyllis in line to inherit all the money he had spent his life looking forward to. Phil's assumption was that, when the dust settled, Jameson would marry Phyllis and thus be able to enjoy the prosperity Stanley had long anticipated.

“He's already a very successful man, Phil.”

“Have you ever met anyone who thought he had enough money?”

“You may be right. Do you intend to arrest Jameson?”

“Roger, the guy is a basket case. What we will do is tell him what we have learned and then let him stew. He will crack and make the case even stronger.”

“Confess?”

“How can a man like that go on living with such a burden on his shoulders?”

That at least showed an appreciation of David Jameson's character. Father Dowling's skepticism at Phil's scenario was based mainly on the fact that David Jameson had made his confession since the fateful night, and it was unlikely in the extreme that he would have suppressed such a serious sin and imagined that he could be absolved of the others he had confessed.

*   *   *

“You never know about people,” Marie said when all this became known to her. “I never let on, but I never really trusted that man. Too pious by half.” She inhaled through her nose. “A Holy Joe.”

“You certainly concealed your feelings, Marie.”

She looked at the pastor sharply. “Don't start.”

“Oh, I think you've lost your chance.”

*   *   *

Edna had been elated by the fact that her friend Bridget had at last won the heart of David Jameson.

“He was all she could talk about, Father. You can imagine how she must have felt when he became smitten with Phyllis Collins.”

Edna did not yet know the danger Jameson was in, and Father Dowling did not have the heart to tell her. Her delight in Bridget's new relationship with Jameson was in itself so delightful that he could not have crushed it by telling her what the police suspected.

*   *   *

Phyllis Collins came to the rectory, dressed sedately, no longer affecting an age she had long left behind.

“Am I a widow in the eyes of the Church, Father?”

“Why ever not?”

“We were never properly married.”

“God is merciful.”

The effects of David Jameson's excursion into canon law lingered on. Phyllis insisted on seeing her life in terms of laws that in her case were now moot.

“You spoke of marrying again.”

She shook her head violently. “All that's over now.”

“I shall continue to remember Stanley in my Mass.”

Her eyes rounded. “When I think of him being struck down without the chance of…” She stopped. She might have been Hamlet considering the state of his uncle's soul, but from a somewhat different perspective.

“I'll say it again. God is merciful.”

“I hope so.”

But her thoughts had obviously not yet become self-referential. There was no suggestion that she might confess her sins. Perhaps she did not think she had really done anything wrong. Well, remorse would come. Phyllis's shedding of the dress and manner of a much younger woman was a first step, at least, to growing up.

“She makes a better widow than she did a wife,” Marie said.

“That is often the case.”

Silence, a sharp look, and then Marie went off to her kitchen. Amos Cadbury phoned to say that David Jameson had called on him and that arrangements had been made to have one of the junior partners represent him if events developed as they threatened to.

32

The Pianone family was more interested in taking money out of the Frosinone than putting any in for necessary repairs, but finally Primo Verdi had convinced Mario Pianone that the state of the elevators in the hotel put the family at risk. When one of the elevators dropped from the seventh floor, just after one of the escorts had exited it, and ended in a pile of debris at the bottom of the shaft, the condition of the hotel could no longer be ignored.

“We could have been sued out of our shoes if she had been in it,” Primo said.

Mario Pianone just looked at him, not liking the inclusive pronoun. But finally he nodded. “Go ahead.”

And Primo had gone ahead. He declared all elevators out of service until reliable replacements had been installed, and grumbling girls mounted the seven flights to their rooms. Primo's assurance that it was for their own good had little effect.

“We get the shaft around here no matter what,” Flora said.

“‘We'?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I know what you better not mean.”

“Oh, Primo, you're such a prude.”

Jealousy of Flora did seem ridiculous but Primo could not ignore the fact that she seemed to be hankering after the fleshpots of the seventh floor. If they were still married he would have divorced her. Flora was half his age, and he could not pretend that the fires of youth had not died down in him. At his age, he should be enjoying the sexless companionship of a woman who was more friend than lover, but what did he have in common with Flora? The one pleasure they could continue to share with the same zest was drinking. It had been booze that brought them together at first, and now, in this second act of their relationship, it proved to be a lasting bond. The haze of alcohol softened the boredom of his suite, and Flora seemed almost content as nightly they drank themselves into a pleasant stupor before the television set.

Mornings were less pleasant, when Verdi had to go about his duties but Flora slept until noon. When she appeared she showed none of the ravages of the previous night. Verdi came to cherish his solitary mornings. What was a little hangover at his age? When Flora joined him in the dining room for her breakfast and his lunch, their routine became welcome. Afternoons, she tooled around town, hitting the malls, shopping, being, he trusted, a good girl.

One day, when Verdi and Flora were at their table in the dining room and Tuttle and Peanuts Pianone were across the room enjoying their Salisbury steak, Bob Oliver came in. He hesitated between joining Tuttle or Verdi but then decided on the latter.

“Okay if I join you?”

“Three's a crowd.”

“Oh, Primo, don't be ridiculous. Sit down, Bob.”

Oliver sat. What could Primo say? Flora devoted herself entirely to the unwelcome guest, and it was difficult to forget that Oliver had once known her professionally, so to speak. In his presence, she took on all the mannerisms of her supposedly former way of life, and Oliver sat there grinning like a cat.

“You hear they think Jameson the dentist ran down Stanley Collins?”

“No!” Flora cried, hunching forward, eager for the story, displaying her wares. Verdi could have belted her.

Oliver gave her all the details, as he had picked them up in the press room in the courthouse. Flora listened as if she had never heard anything so interesting in her life.

“You'll probably be called as a witness, Verdi.”

“They haven't arrested him yet.”

“It's only a matter of time.”

“You going to write it up?”

Oliver shook his head. “It's not my sort of story. Besides, there's a conflict of interest.”

“How so?” Primo asked.

“Phyllis Collins is my sister.”

“Is she really going to inherit a fortune?”

“That's right.”

Oliver acted as if he, himself, were the heir. “I may do a story about Realtors, Verdi. Sawyer and Collins had a very interesting mutual insurance policy. That will be the hook I hang the story on.”

“Sounds interesting,” Verdi said, meaning it didn't.

“It's all in how it's handled.”

Oliver ordered the Salisbury steak but left most of it on his plate. Verdi stayed on at the table, not wanting to leave Flora alone with Oliver, but when he was called for a consultation with the crew from the elevator company who were at work in the lobby, he could hardly refuse. When he had nodded through the incomprehensible explanation of the foreman, Verdi told him to do what he thought best. Willie Boiardo came slowly down the stairs.

“You're going to have to carry me up, Primo.”

“I could switch you to a room on the second floor.”

“I like my room.”

Sounds of laughter drifted from the dining room and Willie was distracted.

“Bob Oliver,” Primo said. “I hope he gets food poisoning.”

“He'd come by it honestly, eating here.”

“Hey, I thought you liked it here.”

“I like it about as much as you do.”

Meaning they were too old to care about moving now. The laughing couple emerged from the dining room, Flora smiling radiantly into Oliver's foolish face.

“Hasn't she retired?” Willie asked.

“Go to hell.”

Verdi went seething to his office behind the registration desk. It was the fact that he had no claim on Flora—other than some common memories, a few good and bad times, a shared suite, and boozy companionship—that made him resent the way she flaunted her charms at Bob Oliver. But if he resented Flora, he hated Oliver. He was even mad at Willie Boiardo.

33

Phil Keegan, Cy Horvath, and Agnes Lamb sat in Keegan's office with Zola the assistant district attorney discussing the case against David Jameson. Agnes had been elected to convince Zola that they had enough evidence to get an indictment. Zola had begun to shake his head halfway through her recital.

“I couldn't sell that to a jury in a million years.”

“What's missing?”

“I should explain evidence to you?”

“We don't have a video of him running over Stanley Collins, if that's what you mean.” Agnes was peeved.

Phil said, “How about motive, opportunity, being in the vicinity of the crime, having access to the keys to the car, and getting rid of the obstacle to his grand passion for Phyllis Collins?”

There seemed no need to mention the apparent estrangement of the couple, Jameson having transferred his affections to Bridget his nurse.

“You've got as good a case against her,” Zola said.

“She was home in bed.”

“Any witnesses?”

“Jameson called her at two in the morning and woke her up.”

“He's her alibi?”

“That's right.”

“And she will probably decide to be his and say he called her every ten minutes from midnight on.”

“What would it take to convince you?”

“A witness. And even then, if Jameson could be put in the car, he could say he never saw the man before he hit him. The most we would have is leaving the scene, and we don't have that.”

Cy said nothing, just sat there, but the way he looked at Zola unsettled the ADA.

“What do you think, Horvath?”

“He's the best we've got.”

Despite his own misgivings, Phil was not about to let Zola dismiss Jameson that easily. “We know we have only circumstantial evidence, Emil. There are people rotting in Joliet on the basis of far less.”

“He's been talking to Manny Puliti, the hotshot defense lawyer in Cadbury's firm.”

“And you're scared?”

“My interest is justice,” Zola said piously.

They were still discussing it when the news about Bob Oliver was brought to Phil Keegan. His secretary whispered in his ear for a minute and then stepped back. Phil told the others.

“Bob Oliver was found in the alley behind the Frosinone. Hit-and-run. They think he was lying there for hours.”

“Dr. Jameson, call your office,” Zola said.

Nobody laughed.

Part Three

1

“Bridget, she has no one else. Someone has to stay with her.”

“Stay with her?”

David Jameson looked at her with an expression Bridget could not decode. “Think what the woman is going through. First her husband, now her brother.”

How could she refuse? But Bridget called Edna Hospers and the two women went together to the Collinses' house where they found Phyllis alone and, it became apparent, a little drunk. Her hair was a tangled mess, and she seemed to have lost one of her slippers, so that red painted toenails emerged from the bottom of her pink housecoat. Thank God Edna had come along.