Requiem for a Realtor (23 page)

“Did you think I was a secretary?” Susan found this amusing. Shirley had half a mind to tell her that her title was office manager.

Susan ran her thumb under the shoulder strap of her large purse and looked around the reception area. “Well, so much for sentimentality.”

“Did you and Mr. Sawyer work out of this office?”

“That's right. With Stanley.”

Well, the visit gave Shirley something to think about—and resent. It was a sad thought that Stanley had lost the long quarrel between himself and George Sawyer, but Susan's visit, which in retrospect seemed a kind of triumphal tour, made Shirley wonder what difference it all made. Shirley had had no misgivings about letting Bob Oliver look around, but Mrs. Sawyer's visit had taken on the aspects of an inspection tour.

“You do have my old office, you know.”

“Really?”

“I think that very desk was mine.” She came around the desk and Shirley got up, guessing that Mrs. Sawyer wanted to sit at the desk. She left her there, to have nostalgic thoughts if she wanted, and went down the hall. Ten minutes later, when she came back, Mrs. Sawyer was sitting at her husband's desk, on the phone.

The following day was Thursday, and on her lunch hour, Shirley turned on the radio and heard the dreadful news. She twirled the dial to find out more of what had happened, but the bulletin she had heard was seemingly all there was. On the computer, she brought up the Web site of the
Fox River Tribune,
but there was nothing about the death of Bob Oliver. It wasn't until an hour later that the story appeared. Shirley sat stunned, looking at the chair in which Bob Oliver had sat, looking at the closed door of Stanley's office. Run over! Run over in the same way Stanley had been.

She tried to reach George Sawyer on his cell phone, but he didn't answer, so she called his house. Susan answered.

“Have you heard?” Shirley said.

“Heard what?”

“Bob Oliver has been run over.”

A long pause. “Who is Bob Oliver?”

“He's the journalist I told you about.”

3

Phil Keegan had schooled himself against reacting to newspaper accounts of matters under investigation by his department, but the death of Bob Oliver, one of their own, had unleashed the fourth estate, which, likened Fox River to some third world backwater in which citizens were at risk as much from their alleged guardians as from the criminals among themselves.

By a logic whose cogency could only be appreciated by those long immersed in the media, Tetzel in the
Tribune
saw an obvious and necessary connection between the deaths of Stanley Collins and Bob Oliver. He pointed out that the two were brothers-in-law, and he emphasized that the death of Collins, still unexplained by the police, had been drifting into that black hole of forgetfulness that was the destiny of unsolved crimes in Fox River. And then he forsook facts for fiction and penned a portrait of the killer. He felt no need to establish that the same person had killed both men because killing Bob Oliver was a desperate cry for help. In Tetzel's jeremiad the delinquency of the police lay chiefly in their deafness to this tortured soul's call for his own capture, lest he kill again. Stanley Collins and Bob Oliver became bit players in this psychodrama featuring Tetzel's imaginary troubled killer.

“Maybe we should bring Tetzel in for questioning, Cy” Phil said. “He seems to have all the answers.”

Cy ignored this, as he was wont to do. Dealing with the press was in one respect a game and in another a minefield one entered only reluctantly.

“I talked with a fellow named Janski, an accountant at the
Tribune,
” Cy said.

“An accountant?”

“Oliver had to justify his expenses to Janski to get reimbursed.”

“So.”

“So why was Oliver in the alley behind the Frosinone? Janski couldn't say. He thought Oliver was working on Realtors although he had planned a piece on city architecture, and the Frosinone, despite its current reputation, is supposedly a miracle of design. He also mentioned the photographer who worked with Oliver, and I talked with her.”

“He couldn't let it go,” Sylvia Woods had told Cy. Janski had called her and turned over his office to Cy for the conversation. “He had this thing about local architecture. He could walk down a street and talk your arm off about facades and styles and the great midwestern schools of architecture. He made me feel the way I did in Art Appreciation, wondering if I had ever seen a picture before. Bob Oliver was appalled at the condition of the Frosinone. The fact that they were replacing the elevators seemed to promise more.” Syliva popped the top of her bottle of water and took a drink. “You know who owns that hotel?”

Cy said he knew. She leaned toward him.

“My first thought was the Pianones.”

“You think they had something against Oliver?”

“I don't know. Look, the fact is I didn't get along with Bob. He was, well, you know, always coming on to me.”

Cy could understand that. Despite the haberdashery, Sylvia was a very attractive young woman. “You work with him often?”

“I've done the pictures for all his features. Beginning with the one on the dentist.”

“Jameson?”

“Jameson.”

“Did you go with Oliver to the Frosinone?”

“Just the once. Then he seemed to junk the whole idea. He gave me a lecture on the hotel's architecture, and I asked him why it wasn't a national landmark if it was so great. That's when he told me the Pianones owned it.”

“You think he complained to them?”

Syliva shrugged and played with the cap of her water bottle. “Where would he find them? I've heard about them for years, but they are like a myth, the local boogeymen.”

“Don't you know Peanuts?”

Sylvia laughed. “Are they all that cuddly?”

The thought of Peanuts Pianone as cuddly was more than Cy could handle. He let Sylvia go and thanked Gerry Janski when he came to take repossession of his office.

“Janski,” Cy said musingly, looking at the accountant. “Are you related to the singer?”

“She's my sister.”

“What a voice.”

“What a waste, you mean, singing to drunks in nightclubs.”

“You ever been to the Rendezvous?”

Gerry shook his head, as if Cy had mentioned a house of ill fame. “Our mother was the organist at St. Hilary's.”

“Ah.”

*   *   *

At the Frosinone, Primo Verdi was surly and nervous.

“I wish they would stop mentioning the hotel in these stories about Oliver, Horvath. It has nothing to do with the Frosinone.”

“Free publicity.”

Verdi just looked at him.

“Have you any idea what he was doing in the alley?”

“Maybe he was going to meet one of the girls.”

“He ever do that?”

Verdi wrestled with the answer, but nodded.

“Do you know which ones?”

For answer, Verdi picked up the phone, turning away from Cy as he talked into it. He hung up. “She'll be down.”

They waited in silence. Of course, Cy knew of the escort service the Pianones ran out of the hotel, but so far as he knew he had never seen one of the girls. The one that came across the lobby from the stairway was red-eyed, and her chin trembled as she approached.

“What the hell's wrong with you?” Verdi asked.

“You know.”

Cy took her arm and led her across the lobby. She tried to tug free. “I'm not working.”

“Flora, he's a cop, for God's sake,” Verdi yelled after her.

She stopped struggling and looked with teary eyes at Cy. “Is it about Bob Oliver?”

“That's right. You knew him?”

She nodded, looking at Cy as if she wondered whether he understood. Cy understood.

“The manager suggested that he might have been in the alley to meet someone.”

“Meet someone?”

“I think he meant you.”

“What a bastard.”

“Oliver?”

“Primo. He was my husband. A real idiot.”

“For marrying you?”

“Oh, ha, ha. But, yes, that's true. What kind of man would marry a girl who makes her living on her back?”

“You divorced him?”

“He divorced me. That brought us more or less back together again. But he just couldn't forget about Bob Oliver. You'd think there'd never been anyone else.”

“What do you mean he couldn't forget it?”

“Oh, Bob wouldn't let him. At first Primo teased him, but it ended up with Bob teasing Primo. Primo didn't like that a bit. Of course, I was the one who paid for it.”

“He beat you up?”

“I'd like to see him try. No, he'd never do that.”

“How angry was he with Bob Oliver?”

“I'm not making it up. Ask the bartender. Ask that little lawyer, Tuttle. They've seen it.”

“You're crying because of Oliver.”

She began to cry again. “Life is so damned sad, isn't it? You want to pretend you can just live now, enjoy it, and tomorrow will be the same. But look where we're all headed.”

“Where you from?”

“Bardstown.”

“Where's that?”

“Kentucky.”

“How you'd end up here?”

“I met Primo in Vegas.”

“And he put you to work here?”

“Oh, no. I was already in the life. We really did get married, though. But he was always suspicious, so I gave him reason to be, and he divorced me.”

“And you went back to work?”

She looked at him. “Rarely. We're back together again, Primo and me.”

“Married?”

“That was a big mistake. We both realize it now. But he couldn't forget about Bob Oliver.” She dabbed at her eyes.

“You think Primo ran over him?”

“Why don't you ask him?”

Cy went back to the desk and asked him.

“She tell you that?”

“How would she know?”

“What she doesn't know…”

“You and Oliver didn't get along?”

Verdi glared at Flora who was drifting across the lobby toward the bar. “He was always pestering Flora.”

“She's young enough to be your daughter.”

“She was old enough to marry me.”

“To each his own.”

Verdi brightened up. “Eddie Howard sang that. Willie Boiardo loves that song.”

“It sounds to me like you had reason to run down Bob Oliver.”

“When do they think he was hit?”

“It's only an approximation. Midafternoon.”

“It doesn't matter.”

“Why?”

“I can't drive. Never learned how. Never had to.”

4

Father Dowling heard from Edna of the arrangement she had made for women from the senior center to take turns being with Phyllis. Leave it to Edna to come up with a practical solution.

“They love it. And it lets Bridget off the hook.”

“How so?”

“Dr. Jameson sent her to be with Phyllis Collins. She's his nurse. Bridget asked me to go along, and that's when I thought of making a project of it. Bridget helps me out on Wednesdays, you know.”

“You bring out the best in people, Edna.”

She dismissed this. “But now I had to take him on, too. Jameson.”

“He's not much help?”

“Too much help. He likes to pry into people's lives.”

“I think I told you once he thought of becoming a priest.”

Edna lifted her eyes. “Well Bridget likes him and that's enough for me.”

They had been talking in the parking lot behind the former school that was now the parish's center for seniors under Edna's management. They went inside then and from the hallway Father Dowling saw David Jameson hunched over a table, deep in conversation with old Charley Schwartz.

Edna said in a low voice, “Bridget says the police questioned him about Bob Oliver's death.”

“There were those who thought he had something to do with Stanley Collins's death.”

“Because of Mrs. Collins.”

No need to say anything about that. Bridget rose from a bridge table and joined them.

“I'm dummy. In every sense of the term. They play a cutthroat game.”

“I told Father about the volunteers who are spending time with Phyllis Collins.”

“I'd rather play cards,” Bridget said.

Edna smiled. “You just like being here because David is here.”

“He says this is the most fulfilling work he does.”

Jameson, noticing the three of them in conversation, rose, said something to Charley, then came toward them. Edna led Father Dowling away.

“He still is not a bird in hand,” she explained. “We'll leave them alone.”

“Ah.”

“Maybe after they're married he will be content to be just a dentist.”

“A bit of a pest?”

Edna rolled her eyes. Well, David Jameson had been involved in less rewarding extraprofessional activities in recent weeks, so bothering old people in Edna's center was something of an improvement.

As Father Dowling was leaving, Charley Schwartz called to him. Father Dowling stopped, and Charley shuffled toward him.

“Leaving, Father?”

“That's right.”

“I'll come with you.”

“To the rectory?”

“I'm going outside for a smoke.”

Outside, with the doors shut behind them, Charley lit a cigarillo. Father Dowling took out his pipe and lit it.

“We're a dying breed, Father.”

“Oh, you have years ahead of you, Charley.”

“I meant us smokers.” Charley puffed contentedly for a moment. “Dr. Jameson? He says I'm not too old to have my teeth straightened.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I prefer them curled.” Charley's smile revealed his amber uppers, the color of a meerschaum pipe.

“It is generous of him to help Edna.”