THE FOURTH WATCH (19 page)

"Right."

"Yikes! Listen, I went up to the probate court
today and got a look at the Will. Your bitch is rich!"

"Client."

"She inherited whatever it was that the old man
had in the bank. She got his personal fortune. The other kid and
the wife got the business. The wife got the house."

"Yeah, believe it or not, Whorley volunteered
that today at lunch. I don't know what it means. I'm going up to
the house tomorrow to meet the family. Cocktails on the veranda at
three. I'm gonna wear loafers with tassels on them and
everything,"

"Nice!"

Jack had been coming in and out as Walter and I
spoke. He had husked the corn and set a pot to boiling on the
stove. He tossed a salad and set the table and poured himself a
glass of wine. He was not hiding the fact that he was listening to
my side of the conversation.

''How does Madigan fit into this thing?" Walter
asked suddenly. ''Got to be somethin' there, him tanking the
investigation and all."

"I don't know," I said, thinking the same
thing. "I think I'll go and ask him how he fits in."

"Yeah, he'll probably crack under your tough
questioning."

"I'm sure of it."

"Stay in touch," Walter told me.

"I will."

*****

JACK HAD DONE A MASTERFUL
JOB
. We ate ravenously. As we did I told
him about what Walter and I had learned. It gave me a chance to put
it in order in my head.

"What I got is this. On the day he died, Red
Whorley called his usual golf buddies and begged off on their
weekly match. I don't know where he went, but later on he ends up
dead in his pool. About 12:30 AM, my client gets dropped off at the
house by her date who, on the way off of the property, sees what
might be two cars going off a side track from the driveway. He's a
little drunk and doesn't think much of it, thinks its just someone
coming home. The next morning, at the crack of dawn, they find Red
Whorley, and the first person to answer the 911 call is a police
lieutenant, who just happens to be out in his car riding the radio
at six in the morning. Now despite the fact that the dead guy is a
prominent local citizen, this police lieutenant conducts a bare
bones investigation, the findings of which he basically announces
at the scene: accidental drowning. This cop has a reputation of
arranging evidence to support his conclusions. He sticks with this
accidental drowning story even when the coroner finds that the
deceased had his pants on backwards and algae in his lungs, which
might suggest that the body had been moved from a pond or lake to
the pool."

''Pools get algae in them all the time," Jack
reminded me.

"Well, Sherlock, that's true enough, but this
pool is on the estate of a rich guy who has a yard man that cleans
the thing everyday."

Jack's head bobbed up and down as he
chewed.

"Now, said prominent dead guy had been acting
weird lately. All suspicious and snooping around, but not telling
anyone about what. The head of the purchasing department at The
Loading Dock, a long time employee and friend of his, speculates
that maybe someone was using the company's international
procurement operation to bring illegal stuff into the
country."

"Why didn't this guy say something
before?"

"He didn't think about it. Just took for
granted, like everybody else, that it was an accident. When I told
him that Red's daughter thought he had been really worried and
acting strange right before he died, he started to think about it.
I asked him if he noticed that, and he said that he had. He said he
really didn't make the connection after Red died. Hadn't really
thought about it at all until I brought it up."

Jack was listening while he ate.

"Maybe Red got wind of it," I said. "Maybe
somebody killed him to stop him from shutting down the operation.
Maybe those folks had a stake in making sure Red's death seemed
accidental because a homicide investigation might uncover what his
death was supposed to cover up. I don't know."

"Huh."

We cleared the table and took our drinks out
onto the deck. The sun was down and an opaque moon was rising in
the fading light. The sunset was a pink and purple smear on the
horizon. Fireflies were beginning to sparkle in the shadows of the
coves along the lake shore.

After a while I said, ''The purchasing guy,
Archer is his name, is going to set it up so I can talk to these
buyers from the company's office in Taiwan. Seemed to him that
that's where Red was looking for ... whatever he was looking for.
The company has a big customs clearing operation in Seattle, where
all the stuff comes in, so the buyers are back and forth, in and
out of the country. I think I'm gonna go out there. Maybe I can
stir something up."

"Go to Seattle you mean?"

"Why not? Or Taiwan, or China. Just show up on
their doorstep. Cold call'em. I'll have Archer set it up, but tell
him not to tell the troops I'm coming until I'm there. If he gives
them a heads up anyway, maybe that's a story in itself."

"Well, if you're right about this thing," Jack
said, ''you'd be taking a hell of a risk. If they already killed a
man ... "

I thought it over as I watched the lake and
sipped my wine. Not really that big of a risk. If something
happened to me while I was investigating, the cops were sure to
swoop in. That would defeat the purpose of the cover up. On the
other hand, if they thought I was going to blow the cover anyway
... but I have never had much luck sitting back waiting for things
to come to me.

"I'll just rattle the cage a little, see what
happens." I changed the subject. "Speaking of rattling cages, why
do you do that stuff to Walter. You know how nervous he gets around
you. Why put him in that situation, pretending you're
me."

Jack smiled and took a drink from his glass.
''I do it because I love Walter, and I want him to be better - for
himself, not for me."

"You think he's going to burn in hell because
he swears too much."

Jack put his glass down and turned to look at
me. "Let me tell you something, Kato. When you do something for
God, he pays you back. I don't know of course what God thinks of
profanity. I have my suspicions though, because I think that often
time's profanity is used as a tool to hurt someone or put them
down. And I know that God will never condone us doing those things
to one another. But that's not the point. Walter, despite his hard
outside, is a sad person. He doesn't believe that anyone would love
him, or want to be with him for himself, because he doesn't think
he's worthy. He puts on this hard guy routine to cover it up. He
holds people away with false harshness because he is afraid that if
he lets them in, they might hurt him.

''I don't care about the profanity. It doesn't
offend me. But it makes Walter all that more offensive. He sounds
stupid and ignorant to other people, who will never get to know
him. Who will be repelled by him and therefore never meet the
gentle spirit that I know is waiting to be discovered inside of
him. I want Walter to give some of his profanity to God. If he
stops in the middle of one of his filthy tirades, if he hesitates,
because he remembers me saying that he should, for God, then God
will give him something back. I want Walter to be happier. I want
him to find God in this life and approach Him and come to know Him.
I know it will make all the difference in his life. I'm just trying
to get him started."

Jack picked up his glass and took a sip of wine
and looked out at the lake, his body motionless. I knew that he
meant every word. I sat in silence with him, thinking about what an
extraordinary person he was. All the material treasures of this
world had been his for the asking. He had been born with all the
gifts that society so admires. He was smart and handsome, a
champion athlete and he inspired loyalty and admiration from those
around him. He could have been filthy rich, up to his ears in
beautiful women, been admired by millions for his athletic
achievements or the political opportunities that might have
followed. He could have had all that this world had to offer,
because it gave it all almost exclusively to people with his gifts.
But he had given it all up to follow a man who lived a poorly
chronicled life two thousand years ago. He would tell you that
there was no sacrifice at all in what he did. He would tell you
that he thanked God on his knees everynight for his faith and his
calling.

"So what about me," I finally said, trying to
lighten things up, "how do I get in on this racket you got going
for Walter. What do I do so that God will give things to
me?"

"You?" Jack said. "What you are doing for God,
Kato, is keeping me in steaks and beer. I will pray that he reward
you handsomely."

12

JACK HAD ANOTHER GLASS
of wine before leaving. I finished the bottle,
sitting alone on the porch, talking in whispers to a single star
that I knew was Annie. The heat had leached out of the day as
darkness gathered. The moon was pale and rising, the surface of the
lake restless in its soft light. I was feeling the booze, so I did
the responsible thing and went inside and drank the rest of the
beer, while I watched the Red Sox get their heads handed to them by
the Angles out on the left coast. At some point I must have gone to
bed.

When I awoke the next morning there was thunder
in my head. My mouth tasted like day old socks. The sunlight
streaming in the windows was having the same effect on me that it
must have had on Dracula when they pried the lid off of his coffin.
I would have welcomed a wooden stake through the heart.

This was happening way too much lately. The
shrink I had gone to see on the sly thought I was suffering from
depression. Brilliant! His bill depressed me further.

The clock on my bedside table said 8:51. I
groaned and rolled over. The blood thumping away in my temples was
pressurizing my eyeballs. There was a monstrous heaviness in my
kidneys. I tumbled out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom, digging
in my boxers as I went. The relief started with the power of a
fire-hose, but ended in a maddening dribble that left me standing
there weak in the knees. My mind was calling for coffee, but my
body was begging for a shower. I compromised by throwing a suit and
all the fixings into my gym bag, and grabbing a cup of coffee for
the ride. The coffee worked in my stomach like battery
acid.

I staggered around the track for a few miles
and then broiled in the sauna until half the alcohol in my body was
pooled around my feet. I shaved, took an ice cold shower and
dressed. I stopped on the way to the office for the paper and a
quart of orange juice. I was just finishing up the OJ, when my
office door burst open and a tall, angular man, who looked as if he
had slept in his suit, sauntered in and quickly scanned the office
with his eyes from left to right. He had a long, narrow, pockmarked
face and bulging eyes. His hair was short and cut flat across the
top of his head. "Michael Knight," he said authoritatively and came
straight across the room at me.

''Yeah,'' I said, drawing the word
out.

He flung an open wallet down on my desk. It had
a police lieutenant's shield pinned to the inside of it.
''Madigan,'' he said, "Worcester PD. I want to talk to you about
just who the fuck you think you are going around busting my ass,
trashin' my investigation?" He had his hands on his hips and a
tough guy frown on his face.

"Is this an official visit, Lieutenant?" I
inquired sweetly.

"It'll be whatever kind of visit I decide it
is," he said.

I picked up the wallet and turned around and
threw it into the wastebasket behind my desk, then I pointed at the
door he had left open and said: "Get out."

Madigan's mouth hung open, and he stared at the
trashcan in disbelief. "Why you little piece of ... "

"And you tell the Chief," I went on, ''that if
he sends someone around that's nice and polite, I'll let him dig
the city's property out of the trash."

Madigan had not expected this response to his
act and he didn't know what to do about it.

''Nevermind," I said, ''I'll tell him myself."
I picked up the phone and dialed Police Headquarters from
memory.

"Hey, hey, hey," Madigan bellowed, and reached
over and hung up the line with his index finger, ''take it easy ...
take it easy for Christ's sake."

I jumped up out of my chair and went around my
desk and out into the hallway. I stayed in the opening of the door
watching Madigan and called to my neighbors in the next office.
"Jim ... Arlene, can one of you come out here please." Jim Spence
had a small accounting practice in the next office down from mine.
I knew he wouldn't be there because he also had a full time job as
an accountant at an old textile company in the city. Arlene, his
wife, came to the office most days to answer the phone and deal
with the intermittent paperwork Jim's part time business generated.
She was a short, friendly, heavy-set woman with blue-gray hair
piled beehive style on her head. She poked her head out of the
office door.