Daddy's Gone a Hunting (38 page)

He listened, then said, “I am filing suit against the insurance company. Gus Schmidt and Gus Schmidt alone set that fire. When my daughter called him, as she regularly did on a friendly basis, Gus decided that there was another way he could hurt me for firing him. He never planned to get caught in that explosion. But he did plan to leave my daughter there to die. And she was the one who dragged him out even though she was badly injured. Besides that, I have plans to sell the property to a developer. I have insisted on a five-million-dollar deposit, which will be coming shortly.”

He listened some more, then added, “By the way, with all your ranting the other day, you didn’t mention the last tip I gave you. I would stake my life that that one went over pretty well.”

As he ended the conversation, Doug heard the key turn in the door. Sandra was letting herself in. It was only quarter of eight. He wasn’t ready to have her back yet. He wanted to go to the hospital to see Kate and he didn’t want Sandra trailing along. He took a long breath. Well, as long as she is here, let her cook breakfast again, he thought. And the odds are that Hannah will be at the hospital sometime between eight and quarter of nine. She always stopped there before she went to work.

I don’t want to run into her, Doug thought. She’s been downright hostile to me and I’m sick of it.

“Dougie . . . ? Dougie . . . ?”

“I’m in here,” he called. He heard the click of her heels as she scurried down the hall to the library. When she appeared in the doorway she was wearing her usual morning garb, a tight sweater and tighter jeans. It was a sunny day and even from a distance her heavy black eye makeup looked glaringly inappropriate. Doug had the fleeting thought that the doorman must have been amused at her early arrival. He knew the staff of the building had their gossip chain and suspected that the ladies who visited him were subjects of intense interest.

Sandra was click-clicking across the room, her arms outstretched. “Oh, Dougie, I couldn’t sleep last night thinking of how many problems you have.” She patted his cheek. “We didn’t shave today.”

Doug pushed her away. “All right, Sandra. I’m not much in the mood for cutesy.”

“That’s because you haven’t had breakfast. I know where I’m needed.” She saluted him. “Your chef at your service. Aye, aye, sir.”

Douglas Connelly watched Sandra until she had walked across the library and turned down the hall to the kitchen. Then he went over to the door and closed and locked it behind her. He had to talk to Jack Worth and find out what was going on with him. I should have taken his phone call yesterday, he thought. I didn’t leave a message
for him when I tried to call him back, but he could have seen that my number was on his unanswered-calls list.

Doug walked over to the landline phone and put his hand on it. I don’t care how much technology is advancing in cell phones, he thought. I think the old-fashioned ones like this are clearer and they don’t suddenly lose the signal. His mouth felt dry. The bravado he knew he had gotten across when he promised a quick repayment was gone. Six months ago, he had turned down the offer that had been on the table for the property. Maybe that manufacturer had found another place to buy.

And something else. Most of the news last night had been about finding Jamie Gordon’s notebook in the van and Tracey Sloane’s body in that sinkhole in the parking lot. It looked as though the cops thought that homeless guy, Clyde Hotchkiss, killed both of them. Before Hotchkiss died, he admitted punching the Gordon girl. They even had a construction guy who had worked with Hotchkiss after he came home from the Vietnam War and he had said that Hotchkiss knew everything about gas lines and would certainly have the know-how to set an explosion.

One more argument for the insurance company, Doug thought. They have got to pay me.
They have got to pay me.

His hand was still on the phone. Should I call Jack? he asked himself. Why hasn’t he called me back? The minute he knew that I tried to reach him, he should have picked up the phone and returned the call. He knows better than to ignore me. Doug closed his hand on the receiver and picked it up. Jack answered on the first ring. “Pretty strange stuff going on, isn’t there, Doug?” he said, his voice both worried and sarcastic.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I was at the DA’s office all night being questioned.”

“Do you have a lawyer?” Doug asked. “Because if you don’t, you should have one.”

“No, Doug, I don’t have a lawyer and I don’t need one. As I’ve told these detectives, I have absolutely nothing to hide and was glad to answer their questions. It was no problem.”

“You’re a fool,” Doug said curtly, then slammed down the phone.

Two hours later, showered and shaven, calmed by the excellent breakfast Sandra had cooked for him and knowing that the designer tweed jacket with leather elbow patches looked good on him, Doug arrived at the hospital with Sandra.

The doctor had already left, but the nurse in charge of the desk in the intensive care unit was bursting with good news for him. “Dr. Patel has decided that we’re going to lose our patient,” she said. “Tomorrow morning Kate will be switched to a private room. And by then she won’t be receiving any more sedation. Isn’t that good news?”

“It couldn’t be better,” Doug said heartily. “Now, I am sure that there are some private rooms that go at considerably higher prices. I want one of them for my daughter.”

“I can arrange that, sir. Yes, those rooms are beautiful. It will feel like sleeping in her own bed.”

Sandra had tiptoed into Kate’s cubicle. “I think she is starting to come out of the coma,” she said in a stage whisper. “I think she’s remembering the accident. She just mumbled something like, ‘Don’t . . . please don’t . . .’ ”

Doug bent down and kissed Kate’s forehead. “Daddy’s here, little girl,” he said soothingly. “Daddy will always be here for you.”

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W
hen Doug and Sandra got back to the apartment, the message light was flashing on the phone in the foyer. Sandra said, “I’ll check it, Dougie.”

He gripped her arm. “I like to check my own phone messages.”

“Dougie, you’re hurting me. I’ll have a black-and-blue mark. I bruise easy. Well, just go answer it yourself.” Her heels beating an angry staccato on the marble floor, she flounced down the hallway toward the bedroom. “And I’m getting my stuff together and going home!” she yelled back. “I don’t need to put up with your lousy mood anymore today!”

Go and be damned, Doug thought. He pushed the play button on the answering machine. It was from the caller he feared. The voice was ominously friendly. “Doug, about our earlier conversation. I think you went a bit overboard with your remarks. I do expect payment in full on the terms I laid out. I’ve done some fact-checking. You told me a few months ago that you had an offer on the table for the property and you told me who made it. You did tell me the truth about that, and that’s good. You gave me the important details, including the down payment they were willing to make. But there’s one problem now. They bought another site in Long Island City last month, so they don’t need or want your place anymore.”

There was a pause. “Just so you know,” the message continued, “I
also understand that you may not be able to collect the insurance on the property. That’s most unfortunate. I want to be clear: I’m willing to give you one more week to put together what you owe me. All of it. One more week and that’s final.”

The click in his ear sounded like a gunshot as Doug put down the receiver. He heard Sandra coming back down the hall. This time her attitude was different. “Dougie, I’m sorry. I know how upset you are. Call Bernard and let him drive us up to Westchester and let’s have a nice cozy lunch at an inn somewhere.”

“I can’t do that,” Doug said, his voice measured and calm. “As soon as Kate is settled in her private room, I’m going over to the hospital to see her.” He looked at Sandra. “And I’m going alone.”

86

A
t ten o’clock on Thursday evening, after saying good night at Clyde’s wake to a close group of friends who still remembered her husband from his better days, Peggy and Skip went back to her home. Celia and the boys were driving down in the morning for the funeral. Together mother and son watched a replay of the press conference from earlier that day that was being repeated on the news. It included an update with part of an interview with a vagrant named Sammy.

Choking with rage, Peggy called Frank Ramsey on his cell phone.

“How could you?” she demanded. “How could you? I trusted you. You know I trusted you. Clyde told you as much as he knew about Jamie Gordon. He admitted he punched her.” Her voice rising, she shouted, “He told you what he knew! He told you on his deathbed! He said that Jamie jumped out of the van and he heard her scream for help. You know that Clyde was a heavy drinker. All he had wanted to do was sleep, but that Gordon girl kept pestering him. He just wanted to get rid of her. You know he didn’t kill her!”

“Mrs. Hotchkiss, I know how upset you are, but we don’t know that he didn’t kill her.”

“I know he didn’t kill her! Listen to what that creep had to say. Even he admitted that Clyde did not try to follow him! You betrayed me, Frank Ramsey! You asked me to persuade him to answer your
questions on his deathbed. I’m sorry now that I asked Clyde about the Gordon girl. I’m sorry for her and I’m sorry for her parents. But you have practically announced that he was her killer, and without any idea of where Clyde was nearly thirty years ago, you have insinuated that maybe, just maybe, my husband, an injured war hero, was responsible for the Sloane girl’s death, too. I hope you’re happy, Mr. Ramsey! I hope you’re happy! And go to hell!”

Frank Ramsey had put in a very long week. He and Celia were just getting into bed when the call had come in from Peggy Hotchkiss. Celia could not hear what Peggy was saying but she could tell that a very angry woman was screaming at Frank.

When the call ended, she asked, “Frank, what was that all about?”

Frank Ramsey looked every minute of his forty-eight years and more when he answered, “Celia, I’m very much afraid I was listening to the voice of truth. I let Mrs. Clyde Hotchkiss down. I believed Clyde when he said he didn’t follow Jamie Gordon out of the van. We all agreed to put his name out as a possible suspect in the Tracey Sloane murder for a very specific reason. But it wasn’t a good enough reason and it’s my fault.”

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