Daughter of Darkness (9 page)

    "Tom sees David as the white knight on the white steed," Molly said to Priscilla.

    "Well, he's a hell of a lot better than that ballet dancer or whatever he was she was so crazy about," Stafford said.

    "He wasn't a ballet dancer," Molly laughed. "He was a musical comedy stage actor."

    "The first time he came here to pick up my daughter," Stafford said, "he was wearing makeup."

    "He was late coming from the theater," Molly explained. "He still had some makeup on. He asked if he could use the bathroom to take it off. It wasn't any more sinister than that. And the reason, dear husband, he stopped coming around was because he went back to his wife. For what it's worth, he's very happily hetero."

    Priscilla looked ready to cave in. She'd had a long day of appointments and tonight, without a break for dinner, had spent three hours with Jenny. "I'm afraid I need to go." She stood up.

    Both the Staffords walked her to the door. On the front steps, Tom said, "You won't have to put her in the hospital again, will you? Those electroshock treatments-" He sighed. "The poor kid."

    "We'll find an alternative," Priscilla smiled wearily. "Good night." And before they could start another conversation, she was walking briskly to her shiny black Lexus.

    

    

    The Windy City Cab Company had its offices in a deserted warehouse just off West Randolph Street. No attempt had ever been made to Fix the place up. The lighting was murky, the toilets flushed when they felt like it, and the ground floor had so many cabs coming and going, it looked like a freeway. The air smelled of damp concrete, motor oil. cigarette smoke, overloaded dumpsters out in the alley, and the smell of rubber from the rack of new tires pushed up against the east wall. In the back was the auto repair shop. The noise was relentless, tools clanging on the concrete floor, mechanics shouting back and forth to each other, and one radio that played rap competing with another radio that played country western. Definitely a clash of cultures.

    In the morning, after spending his time at the word processor, Coffey stopped in at the cab company offices. The city had some new form for cabbies to fill out. It had to be notarized. Coffey could get both tasks taken care of here at the office. The day dispatcher was also a notary.

    He finished with the form and then poured himself a cup of coffee. The mug had been washed around the last time the Cubs had won a pennant. He sat in the tiny lunchroom swapping cabbie stories with some of the other drivers. This was a whole subculture, the cabbie life. They tried to outdo each other with stories about fares who'd vomited, fares who'd been hostile, fares who had big boobs, fares who'd been great tippers. Every once in a while, one of the older drivers would look up at the walls of the lunchroom, and say, "Hey, what happened to the broads?" In the good old days, these venerable walls had provided a veritable art museum of
Playboy
and
Penthouse
foldouts. But there was a new owner now-some leasing company out of Philadelphia-and a new attitude. The new company had sent one of their VPs out here to look things over, and she'd been horrified at sight of the foldouts.

    Coffey enjoyed listening to the cabbies' stories. They were sarcastic and sardonic social commentators, and this included those who barely spoke English. The world was a different place when viewed through the eyes of a cabbie. He was about to leave when Benny Margolis came in. "Man, I sure hope I run into this chick. If I do, I won't turn her over to the cops, I'll head directly to a no-tell motel." He waved a police sketch at everybody.

    Cabbies were always getting police sketches. Nobody got around the city as much as cabbies, so handing out sketches over here made sense.

    The sketch made the rounds. Every man who looked at it had something to say about the person depicted on it.

    "Hey," Margolis said, taking the sketch for a second look. "You know who I think this is?"

    "Who?" somebody asked.

    "Tom Stafford's daughter."

    "Tom Stafford, the investment banker?" Coffey said. Stafford was one of the wealthiest men in the state.

    "Yeah, and she's just the kind of chick the police would want for murder," one of the drivers said.

    "They say they just want to talk to her because she may be a material witness," somebody said.

    "They always say that bullshit," a third man argued. "It means that she's really their suspect."

    "You really think it's her?" somebody asked Margolis.

    "I'm sure of it." Margolis glanced at his watch. "I used to haul her around sometimes. Nice kid, actually. I've got to pick my wife up. She wants to take me out for my birthday lunch."

    "You don't look a day over eighty-seven," one of the cabbies joked.

    Margolis smiled. "And that's just how old I feel, too."

    He handed Coffey the sketch. When Coffey looked at it, his entire body froze, as if it had just received a heart-searing jolt of electricity. His palms began to sweat and he felt dizzy, claustrophobic, unreal.

    The sketch was clearly that of last night's dark-haired woman.

    It took him a few minutes before he was able to function again. Meantime, the other drivers continued to make salacious remarks.

    Margolis waved good-bye and left the coffee room.

    Coffey walked out of the lunchroom with Margolis. "You really think that was Tom Stafford's daughter?"

    Margolis shrugged. "Well, I wouldn't bet my nice little house in Hyde Park on it, but, yeah, I'm pretty sure it was. She was too beautiful to forget."

    Coffey wished Margolis a happy birthday. "I'll walk out with you," Margolis said.

    As they reached the parking lot, Margolis dug in the pocket of his green windbreaker and took out a business card. He handed it to Coffey. "This guy was asking questions about you this morning."

    

    
INTERNATIONAL INVESTIGATIONS, INC.

    
Ralph Cummings

    

    Coffey looked it over. "What kind of questions?"

    "Mostly, if any of us had seen you since last night and did we know if you had a girlfriend."

    "Girlfriend?"

    "That's what he asked."

    "Thought I'd better tell you," Margolis said. He checked his wristwatch. "Well, time to meet my wife. Better get to it." He nodded to the card. "You can keep it." He grinned. "Pretty nice of me, huh?"

    "Yeah." Coffey said. "Real nice."

    Twenty-three minutes later, Coffey was in the library.

    

    

    Molly always used to do this when Jenny was a little girl-sit on her bed with Jenny's head on her knee, and Jenny stretched out on the bed. They were in that position now in the big, bright bedroom.

    Just after a late breakfast, Jenny had slumped into an anxiety state, the kind Priscilla Bowman had warned them to watch carefully. Jenny had been in this kind of mood when she'd left the house and not returned for eight days.

    So Molly took Jenny upstairs and asked her to lie on the bed as they had in the old days. At first, they were both self-conscious about doing it-like trying to rekindle feelings and needs long dead-but after a few minutes of actually being on the bed, they both relaxed and began to enjoy themselves.

    It was comfortable and private here. They couldn't hear sounds from anywhere else in the house and the warm sunlight through the windows made them feel as lazy as napping cats. The white drapes and furnishings and bedclothes gave the room a brilliance and cleanliness that automatically improved Jenny's mood. She felt safe and loved here. The darkness of her eight missing days no longer weighed on her mind. She had banished it, at least temporarily.

    When Jenny was a little girl, Molly would always read to her. Jenny had two favorite stories that she liked to hear over and over again, "Cinderella" and "Hansel and Gretel," the first because it was so romantic-even rich little girls dreamed of being the princess-and the second because it was so terrifying.

    Today, there were no stories. But there remained the old love and tenderness. And that was more than enough.

    Molly wore a blue running suit. She ran two miles a day, always after lunch. Jenny's white blouse and fashionably knee-torn jeans gave her the look of a teenager. The back of her head rested on her mother's knee. Molly dragged a comb lazily through Jenny's lovely dark hair. She might have been a doll that Molly was grooming.

    "David already called twice today," Molly said. "He practically lived here while you were gone. I don't have to tell you how much he loves you."

    "I know he loves me," Jenny said. "I just wish I loved him. After he dumped me-I just don't feel the same way anymore."

    "He'd like to take you to dinner tonight. That's what he said both times when he called this morning. I told him with all that's happened, I think you need your rest."

    She reached up and touched her mother's hand. "I don't want to feel that I'm in a sickbed again. Mom. The way I was after-" Once again, the situation that had put her in the mental hospital came to mind-and she immediately pushed it away. "You know what I was thinking about doing today?" Jenny said, changing the subject.

    "No, what?"

    "Visiting Ted."

    Molly hesitated. Then, "Well, that would be nice."

    "God, I like him so much."

    "And he certainly likes you."

    Jenny rolled over so she could put her chin in her hands and face her mother. "You know what?"

    "What?"

    "I think he still has a crush on you."

    "Oh, stop being silly."

    "But you went out together for a long time."

    "Not a 'long time.' Our sophomore year in college was all."

    "Well, that's a long time."

    Molly put her hand on the crown of Jenny's head and began stroking her hair. "I'm sure he'd be glad to see you."

    "He always seems so lonely to me," Jenny said.

    "I don't think I'll tell Daddy where I'm going," she added, and smiled. "He's still threatened by Ted. isn't he?"

    "Well, I'd be threatened if the situation was reversed. Ted
is
a very good-looking man. And he's always being written up in the papers. And he's on TV a lot." Ted had been Molly's boyfriend before Tom Stafford met her. Tom wasn't crazy about the fact that Ted always sent them gifts and had befriended Jenny-but he'd learned to accept it.

    "He told me he hates the publicity," Jenny said. "But that he doesn't have any choice. He has to do the publicity, or his paintings won't sell."

    Jenny rolled over so that the back of her head was on her mother's knee again. "This room has more interesting ceiling patterns than mine does."

    "Ceiling patterns?"

    "You know. The patterns that sunlight makes through the trees."

    "Oh."

    "That's why I always used to come in here in the afternoons." Jenny laughed softly. "You always had a lot more going on on your ceiling than I did."

    "Now there's a compliment if I ever heard one," Molly smiled.

    "I used to do that in the psych hospital, too. My room had very interesting ceiling patterns, too."

    Jenny's stay in the psych hospital was something rarely discussed in the Stafford house.

    Molly put her hand on Jenny's head, as if she wanted to drive out all memories of that terrible time. And then-

    They fell silent again, trying to just enjoy the moment here on the bed.

    Jenny said, "When I got up this morning, I was afraid my period was starting. Thank God, I was wrong. I'm not ready for it yet."

    Her mother stroked her hair some more. "You probably shouldn't go anywhere. You're exhausted. You should stay home." Then, "You always run to Ted when you have a problem, don't you?"

    "Does that hurt your feelings?"

    "No. Not really."

    Jenny thought for a long moment. "I just like hanging out with him. He's fascinating. All the reading he does-He's always got some new passion. It's great spending a long afternoon with him. He'll start out talking about the current political scene and then end up telling you about how the gladiators prepared for battle. His mind's so full of information, and he's so enthusiastic about things. He's really alive."

    "He certainly is that," Molly said.

    Jenny said, "I'm trying not to think about it."

    "I know, honey."

    "Maybe I'll never know. Where I was for those eight days. When I was in the psych hospital, I met alcoholics like that. They'd lost days, even weeks, and they never got them back. I just don't want to think about it now. I just want to try and get my mind off it. So I thought I'd go see Ted."

    "Then by all means, go see Ted."

    "Just don't tell Daddy, all right?"

    Molly laughed. "That's the first thing I'm going to do," she said, and then tickled Jenny under her arm. "Drive right over to his office and tell him where you're going."

    Then she leaned over and kissed her daughter tenderly on her forehead.

    

    

    The library was crowded.

    At the information desk, Coffey asked an attractive young woman if there was a section of books on Chicago society, and if it was kept up-to-date. Her answer was yes to both questions.

    Coffey spent his first hour in the stacks, thumbing through books that referenced the Stafford family. In 1918, George Stafford, the founding father, brought a good deal of his oil money-he was a good friend of John D. Rockefeller's-back to Chicago. He had grown up here, one of six children born to an immigrant and impoverished family of Irish Catholics. Like many poor boys, he wanted to impress the city of his birth. He impressed them immediately. He went into investment banking with an almost religious zeal. He soon became great friends with the Wrigley folks.