Harry Dolan (20 page)

Elizabeth left the car and came up the walk. Now she could see the meaning of Sarah’s gestures. Her daughter was juggling. Three oranges traced their arcs through the air. Sarah saw her and waved reflexively and the pattern was lost and the oranges went bouncing over the floor of the porch. One rolled down the steps and Elizabeth caught it at her feet.

Loogan bent to retrieve the others and then turned to flash Elizabeth a smile. “Hello, Detective.”

“Hello. What’s this?”

“David’s a juggler,” Sarah said. “He’s been teaching me.”

“She’s a natural,” said Loogan.

“I’m learning. It doesn’t feel natural yet. It feels like a parlor trick.”

“It
is
a parlor trick,” said Loogan.

Elizabeth joined them on the porch. “Let’s see it again.”

Sarah took the oranges once more and arranged them in her hands. She made practice movements as if to remind herself and then let them fly. She kept the pattern going for five seconds, for ten. Elizabeth saw the moment when she lost control. Loogan saw it too. He snatched an errant orange from the air, and the next thing Elizabeth knew he had all three. He sent them up to brush the ceiling of the porch, then froze suddenly with two in his right hand and one in his left. He offered them back to Sarah.

“That was good,” he said.

Elizabeth smiled. “I’m impressed.”

Sarah tossed an orange in the air and caught it. “I’ve invited David to stay for supper.”

“You have, have you?”

“I’m afraid I can’t stay,” Loogan said.

“He doesn’t want to impose,” said Sarah. “You’ll have to work on him.”

“I see.”

“I’m going in,” Sarah said. With the screen door open, she turned back. “What do you think about oranges in the salad?”

Elizabeth considered the question. “I think three may be too many.”

“I’ll see how one looks.”

As the screen door clapped shut, Loogan said in a low voice, “I hope it was all right for me to come here.” He seemed deliberately casual. Stubble on his chin, darker than the copper of his hair. Weathered coat, flannel shirt, denim, sturdy hiking boots. But his eyes glinted, his mouth was a long ironic line.

“It’s all right,” Elizabeth said.

“Your address is in the phone book,” he said.

“That’s practically an invitation.”

“Your daughter is charming.”

“Yes.”

“You’re not going to ask me why I’m here.”

Elizabeth leaned her back against a column and listened to the rain falling on the porch roof. “Sometimes I find that if I don’t say anything, people will tell me what they want to tell me, all on their own.”

“I heard about Adrian Tully,” Loogan said. “I wondered what the story was.”

“Is that right?”

“I suppose I shouldn’t show too much interest. You’ll start thinking I’m guilty of something.”

Elizabeth put a hand out to feel the rain. “We had a meeting today to consider who might be guilty of killing Adrian Tully. Your name didn’t come up.”

“That’s good.”

“It should have. Did you know we were looking at Tully as a suspect in the murder of Tom Kristoll?”

“No,” Loogan said. “Is that true?”

“It’s true. We believe Tully was the one who vandalized your car. He knew about your affair with Laura Kristoll. It’s possible he went to tell Tom and they got into an argument about it. You haven’t heard any of this? Laura didn’t tell you?”

“No. You’re saying she knew?”

“At the very least, she knew Tully was a suspect. I’m surprised she didn’t tell you.”

“She didn’t.”

“If she did—if you believed that Tully killed Tom Kristoll—it would have given you a motive. Tom was your friend. You wanted his killer caught. If this were a story in
Gray Streets,
you’d catch him yourself. Isn’t that what you told me?”

“It is.”

“You’ve even been playing detective,” Elizabeth said. “Have you found Michael Beccanti yet?”

Loogan showed her his palms. “I haven’t been looking for him.”

“If this were a story in
Gray Streets,
” she said, “you might want to do more than catch Tom’s killer. You might want to punish him. Have you ever been to a gun show, Mr. Loogan?”

He looked puzzled. “No. Why?”

“Have you ever owned a gun?”

“No.”

“I’m sorry to be so abrupt,” Elizabeth said. “It’s been a long day and sometimes I get tired of dealing with this nonsense. Did you lure Adrian Tully out to a cornfield and blow his brains out?”

Quietly, firmly, he said, “No.”

She came close to him under the porch light and studied his face. There was no sign of deception in it. He returned her gaze curiously. Though she didn’t study him for long, she had time to think about when she had seen him last: only two days before, at the funeral of Tom Kristoll. She had time to recognize that she was pleased to see him now.

Other thoughts occurred to her, all on their own: David Loogan had an interesting mouth. She could probably convince him to stay for supper.

If he stayed, he would linger for a while afterward. Sarah would go off to do her homework. He would want to help with the cleaning up; it was consistent with the persona, with the flannel and the denim and the broad-backed sturdiness. He would volunteer to wash the dishes. He would stand at the sink and she would stand behind him—she was nearly as tall as he was—and his collar would smell freshly laundered and she would put her hands on his shoulders.

Strange thoughts.

And if he had something to do with Adrian Tully’s death, or Tom Kristoll’s, she would have to testify against him. She would be cross-examined. She would have to explain why she’d had a murder suspect as a guest in her home. She would have to account for every move.

Under the porch light with David Loogan, she was able to find it amusing. She turned away from him to hide her smile. In reality, it would not be amusing.

She managed to get the screen door open. Loogan stayed where he was.

“I believe you,” she said. “About Tully.”

He was still regarding her curiously. He didn’t answer.

“I should go in,” she said. “I hope you won’t mind if I don’t invite you to stay.”

Chapter 21

ANN ARBOR HAS THE STREET LIFE OF A MUCH LARGER CITY. WHEN THE weather is fair, and sometimes when it’s not, the sidewalks along State Street and Liberty and Main bustle with people: hip, arty, confident people who walk to theaters and shops, bookstores and coffeehouses, who gather at sidewalk tables that spill out of restaurants.

David Loogan found them fascinating. He thought it must be the university that produced them. The university made the city more prosperous and young and good-looking. It gathered all these people to itself and then it sent them out into the city where they ate fine meals, and attended plays, and greeted one another on the street with hugs and cheery shouts and back-slapping.

On Monday night he watched them from a distance, from the top of a parking garage on Main Street. Laura Kristoll stood beside him. She wore a long, dark green coat and kept it hugged tight around her.

“Ten days,” she said.

Loogan looked down along the canyon of the street. At people gathering on corners at an intersection. At the streetlights reflecting off the hoods of passing cars.

“Tom’s been gone for ten days now,” Laura said. “It seems longer. Does it seem longer to you?”

“Yes,” said Loogan.

It had taken some convincing to get Laura out of the house. She had declined his invitation to dinner on Sunday night, saying she was exhausted. He decided to try for Monday. He suggested a jazz bar called the Firefly Club—it was sure to have live music, even on a Monday night. He would pick her up at seven.

He got to the house early, while she was working on her makeup and her hair. He waited for her downstairs. When they left, she turned her key in the dead bolt of the front door. Loogan wondered if Michael Beccanti could get past a dead bolt. He wouldn’t need to; Loogan had unlocked the patio door.

They stopped at a café for a light dinner and then went on to the Firefly. A blues trio on the stage. The crowd was low-key. Loogan brought Laura to a table in the corner farthest from the bar, and she leaned against him and they were quiet in the dark.

Later they walked to the garage where they had left his car. Waiting for the elevator, she put her arms around him and kissed him and started to cry. The car was on the fourth level, but they took the elevator all the way to the top and stood looking out over the concrete wall in the cool night and talking about Tom.

“Do you think he was frightened?” she said.

Loogan knew what she meant. From where they were standing they could see the building that housed
Gray Streets
; they could see the distance from the sixth floor to the sidewalk below.

“No,” he said. “I don’t think he was aware of anything by then.”

She lifted her shoulders, buried her hands in the pockets of her coat. “I don’t know what I’m doing, David. I had a class I should have taught today, but I didn’t go. The chair of the department is an old friend. He insisted I take at least two weeks off. He wanted me to take the rest of the semester.”

“Maybe you should.”

“What’s the point?” she said. “I’d rather be doing something. It’s just me in the house, and every minute I spend there reminds me of Tom—”

The words seemed to catch in her throat. She bowed her head and looked away and Loogan watched her. He thought she would cry; she didn’t cry. She stood quiet and small and Loogan would have liked to comfort her, but he felt like a heel. He had lured her from her home and Michael Beccanti was there now, rummaging through her possessions. He and Beccanti had worked out a plan—a plan with a secret signal, with cloak-and-dagger nonsense. Loogan had a cell phone in his pocket; he had bought it earlier that day. He would keep Laura out as long as he could, and before he took her home he would dial Beccanti’s cell phone number and let it ring twice. He would need to be out of Laura’s sight to place the call, but he had worked that out too; he had made sure the gas in his car was low, so he had an excuse to stop at a filling station. He would be able to dial the number when he went inside to pay.

He stood looking down at the street with his hands in the pockets of his black leather coat. He breathed the cool air. His right hand closed around a folded paper in his pocket. That was part of the plan too. He hadn’t mentioned it to Beccanti; it was a small touch of his own. He thought he should question Laura as long as he had her to himself. Two birds with one stone. The paper was a prop, a way of broaching the subject.

He crumpled the paper in his pocket. The plan was ridiculous. He should take Laura home now and forget all about it. Call Beccanti and warn him and then have nothing to do with him again. He watched a green light turn to amber down on the street below. He felt Laura beside him, her hand slipping into his pocket, her palm warm against the back of his hand.

She looked up at him, her face close to his own. Her fingers touched the paper. “What’s this?” she said.

“Nothing,” he said.

“It’s something.”

“We should go,” he said. “We’ve been up here too long.”

“You’ve gotten very serious, David. What are you afraid of?”

Without hesitating he said, “Parking garages.”

“Really?”

“They’re dangerous. Forty percent of all violent crimes take place on the top levels of parking garages.”

She smiled and looked over her shoulder. “There’s no one here but us.”

“That’s the way it starts,” he said. “You think you’re safe and you drop your guard, and when you’re not paying attention someone sneaks up on you.”

Her fingers gripped the paper in his pocket. “I’ll protect you, David. I won’t let anyone sneak up on you.”

He watched the upturned corners of her mouth. She tugged at the paper and he slowly relinquished it. With her eyes locked on his, she brought it out and opened it and smoothed it against the top of the concrete wall.

Finally she looked down. “What is this?”

He shrugged. “Just some notes I made, a few weeks ago.”

She read the first sentence aloud: “ ‘Someone Tom Kristoll identifies as Michael Beccanti was killed on the night of October seventh in the study of Tom’s house on the Huron River.’ Well, that’s a promising beginning. You’ve got my attention, right out of the block.”

Loogan leaned against the wall. “I can improve on it,” he said. “It wasn’t Michael Beccanti who died. It was Sean Wrentmore.”

“Ah,” she said. “Well, let’s go on. ‘The dead man had a pistol strapped to his ankle—why?’ That’s a good question. ‘He had traces of blood and skin under his nails, indicating a struggle with his killer.’ A valid inference.”

She brushed a strand of hair away from her eyes. “ ‘Most likely he would have scratched his killer on the face, neck, arms, or hands. Tom has no scratches in any of these places. . . . Laura Kristoll has no scratches anywhere on her body.’ Well, that’s good detective work, isn’t it? Remind me to question your motives the next time you ask me to strip naked in my office.”

Loogan watched her read through the rest silently. He focused on the last line he had written:
I know next to nothing about Tom and Laura Kristoll.

“David,” she said. “You could have asked me about this before. I would have told you.” She passed the paper back to him. “Do you want me to tell you now?”

“You don’t have to,” he said.

“Let’s go back to the car,” she said. “It’s getting cold up here. And it’s dangerous.”