Triple Pursuit (10 page)
Colleen was in Mario's office working with him when Aggie looked in.
“Hi. I had a date with your dad.”
And then she was gone.
Colleen looked at Mario, who had resented the interruption. “She means they went for a drink when Dad was here.”
Mario wasn't interested. They were going through the research she had done for him, a process she always liked, because he was difficult to please and her work always pleased himâafter he had gone over it with a fine-toothed comb. But Colleen had been upset by Aggie's popin remark and disappearance. A few minutes later, she excused herself and went to the ladies'. Aggie was there with a few other girls, talking. She fell silent when Colleen came in, and then the other women left. Colleen heard their laughter as the door closed.
She was certain Aggie had been telling them some story about her father. She was trembling with anger as she thought of it. But she rinsed her face and leaned toward herself in the mirror. With calm came a thought that altered her mood: Her father had talked like a father to Aggie about Tim and this was Aggie's way of getting revenge. She must have suspected that it was Colleen who had enlisted first her uncle, and then her father, to stop Aggie's pursuit of her brother. Of course Aggie would strike back. But she was doing more harm to herself than to Jack Gallagher.
Tim laughed when Colleen spoke to him about it, and told her to relax, the old man was way past that sort of thing. Had he forgotten the story of Susannah and the elders? But in this case, it was Susannah who was leading an old man astray. If she could be believed. That of course was the problem with Aggie's bitchy boasting: There was no way to know whether what she said was true. Aggie's tailored suits must have affected her hormones. Imagine a woman boasting of her conquests! And of course, in talking with Tim, Colleen knew things he didn't know she knew. Unless he suspected that she had sent Uncle Austin to that bar. She thought she saw a reflective look in his eye, wondering if he, too, had been the subject of such washroom gossip.
What a paragon Mario seemed, compared to Tim and her father.
He had at once recognized and repudiated Aggie's seductive manner. The comparison both pleased and disconcerted her. Tim's disbelief was contagious, and she scolded herself for being taken in by Aggie's tale of supposed conquests.
He had at once recognized and repudiated Aggie's seductive manner. The comparison both pleased and disconcerted her. Tim's disbelief was contagious, and she scolded herself for being taken in by Aggie's tale of supposed conquests.
“Women like that are usually frigid. They have to up the ante to get anywhere near what normal women feel. She would probably call a cop if anyone laid a glove on her.”
There was a disturbing authority in Tim's voice. Had he been lured into such a reaction? She almost hoped it was so. Sinning in the heart was one thing, not likely to threaten his home and family. The more she thought of it, she simply could not imagine Tim and Aggie ⦠well, doing anything like what Aggie claimed. And as for her father ⦠! Now she felt ashamed of herself for being taken in by the sleek young lawyer with the body of a goddess.
“Of course you're right, Tim. But you can imagine what it's like, having that kind of whispering going on in the office.”
He gave her a hug and that was that. Colleen left with the sense of a great weight having been lifted from her shoulders.
Tuttle tucked the dollar bill into his shirt pocket and headed for the gate, thinking that he had earned back the dollar he had given that guard the other night. But as he approached the entrance, he slowed, then stopped. He had a client and he could go ahead and file the suit he had already drawn up, which waited, typed and authoritative, on his desk. Typed by Hazel, of course. With the imperious Hazel there, his office no longer felt like a haven. Normally he would have returned there to bask in his victory, maybe call Peanuts and have him come over with a pizza and a six-pack so they could celebrate. Now that was out of the question. Peanuts had not been in his office since Hazel had installed herself there.
Tuttle put the car in gear, and again headed for the gate. He would go downtown and see Peanuts there. Hazel was not going to come between him and the one true friend he had in Fox River.
Peanuts might be almost mute, and seemingly retarded, but he was a loyal friend, so long as that loyalty did not conflict with the loyalty he owed to the Pianone clan. Once, it had been thought that the Pianones had gotten Peanuts into the force in order to have a mole within the enemy's camp, but with the passage of time Peanuts's dim ineptitude allayed that fear. There had been an intermediate theory, that Peanuts was just playing dumb and that, sly as a fox, he was the eyes and ears of the Pianones in the police department. But that suspicion too had withered away, and the remaining task was to give Peanuts assignments where he could do no harm. His great resentment was the young black detective, Agnes Lamb, who outshone him in every aspect of police work and brought out all Peanuts's primitive racism and male chauvinism. It occurred to Tuttle that Hazel provided a new and powerful bond between himself and Peanuts, Hazel matching Peanuts's Agnes.
Tuttle found Peanuts in the press room where the coffee and the company were better than in the division run by Captain Phil Keegan. Peanuts sat with his coffee before him, staring straight ahead. He could sit like that for hours, saying nothing, doing nothing, apparently oblivious to his surroundings. He might as well have been a Buddhist. Tuttle poured a cup of coffee and sat across from Peanuts and received a nod of acknowledgment. The little lawyer had learned the knack of mindless contemplation from his friend. Well, not mindless. Tuttle's thoughts were always going a mile a minute. The whining voice of Mendel of the
Tribune
engaged his attention and he turned.
Tribune
engaged his attention and he turned.
Mendel was a hirsute, resentful reporter who often talked of the book he was writing that would blow the lid off Fox River. Most of his stories were edited to blandness on the advice of the paper's legal department, and knowing this would happen he composed outrageous
screeds which he read aloud to his disinterested brethren in the press. Tuttle got up, caught Mendel's eye, and moved his head, indicating he wanted to talk with the reporter.
screeds which he read aloud to his disinterested brethren in the press. Tuttle got up, caught Mendel's eye, and moved his head, indicating he wanted to talk with the reporter.
“What the hell do you want, Tuttle?”
“I've admired the stories you did on the tragedy of Linda Hopkins.”
“You should have read them before they were rewritten.”
“Your reward will be great in heaven.”
“I'm an atheist.”
“Well, wherever you end up. My one criticism is that your laudable concentration on that matter blinded you to another.”
“Yeah?”
“The police treated it as a comic matter.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Tuttle went to the heart of the matter, steeling himself for Mendel's derisive laughter. His account of the events at St. Hilary's was in the legalese of the brief he would file that afternoon. Mendel did not laugh, but beyond that showed only minimal interest.
“That's been dropped, Tuttle. Skinner tried to stir the conscience of the prosecutor, with predictable results.”
“The criminal case is indeed a dead letter.”
“What else is there?”
“This will have to be kept under wraps until ⦔ He pulled back his sleeve and consulted his ancient Timex. “Until two o'lock this afternoon.”
“What happens at two?”
“You'll hold the story until then?” He had Mendel's interest now. The reporter looked over his shoulder at a group of his colleagues playing bridge.
“What story?”
“A civil suit is going to be filed on behalf of Jack Gallagher against Austin Rooney.”
“That's your story?”
“Think about it. A onetime entertainment legend is assaulted in his twilight years by a resentful academic.”
Mendel liked it. Tuttle promised him a copy of the complaint he would file. They parted as allies, however mistrustful of one another.
Tuttle returned to Peanuts with the sense that he had begun his campaign. Always at such moments, he thought of the prim and proper Amos Cadbury, dean of the Fox River bar, a byword for rectitude and professional ethics. Cadbury would be furious that such a suit should be filed since it would bring his good friend Father Dowling's parish into the news in an unflattering way. Just a bonus of the good turn that was taking place in Tuttle's life.
“Peanuts, could you do a stakeout?”
The squat detective came alert, probably because he thought Tuttle was referring to outdoor grills and food. Food was the dominant appetite in Peanuts's makeup.
“Can you get an unmarked vehicle?”
“They all have dents in them.”
“Here's what I want you to do.”
He and Peanuts would spell one another on a mission that had occurred to Tuttle when he left Gallagher's residential development, the Western Sun. He had already done the fundamental work on the case; he had interviewed Marie Murkin, Edna Hospers, and half a dozen of the old people at the Center. Their sympathies were divided between Austin Rooney and Jack Gallagher, but their accounts of what had happened were devastating to Rooney. Desmond O'Toole was a great plus. He hated Austin Rooney.
“Because of what he did to Jack?” Tuttle had asked O'Toole.
“That, of course. And the woman in the case.”
“Maud Gorman?”
“Maud Gorman. Austin lured her away from me with his pompous professorial baloney.”
In ordinary circumstances, a rejected lover might be of only equivocal help, but the case was between Austin Rooney and Jack Gallagher. O'Toole gave a vivid account of both assaults, the one on the dance floor and that in the parking lot.
“You witnessed them both?”
O'Toole nodded. “Jack asked me to come with him when he went after Rooney outside. He was too much of a gentleman to avenge himself inside the school.”
“But he got roughed-up again?”
“A lucky punch.”
“He went out there to settle matters?”
“Yes. Rooney has the luck of an Irishman.”
Since all the principals were of Irish descent this was an odd remark, but what Tuttle wanted was the statement that Jack Gallagher had gone into the parking lot to settle matters. A jury could be made to understand that he had gone out to offer the hand of peace and friendship and had been assaulted again for his pains.
With all this material already gathered, Tuttle's concern could be for his client. His opponent, whoever it might be, would doubtless look into Jack Gallagher's life to find there a basis for describing him as a hot-tempered prima donna, forever getting into scrapes. Tuttle wanted to make sure that no such account could be offered, at least one that would come as a surprise to him. Hence the stakeout.
“I'll be out this afternoon, Peanuts. We'll get something to eat before I take over.” He paused. “You've seen my new secretary?”
Peanuts scowled.
“You're right. Peanuts, you have Agnes, I have Hazel.”
The mention of Agnes Lamb brought fire into Peanuts's narrow eyes. He drove off with the idea that somehow the favor he was doing for Tuttle would strike a blow at the hated Agnes.
When Isabel Ritchie moved into her condo at Western Sun Community a year after her husband passed away, she had no idea of the excitement that lay ahead of her. Jack Gallagher lived in the apartment next to hers! Jack's program had been a bone of contention between Isabel and her husband Ozzie. The sound of the theme song of the program would bring a howl from Ozzie, and no matter how low Isabel turned the volume, the syrupy music and even syrupier voice of the hostâOzzie's descriptionâdrove him wild. Only the purchase of a Walkman had gotten them through the crisis. From then on, seated across from Ozzie in the den, headphones on, Isabel listened to Jack Gallagher with impunity, although it gave her the sense that she was being unfaithful to her husband. But how could she be unfaithful with a voice? A voice that entered her ears and then curled through her with an intimacy of which she was half ashamed.
She had seen photographs of Jack Gallagher and was not surprised to find that he had the looks of a matinee idol, but it was the voice that had won her and many thousands like her. The songs he favored went back to the time before Isabel had met Ozzie, and gave her the illusion of being a girl again, still awaiting her destiny. In that recapturing of youth, Jack Gallagher had become her ethereal lover. She learned to bless the person who had invented the Walkman. She could sit a few feet from her husband and be transported into a world that excluded him entirely.
After Ozzie went and she moved to her condoânot yet realizing who lived next doorâshe continued to use her Walkman, but there was no longer the voice of Jack Gallagher to invade her inner ear and inner being. And then one day she saw him coming up the walk. For a mad moment, she thought that he had found her, the woman to whom he had been making radio love for all those years. She ran to the door and opened it, to find him putting the key into the door next to hers. He looked at her over his shoulder and gave her a beautiful smile.
“You're Jack Gallagher!”
He turned, the smile grew brighter, and he extended his hand. Isabel all but swooned, as she had once swooned over Sinatra and as later generations of girls had swooned over Elvis and the Beatles. She managed to tell him her name.
“So we're neighbors.”
Neighbor to Jack Gallagher. He let himself into his apartment and as he closed the door, gave her another smile. Isabel stared at the closed door. When she had buried Ozzie she had told herself her life was over. Now she felt that it was about to begin.
The truth was that she made a pest of herself with Jackâshe always called him Jack in her own mindâand could see that his patience was tried. Not that he ever acted other than in the most gentlemanly way. When the little man in the tweed hat had asked about Jack, Isabel had taken him to the clubhouse and marched him up to Jack's table, where he had been seated with a very well-endowed young woman. Isabel had withdrawn discreetly after the little man had left.
Later, in the bar, a hand was laid on her shoulder and she turned to look into the face of Jack Gallagher, only inches from her own. Her heart stopped beating. She was sure that all eyes in the bar were on them, and she gloried in it.
“Forgive me for not introducing my niece, Isabel. But that lawyer interfered ⦔
“Oh, think nothing of it. What a lovely girl.”
“Just so you understand.” He signaled to the bartender to give Isabel another drink, touched her shoulder once more, and then was gone. The new drink was put before her though she had hardly touched the one she had ordered. She pushed that aside in favor of Jack's propitiatory gift. How incredibly intimate her name had sounded coming from his lips.
That night she hardly slept. Thoughts raced through her mind. Jack was a widower, she was a widow, they had been thrown together by fate. She could close her eyes and hear him say “Isabel” as if she had her Walkman clamped to her ears. She slept fitfully but when dawn broke she felt refreshed and renewed. It was her practice to put in half an hour on the treadmill in the exercise room of the clubhouse, and she got into her gym clothes and Michael Jordan sneakers and had a glass of orange juice. When she opened the door, Jack's niece was coming out of the next apartment.
“Good morning!” Isabel cried, and they set off together down the walk. “You're too young to know what your uncle meant to women my age.”
“My uncle?”
“Jack.”
The girl finally smiled. “Our family is so close I don't even think of him as an uncle.”
“Of course not.”
The girl looked at her curiously, then opened the door of the cutest little car and stepped in. Isabel would have expected her to roar off in such a machine, but she crept away from the curb at ten miles an hour and accelerated only when she was halfway to the gate. The treadmill was demanding exercise, but Isabel felt that she was walking on a cloud. Now she had met one of the family.
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