Page 47 of Fade Out
“It was a misunderstanding.”
“Was he charged?”
“Is that important?”
It was actually. If the police already knew him, this got easier. “When a lawyer answers a question with a question it usually means I’m onto something.”
“Or it means nothing.”
He dabbed his face again with the handkerchief. His forehead, his cheeks, his neck. That meant something. That meant a lot of something.
“It’s cold in here,” I said. “Frigid actually.”
“It saves money to run the air conditioning at a steady temperature. When the full staff is here it’s considerably warmer. Body heat.”
“You’re sweating, though. Something about this conversation is making you nervous.”
“Everything about Rita Lindquist makes me nervous.”
“Have you had contact with her in the last few months?”
“I can’t talk about that.”
“That’s a yes. Did she threaten you?”
“I can’t talk about that.”
I nodded. “Look, I’m trying to find Rita. If I find her, your problems go away. Can you tell me anything?”
He sweat some more while he thought. “Her payroll checks go to a P.O. box in Niles.”
“Wait. You’re still paying her?”
“It seemed like a good idea.”
“And you don’t want to poke the beast.”
* * *
I left a few minutes later,after he’d given me everything he was going to. Tommy Junior said checks went out on Monday every week. Rita’s check wouldn’t be there until maybe Tuesday. I could go out to Niles and watch the post office until she showed up. Unless, of course, I was back in County. Then I wasn’t watching anything.
I walked back over to the El and got on it thinking I’d get off at Belmont and stop at Brian’s. Instead, I jumped off at Armitage and took a very long walk over to Hudson. More than a dozen blocks, almost half an hour. In my head, I went over everything Tommy Carney Junior told me or didn’t tell me. He was scared and that meant Rita had something on him or on the firm. Or she might have threatened Tommy’s kids the way she did Jill Smith’s.
I had the feeling Tommy’s fear of Rita went back to her father’s death. They must have tried to get rid of her and it was then that she’d forced her way into a job. A job she didn’t even have to go to for them to pay her.
And what was the deal with the golf balls? Why did they seem important to me? They weren’t. Obviously, they weren’t. The fact that Tommy Carney, Jr., liked to collect Jack Nicklaus’ balls didn’t mean anything. So why did I think it did?
Then I was back on Andrew Happ’s street. I’d only talked to one of his neighbors so far. She’d liked Ruby, as she called her, and didn’t want to believe anything bad about her. I could use another opinion.
Directly across the street from Happ’s was a yellow brick apartment building. I skipped that. Renters never talked to each other the way owners did. It was entirely possible that none of them knew anything about Rita or Andrew Happ. Instead I went to the house just north of that building. It was a little distant from Happ’s house, so I didn’t expect much.
I knocked on the door of the painted brick house, three stories like the others. After a bit, a woman answered the door. She was in her early thirties and she’d obviously just hurried through the big house to get to the front door. A seven- or eight-year-old boy was clinging to her.
“Hi, can I help you?” she asked when she opened the door.
“I’m an investigator,” I started. When you drop the private people often assumed you were a police officer; a distinct advantage. “Did you know your neighbor, Andrew Happ?”
“The old man who died recently? Not well. I have a job at J. Walter, so I’m not here much during the week.”
