“Okay, see you later.”
Brownley grunted, “So long,” and then turned back to Nancy.
“We’ve got to get your picture taken. Follow me.”
Heaving himself from a swivel chair that creaked loudly, he led her into a storage closet behind the office and stood her against a white wall. Taking a Polaroid camera off a shelf, he said, “Smile.” Before she could do it, the flash went off in her eyes.
“Okay. You start tomorrow, eight to four.”
That was a problem. It would be harder to poke around in broad daylight. “Uh, couldn’t I work at night? I take a couple of classes during the day. I could even start this evening.”
“We don’t need night drivers.”
It took five minutes of haggling before Brownley agreed to let her work from four to midnight.
“Gee, thanks,” she said, popping her gum. She looked out the window of his office at the cabs. “Any of those have stick shifts? What kind ya got, anyway?” She was out into the garage, trotting past the lines of cars before Brownley could get through his office door.
He followed, panting. “Hey! You’ll be using one up front. I choose, you don’t.”
Nancy had already walked half the length of the space and from there could see all the cabs and the vehicles she had not been able to make out before.
“Oh. Okay,” she said and strolled back toward him. “See ya tonight. Thanks again.” And she ducked under the rollup door.
Nancy congratulated herself on an Oscar-winning performance, especially the last sixty seconds of it. It had been very difficult to hide how excited she was after she had seen the vehicles at the rear of the garage.
Parked in the left corner, almost invisible in the gloom, was a dirty white van, with strips of tape over the lettering on its sides—and a bent right fender.
Chapter Eleven
Judge Jonathan Renk’s memorial was well-attended. The church was filled with the most respected members of the community and a few nationally known political figures.
The media was barred from the service itself. Ann, feeling awkward about attending, had decided not to come. But it looked as if every other reporter in the Midwest was standing outside the church, waiting to pounce on key figures as they left. The Drews, Bess, and Ned avoided them by leaving through a rear door.
They all went back to the judge’s house with the housekeeper. “It was lovely, wasn’t it?” Mrs. O’Hara kept asking Nancy, her father, and Ned. Bess had gone into the living room.
“It went very well,” Nancy said, helping her remove her coat and hanging it in the closet off the kitchen. The house was filling up with people who had come to pay their respects. “I guess the guests are starting to arrive. Hannah and Bess will help you keep things running smoothly.”
Mrs. O’Hara dabbed at her eyes. “It’s so sad. But he hadn’t been the same since before Miss Martha died. You could tell that, couldn’t you, Mr. Drew?”
“Well, I hadn’t seen him that often, Katherine. Once he dropped out of our weekly card games, I—”
The housekeeper’s eyes widened, and she stared at Nancy’s father. “He dropped out? When?”
“It’s been almost a year. We assumed he’d just lost the heart for it.”
Mrs. O’Hara looked away, a bewildered expression on her face. “Then where was he going?”
“Pardon?”
“Mr. Drew, the judge left here every Wednesday night, the way he’s always done since I came to work here.”
“He wasn’t with us. Perhaps he found a new group. They never played here?”
“No, sir, always somewhere else. Sometimes he drove, sometimes someone came to pick him up. Last summer, it was, he was going two and three times a week.”
“Perhaps he was going somewhere else,” Nancy suggested. “I mean, to the theater or something.”
“No, lass. He had a routine. Whenever he was going to play cards, he’d sit at his desk and practice shuffling and dealing. That’s how I could tell.”
Carson Drew smiled sadly, “He always joked that if he hadn’t gone into law, he’d have been a dealer in Las Vegas.”
“Aye. He and Miss Martha, they were a pair. All the time she was sick, he’d go to Pinebrook to see her with a deck of cards in his pocket. They’d enjoy a game together there in her hospital room until she couldn’t play any longer. I—I had no idea he wasn’t playing with you anymore, Mr. Carson.”