“Charlie’s dead,” I said. “He was murdered. I’m trying to find out who killed him and why.”
“Oh no,” Liz Taylor said. “Oh no. I got a Christmas card from him just this last December. Sweet, sweet old Charlie.” I heard her sniff.
“Tell me about him,” I said. “I heard he wasn’t exactly the trusting type.”
“That was Charlie,” Liz said, sniffing some more. “Some people didn’t like him, called him a snoop and a son of a bitch, and I guess he was. But he’d never hurt you if you hadn’t done anything wrong. He had the highest homicide clearance rate of any detective in the department. In fact, he still holds the record. Poor Charlie. I’ll tell you, nothing could stop him if he smelled something rotten.”
Not only had he been a detective, he’d been in homicide. He was smart and relentless. It had been a deadly mix for the old man.
“I need the names of friends he’s still close to in Chicago. Some other cops. Can you give me some names?”
“Wait. Is that what happened? He smelled something rotten? And that’s why someone killed him?”
“Probably,” I said. “Do you know of any family or friends he still kept up with? Maybe confided in?”
“No family left,” she said. “His wife died before he left the force. Breast cancer, poor woman. He went out west somewhere when he retired, to live with his parents, somewhere on the West Coast. In Oregon, right?”
“That’s right,” I said, my jaw nearly locked with impatience. “Liz, any friends?”
“Just a couple of older guys still on the force. But I don’t think they’ve spoken to him in years. I can ask around, see if any of the old guys have spoken to him recently.”
“Yeah,” I said, “I’d really appreciate that.” I thanked her profusely, gave her my phone number at the cottage, and hung up.
“Interesting,” Laura said. “Too bad she couldn’t give you anything.”
“She’s got to come up with something pretty quick,” Savich said, “or it’ll be too late.”
“Amen to that,” Sherlock said, turning to Savich.
I walked to Laura, lightly lifted her chin in my palm, and said, “Forget Cal Tardier. Forget all those hundreds of other women.”
She laughed so hard I had to squeeze it out of her. She still thought I was funny.
At two o’clock, Laura and I were seated next to Savich and Sherlock in the League’s Christian Church on Greenwich Street, just off Fifth Avenue. There was a small park opposite the white brick church, and lots of parking space. The building itself looked strangely unchurchlike, I supposed because it was used by so many different religions.
I’d introduced Laura to everyone as a DBA agent I was currently working with, Savich and Sherlock as FBI agents who were here to help us look into things. What things? Who had tried to kill Laura? I’d been as vague as possible as I’d smiled into Alyssum Tarcher’s face with that news. It was an I’11-get-you-later smile and I’d swear he knew exactly what I was thinking.
Charlie Duck held the place of honor in the nave of the church, his beautifully carved silver urn set in the center of a circular piece of glass balanced on top of a hand-carved rosewood pyramid at least five feet tall. I couldn’t tell how that round piece of smoky glass balanced on that pyramid point.
While we sat waiting for the service to begin, I gave them all a running commentary on the people I’d met.
Paul came in, but he didn’t sit down beside me. In fact, he didn’t even acknowledge me or Laura. He looked tired, his face gray, harsh shadows scored deeply beneath his eyes. More than that, he looked scared.
I looked around to see that every pew was filled. There were at least a hundred folk, a good two dozen more lining the back of the church. Everyone had left work and come here. All of a sudden conversation stopped.
Alyssum Tarcher, dressed in a black suit that quietly announced English bespoke, strode to the pulpit, which really wasn’t a pulpit, but rather a long, thick mahogany board set atop marble pillars. The interior of the church was all like that-a mixture of styles and materials, announcing all sorts of possibilities but nothing specific, like an onion dome or a menorah.