I hung up and rose to my feet, shaking hands with Mrs. Westfall across the desk. I invited her to take a seat and then poured coffee for us both, using social ritual as a way of setting her at ease, or so I hoped.
She was looking drawn, the fine skin under her mild eyes smudged with fatigue. She wore a tan poplin shirtwaist with shoulder epaulets and carried a mesh-and-canvas handbag that looked like it could be packed for a quick safari somewhere. Her pale hair had the sheen of a Breck shampoo ad in a magazine. I tried to picture her in a raincoat, lurching around the marina with Daggett’s arm draped over her shoulder. Could she have flipped him, ass over teakettle, right out of that skiff? Hey, sure. Why not?
She stared at me uneasily, reaching out automatically to straighten some items on my desk. She lined up three pencils with the points facing me, like little ground-to-air missiles, and then she cleared her throat. “Well. We were wondering. Tony never said anything so we thought perhaps we should ask you about it. Did you tell Tony about the money when you talked to him last night?”
“Sure,” I said. “Not that it did any good. I got nowhere. He was adamant. He wouldn’t even discuss it.” She colored slightly. “We’re thinking to take it,” she said. “Ferrin and I talked about it last night while Tony was out with you and we’re beginning to believe we should put the money in a trustee account for him … at least until he’s eighteen and really has a sense of what he might do with it.”
“What brought about the change?” “Oh everything, I guess. We’ve been in family counseling and the therapist keeps hoping we can work through some of the anger and the grief. He feels Tony’s migraines are stress-related in part, a sort of index of his unwillingness … or maybe inability is a better word … to process his loss. I’ve been wondering how much I’ve contributed to that. I haven’t dealt with Abby’s death that well and it can’t have helped him.” She paused and then shook her head slightly as though embarrassed. “I know it’s a reversal. I suppose we’ve been unnecessarily rude to you and I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” I said. “Personally, I’d be delighted to have you take the check. At least then I could feel I’d discharged my responsibilities. If you change your mind later, you can always donate the money to a worthy cause. There are lots of those around.”
“What about his family? Daggett’s. They may feel they’re entitled to the money, don’t you think? I mean, I wouldn’t want to take it if there are going to be any legal ramifications.”
“You’d have to talk to an attorney about that,” I said. “The check is made out to Tony, and Daggett hired me to deliver it to him. I don’t think there’s any question about his intention. There may be other legal issues I don’t know about, but you’re certainly welcome to talk to someone first.” Secretly, I wanted her to take the damn thing and be done with it.
She stared at the floor for a moment. “Tony said … last night he mentioned that he might want to go to the funeral. Do you think he should? I mean, does that seem like a good idea to you?”
“I don’t know, Mrs. Westfall. That’s way out of my line. Why don’t you ask his therapist?”
“I tried, but he’s out of town until tomorrow. I don’t want Tony any more upset than he is.”
“He’s going to feel what he feels. You can’t control that. Maybe it’s something he has to go through.”
“That’s what Ferrin says, but I’m not sure.”
“What’s the story on the migraines? How long has that been going on?”
“Since the accident. He had one last night as a matter of fact. It’s not your fault,” she added hastily. “His head started bothering him about an hour after he got home. He threw up every twenty minutes or so from
midnight until almost four A.M. We finally had to take him over to the emergency room at St. Terry’s. They gave him a shot and that put him out, but he woke up a little while ago and he’s talking now about going to the funeral. Did he mention it to you?”
“Not at all. I told him Daggett was dead, but he didn’t react much at the time, except to say he was glad. Is he well enough to go?”
“He will be, I think. The migraines are odd. One minute you think he’s never going to pull out of it and the next minute he’s on his feet and starving to death. It happened last Friday night.”
“Friday?” I said. The night of Daggett’s death.
“That episode wasn’t quite as bad. When he came home from school, he knew he was on the verge of a headache. We tried to get some medication down him to head it off, but no luck. Anyway, he pulled out of it after a while and I ended up fixing him two meatloaf sandwiches in the kitchen at two A.M. He was fine. Of course, he had another headache on Tuesday, and then the one last night. Two the week before that. Ferrin thinks maybe his going to the funeral will have some symbolic significance. You know, finish it off for him and �set him free.”
“That’s always possible.”
“Would Barbara Daggett object?”
“I don’t see why she would,” I said. “I suspect she feels as guilty as her father did, and she’s offered to help.”
“I guess I’ll see how he’s doing when I get home, then,” she said. She glanced at her watch. “I better go.”
“Let me give you the check.” I pulled my handbag out of the bottom drawer and took out the check, which I passed across the desk to her. As her husband had done the night before, she smoothed out the folds, looking at it closely as if it might be some preposterous fake. She folded it up again and slipped it in her bag as she got to her feet. She hadn’t touched her mug of coffee. I hadn’t drunk mine either.
I told her the time and place of the services and walked her to the door. After she left, I sat down at my desk again, reviewing everything she’d said. At some point, I wanted to take Tony Gahan aside and see if he could verify her presence at the house the night Daggett died. It was hard to picture her as a killer, but I’d been fooled before.
Chapter 17
John Daggett’s funeral service took place in the sanctuary of some obscure outpost of the Christian church. The building itself was a one-story yellow stucco, devoid of ornament, located just off the freeway-the sort of chapel you glimpse through the bushes when you’re going someplace else. I arrived late. I’d retrieved my VW from the auto glass shop at 1:45 after countless delays, and I confess I’d spent a few contented moments cranking my new car window up and down. The drizzle was beginning to turn serious and I was heartened by the notion that it wouldn’t blow straight in on me.
When I reached the gravel parking lot beside the church, there were already fifty cars jammed into space for thirty-five. Some vehicles had nosed out into the vacant lot next door and some hugged the fence along the frontage road. I was forced to pass the place, snag a spot at the end of a long line of cars, and walk back. I could already hear electronic organ music thumping out in a style better suited to a skating rink than a house of God. I noticed from the sign out front that the minister was called a pastor instead of “Reverend” and I wondered if that was significant. Pastor Howard Bowen. The church name was composed of a long string of words and reminded me uneasily of the outfit that distributes pamphlets door-to-door. I hoped they weren’t keen on converts.
Mr. Sharonson, from Wynington-Blake, was stand ing by himself on the low front steps and he gave me a pained look as he passed me a mimeographed copy of the program with a hand-drawn lily on the front. His manner suggested that the services were spiritually second-rate, this being the K mart of churches.
I went in. An usher peeled a metal folding chair from a stack near the door and flipped it open for me. The congregation had risen to its feet to sing so I stood in the back row, wedged in among other late arrivals. The woman on my left offered to share her hymnal and I took my half, my gaze sliding over the page in haste. They were on verse four of a ditty that went on and on about blood and sin. I made some mouth noises which I hoped were being lost in the general din. Aside from the fact I don’t believe in this stuff, I don’t sing too good and I was worried I might be denounced on both counts.