“My back went out on me. Hurts like a son of a bitch,” he said. Once he was on his feet, he dug a fist into the small of his back, twisting one shoulder slightly as if to ease a cramp. He had a runner’s body-lean, stringy muscles, narrow through the chest. He looked older than his wife, maybe late forties while I pegged her in
her early thirties. His hair was light, worn in a crewcut, like something out of a 1950s high school annual. I wondered if he’d been in the military at some point. The hairstyle suggested that he was hung up in the past, his persona fixed perhaps by some significant event. His eyes were pale and his face was very lined. He moved to the windows and raised all three shades. The room became unbearably bright.
“Have a seat,” he said.
I had a choice between a daybed and a molded plastic chair with a bucket seat. I took the chair, doing a surreptitious visual survey while he lowered himself into his swivel chair as though into a steaming sitz bath. He had six metal bookcases that looked like they were made of Erector sets, loosely bolted and sagging slightly from the weight of all the manuals. Brown accordion file cases were stacked up everywhere, his desk top virtually invisible. Correspondence was piled on the floor near his chair, government pamphlets and tax law updates stacked on the window sill. This was not a man you’d want to depend on if you were facing an I.R.S. audit. He looked like the sort who might put you there.
“I just talked to Marilyn. She said you came by the house. We’re puzzled by your interest in us.”
“Barbara Daggett hired me to investigate her father’s death. I’m interested in everyone.”
“But why talk to us? We haven’t seen the man in years.”
“He didn’t get in touch last week?”
“Why would he do that?”
“He was looking for Tony Gahan. I thought he might have tried to get a line on him through you.”
The phone rang and he reached for it, conducting a business-related conversation while I studied him. He wore chinos, just a wee bit too short, and his socks were the clinging nylon sort that probably went up to his knees. He switched to his good-bye tone, trying to close out his conversation. “Uh-huh, uh-huh. Okay, great. That’s fine. We’ll do that. I got the forms right here. Deadline is the end of the month. Swell.”
He hung up with an exasperated shake of his head.
“Anyway,” he said, as a way of getting back to the subject at hand.
“Yeah, right. Anyway,” I said, “I don’t suppose you remember where you were Friday night.”
“I was here, doing quarterly reports.”
“And Marilyn was home with the kids?”
He sat and stared at me, a smile flickering off and on. “Are you implying that we might have had a hand in John Daggett’s death?”
“Someone did,” I said.
He laughed, running a hand across his crewcut as if checking to see if he needed a trim. “Miss Millhone, you’ve got a hell of a nerve,” he said. “The newscast said it was an accident.”
I smiled. “The cops still think so. I disagree. I think a lot of people wanted Daggett dead. You and Marilyn are among them.”
“But we wouldn’t do a thing like that. You can’t be serious. I despised the man, no doubt about that, but we’re not going to go out and track a man down and kill him. Good God.”
I kept my tone light. “But you did have the motive and you had the opportunity.”
“You can’t hang anything on that. We’re decent people. We don’t even get parking tickets. John Daggett must have had a lot of enemies.”
I shrugged by way of agreement. “The Westfalls,” I said. “Billy Polo and his sister, Coral. Apparently, some prison thugs.”
“What about that woman who set up such a howl at the funeral?” he said. “She looked like a pretty good candidate to me.”
“I’ve talked to her.”
“Well, you better go back and talk to her again. You’re wasting time with us. Nobody’s going to be arrested on the basis of ‘motive’ and ‘opportunity.’”
“Then you don’t have anything to worry about.”
He shook his head, his skepticism evident. “Well. I can see you have your work cut out for you. I’d appreciate it if you’d lay off Marilyn in this. She’s had trouble enough.”
“I gathered as much.” I got up. “Thanks for your time. I hope I won’t have to bother you again.” I moved toward the door.
“I hope so too/”
“You know, if you did kill him, or if you know who killed him, I’ll find out. Another few days and I’m going to the cops anyway. They’ll scrutinize that alibi of yours like you wouldn’t believe.”
He held his hands out, palms up. “We’re innocent until proven otherwise,” he said, smiling boyishly.
Chapter 23
Waiting for the elevator, I replayed the conversation, trying to figure out what I’d missed. On the surface, there was nothing wrong with his response, but I felt irritated and uneasy, maybe just because I wasn’t getting anyplace. I banged on the DOWN button. “Come on,” I said. The elevator door opened partway. Impatiently, I shoved it back and got on. The doors closed and the elevator descended one floor before it stopped again. The doors opened. Tony Gahan was standing in the corridor, a shopping bag in hand. He seemed as surprised to see me as I was to see him.
“What are you doing here?” he said. He got on the elevator and we descended.
“I had to see someone upstairs,” I said. “What about you?”
“A shrink appointment. He’s been out of town and now his return flight was delayed. His secretary’s supposed to pick him up in an hour so she said to come back at five.”
We reached the lobby.
“How are you getting home? Need a ride?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I’m going to hang around down here.” He gestured vaguely at the video arcade across the street where some high school kids were horsing around.
“See you later then,” I said.
We parted company and I returned to the parking lot behind the building. I got in my car and circled the four blocks to the lot behind my office where I parked. For the time being, I left the skirt and shoes in the backseat.
There were no messages on my answering machine, but the mail was in and I sorted through that, wondering what else to do with myself. Actually, I realized I was exhausted, the emotional charge from Jonah having drained away. I’m not used to drinking that much, for starters, and I tend, being single, to get a lot more sleep. He’d left at 5:00, before it was light, and I’d managed maybe an hour’s worth of shut-eye before I’d finally gotten up, jogged, showered, and fixed myself a bite to eat.
I tilted back in my swivel chair and propped my feet up on the desk, hoping no one would begrudge me a snooze. The next time I was aware of anything, the clock hands had dissolved magically from 12:10 to 2:50 and my head was pounding. I staggered to my feet and trotted down the hall to the ladies’ room. I peed, washed my hands and face, rinsed my mouth out, and stared at myself in the mirror. My hair was mashed flat in the back and standing straight up everywhere else. The flourescent light in the room made my skin look sickly. Was this the consequence of illicit sex with a married man? “Well, I soitonly hope so,” I said. I ducked my head under the faucet and then dried my hair with eight rounds of hot air from a wall-mounted machine that had been installed (the sign said) to help protect me from the dangers of diseases that might be transmitted through paper towel litter. Idly, I wondered what diseases they were worried about. Typhus? Diphtheria?
I could hear my office phone from halfway down the hall and I started to run. I snagged it on the sixth ring, snatching up the receiver with a winded hello.
“This is Lovella,” the glum voice said. “I got this note to call you.”
I took a deep breath, inventing as I went along. “Right,” I said. “I thought we should touch base. We really haven’t talked since I saw you in L.A.” I sidled around my desk and sat down, still trying to catch my breath.
“I’m mad at you, Kinsey,” she said. “Why didn’t you tell me you had Daggett’s money?”
“To what end? I had a cashier’s check, but it wasn’t made out to you. So why mention it?”
“Because I’m standing around telling you I’m married to a guy who’d just as soon kill me as look at me and you’re telling me to call the rape crisis center, some bullshit like that. And all the time, Daggett had thousands of dollars.”