The Witchfinder (11 page)

“One of the reasons they’re my friends is I try not to take advantage of them.”

“I see Mumford’s number one in its conference,” I said.

A drawer banged shut on his end. I thought at first he’d shot himself.

“That gauge is getting low, Walker. You can’t run on it forever.”

“If the service answers, leave the information with them.” I pegged the receiver politely.

Three and a half hours till Nate Millender. I went back to the office to clear up old business. The bulb in the reading lamp in the waiting room had been burned out for a week.

I didn’t get to it then. Stuart Lund was sitting on the upholstered bench with his sore foot propped up on the coffee table.

He had on the same gray custom suit or one just like it, cut skimpy in the shoulders British fashion, with three buttons and a shallow gorge. He took up all of the bench and most of the room. When I came in he pointed his cane at the
Casablanca
poster in its frame on the wall opposite. “That looks like an original.”

I nodded. “Office-warming present from my wife.”

“I wasn’t aware you were married.”

“Neither was she.”

“It would pay your rent for a year if you’re ever strapped. I’ve represented Mr. Furlong in many negotiations with interior decorators. I’ve learned things.”

“Care to come in?” I shook loose the key to the private bin.

“Thank you, no. I’m just now comfortable. Is this a historic building, by any chance?”

“Just the plumbing. It came over on the
Santa Maria
.”

“I thought perhaps there was an ordinance prohibiting the owner from installing an elevator.”

“If you’d called I could have met you at the hotel.”

“I needed to get out. I’ve been cooped up in that suite for days. I must say this city presents a better appearance than I’d been led to expect. There seems to be a bit of refurbishing going on.”

“The new administration is starting from scratch. The old one didn’t leave much to loot.”

“Just like London after the Blitz.” He spun the heavy crook of his cane. “Jay had a bad episode last night after I called you. The doctor who came to examine him recognized him, but agreed to keep his presence here a secret provided I hospitalize him as soon as possible.”

“How is he now?”

“Better. However, each time he has one of these spells it leaves him—lessened. I think you should accelerate your schedule.”

I unlocked and opened the inner door, flipped the keys at my desk, and leaned against the frame facing him. “I’ll do what I can. As it is the timetable on this one is burning up all my best contacts.”

“You’ll be recompensed for the added inconvenience.”

“I never change my rates except when I remit them entirely.”

He showed his good teeth. “Sherlock Holmes. Surely you didn’t expect a born Brit to miss the quotation.”

“I’m still hoping to learn from him. I’ve been busy since we spoke.”

“That was my next question.”

I gave him what I had, up to my interview with Lily Talbot. I was saving that.

He worried his moustache with a thumbnail. “Who is this Grayling person?”

“Local political fixer, with maybe a little English on it, if you’ll pardon the pun. I haven’t confirmed that part, but as a general rule you assume the worst. If he’s connected with Nate Millender and Millender turns out to be the one who faked the photograph, we’re into extra innings. What’s Mr. Furlong’s interest in politics?”

“He hasn’t voted since Roosevelt. He’s fond of saying that his rights as an American have cost too many good lives to waste on anyone fool enough to run for public office.”

“Yeah, I can’t ever find a parking space near the polls either.” I fingered out my soggy pack. “I’ll let you know if I get anything out of Millender. Right now Lynn Arsenault looks like our best candidate.”

“That emergency call he went out on may have been legitimate.”

“It may have. I look for shadows.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Just something someone told me today. Also I want to ask him why he dropped ten thousand dollars at Lily Talbot’s art gallery last year.” I struck a match and watched him over the flame. He’d been scowling at his cane. Now he turned the scowl on me.

“I was there an hour ago.” I got the damp tobacco going and shook out the match. Then I gave him the rest of it.

“I specifically instructed you to tell no one that Jay is in Detroit.”

“Technically he’s not. But a loophole in geography isn’t big enough to stick my neck through. It was a judgment call.”

“Is
that
what it was.”

“I didn’t know Mr. Furlong when he had his health. Back then I might have bought into his impassive act. It’s got cracks in it now. As much as he wants to know who framed Lily, he wants to square things with her more. The only way to do that is face to face.” I blew smoke and fanned it away from him. “If it means anything, I don’t think she’ll tell anyone. If it doesn’t, I’ll return the retainer, minus a thousand and change for two days’ work and expenses. You’ll get a written report so the next op you hire can hit the ground running.”

“Do you think she’ll see Jay?”

“I’m already in trouble with you for thinking.”

He drummed his fingers on that silver crook. He got more mileage out of a cane than anyone since Chaplin. Finally he gripped it, lowered his foot to the floor, and levered himself upright. A spasm of pain swept across his broad soft face like a sheet of hail. It passed quickly and he adjusted his cuffs. The links were gold, with crests inlaid in enamel.

“I can’t say I approve of the way you’ve handled Jay’s trust. However, if I were familiar with the correct procedure I wouldn’t have needed your services. We’ll keep things as they are for now. In future I insist you consult with me before you change the game plan.”

“Sometimes things break too fast for that. But I’ll keep you posted.”

“I can see you’re a man who’s accustomed to behaving as he pleases.”

“Almost never that. But I’m out there, and you’re not.”

“Well, that’s the idea, isn’t it.”

It was a classy retreat, like at Dunkirk. You had to hand it to them. They’d lost an empire and kept the crease in their pants.

“What do you make of this business with Arsenault?” he asked.

I leaned down and put out the cigarette in the big glass tray on the coffee table. The base was spotless. I was seldom so busy anyone was kept waiting long enough to smoke one down to the butt.

“Lily Talbot thinks it was coincidence,” I said, “or she says she does. I don’t buy it. However he got to where he is, Arsenault hasn’t stayed there by throwing away money. There’s a chance he felt guilty about his role in what happened to her and wanted to make amends. He may still feel that way. I hope so. Psychologists say guilt is a useless emotion. They’re wrong.”

“What do you intend to do?”

“You’ll know when I’ve done it.”

“You are insufferable.”

“Well, that’s the idea, isn’t it.”

It didn’t sound as good coming from me.

His waxy eyes took an impression of mine, then looked away. “Call any hour with news. I don’t expect to leave the suite again until it’s time to go back to California.” He didn’t add that he’d be making the trip alone.

I went over and opened the hall door and held it while he limped through. “You should have asked the doctor to give you something for your foot.”

“I have medication. Sometimes it’s more effective than other times. In any case I hardly need a second opinion to convince me I’m fat.” He paused on the threshold. “Oh, two more heirs have arrived. They’re on your list: the granddaughter and her husband, parents of Jay’s great-grandchild, Jason. They’re staying at the Westin.”

“I’ll talk to them.”

“Nothing there, I suspect. The girl’s a child of the sixties and distrusts all things worldly. The trip would be the husband’s idea. He’s a twit.”

“That’s like a jerk, right?”

The moustache twitched. “I despair of ever mastering the idiom.”

When he left I changed the bulb in the lamp and switched on the fan in the office. The pigeon feather was waiting. It fluttered up from the floor, hovered for a moment, considering its options, then drifted down and lighted on the handle of the file drawer I’d been meaning for months to reorganize. I plucked off the feather, flicked it out the window, and went to a movie. When you start taking orders from pillow stuffing you might as well be in politics.

I
T WAS A WEEKNIGHT
and a long way from dark, but the cruisers on Jefferson were already clearing their pipes. That stretch of pavement along the river is laid out like a dragstrip. A thing like that can’t be expected to pass unnoticed in the town that put America on ethyl. A Jeep C-J towed by a swollen exposed engine chromed to within an inch of its life shrilled past me, throttled down as it drew alongside a black Pontiac crouched on pneumatic risers, and gunned its carburetor. The Pontiac roared in response; the challenge was accepted. Both vehicles lunged forward, flaying rubber from four wheels and etching glistening streaks behind them like goosed snails.

Youth. Someday they’ll find a cure.

Farther up, where the river slows and broadens and the avenue changes its name to Lake Shore Drive, things were more peaceful. The Grosse Pointe Police Department is small, but better equipped than some armies in South America.

All the parking spaces at the marina were taken. I blocked a Dodge Ram pickup that looked as if it might be there a while and walked along the dock counting numbers. The waves licked at the pilings in long satiny sheets with sunlight sparking at the edges. Sails flocked the surface like bright birds, a speedboat blatted by, towing a skier in an orange life jacket and a white bikini with a yard of yellow hair fluttering behind. The wind slung an arc of fine sun-smelling spray into my face like a lawn sprinkler. It was a different universe here where grownups played, but not necessarily more peaceful. Michigan has more registered boats than any other state in the union, including Hawaii and California; which makes sense, because it has the longest coastline. The problem, in the Detroit area, is that most of them seem to be berthed on Lake St. Clair.

On nice weekends the scramble for the open water resembles the Jefferson Avenue dragway, with one added attraction, for those who love adventure: At least a third of the people at the tiller don’t know one end of their craft from the other or who has the right of way. No minimum age is required to steer a boat through waters crowded with swimmers, skiers, and other vessels. No law demands sobriety on the part of the pilots. The Spanish Armada stood a better chance against the gale.

The berth I was after belonged to a twenty-three-foot sloop, blue as the water, with a teak half-deck up front—I wasn’t sure if they called it a forecastle—and brass fittings that snapped back the light.
Mathew Brady
was the name scripted along the bow.

“Walker?”

I looked at the lean length of caramel-colored skin and runner’s muscles grinning up at me from the stern.

“Ahoy the boat,” I said.

“Call me Nate.” He laid aside the line he was coiling and got social. His grip was corded with iron, no surprise; photography is hard physical labor. “Sorry about the change of venue. This is the first chance I’ve had to get out on the water since Memorial Day.”

Millender had on white shorts, a long-peaked fisherman’s cap, and nothing else. His teeth were blue-white in a face burned as dark as Eulisy Worth’s, only his close-cropped towhead said he hadn’t been born with that pigment. He was middle thirties but could pass for twenty.

“You’ve got a pretty day for it.”

“It’s a short season, but it’s the best in the country. You don’t have a hernia or anything like that, do you?”

“Not that I’ve noticed.”

“Good. Pass me that cooler.”

It was a blue-and-white plastic Coleman on the dock, big enough to pack a terrier. I hoisted it over the railing and he took it in both hands and lowered it to the deck. It was vein-popping heavy.

“Where are you headed, New Zealand?”

“We’re overnighting on Belle Isle. Twelve beers apiece should get us to sunup.”

“Who’s drinking the other twelve?”

“You know Royce?”

I followed the incline of his head. The man approaching from the other end of the dock was a well-built forty, just under six feet and a hundred and eighty in baggy white ducks, canvas shoes, and a red Windbreaker. The white sun visor he wore shadowed his face. He was carrying a pair of float cushions wedged under his left arm and a picnic hamper in that hand. It was an awkward way to lug those items unless you wanted to keep one hand free.

Much of his weight was in his chest and shoulders, and as he came near I saw that we were fellow campaigners in the war against five o’clock shadow. He hesitated a half-step when he saw me standing by the sloop, but regained momentum smoothly. I might have missed it if I hadn’t been briefed on his case and didn’t know a thing or two about the species. That studied casual gait is a hallmark of some housecats, and they’re the most efficient killers in civilization.

Oh, we were going to get along.

“I bought a roast chicken. I hate sandwiches.” He was looking at me.

“Great, we can use it to wash down the beer.” Millender reached up and took the hamper. “Royce Grayling, meet Amos Walker.”

Grayling nodded, smiling, but his right hand remained at his side. His face was broad with no fat in it and he had a thick brown moustache above a mouth as wide as Jean Sternhagen’s but without the humor, although the lips were pulled back to show a full set of good teeth. His eyes were pale. He looked like the young Ernest Hemingway except for those eyes. There was no daylight in them.

“I think we were in the same room once,” he said. “A Democratic fundraiser four years ago at the Masonic Temple. I was with the old mayor. You were bodyguarding a city councilman’s wife.”

“I was guarding her diamonds for the insurance company. Her body just went where the diamonds went. I don’t remember meeting you.”

“We didn’t.”

I showed my teeth. “You must be one of those people who never forget a face.”