Tony Dunbar - Tubby Dubonnet 03 - Trick Question (14 page)

Muttering to himself, he unlocked the front door and went back inside.

Across the street a tall figure stepped out of the shadows of a gnarled oak tree and walked swiftly down the block.

* * *

A light rain was falling, and Denise and her friend Carmella crossed the street in the middle of the block, dashing between the cars waiting for the light to change. Laughing, complaining, and covering their hair, they made it to the shelter of the Old Bull, a new pub boasting 101 beers. There was a crowd inside, mostly clean-cut and noisy.

Neither woman had been there before, but they tried not to show it. They moved swiftly into the place and found a couple of stools halfway down the bar.

Guys began hitting on them even before the bartender took their orders.

“Why, hey there,” a charmer on the stool next to Denise, eyes a bit crossed, began.

She looked him over and raised an eyebrow.

“Can I buy you a beer?” he inquired loudly, propping himself up with his elbow on the bar.

“No, thank you,” Denise said primly. “I’m waiting for someone.”

She turned her back on the young man, who took it well, and said to Carmella, “I don’t like it here. It’s smoky.”

“We don’t need to stay long,” Carmella said. “He should be here.”

“Why did he pick this place?”

“I don’t know. He just said to meet him here at eight o’clock.”

“What’ll it be?” the bartender asked. He was good-looking, with curly ringlets of hair trailing down his neck and a gold ring in one ear.

Carmella ordered a Pfefferneusse Lite. Denise ordered a cranberry juice.

“I don’t see how you can breathe,” Denise complained again.

Carmella dug around in her purse for some bills.

“I shouldn’t have asked you to come,” she said, “but I was worried, that’s all.”

“I know,” Denise said, “but you’ve got to get over that.”

“I’m just not very good at handling things. You’re a much stronger person than I am.”

“That’s a laugh,” Denise said. She had never felt very strong. “When I was a kid they called me Little Bambino at home because that’s the way I acted. I was afraid of my own shadow.”

She was jostled from behind by one of a group of marauding college students, to judge from the boys’ baseball caps, who were mashing their way deeper into the tavern.

“Do you have brothers and sisters?” Carmella asked.

“No. Just me. The way my father and mother got along I’m surprised they even made one baby.”

“Bad, huh? My parents fought a lot too.”

“Mine didn’t fight. They just didn’t talk to each other,” Denise said. “My mother was one of those big whiners who know everything. She kept my father pretty much under her thumb.”

“I guess nobody’s childhood is perfect,” Carmella said.

“Are you sure he said meet you here?” Denise was getting impatient.

“Yeah, when I called him and asked about the, you know, stuff, he told me about this place. He said it would be inconspicuous.”

“I never did like the guy.”

“I can’t stand him,” Carmella said.

“Can’t stand who?” a voice behind them asked.

Both women jumped a little and turned around together to behold the rather pale face of Dr. Randolph Swincter.

“Can’t stand who?” he repeated, moving his eyes from one to the other.

Alone at a table near the front door, Flowers grinned, then straightened out his face. He took a deep swallow from the draft beer the waitress put down before him and licked his lips in satisfaction.

Tubby got the call just as he was falling off to sleep.

Flowers told him what he had seen. The detective had followed Swincter home from work, to his apartment in the Garden District. Swincter had come out the door twenty minutes later and driven to the Old Bull Tavern on Magazine Street. Just trying to pick up girls, was Flowers’s first guess, but instead of going inside immediately, Swincter had remained in his car in the parking lot. He had seemed to slouch down in his seat when two young women parked nearby, as if hiding. Intrigued, Flowers had run their plates on his mobile phone, and it turned out the car was registered to one Denise DiMaggio. Wasn’t that one of Tubby’s clients? Finally Swincter had gone inside and joined the two women at the bar. Yeah, they were both well-formed and muscular and could be boxers.

They had all talked for about half an hour. Swincter bought a round of drinks. And finally one of the women had gotten mad about something and stood up.

Flowers heard her tell her friend that she could go or stay, it was up to her. Reluctantly, the friend had packed up and they had both left the bar. Swincter had stayed around a little longer, not talking to anyone, and then had gone home.

“Odd coincidence,” Flowers called it.

Tubby hung up, puzzled and angry. Was this Denise DiMaggio playing him for some kind of patsy?

“You’ve got a hell of a nerve!” Bennett yelled. Tubby jerked the receiver away from his ear. “Serve me with a subpoena, will you. I’m going to see that you get disbarred for this.”

“There’s nothing improper about subpoenaing you to testify at a murder trial, Mr. Bennett, or Dr. Bennett. I’m sorry you’ve taken such offense,” Tubby said.

“Like hell you are. You and every other lawyer just trying to point the finger at someone other than your own client.”

“I didn’t say you were guilty of anything, Doctor, but I do intend to question you about your relationship with the wife of the deceased. By the way, do you refer to chiropractors as doctors?”

“I’ll have your license for this,” Bennett yelled.

“Or you could explain to me now how long you’ve been seeing each other, and what Mrs. Valentine’s husband thought about your affair.”

“Why you…” Bennett sputtered. Then he slammed down the phone.

Tubby replaced his on the cradle gently.

“Have a nice day,” he grumbled.

Cherrylynn was sitting cross-legged on the floor, sorting papers. She looked at him inquiringly.

“I could hear that from here,” she said.

“He’s a temperamental guy,” Tubby observed mildly. “If he does that on the stand the jury might believe he killed Valentine himself.”

“Do you think he did?” she asked.

“He’s a pretty good prospect,” Tubby said. “How are you coming?”

Cherrylynn was collating copies of more than a dozen articles and academic papers published by Whitney Valentine. Flowers had collected them with the help of a very cooperative librarian at the university. Tubby didn’t know what they might reveal or even who might properly understand them.

Then the phone rang again, and the second question was answered.

“Good morning. Who is that gorgeous detective?” Dr. Tessier said cheerfully.

“So, you’ve met Mr. Flowers. Did he ask you any embarrassing questions?”

“Unfortunately, no. I’ve never met a detective before. He was far more polite than I would have expected.”

“He’s known for his charm. What did he ask you?”

“Oh, just about my work and who here either liked or didn’t like Whitney. There’s one thing I found out after he left, however, and I thought it might be important.”

“What’s that?”

“Dr. Valentine was scheduled to present a paper to the NeuroPharmacological Association meeting in Cincinnati this month. His co-presenter was Dr. Swincter. After Whitney’s death, Swincter canceled out.”

“I wonder why.”

“I don’t know. Dean Auchinschloss is the one who told me, and he didn’t know either. I haven’t seen Dr. Swincter to ask him. He’s working today, but I’m still at home.”

“I’ll ask him myself. You’ve been very helpful, Trina. May I ask why?”

After a pause, she said, “I think it’s only natural to be concerned when a colleague is murdered.”

“Of course. I wish everybody felt the same way. You must have been good friends.”

“Not really. We were professional competitors, in a way, but we respected each other’s research skills and attention to detail. I just don’t think Cletus had anything to do with it.”

“Do you know him well?” Tubby found a Mardi Gras doubloon in his pocket and set it twirling around the top of his desk.

“Not at all. I mean, he did me a favor once and went to the filling station when I ran out of gas in the parking lot, and I’ve had a good feeling about him ever since. But that’s about it.”

“Maybe you could be a character witness at his trial.”

“I’ve done it before,” she said. “Cletus got caught one time letting the laboratory mice out of their cages. I put in a good word for him with the personnel department. That’s probably why they didn’t fire him.”

“Does Cletus know that?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I was just wondering,” Tubby said. He watched the doubloon sail off the desk and land on the carpet by Cherrylynn. “I’ve compiled a dozen or so articles Dr. Valentine wrote. Would you have time to look at them and tell me more or less what they mean?”

“Sure, if you have your detective bring them over to me.

“I think I can arrange that.” He hung up smiling.

He told Cherrylynn that Dr. Trina Tessier seemed to be smitten by Flowers. He was a little amused by how unamused she was.

She brightened up a little when he asked her to beep Flowers on his cellular phone and see if he could nose around Cletus’s neighborhood some more and recruit a couple of character witnesses.

“I’m going over to Moskowitz lab and try to track down Dr. Swincter again. Can you hold the fort here?”

“Like always,” she said, in a not exactly happy tone he couldn’t quite interpret.

“And please see if you can find Mickey,” he requested. “We could sure use some help.”

“Sorry to intrude,” Tubby said to the doctor he had startled, and who was looking at him fiercely over his glasses.

“I’m rather busy, Mr. Dubonnet. This is really not a good time.”

“I understand, and I wouldn’t bother you if it wasn’t important.”

“Are you responsible for this?” Swincter asked, pulling a wrinkled yellow slip of paper from his coat pocket.

“Is that a subpoena? Yes, I’m afraid I am.”

“I have two classes to teach on Thursday. I really can’t be bothered with going to court for this nonsense.”

“It’s not nonsense. A man is on trial for his life.”

“That may be, but you understand I think he’s guilty. I don’t see what I have to add.”

“I’m not sure yet either, Doctor. But I’m trying in a very short amount of time to get an understanding of your colleague’s life and work because I don’t believe Cletus killed him. Someone else did.”

“Any leading candidates?”

Tubby nodded his head. “A couple, maybe. I do have a question for you.”

“What’s that? And I also am short on time.”

“You and Dr. Valentine were to present a paper at a conference in Cincinnati earlier this month.”

“Yes, that’s right.” Swincter took off his glasses and rubbed the lenses on his white sleeve.

“And then, after his death, you canceled the appearance.”

“Yes, that’s right again. The research that was the subject of that presentation was incomplete when Whitney died, and I did not have the time to wrap it up on my own.”

“What was the research about?”

“Nothing that would interest you. It had to do with the metabolic effects of a certain class of drugs. It was really Whitney’s baby, not mine.”

“Yet he was giving you equal credit.”

“Yes, we had that kind of a relationship.”

“That’s unusual isn’t it? I thought academia was a dog-eat-dog world.”

“In the liberal arts maybe, but in the sciences we are far more cooperative than that.”

“Had Valentine written up a report of his experiments?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Surely he must have recorded his data somewhere.”

Swincter put his glasses on again and focused on the lawyer. “I would think so. He used notebooks. And, of course, his computer.”

“All that seems to be missing.”

“I can’t explain that, Mr. Dubonnet. Naturally we’ll try to reconstruct the data when time permits. But why the great interest?”

“It’s just a mystery, that’s all. Did he use animals in his research?”

“Quite a few, actually. He was a great rat slayer. He treated them almost as if they were, what’s the word, vermin?”

“I see you’re titillated by people’s squeamishness where animal research is concerned.”

“Don’t get me started on that debate. I know I’m a monster in some people’s eyes. Now please excuse me and let me get back to my work.”

“Did Dr. Valentine’s research have anything to do with any of your cadavers here? The tourist from Texas, the woman who drove off the bridge?”

Swincter glared at him.

“No!” he said, and turned back to his project, which involved doing something malicious to a small rodent pinned to a dissecting board.

Tubby gulped.

“I wonder, Doctor,” Tubby pressed on, “do you know a young lady named Denise DiMaggio?”

Swincter looked up, lost for a moment. Then he set his narrow jaw.

“I don’t think so,” he said through pinched lips.

“She’s a woman you might have met at a bar or something,” Tubby said.

“I can’t believe this. Are you having me followed?” Swincter demanded. Tubby was slightly nervous about the scalpel in the doctor’s hand.

“I just wondered what you all talked about,” he said.

“This is preposterous. I want you out of my laboratory!” Swincter’s voice was so tight it squeaked.

“Very well,” Tubby said politely, and beat it out the door with as much dignity as possible.

Was that a total waste of energy? he asked himself.

Back at the office, Tubby found Cherrylynn at her desk, staring sadly off into space. She told him that Magenta Reilly had called Dubonnet & Associates to protest the subpoena and had become very upset when she recognized Cherrylynn’s voice.

“I feel terrible,” his secretary moaned. “Magenta was really bent out of shape – like hysterical. I’m afraid she might do something drastic.”

“I certainly hope not,” Tubby said. It seemed to him that this had already been a very long day.

“I’m going to close my door and just try to think awhile,” he said. “I don’t want to talk to anyone on the phone unless it’s very important.”