Snowjob Page 9

  I stood up. “Well, thank you for the help, Mr. Maloney. You were dead right about Perkins.”

  He straightened up and looted at me. “If you keep this dog with you someone will notice,” he said.

  “I guess I’ll have to send him home on the train.”

  “You mean you’re going to stay here?”

  “I came to help my friend Doug Ford. He’s innocent. I know it and what happened tonight proves it. I’ve got to get him cleared. I can’t do that from Murphy’s Harbour.”

  “Then what will you do for, what’s the word, ‘backup’?” He used the term, awkwardly.

  “I’ve worked solo before.”

  “I’m probably going to regret this,” he said. “But I get the feeling that you’re an honest man, honestly trying to do what’s right. Would you care to talk things over with me?”

  We stood there, our breath puffing out in white clouds around our heads as I thought for a while. I knew nothing about him, except that he had helped me, but he seemed straight. He had gone to bat for me and I needed help.

  “Some of it is classified,” I said. “But I’ll be happy to walk you through the rest of it.”

  “All right. Come back to my house. And bring the dog with you. He can stay with me. Nobody will question his presence at my house.”

  “That’s very kind of you, sir. Won’t your family get upset?”

  “I’m a widower,” he said.

  “I’m sorry.” The automatic response. He waved it away.

  “Nearly four years now. Listen. Put your dog in my car, in case you get stopped.”

  “Thank you.” I told Sam, “Come,” and he followed to Malonsy’s car. The lawyer opened the back door and Sam hopped in. “Easy,” I told him.

  Maloney shut the door. “Follow me.” He got in and drove past me to make a U-turn. Then I followed him and he led me back up the side road and out to the edge of town to a big brick house set back from the roadway, floodlit and beautiful with the snow layered over the evergreens like icing on a cake. He pulled up and opened the garage with a remote control device. I stopped behind him and before he closed the garage door he turned and waved to me. I came in and he rolled down the door. “Bring the dog inside,” he said.

  I opened his car door and clicked my tongue at Sam who got down quietly and stood by me, awaiting his next order. Maloney looked down at him and nodded his head briskly in admiration. “A splendid dog.” He turned and opened the door to the house. “Come on in.”

  I followed him in with Sam at my left heel. We were on the stairway leading down to the basement and up three steps to the kitchen. Maloney went up ahead of me and said, “Hold it there until I draw the blinds.”

  I waited, looking around, while he lowered the old roll-down blind then went through to the rest of the house to do the same. Everything was neat and Spartan. There were a couple of dishes on the draining board, and cutlery for one person. A tidy single man’s housekeeping—use the same things over and over and clean them as soon as they’re used. He kept house as I had in the years when I was on my own. He came back in, slipping out of his coat. He was wearing a neat gray suit under it. “Come on up.”

  “Thank you.” I stepped up to floor level and he led the way into the room next door. It was long with an antique dining table at one end, next to the kitchen, and then a sitting area with a couple of comfortable couches and an old red leather chair with a standard light next to it. Beside the chair was a table with books on it and an ashtray with a briar pipe.

  Against the wall was a butler’s stand with bottles and an ice bucket and glasses. Maloney went to it and said, “I was just going to have a drink when I got the call from the station. Will you join me?”

  “Thank you. I’d like a rye and water, please.”

  “Canada’s gift to the world,” he said. He dropped three ice cubes into a glass and poured me a solid slug. “Water’s in the kitchen.”

  I went and added water and when I came back he was putting the top back on the scotch bottle. “Good health,” he said and we both drank. Then he took the red chair and pointed to the couch. “Sit down. Make yourself at home.”

  I sat, raising my glass to him and sipping comfortably. He was certainly changing my opinion of lawyers. “I want to thank you for all you’ve done. It’s above and beyond the usual lawyer-client line of action.”

  He sipped his drink thoughtfully. “I may have something to thank you for, eventually,” he said. I frowned and he wait on, not looking at me. “There’s something unhealthy going on in town. Nothing vile, not yet, but the town has changed over the last little while. I’ve been here all my life and I know everybody and just about everything. Who’s sleeping with whom, who owes money, who gambles, who beats his wife. But lately there’s something secretive going on.”

  He looked at me now, sadly, I thought. “There’s nothing I could take into court, but I’m concerned.”

  “Who’s involved?”

  He shook his head. “No, you first. You said you feel Officer Ford is innocent. That means you think somebody staged the evidence that had him arrested. I’d like to hear why you think so, over and above the fact that you’re his friend.”

  “I promised Doug I wouldn’t repeat what he told me, but I can bring you up to date on what’s been happening to me.”

  “That might help.” He took another drink and waited.

  “Last night, Doug’s daughter was kidnapped by some guys who seemed to be New York heavies. She was unharmed, but the price of her release was my leaving town.”

  “But you’re still here.”

  “Not staying here, just visiting through the day.”

  His face creased in a dry smile. “I see. And what about the Fords?”

  “They’ve gone out of town, someplace safe, all three of them.”

  “Good.” He nodded crisply. “But what about this evening? What started all that?”

  I filled him in quickly about Huckmeyer’s sprained ankle, and the response I’d got when I approached him. He listened quietly and then said, “But that’s not all, is it? Didn’t you humiliate Jack Grant the other night in Brewskis?”

  “You do know everything that goes on. Yeah. I gave the waitress some help when he got fresh. That’s all there was to it.”

  “It’s enough to warrant his actions tonight,” Maloney said, “or at least, enough to give a plausible excuse. I don’t think the two incidents were connected. I think you’re right about young Huckmeyer feeling threatened.”

  “And in your reading of the town and the people, why do you think that might be, Mr. Maloney?”

  He set down his glass and picked up the pipe from the ashtray. “This is my house, you can call me Frank. What’s your first name?”

  “Reid.”

  “Well, Reid, this is a dead-ahead community. We don’t have big-time wheelers and dealers. We have people who go to church on Sundays and pay their taxes. Middle America. That’s ninety-nine percent of them, anyway.” He picked up his pipe and fondled the bowl. “Then we have the ski lodge owners. They’re the aristocracy. They’ve got millions invested in their facilities. But it’s all out in the open. If Cat’s Cradle puts in a new spa, say, it’s in the paper, along with a full report of what it’s going to cost and how long it’s going to take to pay it off.”

  He was in love with his town. He might never get around to the thing that had started him off unless I prodded him. “Then what’s changed?”

  “There’s video game equipment in most of the bars. That’s happened since last June, sometime then. And there’s a new vice-president at the bank, a woman called Bernadette Corelli.” He waved the pipe vaguely, then set it down. “I know this sounds like small potatoes but it’s the first time they’ve brought in anyone from outside and her duties don’t seem to affect the main thrust of the bank’s operation.”

  “You think she’s been brought in for some purpose?”

  He looked at me for a long time before he spoke. It gave me a chan
ce to study his face properly. It was a good face. High cheekbones and deep lines made him look older than he probably was, but it was an honest face, and as a longtime copper I figure I know honesty when I see it. And there was worry in it.

  “I don’t know why she’s here, but she’s a very smart dresser, in her mid-thirties. Says she’s from Chicago and has a degree in economics. Peter Lawson introduced me when I was in there just after she arrived. She stands out like a bird of paradise in a flock of crows.”

  “Is she Lawson’s girlfriend?”

  “Could be, I guess, but I don’t think so. She lives in an apartment over on Walmer Street. I’ve never seen his car there and he doesn’t seem to be spending time away from his office, taking trips with her or anything like that.”

  “What’s her job?”

  “New business development, he says.” Maloney snorted. “He needs her like a hole in the head. John Fisher, the manager, he handles all the loan applications. If they’re major, anything over maybe a hundred thousand, Peter himself looks after them.”

  “Then she might be some kind of watchdog, you think. Maybe Lawson has ties to something nasty and she’s there to see he doesn’t take off with the cash?”

  “Sounds crazy, doesn’t it,” he said ruefully. “But yes, I think that’s it. Only Lawson isn’t acting scared or resentful. He’s the same as he’s always been.”

  I debated whether to tell him what I’d heard from Doug but decided against it. He was friendly but he didn’t need to know. I moved the conversation on to another track. “You said you had problems with the way young Grant acts. Is that part of the same thing?”

  Maloney shook his head, almost impatiently. “Not really. The boy’s spoiled. His mother always treated him as the second coming and by the time he reached his teenage years it was impossible to talk sense to him. He’s a lout. I’ve been asked a couple of times to sort out problems he’s had.”

  “With women?”

  “Sometimes. He’s made a number of local girls pregnant. Two of them had abortions, the third one settled for payment from his father. But none of it seems to touch the boy. He figures he’s golden.”

  “And there’s something else, isn’t there?”

  “Yes,” Maloney said. “And I want your promise that this goes no further than this room.”

  “You’ve got it.”

  “He gambles,” Maloney said quietly. “He gambles a lot and for the last two years he’s been losing more than his father can afford to pay.”

  I sipped my drink and thought about that. It was the first link to the kind of activity Manatelli’s crowd might be involved with. “What’s happened about it so far?”

  “Last October he sold the Thunderbird his mother had bought him. Didn’t replace it, drives his father’s car instead. And another time his dad held a distress sale, cleaned out most of his merchandise at giveaway prices.”

  It was time for a little more honesty. I looked at him levelly. “When you sprang me you said I could perhaps be of help to you, Frank. What did you mean exactly?”

  He set down his scotch and clasped his hands around one knee. “If the mess in town is sorted out I’d be grateful.”

  I said nothing. That wasn’t all of it and we both knew. He shook his head sadly. “All right. You’re an honest man and what I have in mind is an honest ambition. I believe that if I can cure the ills of this town I can be elected judge next October. Will you help me?”

  “Would you take Doug Ford’s case?” This was the add test, as far as I was concerned. If he wasn’t prepared to take on an unpopular case he wouldn’t make a good judge, and more important, he was not an ally I needed.

  “If he’ll have me,” he said simply. “The police have retained a man for him, Sharpe, a former DA. That cuts a lot of ice with law enforcement officers but it’s my belief that you can’t jump the fence like that. Either you’re a prosecutor or you’re a defense attorney.”

  “Mr. Maloney, I like your attitude. All I’m here for is to get Doug cleared of something I know he didn’t do. If you’re prepared to help, I’d help you run for president, let alone judge.”

  He set down his glass and stood up. “Thank you.” He stuck out his hand and we shook solemnly, like a couple of kids swearing eternal friendship.

  SEVEN

  I didn’t tell Maloney about Doug’s suspicions of laundering money. I figured Doug should tell him personally. That may sound juvenile, like a kid keeping a secret. But I knew Doug was stuck in a cell with nothing to do but worry and I wasn’t going to add to his burdens by breaking a promise to him.

  So, Maloney and I had another drink and then he dug a couple of steaks out of his freezer and we sat and talked until midnight, when he put Sam and me into his guest room.

  Next morning was Sunday and I was awakened by church bells. I got up and found Maloney putting his topcoat on. He was carrying a Bible. “See you at nine,” he said and left.

  I showered and fed Sam with the sack of chow I’d brought with me from home. Then I made coffee and when Maloney came back we had a light breakfast and headed for the courthouse. At Maloney’s suggestion we left Sam behind. “I’ll get a license for him tomorrow, change his identity. Until then he’s kind of contraband,” he said sensibly.

  The same woman clerk admitted us, being extra respectful to Maloney, and the same sleepy guard stood back when we visited with Doug, who was first startled, then angry when he saw Maloney.

  He spoke to him first. “Mr. Maloney,” he said tightly, then to me, “What’s going on, Reid, why’s he here?”

  I told him quickly about what had happened and that Maloney wanted to help us. “I’ve got a lawyer,” he said neutrally.

  “Mr. Sharpe is a good attorney,” Maloney said. “And I don’t want you to get the idea that I’m trying to grab your case off him. But, as Reid will tell you, I have an agenda of my own which I don’t want to discuss here. I am prepared to represent you at no cost. That’s to eradicate any notion that I’m ambulance-chasing by being here. And I also promise to work at finding out what’s going on outside the actual investigation of Ms. Layer’s death, the case that Reid tells me you were building at the time.”

  Doug nearly lost his cool here. He glared at me. “That was between me and you, Reid. You said you wouldn’t tell anybody.”

  “I haven’t said anything more than Mr. Maloney just told you. And I wouldn’t have gone that far if he hadn’t told me that there’s something sour in town, something that sounds like it’s tied in with what you’re thinking.”

  Doug sat back, still angry, and Maloney took over. He led Doug through the same few fads he had given me the night before and then added a new one. “I have a feeling that the gamblers that young Grant has become involved with are taking an unhealthy interest in our town. And that interest includes involvement with the Chambers Savings and Loan Bank.” He paused and looked at Doug. “Does that gibe with what you’re thinking?”

  Doug still didn’t speak and Maloney wait on in the same calm tone of voice. “Think about it, Mr. Ford. You may get off the Murder One charge without my help, without resolving the problems you believe you see in town. But even if you do, you’re finished here, finished as a policeman anywhere. The only way to clear your name completely is to expose the people who set you up.” He paused and then bent forward and rapped on the table forcefully. “How in God’s name are you going to do that from here?”

  Doug looked at me. “You trust him, Reid?”

  “Completely. If it weren’t for him, I’d be in jail and Sam would be dead.”

  “Okay.” Doug leaned across the table. “In that case, Mr. Maloney, thank you. Now please listen to me.”

  Maloney nodded and listened without interrupting. The guard checked his watch a couple of times, but out of deference to the lawyer, I guessed, didn’t cut the interview short.

  When Doug had finished he leaned back and Maloney stood up. “Thank you, Doug. I’ll follow this up.”

  The guar
d came forward to take Doug back and this time Doug didn’t look at me. He seemed shrunken into himself and I pitied him and the lonely hours ahead of him, on his wooden bunk, wondering whether he had done the right thing in opening up to Maloney.

  Maloney led the way back to his car without speaking. I respected his silence while he unlocked the car and clicked the switch to let me in on the passenger side. I got in and he still said nothing while the car warmed up and the radio played classical music very low.

  At last he said, “I think we tackle this head-on.”

  “You mean at the bank?”

  “We don’t have enough for that.” He engaged the drive lever and pulled out before adding, “Yet.” I sat back and let him drive, not knowing what I would have done this morning anyway. My own swipe at young Huckmeyer had only got me into trouble. It was good to have Maloney coming up with ideas. Maybe he could think of something useful.

  He drove to a street on the edge of town and pulled in at a low apartment block that looked as if it had been built in the thirties. “Who lives here?” I asked as we got out.

  “Ella Frazer,” he said. He seemed tight. “I don’t know if you should come up with me.”

  “She knows me. I had lunch with her and she was helpful.” I wasn’t going to push but I didn’t want to be left out.

  He paused for a moment, then gave in. “Okay. But let me do most of the talking. I know her better than you. I handled her divorce last year.”

  There was no security system. Maloney went in and directly to an apartment on the second floor, the top floor, and knocked on the door. Nobody answered and he waited a long time before knocking again. This time a woman’s voice called. “Hold on, I’m coming.”

  We waited and the door opened, on a chain. I saw Ella Frazer’s face through the crack. It looked as if she had just got out of bed and put some lipstick on. Her hair was mussed and she looked hung over. “Frank? What on earth’s so important you have to wake me up?” she asked. The door closed, the chain rattled and she opened up again. Now she saw me and she looked at Maloney sharply. “What’s he doing here?”