Conspiracy Theory(131)
John Jackman’s car pulled onto Cavanaugh Street—not the official limousine this time, but the black Cadillac two-door he kept for personal use. It was a tribute to Jackman’s finely tuned political sense that it was a Cadillac and not a Mercedes. Gregor grabbed the passenger-side door as soon as the car began to ease up along the curb. He had the door open and was climbing inside before Jackman had actually stopped.
“What’s the matter?” John said. “We can’t go up to your place and talk in peace?”
“I’m too antsy for my place.”
“How about the Ararat?”
“For Christ’s sake,” Gregor said.
John pulled the keys out of the ignition and dropped them in his pocket. “I never understand you when you get like this,” he said. “Why not just tell us who it is and get it over with? Let our guys pick him up, or let Lower Merion pick him up—”
“I don’t have the faintest idea where he is this morning,” Gregor said. “But what I said to you on the phone holds. I’m ninety-nine percent certain. I want to clear up the other one percent. Did you bring what I asked you to?”
“A picture of Kathi Mittendorf, a picture of Susan what’s-her-name, and four more pictures to create a diversion, yes. You could have waited for this, you know. I told you yesterday that I would get the boys on it and I had gotten them on it, they were just—”
“Doing business as usual,” Gregor said. “Yes. I know. I’m not criticizing. I’m just in a hurry. What about the rest of it?”
Jackman reached inside his coat and took his notebook out of his pocket. “One, yes, Ryall Wyndham owns stock in Price Heaven. It’s registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission and he votes in stockholder elections. Oh, and he’s taking a bath. A big one. He bought at a hundred and two. The stock is now trading at seventeen. There’s no indication he got out in time on any of it.”
“Excellent,” Gregor said. “What about Anne Ross Wyler?”
“Lower Merion did that one. Sent that guy, Frank—”
“Margiotti.”
“Yeah, him. Sent him out there in the middle of the night last night. Not to Lower Merion, he was already there, but out to the Ross estate. Did not go over too well with the eldest daughter, Marianne. Anyway, Margiotti found the guard and showed him the picture. He ID’ed it. Sort of. It was dark. He was busy—way busier than he should have been. Like that. But we got a tentative positive that it was Mrs. Wyler in at least one of the cars. He doesn’t specifically recall which one. He doesn’t really remember what the woman calling herself Virginia Mace Whitlock looked like.”
“In other words, that one’s a wash,” Gregor said. “Of course he can identify Anne Wyler. She was Tony Ross’s sister. She was probably on the premises a number of times. All right. I don’t think that will matter too much. I wasn’t really convinced he’d have noticed her anyway. She must have done at least a little to disguise herself, since there was always the chance he’d recognize her then. I just hate not having the loose ends tidied up. What about the clothes?”
“That one we’re going to need a search warrant for,” Jackman said. “According to Margiotti, the eldest daughter is a cross between Medea and a nuclear warhead. Anyway, she isn’t having any. No police in the house. Nothing. You’ve got to wonder what these people are thinking sometimes. Her parents are dead, killed within a week of each other, and she won’t cooperate with the police? It’s a good thing she was well out of town at the time of that first murder, because if I were still on the force in the ordinary way, I’d be ready to suspect the hell out of her right now.”
“Maybe we can make this part a little easier for everybody,” Gregor said. “I don’t think it’s necessary to send detectives in to do the searching. Ask Ms. Ross to ask her laundress if she’s found anything that doesn’t belong to the house in the wash. My guess is that we’re looking for a black skirt, long, jersey-knit, that kind of thing, something cheap and in a very large size. Also maybe a black cardigan, or some other kind of button-up top, also in a large size, also cheap.”
“So what did Michael Harridan do?” Jackman asked. “Stuff the clothes with pillows so that he looked like Lucinda Watkins?”
“No, of course not. That would have been unwieldy as hell and it would have taken far too much time. He wasn’t trying to look like Lucinda Watkins. He was just concerned to wear something dark, so that he couldn’t be spotted, and large, so that he’d be well-covered, and belonging to somebody else, so that it couldn’t be traced back to him. It was just an accident that Annie saw the clothes and thought she’d seen Lucinda as well. If the two of them had been physically closer or the light had been better, Annie would never have made the mistake. My guess is that there’s a little nugget of doubt in the back of her mind even now.”