Deadfall(9)

“Of course, Mr. Washburn.”

He shut the door, looked briefly around the office before he came ahead to my desk. The place didn’t seem to make much of an impression on him, but that was all right: it had never impressed me either. It had once been an art studio and the owner of the studio had got permission to put in a skylight; the skylight was the place’s only attractive feature. Otherwise it was just a big room full of furniture, a couple of pieces of which—Eberhardt’s mustard-yellow fiberboard file cabinets—were pretty hideous to look at. Also hideous to look at was a hanging light fixture that just missed being obscene, intentionally on the part of its manufacturer or otherwise.

Washburn sat stiff-backed on one of the clients’ chairs, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped. He was wearing black shoes, black slacks, a black shirt, and a black leather coat—a typical getup for some gays in the city. But it didn’t look right on him, and the thought struck me that it was a mourning outfit. There was no question that the death of his lover had affected him profoundly: his face was pale, haggard, with discolored pouches under his eyes; and the eyes themselves had a tragic, haunted look. I felt a sharp twinge of pity for him. I understood what he was going through, because I had known too many others who had suffered the same kind of pain. It was what I would have been going through myself if I had lost Kerry the way he had lost Leonard.

I said, “Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

He didn’t answer for a time. Then he seemed to shiver slightly and said, “Yes, all right. It’s cold in here.”

“The landlord’s a jerk. He won’t allow the heat turned up past sixty.”

I got up and poured two cups of coffee. When I asked him if he took anything in his he said no, just black. I gave him his cup, took mine around the desk, and reoccupied my chair. He sat holding the cup between both hands, as if they were cold; they were pale hands, delicate-looking, the skin almost translucent, so that you could see the fine blue tracery of veins running through them.

At length he said, “I came here because I want to hire you. I don’t know what else to do, who else to turn to. You were kind the night Leonard … the night it happened, and I thought …” He let the words run out and looked down into his cup, as if he might find more words in there.

“Hire me to do what, Mr. Washburn?”

“Find the man who killed Leonard.”

“There’s nothing I can do that the police aren’t doing,” I said gently. “Give them enough time and they—”

His head jerked up. “Enough time? My God, they’ve had a week, haven’t they? They haven’t found him yet. They won’t find him, damn them, because they won’t listen to me. They simply won’t listen. ”

“Listen to you about what?”

“About the phone call and the missing money,” he said. “About Leonard’s brother, Kenneth. I can’t make them believe me!”

“Take it easy,” I said, “slow down a little. You think there’s a connection between Kenneth’s death and Leonard’s?”

“I don’t think there is, I know there is.”

“How do you know it? Leonard’s last words aren’t really much to—”

“No, not that. The call last week, three days before Leonard was shot. The man on the phone.”

“What man?”

“I don’t know. A stranger—a voice I didn’t recognize.”

“He called you, this stranger?”

“No, he was calling Leonard. He thought I was Leonard.” Washburn quit talking, gave me a muddled sort of frown, shook himself like a cat, and then said, “Am I making any sense?”

“You’re starting to. Just go slow. This man on the phone mistook you for Leonard?”

“Yes. I’d just come home from work; Leonard wasn’t in yet. I said hello and this man’s voice said, ‘Mr. Purcell?’ Then he went right on talking before I could tell him I wasn’t.”

“What did he say?”

“I can quote his exact words. He said, ‘Your brother didn’t fall off the cliff that night, Mr. Purcell. He was pushed. And I know who pushed him.’ ”

“That’s all?”

“Not quite. I was shocked; I said, ‘Who is this? What do you want?’ He said, ‘Money, Mr. Purcell, that’s what I want.’ I heard Leonard’s car just then, and I was so upset I blurted out that I wasn’t Mr. Purcell, that Mr. Purcell had just come home and would take the call. He hung up without another word.”