“Nothing of the kind, Lieutenant. No improprieties whatsoever.” None yet, anyway.
“I’ll never figure out why good-looking chicks like her always hook up with total scumbags like Snug,” Forrest wondered. “Guess she likes the bad boys.”
“Shall I play the second message, Mr. Galeer?”
“Oh, yeah; let’s hear it. Is it another one from him?”
“Why don’t I let you hear it and decide for yourself?” Savage pressed play. Unmistakably Tyranno’s voice taunting me: “Hey, Mistah Lawyer Ricky Galeer, you never got back to me, man. That’s why the price just doubled.” Then a loud hang up. Savage hit pause again.
“Recognize that voice?”
“In my profession we receive a lot of weird calls, Lieutenant. This is no doubt one of them. Somebody trying to sell something, a stockbroker cold-calling, whatever. I get that kind of thing all the time.”
“Are the date and time set correctly on your answering machine?”
“Last time I checked.”
“That call came in no more than ten minutes after the break-in,” Savage said.
Before I could respond line one rang. Grimm shook his head. “Let it ring,” he said. “We haven’t dusted the receiver for prints yet.”
After the fourth ring the answering machine kicked on. I heard my own disembodied voice reciting the recorded greeting. It was Drey on the other end.
“Ricky, Tyranno’s gone nutzoid! He’s runnin’ around makin’ all kinds a crazy threats—”
I lunged for the answering machine and turned the volume down all the way.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, what gives?” Savage protested.
“That call is attorney-client privileged,” I said.
“She’s saying this Tyranno’s going around threatening you.”
“Not me, her. I can tell you this much: he’s her former live-in boyfriend. She calls here all the time, all hours of the day or night. Welcome to my world, gentlemen.”
“Only one Tyranno we know of—” Savage began. Grimm silently hushed him with a furtive hand gesture, palm extended downward.
Hours went by before they left, promising to place an extra cruiser on alert while I went home and retrieved plywood, hammer and nails to secure the back window. Grimm asked for and received my only extra key to the place other than the one I’d given to Heart, in case they needed speedy access. He swore he’d use it only in case of a true emergency, and put it in his pocket.
They’d done a thorough investigation. I had to talk like a Dutch uncle to get them to leave the answering machine behind, and then only after they had transferred prints from it and recorded the first two messages on microcassette. It was one AM before I was alone and able to hear Drey’s message.
“Ricky,” she began, “Tyranno’s gone nutzoid! He’s runnin’ around makin’ all kinds a crazy threats against me and you ‘cause he says you won’t pay him fifty thousand dollars. I told him you ain’t got fifty thousand cents, but he says you sure as hell do and you better pay up, you know what’s good for you. He means it, Baby. I’m afraid what he’s gonna do if he don’t get his money. Call me soon’s you get this message, hear?”
I listened to it again, deleted it and called Drey at home. There was no answer.
CHAPTER FIVE - THE CURSE OF THE HOLSTEIN WOMEN
“You might have been maimed or even killed,” Diane shuddered, stroking my face as she cuddled on my lap where we sat in my recliner with a blanket covering both of us.
“I suppose you’re right. You just never think something like this can happen to you, you know?”
“I can’t believe how brazen they were, breaking in no more than a few minutes after you left.”
“The cops figured they were probably watching the place the whole time I was there, waiting for their chance.”
“Biker gangs in Belleville,” Diane said, shaking her head with disbelief. “Can you imagine?”
“It’s a whole new world.”
“As long as you’re all right.”
“It takes more than a little burglary and vandalism to shake me up, Babe. I’m afraid I have some bad news, though.”
“What is it, Ricky?”
“Well, I won’t be sure until I do a thorough inventory, but Anna’s camcorder appeared to be missing. At least it wasn’t where I had left it on my desk when I locked up earlier tonight.”
“Oh, Honey,” Diane protested, “is that all? Things like that can be replaced.”
“Still, it was Anna’s Christmas present. I caught myself before mentioning that it had her homecoming dance tape inside. “Say, speaking of Anna, what was it you couldn’t tell me over the phone?”
“I could just kill myself for sending you back; I might have been signing your death warrant,” Diane shivered. She had unsuccessfully begged me not to go back to the office a second time, but ignoring her protests, I had ripsawed a section of heavy gauge plywood and nailed it over the broken window in the back door to the suite in the wee hours. “In perspective, I suppose it’s not that important.”
“Please tell me.”
“Well, today after the parade Anna and I were having one of our mother-daughter talks. One thing led to another and she eventually let it slip that some of the other freshmen girls in her class are using birth control pills.”
“I hope you used the jumping-off-the-cliff analogy.”
“More or less. She didn’t come right out and ask me, of course, but I got the distinct impression she was testing the waters.”
I remembered Drey’s hearty greeting, “Come on in, the water’s fine.”
“Would you like me to talk to her?”
“God, no. A man’s opinion is the last thing she needs to hear right now. I tactfully explained to her what we believe, what our church teaches us about conception and the holiness of life. I think she understood.” Diane moved her hand from my face and caressed my thigh under cover of the blanket. “I’ll keep you posted. You’ve had enough for one day.”
“I’m okay. Don’t worry about me.”
“After all that stress you might find it hard to sleep.” She moved her hand higher, busied her fingers. The adult male anatomy is remarkably recuperative.
“How about you? Do you find it hard? To sleep, I mean.”
Still moving those fingertips she said, “Oh, and I almost forgot: Heart called.”
Under the circumstances I found even the sound of her name stimulating. “What did she want?”
“We had a nice long talk,” Diane said.
“What about?”
“She started out by thanking me effusively, thanking both of us actually, for agreeing to hire her. I’m sorry I was suspicious at first. She sounds very nice. Plus, she’s had a hard life.”
“Hmmm.”
“Yes, married to a man who’s doing a long prison term for armed robbery. Two little kids. But you know all about that of course.”
“Heart told me she was married to a biker named Snuggle.”
“Funny name for a biker.”
“Snuggle’s a funny guy. He’s the one the cops think tore up the office tonight. She never mentioned this other guy. Or said anything about any kids, either.”
“She’s a COBAW referral, right?”
“So?”
“So it stands to reason she’d have to have kids in order to qualify for the assistance. ‘Children of Battered and Abused Women?’”
“I guess you’re right.”
“Of course I’m right. Some women are shy at first telling some man about their kids. Especially since she seems to need the job so badly.”
“Is that what she told you?”
“Oh, she gave me all the gory details, believe you me. We talked for a long time. You have no idea what that poor woman has gone through in the course of her short life.”
“Enlighten me.”
“First let me tell you the news. Heart said you ran out of the office so fast she couldn’t remind you about a new divorce call.”
“Oh, shit!” The call that had come in right before Snuggle’s. “Kevin,” I lied. “When I found out he was in jail I got distracted.”
“No problem. It seems even after you gave her the rest of the day off, Heart took the initiative to bring the phone number with her. She called the client from home and set up a first appointment for eleven AM tomorrow.”
“Good for her. Did she happen to quote a retainer while she was at it?”
“Five.”
“Hundred?”
“Thousand.”
“Holy cripe!”
“Don’t swear, Ricky.”
“Must be a socialite divorce. Looks like I’m going to be a busy boy tomorrow morning.”
“What is it you always say, Ricky? Rather be making money than be busy?”
“Tomorrow maybe I’ll do both. Gonna need my beauty sleep.”
Diane purred, “I know what will help you sleep.”
“Clever girl.”
“Clever woman, if you please.”
At eight forty-five I kissed my sleeping Diane, who managed to murmur from dreamland something that probably meant good-bye. She had earned her slumber. The steering wheel was so cold it was still making my hands ache halfway to the office.
Inviting warmth greeted me at the door; warmth and the aroma of cinnamon coffee brewing. I heard the sound of a vacuum cleaner from my private office. I slipped off my coat—little blue pill sheet still resting securely in the right breast pocket—poked my head in and discovered Heart vacuuming up the last shards of glass from the carpet. Rather than yell and risk startling her, I flashed the light switch on and off to get her attention.
“Oh, hi Boss,” she beamed. “At home I do this barefoot, but bad idea with all the broken glass. Geez, what happened in here, anyway? Looked like a tornado hit this place when I came in at seven.”
“Seven? What are you, a closet masochist?”
“I can be, for the right guy.”
Heart had reassembled most of the scattered files and alphabetized them into their respective drawers. Her own desk was immaculate. Even the red rope files I had stacked in the left-hand client chair had been removed. So had my beaver wedge, which now lay on top of the chair cushion like a silent accusation.
“I see you found that back thing; my previous secretary had a bad back.”
“Oh, please!”
“No, it’s true.”
“I’m really going to have to keep my eye on you, aren’t I, Boss?” Heart said, hands on hips in a play-challenge stance, watching me as I replaced it.
“That’s what I’m hoping for.”
“Why, you,” she said in that hardboiled way they have in the old movies right before they land a punch. She made a fist and gave my jaw a pretend clip. “So anyway, what’s the story?” I told her about the break-in, omitting any mention of Snuggle. Smart girl that she was, Heart put it together all by herself. “I’m so sorry to bring this down on you,” she began.
“Not at all,” I said, “but you’d better check your desk to see if you’re missing anything.”
“I looked already; everything seems okay.” No mention of the picture I knew the police had taken.
“Any calls?”
“None yet; it’s early, though.”
“You noticed. It’s early pearly for a Saturday.”
“Hope you don’t mind; Mom’s an early riser.”
Heart was wearing an ice-blue clingy dress that looked like fleece, cinched with a wide shiny black belt and an oversized silver buckle. She hurried to finish up and get out of my way. Once the door to my inner office had closed I called Drey. Still no answer; I debated leaving a message on her machine and decided against it.
Over the course of the past two years I had called Drey at home and at work more times than I could count, always remembering to block the caller ID, merely to listen to her voice, never speaking, not even breathing into the receiver. Two years of technical fidelity to my Diane had gone by: at the rate of one-half inch per month my hair had grown a foot in that span of time; so had each of my kids, more or less. I had purchased eight sets of school clothes, made love to my Diane at least seven hundred times but who’s counting, and gone to confession twenty-four Saturdays—every month, like paying the light bill.
The front door scraped and groaned. I heard women’s voices exchange familiar greetings and then Heart excitedly telling her mother about the break-in. A moment later there was a tapping at my chamber door. Heart leaned in and said, “Your phone light was off, so I—”
“Send her in,” I said in my booming client-greeting voice hearty with expectation. The door swung open; I prepared to leap up from my chair and approach the new client with a springing step, right hand extended in welcoming handshake, but Ruth Holstein’s appearance stopped me short. And I do mean short. Heart’s mother was no taller than Toulouse-Lautrec, and buxom to an astonishing degree. Heart hadn’t been exaggerating about that hormone thing that afflicted the women in her family. Ruth’s breasts were those of a fertility idol. And there was something going on with her neck, a seasick spasticity that kept her head in constant distracting motion.
“You must be Rick Galeer,” she said, eyes fixed on mine even as her head rolled like a fishing bobber in rough current.
“Pleasure, Ruth. Have a seat, please.”
“I appreciate you seeing me so promptly.”
“Whatever we can do to help.”
Heart asked, “Shall I stay and take notes?”
“As long as your mother doesn’t mind. Whatever we say here is privileged and confidential.”
“My daughter has my complete confidence, Rick.”
“Then by all means, Heart: take notes, it’ll free me up to do the interview.”
“Let me explain at the outset, Rick, that I suffer from a rare nervous condition which mimics the symptoms of Parkinsonism, but which my doctors have explained to me is psychosomatic in origin. Like The Apostle Paul, I have prayed three times for this thorn in my side to be removed, to no avail. The knowledge that my affliction—it has a name I won’t bore you with—is all in my head has had no effect whatsoever in alleviating the symptoms, which I’m sure have made themselves immediately apparent to you.”
Not as much as speculating how far through the alphabet one would have to venture in order to define Ruth’s cup size. Mother-daughter action was something I had occasionally contemplated. Given present company I revisited those fantasies.
“I wouldn’t have noticed,” I said.
“Liar. Little Eve calls me Nana Bobble-head.”
“That’s cute.”
“Would you like to see a picture of her and Beatrice, taken in happier times?”
“You know I would.”
Ruth dug her wallet out of her purse, flipped it open and displayed a photo of a serious little girl being hugged by a woman who looked like no grade school teacher I’d ever met. Beatrice wore glasses but somehow they didn’t suit her or rein in her powerful sex appeal. She looked like a porn actress playing a librarian. Her hair was short and dark, and there was an impudent look on her face similar to the one Heart had shown me earlier. And of course she had inherited the Holstein women’s family curse.
“I understand you’ve had the distinct displeasure of a recent after-hours visit from one Harold Robbins,” Ruth said as I handed back the picture and the wallet.
I nodded. “That’s the direction the police are leaning.”
“They should have locked him up years ago, just like the other two.”
“Other two?”
“The other two men in my daughter’s life, Rick. Now it seems all three of Heart’s former spouses will be calling one penitentiary or another home, guests of the Illinois Department of Corrections. Doesn’t say much for her judgment where men are concerned, does it?”
“Oh, Mom!”
“Ironic if they wound up cellmates. They could lie in their bunks and share reminiscences after lights out.”
“We
hadn’t really discussed it,” I said.
“She ought to think of her children for once, instead of losing her head over and over to whatever thug happens to look at her sideways in a barroom mirror. But that’s only a mother’s opinion, you understand. What I say doesn’t count.” Ruth’s head wagged and reeled. It was impossible to read her body language.
“I’m sure Heart values your motherly advice.”
“But we’re not here to discuss Heart this morning, are we, Rick? No, the subject of today’s meeting is my other daughter, Beatrice.”
“Okay. Let’s talk about Beatrice. I’m sure Heart will appreciate not being the center of attention.”
“You said it,” Heart said.
“Beatrice, as I explained to you over the telephone, is presently languishing in Dwight Penitentiary, convicted of a crime she did not commit, the victim of the uses and abuses of men. Men in general and one man in particular.”
“Russell R. Russell.”
“The very same. My daughters’ appalling lack of judgment where men are concerned has worked a pernicious effect on both their lives, particularly Beatrice.” Wibble wobble went her head.
“Are you in possession of the file materials?”
“I brought them along for Mom this morning when I came in,” Heart volunteered. She left the room for a moment, returning with three fat bound red rope expandables which she stacked on my desk.
“Let’s have a look,” I said.
“I want to warn you, Rick: avoid if at all possible viewing any of the photos in the discovery section. They are life-changing. Once certain images get into your head they have a distressing way of staying there, however much you might yearn to obliterate them from your tortured memory. Autopsy photos are like that. These are worse.”
“Thank you, Ruth. I’ve got four kids home. Frankly, I don’t see the need to look at any pictures, any more than I see the need to stick my head in a barrel of manure to make sure it’s manure all the way to the bottom. It seems to me the salient issues are whether Beatrice had knowledge of the existence of the pictures and whether she participated in the taking or the distribution of them.”
“Precisely.”
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