by Unknown
Vail nodded. 'Somebody popped two shots in his ugly, old heart.'
'Wooow!' she said slowly. 'Somebody hit Delaney? Oh, you do have a problem, Mr DA. We may be the only two people in the city that don't have a good reason to kill the bastard. You don't, do you?'
'No, I always get his pimp, Firestone,' Vail said. He stood up, dressed in his tuxedo but without the tie, and put on his coat. 'I never had much to do with Mr Delaney.'
'You're lucky. Well, I'll forgive you for abandoning me, but only if you promise to give me all the gory details when you get back. This is going to be the hottest gossip in town tomorrow.'
He leaned over and kissed her on the lips.
'If I'm not here when you leave, lock the door behind you.'
'Don't turn this into something cheap,' she whispered with a smile, and kissed him back.
Nine
'Was Delaney alone when they found him?' Vail asked as he got in the car. 'I mean, do they have a suspect?'
'Told you all I know,' Stenner said. He drove the few blocks from Vail's Dearborn Park townhouse to the Loft Apartments, pulling up in front of a tall, glass shaft of a building. Behind it, a hundred yards away and beyond the Hilton, the lake shimmered in the light of a half-moon. There were four police cars, an ambulance, and Okimoto's omnipresent van parked all over the street in front of the place. A small crowd weathered the cold and pressed against the crime-scene ribbons waiting for something dramatic to happen. Vail and Stenner took the lift to the thirtieth floor.
The lift opened onto a small hallway with only two doors. One was propped open with a chair and a uniformed cop stood beside it, looking back over his shoulder at the action inside.
As they entered the apartment they saw Shock Johnson, standing at the end of a long hallway, which was carpeted in white and softly illuminated with indirect lights. The big cop smiled, sauntered over to them, and stuck out a hand the size of a catcher's mitt.
'Hi, boys,' he said, leading them down the hallway towards the living room. 'We seem to be seeing a lot of each other these days.'
'Yeah, people'll think we're going steady,' said Vail.
'You're not my type,' Shock said. 'I like blondes.'
'I'll wear a wig.
'It ain't the same.'
They reached the end of the hall and looked into a large living room with picture windows overlooking the lake. A lab man, who was on his hands and knees vacuuming the rug with a small hand machine, stood up and left as they entered. Another was dusting lamps, tables, chairs, and anything else in the room that might have gathered fingerprints. A pebbled old-fashioned glass was sitting on one of the tables, powder still clinging to it.
Except for the panoramic view of the lake, the room was cold and sterile. Black, ultramodern furniture contrasted harshly with white carpeting and walls. The three large paintings on one wall were abstracts in various configurations of black and white. The place appeared to be spotless. Spotless except for City Council Chairman Delaney, who lay flat on his back, stark naked, staring blandly at the ceiling. A lot of blood had collected under the body and dried in a large, brown stain on the carpet. 'Where's Okie?' Vail asked.
'Other room. He's guessing he got it between seven and eight-thirty.'
'Who found him?' Stenner asked. 'Delaney was the key speaker at a banquet tonight. When he didn't show up or answer his phone by the end of dinner, somebody called the office. The doorman answered, told them he hadn't seen Delaney leave the place. He checked the parking deck to make sure Delaney's car was there - you can get to it without going through the lobby. It was. There was a lot of hemming and hawing until the meeting was over. A couple of the dignitaries came over, the night manager used a passkey, and they came in. Delaney'd taken the express to Goodbye City.'
'What time was that?' Stenner asked.
'Eleven-oh-five.'
Stenner walked a little closer, leaned over, and looked down at the corpse. The right side of Delaney's face was scorched and his right eyebrow was singed off. Still leaning over, he looked back over his shoulder at Vail and Shock.
'Almost a contact shot, I'd say,' he remarked.
Shock nodded. 'Burned his eyebrow off and fried half his face. Couple of inches at best. Probably wasn't necessary. They're both insurance shots.'
'Anything happening in the bedroom?' Stenner asked.
Shock shrugged. 'Take a look.'
'Delaney doesn't look very surprised,' Vail said as Stenner walked into the other room.
'Maybe he was blinking when he got it,' Shock said.
'Probably knew who did him, wouldn't you say?'
'I'd say that's a pretty safe assumption. I mean, what the hell was he doing, anyway, traipsing around the living room with his unit hanging out?'
'Maybe his wife did him.'
'Or girlfriend?'
'Or boyfriend.'
'That, too.'
'I have a friend who says she's the only person in town that didn't have a reason to kill him.'
'You ever have a run-in with him, Marty?'
'Nah. He always sent Firestone to do his dirty work.'
'He's another one.'
'Maybe we can pin it on him.'
Shock laughed. 'I like the idea.'
'Eckling have a lot of boys working on this?'
'Half the force.'
'I'll bet he does,' Vail said. 'He can feel the heat already. This is going to give every politico in the city an enema.'
'Like maybe one of them'll be next?' Shock said, and snickered.
'Guilty conscience,' said Vail, and they both started to laugh.
'You two don't have much respect for the dead. After all, he was chairman of the city council, head of the finance committee, head of the city's Democratic Party…'
A short, dignified Japanese American with black, closely cut hair and tortoiseshell glasses entered from the bedroom. Oichi Okimoto, wearing a surgeon's paper robe and plastic boots and gloves, strode back into the living room. 'How're you, Martin?' he asked as he walked past.
'I'm not getting enough sleep lately,' Vail said.
'At least it's more comfortable than the landfill.'
Okimoto, at thirty-six was one of the best forensic scientists in the business, walked across the room, carefully moved a straight-back chair to a corner, and sat down on it backward, folding his arms over its back and leaning his chin on them. He perused the room without saying a word. Vail took out his cigarette pack and Okimoto said, without turning his head, 'Don't light that, please.'
'You taking samples of the air, Okie?' Vail asked.
'It annoys me.'
Vail put the cigarettes away and everybody stood around waiting for Okimoto to finish thinking. Three minutes crept by. Finally Okimoto got up and returned the chair.
'We're through, so you may as well go home,' he said to Vail. 'Except for that mess over there, the place is immaculate. Here's what I can tell you. There's no sign of forcible entry. Wet towels on the bathroom floor. Tuxedo's laid out on the bed. He's wearing a gold, waterproofed Rolex - not a knockoff - worth about ten K, and his wallet, credit cards, et cetera, plus three hundred and eighteen dollars in cash, are on the dresser.'
He looked back at the body.
'I think - think, okay - somebody he knew, somebody with a key, entered the apartment while he was in the shower. Delaney finishes, gets out, towels off, comes in here to get a drink from the wet bar over there in the corner. He thinks he's alone, so he doesn't bother to put anything on - if he had answered the door or heard somebody come in, he would have put on a robe or something. He gets his drink, turns around, and our mystery guest is standing about here, in the entrance to the living room. He gets in a conversation with this somebody - or maybe he realizes he's in trouble and he's pleading for his life - anyway, he puts the drink on the table, and as he turns around, the mystery guest plugs him twice. I'm fairly certain the first shot was the torso shot; we found a spent shell casing right here. Then our somebody walked over, probably str
addled him, leaned down, and popped him in the forehead. There was another shell beside the head. Robbery obviously was not the motive. And I think the culprit was a woman.'
'Why?' Vail asked.
'Imprints in the carpet. High heel, not a spike. I would say a medium heel from the configuration. We've got plenty of photos and a wax cast of the heel prints. I don't think there'll be any surprises from the autopsy. Maybe some drugs in his blood, but I doubt it, no indication of illegal substances anywhere in the place. And his stomach's probably fairly empty; he was on his way to dinner.'
'Whoever shot him came here for that purpose,' Stenner said.
'How do you figure that?' Okimoto asked.
'Because he was naked, right?' Shock offered. 'If there had been any kind of conversation, he would have gone in the bedroom and put something on.'
'That's very good,' Okimoto said.
'If it went down the way you see it, Okie,' said Vail, 'the lady really must've hated his guts. Abel's right, she came here to do him.'
'It'll all be in the autopsy,' Okimoto said. 'By the way, I won't have anything on the landfill case until tomorrow, maybe the day after. The bodies are a real mess.'
He went down the hall towards the kitchen.
'Hell, Shock,' Vail said, 'all you have to do is find someone who hates him. According to my friend, that could be anybody in the county.'
'I have a thought,' Shock said, looking back at the body. 'He's running for re-election in the fall. Maybe he was getting some campaign photos made.'
'There you go, that's it,' Vail said. 'Hell, he's hung like a bull moose. Probably wanted to wrap up the women's vote.'
They both started to laugh.
'How about taxidermists, he could probably get them, too.'
'Yeah.' Vail stopped laughing long enough to agree. 'They could stuff it and name it after him.'
'Right. The Big prick,' Shock said.
They were laughing hard when Eckling came into the apartment. He stalked down the hall and entered the death room.
'What's so goddamn funny?' he snapped. 'One of the city's leaders is lying dead on the floor and you two think it's funny? I'm surprised at you, Captain.'
'Aw, c'mon, Eric, lay off him,' Vail said. 'You know how it is around a murder scene, it's nervous laughter.'
'I already know what you think of our councilmen,' Eckling said haughtily. 'I'll remind you they represent the people. They deserve respect.'
'Why don't we bag the small talk, Eckling,' Vail said with disgust. 'It's a murder investigation. Investigate.'
'Throwing yer new weight around, Vail?' Eckling snarled.
'If I do, you'll know it. You won't have to ask.'
Eckling was distracted by Stenner as he entered from the bedroom. Stenner stopped when he saw Eckling and stood in the doorway with his arms crossed. They did not speak.
Eckling said, 'About through in here, Captain?'
'Soon as the lab boys are wrapped up,' Shock answered.
'I have people working the entire neighbourhood,' Eckling said to him. 'We'll be doing the people at City Hall and at his business first thing in the morning. I'm going to run this investigation myself, Captain Johnson. You're first in command.'
'Yes, sir.'
'His wife is on the way down now,' Eckling went on. 'Would you believe it, she didn't know he had this place. A fucking penthouse, his old lady doesn't even know it exists. She thought he was visiting somebody when I told her where he was.'
'She knows he's dead, doesn't she?' Shock asked.
'Uh, we told her there was an accident. I think Councilman Firestone was going over to tell her. They were very close.'
The lift doors shushed open behind them and Shock looked back to see Raymond Firestone enter the hallway, step back, and usher Ada Delaney into the apartment. She was a tall, stern-looking woman in her fifties, with arched eyebrows and confused eyes. Her face, stretched smooth by cosmetic surgery, still showed the sorrowful lines of a sad woman trapped in an unsatisfying life. She was dressed in a knee-length black cocktail dress and wore no make-up. She stood inside the door, looking around, then walked down the hall towards the living room.
'Jesus,' Shock said, 'somebody get a sheet. Cover that up.'
'No!' Ada Delaney demanded, standing in the entrance to the living room and looking across the room at the remains of John Farrell Delaney. 'Leave it just the way it is.'
Shock looked at Eckling and he nodded. She walked slowly into the room, stopping five or six feet from the corpse.
'He was like that?' Ada Delaney asked.
'Yes, ma'am,' Shock said.
She almost sneered down at the corpse. 'Typical,' she said.
There was a quick exchange of glances. Nobody said a word.
'I didn't even know about this apartment,' she said, staring out the window. She seemed transfixed by the scene of death. Her voice began to climb, not louder, but higher-pitched, and she spoke in a rush, as if she had memorized a monologue and was afraid she would forget something. Vail thought she was perhaps in some stage of shock, traumatized by the sight of her husband's corpse.
'It's quite lovely. A little severe, but quite lovely. Pretty good for a man who made a fortune running slaughterhouses.' She peered at one of the paintings. 'I never did like his taste in art. Abstracts leave me cold.' She turned to face Firestone. 'Doesn't seem quite fair, does it, Raymond? To have a beautiful place like this and not share it with the woman you supposedly love, who bore your children, shared your bed?' She paused for a moment and then added nonchalantly, 'Put up with all those lies.'
She stepped closer to the corpse until she was almost looking straight down at it.
'I married him right out of college, you know. Thirty-one years. I never knew another man - intimately, I mean. It was always just Farrell. Farrell, Farrell, Farrell. He was such an attentive suitor… and I did love him so… thirty-one years ago. He bought me an orchid for our senior prom. I don't know where he got the money. I'd never seen a real orchid before. He used to give me five orchids every anniversary. Until a few years ago.' She put her hand to her mouth. 'Oh, my, I would love to cry. But I can't even do that, I just can't seem to find my tears. You know how I feel, Raymond? I feel relieved. I'm relieved that it's over.' She looked back down at her dead husband. 'I was really growing to hate you, Farrell. And to think I didn't have to do anything. I didn't have to divorce you or go on being humiliated by you. It was done for me. What a nice… unexpected… surprise.'
She turned away from her dead husband and strolled out of the room.
'You can take me home now, Raymond,' she said.
As Vail watched her leave, he thought about Beryl Yancey, panicky with fear that her husband was dead or dying, in contrast with Ada Delaney, who couldn't even shed a tear over hers.
'Phew!' he said, as they watched the lift doors close behind her.
'Definitely a suspect,' Stenner answered.
'Oh yeah,' said Shock Johnson. 'This may turn out to be an easy one, Marty.'
'They're never easy.'
When Vail got home, there was a paper towel on the floor inside the door. On it was a lipstick print and below it Jane Venable's unlisted phone number. No other message.
Ten
The Delaney house was in Rogers Park on Greenleaf just off Ridge Avenue, an old, columned, Italianate mansion with tall windows and bracketed eaves, which from the outside had a gloomy nineteenth-century look. Eckling left his aide in the car. The maid led him through a house that had been gutted and remodelled with large, high ceilinged rooms decorated in bright pastel colours, to a radiant atrium at the rear of the house with french doors opening onto a large garden protected by high hedgerows. Outside, a bluejay fluttered and splashed in a concrete birdbath.
Ada Delaney, dressed appropriately in black, was seated on a bright green flowered sofa with a tall, slender man with shiny grey-black hair, olive skin, and severe, hawklike features. He was dressed in dark blue. Her confused look of the night be
fore had been replaced with a mien of cold, controlled calm and she greeted Eckling with the attitude to go with it. Antagonism permeated the room.
'Eric.' She nodded curtly. 'Do you know Gary Angelo?'
'We've met,' Eckling said, shaking his hand.
'Mr Angelo is the family attorney,' she said. 'He's going to handle things for me. I'm sure you don't mind if he joins us.'
'Not at all,' the chief of police answered, as if he had a choice.
'Would you like coffee?' she asked, motioning towards an ornate silver service. 'Or perhaps a drink?'
'Nothing, thank you. I hope I'm not comin' at a bad time.'
'Not at all,' she said with a grim smile. 'We were just discussing how well off Farrell left me and the children. At least he did something thoughtful.'
'I'm sorry, Ada - '
'Forget the compulsory grief,' she said brusquely, cutting him off. 'The fact is, you were one of his friends, Eric. You knew what was going on.'
'Uh, it wasn't my business to - '
'To what? Raymond Firestone told me all about it. Parties, poker games, weekend retreats, as Farrell called them, for his in crowd. You were one of them. Now you come here implying - '
'I'm not implyin' anything,' Eckling said with chagrin. 'I'm just doin' my job. These things have to be addressed.'
'Well, at least you came yourself, you didn't send one of your flunkies.'
'Please,' Eckling said, obviously ill at ease. 'I want to make this as pleasant as possible.'
'I'm sure. What is it you want to know?'
'Do you know of anyone who might have had a motive to do this to John?'
She sneered at the question. 'Don't ask stupid questions, Eric. It was very easy to hate Farrell Delaney.'
'How about, uh…' Eckling started, letting the sentence dangle.
'Women? Are you usually this diplomatic when you grill suspects?'
'Please, Ada.'
'Don't please me. That's why you're here and we both know it. I'm sure my comments last night put me at the top of the suspect list.'
'There's no list as yet.'