She flinched and turned her head aside. Ambrose raised his eyebrows at Cassidy’s cruelty, and reached out to touch Penny Williger’s arm in concern.
‘Mrs Williger,’ Cassidy said, ‘I’m sorry for being so blunt, but you must know your husband well. You’ve been married for fourteen years. You say you detected no worry in his voice, no anxiety of any kind, and yet the same evening he killed himself. It’s hard to believe that a man who was thinking about committing suicide wouldn’t betray something to his wife.’
She shook her head and looked down at her lap. ‘No. Nothing.’
‘Hunh.’ Skepticism in the grunt. Cassidy glanced at Orso, who read his look and his tone.
‘Maybe he didn’t commit suicide, Mike,’ Orso said. ‘Maybe someone shoved him out the window. Shaw, here, maybe he tossed him.’
Shaw laughed.
‘That’s an outrageous suggestion,’ Ambrose said. ‘Paul Williger and Spencer Shaw were colleagues and friends.’
‘What about Hoffman?’ Orso said mildly.
‘Who?’ Ambrose covered his surprise well.
‘John Hoffman,’ Orso said. ‘The guy in the room down the hall. The guy who came in with Paul Williger and Spencer Shaw and went up in the same elevator.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know any John Hoffman.’
‘How about you, Shaw?’ Orso asked.
‘Never heard of the man.’
‘You checked in together more than once.’
‘It’s a popular hotel.’
‘You called the same number in Washington a few minutes after Williger went out the window.’
‘Really? This Hoffman person and I did? Whose number?’ He did not care if they believed him.
‘We don’t know whose it is, but we’ll find out.’
‘When you do, let me know.’
‘Mrs Williger, did your husband talk about his work with you at all?’ Cassidy asked.
‘Sometimes. Not very much.’
‘He worked for the Department of the Army. Is that right?’
‘Yes.’
‘At Fort Dix.’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you know what he did for them?’
‘He was a biochemist.’
‘Can you tell me what he was working on?’
She shook her head. ‘We didn’t really talk about it much. I didn’t really understand it.’
‘You must have talked about it enough to discover that you didn’t understand it. Maybe you could tell me whatever you remember.’
She began to speak, but Ambrose held up his hand.
‘Detective Cassidy, I told you before that Mr Williger’s work for the Army was classified. His talking to Mrs Williger is an understandable indiscretion, but repeating anything to you would be out of bounds.’
‘Mrs Williger, did Spencer Shaw come see you after your husband’s death?’
‘Yes, he did. He was very kind.’
‘Did he tell you anything about that evening that might shed light on what happened?’
Shaw lit a cigarette and blew smoke at the ceiling, the picture of a man without worries.
‘No. He said they went out for dinner, and stopped for an after-dinner drink, and then went back to the hotel, and that Paul seemed fine.’
‘Not depressed?’
‘No.’ She looked up as if the question startled her. ‘I mean, not more than he has been lately.’ A quick glance at Ambrose for encouragement.
‘Dr Ambrose was treating him for depression. Is that right?’ Cassidy lit a cigarette.
‘Yes.’
‘Had that been going on for long?’
‘About three months,’ Ambrose volunteered. ‘It started in the summer.’
‘Did you prescribe any medications?’
‘Miltown, to help with anxiety, to help him sleep.’
‘Anything else? Any experimental drugs?’
‘No. Experimental drugs? I don’t know what you mean.’
‘There were traces of a chemical compound found in his blood.’
‘What chemical compound?’
‘We haven’t identified it yet.’
Ambrose shrugged. ‘Paul was a chemist. He had access to a great many chemicals.’
‘But you were just treating him with Miltown?’
‘And a normal course of psychiatric evaluation and therapy. Do you understand what that means, Detective?’
‘Nope.’
‘Then there’s not much point in discussing it. But you should know that Paul came to me once a week for therapy. We worked through his problems, and for a while I thought he was doing better. In the last few weeks, unfortunately, he seemed to be regressing. But I never thought he was a danger to himself.’
‘What were those problems?’
‘That falls under doctor–patient privilege.’
A board creaked in the hall as if someone had shifted weight. Maybe it was just an older house talking. Cassidy listened, but the sound did not repeat. ‘Thank you, doctor. Mrs Williger, did your husband ever bring work home?’
‘No, no. He wasn’t allowed to do that.’
‘Do you mind if I look in his desk?’
‘It’s in his study across the hall,’ she said.
When Cassidy went into the hall, he saw Penny Williger’s mother, Janet French, standing in the door to the kitchen. She looked at him without expression for a moment, and then turned away and disappeared. He wondered how much she had overheard.
The study was a small, dark room furnished with an old leather easy chair with a reading lamp next to it, a large wooden roll top desk, and wooden bookshelves heavy with science books. The wall over the desk held a framed Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Illinois, and graduate degrees from the University of Wisconsin and Georgia Tech. There was nothing in the desk drawers that attracted Cassidy’s interest, but there wouldn’t be, or Ambrose would have stopped him from looking. He went back across the hall to the living room. Shaw had gotten up to lean casually against the mantle. He tapped the ashes from his cigarette into the fireplace.
‘Mrs Williger, thank you for your time. I hope that wasn’t too hard on you.’
‘That’s all right. I know you have to ask those questions. I’m sorry I couldn’t be more helpful.’ She was relieved they were going.
‘Dr Ambrose, I need a contact number for you.’
‘Of course.’ He got to his feet and drew a thick, worn wallet from his back pocket and passed over a dog-eared business card that read Dr Sebastian Ambrose – SPring7-4397 – Psychiatric Consultations. There was no address, but the SPring exchange meant that his phone was in the Village.
‘Mr Shaw, how do I get in touch with you?’
Shaw flipped his cigarette onto the stacked logs in the fireplace. ‘No point, really. I’m just the chauffeur.’
‘Just in case.’
Shaw smiled and shrugged. ‘Call Ambrose. He usually knows how to find me.’
‘It would be simpler to call you.’
Shaw shrugged. ‘I move around a lot.’
‘You can always leave a message for Mr Shaw at the Hotel Astor, or with me. I’ll be sure he gets it.’
Shaw smiled into Cassidy’s irritation, but there was no point in pushing it. It would be like a playground fight, a waste of energy for no useful result.
‘Mrs Williger, was Chris Collins a colleague of your husband’s?’
She shook her head in bewilderment. ‘I don’t know that name.’
‘How about you, Ambrose? Do you know that name?’
‘I don’t. Who is he?’ Ambrose tugged at his beard.
‘Shaw?’
Shaw shook his head.
‘Mrs Williger, one last question. Did your husband ever work for a company called Gallien Medical?’
‘Yes. He worked there just after the war. It was his first job after graduate school.’
‘How long did he work there?’
‘Eight or nine years, I
think. Until he went to work for the Army.’
‘What did he do for them?’
‘He worked in their laboratory as a research chemist.’
‘Do you know what he was working on?’
‘No. I wasn’t much for science class at school, and Paul didn’t talk much about work when he came home. We had other things to talk about.’
Penny Williger’s mother, Janet French, walked them back to the front door. For a moment Cassidy thought she was going to say something. She looked back down the hall as if gauging if she could be heard from the living room. She held Cassidy’s eyes for a moment and shook her head, and then closed the door behind them.
They found a diner near the Scarsdale train station and ordered hamburgers, fries, and beers.
‘What do you think?’ Cassidy asked. He relied on Orso’s ability to read people. It was the talent that made him a lethal poker player.
Orso took a sip of his beer. ‘Penny’s scared. I don’t know what she’s scared of, but she’s scared. Ambrose lied about almost everything. He’s good at it, but not as good as he thinks. His pupils dilate a little when he lies. If it’s a big lie he fucks with his beard. It’s the kind of tell you see at the tables when a guy’s bluffing a crappy hand. Penny’s mother wanted to talk, but chickened out, and this guy Shaw is a piece of work. I don’t think he gives a shit about any of it, but he likes playing the game, whatever the hell the game is. I’ll tell you one thing, they both knew Chris Collins. And they didn’t like the question about Gallien Medical.’
‘After lunch we’re going back to talk to the ladies without Ambrose and Shaw.’
When they drove up to the Williger house half an hour later, the Buick was gone. They walked back up the brick path and rang the bell. When Janet French opened the door, she did not seem surprised to see them. ‘Penny is taking a nap. Should I wake her?’
‘I don’t know,’ Cassidy said. ‘We got the impression you wanted to talk to us. Maybe we should let her sleep.’
‘Can my daughter get in trouble?’
‘With us?’ Cassidy asked. ‘I don’t see how.’
‘I don’t like those men. I’ve never liked Dr Ambrose. He’s been here before with Paul, and he always gave me the creeps.’ She glanced up the stairs that led to the second floor and the bedrooms. ‘Come into the kitchen.’ She led them down the hall and into the sunlit kitchen which looked out on a backyard that was strewn with children’s things – a bicycle, a seesaw, a baseball glove left on a planter, a bat leaning nearby.
‘Where are the kids?’ Orso asked.
‘My husband took them to the movies and an early dinner, and they’re going to spend the night at our place. They need to do things, and Penny isn’t up to it at the moment. They’re fine when they’re at school, but coming home is hard for them. May I offer you anything, tea, coffee?’
‘No, thank you,’ Orso said. ‘We got lunch in town.’
They sat at the kitchen table near the window. The ashtray was full of cigarette butts. Some were smeared with the red lipstick Janet French wore. Others carried the shade her daughter used. It was clear that the two women sat here for hours at a time, one in grief, and the other in worry.
‘Penny loved Paul,’ Janet French said. ‘Really loved him. When they were together, it was as if nobody else existed. They’ve been married for fourteen years, and they were still like that. Do you know anyone like that?’
Both men shook their heads.
‘I don’t know how she’s going to get through this. I just don’t know.’ She took a pack of Winstons from the windowsill and lit a cigarette with a silver lighter. ‘Why would he kill himself? He loved Penny. He loved the children. He had a good job. Why would he do it? He wouldn’t.’
‘Did Penny call Dr Ambrose?’
‘Yes. She’s always been a bit of a scaredy-cat, and when you called, it made her nervous. I tried to talk her out of it, but she was afraid of doing something wrong, so she called.’
‘Was Ambrose Paul’s boss?’
‘I think so, in some way. I never quite understood what he did.’
‘Not just his shrink?’
‘No. Actually, today was the first time I heard that Paul was talking to him as a psychiatrist. It was the first time I heard that Paul was depressed. He never showed it when he was around us. He always seemed pretty cheerful. At least up until sometime last month.’
‘What happened then?’
‘I don’t know. Something changed in him. He was irritable and nervous. I don’t know why. He had trouble concentrating sometimes, and Penny said he slept badly. He had nightmares. He was just different.’
‘What do you know about Paul’s work?’
‘He has a top-secret clearance, and he doesn’t talk much about the work, but I know it excited him. I don’t know much about science, but he did say they’re making new chemical compounds and that they think they’ll have therapeutic applications, that they’ll be helpful for some health problems. I don’t know which, and I don’t think that’s the main reason for the work.’
‘Why do you say that?’ Orso asked.
‘Paul got tipsy one evening at our house. Our son, Tom, was there. He’s younger than Penny. He was in Korea with the Marines. Paul missed the war, because of a broken eardrum, and I think it always embarrassed him a little that he didn’t go. Anyway, he began saying that the Cold War wasn’t going to be won with rifles and machine guns. It was going to be won by new weapons. He pointed to his head and said they were going to find ways to unlock secrets in the brain.’
‘What does that mean?’ Orso looked to Cassidy for a clue, but Cassidy did not know either.
‘Did he explain?’ Cassidy asked.
‘No. Penny told him he shouldn’t be talking about that, and he clammed up.’
‘And that’s it. That’s all you ever heard.’
‘Yes.’
‘What did Ambrose say to Penny before we got here?’ Cassidy asked.
‘He said he didn’t want any discussion of Paul’s work. She was to follow his lead.’ She stubbed out the cigarette in the mound of butts. ‘He threatened her.’
‘Oh, yeah, how?’ Orso asked. ‘That he’d hurt her?’
‘No. He just said that if she revealed anything about Paul’s work, she would be in danger of losing Paul’s insurance, his death benefits, and his pension. He made it clear. She wouldn’t have anything to live on. And she has the boys. She’s never worked. She and Paul were married right out of college. If she lost Paul’s benefits …’
‘How could Ambrose withhold Paul’s insurance?’
‘It was a government policy, and Dr Ambrose is quite high up.’
‘In the Department of the Army.’
‘Well, in a way, I guess. I mean that was what they said, but it wasn’t quite true. It was a story.’
‘What was the truth?’ Cassidy asked.
‘Paul worked for the CIA.’
TWENTY-TWO
There were two message slips on Cassidy’s desk. One was from May, no last name, no number, May Stiles being discreet. Another was from Kay Lockridge, he was to call her at home. Cassidy found May’s number in his address book and called her first. She picked up on the third ring. ‘May Stiles. Your pleasure is our business.’
‘Jesus, May, where’d you get that?’
‘Cassidy? A client in advertising gave it to me. For free.’
‘Worth every penny. You called.’
‘I found the girl you were asking about – Maxie Lively – pretty good name for the business, huh? She used to work out of Marge Gale’s house, but she went out on her own. I’ve got a number for you.’
Cassidy wrote it down. ‘How about an address?’
‘Working girls don’t give out a home address. The last thing you need is some client showing up to tell you he’s sure it was love after all.’
‘Thanks, May.’
He hung up and dialed the long-distance operator and gave her the Lockridge number in Georget
own. Mr Farrington answered and went to find Cassidy’s aunt.
‘Michael, I’m dashing out, and I’m unforgivably late. I asked around about Harry Gallien, and people were not happy that I was doing so. I got some very dark looks. But here’s what I found. Gallien Medical had big military contracts during the war. After the war, many of those dried up. If you want, I can send you a list of the medical supplies and equipment he sold on those contracts. All those contracts were itemized.’
‘And now?’
‘He does have contracts with government agencies, but they’re all black.’
‘Meaning?’
‘There is nothing specific in the budgets as to how much Gallien Medical is paid or what it is paid for. Black budgets are Intelligence related, and they are not itemized.’
‘Can you ask Allen Dulles for details?’
‘No, I can’t.’ There was no leeway in her voice. ‘Michael, I really do have to run. I hope this helps. Talk soon.’ Cassidy was left listening to the dial tone.
He tried the number May Stiles gave him. After six rings an answering machine picked up. He hung up. He found the squad’s reverse directory propping open a window in the locker room. Maxie’s number belonged to an address on East 22nd Street.
He left the precinct in late afternoon. The low autumn sun offered little warmth. Men and women hurrying home from work outnumbered the tourists on Broadway. A wind that promised winter blew from the river, and Cassidy pulled his overcoat tight and thrust his hands in its pocket. He walked the few blocks down to the building where his brother had an office at ABC News.
Brian’s secretary, Claire, was not in the outer reception, and when Cassidy pushed open the door to Brian’s office, he found his brother in shirtsleeves packing papers into a cardboard box. Other boxes, already sealed, were piled near the desk. ‘Hey,’ Brian said with an attempt at cheer, ‘a friendly face. What are you doing here?’ His face looked thin, and his color was bad.
‘I just stopped by to see how you were.’ Brian’s desk no longer held the framed photos of Marcy and the girls. ‘What’s going on?’
‘I’ve been suspended.’ His face twisted in what might have been a grin. ‘Yeah. A big meeting upstairs. All the company royalty. A lot of headshaking sympathy, expressions of concern and support, pats on the back. Take some time. For your own good. Get checked out. Make sure everything’s all right. A few months. Come back refreshed. Clean bill of health and all that. But the underlying message is that I’m an embarrassment to the network.’ Cassidy could read the pain in his eyes. ‘I was in the crapper up there before the meeting. Bobby Walsh and another guy were in there, and I guess they didn’t know I was there. Walsh loves to pass on the office tittle-tattle. It turns out he’s heard there was some pressure from Washington to knock me down a peg. The network’s license is up for renewal and someone let it slip that there may be irregularities in the application.’
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