Leo, bright in a tropically orange shirt festooned with frolicking red parrots, yellow slacks and black-and-white wingtip shoes, looked through the rain at the Jeep parked at the curb. ‘Odd day to be driving without the top,’ he opined, like it was wisdom.
‘The sheriff’s department seized the Jeep in the middle of the night, looking for evidence.’
His thick eyebrows snapped together into a thick line of furry worry. ‘Please tell me you got rid of the box.’
‘Yes, but they’d gotten tipped to something else. Before they came I spotted somebody who put a bloody knife under the passenger’s seat. It’s now in the Willahock.’
‘Can’t there still be DNA or blood residue?’
‘My lifestyle mostly saved the day,’ I said. ‘Their cadaver dog’s nose went haywire from sniffing cheeseburger wrappers. Their own noses must have gone just as haywire from finding no blood or anything else. They reacted petulantly. They left the Jeep out in the rain with the top off.’
‘Petulant, but cleansing all the more?’ His smile lit the dark gloom of the day.
‘I can only hope. I’d like to reattach the top in the shelter of your garage.’
Relieved, he hurried back through the house and had his Porsche out before I pulled around to the alley. Reattaching the top took ninety minutes because it was slippery and wet and had separated, like an unraveled patchwork quilt, into a dozen smaller pieces where the strands of duct tape had fallen away.
‘I’ll go to the Discount Den for more silver tape,’ he said.
‘No need. I’m going to leave the rips open for now. They’ll help circulate the air once the sun comes out.’
‘I’ll get you seat covers.’ He ran inside and came out a moment later to slip two clear plastic garbage bags over the front seats. I doubted they’d matter. I was already drenched.
Back home, in dry clothes, I was nuking a modest rainbow of three Peeps – two green, one lavender – when the phone rang. It was the Bipsie who’d hired me to track down the other Bipsies in her sorority.
‘Long time no hear, Mr Elshtrom,’ she said slowly, straining to enunciate each word perfectly. It was well past lunch.
‘We just spoke,’ I said, picking little Peep splats out of the microwave and sliding them into my mouth.
‘Refresh memory. Am doing the newshletter.’
A thought teetered. ‘You’ve put my name in your newsletter?’
‘Lasht time, too,’ she slurred. ‘Tell everyone you’re tracking ush down. Whatsh new?’
‘Bipsie Paul,’ I ventured.
She snorted. ‘Don’t bother. High and mighty, pain in the ash.’
‘She’s moved on anyway.’ I clicked the liquored woman away with a fast forefinger. Later, perhaps, I’d feel like a crumb, getting angry with a foolish drunk who obviously didn’t know that Marilyn Paul had been murdered.
I pulled out the old records the sorority women had given me for updating and found Marilyn listed at the same address in Oak Park I’d gotten from the Internet. She’d learned of me through her sorority newsletter and now she was dead.
I went to the kitchen and microwaved another Peep until it collapsed into a vaguely green slick that resembled nothing of its original chick-like state. And that reminded me that Beech in the Beach wanted medical information on David Arlin. Jenny was going to try to find out why.
I called her. ‘You were going to use your wiles to find out what’s wrong with the corpse in Laguna Beach,’ I said.
‘I took a day and did drive down there, but I got sidetracked when I got back by a crooked councilman in one of our suburbs,’ she said.
‘Sounds like Rivertown. You learned nothing?’
‘I didn’t try Beech again but I did manage to get a stool at a diner next to a younger cop at lunchtime. You were right. There’s something wrong with the corpse, beyond it not being intact. My new young friend said they’re contacting every doctor in Laguna Beach, looking for Arlin’s records.’
‘No idea what’s wrong with the body?’
‘He didn’t know; only that it’s wrong.’
‘I’m surprised they haven’t yet sent my local cops after me for the name of Arlin’s insurance company. They won’t be happy when they learn I lied.’
I then told her what I’d learned since we last talked.
‘I can understand all three quitting that old campaign at the same time,’ she said, ‘if it meant snatching great-paying jobs.’
‘The jobs didn’t work out, and they didn’t work out awfully quickly. All three stayed out west, though they didn’t stay together. Arlin went to Laguna Beach, Runney to Reeder. Both changed their names.’
‘Now we’re getting to an intriguing part,’ she said.
‘Because since the third musketeer, Halvorson, didn’t change his name. He became invisible instead and has stayed that way ever since.’
‘You think one of the three killed Marilyn Paul?’
‘Could be, because of what she knew. But there’s another wrinkle. The three young men were good friends twenty years ago, thought of as three of four musketeers.’
‘Now I’m sensing something really big.’
‘The fourth musketeer was Timothy Wade.’
‘The Grain Man? Your next senator from Illinois? He figures in this?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Oh, boy. This could be huge.’
‘Not a word about any of this yet,’ I said. ‘Likely as not, Wade’s totally uninvolved.’
‘Bigger than big,’ she said.
At the time, neither of us knew what we were talking about.