‘Such is the fear you engender in politicians,’ I said on the phone. I was standing by a second-floor window, looking out into the night. No one appeared to be lurking.
‘The power of my father’s purse,’ Amanda said. ‘Was Tim helpful?’
‘Everything he said sounded reasonable.’
‘But …?’ She’d caught the hesitation in my voice.
‘He sounded too reasonable. He admitted being friends with the other musketeers, back in the day. And both he and his security chief believe Shea initiated some sort of blackmail scheme but that it blew up with Shea, out in Laguna Beach.’
‘You didn’t tell them it wasn’t Shea who got killed?’
‘I told the security man, Jeffries, to call the Laguna Beach Police Department directly. I don’t think he will. He doesn’t want to see past the Democratic campaign office.’
‘What did they say about Marilyn Paul?’
‘That’s what’s most puzzling. Wade and his sister are sharp. They figured out she’d hired me but neither Timothy nor his security man, Jeffries, pressed me much about it. They took her to be a busybody, someone best forgotten.’
‘Did you tell them Marilyn planted the rubber axe and the bones?’
‘I suggested it as a possibility to Wade. He acted appropriately shocked.’
‘So they’re seeing no link between John Shea and Marilyn Paul’s murder?’
‘No, despite the fact that both Wades surmised Marilyn hired me to look in on all three of the old musketeers.’
‘Maybe Tim’s got other, more pressing things on his mind, like getting elected to the United States Senate.’
‘I admit that’s very likely.’
‘Have you stopped?’
‘Merely awaiting inspiration,’ I said.
Leo Brumsky’s girlfriend, Endora, was almost a foot taller than he was but they shared the same high IQ. She’d made a pile as a fashion model, bought a condominium with a view of Lake Michigan and quit modeling for a low-paying research job at the Newberry, Chicago’s quirkiest private library.
I called her cell phone an hour after I hung up with Amanda. ‘That fellow who helped me find the Confessors’ Club, Mickey …’ I’d forgotten the man’s last name.
‘It’s Dek,’ she said to someone nearby.
‘Hang up on him,’ Leo told her from a distance. Likely, they were at Endora’s place.
‘Mickey Rosen,’ she said to me. ‘He knows everything about Chicago history.’
‘Does he like to drink?’
‘What a strange question.’
‘I’m looking for the names and locations of bars that were in Chicago twenty years ago.’
‘That’s a tall order for a drinking town like ours.’
‘Hang up on him,’ Leo said again.
‘I can narrow the search area to a three-block radius of a specific address,’ I said.
‘Mickey’s your man,’ she said.
I gave her the address of the campaign headquarters where the four musketeers had worked with Marilyn.
‘Hang up on him,’ Leo said for the third time.
She laughed, and did.