The stairwell in Peter Fallon’s apartment building usually stank of stale onions and stray cats, but when he came home from the Museum of Fine Arts, he smelled cheap shaving lotion the moment he stepped in the door.
Danny Fallon, dressed in his only suit, was waiting at the top of the stairs. “Balled any students lately?”
“I haven’t balled anybody lately.”
“Well, as the old man would say, that’s better than ballin’ boys.”
“He’s still a philosopher, isn’t he?”
“He’s a Harp, and I never met one yet who wasn’t tellin’ you how to live your life.”
“While all the time tellin’ you that he wasn’t tryin’ to tell you how to live your life.”
Inside the apartment, Peter gave his brother the once-over and a whistle. “What brings you to Cambridge, all dressed up and smellin’ like a tout on Derby Day?”
“Kenny Gallagher’s wake.”
“Already? I thought they were holding the body.”
“They only kept him for thirty-six hours. Then Ma called the coroner and said, ‘I’m Kenny Gallagher’s best friend, and I know for a fact that he has no next of kin.’ No arguin’ with Ma. They gave her the stiff. All the boys down at the Risin’ Moon chipped in. Uncle Dunphy gave us a cloth casket, and we’re plantin’ him ourselves.” Danny followed Peter into the kitchen, which was only slightly larger than most closets. “Ma’s been callin’ you all afternoon.”
“I wasn’t here.”
“No shit. She figured you were lost or somethin’ and wouldn’t know about the wake. She starts bitchin’ at me to come over and get you so you won’t miss the Rosary.”
“I thought the Rosary was always the second night.”
“Hey, we were lucky to get the home for one night, and Pa had to twist Dunphy’s arm half off before he gave us that shitty casket.”
Peter popped open the refrigerator. Three cockroaches scurried away from the half-eaten piece of apple pie on the bottom shelf. “I can offer you a dish of plain yogurt and wheat germ, a loaf of week-old Bavarian bread—baked by a failing student—a piece of unsavory apple pie, or my last can of Narragansett.”
“You know, you live like a goddam nigger!” Danny exploded. “Stayin’ in a dump like this, with cockroaches in the icebox and crabs in the toilet. Why don’t you get the hell out of here? You can’t like this place. Sometimes I think you want to be a martyr or somethin’ and punish yourself because it feels good.”
Peter knew that his brother was probably right. In the last six months, his life as an academic had been something to get through and get behind him. The more painful it was, the better he would feel when he threw it all over for something else.
“Do you need money?” continued Danny. “I’ll lend you what I can. Just ask. Or ask Pa. But for Chrissakes, get the hell out of this hole.”
“I like independence, and right now, this is all the independence I can afford.” Peter held out the beer. “Last call.”
Danny gave up. “I’ll split it with you.”
“That’s better. Less talk and more communication.” Peter took a dirty glass from the cupboard, rinsed it briefly under cold water, and half-filled it with beer. “The guest gets the glass.”
“No, thanks. I have enough problems as it is.” Danny grabbed the can. The beer was gone in an instant. “Now, c’mon. Some old priest from down the Cape is sayin’ the Rosary, and he’s startin’ at seven-thirty.”
“Do you think Ma would be pissed if I said I had too much work to do?” Peter wanted to start digging into back copies of Hubcap. He knew he shouldn’t miss Kenny’s wake, but he was thinking of it.
“Pissed? She’d come over here and get you herself.”
“What if I told you that I might be on the trail of some big money, and I needed every extra minute to track it down?”
“What kind of big money?” Danny was always suspicious when people started talking about big money.
“Buried treasure. A tea set worth two and a half million dollars.”
Danny looked at Peter for a moment, then began to laugh. “I’d say you were out of your fuckin’ mind.”
Peter realized how ludicrous he sounded. He began to laugh. “And you’d probably be right.”
The Kelleher Funeral Home was a handsome Victorian house on Dorchester Heights, the highest point in South Boston.
Small wonder that Washington chose this hill for his artillery emplacement during the siege of Boston. From Kelleher’s front porch, one could see the harbor, the downtown skyline, and the three-deckers and row houses which fanned out in every direction across Southie. Great spot for a funeral home, thought Fallon. Crowded dwellings all about, and a mansion right in the middle of it.
It often seemed to Fallon that among the Irish of Boston the three days after death were as important as a whole life. When he was feeling less cynical, he realized that the wake was among the most humane practices that the Irish had brought to Boston. Peter was always taught that when someone died or lost a loved one, he paid his respects. He shook the hand of the bereaved, he tried to offer whatever consolation he could, and he hoped that the Almighty would watch over the deceased, even if he wasn’t sure that the Almighty existed.
It didn’t matter that a person suffered through life pinching pennies in a three-room cold-water flat. When he died, his friends and relatives laid him out in the house on the hill and gave him a send-off fit for the mayor. It didn’t matter that a person never had had a good word for anyone in life. When he died, his clan gathered and said whatever good there was to say about him.
Danny opened the door, solid oak and beveled glass. The Fallon brothers stepped into the front hall. The door closed behind them on a hydraulic hinge, and they were soothed by cool, conditioned air.
Dunphy Kelleher, their father’s cousin, greeted them with a solemn nod. Of average height and build, he was distinguished by black hair recently gone gray at the temples. Although he now left the embalming to his employees, his lips were permanently pursed, as though he were constantly holding his nose beside a dead piece of flesh. “Terrible thing about poor Kenny. Terrible. We know neither the day nor the hour. Neither the day nor the hour.”
“Save the sermon,” whispered Danny. “When he was alive, you wouldn’t give Kenny the steam off your shit. Where is he?”
Dunphy’s expression and tone did not change. “I’ve reserved the second floor for the Gallagher party.” He looked at Peter. “I haven’t seen you in quite a while, my boy.”
Fallon smiled. “Wakes and weddings bring us all closer together.”
“We should have them more often.”
The Fallons walked into the large, formal entrance hall. A leaded glass chandelier hung above them. A sign, white magnetic letters and red arrows on a black background, directed mourners to the left for O’Hara, the right for Lissel, and upstairs for Gallagher.
“Just like goin’ to one of those shopping-mall movie theaters that’s showin’ three different pictures,” cracked Danny.
The syrupy smell of orchids and carnations rolled into the hallway, but Peter looked neither left nor right as he walked past the O’Haras and Lissels. He didn’t enjoy the sight of dead bodies. It was bad enough that he had to see Kenny, all made up in heavy pancake and rouge, his face distorted from fluid, his mouth stuffed with cotton and wired shut, wax plugs filling the bullet holes so he wouldn’t leak, and Rosary beads, which he hadn’t touched in forty years, wrapped in his hands for eternity.
Halfway up the stairs, Fallon heard the familiar prayer. A single, strong voice, “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed are Thou among Women, and Blessed is the Fruit of Thy Womb, Jesus.” And the mumbled response of thirty or forty voices, “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, Amen.” The Rosary had already started.
Kenny Gallagher’s body lay in the bay window of what had been the master bedroom before Kelleher remodeled. The walls had been painted robin’s-egg blue, in keeping with the pastel motif, and the draperies were cream-colored. An enormous American oriental, about three inches thick, covered the floor.
“The Fifth Sorrowful Mystery, the Death Upon the Cross,” droned Father Gerry Hale, an arthritic old priest hunched over the kneeler in front of the casket.
Behind him, the people knelt, sat, and stood wherever they found space. Fallon hadn’t known that Kenny Gallagher had had that many friends. The word had gone out from the Fallon household that one of their own, a good man with no family and a penchant for pouring an extra finger on every highball, was dead. Friends and friends of friends had come to say goodbye.
Fallon recognized Jackie Halloran and his wife; the Murphy family, all three generations; Harry Hourihan, the owner of the Rising Moon; the widows’ club, an unofficial army of ladies who materialized for every wake; and the Andy Capps, as Fallon called them, the Rising Moon regulars who seemed to be at the bar no matter when Fallon stopped by for a beer.
Fallon’s parents, Tom and Maureen, knelt near the casket and prayed loudly. Fallon’s aunts and uncles, most of whom had never met Kenny Gallagher, were there out of deference to Maureen. Danny’s wife, Sheila, sat in a corner with her three children and six others, and God help the kid who wasn’t saying his beads.
Peter stepped quietly into the room, nodded toward his mother, folded his hands in front of him, and stared at the floor. Danny stood in the hallway and smoked.
By the time the priest said the final Hail Mary, Fallon understood once more the power of the Rosary. He took no comfort in the words themselves, but their repetition, fifty Hail Marys separated into five decades by the Lord’s Prayer, was almost hypnotic. The rhythm of the words created concentration which led to contemplation and, ultimately, to serenity. Even people like Fallon, the agnostics and non-Catholics who stood silently at the back of the room, were held by the prayer.
“In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.” The old priest blessed the body and stood painfully.
It was several moments before anyone else moved. Then, Tom Fallon put away his beads and shook hands with Father Hale. Respects had been paid. Socializing began.
“Why, Petie Fallon!” It was Harry Hourihan. “I ain’t seen you in ages.” Harry pumped Fallon’s hand vigorously. His eyes were red and his face looked puffy. He had been Kenny’s boss. “It’s such a terrible thing to happen, and what a thing for you to see.”
“We’ll all miss him, Harry,” said Fallon.
“That’s right.” Denny Murphy joined the conversation. “He made the best damn boilermaker I ever drank.”
“For Chrissakes, anybody could make a boilermaker,” said Hourihan. “It don’t take nothin’ to pour a beer and a shot.”
“But he poured you up a shot that hit like Marciano’s right.”
“That’s because he poured too much.”
“He got good tips,” said Denny.
“And cost me money doing it.” Harry was forgetting his grief.
“He was the best bartender I ever knew, and nobody could break up a fight faster,” persisted Denny.
“I can attest to that,” added Fallon.
Harry shook his head and looked at the floor. “I don’t know what I’ll do without him.”
Fallon clapped Harry on the shoulder. “I’d better get over and see my old man, Harry. Say hello to the wife for me.”
Fallon took ten minutes to get through the knots of people standing about the room. Every few paces, he was stopped by someone who recognized him and wanted to talk. He chatted with Harry Delehante, the barber who always cut his hair short with a part on the left, no matter what the instructions; Mary Donovan, his old baby-sitter, now thirty-five and looking forty with four kids of her own; Auntie Eleanor, who usually slipped five dollars into his breast pocket whenever she saw him; Benny Greene, his father’s old partner, who always counseled Peter to be a dentist; and Tom Hennessey, “with a booze named after me,” his father’s labor foreman and Peter’s first boss.
Fallon managed to smile through all the small talk, and he answered questions about his future as gracefully as possible without revealing too much. He had just about run out of good nature when he reached his parents. They were standing near the casket with Father Hale.
“Good evening, folks,” he said pleasantly.
“You missed most of the Rosary.”
“Sorry, Ma.”
“I’ll forgive you,” joked Father Hale.
Maureen Fallon introduced her son to the priest, who was well into his seventies and clearly suffering from the pain of his arthritis. When they shook hands, Fallon felt knots of bone grown thick around each knuckle of the old man’s hand.
“I’m an old friend of Kenny’s late mother,” the priest explained. “I knew Kenny when he was just a little shaver. I used to visit them on Sunday afternoons when I was in seminary. He was a beautiful child.”
Fallon glanced at the body a few feet away. He could not imagine it as a beautiful child.
“Pity he never married,” continued Father Hale. “It would be nice if he had some blood relatives here to say goodbye. But from what his mother used to tell me, he was never very comfortable with the girls.”
Maureen Fallon smiled. “We’re Kenny’s blood, at least in spirit, Father.”
“We are, indeed,” Tom Fallon admired Kenny Gallagher. He knew that without Kenny’s help, he’d probably be dead.
Tom Fallon. Called Black Tom by men who disliked his stern expression. Called Nails by the bricklayers who worked for him because he filed away at his fingernails whenever his hands were idle. He was sixty-four, with crew-cut gray hair, enormous hands, and shoulders so broad that his grandchildren could not touch both of them at the same time.
One day in the mid-fifties, Tom and Kenny Gallagher, who had also been a bricklayer, were working for Norton Construction. It was a pointing job—repairing and replacing old mortar—on the Western Union building. Tom and Kenny had just come back from the Barrister Bar and Grill, where they’d each taken a beer and a shot with lunch. They were working nine stories up, on a swing staging that hung from the roof of the building. Tom stepped out the window first. With the alcohol and hot sun, he forgot to check the rigging.
That was the day the laborer had failed to lock the pump after lowering the staging.
Tom Fallon put all his weight on the staging and it fell out from under him. As he started down, he spun toward the window. Kenny, still inside, was able to grab him. For almost five minutes, Kenny clung to Tom’s arm and screamed for help. While he hung nine stories above the street, Tom Fallon got religion. He resolved that he would never drink again, and decided that if he had to risk his neck, he would do it for himself.
After that, Tom Fallon went to Mass every Sunday and prayed every day. He drank nothing but beer and only on weekends. He scraped together some money and started his own contracting company. He worked day and night to build his business, placing such demands on himself that he expected too much from those around him. His business never flourished, but it was his own and he was able to give his family a good life.
Tom Fallon told his sons that all his hard work was for them, and he expected great things from both of them. Danny showed promise of becoming a good tradesman, and Tom encouraged him. Peter had other talents.
When Peter showed excellent grades in grammar school, Tom decided to pay tuition and sent the boy to Boston College High School, where he was taught by Jesuits. When Peter became a champion debater, his father imagined a law career. When Peter was accepted at Harvard, Tom Fallon saw the pattern unfolding—Harvard, Harvard Law School, a solid Boston legal practice, and then, the most important step into respectability for the Boston Irish of earlier generations, a career in politics. Senator Peter Fallon and his father, Tom.
Peter Fallon decided in college that he would not let his life be sledgehammered into shape. He had listened to his father’s dreams and fulfilled his father’s plans for twenty years. When he had to decide between law and history, he chose as much from a sense of rebellion as intellectual interest. His decision caused a rift with his father which had not closed in four years.
Tom Fallon could not understand why Peter would choose a scholar’s life, spent in libraries, to a life in politics or business. He believed that his son had run away from a challenge and hidden in the study of the past. He was deeply disappointed.
“You haven’t been around in two or three months, Peter. Can’t you stop over here more often?” Tom spoke bluntly.
“I’m busy, Dad. I’m almost to the end of my dissertation.”
“Then what?” Tom Fallon asked the question as though he already knew the answer.
“I have several teaching offers in the Midwest.” Peter spoke as though his privacy had been invaded.
“Father Hale was just telling me about one of his nephews. It seems the boy graduated from Boston College, went to law school, and is now making a name for himself in the Justice Department down in Washington.”
“So what?”
“So people are doing things.”
Father Hale sensed the coldness between father and son. He excused himself.
“Do you want to know something, Dad?” Peter lowered his voice. “I don’t give a shit.”
Tom Fallon turned to his wife. “Nice, isn’t it? Forty thousand dollars’ worth of education, and that’s all he can say.”
“Well, if you’d find something other than jobs to talk about…”
“What else is there, Maureen? A man’s work is his life.”
“Speaking of that, I hear that Fallon and Son Construction Company has been having a few problems.” Peter was sorry he’d said that. He didn’t mean to sound so callous.
“We’ll survive. We have before.” Tom Fallon did not conceal his anger.
Peter tried to convey his concern. “Has someone put the screws on you, or were you just in the wrong place at the wrong time?”
“I made a bad mistake. I signed a contract with a fella who didn’t have any money. Except that I didn’t know it. To get his job started, I pumped bricks, blocks, and lumber into it. I used my own money. Then, this fella goes bankrupt and leaves me with my hand up my ass.” Tom Fallon spat out the details. “You work hard all your life, then you take the shaft. But I don’t guess you’d know anything about that, sittin’ up there in your library.”
Peter decided he’d had enough. Their meetings always ended in unpleasantness. He had paid his respects. He had no need to stay. Before his mother could change the subject, Peter kissed her on the cheek. “I’ve got to get back.”
“Can’t you come back to the house? We’ll be having coffee and sandwiches for everyone.”
“I don’t think so, Mama.” He offered his hand to his father. “I hope it all works out for you, Dad.”
Tom Fallon shook hands with his son. “Try to come around more often.”
They looked at each other for a moment. They had more to say to each other, but they were both too stubborn. Neither would start the conversation again. Peter turned abruptly and left, crossing the room much more quickly on the way out. He felt stifled, closed in. He had to escape. Old, familiar faces smiled everywhere. He brushed past them all. He used to enjoy family gatherings, but he could not recount the last four years of his life for anyone else.
Halfway down the stairs, he bumped into Sadie Halloran, Jackie’s mother. She gave him a hug and a kiss. At close range, she smelled like a distillery. They exchanged a few pleasantries, but to his relief, she didn’t want to talk about his career.
“I think it’s a shame we don’t have wakes in the home no more. When my Jack dropped dead at forty-six, we laid him out right in the living room. We had coffee and sandwiches and a few other things”—she winked—“and I don’t have to tell you that his old pals did themselves proud for my dear Jack.”
“Well, I’d say we’re doin’ proud by Kenny.” Fallon tried to smile.
“We’d all feel a little better if your Uncle Dunphy had himself a tap workin’ in the other—” Sadie Halloran noticed someone standing at the top of the stairs. “Why, I know that boy from somewhere.”
The young man who had followed Fallon to the Book Cellar the night before was standing at the top of the stairs. He had trailed Fallon to the wake. His name was James Buckley. He had an Irish moon face and the body of an ironworker. He was wearing the coat and tie he kept in the trunk of his Oldsmobile, and he blended easily into the South Boston gathering. Fallon glanced at him. Buckley slipped into the smoking room. Sadie scampered up the stairs. Fallon headed down.
Sadie found the young man quickly. “I know that face.”
“I’m afraid not, ma’am.” Buckley tried to leave.
Sadie clamped a hand on his elbow. “Let me guess your name.”
“Denny Flynn,” said Buckley.
Downstairs, Fallon said goodbye to Dunphy Kelleher and stepped into the humidity.
Father Hale was climbing into his car, a Chevy Impala parked in front of the funeral home. “Can I give you a lift?”
“I’m going to Cambridge.”
“A bit out of my way, but I can run you up to Broadway Station in my air-conditioned chariot.”
“You’ve convinced me.”
James Buckley loosed himself from Sadie Halloran’s grasp and hurried out to the front lawn. Fallon was nowhere in sight.
“I wanted to stay longer,” said Father Hale. “I like meeting new people. But it’s a long drive back to the Cape.”
Considering how slowly he drove, it would take him several hours to get home, thought Fallon. “Are you retired down there?”
“Oh, no. That I could never stand. I’m the pastor of a small church near Plymouth. Very quiet in the winter, packed for seven Masses on a summer weekend.”
“It must be pleasant.”
Father Hale grunted. “It’s the last stop.”
Fallon understood what the old man was talking about. He did not pursue it.
Father Hale stopped at a red light, then glided slowly into the flow of traffic on Broadway. Brakes squealed and horns blared. Fallon grabbed the back of his neck and waited for the collision. Nothing happened.
“Father, I’m not quite ready to make my last stop, yet.”
“I’m sorry. I guess I’m preoccupied these days. My arthritis is getting worse.” He held up his right hand. The fingers bent off in four different directions. “I can hardly hold the Host. And handling Rosary beads is agony.”
“Maybe you should get workman’s compensation.” Fallon tried to joke.
The old priest sighed. It sounded like a death rattle. “I guess we all have to come to the end sometime. Kneeling over the body of poor Kenny Gallagher, I am reminded that my own is very close.”
“Your faith doesn’t sustain you?”
“Even priests fear death, my boy. And when you were never sure that you chose the right vocation in the first place, you’re haunted by the might-have-beens when you draw near the end.”
They rode for a while in silence.
Then, the old priest sighed again. “It’s possible that I might have been Kenny Gallagher’s father.”
Fallon’s head snapped around.
Father Hale realized the ambiguity. He laughed softly. “No, no, not what you think. Had I chosen the other path, Kenny’s mother would have been Mary Hale instead of Mary Gallagher, and we would have made a child.” He shook his head. “What a wonder it would have been. I loved her so much, my poor, dear Mary Mannion.” His voice trailed off. He spoke with new strength as the memories flooded back. “We met in school. South Boston High, Class of 1921. She was beautiful, and I was not a bad-looking sort myself.”
Fallon felt that he was eavesdropping, but he listened. He sensed the old man’s loneliness and knew that Father Hale needed someone to talk to.
“We went together for two years,” continued the priest. “I was working as a clerk in a shipping office. She was just waiting for me to pop the question, but I was afraid to.
“You see, all along I thought I might have a vocation for the priesthood. I felt good inside the church. I liked the priests at Gate of Heaven. When I served Mass, I always felt that I belonged on the altar. And those were bad times, the twenties. Bootlegging and gangsterism, right here in South Boston. My mother would always say, ‘We need strong men on the altar in these days. We need good Catholic priests to show the rest of the world how to live. Maybe you should think about the collar.’ I guess I agreed.
“When it came time for me to choose a wife, I chose Holy Mother Church. Mary Mannion didn’t speak to me for almost a year. She ran off and married Big Jim Gallagher, leaving me to wonder if my mother had been wrong.” He spoke without bitterness. He had lived too long for that.
The car arrived at the subway station. Fallon didn’t move.
“And you know something?” said the priest. “After fifty years in the priesthood, I’m still wondering.”
Fallon studied the old man silently. A life had unfolded in front of him, and he didn’t know how to respond. Finally, he reached out and shook Father Hale’s misshapen hand. “Thank you, Father. Thanks for the ride.” He got out of the car.
“Take care,” said the priest. “And son…”
Fallon poked his head into the car.
“It’s a terrible thing to go through life lookin’ over your shoulder. Mothers and fathers are always willing to give advice, but a person must pray for guidance, then do what he thinks is best. Goodnight, now.”
Philip Pratt loved Szechwan food, especially on hot summer nights. The Yu Hsiang scallops and Szechwan shredded spiced beef were so hot that the fire in his mouth made him forget heat, humidity, and sinus problems all at once. Pratt had found an excellent Szechwan restaurant—blazing food and relaxing atmosphere—on Commonwealth Avenue, just beyond Kenmore Square.
He was dining with his cousin, Isabelle Carrington Howe. They met often to discuss business, the fate of Pratt Industries, and the mental condition of Isabelle’s mother, Katherine Carrington. Philip and Isabelle had grown up together, sharing summers on the tennis court at Searidge, learning to sail in the same boat, entering Harvard and Radcliffe in the same year, and, so the rumors went, teaching each other things beneath the wooden stairs at the beach that second cousins were not encouraged to learn together.
“I’m sorry, Philip. You know how carefully we screen her communications. I sometimes think Mother has no conception of the seriousness of all this.” A widow without children, she had lived with her mother for the past five years.
“I think she does, but she refuses to acknowledge it. She becomes more difficult to reason with all the time. As a result, we’re forced to follow this young historian around until we’re sure he’s nothing more.”
Isabelle heard the annoyance in Philip’s voice. She frowned. Horned-rimmed glasses and hair pulled straight back accented the expression. “I do my best, Philip,” she said sharply. “We try to keep her happy. We take her where she wants to go. We see that she has visitors. We do whatever you ask.”
“Did you know that the young historian had brunch with Christopher and spent the afternoon talking with an administrator in the Museum of Fine Arts?”
“If you’re blaming me for that, you can finish incinerating the roof of your mouth alone. I have little enough taste for this food as it is.”
Philip tenderly took her hand in his. “I’m simply relating the events of the day. I really don’t have anyone else to discuss them with.”
She studied him for a moment. “Then no more talk of this business. It sickens me sometimes to think of what’s happened to us.”
“It would sicken you more to see William Rule in my office.”
She nodded. Her expression softened. The age lines around her eyes disappeared. Philip recalled how beautiful he had once found her.
A phone call for Philip Pratt. He took it in the vestibule. Christopher Carrington’s voice wound tight around the line. “Philip?”
“Christopher, I’ve been trying to get hold of you all day. Who is that student?”
“He’s nobody. I’ve just spoken with Uncle Calvin, and I want to extend the same courtesy to you. I’m calling the police.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The police. I’m going to give evidence of a murder.”
“Murder? Whose murder?”
“One of our distant relatives. She’s dead.”
“I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Because you don’t read the right newspapers. Yesterday’s Los Angeles Times reported the murder of Sally Korbel in her Santa Monica apartment.”
Pratt was stunned. Three days ago, he’d been with her. Three days ago, he’d screwed her. He couldn’t believe it. “I had nothing to do with this, Chris. We’re not killers.”
“Somebody killed her, Philip. If you didn’t, perhaps it was Rule. You should have no objections if we offer our information to the proper authorities.”
Pratt didn’t know what to say, but he knew he didn’t want the police involved, at least until he had talked to Calvin and Soames. “We have no information of value to anyone.”
“False.” Carrington would not be dissuaded.
“Rule did not know that I was going to California to see a whore about a sampler. If he had, he would have gotten to her first. And if he’d had her killed, there’s no way we could pin it on him. He’s too smart.”
“Genealogy is a very refined science. So is criminology. Anything is possible in either.”
“If you go to the police with a false charge of murder against William Rule, you will have to describe everything. Blow the story now, and you’ll guarantee that we lose control of Pratt Industries.”
“We’ve already lost control.” The words snapped in Pratt’s ear.
“You’re doing us no good at all, Chris. You can’t do anything for that girl. Before you call the police, give me ten minutes of your time. Please.”
Christopher Carrington hung up.
Pratt called Calvin and told him to get to Carrington’s apartment right away. Then he called Soames, who was not at home, and left a message on his service.
“I’m afraid the meal is over,” he told Isabelle. “Christopher has slipped a cog.”
Isabelle offered to go along. She was very close to her nephew and might be able to influence him.
Twenty minutes later, they arrived at Christopher Carrington’s apartment, a handsome old building on Louisburg Square.
Bennett Soames was waiting for them. “I got your message and headed here straight away.”
The hall was dark and smelled faintly of mothballs and Lysol. Carrington lived on the second floor, apartment 2A. Philip Pratt knocked.
No answer.
He knocked again.
Nothing.
“We’ve missed him,” said Pratt.
“Perhaps we can catch up with him,” offered Isabelle.
Pratt paid no attention. “I didn’t think he’d do it right away. This is really going to hamstring us.”
“Unless Rule in fact killed the girl,” she said.
“Very unlikely,” said Soames. He took out a pocket knife and probed the lock.
“There’s no need to go through the apartment,” said Pratt.
The lock popped. The door snapped open. A four inch chain lock held tight from the inside.
A shaft of light sliced into the hallway, momentarily blinding Pratt. Isabelle screamed. Pratt’s eyes adjusted.
A chair was lying on the floor in the middle of the room. Above it, a pair of expensive Italian shoes twisted back and forth like magnets above a piece of steel. The clothesline rope was attached to a curtain fastener in the wall and looped over the oak beam that crossed the middle of the ceiling.
Christopher Carrington had not been hanging there long. His face had not turned black, and the muscles in his legs were still twitching. But he was dead.