“SEAMUS,” MY wife asked bluntly, “do you always work so late at night in your office at the IBM Building?”
“Sometimes, Ms. Holmes, ma’am,” he said with a broad grin. “That’s not a crime, is it?”
“How would someone know that you would be coming out of your office at that hour on the night you were shot?”
“Well, I usually don’t stay there after eleven.”
Your man had been issued a preemptory summons to appear at our house in the 2300 block on Southport Avenue. It was strictly a business meeting. The dogs were in the yard, the older kids in the basement with Ethne, Socra Marie upstairs in her bassinet under the watchful eye of Danuta, who was pursuing whatever dust had dared to settle in the upstairs rooms. My wife had donned a light brown, summer business suit from her days at Arthur Andersen. She had insisted that I note it still fit her, in a tone of voice which hinted that she knew I wouldn’t believe her.
“Have you been working late there often recently?”
He lifted a hand as if in self-defense.
“We have a major case scheduled for trial in a couple of weeks. With all that wedding noise and mess at the house…”
“You were, however, waiting for someone there that night?”
He squirmed uneasily.
“I told the police I wasn’t.”
“Come, Seamus, I don’t care what you told the police. Someone phoned you and promised you something special if you waited in the office. Who was it?”
“The voice was disguised. I didn’t recognize it.”
“Man or woman?”
“I’m not sure. Man probably.”
“And he promised you…?”
“I’d rather not say…”
“Come on, Seamus, I’m not the police.”
In such dialogues as this, the brogue disappeared and Nuala talked like a Yank.
“If I tell you something that might be illegal, you’d be obstructing justice if you didn’t tell the police.”
“All right, I’ll tell you. The phone caller promised you more information for the dossier you’re keeping on the Shepherds.”
If Seamus Costelloe had been holding a drink he would have dropped it. For a moment I thought he might flee the house. Failing that I expected a sign of the cross.
“How did you know that?”
She’d been guessing. My wife is a pretty good guesser. Now she knew for sure.
“I know, that’s all that matters. The caller had information about tilting the playing field in a recent highprofile trial.”
Still guessing.
Maybe.
“All right. The man on the phone said he’d come by about ten-thirty. I said I’d wait till eleven. If he didn’t come I’d go home. He didn’t. I left the office, locked the door, and turned around and there was this person with the Clinton mask and the cloak and the gun. He missed. I ran towards the elevator and he winged me. Then he turned and ran to the stairs, just like I told the cops. I went back into the office and called 911.”
“You insist that you didn’t recognize the person?’
“How do you recognize someone with a mask and a black coat?”
“Man or woman?”
“I thought it was a man.”
“You’re not telling me everything, Seamus.”
“Absolutely everything.”
Nuala was unhappy when he left.
“I don’t like this at all, at all, Dermot Michael,” she said. “There’s a lot of bad people out there.”
“ ’Tis true.” I sighed, imitating her as I often do, sometimes unintentionally.
“Your man’s a grand friggin’ fool, Dermot Michael.”
“Is he now?”
“He is.”
“You think that the killer will try again?”
She looked at me in surprise.
“Not that killer, if you take me meaning.”
I didn’t.