I was going to
break my word to her father and tell the police about the document. I
didn’t like it, but McMasters wasn’t giving me any other choice.
"Shit," I said under my breath.
The old woman in the corner cackled. She thought she
was getting to me.
Why the hell had Sarah called me anyway? Judging from
what McMasters had said, probably to blow off a little steam. To turn
the knife. Or maybe she had phoned me before the previous night’s
fiasco. There was no way to tell from my shoddy answerphone what time
a call came in. Maybe there had been something she’d wanted to tell
me after that curious, desultory interview on Wednesday afternoon.
After I’d blackmailed her into hiring me in the first place.
"Shit," I said again. And the old woman
laughed.
It really wasn’t very nice, what I was going to do.
Extorting Sarah’s compliance and then reneging on the agreement as
soon as the going got rough. On the other hand, Harry, I told myself,
the girl is suspected of murder, of killing the man that you’re
trying to protect. And Rose Weinberg notwithstanding, Sarah had a
motive and she’d been on the scene at the time of the crime. She
was a little crazy, to boot. Her own father had feared she might do
him violence. It was just self-indulgence, just posturing to pretend
that she was an innocent who was being unjustly betrayed.
It would have been self-indulgence, all right, if I’d
believed what I was saying to myself. Only I didn’t believe that
she’d killed her father. I’d told Rose Weinberg I’d remain
impartial until the police forced me to take sides. But that was a
lie. And she’d known it was a lie. Like Mrs. Weinberg, my intuition
said that Sarah Lovingwell was not a killer and that her father was
not the man he’d seemed to be. Why in hell hadn’t he told me that
his daughter hated him? It wasn’t a pleasant thing to confess to a
stranger, but neither was the fact that he’d suspected his daughter
was a thief. He’d hinted urbanely that he and Sarah had had their
little disagreements, like every other father and daughter in the
world. But if there was one thing that was indisputable about the
Lovingwell case, it was the fact that they were not an ordinary
father and daughter. Why, then, had he disguised Sarah’s hatred for
him?
An armed guard walked out of the visitor’s room and
a bell rang. The people in the anteroom lined up before a table and
submitted docilely to a search of their coats and handbags. Play it
by ear, I decided as I waited to be frisked. Which was just a tired
way of saying that the Lovingwells were still a problem that I
couldn’t solve. The cops patted me down, and I stepped through the
door into the visitor’s area.
I started down a hall to the main reception room—a
big, barren box posted with guards and divided in half by a long
wooden table, on either side of which prisoners and their kin sat
talking.
"Your name Stoner?" a guard asked me.
"Yeah."
"This way."
He took me by the arm and guided me away from the
main hall down a narrow corridor lined with private rooms—cubicles
that lawyers used when they wanted to consult with their clients.
Since I wasn’t a lawyer, the exception struck me as odd. Odd until
I walked into the
room itself.
It was four-square and as uninspired as a child’s
wooden block, and along the length of the wall opposite the door a
mirror ran from corner to corner. I laughed when I saw myself
reflected in it. McMasters wasn’t taking any chances. There was
probably a microphone, too, hidden under the steel table or under one
of the two desk chairs that were parked beneath it.
"Testing, testing," I shouted into the
tabletop. "Can you hear all right, Sid?"
I gave the finger to whoever was standing behind the
mirror and sat down at the table.
A minute later Sarah Lovingwell walked in.
I’d expected her to look angry when she saw me; I
was even prepared to get slapped. But I could see at once that that
wasn’t going to happen. In
break my word to her father and tell the police about the document. I
didn’t like it, but McMasters wasn’t giving me any other choice.
"Shit," I said under my breath.
The old woman in the corner cackled. She thought she
was getting to me.
Why the hell had Sarah called me anyway? Judging from
what McMasters had said, probably to blow off a little steam. To turn
the knife. Or maybe she had phoned me before the previous night’s
fiasco. There was no way to tell from my shoddy answerphone what time
a call came in. Maybe there had been something she’d wanted to tell
me after that curious, desultory interview on Wednesday afternoon.
After I’d blackmailed her into hiring me in the first place.
"Shit," I said again. And the old woman
laughed.
It really wasn’t very nice, what I was going to do.
Extorting Sarah’s compliance and then reneging on the agreement as
soon as the going got rough. On the other hand, Harry, I told myself,
the girl is suspected of murder, of killing the man that you’re
trying to protect. And Rose Weinberg notwithstanding, Sarah had a
motive and she’d been on the scene at the time of the crime. She
was a little crazy, to boot. Her own father had feared she might do
him violence. It was just self-indulgence, just posturing to pretend
that she was an innocent who was being unjustly betrayed.
It would have been self-indulgence, all right, if I’d
believed what I was saying to myself. Only I didn’t believe that
she’d killed her father. I’d told Rose Weinberg I’d remain
impartial until the police forced me to take sides. But that was a
lie. And she’d known it was a lie. Like Mrs. Weinberg, my intuition
said that Sarah Lovingwell was not a killer and that her father was
not the man he’d seemed to be. Why in hell hadn’t he told me that
his daughter hated him? It wasn’t a pleasant thing to confess to a
stranger, but neither was the fact that he’d suspected his daughter
was a thief. He’d hinted urbanely that he and Sarah had had their
little disagreements, like every other father and daughter in the
world. But if there was one thing that was indisputable about the
Lovingwell case, it was the fact that they were not an ordinary
father and daughter. Why, then, had he disguised Sarah’s hatred for
him?
An armed guard walked out of the visitor’s room and
a bell rang. The people in the anteroom lined up before a table and
submitted docilely to a search of their coats and handbags. Play it
by ear, I decided as I waited to be frisked. Which was just a tired
way of saying that the Lovingwells were still a problem that I
couldn’t solve. The cops patted me down, and I stepped through the
door into the visitor’s area.
I started down a hall to the main reception room—a
big, barren box posted with guards and divided in half by a long
wooden table, on either side of which prisoners and their kin sat
talking.
"Your name Stoner?" a guard asked me.
"Yeah."
"This way."
He took me by the arm and guided me away from the
main hall down a narrow corridor lined with private rooms—cubicles
that lawyers used when they wanted to consult with their clients.
Since I wasn’t a lawyer, the exception struck me as odd. Odd until
I walked into the
room itself.
It was four-square and as uninspired as a child’s
wooden block, and along the length of the wall opposite the door a
mirror ran from corner to corner. I laughed when I saw myself
reflected in it. McMasters wasn’t taking any chances. There was
probably a microphone, too, hidden under the steel table or under one
of the two desk chairs that were parked beneath it.
"Testing, testing," I shouted into the
tabletop. "Can you hear all right, Sid?"
I gave the finger to whoever was standing behind the
mirror and sat down at the table.
A minute later Sarah Lovingwell walked in.
I’d expected her to look angry when she saw me; I
was even prepared to get slapped. But I could see at once that that
wasn’t going to happen. In
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