On my desk was a message to call Wilma at a certain number. No last name. Just Wilma. I had my suspicions who it was I would be calling.
An hour after leaving the park, I was still cold. Sarah Anders brought me a large mug of steaming coffee and watched me curiously as I shivered.
"You coming down with a cold?"
"Had a hard time finding a parking place for lunch. I had to walk several blocks."
She smiled. "Must've been very long blocks."
I was staring at her. Obviously. Her lover was less than three hours dead. She seemed to be holding up remarkably well, especially given the fact that her first response on hearing the news had been to faint.
"You're wondering why I'm not hysterical?"
I could feel myself flush. She was a perceptive woman. "I suppose I am."
"Very simple, really. I've decided that I should be more concerned about the living than the dead."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning that I'm going to stay here long enough to make sure I've collected myself, then I'm going to go home and fix my husband the best meal he's had in years." Tears shone in her eyes. "I've really been a bitch to him."
I decided to help her forget about Gettig by changing the subject. "Did you send everybody home?"
She nodded, pulling herself back from her grief. "Yes. And almost everybody took me up on my offer of the rest of the day off. Only the usual diehards-"
She named several people who were still here.
One of them happened to be the man who'd picked up the envelope at the duck pond.
I could feel my pulse start to pound.
"Why don't you go home now, Sarah?" I said.
"I'm afraid he'll find out someday."
"Even if he did find out," I said, "I'm sure he'd forgive you, if that's what you want."
"Oh yes," she said, tearing up again, "that's what I want, Michael."
I came around the desk and took her in my arms and held her and let her shudder and sob until it passed like a muscle spasm.
"The terrible thing is that I don't feel anything for Ron now," she said. "Nothing at all. I look back on what we did and it just seems-silly. You know?"
These were the words I'd wanted my own wife to speak after she'd told me about her various lovers, including Denny Harris. I'd wanted to patch things up despite my pain and distrust and sorrow, but she hadn't wanted that at all. She'd just wanted out…
"Why don't you go home now, Sarah?"
"You really think he'd forgive me if he ever found out?"
I tried to give her an honest answer. I thought of the conversations I'd had with her husband over the years. He was one of those men whose blandness misled people into thinking he's slow. Actually, he had a quiet, wry sense of humor and what seemed to be a very healthy self-image. He was also obviously gaga over his wife of thirty years.
"I think he'd forgive you, Sarah. I honestly do."
This time her tears were punctuated with a kind of laughter. I held her until she pushed gently away and said, "Boy, am I going to fix him a dinner."
The way she said it, I had an image of roast beef and mashed potatoes and peas, my own favorite meal. I half wished she would invite me along.
Twenty minutes later I walked along the corridor leading to the back of the shop.
I still couldn't quite believe that the man I'd seen at the duck pond could actually be the man Stokes planned to blackmail but…
On the art department bulletin board I saw a yellowed pencil cartoon of Denny with his leg in a cast being helped into a waiting limousine by Tommy Byrnes. I stopped to examine the cartoon closer. I'd forgotten all about Denny's breaking his leg six months ago playing racquetball, and in fact that Tommy Byrnes had virtually become his valet during that period.
Maybe Denny had said something to Tommy that would shed some light on things. I made a note to contact Tommy later in the afternoon.
A typewriter sounded lonely in the drab afternoon light. As I got closer to the accounting office, the typewriter got louder.
In the reception area, I saw her, sitting alone in an island of empty desks. Belinda Matson.
She was typing so intensely she didn't notice me until I came up beside her.
Then, startled, she jumped a bit off her seat.
I put what I hoped was a reassuring hand on her shoulder. She wrenched it away as if the hand were poison. Does nice things for a guy's ego. "Sorry if I scared you," I said.
Before she spoke, I glanced down at the paper in her typewriter.
The salutation was-"My Dearest Darling Merle-"
It was then that I noticed how tear-stained her eyes looked, and the terrible twitch that traveled through her slight body. This wasn't a goddamned ad agency, it was a broken-hearts club.
In a gesture similar to shaking off my touch, Belinda put her body across the platen so I couldn't read the paper and said, "I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't pry into my affairs."
Yes, I could certainly read women all right. How had I ever entertained the notion that this woman had any interest in me?
"Sorry," I said. I nodded to the back. "Is Merle in?"
"I'm not sure."
It was so obvious a lie it was almost amusing. She'd said it petulantly, like a displeased little girl. I wondered why she was writing Merle a letter. Maybe she knew something I should.
I just kind of rolled my head in displeasure and walked toward the back, to Merle's office. It was wonderful being boss. You commanded so much respect.
In the gloom I saw a table lamp such as you see in fancy living rooms. Merle's choice in decor was suburban through and through.
I knocked on the curtained glass door. No response. I put my hand on the doorknob. Open. I went in.
In the shadows I saw two things clearly. The body of Merle Wickes seated stiffly in his tall-back executive chair and a glistening. 38 sitting in front of him on his desk.
I did not need to be a mastermind to know what was happening. Or what was about to happen.
Merle still seemed unaware of my presence. I stood there staring at him, his breathing loud in the gloomy silence, feeling sorry for him, seeing him as a little silly despite the situation and his obvious pain.
It was his hair-that said everything about him. It was silly and I couldn't help it, like taking a Wally Cox type and putting a Wayne Newton hairdo on him and draping him in glitter.
I knew what I had to do. I just wondered if I'd be quick enough to pull it off.
I leaned forward and made a grab for the. 38. Merle surprised me. Completely.
He had the gun in his hand and pointed at me before I had time to lean back.
"Get out of here, Michael," he said. "Or I'll kill you."
"Merle," I said. "It isn't worth it-killing me or killing yourself."
An ugly, self-deprecating laugh came up from him and he shook his head miserably. "You don't know what's going on," he said. "If you did, you'd be scared like I am."
The oddness of his remark almost made me forget that he was holding a gun on me. Here I was assuming that we were talking about his guilt in the two murders, yet he seemed to be saying that he was somehow a victim-
"I'm not following you, Merle."
"Of course you're not. You don't understand a damned thing about what's going on here."
"You mean Denny and Gettig?"
He nodded. "And it isn't going to stop with them." He glanced at the gun. "I'm next. Then probably you."
"Me? What the hell do I have to do with anything?" He fell back into his miserable silence.
I repeated myself, "What the hell do I have to do with anything?"
"Maybe it's guilt by association." He sounded almost amused.
I wanted to hit him. Hard.
"You went to the duck pond in the city park earlier today," I said. "And the other night I saw you at a private detective's named Stokes."
Instead of shouting out his innocence, or grabbing his gun, Merle Wickes just sat back in his chair and let go with a distinctly asthmatic laugh, a keening little laugh that conveyed a surprising smugness.
"You dumb bastard," he said. "Stokes has got you playing along, I see."
He leaned forward, the laugh still in his voice. "You sure pick good private detectives, Michael. Two days after you hired Stokes, he came to Denny and said that he'd put you on a false trail if Denny paid him enough. To Denny it sounded like a great game. He let Stokes tell you about Cindy Traynor and him just because he knew how much it would scare you-" He laughed again. "You're fun to watch when you get uptight, Michael."
Which was when I grabbed him. Yanked him from behind the desk and hit him so hard across the face that blood spurted from his nose immediately. Then I threw him back in his chair and came around the desk. Any self-confidence his hairdo gave him was gone. He started to whimper and to flutter his hands in front of his face for protection. I couldn't help myself. I grabbed him again and slapped him backhand across the face.
"I want to know what the hell's going on," I said.
"Stokes," he muttered.
"What about Stokes?"
"He's playing us off against each other."
"What the hell does that mean?" I said.
He sat in the chair trying to catch his breath and whimpering and finally he said, "Stokes is bleeding every one of us he can. He found out some things about Denny-and demanded money."
"What things?"
"I–I'm not sure."
"You're a goddamned liar."
"No, really I…"
I started toward him again, hating myself for the violence but unable to stop myself, when something hit me on the shoulder.
I groaned, turned to see Belinda Matson standing behind me.
"Leave him alone!" she cried. "He's suffered enough."
I looked at the bronze bookend she'd thrown at me.
The air of violence subsided as we all stood there glaring at each other, not quite knowing what to say.
I was still working on what Merle had said about Stokes, a man I planned to have a talk with as soon as possible.
"Stokes says the photograph you picked up at the duck pond shows that you killed Denny," I said to Merle.
Merle shook his head. "He knows better than that."
"Then you were there that night?"
He shrugged. "Sure I was. I'll even admit we had an argument."
"About what?"
He said nothing.
"About what?"
He sighed. "We had an argument. That's all that matters. But I didn't kill him."
I turned back to Belinda. I wondered if she'd told Merle about Clay Traynor yet and decided she probably hadn't.
And it wasn't my place to inform him that his mistress had a lover.
"Would you mind leaving us alone?" I asked her. "Yes, I would. I don't want you to hurt him."
"I'm not going to hurt him." She looked at Merle then at me. "You promise?" I promise.
"Is it all right if I leave?" she asked Merle.
He didn't seem to hear her. He was somewhere else.
She stared at him several long moments then left, looking hurt and confused. I wondered what the letter she was writing Merle said. If it admitted to the affair she had had, or was still having, with Clay Traynor, or if it shed any light on the murders. For some reason, I had the feeling that is was a very important letter, and one I needed to lay my hands on.
Merle went back behind his desk and put his hands over his face. Then he took them away. His face looked awful, as if he'd just awakened from the worst hangover of his life.
"There's no way out now," he said.
"From what?" I said, trying to keep my voice friendly.
"You know what I'd really like to do?"
"What?"
"Go back to my wife. Patch things up." He made me think of Sarah Anders-maybe we could have a big group therapy session up here.
"You've got a nice wife."
"Damned nice." He sounded as if he were going to start crying. Then he nodded to the outer office where the sound of a typewriter could be heard. "Clay Traynor strikes again. He and Belinda were seeing each other for a while. Belinda said she just got tired of sitting home alone nights when I had to be with my wife. I guess I can't blame her." But obviously he did.
So he did know. I felt sorry for the poor bastard. Sitting there, his shoulders slumped, he looked much older than his forty years. In high school, I felt sure, he had been head of the camera club or the science club-the classic nerd as seen by his classmates-and now here he was trying to compensate for all that pain and dislocation by having a hairstyle that looked silly and a mistress who was unfaithful. It wasn't funny. Some of the pity I felt for him crept into my voice. "Why was Denny murdered, Merle?"
He shrugged. "I don't know, Michael, I really don't."
"You didn't do it, then?"
The laugh again. "You really think I could commit murder, Michael?" He was copping to his nerd image- using it to his advantage-but it didn't work. Nerds commit their share of murders, too.
"So why the gun?" I said.
"Because it's all such a goddamn mess, why else?"
"There's something you're not telling me."
He shrugged, sighed again, looked miserable.
I took the newspaper clipping out of my pocket and put it on his desk. Right next to the gun.
He didn't notice it for a while. Then his eyes narrowed and he reached out a delicate finger and picked it up.
The way the blood started filling his cheeky cheeks, it was obvious Merle knew the significance of the clipping.
He surprised me. He decided to lie. He threw it back at me. "Hell, I don't know what this means."
I leaned forward. "Merle, I'm going to hurt you. I really am. Unless you tell me what the hell's going on. What's this clipping got to do with the murders?"
I watched him eye the gun on his desk. Was he thinking of using it on me or himself?
From behind me, a voice said, "You'd better leave now." Belinda Matson.
"I'm not going anywhere."
"Yes, you are," she said, coming into the office. "Because Merle's going to pick up the gun and make you leave." She looked at Merle. "Aren't you, honey?"
Merle flushed again. He didn't want me to see how dependent he was on others for his strength. But that didn't stop him from picking the gun up and pointing it at me. There was oil on the gun and part of the handle was chipped. The flaws made it all the more real.
"You're a stupid bastard, Merle," I said. "There's a good chance you're involved in something that's already taken two lives. But you're not handling it right, believe me. You're going to die, too."
I watched Belinda this time instead of Merle. I could see her pretty, tiny face stretch with anguish as I spoke. Obviously she was worried about the same thing. All these crazy people I was surrounded with-and the secret that tied them all together, the secret I didn't know.
"Merle-" I started to say, feeling sorry for him again.
"All you need to know," Merle said, sounding much more self-confident with the gun in his hand, "is that I didn't kill either Denny or Gettig. Either one of them. Your man Stokes is working a con game-he's got pictures of all of us who were there that night. He was hiding in the house. He decided to fleece me because he wrongly thinks I have access to certain moneys-" He glanced up to little Belinda. She shot him a glance that said he was talking too much. This is how it had been for all of Merle's life. Never quite knowing how to handle a situation, screwing it up more likely than not.
"He'll be clearing out his desk," Belinda said. "He won't be working here anymore. Neither will I."
"That's going to look great to the cops," I said.
She shrugged. Her sense of desperation matched Merle's earlier mood. "They can't prove anything."
I stood up. "I wish you two would let me help you."
"You just worry about yourself," Belinda said, now the official spokesperson for both of them. "Whoever's doing this may have you included in the plans, too."
I knew there was no point in asking for that obscure sentence to be cleared up for me.
Merle waved the gun at me again, looking sad and silly.
"I hope you know what you're doing," I said.
"I do," he said. But didn't believe it, either.