Out of the Cold (22 page)

“People told Morgan and me that Mr. Duffy had quit drinking. And the doctor he used to see at the walk-in clinic said that when Duffy drank, it was cheap wine. And if the cognac he drank the night was expensive stuff ...”

We looked at each other.

“There's one more thing, Dad,” I said. “Mr. Duffy used to warm up at a place called the Black Cat Café. One of the guys who worked there let him use the phone sometimes. He said Mr. Duffy made a call from there a couple of days before he died.”

“Does he know who Mr. Duffy called?”

I shook my head.

“Watch the chicken, Robbie,” my father said, reaching for the phone. He talked to an old friend of his on the homicide squad. An hour later, Will Spivak came over to ask my father and me some questions.

  .    .    .

I spent Christmas Day with my mother and had brunch with my dad at La Folie the next day—our post-split-up traditions.

The Tuesday after Christmas my father showed up at my mother's house. She was not pleased by the surprise visit.

“Relax, Patti,” my father said. “I'm not staying long. I just want to talk to Robbie.” He spotted me over her shoulder.

“Do you want to tell me why you didn't call me when Robyn was mugged?” my mother said.

My father glanced at me. “Robbie wanted to tell you herself,” he said. “She handled herself well.”

“She was
mugged
,” my mother said.

“I'm fine, Mom,” I said—again. I'd said it a million times already.

“I just need a minute with Robbie,” my father said. He looked at me. “Will called me.”

“Mom, let him come in. Please.”

“Who's Will?” my mother said.

“Spivak. You remember him, Patti.”

She did, because she stepped aside to let my father in out of the cold.

“You were right, Robbie,” he said. “James Franklin received a phone call in his hotel room shortly after six the night Max Templeton died. Within minutes he was downstairs hailing a taxi. Will tracked down the driver and showed him some photos. The driver remembered James Franklin. He says he drove him to a liquor store and then dropped him off in front of a place called the Black Cat Café.”

“Mr. Duffy used to go there sometimes,” I explained to my mother and Ted.

“That's exactly what a man at the café told Will,” my father said. “Turns out Mr. Duffy used the phone that night. He called James Franklin's hotel—shortly after six.”

“Did the man at the café see Mr. Franklin?”

My father shook his head. “But he says Mr. Duffy was watching at the window, and he remembers seeing a cab. It was a busy night—a lot of people were in the place trying to stay warm. He didn't pay any attention to it. Mr. Duffy left right after that.”

“What's this all about?” my mother said, curious despite herself.

“Sounds like a murder mystery to me,” Ted said jovially.

“Max Templeton and James Franklin were business partners. Max's wife said Max was having some kind of problem at work. Then Max goes out one night, never comes back. He's presumed dead—a suicide. But he didn't die. Instead, it turns out he had a serious accident that left him with a brain injury, and he was never seen again—until more than twenty years later,” my father said. “I wonder what kind of problems he was having at work.”

“You think maybe that first accident wasn't an accident?” I said.

“You mean we're actually talking about a murder?” Ted said, his smile replaced by a look of astonishment.

“Could be,” my father said. “Say, is that eggnog?” He headed for the dining room table where my mother had been laying out brunch.

My mother had opened her mouth to protest when Ted said, “It sure is. I was just going to pour myself one. Join me, Mac?” My mom sighed heavily.

CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN

B

en and I spent the last day of the year at the homeless shelter, prepping food and playing cards with some of the regulars. I kept an eye out for Andrew. When I saw him come in, I excused myself from the card game.

“Hey, Robyn,” he said. He started to smile and then stopped himself, as usual.

“Go ahead,” I said. “Do it.”

“Do what?”

“Give me a smile.”

He shook his head.

“Come on, Andrew,” I said.

He shook his head. “I can't.”

“Why not?”

He looked down at the ground.

“Your teeth?”

He nodded without raising his head.

“Come on, smile for me. Please?”

His head came up slowly and, after a moment's hesitation, he forced a grin. As he revealed his teeth, his cheeks turned red and he looked down again.

“Teeth can be fixed, Andrew,” I said.

“Getting them fixed costs money.”

“Dental students are always looking for people to practice on. They don't charge much. Some of them do some free work, too, for people who can't afford it. I checked it out for you, found someone who'd help you out. I can make an appointment, if you'd like.”

This time he did smile, widely and spontaneously. He started to cover his mouth again, but I pushed back his hand.

“Thanks, Robyn,” he said.

“Happy New Year, Andrew,” I said. Maybe after his teeth were fixed and he had a little more confidence, we could work on his reading problem.

At five o'clock Ben and I headed over to my dad's place to help set up for his annual New Year's Eve party. Morgan and Billy were planning to come, as were some of my father's tenants and business associates, and practically everyone else he knew.

The buzzer sounded while my father and Ben were hanging up a
Happy New Year
banner.

“Get that, will you, Robbie?” my father said.

It was Frances Braithwaite.

“I'm sorry,” she said when she saw the decorations. “I don't want to interrupt. I just wanted to tell you in per-son—”

My father scrambled down from a stepladder and introduced himself.

“We spoke on the phone,” he said. He turned to me. “Will gave Mrs. Braithwaite my number. She asked if she could drop by to see you.” He waved her inside. “Can I offer you something to drink, Mrs. Braithwaite?”

“Please, call me Frances,” she said. “Mr. Hunter—”

“Mac,” my father said.

Mrs. Braithwaite smiled, but there was sadness in her eyes. “Mac. I just wanted to thank you and your daughter for everything. James ...” She hesitated and drew in a deep breath. “The police have arrested James for Max's murder.”

So I had been right—Mr. Duffy's death wasn't an accident. I glanced at my father but couldn't tell what he was thinking.

“The prosecutor offered to reduce the charge from first-degree to second-degree, with eligibility for parole after ten years if he confessed,” Braithwaite said.

“Ten years?” I said. It didn't seem like much after what he had done. “Did he take it?”

She nodded. “James is sixty-three years old. If he were convicted of first-degree murder, he'd have spent the rest of his life in prison. At least this way he has a chance of getting out before he dies.”

My father nodded but didn't say anything. Mrs. Braithwaite continued.

“James told the police that he thought he'd killed Max twenty-three years ago,” she said.

“But why?” Ben asked. “What did he have against Mr. Duffy—I mean, Mr. Templeton?”

“Max and James were in business together. They did very well, made a lot of money. Then Max developed a new program that would have made them even more money—a
lot
more. But Max didn't care about that part. I remember him telling me that if money was all he was interested in, he could have already retired. He wanted to make sure that anyone who wanted to use his new program could have it.”

“And Mr. Franklin didn't like that,” I said.

“No, he didn't,” Mrs. Braithwaite said. “He says he tried to reason with Max. But Max was having problems by then. He was deeply depressed, and he was drinking. He threatened to break up the partnership and take his new program with him.”

“Is that why Mr. Franklin killed him?” Ben said.

“He couldn't bear the thought of Max giving away something that was so valuable. The last night I saw Max, we had a big fight. Max said he was going to the office. He had set up the business near the docks, where rent was cheap. The area was surrounded by warehouses. James was waiting for him. He clubbed Max with a piece of pipe, then removed his IDs, some of his clothing.”

“He obviously overlooked a few items,” my father said. “The locket and the ring.”

“He said he heard someone coming and panicked. He dumped Max's body in a truck behind one of the warehouses. The truck was taking a shipment south, across the border. He hid Max at the very back, under some old packing blankets. Then he threw some of Max's things into the water.”

“So it'd look like a suicide,” my father said.

“Where did Mr. Duf— Mr. Templeton end up?” Ben said.

“No one knows,” Mrs. Braithwaite said. “I'm going to hire someone to see if I can find out. All I know at this point is that Max suffered massive head trauma. He may have had brain damage, some loss of memory.” She shook her head. “If only I had known. If only he had found some way to contact me.”

“It must have been a shock to Mr. Franklin to run into Max after all these years,” I said.

“It was,” Braithwaite said. “He thought Max had been dead for years. He says he didn't even recognize him. Max spoke first. He told James that he'd seen me. Even then James didn't recognize him. To him, Max was just some homeless man. Then James saw the locket. He tried to take it.”

“No wonder Max gave it to Yasmin,” I said. “And he told Aisha that he was afraid the ring would be stolen.”

“James said he was thunderstruck. He says he looked at him again and started to see how it could be Max. Max even had his old school ring. And then Edward came along, and James hustled him away before Max could say anything else.”

“But Edward heard him say your name,” I said.

“Which meant nothing to Edward. He's always known me as Frances, not Franny. And he would never have recognized Max.” Mrs. Braithwaite's voice trembled.

“Let me get you some water, Frances,” my father said gently.

Mrs. Braithwaite shook her head. “No, but thank you.”

“Why didn't Mr. Franklin just avoid Mr. Templeton?” Ben said. “Why did he kill him?”

“Fear,” Braithwaite said. “Max had mentioned my name. He had the locket. He'd said he'd seen me. He said something about wanting to go home.”

“He said something like that to Aisha,” I said. “Asked her if she would take him back. She didn't know what he was talking about. But maybe he was talking about
you
. Maybe he was wondering if you'd take him back after all these years, after everything that happened.”

Braithwaite's eyes were misty as she nodded. “James was also afraid that someone would find out what he did all those years ago. He kept an eye on Max for the next little while.”

“And then he killed him,” Ben said.

Mrs. Braithwaite nodded. “James tried to get friendly with Max so that he could try to find out what Max remembered.”

“He gave Max a card from the hotel where he was staying,” I said. “Did he say why?”

“For the same reason,” Braithwaite said. “If Max contacted him, that would mean he really did remember something—that he really did want to go home. When Max didn't contact him, James started to think that everything was going to be okay.”

“But he did call,” I said. “He called the night he died.”

“He was cold. He wanted a place to stay. So he called James. And that's when James saw his chance. He arranged to meet Max. On the way, he picked up a bottle of Max's favorite drink.”

“The cognac,” I said.

Braithwaite nodded again. “He told Max it was just a short walk to the hotel. He said he'd brought something to keep them warm on the way. He kept Max drinking until he passed out. It couldn't have taken long, with Max in the shape he was. Then James left him in a doorway and watched him for a while from across the street.” She wiped tears from her eyes. “He was also responsible for what happened to you, Robyn. When he heard what you were doing, he had you followed.”

By the man in the black hat.

“When he found out you had that photo, he was afraid that someone—me, I suppose—might recognize the man in it. He paid someone to take it away from you. I'm sorry. But he's given the police the man's name. If they can find him, they'll arrest him for robbery and assault.”

I didn't know what to say.

“Well, at least I know what happened to poor Max,” Mrs. Braithwaite said. “And I know because someone—you, Robyn—cared enough about a stranger to try to put a human face on him. I'll always be grateful for that.”