Simple (17 page)

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EVEN WHEN PARKING
in the roundabout and simply looking at the outside of the Connolly house, Christie feels like a rube. To think of living like this.

Marina would love this house and grounds—rolling land and stands of trees, everything attended to. Each matching flowerpot lining the driveway wall is so clean you wouldn't believe they held or sat anywhere near dirt. He can't identify the flowers—he knows the common ones, but these beauties are blooming in gorgeous shades of pink, orange, red, and white. He takes a quick, inadequate picture with his cell phone just to capture the colors.

He's always known the area was here—private homes bordering the Chatham University campus—but he's had no cause to be up here on Homicide business. He knows rich girls go to this school, but also some poor girls on scholarships. He knows all this because he listens to others at the office preparing to get their kids into colleges. He wonders how his own daughter, Julie, would feel ending up next to kids who have horses, convertibles, summer homes.

The campus buildings are mostly old mansions, converted. There are homes all over Pittsburgh that speak of this other, privileged life that flowered a century ago. Carriages, horses, chauffeurs, gowns with trains—he's seen the pictures. History interests him.

He uses his cell to call Marina. “I still have work. Give me two hours. Eat without me if you want.”

“I'm okay. I can wait. Is it … something complicated?”

“I honestly can't tell. It could be simple and I'm making it complex.”

“Where are you now?”

“Outside Connolly's house, about to go in. It's awfully fancy.”

“I'll wait. You can tell me at dinner. I'm just marinating some tuna steaks. I'll eat cheese till you get here.”

“I'll hurry. Pray I don't bump something precious.”

“Move very slowly.”

“Yeah,” he laughs.

So he exits his car, taps a knocker, rings a bell, and is greeted by an open door more quickly than those sounds could have communicated his presence to anybody a room away. It's Elinor at the door, Cal's mother.

“I wanted to answer. I wanted to thank you,” she says.

“I was glad to do it. Those people—” He shakes his head. “Nothing better to do than insist on a set of rules.”

“Well, I thank you.”

“How was he?”

“I'm worried.”

He waits. It seems he waits a long time.

“He's in shock, I think.”

“I'll make sure a behavioral person gets in there as soon as possible.”

“Thank you. I'd better take you to Mr. Connolly.”

He follows her through two large spacious rooms he would like to look at, but he's moving too fast to know what they contain except carved things and furniture that looks valuable, antique. The room he ends up in is a large cushy family room with a big flat TV and a bar. Connolly, in jeans and a T-shirt, is sitting on one of the sofas, making marginal comments in a file of papers. The national news is on. When he sees Christie, he clicks off the TV and stands.

They nod to each other.

“Thanks for coming here. It makes it easier for me.”

“You're welcome.”

“Please have a seat wherever you like. Can I get you a drink?”

Christie sees that Connolly has a drink started. It looks mighty good to him, but he won't accept a drink on the job. “Alcohol, no, but water or a Coke, I might take you up on that. It got hot today.”

“Blistering at times.”

Blistering. He watches Connolly at the bar top his own drink up and fill two glasses with ice, then one with water, the other with Coke. “I'm getting you both,” he says.

“This is a big room. Will we be private? Not overheard?”

“You're thinking of Elinor. She's scrupulous. I told her we needed privacy. I banished my wife and the boys to the outside. They're all busy cooking hot dogs and burgers. They'll stay out there.”

Hot dogs and burgers. Not terrine of pigeon and foie gras.

“I can get you something to eat if you want.”

“No, thank you. I don't want to ruin my appetite. My wife told me it's tuna steaks tonight.”

“I like them. Seared. Rare. About raw.”

Christie smiles. He eats his tuna cooked medium, and it has taken him a while to get that far.

“Tell me everything you know about Cassie Price and Cal Hathaway. For starters, how did you know each of them?”

“Well, Elinor has been with our family for a long time. Her mother was, too. Her mother worked for my father's family, and then Elinor did when I was growing up.”

“Here?”

“Yes, my father and mother used to live here, but then he wanted to move to Sewickley, but he and my mother didn't want to lose this place and my brother didn't want it and I did. That's more information than you need—”

“No, no, that's fascinating. So you love it? I mean, I don't blame you. It's wonderful.”

“Yes, I do. I just do. Elinor didn't want to commute out to Sewickley and she didn't want to live out there, so I kept her on. I've never been sorry for a minute. She makes everything flow smoothly. We don't even see half of what she does. Anyway, that's the long story for how I know her son. She brought him around every once in a while when he was little, but mostly we didn't see him until he was grown. For a couple of seasons he worked on our grounds under a man we use for landscaping. Elinor liked having her son around. She'd get to have lunch with him some days.”

“Did you know him?'

“Not much. A little. In passing.”

“How did both Cal Hathaway and Cassie Price end up buying houses in the same neighborhood?”

“Ah, yes. Well, one of the boards I'm on is the University of Pittsburgh. We would like to eradicate crime and poverty in the Oakland area. Well, eradicate might be going too far, but we want to reduce it.”

“I'm pretty sure one of the reporters was trying to get you to talk about that today.”

“Well, I'm supporting this organization called Own Oakland. They buy up properties and then sell them for very little—the idea being to get a stable person in there who will take care of the property and not turn it into absentee landlord student housing. We believe that's the trick to making … safe neighborhoods.” He has slowed down considerably. “Yes, I heard what I just said.”

“It's a horrible blow to the program, I would think.”

“Probably. That's not the most important thing here. Two worthwhile young people are finished. One in prison and the other—” He can't finish the sentence. It seems genuine.

“Did you have the impression anywhere along the way that they were seeing each other?”

Connolly blinks and looks unfocused. “I never thought about it. I think I heard someone at the office said so, but I don't know.”

“Okay, so now to how you knew Cassie Price. Can you tell me how she was hired, what she did there, and all that?”

Connolly winced slightly. “You seem like a reporter.”

“Well, you might as well practice on me, because they're going to be at you as soon as they can be. So how was Cassie hired?”

“What she wanted … you see, she applied in a letter for an internship. But we don't normally have interns. We may have a lot of money in the family, but that's not the same thing as having it in the firm, and we don't run the firm sloppily, that's for sure.”

“Maybe that's why you have a lot of money.”

At first Connolly looked confused, and then he laughed. “Oh, the money doesn't come from the firm.”

“It doesn't?”

“Oh, no, I mean, lawyers make a decent living, a very nice living much of the time, but my childhood, this house, my father's house … it comes from my grandfather, who married into U.S. Steel money, one of the daughters. My grandfather was a whiz of an investor to boot, and he was apparently really good at moving in the circles of the wealthy. I always loved hearing about him, how he wasn't born to it, but he fit better than those who were. One year he was a newly married man considered an outsider and not good enough, and by the next he was the center of a social group.”

“Is he still alive?”

“No, he died three years ago. He was ninety-one.”

“He must have been fascinating.”

“He was. A little scary, too.”

“Was he in politics?”

“No. Not at all. My father wanted to be in politics from the time he was a teenager—he talked about it often when I was a child—but he never could break away from the firm to do it. I guess he lit a fire. I found myself wanting to make a go at it and I had success.”

“He's proud of you?”

“Very. It's embarrassing.”

Christie smiles. “It's probably worse the other way. Parents have hooks. You might as well have a good hook in you.”

“Are you
sure
I can't get you anything?”

“I'm sure. Really. So now about Cassie Price?”

“Well, my father mentioned this letter he got from a woman wanting an internship. I said no, my brother said no. We're not a boutique firm, but we're small. Not like Reed Smith or Kirkpatrick.”

“Explain.”

He made a face, took a sip of his bourbon or whatever it was. “Number of employees? Even the smaller one has about two hundred lawyers and as many other workers. They can afford interns. We used to be even smaller than we are now—oh, about sixty—but we've been creeping up some. We have about a hundred people altogether.”

“That seems big to me.”

“Believe me, it's nothing in comparison.”

“So the next thing was I got a call from an old classmate of mine from law school. It turns out he was Cassie's professor at Westminster. He said, ‘She's really really smart. Give her a chance.' I said I would see what I could do. Before I did anything, my father got a call from Pitt, one of the people he knew there, a guy who's been at the law school there, and the guy's saying how he just had an interview with her and she doesn't want to spend her summer pouring coffee because she wants experience in law. So finally my father and my brother and I said we could take her on as a paralegal, though we already had three hired and it was straining the budget. We decided we could pay her something equal to the others, and let her see how the whole operation worked. So she arrived.”

“She was persistent.”

“I'd say so.”

“She did well?”

“She was that kind of hundred-and-ten-percent worker. Took it home, came in early. Proved herself.”

“Did people at the firm describe her as beautiful? By her pictures she was startlingly good-looking.”

“Yes. Yes, she was. Everybody said so.”

“I met her family. They're very conservative and religious. Well, you met them yesterday. Was she like that?”

“I don't know.”

Christie makes his move. “We heard from some sources that she was kind of a bit wilder than she seemed or than her family knew.”

Connolly blanched. “Who said that?”

“I can't reveal it. People she worked with.”

“Oh. I wouldn't know.”

“They thought she had a teasing manner. Flirtatious, I guess you'd call it.”

“I … I never saw that. It could be.”

“They even—well, this is something I have to ask—they even intimated that she flirted a lot with you, and one of them intimated you had a personal relationship with her.”

“My God, who said that?”

“So … nothing going on between you?”

“No. No. Absolutely not.”

“Well, you see why I had to ask, though. I have to follow up anything like that.”

“I see. No, I didn't have a relationship with her.”

“It wouldn't be unusual. It's been known to happen. It's always on the news, it seems.”

“I know.”

“Yes. So. You know, I hate to hurry this up. This is the most comfortable sofa I ever sat on. In. But I should get to my tuna and you should get to your burger. So I just have to ask for the record just a couple of things. First, what kind of car do you drive when you drive yourself?”

“Lincoln. Town Car.”

“Color?”

“Gray.”

“You like a comfortable seat.”

“I do.”

“And I have to jot down your whereabouts from about six Thursday night to—just to be safe—noon the next day.”

Connolly looked amazed, not to mention worried. “You actually want my alibi?”

“I'm sorry to have to ask it. Just to clear you.”

“Okay. Six. Let's see. I came home. We had the second of two photo sessions. They wanted everything—still shots and video. I left the house at probably seven thirty, eight. Got to Harrisburg at around eleven something. Went straight to Haigh's house. We had a late-night meeting—there were seven people there—we were talking about me and the campaign. Got done at about twelve thirty.”

Cigars and bourbon? Christie wondered. “What did they want to talk about?”

“The usual. Money. Hauling in certain districts. The competition. The truth is, I was still auditioning, constantly auditioning. They concluded for the tenth time I had a very good chance at this. The governor's race.”

“Exciting. Okay, then?”

“What?”

“After twelve thirty?”

“Went to bed.”

“Where? I have to ask.”

“Right there at Haigh's place. In his guest room.”

“And did you get up during the night?”

“No. My God, I can't believe what you're asking.”

“I have to. Slept through the night and awoke when?”

“Seven. Talked to Haigh at breakfast. Left about eight-ish. Got into the firm about noon.”

“Is there a night staff at Haigh's place?”

“Actually I don't know.”

“I'll look into it.”