The Dirt Peddler (18 page)

But first things first, and the first thing on my agenda when I got to the office Monday morning was Catherine Tunderew.
Had
she known she was being cut out of Tunderew's will? How did she know how far along the new manuscript was? Or was she just trying to con the Bernadines into footing the bill for Tunderew's funeral by saying she did?

One way to find out. I picked up the phone.

*

Since I'd been to Catherine Tunderew's twice, I decided to invite her to join me for lunch. She didn't seem particularly surprised to hear from me again, and readily agreed to meet me at The Broken Drum, a pleasant little café (as opposed to “restaurant”) not too far from her apartment. It was the kind of small-town-charm, curtained-window, hanging-plants-everywhere eatery, with small, table-clothed tables and wooden, round-topped chairs, that for some reason simply does not exist in the gay community. Maybe a little too comfy-cosy for most gays.

I could see by looking in the window—there were only about ten tables in the place, only six of which were occupied—that Catherine had not yet arrived, so I took a short walk to the end of the block and returned. As I did so, I saw Catherine Tunderew emerging from a cab in front of the café.

We met at the door, which I opened for her, and took one of the vacant tables. A young woman, probably a college student, dressed in an attractive old-fashioned blouse with frills at the collar and wrists and a long granny skirt, came over and asked if we would like coffee. I said yes; Catherine opted for peppermint tea. The girl pointed out to us a large easel near the door on which a blackboard announced the day's offerings in a variety of colored chalk.

When she'd gone to get our coffee and tea, Catherine smiled warmly. “It was very nice of you to invite me to lunch. I really should get out more.”

“I'm glad you could come.”

She was looking at me closely, still smiling. “And should I guess the reason behind the invitation…other than your natural kindness, of course?” The smile hadn't changed, so I assumed she wasn't being sarcastic.

I'd thought about how I was going to approach all the questions I had, and had decided the direct route was the best.

“I have reason to believe…” I began, then paused as the waitress brought our coffee and tea and left without asking if we were ready to order—which we weren't.

When she left, I continued. “I have reason to believe that your ex-husband's death may have been something other than an accident.”

Her expression did not change by so much as the furrowing of her brows.

“Really? I'm really sorry to hear that.”

“But not surprised.”

She gave a small shrug. “Some people collect matchbooks,” she said, removing the tea bag from her cup and setting in on the saucer. “Tony had a knack for collecting enemies. I'm sure several people wished him dead, but I can't imagine anyone actually doing it. And that that unfortunate…young man…had to have been with him.”

The waitress returned to take our order and we quickly looked at the blackboard. We both chose the spinach quiche and, smiling, the waitress headed for the kitchen. (I know, real men don't eat quiche…. Sue me.)

Catherine was looking at me again. “May I ask exactly why you care about all this, Mr. Hardesty? I believe you'd said your professional association with Tony had ended.”

I took a sip of coffee and nodded.

“It had. And, if you'll excuse me for saying so, had it not been for the fact of Randy Jacobs having been in the car with him, I'd have absolutely no incentive to find out what had happened. But if someone did murder your ex-husband, he or she also murdered Randy, and I owe it to him to find out who was responsible and why.”

She nodded. “I see. And I gather I am included on your list of possible murderers?”

I got the definite impression she rather enjoyed trying to provoke a reaction, so I tried very hard not to give her one.

“Well, let's just say at this stage I'm mainly trying to
eliminate
possibilities. I'm curious as to why, when I asked if you were in your ex-husband's will, you said that you had been, but didn't imagine you were now. You did know he was having a new will drawn up at the time of his death, didn't you? And that he died before it could go into effect?”

Our quiche arrived, and she picked a large strawberry out of the small side dish of fresh fruit.

“Yes. My lawyer…I call him ‘my' because he had been my family's lawyer for some time before Tony and I ever met. He drew up the original will…had called me from Chicago to say that attorney O'Banyon had requested a copy. He didn't say why he wanted it, but two plus two, you know. So I knew I would soon be out. But as you say, the new will was not fully executed before Tony's death. Pure serendipity.”

She carefully ate the strawberry, closing her eyes in mock ecstasy at the taste. Then she opened her eyes and looked at me with a bemused expression. “Oh, my, that did give me an excellent reason to kill him, didn't it? Too bad I never thought of it. Am I at the top of your list, now?”

You're getting there, lady,
I thought.

“As I say, I'm not making a list yet.”

“And what else would you like to know? The fact that none of it is—no rudeness intended—really any of your business shouldn't keep me from answering. If Tony's death, and your friend's, of course, was, as you so delicately put it, ‘something other than an accident,' I'd be as interested as you—possibly more, considering I was married to the man for thirteen years—to find out who was responsible. I have nothing at all to hide.”

Now, why do I doubt that?
I thought.

Still, she had opened the door, so I might as well barge right in.

I waited long enough to have another forkful of quiche—which was delicious—and a small slice of cantaloupe before speaking.

“I was also curious as to how you might know how far along the second book is if, as you said, he was apparently working on it at the cabin, to which you had returned the key.”

She paused, fork halfway to her lips, and pulled her head back slightly, giving me a look of feigned surprise.

“Why Mr. Hardesty,” she said in a tone which reminded me for some reason of Scarlett O'Hara, “I am truly impressed. It must be exciting to be a private investigator!”

She conveyed the forkful of quiche to her mouth, chewed discretely, swallowed and said, “I told you I had returned Tony's key. I did not say I didn't have another one. The day after Tony's death, I took a drive. I suppose I wanted to see where he had died, for some perverse reason. When I passed by the spot, I kept on driving until I found myself at the cabin. I felt the urge to go inside…to see it for what might be the last time. It was just as Tony had left it, which is to say a shambles. I don't think Tony had ever picked up after himself in his life. That's what I, his wife, was for.”

She gave a small smile. “Anyway, I couldn't help but notice that beside his typewriter there was a stack of papers which, when I glanced at it, I saw to be a novel. I'll share the title with you, if you promise not to make it public knowledge.”

Despite myself, I had to admit I found Catherine Tunderew somehow spellbinding. I was perfectly aware she was playing me like a fiddle, but I rather enjoyed the music.

“Please.”

“The title he had given it was
No Door to Heaven
. It was a very thick stack of paper. I merely thumbed through it quickly, but enough to see that he had completed three hundred and twenty-two pages. From that I gathered that he must have been fairly close to completion.”

“And did you happen to recognize who the book might be loosely based on?”

She shook her head and took the last piece of quiche from her plate.

“No, I only glanced at a paragraph here and a paragraph there. It is, I did note, however, very much in the style of
Dirty Little Minds
. I didn't really recognize anyone specifically. There was something there, though, in one paragraph, about a murder.”

I definitely had the feeling I was part of a puppet show, and I wasn't the one pulling the strings. She
was
good.

A murder, eh?
my mind asked.

“Is there any way I might be able to look at the manuscript? It might give me some solid clue as to who is responsible for his death.”

She smiled at me sweetly. “Why, Mr. Hardesty!” she said in that Scarlett O'Hara tone. “Of course not! I've placed it in a safe deposit box where it will remain until all the details of its disposition can be resolved.”

“And you have not read it?”

She looked at me steadily. “No,” she said calmly, “I have not. I never was a fan of Tony's writing. I don't really care who it may be…loosely…based on.”

She took another sip of her tea. “But don't worry,” she said, consolingly, and I almost expected her to reach across the table and pat my hand. “I'm sure that whoever may have served as the…inspiration, shall we say…for
No Door to Heaven
has no idea whatsoever that he is about to be immortalized. Tony was very good about keeping his own secrets.” She smiled again and then added, “And of course it
is
completely a work of fiction.”

Of course.

As the waitress came to clear away our dishes and bring me the check, Catherine started to get up from the table.

“If you'll excuse me a moment, I'd better go call for a cab.”

“Please…I'll be glad to give you a ride home.”

“I wouldn't want to put you to the trouble,” she said, though I noticed she was settling back in her chair even as she said it.

“It's no trouble at all. Is something wrong with your car?”

She sighed and nodded. “I made the mistake of leaving it parked on the street when I returned from the cabin Saturday evening, rather than putting it in the garage, and some idiot smashed into it. Of course they didn't even have the courtesy to leave a note. I didn't find out about it until I went out Sunday morning to put it in the garage. I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but the entire rear end was smashed in. I can't tell you how angry I was—and still am.”

There they were: my little sirens and bells sounding in the back of my mind.

“Did you report it to the police?”

She shook her head.

“I didn't see any point, really. There was nothing they could do at that point. Luckily, it was driveable and I have insurance.”

“So it's in the shop now?”

She nodded again. “Oh, yes. Fortunately, there is a body shop I've dealt with before very near me, so I just drove it over there and left it in their lot. I put the key and a note in their mail slot. They do excellent work, but they take forever. I called yesterday and they said they're still waiting for parts. I should have known better than to have bought a foreign car.”

*

I drove her home, exchanged thanks with her—hers for lunch, mine for her information—and headed back toward the office.

Almost.

The street to the south of Catherine Tunderew's was Harker Blvd., mostly commercial. Since body shops are seldom found on strictly residential streets, I turned at the first corner past Catherine's apartment building and went down to Harker. Turning left, I drove for three or four blocks looking for an auto repair shop, and found none. I circled around the block back to Harker and headed back in the opposite direction.

Sure enough, less than two blocks from Catherine Tunderew's apartment was All-Pro Auto Body. I parked the car and walked over to the chain link fence which surrounded the entire lot. The repair shop itself was rather small—two service bays and a small office. Both service bays were open, and I could see a yellow Cadillac in one and a Dodge station wagon in the other. About four cars, in various stages of obvious distress, stood in a row between the building and the street. One was a late model Ford with the driver's side front end pushed in almost to the windshield; one a Buick with a smashed passenger's side door and buckled roof; one an older model, silver Jaguar with missing front bumper, a broken passenger's side headlight with a missing rim, and a long red-smudged sideswipe scar along the passenger's side from just behind the front bumper to past the door…
aha!…
; the fourth, a small brown Renault with nothing visibly wrong with it.

If a car had been coming down the hill toward Tunderew, made too sharp a correction on the curve and been in Tunderew's lane…Tunderew might have swerved to avoid it, clipped it long and hard enough to make the scrape, then lost control and gone through the guardrail.

Good thinking, Hardesty!
my mind said admiringly, then had to go and add:
But…
God, I hate “buts.”
But
I had no idea if this was Catherine Tunderew's car;
but
the car the Jag had tangled with had obviously been red and I didn't know what color Tunderew's car was;
but
the Jag had a broken front headlight with a missing rim
and
a missing bumper, which almost certainly would have been found on or near the road and weren't. So even if this was Catherine Tunderew's car, it was extremely unlikely it could have been the one involved in Tunderew's death. I'd check on the color of Tunderew's car, though, just to be certain.

I noticed a fast-food place directly next to the body shop and decided to walk over and get a Coke. As I was walking down the driveway to the door, I checked out the chain link fence behind the row of damaged cars, and noted that the little brown Renault, which seemed to be unscathed when viewed from the front, had a badly damaged rear-end; the bumper pushed into an inward V, popping the trunk open and crinkling the lid. Both taillights were intact and nothing seemed to have broken off. I walked over for a closer look.

Now
this
, I'd wager, was Catherine Tunderew's car. She didn't strike me as being the Jaguar type. A Renault, now…