Snowball in Hell

«There was money from his mother, but he went through that in the first year after she passed away.»
Silence.
«You want me to bring Doyle in?» Jonesy said.
Matt thought it over. «He can wait. I think I'm ready to talk to the wife now. It sounds to me like, at the least, she took a dim view of his gambling. And see if you can locate the singer, Pearl Jarvis. I didn't like the way she happened to slip out the back door while we were interviewing Noonan and Szabo. If she and Arlen really weren't on speaking terms that night, I want to know why. Either way, I want to know what was between them.»
«That dame must have something going for her,» Jonesy said. «I get the feeling Szabo's sweet on her too.»
«To each his own,» Matt said, and thought of Nathan Doyle.
* * * *
«I found some letters from her once,» Claire Arlen was saying dully. «Awful things. Violet paper, purple ink … doused in scent.» She shivered-although that could have been due to the skimpy silk dressing gown she wore. The apartment was cold and the only light was the one Claire Arlen had turned on when Spain and Jonesy had turned up at her door.
Someone should have been staying with her, in Matt's opinion. But maybe she didn't want anyone. He hadn't wanted anyone after Rachel.
«And these letters were to your husband?»
She looked surprised, as though the other possibility had never occurred to her. «I thought so at the time. Phil said no. I didn't believe him … but now I wonder.» Large green eyes– so pale a green that they looked gray-turned Matt's way. «There was no name, you see. They were just addressed, 'darling'.»
«Why would your husband have these letters if they weren't his?»
Claire shook her head. «I don't know. But Phil said they weren't his.»
Matt nodded. He was beginning to form a certain ugly idea about Phil Arlen. It had to do with gambling debts no one tried to collect on, and love letters that might not have been his.
Claire said, «I know what everyone thinks: that Phil wouldn't have married me if his father hadn't insisted, but it's not true. We were happy together. Mostly.»
«What happened when you went to the Las Palmas Club on Saturday night?»
She stared at him like she didn't understand the question.
«You went to the club and had words with Phil.»
«I had words with her,» Claire said. «I told her that if she didn't stop-«
«If she didn't stop,» Matt prompted.
«I … would go to Phil's dad.» Her expression was a little defiant. «Mr. Arlen is a very powerful man. He could arrange things so that little floozy would never work again.»
Was floozy the kind of job that required good references? Matt doubted it, but he refrained from saying so. He said, «You didn't threaten to kill her or Phil?»
«I might have.» She waved that away almost absently. «I got a little hysterical when Carl tried to drag me out before I'd finished. But it was just … talk. I'd had two cocktails with supper, and I've never had a head for strong spirits.» She pressed her hands to her temple as though the very thought of strong spirits was making her head spin.
«Do you own a gun, Mrs. Arlen?»
«Of course not!»
«Did your husband own a gun?»
«No.»
«Your father-in-law told us that a woman called to say your husband had been kidnapped. Did you recognize the voice? Any idea as to who that woman might have been?»
Claire shook her head dully.
«If your husband and Miss Jarvis weren't lovers, what do you think their relationship was?»
Again Claire shook her head.
«Do you have any idea why the kidnappers would have killed your husband after the ransom was paid?»
«No.»
«Do you have any reason to think the ransom might not have been paid?»
She looked up, wide-eyed. «That's just what that reporter suggested,» she said.
Matt and Jonesy exchanged looks. «Doyle?» Matt asked. «From the Tribune-Herald?»
«That's right. He's a friend of Bob's. Or he was. He was at the club that night too. I suppose he thought I was too upset to remember, but I remember. He was there, and he was plenty mad himself. I know.» She met Matt's gaze steadily. «He was smiling, but he was bone white-and his eyes were … glittering.» She gave a little shiver. «I don't know why, but I do know he was mad enough to kill.»
Matt didn't say anything for a moment. Then he glanced at Jonesy. «I think maybe it's time to have another word with Mr. Doyle,» he said.
* * * *
Mr. Doyle had still not returned to roost at the Tribune-Herald. The address the paper had on file for him turned out to be his mother's Adam's Hill residence in Glendale.
The house was one of those old fashioned English-style cottages: red brick with white trimmed windows and doors. Tidy hedges surrounded the house, and instead of lawn there was neatly trimmed ivy. There were Christmas lights along the shingled roof of the house.
Mrs. Doyle was tall and thin and fair. She had the elegant bone structure and same light, restless gaze as her son. She took policemen on her welcome mat with remarkable cool, inviting them into an immaculate living room. Matt looked around. There were plastic covers on all the lamp shades and
antimacassars on the arms of the chairs and sofa. Three pictures of Nathan Doyle at various ages hung in a corner over a large white statue of the blessed virgin. Eleven pictures of Jesus at various ages took up the rest of the wall space. There was a large nativity on a long table behind the sofa.
Nathan, Mrs. Doyle informed them, had moved to his own place on Bunker Hill. She offered them tea and cookies, apparently as a consolation prize, and to Jonesy's astonishment, Matt accepted her invitation and made himself comfortable across from the photos of Nathan Doyle. Even as a kid, Doyle had been very serious looking, but then Mrs. Doyle didn't look like a lot of laughs.
Mrs. Doyle carried in a tea tray and set it down on the table. There were china cups and a lovely china tea pot with purple pansies and a plate of cookies.
«How is your son adjusting to civilian life?» Matt asked.
Mrs. Doyle fixed him with those cool eyes so like her son's. «Nathan is a realist,» she said, which he thought was sort of strange. «Were you in the service?»
Matt admitted that he had been, and she asked him a number of interested questions, and then talked to him about the care packages the church was sending to service men all over the world. It was not that she declined to discuss her son; she just managed to answer with as little information as possible. Matt had a fair bit of experience with interrogation, but he suspected Mrs. Doyle could probably hold her own against the SS.
Still, it was interesting seeing the home Nathan Doyle had grown up in. Matt wasn't sure if it would prove relevant, but he didn't regret listening to Mrs. Doyle talk-although he could feel Jonesy's unease. Jonesy took a dim view of Catholics and their arcane ways.
Finally, when they had eaten the last Girl Scout cookie and drunk the last of the tea, Mrs. Doyle said, «Would you like to see his bedroom?»
Matt accepted the offer, rising, and Mrs. Doyle led them down a short hall and up a short flight of steps-the house was oddly laid out-to a room overlooking the quiet street.
As Matt would have expected, the room was spotlessly neat. A large crucifix of a particularly handsome-but tortured-Christ hung over the crisply-made bed. Matt examined the bookshelves. There were a number of catechism books, tomes on the saints' lives, and on the center shelf a row of well-worn copies of the Hardy Boys, Tom Swift, and the Radio Boys novels. There was a large framed map of the world on the wall across from the bed-the first thing young Nathan would have opened his eyes to every morning growing up? There were a few class pictures in frames, and a couple of model airplanes. Matt looked around himself, but could get no feel for the boy Nathan Doyle must have been.