Ice Blues

"You said we were going somewhere warm. You didn't mean Rio, did you, along with those five suitcases?"
"Nah."
"Then what did you mean?"
"Los Angeles. It's hardly Antigua, but it'll do for now. If I can prove that Lenihan came by this money legitimately, I can go ahead and carry out the project he was planning that was so important to him. Take the day off you've got one coming-and we'll leave in the morning."
Timmy looked perplexed, so I described the afternoon's and evening's events.
He said, "Let me see the letter again." I fished it out and he read it. "I don't get it. Jack says right here that what he was doing was not immoral but it was illegal. That doesn't square at all with this wild story he told the three pols about an inheritance from a godfather."
I brought out the documents Sim Kempelman had given me. "Sim says it's all on the up-and-up. Look at these."
He perused the papers. "This stuff looks okay, but that still doesn't explain the language in the letter. It doesn't fit."
"I know."
"You know?"
"Superficially it doesn't fit, that's true. But there are larger forces at work here, larger truths. I'll have to sort out the details as I go along."
He gave me a strained look. "Don, please come off it and don't give me that vague stuff you always come up with when it suits your current whim.
You've put aside your objectivity in this because you think you can give the Albany machine a kick in the groin. But it won't be that simple, and you know it. Maybe this so-called godfather is a Mafia godfather, a big drug dealer, or some other god-awful thing."
"A Mafia godfather named Al Piatek?"
"It's true, the name doesn't ring a bell. Maybe it's an alias."
"Sim Kempelman states unequivocally that these documents are genuine,"
I said, "and you can't get papers like these under an alias."
"Not unless you're powerful enough to own a few government clerks in the right places. Really, I think you should stay clear of this crowd, whoever they are. Hankie-mouth obviously doesn't work for the Department of Agriculture. Do you still plan on not meeting him tonight?"
"I'm not exactly meeting him, no. You're determined to keep me from getting away to a warm place, aren't you? But it won't work, my friend.
Hang on." I picked up the phone, got an outside line, and dialed the McConkeys' number on Walter Street. Dreadful Ed answered and grudgingly called Corrine to the phone.
"Don Strachey, Corrine. How are you doing?"
"Not very well, Mr. Strachey. But some very nice people are taking good care of me, so I'm just trying to count my blessings and hang on. Oh, did you know Officer Bowman was looking for you? Maybe you better see what he wants. It sounded important."
"I'll give him a call when I get a chance. Tell me something, Corrine. Did Jack have a godfather?"
"Jack's godfather was a real sweetie-Mike Tompkins, a friend of Dad Lenihan's. He would have been just crushed by Jack's passing, so maybe it's best that Mike joined the majority himself last year."
For a second I thought she meant the Moral Majority, but then it sank in.
"Mr. Tompkins died recently?"
"Oh, it's been almost a year now. Last February or March, I think. I know there was snow on the ground. Mary Tompkins dropped by earlier tonight and we talked about Mike's passing. It was merciful, she said, because the cancer had turned him into a little tiny thing not much more than a ghost.
He'd been suffering quite a bit. He lived down the street from Dad, and Dad misses him too."
"Was Mr. Tompkins a wealthy man?"
"Wealthy? Oh, no, I wouldn't think so. Oh, no."
"Does the name Al Piatek mean anything to you?"
"Piatek?"
"Yes."
"I can't think of any Piateks. I've heard the name, I guess."
"Thank you. I'm sorry to have bothered you and I hope I won't have to do it again. But I might."
"Oh, that's all right. I was just having a cup of tea and a sticky bun."
When I'd hung up, Timmy said, "So."
"So? So what? This just makes it all the more imperative that I fly out there and sort this out."
"The beaches won't be any good. This time of year the water's too cold."
"You're not coming along?"
"Of course I'm coming. It's just for the weekend."
"Good. Bowman wants to haul me in and might have the security people at the airport watching for me, so we'll drive down and fly from Kennedy. Did you rent a car?"
"It's down on Lodge Street. God, an Albany Lenihan who turned into a civic reformer. Who'd ever have thought it? If Jack hadn't died, what an amazing historical event that would have been."
"Will be," I said. "An amazing historical event that will be."
He'd had enough of me for a while and watched the eleven-o'clock news while I phoned my airline contact at home.
"Don Strachey, Alex. What did you come up with?"
"Joe's here for a few hours and he's awake. I'm busy."
"Give him my best-or yours, if that's what he prefers- but in the meantime, go get that stuff on Lenihan I asked for, will you? I'm going to be out of touch for a couple of days and I need it before I leave."
The phone hit something with a clunk. He came back rattling papers. "John C. Lenihan flew to Los Angeles via
O'Hare on Tuesday, October sixteenth, and returned to Albany on Sunday, October twenty-first, again changing at O'Hare. If he flew anywhere on any other dates during the month of October, it wasn't with us. May I go now?"
"You may. And thanks-many thanks. You'll be rewarded for this on some distant day."
"Oh, it won't be that long."
I hung up and dialed Ned Bowman at home. "Fenton Hardy here. Is this Chief Collig of the Bayport police department?"
"You're under arrest, Strachey!"
"Nope."
"Well, you sure as hell will be if you don't haul your ass down to my office at eight A.M. sharp. And you are not at the Americana. You lied."
"Listen, Ned, I want to help you out, so don't make it hard for me. Our separate efforts on this one can be complementary and beneficial."
"You have it, don't you?" he hissed.
"Have what?"
"The famous two and a half million bucks everybody and his brother keeps walking in off the street and telling me about. You know, Strachey, Larry Dooley is awful mad at you. When you make a mistake, it's a pisser."
"Dooley may have killed Jack Lenihan. Are you pursuing that?"
"Dooley, Kempelman, Creighton Pell-they're all suspects until they can establish alibis, which naturally they're all busting their asses to come up with real fast."
"There's a better suspect, I think."
"What? Who do you mean?"
"Whoever killed Jack Lenihan was smart enough to dump him in my car instead of in a ditch somewhere. This served the purpose of frightening me into turning over the two and a half million-which, incidentally, I've never seen-and also of pointing a finger at me. It follows that the killer was also smart enough to go through Lenihan's pockets and remove any paper with his own name and phone number on it, but leave behind any papers with Dooley's, Prell's and Kempelman's names. I suggest you check out other reform-minded politicians whom Lenihan might have approached with his proposal. The ones who are not showing up are the ones who, I think, bear scrutinizing. I'd do it myself, but far be it from me to involve myself in an investigation that properly falls within your purview."