“It?s the way things happen. One thing leads to another. One murder leads to another.”
“So you think these mobsters did it all,” he said, making it a statement rather than a question.
1 looked back at him. The park was growing dark.
“No,” I said.
“But you said—”
“I said I thought they were connected. I don?t think the same person killed the Taglianis and Harry
Raines.”
“Oh. Logic again?” he said. His mouth was iron-bent in a smile.
He opened a walnut cigar box on his desk and offered me one of those thin cheroots, the kind
riverboat gamblers in costume dramas always seem to prefer, accepted my refusal with a shrug, and
peeled the wrapper from his own.
“So what does logic tell you about all this?” he asked as he lit the cigar.
I sat down on the windowsill.
“First, I?d say Raines was obviously coming over here when he got shot,” I said.
“That certainly seems logical,” Donleavy said. “He was probably parked in the company lot.”
“He was parked behind the bank.”
“Well, he still maintains his office here. Maybe he was coming over to get something.”
I went on. “Second, all the Tagliani killings were well planned. Daring, perhaps, but infinitely well
planned and executed. That isn?t logic, that?s fact. Logic tells me Raines? death wasn?t. It has all the
earmarks of a sudden move, even a desperate one.”
“How so?”
“Because the killer couldn?t plan on it being foggy, so he must have decided to use the fog, and that
means the killer had to know exactly where Raines was going to be and the exact moment he was
going to be there. As our witness said, „You couldn?t see your hand in front of your face.”
“Perhaps he followed Harry,” Donleavy suggested.
“Yeah, except our ear witnesses only heard one person, which leads me to believe the killer was
waiting for Raines.”
“Interesting,” Donleavy said, contemplating the tip of his cigar for a moment. He then added, “Look,
Jake, I may as well tell you, Harry was on his way out to my place. He was very angry. He and
Charlie Seaborn had words. I called Charlie just after I talked to you. Harry was there. I told him I
thought at worst we were guilty of poor judgment and he agreed to come and talk it out, once and for
all.”
“Did Raines have a bad temper?” I asked.
