my truck.
“Okay,” I said. “You didn’t check in at the office. So now let’s see if you check in at home.”
After looking at my map, I drove up the hill by the Lake State campus and found the address Leon had given me. The house looked like a French Colonial, assuming I knew what the hell that was. I parked on the street and then rang the doorbell, even though I didn’t see any cars in the garage. Nobody answered the door.
I moved the truck a couple of houses away, facing his driveway. Time to wait some more. Then a horrible thought came to me. Maybe Swanson was spending the afternoon with Vargas’s wife somewhere. They could have been at Vargas’s house even. Hell, for all I knew, he was banging her on the floor of her custom kitchen at that very moment.
I didn’t have long to think about it, as a dark blue Acura pulled in the driveway. A woman got out. On the way in the front door, she opened the mailbox and took out the contents. Mrs. Swanson.
When I got out of the truck, my legs were as tight as piano wire from sitting in my truck so long. I went to the front door.
The woman who answered was about my age, maybe a few years older. She had dark hair just turning to gray, big brown eyes behind a pair of rimless glasses. She smiled and said hello, and asked if she could help me. I instantly felt sick to my stomach. This was a woman who didn’t know her husband was screwing one of his clients.
“Is Dougie home yet?” I said.
“Dougie?” she said. “I haven’t heard anybody call him that in years.”
“We’re old friends,” I said, picking right up on that one. “I was in the neighborhood, thought I’d stop by. He’s still in practice, right?”
“Yes, he is. He’s at the office right now, but he should be home in a few minutes. Would you like to come in and wait for him? I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
“Alex,” I said. “Alex McKnight.”
I spent the next half hour sitting in her kitchen. It was a nice kitchen but nothing like a Vargas custom job. Mrs. Swanson cut me a piece of the best homemade carrot cake I’d ever tasted, and even asked me if I’d like a beer. We talked about my cabins, how my father had built them himself, and how he had worked for Ford Motors for thirty years. Her father had worked for General Motors. Every minute I spent with her, I hated her husband a little bit more. By the time he got home, I was ready to hit him right in the mouth.
I waited in the kitchen while she went out to meet him in the living room. “Douglas,” I heard her say, “there’s a man here waiting for you. His name is Alex McKnight.”
Swanson appeared around the corner. He was vaguely familiar-mid-fifties, in good shape for a man who worked behind a desk most of the day, and of course the silver hair any good lawyer in his fifties had to have. I had seen him around town a few times, and I was pretty sure I had been introduced to him once, but I was quite sure I had never seen him as angry as he was at that moment. “What the hell are you doing in my house?” he said.
“I’m eating your wife’s carrot cake,” I said. “Having a nice conversation.”
“You’ve got three seconds to get out of here before I call the police.”
“Honey, what’s the matter?” his wife said.
“Your husband’s a real kidder,” I said. “He always does this to me, every time he sees me. In fact, tell him about that time in college, Dougie.”
“I’m counting,” he said, picking up the phone. “One.”
“Dougie was in this hotel room,” I said. She looked at me with wide eyes, and then at her husband, and then back at me. “There’s a knock on the door. He opens it and it’s room service.”
“Two,” he said. “I’m dialing.”
“The waiter has a big tray with a bottle of champagne on it. Dougie says, ‘I didn’t order any champagne.’ The waiter says, ‘Compliments of the house, sir.’ And then the waiter loses his grip on the tray and wouldn’t you know it, he dumps the whole thing right on Dougie’s head.”
Swanson stopped dialing. Either he forgot what comes after two, or I was getting to him.
“What do you say, Dougie? You want me to tell your wife the rest of the story?”
“What do you want?” he said. “Why did you come here?”
“We need to have a little chat.” I said. “Is there someplace we can go?”
“In here,” he said. He opened a pair of glass doors. There was an antique desk in the room, and enough law books to fill two entire walls.
“I want to thank you, ma’am,” I said to Mrs. Swanson. “I apologize if I upset you.”
She just shook her head. She didn’t say a word. As soon as I stepped into his office, Swanson shut the doors tight.
I sat down on the guest chair. Swanson kept standing by the doors, his back to me, like he was deciding what to do next.
“You call my office,” he said, finally turning around. “You harass my secretary. You come to my house and threaten me in front of my wife.”
“I didn’t threaten you.”
“That little story about the champagne bottle, what was that?”
“Just an amusing anecdote.”
“What do you want?” he said. “If you want money, you can just forget it. I will not be blackmailed.”
“Who said anything about blackmail? I just want to ask you a couple of questions.”
“Cut the crap, McKnight. I know who you are. I know why you’re here. I’m telling you one more time. You will get nothing from me. Not one dime.”
“Will you sit down for a minute? You’ve got the wrong idea. I’m not here for money.”
He looked at me for a long moment, the way a man looks at someone he thinks may be demented. Then he slowly sat himself down in the chair behind his desk. “What is this about?” he said. “I know you’re Leon Prudell’s partner. And I know he’s been following Mrs. Vargas around the last few weeks.”
“I’m not his partner anymore,” I said. “I’ve got nothing to do with that… How did you know he’s been following her around, anyway?”
“Come on, like she’s not going to notice this big clown with orange hair following her everywhere? I knew he had to be a private investigator, and since there’s only one PI firm in town, it wasn’t hard to figure out who Vargas had hired to watch her. The listing I saw said ‘Prudell-McKnight Investigations.’”
“Old listing,” I said. “I’m out of that now.”
“So it’s just him doing this? Following her around like some sort of lowlife stalker?”
“I think you can rest easy,” I said. “I don’t think Leon ever got the money shot he was trying for. You know, the one of you with your pants around your ankles.”
“Could this possibly be any less your business, McKnight? My relationship with my wife? Or whatever might be happening between Mrs. Vargas and myself?”
“Aside from feeling bad for your wife, I don’t care. I don’t even want to think about it.”
“Then why the hell are you here? I swear to God, I was sure you were going to put the squeeze on me, try to work both sides against the middle. Believe me, I’ve heard about private investigators pulling this scam. Some people will do anything for a little easy money.”
“I’m here because I was the lucky guy who took your place at the poker game,” I said. “I’m here because I want some answers.”
“What kind of answers could I possibly give you? I don’t know anything about it.”
“One of the gunmen turned up dead this morning.”
I watched him carefully. He narrowed his eyes, as if honestly confused. “One of the men who broke into Win Vargas’s house?”
“Yes.”
He shook his head. If he was acting, he was doing a good job of it. But then, that’s what lawyers do. That’s why lawyers were put on this earth. “I don’t understand,” he said. “What does this have to do with me?”
“Somebody set up Jackie, Bennett, and Gill,” I said. “I’m trying to find out who.”
“I knew they were arrested yesterday,” he said. “What makes you think they were set up?”
“Are these your friends or not? Do you really think they were involved in this?”
