justice system let Evan and Corrigan go free? Will we be arrested for the sake of making a better book?'
'If you're going to make a speech,' Meg said, 'I'm walking. And if you don't slow down, I'm walking. Just' drive, dammit.'
Jerry Fairchild looked as if he hadn't slept at all the night before. He was unshaven, there were heavy bags under his eyes, and his expression was less than welcoming. 'What do you two want now?' They were in his office, which was extremely neat and very clean.
'You probably won't believe us,' Meg said belligerently, 'but we genuinely forgot about this piece of evidence in all the brouhaha yesterday.'
Jerry's expression softened a little. 'What piece of evidence?'
Quill produced the address book. Jerry took it, flipped through it, came to Verger's rating system, and chuckled.
'I don't think it's funny.' Meg crossed her legs and folded her arms across her chest. This further evidence of bellicose behavior seemed to amuse the detective. 'The man was a pig.'
'But a successful pig.' 'You're not hollering at us for concealing evidence,' Meg said suspiciously. 'I'd feel a lot better if you hollered. What's the matter, Jer?'
He sighed. 'I don't know what Verger Taylor's address book is going to tell me that I don't already know.
He had a few meetings the afternoon of the day he disappeared. We're interviewing the people he saw that day - most of them have come forward anyway. Anxious to cash in on the publicity. So consider yourselves hollered at.' Jerry opened his left desk drawer, took out an evidence bag, slipped the book into it, and labeled it in neat, precise handwriting.
While he was engaged in this, Quill asked, 'You think that the boys had an accomplice-that the clues to Verger Taylor's disappearance - '
'Murder,' Jerry said shortly. 'The motive for murder lies with his sons? And not in Verger's own activities? What did Evan and Corrigan do with the body?'
'You can buy anything you want around here,' Jerry said. His eyes looked more tired than ever. 'Want your grandmother raped? There's kids who will do it for five bucks and a bag of cocaine.'
Quill didn't know how to reply to this. She had a glimpse of the day-to-day routine of this man's life, and it made her shudder. She asked quietly, 'Did you really receive another call from the kidnapper?'
'You saw the morning news.'
'As a matter of fact, we didn't,' Quill said.
'Yes. Hawthorne, that smart-ass lawyer for the Houghtons, got the call early this morning. He taped it. It sounded genuine, but then, the first one sounded genuine. That it, ladies? I've got work to do.'
'We heard about Corrigan claiming his confession was coerced. That he's mentally unstable.' Meg gave him her most appealing smile.
'As far as I'm concerned, anyone who offs his old man is crazy as an outhouse rat.'
'So you think they did it, too.'
'Of course they did it. We haven't even begun to dig into those kids' financial histories, but they owe money all over the place. And there's preliminary evidence that Verger had cut the flow of funds off. So they had a motive, all right.'
'Do you think they removed the body?'
'Somebody did.'
'So you're pretty sure they have an accomplice,' Meg persisted. 'Makes sense. I mean, who else would be making those phone calls?' She threw out another piece of bait. 'Unless you think that Verger's alive, and that for some reason, he and his kids are involved in an elaborate scam.'
'What I think is that you two ought to go shopping. Or out to lunch. Anywhere but here, butting into this investigation. I'm sure you're familiar with the penalties for civilians mixing in with police work?'
'Nope,' said Meg pertly. 'In all the cases we've been involved in, the police have been glad for our help.'
'Uh huh.' Jerry refused to be drawn. 'Thanks, ladies. Now beat it.'
'Ladies. Shopping. Lunch.' Meg fumed a few minutes later. 'So now what? We find ourselves a lawyer?'
'We find ourselves a lawyer. If he'll talk, we find out who inherits Taylor's money and who's running Taylor Inc. right now. And if the opportunity arises, we explore this business of Murex.'
The traffic patterns in south Florida were becoming familiar to Quill. If you got out on the street fairly early - say before seven o'clock - or late, after dark, it was possible to maneuver through the streets in a reasonable period of time. But after nine in the morning and before sunset, the traffic was horrendous. And all the cars had license plates from northern states. In addition to the jams created by sheer volume, most of the out-of-staters didn't seem to know where they were traveling to. Cars pulled U-turns in the middle of the streets, or even stopped, blocking lanes of traffic, while the drivers figured out that they'd missed the bypass to Oklahoma some three streets back. Quill was beginning to feel some sympathy for the hostile bumper stickers on native vehicles.
They inched their way to the offices of Carmichael, Webster, and Ross (offices in New York and Palm Beach) in about the time it would take to have an emergency heart transplant. Although Hurricane Helen still circled off the coast of Africa, the fringes of the weather system made the air sultry, humid, and sticky. Quill pulled the Mercedes over, unsuccessfully tried to find the buttons that raised the top of the convertible, and it took her twenty minutes just to find a break in the traffic flow to reenter the street. By the time Quill pulled into the underground parking lot, both she and Meg were hot, tired, irritable, and very hungry.
'I still say we should have called ahead,' Meg said in the elevator. Quill, silently blessing the air conditioning, didn't reply until they reached the fourth floor and entered the carpeted hallway to the attorney's offices.
