for too much else.”
I took a swallow of beer. It felt good and cold going down. “How was her work going?”
He shrugged and said, “I dunno. Hard to tell-difficult to say. She never told me anything about it.”
Then I asked the sixty-four dollar question. “Did she have a boyfriend?”
He polished off his beer and swiveled his head around searching for an instant refill. “Yup,” he nodded, “if it’s the same one I knew. A guy named Chisolm.”
“What does he do?”
“He’s chairman of a company called Insignia Biotech in Norwalk. A solid, substantial citizen.”
I knew what he was referring to. “How long had they been going out?”
“Maybe a year, I think.”
“Did she ever talk about him?”
“She once told me he satisfied her needs.”
“What the hell does that mean?” I said.
“She didn’t go into any details,” Tanner said. “You knew her. She was a gal who didn’t like to talk a lot-to open up, you know.”
I nodded.
I remembered.
CHAPTER IV
The morning of her funeral was clear. There wasn’t a cloud in sight. The sun was so bright it reminded you of the way the sky looks on a summertime afternoon in Spain. Colors so vivid and whites like titanium dioxide whitewash on a canvas.
There were maybe thirty people at the cemetery-mostly expensively-dressed, well-coifed professionals wearing Swiss watches and English shoes. People like herself. They were probably her friends and co-workers.
I recognized three or four of her family members. They didn’t exactly roll out the red carpet for me. As a matter of fact, they studiously ignored me, preferring instead to inspect the groundskeeper’s craftsmanship. Tanner was there. He flashed a silent salute when he saw me.
Why was I there?
I owed it to her. For sure, I damn well owed it to her. If I had said yes to her plea, would she still be alive? If I had helped her, would they be putting her in the ground right now? Goddamned if I knew. But one thing was as certain as night follows day-I was going to do everything I could, and then a hell of a lot more, to find the answer. And when I did, I was going to tear off the head of the bastard who killed her. She was only thirty-six. Too young to bring down the curtain.
As the hydraulic lift soundlessly lowered her coffin, I thought back to a trip we’d taken to Spain. There had been a small hotel in Barcelona, just off the Ramblas. We’d strolled down the broad boulevard with all the brightly- colored flower stalls and the locals had stopped and stared at her because she was so tall and so blond. At the hotel, the concierge had told me that she was so beautiful I couldn’t deny her anything.
And now they were covering her with clods of earth.
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls.
It tolls for thee.
And it tolls for me.
After the gravediggers had finished and gone, the mourners stood around and spoke in muted tones. Some birds were chirping from a nearby stand of trees. The cemetery had become very quiet. The scent of newly-mown grass mixed with the smell of freshly-dug earth. Somebody put a hand on my arm. I turned to look. It was her sister, Laura.
“Hello, Ed,” she said in a whisper. “I was hoping you would come.” Her eyes were red and she sniffled into a tissue she had wadded up in her hand.
“I wanted to see you,” I said.
She nodded and sniffled again. Then she burst out sobbing and put her arms around me. I held her and felt her body quivering. Where Alicia had been muscular and sinewy, her sister was soft and vulnerable. Two sides of the same coin.
She continued crying against my chest for a couple of minutes. Her perfume smelled like spring flowers and her hair was soft against my cheek. She was wearing a black dress with long sleeves, too warm for the day. She wasn’t as tall as Alicia but she was prettier. I suspected she wasn’t as smart.
Finally she nodded to herself and dabbed her eyes dry. She nodded again and pulled away from me.
“I’m sorry, Ed,” she managed. “Please forgive me.”
She didn’t have to ask me to forgive her.
She was four years younger than Alicia and a lot more feminine. Alicia had a hard edge about her that could turn off a man, but Laura was the wife you wanted waiting at home for you at the end of a rough day.
After she’d had a chance to regain her composure, I said, “Laura, I want you to introduce me to some of the people here.”
“Why?” she asked.
“You can figure out why.”
She pursed her lips and thought for a minute. A tiny frown line appeared on her forehead. “Do you think someone here knows something about Alicia’s death?” She obviously believed the possibility was remote, from the way she said it.
I didn’t answer her question. “Do you have the key to her apartment?”
“Yes, but why?”
“I want to take a look around.”
Her eyes widened. “But, Ed…the police have already been all over the place. What do you think you can find that they can’t?”
I snorted. If only this little innocent knew.
“I look for things in a different way.”
She shrugged. “All right, but the keys are at home. I’ll have to get them over to you.
“Never mind that. I’ll drive you home and pick up the keys. Now tell me who’s here.”
She surveyed the gathering. “Do you see that tall good-looking man in the gray suit?” She spoke in a conspiratorial tone to my shoulder.
“Yeah.”
“That’s Michael Chisolm.”
“Her boyfriend?”
She nodded.
“Who else is here?”
“That creepy-looking fellow-the one with the thinning hair.”
She indicated a man with gelled hair who stood in a hunched posture. His mother had evidently never told him to stand up straight. At first, I’d thought he was one of the undertakers.
“That’s Alicia’s boss-Stallings. He’s president of the brokerage house where she works…” She stopped and corrected herself. “Worked…”
“Introduce them to me,” I said.
She took my arm and we angled over to where Chisolm stood with two men in dark suits who looked like his subordinates.
“Michael,” Laura said. “I’d like you to meet Ed Rogan. He was…”
Chisolm cut her off. “I know who he is, Laura.”
We shook hands. His grip was firm but his skin was too smooth.
“Mr. Rogan. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” He smiled without warmth. “Alicia spoke about you from time to time.”
He looked to be in his mid-fifties. He had flowing gray hair at the temples and he wore an expensively-cut
