Italian silk suit, probably Armani, with a red silk pocket handkerchief. His shoes were hand-made from alligator or snake or lizard or some kind of reptile that had once crawled on its belly over the face of the earth.
“Chisolm,” I said. “I need to talk to you.”
“All right,” he said with a barely-perceptible hesitation. “I was just leaving. Why don’t you walk with me back to my car?” He motioned to his men and jerked his thumb in the direction of the parking lot. “Let’s head back to the cars.”
The men nodded in acquiescence. “Sure thing, Mr. Chisolm,” one of them said.
I left Laura standing where she was and Chisolm and I ambled over a gently-sloping rise and down a gravel path to where his car was parked. He obviously wanted to show me the car. It was a Hummer. But I wasn’t very impressed because I knew only fools drive Hummers. This knowledge was imparted to me by the Edmunds. com web site where they featured a listing of the Ten Cars That Fools Drive.
When we got to his car, Chisolm stopped and turned.
“Go ahead, Mr. Rogan,” he said. “What did you want to ask me?”
I shook my head. “Not here. Not now. And in private.”
“Certainly,” he said. “I’d like to talk to you also. Here’s my card. Why don’t you come up to my office? We won’t be disturbed and we can speak privately there.”
The odds were good he was married and didn’t want to talk at home.
“Sure. That’s fine.” I pocketed his card. “I’ll give you a call.”
I headed back to where Laura was standing on the grassy rise watching us talk. There was a strange expression on her face that I couldn’t decipher.
“What do you think of Chisolm?” I asked her.
She adjusted a clip that held her hair in place. For a moment it fell loose as she swung her head back and forth. Her hair was straight and honey brown and was cut so it just touched her shoulders.
“He’s stylish and he’s certainly rich enough, but he’s not my type. Somehow I never thought he was sincere. I don’t know if he really loved Alicia.”
“Is he married?”
She nodded and looked down. “Precariously so. His wife has oodles of money and he doesn’t want to take a chance on losing it.” She rubbed the toe of her shoe on the lawn that was so even it felt like Astroturf. She said softly, “He’s had other girlfriends.”
“Including you?”
She started to giggle, then remembered where she was and checked herself. “No,” she said with a vigorous shake of her head.
“Let’s talk to Stallings,” I said.
We walked over to the man who looked like an undertaker. He was standing alone staring at the grave, somewhere deep in his own thoughts.
“Mr. Stallings,” Laura said. “This is Edward Rogan. He was Alicia’s ex-husband.”
“How do you do, Mr. Rogan,” Stallings said. He was careful not to extend his hand. “It’s a terrible tragedy. Alicia was very well respected at the firm.”
I examined his face. He wore Ben Franklin glasses on the tip of his nose, which was finely-veined with a network of red capillaries. His eyes were a watery blue. They had deep shadows under them. His voice was soft and his diction was overly precise. He wore a dark blue suit, white oxford button-down shirt, blue repp stripe tie and black wing-tips. Matter of fact, he was wearing just what I was, but I don’t think he noticed.
“Yes,” I said. “It’s a tragedy. That’s why I’d like to talk to you.”
“Talk to me?” He seemed surprised. “Why? What for?”
“I want to ask you some questions.”
His eyes narrowed. “What about?”
“About Alicia…her work…her co-workers…about who might have had a reason to kill her.”
“I’ve already been interviewed extensively by the police.” He was speaking rapidly. “I don’t believe there’s any reason for me to talk to you as well. You don’t have any official capacity in this matter.”
“Listen, Stallings. I’m a private investigator. My job is to ask questions. Only this time the case is a little closer to home.” I tried to calm him down. “I’m not saying her killing had anything to do with her work. I’m just looking for information that can help me find her killer.”
“Help you? Listen to me, Mr. Rogan. That’s the work of the police. I have no interest in helping you.” He tried to straighten his posture but the effort didn’t help much. “You’re just a private citizen. You’ve no right to interrogate me.”
I wasn’t in a mood to argue with this turkey. “You’ll talk to me, Stallings. You can make book on it.”
I gave him my back and walked away.
CHAPTER V
I drove Laura home from the cemetery. As we cruised along the Southern State, she didn’t say much, but neither did I. We both stared at the highway ahead and the neatly-trimmed grassy shoulders. Lost in the dim mists of our memories and our own private guilt.
The temperature gauge was starting to rise again. When you have a ten-year-old BMW, it’s one damn thing after another. I shut off the air-conditioning and opened all the windows. The wind felt good on my face.
The needle stayed on the hot side of the gauge, but at least it wasn’t rising any more.
There wasn’t much traffic heading back to the city at three in the afternoon, so we made good time. Laura and I hadn’t exchanged more than ten words the whole ride.
I drove her back to her apartment in a high-rise on Seventy-sixth between Third and Lex and waited in the car while she went up to get Alicia’s key.
It took her fifteen minutes to come back down. She gave me a quiet smile and said, “I’m sorry I made you wait so long.” She’d changed from the black dress she’d worn at the cemetery to a sleeveless one that was just as somber but not as dark. “I have Alicia’s key for you,” she said. She handed me a soft black leather Coach keycase.
I didn’t want to leave her alone just yet. “Let’s take a walk,” I said.
She nodded agreement. I could sense she didn’t want to be alone with her thoughts.
We walked a few blocks without speaking. A few puffy clouds had appeared in the sky but the day was still sunny and dry. After a while she fixed me with a sideways glance and asked, “Why did you leave Alicia?” Her voice was soft but the tone had an edge to it.
The question caught me off guard. I didn’t answer for a minute. “I thought you knew. She left me-I didn’t leave her. It was…you know…the guy…” I let it trail off.
She shook her head urgently. “No, she told me you left her a long time before that. Not physically, I mean. It’s just that you weren’t there emotionally.”
Christ, I was there. What the hell did women mean? How could you communicate with them?
“Laura,” I said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was there. Same as always.”
“No, that wasn’t it. She kind of felt you withdrew from her. You seldom spoke to her. She said you weren’t concerned about her needs.”
This wasn’t where I wanted the conversation to go. I took another tack.
“Do you have any idea why someone would want to kill her?”
She shook her head and said quietly, “No. That’s why it’s so strange. It’s so unreal-like a fairy tale I used to hear when I was a child. I’ve never known anyone who was murdered before. And now, my big sister…”
“Did you notice any changes in her recently?”
She thought for a while. “Well, she did seem sort of edgy…tense the last few weeks, but I thought it was just pressure from her job.”
“You were the closest person to her,” I said. “If she had a problem, she would’ve told you.”
She shook her head and ran her fingers through her hair. “I used to be. But when she started taking some evening classes she began to drift away from me…she really became involved with the teacher and the other
