Hot time, p.14
Hot Time, page 14
Vynne sat up straight in his chair. “I don’t care for—”
Rafe raised his hand to stop him. “I’ve seen the notebook,” he said evenly.
Vynne studied him, trying to decide if he was bluffing. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said at last.
Rafe leaned toward him and spoke in the same quiet tone. “Mr. Vynne, accessory to blackmail is a crime in New York State. So is destroying evidence. Now, why don’t we start over, and I’ll just ask you a few questions?”
Vynne considered, then nodded.
“Have you been to your father-in-law’s apartment in the past two days?”
“Yes, Tuesday evening.”
“What time?”
“About nine, I’d say.” Not long after Rafe had been there.
“Do you have a key?”
“Yes. Well, Emma does. I borrowed hers.”
“Why did you go?”
“Just to check on things.”
Rafe gave him a skeptical look.
“I was hoping to find the notebook,” he admitted, “but it was gone.”
“Was that the only time you’ve been to the apartment since Mr. Mann’s body was discovered?”
“Yes.”
“You weren’t there earlier today?”
“No,” he answered with a little heat. “I said last Tuesday night was all.”
Rafe studied his face. Did he seem like the kind of man who could hit a police officer over the head? “Has anyone else been up there?” he continued.
“Not to my knowledge.”
Then they had no idea of the mess awaiting them, Rafe thought. “Do you have any clue where the notebook is now?”
“No.”
Rafe wondered whether he should believe him. Presumably, as Mann’s only child Mrs. Vynne was also his only heir. That might be motive enough to hasten his demise. But was this magazine editor capable of murder? Rafe had seen stranger things in his brief time on the force.
He asked, “These ‘galleys’ you were correcting last night, what are they exactly?”
“They’re proofs of the new issue. We send the printer the manuscript by messenger on Monday night. He sets it into type and sends us galleys on Tuesday afternoon. We read the galleys, make alterations, and return them early Wednesday morning, so they can make the corrections and lay them out into pages. The magazine is printed and put in the mail on Thursday.”
“Do you have a set of these galleys here?”
Vynne went to Mann’s desk and picked up the narrow pages of type that Rafe had noticed. “This is a duplicate,” he said as he set them on a low table in front of the sofa. “They don’t have the corrections, but they’ll give you an idea.”
Rafe thumbed through them. “Where’s—? You know what part I’m interested in.”
Vynne leaned over the table and began flipping pages. Rafe smelled alcohol on his breath and wondered what form Vynne’s lunch had taken.
“About halfway through,” Vynne said. “Here.” He pointed to a heading in exuberant cursive type: Saunterings.
Rafe examined the column. Then he turned the page and did the same for the next and the next, until he came to the start of a short story. He looked up at Vynne. “Is this all?”
“Yes.”
Rafe asked, “Did your father-in-law ever mention the idea of publishing anything in this issue concerning J. P. Morgan or Theodore Roosevelt?”
“Nothing to me, certainly. I’d remember that.”
“And nothing like that was added to the galleys last night?”
“No. I supervised the entire process.”
Rafe nodded distractedly. If Mann had been intending to blackmail Mr. Morgan and the commissioner, why hadn’t he made good on the threat? He’d had the opportunity, since the manuscript had been released to the printer before his death. Had he been planning to add his revelations later, if his victims failed to pay up? Had he decided not to tangle with the commissioner of police and the country’s most powerful banker? Or had Morgan and Roosevelt decided to pay him off after all?
He turned to Vynne. “Did your father-in-law ever talk about who he got all his money from?”
Vynne took a deep breath. “Never. I knew he kept a notebook. He would refer to it on occasion. But I never saw it. Frankly, I didn’t want to know about that side of the business.”
Of course not. “In that case, how did you and the other staff members know who you could and couldn’t write about?”
Vynne stood. “I’ll show you.” He led Rafe back to the outer office and pointed to the chalkboard with the heading IMMUNES. “If a name appeared on this list, that meant the individual was in good standing, immune from publication.”
Rafe read through the names again. Mr. Morgan and the commissioner were not among them. “Is this a complete list?” he asked.
“Yes. The colonel always kept it himself. That’s his handwriting. If a name wasn’t on this list, it was, as he would tell us, ‘open season.’”
“Where did he get his information?”
“Servants, mostly. Housekeepers, valets, coachmen. Employees not as content as their masters might imagine, or just in need of some extra cash. Maybe their son got arrested, or their daughter got sick.”
“Did any of these informants come here to the office on the day Mr. Mann was killed?”
Vynne considered the question. “Well, yes, as a matter of fact.”
“Who?”
“Someone we’d worked with in the past. But he was nervous, kept glancing toward the door.”
“Who was it?”
“His name was Eamonn Kavanaugh.”
Rafe tried not to show his surprise. Eammon Kavanaugh. Another of those men supposedly driven mad by the heat. Did Vynne know how Kavanaugh had met his end?
Vynne said, “The colonel showed him into his office and closed the door. When he came out, he was excited, said if the information panned out we would have to do some extensive rewriting in galleys.”
“‘Panned out’?”
“The colonel never approved anything for ‘Saunterings’ without at least two sources. He was very meticulous that way. As much as the Four Hundred may despise the column, no one has ever proved anything in it to be false. In this case, the colonel said that if we could get confirmation it would be the making of us, and Town Topics would finally get the national recognition we deserved.”
Rafe leaned back against one of the desks. Was that why Mann had never published the threatened article about Mr. Roosevelt and J. P. Morgan, because he’d gotten even hotter information that same day? It would have to be something explosive, to push the police commissioner and the country’s foremost banker from the magazine’s pages. But Kavanaugh was a fireman, Rafe recalled. How could he have gotten hold of something so valuable to the publisher of Town Topics?
“You have no idea what it was?” Rafe asked.
“No. Whatever Kavanaugh said went with him and the colonel to their graves.”
So Vynne did know about Kavanaugh’s death. But he didn’t seem shocked by it. Rafe asked, “You said you worked with him before. What other information had he given you?”
Vynne thought again. “It was last year. I don’t remember exactly. Something about a police captain, I think.”
Rafe wondered if it was a coincidence that Kavanaugh was brother-in-law to Jimmy Walsh, detective in the Fourth Precinct and dear friend of Thomas Gallagher. Or was Walsh feeding him information about crooked cops, then sharing the proceeds from Mann?
“Does the name James Walsh mean anything to you?” he asked.
Vynne shook his head.
“How much did your father-in-law pay for this kind of information?”
“I really couldn’t say. I guess it would depend on how big a story it would make.”
Rafe figured a story that made Mann want to rewrite an issue in galleys must be worth a lot. Was it worth killing over?
He turned to Vynne. “And the coincidence didn’t strike you as odd? Someone comes and gives your publisher some information and the next night jumps in front of the Third Avenue El? Mr. Vynne, for a journalist, you’re not very inquisitive, are you? But then again, you didn’t want to get involved in Kavanaugh’s death any more than in your father-in-law’s.”
At least Vynne had the decency to lower his eyes. “In the paper they said Kavanaugh jumped because of the heat.”
“Right.”
They stood quiet for a time. “So these names mean nothing to you?” Rafe asked, recalling some of the code names from the notebook. “Corsair. Tulip. Steel. Canton?”
Vynne shook his head after each one. “Well, of course, Canton is William McKinley’s hometown in Ohio. It’s been in the news lately, on account of the campaign.”
“Of course,” Rafe echoed, more to himself than to Vynne. Where the candidate had been conducting his “front porch campaign,” meeting delegations, making speeches at his home instead of barnstorming across the country.
He asked, “Was your father-in-law a Republican?”
Vynne smiled thinly. “Hardly. He was a proud, lifelong Democrat.” Vynne was saying something else, but Rafe didn’t hear. My God, he was thinking, was Mann blackmailing McKinley? Is that who the commissioner has been protecting? Just how high does this thing go? And what in the name of God did it have to do with Eammon Kavanaugh and Jimmy Walsh?
Dutch was still crouched beside the newspaper bureau’s brownstone stoop. After bolting down his lemon ice, he’d torn back to his hiding place, where he’d squatted for the rest of the afternoon, watching police headquarters across the street. He’d seen dozens of men, in uniform and not, pass through the heavy wood and glass doors, but Officer Rafe hadn’t been among them.
As the shadows continued their steady creep across Mulberry Street, inching toward the building’s limestone facade, Dutch was filled with a growing dread. For the past two nights he’d had no regular sleeping place, terrible nightmares, long hours awake and alone. And the days weren’t much better, with no newspapers to sell, no steady meals, and the constant worry of who might be watching him—at first the killer but now this Detective Gallagher. And always there was the unbearable heat.
The deepening shadows had done nothing to lower the temperature, and even now Dutch could feel the heat pulsing off the pavement. He wiped his face with his shirttail. He had to think. Should he try to find Grady and ask him what to do? Should he stay here and hope Officer Rafe returned, so he could find out once and for all if he was a friend who could help him? Would he ever find his mother, or was he doomed to stay on the streets forever?
Around and around swirled his thoughts, until he felt dizzy from the effort. It was so hot. His head began to droop. He fought it for a time, but it was so much easier just to give in. At last his chin sunk onto his chest.
One fifty-four East Eighty-fifth Street. Rafe compared the number on the building with what he’d copied in his notebook that morning, after Mr. Roosevelt had told him to order flowers for Walsh’s and Kavanaugh’s wives. He had never gotten around to it, but now, on his way to the El, he’d found a florist shop on Lexington and bought an armful of white gladiolas.
He examined the four-story brick building, which was set between similarly tidy rowhouses. The front door was freshly painted, and the windows looked recently washed. A pot of geraniums had been set on the stone stoop. Rafe climbed the steps and pushed on the door. In front of him was a narrow hallway and a staircase. To the right was another door with a neat, hand-lettered sign, slipped into a brass bracket: MCGANN. Up here, apparently, a family got a whole floor to themselves. He walked up the wooden stairs to the second story. PLUNKETT read the sign on that door. On the third floor, he found what he was searching for: WALSH.
He knocked. The door opened, and Jimmy Walsh’s face appeared, looking even paler and more rodentlike than usual. On seeing Rafe, what little color it had seemed to drain away. Rafe took the opportunity to slip his foot between the door and the jamb.
Walsh said, “What the hell—?”
Knowing Jimmy’s feelings about his kind, Rafe hadn’t expected a warm Irish welcome. Still, he was surprised by the vehemence in Walsh’s tone. He realized it was the sound of fear.
“Sorry to hear about your brother-in-law,” Rafe went on. “Is Mrs. Walsh here? The commissioner asked me to bring some flowers.”
Confused, Walsh glanced at the oversize bouquet. “She’s with her sister-in-law,” he said.
“That would be Mrs. Kavanaugh.”
“What do you want?” Walsh asked. “You got some nerve—”
“Kavanaugh lived right around the corner, didn’t he?” Rafe waited to be invited in, but Walsh was only giving him a beady stare. He went on, “What a shame. One day Kavanaugh goes to see his friend William d’Alton Mann, and the next thing you know, Mann is killed in a robbery and Kavanaugh ends up under the elevated.”
At the sound of Mann’s name, Walsh’s bony Adam’s apple began to bob. He stuck his head out the door and gave a nervous glance toward the stairwell.
“We can keep talking right here if you like,” Rafe offered. “Or you can let me in.”
Walsh gave him a hateful look but opened the door a little wider. Rafe brushed past him into a small foyer with a hall tree and a beveled mirror. Glancing into the parlor, he saw a neat sofa and a pair of matching chairs, all upholstered in brown horsehair and draped with lace antimacassars. He felt a wave of envy, tinged with suspicion. So this was what it was like to live on a detective’s salary. Or did Walsh have some extracurricular income too?
Walsh closed the door but didn’t ask him to sit.
Rafe towered over him. “You and I both know that Mann’s death wasn’t a robbery,” he began. Walsh opened his mouth, but Rafe put up his hand. “Despite what your friend Gallagher says.”
Walsh’s Adam’s apple began to work again.
“Not only that,” Rafe said, “Kavanaugh went by Mann’s office the day that Mann was killed.”
“You’re crazy!” Walsh said.
“There are witnesses,” Rafe went on in a level tone. “After-ward, Mann seemed to think he was sitting on some pretty exciting news, started talking about remaking that week’s issue.”
“You’re crazy!” Walsh said again, but this time his voice jumped half an octave.
“Were you close to your brother-in-law?” Rafe asked.
“Not especially.”
“Did you ever talk to him, maybe about what was going on in the department?”
“Of course not!”
“Do you think he was unhappy? Was he the kind of man who would take his own life?”
Walsh had to struggle to keep his voice down. “How the hell would I know? I saw him at Thanksgiving and Christmas. What’s it to you, anyway? This isn’t any of your business. This isn’t your case. What do you mean, coming up here and asking all kinds of questions, the day before we bury—?”
Rafe decided to take a wild shot. “Did he ever talk about politics?”
He saw the surprise on Walsh’s face.
“What about the election? Was he a Republican or a Democrat?”
Walsh stared at him as though he’d lost his mind. But Rafe also thought he saw a glimmer of relief in his eye. “I tell you, I barely knew the man!”
“Did he know anybody working on the campaign?”
Walsh’s face split in a smile that was more nearly a sneer. “Yeah,” he said, “he and McKinley were like brothers. Old Bill didn’t take a step without talking to Eammon.” He gave his head a shake. “You’re cracked.”
For once Rafe was tempted to agree with Jimmy Walsh.
Just then the front door opened, and a petite woman came in, wearing a black armband over her white shirtwaist. Her eyes were red, and she was dabbing at them with a handkerchief. Seeing the visitor, she stopped.
Rafe took a step toward her and held out the gladiolas. “Mrs. Walsh. I’m Officer Raphael, from Commissioner Roosevelt’s office. The commissioner asked me to come and express his condolences about your brother.” He motioned toward Walsh. “I was just telling Jimmy here what a shock it was to all of us at headquarters.”
Mrs. Walsh’s eyes brimmed as she took the flowers. “Thank you. It was so nice of you to come. Jimmy and Eammon were so close, you know. Best of friends, weren’t you, Jimmy?”
Rafe gave Walsh a sidelong look. “So he was just telling me. Well, I know this is a difficult time. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be going. Again, our condolences.”
He made to leave, then turned back to Walsh. “Will you be at work later this week, Jimmy?”
“Friday.”
Rafe nodded. “Good, we can have another talk then.”
Mrs. Walsh opened the door for him. “Thank you, Officer,” she said.
As the door closed behind him, he heard Walsh’s voice. “Yeah, thanks.”
Rafe made his way downstairs, struggling to piece together what he’d learned. Last year Kavanaugh sells Mann some information about a police captain. Information that could easily have come from Jimmy Walsh, his brother-in-law and, if you believed Walsh’s wife, his best friend. Rafe had to admit, that seemed just the kind of thing Walsh would be involved in. Then earlier this week Kavanaugh goes to Mann again, apparently with something really hot. Within forty-eight hours both men are dead. So did this week’s lead also come from Walsh? Was it also something about the department? What could it possibly have to do with William McKinley? Rafe wondered if he could have gotten something more solid out of Walsh if his wife hadn’t come home.
What was Walsh so afraid of? Of ending up like Mann and Kavanaugh? Or of getting caught? He was clearly guilty of something, but what? Of abetting a blackmailer, or something worse? Was little Jimmy Walsh capable of murder? What reason would he have to kill either Mann or Kavanaugh, his partners in extortion? Was it a falling-out among thieves? Did Mann refuse to pay him? Could Kavanaugh have murdered Mann then jumped under the train out of remorse? Was he drinking so heavily that night to quiet a guilty conscience? Or did someone else send Kavanaugh to his everlasting reward—out of revenge, or to have one fewer partner to share the proceeds with, or to keep him from informing to the police? Who knew? But maybe Rafe wouldn’t wait until Friday, when Walsh was back at work. Maybe he would pay him another visit tomorrow, after the funeral. In the meantime, there was someone else he needed to talk to.
