“You think Roger bribed Chris to leave town?”
Wally nodded. “I do indeed. From what Nitza has told us, at the time Chris was barely scraping by and trying to save up enough money to go back to Ohio for a visit. For someone like that, it wouldn’t take much money to make him feel like he’d stumbled into a gold mine. As little as a thousand bucks or so would have done the trick, and Roger always made it a point to let me know that he kept a pile of cash handy, either in his wallet or in the safe in his den.”
“I never knew anything about that either,” Penny said. “How come you did?” She sounded more than slightly put out.
“Because he told me so,” Wally replied. “Why bother you? We both know that Roger Adams is nothing but a blowhard and a braggart. Back when we used to hang out with them from time to time, Roger always rubbed my nose in the fact that he was the big-deal attorney, raking in the dough, while I was nothing more than a dirt-poor schoolteacher. I always regarded those kinds of comments as coming from a bad case of brother-in-law one-upmanship. Once Nitza came to live with us and we ended up cutting off all communication with him, it was no great loss.”
“You’re saying that you haven’t maintained any contact with him and his new wife?” I asked.
Wally shook his head emphatically. “Not at all! I was appalled that Roger wouldn’t let Nitza come visit her mother while she was in the hospital let alone not allow her to attend the funeral. I wouldn’t cross the street to spit on that man’s shoes.”
“Back to the money question,” I put in. “You’re saying you believe Roger Adams kept enough loose cash around, either on his person or at the house, that he could have tossed a thousand bucks or two in Chris Danielson’s lap at the drop of a hat?”
“No question,” Wally declared. “Roger’s grandfather was well-to-do in the twenties and then lost it all when banks went bust during the Great Depression. As a result Roger’s dad grew up dirt poor and so did Roger. That’s why he swore he’d never let himself end up in the same kind of fix, and that’s why he always kept a bundle of cash on hand. It’s also why he was always investing in real estate. He said that way if things went bust, he wouldn’t be left high and dry.”
“I still think you should have told me something about all this,” Penny interjected.
Wally might have believed that keeping his thoughts and suspicions about his ex-brother-in-law to himself all these years had been a wise move, but I had a feeling that once I left the house, Penny was going to give him hell about it.
“You told me earlier that you don’t really have any contact with Roger and Shelley, but you’re aware he’s ill now.”
Wally and Penny both nodded in unison.
“Nitza told us Helen had been in touch,” Penny explained.
“Helen?” I asked.
“Helen Sinclair,” Penny answered. “She’s been Roger’s secretary for as long as I can remember. She dropped by Nitza’s place a week or so ago to deliver the news. She was hoping Nitza would agree to come visit, but that’s not going to happen. Nitza told me she has no intention of doing so, and I don’t blame her. Yes, Wally and I helped her once the baby came along, but Roger had far more wherewithal than we did, and he never lifted a finger. As far as I’m concerned, regardless of what’s going on with Roger right now, Nitza doesn’t owe that man a damned thing!”
From all I’d heard about Roger Adams to this point, I wholeheartedly agreed. In terms of my investigation into Chris’s disappearance, I was now willing to move Roger’s name up the ladder of my suspect chart from person of interest to prime suspect. As far as I could tell, he was the only person with a strong motive for having Chris Danielson out of the picture.
If it hadn’t been so late in the day, I would have been tempted to head for Homer the moment I left the Olmsteads’ cozy home. I wanted to be in the same room with Roger Adams, speaking with him face-to-face while trying to determine what the man was all about. Up to this point, the general consensus seemed to be that Roger was a self-important bully who liked to throw his weight and money around and wasn’t above cheating on a dying wife. Those were interesting asides, but I’m a homicide investigator. For me there was only one question: Was the man also a cold-blooded killer?
Once I had a firm yes or no on that score, I’d be able to figure out what to do next.
Chapter 16
When I exited the Olmsteads’ house, it wasn’t quite five, but it was already dark—not just twilight dark but very. As I approached the Travelall, illumination from a streetlight allowed me to see that Twink was sacked out in the driver’s seat. Her only concession to the weather was the well-used jacket tucked under her chin and covering her front.
When I opened the passenger door, she started awake. “Sleeping on the job?” I asked.
“Just resting my eyes,” Twink told me. She turned the key in the ignition but didn’t put the vehicle in gear until after she’d lit her next cigarette. “Did you get what you needed?”
“Pretty much,” I answered.
“Are we done for the day?”
“I think so.”
“Back to the hotel, then?” Twink wanted to know.
“That’s fine,” I said.
We rode along in silence for a minute or two before she mentioned, “That’s what I always wanted to be when I grew up, you know—a cop.”
“Why didn’t you?” I asked.
“Oh, I did,” she replied, “but it didn’t last. I got hired by Anchorage PD and made it through the academy without a lick of trouble. But then, my first week on the job, I was out on patrol with my field training officer. It was after midnight. We got called to a public disturbance in the parking lot of a place called Boomer’s. It was located on Fourth, just up the street from the Anchor Bar and Grill. When we arrived on the scene, guys from two separate motorcycle gangs were whaling away on one another, and we waded into the melee, trying to break it up. When someone took a swing at me, I turned around and decked him. Unfortunately, I knocked him colder’n a wedge. Took out his two front teeth, and he ended up in the hospital with a concussion.”
“I guess his mother never taught him that he shouldn’t pick on girls,” I suggested.
Twink laughed aloud at that. “I guess not,” she agreed.