He leaned forward as far forward as his paunch would allow and engaged the boy’s dismayed eyes.
‘Here’s some more. Your father was seriously injured in the City Center Massacre back in ’09. He was there because he became unemployed after the downturn in ’08. There was a feature story in the Sunday paper a couple of years ago, about how some of the people who survived were doing. I looked it up, and it made for interesting reading. Your family moved to the North Side after your father got hurt, which must have been a considerable comedown, but you Sauberses landed on your feet. A nip here and a tuck there with just your mom working, but plenty of people did worse. American success story. Get knocked down? Arise, brush yourself off, and get back in the race! Except the story never really said how your family managed that. Did it?’
The boy wet his lips, tried to speak, couldn’t, cleared his throat, tried again. ‘I’m leaving. Coming here was a big mistake.’
He turned away from the desk.
‘Peter, if you walk out that door, I can just about guarantee you’ll be in jail by tonight. What a shame that would be, with your whole life ahead of you.’
Saubers turned back, eyes wide, mouth open and trembling.
‘I researched the Rothstein killing, too. The police believed that the thieves who murdered him only took the notebooks because they were in his safe along with his money. According to the theory, they broke in for what thieves usually break in for, which is cash. Plenty of people in the town where he lived knew the old guy kept cash in the house, maybe a lot of it. Those stories circulated in Talbot Corners for years. Finally the wrong someones decided to find out if the stories were true. And they were, weren’t they?’
Saubers returned to the desk. Slowly. Step by step.
‘You found his stolen notebooks, but you also found some stolen money, that’s what I think. Enough to keep your family solvent until your dad could get back on his feet again. Literally on his feet, because the story said he was busted up quite badly. Do your folks know, Peter? Are they in on it? Did Mom and Dad send you here to sell the notebooks now that the money’s gone?’
Most of this was guesswork – if Morris had said anything about money that day outside the Happy Cup, Drew couldn’t remember it – but he observed each of his guesses hit home like hard punches to the face and midsection. Drew felt any detective’s delight in seeing he had followed a true trail.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ The boy sounded more like a phone answering machine than a human being.
‘And as for there only being six notebooks, that really doesn’t compute. Rothstein went dark in 1960, after publishing his last short story in The New Yorker. He was murdered in 1978. Hard to believe he only filled six eighty-page notebooks in eighteen years. I bet there were more. A lot more.’
‘You can’t prove anything.’ Still in that same robotic monotone. Saubers was teetering; two or three more punches and he’d fall. It was rather thrilling.
‘What would the police find if they came to your house with a search warrant, my young friend?’
Instead of falling, Saubers pulled himself together. If it hadn’t been so annoying, it would have been admirable. ‘What about you, Mr Halliday? You’ve already been in trouble once about selling what wasn’t yours to sell.’
Okay, that was a hit … but only a glancing blow. Drew nodded cheerfully.
‘It’s why you came to me, isn’t it? You found out about the Agee business and thought I might help you do something illegal. Only my hands were clean then and they’re clean now.’ He spread them to demonstrate. ‘I’d say I took some time to make sure that what you were trying to sell was the real deal, and once I was, I did my civic duty and called the police.’
‘But that’s not true! It’s not and you know it!’
Welcome to the real world, Peter, Drew thought. He said nothing, just let the kid explore the box he was in.
‘I could burn them.’ Saubers seemed to be speaking to himself rather than Drew, trying the idea on for size. ‘I could go h … to where they are, and just burn them.’
‘How many are there? Eighty? A hundred and twenty? A hundred and forty? They’d find residue, son. The ashes. Even if they didn’t, I have the photocopied pages. They’d start asking questions about just how your family did manage to get through the big recession as well as it did, especially with your father’s injuries and all the medical bills. I think a competent accountant might find that your family’s outlay extended its income by quite a bit.’
Drew had no idea if this was true, but the kid didn’t, either. He was close to panic now, and that was good. Panicked people never thought clearly.