“She’s still in a coma,” I told him. “The prognosis isn’t very good, but they’re moving her from the hospital to a nursing home this week.”
While he made commiserating noises, I added, “She mislaid something in her papers that I’d like to try to find.”
Rafe accepted the ten I slipped him with the dignity of a man for whom money is unimportant. He called down to the night super to relieve him and took me up to Leydon’s apartment. He flinched, as I did, at the sight of the mess, which looked worse than I remembered it.
“Maybe she has her problems, but she’s unusual—unordinary, if you know what I mean. She made me think of moonlight on the lake, the way she talked.” He laughed, embarrassed at his own poetic flight. “You let me know when you’re done so I can double-lock the doors.”
While lightning forked and writhed across the lake and rain made the floor-to-ceiling windows shudder, I sifted through the papers in Leydon’s living room and bedroom. I made no attempt to organize them; I simply looked for a picture that included firemen. All the clippings, all those articles about diet or conspiracies involving oil or water, I put into blue recycling bags.
Around ten, when I’d been at it for three hours, it occurred to me to call Leydon’s sister-in-law. No, Faith said, Leydon hadn’t shown or mailed any pictures to her, of firemen or of anything else.
“I talked to Sewall,” she said quickly, as I was hanging up. “We’ll move her to a place in Skokie, probably next Monday. They have a good reputation, and maybe she’ll get back to—” She broke off, as she remembered what normal was for Leydon.
“That’s good, Faith,” I said with a hollow heartiness.
I was glad that Faith had taken a stand with Sewall on his sister’s care, but Leydon’s depressing condition, combined with the mess I was sorting, made it impossible to be optimistic. The weather dragged my spirits down as well. At noon, when the rain paused, I went out for food.
The little indie bar I’d found before made me up a vegetable sandwich and two cappuccinos. I brought them back with me—I was afraid if I took a long break I’d never summon the energy to get back to the Augean stables.
At two, I was pretty sure I had handled every paper in the apartment, gone through mattresses, couch cushions, books, looked under appliances and inside CD covers. I lay on the Navajo rug in the living area and stretched my sore shoulders and hamstrings. After a time, I remembered my other obligations. Still lying on the floor, I called various clients, and then checked in with Murray.
He’d found five members of the old volunteer fire department. They’d all been glad to show him their group photos; he’d even seen one with Tommy holding Good Dog Trey’s leash, grinning like he’d just won the lottery, but the pictures didn’t shed any light on the Lawlors.
“Tommy’s photo has to be a red herring,” Murray announced. “It has to be something Tommy said that Wuchnik and Leydon both pounced on. You’d better go talk to him again.”
“You could be right,” I agreed dispiritedly.
If the photo had meant something, the person who attacked Leydon probably found it when he rifled through her handbag. Or cleaned out Wuchnik’s apartment. I’d buy some jelly beans and go see Tommy tomorrow afternoon. I needed to do some real work in the morning for my most important client.
I lay back down on the Navajo rug. A spider had put up a three-dimensional web in a corner by the windows. A literary detective like Spenser or Marlowe would have a good time drawing an analogy to my confused brain, but I thought it just showed that the cleaning service wasn’t doing much of a job for Leydon. It was hard to blame them, given the level of chaos in here.
My mind wandered off to other places where Leydon might have put Tommy’s picture, which made me realize that only my conscious mind agreed with Murray. I called down to Dean Knaub at Rockefeller, but he said the housekeeping crews hadn’t turned in anything else that might have belonged to Leydon, either pictures or news clippings or pill bottles. He even trundled up to the balcony to see if she might have stuck something in a hymnal, but came back empty-handed.
I called Tania Metzger. She didn’t have much time to spare, so I tried to speak fast. I explained to her that I had become Tommy Glover’s legal representative, and had spoken to him yesterday about the day that Leydon showed up in the forensic wing. I gave her as concise a history as I could about Glover’s situation.