She turned red. “Vic! I know you’re a detective, but this is excessive. You have a morbid interest in your cousin that’s very unhealthy. I believe you can’t stand the thought that he might have been close to any other woman but you!”
“Paige, I’m not asking you to tell me what kind of lover Boom Boom was or to describe any intimate passages of your lives together. I just want to know what you did on Saturday and whether you saw him on Monday … Look, I don’t want to turn this into a big, hostile ordeal. I like you. I don’t want to start calling Ann Bidermyer and your mother and everyone you know to get a bead on you. I’m just asking you.”
The honey-colored eyes filled with tears. “I like you too, Vic. You remind me of Boom Boom. But he was never so aggressive, even though he was a hockey player.
“We were sailing on Saturday. We got back at four so I could get to rehearsal. He may have stayed in Lake Bluff with the boat. I don’t know. Monday night we had dinner at the Gypsy. I never saw him after that. Are you satisfied? Does that tell you what you have to find out? Or will you still be calling my mother and everyone else I know?”
She turned and left. My head was aching again.
13
Sherry at Valhalla
Monday morning, Lotty removed the cast, pronounced the swelling down and healing well under way, and had me released from bondage. We went north to her tidy apartment.
Lotty drives her green Datsun recklessly, believing that all other cars will move out of the way. A dent in the right fender and a long scrape along the passenger door are testimony to the success of her approach. I opened my eyes on Addison—a mistake, since it was in time to see her swerve in front of a CTA bus and to turn right onto Sheffield.
“Lotty, if you’re going to drive like this, get a semi—the guy who’s responsible for putting my shoulder in this sling walked away from the accident unscratched.”
Lotty turned off the ignition and hopped out of the car. “Firmness is necessary, Vic. Firmness or the others will drive one from the streets.”
It was hopeless; I gave up an unequal struggle.
We had stopped by my apartment to pick up clothes and a bottle of Black Label—Lotty doesn’t keep whiskey in the house. I’d also taken my Smith & Wesson from a locked cupboard in the bedroom closet. Someone had tried to smash me to bits on the Dan Ryan. I didn’t feel like roving the streets unprotected.
Lotty went to the clinic she operates nearby. I settled down in her living room with a telephone. I was going to talk to everyone who’d had a chance to take a crack at me. My rage had disappeared as my head wound healed, but my sense of purpose was strengthened.
I reached the helpful young office manager at the Pole Star Line on the third ring. The news she gave me was not encouraging. The Lucella Wieser had delivered her load in Buffalo and was steaming to Erie to pick up coal bound for Detroit. After that she was booked on the upper lakes for some time—they didn’t expert her in Chicago until the middle of June. They could help me set up a radio conversation if it was urgent. I couldn’t see going over the issues I needed to cover by radio—I’d have to speak to the Pole Star contingent face to face.
Baffled there, I called down to Eudora Grain’s office and asked for Janet. She came to the phone and told me she was sorry about my accident and glad I was feeling better. I asked her if she knew where Phillips lived—I might pay a surprise visit to his wife to find out what time her husband had come home the night of my accident.
Janet didn’t know. It was up north someplace. If it was important, she could ask around and find out. It was important, I said, and gave her Lotty’s number.
While I was waiting I got Howard Mattingly’s number from Myron Fackley. Boom Boom told Pierre he’d seen Mattingly in a strange place. I was betting Mattingly was hanging around Lake Bluff when Boom Boom went sailing there with Paige the Saturday before he died. I wanted to find out.
Mattingly wasn’t home, but his wife, Elsie the Breathless, was. I reminded her we’d met at a number of hockey functions. Oh yes, she gasped, she remembered me.
“Boom Boom told me he’d seen your husband sailing on the twenty-third. Did you go with him?”
She hadn’t gone out with Howard that day—she was pregnant and she got tired so easily. She didn’t know if he’d been sailing or not—he certainly hadn’t said anything about it. Yes, she’d tell Howard to call me. She hung up without asking why I wanted to know.