“A regular treasure trove,” Henry remarked. “Wonder how it ended up in Pete’s possession.”
“No telling. The pouch was mailed to a Father Xavier at St. Elizabeth’s Parish in Burning Oaks, California. This was in March of 1961.”
Ruthie said, “I remember Pete’s driving to Burning Oaks, but that must have been sometime in March of last year. He never said a word about a Catholic priest.”
“I also came across a wedding announcement he’d clipped from the Dispatch. This was the marriage of a young woman named April Lowe and a dentist named William Staehlings.”
“What’s the relevance?” Henry asked.
“April’s the daughter of the defendant in that same lawsuit, a man named Ned Lowe.”
“Must have rung a bell,” he said.
“Which would explain why he saved the announcement, but not why he made the trip to Burning Oaks,” Ruth replied.
Henry pondered the point. “Might be part of an investigation. From what Kinsey’s told me, he was once a fine detective.”
I couldn’t remember ever voicing such a claim, but I kept my mouth shut on the off chance he was simply being kind.
Ruthie smiled. “He was a good detective. Ben used to say Pete had ‘a nose for iniquity.’ In his heyday, at any rate,” she amended.
“I remember that,” I said. One of Ben’s rare compliments where Pete Wolinsky was concerned.
“So perhaps he was persuaded to take a case,” Henry said.
Ruth made a face. “I doubt it. He only had one paying client the whole of last year.”
“Might have been pro bono work,” Henry said.
Good, sweet Henry, I thought. Working so hard to make Pete look like a better guy than he was.
“I appreciate your defense of him, but let’s be honest. We are what we are,” she said.
“He could have had a crisis of conscience,” Henry said. “Just because he made one mistake doesn’t mean every choice he made was wrong. People change. Sometimes we have reason to stop and take stock.”
Ruth regarded him with interest. “Actually, you might have a point. You knew he had Marfan syndrome.”
“Kinsey mentioned it.”
“One of the complications is an enlarged thoracic aorta. A ruptured aneurysm’s fatal in minutes, so Pete had an annual echocardiogram to monitor his condition. After his physical in February, his doctor told me he’d urged Pete to have surgery to make the repair. Pete never said a word to me and, knowing him, he blocked the idea entirely. What he didn’t want to deal with he put out of his mind and never thought about again.”
Henry cleared his throat. “You’re saying if the shooting hadn’t killed him, he might be dead anyway.”
Ruthie shrugged. “More or less. The point is Pete told the doctor he’d already lived more years than he had any reason to expect. On one hand, he was a fatalist—what will be, will be. On the other hand, why risk surgery?”
“I don’t understand how this relates,” I said.
Henry turned to me. “She’s saying I might be right. He knew all that stood between him and death was a roll of the dice. If he discovered something significant, he might have translated the information into code as a way of hiding it.”
Ruthie closed her eyes. “You’re a nice man,” she said. “And don’t I wish that it were true.”
9
In the morning, I arrived at work at 8:00 on the dot, toting the banker’s box I’d retrieved from the trunk of my car. I sidestepped the pile of mail that had been shoved through the slot from the afternoon before and proceeded into my inner office. I dropped the banker’s box and my shoulder bag on the desk and walked down the hall to the kitchenette, where I put on a pot of coffee. While the coffee brewed, I picked up the mail and sorted through the accumulation of bills and junk. Most of it, I tossed. Once the coffee was done, I returned to the kitchenette and poured myself a mug.
I set down the mug and took the lid off the box. I piled the files on my desk, removed the false cardboard “floor,” and took out the mailing pouch. I crossed to the near corner, pulled back a flap of carpeting, and opened my floor safe. I had to bend one end of the mailing pouch in order to make it fit, but it seemed like a better idea than leaving it where it was. I locked the safe, put the carpet back in place, and pressed it flat with my foot. I repacked the files and set the box on the floor near my office door.
I’d just settled at my desk when I heard the door in the outer office open and close. “I’m in here,” I called.
The man who appeared in the doorway looked familiar. Offhand, I couldn’t place him, but I pegged him as a cop of the plainclothes variety. Late thirties, nice-looking, with a long, narrow face and hazel eyes.