Free The Suicide Murders by Howard Engel Page B

Where’s your case? Do you even have a client?” He leaned over me, smirklines on either side of his thin mouth.
    “You’d be surprised,” I said, sighing. We both looked at the other for a few seconds, not saying anything.
    “Well, Benny. Take it easy.”
    “Sure, Pete. Sure thing.” I got into the Olds and started the motor. Pete Staziak watched as I curved along the road, and I could see him in my rear-view mirror until the trees and headstones blanked him out.
    Back behind my desk in my old swivel chair, things started looking the way Pete said. What did I really have? I had a wife suspicious of her beloved husband and willing to pay me good money to find out what he was up to. I had a bike-buying suicide, and a scared shrink. And the towel; I mustn’t forget the towel. That was my biggest clue so far. Why I could knock down the door of the Supreme Court with a clue like that.
    It was time for a very late lunch. I never eat before funerals. Around at the United I sat down at my usual place at the marble counter.
    “Super Jews,” the waitress said.
    “What?” I said dropping my teeth.
    “Soup or juice? You want to see the menu? You know it by heart.”
    “Bring me … bring me … bring me …”
    “A chopped egg sandwich on white. Right?”
    “Toasted,” I said triumphantly, like I’d just put her king in check and discovered “gardé” on her queen. She sniffed haughtily and disappeared to the other end of the counter. In a few minutes she dropped the sandwich in front of me without a word. She ad libbed a glass of milk and I let her. There was nothing quite like lunch to make me hurry back to the office. I kept crazy hours in my business, sometimes working late into the night and once or twice a year right around the clock. Lunch at the United was what I had instead of regular office hours.
    I had just dug out my shoebox full of receipts and papers from the bottom drawer of my stack of filing cases with a view to doing my income tax, when the phone rang. It was Martha Tracy.
    “Cooperman? This is Martha Tracy.”
    “I know. I never forget a voice. Faces, maybe.”
    “I saw you at the funeral.”
    “Thought I’d see if you found that hat. The tall, sandy-haired jasper with the widow: was that Ward?”
    “The one and only. The little guy on the other side was the mayor.”
    “Stop the press! What’s on your mind?”
    “They asked me to come in this morning, to clear up the junk in Mrs. Yates’ office. I’ve been knee-deep in cartons all day. Well, I ran across something peculiar. You’re the expert in peculiar, I figured, so I thought I’d let you in on it. It’s a list of appointments. I’ve never seen it before and I don’t know any of the people on it. The craziest thing is that the appointments are for just about every hour of the day. Some in the middle of the night. Are you still there, Cooperman?”
    “Both ears.”
    “Isn’t that cotton-pickin’ weird? Meetings at three and four in the morning, and names like Jones and Peters and Williams.” She sounded excited and was talking a little louder than absolutely necessary. “I put it in an envelope and mailed it to you. I got your address out of the Yellow Pages.”
    “Martha, did you tell anybody about what you’ve found?”
    “Of course not. Think I never watch television? You should get it in the mail tomorrow.”
    “Depending on the mood down at the post office.”
    “M’yeah, you’re right. Anyway …”
    “Anyway, I want to thank you for keeping your eyes open. You’re a big help. I’m getting close to something. Or something’s getting closer to me.”

NINE
    I’d been playing around with the receipts from my three oil company credit cards, wondering where all that oil had taken me and how much of it was for business and how much for pleasure. There was a trip to the Hamilton registry office to check the ownership in 1938 of a house on Barton Street, which in 1938 turned out to be a peach orchard. Meanwhile