Bad Business

56

Back at my office I called the management company that ran the Park Drive apartment complex where Coop had his love nest, and impersonated a police officer. There was no one named Cooper in the building, nor anyone named Griffin. Apartment 2B was rented to Steven Gavin. Checks were from his own account.

I looked at the big picture of Susan on my filing cabinet.

"So," I said to her, "Gavin knew about the love nest, and he knew about something else, something to do with money which he'd spoken to Trent Rowley about, and maybe Bernie Eisen."

A nd Trent Rowley was dead, and so was Gavin. Had he mentioned the money thing to Cooper? Didn't sound like it. Why not? Because Cooper wasn't involved in the hands-on day to day. Because he wanted to be president and would need deniability if some sort of money scandal emerged.

"So why was Gavin having Marlene and Ellen followed?" I said to Susan's picture.

Susan's picture didn't seem to know, either. And why, in addition, was he pursuing an affair with Marlene? Love was of course a possibility. But it wasn't a certainty. The fact that he was having her followed wouldn't be a problem if he wanted to sleep with her. Jerry Francis and his partner reported only to him, and they thought he was Marlene's husband anyway. And she was attractive enough to sleep with if you didn't have to talk with her afterward. Maybe he slept with her because she was available. But he went back, if I could believe her, for more. Why? Research?

Say he was as loyal to Cooper as Adele said he was. Cooper seemed to think so, though I detected no real sense of loss. Cooper probably didn't feel much about people other than Cooper. And say, because he was renting the love nest for him, that Gavin knew Cooper was involved in some sort of seamy sex thing. But he might not have known what, and it worried him. He wanted Cooper to be a senator, maybe president, too.

But the seamy sex thing wouldn't get him killed. Cooper would know he could keep the secret. Hell, Cooper had him rent the apartment on Park Drive. So it was something else. And the only something else I knew about was the money thing. Which Marty was working on. So why was Gavin having two wives tailed about a money thing?

I looked at my picture of Susan again. It had been taken in the country, and she was wearing a straw hat and holding a glass of wine, and talking to someone off camera and smiling, like she smiles, with her head turned and tilted a bit. She was so Susan in the picture. It was my favorite.

"What am I missing?" I said.

Susan's picture gave it some thought. I gave it some thought. Neither of us said anything for a while. It was a humid August. Outside my window it had gotten darker than it should have in the middle of the afternoon. And I could hear thunder. The thunder wasn't close. Too far away yet for lightning. No rain yet. But the air was suspenseful with it, and it would be here soon.

Then I said, "They intersect."

I was pretty sure Susan's picture said, of course they do.

There was something in common between the seamy sex thing and the money thing. Otherwise I could make no sense of it. Which meant here came Darrin O'Mara again. And his pal Lance.