"When was that?"
"Eight years ago. When the will cleared probate Amanda and I each inherited slightly in excess of six hundred thousand dollars. I rather doubt that she spent it all."
BY the time we were through it was getting close to five o'clock and the bar business was beginning to pick up as the first of the Happy Hour set arrived. I had filled several pages in my pocket notebook and had begun turning down coffee refills. Lyman Warriner had switched from tea to beer and was halfway through a tall glass of Prior dark.
It was time to set a fee, and as always I didn't know how much to ask for. I gathered that he could afford whatever I charged him but that didn't really enter into my calculations. The number I settled on was $2500, and he didn't ask me how I'd arrived there, just took out a checkbook and uncapped a fountain pen. I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen one.
He said, "Matthew Scudder? Two t's, two d's?" I nodded and he wrote out the check and waved it to dry the ink. I told him that he might have a refund coming if things went faster than I expected, or that I might ask for more money if it seemed appropriate. He nodded. He didn't seem terribly concerned about this.
I took the check, and he said, "I just want to know, that's all."
"That might be the most you can hope for. Finding out that he did it and turning up something that'll stand up in court are two different things. You could wind up with your suspicions confirmed and your brother-in-law still getting away with it."
"You don't have to prove anything to a jury, Matthew. Just prove it to me."
I didn't feel that I could let that go. I said, "It sounds as though you're thinking of taking matters into your own hands."
"I've already done that, haven't I? Hiring a private detective. Not letting matters take their own course, not allowing the mills of God to grind in their traditionally slow fashion."
"I wouldn't want to be part of something that winds up with you on trial for Richard Thurman's murder."
He was silent for a moment. Then he said, "I won't pretend it hasn't occurred to me. But I honestly don't think I would do it. I don't think it's my style."
"That's just as well."
"Is it? I wonder." He motioned for the waitress, gave her twenty dollars and waved away change. Our check couldn't have come to more than a quarter of that, but we'd taken up a table for three hours. He said, "If he killed her, he was exceedingly stupid."
"Murder is always stupid."
"Do you really think so? I'm not sure I agree, but you're more the expert than I. No, my point is that he acted prematurely. He should have waited."
"Why?"
"More money. Don't forget, I inherited the same amount Amanda did, and I can assure you I haven't pissed it away. Amanda would have been my heir, and the beneficiary of my insurance." He took out a cigarette, put it back in the pack. "I wouldn't have had anyone else to leave it to," he said. "My lover died a year and a half ago, of a four-letter disease." He smiled thinly. "Not gout. The other one."
I didn't say anything.
"I'm HIV-positive," he said. "I've known for several years. I lied to Amanda. I told her I'd been tested and I was negative, so I had nothing to worry about." His eyes sought mine. "That seemed like an ethical lie, don't you think? Since I wasn't about to have sex with her, why burden her with the truth?" He took out the cigarette but didn't light it. "Besides," he said, "there was a chance I might not get sick. Having the antibody may not necessarily mean having the virus. Well, scratch that. The first telltale purple blotch appeared this past August. KS. That's Kaposi's sarcoma."
"I know."
"It's not the short-term death sentence it was a year or two ago. I could live a long time. I could live ten years, even more." He lit the cigarette. "But," he said, "somehow I have a feeling that's not going to happen."
He stood up, got his topcoat from the rack. I reached for mine and followed him out to the street. A cab came along right away and he hailed it. He opened the rear door, then turned to me once more.
"I hadn't got around to telling Amanda," he said. "I thought I'd tell her at Thanksgiving, but of course by then it was too late. So she didn't know, and of course he wouldn't have known, so he couldn't have realized the financial advantage in delaying her murder." He threw his cigarette away. "It's ironic," he said, "isn't it? If I'd told her I was dying, she might be alive today."
Chapter 3
I got up the next morning and put Warriner's check in the bank and drew some walking-around money while I was at it. We'd had a little snow over the weekend but most of it was gone now, with just a little gray residue left at the curbs. It was cold out, but there wasn't much wind and it wasn't a bad day for the middle of winter.
I walked over to Midtown North on West Fifty-fourth, hoping to catch Joe Durkin, but he wasn't there. I left word for him to call me and walked on down to the main library at Forty-second and Fifth. I spent a couple of hours reading everything I could find about the murder of Amanda Warriner Thurman. While I was at it I looked for her and her husband in the New York Times Index over the past ten years. I read their wedding announcement, which had appeared four years ago September. She would already have come into her inheritance by then.
I had already learned when they were married from Warriner, but it never hurts to confirm things a client tells you. The announcement furnished me with other information Warriner hadn't given me- the names of Thurman's parents and others in the wedding party, the schools he'd attended, the jobs he'd held before he went with Five Borough Cable.
Nothing I turned up told me that he had or hadn't murdered his wife, but I hadn't figured to solve the case with two hours of library research.
I called Midtown North from a pay phone on the corner. Joe hadn't come back. I had a Sabrett hot dog and a knish for lunch and walked over to the Swedish church on Forty-eighth, where there's a twelve-thirty meeting on weekdays. The speaker was a commuter who lived with his family on Long Island and worked for one of the Big Six accounting firms. He'd been sober ten months and couldn't get over how wonderful it was.
"I got your message," Durkin said. "I tried you at your hotel but they said you were out."
"I was on my way there now," I said. "I thought I'd take a chance, see if I'd catch you in."
"Well, today's your lucky day, Matt. Have a seat."
"A fellow came to see me yesterday," I said. "Lyman Warriner."
"The brother. I figured he'd call you. You gonna do something for him?"
"If I can," I said. I had palmed a hundred-dollar bill and I tucked it between his fingers. "I appreciate the referral."