Strachey was out and that I was the Bulgarian cleaning lady.

Over his Wheatena, Timmy said, "Despite your clever disguise, I take it you're going to be of little assistance in straightening this place up. I think I'll just go ahead and call a cleaning service."

"Right, a cleaning service or a building contractor. Sure, go ahead. It's a business expense and I can pay for it out of the suitcase money."

He shuddered. "Do what you're going to do, but don't tell me about it. Don't mention the money to me again for a while, okay? Until I ask."

"Fair enough. Are you sure there isn't anything you need though? A word processor, a new stereo, a snazzy little BMW?"

"Don, come off it," he said, but he had the Times Union spread out in front of him and a minute later I caught him studying an ad for a twelve-hundred-dollar compact disc player.

Stevenson, Richard

Stevenson, Richard — [Donald Strachey Mystery 03] — Ice Blues

The phone rang.

"Mr. Strachey?"

"Diz da klinning leddy, Miz Pronck."

"Ha, ha. I congratulate you, kid. I just heard on the news that you assisted in the apprehension of some bad apples last night. You are a resourceful fellow, and I want to be among the first to thank you for a job well done.

Your presence in this benighted city of ours raises its moral tone, though don't tell me the dirty deeds you performed in order to accomplish what you did."

"Don't worry, I won't. I suppose, Sim, that you're also calling about the cash donation for your organization's good efforts in the upcoming mayoral campaign. Well, let me just say that I can write you a ten-dollar check and stick it in the mail today, but if you had a larger amount in mind, all I can say is, I'm still working on it."

"Yes, well-" He hesitated now, the cheery demeanor all gone. "Maybe we'll just have to let the larger amount go by the boards this time around. I hate to say it, kid, but if you've got hold of that two and a half million, I think you might be stuck with it. There's no way I can possibly imagine our accepting money gotten in the illicit trafficking of narcotics. No matter what kind of shenanigans we went through to clean it up, that money still has been where it's been and it is what it is. I'm sorry. You'll never know how sorry I am."

I said, "What makes you think that's where the money came from?" My palms were beginning to sweat.

"I didn't have to go to law school to put two and two together and come up with four-minus-ten-percent-overhead, Mr. Strachey. Last night three men were arrested in your house for possession of a large amount of cocaine.

One of them additionally has been charged with the murder of Jack Lenihan, who previously was arrested though not convicted on narcotics charges. Mr. Strachey, I can see what I can see, and I wouldn't touch that money if it was presented to me by the national chairlady of Hadassah. It is irredeemably tainted, though it breaks my heart to speak the words."

Now I was sweating all over. I said, "I think I've made a mistake."

"And what would that be?"

"I can't tell you. Hell. I'll be in touch. Give me a few days."

"No, there would be no point to it. But let's have a teriyaki again one day at that charming but rather loud young people's establishment off Madison Avenue. Maybe in a year or so, when you are no longer a name in the news.

And again, my sincere congratulations on your accomplishment as a crime fighter. Would that there were a few like you in the Albany police department."

"Yeah, would."

"Good day, then."

"So long, Sim."

I picked at my stale muffin. Timmy said, "What was your mistake?"

"What?"

"You told him you thought you'd made a mistake. Which one was that?"

"None of your business. Crap. I'm going out." I got up and flung my muffin in the trash. After I left Timmy would retrieve the muffin, wrap it in a bread bag, and place it in the refrigerator until garbage-pickup day so that it wouldn't draw ants or mice.

"When will you be back?" he said, making a mental note of the improperly discarded baked good.

"In a day or two. If anybody calls, just say-anything, any damn thing at all."

"I'll just say that you've got a hair up your ass and you've gone to the Mayo Clinic to have it removed. In that saying, do you think it's h-a-i-r or h-a-r-e?

H-a-r-e sounds more uncomfortable, which is probably your situation right now. You're the expert, which is it?"

I realized, of course, that Timmy was not to blame for my shortsighted clumsiness and there was no reason for my taking out my anger and frustration on him. In fact, he had been through an ugly experience that I had caused to happen, and, if anything, he deserved sympathy, gratitude and sensitive forbearance on my part that day and for many days and weeks to come. I said, "You'll have to call the library on that one, sweetheart," and left.

From the Hilton I phoned Ned Bowman and asked him several questions that had been nagging at me, and he answered them. He said he had a lot of questions for me too, but I said later. I got out the money in the hotel-room closet, skimmed off another thousand, paid for two more nights of storage, and drove out to the airport. I was in LA by 12:15, California time, rented a car, and drove over to Joan Lenihan's apartment building, where I waited.

TWENTY-THREE

At ten till five in the afternoon the two of them drove into the parking lot beside the building. Joan was at the wheel, Gail seated beside her. I thought they might enter a side door and get away from me, so I trotted through the spray of the lawn sprinklers and met them as they stepped out of the car in their shiny whites. To Joan Lenihan I said, "We need to talk."

"Do we? I don't think so."

"We thought you went back east," Gail said, looking powerfully ambivalent about my presence. "Why are you- didn't you go back to Albany?"

"The men who killed Jack are in jail on both murder and narcotics charges.

I thought you would want to know that, Joan. Or has Corrine called?"

Her face froze in fright and confusion, and she said, "Who is it?"

"An ex-con, a car thief, by the name of Mack Fay. He had two accomplices, Terry and Kevin Clert. The Clerts are the sons of the nurse who looks after your father-in-law. They were after the two and a half million, but Jack got to it first and they killed him. One of the remaining unanswered questions is, where did that money come from? Apparently it was kept in Pug Lenihan's house and he considered it his, but where did it come from originally? You know, don't you, Joan?"

'Where is it? Where is the money now?" She was trembling with rage. Gail Tesney stood stricken, looking at Joan, then at me, then at Joan again.

"The money is safe. I have it."

"With you?"

"In Albany."

"It's not yours. You have no right."

"Whose it is then?"

"Give it to me."

"Is it yours?"

"Just give it to me. It doesn't belong to you. You have to give it to me."

"You're going to turn it over to Pug Lenihan, aren't you? That's what you would do if you had it. Are you going to tell me why, or am I going to tell you?"

She paled and began to blink, panic rising. "Gail, why don't you go on up.

I'll be up in a little while."

"Joan, what is wrong? What is he talking about?"