Body Copy - Michael Craven [37]
Tremaine said, “Your mother was nice enough to talk to me about Roger.”
Phillip said, “You know, he wasn’t my father; he was my mother’s second husband.”
“I know,” Tremaine said, and thought, he’s got that defensive air, just like his mom. What the hell do these people have to be defensive about? They have the world by the balls.
Tremaine continued. “Well, I’m looking into the case and, as you know, the cops never identified an official suspect. There’s the guy who some people suspected . . .”
“Tyler Wilkes.”
“Yeah, Tyler Wilkes. But he’s not why I wanted to talk to you,” Tremaine said. Then, with no obvious implication, “Did you like Roger Gale, Phillip?”
“I liked him because my mother liked him. He made her happy, so I liked him.”
“But, regardless of your mother, did you like him? As a person?”
“You know what? I did. You couldn’t not like him. Everybody at his agency liked him, everyone here at the Club liked him. I resisted his charms at first because I didn’t think anyone could replace my father. But Roger was sensitive to that, and although we were never best friends, I liked him. I did.”
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“Lots of people said Roger Gale’s life caused him to work insane hours and things like that, come home late.”
“I don’t think he was having affairs,” Phillip said, getting right to it. “No one would do that to my mother.”
“You sure?” Tremaine said.
“Yes. And I’m not alone in my contention, either,” Phillip said. “Bill Peterson said the same thing.”
Tremaine looked at Phillip.
Phillip said quickly, “Bill Peterson was one of the detectives who looked into this thing in the first place. He said the same thing. That they looked into the affair angle and there was just nothing there.”
Phillip Cook was getting irritated.
Tremaine said, “Bill Peterson—he’s the cop who moved to Atlanta?”
“Yes, that’s right. How did you know that?”
“I have a friend on the force.”
“So, you’ve talked to the detectives who looked into the case?”
“No, I haven’t. But I know some of them by name. Bill Peterson, Larry DeSouza.”
Phillip Cook’s good eye began to shift a little. It scanned the room while the other eye just stared straight ahead.
Now this guy’s like a lizard, Tremaine thought. A well-dressed lizard who can move just one eye at a time. Thinking, I gotta get me one of those glass eyes. Tremaine pictured a lizard sitting on a rock in the desert wearing a crested blazer and an ascot. Concentrate, Tremaine, con-centrate.
Phillip said, “Do you plan on talking to the detectives who investigated the murder?”
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Tremaine answered immediately, “No. Why would I?
They filed what they found. Talking to them isn’t going to make any new evidence appear.” But, he thought, I might, probably will.
Phillip nodded, appearing to be a little relieved. He took a dainty sip of his sparkling water and said, “What do you do in a case like this where there isn’t much to go on?”
“Start talking to people. Maybe I can find something that the cops couldn’t.”
“I doubt it,” Phillip said, that upper-crust cynicism rearing its ugly head again.
“I don’t,” Tremaine said.
Then Tremaine said, “Are you upset that I’m investigating this case because the wounds have almost healed or because of something else?”
Phillip shifted in his seat, narrowed his eyes at Tremaine, and said, “During the investigation, the police and everybody else started asking people if Roger was having affairs because he kept these crazy hours and he would come home late. In the end, all it did was insult us. It made people, like the people in this very club, think things that weren’t true. And we don’t like that kind of attention. The detectives, they don’t mind asking everyone, implying to everyone, that Roger ran around because they don’t have to live with it. My mother does. Even though it’s not true, they all stirred the pot so much that people started to believe it. It’s insulting and beneath us to have to defend our-selves against