have to take precautions when the comptroller kills himself.”
“Oh, nobody thinks he did anything improper. It’s a routine thing, they said.”
Shit. If that letter and the photograph were still in the same envelope I was doomed. Huff had screwed us but good; it hadn’t occurred to me that the son of a bitch might overreact and finish himself off. I’d counted on having him as an ally in the fight with the board, if a reluctant one, and now there was the danger Collins and I might be tied to a blackmail attempt.
“How’s his wife doing?”
“I don’t know. She’s taken the boys somewhere, to a relative I think. It’s just awful.”
“Where’s the boss?”
“He went home as soon as he found out. He was very upset. He pretended not to like Mr. Huff, but I know he’s taking it very hard.”
PARK MET ME at Red’s at five. “You really stepped into the shit this time, Ogden.” He said it like he was mad at me personally.
“We need to find out where that photo ended up. If he burned it we’re in the clear. If it’s separate from the letter we’re as good as clear, it’d take a hell of a lawyer to put that case together. But if they’re still in the same envelope . . . ”
“I’m not doing it.” He was sitting with his arms folded across his chest.
“I haven’t asked you to do anything yet. We’re here to figure out how we’re going to find out what he did with the picture.”
“Not me. I’m here to quit.”
“Quit? Over what?”
“That man Huff killed himself because of that stunt we pulled. It’s not right. I’m not a cop any more but I can’t let myself be involved with felonies.”
“What the hell, Park, you’re going soft on me all of a sudden?”
He shook his head at me. “I can hardly stand the sight of you.”
I’m wrong once in a while about all kinds of things, but one thing I almost always get right is who my friends are, and in this case it sure threw me to have been wrong. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my wallet, counted out two hundred dollars in fifties and handed them to him.
“That’s your severance pay, Herman,” I said. “Good luck in the future.”
He rose, slugged back his shot and washed it down with half his beer. Then he threw the bills onto the bar and walked away.
THE EVENING EAGLE played the story down, describing the death as accidental in a single column on page four. The Beacon’s late edition played it big on the front page above the fold, quoting the county attorney as saying it looked like a suicide and even suggesting the existence of a note. There was even the merest suggestion of a double life Mr. Huff might have been leading, though what sort of double life was left to the imagination of the reader.
Millie had spoken of Huff’s wife taking their sons to stay with relatives. Huff’s office was sealed while the county attorney and the CPAs looked over the books, but would his house be sealed as well? It was worth a try. The Eagle’s brief article had published his College Hill address, and at nine I drove past a large, darkened, two-story house and saw no evidence anyone was home. Of course Mrs. Huff might have been the sort to retire early, particularly the day after her husband’s death, but I felt reasonably sure the house was empty. If it wasn’t I’d find out soon enough.
At midnight I returned and parked two blocks away on Roosevelt. I walked down the sidewalk with as much nonchalance as a midnight stroller has any business feeling, and when I arrived at the house I walked around back as quietly as I could. At the end of the driveway stood the garage where Huff had done it; if the envelope was in the car at the time of the suicide then it was likely the police already had it, and if by some miracle it was still in there untouched I would have to raise the garage door to get to it, difficult if not impossible without making an attention-getting racket. So I would leave that until after my search of the house, as a last, desperate resort.
I wrapped my handkerchief around my fist and broke a glass pane in the door, stuck my arm through, and unlocked it. I crept through the kitchen and turned on my flashlight,