at Lake Tahoe was getting good results. Lindsey told her about his conversation with the bartender. They promised to keep each other informed.
That was the end of the call.
He thought, Maybe if we were married I could get her to quit the police force. Then she could travel with me. This would be one heck of a lot pleasanter if I weren’t alone in this city. I wouldn’t have to fend off Gina Rossellini.
Then he thought, Do I want to fend her off?
Then he thought, Yes, I really do.
Then he thought, What if she looked more like Sophia Loren and less like Anna Magnani? Would you still fend her off?
Then he thought, Yes.
He ate another room service sandwich for dinner, put on his Jim Dial topcoat and fedora, and picked up his white Ford LTD. The drive to Winnetka wasn’t as bad as he’d feared; they kept the roads pretty clear in Chicago and the northern suburbs.
The Paige home on Willow Road was a tall Tudor set behind a broad lawn. A gravel drive led to the front door. Lindsey’s prospective hosts had left a light burning—that was a good sign. The house sported a three-car garage, but there was already a new-looking Chevy Caprice in the driveway. Maybe there was more company tonight, or maybe the Paiges were a four-car family.
Lindsey had left his palmtop computer in his room at the Drake. The only equipment he brought with him to Willow Road was his pocket organizer and his gold International Surety pencil.
The woman who answered the door wore a black maid’s uniform complete with white apron and cap. Lindsey hadn’t seen anything like her since AMC re-ran My Man Godfrey with William Powell and Carole Lombard. She took his fedora and topcoat and his card away and came back and ushered him into the living room.
Yes indeed, the family was assembled for their after-dinner coffee, and Lindsey was invited to join the fun.
The ceiling was high enough for a few small clouds to form among the heavy wooden beams. The floor was blue slate. The furniture was late Curt Siodmak hunting lodge. Lindsey half expected C. Aubrey Smith to stride through a doorway, shotgun over his arm, a couple of newly-killed partridges in his hand.
The woman who rose to greet him wore her white hair in a graceful upsweep that might not have been current but was definitely fashionable. She wore a dark green woolen dress and a simple golden chain that reached halfway down her chest. A tiny golden crucifix hung from the chain. Jesus looked happy and contented between the woman’s breasts. She had received Lindsey’s card and glanced at it as he approached.
She shook his hand. He noticed long fingernails, a first-rate professional manicure, a wedding band and a large glittering rock.
“I am Patti Paige Hanson. Please do not make any jokes about the doggie in the window, I was tired of them thirty years ago. You are Mr. Lindsey. Please sit down. Doreen will bring you a cup of coffee. Is that satisfactory or would you prefer tea?”
She steered him to a sofa. He managed to get in a few words. “Coffee would be just fine.”
Doreen poured the coffee. The silver was polished and the china, Lindsey would have bet, did not come from Japan. Tiny cubes of sugar were served with tiny silver tongs formed into tiny birds’ claws. The creamer had a round belly and four little birds’ feet.
There were three more people in the room. The older man –his features faintly resembled Patti Paige Hanson’s—sat quietly observing. His hair was not pure white, like Patti Paige Hanson’s; it was silvery gray. His face was seamed and leathered, with the look of an outdoorsman’s. He wore a blue pinstripe suit, a white shirt and quiet tie. He was perfect.
He nodded to Lindsey. He said, “I’m Paul Paige. We spoke on the phone.”
Patti Paige Hanson asked if Lindsey’s coffee was all right. He tasted it. It was superb.
A boy who might be a youthful twenty or a regular sixteen sat on the edge of an easy chair. He wore a hounds-tooth jacket, a button-down shirt, striped tie, flannel slacks.
A girl who might be a year or two younger sat sideways in another easy chair. Her hair was cropped boyishly short and dyed jet black. She wore death-white makeup, black eyeliner and black lipstick. Her clothing was black and ripped in three or four places. She wore one fingerless glove.
Paul Paige said, “Ah, my nephew, Theo, and my niece, Selena. Hanson. Theo and Selena Hanson. They’re my sister’s children by her late husband, Gelett. Gelett Burgess Hanson, a nephew of the original Gelett Burgess. You’ve heard of Gelett Burgess, the famous author?”
Theo Hanson stood up and advanced to Lindsey. Lindsey stood. The boy said, “A pleasure to meet you, sir.” He shook hands with Lindsey, then returned to his seat.
Selena Hanson sneered at Lindsey.
Lindsey confessed that he had never heard of Gelett Burgess, the famous author.
Patti Paige Hanson said, “A pity. His books are worthy of attention. I suggest that you investigate them when you return to your home.” She paused to preen briefly, then went on. “Now, Mr. Lindsey, just what was it about this alleged insurance policy? My father—Paul’s and mine—was indeed in the publishing business in the early 1950s. But you were not very clear on the telephone about this insurance policy.”
Lindsey went over the case again. Mrs. Hanson seemed to listen intently. Lindsey couldn’t be sure about the rest of the family. “What I was hoping, then, was to find any kind of records of Paige Publications. Personnel files, financial records, anything that could help me find the girl on the cover of Death in the Ditch.”
Mrs. Hanson shook her head. “Father seldom spoke of the publishing business. That all ended so long ago, then he concentrated on real estate. He had hard going for several years, but eventually he did very well, as you can see.” Her gesture included the room, but it seemed to indicate the whole house, maybe all of Winnetka.
“There’s a new building on the old Paige site at LaSalle and Kinzie,” Lindsey said.
“Yes.”
“I was there today and spoke with the man who runs the news kiosk in the lobby. He says he knew your father and mother. Knew both of you when you were small children.”
Mrs. Hanson shot a look at her brother. “I wouldn’t remember any of that. I was just a baby. So was Paul.”
“The thing is, he mentioned some government agents visiting your father. Said that they came around repeatedly.”
“Probably about taxes. Or some bureaucratic matter. You know how the government can be. They’re a pack of self-serving Socialists in Washington. If not worse. Let me tell you something, the Soviet Union was never a threat to this country. The Communist menace comes from Washington, not from Russia. From Washington and Boston and Jew York. Decent people are going to have to build walls around themselves soon to keep the other kind out.”
That’s what Lindsey thought she said. He didn’t ask her to repeat it. He said, “I do have a list of books that Paige Publications issued.”
He unfolded Scotty Anderson’s printout and spread it on the coffee table. Theo Hanson came over and looked at it. Selena Hanson sneered. Patti Paige Hanson said, “I’m sure I am not interested.
