The Widow's Mate Read Online Free PDF

it. I’ll forget we ever had this conversation.”
    What would Hazel think if she knew he had been pleading for her life? The elevator in his building was still on the blink, and Tuttle was huffing and puffing when he got to his floor. Outside the office, he stood a minute, getting his breath, and looked at the legend on the door. TUTTLE & TUTTLE . It failed to provide the usual sense of satisfaction. Was it for this that his father had sacrificed and he himself had spent all those years in the classroom? Tuttle sent up a little prayer to his father, who had died a week after Tuttle had finally managed to pass the bar exam, his sleeves full of notes, looking over the shoulder of the hotshot in front of him to see if they were answering questions in the same way.
    He pushed open the door, then almost backed into the hallway again when Hazel greeted him with a big smile.
    â€œI called the Great Wall.” The smile gave way to a more familiar glare. “Is your cell phone on?”
    â€œWhat’s up?”
    Hazel tore a page from a pad and thrust it at him. “I told her you’d meet her at this address.”
    â€œWho is she?”
    â€œShe wants a lawyer, that’s the main thing.” Hazel paused, looking reflective. “I could come along.”
    â€œAnd leave the office untended?”
    He said it with feigned disbelief. Even so, she didn’t have to laugh like that.

6
    Chicago brought back so many things that Sandy Bochenski had shut out of her mind during the years in California. The past sticks to the places where it happened. All you do is add water, and long-ago things are present again. Water as in tears.
    She had arranged for a room in the Whitehall over the Web and went there by cab from O’Hare. After a nap, she got into a sweat suit, laced up her tennies, pulled on a baseball hat, and set out. She told herself it was just her daily run, keeping to the schedule she’d been on for years, but this run had a destination. All she wanted to do was go by the building where she’d had the apartment, where her affair with Wally turned into their common desire to make it permanent. She jogged in place on the sidewalk across the street from the building. It might have been only yesterday that she had lived there. Suddenly she brought her arm over her mouth to stifle a sob. Passersby glanced at her, although joggers were normally invisible to the workaday world. Sandy regained her composure and then returned to the Whitehall, almost sprinting. In her room, she made the call to Tuttle, the lawyer.
    His name had become familiar to her when she scanned Chicago papers for some clue to why Wally had not joined her. After several confusing days, she had called Wally’s office, and a bright mindless voice cried, “Flanagan Investments! Your call is important to us. Please hold.” She hung up. But she called again. On the third try, she held and then asked for Mr. Flanagan.
    â€œWho should I say is calling?”
    She returned the phone to its cradle. Was he there? The image of him in his office conducting business as usual while she waited like a fool in San Diego, expecting him to leave all he had and join her in California …
    She bought Chicago papers; she did not know why. What did she expect to find, an apology from Wally? It was only weeks later, on a Web site, that she came upon an item telling of the disappearance of Wallace Flanagan. Her heart leapt. He was coming to her after all. For some reason, he had decided that he must cover their tracks decisively. But he was on his way, she was sure of it.
    His wife had hired a lawyer named Tuttle to look into the mystifying disappearance of her husband. Sandy read the stories with a smile. Wally had left his wife wealthy; there was no reason for him to leave; there must have been foul play.
    Whatever comfort she had derived from this development turned into deeper disappointment when days and weeks and then