Not the answer he had expected, but an interesting one. He said, “I just have a couple of questions. About the Bradfords.”
“Well, get the hell inside before the whole neighborhood sees you.” With a disgusted gesture she waved him inside. “Have you talked to Steve and Elaine?”
Elaine. That must be the tense blonde. Steve’s wife. The old man’s daughter, whose street Nick was to get the hell off of. Nick said, “I had a couple of minutes with Steve. That’s all.”
“Will you have to talk to Elaine?”
She was a bit bristly. Protective of her neighbor. Well, the Montessori woman had been too. And Nick’s own glimpse of that lovely taut face made their attitude understandable. Muffin had more than a cold, he knew already. He said, “Elaine’s very upset, I understand. So I won’t bother her if I can get the information elsewhere. One reason I’m talking to you.”
She relaxed, resting her hand against her swollen belly. “What a mess. But if old man Busby sent you, who am I to complain? You know that Steve and Elaine think he shouldn’t even have called the police. And now you! Steve must have hit the ceiling.”
“Yes, he did.” Was this a police matter, then?
“But you take orders from the old man no matter what Steve says?”
“Who’s paying me? But I’ll try to be discreet.”
She gave him a wry look. “Well, off to a great start, aren’t you? At least the police had the sense not to come banging on the front door!”
He put on an abashed face. “Gee, you want me to try again, I’ll come down the chimney.”
This evoked a quick laugh. “Oh, hell, come on back and have some coffee.” She led the way through an early American living room, some authentic old pine pieces there, to a modern kitchen with a clutter of expensive breakfast dishes still stacked by the sink. The place smelled clean, spray wax and fresh coffee. Once, before Sarah, Nick’s house had sometimes smelled like that. She asked, “Cream and sugar?”
“Black’s fine.”
She poured two mugs, arranged her spreading body in a caned Breuer chair at the round oak table, and motioned Nick to take another. “Okay. What does old Busby want to know?”
Nick pulled out his notebook, filled with casting directors’ names. “It’s usually best if you tell me in your own words. So I don’t put ideas into your head.” As though he had any ideas to put there.
“You look for discrepancies, huh? And then whirl and point your finger at me and announce, ‘Hah, Rachel did it!’”
Nick grinned at this pleasant, mocking mother-to-be. “Wow. Sounds like fun. Maybe I should change my technique.”
“It’s not like that, huh?”
“It’s usually sitting in a car for hours going numb while some guy goes to work and to business meetings instead of having the affair his wife thinks he’s having. Or it’s sitting at a typewriter for hours attempting to compose a report that won’t put the client to sleep too. Hell, you’re the high point of my week!”
She laughed again. “Poor little man! No one ever said that to me, not even when I still had my figure!”
“Shucks, no one ever said it to me either. And my figure’s as good as it ever was.”
She looked over his broad build with unconcealed amusement. “Yeah, we’re a couple of battleships, aren’t we? Okay, you want my own words on this, you say.”
“Right.” Nick found a clean page in his notebook.
“You mean just the part I was involved with? Because Steve or old Busby must have told you about the kidnap note.”
Something icy clamped in Nick’s chest. Worse than a cold, indeed. But he stayed in character. Coolly professional, Nick the private eye replied, “Yes. But tell me about it in its proper place. And why Steve and Elaine are worried about police and detectives, because so far I only have Busby’s side.”
“Steve was short with you? I thought so.”
“Very short.”
“Okay.” The coffee mugs were expensive and Danish. She held hers in both hands as she sipped. “Let’s see. Begin at the beginning. Elaine had to go to Palm Beach because your employer was having a prostate operation. Hah, bet he didn’t tell you that detail!”
“No, he didn’t,” said Nick truthfully.
“Yeah, wouldn’t fit his image,” she said with satisfaction. “The old fool came up here personally with the money, dragging that male nurse. Pardon me for insulting your source of income, but he really is antediluvian. Big money, big game. Elaine says he’s got lions, rhinos, et cetera. A whole herd of heads looking down at you in his billiard room. How could he shoot those beautiful creatures just for his billiard room?” She regarded him belligerently.
“Gives him a sense of achievement?”
“Achievement! No doubt it makes him feel all male and primeval. Except he needs about a million dollars’ worth of technology for killing to bring him up to the ability of one of the animals he shoots. How primeval is a rifle or a jeep? Listen, I’m boring you, but I don’t like hunting.”
Nick tapped his notebook. “Yeah, I’ve already put you down as pro flowers and puppies.”
She grinned her lazy grin. “Pro motherhood and apple pie too, as you can see. Okay, so Elaine took Muffin to school and then flew off to help restore her dad to manhood. I’d offered to help with Muffin, but Steve said no need, he’d pick up Muffin himself. Then, Thursday afternoon—God, that’s just yesterday, isn’t it?—he called. Some big job had come up at the office, and he hated to bother me, but could I pick up Muffin after all? Okay, no big deal, a thirty-minute train ride. So I went waddling off to the big city. Hi, I say brightly, I’m here to get Muffin. Oh, sorry, she says, Muffin went with someone else.”
“I see.” Nick was scribbling in his book, trying to imagine Rachel at Steve’s little SoHo apartment with the voluble Mrs. Golden. “Who did she go with?”
“Tall, curly black hair, a baby of her own. Seemed bright and competent, and Muffin took to her, she said. So it didn’t occur to her that Steve had meant me instead of her.”
“I see.” Nick hid his dismay by chewing on the pencil. Was this story leading where he feared?
Rachel leaned forward earnestly. “It’s got to be someone at Steve’s firm, don’t you think? How else would this curly-haired woman have known to cut in line ahead of me? But if someone overheard his call to me, they’d know it was their chance to get the baby. Might have planned it a long time ago and waited till a chance like this came up.”
“Makes sense,” said Nick slowly. He was right, damn it; Mrs. Golden had told Rachel that Maggie had taken Muffin! And they’d already failed to find Mrs. Golden, who had left no traces. Poor Bradford was doubtless in the same situation and had only her false references.
Had he seen her face-to-face? Possibly; but Nick remembered that Maggie had delivered the envelope with the pay. Perhaps Rachel was the only one who could identify the woman, if she could be found.
Rachel; and Maggie.
Who was the prime suspect until the truth was found.
There was another possibility, he realized. Could Rachel be lying? Must be someone at Steve’s firm, she’d suggested, someone who had overheard Steve’s arrangements with her and could send the kidnapper ahead. But she, Rachel, also knew the arrangements, also could send someone ahead. And she knew intimate details of the Bradfords’ life, the source of their money, where they spent their time and when. Everything a kidnapper needed. In that way, perhaps a more likely criminal than Mrs. Golden.
Rachel said, “You’re big on thinking, aren’t you?”
Nick pulled his thoughts back from theory and shrugged. “Well, when I started out I used six-guns instead. But I’m a low-budget operation and bullets cost more than thoughts.”
She smiled. “In every way.”
“Anyway, I think you’re right about the coworker,” he said. “They probably had a plan made up waiting for the right situation to come along. And of course I’ll be checking out the firm, though not openly. Busby insi
sted.”
“I’ll bet.”
“Okay. What did you do when you heard someone had already taken Muffin?”
“Well, I didn’t know what to think. She was so sure about it. Said Steve had mentioned a baby. I told her he probably just meant I was pregnant. Right? But she gave me this funny look and I realized she really believed the curly-haired woman. And furthermore, she thought I was a kook! Well, I am, but not that kind. I tried to call Steve but he’d already left the office. I decided maybe he’d found someone closer but by the time he’d tried to call me back I’d left. So I went home and waited for Steve and Elaine to arrive from the airport. Worried as hell.”
Nick had finished his coffee. He pushed the mug aside. “And rightly so.”
She nodded, the lazy grin gone now. One of her fingers traced the design on her Danish mug. “They found the note when they got home. It was terrible. Ugly stuff about cutting off fingers—God, I’ve had nightmares about it! About my baby…. Anyway, it said specifically, no police.”
“Yes,” said Nick. “Steve Bradford was worried about that too. I’ll do my best.” Steve would have told him about the note too. So he asked obliquely, “And they’ve followed the instructions in the note, he said.”
“Right. Steve left just a few minutes ago to deliver the money. The guys have a weird sense of humor. Wanted the money delivered in a toy bear! There’s one for old Busby’s billiard room!”
Nick grinned. “I’m not supposed to laugh at him. He’s my employer.”
“Oh, I know.” She grew serious. “I suppose he thinks he’s doing right. And it’s his half-million bucks the kidnappers want, we all know that. Steve and Elaine can hardly tell him off. I mean, they’re like us and everyone else on this street, mortgaged up to their ears. This burg is a Chase Manhattan company town.”
“God, looks pretty comfortable to me.”
“Oh, yeah, can’t complain. Unless Bob loses his job, or one of us gets sick, or the baby. Then we drown without a trace, and Chase Manhattan finds a rounder peg to drop in this little hole.”
“Not much danger of that, is there?”
She lifted her shoulders an inch, frowning at her empty mug. “I’ve been lucky. I worry what would happen if we lost Bob’s income for some reason. I mean, here I am, seven months committed to having this kid, and no job of my own, no way to pay off this huge house. Not like Elaine. Steve is pretty well set because it’s her dad’s business. And if Daddy dies, then it’s her business.”
“So why are they mortgaged?”
“Oh, I told you Busby was antediluvian. He thinks it builds character or something to owe money to the bank.” She leaned back, stroked her blouse smooth over her distended belly, and mused, “I think they would have built enough character with all the trouble they had having a baby. That’s tough on a person.”
“Fertility problems?” he hazarded, hoping to keep the information coming. Rachel, less secure financially than her friend, had obviously given some thought to ways in which she was more fortunate.
“I guess so. And miscarriages. Elaine says once Muffin was born Steve treated her like a goddess or something. We were sitting by the dock one day, and she said, ‘I bet it would be fun to do it in the sailboat.’ And I said, ‘God, you mean you haven’t?’ And she told me how she was sort of on a pedestal.” Her cheeks colored. “My God, I shouldn’t be telling you this!”
“No, you’re right. It feeds into the whole kidnap situation. Better to hear it from you than to have to ask Elaine.”
“Yeah, you better not ask her about this.” The lazy grin came back. “Thank God my Bob doesn’t respect me that much!”
Ah, shrewd and lusty lady, you’ll find that being three is far more complicated than being two. Nick felt a stirring of sympathy for Steve. If Sarah, quickly conceived and smoothly borne, could wreak such emotional havoc, how much more complicated it would be if she also symbolized a long-sought prize! But Rachel wouldn’t understand yet. So he just smiled and said, “So long as Bob respects the mortgage payments, right?”
“Yeah. Bottom line. And listen, Mr. Private Eye O’Connor, if a single word of this last stuff gets back to Busby, I’ll personally slay you.”
“I know. I’m not an idiot. Merely a paid brute.”
“Well, brute, I only told you so you wouldn’t be bugging Elaine.” She still felt guilty.
He hastened to reassure her. “I shouldn’t have to now. Tell you what, when I leave I’ll go inspect your hedges. You can tell people I’m a landscape contractor bidding on a job.”
“Good idea. But listen, try to make old Busby understand.” Her dark eyes pinned him with their earnestness. “This is not a big game hunt. This time the quarry is a little girl, not a rhino. And we want her back alive. So tell him to quit making the kidnappers nervous. To quit sending guys like you around.”
“Yes.” She could be right. Or, he reminded himself, she could be warning him away because she herself was involved in the plot. He almost hoped she was; his presence might panic a kidnapper into doing something rash, but if Rachel was involved, she seemed cool, witty, not rash at all. Still, better keep her thinking that he liked her theory. He said, “I won’t be doing much until the little girl is home safely. After that I’ll check out Steve’s coworkers.”
“Good.”
Nick decided to risk another question. “Also, he sent me packing so fast that I didn’t get the address of the woman who gave Muffin to the kidnapper.”
“Mitzi’s address? Sorry, I don’t know. But you can get in touch with her at Montessori any day. But—”
“I know, I promised! Not until after the little girl is back. Thank you,” said the private eye automatically, closing his notebook. But Nick’s mind churned as he walked back through the house.
Rachel said she had gone to Montessori to pick up Muffin.
Not to Mrs. Golden.
And that put a different and even uglier slant on the case.
The one-eyed bear stared glumly at Steve.
Steve stared at the bills. Hard to believe how much it was.
Busby, fuming about the tight schedule, had grumbled that they’d only had time to mark the five hundreds. Fifty thou. Steve pulled one out of its bundle, squinted at it, finally spotted the little extra curlicue on McKinley’s portrait. Idiotic old Busby. A professional kidnapper would see that instantly. Well, he’d fix that—or rather, Busby Investments would. Banks were pulling these larger denominations out of circulation, and Busby Investments, a good-citizen firm, would cooperate fully and change them for hundreds. They were going to follow the instructions in that note, damn it, whatever the old man thought! Busby didn’t care about Muffin, he only cared about revenge on people who tweaked his nose.
But Steve had to stay cool, move calmly, so the secretaries wouldn’t ask premature questions. The rest of the bundle would be as safe here as anywhere. He unlocked his top left drawer and slid the bag and the bear inside, next to his gun. Beautiful, tiny gun. He frowned at it a moment, then loaded it. He’d feel better carrying the gun when the time came.
The bear looked at him from the drawer.
Steve slid the gun into his pocket, along with his new passport. That had cost money too. But it was completely confidential, his expensive contact had promised; and the man was real, or had been, with a birth certificate on file somewhere in Chile and probably old school records, in case anyone checked. José Santos, he was called. Blue-eyed, like Steve. A few years younger. But the photograph in the passport was Steve’s.
His plan was complete. He’d change the bills and wait here at the office, calm and respectable, until late afternoon. Then he’d leave, call Elaine from a booth. He’d talk in a funny voice, high-pitched, to tell her that the ransom had been received. And he’d give her the address of the Douglaston day-care center where he’d told Mrs. Golden to take Muffin today.
Then he’d catch the JFK Express, anonymous in the crowd, and be in time for the evening flight. Steve Bradford would n
ever be seen again.
But José Santos, lucky man, would turn up in Caracas tomorrow, with half a million in his pocket and Susan on his arm.
Part Four
THE SHORT HAPPY LIFE OF JOSé SANTOS
Friday afternoon
March 9, 1973
XIII
Friday, 2 pm
March 9, 1973
Even being chief suspect in a kidnapping was not enough to dull Maggie’s appetite.
“It’s almost two o’clock,” she complained. “And they haven’t told people about it, if they don’t even want the police to know.”
“That’s assuming Rachel is telling the truth. At least hide the curly black hair, okay?” suggested Nick. “I’ll carry the baby. Not much we can do about your height.”
“You could keep putting off lunch. I’m shrinking already,” grumbled Maggie. She was scraping her hair back and tying her scarf over it tightly. But despite her complaints her eyes were lively again, anxiety and fatigue driven out by excitement. The pleasure of the hunt, of having a concrete problem instead of amorphous unease? Nick found it hard to imagine her an untouchable madonna now, with the imps back in her eyes.
But at the moment the highest priority was getting her out of the Bradford neighborhood, though she refused to go any farther than a cafe on the parkway not far from the Long Island Railroad station. Maggie sank her teeth into a cheeseburger and mumbled, “So somebody’s lying. Who? And where have they hidden Muffin? Because there wasn’t a sign of her around the Bradford house. Elaine Bradford was sitting in the kitchen. Just sitting, staring at the telephone. God, Nick, I want to throttle somebody! But who?”
Nick arranged Sarah’s blanket. She was sound asleep on the seat of the booth beside him. “Three possibilities,” he said. “Mrs. Golden, for starts. If she kidnapped Muffin, she’s done a good job of hiding her tracks. Told Bradford the wrong agency. Told you his name was Hartford.”
“Yeah, but how did she know I didn’t know his name?”
Rehearsal for Murder Page 16
