“Well, I suppose it’s fortunate we don’t all have the same taste,” Harriet concluded sensibly.
A short time later I left her in order to finish up the chicken and reheat the rice. When I returned to the living room I was pleased to note that the hors d’oeuvres hadn’t been neglected in my absence. I only hoped Harriet had left enough room for the rest of the meal.
I needn’t have been concerned. She did herself proud.
At any rate, over dinner she recounted a couple of heartwarming anecdotes starring the world’s most obnoxious dog—her “adorable” little Pekinese, Baby. (Whose days, I swear, are numbered; just let him piddle on my shoes one more time.) We talked about Pop for a few minutes, too. It seems he’d met a very nice divorcée at his senior citizens’ club the previous Thursday. “He claims she’s quite taken with him, too,” his daughter-in-law advised me with a chuckle.
I couldn’t afford the luxury of a chuckle myself. “I really hope things work out for them,” I said fervently.
It didn’t take long for Harriet to polish off everything on her plate—twice. And from the lingering look she fastened on the empty serving dishes, I suspect she’d have been up for thirds. She contented herself with raving about her new grandson instead.
“I just happen to have a few recent pictures of him. Would you like to see them?” She was out of her chair like a shot. Retrieving the handbag she’d left on the sofa, she pulled out a yellow envelope, which she promptly slapped in my palm.
Had she said a few pictures? There were at least thirty of them in there.
“Well, what do you think?” Harriet demanded when I returned the envelope. “Isn’t he gorgeous?”
Now, that’s hardly the word I’d have used. “Uh, he’s quite a boy.”
“Yes, isn’t he? He looks a little like Steve—at least, I like to think so.”
Well, as she herself had said, thank goodness we don’t all have the same taste.
It wasn’t until dessert that my investigation entered the conversation. I gave Harriet a brief summary of the whole mess, finishing with tomorrow’s scheduled visit with the widow. “I’m hoping I can persuade her to let me know who the man is.”
“Do you really believe she’ll tell you?”
“Well, it’s possible—right?”
“Oh, it’s definitely possible.”
But she sounded very much like I had when commenting on her grandson. So I was hardly reassured.
Chapter 29
When I got to the office on Monday I suspected that Jackie had been crying.
She was on the phone at the time, and her voice was low and choked. Plus, she was clutching a couple of Kleenex, and her eyes were red. Which seemed like pretty good evidence to me.
She terminated the conversation—I think it was a personal call—as soon as she saw me. “Can we talk for a little while, Dez?”
“Of course.” I was a few feet beyond her desk at this point, and I started to backtrack.
“No, no. I have a letter to finish. I’ll stop by in about ten minutes, okay?”
“Sure, whenever you’re through.” I almost retraced my steps anyway, though, just to give her a reassuring pat on the shoulder or something. But I always feel awkward about doing things like that.
Now, unlike some other people I could name, Jackie is a very rapid typist. So she showed up at least five minutes ahead of schedule. In fact, I had barely warmed up my desk chair when she put in an appearance.
Following a brief coughing spasm in the doorway—at which time Sam Spade here realized that her symptoms were the result of a cold, not an emotional trauma—she flopped down on the seat opposite me. “You were right,” she announced dispiritedly.
“I was? About what?”
“About my waiting a while before giving Derwin any ultimatum. I’ve decided I don’t want to marry him after all.”
“You arrived at that pretty quickly, didn’t you?”
“You bet,” Jackie answered emphatically.
“Has something happened?”
“Listen, a few weeks ago I mentioned that I’d always wanted to see Les Miz, and Derwin surprised me by getting tickets for Saturday night.”
“Is this supposed to be a bad thing?”
“You wouldn’t be asking that question if you saw where we wound up sitting. We were so high up I got an attack of vertigo.”
“Well, maybe those were the only tickets available.”
“No, Desiree,” Jackie snapped, “they were not. And why are you defending him, anyway? You know how cheap he is.”
I tried to couch my next words in the most benign terms possible. I mean, how Jackie talks about the guy is one thing. But I wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t take too kindly to my raking him over the coals. “I don’t understand. Surely Derwin’s . . . umm . . . his conservative approach to money didn’t surprise you.”
“It’s not that it surprised me. It—” Another round of coughing, this one more prolonged than the first, prevented her from continuing. “That effing cough medicine,” she said when she was finally able to say anything at all. The almost-epithet was so totally un-Jackielike that for a moment I thought I might have heard wrong. “It hasn’t done a damn thing for me,” she crabbed. “And it tastes like insecticide, too. But I started to tell you: The seats weren’t the worst of it. It was beginning to rain when we left the theater, and I was wearing a new silk dress—which, if Derwin had any idea what it cost, would have sent him into cardiac arrest. I also had on an expensive pair of strappy, high-heeled sandals. So, naturally, I suggested we go home by cab.”
It didn’t require any crystal ball to see what was coming next.
“According to Derwin, though, it wasn’t raining that hard, and anyhow, I’d be less waterlogged on a brisk walk to the subway station than I would be if we stood there for fifteen minutes or so trying to hail a taxi. Imagine! Either it didn’t occur to the man that I could wait under the marquee while he did the hailing—or he was hoping it wouldn’t occur to me.”
“I’m sure that if you’d insisted, Derwin would have gone along.”
“Don’t you get it? I shouldn’t have to insist. At any rate, the dress is now kaput. The dry cleaner actually laughed when I asked if there was any way he could salvage it. And the shoes are in only slightly better shape. I’ll probably wind up throwing them away, too.”
“What a shame!” I told her—and meant it. “I have to be honest with you, though. I—”
“You consider it my own fault that my clothes were ruined and that I’ve come down with this miserable cold, besides. You feel that if I hadn’t been so stubborn, I’d have gotten Derwin to spring for a cab. Am I right?” She didn’t wait for confirmation. “Like I said, you shouldn’t have to force someone to act like a human being.”
“And this convinced you not to marry him?”
“Not by itself. But it served as a giant reminder of about a thousand other incidents. And if Derwin pulls this kind of garbage now, what can I expect if we ever get married?”
Well, regardless of her present frame of mind, I knew that Jackie sincerely loved this man. (What I didn’t know was why.) And I figured it might do her good to hear something of a slightly more optimistic nature. Particularly, I decided (having just entered my rose-colored-glasses mode), since it could actually be true.
“If Derwin’s having a hair transplant, though,” I put to her, “or even if he’s getting himself a better toupee, he could be loosening up a bit. I mean, he’s had that ratty old hairpiece of his for how long? And suddenly he splurges on an expensive replacement.” Jackie’s protest was aborted by a couple of dry hacks, so I forged ahead. “Listen, you can’t expect an overnight transformation; it takes a while to abandon the habits of a lifetime. And obviously a person is going to have a relapse once in a while.”
“Ha!” said Jackie. “I was going to tell you. He came over with his new head of hair on Friday night. It’s not a transplant, of course—but I didn’t really expect that i
t would be. What it is is the cheapest-looking toupee you’ve ever seen. And I don’t care how much he paid for it. That’s another thing. The man has absolutely no taste. To tell you the truth, Dez, I can’t imagine why I even continue to go out with him. In fact, I’m seriously considering breaking it off.”
But I knew she didn’t mean it. And what’s more, she knew that I knew it.
The phone rang practically on the heels of Jackie’s exit.
“I figured that surely you’d have something to report by now.”
No “Hello.” No “How have you been, Desiree?” Not even a “This is Trudie.” But, of course, I had no problem identifying the caller anyway. In fact, the instant I heard that voice, I cringed.
“So?” Trudie demanded before I had a chance to collect my thoughts. “It’s been close to a week since our little get-together, and I told you then that I expected results.”
“I can appreciate that. Look, I’ve just come across some information that I believe could have a direct impact on this case.”
“All right. I’m waiting.” I could picture the woman drumming on the table with her fingers now.
“I’m hoping to be able to tell you about it soon, Mrs. Lander. But since certain individuals could be adversely affected by my revealing what I’ve learned, first I want to be totally certain that this actually does have a connection to the crimes.”
“I suggest that you explain what you’re talking about, or I’ll see to it that John finds someone to succeed you.”
“Of course, that’s your prerogative—and his. But I think you should be aware that whoever steps in at this stage would have to start almost from square one. I wouldn’t be comfortable passing along what I know before I’ve established to my own satisfaction that it has a bearing on either the attacks on your husband or his cousin’s murder.”
Trudie took another tack. “Do you have any idea what this has been like for me? Every day I’m worried sick that it isn’t going to be my husband at the door that night, but some policeman who’s there to notify me that I won’t be seeing John ever again.”
There was pain in her voice. And this, coupled with what I had been told of her childhood, made me feel genuine compassion for the woman. But I couldn’t let it influence me. “I’m sorry,” I said softly. “I sincerely am. But please know that I’m determined to identify the person who’s responsible for what’s happened—and as quickly as I can.”
It was a while before Trudie deigned to respond. “All right,” she said at last. “You seem to be in the driver’s seat at present. Consider yourself warned, however, that I have no intention of allowing this to go on much longer.”
***
The conversation with Trudie left me feeling uneasy. I mean, suppose there were two perpetrators—as I more than half suspected. And say that I was able to identify the individual who—because of his involvement with Sara—pulled the plug on Edward. What did that have to do with the safety of my client?
I was deep in thought when Elliot Gilbert, one of the two princely gentlemen who rent me my office space, rapped gently on the open door to my cubicle.
“Can you spare a couple of minutes?” he asked in that slightly timid manner of his.
“For you? You bet.”
He walked in tentatively, parking his round bottom on the very edge of the chair. “I’m kind of up against it, Desiree,” he began. “A good friend of mine—another attorney—recently underwent emergency surgery, and I agreed to take over a few of his cases. The one I’m primarily concerned about right now is a hit-and-run that occurred a year ago this past January—on the tenth, to be specific. The problem is, I have very little time to prepare for trial, which is scheduled to start in less than three weeks.”
“You weren’t able to get a postponement?”
“I tried, but . . .” Elliot hunched his shoulders. “Look, just let me give you some of the particulars, all right?”
“Sure, go on.”
“My newly acquired client, Charlie Weist, has been accused of running a red light and injuring a ninety-one-year-old man—although, thank God, not critically—and then fleeing the scene. And while the vehicle involved in the accident does belong to Charlie—apparently somebody managed to get the license plate number—Charlie swears that his niece, age seventeen, had borrowed the car that night without his permission. Which the niece swears is a lie.”
“You’ve spoken to her?”
“Yes. And so did Dennis, the previous attorney. Her story is that she had a tooth pulled that morning—which, incidentally, Dennis verified—and that she was at home sleeping off the pain.
“As for Charlie, he does have an alibi, but I’m not entirely comfortable about how it will be perceived. Charlie claims he was out with his former wife on the evening in question and that at 8:45 P.M.—when the accident occurred—they were at a bar having a couple of drinks before going on to dinner. His ex will testify to this in court. Still, the jury might not regard Clara as the most reliable witness in the world, considering that the two are planning to remarry.”
“This bar they went to—I gather no one there was able to identify the couple.”
“Unfortunately, no. Right after the accident Dennis showed a photo of Charlie and Clara to the waitstaff who were working at the place at that time. But nobody remembered them.”
“How was the tab paid?”
“In cash. So no help there, either.” Elliot regarded me earnestly. “I value your opinion, Desiree. That’s why I’d appreciate it if you could meet with the former wife and give me your take on how credible a witness she’ll be. I have an idea that she’ll make a pretty good impression on the jury in spite of her current status with regard to the defendant. Possibly, though, that’s because she’s all I have.” He smiled ruefully. “At any rate, I’d feel better if you verified my opinion—assuming you agree with my assessment of the woman, of course. Now, with reference to the niece, the way I see it, there’s very little chance she’ll admit the truth. But maybe you can come up with something else that might give us a little edge.”
There was no mistaking the appeal in his eyes. “What do you think? Can you see your way clear to doing a little legwork for me?”
Well, normally when I’m immersed in a really heavy-duty investigation I try not to handle any additional business. The thing is, as much as I can use the extra money, I value my sanity more. But Elliot needed someone to check into things pretty quickly. Besides, this didn’t appear to be the type of case that would take up a great deal of time. Plus, I’d turned down some other work from Elliot quite recently, and I still didn’t feel too great about that. I mean, it’s not easy to say no to anyone who’s as nice as Elliot Gilbert is. Particularly if he also looks like a cherub.
I gave him a yes.
A decision that I still say played its part in enabling me to finally get to the bottom of who did what to whom in Uncle Victor’s family.
Chapter 30
When Sara Sharp opened the door to her apartment a forced smile was fixed on her face. Either that, or she’d had a sudden attack of gas.
“Eleven-thirty on the dot, Desiree. I can’t say you’re not prompt.”
I didn’t think it necessary to reveal that I’d been walking around the block for the past ten minutes. I mean, if there’s one thing that ticks me off more than people being late for an appointment, it’s their showing up early.
We went into the living room, where Jane, in cutoff jeans and sans makeup, was curled up in a corner of the sofa. I made myself forgive her for expending zero effort to look so fresh-faced and adorable.
Sara’s appearance, however, did not require this same generosity.
The widow’s eyes were every bit as red and swollen as they’d been a couple of days earlier. The tightness around her mouth remained, too. And the dark roots were still begging for a touch-up. She was even wearing the same unflattering sweater and slacks.
“Well?” she demanded the instant we were seated.
I had trouble getting started. “Uh, what I . . . the thing is . . . umm, there’s no easy way to tell you this, Sara.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Then just say it,” she instructed curtly.
“All right. Over the weekend I discovered that you’d been involved with another man at the time your husband died.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Sara responded evenly. But her complexion had gone chalk white.
“I have it on the best of authority.”
She turned to her sister, who was only a cushion length away from her on the sofa. “It isn’t true, Janie. I swear it.”
For a moment the younger woman just sat there, staring at her wide-eyed. Then very quietly she said, “I wondered why you were trying so hard to hustle me out of here today. You suspected this was the reason for Desiree’s phone call, didn’t you?”
“Of course not. There was no other man. What would it take to convince you of that?”
“Aren’t you even curious about how I learned this?” I inquired.
Sara continued to maintain her composure. “Not really. Because it’s a damn lie.”
I opted to take the response as a yes. “You saw your lover on Tuesday nights, while you were supposedly at your pottery class.”
“I attended that class regularly, for your information.”
“Yes, you did. But every week you’d cut out around eight o’clock to meet him.”
“That’s totally false!” Sara protested, her agitation apparent now. “I did leave early sometimes, but it had nothing to do with any fictitious lover. On one occasion I went home before the end of the session because I had these terrible stomach pains. And a couple of other times there was a particular matter that I had to attend to.” She faced her sibling again. “Edward and I were considering moving uptown, and I ran out to look at some available apartments.”
“You never mentioned any plans to move,” Jane told her. It sounded like an accusation.
Murder Can Cool Off Your Affair Page 17
