The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK®

by Deming, Richard

  Then, five years later, Prince Charming came along. His actual name was Gary Sommers. It was Stanton Carr’s fault that they met.

  Stanton was chairman of the board of the Crippled Children’s Association, one of his several charitable activities; and when the organization decided to schedule some swimming classes for crippled children, he volunteered the pool at his and Irma’s Beverly Hills mansion. He also volunteered to locate and pay the fee of a swimming instructor.

  Gary Sommers was a relatively new employee of the Carr Refinery Equipment Company. When Stanton, the company president, asked the personnel division to check employee files to see if any employee were a qualified swimming instructor, they sent him Gary Sommers. The man was a drill-press operator, but under “previous experience” on his application form he had included the information that he had worked five summers as a lifeguard and held a Red Cross certificate as a water-safety instructor.

  Stanton Carr arranged for the man to handle the swimming classes, which were to run from one to three p.m. each Saturday.

  The first class was on May fifteenth. Irma knew that someone named Gary Sommers was coming to conduct it, but she had a luncheon engagement that day; and of course her husband wouldn’t be there to receive the man, because he always played golf on Saturday. Irma left instructions with Mrs. Felton, the housekeeper, to show Mr. Sommers and the children where to change into their swimsuits when they arrived. Then she left before any of them arrived.

  She returned at three, just as the class was ending. The chartered bus the children had come in was parked in the driveway back near the three-car garage, so Irma swung her car onto the white-shell strip that circled around past the front door, where it would be out of the way when the bus backed out. Getting out of the car, she walked over to the pool.

  Edith Pemberton, a volunteer worker for the Crippled Children’s Association and the wife of one of Stanton’s business associates, was supervising the exodus from the pool of some twenty children, ranging in age from about five to eight, toward the basement door leading into the playroom, off of which were the dressing rooms.

  Irma had a momentary flash of guilt because she felt more repelled than sympathetic at the sight of so many handicapped children, but she repressed it and gave the middle-aged Edith a friendly greeting.

  “How are you, Irma?” said the woman, preoccupied. “Don’t dawdle, children. The bus is supposed to leave in ten minutes.” She stooped to assist a five-year-old girl replace her leg braces.

  Irma glanced at the bronzed man in swim trunks standing at the pool’s edge. When he smiled at her, her heart skipped a beat. He was tall and lean and had a weight lifter’s muscles. His dark hair was becomingly curly and his handsome face possessed a sort of boyish charm. He was probably about thirty.

  Irma was past the age where she could believe in love at first sight, but to her own amazement she found herself wondering if there couldn’t be such a thing as lust at first sight. She had never before seen a man who appealed to her physically so strongly and so instantly.

  She tried to reject the feeling as ridiculous by telling herself the man was obviously five years younger than she was, and that she had always preferred older men. Then, for some reason, she recalled an article she had read years before, written by a psychologist, who had argued that because women outlive men by an average of five years, the ideal age difference for mates was for the women to be five years older. When she had read the article, her reaction had been amused disagreement, but now she found herself wondering if the psychologist might not have been right after all.

  Going over to the man, she said somewhat breathlessly, “You must be Mr. Sommers.”

  Exposing even white teeth in another smile, he said, “Yes, ma’am, and who are you?”

  “Why…Mrs. Carr,” she said.

  He looked surprised, and his expression managed to make the surprise flattering. In a subtle, completely inoffensive way it implied that he was wondering how a man of Stanton Carr’s age had succeeded in getting such a young and lovely woman to marry him, but all he said was a formal, “Glad to know you, ma’am.”

  By then Mrs. Pemberton had followed the last of the children inside, and Irma and Sommers were left alone.

  She said, “I understand you work for my husband. What do you do at the plant?”

  “Drill holes in the base plates of heat exchangers.”

  “Oh?” she said. “That sounds interesting.” Then she blushed when she realized what a vapid remark she had made. The man’s radiations were making her act like a teen-ager. She made an effort to sound more adult by saying, “You work in the Plate Shop, then.”

  He cocked an eyebrow at her. “I see you’ve toured the place.”

  “I worked there two years. I was my husband’s secretary before we married.”

  “That right?” he said. “I didn’t know, but I haven’t been around very long. I’ve only worked there a few weeks.” He glanced toward the house. “Well, I guess I’d better get my clothes on like the rest.”

  In her desire to extend the moment she reverted to a teen-ager again. She said almost breathlessly, “I was planning to take a dip. If you aren’t tired of the water, you could stay and join me, if you’d like.”

  He eyed her contemplatively. His face was so expressive, she could almost read his mind. He was quite aware of his animal appeal—probably many women threw themselves at him—and sensed that she was almost desperately eager for him to stay. He found the prospect attractive, but also possibly dangerous. After all, she was the big boss’ wife.

  As a further inducement, Irma added, “We could have a cocktail by the pool. There’s a bar in the playroom. You could mix them while I change into my suit.”

  His spirit of adventure won over caution. “All right,” he decided.

  “I have to speak to my housekeeper for a moment first,” Irma said. “Would you mind just waiting here until I come back?”

  “Of course not,” he said with dry amusement, his tone letting her know he was perfectly aware that she was simply making an excuse to delay changing into her suit until Mrs. Pemberton and the children were gone.

  When she blushed again, he chuckled. “Take your time,” he said. “I’ll wait here until they’re gone, then go in and start the drinks. What do you drink?”

  “A salty dog will be fine,” she said. “You’ll find everything you need at the bar, including a bartender’s guide on the backbar, in case you don’t know the recipe of a salty dog.”

  Inside, Mrs. Felton told her that her husband had phoned from the country club only a few minutes before, and wanted her to call him back at the bar. When she contacted him, he asked if she had any particular social plans for the evening.

  “I hadn’t planned on going out unless you want to,” she said. “I had in mind having dinner at home, then writing some letters.”

  “Well, some of the boys are getting up a poker game and they want to start early. If you don’t mind, to save time I’ll have dinner here.”

  “Oh, sure, go ahead, dear,” she said. “You’ll probably be quite late, then?”

  “Probably,” he conceded. “I’ll try not to wake you.”

  When she hung up, she told Mrs. Felton that Mr. Carr would not be home for dinner, and she felt like nothing more than a cold snack. “I can make it myself,” she said. “If you’ve finished your other work, you may leave any time you want to.”

  “Well, I guess I’ll go now, then,” the housekeeper said. “Everything is done.”

  Irma changed into her suit in her bedroom. She first put on a bikini, but when she looked at her image in her full-length mirror she was appalled to see how she was beginning to bulge in a couple of spots where bulges were not attractive. She quickly changed into a one-piece black suit that tended to minimize the bulges.

 
Examining her reflection again, she decided she was still in pretty good shape for thirty-five. Her natural blonde hair as yet showed no sign of gray, her complexion was still smooth, and her figure was still generally good. She probably could stand to lose about ten pounds, but that wasn’t much of a problem. She could accomplish that in two weeks on a crash diet.

  From her bedroom window she watched the bus back out of the driveway, and a few minutes later saw Mrs. Felton’s car drive away. Only then did she go downstairs.

  Gary Sommers was at the bar, pouring the contents of a cocktail shaker into two stemmed glasses with salted edges. He finished pouring and set the shaker down before he turned to examine her. He looked her over slowly from head to foot. The frank admiration in his eyes, mixed with something more intimate than mere aesthetic appreciation, made her blush for a third time, which in turn made him smile.

  Handing her one of the drinks, he raised the other and said, “To love.”

  She hiked her eyebrows, then shrugged. “To love,” she repeated.

  They drank, set their glasses down and looked at each other. The quizzical, estimating expression in his eyes started her heart beating violently. His face was so expressive that again she knew exactly what he was thinking. He was simply considering how long he ought to wait before making an overt move.

  Apparently her expression was readable too, because he decided no wait was necessary. Almost casually he drew her into his arms, but there was nothing casual about his first kiss. It was so savage and demanding that it instantly set her on fire.

  They never did get back to the swimming pool.

  * * * *

  In the beginning it was simply a physical affair insofar as Irma was concerned. They spent most of their time during their clandestine meetings making love in motel rooms.

  It wasn’t hard for Irma to arrange to be with Gary. Her husband was so involved in community projects that he spent a good many evenings away from home, and he made no effort to check on his wife’s activities. Irma could generally get away for at least a couple of hours several nights a week. Also, Stanton got in the habit of playing poker at the country club every Saturday night, and she could safely stay out quite late then.

  After a rapturous period of compulsive lovemaking, Irma and Gary finally got around to talking to each other.

  Their early dialogue involved little but trading personal information. Irma told him how she had grown up in foster homes, had attended business school, then had worked for years at a variety of stenographic and secretarial jobs until she had finally landed the position as Stanton Carr’s private secretary, which led to their marriage two years later.

  Gary told Irma of his boyhood on an Oregon farm under the despotic rule of a martinet father, how he had run away to join the Army at sixteen, and how he had acquired a high school diploma by taking Army extension courses. Briefly he mentioned some “minor” trouble that had ended his Army career six years later. He didn’t describe the trouble, but he assured Irma he had an honorable discharge—the reason recorded as “for the good of the service.” He had been reduced from staff sergeant to private, he admitted, but it was still a “white” discharge.

  Gary’s Army service had been in ordnance, and in addition to acquiring a high school diploma he had learned to become a machine-shop worker. Since his discharge eight years ago, he had held a number of jobs up and down the coast in different manufacturing plants. His jobs had been so numerous because he would quit when summer arrived in order to work in some resort, usually as a lifeguard.

  Despite this seemingly aimless background, he expressed to Irma a driving ambition to own his own machine shop eventually. He’d had enough experience with every type of power tool to run such a shop, he said, and his various jobs had given him friendly contacts in several plants that had government cost-plus contracts and farmed out a good part of their machine-shop work. He was sure he could get all the subcontracts he could handle. All he needed was a sufficient stake to go into business for himself, he told Irma, and within five years he could be a millionaire.

  As she got to know him better, Irma found that she liked Gary Sommers more and more. Toward the end of June she suddenly realized she was hopelessly in love with him; not just physically in love, but in love the way a woman is when she starts dreaming of changing her status from lover to wife.

  When Gary told her he loved her too, all the luxury she enjoyed as Mrs. Stanton Carr became meaningless. Gary was the Prince Charming she had once given up ever meeting, and now that he had finally come along, she was instantly ready to move from the palatial Carr mansion into whatever type of residence a drill-press operator could afford.

  Gary wasn’t quite as ready, though. While he had every desire to marry her eventually, he assured her, they had to be practical. Moving out on Carr and in with Gary while the divorce was pending would be a bad tactical error.

  “Our starting to live together openly would accomplish two things, darling,” he said patiently. “First, it would get me fired. Then it would get you a divorce without alimony. So what would we live on?”

  After thinking this over, Irma said contritely, “I really hadn’t thought about anything but being with you all the time. What do you want me to do?”

  “Keep our relationship entirely secret until your divorce is in the bag and you have your settlement. If the court found out you planned to remarry as soon as your decree was final, you wouldn’t have a chance of getting any money out of Carr. But if you’re just a poor abused wife who can’t put up with your mistreatment any longer, you can nail him good. I did some checking, and his first wife took him for nearly a million.”

  Irma was silent.

  “Incidentally, it’s not a divorce anymore in California. Now they call it a ‘dissolution of marriage,’ and the only ground is ‘irreconcilable differences.’ Which means you don’t have to prove your husband beat you or seduced your housekeeper or anything like that. You just have to tell the court you can no longer get along. You don’t have to prove anything, because the law no longer requires one party to be at fault and the other to be innocent of fault. You ought to be able to have the marriage dissolved within a month if you see a lawyer right now.”

  Irma was still silent.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked finally.

  Irma cleared her throat.

  “I’m afraid I won’t be able to get anything near what his first wife got as a settlement, honey. I can’t expect more than ten thousand.”

  He turned his head to frown at her. “Ten thousand? That’s ridiculous. Your husband must be worth ten million. What are you talking about?”

  She explained about the premarital agreement she had signed.

  He glared at her. “You let him con you into signing a premarital agreement?” he said in an enraged voice. “How stupid can you get?”

  After staring up at him in shocked astonishment, Irma began to cry. Immediately he became contrite and gathered her in his arms.

  “Hey, cut it out,” he admonished. “I’m sorry I called you stupid.”

  “It’s not that,” she said between sobs. “I thought you loved me for myself, not just for the money I could get out of Stanton.”

  “I do,” he protested, “but there’s no point in passing up money. I was counting on at least enough to open the machine shop I told you about. You think I want you to have to live a factory worker’s salary the rest of your life? I want to cover you with diamonds.”

  Irma’s sobs gradually subsided. Getting up, she wiped her eyes with some tissue, then put her head on his shoulder. “How much would your machine shop cost?” she asked. “Wouldn’t ten thousand be enough for a down payment?”

  He gave a sardonic chuckle. “The companies I plan to go after for subcontracts are big business, Irma. They aren’t going to deal with any two-bit operator. T
hey’ll be parceling out jobs that run into the hundreds of thousands and they won’t go to anyone who isn’t tooled up to handle them. I had in mind something like a couple of hundred grand.”

  She sighed. “Stanton would never give me anything like that. In fact, I’m quite sure he won’t go any higher than he has to under our agreement. He’s not tight with personal expenditures, but he’s very tight about business matters.”

  Gary made a face. “Then we’ll have to think of some way to get money out of him before you leave him.”

  “Like what?”

  He didn’t answer immediately. After a time he asked casually, “Are you named in his will?”

  Stiffening, she withdrew from his arms and looked at him. “I hope that was a joke.”

  He emitted an easy chuckle. “Of course it was, honey. What else?”

  “It sounded as though you were contemplating making me a widow, and that kind of talk is definitely out so far as I’m concerned.”

  Realizing his remark had really upset her, he said, “It was just a bad joke, honey. Do I look like a killer?”

  Examining his smiling face, she decided she had never seen anyone look less like one. Relieved, she snuggled up against him. Neither said anything for some time.

  Eventually he asked, “Do you have moral reservations about crimes less than murder?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “How far would you be willing to go to shake some money out of him?”

  “Nothing criminal,” she said definitely. “I’m not going to risk jail.”

  “Well, the idea that just popped into my head may be criminal, but I don’t think there would be any risk of jail, even if it went sour. How would you like to be kidnapped?”