One Dangerous Lady

by Jane Stanton Hitchcock

  The service was relatively brief as Betty and I knew that Larry would have wanted it. Larry loathed pretentiousness and being bored, and he once told me there was nothing more pretentious or more boring than a long and pompous send-off, so we kept the speakers to a minimum. Though many had vied for the honor of speaking at his memorial, we chose only two people.

  “Long on music, short on speeches. Leave ’em longing and not longing to leave” is how Betty phrased it. I agreed.

  First up was Larry’s editor, Dawson Lane, a bright, boyish-looking, unassuming man who gave a heartfelt and often hilarious account of working with Larry over the years. He mentioned the tragedy in Larry’s own life and told how it had shaped his psyche and career.

  “Larry lost a part of himself when his wife died,” Lane said. “But he gave that part back to the world many times over through his work. . . . He was a journalistic Robin Hood, who believed the rich and powerful should not be considered above the law, that they should not be allowed to buy their way out of justice, and that they should be held even more accountable because, as Larry often said to me in that wonderful voice of his, ‘they oughta know better.’ ”

  That got a chuckle from the well-heeled audience in the church—all except Carla, who remained stony-faced.

  The second man to speak was a shadow figure in Larry’s life, one Father Devlin, a Jesuit priest, who turned out to have been Larry’s spiritual guide. Larry had never mentioned him, not even to me. Betty and I learned of him through Larry’s will, of which Father Devlin was the executor. After minor bequests to friends including a little landscape painting to me, Larry had divided his fortune between Mrs. Barnes, his housekeeper, and a charitable foundation in his late wife’s name to be directed by the old Jesuit priest.

  Father Devlin was a short, frail man with wispy white hair, cornflower blue eyes, and a kind, wrinkled face that radiated intelligence and compassion. He had severe arthritis and had marked difficulty in walking up to the podium. Once there, however, he took command of his audience with a sprightly charm and a lilting Irish brogue.

  We learned that Larry Locket’s life had been far more of a spiritual quest than I or anyone ever could have imagined. As Father Devlin spoke, I thought about the day I had confessed my terrible sin to Larry, and I suddenly saw his tolerance toward me in a brand-new light.

  “Larry Locket and I first met just after his beloved wife, Helena, died,” Devlin said in a lilting Irish brogue. “He told me, with some humor, that he had dived head first into the Slough of Despond and that he was wallowing there, not at all sure whether or not he wanted to get out. So I gave him a copy of the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius Loyola, and that, as they say, was the beginning of a beautiful friendship—between Larry and myself and Larry and God. . . . Larry was immediately struck by the sentence, ‘Love ought to be put more in deeds than in words.’ So he says to me, ‘Dev,’ he says, ‘being a writer, doesn’t that put me at a bit of a disadvantage?’ ”

  Mild laughter in the church.

  “Well, disadvantage or no,” the old priest continued, “Larry Locket spent the rest of his life putting his love into deeds and words. His words became deeds of conscience. His words were the love he gave to the world.”

  The mourners learned that Larry had flirted with the idea of becoming a monk. Father Devlin described how he and Larry had traveled to Italy together on a spiritual mission. I thought of the antique refectory dining table Larry told me he’d salvaged from a monastery in Umbria. Had Father Devlin been with him on that trip? I wondered.

  In conclusion, the old Jesuit said, “Finally, I would like to read to you one of Larry’s favorite quotes from Saint Ignatius . . .” Father Devlin fumbled for a pair of spectacles in his pocket. The congregation, already enthralled by this gentle man’s demeanor, was completely silent. In fact, the silence seemed to echo in the church as he unfolded a piece of paper with his arthritic hands.

  He read, “ ‘In those who go on from good to better, the good Angel touches such a soul sweetly, lightly and gently, like a drop of water which enters into a sponge; and the evil touches it sharply and with noise and disquiet, as when the drop of water falls on the stone.’ My dear friend Larry understood that in his life, he had been touched by both angels, the good one and the evil one, and that he had conquered his desire for personal revenge by a desire to avenge the less fortunate through his writing. . . . It was my everlasting pleasure to know him. It will be my everlasting penance to mourn him. God bless you, Larry, my dear brother. And God speed.”

  As the old man made a slow and obviously painful descent from the podium, there was only one dry eye in the house, Carla’s.

  The crowd filed out of the church to the bright strains of a Bach organ fugue. I found myself walking alongside Dawson Lane, whom I’d met several times over the years, usually at Larry’s house.

  “Dawson, I have to ask you, did Larry show you any of his article on Russell Cole?”

  Dawson’s soft brown eyes were swollen from crying. He shook his head sadly. “No, Jo. I wish he had. Larry was secretive about his work. He never showed me anything until he had a solid first draft. Oh, we talked about it and I know he was making a great deal of progress. In fact, he said that you two were going to do some investigatory thing. He wasn’t specific. But now it’s all been destroyed in the fire. It’s just terrible, Jo. Terrible.”

  In the entryway, I stopped to talk with several people I knew. Gil Waterman was chatting up some famous California collector in one corner. Betty pointed to her husband and paraphrased The Book of Common Prayer, saying, “Look at Gil. . . . In the midst of life, we are not in death, but we are in a deal.”

  As I was getting ready to leave the church, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around. A heavily veiled woman said, “Well, Jo, our knight in shining armor is gone.”

  The raspy voice was unmistakable. It was Lulu Cole.

  Lulu had never forgiven me for the infamous party at my house where she had disgraced herself in front of Max. However, on this sad occasion, she was obviously willing to let bygones be bygones.

  “Lulu . . . how are you?”

  She lifted her veil. Her eyes were rat red from crying. I felt sorry for her.

  “She’s won, Jo. She’s won it all. I heard what happened to you at the Muni. And I just wanted to say how sorry I am. I’m just so sick about Larry. He was really our last hope to expose this . . . this creature.” She paused. “Anyway, I know she’s here, and certainly I don’t want to run into her again. But I just wanted to say good-bye to you, and wish you all the best, Jo.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m taking Courtney to Scandinavia for a few weeks. I’ve told my answering service to tell everyone that I’m incommunicado. But I just wanted to say how sorry I am to you. I know how close you and Larry were.”

  “Thank you, Lulu.” I shook her hand and watched her disappear into the crowd.

  I saw Carla out on the steps of the cathedral, hobnobbing with the mayor and his entourage. I could hardly contain my rage. Carla Cole was exactly the sort of person Larry Locket spent his life fighting—someone who thinks they are above all rules and all laws because they are so titanically rich. She caught my eye and gave me a curt little nod.

  I wanted to march up to her and say, “You murdering bitch. I know you had Larry killed and I know you had June hit and one day I’m going to make you pay for it.” But I simply nodded back and moved on.

  I nearly choked on my hypocrisy. However, if you can’t be hypocritical to those you loathe, whom can you be hypocritical to?

  Chapter 36

  Death is a grand silence. That evening, I sat alone in my library, paralyzed with despair, dreading the coming weeks and months and years without the company of my dear friend. Even during those periods when I didn’t see or speak to Larry very much, there was a great comfort in knowing he was there, an
d that we would take up exactly where we left off. As one gets older, one’s personal landscape vanishes bit by bit. Those people who have been a part of one’s landscape for a long time are like those old oak trees that anchor a country scene. When they are cut down, the view changes, becoming sparser and more desolate. No matter what happened now, Carla Cole had won. There was nothing I could do to bring Larry back, and no way I could prove that she had killed him. And yet, I knew she had—knew it in my bones. Larry didn’t know how right he’d been about her being one dangerous lady.

  I was sitting in a chair, staring out the window, watching the twilight fade when the jangling ring of the phone startled me. I picked it up and said a somber, “Hello.”

  “Hello, may I speak to Mrs. Jo Slater, please?” said a male voice I didn’t recognize.

  “Speaking,” I replied warily.

  The man cleared his throat nervously and said, “Mrs. Slater, my name is Mike Rankin. I’m the captain of The Lady C.”

  In my grief, I’d forgotten all about chartering the yacht. There seemed to be no point in going through with it now. Larry was dead and the boat’s deck plans showing the secret room had burned up with him.

  “Oh, yes, Captain Rankin,” I said, focusing. “Larry Locket spoke very highly of you. I take it you’ve heard the news.”

  “Yes, ma’am. We heard. It’s terrible. A tragedy.”

  “I’m glad you called. Obviously, I won’t be taking the boat now. I’m sorry. Could you possibly inform the charter company, or I’ll call them. . . . I’m sure there’ll be a cancellation fee and I—”

  He interrupted me. “That’s not why I’m calling, Mrs. Slater. Look, uh, Mr. Locket told me that if anything happened to him, I was to get in touch with you right away.” His voice was hesitant and he was obviously distraught about something.

  “What do you mean?”

  “When I spoke to Mr. Locket a couple of weeks ago about the trip, um, he said that I should get in touch with him if I had any more thoughts about what we’d been discussing. But if, for some reason, I couldn’t reach him, I was to get in touch with you.”

  “With me?”

  “Yes, ma’am. He gave me your number. He said that if anything happened to him, I was to call you.”

  “Wait . . . Larry specifically said if anything happened to him?”

  “Yes. Those were his words. Quite frankly, he seemed concerned.”

  I shook my head in dismay, remembering what a brave front he had put up for me.

  “Go on,” I said.

  “Anyway, ma’am, I have some news and I think you should come down here.” There was a strange urgency in his voice.

  “Where are you?”

  “Bridgetown, Barbados, where you and Mr. Locket had planned to pick up the charter.”

  “You mean, just come down there on my own?”

  “Yes, ma’am. If you could. I think you should.”

  Given my paranoid state, I suddenly wondered if this was a trick by Carla to get me down alone on that boat and dispose of me in some horrible way like she had disposed of Larry, and probably Russell.

  “I’m sorry, Captain Rankin, I really don’t think I can—not without Larry.”

  “Mrs. Slater, please. Mr. Locket said I was to call you—and no one else. Please trust me.”

  “Well, can’t you tell me what it is?”

  “I don’t want to discuss it over the phone. But I have some information. Believe me, I know how upset you must be and I wouldn’t be contacting you unless it was urgent.”

  Something in his voice told me that he was telling the truth. I thought about the secret room and Larry’s conviction that some kind of proof still lay on the yacht. I also remembered Larry telling me that Rankin shared our concerns about Carla. I wondered if the captain had found something that incriminated her in some way. I knew Larry trusted Rankin, and I suddenly felt Larry’s hand reaching out to me from the grave. I knew I had to take a chance.

  “All right,” I said tentatively. “I’ll come.”

  I told everyone I was off to Europe for a little rest. They all assumed I was extremely upset about Larry, and most of them kept that decorous distance people do when tragedy strikes. Still, Betty smelled a rat. I usually told her exactly where I was going and in which hotels I was staying so we could keep in touch. This time, I was vague.

  “You’re up to something, Jo,” she said to me on the phone.

  “What makes you say that, Betts?”

  “What makes me say anything I say? Because I think it, that’s why. . . . Is it a man?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “Too bad it’s not Max. I just hate to think of Carla becoming the next Lady Vermilion. And it looks like she’s headed that way.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Oh, it’s all over the British press. I just spoke to a pal in London. Let’s face it, Jo, Taunton Hall or not, who the hell in their right mind puts up the money for a twenty-million-dollar roof unless they think they’re gonna live under it one day? And Trish just told me that Carla is renting their house in Southampton for August for two hundred and fifty thou a week, and that Max is coming to stay!”

  “Where’s Trish going?”

  “Lexington. She’s renting an apartment down there to be near Dick. Everyone’s going down there to visit him. It’ll be Old Kentucky Home week for as long as he’s there. . . . But you gotta tell me, Jo . . . who’s your new beau?”

  “I’ll tell you when I get back.”

  “Oh, come on! You cannot not tell me! I’m your best friend, for Chrissakes! You can’t keep something like that a secret from me! You know, I figured something was up when I saw how good you looked at Larry’s funeral. Screw chemical peels. Sex is what really makes the skin glow.”

  Or obsession, I thought.

  “If it gets serious, I’ll call you. Promise.”

  Betty was miffed, I could tell. I let her hang up still nurturing her illusions.

  As I packed for the cruise, I thought to myself: Just as it takes a new romance to cure a broken heart, it takes a new obsession to replace an old one. Not since the planning of Monique’s demise had I experienced such a rush of energy. When I looked in the mirror, I saw myself clearly, like I’d come out of a fog into bright sunshine. The path was in front of me and I was ready to follow it.

  Chapter 37

  The flight to Bridgetown was uneventful. I stepped off the cool airplane into a curtain of heat. After clearing immigration, I walked into the terminal where Captain Mike Rankin was waiting for me, ready to escort me to the yacht. Rankin, wearing his white captain’s uniform, was a tall, nice-looking, middle-aged man, with thick, shiny brown hair, an even tan, and an affable, if slightly nervous manner. A steward from the boat saw to my luggage. As we drove to the harbor in a spacious black van, Captain Rankin asked me how my trip was, and once again expressed his condolences to me over Larry’s death. He didn’t say much else, and he seemed ill at ease.

  We reached the dock and walked down the main pier to a waiting tender. I sat with the captain in the motor boat as it skimmed past the muddy harbor water toward the clear aquamarine sea. Suddenly, there she was, The Lady C, floating on the water, big, white, and placid, like a great iceberg. There was something sinister about her, and I suspected that, just like her namesake, this lady, too, had many secrets. The tender headed straight for her and eased its way up alongside the stern. A crew member extended his hand to me and I hopped onto the large platform at the back of the yacht. Captain Rankin jumped out after me, then led the way up the steps to the main deck.

  As I climbed those stairs, a vivid picture of Carla Cole flashed through my mind. There she was, standing above me, hand extended, just like she had been the night of the bridal dinner, ablaze in turquoise and diamonds, gracious to a fault, the perfect hostess about to commit the perfec
t crime. None of her guests could possibly have imagined then what she was planning to do to her husband that night. What was on her mind all the while that party was going on? What did she see when she looked at Russell across the table, knowing she was about to kill him? Or was she so cold-blooded that she was able to relax and enjoy herself and live in the moment? Certainly, it proved my theory that you can never tell what people are truly thinking at parties.

  Several members of the crew, wearing their starched, white uniforms, stood at attention in a line on the deck waiting to greet me. The captain introduced me to each one as I shook his or her hand. I knew they were looking me over with perhaps even more scrutiny than usual, as I’m sure it was a rare occurrence to have a single guest charter a yacht that could accommodate at least sixteen guests.

  “And this is the purser, who is also my wife, Nancy,” the captain said, as we reached the last person in line.

  Nancy Rankin was a good ten years younger than her husband, somewhere in her early thirties. She was a lithe, broad-shouldered woman—one of those all-American girls whose tanned good looks and athletic body proclaim a love of the outdoors. Her straight brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail, but wisps of it fell over a pair of blue eyes that crinkled around the edges when she smiled. She, too, seemed oddly ill at ease.

  Captain Rankin informed me that my luggage would be taken to my cabin and unpacked for me, if I wished. I accepted the offer, pleased that the old-fashioned standards of service still existed on board this yacht. Then he and Nancy offered to show me around, in part so I could choose which cabin I wanted. Nancy gently reminded me I wouldn’t be needing my shoes from now on. Most footwear was forbidden on the sleek decks of the yacht, and was unnecessary on the carpeted interiors. I took off my shoes and placed them in a large wicker basket set aside for that purpose. The weather was wiltingly hot and it was a relief to go inside where air-conditioning kept the temperature comfortably cool.

  It was strange being on board again after all this time, and after all that had happened. Viewing her now, I thought The Lady C less of a lap of luxury and more of a crime scene. To the best of my recollection, the décor of the rooms was exactly the same as it had been the night of the bridal dinner, yet the ambiance was totally different—more utilitarian somehow. Then I realized that, of course, it was because the great paintings were gone. In their place, mounted in the same frames on the wall, were large color photographs of exotic places from all around the world. Though striking and decorative, they could not re-create the shimmering, jewel-like atmosphere I remembered. How could they? Even an impressive shot of the Lake Palace Hotel in Udaipur hanging above the mantelpiece in the library looked cheap compared to the haunting Gauguin of two Tahitian women bathing in a river that had once hung in its place. Without the great paintings to enhance it, the profound beauty of the interior was gone. No longer a floating museum, it was now just another rich man’s boat.