Slight shrugs around the semicircle. As usual, Betty had the last word. “I guess so, sure. Fire away, Bish.”
30
So, for once, the Bishop’s routine self-destructed. A red-letter day, that Tuesday, November 15. Because that’s the day he laid not so much as a fingertip on the old word processor. Instead, he spent the time gathering information on a murder. It may never happen again.
Anyway, the four acceded to his request. They answered his questions — most of them. And I got it all down in my little black book. For all the difference the little black book made. The fact that led to the solution didn’t even get written down. But it entered the boss’s cranium, the only receptacle that really mattered.
At least writing gave me something to do. With Regan doing all the questioning and no one accepting my occasional offers to bring them more hot chocolate, more cookies or a wide variety of drinks, I had a choice: play stenographer or sit there with my finger up my nose.
The Bishop started with Mr. and Mrs. Penniston. He seemed to be trying to find out everything he could about their daughter’s upbringing, which irritated me till I saw where he was heading. Sarnoff might have been someone from Laura’s past. Maybe someone from her Wichita past.
And the name Sarnoff was certainly an attention-grabber. As soon as it came out of the Bishop’s mouth, everyone’s ears perked up. McClendon’s most of all.
“What do you know about him, Bishop?” he demanded, almost spilling his cocoa in his excitement. “He’s the joker who’s really screwed up this whole negotiation.”
“How so?” the Bishop asked, cocking an eye his way.
“Two reasons.” McClendon put down his mug. He was more assured than I’d seen him. Though he toyed nervously with his beard, his reedy voice was quick and definite. “First, what it showed about the company’s financial controls — or, rather, lack of them. The fact that this guy was able to siphon so much money out of the company over so long a time with no one catching it shows that no one was minding the store. So —”
“George, that’s an insult!” said Betty Donovan, red-faced. She was sitting with her weight forward, feet splayed in front of her, her posture ever since she sat down. I’d obviously wasted the most comfortable chair in the house on her. “Dammit, I did a good job of controls. My only mistake was trusting Laura. She told me Models for Hire was legit.”
Another uproar. Roger and Maureen both spoke up at once, stopped, looked at each other. Roger shut up and the family spokesperson took the floor.
“Miss Donovan,” Maureen said imperiously, looking down her nose at Betty. “Mr. Penniston and I resent what you’re implying about our daughter. For you to say she was party to some illegitimate —”
Betty raised a hand. “I’m sorry, Maureen. That didn’t come out the way I meant it. I apologize. As you know, no one loved Laur —” She stopped abruptly and bowed her head. Maureen just waited, as Betty cleared her throat. “Excuse me. But you know I’d never say anything against Laura. I just meant that Sarnoff was her friend, and Laura was my friend, so I didn’t question how she dealt with him. It was a sweetheart arrangement, but it was her business, and I wasn’t involved. That’s all I meant.”
Apparently that satisfied Roger and Maureen. McClendon retook the floor.
“And I apologize to you, Betty,” he said. “I didn’t mean that as criticism. I just meant that as an outside investor, I needed to know what was going on, and I didn’t. Not from you, because you were leaving that part up to Laura; not from Laura, who had her own reasons — perfectly good ones, I’m sure — and not from that idiot Bob Theodore, who didn’t have the sense to look behind the Models for Hire numbers in that so-called audit he supposedly did.”
No one stuck up for Junior. They’d finally found someone they could insult without fear of contradiction.
The Bishop had suffered all the interruptions patiently. I knew he was doing the same thing I was: listening for clues in the midst of commotion. I couldn’t tell if he’d gleaned any. I’d picked up the obvious one but didn’t consider its implications, with unfortunate results later on for me personally. But I’m getting ahead of myself. For now, Regan had the floor.
“In any case, I take it, neither you, Miss Donovan, nor you, Mr. McClendon, ever met Sarnoff.” Nods from both. “What about the two of you, Mr. and Mrs. Penniston? Ever hear your daughter mention the name Sarnoff? Or, have you yourselves ever known anyone named Sarnoff? In any connection whatsoever?”
Maureen shook her head immediately and decisively. Roger wasn’t so sure. He squinted at Regan through his thick glasses and scratched his bald head.
“Umm, I might have had a student by that name, back in the mideighties,” he muttered. “Kid from the West Coast, I think. Bob…? No, Bill Sarnoff. Jewish kid. Bright. Came from the L.A. area.”
“Did your daughter know him?” The Bishop sounded interested. “And do you know where he is today?”
Roger shook his head. “Nope. No idea. Anyway Laura never met him.”
Regan glanced around at his audience.
“So. Except for that boy years ago, none of you knows — or knows of — any Sarnoff. Is that right?” Shrugs from the men, shakes of the head from the women. “All right. Tell us about the circumstances of your daughter’s leaving Wichita, if you would, Mr. Penniston.”
Roger reached for his wife’s hand as he spoke. “It was hard on us, Bishop. I guess anyone with just one child is bound to think she’s special, but Laura really was. We had such high hopes for her when she graduated high school. She had acceptances at CalTech, Stanford and M.I.T. She was a math whiz, which made me proud because that’s my field. I teach mathematics. I was —”
Maureen wasn’t going to let that go by without comment. “My husband is too modest, Bishop Regan.” She threw Roger an affectionate glance and said, teasingly, “Teach mathematics! My husband, Bishop, is a full professor at Wichita State. He’s written three textbooks on differential equations and a host of scholarly articles. Last month, his piece on surds was the featured article in the Journal of Mathematics.” Her husband blushed clear up into his bald scalp and smiled apologetically at Regan.
“Yes, well. That, and sixty cents will still buy you a cup of coffee — at least in Wichita.” He glanced at his wife. “But thanks for the plug, dear.” They smiled and touched fingertips. The Bishop had perked up, no surprise to me, when he heard the man was a professor.
“So,” Regan said. “You’re a mathematician. Differential equations?” Roger nodded. “I was interested in mathematics, in my youth. In fact, it’s a regret of mine that time constraints have made it impossible to keep up with the field. I’m sorry that our time today doesn’t permit us to —” He shrugged. “But it doesn’t. Please continue, sir.”
“I’d enjoy talking mathematics with a bishop. Maybe some other time.” Roger smiled, then continued, “In fact, the year Laura graduated from high school, I was department head, not that that’s all that big a deal. But it did make it that much nicer to see my daughter following in my footsteps. I’d started her on math problems before she was in kindergarten, Bishop, and she was a natural. By the time she could read, she could add, subtract, multiply and divide. Numbers were easy for her.”
“You spoiled her penmanship with those early studies,” his wife reminded him.
“Oh, God!” Roger laughed. “Did I ever! That was the worst part of her high-school work, Bishop. She’d put the right answers down, then her teachers couldn’t read them! Her mind was quicker than her hand. She was always in too much of a hurry.” Roger flashed a knowing smile at his wife, who smiled back and chipped in.
“Yes. Her numbers were usually just squiggles.” She demonstrated, her hand cutting a quick zigzag through the air.
Roger nodded. “I could never get her to change. But even if it was hard to read, her teachers all loved her work. By the end of her junior year she was already through calculus, which was as far as her high school went.
“
So I helped arrange with the university for her to take an introductory course in differential equations — from another prof, not me — her senior year in high school. She wound up with the highest scores in the class,” he concluded proudly, “even with all those bright college kids in there with her. And some of them grad students, at that.
“But by then she was already into modeling. Started when she was just a sixteen-year-old sophomore. By her senior year, she was in real demand around town. What can I tell you? She was always a photogenic little girl. And that never changed right up to the day she —” The proud father looked down, swallowed, and finally continued. “So when she graduated, she told us it was what she wanted to do with her life. Not math.” For a minute, it was touch and go whether Roger would be able to continue. His eyes filled, and he rubbed the scalp on top of his head. But he quickly regained control.
“It was a disappointment,” he muttered, wiping his brow with his handkerchief. “She was so darn good at it. But she was a darn good model, too, and that was her love. She was good, wasn’t she?”
He looked around the room. McClendon looked uncomfortable. Donovan spoke up.
“She was terrific, Roger. I can tell you she was the best damn model in this town. You can both be proud of your daughter. Very proud.”
“So you were not fond of your daughter’s choice of profession,” the Bishop prompted, “but you accepted it. How long after high-school graduation did she come to New York?”
“Three or four years,” the mother said, taking over. “Let’s see. She was eighteen when she graduated and now she’s — was — thirty. And she’s been in New York just… I think, eight and a half years. So she must have stayed in Wichita just over three years.”
The Bishop stayed with the Pennistons for another half hour, which struck me as a bit excessive. In fact, he was probably just being kind, giving them a chance to talk about their loved one. And they took advantage of the opportunity.
Their faces glowed. Take Maureen’s description of the red cross earrings. Roger and Maureen had given them to Laura to celebrate her opening her own agency.
“We had B. C. Bigelow — the finest jeweler in Wichita — design and make them. They were the most expensive we could afford. B. C. designed them in the shape of little crosses. Small diamonds in the center, rubies on the edges. She loved them, wore them every chance she could. So we…” Maureen bowed her head for a moment. When she lifted it again her eyes were moist, but her voice was firm and vibrant. “Excuse me, Bishop. I was thinking how horrible it is. Those earrings mean so much to Roger and me, I just hate it that he — that monster — should have them.”
The Bishop, finally satisfied he’d got everything he was going to get out of the Pennistons, turned the spotlight on Betty. About time, I thought. Now, maybe, we could learn something useful. Maybe even something that might lead us to Steven Sarnoff.
*
“I met Laura six years ago, about two years after she’d come to town. I had my personal financial advisory service, and I’d done some work for a couple of other successful models. One of them had Laura call me. She was already a sensation and making plenty of bucks, so I was happy to hear from her. Not only was it good to get a successful client, but I figured she’d direct some more clients to me.”
“Just what services do you render your clients, Madame?” Regan asked.
“None, any more.” Betty smiled. “Once we started the agency, I had to drop my private practice. I tried keeping it for the first few months, but Laura complained, and I couldn’t blame her. The business was more than a full-time job for both of us.” Betty frowned, and added, “I guess I’ll be going back to consulting, now that I’m selling the business to George.
“But, to answer your question, I’d look at a client’s financial status and income and make recommendations, depending on their wants and needs. What kinds of investments to make, what kinds of returns to look for, what levels of risk to assume. Those kinds of things. Are you interested, Bishop? Like I say, I’m getting back in the business.”
Regan cut that off fast. “Not at the moment,” he murmured, and steered the conversation back to Laura. “When did you and Miss Penniston decide to go into business?”
“Oh, God,” Betty said. “We talked about it almost right away. She was saying how poorly managed most of the agencies were, how they’d send girls to the wrong places for shots, mishandle the payments, that kind of thing.”
Regan was frowning. “Mishandle —?”
“Oh, they’re mostly awful. Few of them would carry group insurance — that was the first thing Laura put in at Penniston Associates. They’d screw up the FICA, take too much out or not enough. And they wouldn’t give girls enough lead time for a session. Things like that.
“So Laura began to think about how many friends she had who might come to her if she opened an agency and ran it right. She was the idea woman all the way.” Betty glanced over at the parents. “She really was bright, Roger. And not just in mathematics. Everyone used to say she was the beauty and I was the brains of the outfit. Not so. She was both.” She smiled, her eyes crinkling.
“Just to give you an example of what I mean. I noticed one thing about her right away, back when she was modeling. She was so much sharper than any of the other models. She kept a little black book with every phone number that she might conceivably ever have a use for. So she was always ahead of all the other girls in getting new jobs. She used the phone like a master, calling clients to thank them, calling to see if they needed anyone for this or that job. She was always miles ahead, and that little black book was part of it.
“It came in handy after we were partners, too. Any time I needed a phone number, Laura’d probably have it in her little black book. I’ve seen her take time to take down numbers that I thought couldn’t possibly have any use at all. I even accused her of having a number fetish! But she always said, you never know when you might need it. And, sure enough, I’d constantly find myself asking her for some phone number I really needed, a number I couldn’t get any other way — and she’d always have it. Amazing!”
Maureen nodded with a sad little smile. “She was that way since she was little. Part of her fascination with numbers, I suppose.” Betty and Maureen exchanged smiles.
“Anyway,” Betty went on, “Laura had this idea about starting her own agency. Right away she started trying to talk me into helping with the financial end of things. I gave her a little help — strictly as an adviser, at first.” Betty grinned, deepening the laugh lines even more. Her eyes practically disappeared.
“My main advice, frankly, was to stay the hell out of it. I hated to see her put all her eggs into one basket. You’re a successful model,” I told her. “Why throw that all away to do something you don’t know anything about?”
“We went round and round. She kept saying she knew she could do it. I kept pointing out problems, and she kept solving them. Gradually, I got interested. After spending all that time telling her what a dumb idea it was, I wound up asking to join her. She was delighted that I’d changed my mind, and I became her one-third partner. She kept two-thirds for herself, which was fine.
“I introduced her to Lee Stubbs at Mid-City — Lee’s been a client of mine for years — and he did the loan. And the business just took straight off.”
It was the most enthusiasm I’d seen the woman show. I couldn’t tell if the Bishop was impressed or not, but he was interested.
“But there came a time,” he said, “when you needed another partner. And that’s where you come in, Mr. McClendon. Please tell us how you came to know Miss Donovan and Miss Penniston.”
“My turn, hmm? All right, why not?” The burly businessman glanced around at the others, settled back comfortably in the straightback chair and smiled complacently through his beard.
“I’ve been reasonably successful in everything I’ve tried, Bishop. I’ve run my own advertising agency for twelve years, managed to make a little money at it — star
ted as a commercial artist, eventually got my own set-up. Lee Stubbs —” McClendon glanced at Betty — “Betty mentioned she’s done business with him for years. Well, so have I. Lee phoned me early this year, told me the two gals were in need of equity money.” McClendon looked back at the Bishop. “I was friends with Betty and Laura. I’d used their models. In fact, I’d about decided to use them exclusively, they were so good. Of course, Lee and I go way back — he helped me get started. So when the gals went to him for an increase in their line of credit, he asked them if they’d talk to me. Right, Betty?”
Donovan looked startled, then nodded. Out of the limelight now, it looked like her craving for nicotine had returned. Her hands were looking for something to do, tapping the chair arms, smoothing her skirt over her thick thighs, patting her hopeless hair.
“Yes, that’s right,” Betty spoke in quick, staccato syllables. “Lee thought we were getting stretched a little thin, that we needed an infusion of equity, not more debt. Laura didn’t want to hear that, but I told her Lee was right. And he knew you were trying to get into the business. We liked you, liked the way you worked with us, the way you’d moved more of your business to us. So we said we’d give it a shot.”
McClendon sounded downright lazy after that burst of machine-gun fire. “Right. Well, Stubbs set up a lunch for the four of us — Laura, Betty, him and me. And everything went great after that — till Bob Theodore’s audit.” He glared at Betty and she glared back. The sore point was still sore.
“Bob was already suspect, far as I was concerned, since it was common knowledge that he and Laura were engaged. He wasn’t —”
“They were never engaged!” The outraged mother. “Laura told me everything. And she was never engaged to anyone. Least of all to that — puffed-up playboy!” Mrs. Penniston glanced at hubby, apparently to make sure he was on the team, and redirected her glare at McClendon. Teeth gleamed through the beard. He raised a hand of peace.
The Fundamentals of Murder (Davey Goldman Series Book 2) Page 21
