Right on the Money

by Emma Lathen

  “God knows you’ve proved that,” she said weakly.

  She had never believed for a moment that Bob had struck out in a fury because of anything to do with the Ecker Company. Bob was a good production manager, a dutiful son, a splendid father, but he had only one real passion in his life, and its name was Tina Laverdiere.

  “You’re so transparent, Bob,” she expostulated. “You poured out everything Hunnicut said about you and Conrad and Alan. But you didn’t mention a single word about me. And I was the one who’d gotten under Hunnicut’s skin. When he tried tangling with me in Princeton, I cut him down hard enough to get him thrown out of the meeting.”

  “You never told me that.”

  “No,” she agreed before falling into a reverie. She misery, she did not enjoy closing his escape routes, one by one. But something told her it had to be done.

  “Why?” she insisted.

  Finally his defenses crumbled.

  “It was when they told us the fire was not an accident,” he confessed wretchedly.

  “You thought I was embezzling from Conrad?” She was dumbfounded. “For Christ’s sake, Bob, have you gone stark raving mad? What was I supposed to be doing with all this money?”

  Shamefaced, he shook his head. “It wasn’t that.”

  She had clutched his hand during his string of evasions. Then it had been to prevent escape. Now it was to promise sympathy and understanding.

  “You see, I got real shook up by what that bastard said at the trade show,” he began.

  “Go on.”

  “He claimed I was lousy at my job, and he said it as if it was obvious. Then the other guy from ASI didn’t seem to think it was unreasonable. But I’ve always thought I was pretty good.”

  For once Tina was not interested in his self-esteem. “You’re a fine production manager,” she said perfunctorily.

  “And the company’s been doing so well, which seemed like proof positive. I was hanging on to that when the fire marshal told us the boiler house was torched. And you’re the one in charge of the records. So I thought . . .”

  Tina felt as if the weight of years had been lifted.

  “You thought I was cooking the books to make you look good,” she finished for him.

  “Well, you’re the one who knows what goes on there,” he defended himself belatedly.

  In moments of extreme emotion, human features become distorted. For once Tina Laverdiere did not look like a handsome woman. Her skewed smile made her seem more like a stroke victim than an affectionate wife.

  “Oh, Bob, you’re an idiot. I couldn’t get away with that year after year. Don’t you understand? There’s a limit to what you can do with accounting. You can divert money from one section to another, you can disburse it to fake accounts, you can lose it in the computer, but you can’t simply create it.”

  “I’m sorry, Tina, I’m really sorry. I wanted to talk to you but I was afraid, and the whole thing was tearing me apart.”

  She recalled an earlier misgiving.

  “In Chicago I thought you might have told Virginia.”

  “Mother!” he gasped. “When has she ever kept quiet about anything?”

  Tina realized that she should have known better.

  “While we’re at it,” she said relentlessly, “I suppose I should admit that I was suspicious of you.”

  Under different circumstances his expression would have amused her.

  “How could I finagle the records? I don’t know anything about what goes on in your office.”

  “God knows you’ve proved that,” she said weakly.

  She had never believed for a moment that Bob had struck out in a fury because of anything to do with the Ecker Company. Bob was a good production manager, a dutiful son, a splendid father, but he had only one real passion in his life, and its name was Tina Laverdiere.

  “You’re so transparent, Bob,” she expostulated. “You poured out everything Hunnicut said about you and Conrad and Alan. But you didn’t mention a single word about me. And I was the one who’d gotten under Hunnicut’s skin. When he tried tangling with me in Princeton, I cut him down hard enough to get him thrown out of the meeting.”

  “You never told me that.”

  “No,” she agreed before falling into a reverie. She had abandoned herself to the warm relief that was finally enveloping her.

  “Maybe we should stop protecting each other,” she said at last. “We don’t seem to be very good at it.”

  Bob dismissed this piece of womanly weakness. Wrinkling his forehead, he pointed out this left the Ecker fire more of a mystery than ever.

  “Who cares?” Tina said buoyantly. “The police have to worry about that one. That’s their job. Maybe they’ll be able to get on with it, once we tell them what really happened.”

  “Oh, my God!”

  Inspector Giorni had the dubious privilege of hosting the conference between the Laverdieres, their lawyer, the DA’s lawyer, and himself.

  “So you met your wife on the floor of the trade show after you talked to Frayne and Ecker?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And you told her what had happened? While you were still mad?”

  “Yes, I bumped into her while she was doing the rounds and of course she was a little upset but—”

  “I was in a blazing rage,” Tina interrupted evenly.

  Her lawyer stirred into uneasy protest, but Giorni ignored them both and continued to press Laverdiere.

  “You gave her the skewer?”

  Only after a compelling glance from Tina did Laverdiere answer. “She said she’d be passing our booth and she’d take it back.”

  “So then what did you do?”

  “I wanted to get my mind off the fight. I knew Conrad would handle ASI but I couldn’t seem to concentrate on the show. Instead I decided to check things out downstairs—-make sure the dollies and tools were ready, to dismantle the booth.”

  When they were off the subject of Tina, Laverdiere’s replies came more easily.

  “But you didn’t take the murder elevator?”

  “No, I was at the far side of the building. I used the freight elevators on the east end. But it turned out I couldn’t spend much time in the basement because everything was in such apple-pie order. When I was through, I went to the elevator closest to the trucks. And you know what happened. The doors opened, I saw the body and I just panicked. I got the hell out of there as fast as I could.”

  The inspector had no difficulty filling in what had been left unsaid. One minute Bob Laverdiere had seen his wife, skewer in hand, furious at Victor Hunnicut. The next, he had seen Hunnicut practically skewered to the floor. He had drawn the obvious conclusion.

  “And then the two of you decided to keep quiet? In spite of the fact that it left you the number-one suspect?”

  “You’d just think we were in it together,” Bob said sulkily.

  “Like hell! You thought she’d done it.”

  “Not then, I didn’t,” Bob fired back incautiously.

  Tina’s clear voice ended the dialogue.

  “That came after the arson report,” she announced.

  Giorni was not enthusiastic about either of the Laverdieres, but he had to admit that the wife was moving things along. It would have taken hours to extract a coherent account from her husband.

  “So you thought she was fudging the books and Hunnicut got wise to her.” Giorni examined his witness contemptuously. “Mr. Laverdiere, did it ever occur to you that your wife might have had a hard time killing Hunnicut? If she lost her head and raised a skewer, would he just sit still for it?”

  It was an article of faith with Bob that his wife was capable of succeeding at anything she set her hand to. Reflexively he produced the wrong encomium.

  “Tina’s in great shape.”

  “So was Hunnicut!” Giorni snapped. He was remembering the assessment from the Zichy Salle des Armes—quick feet, strong wrists, everything except the heart of a tiger. But nothing bring
s out the tiger in a man like defending his own life.

  Having discharged at least some of his spleen, Giorni turned to Tina.

  “Now you,” he said harshly. “You carried that skewer across the floor to the Ecker booth.”

  “That’s right,” she said, sounding every bit as adamantine as the inspector.

  “Did it still have a mushroom on it?” he barked.

  Until now, he had received unhelpful replies to this question. Both Alan Frayne and Ken Nicolls had been unable to disentangle their memories of the skewer at the Ecker booth and the skewer across the concourse. Conrad Ecker had been too consumed with bellicosity to notice anything at all.

  But Tina did not even pause to think. “At the beginning it did. It wasn’t until I slammed down the skewer that the mushroom fell off on the counter.” Then, continuing her policy of frankness, she added, “I was still pretty mad.”

  Giorni knew exactly how much that frankness was worth. “And I suppose it never crossed your mind that your husband might be guilty.”

  Tina lifted her chin.

  “I read the arson report, too. Naturally I had moments of doubt,” she admitted. “But thank God the Winstead people have put them to rest.”

  Tina’s openness was directed toward emphasizing one particular point. Victor Hunnicut had been murdered for business reasons, not personal reasons. Her story was simple. Both Laverdieres had been thrown off balance by the discovery of arson, each had suspected the other of corporate shenanigans. Happily that was all.

  “And now you both think you’re home free,” Giorni began on a threatening note.

  His audience had the sense to remain quiet.

  “What I’d really like to do is throw the two of you into the can for obstruction of justice, but,” he continued regretfully, “I suppose that’ll have to wait. We’ll be checking up on your stories, the ones you’re telling this time, I mean. For now I’m through with you, you can go.”

  The Laverdieres were eager to avail themselves of this permission, and their lawyer lingered only long enough to cast a gloss over the complete rout of his charges.

  Whatever Giorni felt, the DA’s man was sorry to see such promising suspects depart.

  “She still could have done it,” he theorized hopefully. “That mushroom could have fallen off anywhere.”

  Already rubbing his eyes in preparation for the days to come, Giorni shook his head. “Not on your life. When Laverdiere was waving that skewer around while he yelled at the ASI bunch, he was bending over the back of the booth. If it had fallen in their faces, they’d remember. And if it fell off while he was on the floor, it would have been trampled within seconds. There were thousands of people milling around. Besides, what bothers me about the wife is what’s always bothered me about the husband. I don’t think Hunnicut would have gotten into an elevator alone with either one of them. He’d have been too scared.”

  “He wouldn’t expect an attack.”

  “I don’t mean that.” Giorni flapped an impatient hand. “He’d be afraid for his job. He’d just been chewed out by Gardner Ives and told to make everything sweet with Ecker. He was a boy who obeyed orders. He’d already gone one round with the husband. The skewer would have told him the wife knew all about the scene at the booth. Hunnicut couldn’t afford another spat, no matter who started it. Of course there was no reason in the world not to go along with one of the ASI bunch.”

  The DA’s man considered this new array of possibilities.

  “Maybe not Quinn,” he argued. “But Hunnicut was in hot water with Bradley and Pepitone.”

  “Yeah, but he didn’t know it. According to that guy from the Sloan, Bradley said he’d fingered Hunnicut as the ASI troublemaker, but only after Hunnicut left.”

  “So you’re saying one of those rumors about Bradley or Pepitone was right on the money and Hunnicut had to be silenced.”

  Giorni’s glance would have flayed a less insensitive man. “No, I’m saying that could be what happened. I like a little proof of these motives before I go haring off, half-cocked.”

  He could see what was coming. The DA’s office would be reluctant to drop charges against Laverdiere unless they could simultaneously level them against someone else. Laverdiere’s lawyer, on the other hand, would be anxious to strike while the iron was hot. Crunched between these two parties would be the police department.

  “You know,” mused the DA’s man, who had never noticed Giorni’s barb, “I think we need an intensive investigation of the ASI people. And pronto!”

  “Somehow I thought you’d say that,” mumbled Giorni.

  Chapter 21

  MARKET CORRECTION

  The Winstead report had repercussions in Princeton as well. There, Sparling Castings remained a source of concern, but the heavens had not opened. ASI’s involvement with gunrunners and terrorists was still contained behind closed doors. Perhaps this was only the lull before the storm, but Gardner Ives actually took time to read the insurance company’s final paragraph.

  “. . . and he thought it would be a good idea to have an informal dinner with Conrad Ecker,” Tom Robichaux explained. “Just the four of us at his club.”

  “Now that Winstead has upgraded Ecker’s financial rating and there’s been all this free publicity, I suppose Ives wants to go forward with the merger,” Thatcher hazarded.

  “Panting at the bit, if you ask me,” Robichaux said complacently. “But you know none of them can come right out with anything. According to Gardner, we’re not talking merger, we’re just getting to know each other better.”

  It was Thatcher’s private opinion that this was no time to get to know Conrad Ecker. The continuing estrangement from his nephew had left him sore as a bear.

  “Of course he’s relieved to have some of the clouds roll by, but I don’t know how he’ll react to hours of stroking by Ives,” he warned Robichaux. “He’s defensive and he’s touchy.”

  “Don’t blame him. Can’t say I’m looking forward to this shindig myself,” said Tom, a staunch foe to any after-hours intrusion by his business responsibilities. “But we have to start somewhere.”

  “True,” Thatcher said, “but even if Conrad doesn’t blow up, it will be four hours of boredom.”

  Robichaux, casting around for some emollient, found only one. “The brandy at the club isn’t half bad.”

  Conrad Ecker was the last to arrive and he had dignified the occasion with a perfectly respectable business suit. He still stood out. With the best will in the world—and there was no reason to suppose that any such force was at work—he could not achieve the sleek, tidily packaged look resulting from winter tans, custom tailoring, and nonstop massages. While everybody stared at him, and most recognized that familiar face from television, he examined his surroundings with frank interest.

  “Haven’t been in a place like this for years,” he remarked, making it sound like a fortunate escape.

  “You’re a good way from the city,” Gardner Ives replied. “One of the things I like about the Princeton location is that we’re far enough out for daily purposes but the city is available when we want it.”

  Any fears Thatcher entertained about a headlong approach by Ives were quickly laid to rest. The man had obviously consulted all those articles about Conrad Ecker, home-spun millionaire. By the time drinks arrived, Ives was barely warming up.

  “I always try to get away in the hunting season myself,” he began.

  His stomping ground, he went on to say, was in Maine. Wisely eschewing executive lodges and wine cellars, he genially discussed guns, ammunition and, of course, the ones that got away.

  “The worst disappointment was two years ago,” he said, comfortably launched.

  Ives had been a lucky winner in the Maine moose lottery. Armed with state permission to help thin the herd, he had sallied forth expectantly.

  “I spent a whole week at it and never even saw a moose,” he chuckled.

  Ecker simply reported that he himself always hunted in the
White Mountains, but conditions there had changed a good deal.

  Thatcher felt duty-bound to make some contribution—if only as a native of New Hampshire.

  “They certainly have,” he agreed, “but these days I’m only up there when I’m hiking.”

  “Don’t suppose you do that in the season,” Ecker remarked.

  “Certainly not. From what they tell me, I’d be taking my life in my hands.”

  You were doing just that, according to Ecker, if you ventured into your own backyard anywhere north of Boston. “These city types are a menace,” he growled. “They just spray bullets in a circle whenever a leaf moves.”

  As a small child Thatcher had heard relatives and neighbors inveigh against the invasion of hunters from the mill towns. No doubt these shafts had been aimed against young men from Bridgeport. Now, fifty years later, Ecker was the old-timer.

  But some changes met Conrad’s approval. In the early days his group had stayed at a ramshackle cabin owned by somebody’s cousin. Now he and his friends expected not only electricity and furnaces, but all the support facilities of a four-star resort.

  “It’s not really my style, but it has its points.”

  There was a good deal to be said, he continued, for a heated indoor swimming pool in which to soak cranky, aging bones.

  When Ives blinked, Thatcher deduced that an indoor pool was not among the amenities in Maine.

  After the subject of hunting died a lingering death, Ives made a stab at other topics. But tax loopholes, foreign travel, and new corporate jets were not up Ecker’s alley. Only when Ives desperately fell back on his family did he evoke any response. An Ives daughter had just qualified as a surgeon and the Ives son was in law school. Conrad riposted with Douglas Junior, a serious student of the cello. Not only was he enrolled at Juilliard, he had appeared at Tanglewood.

  Curiously enough, this struck a chord with Robichaux.

  “Tanglewood, eh? Hetty and I were up there last summer.” In an aside to Thatcher, he continued, “Henrietta’s big on music, you know.”

  Startled, Thatcher realized that yet another Robichaux wife had been divorced and a replacement ensconced without his noticing. There was this to be said for Tom’s recent marital moves. They no longer involved his friends in ceremonial rice.