Sleight of Hand: A Novel of Suspense (Dana Cutler)

by Margolin, Phillip

  “Oh, God!” Carrie shouted.

  Benedict grabbed the towel, rolled it in a ball so that Carrie’s blood was on the inside, slammed the lid of the trunk, and raced upstairs. As he climbed the stairs he could hear Carrie pounding on the inside of the trunk. It was unnerving, but Benedict forced himself to ignore the sound. The farther he got from the garage, the more distant the thump-thump-thump became until the sound disappeared completely by the time he entered his kitchen.

  Benedict found a Tupperware container and put the rolled-up towel in it. He sealed the lid, opened the freezer, and stashed the container in the back of the compartment. Then he grabbed some ice cubes and closed the freezer. His heart was racing. He dropped the ice cubes into a glass and fixed a stiff drink. He pressed the cold glass to his forehead and took deep breaths until he was calm. As he relaxed, Benedict remembered how Carrie’s naked body had looked when he maneuvered her so the sex would look real in the DVD.

  “What a waste,” he thought as he surveyed his living room. He’d have to clean up the pieces of the broken vase. He didn’t see any blood, but there might be hair or fibers on the couch where Blair had sat when she viewed the DVD. He’d have to do something about that. His Dustbuster came to mind.

  The alcohol he was drinking started to have the desired effect. When Benedict was calmer he began to fine-tune his plan. It was no secret that the Blairs’ marriage was on the rocks. He wondered how many people at the Rankin, Lusk cocktail party had seen them argue. But many married couples argue without resorting to murder to settle their differences. What made the Blairs’ situation different was their prenup. Had Carrie lasted until the end of this week, it would have cost Horace Blair twenty million dollars, and twenty million dollars was an excellent motive for murder. While Carrie was bleeding out in his living room it had occurred to Benedict that no one would suspect him of killing Carrie if Horace Blair was sent to prison for murdering his wife.

  Charlie was very good at developing his own magic tricks. Plotting Horace Blair’s downfall was a lot like storyboarding a large illusion, like the one David Copperfield had created when he made the Statue of Liberty disappear. Benedict got a legal pad from his home office and started writing an outline. He’d have to get rid of the body, and he’d have to leave clues in the grave that would point to Blair. One clue would be the bullet that killed Blair’s wife. It would be found during an autopsy.

  Of course the police would need the murder weapon to make the match, and they would have to find it where it would implicate Blair. That’s why he’d asked Carrie about the key to Horace’s Bentley.

  Working on his illusion relaxed Benedict, and he was totally calm by the time it was complete. He had a good idea of where to bury Carrie. He’d had a brainstorm about a clue he could leave in the grave shortly after he’d given her the towel to stop the bleeding. Making this part of the plan work would be tricky, but tricks were a magician’s stock-in-trade. He checked his watch. It was only one a.m.—hard to believe that so little time had passed since he’d shot Blair.

  Benedict reviewed his notes. He would have to wait until the stores in the mall opened in the morning before he could start to create his illusion. Benedict took a deep breath. He felt in control of the situation. He would sweep up the shards from the vase, use the Dustbuster to vacuum the hairs from the couch, and then get a good night’s sleep.

  An hour later, when his head touched his pillow, Charles Benedict slept like a baby.

  Chapter Eleven

  Horace Blair had a full head of snowy-white hair, weighed only seven pounds more than he’d weighed in college, and looked ten years younger than seventy-four, thanks to upgrades to his facial features by the finest plastic surgeons.

  Blair’s massive home, modeled after the mansion of a British earl, was the centerpiece of a magnificent estate whose rolling lawns and well-tended woods were enclosed behind a high stone wall. The mansion’s wide terraces overlooked an Olympic-size swimming pool, tennis courts, and a man-made lake.

  When he was home, Horace woke up at five every morning except Sunday and swam a mile in the indoor lap pool. After finishing his swim, he would shower, slip on a terry-cloth robe, then seat himself in a glassed-in kitchen nook. The nook looked out on a splendid garden that was pleasing to the eye even in foul weather, thanks to the efforts of an army of gardeners.

  Each morning, Blair’s personal chef would set the table in the nook with a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice, half a grapefruit, a freshly baked croissant, and a cup of coffee brewed from a blend that was specially prepared for the master of the house. Stacked beside the food would be several newspapers including the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the New York Times. After breakfast, Horace would drive his Bentley to the Blair Building, where he would oversee his international business empire. Blair employed a chauffeur but enjoyed driving too much to use his services unless he needed to work on the way to the office.

  Horace’s morning routine usually soothed him, but Wednesday morning it had done nothing to alleviate the tension that had robbed him of a good night’s sleep. On Thursday his prenuptial agreement with his wife would terminate and he would have to pay her twenty million dollars. Blair could afford the money. He made that much in interest every week. What galled him was not getting his money’s worth from his loveless marriage.

  In business, Horace Blair never acted rashly, but his personal life had been one series of blunders after another, and his marriage to Carrie Trask may have been his most foolish and impulsive mistake.

  Ten years ago, Horace entertained a group of Japanese businessmen at his country club. Despite being tipsy, he had driven home in one of his prized possessions, a bright-yellow Diablo 6.0 Lamborghini with a top speed of 200 miles an hour. The alcohol he had imbibed had affected his judgment and he was cruising along at 120 miles an hour when a policeman pulled him over and cited him for driving under the influence and reckless driving.

  Horace Blair never caved without a fight, and he’d hired Bobby Schatz, Washington, D.C.’s top criminal defense attorney, to represent him. When Horace Blair walked into Judge Hugo Diaz’s courtroom in Lee County, Virginia, he had been prepared to do anything, including lie, to win his case. When he left the courtroom he was floating on air, and it wasn’t because Judge Diaz had been so impressed by his honesty that he had imposed the least serious sentence possible after Horace changed his plea to guilty in the middle of the prosecutor’s cross-examination.

  Horace had shed his third wife eight months before in a bloodless coup. He’d grown tired of her and he wasn’t sorry to see her go, but even though he was sixty-three, he was still vigorous and in need of female companionship. Carrie Trask, the prosecuting attorney, was a goddess. She had sleek blond hair, translucent gray-green eyes, high, sculpted cheekbones, and a smile that could light up a city. Once he saw her, Horace Blair knew he had to possess her, and what better way to make an impression than to help her win her case?

  Blair was unconcerned about the consequences of a conviction. His lawyer had explained that there would be no jail time for a first offense, any fine would be a fly speck on his bank balance, and he had a chauffeur who would drive for him if the state took his license. Yes, there would be a conviction on his record, but that was a small sacrifice to make for love.

  Taking the stand had given Blair a chance to talk to Carrie, though he had to admit that that was the weirdest first date he’d ever been on. Still, he’d seen the confusion on Carrie’s face when he’d opened his heart to her and told her that her opening statement had made him realize how dangerous his actions had been. Then he had looked deep into Carrie’s eyes and told her that he would not play games and was ready to pay the price for his actions. Carrie had not been able to hide her surprise at this unexpected turn of events, and Blair had been thrilled by what he perceived to be a successful first step in his campaign to win the prosecutor’s heart.

  Blair had waited to ask Carrie out until after he fulfilled the
conditions of his probation and paid his fine. He wanted Carrie to see he was serious about being a good citizen and a good person. Carrie had turned him down the first time he had asked her to dinner, but he pursued the young prosecutor with a vengeance and finally wore her down. It proved a Pyrrhic victory.

  Everyone but Horace knew that he had been foolish to marry Carrie. The age difference was too great; and it was obvious that Carrie didn’t love him, and equally obvious that she was wedded to her career more than she was to him.

  Horace had been married several times before. Those wives had been members of his country club set. They cooked for him, they went to social functions with him, and they kept his bed warm when he wanted sex. None of them worked. None of them wanted to work. Horace wanted a wife who would be there for him when he needed her. He realized his mistake in marrying Carrie when it dawned on him that she was rarely going to be where he wanted her to be if she was involved in a case. And she was always involved in a case.

  It wasn’t as if Horace hadn’t been warned. Carrie had told him what was in store for him on the evening he proposed. But Horace was besotted, and he’d convinced himself that he could bring Carrie around. He had tried to convince Carrie to leave the commonwealth attorney’s office. He had explained that there was no reason for her to put in long hours at a government job when he was so wealthy that she could do anything else she wanted to do. But prosecuting criminals was the only thing Carrie wanted to do.

  On Wednesday morning, Blair sipped his juice and tried to enjoy the view, but he could not relax because thoughts of the prenup kept intruding. It had been Jack Pratt’s idea. At first, Horace had rejected his corporate lawyer’s suggestion, but he caved when Pratt reminded him that his first wife had taken him to the cleaners because he did not have a prenuptial agreement and that his prenups with numbers two and three had saved him.

  If Horace thought that Carrie would sign the prenup without a fight she quickly disabused him of this idea. Carrie was not like his other wives. She had graduated near the top of her class at Georgetown’s law school and was just as smart as Pratt. She had agreed to sign the prenup only if it included a guarantee that she would receive twenty million dollars at the end of the first ten years of their marriage if she did not divorce Horace or sleep with another man. Horace had agreed but had added the condition that she would lose everything if she revealed the details of the agreement.

  Horace was trying to distract himself from thinking about the prenup by reading a business article when his houseman interrupted him.

  “There’s a detective at the front door who wishes to speak to you.”

  Blair frowned. “What does he want?”

  “It’s a woman, a Detective Stephanie Robb. She says it’s about Mrs. Blair.”

  “What about Carrie?”

  “She wouldn’t tell me.”

  “Very well. Show her in.”

  Everything about Stephanie Robb was square and thick. Her short-cut dirty-blond hair framed her face in a cube shape. Her body had no waist and was short, muscular, and squat like a power lifter’s. The butt of the detective’s gun peeked out of the brown jacket she wore over a white blouse. A brown skirt and comfortable brown shoes completed the ensemble.

  “Thanks for seeing me, Mr. Blair,” Robb said as she held out her ID so Blair could inspect it.

  “My houseman said this concerns my wife.”

  “Yes, sir,” Robb said.

  “What about Carrie?”

  “We want to know where she is,” Robb said.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “No one has seen Mrs. Blair since Monday afternoon.”

  “She hasn’t been at work?”

  “No, sir.”

  Blair’s brow furrowed. “That’s strange. If there’s one thing I know about my wife, it’s that she’s completely dedicated to her job.”

  “That’s why we’re worried. She’s missed several court appearances, and she has an important trial coming up. But no one knows where she is.”

  “She didn’t call in?” Blair asked.

  “No, sir.”

  “I’m fairly certain she isn’t here.”

  Now it was Robb’s turn to furrow her brow. “You don’t know?”

  “Carrie and I don’t see much of each other,” he said brusquely. “This is a big house. She has her rooms and I have mine.”

  “Could you have someone check to see if Mrs. Blair is home?”

  “Certainly.”

  Blair signaled for the houseman.

  “Walter, when is the last time you remember seeing Mrs. Blair?”

  “She was here Sunday for dinner but Monday was my day off. I visited my mother in New Jersey and I left here Sunday night and caught a late flight. I didn’t see her on Tuesday.”

  “Can you please check Carrie’s rooms, and see if her cars are in the garage.”

  As soon as the houseman left, Robb asked if Blair had seen his wife on Monday.

  “No. I saw her last Thursday. Then I was in New York on business until Monday morning. If she came home Monday I didn’t see her.”

  “Does Mrs. Blair have friends she may be visiting?”

  “Carrie has never been very sociable. The friends I know about all work with her. I do have a question, though.”

  “Yes?”

  “Why did the commonwealth attorney send a detective to check on Carrie instead of a patrol officer? Isn’t that unusual?”

  “Yes, sir, it is, but the circumstances warrant a broad inquiry. Your wife has prosecuted some very dangerous people.”

  “You think harm may have come to her?” asked Blair.

  “We have no evidence to support that conclusion. Quite honestly, we’re stumped.”

  The houseman reentered the kitchen. “Mrs. Blair’s Porsche is not in the garage, and her bed doesn’t appear to have been slept in.”

  “Thank you, Walter,” Blair said to the houseman. “This is very upsetting,” he told Robb.

  “Can you describe Mrs. Blair’s Porsche?”

  Horace described the car and gave the detective the license plate number.

  “Please keep me up to date on your investigation,” Blair said.

  “I’ll definitely keep you in the loop. And you let me know if she gets in touch.”

  The detective handed Blair her card and left. Blair stared at it. Robb was with homicide. She had not told him that, probably because she didn’t want to worry him. And Horace was worried. He and Carrie may have fallen out of love, but he had been in love with her once upon a time. The marriage had withered, and Horace was bitter because of the prenuptial agreement, but he didn’t hate Carrie, and he hoped that nothing serious had happened to her.

  Chapter Twelve

  As soon as he arrived at his office Horace Blair plunged into a meeting to discuss plans to merge one of his companies with a British telecom company. The issues were complex, and Carrie and the prenup were soon forgotten. By the time the meeting adjourned, at nine in the evening, Horace was exhausted and could not wait to get into bed. As he pulled his Bentley into his four-car garage, Blair was surprised to see a strange car parked near his front door.

  When Blair entered the house, Walter was waiting for him.

  “Has Mrs. Blair come home?” Horace asked his houseman.

  “No, sir, and she hasn’t called.”

  “Then whose car is that?”

  “It belongs to a Mr. Charles Benedict. Normally I wouldn’t have let him wait, but he said it concerned Mrs. Blair.”

  “What about her?”

  “He wouldn’t give me any specifics.”

  “Very well, Walter. Where did you put him?”

  “In the library.”

  Blair walked down a hall that led to the back of the mansion and entered a room lined with bookshelves. Charles Benedict was sitting in front of a fire Walter had laid for him, reading a biography of Harry Houdini. He stood when his host walked in.

  “Mr. Blair, I’m Charles Benedict.
I apologize for intruding but I’m in possession of information that will save you millions of dollars.”

  “If you’re selling something, stop right now.”

  “This concerns your prenuptial agreement with your wife. I know it terminates tomorrow and I know you’ll have to pay Carrie twenty million dollars—two million for every year she’s been married to you—if she’s remained faithful.”

  Blair flushed with anger. “How do you know the details of our agreement?”

  “Carrie told me after we’d slept together.”

  “What!”

  “I’m an attorney, Mr. Blair. My specialty is criminal defense. Your wife and I have tried cases against each other. One evening, we met in her office after one of our trials recessed.” Benedict shrugged. “One thing led to another and we made love. After that, we started meeting regularly.”

  “Can you prove any of this?”

  “Oh, yes. Take me to your front door. I have something to show you.”

  “My front door?”

  “You’ll understand in a minute.”

  Blair was about to say something. Then he changed his mind and led the way to the front hall. The lawyer opened the front door.

  “Please give me your front-door key.”

  Blair looked confused, but he fished his keys out of his pocket and took the front-door key off of his key chain.

  “I’m going to step outside and close the door. When I’m outside, check the door to make sure it’s locked.”

  Benedict stepped outside and closed the door. Horace tested the door to make sure it was locked. Moments later, Benedict opened the locked door.

  “What does this prove?” Blair asked.

  Benedict handed Blair the key he held in his hand.

  “Most of the time, Carrie came to my condo when we made love,” Benedict said as Horace put the key back on his key chain, “but she was into risk and we made love here on several occasions when you were away. I would wait until she called me and I’d drive over. Carrie gave me this.”