COPS SPIES & PI'S: The Four Novel Box Set

by David Wind

  “I won’t.”

  With that, the hostess led the way through the main floor of the restaurant, which was set in a large rectangle with concentric lines of tables framing an inner section of more tables. The room was almost full, the noise level high but not annoying. From the seated sea of faces we passed, it was easy to pick out the celebrities. We wound through the inner sanctum of the restaurant and up the stairs to the balcony level. Once there, she led me to a table overlooking the main floor.

  Seated at the table, in deep conversation and ignoring everyone around them were Lia Thornton and Thomas Albright. As I drew closer to the table, Albright looked up. Surprise widened his eyes.

  Lia Thornton glanced up and a slow smile curved the cupid’s bow of her lips. I returned the smile. Albright’s expression was a flash of annoyance. “Excuse me for the interruption. May I join you for a few minutes?”

  Recovering quickly, Albright said, “Please do.” I took a seat between them and, no sooner had I sat, than a waiter appeared. He placed two drinks on the table and then looked at me. I ordered single malt.

  Lia Thornton picked up her martini and favored me with another smile. “This is a surprise. What do we owe the honor to?”

  She handled the situation with more aplomb than the now silent Albright. “There was an incident yesterday. Someone tried to warn me off the case. I thought I should report to you, as you and the other investors are my clients.”

  “Why would someone do that?” she asked while I studied Albright’s reaction from the corners of my eyes. I didn’t miss the shadow that crossed his features.

  “Who warned you?” Albright.

  I gave them the abbreviated version of the happenings at the Looker’s Club, leaving out my later return there. When I finished, Lia said, “How horrible. Will this ah…Rabbit, be okay?”

  “He’ll be fine. Do either of you know a man by the name of Carlo Santucchi?”

  Lia shook her head; Albright gave me a quick no.

  “Too bad, I was hoping maybe one of you knew him.”

  “Sorry,” Lia said as Albright reached into his jacket and extracted a small cell phone. He glanced at it, and then looked at both of us.

  “Excuse me; I must take this call.” He stood and walked to the far corner of the room.

  “It must have been dreadful.” Her green eyes were wide and sympathetic.

  “It was stupid on their part,” I wondered if her reaction was an act.

  “What did it mean?”

  I studied her. “I don’t know yet. But I will.”

  “I hope so.” She whispered. Then her eyes went sad. “You will find Scotty’s murderer, won’t you?”

  Before I could reply, the waiter reappeared and deposited my drink on the table.

  I raised the glass toward her and took long sip. “I have some questions, but....” Setting the glass down, I glanced toward Albright and saw he’d replaced the phone in his jacket and was heading back. “Privately.”

  She followed my gaze. “Why don’t you stop by my apartment later? I should be home by ten-thirty. We can talk then.”

  I didn’t show my surprise at the invitation; instead, I picked up the scotch and took another pull.

  Albright rejoined us, and picked up his drink. “Is everything okay?” I asked.

  “A friend has a problem. Nothing too important,” he said as he drank a quarter of his cocktail.

  “As a matter of curiosity, why did you invest in Scotty’s show?”

  Albright looked at me for several long seconds before saying, “While it’s none of your business, I believe the show to be a solid investment and look to make a nice profit.”

  “That’s unusual… Most stock brokers wouldn’t bet on a show of all things.”

  “I’m not most stock brokers, Mr. Storm, and when I invest in something, I come out ahead.” His voice was level, his face showed no telltale reactions to my words.

  “Which is the reason you recommended the investment to your clients?”

  That got him. His eyes flicked between Lia Thornton and me. “That was unnecessary. What I advise my clients is none of your business, nor does it have anything to do with what happened to Scotty.”

  The broker doth protest too much, I paraphrased to myself. “As far as I’m concerned, anything to do with the play involves what happened to Scotty. And I would like an answer to my question.”

  “You had your answer. Business between my clients and me is private. I do not need to give explanations.”

  I met his hostile glare stoically. “If that’s the way you feel. But it would be helpful, to my investigation, if I knew more.”

  “I don’t see how,” Albright said.

  “I know you don’t,” I picked up the scotch and drained it. “As promised, I needed just a few minutes. Thanks for the drink. Enjoy your dinner.”

  I left them, not allowing them to see the smile growing on my lips. Whatever Albright was doing, he wasn’t at all happy I was looking into his reasons for investing in the show.

  Oh, well….

  Chapter 21

  Entering the brick face co-op on Sutton Place at ten-thirty, I gave my name to the concierge. He checked me off against a list on his clipboard before directing me to a bank of elevators carved into a high oak wall. I rode the cab, which was lined with the same oak panels, to the twenty-third floor, which it turned out was the penthouse.

  The trip took forty seconds. The door opened onto a carpeted hallway with ivory walls and tasteful oil paintings separating each of the four penthouse doors. Across from me was a door with a brass doorplate inscribed, ‘Thornton’.

  I rang the bell and a short Hispanic woman in a simple beige dress, her brown hair streaked with grey, opened the door. “Mr. Storm?” she asked, the two words spoken in lightly accented English.

  “Yes,” I replied. She waved me in. After closing the door, she led me into a large and high ceiling living room and motioned toward a center seating area with a deep burgundy leather couch set off by two matching chairs. The walls and ceiling were stark white, which set everything with a calculated precision. “Miss Thornton will be right out.”

  “Thank you.” She returned in the direction we had come, and I went over to the couch, sat, and surveyed the living room. Unless you were familiar with the elite of the social spectrum of New York City, the apartment would take your breath away—even then, it would.

  My guess was the apartment was worth upwards of fifteen million dollars. The living room was large, perhaps thirty by forty feet. The floors were maple and the carpets, which were only at the three separate sitting areas, were Oriental. A pale marble fireplace bisected the center of one wall: two large club chairs faced it. There were several modernistic sculptures placed at strategic points around the room. A bank of windows formed the outside wall and reached from floor to ceiling, offering a spectacular view of the East side, from the fifties to lower Manhattan.

  Three minutes later, Lia Thornton entered the room from a side hall. She’d changed from her dress into tight jeans and a pale ivory halter-top and, as I watched her entrance, I couldn’t help but think this woman took very, very good care of herself. Her body was near perfect and, I was certain not enhanced by a surgeon’s knife.

  “Would you care for a drink?” Lia offered when she reached the couch.

  “No, thank you.” With my words, she sat on the couch a couple of feet away and tucked her legs beneath her.

  “This has all been a nightmare.”

  “I wish that’s all it was.” I stared at her for a moment, the entries from Scotty’s journal running across my eyes as if I was reading them. I took a short breath and stepped onto the precipice. I was certain she was the woman Scotty of whom had written. I think I’d known for a while. “Tell me about you and Scotty.”

  As I said before, she was good. Her reaction was a double blink of her green eyes. “Tell what?”

  “Ms. Thornton– “

  “–Lia, please.”

>   “Lia, I know there was more to your relationship than just being an investor. Even if I hadn’t figured it out before yesterday, the funeral service showed me.”

  She wiped a delicate hand across her eyes; pale rose fingernails glistened in the light with the movement. A tired sigh whispered across the short distance between us.

  “Yes, there was more to our… relationship. It started as a casual thing. We went out to dinner once a week and we found we enjoyed each other’s company. We could talk on almost any subject, and carry on for hours. It was as if we …” she shrugged, “as if we had known each other forever.”

  “And it stayed a friendship?” While I knew the answer, I wanted her reaction.

  She met my question with a direct stare. “Yes, because Scotty wanted it that way… I wanted it to be more.”

  “You and Scotty run in different circles.”

  “Does my circle of friends mean so much?” she challenged. “Something happened during the rehearsals, and during the times when we got together—something beautiful. Friendship grew out of mutual respect. For my part, it became more than friendship. Scotty is… was, a gentle warm and wonderful man. I feel like my life was stolen when he was killed.”

  She wrapped her arms about herself. A moment later, she dropped her hands onto her lap. “Why are you here, now?”

  “To investigate. Why do you think Scotty wanted to be just friends and nothing more?”

  Puzzlement ruffled the smooth skin of her forehead. “I don’t know. I’ve never had something like that happen to me. I’ve never had a man not want to become a lover, but with Scotty, he made me want to stay friends and not push him into something. It was different.”

  “Scotty was different than most. He always based his life on what was the right thing to do. If he felt having a relationship that was more than friendship wasn’t right, he wouldn’t have done it.” I paused for a moment. “I need to ask you some other things.”

  The corners of her mouth quirked upward. “If I’m not mistaken that’s what you said you’re here for.”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, but part of what I do is to learn about the people involved in a case.”

  “Which means you’ve looked into my background and found some things were, ah… off.”

  “That’s about it. You’ve come a long way in your life–“

  “–You have no idea,” she half whispered. I tried to read her expression, but was unable to.

  “I know you are thirty-seven–”

  “–Thirty-eight, next month” she corrected.

  “And you were married to a street hustler at seventeen. He was into drugs and more and died of an overdose. After his death, you moved to New York. You hustled yourself–“

  Her lips went compressed into a thin line. “Call it what it was. I danced and hooked. I did what was necessary to stay alive and move on with my life. I didn’t have an education—not a good one—and I wanted a better life. I wanted to be a stage actress and was willing to do whatever it took. I had some talent as a dancer and I could act. I may not have been the best, but I wasn’t bad.”

  “Tell me about Sal Mangi.”

  “You have been thorough? I had a history of falling for the wrong guys. Sal was like my first husband. He had angles for everything, but he loved me and got me my first stage gig. He was good to me, but he was stupid…like thinking he could take control of a crime family.”

  “Which got him killed.”

  “Yes. But by that time, I’d learned a lot more about what I wanted out of my life. Then I met Jeremy.”

  There was a subtle change in her voice. I wondered if she was aware of it. “He was a lot older than you.”

  “He was a wonderful man. I turned him down a half dozen times before I agreed to go out with him. I knew he was rich, but he was much older than I was and I didn’t want to get involved. As you said, a lot older—he was more than double my age. I was seeing several other men at the time, much younger than he was, and they were all well to do. However, he wore me down and I agreed to go out with him. I can’t believe it was fourteen years ago.

  When we first started dating, I figured he was like the rest: he wanted arm candy to impress his friends and a young body to warm his bed. After two dates, everything changed and I started to care for him. He was a gentle man who understood me from the first minute we met.”

  The words ‘started to care’ had the distinct ring of truth. It said it hadn’t been love, but it was a start. “I would think a man like Jeremy Thornton would have checked into your past.”

  An introspective smile curved her lips. “As I said, at first I thought he was just another rich guy wanting to use me. He wasn’t. When I realized what was happening, I decided to put it all on the table. I didn’t want to be in a relationship and then get kicked down, so I told him everything about myself, and I mean everything.”

  Of all the things she could have said, this took me the most by surprise. “I take it his reaction wasn’t too bad.”

  “His reaction was simple. He asked me if I was finished with my old life. When I told him I was, he said it was never to be mentioned again. It never was.”

  I thought about the FBI report. “You were born in New Orleans. Did you like it there?”

  She sneered. “I hated New Orleans. All I wanted was out, which is why I got married—he was my way out.”

  “How did your parents react to that?”

  Her eyes went out of focus. Her eyebrows tried to meet each other. She clasped her hands together and then pulled them apart. “I don’t have a lot of childhood memories. It’s weird, I know, but I don’t. What I do remember is I had to get out. My father, he….” Her hand went over her mouth, and her eyes closed tight.

  Scotty’s journal entry became clear: His writing referred to the damage he might do; and, the knowledge that Lia Thornton had come from the home of a predator. Leaning forward, I placed my hands on her shoulders and pressed gently. “It’s okay, Lia, we don’t need to go there.”

  It took a few seconds for her hand to drop from her mouth, and her eyes to open. The green eyes were now deeper, made so by moisture not yet turned to tears. “Sorry,” she whispered.

  I released her shoulders and sat back. “Don’t be. I didn’t mean to bring up things best left alone.”

  “It’s because most of my childhood memories are a blank until I was fourteen. Even then, I only remember a few… things. I don’t know why I can’t remember, and I’ve always been too afraid to find out.”

  “Did you and Scotty get into this?”

  She sat straighter. “Yes. More so the last few times we were together.”

  “When was the last time?”

  Her eyes burrowed onto mine as if she were trying to look into my head. “Saturday night. We had dinner at his apartment and spent a couple of hours talking before I flew to my house in the Hamptons.”

  “Did anything unusual happen?”

  She shook her head. “We talked about the play most of the time. He also asked me if I would be willing to see a friend of his, to dig deeper into my past.”

  “Did you want to?”

  “No.” The word shot out like a rock from a slingshot. “I was… no, I am afraid. I’ve gotten this far in my life. What possible good would it be to bring up the past? No,” she added with another sharp shake of her head. “Can we change the subject?”

  “Sure,” I agreed, knowing there would be no point in pushing her now. “Tell me about the play. Was there anything out of whack?”

  Unfurling a well-shaped leg from beneath her, she leaned toward me. “There was nothing. The biggest problem was scene two. Albright and some others thought it was good enough. Scotty didn’t. He insisted on the rewrite and he was right.”

  “You saw the rewrite before I brought it in, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. But I couldn’t say anything to the others. That was for Scotty to do.”

  “It may have been what killed him.”

  S
he shook her head. “How can that be? That would be senseless.”

  “Tell me what does make sense. Scotty wasn’t into drugs. He had one plane of existence, his plays. He lived for them. He believed in the purity of what he wrote.”

  “I know. Scotty was a genius. There haven’t been many. I believe he would have become the best American playwright ever: as good as or better than Williams or Miller. His work was powerful, incisive and sharp. He had a grasp on the way people live and think and what they will do in any circumstance was uncanny.”

  “He was unique,” I agreed

  Lia smiled. “As are you.”

  Her statement caught me short. “Me?”

  “How many men can go through what you did and come out on top? I know you, Gabriel Storm. I told you Scotty and I spent hours and hours talking about everything. He gave me his history with you—growing up with you and Christopher Bolt; about your fiancé’s murder and your time in prison. All three of you are unusual. How many sons of wealthy parents end up like you?”

  “Scotty wasn’t–”

  “No, he wasn’t wealthy, but he became wealthy, and I believe it was your influence, yours and Christopher’s that helped him to define himself.”

  “Perhaps.”

  Lia gave a half laugh of dismissal. “There is no perhaps. The two of you gave him something he’d never had before. Unquestioning loyalty, friendship and love—brothers couldn’t have been closer. How did you do it?”

  Again, she’d caught me off stride. “Do what?”

  “Survive it all and come out the way you are.”

  While I wasn’t happy with the conversational turn, I accepted it as fair play. “I had no choice.”

  “Can you talk about it?”

  I leaned into the soft cushion of the sofa and told her the story of Elaine’s death, my trial and my time in jail.

  “It must have been hard,” she said when I’d finished.

  “It was, but I got through it.”

  “There’s more,” she stated. “Tell me about the time after you got out.”