Venus nodded.
“When?” she asked, a moment later.
“Last night. I took Dashiell back to Harbor View a couple of hours after we spoke, worked with him for a while in the dining room, something to try in Samuel’s class, and then I decided that, since you weren’t telling me what I needed to know, I’d see if I could find out on my own. When you said you were going to see Harry’s lawyer, well, it didn’t take a genius to figure out where I’d find some of the answers I was looking for. Turns out, I found more than I was banking on.”
We passed the Italian specialty shops on Ninth Avenue, then got caught up for a block or two in traffic for the Lincoln Tunnel and the Port Authority terminal. After that, we sailed downtown, neither of us speaking again until we were out of the cab.
“It’s right here,” I said, taking out my keys and unlocking the wrought iron gate. “With a little bit of luck, no one bugged my house. At least, not yet.”
Dashiell seemed relieved to see me. He sniffed Venus, then squeezed between us to get out into the garden, let the world at large know he was still a player.
We walked inside, and Venus sat on one side of the couch. I got two bottles of spring water from the fridge and joined her.
“Do you have an extra set of keys?” I asked her.
“Why?”
I sighed. “I’m a detective. I need to snoop.”
“At my—”
I waited.
Venus fished in her purse for her keys and dropped them into my hand.
“Twelve D,” she said.
“I left the bugs in at work. I don’t want whoever did this to know we know. I don’t want you to act funny in any way. We’ll have enough to handle on Friday, when they get to see the will.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
“Then tell me. Everything, Venus. There’s no more time for cat and mouse.”
“I wasn’t playing cat and mouse with you, Rachel. And it’s not what you think.”
“Which is?”
“That I don’t trust you.”
I waited.
Venus waited, too.
“Venus, I don’t know what your thinking is—that the relatives will chip in and hire a hit man? What’s going to happen is that they’re going to contest the new will.”
“You are thorough.”
“Isn’t that what you’re paying for?”
She opened the water bottle and took a sip.
“They can’t contest it.”
“Why not?”
“We were married.”
That sat between us for a minute, stopping the conversation dead in its tracks.
“Venus, why didn’t you—”
“Tell? Tell Bailey and Janice that I was their auntie now? Tell Eli that for all intents and purposes I was his boss now? Tell you, Rachel, the first day? What would you have thought if I had told you right away that I’d married the rich old toad who’d just been killed, that he’d just made a new will, a week before the accident, that I was now director of operations and finances at the place where I’d been working for a modest salary? You would have figured it for true love, is that what you would have thought, no notions that I duped him somehow, got him to change his will, put me in charge? Tell me about it.”
I didn’t. I just sat there, waiting. Behind my back, I could hear Dashiell drinking in the kitchen, his tags clanging against the bowl.
“You might have wondered, was he seeing me before Marilyn died, maybe even before she got sick? It wasn’t like that, and I wouldn’t want anyone thinking that about Harry. Not anyone.
“Or you might have wondered if he was senile, doing something so crazy.”
She put the water bottle on my makeshift coffee table and wiped her eyes with the balls of her fingers.
“So you think the family might be upset?”
“It’s a possibility.”
“Figuring old Harry wouldn’t have married a recovering alcoholic black lady for love?”
“How did you—?”
“The first part, that you’re a recovering alcoholic? A pretty good guess, apparently. You’ve obviously got an addictive personality—the gym, the internet, even the way you talk about work and the kids. You said you were lonely. It wasn’t too big a leap.”
Venus nodded, putting her arms around herself as if she were cold.
“The second part, that you’re black? Observation. A result of my extensive professional training.”
Venus laughed. I think this was the third time I’d seen her do that, her thousand-watt smile staying in place, too. I smiled back.
I didn’t have any problem at all with Harry loving her. But I didn’t think my opinion would garner a lot of support, not from Harry’s family, not from the Kagans, not from the cops either.
“We’re in deep shit, aren’t we?”
“Thigh high,” I said.
“What’s your plan?”
“Other than running for the hills?”
Venus nodded.
“I’m going over to your apartment, check the phones.”
“How would someone have gotten in there?”
“Depends how this was done.”
“What do you mean?”
“These people who are going to be mad at you—”
“To say the least.”
“Some of them have got a lot of money. They could have hired someone. You can always get into someone’s apartment, with the gift of gab or a good set of picks.”
“But they don’t have as much money as you might think. With the Pooles, it’s all on their backs. Arlene’s a widow. She wasn’t left all that much, enough to live on, not enough to live the way she thinks she ought to, the way her sister was able to. She’s been supplemented by Harry for a long time.”
“Why, if he—”
“His wife. It made her feel guilty that she could go to Palm Beach, and Arlene couldn’t.”
“What about Bailey and Janice?”
“Snotty little leeches.”
“Is that your opinion or Harry’s?”
She didn’t say.
“Did Harry support them, too?”
“Bailey keeps starting degrees, then dropping out. He’d rather gamble than study. Harry bailed him out of debt lord knows how many times, always at Marilyn’s insistence. But he recently told him that the last time was just that, the last time. He said he wasn’t going to do it again, that if Bailey got himself into debt, he could just get himself out. He told him to get a job. He even offered him one, busboy at Harbor View.”
“Oh, that must have gone over big. So, did he get a job?”
“Please.”
“And his sister?”
“Recently divorced. Unemployed. No time to work, what with the time it takes nowadays to accumulate material possessions.”
“Credit card debt?”
“Probably. But it’s just a guess. We’re not exactly bosom buddies.”
“All that shopping can be very time-consuming.”
“Yeah, it really cuts into your workday. Anyway, she gets alimony. Women like that always do. But not enough. It never is.”
“Still, it doesn’t cost that much to hire someone to do your dirty work. People like that, I wonder if they do anything for themselves.”
“But why, Rachel? Why would they bug the phones?”
“That’s one of the things I don’t know yet. Any ideas?”
“It depends. Was Harry’s death a result of eavesdropping? Or did the eavesdropping come afterward?”
“Good question.”
“But you don’t know the answer yet?”
I shook my head. “No. I don’t. Not that I’m complaining,” I told her, “but I’ve been working with a bit of a handicap. My client was keeping me in the dark.”
“I’m sorry, Rachel. But—”
“No time for that now. I have to get over to your place, then Dashiell and I have to get to Harbor View for Samuel’s class. I know you wanted answers before F
riday, Venus, but the most telling thing might be what happens when the heirs read the will. Any way I can be there?”
“I don’t know how. I’ll call the lawyer. Maybe he can think of something.”
“Okay. But don’t call from your work phone. And unless I tell you it’s okay, don’t call from your home phone. In fact, it wouldn’t hurt for you to pick up a cell phone today, use that until we have this figured out. That way, if you need to reach me, you can. And we’ll still meet at five-thirty, on the treadmills.”
“Have to. I’m addicted.”
She smiled again, but I could see the exhaustion behind it and wished I could tell her everything would be okay, that in no time Janice and Bailey would be calling her Aunt Venus, inviting her for Thanksgiving dinner, feeling blessed to have her in the family.
“Okay, let’s get moving,” I said instead. “Keep your eyes and ears open, Venus, tell me anything you hear that might relate, no matter how trivial. Oh, and can you get me a key for Eli’s office? I couldn’t think up a lie that would get me in there last night, and I couldn’t go in through the window once Homer had invited me to tea.”
“It’s on the key ring I gave you. But be careful. Eli’s a workaholic, comes in early, stays late, comes back at night sometimes. Three in the morning, he thinks of something he wants to do in the office, he takes the subway back from Brooklyn, gets a jump on the day. It’s his life, the only thing he cares about. I’ve found him there in the morning, sleeping on his couch, too tired to truck back to Brooklyn after working late. With Eli, you can never be sure what his schedule will be.”
“I’ll be careful. Maybe we can get to the bottom of this before Friday.”
I walked Venus out so that I could lock the gate behind her. She stopped and looked around the garden.
“This is lovely,” she said.
And that’s when I began to wonder about something else.
“Venus, how come Harry didn’t leave you any money, or his apartment, anything tangible?”
“I wouldn’t let him,” she said. “Harry was worried sick about Harbor View. Eli and his sons are devoted to it, but none of them has the experience of running it. The unwritten agreement was that if anything happened to Harry, Eli would take over. It makes no sense to assume he could, but that was so long ago, Harry didn’t give it that much thought. It was something far away in the future, and in the beginning, he was so ecstatic to get Eli to join him in this, that’s all he cared about. When you think about it, it’s ridiculous. Eli’s talent is with the kids, reaching them, comforting them, finding activities that help them to function better, creating an atmosphere that’s safe for them, in which they can flourish. No one would have expected Harry to have been able to take over Eli’s role had Eli died first. So why should it be so the other way around?
“The fact is, I’ve been doing a great deal of this all along. I’m not only familiar with what Harry did, I’ve always done a lot of it. Harry wasn’t always around, and even when he was, he was a busy man, into other things as well, though Harbor View is where his heart was.
“Harry convinced me that I was the one who could best keep Harbor View going in the way he’d been able to. When he was alive, when he was saying it, it seemed so logical. And neither of us thought this would come up so soon. He was seventy-four, but he was a vigorous man. We didn’t think this would be an issue for years and years.”
“Did Eli know you managed the money?”
Venus looked down. “Not really.”
“Not really?”
“I don’t believe Harry ever mentioned it.”
“Which means what, Venus?”
“That he thought Eli would be insulted that he trusted me and not him. But Eli isn’t a money person.”
“What about his sons?”
“Samuel is just like his father. He’s totally devoted to the kids, and just as naive about business. Nathan probably thinks he could run Harbor View because of his fund-raising experience. And he has raised money for us, mostly finding backers for specific projects. But none of Harry’s decisions were made purely on the basis of return on the dollar. The welfare of the kids was always most important to him. He was funny, Rachel. He wouldn’t bat an eye about spending thousands on equipment, anything they needed. But if he was around at night, he’d go around shutting off lights to save money. I had to convince him that leaving the garden light on was a safety factor. He used to shut it off after the kids went to bed.”
“And Nathan—Harry thought he wouldn’t be able to handle the money the way he did, the way you do?”
“Well, no. Despite Harry’s stingy quirks, he always put the kids first. He thought Nathan was too bottom-line. That’s the phrase he used. Too bottom-line. It’s a different generation, he used to say. People of that age tend to be—”
“What?”
“More self-centered. More materialistic.”
“Some people. Not everyone. Maybe he was judging too much by his niece and nephew.”
“Maybe.”
“You’re not like that.”
“Harry thought I was different,” Venus said, her voice almost a whisper, her eyes shining.
“Venus, when Harry left that day, the last day, was he going home?”
“Yes.”
“And where was that?”
“My apartment. That was our home. He went back a few times a week to the apartment he had shared with Marilyn to check his mail, his messages, take care of things. Even then, he didn’t sleep there. He’d come home late so that he could sleep in his own bed, our bed. He said he never wanted us to spend the night apart.”
I nodded.
“So he was facing south because he was heading south, not necessarily because he’d heard the bike coming toward him on the sidewalk?”
She nodded.
“Did Harry want to announce the marriage?”
“He did.”
“Then why didn’t he?”
“I begged him not to, at least not so soon. I didn’t want his family to think ill of him. Marilyn was gone so short a time. But they say that when a marriage has been happy, people want to get married again quickly. He was crazy about her, Rachel. But how would you explain that to her sister, given the circumstances? You know how families are.”
“I do,” I said.
After she left, I went upstairs to change. Then Dashiell and I headed for the Archives, Venus’s keys in my pocket.
CHAPTER 18
Maybe Harry Owned a Boat
I bought some yellow daisies on the way to the Archives, something to pave the way.
“Venus asked me to take these upstairs, put them in a vase for her, she’s coming back with company,” I said, showing the concierge the daisies and the keys.
This was a new one. He frowned, trying to decide what to do.
“I work for her,” I told him, “at Harbor View. We do pet-facilitated therapy with the residents.”
He leaned over the concierge desk, looked at Dashiell. Then he nodded.
I walked back to the bank of elevators, barely feeling the floor in my new sneakers as I followed the wide, deep lobby around to the left.
We rode up alone, walking down the carpeted hallway until we came to Venus’s door. Opening it, we faced the river through double-height windows looking west. The afternoon sun filled the living room. I walked down the hallway, where a staircase on the left led upstairs. Dashiell took the stairs. I walked through the living room and looked at the view—the Hudson flowing south, New Jersey beyond, no sound of construction up here.
There was a big, soft couch, pale gray, with lots of loose pillows on it, on the north wall of the apartment. An enormous painting hung over it: a worn wooden walk, flowers all around, bursting with color and energy. The coffee table was glass. There were already flowers there, roses the color of seashells in a crystal vase.
I walked into Venus’s kitchen and found another vase. Filling it with water, I arranged the daisies for her. I put these on the din
ing room table, looking at the fine china in the breakfront, the silver candlesticks, the champagne flutes. Venus had a taste for the things I’d sent to Goodwill for a tax deduction, all the things that reminded me of Jack and a brief marriage that in retrospect didn’t seem brief enough.
Or maybe it was Harry who’d liked the table set with bone china—the way Jack had, everything just so, his wife at home tending to his needs, not having any of her own.
But Harry was different. He didn’t see Venus as the happy housewife. He believed her capable of managing the finances of Harbor View and, more than that, preserving his original intent. He’d put his money where his mouth was, too.
How had they found each other, people who’d worked together all those years, meeting on-line? It was a curious thing, an annoying coincidence.
I turned on Venus’s computer, and while it was booting up, I unscrewed the mouthpiece of the kitchen phone and checked for a listening device, not finding one. Dashiell was coming down. We passed each other on the stairs. There was no bug in the phone next to the bed either.
I opened the closet, which held half Venus’s things, half Harry’s: suits, sport jackets, slacks, three pairs of loafers, some underwear, I was sure, in Venus’s dresser drawers, too, but I didn’t check.
The bed was big, queen-size, with white sheets and a white cotton blanket—no dog to shed on it, leave his dirty footprints on the pretty blanket, keep Venus company while she read in bed or slept.
Venus’s bedroom was a balcony overlooking the living room, the view of the river even more luscious from up here. There were roses here, too, on one of the nightstands, red ones. A man’s watch was on the other one; perhaps Harry had forgotten to put it on that last morning. And now Venus left it there. I sat on her bed, picturing her here, picking up Harry’s watch and holding it in her hand. I picked it up, felt its weight, warmed it in my hand. Then I got up, as she might have, went to the closet, and pressed my face into one of Harry’s cashmere jackets, for a moment thinking he’d be back, slip it on, take Venus out to Provence for dinner. I could see him then, smiling, his hand dipping into his pocket, the box coming out, that heart inside, lying on velvet.
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