by Nancy Martin
“Michael has not been arrested,” I said primly. “He’s answering questions to help the police with an investigation.”
“And his mother’s on the lam. There are BOLOs out in three states. Have you seen her?”
My turn to glare. “Are you asking me in a professional capacity? Or personal? Because I have a few personal questions to ask you, Gus. For one, have you cleared the air with your family yet? Confessed your sins? Told them you fabricated a fiancée?”
He managed a superior expression. “My sister Megan is coming to Philadelphia. She’ll be here Saturday. I’d like you to meet her. She’s a great wit. The two of you will get along fine.”
“Gus! I have not forgiven you for dragging me into your family problem. I want out—completely and cleanly. Why is she coming?”
“She’s the lead dog on my father’s legal team. Negotiations are heating up with the shilly-shallying Americans. She’ll give that mob a gobful.” He smirked at the idea of his assertive sister strong-arming the competition. “While she’s here, though, she’d like to meet you. What about dinner?”
I wanted to shriek. “Didn’t you hear me? I want no part of your family. I will not be used as a pawn in your business deal. And I’m busy on Saturday.”
“Ah. Honeymooning?”
If he tied me down to pound bamboo slivers under my fingernails, I was not going to tell Gus anything else. I could imagine him bursting in on our wedding with guns blazing—or whatever Aboriginal weapon Australians preferred. So I diverted him. “Wouldn’t you rather hear what I’ve learned about the Tuttle murder?”
“Murders, plural.” Gus folded his arms over his chest and prepared to be unimpressed. “Okay, shoot.”
After deciding that I owed no favors to anyone who was part of a show that embarrassed my family, I intended to share with him everything I had learned. I outlined what I had sussed out since I’d last seen him: how any number of the cast might have wanted Jenny Tuttle dead. How the police were investigating cake laced with drugs. How the mystery investor in Ox Oxenfeld’s production was very likely imaginary—dreamed up to defraud other investors. And the collection of photos I had found in Jenny Tuttle’s desk.
“Photos?” he demanded.
“Lots of them. Lots of kids. I didn’t count.”
“Where are these photos?”
“In the desk where I found them. I’m not stealing evidence out from under the police, Gus. Question is, who are all those children?”
“I’ll be stuffed!” He was delighted. “We have a sex scandal after all! When I came to this city, I was prepared to be bored out of my skull with how provincial it is. But now and then it’s an interesting place, after all.”
I leaned against the door. “The penis stories are beneath you.”
He grinned at me, good humor restored. “By God, Nora, I’ll make a reporter of you yet. How will we find out about all the children in the photos you found?”
“First someone needs to review the calls that came in to the Intelligencer when you ran the original photo of David Kaminsky. The staff assumed they were all crank callers, but some of them might have been on the up-and-up. I talked to one caller myself—he said he was adopted, but we didn’t get any further than that before he hung up. The children in the photos—they’re not Jenny’s children, that’s for sure. I don’t think she could have concealed one pregnancy, let alone a lot.”
“So why was she keeping their pictures around?”
I took a deep breath and said, “I wonder if they aren’t her siblings.”
“Siblings? You mean—Boom Boom’s offspring?”
“No, I think Toodles is their father. He had a notorious access to chorus girls.”
“Toodles? Are you out of your mind? He wrote ooey-gooey musicals that would make Captain von Trapp want to brush his teeth! He can’t have a boatload of illegitimate kids in his closet.”
“Kids weren’t the only surprises in his closet,” I said, thinking of Nico’s story that Toodles had been the life of many parties. “Toodles is the only option that makes sense. But one step at a time. We need to confirm some facts. Have you heard from David Kaminsky?”
“Only from his lawyers, unfortunately.” Gus was pacing with excitement over the developing story. “They’re playing it cool, probably organizing an assault on the Tuttle bank accounts.”
“They’re going to be disappointed if the Tuttle fortune has to be split a dozen different ways.”
“A dozen! By God, the Music Man got around, didn’t he?” Cackling with glee, he grabbed his phone. “I’m putting a couple of the City desk guys on this now. They can make the phone calls for the investor story, do the follow-up. And I’ll find a team to start reviewing all the calls that came in about the Kaminsky photo. We’ll have some paragraphs put together by the time you finish your events tonight.”
“I only have one. Art in the Garden. It’s outdoors at the garden of a friend of my grandmother’s. She opens it every year for a local artists’ cooperative to display their work. The party is a hot ticket.”
“It sounds like a crashing bore to me, but get going.” He shooed me away with one hand and finished dialing with the other.
“Gus,” I said in the doorway, “I’m serious about being no part of your family’s business situation. I am out. You have to talk to them.”
“Sure, sure.” He had the receiver to his ear. “Toddle along. Work to do.”
Noah was happily gnawing on one of Mary Jude’s apple slices, and he lifted it high in his chubby fist to show it to me. I gave him a kiss and pretended to take a bite of his apple, and he giggled.
Mary Jude said, “This is one happy little boy.”
My cell phone rang in my bag. Hoping it was Michael calling to say he was out of police custody, I grabbed it, my heart lifting.
I was surprised to hear Hart Jones on the other end of the line.
My hopeful heart sank like a stone when he asked me if I had time to meet him for a drink. I had been enjoying a few minutes of triumph about the Tuttle story, but Hart’s voice sobered me instantly. I checked my watch and agreed.
Dismayed, I grabbed my hat, tucked Noah into his stroller and thanked Mary Jude for her help. I rolled Noah onto the elevator.
I stopped first at a trendy children’s clothing shop just two blocks from the Pendergast Building. Since Michael and I had picked up Noah at the Jones house under such hasty circumstances, we didn’t have many clothes for the baby at the farm. I’d been laundering the few items we did have to keep him decently dressed. Now it seemed like a good idea to find him something nice to wear home with his father. His T-shirt and shorts looked spattered with drool and bits of apple skin—as if we’d been neglectful of him.
In the shop, I slipped through the sale rack and struck gold when I pulled out an adorable set of blue shorts with a matching sailor shirt. While I changed Noah’s diaper and dressed him in his new finery, the shopkeeper found a matching pair of navy blue sneakers and little sailor hat that gave Noah a jaunty look. He wasn’t a pirate—not yet, anyway—but he was a very cute midshipman.
I tried to be enthusiastic, but my heart ached as I finished dressing him. Noah snatched off the hat and threw it at the shopkeeper, but after a few more tries, he agreed to wear it.
Twenty minutes later when I wheeled him into the bar at the Four Seasons, he was sound asleep.
I looked around the room crowded with bankers enjoying a drink at the end of the day. I spotted Hart Jones sitting nervously alone at a table by the window. I saw right away that he was twisting his wedding ring. He stood up when Noah and I reached the table. Hart wore an expensive charcoal suit with a crisp shirt and an Hermès tie. He seemed unnerved when he realized I had the baby with me.
“Thanks for meeting me, Nora.” Hart brushed a quick kiss on my cheek. He leaned over the stroller and saw that his son was aslee
p. Hart reached to touch him but thought better of waking the baby and pulled his hand back.
The waiter brought Hart a beer, and I asked for an orange juice and some peanuts.
Hart and I sat down. I took off my hat and perched it on the stroller handle.
Uncomfortable, Hart said again, “Thanks for meeting me.”
“Of course. I’d have brought all of Noah’s things if I thought we were going to—”
“No,” he said. “That’s not why I called.”
He surprised me. I asked, “How’s Penny?”
Hart toyed with a cocktail napkin. “I took her to the facility on Sunday. She agreed to stay in rehab. She hates it, but she knows she needs to be there.”
“That’s good, right?”
“Right.” Again, he glanced down at Noah in the stroller as if to reassure himself the baby was still sleeping. Without meeting my eye, he asked, “How’s Emma? Have you seen her lately?”
The question surprised me all over again. Not that Hart was curious about the mother of his child, but that he asked about her in the same second he spoke about his wife.
“She’s okay,” I said warily.
“Is she drinking?”
“Maybe a little.” There was no point in lying to him.
He grinned with admiration. “She’s a party girl.”
“She has a problem,” I said, refusing to acknowledge that my sister’s drinking might be a commendable thing. “But I think she’s on a good path right now.”
“I hear she’s riding again.”
“Yes. And it’s going well. She’s getting into top condition and working very hard. Paddy Horgan has assigned her a new horse. They could go far. As long as she doesn’t get sidetracked.”
Hart didn’t respond, but he had the grace to look chagrined. He took a nervous slug of his beer.
The waiter reappeared in record time with my orange juice and a plate with assorted nuts, crackers and three kinds of sliced cheese. I popped a piece of cheddar and a few almonds.
Crunching the nuts, I decided I didn’t want to make anything easy for Hart. The best strategy seemed to be waiting for him to decide he was brave enough to discuss what he’d brought me here to talk about.
His shoulders lost some of their courage. Finally, he said, “I’ve been working on a big deal at the firm.”
Not news. I sipped orange juice and waited for more.
“It’s complicated—the kind of deal I wish I could ask Lexie Paine about. She’d know how to handle the details.”
“She’s not working these days.”
“Oh, I know that,” he said hurriedly. “I didn’t mean—that is, I was just saying it’s complicated.”
I leaned forward. “Hart, it’s just me. I can be your friend, if you like. But you have to be honest with me. Are we here to talk about everything else? Or about your son?”
He sighed, and his shoulders slumped further. He toyed unhappily with his beer glass but didn’t drink. “How’s Noah doing?”
“He’s sleeping well, eating his head off. He’s . . . happy.”
Hart wagged his head. “I know. That’s great. You’ve been great for Noah. Even your—even Abruzzo—you’ve both been great. Don’t think we don’t appreciate what the two of you have done for us. But it’s—it all makes this even harder for me to— Look, I know being with Penny and me isn’t always good for Noah. Not when she’s out of control. And I—maybe I’m not much of a parent, either.”
“Noah is a wonderful little boy,” I said gently. “If you had time to just be with him—”
“That’s just it. I don’t have time.”
“He’s your son, Hart.” Maybe my tone was too harsh, but I couldn’t take it back.
Hart didn’t hear the reproof in my voice. He took a deep breath and then spoke in a rush. “I’ve been offered—that is, part of this deal I’m working on is a project with almost unlimited potential for me. I could have my own division in a couple of years. It involves politics and banking and all the things I’m good at. I can sink my teeth into this, make it my own. I really think I can make an impact.”
“What does all this mean?”
He gave up explaining and said flatly, “The job is in Brussels.”
I couldn’t speak, couldn’t react. My brain was suddenly clanging like an emergency alarm. Brussels!
Hart continued to babble about his huge opportunity. A shot at something very big. A job he couldn’t pass up. The chance of a lifetime. A career maker.
My throat closed up tight. I tried to take a sip of orange juice, but my hand was shaking so hard I couldn’t manage the glass. I set it down on the table and nearly spilled it. Hart caught the glass—his quick reaction saving both of us from getting soaked. No, no, please, no. I couldn’t say the words. But the idea of Noah going halfway around the world from us—it was too hard to bear. I thought of Michael and what he’d say in this moment. His response wouldn’t be civil. He’d be furious. He’d take action—maybe the legally wrong action, but right for us. Right for Noah. I felt as if I was betraying him by letting Noah go with Hart now—maybe forever—without Michael being able to say good-bye.
I felt tears welling up in my eyes.
Hart stopped talking, shocked at my reaction.
I reached for a cocktail napkin and tried to stop the tears from ruining my makeup—a foolish reaction, perhaps, but easier to stand than the idea of losing Noah.
I said, “Sorry. I—we’re very fond of Noah. I know I should be congratulating you on the job—it sounds like something you really want. But—I’ll be honest. It gets harder and harder to give him back to you after he stays with us. We love him. We really do. Not just me, but Michael, too.”
Quietly, Hart murmured, “I know.”
“I’ve been afraid, actually, that someday we wouldn’t be able to hand him over to you. He’s almost ours, but not quite. It’s—it’s very hard. We want him at our house. We do love him.”
Hart hunched forward and grasped my hand. “That makes this easier.”
I dabbed my eyes. “What?”
“Nora, if Penny and I are going to make our marriage work, I think we need to be together. Just the two of us. Without Noah. Having him with us doesn’t help Penny with her addiction. In fact, I think he makes things worse for her. So we’re thinking we should go to Brussels. The two of us. To start over.”
“The two of you?” I couldn’t understand what he was saying.
“I don’t have any right to ask you this. But you have a way with him. You and Abruzzo both. If you could keep him for a year—maybe two years, if that’s how long the job lasts—Penny and I could get our marriage under control.” Hart kept talking, unaware that I stared at him with my mouth open. “We never really had a honeymoon. We took Noah the same week as the wedding. It was too soon. Too much to handle. And Penny’s problem wasn’t under control. But if she and I had a chance to—”
“You want us to take care of Noah while you go to Brussels?”
“A year. Maybe two. He’ll never remember, will he? He’s less than a year old. Kids are resilient.”
“Resilient?” I repeated, barely hanging on to my good manners. “Hart, he’s a baby, not a dog you can give back if you can’t housebreak him.”
Hart sat back, his mouth snapping shut.
I said, “You’re asking us to take Noah but give him back when you return?”
“Well, yes.” As if his words were perfectly logical, Hart said, “You can’t keep him, Nora. He’s my son.”
“Nobody recognizes that fact more than I do. But you’re asking us to be . . .”
To be as hard-hearted as he and Penny were.
Noah stirred in the stroller, and we both turned to look down at him. He didn’t wake, but his sailor hat tipped drunkenly over one eye. I reached down and slipped off the hat. Un
derneath it, his hair was wet and curled into sweaty whorls. If I woke him now and gave him the hat, I knew Noah’s first reaction would be to throw the damn thing straight at his father.
I couldn’t hold back a shaky smile.
I knew what Michael’s vote would be.
I said, “We’ll take him, Hart. We’ll keep him for as long as you want us to.”
And maybe longer, I thought. Michael just needed to think of a strategy. He’d have a year—maybe two—to come up with a way to . . . coerce Hart and Penny into letting us have Noah forever. And when that time came, I’d be standing right beside him with Noah locked in my arms.
I don’t remember saying good-bye to Hart, or how we parted. My head buzzed with anger and outrage and adrenaline. On the way out of the bar, pushing Noah in the stroller and feeling my blood hot in my veins, I felt more determined than I ever had in my whole life. No way was I ever giving up Noah. Not in a year or two years, not ever.
At the revolving door I bumped into Jamie Scaithe, a former associate of my late husband’s from the cocaine days. I’d had a couple of unpleasant dates with him after Todd died. Jamie had a fancy new haircut designed to disguise his receding hairline, and he was dressed on trend in a tight-fitting suit and expensive shoes. His wristwatch flashed in the sunlight.
He didn’t recognize me until my hat tilted and he saw my face. Then Jamie reeled back from me as if shocked, but laughing. “God, Nora, look how fat you are!”
I was going to push past him without speaking, but he blocked my way. I’d always suspected Jamie wasn’t just a consumer of cocaine, but a dealer, too. He came from a rich Philadelphia family, but he hadn’t inherited much of their money—his parents had good instincts, I thought. He had a lavish lifestyle, though. The kind that I had come to decide was distasteful in its excess.
His face was smug as he looked down at me. “I guess I dodged a bullet when you refused my dinner invitations. You’d probably have eaten me broke. How many kids do you have now?” He made it sound as if I were running a pig farm.
