Death Through the Looking Glass (7 page)

“What were the grounds?”

“Irreconcilable differences. He wouldn't have it any other way. You ought to know that, Lyon. Form and appearance were terribly important to Tom. To finish answering your question, Tom was filing on Monday. That's why he was at the lake house.”

“That's all.”

“That's all you're going to get.” Her voice had changed; the lilting boarding-school affectation had disappeared, to be replaced by a hard, cutting quality. “Screw the sherry. I'm going to have a whiskey. Anybody want one?” They shook their heads as she mixed a stiff drink at the sideboard. “Shall I let it all hang out?”

“If you want.”

“The police didn't pick up the divorce thing or that I've been taking flying lessons. And there is some money involved. Term insurance, of course; Tom was too cheap to buy anything else. Let me see, there's about a hundred thousand of that, and then the law firm will pay me something for his partnership. There're the houses, mortgaged, but with something left over. Oh, I've made my calculations; say, a quarter of a million all told. Enough so that I don't have to take to the streets.”

“Where were you the …” Lyon was momentarily perplexed. He didn't know whether it was the day or night of the murder. “The time of the murder?”

“Flying lessons.”

“Day or night?”

“Night. Ground school. You know, learning about radios, flight plans, all that.”

“And during that day?”

“Right here—home.”

“Where were the ground-school lessons given?”

“At the airport where Tom kept the plane.”

“With a net worth of a quarter of a million, at least Tom didn't have any financial worries,” Bea said.

“Ha! A façade,” Karen Giles said. “Tom drew forty-two thousand dollars a year from the firm. Do a little arithmetic. This house costs eight hundred a month to carry, not including the maid, club dues and his airplane. We skirted on the verge of financial insolvency.”

“All that money …”

“What money? Term insurance he couldn't borrow on, his interest in the firm, property he couldn't sell; we were more and more in debt every year. Then recently he's been taking out notes with every bank in town. God only knows why, or how much the interest payments ran each month. He was always scheming, saying that he had a financial killing around the corner. Some big deal in the wind, but I never saw any of it.”

“Family money?” Lyon asked.

“You've got to be kidding! Old man Giles was a custodian at the Breeland High School, and Tom's mother was a bank teller. They're both dead now, and Tom had to pay the funeral expenses.”

“Tom and I went to Greenfield Prep together, and then to Yale.”

“Sure. An only child who his family sacrificed for and who got good scholarships. I never said Tom wasn't bright. Fooled you, didn't he? Fooled me, too, when we married.”

“How's that?” Lyon asked.

“We met in Washington when Tom was appointed to some sort of committee. One of those prestigious things with hardly any salary. I bought the ‘old family' bit, too. At first he talked about the possibility of becoming a presidential aide or counsel, and then after Watergate, when those jobs weren't so desirable, he wanted to return to Hartford with the proper wife: the Washington socialite with the proper voice, walk and looks—with vague references to my father the senator. That was all to clinch the partnership with the firm.”

“Who was your father?”

“Frank McMann. He was a senator, all right—sold hot dogs at the ball park for the Washington Senators. I was as phony as Tom—airline stewardess, a little drama school, and part-time cocktail waitress. I'm a reproduction, Wentworths, just like the house and Tom's life. If you can't have the real thing, manufacture it. That's the compromising legal mind for you. And I was the compromise for the woman he didn't get.”

“About the divorce?”

“Screw you,” she said sweetly, with a return of affectation.

“You know,” Lyon said to Bea when they were back in the car and driving away from the house on the green, “I would have liked the poor bastard better if I had known who he really was.”

“You knew him as he really was.”

“I suppose.”

“Well, you've got a number-one suspect in Mrs. Thomas Giles. Motive: the divorce and money. She flies, and her alibi is probably weak. Also, there's more to that whole divorce bit. And did you notice another thing?”

“What's that?”

“Karen Giles has had a face lift.”

“How could you tell?”

“Little line behind the ear.”

“Christ, that too?”

“You've probably got more than Rocco or the State Police. When are you going to call them?”

“After I speak to the owner of the airport about Karen's lessons, and learn a little more about Tom's plane and when it left.”

“Then Rocco and Norbert take it from there.”

“I guess,” Lyon replied, lost in thought. He wondered what sort of financial dealings Tom Giles had been involved in, and with whom. There was always the possibility he had been playing games with trust funds at the law office … but the police would check that out.

The Murphysville airport was a modest one. A dozen small planes were tied and chocked along the grassy edge of its single runway. It had two hangars and a small, unpainted operations office. The complex was dark as they turned into the parking area.

“Over there,” Bea said, and pointed to a lone light burning in a small A-frame a hundred yards to the rear of the operations office.

The man who opened the A-frame's door looked like a dissipated young Lindbergh. Tousled hair stuck out from under a greasy fifty-mission hat crushed to the top of his head. He leaned against the door and gave them an out-of-focus smile. “Sorry, folks, field's socked in.” He peered into the darkness. “I'll be damned. It's night already.”

“We're looking for the field manager,” Lyon said.

The man in the fifty-mission hat bowed, lurched, and grasped the door frame for support. “Gary Middleton at your service—manager, owner, instructor, and chief mechanic.”

“I'd like to discuss housing my aircraft here.”

“Ah, a paying customer. You are welcome, sir. Come in.”

They entered the small house, which seemed to consist of a living room, with a battered divan and a coffee table covered with flying magazines; a kitchen; and a back bedroom. In the corner stood a small desk, with a rather large pile of invoices and bills lying next to an open checkbook and a half-empty bottle of vodka. Through the open bedroom door they could see a king-size bed. Lyon sat next to Middleton on the couch, while behind them Bea moved surreptitiously toward the desk and the checkbook and bills.

“We have hangar facilities or open tie-down. What do you fly?”

Lyon brushed his hair back with a casual hand. “Well, it's about sixty-eight feet long.”

“My God, what's the wingspan?”

“That's not exactly the term, but the circumference is about sixty-four feet.”

“Hot damn!” Gary Middleton stood up and threw his hat to the floor. “You've got a World War Two B-17.”

“More like a toy that got out of hand,” Bea said from the desk, as she flipped through the checkbook.

“One of those crazy stunt planes?”

“Not exactly, although I have taken it up to 15,000 feet.”

Gary Middleton's face fell. “I hope you're not one of those hot-air nuts. There's one menace around here who floats around in a balloon with a monster face painted all over the side. First time I saw it, I damn near crashed into a radio transmission tower.”

“Was Karen Giles with you last night?”

The pilot's face drained as he stood up, with a rush of sobriety. “What is this? You some sort of cop?”

“No, just an interested party.”

“I've already talked to the police, so get out!”

Bea sat demurely in a folding chair and smiled at the field manager. “Mr. Middleton is upset because his business is on the verge of bankruptcy.”

“Did you tell that to the authorities?” Lyon asked.

“I know you; you're that Wentworth who gets mixed up with that big son of a bitch Rocco Herbert.”

“What about the business?” Bea pressed.

“In other words, if I don't talk to you, those damn state and local cops descend on the field like a horde of locusts. Four cars, yet. Christ!”

“I'll personally see that Rocco comes back tomorrow.”

“All right, all right. To answer both questions, yes, Karen Giles was here last night, and the field is financially in lousy shape.”

“Where did you give her lessons and for how long?”

“Right here. Well, in there.” He jerked his thumb toward the bedroom.

“Did Mrs. Giles say she'd put money into the business?”

“I asked her for about thirty thou; that would take me over the hump. She left about midnight.”

“How long have you and Karen been having these private night lessons?”

“Couple of months. It's not all screwing; sometimes we talk flying.”

“How proficient a flyer is she?”

“Soloed a month ago. She's ready for her license.”

“Did you see Tom Giles take off?”

“Sure. I saw him go up. The day before yesterday. I was standing here in the window and saw him take off.”

“You're sure it was Giles?”

“Of course I'm sure. It was his plane. He called me and told me to top the tanks and have it at the end of the runway for an afternoon takeoff.”

“And you saw him actually get in the plane?”

“No, not really, but I saw it taxi to the runway and make a takeoff.”

“Then you're not positive that Tom Giles was in the plane?”

“Well, I suppose not. But who else would it be?”

“Weren't you disturbed when he took off and never came back?”

“Not particularly. He often took cross-country hops on the weekend.”

“Without a flight plan?”

“We're casual here.”

“Thanks for the help,” Lyon said as they started for the door.

“Hey, you'll keep Herbert off my back, won't you? All those cop cars pulling onto the field make visitors think we've had a crash or something. Scares the hell out of people.”

“I'll try,” Lyon replied.

Bea was pensive as they drove home. “How bad is his financial condition?” Lyon asked.

“Overdrawn at the bank, and the creditors are ready to foreclose. A quick guess would be that he'll be in bankruptcy court before the month is out. It all fits. Gary Middleton and Karen Giles were having an affair; he needs money; and the only way she can get her hands on any is through her husband's death.”

“And Middleton says that Giles's plane took off in the afternoon, yet I didn't see it until the following morning.”

“Or, in the police version, until hours after that.”

“Of course, someone else could have taken the plane and landed it somewhere else, at another field.”

“Or Middleton could be lying.”

He drove rapidly through the night. In the past, Lyon had always felt that any problem was soluble; that with a consistent and logical input of facts, logical conclusions could be drawn. At the present time, he wasn't sure what was true and what wasn't.

“Look at that hitchhiker on this desolate road,” Bea said.

“The new generation,” he said with a smile at his wife as he braked the car to a halt. He reached toward the rear door and snapped the lock up. “Hop in. We can give you a lift a little way up the …”

“I have my sleeping bag, and I can crash on the barn floor,” Robin said as she swung into the car. “I won't be a bit of trouble.”

The car accelerated toward Nutmeg Hill, and Lyon wondered how long Bea could hold her breath like that.

6

“There's a convoy coming up the drive,” Kim said from the breakfast-nook window. “I think we're being raided.”

Lyon and Bea craned to see the road from the window. Two State Police cars, followed by Rocco's Murphysville cruiser, drove up in front of the house and ground to a halt. A phalanx of uniformed men stalked toward the door, the ever-present duo of corporals in the lead, then Captain Norbert, and a trailing Rocco Herbert. “Do we have enough coffee?” Lyon asked as the door knocker began an impatient thunk.

“I'll lace it with a little ground glass,” Kim grumbled.

Lyon tightened his bathrobe, ran a hand across his shock of falling hair, and padded in bare feet toward the door.

The corporals and the captain were immaculate in their knife-creased trousers and wide-brimmed hats, while Rocco looked sheepish and apologetic in rumpled khakis. The early arrival of the authorities disconcerted Lyon. A vague twinge of puritan guilt made him momentarily want to confess to a hundred unknown crimes in order to gain their approbation. He gestured into the house. “There's coffee in the kitchen.”

“I told you to lay off, Wentworth,” Norbert said as they followed him through the house.

Kim grimaced as the four officers overflowed the breakfast nook, while Bea poured more mugs of coffee. “Who's she?” one of the corporals asked, with a gesture toward the black woman. “The maid?”

Kim's mouth gaped, Rocco rolled his eyes toward the ceiling, and Bea stiffened. “Ms. Ward happens to be deputy secretary of the state,” Bea said icily. “In the state hierarchy, that's the equivalent of police major, Corporal.”

The trooper reddened and stared intently into the depths of his coffee mug.

“I'm here to give you a final warning,” Norbert said. “We will not tolerate your interviewing witnesses.” As Bea purposely cleared her throat, the captain seemed to dwell momentarily on her state position. “That is to say, we'd rather you didn't get involved, sir.”