Murder Can Cool Off Your Affair (18 page)

So okay. Now that I’d knocked myself out persuading Sara to confirm the identity of her mystery lover, what did I intend doing with the information?

Get this: absolutely nothing.

The thing is, I didn’t see how it could possibly have any bearing on Edward’s murder, much less those two attacks on John. That being the case, I had no legitimate reason for going to my client with what I’d learned. And although I can’t say I wouldn’t have liked to hear something from him on the subject, occasionally even a Class A
yenta
reaches her limit. This, however, does not mean that I wasn’t disappointed in John Lander.

It wasn’t so much because he’d cheated on his wife, either—although not always being as “now” as I like to imagine I am, I do think that adultery . . . well, sucks. But while I couldn’t condone his straying, my acquaintance with Trudie—limited though it was (fortunately)—enabled me to understand it. In a way, anyhow.

What really bothered me, though, was that John had betrayed his very good friend—who only incidentally happened to be his cousin, as well.

But, look, I’m not perfect either. Even if sometimes—like at this moment—I find it necessary to remind myself of that.

And then, for the first time, it sunk in that there
was a plus side to John’s being the widow’s inamorato. At least, from my point of view. Listen, it was now obvious to me that Edward was killed because of that damn will—and by the same person who was attempting to take John out of the running. Which meant that I could scratch that burdensome two-perp theory and concentrate on unmasking a single adversary.

Back at the office again, I decided to put the Lander investigation out of my mind for the rest of the afternoon. As soon as I’d checked on John, that is.

A woman with an extremely nasal voice answered his phone. “Who’s calling, please?” she inquired politely—and nasally—when I asked for Mr. Lander.

“Desiree Shapiro.”

“Ohh, Miss Shapiro.” Her tone conveyed recognition.

“You know me?”

“Well, uh, not really. I’ve heard of you, that’s all. Mr. Lander is at a construction site right now.”

“Could you have him give me a call when he gets a chance?”

“Certainly. I should be hearing from him in about an hour.”

And now it was time to concentrate on Elliot’s assignment.

Anxious to impart what I’d found out yesterday, I had tried to see Elliot immediately upon returning from Sara’s—even before I headed for my little cubbyhole. In fact, right after Jackie waylaid me in order to relate that Derwin had been feeling positively awful about the theater incident. “You know, basically he’s a very sweet guy,” she insisted.

It appeared that, happily, the current crisis had passed.

At any rate, Elliot was tied up in court. So I had yet to give him Friday’s encouraging report. But there was a possibility, however slight, that I could present
him with some additional positive news when he came in later. I proceeded to dial Charlie Weist’s teenage niece.

Somebody fumbled with the receiver, then dropped it. Finally, a young female growled, “Mmm, ho-oo?” It took a moment for this to register as an irritated, sleep-logged version of “hello.”

Bemused, I automatically glanced at my watch. It was twenty to one.

“Is this”—I glanced quickly at my notes—“Mandy?”

“Who’s this?” The kid was wide-awake now—and wary.

“This
is
Mandy, isn’t it?”

“So if it is?”

“My name is Desiree Shapiro, and I’m looking into an automobile accident that occurred in—”

“You with the NYPD?”

“Well, no. I’ve been hired by your uncle’s attorney to—”

“Get lost, will ya? I don’t have to talk to you. Or any of my creep uncle’s fuckin’ creep lawyers, neither.”

And so saying, that sweet-tempered and obviously well-bred young lady slammed down the receiver.

I consoled myself with the fact that Mandy’s cooperation had been a long shot anyway.

I ordered some lunch then, having given up all hope of inducing myself to walk over to the sandwich shop, which was, after all, an entire block away. Listen, it had been an emotional morning, and I was drained. Or maybe I was just being lazy. (But I prefer “drained.”)

No sooner had I finished the last bite of my BLT—only without the “L”—than Elliot poked his head in the room.

“May I come in?” He was his usual cheerful self.

“You’d better. I’ve been dying to talk to you.”

“What’s happened?” he inquired, taking the same precarious edge-of-the-chair position as on his previous visit. (I swear, someday that man is going to wind up on his head.)

“I contacted Charlie’s former wife yesterday. Unfortunately, however, she left for a six-day vacation this morning. She’ll be getting in touch with me when she comes back so we can set up a meeting. But don’t worry. She sounded perfectly fine on the phone, and I have every expectation that she’ll make a good witness.”

“I’m glad she struck you that way. It was my impression, too.” He was smiling broadly.

“A couple of other things. I spoke to the niece, and it was as you suggested—the kid wouldn’t budge. On a more promising note, though, we have further confirmation of sorts that your client was busy courting his ex at the time of the accident.”

“Really?”

I told him about Emily.

“That should help,” Elliot responded, flashing an even broader smile. “I have something to tell you, too. A couple of minutes ago I received a telephone call from a young man who claims—and I have no reason to doubt this—that he is the niece’s boyfriend.
Former
boyfriend, I should say. Evidently the pair had a nasty argument last night, and he’s rather anxious to testify at the trial. He’ll be in to see me in the morning.”

“What is he going to testify to?”

“He was a passenger in the hit-and-run car that night—
which
the niece was driving.”

“That’s terrific!”

Elliot was positively beaming. “Yes. A very fortunate break. But I’m grateful for your assistance, as well, Desiree. You’ve done a wonderful job.”

Now, having made a return to reality since yesterday, I was aware that I hadn’t done a wonderful job at all. Like Elliot, I, too, had lucked out. But I graciously
accepted the thanks. I didn’t think it would be polite not to.

This had been such a brief, effortless investigation, with everything falling so neatly into place, that it pretty much demanded contrast with the Lander case.

It had been almost two weeks since I’d been hired to find out who wanted John Lander dead, and as yet I hadn’t made any appreciable headway.

And I was afraid.

Was my client still in danger—or had the perpetrator decided to leave it to the police to dispose of him?

And speaking of New York’s Finest, things had been remarkably quiet there, too. What was Fielding up to, anyway?

I felt a sharp pang.

Please, God,
I murmured aloud,
don’t let my lack of progress cost John his freedom. Or worse yet, his life.

I’d had every intention of cutting out a little earlier that afternoon and paying a sorely needed visit to the beauty parlor, which is only a couple of blocks from the office. I knew there wouldn’t be any problem about an appointment, because luckily—or maybe not—the place is never really that busy. To tell the truth, Emaline—my longtime hairdresser who brags that she has “golden hands”—doesn’t. But I’m used to her. And besides, with Emaline my expectation level is so low that she rarely disappoints me.

At any rate, having just made myself half-crazy with thoughts of my client’s possible incarceration or demise, I decided to shelve Emaline for a while.
And why hadn’t John returned my call yet, anyway?

I promptly dismissed the question from my mind. What was I carrying on about, for God’s sake? It was only a couple of hours since I’d tried him.

I was about to start typing up my notes on that morning’s talk with Sara when I altered my priorities. It could wait until tomorrow, since the possibility of this latest visit’s providing a lead to the perpetrator I estimated to be only slightly above zero. Of course, with all the time I’d previously spent buried in the Lander folder, my chances of suddenly uncovering some vital piece of information there weren’t exactly encouraging, either.
Still,
I put to myself,
it’s
conceivable that I’ve been consistently overlooking something, right?

It was a question based more on despair than optimism.

For more than an hour I read diligently, finally becoming so bleary-eyed that I could barely make out the words, much less determine if they contained a clue.

I had just placed the file folder in my attaché case when I heard from John.

“Sorry it took me a while to return your call. But I’ve been tied up with so many back-to-back appointments this afternoon that I haven’t had a free minute.”

“I hope that means it’s been a profitable day.”

“That makes two of us,” he remarked dryly. “Any particular reason you phoned me? Has something turned up?”

What I really would have liked to hit him with was “Yes. I found out about you and Sara.” But I willed myself to show restraint. “Nothing yet, I’m afraid. I just wanted to touch base with you.”

“I appreciate that. Uh—” Breaking off, John cleared his throat, then tried again. “Uh, Desiree, you
do
think we’ll discover who’s responsible for the things that have happened, don’t you?” It was apparent that asking me this hadn’t come easy to him.

“I’m confident that we will.” (At this juncture a lie if there ever was one.)

“Have you spoken with Sergeant Fielding?” he inquired.

“Not recently. I gather you haven’t had any contact with him lately, either.”

“No. Should I take that as a good sign?”

“I would.”

He chuckled. “All right, I will.”

“John, I trust that you’re still on your guard, even though there haven’t been any, well, incidents for a while—thank heaven.”

“You don’t have to be concerned. I’m being careful. Maybe too careful.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I’m beginning to suspect that I’ve gotten totally paranoid.”

Uh-oh.
“And this is because—?”

“Last night, on my way home from the office, I stopped for a bite at some little restaurant in the Village. I had to park on a fairly dark side street, and when I went back for my car after dinner, the street was just about deserted—it was past midnight by then. At any rate, I could have sworn I heard footsteps behind me and that they kept getting closer. But I turned around a few times, and there wasn’t a soul in sight.

“It was probably only in my mind, Desiree. I have to admit, though, that I was really in a sweat. I was seriously considering making a dash for my Range Rover, but all of a sudden a whole group of people—at least eight of them—came pouring out of this house directly in front of me. There must have been a party of some kind. Anyhow, one of the couples was headed in the same direction I was, so if I
was
being stalked—and that’s a big ‘if’—this pretty much put the kibosh on it.”

“Ohh, John,” I wailed.

“Please. Don’t worry. The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that my imagination was working overtime.”

But I, on the other hand, wasn’t convinced at all.

There was no question of my
not
going over the remainder of the Lander file that evening.

I stuck with it to the bitter end, too. It was ten after one when, rubbing my eyes, I finally closed the dog-eared folder. If there was anything to be learned from it, though—once again I hadn’t learned it.

On Wednesday I transcribed my notes on the
conversation with the widow, following which I read over them carefully. I struck out there, too.

I had reached the point where I was starting to be even more disgusted with the results of my investigation than Trudie was. In fact, I was seriously considering firing me myself—before my client met the same fate his cousin had. After all, what else could I do? I seemed to have come to a dead end. Either I was dealing with a very clever assailant here or he/she was dealing with a really stupid PI. But whatever the reason, it was becoming more and more apparent to me that the case needed to be examined by a fresh set of eyes.

As we’d arranged a couple of days earlier, after work my neighbor Barbara Gleason and I met in front of a theater in the neighborhood of our mutual apartment building. I’d left the selection of the movie to Barbara, since there wasn’t anything I was particularly interested in seeing, and besides, she invariably pokes fun at my taste. Take
Babe
. So okay, I’d had a slight hissy fit when it didn’t walk away with the “Best Picture” Oscar that year. But this
was
quite a while ago, you know. Yet there’s still a good chance that when Barbara and I talk films, she’ll manage to sneak in a reference to “that silly talking pig you’re so enamored of.” Anyhow, we wound up watching some inane Jim Carrey picture. Barbara absolutely adores Jim Carrey—which is
so
not what you’d expect from her.