The Daughter-in-Law (24 page)

Pam was aware of these deliberations. She knew that it was in no one’s interest for her mother’s hatred to drive Nicole into court, or in her own interest for Nicole to take all Jonathan’s money and run. She wanted to keep her new sister-in-law close at hand.

Pam had a genuine concern that Nicole might not accept the invitation. For one thing, she was the widow of a recent tragedy and might think that it would be crass of her to be seen out socializing. For another, Nicole wasn’t part of the Donners’ social circle and wasn’t all that comfortable with their style of merrymaking. Perhaps she had heard some of the women’s whispers about how much better Jonathan could have done. Pam had heard the backbiting from some of the young socialites who thought they were much more suited to be Mrs. Jonathan Donner. There were any number of reasons why it would be easier for her to stay away and avoid all the hurts that the other guests might inflict.

So Pam carried the invitation personally, inviting Nicole to join her for lunch. They had met on other occasions in the city, and had twice discussed Pam’s idea of opening a gallery for new artists. That was the topic with which they began their conversation at a small, trendy French restaurant.

Pam bubbled about how exciting it would be, and how much fun they could have working together. Her overblown position at the Philharmonic was interesting, and provided all kinds of opportunities for her to further her education, but basically she was just a marginal cog in an incomprehensible machine.

Nicole advised her to stick with it and develop the required contacts. The problem, as she saw it, was that neither of them had a talent for judging art or projecting its value, nor were they knowledgeable in the highly specialized art market. But Pam wasn’t impressed by the harsh reality. She thought they should begin looking for suitable space in the high-rent district uptown.

Then she presented the invitation, and began selling it even before Nicole had a chance to read it. The boat fire was depicted as “the funniest thing you’ve ever seen.” She went into detail and laughed merrily at the thought of the owner saluting as his own yacht settled into Rhode Island Sound. She recounted some of the other legends and then added her own tales of midnight rendezvous and infidelities that the young people had observed on their way to clandestine meetings of their own. It would be, she promised, a fun weekend.

Next she hinted at Nicole’s obligation. As Jonathan’s wife, she was part of the family, and as a member of the family she really should attend. People would be looking to meet her if only to express their condolences.

Her final sales point was convenience. Nicole could share her room at the house, which meant that she could slip away whenever she needed, and that the consolation of a true friend would always be available. She could find refuge with the younger crowd when the older folks got boring, Pam promised.

Nicole listened to it all, smiled at the enthusiasm, and then handed back the elaborate invitation. “I shouldn’t go to this,” she said, “as delightful as it sounds. It would cause problems for . . . your parents.” Pam found the notion ridiculous, and promised a full-hearted reception. Nicole had no choice but to explain why she wouldn’t really be welcome.

She chose her words carefully, avoiding mention of her face-to-face confrontation with Alexandra, and never elaborating on the accident at the caretaker’s cottage. But she made clear that Alexandra didn’t consider her a suitable mate for her son, had dredged up all the sins of her past, and tried to bribe her out of the marriage. “She never wanted me to join the family, and now that your brother is dead, she wants me out as soon as possible.” Pam agreed that Alexandra was difficult, but was sure that she could be won over. Then Nicole got to the subject of the negotiations. They were offering money. She wanted acceptance. They were threatening. She was remaining faithful to Jonathan’s memory. “I don’t blame your parents for wanting to settle all the issues, and close the door on Jonathan’s mistake. But I don’t think that I was a mistake. I want them to accept me as his wife.” With gaping differences in their viewpoint, Nicole concluded, it was highly unlikely that they
would ever come to an agreement. “I think we all know that we’re headed for court, and I don’t think your parents want me socializing with the jury. ”

Pam said she was horrified at the thought of them going to court. She repeated, “The party would be the perfect way to put the family back together again. The way Jonathan would have wanted.” But Nicole stood firm.

FORTY

P
AM PLACED
the blame for the split entirely on her mother. “Why are you trying to drive Nicole away?” she demanded angrily after storming into Alexandra’s home office.

Alexandra was patient despite her daughter’s juvenile outburst. “She wasn’t completely truthful in her dealings with Jonathan, and she hasn’t been truthful in dealing with us,” Alexandra said. Then she added, “I’m not surprised that she’s given you a completely onesided version of what’s been going on between us. But I’m disappointed that you’ve been so easily taken in.” Nevertheless, Alexandra went on, she had agreed with Jack on the propriety of inviting her. She had extended the olive branch, but she wouldn’t try to hide her delight that Nicole had chosen not to accept.

Jack took the next step in extending the invitation. He asked Nicole to join him for cocktails at a Park Avenue hotel, and was waiting in the lobby like a concierge when she came through the revolving door. He directed her to a table in the lounge with nearly fawning consideration, and ordered a bottle of outrageously priced champagne when she asked for just a glass. She listened patiently while he rephrased the invitation that Pam had presented.

“What does Alexandra say?” she asked.

“Do you think Pam would have invited you if Alexandra objected?”

“I’m sure she knows you’re asking me. But I can’t believe she’s looking forward to seeing me, or that she likes the idea of my mingling with her friends.”

He had his answer ready. Alexandra was stunned over the loss of their son. True, she had been against the marriage, but she certainly would have come around in time. He was sure that they would have come to an understanding if they had met at the cottage as planned. “The fire,” he said, “was tragic for more than one reason.”

Nicole tilted her head and looked at him suspiciously. “Jack, you don’t really think that explosion was an accident...”

“Of course it was an accident,” he answered instantly. “The fire marshal investigated it and I had my own experts go through it. There was a break in the gas line and something caused a spark. Probably the security system after Pam opened the door.”

Then Nicole laid out her reasoning, starting with the attack during their honeymoon when an intruder had tried to carry her off. She, too, was able to quote an official report in which the police doubted that it was an ordinary burglary. She took Jack’s hand when she brought up her suspicions over his son’s death. “I think I was the one who wasn’t supposed to make it back up to the surface.” When he started to protest, she put a finger to his lips, and made him listen to her theory about the wet suits. She and Jonathan had identical gear and attire. “Down deep, where the surface light faded, you wouldn’t be able to tell them apart from twenty feet.”

Jack was shocked. “You don’t think it was an accident...”

“Jonathan was an expert diver,” she reminded him.

“But to have someone go down there to . . . kill you? You can’t be serious?”

Nicole was quietly determined. “If I had any doubts, they were blown away by the explosion. Pam wasn’t the one who was supposed to go into the cottage for a meeting.
I
was.”

Jack put his champagne aside and called the waiter to order a Scotch. He certainly couldn’t agree with Nicole, but her line of argument wasn’t completely foreign to him. He had already admitted to himself that if anyone had set a trap at the cottage it was more likely that it had been Alexandra. Now he had to consider that Alexandra might have also been responsible for Jonathan’s tragedy.

But he had to defend his wife. “Would you please at least consider,” he asked Nicole, “that your suspicions are unfounded? Alexandra might well have tried to block your marriage, and even to break it up. But I can assure you that murder is beyond her. It’s completely out of reality ...”

She nodded in respect to his opinion. But then she ventured, “If it were just you and I, with no interference from Alexandra, do you think we’d be having these problems? What would you have done with me? Just let me join the family and stay as long as I wanted?”

He had to agree. That was exactly what he would have done, but
not for the reasons she supposed. He would have eased her out gracefully over time, letting her spend what she wanted until she met someone else. Then he would have sent her off with a fantastic wedding present. But it wouldn’t have been out of affection for her, or consideration for his son’s memory. He would have done anything to keep her out of court, and to prevent her from searching through his business records and family finances.

“That’s true,” he said modestly.

“So, then, I’m not the problem ...” Nicole prompted.

Jack smiled. “I never thought you were.”

The subject got back to the party, with Jack repeating that her presence would go a long way toward satisfying Alexandra and getting them to an agreement. He threw her own reasoning back at her. If Alexandra were the problem, then didn’t it make sense to try to at least neutralize her?

They parted in the lobby with Nicole agreeing to reconsider the invitation. Jack extended his hand, but she pulled him close and gave him a friendly kiss on the cheek.

FORTY-ONE

G
REG LAMBERT
was still digging and reporting his findings back to Alexandra Donner. He had spoken to half the taxi drivers in Belize and traced down all the addresses that Nicole had visited. None of them were unusual—stores, tourist sights, even a movie theater. There were two visits to a resort hotel owned by one of the international chains. But she had never registered or stayed overnight as a guest.

Her telephone calls were even less eventful: local taxi companies, several of the dive companies, five calls back to Rockbottom, probably placed by Jonathan, including one call to the guardhouse at the gate. There was a call to a beauty parlor, a jewelry shop, and several to the resort hotel that she had also visited by taxi.

Lambert had become suspicious of the resort hotel. Nicole had telephoned it once or twice before each visit. The pattern might indicate that she was meeting someone there, but a search of the guests yielded no names. There was no one who was registered each time she had visited.

He had checked at her community college, and confirmed that she left before graduation, anticipating that she would complete her remaining courses during the summer. Then he had gone on to her various addresses in Chicago. He could prove the obvious details of her life—her addresses, her employers, and the names of a few of her friends. But none of the friends had left a trail so there was no way to interview them. Nor was there any way he could establish what kind of work she had actually done. Some occupations don’t do a great deal of record-keeping.

New York was more informative because the history was more recent. Friends and associates could still be found and interviewed. Records hadn’t yet been carted off to the archives. But there wasn’t much more than what he had already learned in the first investigation he had done for Alexandra Donner. Nicole was certainly no
angel. She had done what she had to do to survive and become involved with nearly anyone who could further her theater ambitions. Call it tawdry, if you liked. Or compliment her for clawing her way ahead. She wasn’t the first girl to give away favors.

The most damning relationship she had formed was with a club owner, drug dealer, and small-time hoodlum named Jimmy Farr. Nicole had danced at one of his clubs, entertained several of his high-spending customers, and run a few errands for him, including one that had gotten her arrested on drug charges. Nicole had been released because no illegal substances had been found in her possession. But none of the drugs had ever reached Farr, which left him out a great deal of money with no recourse to his suppliers.

“Yeah,” one source had told Lambert, “I remember her. Jimmy was really pissed and told her she had to make good. But she settled him down and got herself off the hook. How? How the hell would I know? That was between her and Jimmy.”

Alexandra had jumped on the intelligence. “Find out if they still have any dealings,” she demanded of Lambert. “Maybe this Farr person still has his hooks into her.” Lambert did whatever the Donners asked of him. They had never once questioned his invoices.

Despite her suspicions, Alexandra agreed with Jack and her daughter that if Nicole accepted the invitation she would be welcome at Newport. She knew that the evidence didn’t yet support her charges and that Jack was beginning to doubt her sanity. Best to agree with him, she thought, and wait until Nicole’s past caught up with her.

Pam’s party arrangements were extraordinary, proof that she was ready to take her place among the very rich and the landed gentry. First came the yacht accommodations. She wanted boats to moor right off the cliff where the Donner property fell down to the sea, and where guests would be able to take a tender in to the property’s dock. She arranged with a boatyard to plant twenty moorings, anchored in blocks of cement, within five hundred yards of the dock. Each would be inscribed with the name of an arriving yacht. Then, she hired a tender and uniformed crew to bring the guests ashore.

A local aircraft leasing company came to the house to establish a helicopter-landing pad. They inscribed a ring on the lawn, just above the boat ramp, planted a windsock, and installed a microwave approach beacon. The pad was given its own call sign so that all the
approaching choppers had to do was establish communications and lock onto the approach frequency. It was a better accommodation than most professional heliports offered.