1 Runaway Man (22 page)

“The two of them were together for weeks in that tropical island paradise,” Judith recalled. “Dr. John’s wife and kids were back home in New York. I guess something was bound to happen. Marty was like a dreamy schoolgirl when it came to him. Lordy, the stories she told me about them swimming nude in the moonlight and making love under the stars. Why, she practically made it sound like they were Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. And it didn’t stop when they came back home. They stayed together as a couple, gosh, must have been twelve, thirteen years—right up until he died back in 2003. She went to work for Lenox Hill Hospital after he retired from private practice. But she still spent her vacation with him every year down in Nevis at his clinic. And she entertained him at her apartment in Forest Hills two or three evenings every week without fail. I guess he was devoted to her, too, in his own way. He left her the deed to that two-family house in Jackson Heights when he died. She owned it free and clear. Had a roof over her head and collected a nice income from her tenant. I guess it’ll become ours now. I still have to clear out her things and bring them here. I’m just … not
ready
yet.” Judith’s tears started flowing again. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I said, patting her hand.

“Thank you, Sergeant. You’re very considerate. My Marty was a wreck after Dr. John passed. She just mourned and mourned. After six months or so I said to her, I said, ‘Marty, you have got to get on with your life.’ She was only forty-four years old. Still real good looking, too, believe me. Steve knew a couple of drivers, real nice fellows, who’d have been thrilled to take her out. But she wasn’t interested. When her Dr. John died she was all done with men.”

“My mom’s the exact same way,” I said.

Judith raised her eyebrows at me. “She’s a widow?”

“It’s been two years now.”

“She must have been awful young.”

“She still is.”

“I’m sorry for her. And for you, Sergeant. A young man needs his father. And I meant to tell you when you walked in just how much I love your friendship bracelet.” Judith took hold of my wrist, the better to examine it. Her hand was cold and clammy. “She made it with embroidery thread, didn’t she? Yeah, that’s awful cute. A whole lot of work went into it, too. She must really like you.” Judith released her grip and fetched a diet soda from the refrigerator. Popped open the can and took a sip. “I did wonder, you know. If Marty’s death had something to do with
things
she knew about. But Detective Wood was so positive it was a break-in, what with her jewelry and silver being taken. I figured I was just being flighty, like Steve always says.”

“You’re not being flighty,” I said to her. “And we’re extremely interested in whatever your sister knew about.”

“It’s all right there in her letters from Nevis.” Judith nodded toward the shoebox. “She didn’t just write me about her romance. She had other things to say.”

Legs gazed at her anxiously. “Like for instance?…”

“Dr. John was down there to see to a messed-up teenaged girl who’d gotten herself pregnant. Poor thing was barely thirteen years old.”

“What was this girl’s name?” he asked.

“Marty never told me the name of the family. Just the girl’s first name—Kathleen. I remember it on account of we had an Aunt Kathleen who used to collect antique cookie jars from the 1940s. She had dozens of them all over her house. That’s one of them right there next to the stove.” Judith gestured toward a biscuit-colored ceramic figurine of a round chef with a white hat. It was the only object on the kitchen counter that wasn’t covered with a cozy. “He’s called Pierre the Jolly Chef and he’s actually worth a couple of hundred bucks on eBay, last time I looked. Not that I’d ever sell him.” She took another sip of her diet soda. “Dr. John and Marty were there to deliver Kathleen’s baby when her time came. Her parents owned a huge shorefront estate there. They were hushing the whole thing up the way rich people do. And these were definitely rich people. They flew a Park Avenue doctor and his nurse down there and kept them there for weeks. Can you imagine how much that must have cost?”

“What else did your sister tell you about Kathleen?” Legs asked.

“She was a real handful. An angry, depressed little thing. Didn’t want the baby. Didn’t even want to be alive. Poor girl tried to take her own life with pills, Marty said. Almost lost the baby. They had to keep watch over her around the clock until she gave birth. It was a boy.”

“Do you happen to know when the baby was born?” I asked.

“Absolutely. It was on the twenty-fifth of April. That’s our cousin George’s birthday.”

Which backed up what Paul Weiner had told me. Eleanor Saltonstall Kidd had been quite insistent that Kathleen gave birth at the end of January. The Nevis birth certificate even said so, according to Paul. And yet the baby had been born three months later. Why the discrepancy? I could think of only one reason. But it was a mighty big one. If Kathleen gave birth in April then it meant she hadn’t conceived the baby during her previous school year at Barrow. She’d gotten pregnant over the summer—when she was on Nantucket.

“Judith, are you sure about that date?”

“Sergeant, you can read Marty’s letters if you don’t believe me. Heck, you’re welcome to borrow them if you promise to return them. They’re all I have of her now.”

“We’ll take good care of them.”

“The worst part of it is…” She bit down hard on her lower lip, her eyes avoiding ours. There was more. She was holding on to more.

“The worst part of it is what?” Legs prodded her.

“The poor girl went straight downhill after her baby was born. She was just plain mentally disturbed. Marty felt sorry for her and tried to be a friend to her. But Kathleen was such a messed-up little thing that she had to be placed in an asylum in Switzerland. Marty told me Dr. John wasn’t the least bit surprised. I guess he’d, you know, seen it happen before.”

“Seen
what
happen before?”

“The way that Kathleen was acting…” Judith trailed off, swallowing. “It was pretty typical of
those
sorts of pregnancies. You know which kind I mean. The kind that decent people don’t talk about.”

Legs and I peered at each other before he turned to her and said. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

Judith nodded her head. “It was an ‘internal’ family matter. That’s what Dr. John told Marty. The father got her pregnant, I guess. Can you imagine? You hear about such things happening among uneducated, backwoods folks who don’t know any better. But people of wealth and privilege? What kind of horrible bastard would do that to his own sweet little girl?”

“What kind indeed,” Legs said hoarsely. The weight of her words had landed on him like an anvil.

I was plenty staggered myself. I wasn’t expecting to find out that the late Thomas Kidd, the distinguished ambassador, statesman and philanthropist, had raped his own daughter. So
this
was why the whole shitstorm was happening.
This
was the horrible secret that the Kidds were trying to cover up. Eleanor, his formidable Fifth Avenue widow, was trying to protect the family’s good name so that her remaining child, Bobby the K, could continue his march to the governor’s mansion in Albany. Peter Seymour and the Leetes Group were doing the old lady’s dirty work—even if that meant sacrificing Eleanor’s own daughter and biological grandson. Now I understood why Bobby had shown up at our office to trash his dead sister’s reputation. He was doing his mother’s bidding, too, no doubt. Keeping us off of the scent. What I didn’t understand was why he’d suggested that his wife’s family might be behind it. But I had no doubt that I’d understand soon enough. Because it was all starting to make sense now.

“Judith, you mentioned that your sister tried to be a friend to Kathleen,” Legs said slowly.

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Do you know if they stayed in touch over the years?”

“Marty didn’t hear from her for a long, long time. Kathleen was hospitalized abroad, like I said. But I guess she was finally able to get along better in the world. She returned home to New York and phoned Marty just before Thanksgiving. Marty was surprised as heck to hear from her. She figured that with the holidays coming maybe that explained it.”

“Explained what?” I asked her.

“Kathleen wanting to know if Marty remembered the name of the family that had adopted her baby boy. She was anxious to meet him. Mind you, that information was strictly confidential. Marty was never, ever supposed to divulge it to anyone.
Especially
Kathleen.” Judith sighed forlornly. “But my Marty had a sentimental streak a mile wide. And she always felt bad for that poor girl. So I think she did give her their name. Heck, she must have.”

“Why do you say that?” Legs asked.

Judith’s eyes filled with tears again. “Because somebody murdered her, that’s why. My Marty’s
dead
.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

IT WAS NEARLY MIDNIGHT
by the time we made it back to the city, which had become shrouded in a chilly fog. A lot of cold, weary cabbies had pulled up in front of Scotty’s for hot coffee, hot soup, hot anything. And not just cabs were lined up outside of our building. An unmarked sedan was parked there with two more of my dad’s old cronies inside. And so was the same gleaming black Cadillac limo that had delivered Bobby the K to our office that afternoon. Or at least I assumed it was the same limo. It was definitely the same driver. Upstairs, lights were blazing in the windows of Golden Legal Services.

Legs said, “Yo, I think maybe I’m coming up.”

“Yo, I think maybe you are.”

Lovely Rita was seated at her desk sneaking wide-eyed looks through Mom’s half-open office door. I heard voices in there. Female voices.

“Thank God you’re here,” Rita whispered at me urgently. “She’s been pacing around in there like a caged animal for a half hour. And she is
scary
!”

By “she” I assumed Rita meant the indomitable battleship known as the USS Eleanor Saltonstall Kidd. I was wrong.

It wasn’t Bobby the K’s mother who was in there with Mom. It was his wife, Meg, who was pacing back and forth in a long camel’s hair overcoat, pantsuit and low-heeled pumps. She was pissed. Her cheeks were mottled, her mannish Grayson chin was stuck out and her eyes were narrow icy slits. She clutched her BlackBerry in one tight fist like a set of brass knuckles.

Mom was seated at her desk, calmly watching Meg pace back and forth. “Ah, here he is now, Mrs. Kidd,” she said pleasantly. “Mrs. Kidd has an urgent matter to discuss with us, Benji. I assured her you wouldn’t be long. You two already know each other, don’t you?”

“Yes, we met this morning.” I hung my duffel coat on the rack by the door. “Nice to see you again, Mrs. Kidd.”

“And I believe you know Lieutenant Diamond as well.” Mom smiled at him. “How art thou, Legs? I keep hoping you’ll stop by to say hello. I must be losing my allure.”

“As if.” He went around the desk and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “You look great, Abby.”

“That’s what good-looking younger men always say to old broads.”

“You’re not old, Abby. And you’re not a broad.”

I sat in one the chairs across from Mom’s desk. “I hope you haven’t been waiting long, Mrs. Kidd.”

“Not long at all,” Mom assured me. “It gave us a chance to get to know each other. Mrs. Kidd also had a nice chat with our Mrs. Felcher in the elevator on her way up.”

“That
woman,
” Meg said tightly, “had just gone out to the newsstand in her bathrobe to fetch the bulldog edition of the
New York Herald Tribune.
Which, if my memory serves me right, folded at least forty years ago. Does she have someone to look after her?”

“That would be Mr. Felcher,” I said. “The more intriguing question is who looks after him.”

“Now that we’re all here,” Mom said, “how may Golden Legal Services help you, Mrs. Kidd?”

Meg stared at Legs. “Lieutenant, was it your intention to stick around for this conversation?”

“If you don’t mind.”

“In what capacity?”

“As an unofficial observer. But if you have a problem with that I’m out of here. Entirely up to you.”

Meg considered this for a moment before she said, “You may as well stay. Maybe we can get this awful business straight once and for all.”

Legs took off his leather trench coat and sat down on the sofa.

Meg kept her own coat on even though the furnace was actually behaving that night. I knew this because Gus was dozing on his blanket atop the radiator. She didn’t sit down. Just kept pacing, her chin raised, fist wrapped around her BlackBerry. “I understand,” she said slowly, “that my husband paid you a visit here today.”

I nodded. “You understand right. He told you about it?”

“No, Ralph did. Our driver.
My
driver. He worked for my family for years before he came to work for Bobby and me.”

“So he ratted Bobby out?”

“He’s a loyal family friend, if that’s what you mean.”

“It wasn’t, but that’s okay.”

“I’d like to know, word for word, what Bobby came here to tell you.”

“Maybe you ought to discuss that with him.”

“Maybe you ought to do exactly as I say.”

“Maybe you ought to tell us why we should.”

She stood there, her jaw clenched tighter than tight. I’ve been around meth tweakers who grind their teeth. Meg Grayson Kidd was in a different weight class. I swear she could have ground whole raw oats into powder. “You people have no idea what you’ve gotten yourselves into.”

I glanced over at Legs before I said, “I think we realize exactly what we’re into. Do
you,
Mrs. Kidd?”

Something in my tone jarred her a bit. She was a tough lady, but she was on shaky ground. Wasn’t used to it.

Mom said, “Excuse me for asking, Mrs. Kidd, but does your husband know you’re here?”

“He does not,” Meg answered shortly. “He thinks I’m meeting with a campaign contributor.”

“In that case…” Mom reached for her purse, extracted a five-dollar bill and held it out to her.