Color Blind (8 page)

T
wo oversized Andy Warhol silk screens,
Marilyn
and
Mao,
an unlikely duo made compatible by the artist’s hand, were on one wall; a cool large-scale David Hockney print of a swimming pool, palm trees, and Technicolor-blue sky acted as a faux window featuring a picture-perfect Beach Boys, Mamas and Papas, California dreamin’ vista on the other; a suite of black-and-white Diane Arbus photos—circus freaks, suburban couple,
Jewish Giant
—lined up above the comfy leather love seat Kate had chosen for Richard’s office along with the sleek Knoll desk that appeared to be waiting for him to take his place behind it.

Kate felt numb.

Had she already been so effective in burying her emotions that she could not even locate them? It was as though she were acting in a play, and the stage set—“successful, attorney’s office”—was missing only one thing: the lead actor.

But this was a test: Kate was going to prove Tapell wrong. She could do this.

Her eyes tracked her husband’s office one more time: the art on the walls, his desk and chair. Crime Scene had obviously gone through the office, but there were no traces of fingerprint powders anywhere. Probably Richard’s secretary, Anne-Marie, had cleaned it all up, efficient as ever. Richard’s desk was cleared of files and papers, which Anne-Marie had most likely doled out to Richard’s associate Andy and to a select number of Richard’s lawyer friends.

Kate hadn’t given any thought to what she would do with the furniture or the art. Sell them? Probably. She did not think she could possibly have them in the Central Park apartment or the East Hampton summer home without crying every time she saw them.

Kate turned away from the paintings and took in the view from Richard’s office window—the glittering glass and steel and blinking neon lights of Times Square with its marquees and Calvin Klein billboards so erotically charged that the colossal-sized young men and women who languished in their skimpy briefs and bras over the city streets would have been arrested, along with their advertiser, only a few decades earlier.

Someone behind her cleared his throat, and Kate turned to find Andy Stokes leaning into the open doorway looking awkward and a bit sheepish, double-breasted jacket open, revealing blue polka-dot suspenders, hands pressed deep into the pockets of his pin-striped pants.

The quintessential preppie, thought Kate, taking in the man’s straight blond hair and WASP good looks. Definitely not her type, almost too pretty, though she guessed many women found him attractive.

Andrew Stokes had been brought in about two years ago, when Richard’s practice had grown too big too fast and he needed someone to deal with the smaller matters. True, Stokes had already had a succession of jobs, but each firm had been a step up from the last, and Richard believed the young man might thrive under his tutelage, maybe one day even assume the responsibility of partner. But he was wrong—Stokes was simply not partner material, his work uninspired, his self-motivation practically nonexistent. Still, he did what he was told and his boyish good looks and charm seemed to delight many of the clients, particularly the women. If Andrew Stokes had not exactly fulfilled Richard’s expectations, he had at least lessened his burden.

“I would have called you after the funeral,” said Stokes. “But…”

Richard’s funeral.
Had it been only a couple of days ago? To Kate, it had felt like a movie, something glimpsed or observed: the huge crowd of Manhattan movers and shakers decked out in their best designer black suits and dresses; speeches (not one word of which Kate remembered); Richard’s family—the Brooklyn aunts and uncles, his mother up from Florida, who had held Kate’s hand throughout the proceedings, a rabbi with an uncanny resemblance to Salman Rushdie, an absurdity Kate had focused on, who had led the mourners in kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead.

But what Kate was thinking of right now, what she most remembered and would always remember was the hollow, echoing sound as clods of dirt had been shoveled into her husband’s grave, earth and stone hitting wood, and Richard’s Uncle Loukie passing her the spade and touching her back gently and saying, “It’s okay, darling,” and how she had actually done it, driven the spade into the mound of reddish-brown topsoil, scooped it up, and upended it into that dark, shadowy rectangle, thinking—
Where is Richard? Isn’t he always beside me at funerals?
—and looking down into that black hole and realizing that he
was
here—and that she was burying him.

“Kate?” Stokes brought her back to the moment.

“Sorry.” She managed a weak smile. “Thank you for the flowers, Andy. They were lovely.”

“Is there anything I can get you?” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

Was he staring at her breasts, or just avoiding her eyes?

“Coffee, or—”

“No. I’m fine. Thanks. Oh, Andy—” Kate dug into her bag for the reason she had come—the bank statement with the attached Post-it that she had discovered in Richard’s sports jacket. “Richard obviously meant to give you this.”

He gave it a cursory glance. “It’s just a bank statement. He must have thought I hadn’t seen it.”

“Would you normally see the bank statements?” she asked, thinking he probably would not.

“Not necessarily, but—” He glanced at it again. “I’ll give this a thorough going-over, make sure there’s nothing here Richard thought I should be aware of.”

Kate leaned closer to regard the statement along with him. When she had first seen it she wasn’t sure what the numbers were, but when she’d looked again, she had clearly seen that the two figures Richard had circled were bank balances. “The balance in that account is almost a million one day and down to six-fifty two days later. Pretty big withdrawal,” said Kate.

“Well, gee…” Stokes shrugged. “I guess Richard had something he needed to pay for.”

“And he hadn’t mentioned it, or consulted you?”

A little-boy smile tugged at the corners of Stokes’s lips. “Hey, like Richard’s the boss, you know. He doesn’t have to tell me what he does with his money.”

“No—right—of course.” Kate stumbled over her words, embarrassment mixing with sadness. “So, what are your plans, Andy?”

“My plans?” He smiled and ran a hand through his hair.

What is he smiling about?

“About what?” he asked.

Kate couldn’t decide if he was playing at being a coy little boy or acting the man.

“Your future. I mean, now that—”

“Oh, my future…” He looked down at his shoes. “Well, there are a few things to settle up here, and then, well, you know, to be perfectly honest, I hadn’t thought about it. I guess I could take some time off, and devote it to my hobby.” He stuttered a laugh, almost a giggle. “I’m what
you
might call a Sunday painter.”

“Really? I had no idea.”

Stokes smiled again and looked away, as though thinking about something else entirely.

“What about the law? I mean, a job. Naturally, there will be a substantial severance package for you, but—”

“Hey, you don’t have to worry about me.” Stokes swung his arm as if he were striking up a band, and fixed a grin onto his face. “I’ll be just grrrrrrreat!”

Kate stared at him, blankly.

“Tony the Tiger, you know?” His grin faded. “Sorry. Just fooling around. Of course I’m not great. How could I be great with—well, with what’s happened? I’m really sorry.”

Kate could feel her emotions waiting in the wings for their big number, and quickly changed the subject. “Speaking of clients. Do you happen to know who Richard would have been seeing on that—” Kate faltered a moment. “The last day he was here.”

“I don’t think he was scheduled to see anyone. He was supposed to be taking depositions in Boston.”

“But he wasn’t scheduled to leave for the airport until later in the day.”

“I wasn’t in. Had a bit of a head cold. But I’m sure Anne-Marie could tell you if Richard saw anyone. Oh, wait…”He shook his head. “Anne-Marie was out that day as well, and the one before that. Her bunion-ectomy.” He made a face.

“I see.” Kate plucked the bank statement from Andy’s fingers. “I’ll speak to Anne-Marie, and give her this on my way out. No need for you to bother.”

“It’s no bother.” He made a try for the statement, but managed only to pinch the air. Kate was already folding it into her pocket.

T
he bookkeeper, Melanie Mintz, would know,” said Richard’s longtime secretary, Anne-Marie, a short woman with platinum blond hair who probably tipped the scales at a good two hundred pounds, and considerably more when she fell off the Weight Watchers wagon. Kate had always been happy that she was a great secretary and absolutely never let her husband forget it.

“Did you clean up Richard’s office? I mean, after the police had—”

“I, well, yes.” The secretary sniffled. “Was that wrong?”

“No,” said Kate, working overtime to remain composed.

Anne-Marie dabbed at her eyes with a shredded tissue. She had started crying the minute Kate arrived and was still crying as she wrote the bookkeeper’s number on a piece of paper and handed it to Kate. It was soggy. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.” She wound the tissue into a point and jabbed it first into one nostril, then the other.

“If you’re worried about money, I’ve arranged for severance and I can also—”

“Oh, no, that’s not what I meant.” She sniffed. “I can easily find another job…”

Kate patted the secretary’s soft shoulder. “You’ll be fine.” It felt strange to be the one doing the consoling, but oddly reassuring.

“Anne-Marie, you were out the day…the day that Richard…”

The secretary choked back her tears. “My foot surgery. If only I’d been here—”

“There’s nothing you could have done,” said Kate, though she wondered about the circumstances—both Anne-Marie and Andy out of the office, the place empty. But Richard had often worked late into the night, and often alone.

“If only one of us had been here, me or Mr. Stokes.” The secretary dabbed at her eyes, and looked toward Stokes’s office door. “It wasn’t the first time. I mean, lately…”She waved her tissue. “Never mind.”

“What?”

“It’s just that lately Mr. Stokes has missed a few meetings and deadlines—plus the long lunches, well…” She raised an eyebrow. “I know Mr. R wasn’t happy about it.” She reached for a new tissue. “It’s really not my place to say anything, but…”

Richard rarely discussed his work with Kate, and almost never complained about his employees, though recently he had mentioned Andy’s habit of coming in late and leaving early, and Kate knew he was annoyed.

“Did you and Richard ever discuss this?”

“Oh, Mr. R would never say anything like that to me.” She leaned closer to Kate and whispered, “But they had a
talk,
you know, Mr. R and Stokes.”

Andy’s office door sprang open and Anne-Marie let out a little “Ooh!”

“Sorry,” said Andy. He glanced up at Kate with that odd little-boy smile on his face. “I thought you’d gone.”

“Just catching up with Anne-Marie,” said Kate. “But I’m going now.”

“Take care,” said Andy.

A
ndy Stokes quietly shut the door to his office. He had the beginnings of a headache and seeing Kate had not helped.

It was a nightmare. A fucking nightmare. Richard dead, and now…
what
?

He looped his fingers under his polka-dot suspenders and tugged on them as on rubber bands while trying to recall that famous Marlene Dietrich line to Orson Welles in
Touch of Evil:
“Your future is all used up.” Man, was that ever the truth.

Stokes pulled open his desk drawer. Somewhere in this mess was a bottle of aspirin if Anne-Marie had not been poking around in his things, straightening up, as she always did. But there was no sign of it. He sat back and sighed. It was going to take a lot more than aspirin to make him feel better.

Should he go home? No, his wife would just start nagging, asking why he was not working and then they’d get into one of their fights.

Forget the aspirin. He knew where he wanted to go, could barely contain himself once the idea, the need, had flickered in his brain. He was up before the thought was even complete, stuffing papers into his leather briefcase, his mind in overdrive, cock already hard.

“I’m off,” he said to Anne-Marie, who was still sniffling and dabbing at her nose with a tissue. “I’ve got a meeting.”

The secretary eyed him through a shaggy landscape of platinum bangs. “What meeting is that, Mr. Stokes?”

“You know.” Why was she always quizzing him? “I’ll be back later.”

“When?” she asked in between sniffs.

“Later,”
he said.

K
ate had the cabdriver let her out a few blocks north of the precinct. She needed to walk a bit, think a few things through.

The sky was the same dull gray it had been for weeks. Where were those autumn days that New York was famous for—the crisp, clear blue sky, the kind the Flemish painters favored for their pristine landscapes? It was an atypical fall, as though the gods had decided to take away the little color that New York had.

Kate thought back to the conversation with Anne-Marie. Had Richard been planning to let Andy go? The man had obviously been slacking off. And what had Richard said in that talk he’d had with Stokes? Had he issued a warning, or given him notice? It certainly seemed possible. But would Stokes actually have killed over that?

Kate glanced up at the gray sky. She had no idea. But going to Richard’s office had been another test, and she’d passed.

C
helsea was active, people walking with purpose, more than your average sprinkling of leather-clad men and crew-cut women now that the area had become the gay capital of the world, bringing with it a coolness and style that had also made it one of city’s most desirable neighborhoods.