Death Of A Dream Maker (8 page)

“Turn that damn thing off,” Auntie Lil hissed. “And
get us out of here. Fast.”

T.S. cut the light and started the ignition, pulling
out into the street with a very puzzled expression. Hadn't he seen
three people in the backseat? A few blocks away, he pulled over
into the poorly lit parking lot of a private high school and turned
around for a better look. He peered at a strange tableau: Herbert
Wong was jammed in the middle of the backseat, flanked by Auntie
Lil and the young blond woman T.S. had noticed at the cemetery. She
looked up at T.S. and winked.

“Who are you?” T.S. demanded.

“My name is Casey Jones.” She held out a hand to
T.S., and feeling foolish, he shook it. Herbert repeated the
gesture solemnly. Auntie Lil took a more direct approach.

“My word, you saved our butts,” she said. “Who are
you and what were you doing in Max's house? Don't tell me you were
burglarizing the place, too?”

“I'm a private investigator,” Casey told them in a
voice that held more than a tinge of Southern drawl. “Max hired me
a couple of weeks ago to follow his wife. I saw enough to want to
know if she had anything to do with his murder. If she did, I'm
going to nail her. Max was a good guy. And it kind of pisses me off
when people blow up my clients. Besides, he has about three months
left on his retainer.” She smiled brightly at them as if this
explained everything.

“What do you mean you've been following Max's wife?
What did you find out about her?” Auntie Lil demanded. “Tell me
everything you
know.”         

Casey pulled her tattered raincoat more closely
around her and shivered. She still wore the tight black sheath
underneath. “Not so fast,” she said. “First of all, who the hell
are you? I saw you at the funeral and, I think, in some old
photographs that Max kept stashed in a locked trunk upstairs. And I
watched you checking out his photographs downstairs just now—but
how do I know I can trust you? And who are these guys?”

They had a stare-off, all four of them, each taking
turns examining the others in the dim light as if they were all
complete strangers to one another. No one seemed to know how to
begin.

“Let us adjourn to a coffee shop,” Herbert finally
suggested. “Perhaps a little caffeine and better lighting will
illuminate the subject. It seems we are in danger of having the
soup spoiled by too many cooks, don't you think?”

“The worst thing is she had birth-control pills
hidden from him. In her underwear drawer, third from the top. They
were concealed inside a small pocket sewn into a tacky-looking
lingerie set.” Casey Jones had thoroughly searched the house before
the others had arrived.

“What's so terrible about that?” T.S. asked. “Max was
old but he wasn't dead. At least not yet.”

“Kids was one of the main reasons why he married her
in the first place,” Casey explained. “He wanted to start a family.
He said he realized he had made a mistake putting it off until so
late in life, but that if Strom Thurmond could do it, so could
he.”

“Do what?” T.S. asked, mystified. For once, Auntie
Lil had been shocked into silence.

“Have children in his seventies. Max was determined.
He wanted to have an heir.”

“That explains the unsuitable marriage,” Herbert
said.

“Unsuitable is a nice way to put it,” Casey mumbled
with a mouthful of toast. She had downed three fountain Cokes, a
double helping of corned beef hash, and fried eggs so far.

“You okay?” T.S. asked his aunt. Perhaps they were
being insensitive, discussing Max so lightheartedly.

“Sorry,” Casey told Auntie Lil. “Didn't mean to
offend you. Max was a blunt kind of guy. It's just natural to be
blunt when you're talking about him.”

Auntie Lil managed a smile. “I'm perfectly all right.
It's just so sad to think that Max never got the family he wanted
and that… well.” She stopped speaking and looked down at her cup of
coffee. The others glanced tactfully away.

“May we hear more about the contents of his home?”
Herbert inquired to break the silence. “I was unable to conduct a
thorough search due to the untimely interruption.”

Casey launched into an enthusiastic description of
the contents of Max Rosenbloom's house. She had, it seemed,
ferreted out every secret.

“The wife is a pill freak,” she told them. “All kinds
of prescription drugs. Ones to get her going, ones to slow her
down. I think she was hiding them from Max. They weren't exactly
out in the open in the medicine chest, if you know what I mean. “A
couple bottles were on top of the dresser. I guess with him gone,
there's no point. But she kept a regular pharmacy in the closet in
a shoe box beneath a pair of purple pumps.”

“Purple pumps?” Auntie Lil asked, scandalized.

“Listen, that lady's got more shoes than Imelda
Marcos. Purple pumps were just the start. She was spending his
money as fast as she could pull credit cards from her wallet. She's
going to be pretty damn surprised when they read the will.”

“You know about the will?”

Casey smiled at them and carefully slathered jam on
her fourth piece of toast. “Sort of,” she said. “There will be some
unhappy family members, I can guarantee it.”

“You've read it?” T.S. asked.

She shook her head. “No. I just know that Max had a
new one drawn up a couple of months ago. Signed it last month. He
said his mind was made up and that the family was going to be very
surprised. That's all I know. Said he'd finally come to his senses
and was leaving his money to someone who would know what to do with
it. I don't know who it is, though. There's not a copy of the will
in the house, or I would have found it. It's probably with his
lawyer or the executor. I remember he said something about having
set up some trusts with the help of some bank that had a fancy Old
World kind of name like Gold, Silver and Crumpets, Inc.”

“Sterling and Sterling?” T.S. interrupted.

She munched thoughtfully. “That's it.”

Auntie Lil and T.S. exchanged a glance. “There's no
way I could get a copy of it,” T.S. said quickly. “It would be
illegal. We'll just have to wait until probate.”

“Surely a man cannot disinherit his wife,” Herbert
protested. “Even if she is a bit... high-spirited.”

“Prenup,” Casey explained happily. “He had her sign
the tightest prenuptial agreement I've ever seen. It even had a
chastity clause. Darryl Zanuck would have approved.”

“A
what?”
T.S. asked incredulously. “And how
did you happen to see the prenuptial agreement?”

“Max showed it to me. It was the whole point of his
hiring me. He came to see my boss about a month ago and wanted his
wife followed. Since my boss is too lazy to do anything but eat, he
turned the case over to me. Are you going to finish those?”

She stared at Herbert's untouched fried potatoes, and
he hastily pushed his plate her way. She dove in happily with her
well-used fork and ate as she explained. “It seems that Max was not
kidding about having a child. He wanted one, and if Sabrina was
going to be his wife, she had to give it the old college try. But
he didn't want her running around and procreating with someone
else, if you catch my drift.”

“We catch your drift,” T.S. said grimly.

“Fidelity figures as prominently in the prenup as in
a stereo ad. Sabrina would have gotten a nice piece of change even
if they did divorce—but not if they had divorced because of her
being unfaithful. But there's more.” She swept her hair off her
face wearily, the black roots gleaming in the fluorescent glare of
the diner lights. “Sabrina didn't have a snowman's chance in hell
of having a baby for one very good reason and never mind the pills.
She lied about her age. Max said she was thirty-five. Hah! If she's
thirty-five, I'm the ghost of Marlene Dietrich. I've seen Sabrina's
high-school yearbook. The lady is forty-six and, I might add, has
no intention of ruining her fabulous figure with a baby this late
in life. Hence the insurance of birth-control pills. I figure she
also didn't want a kid because then she'd have to share the old
man's bucks with a little Max. Or a little Maxine.”

“Why did she think she was going to get his money?”
Auntie Lil asked.

“She was getting his money in the version of the will
before this last one,” Casey explained. “Or at least a big chunk of
it.”

“But Max caught on that she was not exactly Mother
Teresa,” T.S. guessed.

“You got it. Believe me, this lady will never be
proposed for sainthood. I've watched her in action for almost a
month now. She gets off on seducing males. Some sort of power
thing. But once she's had them, the thrill is gone. She needs
another fix.”

“Was Max happy?” Auntie Lil asked. Her face was
unreadable, but it was obvious from her tone that the answer was
important to her.

Casey took her time. “He wasn't unhappy,” she finally
said. “He seemed like the kind of guy who understood that life
comes with the good and the bad, you know? By the time he asked me
for help, he knew his wife had a fidelity problem and he was
dealing with it. What he wanted from me was proof enough to get her
out of his life with a minimum of fuss.”

“Who do you think killed him?” T.S. asked her.

Casey shrugged and spread out her hands. “I don't
know. But I think the family knows. What I wouldn't give for a peek
inside their houses. I'd say there's plenty of secrets hidden
behind those expensive walls.”

An unspoken signal was sent and received. T.S. nodded
and Auntie Lil turned to Casey. “We have keys to all their houses,
not just Max's,” Auntie Lil announced, describing Rebecca
Rosenbloom's request. Casey did not react as they expected.

“And you trust her?” the private investigator asked
incredulously. “If I were you, I would stay away. The woman is
setting you up. She's probably mad as hell over her brother's death
and looking to start trouble. And don't look at me to help. One
breaking and entering a week is plenty for me.” She mounted an
assault on a chocolate soda that had arrived shortly after she'd
polished off her second breakfast.

“Good advice,” T.S. agreed firmly. “I've been a fool.
Our searching days are over. Look what happened tonight. You could
have been caught. In fact, maybe you'd better give me those keys.”
He held out a hand, but Auntie Lil ignored him.

“I am perfectly capable of showing some restraint,”
she informed T.S. “I will put the searching of family homes on hold
until I think about it a little more. You may be right. Rebecca
Rosenbloom is not to be trusted.” She stared wistfully out the
picture window. “Still... I'd like to get a peek at Abe and Abby's
home before I give up.”

T.S. shook his head firmly. “Absolutely not. Your
burglarizing days are over. You'll just have to save the beret for
your next trip to Paris.”

By the time T.S. had driven Casey Jones back to her
car and returned Auntie Lil to her apartment, it was nearly three
o'clock in the morning. Herbert lived a few blocks from Auntie Lil
and was dropped off in front of his building. T.S. walked his aunt
to her door and wearily said his goodbyes, promising to call the
next day. Auntie Lil thanked him for being a good sport and watched
from the window as his car disappeared down the street.

As soon as he was out of sight, she walked straight
to a small table next to the sofa and rummaged through its top
drawer. After extracting a container of dental floss, dozens of
rubber bands, and a hair comb she'd been seeking for weeks, she
found what she wanted and pocketed the car keys in her coat. The
ride down to the basement garage was quick—at this time of night,
there was little call for the elevator. Her Plymouth was parked far
in the back of the lot because she took it out so seldom, and the
walk to it was a long and lonely one. Auntie Lil did not mind. She
moved quickly, hands in her coat pockets. Behind her, a figure
slowly approached. She was inserting the key into the door lock
when a small, burnished hand reached out to stop her.

“Lillian,” Herbert Wong said quietly. “You must not
attempt these excursions on your own.”

“Herbert! How did you know I'd be here?”

“I know you very well.”

“Yes, it's infuriating,” she admitted.

“If you insist on driving out to Long Island again
tonight, then I insist on accompanying you as a safety
measure.”

Auntie Lil was staring down at the floor. “Aren't you
tired?”

“Aren't you?” he asked in reply.

The two old friends eyed one another, then climbed
inside the Plymouth. Herbert wisely belted himself with all
available safety devices. He had ridden with Auntie Lil before.
They emerged slowly from the garage exit and turned onto the
deserted side street. All around them stood the dark and silent
buildings of Queens, but when they pulled onto the highway, they
could see New York City behind them, blazing in electric glory
despite the late hour. Its glow illuminated the sky and shrank
slowly to darkness as they turned eastward and drove.

 Auntie Lil was not surprised to see that Abe
had a bigger house than Max. “He always went for the trappings,”
she explained to Herbert as they stared up at the enormous
cement-and-steel home. It loomed in odd contrast to the lawn, which
was inexplicably decorated with dozens of ceramic figurines that
stood out like uninvited country cousins in the otherwise elegant
neighborhood. “Max was interested in the work,” she added. “Abe was
interested in the rewards.”

She glanced up and down the smoothly paved street. It
was empty. They scurried up the flagstone walk. Herbert scratched
lightly at the window, anticipating a possible round of excited
barking. There was nothing but silence. “No pets,” he
whispered.

The lock opened with a well-oiled click. They slipped
inside and waited beside the front hall closet, listening for
noise. It was one thing to search an empty house; it was another
when the occupants were asleep upstairs.