Death on the Diagonal (15 page)

He pulled his Massachusetts-issued I.D. from his jacket and opened it for her. “I’m licensed by the Commonwealth, Ms. Davis. I have a few questions for you. I can always return with a police officer, but I suspect that wouldn’t be in your best interests.”

Dawn stopped and faced him fully. “What’s this all about? I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Really? You’re in remarkably good shape for someone who was operated on just four weeks ago.”

“The sling came off after two weeks, just like I was promised,” was her belligerent response. “I don’t know who you are, or what you want.” Again, she began to move away, but she continued to keep her eyes on him.

Rosco kept pace with her. “I’m talking about your supposed kidney transplant.”

Dawn spun around. “My what?”

“I’ve been hired by Walter Gudgeon, Ms. Davis.” Rosco studied her face as he spoke, but failed to notice even a flickering of her eyelids when he mentioned the name. He also didn’t spot any evidence of the supposedly sweet and gentle person either Gudgeon or Bownes had suggested Dawn Davis was.

“I don’t know anybody of that name,” she said with a hostile shrug.

“Mr. Gudgeon maintains he gave you $250,000 so that you could have a kidney transplant. He claims he dropped you off at Newcastle Memorial Hospital on September sixth for that purpose—the very day you had your shoulder operation.”

Dawn stood frozen for fifteen seconds while she glared at Rosco.

“You are Dawn Davis, aren’t you? And you did have rotator-cuff surgery performed by Saul Bownes?”

She didn’t reply, but her face puckered in wrath. Then she pointed at irate finger. “I know what you’re up to, mister, but if you bother me anymore,
I’ll
be the one going to the police. And if my hospital records were released without my approval, well that’s just plain not legal.”

With that she turned and stomped away into the Avon-Care Center.

17

“She’s one tough cookie, Sara. That’s all I can say,” Rosco offered with a shake of the head. “The charming ‘girl’ who conned Walter Gudgeon was nowhere in evidence this morning. And if she’s a con artist, which I’m convinced she is, she’s a genuine pro, because I couldn’t trip her up in the slightest.”

Sara Crane Briephs might have been confined to a wheelchair, and that contraption might now be resting on a magnificent Persian palace carpet in the midst of other singular antiques collected by generations of Crane family members, but in all other ways the doyenne of White Caps—as well as her domain—remained unchanged: an elegant and venerable residence awash in damasks and chintzes and mahogany furniture so polished it all but sparkled.

“Could you have been a trifle harsh in your approach, Rosco dear? Tipped your hand too soon, as they say?” the doughty lady suggested as she watched his wife pour afternoon tea; while Belle, for her part, forced her hands not to tremble. The proscribed ritual of simultaneously holding aloft both a silver pot and a gold-rimmed porcelain cup set in its saucer was one that Sara had only recently relinquished—and only then to the young woman she considered her surrogate granddaughter. However, Belle was keenly aware of her “apprenticeship” stature.
There’s many a slip twixt the cup and the lip,
she quoted the ancient epigram in silence, adding a rueful,
and between the cup and the pot—as well as the activities Sara was hardwired to perform, and the meager hostess-type skills I was taught
.

“I’m not saying you were harsh, mind you, Rosco,” Sara continued, gazing philosophically at Belle’s unsure labors. “But perhaps, there might have been another means of eliciting information from Ms. Davis—before getting her dander up, that is.”

Rosco sat back on the Hepplewhite settee. Unlike his wife, he felt genuine ease in Sara’s beloved White Caps, but then he wasn’t a gentlewoman-in-training.

“I honestly don’t know what to make of the situation,” he said. “I guess what I expected was a bunch of phony, sugarcoated responses . . . lies that would have given her away. Avon-Care assured me that Dawn arrived like clockwork for each appointment and was a conscientious and undemanding patient—personality traits that totally jibe with what Saul Bownes suggested.”

“I’m certainly glad he’s not my physician,” Sara piped in. “He sounds like a dreadful person. Sinister, really. Don’t you agree, Belle?”

Belle nodded, but kept her focus on the cup she was now transferring to her right hand, while she picked up a plate of lemon slices with her left, proffered both to her hostess, before returning her concentration to pouring herself the third and final cup of tea.
Whew!
her brain rejoiced.
Thank heaven that’s over! And I’ll just brain Rosco if he asks for a refill.

While Belle completed her nerve-racking task, Rosco casually grabbed a fluted silver dish filled with homemade macaroons, passed them to Sara, then snagged two for himself. The freedom with which he began chomping away earned another grimace from his wife.

“I know Gudgeon only asked me to locate Dawn,” he said between heedless and happy mouthfuls, “but I’d really like to get some hard evidence that would prove she’s a crook; something that would convince Walter to go to the police and press charges. If he doesn’t, she’s free to pull the same stunt elsewhere. And that’s why I’d like to have your help with this, Sara.”

“My help? But I’m just an old lady confined to quarters for the foreseeable future—”

“Not from here . . . but when you become a patient at the Avon-Care facility,” Rosco answered.

Sara cocked her head to one side. Her blue eyes regarded him with birdlike intensity. “You want me to pilfer Dawn Davis’s files!”

Rosco chortled. “Not quite. What I want you to do is strike up a conversation with Ms. Davis—”

“And then get the goods on her!” Sara handed Belle her cup, adding a peremptory, “More tea please, dear. And you needn’t fill it quite to the top this time.”

Belle glowered at Rosco who remained blissfully unaware of his wife’s discomfort.

“It’s clear that I can’t talk to Ms. Davis again, Sara. If she even spots my Jeep at a distance, she’s liable to scream for the cops, which, as I said, Mr. Gudgeon wants to avoid. Clearly she knows this.” Rosco reached for another macaroon. “And while we’re on the subject, you do realize that everything I’ve told you must be kept in the strictest confidence? In fact, we wouldn’t be having this conversation if I didn’t need your aid. And I’m still not altogether comfortable sharing a client’s name.”

Sara nodded, but the expression held a hint of impatience. “You know I’m the soul of discretion, young man.” Then she thought for a moment. “Something about this case of yours rings a bell . . . what is it . . . ? What is it? Oh, I remember now. There was a similar situation down in Florida several winters ago: a young woman preying on elderly widowers. I’m not sure the crime was ever resolved.” Sara took her refilled teacup. “Just right his time, dear,” she said to Belle before returning to Rosco.

“So, you’re proposing I cozy up to Ms. Davis, who doesn’t know me from Adam. But if she believes her
cover’s been blown
—that is the correct term, isn’t it?—then who’s to say she’ll even return to complete her scheduled therapy sessions? I wouldn’t. I can tell you that. I’d be on the next plane to Belize—” Sara interrupted herself as she abruptly set aside her cup. “Oh, my goodness! Emma forgot the deviled eggs she made you, Belle dear. They’re not on the tray, and I didn’t notice the oversight until this very second. That’s what age does to one. People forget the simplest of things . . . Hand me the silver bell, will you? Our Emma will be so bitterly disappointed if she can’t present you with your favorite treat.”

Emma was Sara’s maid and alter ego. The two women had been together for half a century, and had weathered so many communal storms that the labels of mistress and servant had become irrelevant, although Emma continued to cling to her traditional taffeta uniforms: pink or gray during the day, black at night—with the requisite starched white apron, of course.

“I can go out to the kitchen, Sara,” Belle offered. “There’s no need to bother Emma.”

“It will do her good, my dear. She gets far too little exercise, and I certainly wouldn’t wish my current sedentary state to befall her. Imagine her tooling around in the kitchen in this unwieldy device—”

“You could do the cooking, in that case,” Belle tossed in.

“What! And deprive her of the opportunity of lording it over me from her home on the range? What a terrible notion. Emma’s the queen of the cuisine. I wouldn’t dream of tampering with that title.” With that Sara rang the bell, then returned her gaze to Rosco. “The problems I foresee with your suggestion are these: One, I’m not scheduled to begin physical therapy until the swelling in my knee subsides—by which time your Dawn Davis may well have skedaddled. And two, I can’t be accompanied by Belle—as I was to Dr. Arthur’s office—because she’s so instantly recognizable. Anyone with half a brain, and it sounds as though your Ms. Davis has more than that, will make the connection. She may not have realized that you were the private eye to whom the illustrious cruciverbalist, Belle Graham, is wed, but I’ll warrant she’d put two and two together if she saw me with your lovely bride. Now, as for the first quandary: I believe I can successfully make a preliminary foray to Avon-Care—under the pretext of examining the place before making a decision about which physical-rehabilitation facility will garner my business. As for the second—”

At that moment, Emma entered. In her hands she bore the promised deviled eggs. “I spotted these on the counter not two seconds ago, madam—before you rang for me.”

“Did you now, Emma?” was Sara’s wry reply.

“I did.” Emma’s posture was as commanding as Sara’s, notwithstanding the wheelchair and their present difference in height; and there might have been more conversation as to when the bell had rung and when the treasured eggs had been discovered were it not for the fact that Sara suddenly burst out, “Guess what, Emma? You and I are going to become subcontractors of the Polycrates Agency! Think of that! Just like our Belle, here. Rosco has asked us to infiltrate a health-care facility this coming Thursday. But my news is completely hush-hush, of course;
strictest confidence
and all that.” She eyed Emma from head to foot. “You may dress as my maid, if you’d like, unless you feel the choice would cause undue suspicion—which is a possibility. Perhaps we should invent a more devious disguise for you.”

Rosco shook his head and shot Belle an amused glance.
A pair of “subcontractors” whose combined age is one hundred sixty,
the look said.
Who else will Sara decide to “hire” on my behalf?

“I believe the choice of a uniform is an excellent one, madam. Which one do you wish me to wear?”

“Oh, I think the gray, don’t you, Emma? The time for our rendezvous is ten in the morning, but the pink might appear overly informal. We want to be taken seriously, don’t we?”

“And a full or half apron?”

Sara thought. “Half. There won’t be any cooking involved. Unless it’s someone’s goose.”

 

 

Belle couldn’t stop chuckling the entire way home. “Well, how else did you imagine this playing out, Rosco? You know you can’t get Sara involved in any scheme without her pulling out all the stops. Just be grateful those two don’t want to dress up as Batman and Robin. Besides, you can’t have forgotten the situation in Hollywood when she actually believed she’d become a world-class thespian, or the time we took her to that inn in Vermont. Or our wedding, for pete’s sake, which she
insisted
be performed on the senator’s yacht.”

Rosco shook his head. “I don’t know . . . The idea of Emma in her uniform, and Sara togged out in a Queen-Elizabeth-type hat . . . I’m not certain they’re going to inspire a woman like Dawn Davis to share her deepest and darkest secrets. On the other hand, who could suspect that dynamic duo of trying anything underhanded?”

“They could always shame her into gabbing,” Belle shot back. “Ask where her white gloves and lace hanky are, for instance. Besides, you deserve everything you got, sitting there wolfing down cookies while I was trying to keep the tea from sloshing all over the floor.”

“You’re the neophyte lady of the mansion, not me,” was Rosco’s serene response. “Anyway, in case you’d forgotten, you’re also the one who invented the term
subcontractor to the Polycrates Agency.
”

“And now you have two more,” Belle laughed.

“Hooo boy.”

“And you’d better hope the three of us never gang up on you and mutiny.”

“Or demand union benefits. I’m losing sleep over that scenario already.”

18

The moment the car once again reached the seclusion of the Munnatawket Beach parking lot, the driver glanced down at the blank sheet of quarter-inch graph paper lying on the passenger’s lap. “I still don’t know why—”

A hand was raised, commanding silence. “How about we play the James Boys tonight, what do you say?”

“Can’t you take this seriously? I’m not into games tonight.”

“Who do you want to be? Frank or Jesse?”

“I really don’t want—”

“Make up your mind,” was the brusque reply. “Jesse . . . or Frank. C’mon, this thing only works if you act on instinct; you know that. Besides, when you look at the string of murders those two logged in, I’d say we couldn’t get more serious.”

“But I—”

“Don’t tell me you’d prefer Groucho and Harpo? Or maybe Abbott and Costello?” This was said with a laugh, but the sound was cruel and goading.

The response was a beleaguered sigh. “I liked playing the woman’s part last time.” Another pause, followed by, “Okay, I’ll be Jesse.”

“Spell it with an
ie
if it’ll help you work through that feminine thing.” The suggestion was accompanied by another jeering chuckle.