Final Edit (25 page)

“No, I didn’t.”

Addressing Falco, Hatcher said: “We’ll look for the card, too. Meanwhile—”

“Yes, Lieutenant?”

“Don’t plan on leaving town for a few days.”

“I was thinking of going to Connecticut for the weekend. Once I get out of here, that is.”

“Don’t even go to Connecticut, okay?”

“Okay,” I said, but my tone was anything but gracious. I have never liked being told where I may or may not go.
Some bloody nerve.

Hatcher and Falco slipped out as quietly as they had come. A nurse appeared in their wake and asked if I needed anything.
“Juice?” she suggested, and when I shook my head, “Ice water?”

“Ice water would be fine, thank you.”

It was not the nurse, however, who brought the glass of ice water to me, it was Margo. She was a welcome sight, raven-black
hair, jet-green eyes, and all.

“My ministering angel,” I murmured.

Margo laughed, showing her tiny white teeth. “Not quite,” she said. “When I was a little girl, though, I wanted to be a nurse
when I grew up.”

“And why didn’t you?”

“Same reason you didn’t become a doctor or a lawyer or an arctic explorer, I suppose. What might have been.”

“Instead you became Mrs. Nicholas Barlow.”

“Not at all, Nick. I became Margo Richmond Barlow.”

“You know, Margo, if we’d stayed married—” She put her finger to my lips.

“No, don’t say it.”

“I was merely going to remark that if we’d stayed married, I’d have gotten into a lot less trouble.”

She smiled, and I felt the blood rising to my face, for hers was a smile that never ceased to bring me pleasure.

“You have been misbehaving, haven’t you?” she said.

I winced, but managed a weak, rather crestfallen smile of my own.

“The doctor said you were lucky to be alive, that if you had drunk much more of that poisoned wine, you probably
wouldn’t have survived. Even so, it was close, and they pumped your stomach out just in time.”

“What was in that wine, anyhow?” I asked.

“Potassium chlorate, probably. At least that’s what the doctor suspects it was.”

“How long will I be here, Margo, did he tell you that?”

“You ought to be discharged tomorrow, but, darling—”

How sweet that word sounded in my ears. Did it mean that I was back in Margo’s favor again? Perhaps not, but it did give me
hope…

“—I’m going to be here to take you home,” she continued. “What’s more, I’m going to stay with you in the house for a few days—at
least until you feel completely well. Is that understood?”

I muttered something like “I’m no invalid,” but there was obviously no conviction in my voice. In fact, the conversation had
altogether exhausted me. I slumped down in bed and closed my eyes.

“When you feel up to it, darling, I want you to call your man Oscar and tell him and Pepita to get the spare room ready for
me. Nick?… Nick?” And on that faint, rising note, Margo’s voice faded away as darkness closed in again.

My release from the hospital went off smoothly, although I stoutly resisted being pushed out of the place in a wheelchair.
I was woozy, but still able, with Margo’s assistance, to navigate under my own power.

Margo helped trundle me into a cab, and we headed downtown.

“I’ve saved all the newspaper reports for you,” she said as we bucketed along, hitting one pothole after another.

“I’ll bet they’re juicy,” I said.

“They are that,” she admitted. “ ‘Publisher in Deadly Tryst’ was the headline in the
Daily News.”

“Oh great. Just
great.”

“Or this one—’Beautiful Young Editor Drinks Fatal Toast.’

“I can’t wait to read all about it.”

“The television news showed the scene of the crime—or should I say, of the fatal tryst?”

“Please, Margo—I’d rather not talk about it just now.”

“As you wish, darling.”

I had been grateful that, since her arrival at the hospital
yesterday, Margo had not once mentioned Susan’s name in any of our conversations, which I thought showed admirable restraint
on her part. I had no doubt, however, that the subject would come up sooner or later, and at that time I would have to define
my relationship with Susan honestly and fully. But not yet. I was still sorting things out in my own mind. Who had sent that
poisoned wine—and why? Was it meant for Susan? For me? Or for both of us, perhaps?

One thing I knew for sure—I wouldn’t be able to rest until I had the answers to these questions, and quite a few others.

Oscar and Pepita both met us at the door of number 2 Gramercy Park, greeting Margo warmly (I remembered how fond they had
been of her in the old days), and me with the proper note of solicitude, not quite clucking over me, but showing a marked
concern that went just a shade beyond their customary reserve.

“Would you like a cold drink, sir?” Oscar inquired in his thick Latvian accent.

“Iced tea would be perfect,” I said. The ideal summer tipple in my view, fresh-brewed with a slice of lemon and a sprig of
mint, but no sugar—and certainly never anything out of a bottle or a can. On hot summer days, I drink as much as a quart of
the stuff—at least up to cocktail time.

“I want you to go lie down, Nick,” said Margo in a tone that brooked no discussion, least of all any dispute.

“Can’t I have my iced tea first?”

“All right,” she said. “After your tea, bed.”

I knew then I was in for a certain amount of bossing around, which, odd as it may seem, I didn’t mind at all. I must be mellowing,
like it or not.

* * *

So began My Three Days With Margo. She had been quite emphatic on that point. “I don’t intend to move in with you, Nick,”
she said, “so don’t get any ideas.”

“Can’t blame me for hoping, can you?”

“Just be good, darling. I intend to stay in the spare room while I’m here. And I’m not sure I trust you even there.”

The newspapers carried a mention of a memorial service for Susan at a funeral home in Bronxville, where Susan’s parents lived
and where she had grown up. I wasn’t in any condition to attend, though I would have wanted to; I sent flowers and a condolence
card, which I knew was an inadequate gesture in the circumstances, but it was all I could do. Poor Susan; what rotten luck
I’d brought her. I thought that I ought to call her parents and tell them how bad I felt…

A man answered the phone. “Mr. Markham?” I said.

“Who’s this?” His voice was gruff, a bit daunting.

“Nicholas Barlow.” A longish silence followed. “Mr. Markham? I want you to know—”

“I have nothing to say to you, Mr. Barlow.”

“Perhaps if I spoke with Mrs. Markham—”

“That will not be possible, sir.”

“But—”

The phone went dead. So much for good intentions. Oh well, I can’t say I blamed them. Not only was their daughter murdered,
she was found in flagrante delicto. Hell of a situation.

That was the first day. On the second day Scanlon called with the Bad News.

“The police checked out Susan Markham’s apartment,” he said. “But they were too late.”

“How so?”

“Susan’s housecleaner had been there first. She got rid of the bottle and the cork—”

“Oh no.”

“But for some unaccountable reason, maybe because she hadn’t heard the news, and thought Susan might be coming back to finish
it off, she left the two wineglasses. One, Susan’s, we presume, was empty. The other, yours, was almost full.”

“She got rid of the bottle, Joe?”

“From the looks of things, it fell, or was dropped, by you or Susan, and broke on the floor. So she cleaned it up.”

“And the poison?”

“Potassium chlorate was found in your wineglass, and traces of it in Susan’s glass. The wonder is that the maid didn’t destroy
that evidence, too.”

“So why don’t they arrest me?”

“So far,” Scanlon said, “they can’t find a motive, although they’re doing their best to tie it to Parker Foxcroft’s murder
somehow. And you’re a solid citizen, Nick. A personage, if I may put it that way. They’re not going to fuck around with you,
unless they’ve got a steel-belted case against you.”

“I see. Well, they’re going to have one hell of a time finding a motive. I feel rotten about this, Joe, and worst of all because
I think I might have inadvertently been responsible for Susan’s death.”

“Watch that conscience of yours, Nick. It’s gotten you into trouble before, you know.”

“We’ve got to do something about this mess, Joe.”

“Stick to publishing, Nick. Writers like me need guys like you to get their books out. Leave the detecting to the pros.”

I knew what he was saying and why, yet I was still determined to do something. But what?

It was Margo who came up with the idea. When I bemoaned my lack of progress in what I liked to think of as “my murder investigation,”
a slipshod, amateurish affair at best (but no less successful, apparently, than the official one), Margo reminded me of Mohonk.

“Remember our Mystery Weekend at Mohonk?” she said.

I did indeed. A few years back, a large band of us putative crime-solvers gathered for a long weekend at Mohonk Mountain House
in New Paltz, New York. It’s an annual affair, and great fun, though Margo and I only made it there once. At the beginning
of the weekend, the attendees are assigned to various groups of twelve to fifteen people, each group with an identifying name,
and they then watch a video of a fictional murder committed in one locale or another—it was an English manor house the year
we attended. During the following few days, the groups have the opportunity to question various suspects, all of them mystery
writers costumed as the characters they play. The year Margo and I went, Ed McBain, Simon Brett, and Mary Higgins Clark were
among the authors present. After the questioning periods, and another simulated murder or two, each group huddles in one of
the myriad nooks and crannies with which Mohonk Mountain House, a rambling castle of a hotel perched on a mountainside, is
amply supplied.

“When the group we were in met to compare notes and devise a solution to the mystery,” Margo said, “you remember what we did,
Nick?”

“Sure. We used a blackboard—no, actually, it was a large pad on an easel—”

“And we divided the top sheet into three categories: motive, opportunity, and alibi, I believe it was—”

“And then proceeded to list the various suspects,” I concluded, “according to those categories.”

“After which,” Margo said triumphantly, “we decided who the likeliest suspect was, and then we wrote a five-minute skit exposing
our chosen murderer.”

And got it all wrong. However, it was still a lot of fun.

“What I’m suggesting now, darling,” Margo continued, “is that we get together in Connecticut the first weekend that’s available—”

“This one’s out,” I reminded her.
Thanks to Lieutenant Hatcher.

“—and form a group, just as we did at Mohonk, and go through the same procedure. Let’s see. There’ll be you, me, Tim, and
Joe Scanlon, if he’ll come—”

“I suppose we’d better include my mother,” I said, “and Herbert Poole.”

“Poole by all means, and Gertrude if she’s game.”

“She’ll be game, all right,” I muttered. Aloud: “It’s a brilliant idea, Margo.”

She beamed. “I thought you’d like it.”

On the third day of Margo’s stay with me, I made all the arrangements. Phone calls to Joe Scanlon, who said he’d always wanted
to see where a wealthy publisher spent his weekends, and to Herbert Poole, who was willing to give up Fire Island for one
weekend in order to play detective. My family was more than willing to cooperate, as was Margo.

That third night, I awoke in the middle of the night, screaming and moaning, to find Margo lying on the bed, her arms around
me, saying, “There, there, Nicky—it’s
all right, I’m here,” and wiping the perspiration from my forehead with the edge of the sheet.

“I must have had a nightmare,” I said, “though I can’t for the life of me remember what it was… oh my God, I only know it
was awful.”

“It’s all right now, darling,” said Margo, and kissed me on the lips, as she had on several occasions since we left the hospital,
but always lightly, to let me know that she had no serious intentions whatsoever.

This time, however, the kiss was more intense, and she did not take her arms from around me, but nestled closer. I could feel
the warmth and comforting fullness and strength of her splendid body through the thin silk nightgown she was wearing. I sighed,
kissed her back, and took her into my arms.

She did not leave my bed for the rest of the night. And the next morning, there was no mention of her returning to her own
apartment.

She did, however, bring up the subject of Susan Markham, while we were having breakfast, and I was rather relieved she did,
because I didn’t want anything from the recent past to cloud our new beginning, as I looked upon it.

“Darling,” she said, “I suppose it’s insecurity on my part to ask this, but—she was
younger
than I am, of course, but were you—well, were you in love with her? You know what I mean, Nick.”

Yes, I knew what Margo meant. She wanted to know if I found Susan
better
than I found her.

“No, I don’t think I was in love with her,” I said. “There wasn’t time for that. We didn’t share a life together, as you and
I did. I was infatuated with her, certainly. I found her
different
—in the way that every woman is different from every other woman. ‘Comparison,’ as Soren Kierkegaard wrote, ‘is the source
of all unhappiness.’”

That answer seemed to satisfy her. I have often considered that it is the “difference” between one woman and another that
makes sexual fidelity—monogamy, if you will—so hard for some men to achieve. It’s the
difference
that attracts. If all women looked exactly alike, dressed in the same drab clothing (as the women in Red China did for so
long, in those unattractive blue jackets and pants), how easy it would be to be faithful to one woman all one’s life!