First Gravedigger (16 page)

Yeah, I guess he did at that. “Is it Mrs. Ainsley then? Is she the problem?”

All the way across the Atlantic I could hear Sprogg choosing his words carefully. “Mrs. Ainsley's intentions are above reproach,” he finally said. “But sometimes I suspect she overestimates her own knowledge. She loves rare books, there's no doubt of that. Unfortunately, a love of one's specialty doesn't automatically guarantee proficiency. And you did give her virtually autonomous powers, Mr. Sommers. She has been investing heavily in items she's convinced will return a profit. But, ah, she's, how shall I say, misjudged before—”

“You mean she's in over her head.”

“I'm afraid so. Frankly, I feel most uneasy, having to rely on her investments to bring our overall profit picture back up to its normal level.”

Damn the woman. “Suggestions?”

“Mrs. Ainsley has invested too heavily for us to write the department off as a loss. The only solution I can see is to bring in a bona fide expert and see what he can salvage.”

“Have you started looking for one?”

Sprogg admitted that he had. “But rare books experts are almost as rare as the books they handle. The few I found who were even remotely interested said they would come only as department head. They refused absolutely to serve as assistant to someone who doesn't really know the field.”

“Then fire her,” I said. “Get her out of there.”

Sprogg was shocked. “Oh, I couldn't do that. Mrs. Ainsley has been with us for eighteen years. She was a good general agent before, ah, before the rare books. I can't dismiss her out of hand.”

“Then ease her out, Sprogg. Get her back to doing her old work and bring in someone who knows what's what. How you handle it is your business—but find a way to handle it. And find it soon.”

“I'll do what I can,” he said doubtfully.

I hung up, disgusted with this turn of events. The woman had convinced me completely—I'd thought she knew her stuff.

So the man you couldn't fool had been right once again; Amos Speer had said something like this would happen. I should have let it alone.

I'd rented a small furnished apartment instead of relying on motel rooms. She was waiting for me when I got there.

“I was beginning to think you'd changed your mind,” she smiled at me.

“Am I late? Sorry. I didn't realize.”

“My watch is probably fast,” she said accommodatingly.

We were being polite. June looked calm, far calmer than I felt. She wasn't going to lose her poise over something as mundane as taking a midday sex break with her boss.

She'd fixed a shaker of martinis; the perfect secretary. When I'd figured out June must be the one who was helping Wightman, my first impulse had been to fire her. But that wouldn't have been too smart. I had a feeling June could be very useful. Somehow Wightman had won her allegiance; it was up to me to win it back. Since I didn't really know what she wanted, all I could think of was sexual flattery. Besides, I'd always wanted to see what June Murray looked like with her hair mussed up and her make-up smeared and her clothing rumpled.

I tasted the martini: too sweet. “Perfect,” I said. “How do you like the apartment?”

“Very attractive. How long have you had it?”

“Three days.” Got that, sweetie? The place was rented just for you.

The first time was a bit strained; the second went a little better. June wasn't exactly submissive in bed, but she let me do all the work. Afterwards I forced myself to lie still for the mandatory postcoital chitchat; maybe I could learn something. I led the conversation around to what she really wanted out of life.

“Good work, good health, good friends.” It sounded memorized.

“That's all?”

She laughed. “There's something else?”

“Are you happy doing secretarial work?”

But she didn't take the bait. June was too smart to start asking for things after only one session in bed.

We were both playing roles. I was the conventional lecherous employer who took it for granted that secretaries were put on this earth to service their bosses in any way demanded of them. June was the female servant whose only purpose in life was making her master comfortable. And if you think June Murray was type-cast, you believe in Santa Claus.

For several days I'd been noticing a man loitering around the entrance to the gallery. He was there when I arrived in the morning and there when I left at night. Once he was seated in a parked car; the other times he was just standing on the sidewalk. He made no effort to appear like a casual passerby; he was just there, watching. The unsettling part was that he looked vaguely familiar.

Then one Friday morning it hit me: he was the voiceless sergeant who'd been with Lieutenant D'Elia during the investigation of Amos Speer's murder. I called police headquarters and asked for D'Elia.

“Are you having me watched?” I demanded when he came on the line.

“Why do you ask that, Mr. Sommers?”

“You know damned well why I ask that. That man of yours, Sergeant whatsisname—he's been out front every day this week.”

“Sergeant Pollock. Yes, I posted him there.”

“You
posted
him? Why?”

“We still have an unsolved murder on the books, remember,” he said unhelpfully.

“So how is watching Speer's front entrance going to solve it?”

“You never know what might turn up. By the way, you might like to hear that your security guards are meticulous about not letting unauthorized visitors into the gallery. Sergeant Pollock was most impressed.”

“Meaning he couldn't get in?”

A low chuckle came over the wire. “Now, Mr. Sommers, I think you know we can gain access any time we wish. But we don't want to disturb you any more than we have to.”

“Well, you are disturbing me, Lieutenant DEE-lia,” I said, deliberately mispronouncing his name. “A cop very obviously watching the entrance all day? You think that's not disturbing?”

“Duh-LEE-uh,” he corrected pleasantly. “I'm sorry you're disturbed. I'll tell Pollock to be more discreet.”

I slammed the receiver down; I wasn't getting anywhere this way. It seemed incredible to me that the police didn't have anything better to do than stand around all day watching the front entrance of Speer's. What did D'Elia hope to accomplish?

Maybe he'd already accomplished it: he'd rattled me. Maybe D'Elia just wanted to remind me, once again, that he was keeping an eye on me. Still watching. Still not letting me off the hook. Did the Pittsburgh police really have so much manpower they could afford to waste a sergeant on watching a building all day just so he'd be seen twice?

Wait a minute—maybe he didn't watch all day. If the purpose of his being there was to throw a scare into me, then Pollock needed to be visible only when I arrived and when I left. I hurried down to the front entrance and out into the street.

The January wind told me I should have grabbed my coat. I looked both ways down the street; no sign of Pollock. I looked into the parked cars; nobody. I double-checked, then went back inside. Sergeant Pollock was there only at times I could be expected to see him. He'd been sent there to intimidate me.

Lieutenant D'Elia didn't have anything on me. He wouldn't be playing these half-assed games if he did.
In cases where hard evidence is lacking, apply psychological pressure
—did police manuals actually print things like that? He couldn't get me; I was safe. I kept telling myself that. It didn't help much. Just knowing you're suspected by the police is all it takes to throw your digestive processes permanently out of whack. And it was so damned unfair. I didn't kill Amos Speer. Charlie Bates did.

Peg McAllister was waiting in the outer office when I got back. “Got a minute, Earl? A decision needs to be made.”

Then make it
, I felt like saying. Instead I told her to come on in.

“It's these agreements with Wightman's victims,” Peg said. “Going pretty well, on the whole. Most of them are so delighted to be handed extra money that they sign on the spot. But a few are making trouble noises. They don't want to settle for an estimate.”

We were up against the problem of figuring out just how much each piece of purloined porcelain was worth. I'd told Peg that Wightman and I had reached an agreement; we would reimburse the people he'd bilked and he would pay us back in installments. I'd said he couldn't help us in determining the value of the porcelain because he'd destroyed all his records to avoid incriminating himself. So Peg and I had hit on the plan of paying off on the basis of what similar pieces of porcelain had sold for recently. And now Peg was saying there were a few soreheads who wanted to know
exactly
what their pieces had gone for.

“So,” Peg concluded, “we're going to have to decide whether we want to try to trace their porcelain for them, or continue bargaining in the hope that they'll back down.”

I groaned. “Which would cost more?”

“No way of telling. Tracing the porcelain could be an expensive undertaking, or we might get lucky and find what we need straight off. The bargaining might stretch out so long that the final settlements get inflated all out of proportion, or we might reach agreement next week. There's no way to know.”

Hell. “What do you suggest?”

“Continue the bargaining. Just to avoid using two different standards for reaching agreement.”

I nodded. “Okay, that's what we'll do, then.” One decision was as bad as another. “Take care of it, will you?”

When Peg had left, I pulled out the last quarterly reports from the branches and went over them for the hundredth time. I just couldn't find any way of diverting profits from the Rome and Munich branches into what I now thought of as the Wightman Sucker Fund. Not to mention the Sommers Sucker Fund. There were all sorts of ways of juggling books, but I had to make Peg think there was money coming in periodically from Wightman. If I suddenly denied her access to the books, she'd get suspicious.

If worse came to worst, I could always sell my chairs. Holding back the Duprée until last. That would bring in the money, but it would go on the books as profit from normal business deals since the chairs legally belonged to Speer Galleries and not to me personally. Damn it to hell, why should I have to give up my chairs? But with profits down it could easily come to that. But say I did that; say I sold my chairs and made everything right with the people on the sucker lists. Peg would still start wondering when Wightman was going to start paying off. And Peg wasn't a person to leave loose ends lying around.

Peg was the stumbling block. If she'd just keep her nose out of this, I could handle it. I started thinking it was about time for Peg McAllister to retire.

“His name is Arthur Simms,” Valentine said. “He's a financial advisor with Keystone Management Consultants. Harvard Business College, positions with various management firms in Oklahoma City, Denver, Chicago, Atlanta. Came to Keystone two years ago. Each move involved a sizable increase in salary. Forty years old, married, two children.”

Arthur Simms. Good name for a playmate.

“They meet regularly in an apartment in Shadyside. Mrs. Sommers rented it under an assumed name.”

My mouth dropped open. That was the same section of town where I'd rented an apartment to meet June. I asked Valentine for the exact address. He told me; only five or six blocks from my place. Christ.

“How regularly do they meet?” I asked.

“At least twice a week, sometimes three times.”

We were sitting in a bar. I didn't want Valentine coming into my office in case Peg should happen to see him and wonder what he was working on now. (Peg again!) The detective droned on, giving me more details about the man Simms. “He's respected in professional circles—his specialty is advising companies that are in financial difficulties. In his personal life his reputation seems to be equally high. So far as I could determine, this is his first extramarital affair. Either that, or he is extraordinarily discreet.”

“Pictures,” I said. “I want pictures.”

Valentine shook his head. “I don't think that will be possible. Mrs. Sommers and Mr. Simms never meet anywhere except at the apartment. They enter and leave separately. I can get pictures of her going into the building, but that's about all. Presumably they did meet publicly early in their relationship, but not now.”

“Bug the place. Bust in and catch them in the act.”

Valentine smiled politely. “That would cost us our license, Mr. Sommers. And evidence obtained in that manner would not be admissible in court. Certainly not in Pennsylvania. Am I correct in assuming you wish to accumulate evidence for a divorce action?”

“Probably. I haven't decided yet.”

“If that's the course you decide upon, your best chance is a mutual consent divorce. What evidence we have is all arguable. Our past experience has been that more concrete evidence than what we have is required to prove adultery. If Mrs. Sommers would agree—”

“Mutual consent—I don't know.”

“You can sue for unilateral divorce, of course—one partner seeking release from the marriage contract without the consent of the other. And without having to prove marital misconduct.”

“That's the three-year law, isn't it?”

Valentine nodded. “You'll not only have to wait three years after filing your suit before a divorce is granted, you'll also be required to seek marital counseling during that period as well. Three years is a long time to wait—a lot of things can happen. The law is still new enough that all the loopholes haven't been explored yet. Those three years could conceivably drag out much longer. You really should talk to an attorney about this.”

“I suppose,” I said, discouraged.

Valentine cleared his throat. “Mr. Sommers, may I make a suggestion? The fastest way to get a divorce is still to establish residence in another state. Buy some property in Alabama and find a small-town judge who's not too particular. It's faster and neater than trying to get a divorce in Pennsylvania.”