Lady Vanishes (10 page)

A heavyset man in a dark suit, not a gray hair out of place, a wine-colored handkerchief in his breast pocket to match his tie, walked somberly to the podium. He looked down, studying his hands, it seemed, which he’d carefully placed there, maybe checking to see if the girl had trimmed his nails evenly before she’d coated them with clear polish. After more time than it took a Chihuahua to make all gone with a bowl of kibble, he began to speak, still not looking at his audience, a large group of mourners mostly in shades of black and gray, filling the seats of the flower-lined conference room.

“Putting the needs of others before his own, using his wealth for the benefit of the community, helping those who could not help themselves”—slowly, dramatically, he lifted his head, looking around at the attentive faces lined up before him—“
this
was Henry Knowlton Dietrich, tender caretaker, devoted husband, loyal brother, philanthropist.”

At that point a young man in the front row stood. The speaker came around to the side of the podium, bent his head to listen, then returned to his place and cleared his throat.

“Harry Knowlton Dietrich,” he said, “was, in everyone’s estimation, a good man.”

There was some throat clearing and a few coughs, people trying hard not to laugh.

Whoever the speaker was, he certainly hadn’t known Harry. Still, overcome with grief, he removed the handkerchief from his pocket, took off his aviator bifocals, and dabbed at his eyes.

“A life of giving, not of taking, a life of searching for answers, for others rather than himself, a life of devotion to the memory of his beloved sister,
this
was Harry Knowlton Dietrich.”

Feeling secure that I’d absorbed the pattern and the theme of the eulogy, enough so that if any of the relatives gave a pop quiz on the way out, I could pass it with flying colors, I tuned out the booming voice as best I could and began to look around the room. I was sitting in the last row, all the way to the left. From there I could see just about everyone in my half of the assembly.

The woman in the front row wearing designer mourning clothes, a dark gray suit with a pale gray blouse, was also dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief, only hers seemed to have a lace trim on it. She had to be Arlene Poole, Harry’s sister-in-law. At her left sat a thirty-something woman in a black cloche hat. I couldn’t see much of her face, but I could see the utter perfection of her blond hair and just about a thousand dollars worth of her pearl necklace. To Arlene’s right was her son, the young man who had corrected the speaker’s error, seated again now. A shock of his blond hair
kept falling into his eyes, and he’d periodically swing his head to knock it back into place. He didn’t have a handkerchief in his hands, but when he turned toward his mother to catch something she was whispering, I saw that his lips were pursed in annoyance. Hey, he might have given up a tennis date for this, and it wasn’t as if Uncle Harry could even appreciate, or reward, his sacrifice.

Or perhaps his lips were pursed for another reason. Perhaps Bailey Poole was impatient to inherit what would have been his had the original will not been superseded by a later version, a substantial amount of money—enough, I’d say, so that he’d never have to miss a tennis date again.

Of course, all was not lost. The new will left Bailey one of Harry’s cars, the beautiful racing green Jag that probably spent half its life at the shop getting its timing adjusted, but hey, you got a Jag, that’s to be expected. Which may be why Harry had several other cars.

Oddly enough, there had been no chauffeur waiting out front the last day that Harry had headed home, the day he was hit by a bicycle and never got to walk over to Fourteenth Street, hop on the subway, and ride to his apartment on the Upper East Side.

And Janice Poole, I wondered if her lips were pursed too. Instead of inheriting a trust fund that would let her spend her summers in France and might inspire her next husband, should there be one, to retire before he reached his fortieth birthday, Janice was getting some of the lovely antique furniture from Harry’s apartment, French pieces that might not even be to her taste.
C’est la vie.

But I didn’t think they knew that yet. Just as I didn’t think Eli Kagan knew what was in the new will. I was only sure that one other person here had read the will, the person who had hired me because she thought her life might be in dan
ger. A good guess from where I sat, still angry over her sin of omission.

I looked around for the Kagans, but I couldn’t see Samuel, so I assumed they were on the other side of the room. What would they be thinking if they knew what I knew? Even if all three of them turned out to be saints, I didn’t think they’d be particularly happy with the new arrangements for Harbor View, those putting Venus White in charge of operations, those requiring Eli Kagan, when he needed something, to have to get approval from a former employee.

The eulogy was coming to a crescendo, the stentorious voice even louder than it had been at the onset, the talk more about the eloquence of the speaker than the accomplishments of the deceased and, as far as I was concerned, much too annoying and much too long.

Everyone was standing, so I stood too, just hanging back as people went to give their condolences to Harry’s sister-in-law, his niece and nephew, and to say some kind words to the Kagan family as well. As the group thinned out, I walked up front. Venus was talking to Eli, and he was nodding, his face soft, his hands not around her throat. I was right. He hadn’t read the will.

Of course not. They would all read the will on Friday, sitting in Harry’s lawyer’s office, each, at last, with his or her own copy, discovering what Harry had done just days before he’d died. That was why the clock was ticking so fast: on Friday, they’d all find out. That’s what was scaring Venus.

I walked up to join her, and she introduced me to Eli, Samuel, and Nathan.

“We’ve met,” Samuel said, his face glistening with sweat the way it had been when he was trying to get the kids to sing along with him.

“I’m sorry I haven’t had the chance to welcome you before,” Eli said. “There’s so much to take care of now. I’ve been keeping irregular hours, sometimes not even coming in at all, just making phone calls from home.”

“I understand.”

“Venus tells me you’ve had some remarkable experiences with our residents already.”

He was short, like his former partner, and no youngster. I thought he was probably a few years older than Harry had been. But unlike his son Samuel, he had a grim face. When I looked at his eyes, I got nothing back but reflected light. And his lips, under a trimmed white brush of a mustache, were drawn. Hey, this was a funeral, what did I expect? But Samuel looked almost cheerful. And Nathan looked as if he were here in body only, his attention very far away. In fact, when I took a better look, his attention wasn’t that far away at all. It was only across the room, on the Poole family.

Nathan was taller than his father and his brother, heavier too, a mountain of a man. Perhaps his mother had been a large woman, more statuesque than her husband. And large boned.

He was dark, with even features, a long, straight nose, a lovely mouth. Perhaps his mother had been dark, with a lovely mouth. A cupid’s bow.

He began to smile. I thought he was finally going to say something to me, but he didn’t. I turned again and saw the Pooles approaching, the mother’s face a mask with the startled look and pointy chin that come from one or two too many face-lifts. Bailey was still pouting. Perhaps that was his normal expression. And Janice looked bored, as if there were dozens of places she could name where she’d rather be. As they got closer, something struck me as almost funny. Like her mother, Janice was wearing gray, a smart little suit
with a short, short skirt and black braid trimming along the neck and fronts of the collarless jacket. Her shoes were dark too, black kid, new and expensive looking. But her handbag was red, one of those designer things that cost more than the annual salary of people in third world countries. Perhaps it was as new as it looked, and she couldn’t bear to leave it home.

“Janice,” Nathan said. But she was fiddling with those pearls and didn’t seem to hear him.

Arlene was talking to Eli, and Samuel was talking to Bailey. I gave Nathan the old Kaminsky grin, thinking I could start a conversation. But he didn’t smile back.

“We have to talk,” Arlene was saying to Eli.

Perhaps that was what had snagged Nathan’s attention. He took a step closer to his father, both of them standing with their hands clasped in front of them, like ushers with no one to escort down the aisle.

“Of course, of course. Why don’t we have lunch?” Eli said.

Now it was Arlene’s turn at a
farbisen punim.
She seemed to pull her lips in so that they all but disappeared, but then she nodded. “Let’s do,” she said. “No sense waiting.”

“Mrs. Poole,” Samuel said, sweating and smiling, “this is Rachel Alexander. She’s doing pet therapy at Harbor View now, and—”

“I’m sure she is, dear,” Arlene said, never looking at me.

I looked at Bailey, who was flinging some hair out of his eyes. I wondered if I should tell him the good news, that someone had invented hair gel, but thought that perhaps this wasn’t the place for it.

Janice had opened her red purse and was fishing around inside. Perhaps she’d talk to me. After all, she looked to be about my age, give or take any work she might have had
done—cheek implants, dermabrasion, whatever. But that didn’t happen either. Anyway, Venus was pulling on the back of my jacket, trying in her subtle way to get me out of there.

“Let’s go,” she whispered to my back.

We said good-bye quickly, and I followed her out.

“They don’t seem close,” I said in the hallway.

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t get me started,” she said.

“Get started,” I said, as we headed down the stairs. “I have a job to do. I need information.”

Venus stopped and looked at me, as if that had never occurred to her.

“They’re the kind of rich people that give rich people a bad name, snobs without, in my humble opinion, anything about which to feel superior.”

Finished, she headed down the stairs and out to the street.

“Is that it?”

“Harry didn’t like them,” she said, “but he was always decent to them.”

“Well, they are his wife’s family.”

Suddenly Venus looked grim.

Or was that an angry look? Well, in that case, she had some company.

She walked up to the curb and stuck her arm up. As a cab pulled up, she turned back to me. “They weren’t exactly his favorite charity.” She opened the door and waited for me to get in first.

I knew that, I thought, sliding over to make room for Venus. In fact, I knew a lot more than that.

If Venus wasn’t telling me what she knew, perhaps I should be the one talking. It was high time
someone
gave out with some information. Besides, it was getting more and more difficult for me to contain myself.

Especially since Friday wasn’t all that far away.

I could barely keep my mouth shut until Venus closed the door and told the driver to head downtown, to Jane and West.

“What in hell’s name were you thinking,” I said, “hiring me and not giving me the information I need to do my job?”

Venus looked away.

“I have my reasons.”

“I
know
your reasons,” I told her, so angry I was trembling. “I know why you wanted me to find out who killed Harry by Friday.”

She turned and looked at me, then turned away again.

“We’ve got to talk.”

“Okay, Rachel. But we have to go someplace where no one will overhear us.”

“And where would that be?”

“Six six six Greenwich Street,” she told the driver.

“I don’t think so.” I shook my head. “Make that Hudson and Tenth,” I told him.

“Why?”

“Your phone at work is tapped. Can you assure me that your apartment isn’t bugged?”

“But how—”

“Harry’s is bugged, too. I couldn’t get into Eli’s office. Any bets on that one?”

She shook her head.

“How did you—?”

“Harry’s, through the window. It wasn’t locked.”

I thought about Jackson, out in the garden where he wasn’t supposed to be, but kept my mouth shut. Maybe the worst thing about being in an institution is that you have no secrets.

But then I thought the opposite was true at Harbor View. For people like Jackson and David, almost everything about them was a secret. Nonetheless, I kept the faith, at least for now.

“And my office? How’d you get in there?”

“Homer.”

She shot me a look.

“I said I had to call my boyfriend, and he let me use your phone.”

Venus nodded.

“When?” she asked, a moment later.

“Last night. I took Dashiell back to Harbor View a couple of hours after we spoke, worked with him for a while in the dining room, something to try in Samuel’s class, and then I decided that, since you weren’t telling me what I needed to know, I’d see if I could find out on my own. When you said you were going to see Harry’s lawyer, well, it didn’t take a genius to figure out where I’d find some of the
answers I was looking for. Turns out, I found more than I was banking on.”

We passed the Italian specialty shops on Ninth Avenue, then got caught up for a block or two in traffic for the Lincoln Tunnel and the Port Authority terminal. After that, we sailed downtown, neither of us speaking again until we were out of the cab.

“It’s right here,” I said, taking out my keys and unlocking the wrought iron gate. “With a little bit of luck, no one bugged my house. At least, not yet.”

Dashiell seemed relieved to see me. He sniffed Venus, then squeezed between us to get out into the garden, let the world at large know he was still a player.

We walked inside, and Venus sat on one side of the couch. I got two bottles of spring water from the fridge and joined her.

“Do you have an extra set of keys?” I asked her.

“Why?”

I sighed. “I’m a detective. I need to snoop.”

“At my—”

I waited.

Venus fished in her purse for her keys and dropped them into my hand.

“Twelve D,” she said.

“I left the bugs in at work. I don’t want whoever did this to know we know. I don’t want you to act funny in any way. We’ll have enough to handle on Friday, when they get to see the will.”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

“Then tell me. Everything, Venus. There’s no more time for cat and mouse.”

“I wasn’t playing cat and mouse with you, Rachel. And it’s not what you think.”

“Which is?”

“That I don’t trust you.”

I waited.

Venus waited, too.

“Venus, I don’t know what your thinking is—that the relatives will chip in and hire a hit man? What’s going to happen is that they’re going to contest the new will.”

“You are thorough.”

“Isn’t that what you’re paying for?”

She opened the water bottle and took a sip.

“They can’t contest it.”

“Why not?”

“We were married.”

That sat between us for a minute, stopping the conversation dead in its tracks.

“Venus, why didn’t you—”

“Tell? Tell Bailey and Janice that I was their auntie now? Tell Eli that for all intents and purposes I was his boss now? Tell you, Rachel, the first day? What would you have thought if I had told you right away that I’d married the rich old toad who’d just been killed, that he’d just made a new will, a week before the accident, that I was now director of operations and finances at the place where I’d been working for a modest salary? You would have figured it for true love, is that what you would have thought, no notions that I duped him somehow, got him to change his will, put me in charge? Tell me about it.”

I didn’t. I just sat there, waiting. Behind my back, I could hear Dashiell drinking in the kitchen, his tags clanging against the bowl.

“You might have wondered, was he seeing me before Marilyn died, maybe even before she got sick? It wasn’t like that, and I wouldn’t want anyone thinking that about Harry. Not anyone.

“Or you might have wondered if he was senile, doing something so crazy.”

She put the water bottle on my makeshift coffee table and wiped her eyes with the balls of her fingers.

“So you think the family might be upset?”

“It’s a possibility.”

“Figuring old Harry wouldn’t have married a recovering alcoholic black lady for love?”

“How did you—?”

“The first part, that you’re a recovering alcoholic? A pretty good guess, apparently. You’ve obviously got an addictive personality—the gym, the internet, even the way you talk about work and the kids. You said you were lonely. It wasn’t too big a leap.”

Venus nodded, putting her arms around herself as if she were cold.

“The second part, that you’re black? Observation. A result of my extensive professional training.”

Venus laughed. I think this was the third time I’d seen her do that, her thousand-watt smile staying in place, too. I smiled back.

I didn’t have any problem at all with Harry loving her. But I didn’t think my opinion would garner a lot of support, not from Harry’s family, not from the Kagans, not from the cops either.

“We’re in deep shit, aren’t we?”

“Thigh high,” I said.

“What’s your plan?”

“Other than running for the hills?”

Venus nodded.

“I’m going over to your apartment, check the phones.”

“How would someone have gotten in there?”

“Depends how this was done.”

“What do you mean?”

“These people who are going to be mad at you—”

“To say the least.”

“Some of them have got a lot of money. They could have hired someone. You can always get into someone’s apartment, with the gift of gab or a good set of picks.”

“But they don’t have as much money as you might think. With the Pooles, it’s all on their backs. Arlene’s a widow. She wasn’t left all that much, enough to live on, not enough to live the way she thinks she ought to, the way her sister was able to. She’s been supplemented by Harry for a long time.”

“Why, if he—”

“His wife. It made her feel guilty that she could go to Palm Beach, and Arlene couldn’t.”

“What about Bailey and Janice?”

“Snotty little leeches.”

“Is that your opinion or Harry’s?”

She didn’t say.

“Did Harry support them, too?”

“Bailey keeps starting degrees, then dropping out. He’d rather gamble than study. Harry bailed him out of debt lord knows how many times, always at Marilyn’s insistence. But he recently told him that the last time was just that, the last time. He said he wasn’t going to do it again, that if Bailey got himself into debt, he could just get himself out. He told him to get a job. He even offered him one, busboy at Harbor View.”

“Oh, that must have gone over big. So, did he get a job?”

“Please.”

“And his sister?”

“Recently divorced. Unemployed. No time to work, what with the time it takes nowadays to accumulate material possessions.”

“Credit card debt?”

“Probably. But it’s just a guess. We’re not exactly bosom buddies.”

“All that shopping can be very time-consuming.”

“Yeah, it really cuts into your workday. Anyway, she gets alimony. Women like that always do. But not enough. It never is.”

“Still, it doesn’t cost
that
much to hire someone to do your dirty work. People like that, I wonder if they do anything for themselves.”

“But why, Rachel? Why would they bug the phones?”

“That’s one of the things I don’t know yet. Any ideas?”

“It depends. Was Harry’s death a result of eavesdropping? Or did the eavesdropping come afterward?”

“Good question.”

“But you don’t know the answer yet?”

I shook my head. “No. I don’t. Not that I’m complaining,” I told her, “but I’ve been working with a bit of a handicap. My client was keeping me in the dark.”

“I’m sorry, Rachel. But—”

“No time for that now. I have to get over to your place, then Dashiell and I have to get to Harbor View for Samuel’s class. I know you wanted answers before Friday, Venus, but the most telling thing might be what happens when the heirs read the will. Any way I can be there?”

“I don’t know how. I’ll call the lawyer. Maybe he can think of something.”

“Okay. But don’t call from your work phone. And unless I tell you it’s okay, don’t call from your home phone. In fact, it wouldn’t hurt for you to pick up a cell phone today, use that until we have this figured out. That way, if you need to reach me, you can. And we’ll still meet at five-thirty, on the treadmills.”

“Have to. I’m addicted.”

She smiled again, but I could see the exhaustion behind it and wished I could tell her everything would be okay, that in no time Janice and Bailey would be calling her Aunt Venus, inviting her for Thanksgiving dinner, feeling blessed to have her in the family.

“Okay, let’s get moving,” I said instead. “Keep your eyes and ears open, Venus, tell me anything you hear that might relate, no matter how trivial. Oh, and can you get me a key for Eli’s office? I couldn’t think up a lie that would get me in there last night, and I couldn’t go in through the window once Homer had invited me to tea.”

“It’s on the key ring I gave you. But be careful. Eli’s a workaholic, comes in early, stays late, comes back at night sometimes. Three in the morning, he thinks of something he wants to do in the office, he takes the subway back from Brooklyn, gets a jump on the day. It’s his life, the only thing he cares about. I’ve found him there in the morning, sleeping on his couch, too tired to truck back to Brooklyn after working late. With Eli, you can never be sure what his schedule will be.”

“I’ll be careful. Maybe we can get to the bottom of this
before
Friday.”

I walked Venus out so that I could lock the gate behind her. She stopped and looked around the garden.

“This is lovely,” she said.

And that’s when I began to wonder about something else.

“Venus, how come Harry didn’t leave you any money, or his apartment, anything tangible?”

“I wouldn’t let him,” she said. “Harry was worried sick about Harbor View. Eli and his sons are devoted to it, but none of them has the experience of running it. The unwritten agreement was that if anything happened to Harry, Eli
would take over. It makes no sense to assume he could, but that was so long ago, Harry didn’t give it that much thought. It was something far away in the future, and in the beginning, he was so ecstatic to get Eli to join him in this, that’s all he cared about. When you think about it, it’s ridiculous. Eli’s talent is with the kids, reaching them, comforting them, finding activities that help them to function better, creating an atmosphere that’s safe for them, in which they can flourish. No one would have expected Harry to have been able to take over Eli’s role had Eli died first. So why should it be so the other way around?

“The fact is, I’ve been doing a great deal of this all along. I’m not only familiar with what Harry did, I’ve always done a lot of it. Harry wasn’t always around, and even when he was, he was a busy man, into other things as well, though Harbor View is where his heart was.

“Harry convinced me that I was the one who could best keep Harbor View going in the way he’d been able to. When he was alive, when he was saying it, it seemed so logical. And neither of us thought this would come up so soon. He was seventy-four, but he was a vigorous man. We didn’t think this would be an issue for years and years.”

“Did Eli know you managed the money?”

Venus looked down. “Not really.”

“Not really?”

“I don’t believe Harry ever mentioned it.”

“Which means what, Venus?”

“That he thought Eli would be insulted that he trusted me and not him. But Eli isn’t a money person.”

“What about his sons?”

“Samuel is just like his father. He’s totally devoted to the kids, and just as naive about business. Nathan probably thinks he could run Harbor View because of his fund-raising experi
ence. And he has raised money for us, mostly finding backers for specific projects. But none of Harry’s decisions were made purely on the basis of return on the dollar. The welfare of the kids was always most important to him. He was funny, Rachel. He wouldn’t bat an eye about spending thousands on equipment, anything they needed. But if he was around at night, he’d go around shutting off lights to save money. I had to convince him that leaving the garden light on was a safety factor. He used to shut it off after the kids went to bed.”

“And Nathan—Harry thought he wouldn’t be able to handle the money the way he did, the way you do?”

“Well, no. Despite Harry’s stingy quirks, he always put the kids first. He thought Nathan was too bottom-line. That’s the phrase he used. Too bottom-line. It’s a different generation, he used to say. People of that age tend to be—”

“What?”

“More self-centered. More materialistic.”

“Some people. Not everyone. Maybe he was judging too much by his niece and nephew.”

“Maybe.”

“You’re not like that.”