My Gal Sunday (5 page)

For the first time since she had entered the office, Sunday noticed, Alfred Barker was at a loss for words.

Thomas Acker Shipman had not been pleased to receive the call from Marvin Klein, Henry Britland’s aide, informing him of the president’s request that he delay the plea-bargaining process. What is the use? Shipman wondered, disgruntled by not being able to get on with it. It was inevitable that he would have to go to jail, and he just wanted to get it over with. Besides, this house already had taken on the aspects of a prison. Once the plea-bargaining was finished, the media would have a surge of interest in him, but then he would be dropped and they would be on to another poor slob. A sixty-five-year-old man going to prison for ten or fifteen years didn’t remain hot copy for long.

The only thing that keeps them churning so much, he thought as he once again peered out at the mass of reporters still camped outside his house, is the speculation about whether or not I’ll go to trial. Once that’s been resolved, and it’s clear that I’m taking my medicine without putting up a fight, they’ll lose interest.

His housekeeper, Lillian West, had arrived promptly at eight o’clock that morning. He had hoped to discourage her coming today by putting on the safety chain, but apparently all he succeeded in doing was in making her more determined than ever to get in. When her key did not gain her entrance, she had pushed the doorbell firmly and called his name until he let her in. “You need taking care of, whether you think so or not,” she had said, sharply brushing aside the objection he had voiced yesterday, that he didn’t want her private life invaded by the media, and that, in fact, he really did prefer to be left alone.

And so she had gone about her usual daily chores, cleaning rooms that he would never again get to live in, and fixing meals for which he had no appetite. Shipman watched her as she moved about the house. Lillian was a handsome woman, an excellent housekeeper, and a
cordon bleu
cook, but her overly bossy tendencies occasionally made him wistfully remember Dora, the housekeeper who had been with him and Connie for some twenty years. So what if she had sometimes burned the bacon, she had always been a pleasant fixture in their home.

Also, Dora had been of the old school, while Lillian clearly believed in the equality of the employee to the employer. Nevertheless, Shipman realized that for the short time he would be in the house before going to prison, he could manage to put up with Lillian’s takeover attitude. He would just make the best of it by trying to enjoy the creature comforts of delicious meals and properly served wine.

Recognizing that he could not cut himself off completely from the outside world, and acknowledging that he actually needed to be available to his lawyer, Shipman had turned on the telephone answering machine and had begun taking calls, although screening out those that weren’t necessary. When he heard Sunday’s voice, however, he gladly picked up the phone.

“Tommy, I’m in the car and on my way to your house from Yonkers,” Sunday explained. “I want to talk to your housekeeper. Is she in today, and if not, do you know where I can reach her?”

“Lillian is here.”

“Wonderful. Don’t let her leave until I have had a chance to visit with her. I should be there in about an hour.”

“I can’t imagine what she’ll be able to tell you that the police haven’t already heard.”

“Tommy, I’ve just talked with Arabella’s boyfriend. He knew of her plan to extort money from you, and from what he said, I gather that it was a stunt that she had pulled on at least one other person. We’ve got to find out who that person was. It’s entirely possible that someone followed Arabella to your house that night, and we hope that when Lillian left she might have seen something — a car, maybe — that didn’t seem significant at the time but could prove to be important. The police never really investigated any other possible suspects, and since Henry and I are convinced that you didn’t do it, we’re going to sniff around for them. So buck up! It ain’t over till it’s over.”

Shipman hung up and turned to see Lillian West standing in the doorway to his study. Obviously she had been listening to his conversation. Even so, he smiled pleasantly. “Mrs. Britland is on her way here to talk to you,” he said. “She and the president seem to feel that I may not be guilty of killing Arabella after all and are doing some sleuthing on their own. They have a theory that might prove to be very helpful to me, and that’s what she wants to speak to you about.”

“That’s wonderful,” Lillian West said, her voice flat and her tone chilly. “I can’t wait to talk to her.”

Sunday’s next call was to Henry, on his plane. They exchanged reports on what they had learned so far, he from the countess and she from Alfred Barker. After Sunday’s revelation about Arabella’s habit of blackmailing the men she dated, she added a cautionary note: “The only problem with all this is that no matter who else might have wanted to kill Arabella, proving that that person walked into Tommy’s house undetected, loaded the gun that happened to be lying there, and then pulled the trigger is going to be difficult.”

“Difficult maybe, but not impossible,” Henry said by way of reassurance. “I’ll get Marvin started right away on checking out Arabella’s last places of employment, and maybe he can find out who she might have been involved with there.”

After saying good-bye to Sunday, Henry sat back to ponder what he had just learned about Arabella’s past He felt a strong sense of unease, but he couldn’t quite put it together. He had a growing premonition that something was wrong, but he couldn’t put his finger on just what it was.

He leaned back in the swivel chair that was his favorite spot on the plane, other than the flight deck. It was something Sunday had said, he decided, but what was it? With almost total recall, he reviewed their conversation. Of course, he said to himself when he reached that point in his recollection, it was Sunday’s observation about the difficulty in trying to prove that some unknown person had walked into Tommy’s house, loaded the pistol, and pulled the trigger.

That was it! It didn’t have to be an outsider. There was one person who
could
have done that, who knew that Tommy felt both sick and overwhelmingly tired, who knew that Arabella was there, who in fact had let her
in. The housekeeper!

She was relatively new. Chances are that Tommy hadn’t really had her checked out, probably didn’t know much of anything about her.

Quickly, Henry phoned Countess Condazzi. Let her still be home, he prayed silently. When her now-familiar voice answered, he wasted no time in getting to the point of his call: “Betsy, did Tommy ever say anything to you about his new housekeeper?”

She hesitated before answering. “Well, yes, but only jokingly.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, you know how it is,” she responded. “There are so many women in their fifties and sixties who are unattached, but there are so few men. When I spoke to Tommy last — it was the morning of the day that poor girl was killed — I said I had a dozen friends who are widowed or divorced who would be jealous because of his interest in me, and that if he showed up clown here, he would be the center of attention. I remember that he said that except for me, he intended to steer clear of unattached women, and that, in fact, he had just had a most unpleasant experience in this regard.” She paused before continuing. “It seems that only that morning he had told his new housekeeper that he was putting his house on the market and would be moving to Palm Beach. He confided to her that he was finished with Arabella because someone else had become important to him. Later, when he was thinking back over the conversation and her reaction to it, he realized that the housekeeper may have gotten the crazy idea that he had meant
her.
So he made a special point of informing her that, of course, he would not need her services once the house was sold and, naturally, would not be taking her with him to Florida. He recounted that she at first had seemed shocked and then had become cool and distant.” Again the countess paused, then gasped, “Goodness, you don’t think she could have had anything to do with this mess Tommy’s in, do you?”

“I’m afraid I’m beginning to, Betsy,” Henry replied. “Look, I’ll get back to you. I’ve got to get my man on this right away.” He broke the connection and swiftly dialed Marvin Klein. “Marvin,” he said. “I’ve got a hunch about Secretary Shipman’s housekeeper, Lillian West. Do a complete cheek on her. Immediately.”

Marvin Klein did not like to break the law as he would be doing by penetrating private computer records, but he knew that when his boss said “Immediately,” the matter had to be urgent.

It was only a matter of minutes before he had assembled a dossier on fifty-six-year-old Lillian West, including her rather extensive record of traffic violations and, more to the point, her employment history. Marvin frowned as he began to read. West was a college graduate, had an M.A., and had taught home economics at a number of colleges, the last one being Wren College in New Hampshire. Then, six years ago, she had left there and taken a job as a housekeeper.

Since then she had held four different positions. Her references — citing her punctuality, her high standard of work, and her cooking ability — were good but not enthusiastic. Marvin decided to check on them himself.

Less than a half hour after Henry’s call, Marvin was on the phone to the former president, who was still winging his way back from Florida. “Sir, the records indicate that Lillian West, while employed in various college-level teaching positions, had a history of troubled relationships with her superiors. Six years ago she left her last teaching job and went to work as a housekeeper for a widower in Vermont. He died ten months later, apparently of a heart attack. She then went to work for a divorced executive, who unfortunately died within the year. Before she went to work for Secretary Shipman, her employer was an eighty-year-old millionaire; he fired her but gave her a good reference nonetheless. I spoke to him. He said that while Ms. West was an excellent housekeeper and cook, she also was quite presumptuous and seemed to put no stock in the more traditional relationship between the head of the house and the housekeeper. In fact, he said that it was when he became aware that she had set her mind on marrying him that he decided she would have to go, and shortly after that he showed her the door.”

“Did this man report ever having any health problems?” Henry asked quietly as he absorbed the possibilities that were presented by Lillian West’s troubled history.

“I did think to ask him that, sir. He said that he is in robust health now, but that during the last several weeks of Ms. West’s employment, specifically after he had given her notice, he experienced extreme fatigue, followed by an undiagnosed illness that culminated in pneumonia.”

Tommy had spoken of a heavy cold and overwhelming fatigue. Henry’s hand gripped the phone. “Good job, Marvin. Thanks.”

“Sir, I’m afraid there’s more. According to the records, Ms. West’s hobby is hunting, and apparently she is very familiar with guns. Finally, I spoke to the president of Wren College, where she had her last teaching job. As he remembered it, Ms. West was forced to resign. He said that she had displayed symptoms of being deeply disturbed but refused all attempts at counseling.”

Henry ended the conversation with his aide as a wave of anxiety swept over him. Sunday was on her way right now to see Lillian West, totally unaware of any of the background Marvin had uncovered. She would unwittingly alert the housekeeper to the fact that they were looking into the very strong possibility that someone other than Thomas Shipman had murdered Arabella Young. There was no telling how the woman might react. Henry’s hand had never shaken even at summit meetings, but right now his fingers could barely punch the numbers to reach Sunday’s car phone.

Secret Service agent Art Dowling answered. “We’re at Secretary Shipman’s place now, sir. Mrs. Britland is inside.”

“Get her,” Henry snapped. “Tell her I
must
speak to her.”

“Right away, sir.”

Several minutes passed before Agent Dowling was back on the phone. “Sir, there may be a problem. We’ve rung the doorbell repeatedly, but no one is answering.”

Sunday and Tommy sat side by side on the leather couch in the library, staring into the muzzle of a revolver. Opposite them, Lillian West sat erect and steady as she held the gun. The persistent pealing of the front doorbell did not seem to distract her.

“Your palace guard, no doubt,” she said sarcastically.

The woman is crazy, Sunday thought as she stared into the housekeeper’s wild eyes. She’s crazy and she’s desperate. She knows she has nothing to lose by killing us, and she is just nuts enough to do it.

Sunday thought next of the Secret Service agents waiting outside. Art Dowling and Clint Carr were with her today. What would they do when no one answered the door? They’d probably force their way in, she reasoned. And when they do, she will shoot Tommy and me, she thought, her level of alarm increasing. I know she will.

“You have everything,” Lillian West said to Sunday, her eyes fixed on her prisoner, her voice low and angry. “You’re beautiful, you’re young, you’ve got an important job, and you’re married to a rich and attractive man. Well, I just hope that you have enjoyed the time you’ve had with him.”

“Yes, I have,” Sunday said calmly. “He is a wonderful man and husband, and I want more time with him,”

“Too bad, but that’s not going to happen, and it’s your fault. This wouldn’t be necessary if you’d just let well enough alone. What difference would it make if he” — Lillian West paused, her eyes cutting momentarily to Tommy — “if he went to prison? He’s not worth your trouble. He’s no good. He tricked me. He lied to me. He promised to take me to Florida. He was going to marry me.” She paused again, this time turning her full glare on the former secretary of state. “Of course, he wasn’t as rich as the others, but he has enough to get by. I’ve gone through all his papers here and I know.” A smile played on her lips. “And he’s nicer than the others, too. I liked that especially. We could have been very happy.”