Natural Suspect (2001) (23 page)

"Well, I
would
have worked. I've always wanted to. But Daddy never wanted us to work. He liked having the family under his thumb. You didn't know him like we did."

"Well, I knew him for a stubborn man," Rutledge murmured. "I'm sorry it's turned out this way, really I am." And he was sorry he'd doubted her, too. His informers had suspected that Marilyn was the murderer. That is, until Joe's severed hand turned up. Then he'd known a wider conspiracy was involved. The O. He glanced at his watch. He'd received a call from his "facilitators." As usual they'd made a mess of it. Paying for the cleanup would no doubt be expensive. Those guys just couldn't do anything the normal way. A simple assignment for them had to be complicated by ski masks and pistols shot into the air. They so loved crashing through windows, chasing people down fire escapes and pulling them out of their cars. Mafioso wannabes. So childish. All he wanted was to talk to them. Still, the job was done, and Trent and that defense lawyer, Devin, would be here soon. He was not sorry Marilyn would be with him when they arrived.

"Mummy wasn't always so completely wasted," Marilyn was saying. "She was a good mummy when we were little. Really. She used to car
e a
bout all sorts of things. The ecology. Global warming. Do you mind?" She finally located the cigarettes at the bottom of her purse and held up the pack.

"No, no, of course not," Rutledge murmured. With a manicured finger, he pushed across the table a large crystal ashtray that had never been sullied by an ash. Until this second he'd loathed smokers.

"Mummy used to take care of us herself before she got so bitter. Most women do better with this kind of thing these days. Men can be such rats."

"I'm so sorry," Rutledge murmured again, thinking he wasn't a rat.

"I hated her for drinking." Marilyn had trouble with her lighter, so Rutledge took it out of her hand and leaned forward in his club chair to light the Benson & Hedges that wobbled between her fingers. Their knees touched, and the meltdown continued.

"I feel terrible that Morgan and I sided with you in the takeover." Marilyn inhaled deeply, saw him wince, and immediately put out the cigarette.

And she was
thoughtful.
"Marilyn, you have nothing to reproach yourself for." Robert found himself looking at her with awe. Marilyn Hightower in a state of terror, sorry about her mother and worried about her brother, was as irresistible to him as she had been unappealing to him before. Marilyn Hightower rumpled and weeping, coming to him for consolation and advice. The girl whom he'd pegged as a block of ice, who'd slept her way through the upper and lower ends of society just for the sheer fun of it, was certainly softened now. As a cold and calculating tart, she'd been nothing to him but an object of contempt. But now he could see he'd underestimated her. He hadn't known a thing about the real woman.

"Oh, I do reproach myself. We did it for business, just the way Daddy did. Daddy hurt people all the time with his little business tricks. Price-fixing oil. Cornering the market in tin or whatever it was. Well, that's pretty bad, isn't it, when you think about it?"

"It all depends on the context," Rutledge murmured.

"Oh?" Marilyn glanced at the crushed cigarette with regret.

He shrugged again. "AT&T, Bell Atlantic, Microsoft, IBM in the past, Sotheby's. The railroads. The banks, the steel fortunes. Hotel chains. Airlines. Monopoly is America's favorite game both in the drawing room and in real life. Shutting Hightower down only opens the door for others to organize. Hightower and the rest of the oil companies are nothing compared to the Arab interests. They have our whole country in a twist. Perhaps the State Department will have something to say about this. They're not supposed to murder, you know." He lifted his shoulder. Business was hell.

Marilyn's tears came again. "I never thought Morgan would kill anyone. I never thought Mummy would be accused." She swiped at her lovely eyes with the handkerchief. Rutledge wondered if he could take her hand. Maybe in a minute.

"You should have come to me with all this sooner," he said.

"I suspected you were with the bad guys, Robert. You were having me followed, after all." She blew her nose and gave him the knowing look of the old Marilyn.

He coughed again. "It doesn't do to underestimate the players," he told her gently.

"So it
was
you." Her clear-eyed glance cut through him. "I've been sold down the river," she cried.

"Marilyn, who killed your father?"

"I'm sure you thought I did. I certainly thought
you
did." Marilyn put her hand to her brow. "My pearls were the ones found in Daddy's hand. They weren't Julia's at all." She swallowed hard. "And Trent persuaded me to let them indict Mummy to flush out the real killer."

Rutledge nodded. "Yes, so you said."

"I'm scared." Marilyn trembled. "I don't know why I agreed to put Mummy in such jeopardy."

"Who, Marilyn? Tell me."

"Sissy." Marilyn whispered finally, glancing around fearfully as if the room might be bugged.

"Sissy? Morgan's wife?"

"She's really weird, Robert. She carries a gun." Marilyn's eyes circuited the room again. "And that 'dumb tart' thing is just an act."

Rutledge nodded again. The "dumb tart" thing was an act with many women, Marilyn included. He was learning the hard way. But he did know of Sissy's sex shop.

"Now, with Daddy's death and your takeover, Sissy stands to inherit hundreds of millions with Morgan. The problem is, he plans to divorce her."

"Does he know she's the killer?"

Marilyn shook her head. "I don't know what he knows. But I heard her screaming at him, having a
complete
freak-out."

"Why?"

"Morgan was having an affair with Cordelia. They'd been together for years. I wouldn't be surprised if he was secretly
married
to Cordelia. He'd only had that ridiculous ceremony with Sissy to infuriate Daddy. Morgan has no idea who Sissy is."

Rutledge's body tensed. "Are you talking about my Cordelia?"

" Your
Cordelia?" Marilyn snorted. "More like anybody's Cordelia. The first time I saw Cordelia she was doing it with Daddy. On the
Silver Girl V, of
course. The woman likes the water."

"The Cordelia who works for me?" Rutledge was astounded. Here was something he didn't know.

"The very same. Cordelia is the mother of Morgan's baby."

"Cordelia has a
baby
?" Rutledge scratched his head in wonder. And he'd thought he screened his employees so well. "How do you know this?" he asked.

"I like the water, too, Robert. People at the Commodore are my friends. I know Mummy took off from there. So did Morgan. I'll probably never see poor Mummy again. Maybe she intends to sink the yacht." More tears for Julia.

"Why don't you tell the police all this, Marilyn?"

"Sissy
is
the police. She killed my daddy. If we don't stop her she'll certainly kill Morgan for cheating her out of the big money. The man who killed Joe is with the police, too. And somebody persuaded Morgan to dump his body in the river, probably Cordelia. Some detective with a hook is investigating. Have you noticed how weak th
e i
nvestigation is? The whole police involvement is missing a limb. Trent Ballard is with the D
. A
.'s office. And you've probably known this all along." Finally Marilyn accused him straight out.

It was very late now, and Rutledge was breathing hard. He was glad that Marilyn had finally come to him. He marveled at her brains. This girl had wasted her talents on flirtation with nobodies. She should be in his organization. She should be a CEO. She should be his wife if she would have him. Her skills in detection were better than his thousand-dollar-a-day detectives. He was in wonderment at her. He wanted to embrace Marilyn and propose to her on the spot, but the phone rang before he had a chance.

He picked up on the first ring. "Rutledge." Then he listened for a moment and his face paled.

"Who is this? Oh, my God." When he hung up he said gently, "Morgan's dead. I'm so sorry."

At last he had the honor of Marilyn completely collapsing in his arms.

In the hospital
, Patrick's teeth were chattering again. He may have sounded like the parody of a wooden puppet manifesting fear, but he was no longer fearful. He was a man now. He had a woman to comfort and a job to do, and he wanted to get on with it. And he was stuck in a treatment room with his clothes off. Chatter, chatter, he couldn't get the words to freedom out of his mouth.

A few short days ago he'd had ten toes and a nothing occupation that paid him close to zip. He'd longed to be a reporter. He'd had no dates since he couldn't remember when. Thirty-one years old, and the extent of Patrick Roswell's kicks in life had been hamburgers and drinks at Sweeney's. He admitted it. He'd been a wimp and a wuss and only dared to kiss the girl of his dreams in the Taurus because their cover was about to be blown. Then, right after the kiss, she'd sent him off into the night, like the true hero he was, to face certain death with dignity. Love was so fleeting.

He'd lived, if not exactly triumphed. He still had no job and onl
y n
ine toes, but he was lucky he wasn't missing any other body parts, considering the fact that Joe Kellogg had lost both his hand and his head, and the rest of him was nothing but fish food in the East River. If there were any fish in the East River. Maybe the eels were eating his bits. Somewhere he'd read that eels were the only thing that could survive in such pollution. He'd have to look it up someday. What a story this was going to make!

Patrick had thought he'd never get the feeling of Devin's kiss, or the image of Joe Kelloggs head escaping from the ice chest, out of his head. But then he'd suffered a forced visit into the murky deep himself. The river water was so frigid at this time of the year it had almost stopped his heart. Patrick knew the taste of torture and terror. He'd had a near-death experience and the sweet agony of a return to life through the magnificent power of passionate physical love. Julia's and his. Perfect in its nuttiness and brevity. When he persuaded her to return to court and reveal everything she didn't even know she knew, he'd felt he was saving her very soul. Such experiences didn't happen every day.

He couldn't help composing the story for Devin and the world. He'd reveal it in all its deadly facets. To die and live again. To see a woman of Julia's caliber lose her son. Story upon story he had to tell.

Julia had given Patrick the clothes of her dead husband, Arthur. Arthur had been a large and beefy man. His togs, all cashmere, linen, and silk, hadn't fit Patrick. But Patrick had been warmed by them, and now they were gone. He was stuck in a treatment room, shivering and shaking while two doctors who looked twelve years old stood around him shaking their heads over his various injuries, including the missing toe, which seemed to baffle them.

"How'd you lose that toe?" asked the taller of the two.

"Ba Ba Ba," chatter, chatter, chatter. Patrick had to get out of there and find Devin.

He was bundled up in electric blankets. It was not as pleasant as being in Julia's berth, but pretty toasty nevertheless. An IV was stuck in a vein in his hand. His eyelids fluttered. Still, with the doctors hanging over him like that, demanding information, it was a lot like being with that clown the toe cutter. It occurred to him that maybe they weren't really doctors. Maybe they were more clowns in doctor suits. He was hallucinating. Where was Julia? Where was Devin? "Dont touch me," he screamed, but only in his head.

"Gotta go," he managed to get out. "Gimme my clothes." He had to tell Devin about Morgan and Cordelia. About Morgans throwing Joes remains in the river. And also how he almost died before finding himself and writing the book that would win him a Pulizer prize. And of course before telling her she was the one he loved. Before telling about . . . Julias magnificent sacrifice in saving him! Patricks eyes popped open. He'd never tell Devin or anybody else about those brief, perfect moments with Julia! Never tell, never ... his eyes drooped again. He was lost in author's dreamland, busy writing the story that would make his career.

Julia Hightower
sat
in a turquoise molded plastic chair in the ER's waiting room at Long Island General Hospital bowed with grief. The sharp mind that had clung to anesthesia as the therapy of choice for too many years was awakening. Patrick Roswell (the momentary aberration who had sobered her up as nothing else ever had) was off somewhere being treated for insanity as well as hypothermia. He thought he was Truman Capote. So sad.

Lined up across the back wall of the room, flanking the sliding doors and all other exits, a whole regiment of police were blocking her escape. They should be treated for madness as well. They were acting as if she were Bonnie and Clyde rolled into one, had managed to kill her own son as well as her husband and any second would try to make a getaway so she could kill some more. She shivered at the very thought.

Her phone call to Devin had yielded an answering machine message and no reply as yet. She'd been told that her daughter had been located and was on her way. There was nothing left to do but wait. Julia was hungry but didn't recognize the feeling as the need for food. Her head ached. She would give her whole fortune for a chance to replay the family's last fatal reunion. She glanced up, searching for Marilyn, her last living relative, but saw only detectives. They were odd-looking men. One had a hook instead of an arm. He'd already tried to question her about the death of her son, but she wasn't going to be an active participant in her own destruction any longer. Julia was sober and angry enough now to keep her mouth zipped shut. She needed help this time. She wasn't blabbing to the enemy. Waves of grief and rage lashed at her.