One Dangerous Lady (19 page)

 

Chapter 21

A
s is often the case in New York, another scandal got my mind off my own problems. Dick Bromire was found guilty by a jury of his “poorer peers,” as Betty Waterman said. Dick's lawyers made a brief statement before the television cameras, saying that they would immediately appeal. I spoke to Trish afterward. She was keeping up a brave front.

“The dogs are barking, Jo, but the caravan will move on,” she said with disconcerting cheer, prompting me to think she had upped her dosage of Prozac.

The verdict hit our little set like a Scud missile. The ever tasteful tabloids featured huge blowups of Dick's beefy face, with the word “guilty” perched atop his head like a crown of thorns. All the speculation now was about how much time he would have to spend in jail and how rich he would be when he got out. Would he still keep his plane and helicopter? was the burning question on everyone's lips. And though the foul odor of his conviction had some hostesses turning up their noses at him, others remained noncommittal or even sympathetic. They were keeping their options open, remembering how generous Dick had been, and also bearing in mind that he might one day again be in a position to provide them with private air transportation.

The hard facts were that Dick faced a minimum jail term of ten months and a maximum of three years. If he was sentenced to over two years, he might have to go to a real prison, as opposed to one of the regimented country clubs white-collar criminals usually found themselves in—the ones the “jail facilitators” favored. Sentencing was in two months, assuming the appeal did not delay it.

“Forget synthetic antidepressants,” Betty told Trish. “Jo and I will give you a large dose of that ladies' homeopathic stress remedy called shopping!”

In Trish Bromire's case, shopping meant spending money on variants of clothes and jewels she already owned many times over. Trish adored spending money, but she was so distraught about the verdict that even trying on shoes, clothes, and jewelry couldn't cheer her up. Then Betty suggested we all drop into Gil's gallery where we could get Trish to agonize over some really expensive art, and thus forget her problems, if only for one haggling afternoon.

The Waterman Gallery was an unmarked limestone townhouse in the East Seventies, right across the street from Gil and Betty's house. It looked just like all the other houses. If you didn't know about it, you would easily walk by its pretty, classical façade, failing to notice that the wrought-iron bars on the windows were sturdier than average, and that there were at least two security cameras—one above the front door and one perched on a second-story ledge. Gil didn't want browsers, he wanted buyers, serious ones: i.e., people who were rich enough not to quibble over millions. Betty referred to some of her husband's best customers as “million wise, billion foolish.” The gallery was one of the hidden treasures of New York—accessible only to those who knew about it.

Betty rang the doorbell and we were met by Tory Wells, one of Gil's assistants, a tall, fresh-faced young blonde with a frisky, coltish air about her. Tory was the quintessential all-American girl. Wearing pearls and a sleeveless black dress that showed off her broad shoulders and long, lean legs to advantage, she spoke with the kind of drawl that reflects a privileged East Coast upbringing. She was also, according to Betty, a whiz with a Ph.D. in art history who spoke four languages fluently—including Japanese—and who Gil's male clients adored.

It was Gil's contention that, great art notwithstanding, it was always helpful to have smart, attractive women around to help sell the product. The fact that Betty was never threatened by any of these bright, attractive staffers was a testament either to the strength of her marriage or to her own self-confidence, or both. Ever since my late husband had betrayed me so completely, however, I was more suspicious of men and their secret lives.

“So nice to see you, Mrs. Waterman,” Tory Wells said, aiming her charm-braceleted hand at Betty like it was a gun.

“Hello, dear,” Betty said curtly. “Where's my husband?”

“He's in the basement with a client,” the young woman said. “The Tiepolo.”

“The Tiepolo . . . well, well, well,” Betty said knowingly. “Let's go see him, shall we?”

The basement was where Gil Waterman kept old stock, as well as paintings that were too big to display in the gallery. The four of us crammed into the small, old-fashioned elevator. On the way down Betty explained that Gil had acquired a massive Tiepolo painting, but that it was so big and so expensive that he had not yet found a buyer.

The brass-gate door of the elevator opened onto a huge, windowless space, aglow with cold, gray fluorescent lighting, lined with vertical wooden racks into which framed paintings of all shapes and sizes had been slotted.

“They're in the viewing area,” Tory said, leading the way across the rough cement floor to a gray metal door at the end of the vast room.

Tory opened the door, and believe me when I say that if I'd seen Gil Waterman on the floor screwing one of his assistants, I couldn't have been more stunned by the sight that greeted me. There were Gil, Ethan Monk, and Carla Cole standing in front of an unframed canvas, so enormous that only half of it was visible. The other half was rolled up on the floor.

“Betty, Jo, Trish,” Gil said, stepping forward to greet us. “What a nice surprise. This must be old home week.”

I hadn't seen Carla since my party. She immediately walked over and gave me an air-kiss, moving right along to Betty, then Trish.

“Trish, darling,” she said, taking both of Trish's hands in hers, “I was simply devastated to hear about poor Dick. But darling, you will get through it, I promise you. Look at me.”

Ethan sidled over to me. “So what do you think of it?”

“I take it you're referring to the painting,” I said sourly.

“Huh? What else?” Ethan said, uncomprehending. There were times when Ethan's choir boy naïveté infuriated me.

We all paused to study the Tiepolo painting: a mythological scene of Poseidon surrounded by nymphs and sea creatures. Gil crossed his arms in front of him and stared at the majestic canvas with the look of a proud father.

“I bought it straight off the wall of a Venetian palazzo. It's unquestionably the finest Tiepolo in private hands, right, Ethan?”

“It's just remarkable,” Ethan said.

Carla said, “What do you think, ladies? Do you like it?”

“Don't ask me, I'm prejudiced,” Betty said.

Trish, whose eclectic taste ran more toward modern and contemporary art, said, “I think it's nice. It's big. And there certainly are a lot of fish.”

Carla turned to me. “Jo . . . what do you think? You have such impeccable taste.”

“I've always trusted Ethan's judgment,” I said.

“But would you buy it?” she asked.

Gil shot me an anxious glance. So did Ethan.

“Probably. If I lived in a warehouse. It's enormous.”

“Fortunately, I think it will be just perfect for my new apartment . . .” Carla paused to reflect. “I'll take it!” she said decisively.

The tension in the air diffused slightly as both Ethan and Gil let out little sighs of relief.

Betty clapped her hands in mock joy. “Oh, goody, goody, goody. Now I can go shopping, too!”

Later on that afternoon, I called Ethan and asked him point-blank how much the painting cost. He knew better than to try and stonewall me.

“Gil was asking twenty-two,” he said. “But I think she bargained him down to nineteen.”

Nineteen million dollars. Some bargain, I thought.

 

Chapter 22

T
hat night, Larry called me, sounding very excited. He asked if I was free to spend the next day with him and, if so, would I mind driving us somewhere. I said I couldn't think of anything I'd rather do.

“Where are we going, by the way?”

“A place called Golden Crest.”

“Which is?”

“A very private hospital for very rich people.”

“Russell Cole?” I asked.

“Among others,” he said with a little smile.

G
olden Crest was a private sanatorium located forty miles east of Poughkeepsie. The entrance to the facility was an unmarked driveway vanishing into a dense forest. We drove down a narrow, winding dirt road, at the end of which was a gate with an electric eye nestled snugly between the trees. Larry pulled up alongside a little black box on a metal rod a few feet in front of the gate and pressed the red button. The gate slowly opened outward and we drove on through. I noticed there was a camera in one of the trees, moving as we moved, tracking us.

After a quarter mile or so, the woods stopped abruptly and we came to a vast clearing dominated in the distance by a huge, old brown shingled house in the Queen Anne revival style of the late-nineteenth century. With its little turrets and fussy white wood trimming, it looked like a gingerbread mansion. A thin stream of water spouted up from a carved stone fountain in the middle of the circular driveway. I pulled up near the big house next to a couple of other cars, which were parked just short of the dried-out winter lawn. Larry and I got out of the car and stretched ourselves. We were both a bit stiff after the two-hour-plus journey. It was much colder there than in the city. Still, the country air smelled wonderfully fresh and clean. As we headed up the front steps of the house to the wide porch studded with fine antique wicker chairs and rockers, a thin, middle-aged woman with cropped, brown hair and a pinched face appeared at the door. She was hugging a green cardigan sweater around her shoulders.

“Come in, come in,” she beckoned us. “It's winter out there.”

We followed her into the warmth of the old house, whose dark mahogany paneling and period Victorian furniture gave it the look and feel of a quieter century. The woman kept glancing at Larry, acting like a schoolgirl with a crush. It was clear she was dying to say something to him, but couldn't quite bring herself around to it.

“Would you please tell Dr. Auer that Larry Locket is here to see him,” Larry said.

This gave her the opening. Awestruck, she looked at him and said, “Oh, Mr. Locket, you don't have to tell me who you are. I've read every single one of your books and articles. And I was wondering if, before you left, you might be kind enough to autograph a book for me. I brought it along because I knew you were coming.”

Larry, always gracious, said, “I'd be honored. What is your name?”

“Doris Spillson, but please call me Doris.”

We all stood around for an awkward moment while Doris gazed reverentially at Larry. Then, as if suddenly remembering the reason for his visit, she said, “Let me just go tell Dr. Auer you're here, Mr. Locket.”

“Larry,” he said.

A beatific look came over her face as though the Sun King had just asked her to call him Louis.

“Larry,” she repeated.

When she was out of earshot, I said to Larry, “How does it feel to have an adoring fan club?”

“Honey, it feels just
swell
,” he said.

A
short time later, Dr. Auer came out to greet Larry. From the look on Doris's face, I gathered this was a rare occurrence. Auer was a stilt of a man who had thinning white hair, a short white beard, and walked with a slightly arthritic stoop. Dressed in a three-piece suit and tie, he looked like a kind of skinny, road-company Freud. There was a rigid, old-world air about him. When Larry introduced us, Auer looked me straight in the eye, said, “How do you do, Mrs. Slater?” and gave me a too-firm handshake, as if to prove he wasn't frail. That was the extent of his greeting. No small talk at all. He and Larry walked away down the corridor toward his office.

While Larry was meeting with Dr. Auer, I made myself comfortable in the waiting room, a little Victorian parlor with mahogany tufted furniture and fringed lampshades. There were no magazines or newspapers, just books. I was thumbing through a tattered paperback copy of Larry's second novel, entitled
The Heiress Apparent
, with a main character loosely based on the Demont heiress who got away with the murder of her second husband, a stable groom. Larry was a good storyteller and I found myself becoming engrossed in the book all over again when Doris came back, rubbing her hands together, flushed with excitement.

“Isn't that a wonderful book?” she said, sort of crouching down and leaning to one side, as if she were trying to see what page I was on.

“Yes. I haven't read it in a long time. I'd forgotten how good it is.”

“Are you a good friend of Mr. Locket's?” she whispered, her taut face straining with inquisitiveness. She looked like an anxious whippet.

“Yes, I am,” I said.

I saw from the light in her eyes that my stock was continuing to rise.

“He's my absolute
favorite
writer,” she said. “Would you like to take a tour of the property while he's in with Dr. Auer? There's a warm coat there you can wear.”

“Thank you, I'd like that.”

D
oris Spillson was a gossipy spinster whose personal range of experience seemed limited to mild expectations or great disappointments—I couldn't quite tell which. She talked to me nonstop as we strolled around the grounds. It was a cold day and the place appeared to be completely deserted. The pretty property was dotted with twelve neat, white cottages, with shutters trimmed in dark green, each named after a tree. As we headed toward Maple Cottage, Doris explained that only twelve patients were ever admitted to Golden Crest at one time.

“Why so few?” I asked her.

“Are you kidding? With the level of service we have to give each one of them, that's all we can cope with.”

Doris informed me that every patient had his or her own private cottage and staff. Maple Cottage was vacant, so she showed me into the luxurious little house.

“Each cottage is decorated differently,” she explained. “A famous New York decorator came up here and did them. . . . The sheets and towels cost thousands,” she whispered. “Rich people like good linens. And with what they charge you here, everything has to be the very best, you know?”

“What do they charge?”

“Around fifty thousand dollars a week. It can be more,
depending
,” she said, raising her eyebrows.

“Why so much?”

“Oh, you get the royal treatment here, you really do. Facials, massages, herbal therapy, special diet. It's like a spa with doctors . . . and
drugs
,” she whispered.

“Drugs? What kinds of drugs?”

She quickly put her hand to her mouth. “I didn't say a word! They're not illegal drugs. They're just, you know . . . legal drugs that make you relax and feel better. So many of our patients are under a lot of stress.”

From the way Doris described it, Golden Crest was a far cry from most of the rehab centers I'd ever heard about. Over the years I'd known several friends and acquaintances who'd checked into treatment clinics for various addictions. But they had all been described to me as fairly utilitarian centers with many more than a dozen residents and usually possessed of a communal spirit. By contrast, this place seemed to be a glorified rest home for very rich, neurotic people who were more interested in a deluxe shelter to continue their bad habits rather than in a lasting cure for what ailed them.

“Oh, you would simply not
believe
some of the people who come here,” Doris went on. “I'm telling you that if Mr. Locket came and spent a few months here, he'd have enough material for a dozen books.
Two
dozen! No kidding!”

“I suppose I can't ask you who?”

She laughed. “No . . . ! But, trust me, we've had royalty, billionaires, movie stars, rock stars, heads of state. Important people from all over the world. That's why I just
love
Mr. Locket's books because he writes about all the people I see. Shows you what they're really like and how they
got
here,” she said with a little laugh.

As Doris and I walked back up to the main house, she asked me what Larry was working on now.

“The Cole case,” I said. “Russell Cole? The missing billionaire?”

She nodded excitedly. “Oh, yes! Such a lovely gentleman, Mr. Cole. I remember when—” She stopped herself, putting her hand to her mouth again.

“That's all right. I know he was here.”

We walked on. I could see Doris was champing at the bit.

“Well, seeing as how you already know he was here . . .” she began. “I was very fond of Mr. Cole. Such a nice man. Very shy. I didn't care much for his wife, though. Stuck-up type, you know?” She made a face. “Nose in the air. Never said hello or good-bye. Just treated you like furniture. If you ask me, he didn't much care for her, either.”

“How long did Mr. Cole stay here?”

“Oh . . . let's see . . .” She thought for a second. “One time he was here for about three months.”

“So he's been here more than once?”

“I really shouldn't say . . .” she said, with the air of someone who is dying to tell what she knows. “But, yes. He's been here four times.”

“How recently?”

“I'd have to look back at the records.”

“Would you mind?”

She gave me a sheepish little smile. “Well . . . anything for a friend of Mr. Locket's.”

I was curious to know if Russell Cole had been in the facility since his marriage to Carla.

Back in the main house, Doris sat down at her desk and called up patient records on her computer.

“All the records, going back twenty years, are right here on this computer and a zip drive.” She paused, narrowing her bespectacled eyes as she examined the screen. “Okay, see, here we are . . . Russell T. Cole . . . first time admitted, January, 1986 . . . then again March of 1991 . . . then again in April of '92. And then in May of '96.” She let me see the screen.

“What are ‘visiting records'?” I asked, pointing to a small banner in one corner.

“We keep a daily record of all visitors—including deliverymen. Patients are only allowed visitors on Sundays and they all have to sign the visitors' book. All those books have been scanned and they're in here. I'll give you an example. . . .” She called up another screen. It was a photocopy of a page from the visitors' book, “This is Sunday, May tenth, as you can see from the heading. And Russell Cole had one visitor . . . Lulu Cole . . . see, there, she signed her name in the book right there . . .” She pointed to Lulu's signature. “And it's in his records. We keep meticulous records.”

She was about to switch screens again, when another name on the list caught my eye.

“Wait! That signature . . . ?” I said, pointing to the screen.

She peered closely. “Another visitor. For someone else who was here.”

“Carla Hernandez?”

Doris sighed. “Well, I'm not really supposed to say . . . but seeing as you're a friend of Mr. Locket's. . . . Yes, that's Mrs. Hernandez.”

“Antonio Hernandez was here at the same time as Russell Cole?”

She raised her hand to her mouth. “You're going to get me into trouble now.”

“I won't say a word. Promise.”

“Well . . . yes,” she said at last.

This was fascinating news.

“Let me ask you something, Doris. Would it have been possible for Mrs. Hernandez to have known Mr. Cole? Or known what he was in here for?”

“I really shouldn't be telling you this . . .” she said, voicing the last alibi of the inveterate gossip.

“Trust me, Doris. I won't say a thing.”

Doris got that same eager look on her face that June Kahn got whenever she was about to spew out really confidential information. A little picture of June's perky face flashed through my mind and made me suddenly sad, wondering if she would ever be the same again.

“Well, this is a very small place,” Doris said. “Mrs. Cole didn't come to visit very much. Mr. Cole seemed very lonely. And, well, I used to see Mrs. Hernandez and Mr. Cole strolling on the paths together sometimes,” she whispered. “I remember it distinctly because it was the only time I ever saw Mr. Cole laugh.”

A
fter concluding his appointment with Dr. Auer, Larry autographed a book for the starstruck Ms. Spillson and we left for the city. In the car, I eagerly told him what the receptionist had told me. But the news that Carla had known Russell Cole long before anyone suspected did not come as a great shock to Larry. On the contrary.

“I need to level with you, Jo. Miguel Hernandez believes that Carla targeted his father
because
he was bipolar. He told me she was seeing one of his friends. That's how they met. This man was even richer than his father, but she dropped him for Antonio. Miguel thinks that's because she found out about his father's history of depression. And he's absolutely convinced she had a hand in his death. But he can't prove it. Carla thought she was going to inherit everything when Hernandez died, but he tricked her with the fake will, as I told you. When Miguel mentioned to me that his father had been a patient here, I remembered Lulu telling me that Russell had been a patient here, too. Something in my brain twigged, and I suddenly wondered if their stays had ever overlapped.”

“They did. Your friend, Doris, told me she saw Carla and Russell walking together. She said it was the only time she ever saw Russell laugh.”