Stabbing Stephanie (26 page)

E
arly the next day, Saturday, Greenberg called.

E“I need all the information you can give me about Stephanie—family, et cetera.”

“I'll tell you what I know, which isn't much. She was Kenneth's cousin.”

“Okay, I'll get it all from you later.”

“Have you . . . learned anything?”

“About her? She'd been dead all day, was most likely killed yesterday morning.”

When she'd run out of the office . . .

“From what we can tell, the killer surprised her, stabbed her in the back. The knife is a large kitchen knife, the kind you could buy anywhere. It looks as if—well, it looks as if she was still alive when whoever stabbed her opened the front door of the Dumpster and threw in her body.”

“Poor Stephanie,” Jane said softly, and tears came to her eyes. “A horrible end.” To a sad life.

“Never knew what—or who—hit her.”

Jane wondered who she would need to tell. Stephanie's sister, Caroline.

“There's other news,” Greenberg said, breaking into her thoughts. “About Ivor.”

“Ivor?”

“Mm. Turns out he didn't die naturally. I mean he didn't die from drinking too much, or from exposure to the elements.”

“No?”

“He was poisoned.”

“Poisoned!”

“Mm. Easy to do, really. Just give the old man a bottle of booze with the stuff added.”

“What stuff?”

“Insecticide, it looks like.”

“Insecticide!”

“Yet we haven't found any bottle near him—”

“Of course you haven't,” she said impatiently. “Whoever poisoned him gave him the bottle, let him drink from it, came back later, and took the bottle away.”

“If you'd let me finish, I'd have told you we've come to the same conclusion. Of course, we'll know more after the autopsy. We'll know exactly what liquor he'd been drinking. Then we can canvas liquor stores in the area, though the chances of coming up with anything that way are slim. The bottle could have been one the killer had had around a while.”

Jane shook her head, baffled. “Why would anyone have done that to him?”

“Why would someone light a vagrant on fire in a park? Why does anyone do something cruel and unthinkable to another human being?”

“Stanley, Ivor's murder couldn't have anything to do with Stephanie's, could it?”

“Doubtful, but we don't know. For now, I want you to pretend none of this has happened. Just behave normally. We're keeping a lid on these murders for the time being.”

Jane had no sooner hung up than the phone rang again. It was Kate, calling from home in Mountain Lakes. Jane was shocked at first, wondering how on earth she'd gotten Jane's number. Then she remembered she'd put it down on her job application.

“I really hate to bother you on a Saturday, Lana, but I'm kind of in a bind.”

“What is it?”

“I need you to bring Winky back to the office today if at all possible.”

“Didn't the photos come out well?”

Kate laughed. “Quite the opposite. When I showed the proofs to my mother, she loved them so much she decided to use additional shots of Winky for a special direct-mail piece we're doing for
Mew's Who's Who.
But we have virtually no time. The book itself is already overdue to go into production. So everybody's coming in today—Mother, Gavin, Sam and I, Stephanie . . . if she's coming back.” She sounded uncomfortable, as if she hoped Stephanie didn't come back.

This was the last thing Jane needed. Now that Stephanie was gone, there was no longer any reason for her to be at Carson & Hart, to continue this charade. But she had become part of the little company in a small way, and now she was being asked a favor by someone who cared about her work.

“All right, Kate, but it will have to be soon, and we can't stay long. I'm going on vacation and my flight is late this afternoon.” Jane realized at this moment that in all the commotion, she'd forgotten to “quit.” She'd do that today.

“I understand. The sooner the better, and it won't take long. I'm driving over there now.”

“Okay, I'll see you at the office in about half an hour.”

“Great. Thanks, Lana, I really appreciate it.”

Before leaving, Jane called Greenberg to let him know she'd be going into the office today. She got his machine and left a message.

 

 

Arriving at Carson & Hart on a Saturday and pretending that two murders had not just occurred had a surreal quality. So did the fact that no one seemed to have noticed Stephanie was still missing—or if they had noticed, they didn't care.

Sam greeted Jane, then Winky in her carrier, with a sullen wave. “Welcome to the Saturday salt mines.”

“Come on,” she chided him. “A little overtime won't kill you.”

“Easy for you to say.
I
have a life.”

“Oh, bite me,” Jane said, and out of the corner of her eye she saw him whip around in surprise. “By the way,” she went on innocently, “do you know if Stephanie is coming in today?”

“Beats me. I don't know if she's
ever
coming back. I bet Gavin and Mumsy do, though.”

“Mm,” Jane murmured thoughtfully.

At that moment Faith emerged from her office, all smiles. “Lana, darling, your Dinky is a total star!”

“Winky.”

“So photogenic. Thank you so much for coming back in like this.” Faith bent down in front of the carrier. “And thank you, too, Dinky.”

Jane just sighed. “Have you heard from Stephanie?” she asked Faith, watching her closely.

Faith's grin faded and she shook her head. “I'll let you know when Kate and I are ready for the shoot.”

Jane watched her walk away, then let Winky out of the carrier. She seemed happy to be back, and trotted happily down the corridor. Jane noticed a slight swing to Winky's belly that hadn't been there before, and realized that in all the commotion, she'd forgotten to tell Nick and Florence the news of the impending blessed event. She smiled, deciding she'd spring it at dinner tonight.

She glanced down the hall again, in time to see Winky approach the door to Gavin's office, which stood slightly ajar. The cat sniffed at the door, then slipped into the room.

A moment later from Gavin's office came the sound of his voice, loud with annoyance. “Shoo! Shoo! Get out of here!”

Jane hurried down the hall to retrieve Winky. When she reached Gavin's doorway, Winky was standing on Gavin's desk next to a mammoth stack of paper that Jane recognized as the page proofs of
Mew's Who's Who.
Winky brushed up against it, and Gavin, standing a few feet away, made a move to stop her from knocking the loose pages off his desk.

Jane reached out, too, trying to stop Winky, but in an instant it occurred to Jane that Winky was actually
trying
to knock over the proofs. Before either she or Gavin could reach the cat, she succeeded in pushing the top half of the proofs off the desk; as if in slow motion, the pages separated and flew everywhere. Gavin let out a string of obscenities.

“I'm so sorry,” Jane said, reaching for Winky, but the cat evaded Jane and, quite deliberately, walked over to the far wall of the office and sat down in front of it. Under the cat, Jane noticed, was one of the fallen proof sheets.

Looking at Winky, Jane frowned, puzzled. Something wasn't right, didn't look right. She moved closer for a better look and saw what it was.

The sheet of paper on which Winky sat was half hidden under the wall.

Jane stared, open-mouthed.

It all came clear to her now.

As Gavin watched, she reached over to the wall and pushed on it. It moved a little and she pushed harder. A door-sized portion of the wall swung outward.

She nodded. It was a door, perfectly camouflaged in the wall. Beyond it was the second-floor corridor. Suddenly Winky ran out.

Moving quietly, Gavin walked around his desk to the camouflaged door and pulled it closed.

“So this is why you wanted this office so badly,” Jane said. “Not because it's got a big window or because it's larger, but because of that door. This office belonged to a psychiatrist before you moved in. He had an elite clientele and installed this door to protect his patients' privacy. A patient would arrive through the front reception area, but when his session was over, he would leave by this back door so as not to encounter the next patient waiting in the reception room. It's a common feature among more exclusive psychiatrists and psychologists.”

Gavin just stared at her, a calculating expression on his face.

“Using this door, you were able to slip in and out at will without anyone knowing you'd even left the office. That's how you were able to come back in last night after I thought you'd left the office. It's how you were able to go after Stephanie and stab her in the alley yesterday, while appearing not to have gone out.”

Jane thought for a moment, putting the pieces together. “Ivor saw you, though,” she said slowly. “He saw you from under the bushes, where he sometimes slept. He saw you murder Stephanie. He tried to blackmail you by leaving that note on your windshield. So the poor man had to die, too. That would have been easy—a bottle of booze laced with insecticide.”

Gavin nodded. “I congratulate you—and Blinky—on your skills of detection.”

“But
why
did you kill Stephanie?”

“I can tell you that. But then I'll have to kill you.” He laughed easily. “I had to kill her because she'd found the Star of Ananda in Faith's office, put two and two together, and figured out I'd killed that stupid maid, Una. Stephanie told me what she knew and asked what I would give her to keep her quiet. Then she even took the Star,” he said, a pained expression passing across his face, “and I still don't know what she did with it.”

“You took her purse after you killed her,” Jane said.

“That's right. But it wasn't there.”

“Why did you put the purse behind the table in the mail room?”

He looked surprised, narrowed his gaze. “You
have
been busy. I couldn't keep it in my office, could I? What if someone had found it? I waited for Mel to leave the mail room and stuffed the purse behind the table until I could get rid of it later.”

“That's what I thought,” Jane said. “Why did you kill Una?”

“Una had to die because she, too, saw more than she should have. She saw Lynch, the thief Faith hired to steal the Star from Lillian Strohman. Then she saw Faith paying Lynch for the Star. Worse yet, just like pathetic Ivan, or whatever the old drunk's name was, she tried to blackmail Faith with what she'd seen. Faith told me and didn't know what to do about it. I did.”

“And Lynch himself?”

He looked at her as if she were simple. “He had to die because of his knowledge of what he'd done and whom he'd done it for.”

Jane frowned, shaking her head. “But how did Lillian Strohman get the Star of Ananda?”

“Years ago I sold it to a broker in New York City. Obviously, he sold it to Lillian. When Faith went to breakfast at Lillian's to discuss Lillian's doing a book for us, Lillian took Faith to her bedroom and showed her her jewelry collection, including the Star. Needless to say, the foolish old woman had no idea what it really was, that it had once
belonged
to Faith.

“Faith got the broker's name from Lillian and went to see him. Man named Wachtel. He betrayed me. He told Faith I'd sold him the Star all those years ago.”

“So he had to die, too.”

Gavin sighed. “Yes. When I think of all I've had to do to protect Faith . . .”

At that moment they heard a sound at the doorway and turned. Faith had come silently through the door, which had been slightly ajar. Her beautiful face was set in an expression of cold determination.

This is the end for me,
Jane thought.

Gavin gave Faith an indulgent smile, then turned back to Jane. “It was all for her,” he declared simply. “It was Faith—forgive me, darling—who had a weakness . . . a weakness for the Star of Ananda. When she saw it at Lillian Strohman's, she just had to have it.”

Faith spoke. “Had to have it
back.”
Her eyes narrowed to slits. “It was you who took the Star from the safe in my room at the palace that night . . . you who dressed in servant's robes and let yourself be seen running away.” She moved closer to him. “You, I know now,” she said in a tone of wonder mixed with horror, “who paid one of the rebels in the village to murder Ravi.”

Gavin stared at her in shock. Then his eyes grew pleading. “I had no choice—don't you see that? After Ravi found us together, you had no hope of getting what was rightfully yours. The only way was for Ravi to die.”

“But I loved him,” Faith said hollowly.

“You loved
me.”

“No. I had
an affair
with you. I
loved
Ravi.” Her eyes grew distant. “Poor, sweet, hapless Ravi. You killed him.”

Another sound came from the doorway. Jane turned. Sam and Kate stood behind Faith. It was clear from the expressions on their faces, eyes wide, mouths slightly open, that they had heard everything.

“You
killed our father,” Sam spat out.

Abruptly Faith disappeared from the doorway. A moment later she reappeared. Her gaze fixed on Gavin, she slowly raised her right arm. In her hand was a revolver. Using her left hand to steady her right, she took careful aim at his head.