Suspicion of Guilt (24 page)

"What happened?" Phyllis turned around from the dishwasher.

"My darling daughter just ran off with a knife. It was Dave's. I have no idea where she is. Dammit." Gail looked at the clock on the microwave. "Why does she do this? I have to leave in twenty minutes, Oh, God. Dr. Feldman was right. I shouldn't have taken Dave's things out. She thinks I'm making room for Anthony. I'm not! He wouldn't come here even if I asked him to."

Phyllis was propelling Gail gently out of the kitchen. "She'll be back. You get yourself dressed. Go on. I'll sit her down when she comes through the door. Karen's all right. But you don't look so good."

Tears stinging her eyes, Gail leaned against the living room wall. The hot curlers bumped into her head. "Ouch. Oh, damn." She laughed, pulling off her scarf.

"Go on now," Phyllis said.

From the garage came the
waum-waum-waum
of an engine cranking, then a backfire, then a steady chug. A moment later the door came rattling down.

Chapter Fifteen

Precisely at 7:00, Gail heard the splash of tires through the puddle at the end of the driveway. Headlights pointed toward the house, then went out. A door slammed.

"I'm leaving!" She swung her raincoat over her shoulders and picked up her purse. Phyllis was in the den with her shoes off, watching television; Karen was in her room. The knife was who-knew-where, but Phyllis had said not to worry, she would find it.

The doorbell chimed at the same instant Karen ran to the window and stuck a finger between the vertical blinds to look out. "That's not a Rolls-Royce. It's a truck!"

Gail opened the door. A mid-thirties black man in a dark suit stood on the porch with an umbrella. "Ms. Connor? Sanford Ehringer sent me. My name is Russell." He smiled, standing aside to let her by.

Karen came to the door, stared up at him, then toward the driveway. Before Karen could ask any questions, Gail turned her around. "Mind Phyllis. I'll see you when I get back."

It wasn't a truck but a boxy Range Rover with big tires. Russell helped Gail up into the front passenger seat, saying he would have brought the car, but with the streets so wet, and at night ... Backing out of the driveway, Russell turned to look out the rear window. Gail saw the strap of a holster under his suit coat.

A few miles later he turned off South Dixie Highway, tires humming, heading for the river. Gail tried to make conversation. Russell answered politely, saying nothing she could respond to. By now only a stripe of faintest gray remained in the west. They went up a narrow residential street, then past a boatyard, turning finally into an unmarked driveway where the banyan trees met overhead, blotting out the sky. The headlights picked up a vine-covered wall, a metal gate with only a slit to look through. Russell pressed a button on the dash and the gate slid back.

The road led briefly through a tangle of native species: buttonwood, gumbo-limbo, mahogany. Then the grounds opened up, and there were the columns, tile roof, and wide veranda of a two-story house made of coral rock. Two Dobermans at the far end of the porch lifted their heads, eyes on the Range Rover as Russell helped Gail out of it. The rain had stopped. Water dripped from the eaves onto bird-of-paradise in mildewing clay pots. The yard was not so much landscaped as tamed, with brick walkways cutting through the foliage, vanishing into the darkness. Gail stepped onto the porch with an odd sense that she had done it before, though she had no idea when.

A sudden scream came from the roof, and she jumped.

"It's only a peacock," Russell said, opening the beveled-glass door. "Mr. Ehringer keeps them on the grounds."

She laughed a little, her heart racing.

An elderly man in a white jacket led her into the dimly lit foyer, which was floored in Spanish tile and hung with tapestries.

As she gave him her raincoat, Gail said quietly, "This house is incredible. When was it built?"

"Around 1910, I believe, miss. You'll have to ask Mr. Ehringer about that. It belonged to his father."

She followed the butler to a six-sided living room with carved wood furniture, woven rugs, and a rough, coral rock fireplace. The beamed ceiling rose to a cupola at the center, designed to pull breezes through before air conditioning. Ahead, long windows looked out onto a terrace with a jungle of plants. Her reflection came back to her in the glass. The room was familiar. She thought she had seen a photo of it.

The butler lifted an arm. "This way, miss."

Passing the staircase along one wall, Gail stepped back, startled. Someone was watching. A face had pulled away, but the hands remained, curled around the carved balusters. Now the face reappeared. It was a boy. He wore a striped pullover, and his hair was combed neatly across his forehead.

"Hi. What's your name?" The words came slowly through heavy lips.

"Gail," she said.

A wide grin nearly closed his small eyes. "I have a hamster. You want to see him?"

The old man pivoted his head to look up, scolding gently. "Run along, Walter. You should be upstairs."

The boy's eyes followed Gail as she passed underneath, and his face pressed at the balusters. "Bye."

"Good-bye." She spoke to the butler, her voice low. "Who was that boy?"

He glanced at her, then said, "He lives here." At the end of a carpeted hallway, he knocked twice at a heavy door then pushed it open. "Ms. Connor, sir." He bowed stiffly and left her there.

"My dear Ms. Connor! Come in!" The man across the room, still seated, wore a bottle-green velvet jacket. A red paisley scarf was tucked into the open collar of his shirt. She saw in an instant why he had not risen: There were wheels on his chair.

"Mr. Ehringer," she said. "Good evening."

Sanford Ehringer had once been a powerful man; she could see it in the width of his shoulders, feel it when he took her hand, gripping it as eagerly as if she had been his granddaughter come to visit. "By God, aren't you lovely? And tall. A strapping young woman." He laughed. "Don't mind the familiarity. You get to be my age, you don't wait till tomorrow to say what you think."

He was completely bald. His nose and ears drooped, as old men's-do, his lips were a slash, and tangled brows jutted over deeply set black eyes. And yet this face was not forbidding, but as welcoming as a fireplace in December, glowing with cheerfulness.

"We'll have dinner in here," he said. "It's cozy. What do you think? All right?"

"Certainly." Now she saw the table to one side, gleaming with china and crystal. This room must have been his library: There were bookcases, deep red leather furniture, a Persian rug on the polished wood floor. A floor lamp glowed through a shade of tasseled green silk. A bronze Art Nouveau nude crouched on a bookcase.

"Good." He wheeled over to the sofa, where an ice bucket sat in a stand, its neck wrapped in white linen. "They'll bring dinner whenever we're ready. I've got some pretty good French stuff over here. Pouilly-fuissé I believe. Does that take your fancy?"

Gail was still looking around. "Yes, thank you." One wall was taken up with electronic equipment: television, stereo, a personal computer, a monitor, a fax machine.

"Russell get you here all right? No problems?"

"None. Your house is quite hidden. I doubt I could find my way with a map."

Ehringer chuckled. "The city just built itself around me. With that wall, sometimes I forget it's even out there."

While he poured, she studied the paintings over the sofa. The first showed a golden-haired Victorian woman by someone named Rossetti. She looked heavenward and held a lily. The other wasn't as good: a rocky landscape, bearded men in togas, people weeping.

"The Funeral of Pericles,"
he said. "Awful, isn't it? I got it in England when I was a boy."

"You weren't born there, were you?"

"No, I studied classics at Cambridge. No practical value at all, of course, but at the time I adored it. Still do. First loves never leave you." He wedged the bottle back into the ice. "The original Greek is virile stuff. Don't trust the translations. You do it for yourself, that's what, then it sticks."

He offered her a glass of wine. Tendons stood out on his liver-spotted hands, and blue veins roped beneath the skin.

"By God, if Hollywood could do half as well as Homer. Desire, betrayal, revenge, honor. Screaming horses, warriors toppling into the dust. Think of that scene from
The Iliad:
Achilles tying the body of Hector to his chariot by his heels, then dragging him around the city! Bring teenagers up on that, and they'll never want
The Terminator"
Ehringer raised his glass.
"Santé.
How's the wine? Passable?"

"Excellent." She started to take another sip, then noticed the small table by the sofa. Under the glass were tiny boxes of varying sizes, each containing a beetle of some unusual type.

Ehringer rolled closer. "Aren't they pretty? There's a list in the drawer, if you want to know the names. That green one with the horns I found in Morocco."

Puzzled, Gail said slowly, "I've seen these."

He looked at her over his glass, smiling.

"I've been here before. Haven't I?"

"Yes!" Ehringer laughed. "I thought you had forgotten. You were a little girl. You wanted to play with the beetles. I let you have some rock samples instead."

Gail turned, looking behind her at the bookcases with their rows of volumes, books with their bindings going to dust and others on the latest topics, some in French or German, all crammed in every which way. "Who brought me here?"

"John Strickland, your grandfather. We did some business together, and he brought you along a time or two. Way back, Johnny's father Benjamin and my dad used to go bonefishing together in the Keys. Great friends, they were. Ben showed me how to tie flies. I was only a kid then. By God, I haven't thought of that in years!" He smiled up at Gail. "So. How is Irene keeping herself these days?"

"You remember her?"

"I am old, my dear, not senile. Irene Strickland. Little red-haired woman. I never knew your father though. Can't recall his name."

"Edwin Connor."

"Edwin. Sold insurance. Yes. I never thought Irene would marry a salesman. Not to say your dad wasn't a fine man,
et cetera,
but Irene—well, she was quite the debutante. My own wife was a Vanderpoole, a genuine Knickerbocker. But young people today don't care about all that, do they? I'll bet you married well, though. You have that look about you."

Gail took a sip of wine, wondering what this was leading to. "I'm divorced."

"I believe someone told me that. Irene's daughter, and so on. And you're the one they meant. You have children?"

"If you know so much about me already, Mr. Ehringer, then you must know the answer to that as well."

He smiled at her. "Yes, I made inquiries, and why not? My poor attempt to renew our acquaintance after twenty-five years."

She set her glass on the small table. "I have to say, I didn't expect to find you so amiable, particularly after what happened with Howard Odell on Friday."

"What do you mean?" His jowls settled against the stiff shirt collar.

As she recounted the scene with Odell at the Tillett Gallery, Ehringer's gaze seemed to rest on the roseate spoonbills above the door: one with its wide bill forever dipped to the shelf, the other with pinkish wings extended, as if it would flap across the room.

"I didn't like Mr. Odell's threats," she said.

Ehringer waved a hand. "You mustn't mind Howard. He takes his duties too seriously."

"His duties are to frighten me into a settlement?"

"In no way! He does a bang-up job raising money for the trust. I suspect he considers it a personal affront if any bequest is jeopardized. Shall I speak to him for you?" He patted her arm with fierce affection. "You are a sensitive young woman of good breeding and intelligence. If he insulted you, I apologize."

"You and he are related, aren't you?"

"A second cousin once removed. I'm fond of Howard, so I hope you can forgive his abruptness. He and I don't see each other often enough for me to keep up with him. I've too much to do, Gail, a thousand and one things on my mind."

Gail said, "Mr. Ehringer. Why did you ask me here? I assume it has to do with Althea Tillett's will."

"Oh, indulge me, Gail. We'll get to all that." He smiled at her. "For now, I would like to know you. I remember you as a child, you see. Where is this young girl, Johnny's granddaughter, who once played here on this floor? Who chased butterflies in my flower garden? The same person who is causing such a fuss among my friends?"

He supported his craggy cheekbone on his fingers, elbow on the padded armrest of his chair. "Who is this Antigone who would stand before the walls of the city and risk public censure? No. Not the public. The public doesn't give a damn. Let us say she risks her place among her peers. Why does she do it?"

Gail had to laugh. "It isn't that dramatic. I'm a lawyer, I have a client, and I believe in him." "And that's all?"

"Yes." Then she smiled. "Of course I'm getting paid for my work."

"Handsomely too, if I know Hartwell Black and Robineau. Good for you!" Ehringer lifted his glass. "May we believe in the causes we fight for." The glass paused at his lips. "And what cause is that?"

"Pardon?"

"What is your cause? Rather, your client's cause. You said you believe in him. What is it that you believe in?" Ehringer leaned back a little in his chair, studying her. "Why do you fight for this client? Not to win, although you find pleasure in winning. Not for money—I believe you are motivated by higher interests. Not even for a job well done. A dog can fetch a stick, and fetch it well. What do you believe in? We must all believe in something, or else ... who are we?"

Gail lowered her glass. "I believe in finding out the truth, Mr. Ehringer. In trying to do what is right. How can I answer? I'm not a philosopher. I haven't been to Cambridge. I haven't lived eighty-something years thinking about these things."

"Eighty-four." He smiled. "Forgive me. I didn't mean to bully you, Gail. It's just that I so enjoy a stimulating conversation. What else can an old man do?"