VC01 - Privileged Lives (55 page)

“I wanted you to see for yourself how sick she is,” Dina said. “They’re saying her blood gas is very low—she’ll have to be put on a respirator.”

“Jesus—is she terminal?”

“There’s no way she can recover.”

Dobbsie poured himself a Styrofoam cup of coffee that he absolutely did not need and dumped in two teaspoons of sugar that he absolutely should not have had.

“That bastard Dunk hasn’t visited, hasn’t phoned, hasn’t written. He’s dumped her.”

Cream,
Dobbsie decided.
What the hell, go for it.
“I must say, even for Dunk, that’s remarkable.”

“He can’t be allowed to get away with it. Promise you won’t let him.”

The one subject Dobbsie had ever known Dina Alstetter to wax a tad tiresome over was her brother-in-law—all because Dunk had taken her to bed a few times and then married her sister. Why couldn’t Dina forgive Dunk his preferences and let the story die, instead of constantly drawing the whole world’s attention to what was really a rather pedestrian jilt-and-switch? A woman who had published in
The New Yorker
had no business obsessing over a man who had gone to Harrow on scholarship.

“Deenie dearie, what the hell control do I have over Dunk?”

“You can put it in your column—after she’s dead.”

The little nightlamp cast a pale circle of light around the sick woman.

Her breathing made a sound as though her ribs had cracked, each inhalation digging a splinter of bone deeper into her lungs.

Dina Alstetter sat motionless, slightly slumped in a chair with her hands folded in her lap.

Babe knelt next to Ash, whispering “I’m here,” stroking her arm, staring at that thin, beautiful, very old, and strangely, unexpectedly wise face. It was the face of Ash at thirty-six, but it was also Ash at ninety-six, Ash who had leapt in two weeks to that brink of farewell.

The gray New York dawn slid through the canted blinds, striping the hospital bed where Ash Canfield lay in coma. She had developed embolisms in both lungs. Beneath the blue satin De la Renta robe her body was covered with monitoring electrodes.

Her temperature registered 105.5 Her pulse made a faint, irregular blip on an amber screen. The respirator beside the bed forced air through a tube into her throat and down into lungs that had long since given up all effort.

Ash was moving her lips, trying to force sound out.

Dina leapt up. “Ash!”

“Nurse!” Babe cried.

A nurse and an intern hurried into the room. The intern removed the respirator and the nurse held a glass of water to Ash’s lips.

Ash forced a swallow and tried to speak. Her voice was scarcely a whisper. “When this is all over, we’ll all live together, won’t we?”

Babe’s tongue was helpless and her throat was dry.

“Yes, darling,” Dina said, “we’ll all get a lovely house together.”

“I want my viewing … in the best suite at Frank E. Campbell’s… Get my hair done … a little rinse over the gray. Dress me in that … pale blue gown … Babe made me. And give me … a really grand send-off … at Saint Bart’s.”

“Yes, darling,” Dina said.

“I’d like to be alone now. Dunk will be … on the phone, and I want … to be ready … Would you turn out the lights?”

Dina turned out the light.

When Babe looked back from the doorway, all that was left of her friend was the unmoving shadow of a shadow.

43

B
ABE AND CARDOZO SIGNED
the visitors’ register. The room was softly lit. The immediate family formed a receiving line: Dunk, doing his best to muster a sorrowful charm; Dina, with a look of mourning dignity; Ash’s parents—DeWitt Cadwalader, a tall, gray man dressed in power; Thelma Cadwalader, a slender bejeweled woman with eyes warm and large and a benevolent smile; and Dina’s son, Lawson, a grave little six-year-old.

The count and countess de Savoie arrived directly behind Babe and Cardozo. They scattered condolences to the family, and then the countess saw Cardozo.

“Well hello, Dick Tracy.”

“Hi, your highnesses.”

The countess kissed Babe. “Quite a turnout. And live piano music—
quelle élégance.
But ‘Hey, Look Me Over’? Whose joke is that?”

“It’s not a joke. It was Ash’s favorite song.”

“Crazy, crazy gal. You just gotta love her.”

There was a mood in the place that was strange to Cardozo. This wasn’t an Irish cop’s wake where old women wept and men wearing their one good suit grabbed one another by the shoulder. Here the clothes were expensive and elegant and the room had the buzz of gossip. There was a glitter of polished oak and crystal, of jeweled women who had trundled to the viewing in the warm dark of limousines. Servants circulated with trays of wine. It had more the air of a party than a viewing.

The viewing line advanced slowly, past slip-covered sofas and wingback chairs, handsome antique tables laden with flowers.

Gordon Dobbs sauntered over and kissed Babe’s cheek.

“Hi, sweetie. Hi, Vince. Isn’t this a blast? One of Ash’s greatest parties—she knew it would be. I got the whole death scene. She was fabulously brave, fabulously serene. And wait till you see her—she
looks
absolutely great. The family had Raoul Valency Concorded over from Paris to do her. What a character. What a life. Catch you later.”

When they reached the casket, Babe kissed her fingertips and touched them to Ash’s folded hands.

Staring at Ash in her blue gown and bangle bracelets, Cardozo felt he was face to face with human fragility and insignificance and the one final earthly certainty, solitude.

Babe was shaking as though a wave had hit her.

He put an arm around her. “There’s a chair over here.” He steered her through the crowd around to a wingback chair.

“I just need to rest a moment,” Babe said.

“Sure—you rest.”

Something made Cardozo look up. Dina Alstetter was standing by the fireplace, staring at him. She motioned him over.

“Thanks for coming,” she said with an offhand tone.

“I’m sorry about your sister. She was a good person.”

“Thanks.” Her eyes held his. “There are some things I need to talk to you about.”

“Feel free to phone me.”

“I mean now.”

“I’m listening.”

“Not here.” She took a glass of wine and Cardozo followed her into the hallway.

They entered another viewing room. In the corner a woman was laid out in a silk-lined mahogany casket. She had pear-shaped ruby earclips and brown hair waved to her shoulders and she was wearing an evening gown. A hand-lettered plaque announced that her name was Lavinia Mellon Fields. The visitors’ register on the bookstand was blank. A sort of stillness submerged everything.

“Should we be here?” Cardozo said. “It doesn’t seem respectful.”

Dina Alstetter replied to that notion by sitting in a chair, very much in the manner of a cat staking out its turf, and lighting a fresh cigarette. “Vinnie Fields was the banal widow of a banal San Francisco billionaire and I very much doubt she’ll have any callers.”

“What do you want to tell me?”

She breathed in, breathed out, and said, “I have evidence.” She opened her purse and drew out a mini-cassette recorder.

Cardozo had to wonder,
What kind of woman would bring a tape recorder to her dead sister’s viewing?
and the only answer that came to him was,
This kind of woman.

Dina Alstetter pressed a button. There were two voices on the tape.

One was Dina Alstetter’s. “You know he stole your clothes.”

The other voice was a shadow of Ash Canfield’s. “Did he?”

“I’m asking you. Did he? Say yes or no. You have to say it, Ash. This isn’t a videorecorder.”

“Yes.”

“Dunk stole your clothes. Duncan Canfield stole your clothes and jewels and sold them.”

“Yes.”

“He was flagrantly unfaithful to you. You knew he was unfaithful to you. He made no secret of it. He humiliated you and made you miserable.”

“Yes.”

“He introduced you to drugs and provided them.”

“Yes.”

“You wanted to divorce him and you still do.”

“Yes.”

“It’s he who wants the reconciliation, not you.”

“Yes.”

“And you haven’t slept with him since the separation.”

“Yes.”

“You haven’t, Ash. Say you haven’t if you haven’t. Or have you?”

“No.”

“Do you regard him as your husband?”

A long silence.

“No.”

“You’ve intended to divorce him since the separation and you’ve never wavered in that intention.”

A long silence.

“No.”

“Is it your intention that Duncan Canfield remain in your will?”

“No.”

“Is it your intention to modify your will and to bequeath Duncan Canfield no more than one dollar? Is that your intention, Ash?”

“Yes.”

Cardozo listened and frowned, and when the tape had whirred to a stop he looked at Dina Alstetter. “You recorded that in the hospital?”

She lit another cigarette from a burning stub. “Yes.”

“Why?”

“To prove she was going to disinherit him.”

“Was she?”

“For God’s sake, is the tape in Chinese?”

“On that tape you’re stuffing words into a dying woman’s mouth.”

“We had discussions long before Ash took ill. She knew all about Dunk and his gay party set.”

“What gay party set?”

“The count and that loathesome Lew Monserat.”

“What did she know about them?”

“That they were carrying on, doing drugs, throwing orgies. That’s why she filed for a separation. She was in full possession of her faculties when she filed. Dunk has no right to her money.”

“I don’t get it. You certainly don’t look like you need the money.”

“I don’t have to need money to want justice.”

“No, but you sure seem to need his scalp. What the hell did he do—jilt you?”

“I know you only mean to be rude—but if I didn’t need a favor from you, I’d slap you for that.”

Cardozo frowned. “You’re in love with that airhead?”

She drew in a breath and let out a sigh. “Since you insist on having the background, let’s just say Dunk and I used to be friends and one day we stopped.”

“Be a pal, use someone else to stir up trouble for him. This doesn’t involve me.”

“But it most certainly does. He killed her and my feelings about Duncan Canfield don’t even enter the picture because that is a rock-bottom fact.”

“A disease killed her.”

“He gave her the disease.”

“Now how the hell did he do that?”

“The autopsy will show how.”

“There’s not going to be an autopsy. Your sister’s embalmed. Mrs. Alstetter, you have all my sympathy, and I’ll throw in some advice. You haven’t got a case, and you sure as hell haven’t got any evidence. There’s not a doubt in my mind that the son of a bitch wanted his wife dead. But there’s no such crime as malice. At least, it’s not my department, and if there is, you’re as guilty of it as he is.”

She snapped her purse shut. “All right—if I have to prove it to you by getting her medical records, I will.”

“Examination of head reveals left eye missing. Left eye socket is site of bullet entry wound.” Dan Hippolito was dictating into a microphone suspended over the examining table. “Exit wound is in left posterior parietal area.”

Dan glanced over and saw Cardozo. With his hand gloved in skin-hugging bloodied plastic, he moved the microphone aside, then lifted his curved Plexiglas face shield.

“Hiyah, Vince, I’d shake hands but you caught me in the middle of things.”

Cardozo looked down at the body of the one-eyed young male Hispanic. “Am I interrupting?”

“The patient will keep. What’s up?”

“Got time for a cup of coffee?”

“Sure.”

They went to Dan’s office, a small stark white subterranean chamber. Dan popped his hands out of the gloves. He took off his rubber apron and surgical smock and hung them on the coat stand.

There were two chairs and a desk and a table with a hot plate and a coffee pot. Dan had arranged a small forest of plants against one wall. Another wall was lined with shelves of medical books.

Cardozo took a seat. “Dan, would you look at a medical report for me?”

“Hey, there’s sloppy work in this department, but I don’t want to snitch on a colleague, okay?”

“Not to worry, this isn’t an autopsy.”

Dan came back from the hot plate with two Styrofoam cups of coffee.

Cardozo handed him the folder.

Dan turned pages. “What are you looking for?”

“A general impression. Is it kosher?”

“You know, my practice for the last twenty years has been dead people.”

“This woman
is
dead.”

Dan Hippolito sipped coffee and kept turning pages. “That begins to be evident. Catastrophic weight loss—fulminating fever—uremia …” He looked up, open curiosity sparking his dark eyes. “Friend of yours?”

“Friend of a friend.”

“Okay, let’s start at the beginning.” His eyes scanned. “Valium, Dilantin, phenobarbital … Was this female an alcoholic?”

“Yes.”

“So we’re medicating for alcohol-induced epilepsy.” He read on. “Stereomycin is an antifungoid, Dilantin is an antiseizure, Dramamine is an antinausea … Okay, a rabbi I am not, but this is about as kosher as a pig’s foot. What were they doing, experimenting? You wouldn’t prescribe this combination to a chimpanzee.”

“Why not?”

“The drugs counteract one another.” Dan flipped through more pages. “Procaine to desensitize the trachea.”

“Why are they doing that?”

“It’s generally done prior to a bronchoscopy.”

“What’s that?”

“Go down the throat and cut a little tissue from the lungs to biopsy for cancer. Except they’re doing a dye test on the brain artery.” Dan swiveled in his chair. “These records would make sense if she had lung cancers entering the bloodstream and metastasizing to the brain. That I could buy, but—” He stopped at the next page.
“Methadone?
Are these pages for one patient? Because methadone has one use and one use only, purely political, to shift addicts from free-market heroin to government-owned heroin. Was she a junkie?”