Pat Adams was behind his desk, the other four in a semicircle in front of it. Pat fixed his eyes on Joel, taking in with approval the fact that Joel’s wry comments usually were the basis for an interesting suggestion about how to move the investigation forward.
“What are you thinking, Joel?” he asked.
“I’m wondering if Dwight Crowley has an ax to grind that he hasn’t written about in public. I’d like to pursue that. I mean, the guy has an almost unreasonable hatred of Eric Bennett. The FBI, the Attorney General’s office, and the Federal Investigative Regional Authority can’t find one scrap of evidence against Eric Bennett, yet Crowley has said in his columns that the word ‘alleged’ doesn’t pertain to Eric Bennett. Bennett could sue him for that. Now, maybe he hasn’t because he doesn’t want any more publicity. Or maybe Crowley has something on him that hasn’t been disclosed so far.”
Pat Adams was about to say that Joel should ferret out more information on that possibility but before he could speak, Joel said, “And one more thing,” as he took off his round horn-rimmed glasses, blew on them, wiped them dry, and replaced them.
“I said a few words to Eric Bennett in the reception room the other morning,” he continued. “You know what I thought when I met him?”
Pat Adams and the other three investigators knew it was a rhetorical question.
“My mother was paranoid about anything she bought in the fish store,” Joel told them, his voice conversational. “No matter how nice a piece of fish looked, she brought it up to her nose and gave it the sniff test. She could tell in a heartbeat if it was starting to turn.”
He concluded, “I have my mother’s acute sense of smell. When I was talking to Eric Bennett here the other day I gave him the sniff test and he failed it. I’d like to have the okay to find out why Dwight Crowley is so vehement about him. I also want to dig deep into Eric Bennett’s background and see if I can find out anything about him that hasn’t been dug up so far.”
31
“Lie down with the dogs and get up with the fleas,” was Glady’s tart greeting to Lane on Monday morning.
Taken aback, Lane asked, “Glady, what in the name of God are you talking about?”
Glady grabbed the newspaper on her desk and shoved it across the table. “I’m talking about you being all lovey-dovey with Eric Bennett. I know you read the Post every day, I’m surprised you haven’t seen it.”
“Yes, I do, but certainly not in the morning when I have to get Katie and myself out,” Lane said heatedly as she reached for the paper. It was turned to the gossip page. Dismayed, she saw a good-sized picture of herself with Eric Bennett. Whoever the photographer was, he or she had caught the moment when Eric’s hand was covering hers and they were smiling at each other.
Her cheeks burning, Lane laid the paper back on Glady’s desk. “That was the single moment when Eric happened to touch my hand,” she said defensively.
“I believe you,” Glady said. “In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if Bennett paid someone to take that shot. Maybe it’s even his version of a thumb in the eye to your stepfather.”
“Glady, don’t you see that this is exactly what Eric has been living under for two years now? No one can find a shred of evidence to tie him to that fraud, but everyone has decided that he was part of it. Don’t you see how unfair that is? And I don’t care what Dwight Crowley thinks. He’s my mother’s husband, but he’s not my father. I was starting college the month my mother married him. I try to stay away from him. I time my visits to my mother when I know he’s out giving speeches about how to run the world.”
Even as she spoke Lane realized that Glady had brought up something that she never liked to admit even to herself. It was not just that she was uncomfortable around Dwight. She actively disliked him and knew that was the reason why she went to Washington so seldom, and why her relationship with her mother was so strained.
“Lane, it’s none of my business if you are seeing Eric Bennett. I think you’re making a big mistake to let yourself get involved with him, but that’s the end of my talking about it. I will tell you that I hate to think that the money Countess La-di-dah is paying me is coming from the money Parker Bennett stole. But you yourself saw the way the minute I told her how much my bill would be, she had to make an important phone call.”
Without answering, Lane went to her own office, sat at the desk, and pressed her fingers against her temples. I’m not thinking straight, she acknowledged to herself. I did enjoy going to dinner with him.
We got back at ten thirty but Katie was still wide awake. The minute she heard our voices, she came rushing out to make sure Eric didn’t forget the cookies she baked for him.
She wants to be like the other kids. She wants to have a father. Oh sure, many of them have divorced parents, but it’s not the same as having to look at Daddy’s picture and only hearing about him.
How long will it be before Dwight and my mother see the photo of me with Eric Bennett? Dwight glances through a heap of newspapers every day from all over the country as well as the London Times. He’s not going to miss seeing that picture, and if he does someone will surely bring it to his attention.
What should I do? Either I believe Eric is innocent or I do not.
And I do.
But if I have dinner with Eric from time to time, how do I protect Katie? She thought of the moment Eric’s hand had touched hers, of the fleeting good-night kiss on her lips that she could still feel. Let’s face it, she thought, if that spark between us develops, really develops, would I want Eric’s reputation, as the public sees it, to touch my life and Katie’s?
But if I believe that Eric is innocent, as I wholeheartedly do, am I a coward for wondering if I would want to live with that situation?
Maybe I’ll figure out an answer soon, she thought, but I don’t have it now. But there was one thing she had to do. She dialed her mother at the antique shop.
Her mother’s subdued, “Hello, Lane,” told her that she and Dwight had seen the photo. “Look, Mom,” Lane began, but her mother interrupted her.
“Lane, you don’t have to convince me. I hope that if you learned one thing from me or about your father, it’s that we both believe in ‘innocent until proven guilty.’ If Eric Bennett had nothing to do with his father’s crime, he’s as innocent a victim as those poor people who lost so much money.”
“Thanks, Mom. I didn’t know what you’d say. Now, how about Dwight, or should I dare ask?”
“Lane, my husband has never tried to influence me in any way regarding his belief that Eric Bennett was involved in his father’s treachery.”
“What did he say about the picture?” Lane demanded.
“He said he is aware that you have always been hostile to him, which makes him sad. He said, and I’ll give you his exact words: ‘Lane’s father must be turning over in his grave at the thought that his daughter is dating that lowlife swine.’ ”
32
Eleanor Becker tried desperately to follow Dr. Sean Cunningham’s advice and recall any incident in Parker Bennett’s office that struck her as unusual.
Nothing, she thought, absolutely nothing. She knew she had a fairly good memory and asked Frank to talk to her about what they had discussed over the years. Of course at night she had chatted with him about the people who came and went. Maybe there was something that she could put her finger on?
Long ago something did happen that struck her as odd, but why couldn’t she remember it?
Frank’s diabetes was getting worse. His sugar level often reached alarming numbers. He’s going to kill himself worrying about me, she thought. But what can I do about it?
It had been fifteen years now since Parker Bennett, one of the top fund managers in the firm where they both worked, had told her that he wanted to take her out for a quiet lunch. “Not one of my usual places,” he’d said with a “just between us” nod. “I have a business proposition for you.”
She had known immediately what he meant. There had b
een speculation in the office that Bennett was probably going into business for himself at some point. Most of the smartest investment managers did that. Some of them made a lot of money and some of them opened their own hedge funds, made the wrong bet, and lost their shirt.
She remembered one of the managers who left them and made piles of money, then lost most of it because of the position he had taken trading oil. The joke around the stock market was that his wife was furious. He had promised her that he would put one hundred million dollars aside, just in case there was a sudden drastic change in the market. He hadn’t done that, and now they only had their ten-million-dollar house to fall back on.
One hundred million dollars as a backup. For some reason that story kept rolling around in Eleanor’s mind.
The place where Parker Bennett met her for lunch was Neary’s on Fifty-Seventh Street. Actually, she had been there before, a half dozen times at least. You never knew who you’d see there at night—high-ranking clergy, congressmen, business leaders, and so on. But lunch was quieter.
That was when Parker made his offer. “Eleanor, I’m going to leave the office and open my own place,” he said. “I want you to come work for me.”
The salary he had offered was more than generous. “And you’ll be very pleased with your Christmas bonus,” he had promised.
She would have leaped to say yes immediately, but then, when he told her the kind of investment firm he was planning, she was absolutely sure that he was not only a wonderful businessman but also a philanthropist.
“Eleanor,” he had said, “we all know that people with real money are sophisticated, and when they do their financial planning they always have stocks and bonds in their portfolio.”
Eleanor remembered how distinguished Parker Bennett had looked, and how he had looked her squarely in the eye as he sipped a glass of chardonnay.
“Eleanor,” he said, “I came from nothing. My father was a mail carrier. My mother was a sales clerk at Abraham and Straus. It has been on my mind for years to help ordinary middle-class and lower-middle-class people like them, who are scrupulously putting aside a little money every month, to have a chance to get a decent return, while avoiding overly risky investments.”
Then he outlined his plan, Eleanor thought bitterly. He would create a cozy, homelike atmosphere because, as he put it, “The little folks are easily intimidated, and we’ll reach them by subscribing to a lot of local newspapers and writing to congratulate people who were given an award or celebrated an anniversary.”
They called me the “tea and cookies lady,” Eleanor remembered with hot shame. I fell for his plans hook, line, and sinker, and looked up to Parker Bennett as if he was the savior of mankind.
And now I may go to prison for my stupidity.
But there was something, there was something, there was something . . .
• • •
A week later, after another seven sleepless nights struggling to recapture something long forgotten, as the first early morning lights filtered into the bedroom, Eleanor was suddenly aware that she was coming into the memory.
Her hand suddenly went up to her forehead. That’s it, she thought. We bumped heads really hard. He had dropped something and I helped him pick it up. What was it? It was right after he opened the investment firm.
She finally fell into an uneasy sleep and began to dream—fragments that came and went. She was in the office. We bumped heads. He was nervous.
With that, Eleanor’s memory faded. She had heard somewhere that if you write a dream down, it will help you to remember it clearly. And if you put your mind on a search-and-retrieve pattern, you may find what you’re looking for.
Suddenly hopeful, Eleanor got out of bed quietly so as not to awaken Frank, slipped on her robe, and went out to the kitchen.
She got the pad that she used to jot her grocery list and took a pen from the drawer.
Sitting at the kitchen table, she began to write. “Mr. Bennett and I bumped heads . . . It was just after I started working for him.” She hesitated. “He dropped something because he had just come in. It was very cold out. He said his fingers were stiff. He was terribly nervous.”
There was nothing more that she could bring back yet.
33
Sylvie de la Marco was in an increasingly bad mood. She knew she had to call Parker for more money soon. Two million more, just for the decorating!
And she had gone through a lot of money, a whole lot of money, last year. She’d bought a lot of clothes, which she absolutely needed because she was out socially so much.
And she had gone to Brazil last year. The surgery there was superb. She knew she didn’t look more than thirty, which was just right for someone who was actually forty-six.
What was the matter with Parker? He had stolen five billion dollars. Why was he being so miserly?
She realized she had begun to worry. Was it possible that after accumulating all that money, Parker had lost some or most of it?
And what happened if they ever caught him? It would be just like him to turn her in.
These were Sylvie’s troubled thoughts as, in a new Chanel suit, her Russian sable coat slung over her arms, she was almost ready to leave to have lunch with an A-list friend, Pamela Winslow, at Le Cirque.
Like her, Pamela had come from immigrant parents, hardworking, good people—Sylvie’s Italian, hers Polish. Her parents named her Pansy because her mother loved Gone with the Wind, and she read that Scarlett’s name was originally going to be Pansy. They giggled together about how they had begun planning to climb the social ladder to find a rich husband. They were both blessed with good looks. Pamela got her blond hair and blue eyes from her Polish ancestry. Sylvie helped hers along by dying her hair blond. It’s always looked good with my brown eyes, Sylvie mused. Pamela and I were also both divorced twice.
Then Pansy landed a rich guy the year I married Eduardo, Sylvie thought. Now she has loads of money and I have to eke out a living begging droppings from Parker. But at least I have a title, and that really impresses people, most of the time.
It’s time to look around, she thought.
As she headed for the front door, Robert told her that Ms. Harper was in the drawing room. She had not specifically asked to see the countess.
She knows enough not to bother me, Sylvie thought, but decided that anyhow she would see what Harper was up to.
Glady had banished the heavy draperies and almost all of the furniture. “I know an upscale store where they sell secondhand household furniture and tchotchkes and get pretty decent prices for them,” she had told Sylvie.
Now the drawing room was bare but painted in a soft vanilla shade that was a stark contrast to the harsh gold color that had been formerly there. Glady Harper was standing behind the painter as he began to paint the wainscoting.
“Ms. Harper,” Sylvie said, her tone formal.
Glady turned. “Oh, good morning, Countess, or is it good afternoon?” She looked at her watch. “Oh, I guess either will do. It’s about thirty seconds before noon.”
As usual Sylvie was not sure if there was an underlying note of contempt in Harper’s pleasant-enough greeting. She decided to ignore it. In the past month she had begun to realize that the whole feeling of the apartment was changing. Elegant but inviting was the way Harper had promised her it was going to be.
“Oh, Countess, before you go out, may I have a word with you?” Glady asked.
She’s going to want more money, Sylvie thought, panicked. “Of course, Ms. Harper.”
Glady walked toward her, then said, “I think we should step outside.”
She must think that the painter can hear a bird pass wind, Sylvie thought as she stepped into the hallway.
Glady did not waste a minute. “The second installment is due next week,” she said.
“Next week!”
“Of course, Countess. The paintings from Sotheby’s; the salon furniture; the dining room table, chairs, sideboard, and chandelier; and the anti
que carpets throughout the house, as well as the fabric for the window treatments, all of which you approved, will be delivered within the next two weeks.”
“Of course.” Sylvie tried to sound assured, then added, “I don’t think you gave me a schedule for the rest of the payments.”
“I believe our contract specifically states the steps at which payments are due.”
“Of course. You will have the check next week, Ms. Harper.”
Remembering to keep her head up, Sylvie exited the apartment. She knew Robert would be in front with the car to drive her to Le Cirque. There certainly was no way that she would climb out of a cab in front of the doorman.
Pamela was already there. It was one of her little tricks to always be early for an appointment and make people feel as though they had kept her waiting.
Their date was for 12:30. It was just 12:20. “Hi, Pansy,” Sylvie said just loud enough for the maître d’ to hear.
“Hi, Sally.”
They both laughed.
Over a gin martini they exchanged gossip. Sylvie knew that Pamela thought she was in touch with Parker, although she had never admitted to her that she was.
“How’s Malcolm?” she asked.
“As rich as ever,” Pamela replied. “And in equal parts, as boring.”
Malcolm Winslow was a Wall Street investor, twenty-six years older than Pamela, his second wife. His shrewd tradings had made him a legend on Wall Street but his innate disdain for social events was a big problem for Pamela, who loved to see her picture in the paper.
Now, with a sigh, she asked, “What’s new with you, Sylvie?”
“The latest is that I’m redoing the apartment. Glady Harper is the decorator. She’s a witch, but she is good.”
Pamela raised her eyebrows. “And expensive, very, very expensive. And that is one big apartment. Twelve rooms, isn’t it?”