Although the bed was neatly made and there was nothing out of order in the room, the bedroom had the same soiled appearance as the rest of the apartment. Even the closet looked different. Obviously every garment and accessory had been pulled out, examined and haphazardly put back. “Terrific,” Neeve told Jack. “That’s going to make it harder.”
Jack was wearing a white handmade Irish cable-knit sweater and navy corduroy slacks. When he arrived at Schwab House, Myles had opened the door for him, raised his eyebrows and said, “You two are going to look like Flossie and Freddie Bobbsey.” He’d stood aside to let Jack in, and Jack faced Neeve, who was also wearing an Irish white cable-knit sweater and navy corduroy slacks. They’d laughed together, and Neeve had quickly changed to a navy-and-white cardigan.
The coincidence had lightened Neeve’s dread of handling Ethel’s personal effects. Now that dread was lost in her dismay at the careless handling of Ethel’s treasured wardrobe.
“Harder but not impossible,” Jack said calmly. “Tell me the best way to go about this.”
Neeve gave him the file with the carbons of Ethel’s bills. “We’ll start with the latest purchases first.”
She pulled out the brand-new clothing Ethel had never worn, laid it on the bed, then worked backward, reeling off to Jack the dresses and suits that were still in the closet. It soon became obvious that the missing garments were only suitable for cold weather. “So that eliminates any idea that she might have been planning to go to the Caribbean or whatever and deliberately didn’t bring a coat,” Neeve murmured as much to herself as to Jack. “But Myles may be right. The white blouse that went with the suit she had on when they found her isn’t here. Maybe it is at the cleaners—Wait a minute!”
Abruptly she stopped speaking and reached far back into the closet to pull out a hanger that had been jammed between two sweaters. On it was a white silk blouse with a jabot neck and lace-trimmed sleeves. “That’s what I was looking for,” Neeve told Jack triumphantly. “Why didn’t Ethel put it on? And if she did decide to wear the blouse that came with the outfit, why didn’t she pack this one as well?”
They sat together on the chaise longue while Neeve copied from Jack’s notes until she had a precise listing of the clothing that was missing from Ethel’s closet. As Jack waited in silence, he looked around the room. Grimy, probably because of the police search. Good furniture. Expensive spread and decorative pillows. But it lacked identity. There were no personal touches, no framed snapshots, no special knickknacks. The few paintings scattered on the wall were totally unimaginative, as though they had been chosen only to fill space. It was a depressing room, empty rather than intimate. Jack realized he was beginning to feel an enormous sense of pity for Ethel. His mental image of her had been so different. He’d always thought of her as a self-propelled tennis ball, bobbing from one side of the court to the other in frenzied, unstopping motion. The woman this room suggested had been a rather pathetic loner.
They went back to the living room in time to watch Tse-Tse go through the stacks of mail on Ethel’s desk. “It isn’t here,” she said.
“What isn’t there?” O’Brien asked sharply.
“Ethel had an antique dagger as a letter opener, one of those Indian jobs with a fancy red-and-gold handle.”
Neeve thought that Detective O’Brien suddenly had the look of a bird dog picking up a scent.
“Do you remember the last time you saw the dagger, Tse-Tse?” he demanded.
“Yes. It was here both days this week when I cleaned, Tuesday and Thursday.”
O’Brien looked at Douglas Brown. “The dagger letter opener wasn’t here when we dusted yesterday. Any idea where we can find it?”
Douglas swallowed. He tried to look as though he were deep in thought. The letter opener had been on the desk on Friday morning. No one had come in except Ruth Lambston.
Ruth Lambston. She’d threatened to tell the police that Ethel was going to disinherit him. But he had already told the cops that Ethel was always finding the money she claimed he’d taken. That had been a brilliant answer. But now should he tell them about Ruth or just say he didn’t know?
O’Brien was repeating the question, this time persistently. Douglas decided it was time to get the cops’ attention off him. “Friday afternoon Ruth Lambston came over. She took back a letter Seamus had left for Ethel. She threatened to tell you people that Ethel was sore at me if I said one word about Seamus to you.” Douglas paused, then piously added, “That letter opener was here when she came. She was standing next to the desk when I went into the bedroom. I haven’t seen it since Friday. You better ask her why she decided to steal it.”
When Ruth received the frantic call from Seamus on Saturday afternoon, she’d managed to contact the personnel director of her company at home. It was she who sent the lawyer, Robert Lane, to the police station.
When Lane brought Seamus home, Ruth was sure her husband was on the verge of a heart attack, and she wanted to take him to the emergency room of the hospital. Seamus vehemently refused, but did agree to go to bed. His eyes red-rimmed, welling with tears, he shuffled into the bedroom, a crushed and broken man.
Lane waited in the living room to talk to Ruth. “I’m not a criminal lawyer,” he said bluntly. “And your husband is going to need a good one.”
Ruth nodded.
“From what he told me in the cab, he might stand a chance of acquittal or reduced charges on a temporary insanity defense.”
Ruth went cold. “He admitted killing her?”
“No. He told me he punched her, that she reached for the letter opener, that he grabbed it from her and in the scuffle that her right cheek was cut. He also told me that he hired some character who hangs out in his bar to make threatening phone calls to her.”
Ruth’s lips were stiff. “I just learned that last night.”
Lane shrugged. “Your husband won’t stand up under intense questioning. My advice is that he come clean and try to plea-bargain. You believe he killed her, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do.”
Lane stood up. “As I’ve said, I’m not a criminal lawyer, but I’ll ask around and see who I can find for you. I’m sorry.”
For hours Ruth sat quietly, the quiet of total despair. At ten o’clock she watched the news and heard the report that Ethel Lambston’s ex-husband was being questioned about her death. She ran to snap off the set.
The events of the past week ran over and over again through her mind like a tape in a constant replay position. Ten days ago, the tearful call from Jeannie—“Mom, I was so humiliated. The check bounced. The bursar sent for me”—had started it all. Ruth remembered the way she had screamed and ranted at Seamus. I pushed him to the point where he went crazy, she thought.
Plea-bargain. What did that mean? Manslaughter? How many years? Fifteen? Twenty? But he had buried her body. He had gone to such trouble to conceal the crime. How had he managed to stay that calm?
Calm? Seamus? That letter opener in his hand, staring down at a woman whose throat he had cut? Impossible.
A new memory came back to Ruth, one that had been a family joke in the days when they were still able to laugh. Seamus had come into the delivery room when Marcy was born. And fainted. At the sight of the blood, he’d passed out cold. “They were more worried about your father than about you and me,” Ruth used to tell Marcy. “That was the first and last time I let Dad set foot in the delivery room. He was better off standing drinks at the bar than getting in the doctor’s way.”
Seamus watching blood spurt from Ethel’s throat, putting her body into a plastic bag, sneaking it out of her apartment. Ruth thought of the news report that the bels had been ripped from Ethel’s clothes. Seamus having the cold courage to do that, then burying her in that cave in the park? It simply wasn’t possible, she decided.
But if he didn’t kill Ethel, if he’d left her as he claimed, then by scrubbing and disposing of the letter opener she might have destroyed evidence that might have led to som
eone else. . . .
It was too overwhelming for her to even consider any longer. Wearily, Ruth got up and went into the bedroom. Seamus was breathing evenly, but he stirred. “Ruth, stay with me.” When she got into bed, he put his arms around her and fell asleep, his head on her shoulder.
At three o’clock, Ruth was still trying to decide what to do. Then, almost as in response to an unspoken prayer, she thought of how often she’d run into former Police Commissioner Kearny in the supermarket since he retired. He always smiled so pleasantly and said, “Good morning.” Once when her bag of groceries had broken, he’d stopped to help her. She’d liked him instinctively, even though to see him was to remember that at least some of the alimony money was spent in his daughter’s fancy shop.
The Kearnys lived in Schwab House on Seventy-fourth Street. Tomorrow she and Seamus were going to go and ask to see the Commissioner. He’d know what they should do. She could trust him. Ruth finally fell asleep thinking, I’ve got to trust somebody.
• • •
For the first time in years, she slept Sunday morning away. Her watch read quarter of twelve when she pulled herself up on one arm and glanced at it. The bright sunshine radiated into the room around the ill-fitting outlet-store shades. She looked down at Seamus. In sleep, he lost the anxious, fearful expression that so irritated her, and his even features retained the traces of a once handsome man. The girls get their looks from him, Ruth thought, and their humor. In the early days, Seamus had been witty and confident. And then the downspin began. The rent for the pub increased astronomically, the neighborhood became gentrified, and the old customers disappeared one by one. And every month the alimony check.
Ruth slipped out of bed and went to the bureau. The sun mercilessly revealed the scars and nicks on it. She tried to open the drawer quietly, but it stuck and screeched in protest. Seamus stirred.
“Ruth.” He was not quite awake.
“Stay there,” she said, her voice soothing. “I’ll call you when breakfast is ready.”
The phone rang just as she took the bacon from the broiler. It was the girls. They had heard about Ethel. Marcy, the oldest, said, “Mama, we’re sorry for her, but it does mean that Dad is off the hook, isn’t he?”
Ruth tried to sound cheery. “It looks like that, doesn’t it? We still haven’t gotten used to the idea.” She called Seamus, and he came to the phone.
Ruth knew the effort he was making as he said, “It’s a terrible thing to be glad someone is dead, but it’s not terrible to be glad a financial burden has been lifted. Now tell me. How are the Dolly sisters doing? None of the boys getting fresh, I hope.”
Ruth had prepared fresh-squeezed orange juice, bacon, scrambled eggs, toast and coffee. She waited until Seamus had finished eating and she had poured a second cup of coffee for him. Then she sat opposite him, across the heavy oak dining-room table that had been an unwanted donation from his maiden aunt, and said, “We’ve got to talk.”
She leaned her elbows on the table, clasped her hands under her chin, saw her reflection in the spotted mirror over the china cupboard and had a fleeting realization that she looked and was drab. Her housecoat was faded; her always fine light-brown hair had become thin and mousy; her round glasses made her small face seem pinched. She dismissed the thoughts as irrelevant and continued to speak. “When you told me you had punched Ethel, that she’d been nicked with the letter opener, that you’d paid someone to threaten her, I believed that you had gone one step further. I believed that you had killed her.”
Seamus looked down into the coffee cup intently. You’d think it held the secrets of the universe, Ruth thought. Then he straightened up and stared into her eyes. It was as though a good night’s sleep, talking to the girls, and a decent breakfast had set him straight. “I did not kill Ethel,” he said. “I frightened her. Hell, I frightened myself. I never knew I was going to punch her, but maybe that came instinctively. She got cut because she went for the letter opener. I got it from her and threw it back on the desk. But she was scared. That’s when she said, ‘All right, all right. You can keep your damn alimony.’”
“That was Thursday afternoon,” Ruth said.
“Thursday about two o’clock. You know how quiet the place gets around that time. You know the state you were in about the bounced check. I left the bar at one-thirty. Dan was there. He’ll back me up.”
“Did you go back to the bar?”
Seamus finished the coffee and set the cup back on the saucer. “Yes. I had to, then I came home and got drunk. And I stayed drunk over the weekend.”
“Who did you see? Did you go out for the paper?”
Seamus smiled, a hollow, mirthless smile. “I wasn’t in any condition to read.” He waited for her reaction, then Ruth saw tentative hope coming into his face. “You believe me,” he said, his tone humble and surprised.
“I didn’t believe you yesterday or Friday,” Ruth said. “But I believe you now. You’re a lot of things and you’re not a lot of things, but I do know you could never take a knife or a letter opener in your hands and cut a throat.”
“You got yourself some prize in me,” Seamus said quietly.
Ruth’s tone became brisk. “I could have done worse. Now let’s get practical. I don’t like that lawyer, and he admitted you need someone else. I want to try something. For the last time, swear on your life that you did not kill Ethel.”
“I swear on my life.” Seamus hesitated. “On the lives of my three girls.”
“We need help. Real help. I watched the news last night. They talked about you. That you were being questioned. They’re anxious to prove you did this. We need to tell the full truth to someone who can advise us what to do or send us to the right lawyer.”
• • •
It took all afternoon of arguing, debating, cajoling, reasoning to get Seamus to agree. It was four-thirty when they put on their all-weather coats, Ruth sturdy and compact in hers, Seamus with the middle button straining on his, and walked the three blocks to Schwab House. Along the way, they spoke little. Even though the day was unseasonably brisk, people were reveling in the strong sunshine. Young children holding balloons, followed by exhausted-looking parents, made Seamus smile. “Remember when we took the girls to the zoo on Sunday afternoons? It’s nice it’s open again.”
At Schwab House the doorman told them that Commissioner Kearny and Miss Kearny were out. Hesitantly, Ruth asked permission to wait. For half an hour they sat side by side on a lobby sofa, and Ruth began to doubt the wisdom of her decision to come here. She was just about to suggest that they leave when the doorman held open the main door and a party of four people came in. The Kearnys and two strangers.
Before she lost her courage Ruth rushed to confront them.
• • •
“Myles, I wish you had let them talk to you.” They were in the kitchen of the apartment. Jack was making a salad. Neeve was defrosting the remainder of the pasta sauce from Thursday night’s dinner.
Myles was preparing a very dry martini for himself and Jack. “Neeve, there’s no way I can let them spill their guts to me. You’re a witness in this case as it is. I let him tell me he killed Ethel in a struggle, and I’ve got a moral obligation to report it.”
“I’m sure that’s not what he wanted to tell you.”
“Be that as it may, I can promise you that both Seamus Lambston and his wife Ruth are facing hard questioning at headquarters. Don’t forget, if that slimy nephew is telling the truth Ruth Lambston stole that letter opener, and you can bet she didn’t want it as a souvenir. I did the best I could. I called Pete Kennedy. He’s a hell of a good criminal lawyer, and he’ll see them in the morning.”
“And can they afford a hell of a good criminal lawyer?”
“If Seamus Lambston has clean hands, Pete will show our guys that they’re barking up the wrong tree. If he’s guilty, anything Pete charges will be worth it to get the count reduced from murder two to aggravated manslaughter.”
At dinner, it
seemed to Neeve that Jack deliberately steered the conversation away from Ethel. He asked Myles about some of his famous cases, a subject Myles never tired of discussing. It was only when they were clearing the table that Neeve realized Jack knew a lot about cases that certainly never would have been publicized in the Midwest. “You looked up Myles in back newspapers,” she accused.
He did not seem abashed. “Yes, I did. Hey, leave those pots in the sink. I’ll do them. You’ll ruin your nails.”
It is impossible, Neeve thought, that so much has happened in a week. It felt as though Jack had always been around. What was going on?
She knew what was going on. Then an aching cold came over her. Moses glimpsing the Promised Land and knowing he will never enter it. Why did she feel like that? Why did she feel as though somehow she was winding down? Why, when she looked at the mournful snapshot of Ethel, did she see something else in it today, something secretive, as though Ethel were saying, “Wait till you see what it’s like.”
What is ‘it’? Neeve wondered.
Death.
The ten-o’clock news was filled with more stories about Ethel. Someone had pieced together footage on her vivid background. The media had been short on exciting, headline-making news, and Ethel was helping to fill the void.
The program was just going off when the phone rang. It was Kitty Conway. Her clear, almost musical voice sounded a bit hurried. “Neeve, I’m sorry to bother you, but I just got home. When I hung up my coat I realized that your father left his hat in the closet. I’m coming into the city tomorrow in the late afternoon, so maybe I could drop it somewhere for him.”
Neeve was astonished. “Wait a minute, I’ll get him.” As she turned the phone over to Myles, she murmured, “You never forget anything. What’s up?”
“Oh, it’s pretty Kitty Conway.” Myles sounded delighted. “I was wondering if she’d ever find the damned hat.” When he hung up the phone, he looked sheepishly at Neeve. “She’s going to stop by around six o’clock tomorrow. Then I’ll take her out for dinner. Want to come?”