Fatal Impressions (25 page)

Coleman and Dinah huddled together on the hard orange plastic chairs in the hospital waiting room, while Jonathan paced. After what seemed an interminable wait, Dr. Shah, whom they’d met when they arrived, reappeared. He was smiling. “She has a mild concussion,” he said. “She’ll be fine. She was a little confused, but she’s better now. She’s resting, and I’d prefer no one try to talk to her tonight. She needs quiet and rest.”

“Thank God,” Dinah whispered.

“Can you tell us what happened to her?” Jonathan asked.

“She received a blow on the back of her head. The impact was deflected by that big bundle of hair. Her hair saved her from a much more serious injury,” the doctor said.

“When can she go home?”

“Tomorrow, if she feels okay. Someone should be here to pick her up about ten. Unless there’s a change in her condition for the worse—and I’m pretty sure there won’t be—she’ll be better off at home, but she’ll have to take it easy,” he said.

“Thanks, Dr. Shah,” Jonathan said, “We’ll be here. Come on, Dinah, Coleman.” In the lobby, they met Heyward and Rob coming in and told them the good news. They had news, too.

“It’s over,” Rob said. “They found Theodore Douglas hiding in the dining room on thirty-three. Loretta had managed to stab him in the hand with that needle, and he left a trail of blood. He denied touching Loretta until he learned she was alive and had identified him. Then he began to talk. I advised him to be quiet and call a lawyer, but he seemed determined to spill everything. He implicated Parker all the way, except that Parker had nothing to do with the attack on Loretta. This was about Loretta discovering Douglas’s second family. He recognized her in the elevator this morning and decided to kill her before she told anyone. He planned to follow her home, to the building where he saw her in the Village, and kill her there. He waited downstairs in the coffee shop to see her leave, eventually came back to see if she was still in the office, and ran into her.

“When he confessed to hitting her, he even produced the weapon—would you believe he struck her with a three-hole punch he grabbed off a desk? He used it like a tennis racket to slam her from behind. He was sure she was dead, but if we hadn’t turned up when we did, I think she’d have followed Patti Sue down the elevator shaft. He also planned to go after Ellie, if he could find her. He said he became suspicious of her when she disappeared. He thought Ellie might have seen him arranging Frances Johnson’s death, and he’d planned to look through her desk for clues to her whereabouts. As for why he killed the Victor sisters: they knew too much and got too demanding.”

“Why didn’t he divorce Glenda instead of trying to kill poor Loretta to cover up his secret life?” Dinah asked.

“I’ve thought a lot about his other ‘wife’ and children,” Coleman said. “Loretta said he seemed so happy with his Village family. Living with the Ice Queen must have been horrible, when he might have been with a wife and children he loved. But he needed a lot of money to support his second family—money that had to be kept secret from Glenda.”

“Glenda’s family would have annihilated him if he’d tried to divorce her,” Heyward said. “The Goulds are notorious for holding on to what’s theirs. I’m sure he was tied to her with an airtight prenuptial agreement. His job probably depended on their goodwill, too.”

“Douglas deserves punishment, but I feel sorry for Hunt. He didn’t harm anyone, but his firm is disgraced and falling apart,” Dinah said.

“He made
your
life pretty miserable,” Jonathan said.

“I think he’s suffered enough,” Dinah said.

“I’m convinced that Hunt will rise above all this,” Heyward said.

Coleman looked at him. “You know what? I am, too. I’d planned to write a big story about Hunt and the missing art and the disastrous merger, but I think that story is over. The real story is what happens next.”

The Greene Gallery was closed Mondays, but Dinah always went in. She was usually alone and enjoyed the time to herself. There was often a lot to do, and this Monday was no exception. She had a great deal to think about.

She sat down at her desk and reflected on recent events. She had so much to be grateful for. No one close to her, including Loretta, had been severely hurt. She and Jonathan had picked Loretta up at the hospital that Saturday morning, planning to bring her back to Cornelia Street with them, but instead, to their surprise, she wanted to go the apartment near Columbia where her friends—now her roommates—were taking turns making a fuss over her. She seemed subdued but physically fine. She’d asked Coleman for a few weeks’ leave to go home to see her family, and Coleman had readily agreed. The girl had certainly earned some time off.

The check from DDD&W would see Dinah through lean times until the Greene Gallery was stronger, and earning more. Debbi Diamondstein thought the print installation at DDD&W was great and would bring in lots of business. She had arranged to have every wall photographed and would see that the photographs reached the right magazines. She told Dinah she might even win an award for the project.

But Dinah’s confidence and her faith in people had been shaken by the events of the last month. She would never have dreamed that anyone could think she was a murderer. She was no longer sure she wanted the responsibility—the burden—of trying to make a success of the gallery. If she hadn’t taken on the DDD&W job, she’d never have been accused of murder, and Loretta wouldn’t have been hurt. Maybe Patti Sue and her sister wouldn’t have been killed. She was beginning to think Jonathan was right: she wasn’t suited to managing a big commercial art gallery. She certainly wasn’t capable of dealing with the corporate world.

Should she turn the management of the gallery over to Bethany? Bethany would run it well. If Dinah didn’t have to worry about making the gallery profitable, she could do as much or as little research as she liked. She could write articles and catalog essays. She could find the perfect Midtown apartment, and make Jonathan happy. She could get pregnant, and make Jonathan ecstatic. A quiet domestic life sounded blissful. She wanted babies eventually. Why not now?

The sound of the mail hitting the floor interrupted her reverie. She collected the handful of envelopes and returned to her desk. Openings at other galleries. Bills. Advertisements. A letter from the Art Museum of Great Britain. What could that be?

Good heavens, they were offering her a Samuel Palmer Fellowship, assisting with the research and cataloguing of a major addition to their American Print collection—an American patron had donated his huge collection to the museum. An exhibition was planned, and her knowledge about American prints would be invaluable.

The Palmer Fellowships were famous, but she had never considered applying. They were a tremendous honor, given to the greatest scholars in the print world. Dinah didn’t even have a PhD. She’d never heard of a Palmer Fellow who hadn’t earned a doctorate. Who had nominated her? Oh, darling Rachel, her good friend.

Four months in London: June, July, August, September. She’d been to London once and loved it. She’d dreamed of doing something like this someday, although she’d never really believed it could happen. Coming now, when she was feeling so low, it was a heaven-sent opportunity. But what would Jonathan say?

Soon after his arrival in London, Heyward had telephoned Rachel to ask if he could come to see her, explaining that he needed only half an hour of her time. She’d invited him to join her for lunch and suggested several possible dates. She’d made it clear she wanted to see him. Maybe, as he’d hoped, she’d begun to think of him as a friend. He’d know soon. The chosen day had arrived.

“Welcome back,” Rachel said. “Come into the sitting room. Would you like a glass of sherry?”

He declined, and when they’d settled by the fire, he said, “I wanted to talk to you about Simon. He’ll be released from the clinic in a few months, and I don’t want him to turn up in New York or to return to London. I think you feel the same way. Am I right?”

“I certainly would prefer that he settle somewhere other than here, but how can he be prevented from returning?”

“I think he’ll find a new life in Australia. I propose to buy him a contemporary art gallery in Melbourne. It’s successful and, unless he ruins it with his plots and schemes, should continue to do well. I’ll buy him a house and a car, and provide him with a liberal allowance. I’ll guarantee the allowance for ten years, on condition that he doesn’t enter the UK or the US.”

Rachel nodded. “Simon is a born remittance man—I thought so when he lived in New York. But he is expensive. That is a very generous offer. How can you be sure he will not come back secretly?”

“I’ll make sure he’s watched,” Heyward said. “Is the arrangement I described acceptable to you?”

“Certainly. May I help financially?”

“No, thanks. I created the monster; I should pay the price. I have a happier topic to discuss. Has Dinah told you about the company Coleman and I have set up?”

“She said it involves magazine publishing. Do I have that right?”

“Yes, but I also want to expand into book publishing. I’m interested in the publication of art books, including bringing back out-of-print books. When we established the bookstore in the Print Museum, we couldn’t obtain most of the books we’d planned to sell. Even secondhand copies were difficult to find. What do you think?”

“That is a wonderful idea. How may I help?” Rachel said.

“I’d like you to join the board of the art book subsidiary. Be on the lookout for new books we should publish, suggest out-of-print books we should rescue.”

“I should enjoy that,” Rachel said. She stood up. “Shall we have lunch? We can talk more about this delightful project, and perhaps you will bring me up to date on all the excitement in New York?”

He was right: she
was
willing to be his friend. He smiled to himself. He also had a sister and friends who’d be glad to see him when he returned to New York. And interesting work to do. To think that so recently he’d been bored and lonely. How quickly life could change.

Hunt was exhausted. He’d scarcely slept since Heyward Bain’s revelations, and the days that followed the attempted murder of Loretta Byrd had been the worst in his life. They made the unpleasant period of his divorce seem like a holiday in Paris.

The confrontation with Moose had been devastating. When Moose had seen the letters from Colossus’s Roger Black to Coleman, he’d appeared stricken, but he hadn’t been contrite or apologetic, just furious that Black had supplied the link that would send Moose to jail. When Hunt told him that the SEC and the attorney general knew about his activities, and could arrive at DDD&W at any time, Moose admitted everything and, in an attempt to get a reduced sentence, identified two of his young associates as a part of the inside-information scheme.

Hunt had called security to escort the three of them out of the building and arranged to have their offices padlocked. Ever since their departure, every floor at DDD&W had been flooded with investigators. He’d kept his own door closed, and behind it, he’d terminated the three inside-information sellers and twenty tax-dodgers. Counting Harrison, whom he’d ordered Danbury to dismiss, that was twenty-four departures, and he hadn’t finished cleaning house.

He’d instructed Leichter to get rid of his paramour, Naomi Skinner, who had briefly been head of human resources. He’d warned Leichter that any more office romances would mean the end of his career at DDD&W. Funds for paying off Skinner, beyond the normal severance package determined by length of service, had to come out of Leichter’s pocket.

He’d dismissed Trixie and her helpers and sent out a memo announcing the closing of the dining room and the cafeteria: employees would hereafter pay for their own lunches, and company-financed snacks were no longer available.

The Cobra had written a ferocious letter to Oscar Danbury threatening him with arrest if he exposed himself and/or displayed his disgusting desktop trick again. Hunt had followed up the Cobra’s letter by ordering Danbury to bring in an exterminator and professional cleaners to scrub thirty and thirty-one—at his expense. Danbury was now responsible for keeping those floors immaculate and vermin-free.

Hunt had taken some time off from firing the criminal and the incompetent to tell Amy Rothman she had been elected DDD&W’s first female partner. After explaining what had happened to Moose and why, he’d asked her to take over Moose’s department. He’d warned her that she’d have to reduce both the number of Moose’s Merry Men, and the huge number of accountants he’d hired, while simultaneously reassuring clients. Her eagerness and enthusiasm had been gratifying.

At the end of each grueling day, he went home to his empty apartment and ate Chinese or Indian takeout for his lonely supper. He fell into bed, where he lay awake tossing and turning, thinking of Moose’s villainy and the shock of learning that Theodore Douglas was a murderer, thief, polygamist, and criminal coconspirator with the Boston lawyer who’d cheated and abused the Davidson twins. Douglas: the lying vicious partner he’d considered a friend. His only friends at DDD&W had turned out to be treacherous, even wicked. How could he have been so mistaken about them?

He’d been overjoyed to learn that after all she’d been through, Elizabeth Davidson was willing to forgive and forget, and wanted to join DDD&W. Although she was now the firm’s largest stockholder, she wasn’t demanding an executive role, but humbly asking for a chance to learn. She was willing to let the Prince Charles Stuart Museum have the Davidson Americana collection. There would be no multimillion-dollar suit from the museum, that crazy Scot was off his back, and the Cobra had disappeared. With any luck he’d never be heard from again.

He wasn’t sure he could trust anyone at DDD&W except Elizabeth Davidson and Amy. He’d have to get to know everyone who worked there. Find good people to replace the bad ones. Rebuild the firm. Get a life. In that connection, he was determined to make a telephone call. He’d struggled to put Coleman Greene out of his mind ever since he met her and had failed miserably. He hadn’t been free to ask her out—she was press, and then she became a client, and he couldn’t talk to her about anything he was doing. He’d been terrified she’d expose the dreadful situation at DDD&W before he could improve it. He was committed to saving DDD&W, and he’d had so many problems to deal with he hadn’t had time to do anything else. Maybe too much work had clouded his judgement.

But as far as he knew, all of the dirty laundry had been scrubbed and exposed to sun and fresh air. He still thought about Coleman, still wanted to see her socially. He’d start with an apology and an invitation to dinner. Maybe in time she’d forgive him for how he’d treated her.