Let Me Call You Sweetheart (11 page)

When she punched in the code that admitted her to the prosecutor's office, the switchboard operator looked up and said, "Kerry, go right into Mr. Green's office. He's expecting you." Oh boy, Kerry thought.
As soon as she walked into Green's office, she could see he was not angry. She knew him well enough to be able to read his mood. As usual he came directly to the point. "Kerry, Robin is fine. She's with your neighbor, Mrs. Weiser. Emphatically, she is all right."
Kerry felt her throat tighten. "Then what's wrong?"
"We're not sure and maybe nothing. According to Robin, you left the house at six-thirty." There was a glint of curiosity in Green's eyes.
"Yes, I did."
"When Robin was leaving the house later, she said she noticed a strange car parked across the street. When she reached the sidewalk, the window on the driver's door opened slightly, and she was able to see a hand holding some kind of object. She couldn't tell what it was, and she wasn't able to see the driver's face. Then the car started up and veered across the street so suddenly she thought it would come up on the sidewalk and hit her, but it quickly went into a U-turn and took off. Robin ran to your neighbor's house."
Kerry sank into a chair. "She's there now?"
"Yes. You can call her, or go home if that would reassure you. My concern is, does Robin have an overactive imagination, or is it possible someone was trying to frighten her and ultimately frighten you?"
"Why would anyone want to frighten Robin or me?"
"It's happened before in this office after a high-profile case. You've just completed a case that got a lot of media attention. The guy you convicted of murder was clearly an out-and-out sleaze and still has relatives and friends."
"Yes, but all of them I met seemed to be pretty decent people," Kerry said. "And to answer your first question, Robin is a level-headed kid. She wouldn't imagine something like this." She hesitated. "It's the first time I let her get herself out in the morning, and I was bombarding her with warnings about what to do and not do."
"Call her from here," Green directed.
Robin answered Mrs. Weiser's telephone on the first ring. "I knew you'd call, Mom. I'm okay now. I want to go to school. Mrs. Weiser said she'd drive me. And Mom, I've still got to go out this afternoon. It's Halloween."
Kerry thought quickly. Robin was better off in school than sitting at home all day, thinking about the incident. "All right, but I'll be there at school to pick you up at quarter of three. I don't want you walking home." And I'll be right with you when you trick-or-treat, she thought. "Now let me talk to Mrs. Weiser, Rob," she said.
When she hung up, she said, "Frank, is it all right if I leave early today?"
His smile was genuine. "Of course it is. Kerry, I don't have to tell you to question Robin carefully. We have to know if there's any chance someone really was watching for her."
As Kerry was leaving, he added, "But isn't Robin a bit young to see herself off to school?"
Kerry knew he was fishing to find out what had been so important that she had left Robin alone at home at six-thirty.
"Yes, she is," she agreed. "It won't happen again."
...
Later that morning, Joe Palumbo stopped by Kerry's office and told her about his call to Dolly Bowles. "She doesn't want to talk to me, Kerry, but I'd still like to go with you when you see her."
"Let me phone her now."
Her six-word greeting, "Hello, Mrs. Bowles, I'm Kerry McGrath," led to being on the receiving end of a ten-minute monologue.
Palumbo crossed his legs and leaned back in the chair as with some amusement he watched Kerry try to interject a word or question. Then he was irritated when, after Kerry finally got an opportunity to say that she would like to bring her investigator, Mr. Palumbo, with her, it was obvious the answer was no.
Finally she hung up. "Dolly Bowles is not a happy camper about the way she was treated by this office ten years ago. That was the gist of the conversation. The rest is that her daughter and son-in-law don't want her talking about the murder or what she saw anymore, and they're coming back from a trip tomorrow. If I want to see her, it's got to be about five o'clock today. That's going to take some juggling. I told her I'd let her know."
"Can you get out of here in time?" Joe asked.
"I have a few appointments I'm canceling anyhow." She told Palumbo about Robin and the incident this morning.
The investigator rose to his feet and tried to close the jacket that always strained over his generous middle. I'll meet you at your place at five," he suggested. "While you're with Mrs. Bowles, let me take Robin for a hamburger. I'd like to talk to her about this morning." He saw the look of disapproval on Kerry's face and hastened to speak before she could protest. "Kerry, you're smart, but you're not going to be objective about this. Don't do my job for me."
Kerry studied Joe thoughtfully. His appearance was always a little disheveled, and his paperwork was usually somewhat disorganized, but he was just about the best there was at his job. Kerry had seen him question young children so skillfully that they didn't realize every word they said was being analyzed. It would be very helpful to have Joe's spin on this. "Okay," she agreed.
On Tuesday afternoon, Jason Arnott drove from Alpine to the remote area near Ellenville in the Catskills where his sprawling country home, hidden by the surrounding mountain range, concealed his priceless stolen treasures.
He knew the house was an addiction, an extension of the sometimes uncontrollable drive that made him steal the beautiful things he saw in the homes of his acquaintances. For it was beauty, after all, that made him do those things. He loved beauty, loved the look of it, the feel. Sometimes the urge to hold something, to caress it, was so strong it was almost overwhelming. It was a gift, and as such, both a blessing and a curse. Someday it would get him in trouble. As it almost had already. It made him impatient when visitors admired carpets or furniture or paintings or objets d'art in his Alpine home. Often he amused himself by contemplating how shocked they would be if he were to blurt out, "This place is ordinary by my standards."
But, of course, he never would say that, for he had no desire to share his private collection with anyone. That was his alone. And must be kept that way.
Today is Halloween, he thought dismissively as he drove swiftly up Route 17. He was glad to get away. He had no desire to be victimized by children endlessly ringing his doorbell. He was tired.
Over the weekend he had stayed at a hotel in Bethesda, Maryland, and used the time to burglarize a Chevy Chase home at which he had attended a party a few months earlier. At that gathering, the hostess, Myra Hamilton, had rattled on about her son's upcoming wedding, which would take place on October 28th in Chicago, effectively announcing to one and all that the house would be empty on that date.
The Hamilton house was not large, but it was exquisite, filled with precious items the Hamiltons had collected over the years. Jason had salivated over a Faberg‚ with a gold egg-shaped handle. That and a delicate three-by-five-foot Aubusson with a central rosace that they used as a wall hanging were the two things he most wanted to wrest from them.
Now both objects were in the trunk of his car, on their way to his retreat. Unconsciously, Jason frowned. He was not experiencing his usual sensation of triumph at having achieved his goal. A vague, indefinable worry was nagging at him. Mentally he reviewed the modus operandi of entering the Hamilton home, going over it step by step.
The alarm had been on but easy to disengage. Clearly the house was empty, as he had anticipated. For a moment, he had been tempted to go through the place quickly, looking for anything of great value he might have missed noticing at the party. Instead he stuck to his original plan, taking only those things he had scoped out earlier.
He had barely inched his way into the traffic on Route 240 when two police cars, sirens screaming and lights flashing, raced past him and turned left onto the street he had just exited. It was obvious to him that they were on their way to the Hamilton home. Which, of course, meant that he had somehow triggered a silent alarm that operated independently of the master system.
What other kind of security did the Hamiltons have? he wondered. It was so easy to conceal cameras now. He had been wearing the stocking mask he always put on when entering one of the houses he had chosen to honor with his attention, but at one point this night he had pulled it up to examine a bronze figurine, a foolish thing to do--it had proved to be of no real value.
One chance in a million that a camera caught my face, Jason reassured himself. He would dismiss his misgivings and go on with his life, albeit a bit more cautiously for a while.
The afternoon sun was almost lost behind the mountains when he pulled into his driveway. At last he felt a measure of buoyancy. The nearest neighbor was several miles away. Maddie, the weekly cleaning woman--large, stolid, unimaginative and unquestioning woman that she was--would have been in yesterday. Everything would be shining.
He knew she didn't recognize the difference between an Aubusson and a ten-dollar-a-yard carpet remnant, but she was one of those rare creatures who took pride in her work and was satisfied only with perfection. In ten years, she had never so much as chipped a cup.
Jason smiled to himself, thinking of Maddie's reaction when she found the Aubusson hanging in the foyer and the Faberg‚ desk seal in the master bedroom. Hasn't he got enough stuff to dust? she would wonder and go on with her chores.
He parked the car at the side door and, with the rush of anticipation that always surged over him when he came here, entered the house and reached for the light switch. Once again, the sight of so many beautiful things made his lips and hands moist with pleasure. A few minutes later, after his overnight case, a small bag of groceries and his new treasures were safely inside, he locked the door and drew the bolt. His evening had begun.
His first task was to carry the Faberg‚ seal upstairs and place it on the antique dressing table. Once it was in place, he stood back to admire it, then leaned over to compare it with the miniature frame that had been on his night table for the past ten years.
The frame represented one of the few times he had been fooled. It was a decent Faberg‚ copy, but certainly not the real thing. That fact seemed so obvious now. The blue enamel looked muddy when compared to the deep color of the desk seal. The gold border encrusted with pearls was nothing like authentic Faberg‚ workmanship. But from inside that frame, Suzanne's face smiled back at him.
He didn't like to think about that night, almost eleven years ago. He had gone in through the open window of the sitting room of the master bedroom suite. He knew the house was supposed to be empty. That very day, Suzanne had told him about her dinner engagement for the evening, and the fact that Skip would not be home. He had the security code, but when he got there, he saw that the window was wide open. When he entered the upstairs floor, it was dark. In the bedroom he spotted the miniature frame he had seen earlier; it was on top of the night table. From across the room it looked authentic. He was just examining it closely when he heard a raised voice. Suzanne! Panicking, he had dropped the frame in his pocket and hidden in a closet.
Jason looked down at the frame now. Over the years he had sometimes wondered what perverse reason kept him from removing Suzanne's picture from it, or from throwing the whole thing away. The frame was, after all, only a copy.
But as he stared at it this night, he understood for the first time why he had left the picture and frame intact. It was because it made it easier for him to blot out the memory of how gruesome and distorted Suzanne's features had been when he made his escape.
"Well, we've got our jury impanelled and it's a good one," Bob Kinellen told his client with a heartiness he did not feel.
Jimmy Weeks looked at him sourly. "Bobby, with a few exceptions, I think that jury stinks."
"Trust me."
Anthony Bartlett backed up his son-in-law. "Bob's right, Jimmy. Trust him." Then Bartlett's eyes strayed to the opposite end of the defense table where Barney Haskell was sitting, his expression morose, his hands supporting his head. He saw that Bob was looking at Haskell too, and he knew what Bob was thinking.
Haskell's a diabetic. He won't want to risk years in prison. He's got dates and facts and figures that we'll have a hell of a time contradicting... He knew all about Suzanne.
The opening arguments would begin the next morning. When he left the courthouse, Jimmy Weeks went directly to his car. As the chauffeur held the door open, he slid into the backseat without his usual grunted good-bye.
Kinellen and Bartlett watched the car pull away. "I'm going back to the office," Kinellen told his father-in-law. "I've got work to do."
Bartlett nodded. "I would say so." There was an impersonal tone to his voice. "See you in the morning, Bob."
Sure you will, Kinellen thought as he walked to the parking garage. You're distancing yourself from me so that if my hands get dirty, you're not part of it.
He knew that Bartlett had millions salted away. Even if Weeks was convicted and the law firm went under, he would be all right. Maybe he would get to spend more time in Palm Beach with his wife, Alice Senior.
I'm taking all the risks, Bob Kinellen thought as he handed his ticket to the cashier. I'm the one who risks going down. There had to be a reason Jimmy insisted on leaving the Wagner woman on the jury. What was it?
Geoff Dorso phoned Kerry just as she was about to leave the office. "I saw Dr. Smith this morning," she told him hurriedly, "and I'm seeing Dolly Bowles around five. I can't talk now. I've got to meet Robin at school."
"Kerry, I'm anxious to know what happened with Dr. Smith, and what you learn from Dolly Bowles. Can we have dinner?"
"I don't want to go out tonight, but if you don't mind a salad and pasta..." "I'm Italian, remember?"
"About seven-thirty?"
"I'll be there."
...
When she picked up Robin at school, it was clear to Kerry that her daughter's mind was much more on Halloween trick-or-treating than on the early-morning incident. In fact, Robin seemed to be embarrassed about it. Taking her cue from her daughter, Kerry dropped the subject, for now at least.
When they reached home, she gave Robin's teenage sitter the afternoon off. This is the way other mothers live, she thought as, with several of them, she trailed a cluster of trick-or- treating children. She and Robin arrived back at their place just in time to let Joe Palumbo in.