Madam of Maple Court (7 page)

The most puzzling charges were for CF+Co. The amounts were pretty consistent, two thousand dollars almost every week. CF+Co? What the hell was that about? Another woman? She didn't want to consider that there had been anyone else, but it was difficult not to entertain the possibility.

If he'd been unfaithful, if he'd had sex with another woman, did she care? She would be hurt by the idea, of course, and hate the idea of the lies he must have had to tell her, but if she were being honest, she realized that things hadn't been going well between them, in and out of the bedroom, for a very long time.
No! Stop it! Don't go there, not yet
!

She glanced back at the credit card statement, picked a date at random, and checked it against Vin's date book. Blank. There was nothing in the book about any dinner and nothing to indicate what CF+Co was. However, there was no doubt that this was where much of the missing money had gone. She thumbed through the credit card bills. More than one hundred thousand dollars had been charged to that credit card in the last year. That was more than he could have been paying for another woman. Unless he'd set her up in an apartment in the city? But what else could this be? Blackmail? Gambling? Drugs? No, probably not drugs. She'd have known if he'd been using something illegal, wouldn't she? Anyway, dealers didn't take credit cards. Neither did blackmailers. Was he going to some back room poker game or something?

She found Vin's briefcase where she'd put it months earlier, but there was nothing inside to clear up the credit card mystery. She'd have to find out what had been going on some other way.

She logged on to Vin's computer, looked for any records of CF+Co and, finding nothing, Googled CF+Co. Still nothing. What else could she search for? Where else could she look? When she kept coming up empty, she telephoned Mark and told him about the bank account and the credit card. "I've no idea what it could be," Mark said when she'd finished. "He never gave me any such records."

"I've had several thoughts. The primary one is gambling. Anything illegal would hardly take a credit card." And women.

"Would you like me to get in touch with someone who can do some discreet inquiry? It seems to me that we don't want to do anything too precipitous. It could all be nothing."

She took a deep breath. "Not likely. Maybe you should stay out of it. Can you give me the name of someone, a detective who does this kind of thing?"

"Sure. I've worked with a guy named Gary Jannson of Jannson Security Services. He usually does corporate work, but he's a straight-up guy with great contacts and a secretive disposition." He gave Pam a phone number. "I'll call him and let him know you'll be making an appointment. Bring along the bank and credit card statements so he knows where to start." She wrote down the number he gave her and put the slip of paper in her pocket.

It was strange how finding that Vin had secrets energized Pam. She went up to the bedroom and packed some of Vin's things to give to charity. More went into large gray trash bags. Somehow it felt more like a cleansing of her mind than her bedroom. She went to the local Wal-Mart and bought new sheets and when she got home, put them on the bed. She also vowed to make an appointment with Mark and take back control of her finances. She was ready to reenter the world for real.

Finding that Vin had some kind of a clandestine life made it easier for Pam to deal with her feelings, or lack thereof, too. Whatever she felt, it was okay and she'd deal with whatever the detective found out. She could handle it.

When her energy flagged she went down to the kitchen and made a cup of espresso, then went back into Vin's den and looked at the credit card statements more carefully. It seemed that the charges began just over a year ago. What had changed then? Anything beside the business going badly? Was this woman his ego boost?

As she sipped her coffee she went over the past few years of her marriage. She remembered incidents, arguments they'd had about nothing. She remembered one in particular. He wanted her to help out with MADD, Mothers Against Drunk Driving. "It's a great cause. The son of the CEO at one of my accounts was killed by a drunken driver about a year ago and they've gotten really heavily into it. You could meet them, sort of accidentally, and seem really hot to help."

Mothers. She couldn't get past that word. She'd never lost a child, never even had a child. How could she possibly relate to women who'd suffered as they had? "Vin, no. I'd have nothing in common with them, and I really don't have time. Between battered women, leukemia and save the wilderness, I've got all I can handle."

"You don't know anyone who had leukemia, nor do you have anything in common with low-class women whose husbands knock them around from time to time, probably with good reason."

Pam remembered being horrified at his reaction. Low-class women? Good reason? Who was this man she was married to? However, as always, she'd kept her mouth shut. Gould she get involved with MADD? It would be good for Vin's career. She clamped her jaws tightly. How long had she been keeping her mouth shut about important things? Too long? "Not MADD. I'm really sorry and I'd love to help you out with your business, but no."

"Gome on, honey. It's just another place to use your gifts of organization. You could even use the house for another fundraiser. The Shepards could come and it would do me so much good."

"I'm really sorry, Vin, but I'm firm on this. I just can't."

"Won't, you mean."

"Whatever word you want to use, it won't happen."

"Because you can't have children? Is that what this is all about?"

She'd almost changed her mind, but then shook her head slowly. "No. I just don't want to."

Vin huffed out a breath and folded his arms tightly across his chest. "You have to do what you have to do, of course." Pam could tell he was furious, but she just couldn't do what he wanted. That had been about a year before, around the time the charges started.

As she sat at Vin's desk with the credit card bill in her hand, she wondered whether she should have read things into that conversation. He'd used all his tricks. The "you can't have children." The body language. The "it's for the business." Had that been the first time she'd refused him? She tried to think of another time and couldn't. His methods had always worked before.

From then on she'd gone into the city to meet him on fewer and fewer occasions. She hadn't really focused on it until now, but they'd begun to drift apart. Drift? She was still on the same course, but he'd started to move increasingly rapidly in a different direction. Maybe the other woman met his needs better than she could. When had he stopped loving her? And she had still loved him deeply.

Stop conning yourself and think seriously
. Had she still loved him deeply? Had she still loved him at all? She tried to sort it all out. She liked him. Didn't she? She didn't really know anything anymore.

Pam took a deep breath. Examining her feelings wouldn't help her now. She'd do that when she'd found out whether she was right about the other woman. She pulled the phone number out of her pocket and dialed. "Jannson Security Services," a soft, cultured woman said.

"Good afternoon. I'm Pam DePalma and I think Mark Redmond called a little while ago about me. May I talk to Mr. Jannson, please?"

"Let me see whether he's got a minute to talk to you. This has been a very busy afternoon." There was an unexpected warmth in her voice. Pam made a great many calls for her various charities and she was used to rather impersonal receptionists. Maybe this was his wife or something. Whoever she was, her comfortable attitude made things easier for Pam, and she imagined, for the people with the kind of problems one hired a private detective for.

She heard the phone connect. "Gary Jannson."

"Mr. Jannson, I'm Pam DePalma. I think Mark Redmond talked to you earlier about some work I need done."

"Of course." His voice was warm and somehow comforting. She could picture angry wives trusting him to find out the dirt on their husbands. She was doing pretty much the same thing, except that Vin was dead. "Mark only gave me the barest outline of what you need. Can you come into the office one day soon? I'll see what you've got and we'll talk about what I can do to help."

What he can do to help. Nice way of putting it
. "That would be fine." He gave her the address of his office in White Plains and they made an appointment for two days later.

Pam expected the offices of Jannson Security Services to be in a slightly seedy building on the outskirts of White Plains, but when she arrived at the address she found a seven-story steel and glass building in the heart of the business district. She drove around until she found a municipal parking lot and put enough money in the meter for three hours. She had no idea how long she'd have to wait.

She was nervous and it surprised her. She hadn't anticipated the trembling in her knees as she crossed the street to his building. What was she afraid of? Maybe it was as simple as fear of knowing that she'd finally find out what had been going on. She'd been able to talk herself in and then out of several scenarios over the past forty-eight hours. It couldn't be any of the things she'd been thinking. GF+Co was sure to turn out to be something totally innocent. If it wasn't, did she really want to know? she asked herself for the thousandth time. Yes, she needed to find out.

The company office was on the fourth floor, and when she opened the door she found as lovely an office as she could envision, a look she'd tried to get for DePalma Advertising, warm, accepting, friendly without being too intimate or too flashy. The furnishings in the reception area were in muted shades of off-whites and browns, ranging from ecru to toast, with accents of deep royal blue. A gigantic sofa upholstered in a nubby oatmeal tweed was flanked by several matching chairs and two done in tan leather. The landscape over the sofa was probably not an old master, but had the feel of quality. A low white ash coffee table was covered with current issues of everything from
House Beautiful
to
USA Today
. They didn't look particularly well thumbed. She wondered whether that meant that not many people were left waiting for long or that the company's clients brought their own work.

She was five minutes early but when she introduced herself to the receptionist, a fortyish woman with little make-up, neat hair and, Pam was sure, sensible shoes, the well-turned-out woman said, "Of course, Ms. DePalma. Mr. Jannson will be with you in just a moment."

She buzzed him and almost immediately motioned to a hallway. "Through there, first door on the left."

As Pam walked toward the door the receptionist had indicated, it was opened by a man who was the antithesis of everything she'd expected. Rather than being someone like Columbo, Gary Jannson was of medium height, with a head full of blond curls that would have done beautifully on a fashion model. Or an angel. His deep blue eyes flashed and his smile was broad. He extended a well-manicured hand. "Ms. DePalma. It's nice to meet you."

He ushered her into his office, done in the same calming color family, this time in shades of eggshell and caramel. Calming? She realized that her heart was pounding and her palms were sweaty. She smoothed them down the flanks of her deep green pants and slipped the matching jacket off her shoulders, draping it on the back of a leather chair. Her blouse was silk, patterned in a thin forest green strips on an off-white background, her jewelry simple, classic chunky gold. She made herself as comfortable as she could while Gary Jannson made his way to his chair and settled easily. "If you don't mind, Ms. DePalma, I'm going to make some notes as we talk."