Madam of Maple Court (8 page)

"Of course. And it's Pam. We'll never get anywhere being formal."

His smile widened, showing even, white teeth. "Good. I'm Gary. Only my father rates the Mr. Jannson stuff. Can I get you some coffee? A soft drink or a bottle of water, perhaps?"

"No, nothing, thank you." She was too nervous to think of putting anything in her stomach. She inhaled, then realized that she didn't quite know where to begin. She shifted in her chair.

"I'm sure this is difficult for you," Gary said, "so why don't you take your time and tell me what the problem is."

"You spoke to Mark Redmond?"

"He told me only that you might need some discreet inquiries made. He didn't elaborate."

Pam took a deep breath. "I guess that's for the best. It's not something I want everyone and his brother to know about. I need to know what CF+Co is." She said the name as Cee Eff Plus Co.

"Just that?"

"I won't know whether I want anything else until I know the answer to that question."

Gary swivelled his chair around and tapped a few keys on his computer.

"I already tried Google," Pam said.

"Okay. I have a few other resources. Let me see what I can find." His long, slender pianist's fingers flew over the keyboard. Occasionally he'd make small humphing noises. "I can't find anything right off the top. Are you sure they exist?"

She handed him one of the credit card statements. "I see," he said, looking them over. "Maybe you'd better tell me a little more about why you want to know about them."

She spent the next few minutes telling Gary only the bare minimum, that her husband had been killed in a traffic accident and she'd found these statements about which she'd known nothing before.

"I'm sorry about your husband's death, Pam."

"It's been almost four months and it's not quite as raw as it was."

"Are you afraid he was leading some kind of secret life?"

"I don't know anything more than what I've shown you. I don't know what it means at all. All I know is that, to my calculations, he's charged almost a hundred thousand dollars to this company in the last year or so."

"I doesn't take much to create an identity to make the credit card companies happy. It could be almost anything."

"I know that, but there are a few things at the top of my list."

"Like?"

"Another woman. I thought this might be some real estate venture where he'd set up someone in her own apartment, like that."

"What else?"

"Drugs, gambling, I don't know. How many illegal activities take credit cards?"

"A lot more than one might expect, actually. Why don't you let me put one of my best financial guys on this and I'll get back to you in a day or two?"

"I assume you'll want a retainer."

He grinned. "I take credit cards."

She smiled for the first time since she entered his office. She reached into her purse and withdrew her checkbook. "How much?"

He told her his hourly rate and she wrote a check for five hours of his time. "Of course my associates bill at a slightly lower figure. Don't worry about the money. It will take care of itself, and if there's anything left over when we're done I'll be glad to refund it."

She dropped her chin. "One of the problems since my husband's death is that my funds are limited."

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, Pam. Don't be concerned. I promise I won't rack up thousands of dollars of expenses without consulting with you first. This should be pretty straightforward."

"That's fine." She didn't like the idea of coming across as some poor waif, but maybe she should get used to that image. She really didn't want to get into details with this man, but he was so easy to talk to that she almost poured out the entire story. She could see why people trusted him to find out their deepest secrets.

"Good. If we have to go into things more deeply I'll ask for specific authorization and give you estimates. No surprises. For now, let me see what I can find out about CF+Co."

She stood and extended her hand. His grip was firm and his hands were soft. It was the first time she'd noticed anything about anyone since Vin's death, and she felt good about it. "I'll call you when I have anything to report." He'd taken down her name, address, and both her home and cell phone numbers.

"Thanks, Gary. You've made this easier than I expected."

"I'm glad of that."

As the door closed behind Pam, Gary leaned his chair back and steepled his fingers. She was quite a woman, straightforward and seemingly not afraid of what she might find out. She was also very attractive, in a comfortable way. She wore her hair loose and it swung around her face when she moved. Her make-up was understated, as were her clothes. Simple, yet classic.

CF+Co. He wouldn't have to bill her much for actual investigation. He had known immediately what it was, a high-priced brothel. He'd known about Club Fantasy for several years, since a client had wanted them checked out to be sure he wouldn't be blackmailed for indulging in some of his more exotic fantasies. From everything he knew, they were totally honest without any black marks against the character of any of their employees. He knew of the owners, Jenna and Marcy Bryant, both now married. He knew that Jenna lived in upstate New York with her husband and a few children. Several years before, she had left any direct connection to the club, but her twin sister Marcy, also married with several children, still ran it from her apartment in the city, although she didn't participate in the activities inside the club's brownstone in the East Fifties.

What went on within the walls of the club was a deep secret, but he'd heard through his client that almost any erotic fantasy could be fulfilled. And because of its list of well-known members, the club was free of most law enforcement involvement.

Why hadn't he told Pam about it? He considered that question. When he'd first investigated it, he'd been horrified, but as time passed and he thought more about it and talked to his client, his opinion began to change. Now he believed in what the club did, provide safe and fulfilling entertainment for local and out-of-town business types at a hefty fee. The fact that Vin DePalma had shelled out two thousand dollars a session didn't surprise him, and that he visited regularly once a week wasn't unusual. The fact that Pam hadn't suspected anything was more of a surprise.

He thought about her. What about her sex life with her husband had been so unsatisfying that he'd had to go elsewhere? He realized that there were many men who wanted to try things that they didn't think they could discuss with their wives, and many men seemed to have more powerful sex drives than the women they'd been married to for ten or twenty years. He suspected, however, that had Vin discussed things with his wife, she might have been amenable. He had no coherent idea why he thought that, but there was something in her attitude. She hated having to probe into her late husband's life, afraid of what she might find out, but she knew it had to be done so she was doing it. He reasoned that had Vin come to her and told her he needed something he wasn't getting, she would have made an effort to satisfy him.

He sat back at his desk and let his mind wander, allowed himself a moment to focus on his newest client. Might she be interested in being something more than a client?
Don't be silly
. It was much too soon after her husband's death. But he couldn't get her quiet strength out of his mind. He visualized her hands, soft and well manicured, but with business-length nails. He wondered how they would feel raking down a lover's back.

What in the world led him to think about her that way? He didn't really know, but there was a spark in her that he sensed might be amazing if tapped. He knew he was being very unprofessional. She was a client and he had a strong rule about not dating clients. His firm dealt mostly with computer security, but he did do some detective work for spouses wanting information on the doings of an errant husband or wife. He met people at their most vulnerable and, although he had the opportunity to date and even make love with wives who needed someone with whom to prove their attractiveness, he'd always demurred.

Pam attracted him, but as he straightened and turned to his computer terminal, he vowed that he would keep their relationship professional. Strictly professional.

On Pam's drive home she briefly thought about the attractive man she'd just met. He was sexy, in a cherubic sort of way, but she certainly wasn't in the market for anyone right now. After all, Vin had been gone for less than six months and she was in mourning, wasn't she? She touched the ache inside and found as always that it wasn't sadness. Rather, inside the emptiness there was only a lack of direction.

She'd read a couple of articles on death and dying since the accident and she knew the stages everyone went through. She wasn't following the pattern. Why hadn't she wept? Why had she just accepted Vin's death and not denied it had happened, or railed against God, offering to trade her life for his? Didn't she care enough?

She deliberately changed the direction of her thoughts, considering the ways she'd have to cut back on expenses. Most were small in the great scheme of things, but every dollar would be important. Right after she had talked with Mark she had told her housekeeper that she'd have to cut her back to only one day a week. Pam didn't think she could or wanted to do the daily stuff herself, but she had little choice. She couldn't afford someone every day. The housekeeper told her she'd look for another job, but that her sister did day jobs.

She'd been putting things off, but she knew now that it was time to replace much of the furniture in the upstairs. She had no idea how to go about selling the furniture, and she wanted to be totally private about it. When she got home from her visit with Gary—she thought of him as Gary, not as "the detective"—she talked to Carlys, the woman who had sold her the pieces in the first place, and was delighted to discover that for a reasonable commission, the decorator would take care of disposing of the items and replacing them with drastically less expensive equivalents.

She and Carlys began upstairs and continued through the downstairs. They agreed on several more pieces that could go and that would raise significant cash. Pam was shocked to learn, for example, that a small pie crust table, one she didn't like and always bumped into, would sell for almost twenty-five thousand dollars. When she toted up what she could make, she was delighted to learn that, if Mark's budget figures were in the ballpark, the money she got from the downsizing, as she thought of it, would take care of her expenses for another year.

As she'd suspected, the landscapers weren't going to be as easy to downsize. She talked to the company representative and learned that most of the work they did was necessary to maintain the property. He was quite understanding and told her that even with his men doing only what was necessary, it would still cost a lot. This didn't seem to be a place where she could or should cut back. She had to keep the place in tip-top condition in case she was able to put it on the market.

Two days after their initial meeting, Gary Jannson called and asked her to meet him in his office late one Thursday afternoon. Thursday, she thought. Vin's charges to GF+Co were always on Thursdays.

She accepted Gary's offer of coffee, then they settled in the corner of his office on a small angular sofa. After the initial pleasantries, he said, "I don't know exactly how to tell you this, but I discovered that CF+Co is the billing name of a place called Club Fantasy, a very high-end fantasy fulfillment service. The money is routed through several shell corporations but eventually it can be traced it back to the business, a brownstone in the East Fifties." When she looked puzzled, he said, "It's an escort service that caters to very rich men with unfulfilled desires."

She processed, then blurted out, "You mean a whorehouse?"

She watched his shoulders rise and fall, then he nodded. "That's exactly what I mean."

"Vin spent two thousand dollars a week on a whore?" she spat.

Gary reached over and squeezed her hand. "That seems to be the situation. The place is very hush-hush and they keep a very low profile. They've had no trouble with the police in the five years they've been in business, possibly because they have customers who keep them below the radar. I don't know anything about what specific activities your husband was engaged in, but I can try to find out if you're sure you really want to know."

Pam hadn't heard anything after the words "escort service."

"It's a whorehouse?" That couldn't be. She and Vin had a great sex life. Didn't they? Pam tried to remember her sex life with her husband. It had started very hot. While they were dating they couldn't keep their hands off each other. If she were being honest, however, over the years they had been married, Vin had become less and less interested and she'd ceased caring. They had shared a king-sized bed until his death, but their lovemaking was sporadic at best, and plain vanilla when it did happen. It was probably because she couldn't conceive. Vin must have decided that there was no point in making love to a barren wife. "I didn't think he cared that much about sex." The words "with me" went unspoken.

"Take a deep breath and please don't tell me anything you will regret later."

He was very sensible. Her hands shook and she felt her pulse pounding. A whore. He spent all their money on a whore. She pictured a frowsy blond with too much makeup, wearing a tight teddy and four-inch heels. "I want to meet her." She didn't know why, but it was vitally important to see the woman who had been fucking her husband. Fucking. She'd seldom thought in vulgar, four-letter words before.

"I don't think that's such a good idea, Pam," Gary said calmly. "You now know what was going on and you really should let it go. Move on."

She felt her anger rising. "Let it go? When some prostitute took all Vin's money?"

"She didn't take it, he gave it. That's quite different."

"You sound as though you condone what she did."

"I neither condone nor condemn it, and after all, she had no obligation to you. Vin was the one who wandered."