Murder Can Spoil Your Appetite (18 page)

 

My talk with da Silva left me deflated.

It was now apparent that Frank Vincent wasn’t killed for any windfall his wife
wasn’t
going to inherit.

My client’s information also impacted on another theory I’d been considering: that Sheila might have had her husband whacked out of just plain hatred.

I mean, faced with the actual reality that Frank’s murder hadn’t left her up to her derriere in big bucks, it was a lot more difficult to accept that Sheila would have jeopardized her financial arrangement with da Silva by having the bastard killed, no matter how much the idea might have appealed to her. Whatever else she was—or wasn’t—Sheila Vincent was a pragmatist; she’d proved that by accepting such a ridiculous proposition in the first place.

Of course, as I’d mentioned to Lou, maybe Sheila had recently found herself a rich sweetie to back her catering business or changed her mind about approaching her parents for funding. But while both these scenarios were certainly reasonable, the truth is, I was no longer quite as certain of Sheila’s culpability as I’d been at the outset.

I was mulling all of this over when something else intruded into my thoughts. Something that I was hardly anxious to come to terms with:

Why had I neglected to broach the subject of the bribe with my client?

It wasn’t as if it hadn’t occurred to me. Or because I was so convinced it had no bearing on the case. I couldn’t help but realize the importance of establishing how Frank’s death affected da Silva’s offer. Naturally, I didn’t figure he still intended to back Sheila’s company, even if it turned out she had nothing to do with the shooting. But maybe there’d been some sort of contingency agreement in the event of Frank’s demise. So why hadn’t I simply asked what was what?

The answer is that I hadn’t brought this up with da Silva because he hadn’t seen fit to bring it up with me.

And, yes, you’re right. Much as I hate to own up to it, I
was
a little afraid of the man.

Ron Whitfield had agreed to see us in the Princeton law offices of Regan, Small, and Whitfield on Wednesday afternoon at five o’clock.

A trim, middle-aged receptionist led us into a large room with cream leather upholstery, pale amber carpeting, and floor-to-ceiling windows that took up three of its four walls.

The man who rose from behind the desk wasn’t “that fellow over there with the glasses” or “the man next to the man on Marilyn Vincent’s left” or, for that matter, “that good-looking hunk right in front of the Contis.” Evidently my attempt at the cemetery to put a face to Sheila Vincent’s former fiancé had been a bust.

The real Ron Whitfield was around medium height and slender, with slightly receding straight brown hair, dark eyes, and a square chin with a very appealing cleft in it—and he didn’t look the least bit familiar.

“I don’t believe I saw you at the funeral yesterday,” I said, trying not to make it sound like an accusation.

“You didn’t. I had to go out of town on business.”

“There are just a few things we’d like to talk to you about, if you don’t mind.”

“Sure. Why don’t we sit over there?” Whitfield suggested amenably, gesturing toward a small furniture grouping in front of one of the windows.

Lou barely waited for his bottom to hit the chair before beginning his questioning. “You’re aware, I suppose, that we now have evidence to indicate that Mr. Vincent’s murder was premeditated.”

“Sheila—my sister-in-law—told me about that, Lieutenant.”

“You and Mrs. Vincent’s sister were recently separated, from what I understand. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“But you still keep in touch with Mrs. Vincent?” I put in.

“Until this tragedy we hadn’t seen or spoken to each other since July, or maybe it was the beginning of August. Anyway, it was when my wife and I went to this barbecue at her home. But when Frank was murdered, I called to offer my condolences.”

“We hear,” I said, “that you were once engaged to Mrs. Vincent.”

“That’s true.”

“Would you mind telling us what went wrong?”

A frown creased Whitfield’s forehead. “That was
thirteen years ago
. What could it possibly have to do with what happened to Frank this past week?”

“We have an important reason for asking,” I responded cryptically.

“I can’t see the relevance.”

“We’ve pretty much got most of the facts already. We just want to make certain we have them straight.”
You’d be surprised how often this ploy gets results.

The lawyer shrugged. “It won’t help your investigation, but I suppose there’s no reason not to tell you.”

“So you want to know what went wrong, huh? I’ve been asking myself that same thing for years,” Whitfield muttered in a voice thick with feeling. But when he spoke again a couple of seconds later his tone was level and unemotional.

“Sheila and I were supposed to get married right after college graduation—on a Sunday. I drove down to her parents’ home in Bernardsville that Tuesday. Arrangements had been made to hold the wedding on the grounds there—the place is really an estate.

“It was going to be a big, lavish affair. Just to give you an idea
how
lavish, a sit-down dinner for close to four hundred people was to be served in huge tents erected on the back lawn. Sheila’s parents had hired a twenty-one-piece orchestra, for which a platform had to be constructed. We were having more than a dozen attendants—including a ring bearer and a flower girl—with the women wearing expensive, made-to-order gowns. And there was—But I’m sure you get the general picture. Anyhow, while I’d certainly been aware of these plans, I really had no conception of what all of this entailed. I found out, though, the instant I arrived and saw what was going on in that house. And I have to admit that it scared the hell out of me.

“I couldn’t believe the number of people scurrying around: caterers, dressmakers, florists, carpenters, gardeners . . . And everyone was yelling at everyone else. It was a zoo.”

At this juncture Whitfield looked intently from Lou to me. I got the impression he wanted confirmation that we appreciated how unnerving something like this could be.

I nodded sympathetically. “I can see where you might have been slightly overwhelmed.”

Whitfield smiled fleetingly—and gratefully, I thought. “At any rate, Sheila was in constant demand. When she wasn’t busy with a last-minute fitting of some sort, she was certain to be dragged off to confer about one of the major crises that seemed to be erupting every ten minutes. And so Marsha—Sheila’s sister—and I were kind of thrown together, mostly because we were both trying to stay out of everybody’s way. We didn’t usually have much luck, either. We’d search out a quiet corner where we could play hearts or just sit and talk. But there was an excellent chance that before long someone would appropriate that corner, and then we’d have to hunt up another suitable retreat. Toward the latter part of the week things became so unbearable that we’d leave the house altogether for two or three hours every afternoon. Nobody missed us when we took off, either.”

“Where did you go?” I asked.

“Once or twice we drove into town and got ourselves a hamburger and hung out at the coffee shop for a while. One time we even went for a drive in the country.

“Anyhow, I’d never met Marsha before, and I liked her. Also, I knew what a rough life she’d had, and I felt sorry for her.”

“A rough life in what way?” Lou interjected.

Whitfield hesitated. “I assume it would be all right if I answered that—Marsha has always been pretty upfront about it. And at this point she’s very proud of having gotten back on her feet. The fact is, when we met she’d already had two broken marriages, a botched abortion, an unsuccessful and emotionally devastating acting career, and a battle with alcohol. And she was only twenty-four, just three years older than Sheila. Well, not surprisingly all of this had destroyed her self-esteem. It appears that her second husband had done his best to help things along, too, going to great lengths to impress on her how worthless she was.” And now Whitfield flushed. “I found myself regarding her as a . . . as a sort of wounded bird.

“At any rate, I can’t explain to you exactly what happened that Saturday. I’ve never even been able to explain it to
me
. I was young, of course. I like to think that had something to do with my actions. One thing I can tell you. While the institution of marriage itself didn’t frighten me—which I suppose you can also attribute to my youth—the thought of being a principal in the social event of the century had begun to terrify me. And faced with all of these frantic preparations day after day, I guess I just freaked out. I believe that’s primarily why I . . . why I did what I did. But other factors could have entered into it, too.”

“What other factors?” Lou asked curtly. (I would have expected him to use a gentler tone.)

“You see, Sheila’s time was at such a premium during that week that I started to resent her, to feel neglected.” He gave us a small, contrite smile. “I know I keep saying this, but I was young. I’m sure I’d have reacted differently under those same circumstances a few years later. In any event, I found myself comparing Sheila to Marsha, who seemed to want to spend every moment with me.” Whitfield stopped abruptly. “Listen, is any of this making sense to you?” He was directing the question to me.

“Yes, it is.”

He smiled again. “That makes one of us, at least. Anyway, Marsha was just so vulnerable, so obviously in need of someone to look after her. And I was pretty idealistic in my college years. It’s conceivable that I subconsciously decided that, all right, I couldn’t save the entire world, but here was my chance to save this one woman.” And now the recitation was no longer dispassionate. “What a fatuous little jerk I was!” Taking a handkerchief from his pocket, Whitfield mopped his brow before going on.

“On the other hand, though, maybe I should blame the whole, terrible thing on temporary insanity.” And then he added with bitter irony, “At any rate, I did manage to escape all that hoopla. Who cared if I screwed up three lives in the process?”

“So you broke off your engagement to Mrs. Vincent the day before the wedding,” Lou said flatly.

“Oh, I don’t deserve even that much credit. I never said a word to Sheila. I just eloped with her sister that night.” It was a moment or two before Whitfield was able to conclude in a choked voice, “I knew immediately afterward it was a mistake, of course. But there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.”

“Is Mrs. Vincent the reason you separated from your wife a few months back?” I inquired softly. (After a decent interval, naturally.)

“If you want to know if I still have feelings for Sheila, the answer is yes. But she had nothing to do with why I ended things with Marsha. I just wanted out, that’s all.”

“It took you a while to come to that decision,” Lou observed dryly.

“That’s not quite true. I’d been thinking about it almost constantly since Marsha and I ran off together, only I couldn’t bring myself to act on it. But I finally recognized that if I didn’t make the move just then, the chances were I never would. You see, my wife’s been undergoing therapy all along, but two years ago she changed therapists. And this new one has apparently been able to make a real difference. Since she started with Dr. Beiler, Marsha has become much more centered, more and more confident. So I knew she’d be just fine without me. And I was convinced—I still am—that splitting up was the best thing for both of us.”

For both of us.
Yeah, right. A rationalization if I’d ever heard one. Still, I was sorry for Ron Whitfield. I mean, look what those few days of youthful panic had cost him. “How did your wife take it when she learned you wanted a divorce?”

“Better than I thought she would. She was angry at first. In fact, she was furious. But when the dust settled she agreed that the breakup was probably overdue. She said herself that it beat spending every day of her life with a man who didn’t love her. And when I pointed out that now she would be free to meet someone who really cared for her, she admitted that her therapist had been telling her pretty much the same thing. It seems that for a long while the marriage hadn’t been working for her, either.”

“Do you and Mrs. Whitfield have any children?” There wasn’t a single reason for this question other than my being pathologically nosy.

“No. Marsha wasn’t able to conceive—that botched abortion she’d had at seventeen. We’d discussed adopting soon after we were married, but we never pursued it—fortunately.”

“I suppose you’re aware that Sheila Vincent wasn’t very happily married, either,” I said.

“I had a pretty good idea that was the case.”

“But you had no hope of getting back together with your sister-in-law?” I was finding this a bit hard to accept.

“I’ll say it one more time, Detective Shapiro. I left Marsha because I didn’t want to live with her any longer. Period. Listen, I’d gathered that Frank was no sweetheart, so maybe part of me was wishing that eventually—But I realized deep down that it would never happen. I’d hurt Sheila too much to expect that she’d ever forgive me—at least, not completely. And, I couldn’t blame her.”

“I would imagine she wasn’t too quick to even talk to you again,” Lou remarked.

“You’re right, she wasn’t. After what . . . happened, Sheila went off to Paris to study at Le Cordon Bleu—she’d always been a dynamite cook. And she worked over there for a couple of years. She was back in the States a good six months before she made any kind of peace with Marsha, and I suspect that this was mostly at their parents’ urging. It took another year, though, before she’d have anything at all to do with me.”

Well, in spite of his assurances that he and Sheila were kaput—in the romantic sense, I mean—I still considered Ron Whitfield a suspect. So I posed
that
question. “Uh, where were you last Wednesday night between six and eight p.m.?” The scowl on Whitfield’s attractive face prompted me to hurriedly tag on old reliable. “It’s just routine.”