Partners In Crime (41 page)

"And you know what good eyes I have," the
retired messenger pointed out, ogling her monstrous hat as if to
prove it.

Frederick himself came over for their bar
order, calmly parting the various dangling and sprouting flora of
Auntie Lil's hat with his hands as if he always served drinks in
the jungle. "The usual?" he asked T.S.

Before T.S. could reply, Herbert Wong broke
in. "Little Solly Fishbean!" he cried out in delight. "How is your
father?"

T.S. looked at him in irritation. "This is
Frederick, the bartender."

"No, it's not." Herbert Wong playfully
tweaked the big bartender's handlebar mustache. "This is my friend
Hiram's youngest son. We play mah jongg together on Tuesday. I beat
your father big time last week." Herbert Wong wagged a finger at
Frederick and smiled.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Hubbert," Frederick
apologized quickly with a nervous glance at T.S. "Solly just
doesn't seem like the right kind of name for a bartender here."

"Oh, never mind," T.S. commented grumpily.
The impertinent young pup. Was no one who they purported to be
these days?

"Not the usual," Auntie Lil decided. "We'll
start with margaritas all around."

"Margaritas?" T.S. repeated thickly. "Isn't
that a bit macabre?"

"Not at all," Lilah chimed in. "I'd love a
margarita."

He was outflanked and acquiesced graciously.
Besides, when the drinks came, Lilah turned to him with a radiant
smile. "Here's to you, Theodore," she told him gaily, raising her
glass in toast. "And to your brilliant Aunt Lil."

"Indeed," Auntie Lil agreed. "It was a
brilliant sleuthing job."

T.S. made a mental note to move modesty down
a couple of notches on Auntie Lil's list of attributes, but he
toasted nonetheless.

"I did make some mistakes," Auntie Lil added
in a brief stab at self-effacement.

"A mistake? You?" T.S. looked incredulous
but Auntie Lil breezed right past his sarcasm with her usual
aplomb"

"Perhaps one or two..." she admitted
graciously. "Tiny ones, of course."

"One or two significant ones," T.S.
corrected. "But all's well that ends well."

"It was human nature," Auntie Lil explained.
"I included human nature when I examined each suspect, but I forgot
to include my own."

"What do you mean, Lillian?" Herbert Wong
asked in hopeless admiration. He had been fluttering at her elbow
all night, pulling out her chair, opening doors for her, and
springing to his feet when she visited the ladies' room. In fact,
he'd been popping up and down all night like a human
jack-in-the-box. But it was his sudden refusal to address her as
"Auntie Lil" like the rest of the world that made T.S. most
suspicious of all.

"I've never had children you know, Herbert."
She patted the messenger's hand fondly and he beamed. "I have a
very romantic idea of what it would be like. Once I learned that
Sheila was Patricia Kelly's daughter, I just misread Anne Marie's
lies entirely. I thought of her as a fierce mother tiger protecting
her cub. I should have listened to T.S. He never believed it could
have been Sheila."

"I've had years of experience reading
people," T.S. pointed out. "After all, it was my job."

"Yes, but I was guilty of something even
worse than misreading people," Auntie Lil confessed. "I assumed
that because John Boswell had gone out willingly on the sailboat
with the killer, that she had to be young and blonde and beautiful.
That he wouldn't bother with anything less. That an older woman
would never be attractive to him."

Lilah choked lightly on a bread stick and
averted her gaze.

"Are you all right?" T.S. asked anxiously.
He pounded her lightly on the back in what he hoped was a
chivalrous manner.

"Yes, yes," Lilah murmured, her voice a bit
faint. She reached for his hand and held it briefly. Her touch
burned T.S. like a momentary flame.

"I find older women most beautiful," Herbert
Wong declared with enthusiasm. "The older, the better. Beauty
begins with character." He gazed rapturously at Auntie Lil. She
primped, pleased with the compliment, while T.S. exchanged an
amused glance with Lilah.

How far he had come, T.S. thought happily,
from being tongue-tied with Lilah to sharing secrets with her.
Perhaps something good would come of all this sorrow, after all.
They had solved three murders, he reminded himself. After such a
feat, anything was possible.

“
Tell me the truth,'' Lilah
Cheswick inquired in her smoky voice, "was I ever a suspect?" She
leaned over and smiled at T.S., the candlelight sending flickers of
orange dancing across her nearly white hair.

"I refuse to answer on the grounds that it
may incriminate me," he answered firmly. Herbert Wong laughed
loudly and T.S. decided that the retired messenger was a wonderful
fellow after all, even if he did encourage Auntie Lil to show
off.

"You were never a suspect in Theodore's
eyes," Auntie Lil assured Lilah. "I was the one who suspected you,
briefly. But not Theodore. Not for an instant. He was completely
bowled over by your many charms."

"Really?" Lilah leaned closer to T.S. "And
what are those charms?"

The room grew much warmer. T.S. was
conscious that everyone around the table was staring at him,
waiting for him to speak.

"Ironic, don't you think?" he said brightly,
praying an abrupt change of subject would rescue him. "That Edgar
Hale loses three friends and gains a daughter?"

"And early retirement," added Lilah. "Though
we don't know for sure that Sheila's his daughter."

"No," Auntie Lil admitted. "A blood test
will prove it. But I saw those eyes, just as T.S. did. I'd say
there's a very good chance."

"Mr. Hale must believe so himself," Herbert
Wong added politely. "I heard he is offering to give Sheila money
to pay for Anne Marie's defense."

They considered this quietly. "How very
unlike him," Auntie Lil finally said. "I thought he was immune to
guilt."

"He's lucky he's immune to prosecution,"
T.S. pointed out angrily. "There's no one left to tell what really
happened at Magritte's. All we really know for sure is that Robert
arranged to meet Patricia there late one night, after the men
returned from a cotillion ball uptown."

Lilah paused, glass half raised to her lips.
"I was probably at that ball," she said meekly. "I was one of the
proper young women Anne Marie hated so."

"I'm sorry, Lilah," Auntie Lil said kindly.
"But it does appear that Patricia was in love with your husband all
these years."

"You needn't be sorry," Lilah answered
quietly. "I'm convinced Robert was in love with her, too. I
understand now what broke his spirit so many years ago. I don't
mind. It's nice to know he was capable of such feelings."

What a remarkable
woman,
Auntie Lil thought to
herself.
Why, she reminds me of
myself.

"Poor Robert," Lilah murmured. "He must have
been so ashamed."

"Yes, I believe your husband was. He came to
realize that he had loved her all along and still did. That he had
destroyed what he adored." Auntie Lil shook her head. "Perhaps if
the times had been different. It is a tragic story all around."

"What will happen to Sterling & Sterling
now?" Herbert Wong asked sadly.

"Preston Freeman will probably happen to
Sterling & Sterling," T.S. told them. "Out with the old, in
with the new. Frederick Dorfen won't be able to keep up the pace.
He had his last moment of glory, though, and I salute him."

"But will Sterling & Sterling survive
the new?" Lilah wondered.

"They'll survive," T.S.
said confidently. "Believe it or not, the murders appear to have
given the firm some sort of panache it lacked. It's ghastly, but
true. The nouveau riche have discovered Sterling & Sterling
now. It's a whole new market for the firm. And this is before the
inevitable story in
New York
magazine."

"Let us discuss Miss Fullbright and
Lieutenant Abromowitz," Herbert Wong suggested eagerly. "It appears
that love is in the air." He hummed a happy tune.

"I did enjoy the look on his face when he
walked into Edgar Hale's office," T.S. reminisced. "I like to think
he'll end up writing parking tickets in Canarsie."

"He won't," Lilah told them. "I've already
asked. Don't forget—the case was solved. He'll get the credit
publicly. But, privately, I heard from a friend of Robert's and..."
She held up her glass in toast. "The lovely lieutenant has been
assigned to the new White Collar Crime Task Force forming downtown.
He'll be poring through security transactions for the rest of his
life."

It was, perhaps, the single most
enthusiastic toast of the night.

Unexpectedly, T.S. sighed so sadly that it
cut their merriment short. "I wish Sheila could be here," he
admitted. He had not seen her in a week, not since that terrible
day. And she had only called him once since then, to say that she
was surviving and would not be coming back to work at Sterling
& Sterling.

"We cannot blame her for failing to find
celebration in the situation," Herbert Wong pointed out.

"No, we cannot," Auntie Lil agreed.

They all stared quietly at their drinks.

"Will she be okay?" Herbert Wong asked
solemnly.

"I hope so," T.S. said. "She's going through
with the divorce from her husband. Let's hope the new man is a good
man." He was surprised to find that repeating this news triggered a
spark of jealousy in his heart.

"Let us hope he is," Auntie Lil echoed. "She
deserves some happiness."

There was a mournful silence, finally broken
by Lilah. "If it is any consolation, Edgar Hale has no other
children. Sheila is likely to be a wealthy woman one day."

"Money is not much solace when you lose two
mothers at once," Herbert Wong declared wisely.

"It's too true," Auntie Lil agreed. "Though
she is standing by Anne Marie and visits her every day. But let's
not talk any more about Anne Marie," she decided. "Or we'll forget
that we are celebrating."

The group stirred and murmured, nodding
their heads.

"Then here's to Patricia Kelly," T.S. said
softly, raising his glass. "May she rest in peace." He thought of
the initials, R.I.P., and smiled. Their first big clue.

"Rest in peace," the group repeated,
clinking their drinks together.

"It was a somewhat disillusioning
experience," T.S. admitted, shaking his head.

"Poor Theodore." Auntie Lil was instantly
sympathetic. "Despite all your background checks and experience,
you still expect people to be good at heart."

He looked up, feeling foolish. "I would
settle for decent at heart."

"No, you wouldn't," Auntie Lil teased him,
her good spirits returning. "Theodore wants the world to be
perfect," she explained to Lilah and Herbert. "Theodore wants
people to be perfect." She dropped her voice to a most dramatic
level. "But Theodore, perfect people are so boring." Auntie Lil
raised her glass in yet another toast. "So here's to the world's
imperfect people. They're much more interesting."

The collection of imperfect people
surrounding the table joined in the toast enthusiastically.

"Hey," announced Herbert Wong happily. "I
know a good place to go dancing after dinner. Who wants to go?
Lillian?" He turned to Auntie Lil.

"Pour me another margarita and count me in,"
she said immediately. "Another one of these and my sore ankle will
be history." She held out her glass and they busied themselves
fussing with the pitcher.

"What do you say, Theodore?" Lilah asked
T.S., leaning closer and taking advantage of their momentary
privacy. She radiated a warm gardenia smell. "Now that you're
retired, you need a hobby," she coaxed him softly. "Dancing's not
golf, but it's a start. Don't you agree?"

T.S. nodded as if in a daze, acutely aware
of her closeness. There it was again, that same old feeling.
Something big was about to happen.

"Sure, I'll go dancing," he agreed, to his
own surprise. He'd never gone dancing in his entire life. Well, his
mouth was moving of its own accord. Perhaps his feet could do the
same.

He blamed it on the gardenias. T.S. loved
their smell. It reminded him of years long gone, of peering through
fragrant hedges at the exotic woman who lived next door, of
dreaming of the mysteries of men and women and wondering when his
turn would finally come. Oh lord, it was definitely the
gardenias.

"You know what I like about you, Theodore?"
Lilah purred into his ear. She slipped a slender arm through his
and whispered, "You just keep getting younger every day."

# # #

Visit
http://www.katymunger.com
for more information on the author and her books.

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BAD TO THE BONE

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