While My Pretty One Sleeps (31 page)

She could not go home. Just before she stepped into her car, Mrs. Poth had asked her to look for a simple white gown that would do for a small family wedding. “Nothing too elaborate,” she'd explained. “My daughter has already broken two engagements. The minister marks her wedding dates in pencil. But this time it just may happen.”

There were several houses where Neeve planned to search for the gown. She started to turn right, then paused. The other place was probably the better choice. As she reversed direction, she glanced directly across the street. A man in a gray sweatsuit, a large envelope under his arm, a man with heavy dark glasses and a freakish punkrock hairstyle, was rushing toward her through the stalled traffic. For an instant they had eye contact and Neeve felt as though an alarm had sounded. The sense of pressure along her forehead was accentuated. A truck pulled out, blocking the messenger from view, and, suddenly annoyed with herself, Neeve began to walk rapidly down the block.

It was four-thirty. The sunlight was hiding behind long, slanting shadows. Neeve found herself almost praying that she'd find a gown at the first stop. Then she thought, I'll quit and go see Sal.

She had given up trying to convince Myles that the blouse Ethel was wearing in death was important. But Sal would understand.

•   •   •

Jack Campbell went directly from his luncheon to an editorial meeting. It lasted until four-thirty. Back in his office, he tried to concentrate on the mountain of mail that Ginny had separated for him, but it was impossible. The sense of something being terribly wrong was over-powering him. Something he had missed. What was it?

Ginny stood at the door that separated Jack's office from the cubicled area where she worked, and studied him thoughtfully. In the month since Jack had taken over the presidency of Givvons and Marks, she had come to admire and like him tremendously. After twenty years of working for his predecessor, she had been afraid that she might not be able to adjust to the change, or that Jack might not want a holdover.

Both concerns were invalid. Now as she studied him, unconsciously approving of the casual good taste of his dark-gray suit and amused by the boyish way he had loosened his tie and the top button of his shirt, she realized that he was seriously worried. His hands were locked under his chin. He was staring at the wall. His forehead was furrowed. Had the editorial meeting gone well? she wondered. She knew there were still some noses out of joint that Jack had been tapped for the top job.

She knocked on the open door. Jack looked up and she watched as his eyes refocused. “Are you in deep meditation?” she asked easily.
“If so, the mail can wait.”

Jack attempted a smile. “No. It's just this Ethel Lambston business. There's something I've been missing about it, and I've racked my brains trying to figure it out.”

Ginny sat at the edge of the chair opposite Jack's. “Maybe I can help. Think about the day Ethel came in here. You only spent about two minutes with her and the door was open, so I heard her. She was yapping about a fashion scandal but gave absolutely no specifics. She wanted to talk big money and you threw a figure at her. I don't think you missed anything.”

Jack sighed. “I guess not. But tell you what. Let me look over that file Toni sent. Maybe there's something in Ethel's notes.”

At five-thirty when Ginny looked in to say good night, Jack nodded absently. He was still poring over Ethel's voluminous research. For every designer mentioned in her article, she had apparently put together a separate file containing biographical information and Xerox copies of dozens of fashion columns from newspapers and magazines like the
Times, W, Women's Wear Daily, Vogue
and
Harper's Bazaar
.

She had obviously been a meticulous researcher. Interviews with the designers contained frequent notations: “Not what she said in
Vogue
.” “Check these figures.” “Never won that prize.” “Try to interview governess about her claim she sewed clothes for her dolls.” . . .

There were a dozen different drafts of Ethel's final article, with slashes and inserts in each version.

Jack began to skim the material until he saw the name “Gordon
Steuber.” Steuber. Ethel had been wearing a suit he designed when she was found. Neeve had been so insistent about the fact that the blouse taken from Ethel's body had been sold with that suit but that Ethel wouldn't have deliberately worn it.

With minute care he analyzed the material on Gordon Steuber and was alarmed to see how frequently his name was mentioned in newspaper clippings of the past three months showing he was under investigation. In the article, Ethel had credited Neeve for pointing the finger at Steuber. The next-to-final draft of her article not only dealt with the exposure of his sweatshops, his incometax problems, but contained a sentence: “Steuber got his start in his father's business, making linings for fur coats. The word is that nobody else in the history of fashion has made more money with linings and seams in the last few years than the dapper Mr. Steuber.”

Ethel had bracketed that sentence and marked it “Save.” Ginny had told Jack about Steuber's arrest after the drug bust. Had Ethel discovered several weeks ago that Steuber was smuggling heroin in the linings and seams of his imports?

It ties in, Jack thought. It ties in with Neeve's theory about the clothes Ethel was wearing. It ties in with Ethel's “big scandal.”

Jack debated about calling Myles, then decided to show the file to Neeve first.

Neeve. Was it really possible that he'd known her for only six days? No. Six years. He'd been looking for her since that day on the plane. He glanced at the phone. His need to be with her was overpowering. He hadn't even once held her in his arms, and now they ached for her. She'd said she'd phone him from her Uncle Sal's
place when she was ready to leave.

Sal. Anthony della Salva, the famous designer. The next pile of clippings and fashion sketches and articles were about him. Glancing at the phone, willing Neeve to call
now
, Jack began to go through the file on Anthony della Salva. It was thick with illustrations of the Pacific Reef collection. I can see why people went for it, Jack thought, and I don't know beans about fashion. The dresses and gowns seemed to float from the pages. He skimmed the write-ups of the fashion reporters. “Slender tunics with drifting panels that fall like wings from the shoulders . . .”; “. . . soft, pleated sleeves on gossamer-like chiffon . . .”; “. . . simple wool daytime dresses that drape the body in understated elegance . . .” The reporters were lyrical in their praise of the colors.

Anthony della Salva visited the Chicago Aquarium early in 1972 and found his inspiration there in the aquatic beauty of the magnificent Pacific Reef exhibit.

For hours he walked through the rooms and sketched the underwater kingdom where the brilliantly beautiful creatures of the sea vie with the wondrous plant life, the clusters of coral trees and the hundreds of exquisitely colored shells. He sketched those colors in the patterns and combinations that nature had decreed. He studied the movement of the ocean dwellers so that he might capture with his scissors and fabric the floating grace that is their birthright.

Ladies, put those man-tailored suits and those evening gowns with their ruffled sleeves and voluminous skirts in the back of your closet. This is your year to be beautiful. Thank you, Anthony della Salva.

I guess he
is
good, Jack thought, and started to stack the della Salva file together, then wondered what was bothering him. There was something he had missed. What was it? He had read Ethel's final draft of her article. Now he looked at the next-to-the-last version.

It was deeply annotated. “Chicago Aquarium—check date he visited it!” Ethel had clipped one of the fashion sketches of the Pacific Reef collection to the top of her working draft. Next to it she had drawn a sketch.

Jack's mouth went dry. He had seen that sketch in the last few days. He had seen it in the stained pages of Renata Kearny's cookbook.

And the Aquarium. “Check date.” Of
course
! With dawning horror, he began to understand. He had to be sure. It was nearly six o'clock. That meant that in Chicago it was nearly five. Rapidly he dialed Chicago area code information.

At one minute to five, Chicago time, the number he dialed was answered. “Please call the director in the morning,” an impatient voice told him.

“Give him my name. He knows me. I must speak to him immediately, and let me tell you, lady, if I find out he's there and you don't put me through, I'll get your job.”

“I'll connect you, sir.”

A moment later, a surprised voice asked, “Jack, what's going on?”

The question tumbled from Jack's lips. He realized his hands were clammy. Neeve, he thought, Neeve, be careful. He stared down at Ethel's article and noticed where she had written, “We salute Anthony della Salva for creating the Pacific Reef look.” Ethel had
crossed out della Salva's name and over it written: “the designer of the Pacific Reef look.”

The answer from the curator of the Aquarium was even more frightening than he had anticipated. “You're absolutely right. And you know what's crazy? You're the second person to call about that in the last two weeks.”

“Do you know who the other one was?” Jack asked, knowing what he would hear.

“Sure I do. Some writer. Edith . . . Or no, Ethel. Ethel Lambston.”

•   •   •

Myles had an unexpectedly busy day. At ten o'clock, the phone rang. Would he be available at noon to discuss the position he was being offered in Washington? He agreed to luncheon in the Oak Room of the Plaza. In the late morning, he went to the Athletic Club for a swim and massage and secretly was delighted at the confirmation the masseur gave him: “Commissioner Kearny, your body's in great shape again.”

Myles knew that his skin had lost that ghastly pallor. But it wasn't just appearance. He
felt
happy. I may be sixty-eight, he thought as he knotted his tie in the locker room, but I look all right.

I took all right to myself, he decided ruefully as he waited for the elevator. A woman may see it differently. Or, more specifically, he acknowledged as he stepped from the lobby onto Central Park South and turned right toward Fifth Avenue and the Plaza, Kitty Conway may see me in a less flattering light.

The luncheon with a Presidential aide had one purpose. Myles
must give his answer. Would he accept the chairmanship of the Drug Enforcement Agency? Myles promised to make his decision in the next forty-eight hours. “We're hoping it's affirmative,” the aide told him. “Senator Moynihan seems to think it will be.”

Myles smiled. “I never cross Pat Moynihan.”

It was when he returned to the apartment that the sense of well-being vanished. He had left a window in the den open. As he entered the room, a pigeon flew in, circled, hovered, perched on the windowsill and then flew out over the Hudson. “A pigeon in the house is a sign of death.” His mother's words pounded in his ears.

Crazy, superstitious rot, Myles thought angrily, but the persistent sense of foreboding could not be shaken. He realized he wanted to talk to Neeve. Quickly he dialed the shop.

Eugenia got on. “Commissioner, she just left for Seventh Avenue. I can try to track her down.”

“No. Not important,” Myles said. “But if she happens to phone, tell her to give me a call.”

He had just put the receiver down when the phone rang. It was Sal confirming that he too was worried about Neeve.

For the next half hour, Myles debated about calling Herb Schwartz. But for what? It wasn't that Neeve would be a witness against Steuber. It was just that she'd pointed the finger at him and set the investigation in motion. Myles acknowledged that a hundred-million-dollar drug bust was enough reason for Steuber and his cohorts to exact revenge.

Maybe I can persuade Neeve to move down to Washington with me, Myles thought, and rejected the idea as ridiculous. Neeve had her life in New York, her business. Now, if he was any judge of
human events, she had Jack Campbell. Then forget Washington, Myles decided as he paced the den. I've got to stay here and keep an eye on her. Whether she liked it or not, he would hire a bodyguard for her.

He expected Kitty Conway at about six o'clock. At five-fifteen he went into his bedroom, stripped, showered in the adjoining bathroom and carefully selected the suit, shirt and tie he would wear to dinner. At twenty of six, he was fully dressed.

Long ago, he'd discovered that working with his hands had a calming effect on him when he was facing an intolerable problem. He decided that for the next twenty minutes or so he'd see whether he could fix the handle that had broken off the coffeepot the other night.

Once again, he realized he was looking with anxious appraisal into the mirror. Hair pure white now but still plenty thick. No monk's tonsures in his family. What difference did that make? Why would a very pretty woman ten years his junior have any interest in an ex–police commissioner with a bum heart?

Avoiding that train of thought, Myles glanced around the bedroom. The four-poster bed, the armoire, the dresser, the mirror, were antiques, wedding gifts from Renata's family. Myles stared at the bed, remembering Renata, propped up on pillows, an infant Neeve at her breast. “
Cara, cara, mia cara
,” she would murmur, her lips brushing Neeve's forehead.

Myles grasped the footboard as he again heard Sal's worried warning, “Take care of Neeve.” God in heaven! Nicky Sepetti had said, “Take care of your wife and kid.”

Enough, Myles told himself as he left the bedroom and headed for the kitchen. You're turning into a nervous old biddy who'd jump at the sight of a mouse.

In the kitchen, he fished among the pots and pans until he'd pulled out the espresso pot that had scalded Sal on Thursday night. He brought it into the den, laid it on his desk, got his tool kit out of the storage closet and settled down to the role Neeve dubbed “Mr. Fixit.”