“Right,” Shrader said. “But he really wanted Crescent Plaza, and Logan Manning not only owned the design, he also owned an option on the land it was designed to fit on. I figure Valente may have popped Manning so that he could do Manning’s wife and the Crescent Plaza project. Now that Manning’s dead, Valente will be able to buy the plans and the land, hire his own supervising architects, and build it himself. I’m sure Manning’s widow will make that very easy for him.”
“You know,” McCord said thoughtfully, “I’m starting to wonder if Detective Littleton had it right from the very beginning. She’s said all along that she didn’t think Leigh Manning was sexually involved with Valente.”
“I don’t remember saying exactly that,” Sam interjected.
“You didn’t have to say it. You get this balky, stubborn look every time the suggestion comes up. My point is that Valente and Leigh Manning’s alliance may have been a straightforward business arrangement. Valente wanted the Crescent Plaza project for himself, and she wanted her husband out of the way because he was cheating on her.”
Womack walked in and heard the end of that sentence. “How did you find out Manning was screwing around?” he asked.
“Jane Sebring—the costar—told us this morning,” McCord replied.
“The costar knew Manning was fooling around with the secretary?”
“What are you talking about?”
Womack jerked his thumb toward the doorway. “Manning was screwing his secretary. Her name is Erin Gillroy. She burst into tears and confessed the whole thing just now. Who were you talking about?”
“Jane Sebring.”
His eyes widened and he looked ready to laugh. “Manning was screwing her, too? Hell, if I had a chance at Jane Sebring, I’d take it. That woman has—” He lifted his hands as if cupping breasts the size of watermelons; then he stopped and looked at Sam. “Littleton, why don’t you go talk to the secretary and see what you can get out of her, besides tears and snot? Take it easy on her, though; she cracks like a raw egg. All I asked her was how long she’d worked here and if she was familiar with Manning’s personal habits. She started bawling on the first question and confessed before I finished asking the second one.”
“I’d like to talk to Sokoloff,” McCord said, standing up, but Womack stopped him with a question.
In no hurry to deal with a weeping secretary, Sam walked slowly past the offices, stopping when she came to an open doorway of a large conference room. In the center, on a table, stood a scale model of a beautiful crescent-shaped plaza with art deco touches adorning its two soaring circular towers. The model was about five feet square and complete to the tiniest detail, including miniature fountains, ornamental streetlamps, pathways, and lush landscaping.
A studious-looking man in his late thirties was gazing at it, his shoulders slightly stooped, his hands clasped behind his back. “Is that the model for Crescent Plaza?” Sam asked, walking into the conference room for a closer look.
The man turned and pushed his glasses up on his nose. “Yes, it is.”
“I’m Detective Littleton with the NYPD,” she explained.
“I’m George Sokoloff,” he said.
Sam’s attention reverted to the model in front of her. “This is breathtaking,” she said. “The towers remind me just a little bit of the top of the Chrysler Building. Mr. Manning must have been incredibly talented and incredibly proud of this.”
He opened his mouth to say something, then quickly closed it again.
“Am I wrong?”
“Partly,” he said; then he squared his shoulders and said almost bitterly, “Logan was very proud of it; however, now that he’s dead, I see no need to go on pretending that this was a collaborative effort between Logan and me. The concept and design are all mine. In the past, I’ve agreed that the firm would receive the credit, rather than myself. This time, Logan promised I would be supervising architect and receive a share of the credit.”
McCord’s voice bisected their conversation, and they both turned toward him. “How did you feel about letting Logan Manning take all the credit, or is that typical in architectural firms?”
Sam tried not to think about how good it felt to watch Mitchell McCord walk into a room. His sport coats were no longer too big at the shoulders; he’d remedied that a couple of days after they started working together. Now they fit him beautifully, but she liked him best in open-necked polo shirts and the scarred leather bomber jacket he wore sometimes. Sam backed out of the conference room and quietly left McCord with the architect.
Logan Manning’s office was at one end of a curving hallway that originated at a decorative paneled wall behind the receptionist’s desk. Erin Gillroy was standing in front of his desk, head bent, clutching a fistful of tissues. She looked up as Sam walked in. “Miss Gillroy, I’m Detective Littleton.”
“Hello,” she said hoarsely but calmly.
“Would you like to sit down?”
“Not particularly. I think I’ll feel less vulnerable and foolish if I’m standing up.”
Sam perched on the corner of Manning’s desk and took a pen and notebook out of her shoulder bag. “Detective Womack thought you might have an easier time talking to a woman.”
“Really? He didn’t strike me as being a particularly sympathetic type.”
In contrast to Womack’s description of Erin Gillroy, Sam’s impression of the young woman was that she wasn’t weak or timid. “How long have you worked here?”
“Almost two years.”
Sam made an issue of writing that down while she decided how to approach the next topic, but she needn’t have bothered, because Erin Gillroy answered the question without being asked. “My relationship with Logan Manning started—and ended—six months ago.”
Sam studied her in silence, wondering why she was so willing to confess everything and get it out in the open to two detectives who were strangers. “Who else knew about it?”
She clenched her hands into fists. “No one! The only person I ever told was my roommate, Deborah, but last night a reporter called and told her that he knew I’d had an affair with Logan Manning. And my roommate, my friend,” she emphasized bitterly, “did not feel it would be honest to lie to him about it, so she told him everything.” She looked at Sam and said fiercely, “Will you explain to me how someone who reads the Bible and quotes from it all the time, like Deborah does, can betray a friend and break a promise without a qualm, and do all that in the name of ‘righteousness.’ All Deborah had to do was hang up on the reporter, or take a message.”
She gazed at Sam, waiting for an answer, insisting on one, and Sam said the only thing that came to mind: “Some of the most unkind, judgmental people I’ve ever known go to church every Sunday and read the Bible. I don’t know how some people are able to disassociate their own cruelty and shortcomings from their religious obligations and convictions, but many are able to do that.”
“Deborah is one of them.”
“How do you think the reporter found out about the affair?”
“I don’t think he knew anything at all—he was just fishing! Reporters have been calling every woman Mr. Manning knew saying things like that. One of them called Jacqueline Probst last night and told her the same thing. Jacqueline told the reporter she’d sue if her name was mentioned; then she hung up on him.”
“Who is Jacqueline Probst?” Sam asked.
“One of the architects here. The detectives have already spoken to her. Jacqueline Probst is sixty-four years old. She’s almost old enough to be Logan’s grandmother.”
Sam deliberately changed the topic for a moment. “Did you handle all of Mr. Manning’s correspondence and phone calls, personal as well as business?”
“Yes.”
“Do you keep a call log?”
She nodded.
“I’d like to have that and some other records as well. We have Mrs. Manning’s permission.”
“I’ll get you whatever you want.” Distracted, she ran her fi
nger over a gold pyramid-shaped paperweight on his desk; then she carefully straightened his leather paper tray. “I just can’t believe Logan is dead.”
“Who ended your affair?” Sam asked. “You or Mr. Manning?”
“It really didn’t deserve the importance of the word ‘affair,’ ” Erin replied, shifting her gaze to Sam. “Last spring, I was engaged and expecting to be married in a big June wedding my family had been planning for a year. A month before our wedding my fiancé dumped me.
“I did everything to get past my wedding day as it came closer. I jogged, I meditated, and I tried to keep really busy by working extra hours here. On the night that would have been our rehearsal dinner, I volunteered to work late and Logan stayed, too. We had dinner delivered, I started to cry, and Logan tried to comfort me. He knew the significance of the day to me. He was funny like that—at times he could be completely inconsiderate, and yet he would remember little things that are important to people. Anyway, he told me I was too good for my fiancé, and he put his arm around me, and the next thing I knew, we ended up on the sofa over there. He was so incredibly good looking that my fiancé had been jealous of him, and I guess that had something to do with why I went along with it.”
When she paused, Sam prodded gently. “And then what happened?”
“A month later, I missed a period and got a false positive on a home pregnancy test. I was frantic. Deborah had only moved in with me a few weeks before, but she seemed so nice and I was . . . hysterical. I don’t believe in abortion, so that was out of the question. Anyway, I ended up telling Deborah the whole sordid tale that day.”
“Which she repeated to a reporter on the phone last night?” Sam finished for her.
Erin nodded, looking physically ill. “Do you think they’ll mention this—me—and Logan in the news?”
Sam hesitated and then nodded. “I think you’d better be prepared for it. But if it’s any consolation, I don’t think you’re going to be the only woman they mention tonight.”
Erin tipped her head back and closed her eyes, her face a mask of bitter knowledge and dread. “Poor Mrs. Manning. I’ll bet I can guess what two of the other names will be.”
Sam kept her expression carefully blank. “What two names are those?”
“Jane Sebring and Trish Lefkowitz.”
“Trish Lefkowitz—Mrs. Manning’s publicist?”
First, Erin nodded; then she shook her head. “I don’t know. Trish Lefkowitz was almost a year ago. Maybe she won’t come up; maybe she’ll know how to bluff her way out of it. She knows how to deal with the press.”
Chapter 40
* * *
McCord was sitting at his desk, going over the day’s events with Sam, Shrader, and Womack. The three men were amused and fascinated by Logan Manning’s sexual athletics. “Erin Gillroy, Jane Sebring, and Trish Lefkowitz,” McCord said. “A perky blonde, a gorgeous redhead, and a raven-haired beauty. Manning was not only a man of eclectic tastes in women, he was a man of notable courage.”
“I don’t think infidelity is admirable,” Sam said; then she wondered where on earth her outburst had come from. Boys were boys, and men were, too. She knew that. Multiple clandestine affairs constituted a badge of accomplishment to boys, and to most men, too, whether they admitted it or not.
McCord slanted her a laughing look. “You obviously don’t know Trish Lefkowitz, but I’ve known her for years. I can see Manning offering sexual consolation to a pretty, lovelorn secretary on the eve of her wedding; that would make him feel powerful. I can see him seducing a Hollywood sex goddess; that would make him feel special. But going to bed with Trish Lefkowitz? That took courage. He’s lucky she didn’t turn him into a soprano. That woman is like a black widow spider. I’d be afraid to close my eyes in bed with her.”
McCord broke off to answer his phone, and Sam got up and went over to the table containing stacks of color-coded files on Logan and Leigh Manning, Michael Valente, and the Mannings’ friends and acquaintances. Now it also held several armloads of files and documents they’d brought back with them from Manning Development that day. Shrader, Womack, and she had been systematically going through the files on individuals as McCord had instructed. Shrader had just returned the files on Leigh Manning, so Sam picked that stack up to take home with her.
McCord hung up the phone, looking well pleased. “That was Holland,” he said. “Holland has the subpoena I wanted for Manning’s income tax records, personal and business. Shrader, you and Womack serve it on Manning’s CPA tomorrow. Once you get the records, make copies of them. Keep one set for us to go over, but bring the other set over to our bean counters. I want a Special Frauds auditor to look them over. If there’s anything in Manning’s tax returns that reflects money going to or from any of Valente’s companies, our guys will find it.”
“Why did we need a subpoena?” Womack asked. “I thought we already had Mrs. Manning’s verbal permission ‘to do whatever we think we need to do.’ ”
“We do, and that’s one reason it was so easy to get a subpoena. But to protect his own ass, Manning’s CPA may want something in writing before he hands over any records. I don’t want him calling Mrs. Manning for permission, because there’s always a risk that he’ll advise her against the carte blanche she’s already given us. Sooner or later, she’s going to wise up and revoke it.
“That’s why I’m in such a hurry to visit with Dr. Sheila Winters,” he continued. “We have Leigh Manning’s written consent allowing Winters to breach the doctor-patient privilege regarding her treatment of Logan Manning. When Mrs. Manning wrote it out, she didn’t limit the consent to her husband’s treatment alone, so Dr. Winters should be willing to talk to us about anything Mrs. Manning divulged during her own sessions with the shrink.”
Shrader shook his head in wonder. “I still can’t believe she agreed to that.”
“She specifically asked that we keep the information confidential,” Sam reminded the three of them.
“Yes, she did,” McCord replied, “but you, Detective Littleton, promised only that we would be very discreet. Anyway,” he finished, “with the need for haste in mind. I grabbed the first appointment Dr. Winters could give us, which happened to be tomorrow.” He glanced at Shrader and Womack, “You two hand Manning’s CPA the subpoena tomorrow and bring back everything he gives you. Littleton and I will call on Dr. Winters. Somehow, I don’t think she’s going to be anxious to cooperate.”
Chapter 41
* * *
McCord’s prediction proved to be true. Sam and he waited for forty-five minutes in a small, elegant anteroom before they were finally admitted to Dr. Winters’s office, which was furnished like a beautiful library, complete with Oriental carpets, dark plank flooring, and tuxedo-style sofas and wing chairs in jade green leather.
With her blond hair caught up in an elegant chignon and her rose-colored Chanel suit, Sheila Winters looked absolutely right for that richly elegant, timeless setting, Sam thought.
“I’m terribly sorry to have kept you waiting,” the psychiatrist said after shaking hands with each of them. “I had an emergency this morning and it put me behind.”
“We appreciate your giving us your time today,” McCord said. “The Manning case is being turned into a tragic farce, thanks to the media.”
“You’re right,” she replied. “I thought things were as bad as they could get for Leigh, until last night when the media started running all those stories about Logan’s alleged affairs.”
“How is Mrs. Manning handling it? I assume you’ve spoken to her, since you’re close friends.”
Very carefully and very clearly, Sheila Winters said, “As her close friend, I can tell you that she feels like any other woman would under these circumstances. Two weeks ago, Leigh had a wonderful career, a happy personal life, and a bright promising future. Since that time, her husband mysteriously disappeared, she was in a near-fatal accident, then her husband was found murdered and she became a widow. Two days ago, she bur
ied him with dignity and began the grieving process for a man she loved and respected. Thanks to the media, the world witnessed that funeral, the world witnessed her grief and her dignity, and people sympathized and respected her.”
Anger had welled in her voice, and she paused, twisting her gold pen in her long fingers. When she spoke again, her voice was well-modulated and calm. “As of yesterday, thanks to that same media, Leigh’s dead husband is now being portrayed as a compulsive philanderer, and she, by inference, is being made to look like a blind, pathetic fool. Even her career is affected, because whether Jane Sebring is lying or not doesn’t matter. How will Leigh ever be able to walk back onto the stage with that woman?”
As she finished she looked at Sam, and Sam shook her head. “I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t. I would be so angry, so humiliated, and so crushed that I don’t think I could hide it.”
Sheila Winters smiled and held up her hands in complete agreement. “You’ve just described how Leigh feels. And how I would feel in her place, too.”
“It’s always good to know I’m normal in the eyes of a psychiatrist,” Sam said.
That made Sheila Winters laugh. “What makes you think psychiatrists are ‘normal,’ Detective?” she joked.
Satisfied that she’d reached an accord with Sam, she looked at the lieutenant. “Have I answered your question adequately?”
“Yes, but that was just my ‘get-acquainted’ question,” McCord told her. “I have many others.”
“I’m afraid I can’t answer them. I’ve already told you everything I legitimately can. Anything else falls under privileged doctor-patient communication.”
McCord ignored that. “Logan Manning was your friend as well as your patient,” he said.
The gold pen twisted slowly in Sheila Winters’s fingers; her polite smile remained in place. She did not confirm or deny it.
“When did he and Mrs. Manning first consult with you, and about what?”
The gold pen continued to twist slowly in Sheila Winters’s fingers; her smile became slightly less polite.