He laughed away the colour. 'And you're loaded.'
'My embarr'sing you?'
'Never.'
They stared across the table for a long moment, then she cast her eyes down. 'Think we… I… could get outta here with't fallin' on m'face?'
'I'd never let you fall on your face, Hotshot.'
'Ho'shot's'cute, I like it.'
'Want to go for it?'
'Go f'r th'gold.' She snickered. 'Jus' one min't.'
'How about a cup of coffee?'
'Yuck!'
'Okay, we'll just sit here until you get it together.'
'Ma'be Steamroller c'n get us a cab? Think?'
'Wait right here.'
'Nooo, I'm gonna wait waaaay over there,' she said, pointing across the room, and had a sudden fit of the giggles. The waiter got the cab and Flaherty helped her to her feet and put his arm under hers and pulled her against him.
'Make believe we're snuggling up, nobody'll pay any attention to us,' he said, tilting her head against his shoulder and leading her towards the door.
'Sng'ling up, that what they call't in Boston?'
'Yeah,' he said. They made it to the front door without incident, but as they walked outside a frigid blast of air swept off the river.
'Wow!' she said. 'Wah' was'at?'
'Fresh air.'
'I th'nk m'legs're goin',' she said, sagging as he led her to the cab. He slid her into the backseat.
'Flay?'
'Yeah?'
Th'nks.'
'For what?'
'List'nin''t'me.'
'I'll listen to you anytime,' he said, sliding in beside her.
'Really?'
'Sure.'
'Th'n lissen caref'lly 'cause… I'm gonna try't'remember… what m'address is.'
She got the address right on the third try and slid down in the seat and put her head on his shoulder and stared at him through her one eye and said, 'Tell you secret, Mist Flar'ty. I have cov'ted you from afar ev'since th' first time I saw you. That okay?'
He put his arm around her and drew her closer.
'I think it's great,' he whispered, but did not tell her that he, too, had coveted her for just as long.
'Good,' she murmured, and a moment later was sound asleep.
She lived in a second-floor apartment on the corner of West Eugenie and North Park, a two-storey brick building with a pleasant nineteenth-century feel to it. Flaherty paid the cab driver and found her key in her purse and then got out, leaning into the backseat and gathering her up in his arms.
'Need some help?' the cabbie asked.
'Nah, she doesn't weigh more'n a nickel,' Flaherty said, and carried her into the apartment building. He found her apartment without incident and, bracing one knee against the wall, balanced her against it while he opened the door, then carried her in and kicked it shut.
It was a bright, cheery one-bedroom, furnished with expensive and flawless taste and bright colours. Waterford and Wedgwood abounded and the furniture was warm and inviting. The kitchen, which was small but efficient, was separated from the main room by a small breakfast counter. The walls were covered with numbered prints by Miro, Matisse, and Degas. A single lamp glowed near the window. He carried her to the bedroom and flicked on the light switch with his elbow. It was a mess, the bed unmade, a dirty dish with the remains of a pizza on the night-table, books piled high haphazardly in the corner. He laid her on the bed and she stirred and gazed up sleepily.
'M'home?' she asked.
'Yep.'
'You carried me up all those stairs?'
'Uh-huh.'
'Sir Gagalad… oh, what'shisname. Tha's you. Glorious knight.' She tried to sit up but flopped back on the feather mattress with her arms stretched out and sighed.
'Mouth's full a feathers,' she said, and giggled softly.
'I'll get you some water.'
'I'll try't'get undress'd while you're gone.'
He went into the kitchen, found a pebbled glass in the cabinet, and drew ice cubes out of the icemaker in the refrigerator door. He poured cold water over them and swished the glass around a few times.
'How're you doing?' he called to her.
'Better'n 'spected.'
'Let me know when you're in bed.'
'Just any ol' time,' she answered.
When he returned to the room, she was lying half under the covers, her clothes strewn on the floor. One leg was draped over the side of the bed. Her pantyhose hung forlornly from the leg.
'Almos' made it,' she said. 'That left leg was a real bitch.' She wiggled the leg and laughed weakly. 'Wow,' she said. 'You're right 'about martoonies.'
He put the glass of water on the night-table beside the bed and went to the window to close the blinds and suddenly a chill rippled across the back of his neck. He spread the blinds with his hands and scanned the street below.
Empty except for a single car parked across the street. It was also empty.
Paranoia, he thought. If the copycat killer was loose in Chicago, Shana Parver was certainly far down on his list. He closed the blinds.
'Flay?'
'Yeah.' He looked at her and she turned her head towards him and peered through one half-open eye.
'Don' leave me, please. Don' wanna wake up lonesome in't'morning. 'Kay?'
'Okay.'
'Wadda guy.'
He walked over to the bed and helped her sit up and take a sip of water.
'Mmmm,' she said, and fell back on the mattress. 'Not gonna leave me?'
'No, I'm not going to leave you.'
She smiled and immediately fell asleep again. Flaherty sat down on the bed and very carefully rolled the remaining leg of her pantyhose over her ankle and slipped it off her foot. He took her toes in his fingers and stroked them very gently.
God, he thought, even her toes are gorgeous.
In the backseat of the company limo, Jane Venable was already missing Martin. She had had a business meeting with her Japanese clients and Vail had decided he should spend at least an occasional night in his own apartment.
She was spoiled already. Spoiled by his attentiveness, spoiled by their passionate and inventive lovemaking, spoiled by just having him there. She stared out the window, watching the night lights streak by. When they stopped at a light, she suddenly sat up in her seat.
'Larry,' she said, 'pull over in front of the Towers, please.'
The driver pulled over and parked in front of the glittering shaft of glass and chrome. He jumped out and opened the door for her.
'I'll be back in a couple of minutes,' she said, and hurried into the apartment building. The night manager sat behind a desk that looked like the cockpit of an SST. A closed-circuit videocamera system permitted him to scan the halls of each of the thirty floors. He was slender, his face creased with age, his brown but greying hair combed straight back. He wore a blue blazer with a red carnation in its lapel and looked more like the deskman at an exclusive hotel than the inside doorman of an apartment building.
'May I help you?' he asked in a pseudo-cultured British accent, his eyes appraising the black limo.
Venable put on her most dazzling smile. 'Hi,' she said. 'What's your name?'
'Victor,' he said with a guarded smile.
'Well, Victor, I'm Jane Venable,' she said, taking a sheet of paper from her purse and sliding it across the polished desk in front of him. 'I'm an attorney. My client has been charged with the murder of John Delaney. I have a court order here permitting me access to the scene of the crime. I know this is a terrible imposition, but would you let me in?'
'What? Now? You want to inspect the premises now?'
She laid the folded fifty-dollar bill on the document.
'I just happened to be in the neighbourhood. I doubt I'll be fifteen minutes.'
He looked at the court order, cast another glance at the limo, then smiled at her as he palmed the fifty.
'How can I resist such a dazzling smile, Ms Venable,' he said. He opened the desk drawe
r, took out a ring of keys, and led her to the lift.
'Terrible thing,' he said as the lift climbed to the thirtieth floor.
'Dreadful,' she said, remembering that Delaney's death had probably been cause for celebrating all over the city. 'Did you know him well?'
Victor raised an eyebrow and smiled. 'He said "Hello" coming in and "Good evening" going out and gave me a bottle of Scotch for Christmas. That's how well I knew Mr Delaney.'
'Was it good Scotch?'
'Chivas.'
'Nice.'
They arrived at the thirtieth floor and Victor unlocked the door. The crime ribbons had been removed.
'Take your time, I'm on until two,' Victor said. 'The door will lock when you leave.'
'You're a dream, Victor.'
'Thank you, Ms Venable.' He left, pulling the door shut behind him.
A crazy notion, she thought, coming here in the middle of the night. But when she had looked through the car window and realized she was in front of the place - well, what the hell, she wasn't in any rush to get back to her empty condo anyway.
It had been years since Venable had visited the scene of a homicide and her adrenaline started pumping the instant she started down the hallway to the living room. She stood a few feet away from the black outline on the floor. It seemed to box in the wide, dark brown stain in the carpet.
She wasn't really looking for anything in particular; she felt it was her responsibility to Edith Stoddard to familiarize herself with the murder scene. She walked into the bedroom, noticed there were scratches on the spindles of the headboard. She stood in the bathroom. His toothbrush, a razor, and an Abercrombie and Fitch shaving bowl and brush were on one side of the marble-top sink and a bottle of bay rum aftershave lotion was on the other side. A towel hung unused on a gold rack near the shower.
She went into the kitchen, checked the refrigerator. Someone had emptied it out and cleaned it. There were canned foods in the small pantry. Delaney, it seemed, had a passion for LeSueur asparagus and Vienna sausages. She went back to the bedroom, checked through his desk and drawers and found nothing of interest. She found an ashtray, carried it back to the bedroom, and sat down on the end of the bed facing the closet. She decided to have a cigarette before she left. Smoking was not permitted in company vehicles.
Stupid, she thought. But at least I got this little junket out of the way.
Did Edith Stoddard's sense of betrayal over losing her job really precipitate Delaney's death? she wondered anew. It was a persistent question in her mind. The other facts in the case seemed blatant, but the motive seemed so bland. But then she remembered reading about other cases not dissimilar, like the postman who lost his job, went back to the post office with an assault weapon, and killed nine people before turning it on himself. Perhaps it wasn't as bland as she thought.
Thinking about Edith Stoddard, she stared into the closet. From where she was sitting, she could see the entire area, which was adjacent to, and formed a small hallway into, the bathroom; a large closet, empty except for a suit, a couple of shirts on hangers, a bathrobe, a pair of leather slippers, and a pair of black loafers.
But something else caught her attention. As she stared at it, she realized that the closet wall was off balance. One side of the closet was deep, stretching to the wall, the other side was just wide enough to hang a suit. It was at least two feet narrower.
She stared at it for a full two minutes, her old instincts working, a combination of paranoia and nosiness that had made her the best prosecutor of her time.
'Why is that closet off centre,' she said aloud to herself.
She went into the bathroom and checked to see if there were shelves behind the wall, but the commode was located behind it and that wall was tiled. She went back into the bedroom, entered the closet and turned on the light. Only a woman would be curious about this odd bit of interior architecture, she thought. Only a woman would be concerned about the loss of that much closet space. She rapped on the wall with her knuckles, thinking perhaps it was a riser, but the tapping was hollow.
A hollow space, two feet deep and five feet wide? A safe, perhaps? Secret files, something incriminating? Something she could use in court to taint the victim? She traced the seam where the two walls joined but found nothing. She stood at the juncture of the two walls and shoved against one of them.
It gave a little. She shoved harder. It bowed a little at the top.
The wall panel was not nailed; it was locked in the middle. She stepped back and once again scanned the seams, top, bottom, and sides. It was a door. Now she had to figure out how to open it.
She ran her fingertips around the doorsill and along the carpeting. Nothing.
She sighed and sat back down on the end of the bed and stared some more. She looked at the clothes rod. There were no clothes on the narrow side of the closet. She went back in, reached up, and jiggled the rod, then twisted it. The rod was threaded. She turned it four full turns before the whole end of the rod pulled away from the wall. She laid it on the floor and examined the receptacle. There was a button recessed in the threaded rod holder. She pushed it, heard a muffled click, and then the panel popped open an inch or two. A light blinked on inside the smaller closet. She swung it open.
Her breath came in a gasp. Her mouth gaped for a moment as she stared with shock and disbelief at its contents.
'My God,' she whispered.
Then her eyes moved down to the floor of the secret compartment.
The gun.
Twenty-nine
Jane Venable arrived at Vail's office at exactly ten o'clock. The lift doors parted and she stepped out, decked out in an emerald-green silk suit that made her red hair look like it was on fire. She had a tan Coach leather shoulder bag slung over one shoulder. She strode towards his office with the authority and assurance of a show horse prancing past the judges' stand. Everyone in the office suddenly found something to do that would put her directly in their line of sight. Every eye followed her to Naomi's desk.
'Hi,' she said with a bright smile. 'You must be Naomi. I'm Jane Venable.' She thrust her hand out.
Vail came out of his office and greeted her, ignoring the momentary smirk Jane flashed at him, a look Naomi did not miss. Marty, she thought, you're dead in the water. Vail had included Venable in the special meeting because she was an integral part of the emerging Stampler crisis. They entered his office.
'Last night was the pits,' she said, faking a big smile.
He smiled back. 'I smoked a pack of cigarettes trying to go to sleep.'
'That'll teach you to take a night off.'
'We're being watched,' he said, flicking his eyes towards the rest of the staff.
'I know. Isn't it fun?'
'Coffee?'
'Sure.'
'I checked on you last night - to make sure your guardian angels were there,' Vail said.
'I don't know what my neighbours think,' she said. 'One guy parks in front of the house all night and the other one parks on my terrace and cruises the grounds with a flashlight every hour on the hour.'
'Just makes you even more mysterious than you already are.'
'I don't know why I even brought it up, I've never met any of my neighbours.' Her mood seemed to change suddenly when he turned his back to her to draw the coffee. He could see her reflection in the windowpane. She became less ebullient, more introspective, as if she had very quickly fallen into deep thought.
The Stoddard case was heavy on Venable's mind. The discovery of the secret compartment in Delaney's apartment presented her with a peculiar dilemma. As Stoddard's defender, she was not required to tell the prosecution what she had found. On the other hand, the gun was integral to the case and she could be accused of concealing evidence. Her decision had been not to touch anything. She had closed up the secret room and left; her argument would be that she had not been sure whose gun was in the closet. And she still had to deal with Edith Stoddard about her discovery. She decided to put the problem aside for the
moment; obviously Vail's meeting would rule the agenda this morning. Loosen up, she told herself.
Vail poured a spoonful of sugar in her coffee cup. She quickly brightened again when he returned with her coffee. As she put the cup on the table in front of her, he said, 'Something bothering you?'
'You haven't known me that long.'
'How long?'
'Long enough to tell if something's got my goat.'
'Ah! So something has got your goat,' he said. He walked around the table and sat down, tilting his chair back with one foot on the corner of the desk.
She leaned across the table and stared at him through half-closed eyes and said, with mock sarcasm, 'I don't have a goat, Mr District Attorney.'
He laughed, and she asked, 'Did you miss me?' looking as if she were asking the time of day.
'Nah, although it did occur to me that some corporate samurai warrior might steal your heart away at dinner last night.'
She laughed at him. 'You can't get rid of me that easily, Vail.'
'I don't want to get rid of you at all.'
They were keeping up the facade of two people casually making conversation, a pantomime for the staff, which was still working very hard to make it appear as if they were disinterested in the scene behind the glass partition.
'Good,' she said, shaking her head so her hair flowed down over her shoulders.
He whistled very low in appreciation of her studied wiles. 'You are a science unto yourself,' he said.
'I suppose a good-morning kiss would stop traffic up here.'
'It would probably stop traffic in Trafalgar Square.'
'Pity.'
'Let's let the Wild Bunch in and get started. I'm sure they're all sitting outside this fishbowl reading our lips. Besides, they're all dying to meet the legendary Jane Venable.'
'Sure.'
'Absolutely. They know all about you. They've all read the transcript of the Stampler trial.'
'Well, that's just great!' she snapped. 'The one trial where Mr Wonderful whipped my ass and that's what they know about me?'
'Actually twice. I whipped your ass twice. Have you forgotten…?'
'Just call them in, okay?' she said, cutting him off.