She backed away, into her apartment, unable to meet his accusing eyes. “Would you like to come in?” Her words came out sharper than she’d intended. She walked into her living room and sat down. He followed her.
“Would you prefer coming to the precinct and talking to the Lieutenant?”
“Now?” She looked at her watch nervously. It was almost eight-thirty.
He ignored her question. “I’ll give you till noon tomorrow. I want you at the precinct by then, if not before.” His tone was cold and hard.
“Gee, thanks.” She wondered how it would have been if Metzger had handled the case. Whenever she and Silvestri met, whatever they said to each other took on a personal tone and went wrong. Her lips trembled. I’m having a breakdown, she thought. She brushed the wetness from her cheeks with her fingertips and stared defiantly at Silvestri.
His eyes were hard to fathom.
“Take a look at these,” he said, pushing aside the books on her coffee table and spreading a group of photographs, all different sizes, black and white and color, dealing them out and lining them up as if he were playing bridge.
She watched his face as he put each out, but he gave her no hint. A poker face dealing to the dummy, she couldn’t help thinking. Smith was right. You are a dummy, she told herself sternly. She studied the photographs, acutely aware of him, the smell of him—his aftershave, cigarette smoke on his clothes, the coffee on his breath. “What is this for?”
“We’re looking for someone you might have seen at the Four Seasons who didn’t turn up during our initial interrogation.”
“Oh,” she said, looking at the pictures. “Wait a minute. This one is Dinah Shore. What’s she doing here?”
“I always include her,” Silvestri said pleasantly. “She’s a very special lady. You’d be surprised how many people pick her out as the person they saw—”
“Oh, great,” she said sarcastically. “It was a test and I passed.” She put the photograph of Dinah back in its place. “Well, I didn’t see her that night. I like her, too,” she added, not smiling.
“Keep going,” he said, serious again.
She pulled another photograph from the arrangement. “I think I saw her in the ladies’ room, only she was wearing dark glasses, but I’d remember that hair. It’s the most amazing color, like copper.” She thought for a moment. “I know her, I think. Who is she?” The eyes of the woman in the posed color photograph looked back at Wetzon suggestively.
“Are you sure?” Silvestri asked, ignoring her question.
“Positive. Are you going to tell me who she is?”
“Don’t you know?”
“No. Would I ask you if I knew? How would I know?” She studied the photograph. “Who is she?” Silvestri raised an eyebrow at her. “I guess you’re not going to tell me.”
“I guess I’m not going to tell you,” he said, scooping up the rest of the photographs and stuffing them back in his inside pocket. “Not if you don’t already know.”
They both stood.
“Are you going to your office?” he asked. “If you are, I can drop you.”
“Okay, you can drop me on Second and Forty-ninth.”
He had another car, a green Plymouth Valiant which had seen better days. “New car?” she asked facetiously.
“Borrowed.”
That was all they said to each other. He drove in silence, concentrating on traffic.
Wetzon felt her resolve wavering. She was growing more and more uneasy about everything. He pulled into the bus stop near Forty-ninth Street and turned to her. “Wanna talk?” he said, not shutting off the motor. She looked at him, uncertain. “The Lieutenant’s a mean son of a bitch,” Silvestri said. “Nothing like me.”
“Sure, you’re a pussycat, Silvestri.” She opened the door and stepped out, then leaned back toward him and spoke quickly. “Georgie told me Barry was holding something for him and it wasn’t in Barry’s locker. Buffie told me Barry had been threatened by Jake Donahue, that he’d written his autobiography as insurance and stashed it away somewhere, that if anything happened to him she was to present it to Mildred Gleason and Mildred would pay his insurance to Buffie.” Silvestri leaned both arms on the steering wheel, chin on arms, giving her his profile. She rattled on, peeved as hell by his bland reaction. “Mildred told me she’d hired Barry to get dirt on Donahue. Jake hired a broker named Amanda Guilford to spy on Barry. Leon Ostrow, my lawyer, was at the Four Seasons that night and outside Buffie’s apartment building before we found Georgie.” She stopped, breathless. “Okay? Thanks for the ride.” She slammed the car door.
Silvestri leaned over and rolled down the window on her side. “That’s a start,” he said. “You’re not off the hook yet. Noon tomorrow.”
“Ingrate.” She pulled herself up proudly, angry that he wasn’t satisfied, and walked away from the car. If her guess was right, she would present him with the stuff from the locker before noon tomorrow. That would do him.
She hadn’t even looked at the business section of the Times. Usually she thumbed through it over her morning coffee, but she had been in a hurry this morning and too jumpy to concentrate. She’d had her apple juice and all the vitamins and had skipped the coffee. She’d have it in the office. And for the time being she would block Silvestri from her mind.
The magnolia trees were thickening with pale magenta buds, and the humid mist was just starting to clear. It would probably be a nice day. The weekday morning smells of New York—coffee, danish pastries, croissants—came from the shop on the corner of Second Avenue. There was one like it on almost every corner in New York now. She walked past the line-up of secretaries, clerks, and executives in business uniform, lured by the enticing odors.
When she opened the door to the brownstone office, she was greeted by the unmistakable aroma of brewed coffee. It wasn’t like Harold to have made coffee, but there he was pouring himself a cup, so he must have. Wonders would never cease.
“Good morning,” she said. “Just what I need this morning, fresh coffee.”
“Good morning,” he said, drowning his coffee with milk and sugar. “Smith had it made before I got here.” He looked at her with concern. “How are you feeling? Did you see the papers this morning?”
“I’m feeling fine,” she said genially, her back to him, going through her mail. “Why?”
“Smith says ...” He faltered.
She turned and smiled at him encouragingly. “Don’t stop now, Harold, tell me what Smith says.” This was really annoying. It was as if Smith had deliberately set out to make her feel defensive this morning.
“Well,” Harold said, lowering his voice, “Smith said that we have to be very gentle with you because you’ve been so depressed since Barry’s murder, and we’re not to worry you about business problems or anything.”
What business problems? she thought. “Isn’t that sweet of her. But she’s a mother, and,” she said, with the air of sharing a confidence, “you know how mothers are, Harold. They just hover too much.”
“Oh, don’t I know,” Harold said fervently, as she knew he would because he had one of those mothers. “But she’s awfully worried about you.”
“She enjoys worrying about me, so let’s let it be our secret, Harold. I’m really fine.” She flung out her arms and did a little shuffle tap routine. He laughed, applauding.
“Now what was that about the papers? Don’t tell me someone else has been murdered.” She took the Times out of her briefcase as she spoke and opened it to the business section. “Uh-oh.”
The headline read: GOVERNMENT CLOSES DOWN BROKERAGE FIRM. She leaned against the outside door, stunned. So the Feds finally make their appearance, she thought. Long overdue. It was almost as if they’d been hanging around the perimeter all along. The government almost never shut down brokerage firms. Usually if it was a matter of sudden loss of capitalization, the firm’s underpinnings, the government gave the industry time to rush in and try to remedy the situation—arrange a merger with or a
buy-out by another securities firm. Because if word got out, it soured the client on the whole industry. But if the firm was thought to have been doing something illegal, the industry had to stand aside. It was shattering news for investors, bad for the market, bad for headhunters, bad for the industry. She folded the paper in half lengthwise, New York style, and read the article.
Government agents padlocked the brokerage firm of Jacob Donahue & Co. late last night. Sources close to Donahue claim investors began demanding their money and stock certificates because of the publicity about the recent murders of Donahue’s estranged wife, Mildred Gleason, and Donahue’s employee, stockbroker Barry Stark. Carole Sue Wright, a spokeswoman for the SEC, stated that because Donahue & Co. held the securities instead of transferring them to the lender, when the investors demanded the return of their securities, it was uncovered that Donahue & Co. had used these same securities in several repos agreements.
“What happens to the people who have accounts there?” Harold asked.
“The accounts automatically go into SIPC,” she answered, rereading the article. She looked up and, seeing the blank expression on his face, added, “‘Securities Investors Protection Corporation.’ It’s insurance for up to half a million dollars per customer account.”
“Oh.” Harold nodded. “And what happens to the broker if he hasn’t done anything wrong? Can he move those accounts?”
“Not easily. The government appoints an overseer. It all takes time. So a broker is better off finding another firm and rebuilding his book. And that’s not easy either, because most of the firms are wary of hiring a broker from a disreputable firm and without a book.”
“Did you see where it says that Jake and Mildred were never divorced?” Harold loved gossip.
“I can’t believe Mildred would have been that stupid, unless she felt she could somehow hold on to her father’s firm by not divorcing Jake. All of which means he will probably inherit her company, unless they prove that he’s a murderer. Poor Mildred. She even loses after she can’t lose anymore.”
“But won’t the Exchange and the SEC take away his license?”
“Yes, if he’s convicted. Otherwise, they might slap his wrists for a short time or fine him, or maybe they’ll say he can’t trade for thirty days or sixty days, or ninety days, but then he’ll be back—if he’s not the murderer. And in this business, maybe even if he is.”
“What’s going on? Am I missing something?” Smith poked her head out of the main office. She was wearing the silk tie with the cabbage roses as a band around her dark curls, tied in a bow at the nape of her neck. Wetzon stared at it, flabbergasted. Was it the same tie Smith had worn the day Georgie was murdered, or was this a brand new one she’d bought at Bloomingdale’s this morning? And if it was new, did Wetzon have the old one, because Smith had been at Buffie’s apartment with Georgie and had lost it there after— No, she couldn’t let herself think that.
“We were just talking about Jake Donahue,” Wetzon said. “I need to talk to you, Smith.” But not about the silk tie, obviously. Smith would wriggle out of that.
“First let me get you a cup of my fresh brewed coffee,” Smith said sweetly, sounding like a television commercial. “I knew you would need it this morning. Where were you last night? I called.”
“At the Caravanserie.”
“You went to the Caravanserie? Really?” Harold was agog. His mouth dropped open and his eyes all but popped from behind his glasses. “Did you see any stars?”
“Later, Harold, please,” Smith said sharply. “We have work to do now.” She handed Wetzon the coffee.
“You had some calls, Wetzon,” Harold said, cowed.
“Who?”
“Sid Ashencraft from Thomson McKinley in Palm Beach.”
“Probably about Angela Buttenweiser.”
“You can call him back, he said.”
“Who else?”
“Steve Switzer. Smith spoke to him.”
Smith nodded. “It’s dead with Hallgarden, but I talked him into looking at Oppenheimer.”
“He wants upfront. It’s a waste of time. They won’t give it to him at Oppenheimer.”
“Wetzon, you know as well as I do that these brokers never know what they want.”
Wetzon sighed. Smith had a point. Sometimes things fell into place for all the wrong reasons. And maybe sometimes people got murdered for all the wrong reasons.
“Any other calls?”
“Yeah, a Dr. Pulasky.”
“Did he leave a number?” Harold looked stricken, his bearded face funereally grave, flooded with concern. “Don’t look so worried, Harold, Dr. Pulasky is a personal friend.”
“Yes,” Smith said mischievously, “very personal.”
Harold smiled, tentative, not understanding. “He said you couldn’t reach him, that he would call again later.”
Wetzon closed the door to the office she shared with Smith and put the coffee cup down on her desk. Her briefcase went under the desk. She took a sip of the coffee, and a deep breath, then turned to face Smith, who was smiling indulgently at her. It was downright disconcerting. Smith was sending out waves of love.
Wetzon sighed and took another swallow of coffee. It was unusually good. Probably a new blend of decaf.
“Smith,” she began.
“Yes, dear.” Smith’s big dark eyes were moist. Actually, she looked more exotic than usual this morning. Her olive skin was set off by the vivid blue and mauve colors in her silk dress, and she’d made herself up to emphasize her high, broad cheekbones and doe eyes. Her dark hair was a curly wimple for her face, cut by those damn mauve cabbage roses....
“Smith.” Wetzon closed her eyes against Smith’s wide-eyed innocence, knowing that Smith well realized its impact on her. “Smith, why did you tell Silvestri that it was my idea to make a duplicate of the key?” It made her angry all over again just thinking about it, and saying it out loud, she found herself shaking with fury.
“What did you say? I told Silvestri it was your idea to make a copy of the key?” Smith’s face reflected nothing but indignation. “I did no such thing. How could you possibly think I would?” She paused, waiting for Wetzon to cave in, but Wetzon kept silent. “Actually,” Smith said, smoothly placating, “he wanted me to say that, you should have heard how he phrased it, but I wouldn’t. I think he was trying to trick us, to get us to say something incriminating about each other.”
“Incriminating? Smith, what are you talking about?”
“Well, you know, that whole business with the key.” Smith’s voice radiated goodness. “You know I would never have said such a thing to Silvestri. I’m your friend. I love you. We have a history together. You know you can trust me. We’ve been together too long for that.” Smith put a hand on each of Wetzon’s shoulders, staring into her eyes. She was sincere.
Wetzon felt sick. Here was her friend and partner, Xenia Smith, meeting her eyes unflinchingly and telling her that Silvestri had set a trap for them, and maybe he had, because he had guessed the key had been copied. Of course he had. And he had caught them both. It had all been a silly mistake. “Oh, I know, Smith,” she said. “I’m really ashamed that I could have thought you would do that.” She was surprised to discover that she was shaking.
Smith’s eyes fluttered as if she were going to cry. She was full of compassion. “You’re just overwrought by this whole thing, dear. Just look at yourself, you’re trembling. Maybe you should get away for a few days. Why not take my country place—”
“No, no, I’ll be all right, and besides, I hate the country. I’d just get stir-crazy there. But thank you. Now where is that damn key?” But she wasn’t all right. Her heart was thumping and she felt waves of panic in her chest.
“You really ought to go home,” Smith said. Her eyes narrowed solicitously. “You look terrible.” She opened her desk drawer and took out an envelope. “Here it is.”
“I’ll give it to Silvestri tomorrow.” Wetzon put the envelope in her handbag.
“He wants to see me at the precinct tomorrow at twelve.”
“What for?”
“More questions, I guess. Smith, about that money from Leon—”
“Don’t say another word,” Smith said. “I gave it all back to Leon last night. You were right, of course.” She smiled her crooked smile.
“I’m so glad, Xenia.” Wetzon, feeling fiercely relieved, squeezed her partner’s hand. “Just let me sit here for a minute. I feel as if I’ve been running miles.”
“Okay, sweetie, you just sit there and relax and I’ll fill you in on what we’ve been doing about Donahue’s. You don’t have to worry about anything right now. First, Harold pulled all the names. We have home phone numbers for some of them, but who knows if they’re at home. They’re probably all scattered around looking for jobs.”
“And their accounts will all go into SIPC and be frozen for who knows how long, so what firms are going to be willing to hire them, especially through us? We’ll have to see, but we may just end up spinning our wheels,” Wetzon said, starting to feel better.
“I put Harold on it. He’ll let us know if he comes up with anyone.”
“Good. Now I have to set up appointments for Amanda Guilford and Howie Minton.”
“Oh, no,” Smith groaned. “Not him again. He’ll never leave Rosenkind.”
“This time I think he will. They’ve decided he has to pay for a customer complaint about their bad stock picks.”
“So he says, the sleazebag.”
“Now, Smith,” Wetzon said, and they were back in motion again, grinning at each other. But her heart still pounded and she couldn’t quite shake the feeling of panic. The last time she had felt like this, she’d drunk regular coffee by mistake. Smith had made the coffee this morning and Smith knew she drank only decaf, so it had to be something else. The shock of everything that had happened to her over this past week was probably starting to tell.
Harold opened the door. “Smith, call for you from Gary Enderman.”
The Big Killing Page 29