VC01 - Privileged Lives

by Edward Stewart

  Charley turned around in the swivel chair, patiently professorial. “It means Maisie has nothing on him.”

  “Maisie?”

  “The computer. Either Monserat has a damned good lawyer, or he hasn’t been caught, or he isn’t a criminal.”

  “Not even a parking ticket?”

  “Believe it or not, Lieutenant, eighty percent of the residents of central and south Manhattan lead law-abiding lives.”

  Cardozo’s face and hands were dappled in reflections from the slides. When he recognized a figure he added to an earlier notation in the log. Fresh faces got new notations.

  He flicked to a new slide and suddenly he sat forward.

  It was as though the light had changed, as though the surrounding area had dimmed out and only the narrow waist held in a black band splashed with primary colors was in focus.

  He toyed with the lens. The figure on the wall receded into a blur, came forward into sharpness.

  His eyes took in the three-inch black leather belt, the outlandishly huge and brilliant red and green and blue costume jewels encrusting it.

  The woman had a strikingly deep suntan and blond hair that splayed out into the breeze in a long wave behind her.

  Cardozo felt a tightening around the chest.

  He switched off the projector. For a minute the wall seemed to glow where the image had been.

  He lifted the phone and dialed the number of the Pleasure Trove sex shop.

  Burt, the salesman from Pleasure Trove, leaned back against the cubicle wall, a column of smoke rising from his cigarette up into the still air. The carousel made click after click as the slides flicked by.

  The legs of Burt’s chair came down on the linoleum with a thunk. “Hold that picture.” His eyes were narrowed, suddenly attentive, his mouth closed so that his lips made a fine line. “That’s her.”

  The young blond woman in the slide was striding toward the Beaux Arts lobby. She had brown eyes, strong nose and jaw. A puff of wind had driven her apricot ruffled blouse hard against her breasts, showing a firm, braless outline.

  In her right hand she was holding a shoebox-sized package.

  Cardozo rose. “Thanks, Burt. I appreciate it.”

  After Burt left, Cardozo sat thinking.

  There was an easy way of putting it together. Didn’t mean it was the right way, just an easy way.

  Kushima had made a fifth mask, Monserat had sold it, and it had turned up as part of the personal adornment in a mutilation murder. The owner of the mask had reached the gallery, who had reached the artist, and they all were denying the mask had ever existed.

  Now tie that in with the Pleasure Trove mask, bought for cash by a woman using a false name and address.

  Did women ever buy leather bondage gear? Sure, statistically there had to be more than a few kinky women in the greater metropolitan area. Okay, could she have been buying it on her own for reasons that had nothing to do with the killing? Could she have been embarrassed, so she used a fake name and address?

  Right away there was a contradiction: she went into Beaux Arts Tower with the mask, she came out without it.

  Cardozo kept playing with combinations, and there was one he kept coming back to: the owner of the fifth mask had bought the Pleasure Trove mask as insurance, which meant he believed it was indistinguishable from the Kushimas. He’d used the unknown woman as a gofer because he could not afford visibility. In case the trail ever led to him, he’d be able to whip the mask out and say, “See, fellas? Here’s mine. Must be someone else you’re after.”

  Which meant that somewhere there was a record of that mask’s movements, a trail of paper scraps that led to the killer.

  Cardozo pored over the log. The girl was number 28. Name unknown. No match with patients of either clinic. Only one other picture was cross-referenced: number 43. In this one she was coming out of the building, back into the sunlight, without the package.

  Those were the only two pictures of her. Both Tuesday, May 27. First day of business after the murder. Cardozo noted the times in the log. In at 11:07, out at 11:18.

  He studied both slides. This time he was looking at the doorman. In the first the doorman seemed to be watching the young woman, suspiciously, difficult to say whether he recognized her or not. In the second his expression was much friendlier and he seemed to be speaking to her.

  Cardozo studied the photos of the house staff, selected a slide, dropped it into the carousel. The wall lit up with a close-up of Andy Gomez.

  It was almost eleven; from behind the steeple of Saint Andrew’s the moon was rising into the night sky. Andy Gomez stood inside the door of Beaux Arts Tower, talking animatedly on the house phone.

  “Hi there, Andy.” Cardozo flashed his shield.

  Andy’s eyes withdrew suspiciously under their brows and he hung up the phone.

  Cardozo showed him a photograph. The lab had brushed out the background so as not to compromise the surveillance van. “Ever seen this woman, Andy?”

  Andy frowned. “I see a lot of women.”

  “Come on, Andy. You seem like a pretty alert guy to me. A woman like this came to the building, you’d remember which apartment she went to.”

  “Maybe I said hello to her, she’s a pretty woman, but remember who she was visiting, hell no. I see too many faces.”

  Cardozo scanned the fives on the Beaux Arts John Doe that had come in since yesterday, put them into their own stack, reflected that time was passing and memories of potential witnesses were growing staler.

  Tommy Daniels knocked on the open door. Today he was wearing a heliotrope pink shirt that brought an infra-red glow to the cubicle.

  “Your photographers are doing nice work,” Cardozo said. He handed Tommy the picture of the blond-haired mystery woman.

  “Beautiful lady. Who is she?”

  “We want to find out. Have your men in the van keep an eye out for her. If she goes into the building again, follow her and see which floor she goes to.”

  16

  “I JUST LOOKED AT that buffet and put on ten pounds. But I danced every ounce of it off.” Lucia Vanderwalk sat smiling at her daughter. “I haven’t heard such a dance band since Eddy Duchin played at my birthday. No rock whatsoever. And Cordelia has never looked prettier. Of course, she was wearing one of your gowns.”

  “One of my gowns?” Babe said.

  “One of your company’s gowns. Billi has kept all your designs up to date. Mercedes Somoza was wearing one too.”

  “I don’t know who Mercedes Somoza is.”

  Lucia’s fingers tiptoed across her single strand of pearls. “Mercedes is the wife of the new Costa Rican ambassador to the U.N. She’s quite the fashion arbiter. Billi’s awfully good at getting the right people to wear Babethings designs. That’s half the secret of your company’s success.”

  Babe returned Lucia’s gaze with calm blue eyes. “As I recollect, the company was fairly successful when I was president.”

  “No one’s denying that, but it’s stayed a success, and that’s an accomplishment nowadays. Billi’s done a great deal in your absence, I hope you’re aware of it. And I don’t mean just the company. He’s taken loving care of Cordelia—and you know and I know he’s not at all a family man. But for Cordelia he’s always made an exception.”

  “Cordelia did look well,” Babe said.

  “And she looked heavenly dancing with your papa and Count Leopold. You remember the count?”

  Babe smiled. “A lot of military decorations and thinning hair?”

  “He’s bald now. But Countess Victoria has more hair than ever. It’s interesting how your friends have changed. I wish you could have seen them.”

  Babe drew herself up to her full sitting height. “Did anyone ask about me?”

  Lucia hesitated. “We haven’t told people. Not just yet.

  “Why not?”

  There was a silence while Lucia and Babe stared into each other’s eyes.

  “Until your doctor feels you’re fit,
your father and I don’t think publicity’s a good idea.”

  “Publicity’s not going to harm me.”

  Lucia’s lips shaped a sad little smile. “Times have changed. The press are demons nowadays. They’re capable of dressing up a reporter as a nurse and sending her in to change your bedpan.”

  “There’s no danger of that. I’m not using a bedpan.”

  “I’m glad you still have a sense of humor,” Lucia said. “You and your ready wit would have been quite the stars at Ash’s soiree. Ah well, you’ll have other chances. All in due course.”

  Another silence went by.

  “How did Dunk look?” Babe asked suddenly.

  “I didn’t see Dunk.”

  “Ash said she and Dunk are splitting up again.”

  “Did she? Well, I suppose Ash would know.”

  “Is Ash in some kind of therapy?”

  “That’s a strange question.”

  “She was taking pills and I wondered if a psychiatrist prescribed them.”

  “Some very fine people are being helped by psychiatrists. There’s nothing shameful about it. The church is no use, so where else can a person turn if they get depressed or land in a divorce or—someone dies.”

  “You talk as though you’ve been to one yourself.”

  “I wouldn’t hesitate if I needed treatment. But of course I’m the preneurotic generation.”

  “Was Doria Forbes-Steinman at the party?”

  In absolute motionlessness Lucia sat looking at Babe. When she spoke again her words were measured and precise. “Ash wouldn’t have that woman in her house, and if she did, I would not be her guest, nor would Billi, nor would—many other people. Why do you ask about Mrs. Forbes-Steinman?”

  “Ash said Scottie’s living with her.”

  “How kind of Ash to bring you up to date.”

  “There was nothing unkind about it. In fact I had to pry the information out of her. She wasn’t at all eager to tell me about Scottie.”

  A silence flowed by. Lucia shrugged. “Scottie served his sentence. Now he plays the piano somewhere or other.”

  “Where?”

  “Why do you insist on discussing him? It’s only going to depress you.”

  Babe met her mother’s cool gaze, knowing that Lucia would never be ill-bred enough to tell a lie, but knowing too that she was a woman capable of withholding large scraps of truth.

  Lucia sighed. “Scottie’s playing at one of the East Side hotels. I honestly can’t remember which one. It’s not the Carlyle.”

  “I want to talk to him.”

  “I fail to see what purpose would be served by that.”

  “I want to know the truth.”

  “You know it.”

  “I know a few half-truths that you and the police saw fit to spoonfeed me and a truth or two that Ash let slip.”

  There was a beat of hesitation. Lucia looked down at her hands as they traced the gold lettering on Babe’s datebook. “I honestly feel you know enough for the time being.”

  “All right, I’ll get out of here and find Scottie myself.”

  Lucia slammed down the datebook and walked to the window. She stood for a moment with her back to the room. She was trembling on the brink of something but then she pulled back.

  “Dear heart, you’re making such splendid progress. Why risk an emotional shock that will only set you back?”

  “Don’t you think I’ve had emotional shocks?”

  “Yes, dear heart, indeed I do. That’s why I’m concerned.” Lucia came back to the bedside and repossessed her chair. “You’ve had enough suffering. Now you have to concentrate on recovery.”

  “I’m going to concentrate on finding out what’s happened to my life.”

  “In the old days, when you were born, the only way a woman could get a proper rest was to go into the hospital and have a baby. You’re having a rest without any of that. Why don’t you just relax, away from all stress and strain, and Dr. Corey will tell you when you’re fit?”

  “He’d better certify me fit today, because I’m leaving tomorrow.”

  “That is not an option.” Lucia’s voice was flat and somehow dangerous. “Your father and I cannot permit you to leave this hospital.”

  “I don’t see that it matters what you do or don’t permit.”

  “Then you apparently don’t realize that the court has made you your father’s and my ward.”

  “I was in coma when the court decided that.”

  “You’re not well yet.”

  “Maybe I’m physically weak, but I’m conscious and mentally sound.”

  “Why don’t we leave that diagnosis to your doctor?”

  “I know my state of mind better than any doctor.”

  “I wouldn’t insist.”

  “I do insist.”

  Her mother gave her a sudden sideways stare, hard and disapproving. “Then the court will have to rule.”

  Babe had to fight a moment’s refusal to believe what she’d heard, and then she marveled at her mother’s ability to serve up a threat so offhandedly, without even changing her tone of voice.

  Lucia paused. If the threat was a bluff, she had now committed herself to it. “I’m sorry, Beatrice. I didn’t write the law. It requires three doctors to examine you and to agree in their findings.”

  “Then have them examine me today.”

  “It’s up to Dr. Corey when they examine you. And Dr. Corey feels you need a stay here.”

  Babe studied her mother with her elegantly coiffed gray hair, her strong facial bones, and dark eyes. A sick premonition hummed inside her.

  “Beatrice, dear heart, why must we argue? All any of us wants is for you to be well and happy and strong.”

  “Has Dr. Corey told you how long he prescribes protecting me?”

  “He’s mentioned three months. I should suppose that’s give or take a month.”

  Babe’s voice rose. “You don’t mean give or take a year?”

  Her mother gave her a tsk-tsk’ing look. “Don’t be a goose. Look at you. You’re flushed. You’ve got yourself all tired.” Lucia carefully adjusted the fold of Babe’s top sheet. “Now why don’t you be a good girl and lie back and try to nap.”

  When Cardozo got back to the station house at ten that evening, there was a message waiting on his desk: PLEASE CONTACT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, BABE V. DEVENS.

  He saw by the sergeant’s scrawl that the phone call had come at 1:30 that afternoon. He phoned the hospital and asked for her room. “I’m sorry,” the operator said, “no calls are allowed after ten P.M.”

  It was 7:30 in the morning, and Babe Devens was in her hospital room, watching the morning news on TV, when Cardozo came in.

  “Lieutenant Cardozo.” She looked pleased to see him.

  The room was bright with morning sun. He felt an odd and sudden shyness.

  “Sorry I took so long,” he said. “I didn’t get your message till last night.”

  “You’re very good to come.”

  He closed the door. They looked at one another in silence. He was very aware of her intelligent face, her green eyes, her honey blond hair.

  “You remembered something?” he said.

  “No. Please don’t be angry at me. I need your help.”

  That interested him. Babe Vanderwalk Devens needed the help of a $47,000-a-year homicide detective.

  “My family want me to stay in the hospital. I want to go home.”

  “You don’t need me.” He smiled. “You’re over twenty-one. There’s the door.”

  “It’s not that easy. The court put me in their custody. They have my power of attorney. Legally I’m a child.”

  “Haven’t you contacted your lawyer?”

  The silk of Babe Devens’s robe made a slight rustle in the quiet room. “First of all, I can’t. That phone only takes incoming calls. I had to ask E.J. to call you from the nurse’s station. Second of all, he’s my family’s lawyer. He’s working for them, not me. My parents want me in prot
ective custody and they won’t let me see anybody but their handpicked visitors. Look.” She handed him a leather-bound datebook. “Mother has my life mapped out for the next month.”

  Cardozo leafed through the pages, admiring the neatly looping handwriting. “Maybe your folks are right. Maybe you should stay in the hospital till you’re strong.”

  Determination flared in Babe Devens’s eyes. “There’s nothing I’m doing here that I can’t do at home. The house has an elevator, I can take E.J. with me, the therapists can work with me there. I’ll be fine.”

  It occurred to him that this woman knew herself and knew her limits and that if she said she would be fine then she would be.

  “What do you want me to do?” he said.

  “Put me in touch with a lawyer who’s not Wall Street and not old money and not scared of Hadley or Lucia Vanderwalk.”

  Cardozo found Lucinda MacGill on the second floor taking a deposition from a woman screaming in Yiddish and Russian. A sergeant, obviously a volunteer pulled out of the muster room, was attempting to translate.

  A young man handcuffed to a chair was screaming Spanish and a lieutenant was translating. Through all the screaming and translating Cardozo gathered that the young man had pushed the woman’s husband under a Queens-bound F train while attempting to grab the gold Star of David from his neck.

  Lucinda MacGill saw Cardozo and came over to the coffee urn. “The kid’s high on crack,” she said. “The husband died forty minutes ago in emergency at Saint Clare’s. The woman wishes she’d never left Russia.”

  “You working tomorrow?” Cardozo said.

  “Tomorrow’s Sunday. I’m sleeping.”

  “If you felt like going up to Doctors Hospital tomorrow and talking to Babe Vanderwalk Devens you could earn a little extra.”

  “Babe Devens? You’re kidding. I thought she was in coma.”

  “She was but now she isn’t. The court made her her parents’ ward. They won’t let her out of the hospital. She wants to go.”

  “Thanks, Lieutenant. That might just pay off my car loan.”

  Lucinda MacGill lit one of her two daily cigarettes and smiled at Babe Devens as though they had been friends for years. “Tell me about your family. What are they after? Do they want to control your money?”