“Listen, Doc''—Lesko gestured up the stairs where Corbin and Gwen had gone to be alone—“with this Beckwith Enterprises thing, Corbin’ s going to be rich now, right? But it's going to be a battle.”
”I don't know that he wants any part of it. But if he does, yes, it will surely be a battle.”
“He'll want it. If not for the money, then to keep any more fake Beckwiths from living off it.”
Sturdevant nodded. “I've already told my lawyer to file for a freeze on Beckwith assets.”
“What lawyer? That other black suit who thinks only poor people drive cars? I bet he hits you for two hundred grand a year, five years minimum.”
Sturdevant tried not to wince, but he knew that Lesko was not far wrong. Any lawyer worth the name would get the testimony of Ella's brother thrown out on grounds of incompetence. The evidence Ballanchine might give will be labeled hearsay where events of forty years ago are concerned. From all reports, Ella's mind has snapped completely, so there won't be much help there. Nor will Jonathan be welcomed by the Beckwith Enterprises major stockholders and directors, or by Tilden's wastrel son, Chip, who is at this moment probably lolling on a sailboat somewhere off Antigua, being served Mount Gay rum and tonics by some bare-breasted rental. Then there's the daughter, Barbara, the white sheep of the family by most accounts, who walked away from it and vanished shortly after graduating from Cornell University with a degree in veterinary medicine. She would have to be found, if only to offset Chip and, unlike him, she might even be persuaded to do the decent thing. Yes. The law firm would have to hire a good private detective to—Aha! We now leap ahead to whatever is behind Mr. Lesko's question.
“If you're about to suggest that you stay on this case”— Sturdevant shrugged as if it were a nonissue—”I would be crazy to let a law firm start over with a new investigator.”
”I don't want to work for a lawyer at all. You hire me direct, Doc. It'll save you time and money.”
Sturdevant had to agree. “But to do what, exactly?”
“Dancer says there was a will, and some other legal papers showing that the Corbins are the real heirs. I don't think they found all the copies. He says when those guys went out and burned down Charlotte Corbin's house, all they found was a third, maybe a fourth carbon. He says that's why they went out a few months later and burglarized Lucy Stone Turtle's house and ended up killing her, too. He thinks she told them to buzz off before they strangled her, which means they came up empty. It's also why they didn't push Corbin in front of a train as soon as they knew who he was. They wanted to know if he had any idea who he was and if maybe he had those papers.”
“Where would you begin looking?”
“Lots of places.” He'd start with Dancer one more time, he'd already decided. Dancer did say he wanted to see him, and there was always the chance that Dancer had found those papers and stashed them. But he didn't think so. If Dancer had that kind of leverage he'd have been living like a king years ago. Then he'd head back out to Chicago and track down Lucy Turtle's grandchildren and the family of Whitney Corbin's widow and ask them to go through their attics in return for an eventual piece of the action. But first he thought he'd hang around Greenwich for a while. Especially around this house. Charlotte had come back here one more time after Tilden died. Corbin was as sure about that as if he'd been here to see it. She came back to see her best friend, Laura Hemmings. And Corbin himself had come here. He was pulled here. Like he had no choice. Maybe we'll have to tear up a few floorboards before we're through.
“Listen,” Lesko said to Sturdevant, ”I also got my old age to think about, and you're going to want someone who can keep an eye on things at Beckwith Enterprises. Tom Burke is now a vacancy. I want to be the new chief of Security at whatever they were paying him plus a bonus if I find the papers.”
”A bonus, certainly,” Sturdevant granted. “But I have no influence over whom that company hires.”
“You will. Just have your lawyer file that freeze and then put me in a room alone with the board of directors. Some of them will resign anyway as soon as they read today's papers. The rest will be falling all over themselves trying to make their hands look clean.”
Late that afternoon, Lesko made one more visit to the isolation wing at Greenwich Hospital. A don't-fuck-with-me expression, plus the bandage on his scalp and a flash of his gold shield got him past the guard with no questions asked. When he entered Lawrence Ballanchine's room, Ballanchine had to turn his head to see him. The whole left side of his face was packed with a heavy compress. Another wrapping of gauze held his jaw in place until surgery could be scheduled. For all his pain, Dancer seemed relieved that Lesko had come back.
“Shut the door,” he slurred by way of greeting.
“You got two minutes.” Lesko left it open.
“We can help each other, Lesko.” He spoke with difficulty through thickened lips. ”I have something you want. And you're going to help me walk away from this.”
“Fat chance.” Lesko shook his head. People like Dancer never failed to amaze him. Suck up to everyone who has money, treat everyone else like shit. Even here, like this.
Dancer ignored his response.
“The conspiracy and attempted-murder charges will never go to trial without your testimony. Agree to withdraw it, and I'll give you something you can sell for a lot of money.”
“You got the will and those other papers?”
“Something better.”
Lesko looked at his watch. “Now it's a minute. Then I'm out of here and your tight little ass is on its way to a Sing Sing shower party.”
Dancer closed his one eye. “Must you be such a pig, Mr. Lesko?”
“What do you want from me? A bedside manner? I get snippy with people who stuff me in trunks.”
“They were married, Lesko.”
Dancer waited for a reaction. He seemed troubled that there was none.
“Did you hear what I said? Tilden Beckwith and Charlotte Corbin were married. I know when and I know where.”
“That's not such big news,” Lesko lied. “It was just before they killed him, right?” He watched Dancer's face for the beginnings of a nod and he saw it. It was true. He'd felt right along that there had to be a better reason for killing the Corbins. A will, they could have fought. A will and a legal wife was something else.
“It was quite some time before.” Now Dancer lied. But it was too late. He hadn't stopped the nod in time. “I'll give you the place and date after you've had a satisfactory meeting with my lawyer.”
“No deal, Twinkletoes. See you around.” Lesko turned toward the door. He wanted to get to the hallway so he could let the excitement show on his face.
“You couldn't have known this.” Dancer's voice was desperate.
“Not for sure.” Lesko couldn't resist. “But then you gave it to me when you said you had something better than a will. You even gave me when before you tried to take it back. The where part figures to be someplace around Chicago.”
“Well, it isn't.”
“Bullshit.” Lesko turned again.
“You don't even know where to start looking. I know where the records are.”
“That's what you're offering? You'll save me a little legwork if I let you walk without paying the tab?”
“It could take you months. You might never find it.”
”I get paid by the day, pal.”
Lesko stepped through the door.
“Jonathan?” She said his name softly.
He didn't stir. He lay facedown on the bed, fully clothed, the way she'd left him when she went to take her hot soaking bath in the big tub that had feet like claws. Gwen gathered the loose folds of Jonathan's terry robe and eased herself down onto the bed, her back against two pillows. -She wished she still smoked cigarettes. This was one of those perfect times for a cigarette.
She reached to touch the white Victorian dress, which she'd draped over a high-backed bedside chair. It was dry. Soiled at the hem, but dry. No
t ruined. She let her eyes drift lazily around the room, taking it in, feeling it. She began to understand how it was possible for Jonathan to drift back into another time. It had almost happened to her as she sat in the tub watching the steam rise. It was almost happening now.
Laura Hemmings had used that tub. And she'd slept in this room. Perhaps in this very bed, which had come with the house because it was too heavy to move. And Margaret had surely been up here. Visiting. Chatting. Looking at a new dress Laura bought. Maybe they cried together here.
Maybe it was here where she decided she didn't want to live with fear and hurt and uncertainty anymore. Gwen
could understand that. God knows, she'd almost bolted herself.
She touched a hand very lightly to Jonathan's back. Such a gentle man. A good man. So full of life and fun and good ideas. At least he was like that, and perhaps will be again. His eyes were clearer, last night and this morning, than they'd been in—a year? A year at least.
A good and gentle man.
Who has killed three other not so gentle men. With his bare hands. Or Tilden has. Oh, that is going to take some getting used to.
“Tilden! Tilden Beckwith, old buddy!” She called him in her mind.
She imagined a curl of smoke from the cigarette she didn't have. She made it drift over the bed to its footposts, and she caused it to form into Tilden. There. There he was. Standing there with that same little-boy smile Jonathan has when he's pleased with himself.
“If I decide to stay here for a while, you're not going to be hanging about all the time, are you? I mean…
Wait. . .
You go away, Tilden.
I want to talk to Margaret.
Gwen started another curl of smoke.
Margaret was there. She gave Tilden’ s hand a squeeze and smiled up at him. Tilden bowed once to Gwen, and then he was gone.
Gwen's Margaret was smaller than she expected. She wore a green embroidered dressing gown with a high oriental collar. She had brown hair, shiny and all brushed out, and her eyes were almost the color of her gown. She was wearing slippers. That's why she looked smaller. She was grinning at Gwen.
“Hi!” Gwen grinned back at her and waved.
Now what?
“Margaret, you're really very lovely, by the way.”
Gwen's Margaret blushed and returned the compliment with a gesture of her hands.
“Margaret.” Gwen stopped. It suddenly struck her that she had taken the last of Uncle Harry's propranolol tablets last night after she saw that man hanging from the tree. Was the pill doing this? No. She was doing it. She was making it up. And there was nothing wrong with that.
“Margaret? Are you and Tilden together now? For good, I mean.”
Margaret nodded happily.
“I'm glad.”
Margaret made another gesture that took in both Gwen and Jonathan. It was the same question.
”I think so. It depends a little bit on what I was going to ask Tilden. Are you and he going to be living ... urn . .. staying here in this house?”
“Oh, no.” Margaret's lips formed the words. Then she said something else that looked like “This is ... this is Laura's house.” Margaret made a quick erasing motion with her hands, as if she were playing charades, and pointed to the bathroom door. A very tiny blond woman came through it, carrying a bundle of soiled towels.
“Oh, now wait,” Gwen Leamas laughed. She made an erasure motion of her own, and Laura Hemmings was gone.
“She wasn't really there, was she? Tell me this house isn't haunted.”
Margaret winked a reassurance and shook her head.
“Margaret?’'
She waited, still smiling pleasantly.
“Margaret, where do you go? I mean, what happens afterward?’ '
Margaret's reply, although Gwen could not hear it, was untroubled and without hesitation, but she seemed to stumble after she'd formed the first few words. She paused thoughtfully and tried again. She reminded Gwen of someone who'd been stopped on the street and asked for directions to a place that person knew perfectly well but could not for the life of her explain how to get there. Margaret at last gave up- She shrugged helplessly at Gwen.
“Gwen, honey?”
She felt Jonathan's hand touch her cheek. “Hi!” She took the hand and squeezed it. “Were you asleep?”
Gwen stretched and looked around the bedroom. ”I don't think so.”
“You were talking.”
“Oh.” She hesitated. “Then maybe I did drop off.” She thought about asking him to describe Margaret again. And Laura Hemmings. Perhaps some other time.
“You smell terrific.” His fingers probed for an opening in the terry robe at her waist.
“Well, you don't.” She slapped his hand. “The bathtub's free now.”
“Will you wait right here?”
“You betcha.”
Yes. I'll wait. And I'll be glad when you come out all clean and shaved and naked. But take your time. A friend of mine and I weren’t quite finished talking.
“Jonathan?”
“Yes, sweetheart.”
“You mentioned us flying down to a warm beach someplace.”
“Just as soon as they let us.”
' ‘Would you care if we went someplace else?’'
“Wherever you'd like.”
“I'd like to go to Lake Geneva.”
“Wisconsin? In the winter?”
“They have some really cozy inns up there. With rooms looking out over the lake where we can go skating and iceboating. And the rooms each have their own fireplaces.”
“Any inn in particular? Is This someplace you’ve been?
“Margaret? Margaret? Are you sure it’s still there?
There was no answer, really. Just a faint little chill. And then a feeling of delicious snuggly warmth.
She wanted to say to Jonathan, “Yes, I’ve been there many times.” She wanted to say, “So have you, my great and eternal love.”
All she thought she’d best say was, “Wait and see.”
“Gwen?” ”Uh-huh?”
“Would you marry me, please?”
“In Lake Geneva? I will in Lake Geneva.”
He smiled. “Signing in as man and wife?. I mean, this inn of yours.”
“That's a lovely idea, Jonathan.”
End.
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