The door buzzed again and Della rushed off to answer it, disappearing into the tiny vestibule.
“Della, my girl!” a male voice boomed from the hallway.
The voice was a familiar one, but before Vivian could place it, Martin Gilfoy strode into the room. He kicked his stiff right leg out in front of him as he walked, making him appear to be goose-stepping like those German troops in the newsreels. Then his eyes fell on Vivian and he stopped. His bad leg almost gave out under his weight, but he grabbed hold of the coatrack to steady himself.
Ah, so that’s who Della had expected me to be, Vivian thought. She’d be disappointed in finding herself too, if she’d been expecting someone like Martin at her door.
“Well, if it isn’t little Viv Witchell,” Martin said, a smile lighting his face. His dark-blue eyes flicked over her. “Not so little anymore I see.”
“And Martin Gilfoy,” she replied. “Still an incurable flirt.”
He laughed, flashing perfect white teeth. Martin’s boyish handsomeness had matured, she noted. He was still tall and thin, but there was a weightiness to his frame that hadn’t been there before. His dark hair was combed back, and mischief sparkled in his blue eyes. His smile highlighted that dimple in his right cheek that she’d found so irresistible at sixteen. She’d found everything about Martin irresistible at sixteen, come to think of it.
He’d been in his last year of law school the last time she’d seen him, working as a clerk for her father. He’d been an older man, a college man: smart, handsome, charming, and terribly flirtatious—a dangerous combination for the likes of Vivian then as now. She’d flirted with him, but nothing had happened between them despite her valiant attempts to get his attention. But she had been a girl then, and Martin had rightly seen her as such.
She glanced down at his right leg. His hand was splayed across the thigh, but if he felt any lingering pain there, it didn’t show on his face. She hadn’t seen him since his accident—the accident that had killed Mr. Graves and gifted Martin with that permanent limp. She’d avoided the Rookery and its memories, and Martin hadn’t stayed on as Freddy’s partner as everyone had assumed he would. After he’d recovered from the accident, he’d moved on to greener pastures. He was now a highly regarded assistant state’s attorney for Cook County. Though his and Vivian’s paths hadn’t crossed personally, her mother liked to keep abreast of his activities and inform Vivian whenever she got the chance. In her mother’s opinion—in anyone’s opinion—Martin Gilfoy was a catch.
He held Vivian’s gaze and his easy smile but addressed the secretary now seated behind her typewriter again. “It is the fourth Monday of the month, isn’t it, Della?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“What’s the fourth Monday of the month?” Vivian asked, glancing at the WPA calendar pinned over Della’s desk and featuring an artistic blue, red, black, and brown lithographic rendering of a rocking horse in front of a Christmas tree and hearth.
“My standing lunch date with one Frederick Endicott, Esquire,” Martin said. He nodded toward Freddy’s closed office door. “But I’m afraid I may have been stood up for a pretty lady this time.”
“Oh no.” Vivian blushed as her eyes flicked to the floor and back up again. “I was passing by and realized I hadn’t seen Freddy in ages, so I dropped in. I’ll go. You two have plans.”
“No, stay,” Martin said. “I insist.” He continued to hold his smile and her gaze.
Della cleared her throat. “You know, Mr. Endicott’s alone, and I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if you went in. I think it would a nice surprise for him.” Della smiled at her and nodded toward the closed door of Freddy’s office. Vivian appraised the tilt of Della’s head and her wide-eyed interest, and understood that she was cramping the secretary’s style. Vivian wasn’t the only one taken with Martin’s ample charms. Then the door marked Mr. Frederick Endicott jerked open.
“Well, well, Viv!” Freddy stood framed in the doorway, beaming. He was tall and still quite fit for a man nearing fifty, handsome with twinkling blue eyes. He walked out to greet her with arms stretched wide. “What’s the occasion?”
“It’s just been too long,” Vivian said, clasping his arms and leaning in to give him a light peck on the cheek.
“Ahem,” Martin said. “What am I? Chopped liver?”
Freddy shifted his attention to Martin, who was tapping his wristwatch in mock annoyance, and said, “You know you can’t hold a candle to our Viv here, Gilfoy. You wouldn’t mind pushing back our lunch half an hour, would you, old pal?”
“Of course not,” Martin said. “Ladies first.” He perched on the corner of Della’s desk, leaning in to give the secretary his full attention.
Freddy ushered Vivian inside his office and closed the door behind them.
“So just in the neighborhood?”
“Unfortunately, no,” she answered. She removed her coat and handed it to him to hang on the coatrack in the corner.
“What’s wrong? Nothing serious, I hope.”
“I hope so too,” she said with a heavy sigh.
“Well, come in, come in,” Freddy said, gesturing her into his office.
She sat in the comfortable chair opposite his desk, hands pressed together in her lap as she waited for him to close the door. Her eyes ranged over the scant decoration—a few framed photos, all business related. He moved a large pile of paper from his desktop to the safe behind him with a grunt and turned back to her, fixing her with an intent stare.
“Now what’s the problem?” he asked.
“I found something in Father’s desk the other evening, and I was hoping you could help me figure out what it means.”
Freddy’s thick blond eyebrows lowered to meet over the bridge of his nose. “That depends on what you found,” he said.
Vivian cleared her throat. “I don’t know if you remember, but there was a drawer that was locked and we couldn’t find the key after his death…”
Freddy’s frown deepened, but his expression didn’t change to one of recognition.
“Well, it was locked…” she continued. “For almost eight years until I found that key, quite by accident, the night of the Christmas party.”
“Really? Where?”
“It was hidden behind a picture frame in his office.”
Freddy nodded, looking unsurprised. “And what was in the drawer?”
“Money,” she said. “A large envelope stuffed full of cash—almost four thousand dollars’ worth.”
She held off on mentioning the note until she could gauge his reaction to the money.
Freddy focused at something over her shoulder, his fingertips tapping against his chin. He relaxed. “Oh, Viv,” he said, leaning back in his chair, a smile spreading across his face. “Is that all?”
“Is that all?” she asked, confused. “What was my father doing with all that cash? Doesn’t that seem odd to you?”
“Not with your father, no,” he said. He laced his fingers over his midsection and smiled at her. “You were a bit young to know about any of this, and he kept it from you, from your mother as well. But your father had been burned…in the crash. Not irrevocably, of course. But it left its mark on him. He held tight to his cash after that—I guess literally, in this case. He had a great fear of becoming destitute, you know. Of losing everything. I suppose because of where he’d come from. He didn’t want to find himself back there.”
A crease appeared between his brows as his expression grew more serious. “He had a rough go of it for a while there. I was so worried about his safety that I loaned him the money to pull him out. Not that it was that great of an amount, but he was too proud to dip into your mother’s family money.”
“Worried for his safety?” Vivian’s mind immediately went to that threatening note. Someone had been after him after all.
Freddy nodded, deep in thought.
“He was so despondent for a few weeks in November of that year that I was afraid he’d do harm to himself.”
Vivian’s mouth dropped open. “He would never have done something like that,” she said.
Freddy shrugged and glanced out the window. “Maybe not. Frankly, I’m sorry you had to know anything about it.”
Vivian swallowed. She was sorry too. Her unbreakable bear of a father had been so despondent over something that he’d considered ending his own life? He had certainly bounced back. Shortly after losing almost everything, he’d been able to buy his family a luxurious home in one of the city’s most prestigious neighborhoods. How on earth had he pulled that off?
“Well, then where did the money in the drawer come from?”
“Where do you think it came from?” Freddy smiled at her.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Gambling?”
“Gambling?” Freddy’s smile faded. “I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong end of the stick there.”
Vivian thought of the other things Charlie had suggested: another woman, laundering money…but she couldn’t bring herself to mention them. Those ideas seemed so ridiculous, so sordid, here in the fine, upstanding solidness of the building in which her father had practiced law for more than twenty years, and in the presence of Uncle Freddy, who was looking at her with such kindness and bafflement and fatherly concern. She glanced out the window and was afforded a view of gray December sky. It had started snowing again.
“What about enemies?” she asked.
“Enemies?”
“Yes, did my father have any? Anyone that might want to hurt him?”
Freddy leaned forward, lips pinched into a thin white line. “Vivian, I’m not sure where you’re going with all of this.”
She sighed. Freddy seemed so genuinely baffled, and she suddenly couldn’t bring herself to tell him about the note. And now that it was gone, she had no proof that it had ever existed. She was starting to doubt whether she’d actually seen it.
She shrugged, defeated.
Freddy must have read the worry on her face, because he leaned toward her, his fingers intertwined over the open ledger on his desk. “Your father and I were partners…friends… He was good in the stock market, believe it or not. Made some savvy real-estate investments. All perfectly aboveboard. If he’d been doing anything illegal, I would have known about it. And if he had made any enemies, I would have known about that too,” Freddy said, his voice strong and authoritative.
Freddy’s expression turned serious. He lowered his chin and made purposeful eye contact with Vivian across the desk. “You know, a few months back, I thought I was going to have to represent you in court,” he said.
“Oh, that,” she said with a sigh. Vivian was tired of having to discuss Marjorie Fox and her untimely demise. “I was never a suspect,” she added. She’d been taken aback by the change in subject, especially to that particular subject. Marjorie Fox’s murder wasn’t something Vivian liked to think about if she could help it. The image of the dead woman’s vacant gray eyes flashed into her mind, and Vivian willed it away with a shiver.
“Was your life in danger? I heard there were threats.”
Vivian smiled ruefully. “Not really,” she admitted. “You can’t believe everything you read in the papers.” Even though she had seemed to be the next intended murder victim, it had all been a ruse to draw attention away from the real plot. Charlie’s life had been in danger the entire time.
“Speaking of the papers, it seems I can’t open one these days without reading about what you did last Saturday night. In fact…” He smiled and held up one finger. He swiveled in his chair, plucked something from the top of the small safe on the credenza behind him, and then returned to face her, his handsome face alight. He slid a copy of this week’s Radio Guide over the polished surface of the desk. “Page 28,” he said.
Vivian flipped through the magazine, even though she already knew what she would find—she’d looked at it a million times—and was greeted with a photo of herself smiling for the camera as she presented a wrapped present to Frances Barrow. The caption underneath said, “Fast Friends at Chicago’s WCHI. Vivian Witchell presents an early Christmas gift to Frances Barrow at the station’s yuletide party.” Vivian smiled, her lips pressed together. The photo had been staged, the beautifully wrapped box empty.
Fast friends indeed, she thought. Although Vivian and Frances’s relationship had moved into a sort of détente in the past few months, calling them fast friends was quite a stretch. She and Frances had called an informal cease-fire on battling for roles and boyfriends. At least, Vivian thought they had. Frankly, she had been too busy working since Marjorie’s death to worry much about station politics and maneuvering.
“I’m proud of you, Viv,” Freddy said, bringing her back to the present. “And your father would have been proud of you too.”
Vivian swallowed and managed a nod. She closed the Radio Guide and folded her hands in her lap.
“I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch,” Freddy continued. “I should’ve phoned you when I heard about that affair at the radio station.”
“Don’t worry about it, Uncle Freddy,” Vivian said, then coughed to clear her throat of the emotion harboring there. “There was nothing you could have done.”
“Still, I feel responsible for you, even though you’re a grown woman now. I feel as though your father would expect me to look out for you.”
“Well, I know who to call if I ever find myself in legal trouble,” Vivian said, attempting a joke.
A hint of a smile touched Freddy’s lips. “Let’s hope you never do, my girl.”
Vivian bent her head and studied her nails. She felt stupid for having come here. She knew Freddy didn’t intend to make her feel that way, but she felt like a petulant child in his presence.
“How’s your mother?” he asked.
Vivian looked up at him, grateful for the change of subject.
“Busy, but you know Mother.”
“I used to have dinner at your house at least once a month, didn’t I? I miss those dinners.”
“That settles it then. Come tonight. We’d all love to have you.”
Freddy raised his eyebrows as he considered the invitation. “You’re sure?”
“Bring Pauline,” Vivian added.
Vivian saw his eyebrows fall and come together over the bridge of his nose in an unconscious scowl.
“Ah, well…” His voice faltered.
He didn’t have to say it. He and Pauline were on the outs. Vivian had seen that coming long ago. She reached out and placed her hand atop Freddy’s on the desk. He squeezed hers quickly before letting go.
Vivian hadn’t liked Pauline. She was too young for Freddy and clearly had no designs on being a proper wife. She was not much older than Vivian, in fact, and more concerned with dancing and having a good time than being what Freddy needed her to be. He was a successful attorney with designs on public office. He needed someone strong, smart, and supportive, someone like Vivian’s mother. She’d always thought that, and in the years since her father’s death, she’d often wondered why nothing had ever brought Uncle Freddy and her mother together. They’d make a handsome couple. They had a shared history. But maybe that was the problem. That shared history included the ghost of her father lingering between them.
Chapter Eight
A snippet of conversation floated up to Vivian as she made her way down the front stairs.
“…show your face here again.”
Vivian paused on the landing, cocking an ear to hear what followed. It had sounded like Mrs. Graves’s voice, and there was anger in it. Nothing followed, and Vivian realized that whoever was standing in the front hall below could plainly see her feet on the landing. So Vivian stepped down the remaining flight of stairs, intending to pretend she’d heard nothing at all.
The housekeeper stood with her back to the front door, and when she looked up at Vivian, there was a scowl on her face. Uncle Freddy and Martin had their backs to Vivian, but Martin was looking off to the side, and Vivian could see a spot of color high on his cheekbone. Was he embarrassed or angry, or both? What had she interrupted? Then Martin turned and caught sight of Vivian on the stairs.
“Ah, Viv, there you are,” he said.
“Am I late?”
“Yes, but quite fashionably, I see.” He grinned at her, and the tense air between the three of them dissipated. Mrs. Graves met Vivian’s eyes for the briefest of instances before she rushed off, carrying the men’s hats and overcoats.
“Flatterer,” Vivian said, reaching out to clasp Martin’s hand in greeting.
He brought her hand up and brushed his lips against the back of it. She turned to Freddy and smiled.
“Freddy, so glad you could come.”
He nodded at her, and she noted the flush on his cheeks. She suspected it wasn’t entirely from the cold. She arched an eyebrow at Martin, and he frowned at her.
“I’m glad both of you could make it,” she said. “Mother will be delighted. She won’t be down for a few minutes though. Can I interest either of you in a drink?”
“A lady after my own heart,” Martin said. “Lead the way.”
Vivian turned with a smile and headed into the den just off the foyer.
“I must confess that I’m a bit nervous to be in the company of a bona fide radio star,” Martin said, following close behind.
She smiled and glanced toward Freddy, who’d walked off to the opposite side of the room to stand in front of the fireplace.
“Well, ‘star’ might be overstating it a little.”
“Oh, don’t be so modest. Freddy showed me your photo in that magazine.”
“Did he? It’s just the Radio Guide.” She smiled at Martin and glanced down at the rug.
Homicide for the Holidays Page 9