Jarrett went to the coffee maker in a corner of the office and brought us each a cup of hot coffee. I warmed my hands around the china cup, wondering if the chill would ever go out of me. Nothing would ever be the same again. Not for me, not for Gretchen, or even for Jarrett. Allegra would be saved from the fate that had awaited her. Strange that Ross’s death should bring hope to so many people. But I couldn’t deal with that now. I couldn’t even assimilate the fact that he was dead. At any moment he would surely open his eyes and take up his life as the strong, dynamic man we had all known. It was he who should be giving orders in this crisis, not any of us.
The sheet of notepaper seemed to burn in my pocket, but I dared not take it out and examine it, though I had a strong feeling that it would tell me something—something that ought to be known, and which Jarrett had instinctively tried to hide.
As though the intensity of my thoughts touched him, he set down his cup and went casually to Ross’s desk, where he moved the engagement book an inch or two. I saw him freeze for an instant. Then he looked directly at me. I stared back, willing myself not to let my eyes falter, while unspoken accusations leapt between us.
Gretchen suddenly began to cry. She wept like a child—wildly and with abandon, and I wished that I could cry in the same way. During the last few days I had seemed to weep easily and often. Yet now, when there was terrible cause, no tears came.
Jarrett let her cry. He left the desk to stand before me. “Give it to me,” he said softly. “It doesn’t concern you.”
Once more, I managed to meet his eyes. “I will not,” I told him.
The gray, shaken look was still upon him. “Be careful of the damage you may do,” he told me. “It will be better for everyone if you burn that note without reading it.”
Were these Ross’s last words that burned in my pocket? What damning things might he have written? But I didn’t know yet what I would do with the note—except that I couldn’t do as Jarrett asked. It was time for the terrible secrets that had haunted this house to come into the open. That one thing I knew.
“I wonder why Mrs. Broderick isn’t here?” I asked. “She should have heard the alarm, like the rest of us.”
Gretchen looked up woefully. “She left last evening with Susan to visit a sister in Boca Raton. She told me they would come home today.”
For the first time I missed the presence of Ross’s efficient housekeeper. But at least others of the staff were about, including the reliable Albert, who had chauffeured me only yesterday afternoon. He came in, bringing with him the doctor—a slightly stooped, elderly man, with an air of authority. Ross would have had his personal physician for a long time, and he would be the best.
Dr. Lorrimer began his examination at once, and a few moments later the local police arrived. In charge was Lieutenant Hillis, a quiet, youngish man, with sandy hair that had begun to thin. He was clearly respectful of these august surroundings, yet hardly awed by them. I sensed a strength in him that would probably get results without any barking of orders.
He explained that it would be necessary to ask a few questions of those present. Dr. Lorrimer informed him with an air of complete assurance that the cause of death was heart failure, making his findings very clear. Undoubtedly he was aware that no questions must be left hanging for police or press to pick up. His patient had had heart difficulties for years, he pointed out. He had been warned repeatedly that he must avoid disturbing emotions, avoid any overtaxing of his strength. Apparently he had driven himself hard last night, working past midnight without rest. The expected penalty had at last been exacted. All this was news to me. Not once had Ross mentioned any trouble with his heart.
Gretchen had stopped crying and sat curled up in her chair, her legs under her, and I knew she listened intently to every word. As we all did. Because of so many guilty secrets? I wondered. I was sure that Jarrett and Gretchen did not believe that Ross’s death had come about so simply as Dr. Lorrimer claimed, though not one of us was going to dispute his words. In spite of her threat that she would blame Jarrett and me for upsetting her father, Gretchen said nothing now.
Lieutenant Hillis informed us of what would happen. An autopsy would be performed, after which the body would be released to the family.
Jarrett nodded. “It’s better that no questions about Mr. Logan’s death be left unanswered. May Mrs. Karl and Mrs. Logan go back to bed? I’ll stay as long as you need me.”
The lieutenant agreed readily. There would be time later in the day for more questions, if they seemed necessary.
Dr. Lorrimer had been watching Gretchen, and he spoke to her gently. “I’ll see you up to your room now and give you something to help you sleep. You mustn’t stay alone at this time. Where is your husband?”
Before she could answer, the telephone rang shrilly and Jarrett picked it up. His reply was curt. “Don’t let anyone past the gates. Tell them I’ll come out and make a statement shortly.”
The press, of course, I thought. The media! This would be no quiet, private death. The news line of the world would hum furiously for days, weeks, and we would be given no peace unless Jarrett set up the barricades.
Before the doctor could repeat his question about Gretchen’s husband, Vasily himself appeared in the doorway, pausing a moment to take us all in before he went to his wife. He looked properly grave and regretful, and had apparently heard what had happened. However, I was beginning to know him a little by this time, and I suspected that he could barely conceal the mood of elation surging up inside him. It was there in the very spring of his step, in the brightness of his eyes. Vasily would always think first of himself.
“Darling,” he said. “This is all too terrible. I came as soon as I heard.”
She sprang from her chair and let herself be folded into his arms. I noticed that she didn’t demand to know where he had been.
“Good,” Dr. Lorrimer said. “I’ll go with you to your bedroom and give her something to help her sleep. You must stay with her now, Mr. Karl.” Then he turned to me. “Are you all right, Mrs. Logan? Would you like—?”
I reassured him quickly. “I have a prescription I can take if I need it.” After all, I had been through two deaths recently. I was well prepared, wasn’t I?
He gave me a slightly doubtful look, as though he feared some delayed reaction in me, and I spoke again quietly.
“I really am all right.” It was strange how calm I could manage to be, and a little frightening. Had I lost all ability to feel?
Gretchen glanced at me with eyes that were faintly accusing before she allowed Vasily and the doctor to help her from the room. More than anything else, I was aware of Jarrett’s stillness as he watched them go—a stillness that covered whatever he was thinking.
No one asked aloud the question that must have been in Gretchen’s mind, as well as in Jarrett’s and mine. Where had Vasily been, and how had he heard what had happened? Apparently, since everything seemed clear cut and settled about Ross’s death, this was not a question that Lieutenant Hillis had any need to ask.
But even as it stirred in the silence of our minds, Vasily came back to us through Myra’s empty office.
“I should have explained,” he said quickly. “I have been in Allegra Logan’s company all evening. When I went to see her earlier, I found her very much upset. So I stayed until the nurse got her to sleep. It must have been nearly two in the morning, and afterwards I dozed in her living room for a while, lest she waken and be upset again. I heard the alarm go off, of course, and I was awake when one of the guards came to tell us what had happened. I instructed Miss Cox to say nothing to Allegra until a member of the family could tell her. Then I came straight to the house.”
He looked from Jarrett to me as though his words carried some barely hidden triumph, and then hurried after his wife and the doctor. No one said anything.
The medical examiner and further police entourage were arriving, and Jarrett came over to me.
“You needn’t stay for an
y of this. Let me take you up to your room.”
The last thing I wanted was to be alone with Jarrett Nichols. Not until I knew the contents of that note. He looked quite capable of taking it from me by force if he chose.
I jumped to my feet with a suddenness that caused Lieutenant Hillis to stare at me. “I just want to be by myself!” I cried. “I know the way to my room!”
I ran into the hall, and heard Jarrett coming after me. One of the guards had posted himself near the door to the offices, and I rushed up to him.
“Please take me upstairs. Mr. Nichols has to stay with the police, and—and I feel a little dizzy.”
He was the man called Steve, who was usually posted in the gallery. He showed quick concern. “Of course, Mrs. Logan. I’ll get her upstairs all right, Mr. Nichols. And I’ll call one of the maids to come and stay with her. Everyone’s up by now.”
Jarrett nodded grimly and went back to Ross’s office. I clung gratefully to Steve’s arm, discovering that I really did feel uncertain about where I put my feet. On the way I thought of one question to ask.
“Were you in the gallery when the alarm went off?”
“Yes, Mrs. Logan. This was my night to be on duty. When it rang, I ran through the gallery and out the far door. I didn’t even stop to turn off the alarm, because searching at once was more important. But I couldn’t find anyone.”
When we reached my room, I refused to let him call a maid, thanked him, and sent him away.
Safely inside, I went through the now familiar ritual of checking and locking my doors. After a moment of hesitation, I went through Ross’s room and locked his door to the corridor as well. Ysobel watched me, smiling warmly from her place on the wall. Before I returned to my room, I stood for a moment looking up at her.
“I don’t know who has won, or who has lost,” I told her.
Back in my room, with the connecting door closed, I dropped onto the chaise longue and stretched out. The lamp beside me gave light for reading, and there was just one thing I must do at this moment.
I unfolded the notepaper I had thrust into my pocket and saw that it had been typed, and then signed with one of Gretchen’s curious little signature faces. This one displayed zigzagged teeth—the sign, Ross had told me, that indicated displeasure or bad news. There were only a few lines.
Dad:
If you send Vasily away, I will
tell Jarrett what I know about
you and Pam.
That was all, but it had clearly been enough. Ross must have read the note and reacted with a heart attack that had killed him. Yet he had first summoned Jarrett, and perhaps we would never know why. He had been working alone over papers that Jarrett had not wanted the police to see. Had he actually meant to show Jarrett the note from Gretchen and perhaps discount it? Or had he felt the attack coming on, called for help, and then been overcome before Jarrett could get there? He must have fallen across his desk with the note from Gretchen close at hand, and Jarrett had found it.
No wonder he had looked so shaken when I’d walked in. No wonder he had thrust the note out of sight, meaning to retrieve it later, and had been so deeply disturbed to discover that I had taken it from its hiding place. Now I remembered with more understanding that moment in the belvedere when Gretchen had torn up a picture of Pam. If she knew something about her father and Jarrett’s wife, then Pam must have been a sore subject with her, and when I praised the picture, she had reacted by tearing it up.
This note, certainly, was something that must be kept private at all costs, so Jarrett needn’t worry about what I would do with it. Somehow, the typed words gave me no sense of shock concerning Ross. There had been previous hints now and then about Pam, though I’d never paid much attention to them. I had no doubt that Ross would have gone after any woman who appealed to him, regardless of whether she was the wife of a man he needed and trusted above all others.
A man he dared not lose?
That was the point, wasn’t it? That Jarrett must not know? Yet how could he not have known? He was anything but obtuse, anything but trusting and simple, and he had grown up the hard way, subjected to the harshness of life at an early age. Even more important now were Gretchen’s actions. Surely she must guess that her note had brought on her father’s heart attack—which would account for Jarrett’s earnest questioning of her, and also for her defensive accusations against Jarrett and me. She might have been stirring up a smoke screen.
A sudden knocking brought me up from the chaise longue in dismay. The knock sounded again, and I had to respond.
“Who is it?”
“It’s Jarrett,” he said. “I must talk to you, Sharon.”
I couldn’t face him now. Not with this knowledge about his wife so newly in my hands. “No,” I said. “Not any more tonight. I’ll talk with you in the morning. You needn’t worry—I won’t do anything. You can have the note back then.”
“I’m sorry,” he insisted, “but it’s necessary for us to talk. Not only about Gretchen’s note. In the morning everything will explode around here. I’ve made a statement, shut off the phones, but tomorrow the world will move in on us. We have to talk together now. You are Mrs. Ross Logan. You have responsibilities.”
I pulled my robe more closely about me, feeling not only the chill of this Florida night, but the coldness inside me, the coldness of fears that were all too ready to possess me. I took several deep breaths to steady myself and went to unlock the door.
Jarrett came into the room, looking even more weary and grim. But not beaten. At least he would be here for all of us to depend upon. And as Ross had trusted him, so must I. Until I had good reason not to. I gestured him toward a chair and went back to the chaise longue, drawing a crocheted throw over me. I felt utterly, achingly tired, yet far from ready to sleep.
He ignored the easy chair I’d motioned him toward, and pulled a straight desk chair around, to sit astride of it, his arms resting on its back as he faced me.
“I’ve read Gretchen’s note,” I said. “I can’t blame her for trying to save Vasily by accusing us. But she must know now that her note is what shocked her father into a heart attack. That will be a heavy load for her to carry.”
“I didn’t come here to talk about that. Except to ask you to burn the note.”
I shook my head listlessly. “Not yet. Perhaps I’ll give it back to Gretchen.”
“To punish her?”
I wasn’t sure about that. I wasn’t sure about anything.
He looked at me long and steadily, and I was reminded somehow of a boxer who was still in the ring. Perhaps it was his slightly crooked nose, that might once have been broken when he was young, that made me think of a pugilist—and that stubborn chin.
“What I want to talk about,” he went on, “concerns the papers Ross was working on, and which I put into a folder and locked in a drawer in my own office. You were concerned that I seemed to be concealing something. I am. And I want your promise to say nothing about this.”
“How can I give you a promise when I don’t understand what I’m promising?”
“That’s why I’m here now. To explain a little. It’s very complex, both in the ramifications and in the reasons that lie behind what Ross was trying to do. He wanted to keep me from finding out, because he knew I’d oppose him. But he couldn’t get away with that. It was Yakata, the man who came here from Tokyo to see him, and whom Ross went to meet in Palm Beach yesterday, who gave things away. I began to suspect, so I searched for the evidence. Because what he intended has to be stopped without any publicity.”
“What do you mean?”
“It was nothing illegal, but certainly something that would let down the best interests of the United States. Japan needs oil. So do we. Ross would have seen to it that millions of barrels needed here would go into the hands of an element in Japan that would profit from it mightily. So would Meridian Oil. Not the government of Japan, but a few sleazy businessmen there who are interested only in profit.”
“But there’d have been an enormous scandal when it came out. And it would have to come out, wouldn’t it?”
“I don’t know. Not for a while. I’d have kept it quiet if I could.”
I had enough strength left for indignation. “To protect Ross?”
“No. I told you it was a complex matter. If the stock of Meridian Oil plunged, it would mean not only catastrophe for the charitable foundations—not all of which are self-sustaining—and a collapse of all the good they do, but disaster for millions of stockholders as well.”
“Stockholders!” I put scorn into the words.
“Don’t be stupid, Sharon. Stockholders aren’t only corporations, some of which might go under with disastrous results. They are also people—individuals—who have invested their money, trusted in the integrity of Meridian Oil. There are times when the truth can cause more havoc than it mends.”
As might have happened if Jarrett had faced the truth about his wife and Ross Logan? I wondered.
“Perhaps there are times when the truth ought to come first,” I said grimly.
“I wish I knew how to make that simple choice, Sharon.” There seemed no sarcasm in his words, but only weariness and a deep sorrow.
“Ross must have known that he had a great deal to lose if this came out,” I said.
“He was ready to gamble. He fooled himself into thinking he could handle anything that happened and ride it through. That he was powerful enough to do as he pleased.”
“And wasn’t he?”
“That was his delusion. Allegra could tell you. She understood. Oh, not about this deal, but about what he was trying to prove. It was always the same thing. He wanted to show that he was as powerful and clever a man in his own right as Charles Maynard Logan had ever been.”
Poinciana Page 19