The First Wife

by Diana Diamond

  Or was it possible that she was becoming paranoid? Maybe it was just the damn switch or a short circuit. But still, she shouldn’t let her guard down until she found out.

  Jane made sure she was on the roof when the serviceman came. With Mrs. McCarty looking over her shoulder, she explained exactly how she had turned on the light and then slipped into the pool. She had never been near the switch for the cover; in fact, she hadn’t known where it was located. She had swum a few laps, but she wasn’t absorbed in exercise. If someone had come out onto the deck and stopped next to the dance floor housing, she most likely would have noticed.

  The switch was working perfectly, the repairman decided, and he demonstrated the internal sequence of its operation. She didn’t completely follow his explanation, but he was plainly convinced.

  “How else could the motor have started?” she wondered.

  He thought. “Well, if you ran the power line to the motor and bypassed the switch …”

  That didn’t seem likely unless there was a fledgling electrician in the household.

  “Or if you killed the power and flipped the switch,” the man speculated. “Then it would close when you turned your circuit breaker back on.”

  That didn’t seem very likely, either. But it was possible. She wondered if Bill could remember whether he found the switch turned on or off. If it had been set on CLOSED, then someone would have had to set it before she reached the pool. She was certain that she had been nowhere near the switch.

  As she was going down the stairs, Robert Leavitt was letting himself into the apartment, carrying a thick briefcase. He peeled off his jacket and went into the breakfast room, where he poured himself a cup of coffee. Jane slipped into a chair across from him.

  “I’m glad last night’s meeting broke up early,” she said.

  He seemed puzzled.

  “Didn’t you hear what happened to me?”

  He put down his cup and gave his full attention to her shortened version of her struggle in the swimming pool. “If Bill had been five minutes longer, I wouldn’t have made it,” she concluded, “so I’m lucky your conversation didn’t drag on a bit longer.”

  Then she got into the problem of the switch and the fact that nobody had touched it. She explained the serviceman’s theory that if the switch had been set in advance, the pool cover could have been closed by switching the circuit breaker back on. Was that really possible?

  He laughed. “I’m not your man. Switches and relays and cutoffs … they’re all a mystery to me. Changing a lightbulb is my scientific highlight.”

  She reminded him of the break-in that had occurred her first night in the apartment. Didn’t it seem likely that there might be a connection between the two events? Someone had come into the apartment and left without leaving a trace. And now someone turns on the pool cover without ever being near the switch. He answered that he didn’t see how there could be any connection other than the apparent failure of electrical systems in both cases.

  Then she asked if he knew of anyone who might want to keep William Andrews from marrying her. “Someone trying to give me second thoughts or scare me off?”

  “Jane,” he answered, “Bill has a lot of enemies. And there are any number of people who would love to control him. Why don’t you ask me something easy?”

  “Okay,” Jane dared. “Who is Selina Royce?”

  23

  Robert Leavitt had never heard of Selina Royce, or at least that was the way he played it. He posed with his hand on his chin, as if digging deep into his memory bank, and then shook his head slowly. “No, I don’t remember anyone by that name. Where would I have known her?”

  Jane was beyond playing games. She reminded him of the Texas cable network that Andrews Global Network had bought and the date when Selina had been transferred to New York. Then she told Robert the date of the awards banquet at which he had been sitting next to her, apparently as her escort.

  “Well, then, I must have known her at the time. I just can’t remember her,” he decided. “But give me a few days and I’ll see if I can find her in the personnel records.” Then he asked casually, as if it were of no concern, “Why are you interested in her?”

  “Just that she turns up in stories and morgue shots covering the early years of the company,” Jane lied, trying to sound convincing. “She seems suddenly important to Andrews Global Network, and then she just vanishes.”

  He shrugged. “No one comes to mind, but I’ll find out what I can.”

  Lying bastard, Jane thought. He’s protecting Andrews, both the man and the company. Let’s see what he comes back with after he’s pretended to check his records.

  The next morning, on the train back to Connecticut, she thought about her fiancé and his college roommate. Was Bob’s accounting of Kay’s tragic end the truth, or had he been constructing his friend’s alibi? Did he know about the monthly payments to Selina, or was that a secret Andrews had kept from him? She felt sure that Bob liked her, thought she was right for Bill, and would defend her from the company guardians who would like to be rid of her. But when push came to shove, Bob was Bill’s friend and confidant. She had to expect that he would check with Bill before he shared any secrets with her.

  Jane reached home and was delighted to find that Art was not camped out on her doorstep. She wanted some time to herself to dig even deeper into the murder of Bill’s first wife. She also wanted to get to her office and give the address of Kay’s computer to the newspaper’s information systems specialist. She knew that given time, he would find his way through Kay’s firewall and into her hidden secrets. But her message lamp was blinking, and when she listened it was Art’s voice. “I’ve got some news that will blow your panties off,” he said. “Maybe now you’ll show me just a bit of respect.”

  She thought he must have mastered the intricacies of his washing machine or figured out which end of the vacuum cleaner connected to the hose. But when she called his number, he insisted on coming right over. He had an angel, and one of his plays was going to be produced. She couldn’t deny him his moment of “I told you so.” Art had never hurt her. Just exhausted her. She told him to come over. The she went out to buy a bottle of champagne.

  “Billy Rifkin,” he said, mentioning a New York impresario as soon as he was through the door. His intentions were like hers. He was carrying a bottle of cheap champagne with a plastic cork.

  “Which play?” Jane asked as she set the glasses on the coffee table.

  “The one about the president’s daughter,” he said proudly. “His secretary called and said he had heard about the play and wanted to read it. I sent it, and two days later I had Rifkin on the telephone.”

  “He called you?” Jane asked, exaggerating her excitement.

  “Called to congratulate me. He said it was ‘genius.’ He also mentioned ‘thrilling, exciting, memorable, and surefire hit.’”

  “Wow!” she allowed as Art popped the cork. She remembered the first act of the play, written while they were still married. Lucky if it makes television, she had thought to herself. But Billy Rifkin was known for his insight into audiences. He didn’t back losers. So there must be something that she had missed completely.

  “To wonderful reviews,” she said, raising her glass.

  “To a great box office,” he added as the second toast.

  Art began talking, and there was no turning him off. He took her through the plot of his play and then the more dramatic individual scenes. He ran through a gallery of actors whom he might consider for leading roles and wondered whether he should open first on Broadway, or if it might be best to bring the play over from London. It was the Art who had dazzled her as an undergraduate, assuming that he was already an important world figure. Now she found him childish and presumptuous. But still, she listened attentively. It was an important moment for him.

  When he had told his story twice and speculated on all the implications of his success, he asked about Jane’s new life. He was no longer in awe o
f William Andrews or open-mouthed at Jane’s incredibly good fortune. The phone call from Billy Rifkin had raised him into the heaven of superstars where he was now Andrews’s equal in stature and in a far more prestigious field.

  Her response was positive but tepid. A wedding date had been set, and plans were generally on track. She wasn’t sure that their bedroom would be ready on time, and she still hadn’t convinced the best man that a football jersey wouldn’t be appropriate attire. But she supposed that, in the end, everything would work out.

  “You sound like you’re organizing a blood drive,” Art said. “Shouldn’t you be a bit more excited?”

  “I will be,” Jane said, trying to crank up a bit of enthusiasm. “Right now I’m weighed down in details.”

  She was a bit giddy from the champagne, but as soon as Art made a triumphant departure, she dressed for the office. She was still working for the paper, even though she had filed only one column in the past week.

  She found Sam Simon, her company’s information systems guru, in his office. Sam was in a T-shirt emblazoned with a beer-company logo. A ponytail, streaked with gray, hung down his back. The office looked like a garage workshop with clusters of monitors and racks of circuit boards all interconnected with fiber-optic cable. She gave him the phone number and machine number of Kay’s computer and told him about her problems with the firewall.

  “A dial-up link?” he asked in horror.

  “It’s an old setup,” she said. “It probably hasn’t been used in years.”

  He sighed in exasperation. “It will take a lot of time. But on the other hand, the firewalls they used back then were child’s play.” He pinned the information to one of his several keyboards and promised he would look into it, “first chance.”

  She found Roscoe at his desk. “Any news?” she asked.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be telling me if there’s any news?”

  Jane blushed, then apologized. “I haven’t been covering my beat, have I?”

  “There’s only so much you can do from a telephone booth in Manhattan. The stories we cover are up here in Connecticut.”

  She begged his indulgence until after her honeymoon, promising that she would keep her apartment and be in the office “three or four days a week, at least.” But then she went back to the question she had meant to ask. Had his promised investigation into Selina Royce turned up anything?

  There were no problems in Paris, Roscoe told her. A French reporter had found her at the address Jane had provided. Her name was over the mailbox, so she didn’t seem to be in hiding. The reporter had identified her and would keep an eye on her to see who came calling. San Antonio was another matter. They couldn’t find any relatives in the area. And there was no Selina Royce in the records of the cable service that Andrews Global Network had bought. As far as her station was concerned, she never existed.

  “I’ve seen her picture, Roscoe. I read the news report about her transfer to New York.”

  He held up a hand against Jane’s protest. “I know she’s a real person. All I’m saying is that you’re never going to find her in San Antonio. And I’ll bet you won’t find her anywhere in Andrews Global Network’s records, either. The connection between the lady in Paris and the one who vanished from New York has been pretty much erased.”

  “Maybe the paper trail is gone,” Jane said. “But people must remember her. The top executives in the company must have known who she is. William Andrews’s ever-faithful secretary must have talked to her. Or at least forwarded messages to her.”

  “Any of them apt to talk about her?” Taylor wondered aloud.

  “None of them ever tell me anything,” she said bitterly. “I can’t even find out where he’s having lunch.”

  “Maybe if you had a bit more time …”

  She knew exactly what Roscoe meant. If she weren’t rushing into a wedding, she might, over time, find some answers. But she probably wasn’t going to learn anything in the next three weeks. And the things she learned after the wedding probably weren’t going to do her any good.

  She phoned Robert Leavitt and asked if she could meet him for lunch the next day. He wouldn’t be available the next day, his secretary announced. Would Jane care to tell her exactly why she wanted a full hour of Mr. Leavitt’s time?

  “Oh, it’s silly,” Jane lied. “I need some ideas about William’s wedding gift. Mr. Leavitt has known him for so long, I thought he could …”

  “Isn’t that sweet,” the secretary gushed. “Let me see … tomorrow is out. Would Wednesday be all right?”

  24

  The restaurant was small and intimate, delightfully French, and from what Jane could gather, frightfully expensive. Bob arrived only seconds after she did, a bit winded and slightly red in the face. They let themselves be led to a small table, and Bob immediately began chatting about gifts that his friend would enjoy. He suggested a powerful telescope that could be set up on the roof. “My God, is he a voyeur?” she teased, and then learned that Andrews had a great interest in astronomy. He also suggested opera recordings, indicating that her fiancé loved fine music, or perhaps an antique chess set. “I didn’t know he played chess,” she said, realizing that she knew almost nothing about the man she was going to marry.

  But when the entrées were served, Jane got to the information about William Andrews that she really wanted. “Bob, there’s another reason I had to see you. I asked you about a woman named Selina Royce. I have to know what you found out.”

  He used a sudden cough and a raised napkin to cover his moment of confusion. Then, much too casually, he told her that he had asked his secretary to check into it. The personnel records didn’t go back that far.

  “But you must remember her,” Jane insisted. “She was one of your rising stars.”

  He had regained his composure. “There are lots of rising stars on television,” he said. “Most of them fizzle when they get fat or pregnant.”

  “Did Selina Royce get pregnant?” Jane suddenly saw a new possibility for why Andrews might be sending her an annual retainer.

  “I don’t know. I don’t remember her at all.”

  Jane tried for a kill. “Bob, for God’s sake, you sat right next to her at an industry awards affair. I think you might have been her escort.”

  He smiled to cover his mounting anger, which made him seem even angrier. “There are a dozen industry dinners a month. I don’t remember who I was sitting with a month ago, much less back— what was it?—eight years ago.”

  He resumed eating in a way that said the conversation was over. Gradually he worked his way back to the wedding gift. Had she thought of a western saddle for his trips to the horse farm?

  She couldn’t push any harder. She knew that he was lying, and she guessed that he suspected she knew he was lying. Even when confronted with irrefutable evidence, he would stonewall. There was nothing Leavitt wouldn’t do to protect his longtime friend.

  What were her choices? The only obvious recourse was to confront Bill directly. Who is Selina Royce, and why are you sending her a hundred thousand dollars every month ? Some answers would be acceptable, even if hard to swallow. If he was raising a love child, fine. That would be honorable and responsible, even though his failure to have mentioned a child would be cowardly. Or if he had ruined her career or did great damage to her personal life, he might feel forever responsible. But if she was his mistress, Jane would walk away. Maybe after many years a wife could tolerate her husband’s infidelities, but no woman would enter a marriage knowing that she was sharing her husband with another woman. And if it was blackmail, then Jane would have to believe that the woman knew Andrews’s darkest secret. And that could only be that he had killed Kay Parker.

  But how to confront him? Wouldn’t she be challenging his character? And suppose—like Robert Leavitt—he simply denied any knowledge. Should she call him a liar and tell him that she had been snooping through his checkbook? That probably wouldn’t bring out the truth. To be honest with herself,
she really didn’t want to lose William Andrews, a man who seemed to love her and was a romantic catch beyond her most unlikely dreams. But should she make a lifelong commitment to him while an important part of his life remained a dark secret?

  She remained suspended between her choices, like an object caught between two magnetic poles. Whenever she tried to move toward one choice, she was pushed back toward the other. It was easier to busy herself with the mindless details of the wedding, ordering flowers while telling herself she hadn’t yet made up her mind and sending out invitations to a wedding she wasn’t convinced would really take place. The evenings when Bill was home were tense and uncomfortable for her. She kept looking for an opportunity to raise an issue that she didn’t have the courage to address, and then regretting when she let a chance slip away. At the newspaper she was continually distracted. Nothing in the local business community was as important as the decision she was afraid to make.

  A week after her luncheon with Robert Leavitt, Roscoe Taylor waved her into his office. “News from Paris,” he said in a soft voice that wouldn’t carry past his open door. “Miss Royce had a visitor a few days ago. It took my friend a couple of days to find out who he was. He had to follow him to his hotel and then wait until someone he knew was on duty at the desk. That’s how he got a look at the hotel records.”

  “Who?” Jane asked, hardly able to breathe. She was terrified that Roscoe was going to name William Andrews.

  “Robert Leavitt,” he answered.

  “Robert Leavitt!” She was stunned for an instant. And then it made sense. Bill’s closest friend and dedicated protector. The man who tried to smooth out the rough edges of the Andrews corporate empire. He would certainly be the one to do her fiancé’s dirty work. Like paying off blackmailers and lying to his future wife.

  25

  The apartment filled with light as the sun climbed over the East River and crossed into Manhattan. There were flowers everywhere— bouquets on the tables, a spray across the piano, and garlands leading up the banisters to the second floor. Until that morning, plans for the wedding ceremony had been on hold. If it was raining, or threatening to, the ceremony would take place in the living room, in front of the vast two-story window with its expansive view of Central Park. Even in the rain, Central Park would be beautifully romantic. But if it was sunny, then the wedding would be held in the roof garden, which had already been tented and decorated. The bright sun and the early fall weather made the decision obvious.