by Emma Lathen
The captain tried another approach.
“Look, Laverdiere isn’t going anywhere.”
“And he came right back from Chicago. There’s no danger of his skipping.”
“That’s not what we’re worried about. We just want everybody off our backs.”
* * *
In later days John Thatcher was always to maintain that Robichaux had nobody to blame but himself. If Tom had been on time, they would have been safely out of range before the thunderbolt hit. Instead, he had been a fateful twenty minutes late.
The last item on the Princeton agenda had concerned the two financial advisers. It was agreed that, after Christmas, Ken Nicolls would be let loose in ASI so that the Sloan would be better able to offer guidance to its client. Likewise, an underling from Robichaux & Devane would be ensconced at the Ecker Company. Theoretically Thatcher was accompanying the rival team in order to introduce them to the Eckers. In reality, he assumed that Conrad Ecker might welcome a chance to discuss merger strategy in the wake of Victor Hunnicut’s murder.
At first all went well in Bridgeport. Everybody expressed gratification at meeting everybody else and the underling was dispatched with a guide for a tour of the premises. Conrad Ecker was midway through a proposal to sweep his more distinguished guests off to lunch when the door suddenly opened.
“I didn’t know what to do,” babbled a secretary, still clinging to the knob. “It’s the police.”
Before she could continue, the two large patrolmen followed on her heels.
“Hello, Jerry, what’s this all about?” demanded Conrad Ecker, frowning. “And can’t it wait?”
“I’m awfully sorry, Conrad,” the older invader replied. “But they told us Bob Laverdiere was here.”
Tina Laverdiere barely waited for him to finish. “Well, it will have to wait,” she announced coldly. “We’ve decided that Bob isn’t answering any more questions without his lawyer.”
“That’s right,” Bob corroborated.
Looking profoundly embarrassed, Jerry shook his head. “The lawyer will have to come down to the station. We’re not here to question Bob, we’re here to arrest him.”
“Arrest him!” Alan Frayne echoed incredulously.
As proof of purpose, the younger patrolman began to read Laverdiere his Miranda rights while most of his audience gaped. The Laverdieres, however, simply ignored the familiar recitation.
“Now, honey, keep a grip on yourself,” Bob urged. “We knew this might happen.”
“But they’re going to take you to jail!”
“It was always in the cards—especially since yesterday. You concentrate on getting hold of Macomber for me.”
“I never really thought it would go this far,” she whispered back fiercely.
The two police officers shuffled their feet sheepishly but showed no inclination to terminate this colloquy. Either they had faith in the ultimate cooperation of their prey, or they expected someone else to take charge.
Amazingly, it was Bob Laverdiere who did so.
Engulfing his wife in an embrace, he spoke to Jerry over her shoulder. “I think the sooner we leave, the easier it will be on Tina.”
Then he firmly set her aside, nodded to the patrolmen and, with uncharacteristic dignity, marched out between his escorts.
Tina stood rigid, her gaze fixed on Laverdiere’s retreating form until the closing door masked him from view. Uncertainly she took two hesitant steps forward before her control collapsed and a shudder racked her body.
“Bob!” she screamed in anguish as her eyes went alarmingly blank.
Then, in a paroxysm of sobbing, she hurled herself straight onto Tom Robichaux’s chest.
For what seemed an eternity the other three men were transfixed while Robichaux, stiff with indignation, broadcast a silent appeal for rescue over a mass of tumbled black hair. Alan Frayne, after one impulsive movement, thought better of interference. Conrad Ecker gnawed his underlip as he scowled darkly at what he could see of his niece. John Thatcher sent up thanks that it was Tom, not he, who had been in Tina’s path.
Finally Conrad broke free from his trance. Without changing his position he opened his mouth and bellowed at the top of his lungs:
“MARILYN!”
The office manager, arriving at a trot, drank in the scene.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she clucked.
By this time Tom, still turned to stone, had flexed one hand sufficiently to essay a tentative pat on the heaving form pressed to his bosom.
“Poor Tina,” Marilyn continued. “We’d better take her over to Alice.”
Conrad hailed this suggestion with a great gust of relief. “That’s right. Alice will know what to do.”
Frayne, gazing with horrified fascination at Tina’s limpetlike clutch on Robichaux, said unenthusiastically, “Do you want me to help?”
With a glance of withering scorn, Marilyn rejected the offer. “Get me one of the girls. We can manage.”
“I’ll get Janet,” said Conrad, proceeding to brush past his guests. “Then I’ll go downtown and find out what the hell those two have been up to.”
The scene began to dislimn upon the arrival of the unknown Janet. Throughout the detachment process Robichaux remained superbly immobile, but somehow the women succeeded. By then Tina was exhausted and had to be half-carried from the room.
“Sorry about that,” Alan Frayne said fatuously.
Robichaux ignored the apology. For the first time since the onset of his ordeal, he spoke.
“I want a drink, and I intend to have one.”
“. . . don’t even know the damn woman,” he was saying bitterly as he grounded his glass twenty minutes later.
“She didn’t pick you out deliberately,” Thatcher assured him. “You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Robichaux was not feeling kindly toward anybody.
“And you certainly weren’t much help.”
“What did you expect me to do? I would have needed a crowbar to get her off you,” Thatcher defended himself.
“This is some client you’ve got.”
“Just remember you’re drinking their Scotch. Besides, we knew there was a murder investigation going on. An arrest was at least a possibility.”
“They can arrest anyone they want as long as I’m not around,” Tom retorted.
With Thatcher’s wily encouragement, Robichaux had managed to vent most of his spleen by the time Alan Frayne returned from his bout in the restaurant’s phone booth.
“Alice says she’s got things under control,” he reported when he sank into his seat. “And I left word where Conrad can find us.”
“You don’t think he’ll go home?” Thatcher asked.
“Not on your life. Conrad’ll avoid it like the plague until the smoke settles. He hates scenes.”
“Who doesn’t?” Robichaux demanded vigorously.
Thatcher intervened. “Did you find out why they’ve arrested Laverdiere?”
“No, Bridgeport must just be executing the warrant.”
“Well, this lawyer will no doubt acquire some information when he turns up.”
“We may not have to wait that long. That’s why Conrad went chasing off downtown,” Frayne explained. “Half the force here either worked for Ecker once, or their fathers still do. He’s got plenty of buddies at the station.”
Remembering Jerry’s novel approach to the arrest, Thatcher could well believe that Conrad would be on matey terms with the Bridgeport police.
“God, what a mess,” Frayne groaned. “I can’t imagine why this has happened. The cops in New York had Bob’s fingerprints on that damned skewer, but there was a reasonable explanation and they’ve known about it since the trade show.”
Their unprofitable speculation was brought to a halt fifteen minutes later, when Conrad Ecker joined them. Without wasting time on social niceties, he beckoned a waitress and waived aside the proffered menu.
“Rye and Seven-Up,” he bark
ed with a determination that matched Tom Robichaux’s.
Everybody had the sense to wait until he had taken his first sip.
“Well?” Frayne then demanded.
“Bob lied about being in the basement at Javits,” Ecker replied baldly.
“Christ!”
Ecker was pursuing his own thoughts. “I knew those two had been up to something. When Bob left early yesterday, it was because the police asked him to come into the city. They put him in a lineup and somebody identified him. Tina and he have been sitting on this since five o’clock yesterday.”
Well, thought Thatcher, that explained the strained dialogue between the Laverdieres. They had been waiting for the ax to fall all day.
The implications of the police action were too wide-ranging to sink in immediately, but Alan Frayne was already afraid of them.
“Wait a minute. They’ve been interviewing everybody at Javits for days without finding anything like this. How come somebody pops up out of the blue and claims to have been there?”
Unmoved, Conrad shot down this objection. “It’s some truck driver who’s been on the police list all along. He saw Bob running away from that freight elevator.”
Frayne was still counterpunching. “Then why didn’t he say so sooner?”
On that Conrad drew a blank. Encouraged by his shrug, Frayne continued, “And we’re talking about a brief glimpse over a week ago. How good is that?”
Drearily Ecker replied, “He described Bob’s barbecue apron before they had the lineup.”
Gloom settled like a heavy pall and Alan Frayne’s attempt to shake it off backfired.
“What does Bob say about this?”
“He swears he wasn’t in the basement.” Ecker paused, then added judiciously, “Bob’s a damn fool.”
In view of the cold realities, Thatcher was not inclined to dispute this assessment. His own roundtable at the Sloan had been quick to supply Laverdiere with a motive to murder Victor Hunnicut. Throw in being placed at the scene of the crime and things looked bleak—even without useless and misguided lies.
“And, of course, they already had him with that skewer in his hand,” said Ecker, determined to lay it all out.
This drum roll of bad news was giving Thatcher insights into the Ecker Company. Tough old Conrad was a problem solver and strategist, flourishing every unpalatable detail before devising his battle plan. Alan Frayne was the scrapper, improvising as they went.
“So what does it all come down to?” Frayne asked rhetorically. “A fingerprint on a skewer that he had every right to be handling, and a little panic about having been down to the basement. That’s all they’ve got, and it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans.”
“We already have two fools around here, we don’t need a third,” snapped Conrad, beetling his scraggy eyebrows. “Face facts, Alan. You can’t get around the fire marshal’s report. That’s what’s got everybody targeting Bob. They can’t figure out what’s going on. And, for that matter, neither can I.”
Forced to the wall, Frayne now put up another kind of fight. Shaking off the unexplainable, he said stubbornly, “This is circumstantial garbage. You’re right, Conrad. Bob isn’t the brainiest guy in the world. But he’s not a murderer. You and I know that!”
John Thatcher held his tongue. Bob Laverdiere might not be lying to save his own skin, but someone else’s.
Chapter 17
A HOSTILE TAKEOVER
Both the Sloan Guaranty Trust and the Javits Center resented figuring in the lurid coverage of Victor Hunnicut’s murder. But the conventional wisdom of their experts on the subject was comforting. Beyond the wide Missouri, other banks and other exposition halls were the local fixtures, so sensationalism was geographically contained. In New York itself, another outrage would switch the spotlight elsewhere sooner rather than later.
The experts forgot that all over the nation there were kitchens with Ecker can openers on the wall and Ecker food processors in the cabinet. Since Madison Avenue had lusted in vain for an Ecker account, the trade was decidedly miffed.
“Jeez, talk about name recognition!” muttered the specialist in disposable diapers.
The night before, network news had featured Bob Laverdiere’s arrival at court for his bail hearing. The mob of frenzied reporters, the chorus of howled absurdities, the Camcorders aimed like rifles had been worthy of a rock star. But when Laverdiere was hustled indoors, the chaos did not subside. With undiminished hysteria, the pack flung itself on the grimy sedan disgorging Conrad Ecker at curbside.
“And the old man couldn’t have played it better,” said a colleague, putting Conrad up there with Ronald McDonald, the Marlboro Man, and other immortals.
Icy rain had turned the streets into skating rinks where unsteady pedestrians were buffeted by stinging pellets. By sheer fluke, Conrad Ecker’s Christmas gifts had included a deerstalker hat (from his grandson) and a wondrously gnarled Irish walking stick (from Alan Frayne). Thus equipped, he emerged to do battle with the press. Beetling his eyebrows under the checked brim, brandishing his stick, flinging pithy Americanisms at his tormentors, he had within three short minutes stomped his way into legend. Every reporter closed his coverage with a commentary on the colorful career and personality of Conrad Ecker. The hero of these potted biographies was more than life-size—successful beyond the dreams of man, remorselessly inventive, a national treasure. It was the stuff of which feature stories are made, and everyone in the media knew it.
As a result, after posting bail, the Eckers returned to Connecticut to take up life under siege.
Alan Frayne fully expected to man the fort alone, while his more vulnerable associates hid behind locked doors and drawn curtains. He was startled, when he turned from hanging up his coat the next morning, to find Tina Laverdiere striding into the office.
“My God, Tina,” he protested. “You didn’t have to come in today.”
“There’s a fence here,” she replied shortly, conveying a vivid picture of conditions in Westport. “Bob’s gone over to the plant.”
Alan opened his mouth, took another look at her, and refrained from further comment.
At the plant they faced an even more embarrassing situation. What do you say to the boss when he’s out on bail for first-degree murder? While the sales manager, the freight dispatcher, the warehouseman struggled with this question—and reached the cowardly decision not to mention the subject unless Laverdiere introduced it—the union representative took the bull by the horns.
“Glad to see you out, Bob,” he grunted. “I suppose they’re giving you hell over at the house.”
“You wouldn’t believe what it’s like. We had to fight our way to the garage,” said Laverdiere, more open than his wife.
“Tough.”
It would have surprised Laverdiere’s many detractors to learn that he was a shining star at employee relations. On the plant floor he was a reasonable man with just the right touch.
“Look, if there’s going to be any trouble with the line about this, Russ, I’d appreciate a word in advance.”
“Not to worry,” Russ said stolidly. “I’ve got everything under control. After all, the guy who was killed wasn’t one of ours.”
Tina Laverdiere’s co-workers had an easier row to hoe. No doubt existed about the proper approach here. Tina refused to utter one word about her husband’s plight and conversation was confined to the business at hand.
If the Laverdiere house resembled a war zone, the Ecker home had become a carnival site. The press was incredulous and delighted to discover Conrad’s modest habits. All the revealing contrasts that had fueled mild jokes at the Ecker plant for years burst on the reporters with dazzling force. Other reserved parking slots were occupied by Mercedes and BMWs while Conrad trundled around in an elderly Oldsmobile. On the long daylit evenings of summer, others left early enough to get in a round of golf. When Doug had suggested the country club to his father, Conrad had simply replied: “What would I do there?” The same disparity su
rfaced when management helped itself to extra holidays. The Laverdieres took ten days to ski at Chamonix, Alan Frayne disappeared into the Caribbean for two weeks, but Conrad’s chosen moment came in the fall with his ritual hunting trip to New Hampshire.
Alan had seen the photographs in the newspapers and the footage on television. Now he learned from Marilyn that People magazine wanted to do a feature on Conrad.
“What in the world for?” he protested in spite of himself.
“They’ll probably put him on the cover and push him as the sexiest old man in America,” she snapped, tired from fending off too many ridiculous suppliants. “Thank God Conrad’s coming in today. He can handle some of this himself.”
Frayne assumed that Conrad, too, was fleeing to a secured location, but he soon learned otherwise.
“It’s the insurance company,” Ecker explained on arrival. “We’ve got a meeting today.”
“Christ, I’d forgotten about them.”
“Pack of vultures, that’s what they are,” Conrad snarled.
Automatically Frayne adopted his usual role of peacemaker.
“I suppose you can’t blame them for being uneasy,” he offered.
This well-intentioned attempt was shot down immediately.
“The hell I can’t!”
Conrad was still fuming when Bernard Stillman of the Winstead Insurance Group was announced. Stillman, an old hand at this sort of situation, had come prepared with an opening statement designed to cast a gloss over his company’s position. He was barely allowed to finish before Conrad went on the attack.
“What’s the big deal? It’s not as if there’s a major loss here.”
“Not a major loss, but a major crime.”
Conrad’s hackles rose.
“That charge against Bob is a lot of bullshit.”
“I’m not talking about murder,” Stillman said patiently. “I’m talking about arson.”
Before Conrad could deliver the remark quivering on his lips, Alan Frayne intervened.
“Winstead isn’t involved in investigating Hunnicut’s killing, Conrad. But you can’t deny they have a legitimate interest in the fire.”