Sheer Gall

by Michael A. Kahn

  I timed my Tea Room arrival for 2:00 p.m., and as I walked in I could see various bridge games starting to break up. I tried to imagine what it would be like to have the time to play bridge with your friends for two and a half hours in the middle of the day in the middle of the week. Actually, it sounded delightful.

  The Tea Room kitchen was closed, but I spotted a pot of coffee on a hot plate along a side wall. Pouring myself a cup, I scanned the tables. I recognized Patty from her photo and waved. She excused herself and came over.

  “I appreciate your meeting with me,” I told her.

  “You are quite welcome,” she said, somewhat primly. She glanced at her watch. “We have a few minutes before my afternoon car pools start.”

  “Which ones are today?” I asked, hoping to loosen her up with a familiar, nonthreatening topic.

  “Well, there’s school first, of course. And then after-school activities. Melissa has Brownies today, and that will be at my house. Brucie has soccer practice until five, and then his violin lesson.”

  I smiled. “You need a chauffeur’s license.”

  Two women came over to our table. One was plump and heavily made up; the other was wafer-thin and deeply tanned, with shoulder-length black permed hair. They apologized for interrupting but said it would only take a moment. They had to pick a date with Patty for the planning session for an upcoming St. Louis Zoo fund-raiser at the Hyatt Regency.

  “We can’t forget our thank-you notes to the silent-auction people,” the plump one declared. “I’ll bring my list and we can divide up the names.”

  I concealed a smile as I recalled one of Benny’s many Junior League jokes. Why don’t Junior Leaguers like group sex? Answer: It takes too long to write all those thank-you notes.

  I studied Patty as she took a pocket calendar out of her purse. She was the very image of composure and control, devoted mother and volunteer, smartly outfitted as if for a photo spread in Town & Country. It was hard to reconcile this Patty Napoli with her carnal tryst in the upstairs bedroom with Neville McBride.

  Patty apologized for the interruption after the others left. “So,” she said, “you represented Sally Wade?”

  I nodded. “And now I represent her estate.”

  She brushed her brown hair off her forehead and glanced quickly around the room. “I see.”

  “How well did you know her, Patty?”

  “Not well. Not well at all.” Her hands fluttered nervously as she talked. “We spoke briefly at a few law firm functions. Nothing that I can remember now. We were once at the same table for a Red Cross luncheon.”

  Might as well cut to the chase. “Patty, who do you think killed her?”

  The question made her sit back, as if she’d been slapped. “My goodness,” she said, her eyes blinking. “I certainly don’t know the answer to that.”

  “Do you think it was Neville?”

  She cut her breath. “Well, I certainly was surprised when they arrested him, but I’ve heard that the police have a strong case.”

  “Who told you?”

  She giggled nervously, her face reddening. “Oh, different people. Mostly gossip, I’m afraid. As you can imagine, it’s become quite the topic here and at the club. It’s our own O. J. Simpson scandal.”

  “Have the police talked to you?”

  “Me?” she asked, eyes widening. “Why in the world would they want to talk to me?”

  I shrugged. “Perhaps because of your relationship with him.”

  She stiffened, her expression going cold. After a moment, she said, “We have no relationship, Miss Gold.”

  “When did it stop?”

  “It never began,” she said adamantly. She leaned forward, lowering her voice. “I was vulnerable that night. Bruce and I were going through a difficult phase of our marriage. I was under enormous strain. I’d had way too much to drink. Way too much.” Her eyes flashed angrily. “Neville sensed that, and he took advantage of me. He violated me. The man is a vulture.” She sat back and closed her eyes. She took a deep breath, exhaled, and opened her eyes. “I have never been so humiliated in all of my life. You have no idea.”

  After a pause, I asked, “Was Neville married at the time?”

  She laughed derisively. “As if that would matter.” She paused, trying to recall the night. “She wasn’t there.”

  “When did it happen?”

  “Three years ago,” she said, closing her eyes again. “February twenty-second.”

  There seemed to be no tactful way to do this. “Patty, was that the only time you and he—”

  “Yes,” she answered fiercely, her nostrils flaring. “Never before, never again.”

  I nodded.

  “Of course, that didn’t stop him,” she said in disgust. “Last summer when Bruce was out of town at an ABA conference on environmental law, that man had the nerve to show up unannounced at my home one night. He even had flowers and a bottle of champagne.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I told him I’d call the police if he didn’t leave immediately.”

  “And did he?”

  She nodded darkly.

  “Did you tell your husband?”

  Patty eyed me coolly for a moment. Then she placed her palms on the table and stood up. “I’ve said enough, Miss Gold. I have car pools to run.” She picked up her purse. “Neville is a son of a bitch, pardon my French.” She took a deep breath and shook her head. “There. I’ve said it. Are you satisfied? Now please leave me alone.”

  She marched out of the Tea Room. I finished my coffee as I replayed the conversation in my head.

  Lawyers, like cops and shrinks, learn early on to beware of appearances. While others get a warm, fuzzy feeling at the scenes in those familiar Norman Rockwell paintings, we’re taught to look for dark secrets. See the plump, jolly cop seated on the stool at the drugstore soda fountain smiling at the little boy on the next stool? Is that a smile or a leer, or is he simply relishing the protection money the pharmacist just paid him? Look at dear old Dad carving the Thanksgiving turkey with three generations of beaming family members around the table. Is the old guy about to be indicted for securities fraud? Is he perhaps planning to sneak out later for a leather-and-chain rendezvous with Bruno down at the biker bar? And what’s the old darling got buried in the crawl space under his kitchen?

  Nevertheless, it was nearly impossible to imagine Patty Napoli in the role of criminal accomplice posing as, say, Sally Wade or the elusive Tammy. Although she had been a drama major at Mount Holyoke (according to her Junior League bio), I saw no logical way to connect the motivational dots between the coitus interruptus and the corpus delicti. Revenge? Something even more convoluted? No answer came to mind.

  Still, I reminded myself, Sally’s death had unquestionably improved Patty’s lot. As the wife of the managing partner of a powerful law firm, she became a prominent figure within the law firm’s spousal pecking order and thus within her social circle. But was status enough to kill for? In a rational world, obviously not, but who said this was a rational world? Certainly not the daily news. When Mom arranges a contract hit on her daughter’s rival for a spot on the cheerleading squad and Junior blows away Daddy with a shotgun because of a strict curfew, no motivation seems too far-fetched.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Benny gave me a dubious look.

  “This is a weapon?”

  I nodded. In my right hand I was holding one end of a twelve-inch choke chain. The other end, which dangled loose at my side, had a set of twenty keys attached to it. I gave the chain a shake. The keys on the end jangled.

  Benny eyed the chain. “Where’d you get all those keys?”

  I glanced down. “At the hardware store.”

  He contemplated me and the weapon. “Let’s see if I understand,” he said, rubbing his chin. “The mugger approaches, you whip th
at key chain out, he sees those damn keys and thinks, ‘Holy shit, she must be the janitor from hell.’”

  I gave him a patient smile. “It’s a great weapon because it doesn’t look like one.” I lifted the chain and the keys clinked. “Lots of people have key chains, and lots of people reach for them as they approach their car or their front door.”

  We were standing beneath a streetlamp outside Sally Wade’s town house waiting for the squad car. The property was still under police jurisdiction, and there was yellow crime-scene tape along the perimeters. The police had changed the locks the day Sally’s body was discovered, which meant that they had to send someone over with the key to let us in.

  “Okay, Bruce Lee,” Benny said, “show me something.”

  “We learned a few moves tonight. Here’s one.”

  I lifted my arm in front of me to chest height, elbow extended. Starting slow, I swung the chain in a figure-eight pattern, the keys jangling loudly. Gradually I picked up speed, and as I did the jangling noise diminished until the dominant sound was the chain cutting through the air.

  Whoosh…whoosh…whoosh.

  I kept it going for about thirty seconds and then carefully slowed down until I could grab the chain down near the keys.

  Benny gave me a puzzled look. “What was that? Ninja baton twirling?”

  “Our instructor calls it the circle of protection. The idea is to keep an attacker away.”

  Benny raised his eyebrows skeptically. “Maybe. What else can you do with that thing?”

  I showed him the two strike moves we’d worked on: striking to the side and striking to the rear. The first was if someone approached you from the side, the second if they approached from behind. In both moves, you start with the chain dangling at your side. Keeping your arm straight, you quickly lift and swing the chain toward the attacker’s face—in an arc to the side to repel the side attack, in a diagonal arc over your shoulder for a rear attack. I had Benny pretend to grab me in slow motion, once from the side and once from behind, while I showed him each move. He seemed grudgingly impressed. The squad car arrived just as I was pantomiming the upward swing for a strike to the groin.

  Once inside Sally’s town house, we started in her den, looking through cabinets and under couches.

  “Let me ask you something,” Benny said. He was on his belly peering under a sofa. “Let’s say this Tammy calls Neville again and he gives her your name. What exactly do you plan to do if she calls you?”

  “Talk to her.”

  “About what?”

  I was looking through the videotapes in her entertainment center wall unit. “Oh, about her relationship with Neville.” I slid a Basic Instinct videotape out of its case and examined it. “She needs to understand her importance to the case. She could be a key witness.”

  “For chrissakes, Rachel,” Benny said, shaking his head in exasperation as he stood up, “enough is enough. This is Neville’s problem, not yours.”

  “Benny, all I’m going to do is try to convince her to meet with Neville’s lawyer. Whether she ultimately helps or hurts their case is up to them, not me. That’s all I’m doing. Nothing more.”

  Benny walked over to the bookshelves. “Christ, you’ve done too much for them already.” He turned to me. “When exactly is Tammy the love goddess supposed to call him?”

  I shrugged as I slid the Basic Instinct videotape back into its case. “She may never call. And even if she does, she may not be willing to talk to anyone but Neville.”

  “We can only hope. That woman sounds like trouble to me.”

  “On the topic of women,” I said, “how’s Amy?”

  Benny shrugged. “Pretty good. I’m meeting her for a late dinner at Bar Italia. You want to join us?”

  “No, thanks.” I got up and walked over to her desk. “I’m bushed. Once we’re finished here, I’m going home.”

  Benny stared at the bookshelves for a moment and then turned to me with a baffled expression. “What exactly are we looking for?”

  I groaned. “I have no idea.” I pulled open the top drawer of the desk. “I’m just hoping there’s something the police overlooked.”

  Benny snorted. “Don’t hold your breath.”

  “You might be surprised. The cops went through here right after the crime was discovered. Moreover, they were convinced Neville did it, and that had to influence the focus of their search. Things that didn’t seem relevant to their theory of the case might seem very relevant to us.”

  “Assuming that we had a theory of the case. Dream on, woman.”

  I sorted through the contents of the top drawer of Sally’s desk and discovered absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. The next drawer had packets of canceled checks. I leafed through the first packet. Payments to the gas company, the electric company, Visa, etc. Checks to individuals had short notations: For Barb’s wedding gift; Lunch reimbursement. Nothing jumped out.

  I looked through the other desk drawers and then went into her bedroom, leaving Benny in the den still looking through the bookshelves. Sally’s dresser drawers contained nothing but clothing. In her nightstand drawer I found a tube of hand cream, a nail file, a small container of lip balm, a pack of condoms, a battery-operated vibrator, a dog-eared paperback edition of Stephen King’s Insomnia, and two recent issues of Vogue magazine.

  “Hey,” Benny said as he walked into the bedroom, “look what I found.” He had a book in his hand.

  “What is it?”

  He held it up. It was a slender book bound in red leather with gold lettering. The top half of the cover was in Chinese. The bottom half read:

  SHIM LAI GINSENG LIMITED

  HEALTH MANUAL

  “Shim Lai?” I repeated.

  “You know it?” he asked in surprise.

  I frowned. “It sounds familiar.” I gestured toward the book. “What is it?”

  Benny grinned. “Great stuff. All these weird Chinese medicines made out of animal parts.” He flipped open the book and read the page. “Like this. Antler slices.” He held the open book toward me. “Check it out.”

  I took the book from him. The pages were printed on stiff glossy stock. The one Benny wanted me to read was captioned “Shim Lai Select Antler.” The top half of the page was a high-quality color photograph of a brown antler next to two neat rows of antler slices. The antler slices resembled brown cucumber slices. Beneath the photograph was a series of Chinese characters, and below that, English text:

  Ingredients: Specially selected Siberian Antler in slice, available in two varieties (selected and fine); 2 taels for each portion, sufficient for one person to take 10 times.

  Indications: Increase of potency, stimulation of vital energy and blood flow, relief of general debility and spermatorrhea.

  Benny chuckled. “One thing you can say about the logic of Chinese pharmacology: it sure ain’t subtle.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like this antler stuff. You want to feel horny, eat some horn.”

  I closed the nightstand drawer and stood up, shaking my head. “Then I must have eaten some soft-shells, because I’m starting to feel crabby. We’re getting nowhere in here.” Frustrated, I went over to the bedroom closet.

  “Ah,” Benny said a few moments later, “here’s more literal pharmacology.”

  “Now what?” I said, starting to lose my patience. I was down on my hands and knees poking around the shoes on the closet floor.

  “A cure for ‘feeble male genitality.’ Porpoise virility pills.”

  I spun around. “Let me see that.”

  He came over with the book. “Look at the size of that Johnson.”

  This page was captioned “Shim Lai Porpoise Virility Pills.” The top half of the page had a color photograph of what looked vaguely like a twisted riding crop (or an extra-long piece of beef jerky). Next to it was a white bowl
filled with gold capsules. As on the page on the antlers, there were a series of Chinese characters beneath the photograph and, below that, English text:

  Ingredients: Top quality testicle and penis of porpoise ground into powder and pilled in form convenient for intake.

  Indications: Nourishment of the “Yin” body system, kidney, liver, stomach; stimulation of male virility, efficacious for feeble male genitality.

  I closed the book and studied the cover. “Where’s this book from?”

  “China?”

  I turned to the first page. “Shim Lai Ginseng Limited,” the text read, “was founded in 1925 by Mr. Fook Lai Tsu (1892–1975). The firm is a Hong Kong ginseng firm that is an extension of its head office in China.”

  I looked up at Benny. “Marvin the mortician had those pills.”

  “Which pills?”

  “The porpoise ones. Remember?”

  Benny smiled in recollection. “Oh, yeah. Flipper’s family jewels.”

  “The exact same brand.” I held up the book. “Made by these guys. Get it? Made in Hong Kong.”

  “Okay,” he said uncertainly.

  “Benny, remember all of Sally Wade’s trips to Hong Kong? She must have bought Marvin the pills when she was over there.”

  “Oh, yeah. Good point. Jeez, that’s a hell of a present from your girlfriend. ‘Here, honey, I bought you something for your feeble male genitality.’”

  I studied the page on the porpoise virility pills, thinking back to my weird encounter with Marvin. I tried to fit the random pieces into the puzzle. I couldn’t do it. Not yet.

  “Good find.” I handed the book to Benny. “Check the kitchen cabinets and drawers, okay?”

  He left and I returned to the closet. Clothes. Lots and lots of clothes.