Robin came out the front door and hitched the backpack over her right shoulder. She wore paint-splattered jeans, a large man’s shirt, and sandals. She brushed her hair back from her face and walked slowly to the car.
Before the doors were completely shut, gravel spewed from under the moving car’s wheels as it rocked down the drive toward the highway. “How far to Bradley airport?” Robin asked.
“Not far,” Bea answered and glanced in the rearview mirror. “Is that your usual traveling outfit?”
“I’m sorry, Beatrice. My crinoline is wrinkled, and the white gloves are dusty.”
“Oh, boy,” Lyon said under his breath.
“I suppose Lyon and I are of a different generation,” Bea said.
“I think some people age faster than others, don’t you?”
Lyon cringed back against the headrest as Bea accelerated the car to over seventy.
At the airport security gate, Robin threw her arms around Lyon and kissed him. She formally shook hands with Bea before turning to pass through the arched metal detector and down the ramp toward her flight.
Bea took Lyon’s arm and turned him away from the gate. “Come on, lover. There’s a murder to investigate—and right now there’s nothing I’d like more than a murder investigation.”
“Do I detect an emphasis on a particular word?”
The Giles home was a large white colonial with black shutters, off the Murphysville green. On the right-hand side of the second story was a small plaque which read “Circa 1760.” As they started up the walk, the front door opened and Cannon Braemer Long bustled out.
He nodded at Bea and Lyon in passing. “Terrible thing. Terrible,” he muttered as he turned down the street toward the Holy Trinity Episcopal Church.
Before the chimes had faded away, the front door was opened by a small black woman in a dark uniform and white apron. “Miz Wentworth, Mista’ Wentworth.”
“Good evening, Hattie. Can we speak with Mrs. Giles?”
“She’s in the bed. I’ll fetch her. Y’all go in the living room.”
“That’s the best act since Butterfly McQueen,” Lyon said as they walked into the living room.
“Who?”
“The actress who played the hysterical maid in Gone with the Wind.”
The room was as Lyon had expected. The beamed ceiling, wide hearth with nearby spinning wheel, and the clean functional lines of colonial period furniture created the obvious effect, and yet he had the inchoate feeling that it didn’t fit.
The maid stood in the doorway with a handkerchief held to her mouth, which muffled her words. “Miz Giles be down soon.”
“Thank you.”
As Hattie crossed conspiratorially toward Bea, the handkerchief disappeared somewhere up a sleeve. “Bea, will you be seeing Kim?”
“Yes.”
“Please inform her that the literature has arrived from New York and the meeting has been rescheduled for tomorrow evening.”
Lyon stared at his wife as the black woman left the room. “What’s all that about?”
“I have the feeling that Kim is in the process of organizing a union of domestic workers. I had better see whether she’s in violation of the state’s little Hatch Act.”
“You’ve begun to turn into a bureaucrat since you got that job.” He walked toward the mantelpiece to admire an excellent scale replica of the Mayflower. As he did so, one hand brushed against the wall, and he turned to tap lightly against the wallboard. He looked down at his feet, on the edge of a throw rug on the highly waxed flooring.
Several years before, the Wentworths had purchased the decrepit house on the promontory and named it Nutmeg Hill. Room by room, as their finances allowed, they had restored the structure. Each peg, each section of plaster, had become as familiar to Lyon as his own face in the morning mirror.
This house was not of that ilk. In fact, nothing in the house was as it seemed: from a caricature of a maid who dropped her obsequiousness at will, to plasterboard walls and floor planking laid closer to 1960 than to 1760. He ran his fingers along the under edge of the cobbler’s bench coffee table and felt machine-milled nails and belt-sanded wood. Not only the house but also the furniture and probably the plaque on the outside wall were reproductions … the ultimate compromise between a sense of history and old Yankee frugality.
“Beatrice,” the soft voice said from the doorway. “How good of you to come.” Karen Giles extended both hands as she moved across the room toward Bea.
She was a tall woman, dressed in black, with her blond hair pulled back in a severe bun. The simplicity of the hair style seemed to accentuate her perfectly proportioned facial features. She moved with a flowing, athletic stride, with just the proper hint of sexuality to her hips. The early thirties would be her approximate age, Lyon thought.
“We were sorry to hear of your loss,” Bea said.
“Thank you for your thoughts.” She turned to Lyon and held out a hand, her voice small and lilting. “Thank you also, Lyon.”
The dampness of her palm belied her apparent composure. “If there’s anything we can do?”
“Thank you, nothing. The services will be in a few days, but I can’t really make any definite announcement until the police release the …” Her hands went to her face as her shoulders momentarily shook; then her composure returned. “Perhaps some sherry?”
“That would be nice.”
Karen poured small measures of sherry from a cut-glass decanter on a sideboard and handed the glasses to the Wentworths. “Have you heard anything about that woman? The one who killed Tom? Have they caught her yet?”
“There isn’t any such person as Carol Dodgson,” Bea said.
“I don’t understand.”
“The handbag in the airplane was a plant. Every attempt I made to trace the Dodgson woman turned up absolutely nothing.”
“Then someone else murdered Tom?”
“Exactly,” Lyon said.
Karen Giles sat back on the sofa, crossed her legs, sipped her sherry quickly, and then laughed. “I should have known. Tom would never play around. It didn’t fit his image.”
“The police have assumed that Tom went to the lake house to be alone with the Dodgson woman, there was an argument, and she killed him. But that doesn’t seem to be the case now.”
Karen went to the sideboard and poured another sherry. “No, it doesn’t.”
“Why was he out there?” Lyon asked.
She shrugged. “Tom liked to get away once in a while, to work on briefs or just to be alone.”
Lyon had first recognized the impulse as an intelligence officer during the Korean War, when bits and pieces of seemingly unrelated information had been channeled across his field desk. He had learned to follow the instinctual, almost subliminal leaps of logic from random parts to a logical whole. “Have the divorce papers been filed yet?”
Karen Giles turned toward him with a blank stare, and he noticed how blue her eyes were. “I don’t know.”
The jump had been made, and he’d have to press it home. “The file will turn up at court, or there’ll be copies of the documents at his office.”
She continued staring at him for long moments before speaking. “I suppose they will.”
“What were the grounds?”
“Irreconcilable differences. He wouldn’t have it any other way. You ought to know that, Lyon. Form and appearance were terribly important to Tom. To finish answering your question, Tom was filing on Monday. That’s why he was at the lake house.”
“That’s all.”
“That’s all you’re going to get.” Her voice had changed; the lilting boarding-school affectation had disappeared, to be replaced by a hard, cutting quality. “Screw the sherry. I’m going to have a whiskey. Anybody want one?” They shook their heads as she mixed a stiff drink at the sideboard. “Shall I let it all hang out?”
“If you want.”
“The police didn’t pick up the divorce thing or that I’ve been taking fly
ing lessons. And there is some money involved. Term insurance, of course; Tom was too cheap to buy anything else. Let me see, there’s about a hundred thousand of that, and then the law firm will pay me something for his partnership. There’re the houses, mortgaged, but with something left over. Oh, I’ve made my calculations; say, a quarter of a million all told. Enough so that I don’t have to take to the streets.”
“Where were you the …” Lyon was momentarily perplexed. He didn’t know whether it was the day or night of the murder. “The time of the murder?”
“Flying lessons.”
“Day or night?”
“Night. Ground school. You know, learning about radios, flight plans, all that.”
“And during that day?”
“Right here—home.”
“Where were the ground-school lessons given?”
“At the airport where Tom kept the plane.”
“With a net worth of a quarter of a million, at least Tom didn’t have any financial worries,” Bea said.
“Ha! A façade,” Karen Giles said. “Tom drew forty-two thousand dollars a year from the firm. Do a little arithmetic. This house costs eight hundred a month to carry, not including the maid, club dues and his airplane. We skirted on the verge of financial insolvency.”
“All that money …”
“What money? Term insurance he couldn’t borrow on, his interest in the firm, property he couldn’t sell; we were more and more in debt every year. Then recently he’s been taking out notes with every bank in town. God only knows why, or how much the interest payments ran each month. He was always scheming, saying that he had a financial killing around the corner. Some big deal in the wind, but I never saw any of it.”
“Family money?” Lyon asked.
“You’ve got to be kidding! Old man Giles was a custodian at the Breeland High School, and Tom’s mother was a bank teller. They’re both dead now, and Tom had to pay the funeral expenses.”
“Tom and I went to Greenfield Prep together, and then to Yale.”
“Sure. An only child who his family sacrificed for and who got good scholarships. I never said Tom wasn’t bright. Fooled you, didn’t he? Fooled me, too, when we married.”
“How’s that?” Lyon asked.
“We met in Washington when Tom was appointed to some sort of committee. One of those prestigious things with hardly any salary. I bought the ‘old family’ bit, too. At first he talked about the possibility of becoming a presidential aide or counsel, and then after Watergate, when those jobs weren’t so desirable, he wanted to return to Hartford with the proper wife: the Washington socialite with the proper voice, walk and looks—with vague references to my father the senator. That was all to clinch the partnership with the firm.”
“Who was your father?”
“Frank McMann. He was a senator, all right—sold hot dogs at the ball park for the Washington Senators. I was as phony as Tom—airline stewardess, a little drama school, and part-time cocktail waitress. I’m a reproduction, Wentworths, just like the house and Tom’s life. If you can’t have the real thing, manufacture it. That’s the compromising legal mind for you. And I was the compromise for the woman he didn’t get.”
“About the divorce?”
“Screw you,” she said sweetly, with a return of affectation.
“You know,” Lyon said to Bea when they were back in the car and driving away from the house on the green, “I would have liked the poor bastard better if I had known who he really was.”
“You knew him as he really was.”
“I suppose.”
“Well, you’ve got a number-one suspect in Mrs. Thomas Giles. Motive: the divorce and money. She flies, and her alibi is probably weak. Also, there’s more to that whole divorce bit. And did you notice another thing?”
“What’s that?”
“Karen Giles has had a face lift.”
“How could you tell?”
“Little line behind the ear.”
“Christ, that too?”
“You’ve probably got more than Rocco or the State Police. When are you going to call them?”
“After I speak to the owner of the airport about Karen’s lessons, and learn a little more about Tom’s plane and when it left.”
“Then Rocco and Norbert take it from there.”
“I guess,” Lyon replied, lost in thought. He wondered what sort of financial dealings Tom Giles had been involved in, and with whom. There was always the possibility he had been playing games with trust funds at the law office … but the police would check that out.
The Murphysville airport was a modest one. A dozen small planes were tied and chocked along the grassy edge of its single runway. It had two hangars and a small, unpainted operations office. The complex was dark as they turned into the parking area.
“Over there,” Bea said, and pointed to a lone light burning in a small A-frame a hundred yards to the rear of the operations office.
The man who opened the A-frame’s door looked like a dissipated young Lindbergh. Tousled hair stuck out from under a greasy fifty-mission hat crushed to the top of his head. He leaned against the door and gave them an out-of-focus smile. “Sorry, folks, field’s socked in.” He peered into the darkness. “I’ll be damned. It’s night already.”
“We’re looking for the field manager,” Lyon said.
The man in the fifty-mission hat bowed, lurched, and grasped the door frame for support. “Gary Middleton at your service—manager, owner, instructor, and chief mechanic.”
“I’d like to discuss housing my aircraft here.”
“Ah, a paying customer. You are welcome, sir. Come in.”
They entered the small house, which seemed to consist of a living room, with a battered divan and a coffee table covered with flying magazines; a kitchen; and a back bedroom. In the corner stood a small desk, with a rather large pile of invoices and bills lying next to an open checkbook and a half-empty bottle of vodka. Through the open bedroom door they could see a king-size bed. Lyon sat next to Middleton on the couch, while behind them Bea moved surreptitiously toward the desk and the checkbook and bills.
“We have hangar facilities or open tie-down. What do you fly?”
Lyon brushed his hair back with a casual hand. “Well, it’s about sixty-eight feet long.”
“My God, what’s the wingspan?”
“That’s not exactly the term, but the circumference is about sixty-four feet.”
“Hot damn!” Gary Middleton stood up and threw his hat to the floor. “You’ve got a World War Two B-17.”
“More like a toy that got out of hand,” Bea said from the desk, as she flipped through the checkbook.
“One of those crazy stunt planes?”
“Not exactly, although I have taken it up to 15,000 feet.”
Gary Middleton’s face fell. “I hope you’re not one of those hot-air nuts. There’s one menace around here who floats around in a balloon with a monster face painted all over the side. First time I saw it, I damn near crashed into a radio transmission tower.”
“Was Karen Giles with you last night?”
The pilot’s face drained as he stood up, with a rush of sobriety. “What is this? You some sort of cop?”
“No, just an interested party.”
“I’ve already talked to the police, so get out!”
Bea sat demurely in a folding chair and smiled at the field manager. “Mr. Middleton is upset because his business is on the verge of bankruptcy.”
“Did you tell that to the authorities?” Lyon asked.
“I know you; you’re that Wentworth who gets mixed up with that big son of a bitch Rocco Herbert.”
“What about the business?” Bea pressed.
“In other words, if I don’t talk to you, those damn state and local cops descend on the field like a horde of locusts. Four cars, yet. Christ!”
“I’ll personally see that Rocco comes back tomorrow.”
“All right, all right. To answer both questi
ons, yes, Karen Giles was here last night, and the field is financially in lousy shape.”
“Where did you give her lessons and for how long?”
“Right here. Well, in there.” He jerked his thumb toward the bedroom.
“Did Mrs. Giles say she’d put money into the business?”
“I asked her for about thirty thou; that would take me over the hump. She left about midnight.”
“How long have you and Karen been having these private night lessons?”
“Couple of months. It’s not all screwing; sometimes we talk flying.”
“How proficient a flyer is she?”
“Soloed a month ago. She’s ready for her license.”
“Did you see Tom Giles take off?”
“Sure. I saw him go up. The day before yesterday. I was standing here in the window and saw him take off.”
“You’re sure it was Giles?”
“Of course I’m sure. It was his plane. He called me and told me to top the tanks and have it at the end of the runway for an afternoon takeoff.”
“And you saw him actually get in the plane?”
“No, not really, but I saw it taxi to the runway and make a takeoff.”
“Then you’re not positive that Tom Giles was in the plane?”
“Well, I suppose not. But who else would it be?”
“Weren’t you disturbed when he took off and never came back?”
“Not particularly. He often took cross-country hops on the weekend.”
“Without a flight plan?”
“We’re casual here.”
“Thanks for the help,” Lyon said as they started for the door.
“Hey, you’ll keep Herbert off my back, won’t you? All those cop cars pulling onto the field make visitors think we’ve had a crash or something. Scares the hell out of people.”
“I’ll try,” Lyon replied.
Bea was pensive as they drove home. “How bad is his financial condition?” Lyon asked.
“Overdrawn at the bank, and the creditors are ready to foreclose. A quick guess would be that he’ll be in bankruptcy court before the month is out. It all fits. Gary Middleton and Karen Giles were having an affair; he needs money; and the only way she can get her hands on any is through her husband’s death.”
Death Through the Looking Glass Page 5