Someone to Watch Over Me

by Judith McNaught

  “As a precaution, that’s all. You had a stalker, and your husband’s been murdered.”

  “Do whatever you think is necessary.”

  McCord looked over his shoulder toward the kitchen. “I’ll see if Detective Shrader is finished.”

  Detective Shrader was not only finished, he was enjoying a cup of coffee and a homemade biscuit while the chauffeur chatted with him about football.

  The three detectives rode down in the elevator in silence. For security purposes all visitors to the Mannings’ building were required to register in a large book when they arrived and to sign out when they departed. The keeper of the visitors’ register was an elderly uniformed doorman, whose name tag identified him as “Horace.” He was seated at a curved, black marble desk in the center of the lobby. “Such a shame about Mr. Manning,” Horace said, handing Shrader a pen so that he could sign all three of them out in the big leather-bound book he’d signed them in on earlier.

  Instead of taking the pen, Shrader took the book and handed the doorman a folded subpoena. “This subpoena allows us to take this item into evidence,” he told the startled doorman. “Do you have another book that you can use?”

  “Well, yes—but we aren’t supposed to start using it until January, and this is only December.”

  “Start using the new one right away,” Shrader ordered. “And if anyone asks what happened to this one, just say someone spilled something on it. Can you do that?”

  “Yes, but my boss—”

  Shrader handed him his card. “Have your boss call me.”

  Chapter 30

  * * *

  Shrader was driving, so Sam took the visitors’ book from him and slid into the backseat, letting McCord sit next to Shrader in the front. She had the book open before they pulled away from the curb, and she began looking through the names, beginning at November 1 and moving forward.

  “What did you get from the housekeeper?” McCord asked Shrader.

  “According to Hilda Brunner, the Mannings were a ‘perfect’ couple. No quarrels, not even an occasional spat. Mr. Manning came home late sometimes, but he always phoned, and he was always home by eleven or twelve at the latest. He’s taken a few short business trips. Mrs. Manning hasn’t spent a night away from home without him in the three years the Brunner woman has worked for them.

  “She confirmed that Manning left the apartment on Sunday morning sometime around eight, and that he made two trips down to his car with items he was taking to the mountains. Among those items were two crystal glasses, a bottle of wine, a bottle of champagne, and . . .” He let the sentence hang for effect before he added with a grin of triumph, “two dark green sleeping bags. She’s sure there were two sleeping bags because she had to help him find them in the back of a closet, and she saw him carry them out of the apartment.”

  “Anything else?” McCord asked, pleased.

  “Yeah. She gave me a fantastic biscuit and a warning not to upset Mrs. Manning or get crumbs on the floor.”

  “What about the chauffeur?”

  “His name is Joseph Xavier O’Hara, and he gave me nothing. Zero. Nada. He actually works for another couple—Matthew and Meredith Farrell from Chicago. They left a couple of weeks ago on a world cruise. When the Farrells found out about Leigh Manning’s alleged stalker, they ‘lent’ O’Hara to the Mannings until they get back.”

  “That’s it?”

  “No. O’Hara knows something—something he doesn’t want to talk about.”

  “Valente?”

  “Could be. Probably is. You said not to mention Valente, so I didn’t ask O’Hara about him, but he didn’t volunteer anything either.”

  “That’s all you got from him?”

  “No, I got a warning from him, too.” Shrader said wryly. “He told me not to upset Mrs. Manning and to forget it if we thought she had anything whatsoever to do with her husband’s death. He’s not naïve, and he’s not just a chauffeur. He’s a bodyguard, and he’s licensed to carry a weapon.”

  “What about the secretary?” McCord asked.

  “Brenna Quade,” Shrader provided. “She actually works mostly for Mrs. Manning, and she backed up the housekeeper’s story—she said the Mannings were a very happy couple. She gave me a copy of the guest list for the party a week ago.” He reached into his jacket pocket and removed several sheets of paper with neatly typed names in alphabetical order. “Another copy was given to the doorman so he knew who the invited guests were. Guess whose name wasn’t on the original list?”

  “Valente,” McCord said, unfolding the list and scanning the names.

  “Right. His name was added in pencil the afternoon of the party—at Logan Manning’s request.”

  “What about you?” Shrader asked McCord. “Did you find out anything interesting?”

  McCord inclined his head toward the backseat, where Sam was poring over the visitors’ register. “As a matter of fact,” he said dryly, “I found out that Detective Littleton thinks I’m an elderly, toothless redneck with an oil rag hanging out of my pocket and an uneducated attitude toward doctors of all kinds, and shrinks in particular.”

  Sam didn’t bother to defend or explain her actions, and she was a little surprised when McCord did it for her. “Littleton realized I’d spooked the Manning woman, so she teed me up and took a swing at me, right in front of her. In return, she got the woman to sign a release so that their shrink has to talk to us. I couldn’t believe Littleton got her to do it, and so easily.”

  “It’s always easy to persuade innocent, uninvolved people to do the right thing,” Sam murmured, turning the page. “I’m not saying I definitely think she’s innocent, but there’s something about her that I just can’t reconcile with being a coconspirator in the murder of her husband. Last night,” she continued, directing her explanation to Shrader, “when we told her that her husband was found shot to death, Leigh Manning held her hand out to me and begged me to say McCord was wrong. My God, I was almost in tears, and—” Sam broke off, staring at a scrawled name entered in the visitors’ register the night before; then she slammed the book closed. “Dammit! I cannot believe it!”

  “What can’t you believe?” Shrader asked, glancing at her in the rearview mirror.

  McCord’s voice was laced with cynical amusement. “I think Detective Littleton has just discovered that Valente was in Manning’s apartment last night, staying out of sight, while the widow put on her performance for Littleton and almost made her cry.”

  Sam’s anger with herself began to turn outward toward a new target—Mitchell McCord. “How did you know that?” she inquired with a calm she didn’t feel.

  “I saw Valente’s name in the register last night when I signed us in and out.”

  That was exactly what Sam had suspected he was going to say. Furious and disappointed in him, she laid the heavy book on the seat beside her and looked out the window while she forced her features into a pleasant, noncommittal mask. When McCord asked her a few minutes later if she wanted to accompany him to Forensics to check on Manning’s tests, she said very pleasantly, “Of course.”

  SHEILA WAS WITH A PATIENT when Leigh called, but she returned the call a few minutes later. “I just have a quick question,” Leigh explained. “By any chance, did you know Logan bought a gun?”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think so, but the police are going to ask you about it anyway. They think Logan may have confided in a friend.”

  Chapter 31

  * * *

  Ballistics confirmed that the slug that penetrated Logan Manning’s brain and lodged in the left-hand wall of the garage was from the .38 special found in his vehicle. So was the slug recovered from the right-hand wall.

  The medical examiner hadn’t completed his written report yet, but Herbert Niles was perfectly willing to give Sam and McCord the highlights of the findings. “Logan Manning definitely went out with a buzz,” he announced cheerfully.

  “That’s cute, Herb,” McCord retorted impatiently
.

  “I wasn’t being ‘cute,’ I was being literal—and cute. Cause of death was a gunshot wound to the right temple, which occurred less than an hour after he had imbibed the better part of a bottle of wine. White wine chardonnay, I’d guess.”

  Chapter 32

  * * *

  Logan Manning’s funeral service was a media event, attended by five hundred business, political, and community leaders as well as prominent members of the arts and entertainment world. Two hundred of the mourners joined the funeral procession to the cemetery afterward and stood in the cold and mist to bid a final farewell to the slain socialite and to pay their respects to his famous widow.

  Notably absent from those services was Michael Valente, and though the media was quick to remark on that in their news coverage that evening, they had focused all their attention on familiar faces and recognizable names among those present. The photographers who lined up at the chapel and followed the funeral procession to the cemetery did not waste any film on an elegantly attired, gray-haired woman in her early seventies who was last in line to speak to the widow at the graveside.

  No one paid any attention when the woman took Leigh’s hands in hers, and only Leigh heard what she said: “My nephew felt his presence here today would only distract from the solemn occasion. I have come instead to represent our family.”

  Although she looked like several of Logan’s elderly, well-to-do relatives, her eyes were more compassionate, and her voice held the soft lilt of Italian that instantly reminded Leigh of the warm welcomes she had always received at Angelini’s Market years before.

  “Mrs. Angelini?” Leigh said, squeezing her gloved hands. “It’s so kind of you to come!” Leigh thought she had wept herself dry of all tears, but the kindness in the woman’s eyes, her thoughtfulness for standing out in the freezing cold, pushed Leigh to the brink of tears all over again. “It’s much too cold and damp for you out here.”

  No other elderly people who had attended the funeral service had braved the elements at the cemetery. They’d either gone home afterward or gone to Leigh’s apartment, where caterers were serving food. Leigh invited Mrs. Angelini to go there, but she refused. “May I drop you somewhere?” Leigh asked her as they walked past the sea of headstones toward the line of automobiles parked in the street.

  “I have a car.” Mrs. Angelini nodded toward a uniformed chauffeur who was holding open the rear door of a black Bentley. Leigh recognized the chauffeur at once.

  “Please tell Michael I’ll call him soon,” Leigh added as Mrs. Angelini slid into the backseat.

  “I will tell him.” She hesitated as if weighing her words very carefully. “Leigh, if you need anything, you must tell him. He will not fail you as others have.”

  Chapter 33

  * * *

  Brenna had arranged for Payard, the French bistro and patisserie, to provide the food at the apartment after the funeral. By the time Leigh arrived, the guests had already formed into the same groups they’d formed at Leigh’s party a little over a week before, except that now the primary topic of conversation was the identity of Logan’s murderer.

  Leigh moved mechanically from group to group, accepting condolences and listening to all the trite things people say in a helpless, futile effort to make the darkest occasion in human experience seem somehow less tragic. Logan’s friends and family were the “Chin up, Buck up, Stiff upper lip,” crowd. Judge Maxwell patted her shoulder and solemnly said, “It may not seem like it now, but there are brighter days ahead. Life goes on, my dear.”

  Senator Hollenbeck said, “You’re strong, you’ll make it.” His wife voiced her agreement, but in a more personal way: “I thought my life was over when my first husband died, but I made it and so will you.”

  Logan’s ancient great-aunt, one of the few surviving members of his immediate family, laid her blue-veined hand on Leigh’s sleeve, peered long and solemnly at her, and said, “What was your name, dear?”

  Leigh’s friends tended to demonstrate their empathy and sympathy by describing the effect Logan’s death was having on them. As a group, their attitude was, “This is a tragedy for you and for everyone who knew Logan.” Theta Berenson had worn one of her most somber and conservative hats—a black one with a huge brim adorned with white silk fruit and black berries, but no feathers. “I’m just devastated for you,” the artist told Leigh. “Positively devastated. I keep thinking about that weekend we all spent together in Maine, and I’ve decided to paint the harbor scene the way I remember it. I want you to have it when it’s finished.”

  Claire Straight, who was embroiled in a bitter, ongoing divorce battle, hugged Leigh and indignantly said, “There’s no justice in this world! Logan is dead, while Charles—that bastard—goes right on living. I’m so furious with fate that I can’t get over it. I’ve started seeing Sheila Winters for help with anger management.”

  Jason was with Jane Sebring and Eric. He looked more distraught than Leigh had ever seen him. “Darling, what you’re going through is tearing me to pieces. You need to come back to work soon. Logan would want you to go on with your life.”

  Jane Sebring had been crying. Her face was pale, her beautiful eyes were shadowed and without makeup, and she was upset enough not to care about her looks. “I just can’t believe it’s true,” she told Leigh. “I have nightmares about it, and I wake up thinking this is all a bad dream, but it isn’t.”

  Sybil Haywood, who had taken Michael Valente off Leigh’s hands the night of the party, was stricken with grief and guilt. “I’m completely to blame for this,” she told Leigh fiercely.

  “Sybil, that’s ridiculous—”

  “It isn’t! If I had been a true friend—the kind you deserve to have—I would have finished your chart in time for your birthday. I wouldn’t have let business get in the way of friendship. Well, I’ve finished it now, and it was all there—tragedy and violence. I could have forewarned you—”

  The astrologer was so filled with self-blame that Leigh offered her the one consolation she could give. “I’ll tell you a little secret,” Leigh confided, sliding her arm around Sybil’s waist. “It wouldn’t have made a bit of difference if you’d finished that chart and given it to me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Logan thought astrology was a farce. I believe in you, and in your honesty and dedication to it, but I’m . . .” She paused to choose her words carefully. “ . . . a little ambivalent about it.”

  Instead of being comforted by that, Sybil was hurt and very disappointed.

  Sheila Winters was the one steady, shining light in the entire day. She was at Leigh’s side often, sensing when she was needed. She arrived just as Leigh finished talking to Jane, and she stayed there through Sybil’s comments. “You need a few minutes alone now,” she said. “You’ve been giving more comfort than you’re getting from a lot of these people.”

  “I’ll rest later,” Leigh said. She felt limp with exhaustion, but she didn’t want to leave, even for a few minutes. The people who were there had come out of respect and affection for Logan, and she loved each and every one of them that day for going to the trouble to do it.

  Exempted from her affection and goodwill were the half dozen plainclothes detectives, including Littleton, McCord, and Shrader, who’d been at the funeral and were now stationed throughout the apartment. Detectives Littleton and Shrader had persuaded her that Logan’s murderer might be among the mourners. Without saying so, they implied that Leigh’s life might also be in danger from the killer. Leigh thought the notion absurd, but she didn’t have the strength to argue with anyone about anything yet. Until yesterday, she’d convinced herself that Logan’s murder had been a case of mistaken identity or, more likely, the act of someone who’d been living near the mountain property and felt it belonged to him.

  Whenever she happened to notice one of the detectives, she nodded politely, but she let them fend for themselves. No one knew they were present, and no one took any notice of them—no one, exce
pt Courtney Maitland. To Leigh’s astonishment, the teenager spotted all of them, including Sam Littleton, and she arrived at Leigh’s side with a plate of food for Leigh and a side order of astute observations. “I count six cops,” she whispered to Leigh. “Am I close, or have I missed some?”

  Courtney had met Logan only once, for a few moments. She was not grief-stricken over his death, and she was too forthright and honest to put on a funeral face. Leigh hugged her tightly. “You’re right on target. How did you know?”

  “You’re kidding, right?” Courtney said with a grin.

  “No, I’m serious.”

  “Who else but cops would go to a gathering like this and not talk to anyone—or look for anyone to talk to? They’re not eating, they’re not sad, and they’re not—” She broke off.

  “Not what?”

  “Let’s just say they’re not trying very hard to make a fashion statement. The tall guy with the gray hair is interesting.” She nodded toward McCord, and Leigh followed her gaze, mostly because it was a relief to be talking about something else. “He’s interesting because he’s got those great scars and that lean, tough face. The brunette was the hardest one of all to pick out as a cop.”

  “Because she’s a woman?”

  “No, because she’s wearing seven-hundred-dollar Bottega Veneta boots.”

  Chapter 34

  * * *

  Sheila stayed after everyone left, and while Hilda and the caterers cleaned up, the two women went into Leigh’s bedroom. Leigh curled up on one of the chaise lounges near the window and wearily rested her head against the back of it. Sheila did the same thing on the other one.