While My Pretty One Sleeps

by Mary Higgins Clark

  He was reaching for the phone when it rang again. This time he picked it up without hesitation.

  The police were calling him.

  • • •

  Myles Kearny believed in getting out of the way on Friday whenever it was possible. Lupe, their longtime cleaning woman, was there all day, washing and polishing, vacuuming and scrubbing.

  When Lupe arrived, the morning mail in her hand, Myles retreated to the den. There was another letter from Washington, urging him to accept the post as head of the Drug Enforcement Agency.

  Myles felt the old adrenaline flowing through his veins. Sixty-eight. It wasn’t that old. And to get his teeth into a job that needed doing. Neeve. I fed her too much of love at first sight, he told himself. For most people it just doesn’t work like that. Without me around all the time, she’ll join the real world.

  He leaned back in the desk chair, the old, comfortable leather chair that had been in his office the sixteen years he’d been Police Commissioner. It fits my butt, he thought. If I go to Washington, I’ll ship it down.

  In the foyer he could hear the sound of the vacuum. I don’t want to listen to that all day, he thought. On impulse he phoned his old number, the office of the Commissioner, identified himself to Herb Schwartz’s secretary, and a moment later was on the phone with Herb.

  “Myles, what are you up to?”

  “My question first,” Myles responded. “How is Tony Vitale?” He could envision Herb, small stature, small frame, wise and penetrating eyes, tremendous intellect, incredible ability to see the whole picture. And, best of all, true-blue friend.

  “We’re still not sure. They left him for dead and, believe me, they had a right to think they knew what they were doing. But the kid’s tremendous. Against all odds, the doctors think he’ll make it. I’m going to see him later. Want to come?”

  They agreed to meet for lunch.

  • • •

  Over turkey sandwiches in a bar near St. Vincent’s Hospital, Herb briefed Myles on the upcoming Nicky Sepetti funeral. “We’ve got it covered. The FBI has it covered. The U.S. Attorney’s office has it covered. But I don’t know, Myles. My guess is that with or without the celestial summons, Nicky was old news. Seventeen years is too long to be out of circulation. The whole world’s changed. In the old days the mob wouldn’t have touched drugs. Now they’re swimming in them. Nicky’s world doesn’t exist anymore. If he’d stayed, they’d have had him hit.”

  After lunch they went to the ICU at St. Vincent’s. Undercover detective Anthony Vitale was swathed in bandages. Intravenous fluid dripped into his veins. Machines registered his blood pressure, his heartbeats. His parents were in the waiting room.

  “They let us see him for a few minutes every hour,” his father said. “He’s going to make it.” There was quiet confidence in his voice.

  “You can’t kill a tough cop,” Myles told him as he gripped his hand.

  Tony’s mother spoke up. “Commissioner.” She was speaking to Myles. He started to indicate Herb, but was stopped by the slight negative movement Herb made. “Commissioner, I think Tony is trying to tell us something.”

  “He told us what we needed to hear. That Nicky Sepetti didn’t put a contract out on my daughter.”

  Rosa Vitale shook her head. “Commissioner, I’ve been with Tony every hour for the last two days. That’s not enough. There’s something else he wants us to know.”

  There was a round-the-clock guard on Tony. Herb Schwartz beckoned to the young detective who was sitting in the nurses’ station of the ICU. “Listen,” he told him.

  Myles and Herb went down in the elevator together. “What do you think?” Herb asked.

  Myles shrugged. “If there’s anything I’ve learned to trust, it’s a mother’s instinct.” He thought of that long-ago day when his mother had told him to look up the nice family who had sheltered him during the war. “There’s plenty Tony could have learned that night. They must have been going over everything to make Nicky feel up-to-date.” A thought struck him. “Oh, Herb, by the way, Neeve has been pestering me because some writer she knows has dropped out of sight. Tell the guys to keep an eye out for her, will you? About sixty. Five five and a half or six. Dresses well. Dyed silver blonde. Weighs about one-thirty-five. Name is Ethel Lambston. She’s probably making someone’s life miserable interviewing them for her column, but . . .”

  The elevator stopped. They stepped into the lobby, and Schwartz pulled out a pad. “I’ve met Lambston at Gracie Mansion. She’s been giving the Mayor a lot of plugs and he has her there all the time now. Something of an air-head, isn’t she?”

  “You’ve got it.”

  They both laughed.

  “Why is Neeve worried about her?”

  “Because she swears Lambston left home last Thursday or Friday without a winter coat. She buys all her clothes from Neeve.”

  “Maybe she was going to Florida or the Caribbean and didn’t want to drag one along,” Herb suggested.

  “That was one of the many possibilities I pointed out to Neeve, but she claims all the clothes missing from Ethel’s closet are for winter wear, and Neeve would know.”

  Herb frowned. “Maybe Neeve is onto something. Go over the description again.”

  • • •

  Myles went home to the peace and quiet of the shiningly clean apartment. Neeve’s phone call at six-thirty both pleased and disturbed him. “You’re going out to dinner. Good. I hope he’s interesting.”

  Then she told him about her call from Ethel’s nephew. “You told him to report the threat to the police. That was the right thing to do. Maybe she did get nervous and take off. I spoke to Herb about her today. I’ll let him know about this.”

  Myles settled for fruit and crackers and a glass of Perrier for his own dinner. As he ate and tried to concentrate on Time magazine, he found himself increasingly concerned that he had so casually brushed off Neeve’s instinct that Ethel Lambston was in serious trouble.

  He poured a second Perrier and got to the center of his discomfort. The threatening phone call, as reported by the nephew, did not have the ring of truth.

  • • •

  Neeve and Jack Campbell sat on a banquette in the dining room of the Carlyle. On impulse, she had changed from the sweater dress she’d worn to work to a soft multicolored print. Jack had ordered drinks, a vodka martini straight up with olives for himself, a glass of champagne for Neeve. “You remind me of the song ‘A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody,’” he said. “Or is it all right to call anyone a pretty girl these days? Would you rather be a handsome person?”

  “I’ll settle for the song.”

  “Isn’t that one of the dresses the mannequins are wearing in your show windows?”

  “You’re very observant. When did you see them?”

  “Last night. And I didn’t just happen by. I was overwhelmingly curious.” Jack Campbell did not seem uncomfortable disclosing that fact.

  Neeve studied him. Tonight he was wearing a dark-blue suit with a faint chalk stripe. Unconsciously she nodded approval at the overall effect, the Hermès tie that exactly picked up the blue, the custom-made shirt, the plain gold cufflinks.

  “Will I pass?” he asked.

  Neeve grinned. “Very few men manage to wear a tie that really goes with the suit. I’ve been laying out my father’s ties for years.”

  The waiter arrived with the drinks. Jack waited until he’d left before he spoke. “I wish you’d fill me in a little. Starting with where did you get the name Neeve?”

  “It’s Celtic. Actually it’s spelled N-I-A-M-H and pronounced ‘Neeve.’ Long ago I gave up trying to explain it, so when I opened the shop I just used the phonetic spelling. You’d be amazed at how much time I’ve saved myself, to say nothing of the aggravation of being called Nim-ah.”

  “And who was the original Neeve?”

  “A goddess. Some say the exact translation is ‘star of the morning.’ My favorite legend about her is that she swooped down to earth to pick
up the fellow she wanted. They were happy for a long time, then he wanted to visit earth again. It was understood that if his feet touched the ground he would become his real age. You can guess the rest. He slipped from the horse, and poor Niamh left him a bag of bones and returned to the skies.”

  “Is that what you do to your admirers?”

  They laughed together. It seemed to Neeve that it was by mutual consent they were putting off talking about Ethel. She had told Eugenia about the phone call, and, oddly, Eugenia found it reassuring. “If Ethel got a call like that, it says to me that she decided to take off until things cool down. You told her nephew to report it to the police. Your father’s on top of it. You can’t do anything else. My bet is that good old Ethel is holed up in a spa.”

  Neeve wanted to believe it. She put Ethel out of her mind as she sipped the champagne and smiled across the table at Jack Campbell.

  Over celery rémoulade, they talked about growing up. Jack’s father was a pediatrician. Jack had been raised in a suburb of Omaha. He had one older sister, who still lived near his parents. “Tina has five kids. The nights get cold in Nebraska.” He had worked in a bookstore summers during high school and become fascinated with publishing. “So after Northwestern, I went to work in Chicago selling college textbooks. That’s enough to prove your manliness. Part of the job is to see if any of the professors you’re peddling books to may be writing a book. One of them haunted me with her autobiography. Finally I said, ‘Madam, let’s face it. You’ve had a very boring life.’ She complained to my boss.”

  “Did you lose your job?” Neeve asked.

  “No. They made me an editor.”

  Neeve glanced around the room. The soft elegance of the ambience; the delicate china, handsome silver and fine damask tablecloths; the flower arrangements; the pleasant murmur of voices from other tables. She felt remarkably, absurdly happy. Over rock of lamb, she told Jack about herself. “My father fought tooth and nail to send me away to college, but I liked being home. I went to Mount St. Vincent and spent one term in England at Oxford, then a year at the University of Perugia. Summers and after school I worked in dress shops. I always knew what I wanted to do. My idea of a good time was to go to a fashion show. Uncle Sal was great. From the time my mother died, he’d send a car to take me when a collection was being unveiled.”

  “What do you do for fun?” Jack asked.

  The question was too casual. Neeve smiled, knowing why he’d asked it. “For four or five summers I had a share in a house in the Hamptons,” she told him. “That was great. I skipped last year because Myles was so sick. In the winter, I ski in Vail for at least a couple of weeks. I was there in February.”

  “Who do you go with?”

  “Always my best friend, Julie. The other faces change.”

  He asked it straight out. “How about men?”

  Neeve laughed. “You sound like Myles. I swear he won’t be happy till he’s playing father of the bride. Sure I’ve dated a lot. I went with the same guy practically through college.”

  “What happened?”

  “He went to Harvard for an MBA and I got involved with the dress shop. We just drifted into our own worlds. His name was Jeff. Then there was Richard. A really nice person. But he took a job in Wisconsin and I knew them was no way I could leave the Big Apple forever, so it couldn’t be true love.” She began to laugh. “The nearest I came to getting engaged was a couple of years ago. That was Gene. We broke up at a charity do on the Intrepid.”

  “The ship?”

  “Uh-huh. It’s docked on the Hudson at West Fifty-sixth. Anyhow, the party’s held on Labor Day weekend: black tie, tons of people. I swear I know ninety percent of the regulars at it. Gene and I got separated in the crowd. I didn’t worry. I figured we’d catch up eventually. But when we did, he was furious. Thought I should have tried harder to find him. I saw a side of him I knew I didn’t want to live with.” Neeve shrugged. “The simple truth is I don’t think anyone has been right for me.”

  “So far,” Jack smiled. “I’m beginning to think you are the legendary Neeve who leaves her admirers behind as she rides away. You haven’t been exactly pounding me with questions about myself, but I’ll tell you anyhow. I’m a good skier, too. I went to Arosa the past couple of Christmas holidays. I’m planning to look for a summer place where I can have a sailboat. Maybe you’d better show me around the Hamptons. Like you, I came close to settling down a couple of times. In fact, I actually got engaged about four years ago.”

  “My turn to ask: What happened?” Neeve said.

  Jack shrugged. “Once the diamond was on her finger, she became a very possessive young lady. I realized I’d run out of breathing room pretty fast. I’m a great believer in Kahlil Gibran’s advice on marriage.”

  “Something about ‘the pillars of the temple stand apart’?” Neeve asked.

  She was rewarded by his expression of amused respect. “You’ve got it.”

  They waited until they’d finished their raspberries and were sipping espresso before they discussed Ethel. Neeve told Jack about the phone call from Ethel’s nephew and the possibility that Ethel was hiding out. “My father is in touch with his department. He’ll get them to run down who’s making the threats. And, frankly, I have to say I do think Ethel should let that poor guy off the hook. It’s disgusting to be collecting from him all these years. She needs that alimony like a hole in the head.”

  Jack pulled the folded copy of the article from his pocket. Neeve told him she’d already seen it. “Would you call this scandalous?” Jack asked her.

  “No. I’d call it funny and bitchy and sarcastic and readable and potentially libelous. There isn’t a thing in it that everyone in the business doesn’t know already. I’m not sure how Uncle Sal will react, but knowing him I swear he’ll turn it into a virtue that his mother peddled fruit. Gordon Steuber I’d worry about. I have a hunch he could be vicious. The other designers Ethel drew a bead on? What can you say? Everyone knows that except for one or two, the society designers can’t draw straight. They just love the excitement of playing at working.”

  Jack nodded. “Next question. Do you think anything in this article would make an explosive book?”

  “No. Even Ethel couldn’t pull that off.”

  “I have a file of all the outtakes from the article. I haven’t had a chance to study them yet.” Jack signaled for the check.

  • • •

  Across the street from the Carlyle, Denny was waiting. It was a long shot. He knew that. He’d followed Neeve when she walked along Madison Avenue to the hotel, but there’d been absolutely no chance to get near her. Too many people. Big guys on their way home from work. Even if he’d been able to waste her, the chances that someone would deck him were too strong. His only hope was that Neeve might come out alone, maybe walk to the crosstown bus, or even walk home. But when she came out, she was with some guy and they got into a cab together.

  A sense of frustration made Denny’s face turn ugly under the smears of dirt that made him blend in with the other winos in the area. If this weather kept up, she’d always be in cabs. He had to work over the weekend. There was no way he was going to risk drawing attention to himself at the job. So that meant he could only hang around her apartment building early in the morning in case she went to the store or jogged, or after six o’clock.

  That left Monday. And the Garment District. Somehow Denny felt in his bones that that was where he’d end up. He slipped into a doorway, shrugged off the ragged overcoat, wiped his face and hands with a grimy towel, shoved coat and towel into a shopping bag and headed for a bar on Third Avenue. His gut was burning for a boilermaker.

  It was ten o’clock when the cab pulled up to Schwab House. “My father will be having a nightcap,” Neeve told Jack. “Are you interested?”

  Ten minutes later they were in the study, sipping brandy. Neeve knew that something was wrong. There was a look of concern in Myles’s expression even while he chatted easily with Jack. She sensed
he had something to tell her that he would not discuss now.

  Jack was telling Myles about meeting Neeve on the plane. “She ran so fast I couldn’t get her number. And she tells me she’d missed her connection.”

  “I can vouch for that,” Myles said. “I waited for her at the airport for four hours.”

  “I must say I was delighted when she came up to me at the cocktail party the other day and asked about Ethel Lambston. I gather from what Neeve tells me Ethel isn’t one of your favorite people, Mr. Kearny.”

  Neeve gasped at the change in Myles’s face. “Jack,” he said, “someday I’ll learn to listen to Neeve’s intuition.” He turned to Neeve. “Herb phoned a couple of hours ago. A body was found in Morrison State Park in Rockland County. It answered Ethel’s description. They brought Ethel’s nephew out and he identified her.”

  “What happened to her?” Neeve whispered.

  “Her throat was cut.”

  Neeve closed her eyes. “I knew something was wrong. I knew it !”

  “You were right. They already have a hot suspect, it seems. When the upstairs neighbor saw the squad car she came running down. Seems Ethel had a colossal fight with her ex-husband last Thursday afternoon. Apparently no one has seen her since then. On Friday she broke her appointments with you and with her nephew.”

  Myles swallowed the last of the brandy and got up to refill his glass. “I don’t usually have a second brandy, but tomorrow morning the homicide guys from the Twentieth Precinct want to talk to you. And the DA’s office in Rockland County has asked if you’d go out and look at the clothing Ethel was wearing. The point is they know the body was moved after death. I told Herb that you spotted the fact that none of her coats was missing and that she bought all her stuff from you. The labels were ripped out of the suit she was wearing. They want to see if you can identify it as one of yours. God damn it, Neeve,” Myles exclaimed. “I don’t like the idea of you being a witness in a murder case.”

  Jack Campbell reached out his glass for a refill. “Neither do I,” he said quietly.