While My Pretty One Sleeps

by Mary Higgins Clark

  Fashion. That was it. There was something about the outfit she was wearing . . .

  Neeve felt a tremor go through her body. It was as though Jack Campbell felt it, too. Suddenly his arm was drawn through hers. “You cared about her a lot, didn’t you?” he asked.

  “Much more than I realized.”

  Their footsteps echoed down the long marble corridor. The marble was old and worn, cracks fissured through it like veins beneath flesh.

  Ethel’s jugular vein. Ethel’s neck had been so thin. But unwrinkled. At nearly sixty, a lot of women started to get the telltale signs of age. “The neck goes first.” Neeve remembered that that was what Renata would say when a manufacturer tried to persuade her to buy low-cut dresses in mature women’s sizes.

  They were at the entrance to the courthouse. The District Attorney and Myles were agreeing that Manhattan and Rockland County would cooperate closely in the investigation. Myles said, “I should keep my mouth shut. It gets awfully hard to remember that I’m not pushing the buttons at One Police Plaza anymore.”

  Neeve knew what she had to say and prayed that she wouldn’t sound ridiculous. “I wonder . . .” The District Attorney, Myles and Jack waited. She began again. “I wonder if I could possibly speak to the woman who found Ethel’s body. I don’t know why, but I just feel as though I should.” She swallowed over a lump in her throat.

  She felt their eyes studying her. “Mrs. Conway has made a complete statement,” Myra Bradley said slowly. “You can look at that if you want.”

  “I’d like to talk with her.” Don’t let them ask why, Neeve thought wildly. “I just have to.”

  “My daughter is the reason Ethel Lambston has been identified,” Myles said. “If she’d like to speak with this witness, I think she should.”

  He had already opened the door, and Myra Bradley shivered in the crisp April wind. “More like March,” she observed. “Look, I have absolutely no objection. We can give Mrs. Conway a call and see if she’s in. We feel she’s told everything she knows, but maybe something else will surface. Wait a minute.”

  A few moments later she returned. “Mrs. Conway is home. She’d be perfectly willing to talk with you. Here’s her address and the directions.” She smiled at Myles, the smile of two professional cops. “If she happens to remember that she got a good look at the guy who killed Lambston, give us a quick call. Okay?”

  • • •

  Kitty Conway had a fire blazing in the library, a fire that threw pyramids of blue-tipped flame from the glowing logs. “Let me know if it’s too warm for you,” she said apologetically. “It’s just that from the moment I touched that poor woman’s hand, I haven’t stopped feeling cold.” She paused, embarrassed, but the three sets of eyes that were observing her all seemed to signal understanding.

  She liked their looks. Neeve Kearny. Better than beautiful. Interesting, magnetic face with those high cheek-bones, that milk-white skin accentuating those intense brown eyes. But her face showed strain; the pupils of her eyes were enormous. It was obvious that the young man, Jack Campbell, was concerned about her. When he took her cape he’d said, “Neeve, you’re still trembling.”

  Kitty had a sudden wave of nostalgia. Her son was the same type as Jack Campbell, a little over six feet tall, broad-shouldered, trim body, strong, intelligent expression. She deplored the fact that Mike Junior lived half a world away.

  Myles Kearny. When the District Attorney phoned, she’d known immediately who he was. For years his name had appeared regularly in the media. Sometimes she’d seen him when she and Mike used to eat in Neary’s Pub on East Fifty-seventh Street. She’d read about his heart attack and retirement, but he looked fine now. A good-looking Irishman.

  Kitty was fleetingly grateful that she’d changed from her jeans and ancient oversized sweater to a silk blouse and slacks. When they wouldn’t accept drinks, she insisted on making tea. “You need something to warm you up,” she told Neeve. Refusing assistance, she disappeared down the corridor to the kitchen.

  Myles was sitting in a high-backed wing chair with a striped red-and-burnt-orange upholstery. Neeve and Jack were side by side on a velvet sectional that was placed like a crescent around the fireplace. Myles looked around the room approvingly. Comfortable. There were few people who had the brains to buy couches and chairs in which a tall man could lean his head back. He got up and began to examine the framed family photos. The usual history of a life. The young couple. Kitty Conway hadn’t lost her looks along the way, that was for sure. She and her husband with their young son. A collage of the boy’s growing years. The last picture was of Kitty, her son, his Japanese wife and their little girl. Myra Bradley had told him that the woman who discovered Ethel’s body was a widow.

  He heard Kitty’s steps in the hallway. Quickly, Myles turned to the bookshelves. One section caught his eye, a collection of well-worn books on anthropology. He began to glance through them.

  Kitty placed the silver tray on the round table near the sectional, poured the tea, urged cookies on them. “I baked up a storm this morning; nerves after yesterday, I guess,” she said, and walked over to Myles.

  “Who’s the anthropologist?” he asked.

  She smiled. “Strictly amateur. I got hooked in college when the professor said that to know the future we should study the past.”

  “Something I used to keep reminding my detective squads,” Myles said.

  “He’s turning on the charm,” Neeve murmured to Jack. “A most unfamiliar sight.”

  As they sipped the tea, Kitty told them about the horse bolting down the incline, about the plastic flying into her face, about her blurred impression of a hand in a blue sleeve. She explained about the sleeve of her sweatsuit lapping over the lid of the hamper and how at that moment she’d known she had to go back to the park and investigate.

  Throughout, Neeve listened attentively, her head poised to one side as though she were straining to catch every word. She still had the overwhelming feeling that she was missing something, something that was right before her, simply waiting to be pounced on. And then she realized what it was.

  “Mrs. Conway, will you describe exactly what you saw when you found the body?”

  “Neeve?” Myles shook his head. He was building his questions carefully and did not want to be interrupted.

  “Myles, I’m sorry, but this is terribly important. Tell me about Ethel’s hand. Tell me what you saw.”

  Kitty closed her eyes. “It was like looking at a mannequin’s hand. It was so white and the nails seemed a garish red. The cuff of the jacket was blue. It came to the wrist, and that little piece of black plastic was sticking to it. The blouse was blue and white, but it hardly showed beneath the cuff. It was sort of crumpled. It was crazy, but I almost straightened it.”

  Neeve let out a long sigh. She leaned forward and rubbed her forehead with her hands. “That’s what I couldn’t get. That blouse.”

  “What about the blouse?” Myles asked.

  “It . . .” Neeve bit her lip. She was going to sound like a fool to him again. The blouse Ethel had been wearing was a part of the original three-piece ensemble. But when Ethel bought the suit, Neeve had told her she didn’t think the blouse was right for it. She’d sold Ethel another blouse, all white, without the distraction of the blue stripes. She’d seen Ethel wear that outfit twice, and both times she’d had the white blouse on.

  Why did she wear the blue-and-white one?

  “What is it, Neeve?” Myles insisted.

  “It’s probably nothing. Just I’m surprised she wore that blouse with that suit. It just didn’t look right with it.”

  “Neeve, didn’t you tell the police that you recognized the outfit and tell them who the designer was?”

  “Yes, Gordon Steuber. It was an ensemble from his workrooms.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t get it.” Myles tried to conceal his irritation.

  “I think I do.” Kitty poured steaming tea into Neeve’s cup. “Drink this,” she ordered. “Y
ou look faint.” She looked directly at Myles. “If I’m right, Neeve is saying that Ethel Lambston would not have deliberately dressed in that outfit as it was found on her.”

  “I know she would not have chosen to wear it that way,” Neeve said. She looked directly into Myles’s disbelieving eyes. “Obviously her body had been moved. Is there any way they can establish whether or not someone dressed her after she died?”

  • • •

  Douglas Brown had known that the homicide squad planned to obtain a search warrant for Ethel’s apartment. Even so, it was a shock when they arrived with it. A team of four detectives converged on the apartment. He watched as they spread powder over surfaces, as they vacuumed the rugs and floors and furniture, carefully sealing and marking the plastic bags in which they stored the dust and fibers and particles which they collected as they minutely examined and sniffed at the small Oriental rug near Ethel’s desk.

  Seeing Ethel’s body on the slab had left Doug with a queasy stomach; an incongruous reminder of the one boat ride he ever took and how violently seasick he had become. She was covered by a sheet that had been wrapped around her face like a nun’s wimple, so at least he didn’t have to look at her throat. To avoid thinking about her throat he concentrated on the purple-and-yellow bruise on her cheek. Then he’d nodded his head and bolted for the lavatory.

  All night he had lain awake in Ethel’s bed, trying to decide what to do. He could tell the police about Seamus, about his desperation to stop the alimony payments. But the wife, Ruth, would be blabbering about him. Cold sweat formed on his forehead as he realized how stupid he’d been to go to the bank the other day and insist on getting the withdrawal in hundred-dollar bills. If the police found that out . . .

  Before the police came, he’d agonized about whether to leave the bills hidden around the place. If they weren’t there, who could say that Ethel hadn’t spent them all?

  Someone would know. That crazy kid who had come in to clean might have noticed the ones he’d put back.

  In the end, Douglas decided to do absolutely nothing. He’d let the cops find the bills. If Seamus or his wife tried to point a finger at him, he’d call them liars. With the slight comfort of that thought, Douglas turned his mind to the future. This was his apartment now. Ethel’s money was his money. He’d get rid of all those stupid clothes and accessories, A goes with A, B goes with B. Maybe he’d pack them all just that way and pitch them into the garbage. The thought brought a grim smile. But no use getting wasteful. All the bucks Ethel spent on her clothes shouldn’t go down the drain. He’d find a good second-hand shop and sell them.

  When he dressed on Saturday morning, he’d deliberately chosen to wear dark-blue slacks and a tan long-sleeved sport shirt. He wanted to give the impression of subdued grief. The lack of sleep had caused circles to form under his eyes. Today that was all to the good.

  The detectives went through Ethel’s desk. He watched as they opened the file that read “Important Papers.” The will. He still hadn’t decided whether to admit he knew about it. The detective finished reading it and looked over at him. “You ever seen this?” he asked, his tone offhand.

  On the spur of the moment, Douglas made his decision. “No. Those are my aunt’s papers.”

  “She never discussed her will with you?”

  Douglas managed a rueful smile. “She used to kid a lot. She said that if she could only leave me her alimony payments, I’d be set for life.”

  “Then you didn’t know that she seems to have left you a sizable amount of money?”

  Douglas swept his hand around the apartment. “I didn’t think Aunt Ethel had a sizable amount of money. She bought this place when it went co-op. That must have cost her plenty. She made a good living as a writer, but not big-league.”

  “Then she must have been very thrifty along the way.” The detective had handled the will with gloved hands, holding it at the very edges of the paper. As Douglas stared in dismay, the detective called to the fingerprint expert. “Let’s dust this.”

  Five minutes later, his hands twisting nervously in his lap, Douglas confirmed and then denied any knowledge of the hundred-dollar bills the homicide squad had found secreted in the apartment. To divert them from that subject, he explained that until yesterday he hadn’t answered the phone.

  “Why?” Detective O’Brien was in charge. The question cut the air like a razor.

  “Ethel was funny. I picked up the phone when I was visiting her once and she took my head off. She told me it wasn’t my business who called her. But then, yesterday, I happened to think maybe she might want to get in touch with me. So I started answering.”

  “Could she have reached you at work?”

  “I never thought of that.”

  “And the first call you got was a threat to her. What a coincidence you got the call almost at the very hour her body was found.” Abruptly, O’Brien cut off the interrogation. “Mr. Brown, do you plan to stay in this apartment?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “We’ll be coming in tomorrow with Miss Neeve Kearny. She’ll be checking Ms. Lambston’s closet for missing items of clothing. We may want to talk to you again. You’ll be here.” It was not a request. It was a flat statement.

  For some reason Douglas was not relieved that the questioning was at an end. And then his fears were justified. O’Brien said, “We may ask you to stop in at headquarters. We’ll let you know.”

  When they left, they took the plastic bags with the vacuum contents, Ethel’s will and appointment book and the small Oriental carpet. Just before the door closed behind them, Doug heard one of them say, “No matter how hard they try, they can’t get all the blood off rugs.”

  • • •

  In St. Vincent’s Hospital, Tony Vitale was still in the intensivecare unit, his condition still critical. But, as the head surgeon continued to reassure his parents, “He’s young. He’s tough. We believe he’s going to make it.”

  Swathed in bandages that covered the gunshot wounds in his head, shoulder, chest and legs, intravenous fluid dripping into his veins, electronic monitors observing his every bodily change, plastic tubes in his nostrils, Tony drifted from a state of deep coma to fragments of consciousness. Those last moments were coming back to him. Nicky Sepetti’s eyes boring through him. He’d known that Nicky suspected he was a plant. He should have driven to headquarters instead of stopping to call. He should have known that his cover had been blown.

  Tony slid into darkness.

  When he groped his way back to consciousness, he heard the doctor say, “Every day shows a little improvement.”

  Every day! How long had he been here? He tried to speak, but no sound came.

  Nicky had screamed and pounded his fist on the table and ordered them to get the contract canceled.

  Joey had told him it was impossible.

  Then Nicky had demanded to know who ordered it.

  “. . . Someone turned the heat on,” Joey had said. “Ruined his operation. Now the Feds are on his tail. . . .” Then Joey had given the name.

  As he slid back into unconsciousness, Tony remembered that name:

  Gordon Steuber.

  • • •

  In the Twentieth Precinct on West Eighty-second Street, Seamus waited, his round, pale face damp with perspiration. He tried to remember all the warnings Ruth had given him, everything she had told him to say.

  It was all a blur.

  The room he was sitting in was stark. A conference table, the surface scarred from cigarette burns. Wooden chairs. The one he was sitting on caught the small of his back. A grimy window that overlooked the side street. The traffic outside was hell; cabs and buses and cars blaring at one another. The building was rimmed with squad cars.

  How long were they going to keep him here?

  It was another half hour before the two detectives came in. A court stenographer followed them and slipped into a chair behind Seamus. He turned and watched as she set up her steno machine on her lap.

>   The older detective’s name was O’Brien. He’d introduced himself and his partner, Steve Gomez, in the bar.

  Seamus had expected them to give him the Miranda warning. It was still a shock to hear it read to him, to have O’Brien hand him a printed copy and ask him to read it. He nodded at the question did he understand it? Yes. Did he want his lawyer present? No. Did he realize that he could discontinue answering questions at any point? Yes. Did he realize that anything he said could be used against him?

  He whispered, “Yes.”

  O’Brien’s manner changed. It became subtly warmer. His tone was conversational. “Mr. Lambston, it is my duty to tell you that you are considered a possible suspect in the death of your former wife, Ethel Lambston.”

  Ethel dead. No more alimony checks. No more stranglehold on him and Ruth and the girls. Or had the stranglehold only begun? He could see her hands clawing at him, see the way she’d looked when she fell backward, see the way she’d struggled up and reached the letter opener. He felt the wetness of her blood on his hands.

  What was the detective saying in that friendly, conversational tone? “Mr. Lambston, you quarreled with your former wife. She was driving you crazy. The alimony was bankrupting you. Sometimes things get too much for us and we blow our lids. Did that happen?”

  Had he gone crazy? He could feel the hatred of that moment, the way bile rose in his throat, the way he’d clenched his fist and aimed it at that mocking, vicious mouth.

  Seamus laid his head down on the table and began to cry. Sobs racked his body. “I want a lawyer,” he said.

  Two hours later, Robert Lane, the fiftyish lawyer Ruth had frantically managed to locate, showed up. “Are you prepared to press formal charges against my client?” he asked.

  Detective O’Brien looked at him, his expression sour. “No, we are not. Not at this time.”