Sure he sounds upbeat, Susan thought to herself. He probably always sounds upbeat right before the kill. She ground her molars and concentrated on the thermometer sticking out of her son’s mouth.
III
“So,” continued Sardini, leaning across his desk to Kathleen. “We know the man’s name is Jesse Clark and we have to find him ASAP. His presence has been too convenient: first the night of the party, and then Susan Henshaw saw him near her house yesterday morning. I don’t know that we can hold him for anything, but we can certainly try to get some information.”
“You have an APB out for him, of course?” Kathleen asked.
“We’ve been broadcasting his description since yesterday when he was seen near the Henshaw home. We’ll find him if he stayed in town or around here. If he headed into the city or got on a plane for the coast, he’s probably lost to us.”
“You checked on the terms of the will?” Kathleen asked.
“Yes, and it’s interesting,” Mitchell smiled, taunting her by refusing to give the information without her asking for it again.
“She didn’t leave her money to her esteemed husband. She left it to a relative, a Jesse Clark,” Sardini explained with a scowl to his associate.
“What?” Kathleen sat up in her chair, astounded.
“It’s quite a footnote to all this. And it may have something to do with the murder,” Sardini began. “I haven’t seen the will itself. It was stored in New York City at her lawyer’s office, but I spoke with that gentleman at length on the phone and I believe we have the whole story now.
“Dawn Elliot was born Dawn Clark and the Clarks were a very wealthy family. Most of their money came from shipping. They were heavily involved in shipbuilding along the coast of Maine. And they had the foresight to get out of the business before it became less lucrative in the late forties and early fifties—after which, of course, it dwindled down to nothing. Most of the family had died out by then anyway. There were two brothers representing the Clark family. Joshua Clark, who had one child, Jesse, and Emery Clark, who had two daughters, Dawn and a younger sister who died of meningitis when an infant. So a considerable fortune, valued in millions of dollars, came to Jesse Clark and Dawn when their fathers died.”
“How? When did they die?” Kathleen asked.
“About twenty years ago in a sailing accident.”
“Together?”
“Yes. They were sailing in waters near the family’s summer cottage on Deer Isle up in Maine when a storm came up. Their bodies washed up in a small cove the next day. Since they were together, it was assumed that they had almost made it to land before their boat capsized. Anyway, their deaths made both Dawn and Jesse very wealthy young people.”
“Outright? I mean, was the money left in trust funds or did they get their inheritances immediately?” Kathleen asked.
“Yes and no. Joshua Clark was the more conservative brother, it appears; Jesse’s money was in a trust fund and he lived on the income of the fund’s investments until he was thirty. Which was four years ago. Dawn got her money outright to do with what she wanted. She was twenty-one at the time and one of the first things she did was marry Richard Elliot.”
“And proceed to support him in the style to which he had become accustomed before his parents lost their money,” Kathleen guessed.
“As far as we know, yes,” Sardini agreed.
“Did she write a will then? Did she ever leave her money to her husband?” Kathleen asked.
“Not that we know of. I asked the lawyer and he said that he has always handled her legal affairs, and that he explained to her at the time of her inheritance that she should have a will. She made one leaving everything to Jesse Clark. Evidently, she never changed it.”
“Maybe she didn’t think of it?” Kathleen offered an explanation.
“Not according to this man. He says he reminded her regularly that she should update her will to indicate changes in her life and, in fact, she did add some small legacies over the years—mainly to people she worked with and primarily concerning objects from her professional life, not money. But the bulk of her worth she left to Jesse throughout the years that she was married to Richard Elliot. In fact, Richard Elliot is left only one thing by the will: an early edition of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations.” The detective grinned for the first time since he began this story. “Seems she knew her husband well.”
“Did he know? Did the lawyer you spoke with have any idea whether Richard Elliot was aware of the terms of his wife’s will?”
“He was pretty sure not. He told me that Richard Elliot called his office the morning after he heard of his wife’s death and appeared anxious to know just how long it would be before he would have access to Dawn’s money. He even spoke of how little money he had available. In fact, the man had no qualms about admitting that he was living off his wife’s money. And the lawyer had no qualms about telling him that the free meal had died along with his wife.”
“No wonder his grief appears sincere,” Kathleen said.
“No one who’s ever been exposed to his professional acting could imagine that he is accomplished enough to simulate any emotion,” Sardini said. “I dated a woman who was an Off-Broadway theater nut. The most boring evening in my life was spent watching Richard Elliot’s portrayal of Dr. Stockman in a revival of An Enemy of the People. Of course,” he added, “that wasn’t true for everyone in the audience; a lot of people seemed to think that the play was a comedy and Richard Elliot was hamming it up intentionally. You can’t imagine such laughter in the middle of an Ibsen play.”
Kathleen mulled over this bit of personal information before returning to her original interest. “So Richard Elliot didn’t have any reason to kill his wife.”
“Well, if he killed her for her money, he made a big mistake,” agreed Sardini. “But, remember, we have no reason to believe that he had any idea that her money wouldn’t be left to him. As far as we know, he didn’t suspect the terms of her will.”
“Did the lawyer think that Jesse knew about his legacy?”
“No, but his opinion is that it wouldn’t matter. He also handles the affairs of Jesse Clark, and evidently that young man doesn’t need any more money. He turned his father’s generous legacy into a fortune. He’s a broker in broadcasting properties and has been very successful in the last decade. But just because he didn’t have a financial reason for murder doesn’t mean there wasn’t a different motive, as I’m sure you know.”
“Did the lawyer suggest any other motives?”
“No, but interestingly enough, he was in the dark as to why Dawn Elliot married or stayed married to her husband. And he’s known her since she was a little girl. He also said that she and her cousin were good friends: He was a businessman, but he was fascinated by her work and often visited her in the field. They regularly kept in touch. I get the impression that Jesse Clark can hardly stand Richard Elliot and that the lawyer feels the same way.
“That’s really all I learned from the lawyer,” Sardini ended. “I thought you might be interested.”
“Yes,” Kathleen agreed. “I appreciate you telling me.” She wondered if she could ask about his reasons for calling Jed the night before and decided against it. She didn’t want to consider what the sand in the trunk might mean.
“Maybe we can work together a little more,” said Sardini, getting up from his seat. “I’ll be getting in touch with you.”
“Thank you,” Kathleen responded, confused. Obviously the meeting was over. What had he gained from it? And, once more, he was abruptly dismissing her. She smiled, with as much confidence as possible, and, nodding her head at the unusually silent Mitchell, left the room.
“Well, we certainly gave her something to think about—” Mitchell began before the door was completely closed behind her.
“Shut up!” he was interrupted by his superior.
Kathleen made her way to the main reception area of the building. A small information desk was placed conveni
ently near the front door. An elderly woman sat behind it.
“Is there a public phone around here?” Kathleen asked.
“Right behind you near the rest rooms,” was the answer. Kathleen hurried to follow the directions.
“Hello, Susan. Do you have a few minutes? You won’t believe what I just learned from Sardini.” And she proceeded to relate the entire story. “I’m going to go over to the aerobics class and think this thing through and then, if I don’t come up with something better, I’m going to try to find Richard Elliot. I think it’s time to get to the bottom of Dawn’s relationship with him. I’ll call you if I succeed, okay?”
The voice on the other end of the line agreed with this plan; Kathleen hung up and, slinging her purse over her shoulder, left the municipal center. Susan put down the receiver and turned to her guest.
“They know that you’re Dawn’s cousin,” she said to him.
IV
The man she had spoken to turned from the window he had been staring out of to smile at her. “It was only a matter of time,” he said, brushing his slightly long, very straight dark brown hair off his forehead. “I don’t want to get you in trouble for hiding me. I don’t know much about this type of law, but it certainly isn’t legal to conceal someone that the police are looking for.”
“I’m not concealing you. You’re standing right in front of the window, in full view of any policeman who cares to look in. Besides, that is the least of my troubles. My husband is the major suspect in your cousin’s death, you know.”
“Because she was dumped in your new car or because of something I don’t know?”
Susan stared at the young man. Tall and lanky, with high cheekbones and piercing blue eyes, he was too angular to be good-looking in a traditional way, but he would always get more than his share of attention. She could see the resemblance to his cousin’s striking beauty. And his way of talking, half serious, half casual, relaxed her guard. “My husband had an affair with your cousin,” she answered honestly.
“So did a lot of other men in this town.”
“You knew?”
“Dawn used to kid about it; she called them her handsome Hancock club and said that they gave her an interest in life when she wasn’t working.”
“That sounds rather crass,” Susan said, freezing a little.
“She was crass about her life here,” the man agreed easily. “Wasn’t she?” He sat down on the couch on the other side of the room.
“I don’t know,” Susan responded. “I’m just beginning to realize how little I knew Dawn. How little any of us in Hancock knew her, in fact.”
“That wasn’t your fault. She hated being here—not that she didn’t admit to the virtues of the suburbs, she just felt more at home in other environments.”
“So why did she come here?” Susan asked, a bit indignantly. If she didn’t like it here, why come and have affairs with the husbands in town? She was just about to ask out loud when Jesse Clark answered the question.
“She had an agreement with Richard Elliot to spend a certain part of each year with him in Hancock. I gather it was important to him to be here and uphold his standing in the community or some such nonsense. Evidently he felt that he needed a wife at his side to do so.”
“It helped his standing in the community that she was sleeping with people other than him?”
“I know. It doesn’t make sense. The only thought I have on the subject is that Richard Elliot is such a fool that he didn’t know. Or maybe such an egotist that he didn’t care.” He shook his head.
“You don’t like him.” It was a statement rather than a question.
“Does anyone?”
“Then why … ?”
“Did Dawn marry him?” he finished for her. “Good question. I’ve asked myself once or twice, although Dawn was a very private person and didn’t talk about her life to others—even relatives. But Richard Elliot has always been a puzzle. He was a fool when she married him. She was young, just twenty-one, but she was smart and she must have seen what he was. And then, if she did mistake his personality earlier, why stay married to him for all these years? Why not divorce him?” He looked straight into her eyes. “I think the answer to that question died along with my cousin.”
“Unless Richard knows,” Susan reminded him.
“Maybe. My own opinion is that he’s such an egotist that he probably thought she adored him for years despite all evidence to the contrary. God, I don’t know. Her life with him—her life here—it’s all a mystery to me. The Dawn I knew was passionate about her work, and fulfilled by it. What her life was like here in Connecticut is a mystery to me.”
“Why have you been hanging around my house?”
“You saw me?”
“Yes. Your car is pretty distinct, you know, with that smash in the side.”
“Actually, the car belongs to Dawn. I just bought a new sports car and I didn’t want to drive it on these roads, and she had ordered this Jeep that she was going to drive out to her digs in Mexico next month and asked me to pick it up for her a week ago. With this bad weather I thought it was a good time to try it out. Dawn wasn’t sure about how it would handle. She didn’t learn to drive until a year ago.”
Susan thought that was a strange insight into the life of a woman she would have described as very independent, but didn’t say anything.
“Mommy, the tape machine is broken. I can’t get the tapes to run anymore.” This wail came from a pajama-clad spotty child standing in the doorway.
“Oh, Chad …” Susan began, just stopping herself from telling him that she had forgotten him with the arrival of Jesse Clark. “I’ll check on the machine right now. It’s probably just overheated or something.” Like most mothers, Susan had developed more than a passing acquaintance with many machines, from video tape players to vaporizers to computer games. And there were some who said that most of a person’s learning took place before he was twenty.
“If you want me to look at it,” Jesse offered.
“No, it’s an old machine. It probably did overheat. I have a fan attached to it. It will only take a second.” She started to get up.
“Is that your car out front?” Chad demanded, still standing in the doorway.
“Sure is. You interested in cars?”
“In a Ferrari 328 GTB? You bet I am!” Chad moved toward the man as he spoke.
His mother grabbed him gently by the shoulder. “Don’t forget you’re sick, honey.”
“It’s all right, Mrs. Henshaw. I’ve had chicken pox. And people who love cars like to talk together, right, Chad?” He smiled as he spoke.
But Chad wasn’t heading for Jesse Clark, but for the window. He stood in the middle, staring out at the car in the driveway. “Wow. It looks brand-new.”
“Three weeks old. But it’s hardly been driven. The weather has been so bad that I was borrowing a Jeep from … from a friend,” he ended with a quick glance at Susan. “When you get well, I’ll give you a ride in it,” he offered.
“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” Susan began.
“I’d love to,” he insisted. “I think I owe you one after the mess I made. Besides, us car lovers have to stick together, right, Chad?”
“A ride in a Ferrari 328 GTB. Wow,” was Chad’s only comment. He hadn’t moved from the window.
“You have to get well first,” his mother reminded him.
“I think I’ll go look it up in my books,” Chad responded, forgetting his problem and leaving the room. “Thank you,” he paused and turned around to call out to Jesse Clark before bounding up the stairs to his bedroom.
“He seems to be feeling much better,” Susan said, relieved that the worst of the disease appeared over and dreading the boredom that would set in as recuperation began. She sighed.
“I think I’d better be going,” Jesse said, standing up and reaching for his coat. “I gather from what I heard of your conversation that the police are looking for me. I think it’s time to show up at their
offices. Maybe once I explain everything, I’ll be able to start driving the Jeep again. This snow …” He stopped and looked out the window. “This snow isn’t the environment the designers envisioned when they thought up the 328 GTB.”
V
“Look, it’s no problem for me. I haven’t got anything happening this week. Gotta fly to D.C. next Monday and meet with the Feds about a shitty little problem out in Pittsburgh, but I can spend the day right here at the Club if necessary.” Guy Frye took a sip of his coffee and rocked back in his chair, a position that displayed his bulging stomach fully.
“I’m okay unless someone decides to have a baby a little early. But they can call me.” Dan Hallard patted his beeper, unconsciously imitating fictional cowboys speaking of their trusty six-shooter. He was also drinking coffee.
The third member of their party was talking on the phone that the bartender had plugged into the jack under the table where they sat. Few of his words could be overheard, but apparently there were problems on the other end of the line. After running his hands through his hair a few times and crumbling a croissant all over his plate and a large portion of the tablecloth, he grew impatient with the person he was speaking to. “Listen, I know things are backing up, but with this lousy weather and the new baby and all, I’ve had problems just getting into the city. And concentrating at my house is impossible. Gloria is in such a tizzy about the whole approval process for Missy’s adoption that she does nothing but wash the baby and vacuum the floor. Just tell him that I’m snowed in and I’ll write both reports today and have them on his desk first thing tomorrow morning. I don’t know how! Just tell him!” And Harvey Bower angrily slammed down the phone. “Why is it that every good secretary I find gets pregnant?” he asked rhetorically and reached for the silver pot of coffee that had been placed on the table. “Is this stuff still hot?”
As if on cue, the white-jacketed waiter moved from behind the bar and placed a fresh steaming pot before the men. Two of them, having a late brunch in the bar of the Hancock Field Club, where they were all members, didn’t notice the efficiency. But Dan Hallard smiled. He’d waited on tables to get spending money in college and medical school, and he knew exceptional service when he saw it. The other two men, raised in towns like Hancock, took such service as their due. He reached across the table and refilled the cups before speaking. “Now that we have our work schedules figured out, I think we’d better do some serious thinking. Why don’t we start by pooling our information?”
The Fortieth Birthday Body Page 19