Deadly Rich (37 page)

Cardozo angled his head. “There were eight guests.”

“All my tables seat eight, it’s my lucky number.”

“Aldrich … Gardner … Duke …”

“May they rest in peace.” Annie sighed.

“Spahn … Braidy …” Cardozo looked up. “Who’s Chappell, S.?”

“Sorry Chappell. Sorry’s short for Sorella. She’s an interior designer.”

“And Gurdon, F.?”

“Fenny. Short for Fennimore. Fenny and Sorry are partners.”

“And van Slyke, L.?”

“Lucius.” Annie sighed. “You don’t have to worry about him. He died in a sailboat accident last summer in Dark Harbor.” She had a hollow feeling inside. She lit herself another cigarette. “Lieutenant, do you know what I’m sitting here thinking? By the time this Society Sam bastard gets through, I won’t have any friends left. And I’m too old and too tired to make any new ones.” She exhaled and watched the smoke drift away. “Of course, with any luck, he’ll kill me next.”

“You may not be on his list,” Cardozo said.

“That’s encouraging,” Annie said. “Care to tell me why not?”

“You testified for Nita’s character, but you didn’t sit at that table.”

“I see. He’s choosy. Then what are my chances, Lieutenant—fifty-fifty?”

“You’ll be safe, Mrs. MacAdam. But I need to talk to these other people. Could you lend me your living room?”

“
THE THREE PEOPLE
who’ve died so far,” Cardozo said, “are linked. All three sat at the same table at Annie MacAdam’s dinner party six years ago. All three went on from that party to the Emergency Room at Lexington Hospital. Two years later, at the trial of Jim Delancey, all three testified for Nita Kohler’s character.”

Cardozo stood in front of the fireplace in Annie MacAdam’s living room. Seven men and women had taken seats in a semicircle facing him.

“We could be dealing with coincidence,” he said. “But we can’t make that assumption. There’s a possibility that Society Sam is killing for a reason, and one of these links could be that reason. If so, he’s going to target the surviving members of one of the three groups: the dinner table, or the guests who went to the hospital, or the witnesses at the trial.”

It was only eleven in the morning, but Gabrielle MacAdam, wearing an I’m-not-here face, circulated quietly with a tray of drinks.

“The dinner table gives us the largest pool: Oona Aldrich and Avalon Gardner—already killed by Society Sam. Dizey Duke, dead in what may or may not have been an accidental fall. Plus Lucius van Slyke—who died in a boating accident over a year ago.”

“Lucky Lucius,” Dick Braidy whispered. “At least he’s out of this.”

“Plus Gloria Spahn, plus Benedict Braidy, plus Sorella Chappell, plus Fennimore Gurdon—all still living, and all present.”

“God be praised.” Sorella Chappell, looking agitated in pink, reached out and squeezed Gloria Spahn’s hand.

“The hospital gives us a smaller pool: Society Sam’s three victims, plus Gloria Spahn, plus Benedict Braidy. The trial gives us the three victims, plus Benedict Braidy, Sorella Chappell, Fennimore Gurdon—and three new names: Annie MacAdam, Leigh Baker, and Tori Sandberg.”

Annie MacAdam held up her highball and sent a silent longdistance clink to Tori Sandberg and another to Leigh Baker.

“Since we don’t know which of these groups is the target, we have to assume they’re all targeted. And that means, starting today, the police will provide round-the-clock security for each one of you.”

“A cop guard?” Sorella Chappell cried.

“We’re going to try to accomplish this with the least possible inconvenience or hassle to any of you. Your guards will not be in uniform.”

“Do we get to pick our guard’s sex?” Fennimore Gurdon said.

“No.”

“Are we allowed to refuse the security?”

“I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“Are we expected to change our life-styles?” Annie MacAdam said.

“Realize two things and act accordingly: Your lives may be in danger, but the danger is minimal so long as you cooperate with your guard.”

“What does
act accordingly
mean?” Tori Sandberg said.

“For one thing, try not to be alone on the street or in places open to the public—restaurants, movies, theaters.”

“You mean when I go to the john in a restaurant,” Gloria Spahn said, “take a friend?”

“That wouldn’t be a bad idea. Or if you have a same-sex guard, take your guard.”

“Does that mean we have to get our guards invited when we go anywhere?” Fennimore Gurdon said.

“No. Your guard isn’t expecting to share your social life. But he or she has to know where you are at all times.”

“But that means
I
have to know,” Sorella Chappell said.

“Does that pose a problem?”

“Sometimes I like to make my day up as I go along.”

“You may have to plan a little more tightly than that for a while.”

“Wouldn’t it be more efficient if I just took my guard with me when I go anywhere?”

“Cops can’t accept services or gratuities from civilians. Your guard expects to drive himself—but he also expects to know your itinerary.”

“Then wouldn’t it be simpler,” Dick Braidy said, “if our guards drove us too?”

“Cops are barred by statute from providing transportation to civilians. That would be embezzlement of city services.”

“Wouldn’t it be a lot less expensive,” Leigh Baker said, “just to lock Jim Delancey up?”

“If Delancey is responsible for these killings, yes, it would, but the law doesn’t allow us to make that assumption.”

“Have you at least got someone watching him?” Leigh Baker said.

“We’re aware of his movements. He spends most of his time at work or at home.”

“And where’s his home?” Leigh Baker said.

“I don’t believe that information is germane,” Cardozo said.

“Beekman Place,” Sorella Chappell said. “Jim Delancey and his mother share an apartment in the co-op next to mine.”

“Miss Chappell,” Cardozo said, “that was not helpful.”

Benedict Braidy whistled softly. “Beekman Place is an awfully snazzy address for a shop clerk and glorified busboy.”

“W
HAT KILLED HER?” CARDOZO
said.

Dan Hippolito steepled his fingers under his nose and jittered the fingertips together. “By suffering exactly the injuries you’d expect in any seventy-eight-year-old woman who fell five stories onto hard earth.”

They were sitting in Dan Hippolito’s subterranean office. The preliminary bloodwork on Dizey Duke was a stack of computer pages on the desk.

“Seventy-eight?” Cardozo didn’t quite manage to keep the surprise out of his voice.

“How old did she claim to be?”

“I don’t know what she claimed, but I always thought late fifties.”

“Dizey Duke was doubtless very young in spirit, an example to us all, but her bones had reached a very brittle old age.”

Cardozo had a nagging sense that something here was wildly out of whack. “You said hard earth. She fell onto a lawn.”

Dan Hippolito raised a weary hand. “This woman was in the eighth decade of life. The garden had flagstones. Vince, I know you want to tie her in with the other two, but all this woman’s body is going to show is, she fell.”

“No defensive wounds?”

“There’s one fresh bruise.” Dan Hippolito laid a glossy on the desktop. It showed the palm of Dizey Duke’s left hand. A bruise ran like a faint purple stamp along the crease.

“What caused it?”

“Impact. Something struck her hard enough to rupture a vessel.”

“A blade?”

“Possibly the flat of a blade.”

Cardozo rotated the glossy, studying the palm from different orientations. “Could she have been fending off a blow?”

“It’s possible for a right-handed person to fend off a blow with her left hand. A little unusual. Where you used to see a lot of these bruises is on young parochial-school students. Back in the days when the Sisters were allowed to use corporal punishment. The child would lay his or her left hand on the desk palm up, and Sister would thwack with a ruler. The meaner Sisters used steel rulers.”

“We know Dizey wasn’t in parochial school. At least not at the time of her death.”

“Lucky for the school. She would have been a pretty unruly student. The alcohol level in the blood is the equivalent of eight very strong martinis.”

“Eight?” Cardozo laid the glossy back on the desk. “No one mentioned she was
stinking
drunk.”

“Maybe she could hold it. She was built like a workhorse. Maybe everyone else was drunk. Maybe the word
drunk
has a special meaning in Dizey Duke’s set.”

“Any other drugs?”

“She used a hell of a lot of cortisone—probably to control the arthritis. And a lot of codeine—I assume for arthritis pain. She was a daily amphetamine and barbiturate abuser. Probably her doctor was maintaining her. Amphetamine to get her through the day, barbiturate to get her through the night.”

“Would that affect her sense of balance?”

“Absolutely. This woman would have been at risk getting out of a chair, let alone sitting in a box at the opera.”

“I know it’s an odd question to ask about a senior citizen, but did she have sex before she died?”

“Not that odd, Vince. But in Dizey’s case there was no semen , in the vagina or mouth or anus.”

“Pubic hairs?”

“Only her own, where God put them.” Dan Hippolito folded his arms across the front of his smock. It had a faint arc of laundered bloodstain below the neck. “All I’m giving you is preliminary conclusions, if you’ll excuse the oxymoron, based on a cursory visual examination and initial bloodwork. We haven’t cut yet. We haven’t analyzed tissue. But she doesn’t fit with your other two victims. No stab wounds. Throat untouched. The only breaks in her skin are where bones fractured through. When we go inside we’ll find out a lot more about her drug habits—and her nutrition, which was piss-poor. This woman must have lived on booze and animal fats and desserts, but we’re not going to find parallel lines and dots carved on her internal organs.”

A kind of stillness seemed to fall from the air ducts in the ceiling.

Cardozo heaved himself to his feet. “It’s weird. Because in other respects she fits. She’s the kind of victim Society Sam likes.”

“From what I can gather,” Dan Hippolito said, “Society Sam has pretty broad tastes.”

“
DIZEYS ONLY FAMILY,
” Ellie Siegel said, “is her mother Etiennette, who lives in a nursing home in Billings, Montana.”

Cardozo sat drumming his fingers against his desktop.

“There’s an ex-husband in Manila but no children or siblings.” Ellie turned a page in her notepad. “Dizey named three beneficiaries: her mother, her assistant Mac, and the Gay Men’s Health Crisis.”

The cubicle was just large enough for Ellie to take three steps before she had to turn around. She took the third step and turned.

“The mother is one hundred seven years old, and she spent yesterday on the back porch of the nursing home. Mac was at the memorial party when Dizey died, but he was indoors and she was on the terrace. The Gay Men’s Health Crisis, so far as I know, isn’t killing people who name it as a beneficiary.”

Cardozo still didn’t speak. He pushed his lips together into a thoughtful, lopsided pout.

“Vince, you do not have the look of a happy man. Tell me what’s bothering you.”

“Dizey Duke wasn’t Society Sam’s M.O. And serial killers practically never change their method.”

Ellie raised her shoulders in a what-can-you-do-about-it shrug. “To me that’s statistics—and statistics are compiled from events, not vice versa. Just because Society Sam stabbed two doesn’t mean he can’t push the third off a roof.”

“I’m not happy with it.”

“No one’s telling you this is cause for celebration, but why make it more of a mystery than it is? Look
who
he’s killing, not how. Aldrich and Gardner were glitz-ditzes. Dizey Duke was the official media motor-mouth of the social bunny-hop.” Ellie angled her head to see the files open on Cardozo’s desktop.

“What do you see?” he said.

Ellie frowned at the glossies. “I see two hands. Two left hands. An old left hand and a young left hand. I can’t see the nails, since these are shots of the palm, but I’d say the hands are female.”

She picked up the glossies.

“I see a bruise in the palm of each hand. The bruise runs approximately two inches along the crease of each palm. I’d guess that a similar object made the two bruises. Maybe the same object. The object has a straight, sharp edge but not necessarily a cutting edge.” Ellie laid the glossies back down. “Am I close?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea.”

Ellie tapped her finger on the newer glossy. “This is obviously Dizey’s hand. Whose hand is the other?”

“Nita Kohler’s.”

Ellie picked up the Kohler glossy again. “On the one hand, excuse the pun, the bruise isn’t your classic Society Sam marking.” She stood there knitting her eyebrows together. “On the other hand, we do know who made the bruise on Nita Kohler’s palm.”

“
GUESS WHAT.” LOU
Stein allowed a suspenseful little silence to come across the phone line. “There was a wad of tissue in the left cup of Dizey’s bra.”

Cardozo’s desk lamp dimmed and began buzzing. He slammed his fist down onto the desktop. The light blinked out and then came nervously back to normal wattage. “What was she doing, padding?”

“Doubt it. Bras have been coming prepadded for quite a few decades. Not that she needed the extra. But a lot of women use their bra as a sort of purse-away-from-the-purse. Anything can go there—money, cigarettes, drugs, phone numbers. These were used tissues.”

“Used for what?”

“Come on, Vince, what do you use tissue for?”

“I know what I use them for, I want to know what she used them for.”

“Blowing her nose.”

“So you got snot off the tissue.”

“Trace snot. She had blood in her sinuses. But also—and this is what’s going to interest you—the tissue had been saturated in corn, barley, artificial caramel color, sodium, sodium saccharine, and caffeine.”

“What does that add up to?”

“It adds up to a diet cola drink laced with second-rate Scotch.”