How to Murder a Millionaire (27 page)

I kissed him on the mouth. It felt like the natural thing. He tugged my ponytail.

Lexie turned away and got very busy with orange juice and the aspirin bottle. I could see her smiling.

Abruzzo said, "What's the plan?"

"I hate to say it," I told them, "but I need to go to a party tonight. The rehearsal dinner for the Treese-Kintswell wedding."

Lexie came back with pills and juice. "The whole cast of suspects will be there."

"And Ralph will have to explain one way or another where Libby is."

Abruzzo said, "The New Hope cops kept him half the night. He still claims Libby is visiting a friend in New York. They're looking into it."

I didn't ask how he came by his information. "With the wedding tomorrow, Libby has to show up. Or Ralph's story will have to change."

"And Emma?" Lexie asked.

The question hung in the air. I popped the aspirin and washed them down with juice.

Abruzzo said, "I think we should go talk to the people Emma works with. The cops did that yesterday, but maybe you know better questions to ask."

"And," I said, "Lexie, you'll go see Jonathan Longnecker?"

She nodded. "I'm gonna twist his balls until he screams."

"Yeow," said Abruzzo with a grin.

"If he has anything more to tell," she promised, "I'll get it."

Outside, we got into our respective vehicles—today a snub-nosed white Corvette for Abruzzo and me, another new BMW for Lexie. The two guys still changing
tires watched Lexie slide into her car. When she drove past them, she tilted down her sunglasses and took a long look, too.

I said to Abruzzo, "You have resources I never imagined."

He smiled. "People come in handy."

"Do all these men work for you or something?" I asked without thinking.

"Or something," he admitted.

We drove out to Paddy Horgan's barn, just a few miles north of Blackbird Farm. The morning sun shone on his house, three pristine stable buildings, a large indoor ring and an outside exercise yard. White-painted fences surrounded pasture that rolled away from the buildings in undulating hillocks. From a paddock below the stables, a trio of fat mares swished their tails and watched our arrival. When we stopped, a Jack Russell terrier burst out from under a parked horse trailer and attacked the tires of the Corvette.

We got out of the car and could hear voices inside the indoor ring. I made a dash in that direction while Abruzzo sacrificed himself as a decoy for the dog.

Paddy Horgan stood in the center of the ring, breathing dust while riders cantered two enormous chestnut horses around an obstacle course of elaborate hurdles. The riders took turns leaping their lathered mounts over the impossibly tall jumps. The horses snorted with each stride and kicked up clouds of sawdust. The sharp noise of hooves rapping on the rails occasionally rang out. Leaning on a cane, Paddy bellowed instructions. The riders grimly obeyed.

Paddy, a burly man with little patience and a lot of arrogance, came over and told me exactly what he'd said the day before about Emma. She hadn't come to
work, she hadn't called. Then he waved his cane and chewed me out for making the police come to cross-examine him yesterday when he had work to do.

I snapped that maybe he could be a little helpful considering all the work Emma had done for him over the years, which sent him into a tirade.

Then Abruzzo loomed in the doorway, cradling the tamed terrier in one arm and rubbing her tummy. Paddy quit shouting and went back to work.

Abruzzo said, "Horgan has a lot of charm."

"That doesn't mean you can steal his dog."

He sighed and put the Jack Russell on the ground. It raced us back to the car, where a motley crew of even more dogs had gathered, all with tongues lolling. A woolly black Newfoundland lay panting in a puddle, her swollen belly evidence that she had a litter of nursing puppies somewhere nearby. Two miscellaneous hounds and a Dalmatian joined the terrier in joyously chasing us down the driveway to the highway.

"Learn anything new?"

"Just that you like dogs."

"Don't you?"

"I love dogs. I just don't want to own one."

We didn't get three miles down the road before a police car drew up behind us and flipped on its lights and siren.

Abruzzo glanced into the rearview mirror and cursed.

"What?" I asked, craning around. "Were you speeding?"

"Listen, this happens all the time. Just keep your hands out where they can see, and don't get upset."

"But—"

"Here's my phone. If they take me for questions,
call Reed. He'll drive you where you need to go today." He pulled over and shut off the car.

"Why would they arrest you?"

"They're not arresting me. You've heard of the usual suspects? Well, I'm number one on their hit parade. The good news is this means they're looking for Emma and Libby."

"But you have nothing to do with that. This isn't fair. Do you have a lawyer?"

He laughed at me, rolled down the window and placed his hands on the steering wheel.

The cop asked for his license, and Abruzzo said it was in his hip pocket before he moved to reach it. Another patrol car pulled in behind the first, and while the first cop spoke with Abruzzo, the second came to my side of the car and asked me to step out of the car. I did, and he asked if I was okay.

"Of course I'm okay. What's going on here?"

A third patrol car pulled in front of the Corvette and suddenly the incident began to look like a capture on
America's Most Wanted.
Red lights flashed. Police radios squawked.

"This is ridiculous," I said. "You can't do this!"

"Just step over here, Miss."

Despite my protests, they put him into a patrol car and took him away.

I phoned Tom Nelson, the lawyer in Philadelphia. He said he'd look into it, but he imagined Abruzzo had lawyers up the wazoo and didn't need any further assistance. Besides, unless somebody filed charges, he'd be out by tomorrow.

To me, tomorrow sounded far away.

I made phone calls all afternoon. Lexie reported
in, saying she was in touch with the Reese-Goldman museum. The local police wouldn't discuss Abruzzo, but they finally reported the discovery of Emma's truck and were officially declaring her missing. At last I got through to Detective Bloom, who said he wanted to see me.

"Why? Am I being arrested?"

"No," he said patiently, having already endured my diatribe about false arrest, unlawful imprisonment, slipshod police work and the general state of law enforcement. "We just need more information from you. Are you coming into the city today?"

I told him about the rehearsal dinner for the Treese-Kintswell wedding. He said he'd meet me there before the dinner.

I dressed in another of Grandmama's Saint Laurent masterpieces, an austere ice-blue sateen that balanced on my collarbones. My hands trembled as I fastened the small hooks. My missing sisters had never felt so far away.

Before Reed arrived to drive me, I sat in the quiet kitchen, closed my eyes and tried to arrange all the information that seemed to float inside my head like a hundred goldfish swimming in a too-small bowl. All the thoughts seemed random. I couldn't make them organize. I could make them slow down if I concentrated. But I couldn't quite manage to bring all the clues into a pattern.

I just needed a little more information for it all to make sense.

Reed picked me up and drove me to Shively House in Philadelphia.

The Shivelys had been a family who imported munitions during the Civil War, and their restored home was open for daylight tours and nighttime special
events. A favorite place for Ralph Kintswell, who served on the board of the foundation, it was just the right size for a small dinner. He had rented the whole house and gardens to celebrate his son's upcoming wedding, and Main Events was catering.

I arrived early, as agreed with Detective Bloom. He was waiting for me on the steps of the house, eating a hot dog like a kid at a baseball game. He wolfed the last bite and came down to the car, wiping his hand on a paper napkin. His black raincoat blew open in the light breeze.

"Hey," he said, slamming the car door behind me as I stepped out. He ignored Reed. "I'm glad you could come early." He took my elbow and hustled me onto the sidewalk.

I glanced back at Reed and waved before asking Bloom, "Do you have some news about Libby?"

"I'm sorry, no. We talked to Ralph Kintswell, but he still claims his wife is in New York and will come tonight."

"I hope so," I said.

"Me, too. Let's go into the park to talk, okay?"

Other cars were soon to arrive, so he ushered me around the side of Shively House along a brick sidewalk that was shielded from the street by a tightly grown privet hedge, about knee high. Alongside the house, a precise, geometric knot garden had been planted with herbs, pansies and tiny white alyssum. We entered the space through a break in the hedge. I could see the trucks from Main Events parked behind the garden, and waiters moved between the trucks and the back door of Shively House.

Bloom headed for a stone bench in the center of the formal garden.

I said, "Have you learned anything at all?"

He shoved the crumpled paper napkin into the pocket of his raincoat and sat down. I realized how exhausted he looked. Like a boy who'd stayed up too late, he had blue circles under his eyes. I'd been angry with him for not finding Libby for me, but now I could see he'd been plenty busy looking for Rory's killer.

My heart softened. But I did not sit on the stone bench. I might have been upset, but I wasn't crazy enough to sit on outdoor furniture in my grandmother's Saint Laurent. "You've been working hard."

He nodded. "Maybe so, but not hard enough. Listen, the investigation's gone in a direction I don't like. But my own leads haven't panned out. There's a lot of pressure from upstairs for an arrest."

"You think the wrong person will be arrested?"

He looked up at me. "It's very possible."

"Who?"

"Mrs. Treese."

"But that's ridiculous!"

"Maybe to you, but she's the best we've got. At least we're holding off until this wedding is over tomorrow." He ran one hand through his hair. "If we're wrong and arrest the woman on the day of her granddaughter's wedding, the department will never live it down."

I saw his point. No amount of spin could undo the damage of a weeping grandmother hauled off to jail on the evening news.

"There's just not enough physical evidence," he went on, "tying her to the murder. We know she spent time in Pendergast's study, but there's no sign of her in the bedroom."

"No DNA?"

Bloom shook his head. "Nothing. Which is weird in itself."

"What
do
you mean?"

"Pendergast is covered in stuff because he shook hands with nearly a hundred people that night. But the pillow is clean. Nothing but his own and the housekeeper's. She made the bed."

"What do you want from me?"

"I'm sorry," he said. "I shouldn't be asking you. My ass is in a sling already, but I need somebody's slant on this. Somebody who knows these people better than I do."

We heard a shout from the back door of the house—a waiter calling to someone in one of the Main Events trucks.

I said, "What do you need to know?"

"If she and Pendergast were lovers, how come we can't find even so much as a hair of hers in that bedroom?"

"They were together," I said, "but that doesn't necessarily mean they were physically intimate."

"Get this," he said. "We found out that the prescription for Viagra was Harold Tackett's. Does that make sense to you?"

"It does. The thing is—"

Another shout from the caterers. This time we both looked up.

One of the waiters ran from the house to the truck. A chef came hastily out of the kitchen next, and two more young women followed him at a trot. I saw Jill Mascione come outside, too.

I called to her and waved.

She saw me and headed into the garden, jumping over the pansies instead of taking the brick pathway. She shouted, "We're evacuating! Everybody's supposed to get out of the building."

"What's wrong?" Bloom was on his feet.

Jill shook her head and looked back at the house. "I don't know. Somebody said it was a bomb threat."

"A bomb!" Involuntarily, I caught Jill's arm. "Good Lord, here? At Shively House?"

"I know," she said. "But it sounds serious."

Bloom took off at a run.

"I can't believe it," said Jill. "This has never happened to us before. What bastard would do this? It's so sick! For a wedding rehearsal, for godsake!"

She didn't look frightened. Angry was more like it. She said, "If Ralph thinks he's going to get out of paying this tab, he'd better think again. We bought all this food!"