Regrets Only (35 page)

“Do you know whether they were in contact?”

“I don’t. I gave Avery the information we had and left the decision up to her. By that point Morgan’s name had been all over the papers in connection with the Wilder Center. Information was easy to come by. I also told Avery that if there was anything she wanted or needed to discuss with me, I would try my best to answer. She hasn’t raised the issue since. But I can’t tell you what conversations she might have had with Faith.”

“Are you aware that she’s a beneficiary of Morgan’s life insurance?”

“Life insurance?” He shook his head. “I was not. But I expect paper-work would have gone to our house in Gladwyne. I haven’t been back. Faith forwards only the bills, and even those arrive late.”

“Does your daughter have any history of mental illness?” Harper asked.

“How in hell’s name is that relevant?” Leedes said before Bill could respond.

“I know what you’re thinking, Detective, given Foster’s . . . situation. But I can assure you that Avery is different. She’s outspoken and strong-willed. She seems quite sure of herself and has never had a problem getting what she wants. I’ve never seen signs of anything like depression.”

“Is she right- or left-handed?”

The question startled him. “Right-. Right-handed.”

“And where is she now?”

“Avery is at an all-girls preparatory school in Maryland. A place called Garrison Forest. She’s taking her final exams in the next several days. I imagine with all that has happened in the past six months, she’ll be quite happy to be home for the summer.”

“How can we reach her?”

“As I said, she’ll be here in a week. I can arrange something with you once she’s here.”

“And Bill will be present at any interview. She is a minor,” Carson instructed.

He shook his head. “I can be there if she wants me to be. It’s up to her. As I said, I’m done treating her as a child.”

“Do you know whether she’s aware of Morgan’s death?” This time, O’Malley asked the question. Her voice was a pleasant change from the aggressive tone Harper had taken to fire his barrage of inquiries.

“I haven’t told her. But I suspect Faith will have by now, no doubt with some degree of relief. Nobody wants a tragedy to strike, but I’m sure my wife wasn’t too disappointed to learn that the source of her fears had been destroyed.”

Jack and Lucy were silent on the way down in the elevator. Bill’s parting comments implied that Faith Herbert had joined the crowd of celebrators over Morgan’s death, but it was no doubt a comment born of complicated emotions. The man was obviously distraught over the loss of his son, and no one ended a marriage feeling nothing.

A bell rang, the elevator stopped, and a fat woman carrying two full shopping bags waddled on at the fourth floor. She smiled as she awkwardly pushed her way in and struggled to turn around. Lucy moved closer to the wall and focused on the illuminated buttons to avoid staring at the several black hairs that protruded from a large mole on the woman’s ear.

Her mind wandered as she thought of the destruction of the Herbert family and her sense that Bill had been passive throughout. She remembered an amateur boxing tournament she’d read about in Florida. A 280-pound mother of two had volunteered to compete, had actually paid to enter the ring against another untrained woman. But her opponent had been too fierce, pounding her repeatedly until she dropped dead on the mat. All the while her husband and children had been watching, cheering her on, rooting for her. By the time they’d realized she was in trouble, it was too late.

They’d later claimed there was nothing they could have done.

27

6:58 p.m
.

L
ucy and Archer both stood up as the massive double doors to the library opened. Elegantly dressed in a tweed jacket, a navy polo shirt, and dark slacks, Rodman entered, nodded to Archer, and extended a hand to Lucy. Despite the formality, he looked peaked with pallid skin, drawn cheeks, and dark circles under his eyes. It seemed hard to believe that her lunch with him at the Cricket Club had been only two days before.

“Do sit down,” he said, as the tall clock chimed seven o’clock.

Lucy resettled on the striped love seat. Archer sat in a leather wing chair opposite.

Rodman walked past them to the butler’s tray table that held a crystal decanter and several tumblers and poured a healthy drink. He turned in their direction. “Archer tells me you wanted to discuss your . . . investigation. I don’t know that I can be of use to you, but proceed if you must.”

Her whole body felt tense. She had the desperate urge to stand and stretch, to roll her head on her shoulders, anything to rid herself of the nervous stiffening that seemed to overtake her body. Approaching her boyfriend’s father to inquire about his ex-wife was far more difficult than even she’d imagined. She glanced at her notepad. Although she knew exactly the areas she needed to cover, it helped to focus on her own scribbled handwriting. She spoke without glancing up. “I need to ask you about your divorce.”

He answered quickly. “There’s little to tell. We’d been married five years. Archer had just turned three. I returned from a weeklong business trip to New York, and Morgan announced that she’d rented an apartment in Center City and hired an attorney. She left that evening.”

“Did she give you a reason?”

“Detective O’Malley, what transpires between a man and his wife is private. The failure of that marriage changes nothing.”

“Call me Lucy,” she replied. “And that may be so, but privacy often yields when one spouse winds up murdered.”

“The fact that Morgan is dead has no bearing on this.”

“I need help. This case is in its fifth day, and believe me, that’s a long time in the spectrum of a homicide investigation.”

He took a step back, banging into the tray table behind him. The stopper rattled against the decanter.

Archer sat with his legs crossed, his right ankle propped on his left knee. His elbows rested on the arms of his chair, and he chewed on a thumbnail. “Help Lucy out, Dad. It’d be the chivalrous thing to do after all. She’s just doing her job,” he muttered, sarcastically.

“I’ve had enough from you,” Rodman said, pointing a finger in his son’s direction. “You may be perfectly content to air our dirty laundry about your mother, but I’m not.”

Archer stood abruptly. “She left you. She left me. What are you protecting?”

He stared down into his tumbler and then shook it slightly, as if to rattle invisible ice cubes. Some of the brown liquor splashed out onto his lapel, but he didn’t appear to notice.

“Did you know she had two more children?” Archer blurted out.

Rodman’s eyes widened. He coughed. “What are you talking about? That’s preposterous.”

“The person on the insurance policy—Avery Herbert. That’s Morgan’s daughter. There was a boy, too. A set of twins. Lucy discovered that.”

“I don’t believe it for a moment. Morgan wouldn’t have made the same mistake twice.”

“Is that what I was? A mistake?” Archer shouted. “For her, or for you, too?”

Rodman appeared momentarily confused. “This is absurd. I gave my life to you, to raise you. I won’t have you addressing me in that manner. You—” He turned to Lucy. “Was this your grand design? To turn the few surviving members of the Haverill family on each other and see what you could uncover? Where you come from that sort of feeding frenzy may be appropriate, but not here. Not in my house. I don’t appreciate your meddling.”

“She’s trying to find my mother’s killer. Don’t be a fucking snob.”

Rodman glared. “And don’t you ever speak to me that way again.”

“Stop!” Lucy held up her hand. “Calm down, both of you. Look, I know this is hard for everybody. Mr. Haverill, why don’t you sit down? Archer, you too. I’m not trying to whip up anything. Hysteria in my line of work tends to be counterproductive, and believe it or not, I have no prurient interest in your family troubles, whatever they may be. I know from my own experience how difficult it is to deal with painful topics. There are plenty of times when I’d be just as happy to put my head in the sand. But I do need some basic answers that perhaps, Mr. Haverill, you can provide.”

Much to her surprise, both father and son followed her instructions. Archer returned to the wing chair and Rodman sat in a Chippendale armchair from which he could still reach the drinks tray. With their stiff postures and extended chins, the resemblance was obvious.

“Now, why don’t you tell me what happened between you and your ex-wife.”

“And you have yet to explain how any of this is relevant to her death.”

Lucy bit her lip. It was a valid condition, but not one to which she was accustomed. When faced with a detective, most people either volunteered information or asked for a lawyer. They didn’t negotiate. “As part of a murder investigation, we often have to re- create the victim’s life. Understanding the person who died—in this case Morgan—is part of figuring out who would have wanted to kill her. Frankly, the bits and pieces we’ve learned about her life thus far don’t fit together, or at least not well.”

“I’m not sure I understand. What about all your forensic people? Aren’t they supposed to come up with the answers? Why are you asking me about what transpired decades ago?”

“Our criminalistics people examine the crime scene. They gather clues that tell us how a person died. They also tell us what the killer left behind. But they don’t tell us why. And without a why, all the clues in the world don’t always lead to a who. I told you last weekend when I was at your dining room table that part of my work is to hear the dead speak from the grave, but I’m realizing that’s not possible. A victim needs the people who knew her to speak on her behalf.”

“So you’re not listening to voices after all?” he said. “I suppose that’s a step in the right direction.”

“I like my job too much to leave it,” she said, remembering her feeble attempt at humor from that first dinner.

“Ah.”

“So, will you help?”

He scanned the room, his eyes resting on the French doors, and the view beyond of the flagstone patio and gardens. “She . . . I . . . I knew she was unhappy. You have to understand that when we met, she was so young. Barely eighteen. Except for a trip with her grandmother to Paris, she’d seen nothing of the world.”

“How did you meet?”

He paused, as if to drum up the memory. When he spoke, his voice was softer. “Although I was fifteen years her senior, I received an invitation to her debutante party. I’d known her parents, not well, but we were generally considered part of the same social set, attended the same Quaker meetinghouse. Her father and I had the same alma mater. I hardly think they considered me a candidate for their daughter’s affections.” He chuckled. “It was quite a lavish affair, really, hundreds of people under a big white tent with panels that opened to the sky. The band played until the early-morning hours. Morgan couldn’t have been more radiant in a long white dress with tiny pearl buttons and white gloves that came up over her elbows. She was a lovely woman.” He closed his eyes. “After dinner, I asked her to dance and . . . and we did, song after song. Other men tried to cut in, and she politely declined. That I would receive such attention . . .” His voice drifted off. When he spoke again, his tone was decidedly more matter-of-fact. “I should have known she was not a woman to pin down. At one point that evening, she whispered to me, ‘I play along because this gala is my ticket out. A grand way to travel, don’t you think?’ I was so swept up in her presence that I didn’t ask her to explain. I never asked her to explain anything. Two months later, I took her to Italy—Milan, Venice—and proposed to her in Portofino on a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean. But I should have known that first evening. She was restless. Morgan never wanted domesticity. She wanted to escape her own upbringing.”

“So why marry you?” Lucy asked.

“I’ve asked myself that same question a hundred times and have never come up with a perfect answer. How ironic that analysis became her profession.” Rodman stood, refilled his glass, and moved toward the love seat. He rested one hand on the upholstered back. “She mistook the difference in our age for something more than it was. She thought it made me different from the other men . . . the boys, really . . . whom she’d dated. And . . . and I think she misunderstood what I might offer.”

“In what way?”

“I was president of my company by the time we met. She thought that because I was in charge of my own destiny it would bring her freedom, independence. She wouldn’t have to help a husband establish himself as so many of her peers were doing. She tended to view the world quite simply.”

“She didn’t want to schmooze with the partners so she married the man at the top?”

“That’s a rather vulgar way to put it, but probably not inaccurate.”

“Then she got what she wanted. What was the problem?”

“She didn’t know what she wanted. Rather like her son, I might add, although I expect he won’t be flattered by the comparison.”

Lucy glanced at Archer, but his blank expression revealed nothing, no doubt because he was numb to Rodman’s persistent criticism.

“As far as I could tell,” Rodman continued, “her only valid complaint was that I had discouraged employment, which I had indeed. She had a baby. She had a house to maintain and a staff to run.”

“What did she want to do?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. She had no higher education. We married before she’d even completed the first of a two-year college program. I don’t know what she could have done. The thought never occurred to me. She was my wife. That was supposed to be enough.” He pursed his lips.

“Did you stay in touch with her after she moved out?”

“Initially, our communication was quite frequent. There were matters pertaining to the divorce. And . . . and there was the issue of Archer.”

“The
issue
of me, I’ll remember that.” Archer poured himself a drink, too. Holding the decanter, he extended his arm toward his father, offering a refill, but Rodman didn’t appear to notice. Archer threw back his head and drained the tumbler in one sip. Then he refilled the glass and repeated the process.