The Cold Blue Blood (22 page)
“Okay, sure,” he said, tucking it into his pocket. “You coming out?” He meant to the island.
“In a while.”
“Later, then, Lieutenant.” He started away from her car and stopped. “Oh, there was one other thing …”
“What is it, Mr. Berger?” she asked wearily.
He grinned at her. “I still can’t get you to call me Mitch, can I?”
“What is it, Mr. Berger?” she repeated, louder this time.
“Okay, okay … I don’t buy a married man like Niles Seymour stashing a girl like Torry Mordarski at the Saybrook Point Inn. It’s no place for a secret tryst. If anything, it’s a place to go if you
want
to be seen. It doesn’t add up. Not if they were trying to keep their affair under wraps.”
Des did not say a word to that. She did not say that the same exact thing had occurred to her when she was there. She just nodded and watched him go tromping back out to the island on the wooden bridge.
When he’d made it about halfway across Mitch Berger paused to wave to her. She raised a hand in grudging response. She was still trying to decide just exactly what he’d meant when he called her a “real first-class individual.” She didn’t know whether to be flattered or insulted. All she knew was that he was no slouch himself. Bachelor’s degree from Columbia. Master’s degree from Columbia Journalism School. And his late wife had been Park Avenue all the way—the Brearley School, Bennington, Harvard Graduate School of Design.
Watching him disappear, Des realized that her hands were trembling and her stomach was in knots. Which was her body’s own unique way of telling her it had just been in close physical contact with someone of surging hormonal interest. Surprised and aghast, Des lunged for her sketch pad. Propped it against her steering wheel. Stared out at the island.
Draw what you see, not what you know.
Des took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Eyes tightly shut, she drew.
A REAL FIRST-CLASS INDIVIDUAL?!
Jesus, how had he said anything so clumsy and idiotic? As Mitch trudged his way back toward his little house on Big Sister, he could not imagine. It sounded like something straight out of the file on an NBA draft prospect, under the category of character:
A real first-class individual.
What on earth had he been thinking? He’d wanted to cheer the lieutenant up, that’s what. She’d seemed down. He was trying to say something positive. But he hadn’t wanted it to sound too sexually or racially conscious. And somehow he had gotten all tangled up and, and,
bam
, out came the scouting report.
I do not know how to talk to people anymore. I am a butthead. I should be locked up.
As he made his way along the gravel drive past Bud and Mandy’s house he came upon Mandy, who was busy using a rag to wipe off the pea-green coating of tree pollen and early-morning dew that had formed, paste-like, on the windshield of her MG. Her efforts afforded Mitch a superb view of her taut, quivering behind, which was snugly encased in a skin-tight pair of designer jeans.
Mandy wore a suede shirt and pair of backless sandals with her jeans. When she turned at the sound of his footsteps on the gravel, her unlined face broke into a bright, sunny smile of even white teeth and gleaming blue eyes. “Mitch, good morning!”
“Good morning back at you, Mandy. You’re certainly up early.”
“Well, so are you, sir.”
“I’m off to New York for the day.”
In response, she clapped her manicured hands together like a gleeful little girl. “Oh, good! That’s what I figured.”
Mitch frowned. “You did?”
“Absolutely. Why else would you be up and out before dawn? I am, too. Going in to the city today. Assuming it’s okay with that black girl.”
“Do you mean the lieutenant?”
“Well, yeah,” Mandy said, squinting at the unmarked cruiser that was parked out on the bridge. “Why is she just
sitting
out there like that anyway? Is she
spying
on us?” Mandy suddenly seemed very tense, very paranoid. “I find it incredibly inappropriate. This island is supposed to be private. We’re not supposed to have strangers
matching
us.” Just as abruptly, she relaxed, smiling at him warmly. “You should never wear anything but navy blue, Mitch. That sweater makes you look so handsome and trim.”
Trim?! Yeah, right. Move over, David Duchovny.
Mitch shifted from one foot to the other, suddenly very uneasy. Because at the sound of their voices Bud had appeared in the window of his little house. He was watching them. He was watching his lovely and volatile trophy bride talk to an available younger man. Mandy’s back was toward the house—was she aware that Bud was standing there, listening in?
Of course, she was. That was why she’d said what she said.
“You’re very kind, Mandy,” Mitch finally responded. “No one has called me trim since I was … well, come to think of it no one’s
ever
called me trim.”
Now she let out a laugh, a delicious, cascading laugh that was sure to carry halfway across the island.
“It shouldn’t be a problem,” Mitch spoke up. “You going in to the city today, I mean. The lieutenant said it would be okay if I did.”
“Well, that settles it, then,” Mandy concluded with a happy toss of her long blond hair. “Which train are you taking in? We can ride in together.”
“I haven’t decided yet. I have to do some paperwork before I go. Actually, you’d better not count on me. Just take the train you were going to take. If we run into each other, great.”
Mandy’s plump lips formed a pout. “I sure hope we will.”
“So do I,” said Mitch, as Bud continued to watch them through the window.
But not if I can help it
. Because there was something profoundly unsettling about this woman. Something that was alluring at the same time that it was frightening. Mandy Havenhurst was clearly accustomed to doing whatever she wanted to whomever she wanted and getting away with it. That gave her an air of recklessness, of danger. The Sharon Stone factor, they called it in Hollywood. Playing with fire, they called it in real life. Guaranteed to stir up the blood. And to make Mitch ask himself questions like: Was it by chance that she’d been out here cleaning her windshield? Or had she spotted him coming across the bridge and purposely bumped into him? Questions like: Was it a coincidence that they were both going to New York today? Or was she going in because he was going in? If so, why?
“What takes you to town, Mitch?” she asked him now. An innocent enough question. So why didn’t it sound innocent?
“I have a couple of movies to screen. And you?”
“Personal day,” she replied. “Nothing but pampering. A massage and facial, my hair, fingers, my toes, a new black dress at Bendel’s … I want to look nice for the funeral tomorrow. Bud is furious about it, you know,” she said, leaning a slender flank against her sports car.
“Why is that?” Mitch asked, wondering how much of this Bud could hear. All of it, he figured.
“He doesn’t think Niles should be buried in the Peck family plot.”
“That’s Dolly’s decision to make, isn’t it? She’s the Peck.”
“Just what I said,” Mandy agreed. “She’s the Peck. But Bud doesn’t see it that way. I think he figured that when the time came
he
would be the one buried next to Dolly. Which, if you stop and think about it, should make
me
really angry.”
“Does it?”
“Not really,” she said with a shrug. “I don’t think about what happens after we’re all gone. Hell, I don’t even think about tomorrow. Just about
now
. He’s also pissed that Dolly wants to foot the bill for Tuck Weems’s funeral. Apparently it was just Tuck and some teenaged slut he was living with, and she has zero money. Are you staying over in the city tonight?”
Again, it was an innocent enough question. Yet, somehow, coming from Mandy it was tinged with the promise of illicit, athletic sex. “I’d planned to, yes,” Mitch replied.
“Me, too. We should get together tonight. Do you like Thai food?”
“I do. Very much.”
“Great! I know a place on Spring Street that will positively blow your doors off. And afterward we can go listen to some jazz.”
“God, I’d love to. But I have a pretty tight schedule tonight. A screening, followed by dinner with my editor. Can’t do it. Sorry.”
She frowned at Mitch prettily. “If I were a bit more insecure I’d think you were blowing me off.”
“Not at all,” he said. Which was not, in fact, completely true. He could have invited her to the screening with him. The invites were always for two. So why wasn’t he inviting her? Simple. Because she was trouble. And her husband was watching her every move. And he was not going to get involved in whatever game the two of them were playing.
“Well, maybe next time,” she said wistfully.
“That would be great,” Mitch said.
Now was when Bud decided to officially show himself. The lawyer came scuffing out the front door toward them in his silk bathrobe and slippers, smiling tightly at Mitch. Bud’s hair was rumpled and he was unshaven. Young men, in Mitch’s critical opinion, tended to look more virile when they were unshaven. Not so Bud. The grizzled white stubble on his chin belonged to an aging pensioner. So did the chalky residue of dried saliva that was caked to his lips like Spackle. “Hey, boy!” he called to Mitch in a phlegmy voice. “You’re up early.”
“We’re both going to New York today, sugar,” Mandy informed him. “Isn’t that wonderful?”
“Yes, it is,” Bud said, peering at Mitch long and hard. Mitch peered right back at him. The man looked positively ten years older this morning. Also ten times more desperate. His face seemed hollow-eyed and gaunt, his gaze uncertain—even fearful. It was getting to him. The thin ice he was skating on was definitely getting to him. “Take good care of her, Mitch. And of yourself.”
“I always try to,” Mitch assured him.
“Make certain that you do.” Now there was a degree of urgency in Bud’s voice. “I don’t believe those numbers, you know.”
“Which numbers?”
“The ones that say that crime is down in New York. I think the people who came up with those are the same ones who keep telling us that inflation is under control. If it is, then why does the price of everything keep going up? Do you know what I’m saying, Mitch?”
Mitch scratched his head. “Not exactly, Bud. No.”
“I’m saying that New York can still be a dangerous, dangerous place,” Bud asserted, his voice rising. The man’s fists, Mitch observed, were tightly clenched. “Watch yourself, my young friend. I’d hate to see anything happen to you. It would be a shame. A damned shame.”
IT WAS SHORTLY AFTER eight when Des started up her cruiser and eased it across the bridge toward Big Sister.
As she was pulling up in the driveway Mandy Havenhurst, the creamy blond beer heiress, sidled over toward her wearing a buttery soft suede shirt that looked as if it cost her as much as Des earned in a month. Another one like Dolly Seymour, Des reflected. A product of privilege and good looks. Not to mention dangerously unstrung. Face it, the only reason Mandy Havenhurst hadn’t served any time for her crimes against the men in her life was that she was rich and she was white. Des wondered how Bud Havenhurst slept nights. Herself, she wouldn’t sleep a wink lying in bed next to this particular lemon cupcake.
“Good morning, Lieutenant,” Mandy exclaimed, showing her a broad, insincere smile. “Are you here to see me?”
Des shut off her engine and got out. “Not right now, no.”
“The reason I asked,” Mandy said airily, “is that I was planning to spend the day in New York. But if you wish for me to stay around …”
“Go right ahead. Mr. Berger’s taking the train in himself this morning.”
“Yes, I know. We were hoping to ride in together.” Her sultry tone of voice made it sound like she and Mitch had themselves a whole day planned together. Followed by a whole night. Did they? Des wondered. Mandy lingered there, tossing her long golden hair. “Was it my husband you wished to see?” she asked Des offhandedly. But there was nothing offhanded about her blue-eyed gaze. It was piercing.
“I can catch him later at his office.”
“Are you
sure
there’s nothing I can help you with?” Now she was chewing fretfully on her lower lip. Chewing on it almost hard enough to draw blood. “In reference to my husband, I mean.”
The lady wanted to know what Des had on him. Particularly as it related to Dolly Seymour. Des had no doubt about this. She also had no intention of fueling Mandy’s pathological jealousy. “Enjoy your day in the city,” she said pleasantly. Then Des strode toward the natural-shingled house where Redfield and Bitsy Peck lived, feeling Mandy’s eyes boring into her.
The Peck house was the most immense single-family home Des had ever seen. Three full stories high, with wings extending off in every direction and a deep shade porch wrapped all the way around. There were balconies upstairs, sun porches, observation turrets, a widow’s walk. The fenced-in garden was also huge. A vast collection of vegetables and flowers and herbs grew there in raised, orderly beds. To Des it looked more like a commercial nursery than it did someone’s yard. There was a greenhouse, potting shed, tool shed. There was a composting area with a dozen or more wire bins and two large, rotating steel drums.
Bitsy Peck was in the process of dumping a bucket full of orange peels, egg shells and coffee grounds into one of these.
“Good morning,” Des said to her. “I wondered if your husband was back from Tokyo yet.”
“Why, yes, Lieutenant,” Bitsy replied brightly. “He landed at midnight. Got home just after two. He’s here for a couple of days and then he’s off again, poor lamb. Four international flights a month makes for a tough, tough schedule. But Red’s used to it. I suppose you can get used to just about anything if you have to.” Bitsy closed the door to the drum, rotated it smartly three times with a hand crank and then reached for her empty bucket. “Do come in—he just sat down to breakfast.”