Full Frontal Murder (4 page)

“Pine? Floral scent? That doesn't really get us anywhere, though.”

“Naw, the kidnapper could just have cleaned something before he went after the kid. Is that our only clue?”

“Looks like it. And how reliable is a four-year-old's memory of a new smell anyway?”

“Yeah. Dead end.” He changed the subject. “Lieutenant, you getting hungry?”

She was. “Let's fuel up before we tackle the Galloways.”

“But not in this neighborhood. They'd charge you ten bucks for a cup of coffee.”

They found a place on Third Avenue more suited to a cop's salary and took stools at the counter. Over grease burgers and coffee Marian told Perlmutter the substance of her talks with Rita Galloway and Alex Fairchild. “They make a pretty good case for Hugh Galloway's being behind it. Number one, he's tried before. Number two, he planted a spy in the household. Number three, he knew they were going to the puppet show.”

“One and three could be irrelevant,” Perlmutter pointed out. “Maybe he just wanted to spend the afternoon with Bobby the times he tried to pick him up at the preschool. And his knowing they were going to the puppet show doesn't mean he did anything about it.”

“And number two?”

“That's harder to explain away. The guy's out to get the goods on his wife, and he doesn't seem to care how he goes about it—so he plants a spy in her house? No wonder she feels threatened.”

“I wonder how much of this Bobby understands.” Marian thought of something else. “That studio. Rita Galloway has several easels in there. I thought watercolorists always worked on a flat surface.”

Perlmutter swallowed a mouthful of cholesterol and said, “Not if they're using drybrush technique. Very little water, so it doesn't run down the paper. Some of those things she was working on were pretty big.”

“So easels are not unusual?”

“Well, they're not exactly
usual
. My brother-in-law teaches art at CUNY, and he uses an easel for large watercolors.” He wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. “Did you take a close look at her work?”

“Not really. Why?”

“It's good. I mean, it's
good
. This is no rich man's wife looking for a hobby to fill up her hours, if that's what you're thinking. The lady is a real artist.”

Marian nodded, accepting his evaluation. They ate in silence for a few more minutes, until Marian's watch told her they had twenty-five minutes to make their appointment at Sutton Place. “Finished?” she asked Perlmutter. “Then let's go meet the Galloway monsters.”

4

The Galloway home on Sutton Place had tighter security than the Midtown South stationhouse. Marian and Perlmutter had to show their ID to three different keepers of the gate before a manservant finally let them in to the hallowed sanctuary of the Galloway empire.

Both father and son were waiting in a room that was cavernous and quiet—and aggressively masculine: dark wood paneling, heavy leather furniture. The place reminded Marian of those London men's clubs she'd seen in the movies. The younger of the two men rose to greet them; he had the same coal black hair and oversized ears that Bobby had.

“Lieutenant Larch? Thank you for coming. I'm Hugh Galloway and this is my father, Walter Galloway.” He did not offer to shake hands.

Marian introduced Perlmutter and they all sat down. But before Marian could say anything, Walter Galloway rasped out a question. “What have you done to find the
real
kidnapper?”

This one was not going to be easy
. “We've put out an all-points bulletin based on Mrs. Galloway's description of the man. She's at the station right now helping a graphics technician reconstruct his face.”

“That's all you have to go on? That woman's description?” He snorted. “Then you have nothing.”

“That about sums it up,” Marian replied crisply. “Only she and Bobby got a good look at the kidnapper. The police officer who struggled with him never did have a clear view of his face. The officer told us the man is about six feet, maybe a little more, and heavy—close to two hundred pounds. Could you identify someone from that description? Without a face, we have no chance of finding him.”

“And with a face?” Hugh asked quietly.

“A slight chance. But there is this. Bobby is probably safe. Kidnappers depend on the element of surprise, of the unexpected. Now that you're on to them, they'll most likely move on to a different target.”

Walter's clawlike hands gripped the arms of his chair. “Then you've ruled out this nonsense that Hugh arranged the kidnapping of his own son?”

“No, I'm sorry, but we haven't.” Marian turned to Hugh. “Your wife says you've tried to get Bobby away from her before. She says you tried to take Bobby out of preschool three times without her permission.”

Hugh made a sound of exasperation. “Once. I went there once. And that was … a misunderstanding.”

“Like hell it was,” Walter Galloway growled. “For god's sake, Hugh—tell them.”

Hugh smiled wryly at his father and nodded. “I'd asked Rita if I could have Bobby for one afternoon. That's all—just a few hours. She said yes. Then later she claimed I'd misunderstood her.”

“She changed her mind?”

“She set him up,” Walter said tightly. “It was deliberate.”

Hugh was nodding. “I'm afraid he's right. What you have to understand, Lieutenant, is that Rita is the biggest liar on the face of the earth. She lies instinctively, about everything, even about matters that don't
need
to be lied about, if you follow my drift. That's what started the trouble between us. The constant lying.”

“Not your adulteries?” Marian asked calmly.

A silence fell on the room. Then Hugh said, “I had one affair. If you can call it an affair—it lasted two weeks. And I went into that one like any stupid teenager who's been hurt and wants to hit back. I'd just found out that Rita would sleep with anything in pants. After she'd drop Bobby off at the preschool, she'd go
cruising
, for god's sake!”

“Oh. A liar
and
a nymphomaniac.”

He flared. “She's still in therapy for it! She didn't mention that little fact to you? No? What a surprise.”

Perlmutter pulled out his notebook. “Name of the therapist?”

Hugh gave him a name and address without having to look it up. “I've been writing checks to that quack for over two years. He hasn't done her a bit of good. But Rita won't change therapists. She says he understands her.”

Walter Galloway snorted. “He's shtupping her himself.”

“Dad.” Mild reprimand from Hugh.

“Why not? Everybody else is. She's a tramp. Worthless. My son married a tramp.” The old man sneered. Hugh's face darkened.

Well, well
—
a sore point?
Marian took the opening. “Did you oppose your son's marriage, Mr. Galloway?”

“Of course I did!” he snapped. “No man wants his son marrying a tart.”

“Then you knew she was a tart before they were married?”

A pause. “I sensed it. Women like that send out signals.”

And the signal
he
was sending out was that he wasn't going to budge on the matter. Back to Hugh. “There's one more thing. Your wife claims you hired someone to pose as a house-cleaner and spy on her.”

“What?!”
roared Walter Galloway.

His son looked equally startled. “Oh, that's a new one! Very good, Rita … very good indeed. What's she claiming, that she found the cleaner reading her mail?”

“The cleaner was going through her checkbook and credit card statements. And it was your brother-in-law who found her doing it, not your wife.”

“Fairchild?” He mulled that over. “That casts a different light on things.”

“How?” his father asked. “That brother of hers is no better than she is. They both spend their lives making pretty pictures. Reflections of life.” He sniffed.
“Reflections
, not the real thing. They see things the way they want to see them.”

Hugh made a dismissive gesture, as if he'd heard all that before. “Fairchild isn't the pathological liar that Rita is, but of course he'd lie to help her. But if he wasn't lying, I suppose the cleaner could just have been nosy about the people whose house she was cleaning. Still, couldn't she have been planted there by the kidnapper?”

Perlmutter spoke up. “That's not likely. Too complicated. And someone who wanted to grab Bobby for ransom wouldn't need to look at your wife's checkbook to see if the Galloways could pay the ransom.”

Hugh wasn't ready to concede the point. “But it's an anomaly. It ought to be checked out.”

“Don't worry,” Marian assured him. “It will be. But Alex Fairchild said you bought the cleaning service. That would make it easy to slip a ringer into the house.”

Hugh leaped angrily from his chair. “I bought
three
cleaning services! We're merging them into one. Good lord, Lieutenant, it was an ordinary business transaction!”

His father huffed. “Small potatoes.”

“With a potential for growth that you simply
will
not see! Those three piddling little businesses are just the starting point.” Back to Marian. “But that's neither here nor there. Now I am accused of hiring a spy in addition to everything else? I'm calling my lawyers. I'm sure that's grounds for a libel action. Rita's gone over the edge. I've been trying to handle this problem in a civil manner, but the woman is beyond reason. I will
not
allow my son to grow up under her influence. She's already poisoning him against me.”

Marian wondered if that was true; the little boy she'd talked to that morning seemed unaware of the war being waged by his parents. But then, she hadn't spent much time with him. She waited while Perlmutter got all the details of the proposed merger from the younger Galloway.

Hugh Galloway showed all the symptoms of any father caught in a tug-of-war over custody of a child; he was feeling harassed and worried. There was only a hint of the high-powered businessman, the wheeler-dealer determined to get what he wanted at all costs. Walter Galloway had once been a dynamo; now he was an old man in an armchair who liked to snipe at his son for not managing his affairs better. But there was no real tension between the two men; their relationship seemed one of accommodation, of acceptance of their changed roles. Hugh was alpha now, not his father.

When Perlmutter nodded that they were finished, Marian said, “Mr. Galloway, why did you tear up your wife's water-colors?”

“What? I never tore up her watercolors!”

“She says you did.”

He heaved a big sigh. “I told you what a liar she is. I never destroyed anything she—” He broke off, remembering. “Wait a minute. I did tear up a sketch. Just a sketch, and only the one. Is that what she's talking about?”

“She said ‘watercolors,' plural.”

“No. I did no such thing.”

“Damned woman,” Walter muttered from his armchair.

“All right, then,” Marian went on, “why did you tear up the sketch?”

Hugh closed his eyes, opened them again. “It was a sketch she'd done of me.” It was obvious he'd have preferred not to talk about it, but he went on. “She'd drawn me wearing ballet slippers. And a tutu.”

Marian managed to keep her face straight.

A rumbling erupted from Walter's armchair. “You never told me about that!”

“No, I probably didn't,” Hugh said tiredly. “It was just one of a thousand ugly little things that happened.” He smiled wryly at Marian. “Rita has interesting ways of letting you know what she thinks of you.”

“Are you sure the sketch was of you?” Marian asked.

“Who else would it be? Rita said it was.”

“Was it
recognizably
you?”

He waved a hand impatiently. “Yes, yes, it was me.”

The interview was ended; Marian told the two Galloways they'd be in touch and left. In the car on the way back, Perl-mutter said, “That's guy's bleeding.”

“You believed him?”

“Yeah, I think I did. You didn't?”

“He tells a reasonable story. The problem is, so does she.”

“I didn't hear her tell it,” Perlmutter reminded her. “Any vibes?”

“The same ones we just got at Sutton Place. Sincere outrage, resentment, worry about what the other half will do next. She's bleeding too.”

“But if Galloway's right that she's the biggest liar on the face of the earth—”

“One
of them is. He gave us enough that we might be able to pin this down. I wonder if the graphics tech got a face for us?”

The computer's visualization of Bobby's kidnapper was on her desk waiting for her. A rather ordinary face—beefy, cleanshaven. The only unusual feature was an overlarge bottom lip; it made the face look as if it was pouting. It was the face of a man who had not yet reached early middle age; Marian put him at early to mid-thirties.

“It's already gone out,” Detective O'Toole told her. “Every bluesuit in the city will have one of those by six o'clock.”

“Good, good. Perlmutter, fill him in.” While Perlmutter briefed O'Toole on what they'd learned from their interviews with Rita and Hugh Galloway, Marian made a list of what needed to be done. When they'd both finished, she said, “Okay. O'Toole, go see Rita Galloway. Try to pin her down as to the exact date her brother found the housecleaner going through her checkbook. Get a description, and find out if she reported the incident to the cleaning service. Then go to the service's offices and check their payroll records—see if they had any substitutions on the day in question. If not, come back with the names and addresses of the entire crew that was in the house.”

O'Toole was scribbling instructions. “You say the husband accused her of sleeping around?”