Once More With Feeling (43 page)

"I rest my case."

"Okay. He's a politician through and
through, and that means he's a conniving bastard."

"Do you remember Gloria Fields?"

Gypsy carried the tray into the living room
and waved Marguerite toward a chair. "Is this some sort of test?
Gloria and Elisabeth chained themselves to the same tree at the old
Goldsborough mansion two summers ago to protest the developer's
plans for the property. There were thirty upstanding North Shore
women breaking the law and communing with tree trunks under your
leadership. Of course I remember Gloria. There were hours to talk
while the police went off looking for proper hacksaws and wire
cutters. I know everything about her."

"She told me that Missy isn't happy with her
marriage, and that for a while she considered leaving Richard."

The hair at Gypsy's nape prickled in good
reporter style, but she kept her tone casual. "Try standing in
chains with friend Gloria and see what a variety of gossip she
comes up with."

"Do you suppose it's true?"

Gypsy poured the coffee. "Did she give any
reasons?"

"No. She just indicated that Missy had lost
faith in him."

"That's all?"

"She was purposely vague. She seemed to feel
she'd said too much at that."

"Were you by any chance pumping people for
information on Richard?"

"I did find Richard's reaction to you quite
intriguing."

Gypsy debated telling Marguerite what she
and Casey had talked about. She couldn't think of a good reason not
to. "Do you remember the Lucy McNeil debacle?"

"There is nothing a Republican likes better
than a Democratic scandal."

"
The Whole Truth
scooped that story.
I didn't realize we were the first to break it, but we were. And
Desmond Weber, Richard's buddy at Yale, is our executive
producer."

"So that's how you came up with his name so
quickly."

"And now that Lucy is out of the way,
Richard's chances of becoming the next Democratic nominee for
governor seem assured. She would have been a formidable opponent,"
Gypsy said.

"Yes. And now, of course, she has no chance
at all."

"Do you know what happened to her after she
lost her seat in the House?"

"I believe she moved out of state."

"I'm going to find out where."

"There might be answers closer by. Mrs.
McNeil still has children living here. A son who's a stockbroker on
Wall Street. A daughter, too, I believe. I think the daughter
married into some prominent Italian family in Brooklyn. Wasn't
there quite a fuss about it? It guaranteed Mrs. McNeil the Italian
vote. Some people thought she had engineered the romance."

"Some particularly suspicious WASP
Republicans. . ." Gypsy hesitated. "Can you come up with the last
name, Marguerite? The daughter's married name?"

Marguerite poured enough cream in her coffee
to send her cholesterol level and Sealtest stock soaring. "I'm
afraid not."

"Was it Santini?"

"I'm sorry. I really do not know."

"It doesn't matter. You've remembered
enough."

"Well, perhaps not. I can't remember what I
did with my time before you made a home for yourself in Gypsy
Dugan's body. I certainly don't remember life being quite this
interesting."

"Definitely not Santini," Kendra said.
"Romano. Patsy McNeil's husband's name is Vincent Romano and they
don't call him Vinnie for short. He's known as Ducks. And don't ask
me why."

"Ducks Romano. Sounds like the Wednesday
night special at Villa Napoli." Gypsy shook her head. It wasn't
even noon, and Kendra had already dug up a bushel load of
information on Lucy McNeil and all her kin. She had come down to
Gypsy's dressing room to make a full report.

Perry, who was sitting catty-corner from
Kendra, did a few nearly perfect quacks.

"How long will it take to put together a
family tree?" Gypsy asked Kendra.

"For a family like the Romanos? About a
year, give or take a century. These Italian families are what's
politely known as extended. They're large to start with, then on
top of that they count everybody they ever shared pasta with.
In-laws, distant cousins, godchildren, friends of
great-godchildren's stepcousins." She shrugged.

"I want to know if Mark Santini had any
relationship to Ducks Romano."

"That's a lot easier. Can I use the phone
over there?" Kendra didn't wait for an answer. She crossed the room
and started dialing.

Gypsy had already filled in the whole story
for Perry. "You can't go talking to these people, sweet pea," Perry
said. "No matter whether Romano had anything to do with Santini's
death, he's not going to be real fond of you or anybody else on
this show. We're the folks that ran his mama-in-law out of
town."

"No, you're right. I'm too well-known. But
not everyone who works on the show is."

Perry rolled her eyes. "Oh, boy."

"Come on. Here's your chance to be a real
reporter."

"I'm sitting through
King Lear
,
Skinner's theories of behavior modification, and sex education
trying to be a real reporter. You know that three girls in that
sex-ed class thought douching with Coca-Cola would keep them from
getting pregnant?"

"Diet or regular?"

Perry shook her head. "What do you want me
to do?"

Kendra hung up the phone. "Mark Santini was
Ducks Romano's first cousin. His mother and Ducks's father were
sister and brother."

"Bingo." Gypsy's interior computer was
overloading. She took a legal pad and began to diagram
relationships.

"How'd you find that out so quick?" Perry
asked Kendra.

"I grew up in Brooklyn, and I still go there
to get my hair cut. The guy who does it is a regular Italian
genealogy service. He's always talking about who married who in the
old neighborhood and where they're living. I figured if he didn't
know, he'd know somebody who did. Nailed it on the third call. Told
'em I was trying to find a long-lost godchild."

"So did this Ducks dude have something to do
with Mark Santini's death?" Perry asked.

"There was talk at the time that the
shooting met all the criteria for a Mafia hit," Kendra said. "I
don't know if these Romanos have connections to the mob, but
they've got more money than God. And some people think one thing
means the other. I can do some checking."

"But that leaves out Richard Adamson
entirely. And that's where we started." Gypsy leaned her head back
against the sofa.

"You've got to get ready for your taping,"
Perry pointed out. She was out of school for the day. A water main
had broken and flooded classrooms. She and Gypsy were going to
spend the afternoon together working out bugs in the Norman Carroll
story before the taping commenced.

"Yeah, I know." Gypsy closed her eyes. "Why
would Ducks Romano want his own cousin dead? And what would it have
to do with Richard, who had already taken care of Lucy McNeil . .
."

"Who happens to be Ducks Romano's
mother-in-law in exile," Kendra finished.

The telephone rang. Perry answered it and
brought it over to Gypsy.

"Hey, Gyps."

Gypsy recognized Casey's voice. "Hey. . ."
She remembered the way they had parted. She had sunk to a new low
by using him as a way to make Owen jealous. Her entire moral code
had decayed beyond recognition.

"What was that all about last night?" he
asked.

"Stupidity and manipulation. I'm really
sorry."

"You're still obsessed with the Whitfields,
aren't you?"

He couldn't know the half of it. She had
spent the whole day trying not to think about Owen, but she hadn't
succeeded. She suspected that was going to be the blueprint for the
rest of her life. "I don't think it's something I'll have to worry
about anymore. I'm just sorry I involved you."

"Look, I've got some information about
Richard Adamson. I've talked to a few people since I got here. The
story I came for didn't pan out, so I've had time to do some
checking around. Seems that Adamson decided he was going to move to
the executive mansion in Albany well before Lucy McNeil was out of
the picture. One of my sources said old Richard did a little
wheeling and dealing trying to convince some of Lucy's supporters
on the Hill that she wasn't competent or upright enough to be New
York's next governor. It's common knowledge that he and Lucy had a
bit of a confrontation after that, and he came out the worse for
wear. He's a gentleman, or he's supposed to be one, and he was
hitting well below the belt, even for our nation's capital. Anyway,
he went back to New York."

"And?"

"It wasn't too long afterward that McNeil
was exposed, so to speak."

"What's the prevailing wisdom now?"

"Essentially that Adamson tried to warn
people in the party, and no one paid enough attention. He comes off
looking pretty good. Tough enough to take risks, savvy enough to
see what nobody else was willing to, gentleman enough to let Lucy
hang herself."

"What do you think?"

"I think there's more to the story."

Gypsy thought so, too. And the pieces were
all falling together now. She hung up carefully and faced Perry and
Kendra. "There's just a little more I have to know. You two
willing?"

"I'm in," Kendra said.

"It could mean your job."

Kendra smirked. "Hey, there are a thousand
places for a woman of my talents."

"Perry?"

Perry hunched her shoulders forward and
hooked her thumbs in nonexistent belt loops. "Dese and doze and
dem. I'ma riding over ta Brooklyn, see, and I'ma gonna find out
what kinda friends dem two, Mark and Ducks was. You know what I'm
saying?"

Gypsy knew exactly what she was saying. Lots
of things might be wrong with her own life, but somewhere along the
way, she had made wonderful friends.

The story wasn't pretty. In fact even in
The Whole Truth
Hall of Infamy, it stood out like a shining
beacon of betrayal and greed.

At close to midnight Gypsy sat alone in her
dressing room looking at the diagram that she'd made earlier in the
day. Names were circled; arrows connected circles. Dates had been
added. She had spent the evening going through her address book and
dialing everyone with a Southern California area code, most of whom
were complete strangers to her. In the six and a half months since
the accident she had perfected the art of carrying on entire
personal and in-depth conversations with acquaintances who rarely
caught on that she didn't remember one thing about them. That skill
had served her well tonight.

She mulled over everything she had
discovered. Now that she knew why Mark had been murdered, she
wasn't sure exactly what to do with the information.

"Gypsy?" A knock coincided with her name,
and the door swung open.

She had just enough time to turn the notepad
over before Des walked in.

"What are you doing here so late? You're
going to look like hell tomorrow. You looked like hell today."

She hadn't slept in more than thirty-six
hours, but she wasn't a bit sleepy, just punchy. Her judgment was
impaired. She was sure of that because she wanted nothing more than
to stand up and take a swing at Des's Pekingese nose.

"What are you doing here?" she countered. "I
thought you went home hours ago."

"Billy called and said you hadn't left yet,
and he was worried about you."

"I didn't realize Billy reported to
you."

"That's not reporting. That's concern. He's
concerned, I'm concerned. You don't seem like yourself."

"Which self don't I seem like? This one? Or
the one before the accident?"

"It's all the same to me."

"But it's not. We both know I'm not the
same. There are things I don't remember. Or didn't . . ." She
watched him carefully.

She got the desired response. For just a
moment he seemed flustered, then he grinned. "Your memories are
coming back?"

"Some of them." She might be a little
disoriented and loose-tongued, but she knew better than to go on.
She stood up, casually slipping the notepad against her skirt.
"Maybe if I go home and get some sleep, I'll remember more. Who
knows?"

"What have you been working on there? The
Norman Carroll thing? Another story idea?"

"Just some ideas. We'll have to schedule
some time to go over them." You, me, Richard Adamson, and the
district attorney, she added silently.

"Don't leave me in suspense. What kind of
ideas?"

She started around him. "The kind that win
prizes. What else? Trust me, Des."

"Now you've got my curiosity up." He reached
for her notepad.

She held it tighter. "Whoa boy. Hands off.
My story. I'll let you in on it when I'm ready."

"This story got anything to do with your
phone call to Sandy Ferguson at Alpha-Omega?"

Sandy Ferguson had been call number six. He
had propositioned her after two sentences. "You know, that's the
dumbest name for a movie studio," she said. "It sounds like a
college sorority." She started to sing off-key. "We are the sisters
of Alpha-Omega. Turn up the music and rent a keg-a." She moved a
little farther around him, but his hand still held tightly to her
notepad.

"Sandy called me. Said you sounded a little
odd. He wanted to know why you were pumping him for information
about my years there."

"It never hurts to understand the people
you're working for."

"It might just hurt me."

"Don't be silly. Sandy Ferguson didn't have
a thing to tell me that could hurt you." Not by itself, anyway.

"Give me the notepad, Gyps." He yanked and
the notepad slid from her hand.

He turned it over and his eyes scanned the
top page. She took a step backward. She was one step closer to the
door.

She expected him to become furious. Instead
he only looked tired. "So, what exactly do you think you know?"