Partners In Crime (21 page)

Margaritas, again?
Magritte wouldn't be far behind,
he
reasoned. "That's curious. Boswell doesn't strike me as a margarita
type. What else?"

"They had the wife look over a list of
everything found on the boat. The pitcher and glasses she's never
heard of before, says it's cheap stuff and doesn't match her
crystal. And there's a gun missing."

"A gun?" T.S. asked.

"Yes. Apparently he kept one under the wheel
for protection. It was in a drawer with his nautical maps. I guess
because of the summer boat traffic. You know, the Hampton crowd.
Drugs. Stuff like that. He thought you couldn't be too careful. The
wife asked about the gun right away. And sure enough, it's
missing."

"What kind of gun?"

"Oh shoot, Mr. Hubbert, I don't know. I
guess I should have asked."

"Never mind." He made a note on his pad.
"You've done great. You'll be in tomorrow?"

"Certainly," she said. "If I'm not too worn
out from tonight!" She gave a girlish giggle. "Oh—and one more
thing. Abromowitz was put in charge because this is such a visible
case. He wanted it for his career and pulled a few strings. Word is
he's a real department politician. But he hasn't got much
investigative experience. He thinks the zippers and corsages and
stuff are just false clues to make it look like a nut killer
instead of someone who knows the victims and was involved in
financial hanky-panky with them. But the detectives on the case
aren't so sure. I guess they don't like Abromowitz any more than
you. I gotta run." She hung up before he could agree.

He checked his watch. He'd call Auntie Lil
after all. It was later than their usual dining time, but the
thought of going home to an empty apartment was infinitely
depressing.

He related the day's events to Auntie Lil in
detail over dinner. She listened to him intently, for once
interrupting only occasionally. Her thick lamb chops sat untouched
and cooling on her plate, though she hunched over her meal as if
guarding it from T.S.'s probable assault. Dinner could wait. She
was mostly interested in the details of Boswell's death and Stanley
Sinclair's reaction. Murder was one of the very few topics to take
precedence over eating on Auntie Lil's list of priorities.

"You say he seemed frightened when he heard
of Mr. Boswell's death?"

"Well, everyone did," T.S. admitted. "But
Sinclair was different. He withdrew into himself as if he were
thinking it over very carefully. As if he knew something everyone
else didn't."

"You don't like this Stanley Sinclair at
all, do you, Theodore?"

"No, he's a toad," T.S. admitted. "How can
you tell?"

"You adopt a faintly condescending tone
whenever you speak of him. Not to mention that you said his face
was ratlike. Equine would probably have applied just as well. Your
choice of adjectives is telling."

"It is a ratlike face," he protested
stubbornly. "I'm only trying to be accurate."

"No doubt. But he's not the rat we're after.
I still say it's a woman. There was so much passion behind
Cheswick's death. Could men be so passionate about money?"

T.S. thought it over. "Well, if anybody
could…" He let his voice trail off.

Auntie Lil ignored him. "Where is this
diamond necklace Boswell bought? It wasn't for his wife, we both
know that. The police don't know about it. That means it's
gone."

"Gone where?"

"That's the $5,000 question." Sipping the
last of her Bloody Mary, Auntie Lil set it down daintily. A waiter
sailed past, bearing two frosty drinks on a tray. She stared with
great interest. "What are those things, Theodore?"

"Frozen margaritas. The bartender loathes
making them. Please don't order one. He'd never forgive me."

"I have no intention of ordering one." She
cocked her head to one side and put one hand against her chin, a
move T.S. recognized as one of intense concentration. "It's funny,"
she mused, "how margaritas keep popping up. Margaritas and someone
named Magritte."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, first Mr. Dorfen comes out with that
funny saying and then there's a pitcher of margaritas, of all
things, found on the sailboat."

"There may be no relation. Mr. Dorfen is
drunk most of the time, and who knows what he really remembers. And
if Boswell was romancing some woman out there, what could be better
on an unexpectedly sunny day than a pitcher of margaritas?"

"Still." She stared after the drinks. "I
think we had better remember that, dear." She made a notation in
her small notebook: "Margaritas?"

"What should we do now?" he asked her. "I
mean, about Stanley Sinclair."

"You think he may be in on it?" she
asked.

"He was adamant about trying to keep all
eyes off the private files," T.S. pointed out.

"Yes, but that seems to be rather his habit,
isn't it? It sounds more like an IRS fetish to me, Theodore."

"Fetish?" He smiled at her. "What do you
know about fetishes?"

She smiled back, looking rather like the cat
who had already swallowed three mice and had no need for more.
"Theodore, my dear, we did everything you did back when I was
young. And they're still doing it. Remember that. The years may
change. The nature of people does not."

"Should I phone Abromowitz about the Stanley
Sinclair theory?"

She surveyed her candied carrots carefully,
selecting the thinnest for a tentative taste before demolishing the
entire dish. "By all means, tell the lieutenant," she said with her
mouth full. "I'm sure he'll be in the mood to entertain theories."
She took notice of her potato for the first time. Within seconds,
it was gone.

T.S. looked at her carefully. "In other
words, he hasn't got time for us and he'll think we're nuts."

She wiped her mouth carefully with the
napkin, then folded the linen into a square. "I think that he
probably has already started investigating Mr. Sinclair if he made
the ruckus you say about the files. I think that he's probably up
to his ears in possible theories and motives and will probably be
in no mood to take us seriously."

"Should we forget Sinclair?"

"Absolutely not. You felt he knew something.
You've been hiring and firing and talking to employees for thirty
years, Theodore. I trust your intuition implicitly."

He felt an inordinate amount of pride at
this compliment. "So what do you think I should do?"

"I think," she said, placing the napkin
carefully to the side of her plate, "that you should ask Mr.
Sinclair about it first thing in the morning."

It was just like her to make the impossible
really quite simple.

The dinner with Auntie Lil had revived his
self- confidence. They had sorted out several trails and the
smaller mysteries were starting to fall into place. He felt now
that together they might be able to puzzle out the answer to the
big question and prevent more murders from occurring.

It was this hope that occupied his mind as
he returned from his dinner. "Evening, Maumoud," he said politely
to the doorman, as was his custom.

But this time Maumoud, instead of tipping
his hat, looked at T.S. in a positively secretive manner and came
out quickly from behind his desk. "Mr. Hubbert," he whispered,
although there was no one else in the lobby, "there is a woman who
wishes to see you." He stared at T.S. breathlessly and T.S. was
slightly offended that the idea should appear so radical to the
doorman. Did the world think him a eunuch?

He looked around the lobby. "What lady?"

"The one in the limousine." He raised his
eyebrows and twitched them in the direction of the street.

A limousine was parked directly in front of
the fire hydrant near the apartment building entrance. "That
limousine?" T.S. asked.

"The very same," Maumoud whispered back. He
touched T.S.'s arm and leaned even closer. "What is this, Mr.
Hubbert? You are breaking the hearts of ladies these days?" T.S.
looked at him blankly. "She was crying," the man explained,
sounding impressed. "The driver came in and asked for you, but I
could see the lady through the front window and she had a
handkerchief pressed against her face."

Alarmed, T.S. moved to the door. "Did she
give a name?"

"No, the driver said to tell you only that
the grieving widow wished to speak to you.'' Maumoud's eyes grew
round and he eyed T.S. carefully. "What is it you are mixed up in
now? Does your Auntie Lil know?"

"Know?" T.S. buttoned his coat back up to
the collar. "This whole thing is entirely her fault."

He stepped back out into the cool March
night and strode rapidly to the limousine. He had a very good idea
of who it was, but it was still a shock to find a tearful Lilah
Cheswick in the backseat.

The driver solemnly opened the door for T.S.
and he slid in beside her. Her ladylike sobs filled the car and he
was too surprised to ask why she was crying. She was too busy
crying to offer a reason.

Oh dear, he thought to himself. And I prided
myself on reading human nature. Please don't tell me Lilah Cheswick
is involved with murder. He saw twenty-five years of his most
secret fantasies swirling slowly down the drain.

"You're going to hate me, Theodore," she
sobbed through her lace handkerchief.

T.S. moved closer to her and gently pulled
her hankie into her lap. "I seriously doubt that, Lilah. What is
it? How can I help you? Surely it can't be as bad as all this?"

She sniffled and gulped at the air. "It is."
She wiped the corner of one eye with an exquisitely embroidered
black glove. "Oh, it is."

She had not cried at hearing of her
husband's death. What possible news could have brought her to
this?

"Do you want to come in?" he asked her. "We
could have a drink and you could tell me about it."

"No," she said in a tiny voice, evading his
eyes. "You won't want me in your apartment when you hear what I
have to tell you."

"That's nonsense, Lilah," he assured her.
"Nothing could do that. Just tell me."

Her tears were almost too much for him. As
accustomed as he was to dealing with corporate and human problems,
he had never been able to steel himself to seeing a woman cry. And
when the woman was Lilah, well, that was almost too much to
bear.

"I know you like me, Theodore," she said
slowly. T.S. glanced at the partition between the seats to see if
the driver was listening. He was leaning against his door,
apparently asleep, and T.S. fervently hoped that the seat divider
was soundproof.

"Yes, of course I've always liked you," he
encouraged her. "Go on."

"I wish that things could have been
different," she said, examining her handkerchief. "Even though I
haven't seen you very often over the years, I always think of you
at the oddest times. And it's important to me what you think of
me." She looked at him briefly and a flash of the confident and
vibrant Lilah surfaced.

"I think very highly of you," he offered and
immediately felt foolish. It was far too formal a thing to say.

"I want you to keep thinking highly of me.
That's why I'm here. I wondered why you asked me what you did on
Sunday. You know, about if I was being taken care of by… anyone
else. By another partner, you even said." She looked at him in an
accusing manner and he was ashamed. "Don't look that way, Theodore.
It's me that should be ashamed. I'm the one who's been a fool. I
should have known he wouldn't be discreet about it. Why should he?
He's never been discreet about any of his affairs. I expect you
know that."

"I knew John Boswell was… a bit of a ladies'
man." T.S. looked uncomfortably at the chauffeur again. How could
the man sleep through this?

"A bit?" She laughed bitterly. "He was
always the worst. And I've known him since college. I couldn't
understand why Megan would marry him." She was silent for a moment.
"But then, Megan could never understand why I married Robert." She
shrugged. "I allowed many humiliations, but I would never have
allowed the kind of humiliations that John put Megan through."

"But you were…"

"An affair is different. I chose that. And I
took a damn long time to decide. He's been trying to get me into
bed for twenty-five years, you know." She looked at him for
agreement and it was all he could do to keep from blushing.

"But why now?" he asked.

"For one thing, Megan doesn't—didn't—give a
damn about him anymore. She's been, well, intimate, with her groom
for ages now. Oh, don't look so shocked, Theodore. We're human,
too. She needs comfort just as much as the next person."

T.S. did not interrupt with the news that he
had always managed to find his comfort in other ways.

She cleared her throat delicately. "Besides,
I lied on Sunday when I said that I'd gotten used to the way Robert
was. I never got used to it. It always hurt. My husband never even
noticed my existence. For over twenty-five years, I rode my horses,
went to my luncheons, raised our daughters, never had an affair and
pretended that it didn't matter. Finally, I just couldn't do it
anymore."

"But why are you telling me this?" he
asked.

"Because I know you've heard rumors. And
because I saw him the day he died."

"Boswell? You saw John Boswell
yesterday?"

"Yes.'' She folded her handkerchief
efficiently and stowed it away, as if she were through with
nonsense like tears. "He came to my house on Sunday morning. He had
quite an agenda. He wanted to apologize for standing me up the
night Robert was killed. He wanted to let me know he had made the
funeral arrangements and I was not to worry. And he wanted to tell
me that he didn't want to see me anymore."

T.S. was appalled. Lilah stared at his face
and shrugged.