Partners In Crime (34 page)

He stared thoughtfully at his desk. Auntie
Lil had been right about Sheila being adopted, but that did not
prove in any way that she was the murderer or that Patricia Kelly
was her real mother. Not in any way at all. His thoughts were
interrupted by the ringing of his telephone, a shrill intrusion
that caused Anne Marie to jump.

He picked it up hesitantly, not having heard
a thing but bad news by phone thus far in the day. "Hello?"

"Why the hell are you harassing Felicia
Fullbright?"

Lieutenant Abromowitz's angry and obnoxious
voice was unmistakable.

"What do you mean?" T.S. asked faintly, one
eye on a squirming Anne Marie. She twisted a handkerchief in her
hands and stared at him curiously.

"You know damn well what I mean. Accusing
her of murder. Asking where she got sunburned. If she killed John
Boswell. Implying she stabbed Cheswick."

"That's not what I said, I only asked
her—"

"I don't care what you said. Lay off her.
She was with me that Sunday afternoon when she got her sunburn,
okay? Not that it's any of your business. I want the harassment of
her stopped or I'll have you in for interfering with a murder
investigation. Better yet, I want all activity on your part
stopped. Playtime's over."

T.S. was speechless. Miss Fullbright and
Lieutenant Abromowitz? My god, what if they married and reproduced?
The receiver went dead in his hand and T.S. stared at it.

"Who was that?" Anne Marie asked. She leaned
forward anxiously.

He looked up at her. "You say Sheila went to
see a lawyer today?"

"Yes. Then she's meeting me here later.
We're going to see the Ice Capades tonight at the Garden. Who was
that on the phone? What were you talking about?"

T.S. rubbed his temples wearily. "No one,
Anne Marie. Please don't ask. Just go back to work and forget it."
He felt as if he had not slept a wink last night. He sighed deeply.
"I must see Sheila when she arrives," T.S. told Anne Marie.
  “Immediately. I have some very important questions to
ask.''

Anne Marie stared at T.S., searching his
face for clues. A dark and troubled cloud settled over her
features. Their eyes locked but he would not give in and she
finally rose, straightening her skirt automatically. "Well, of
course. I'll bring her up. Can't you tell me why?" She looked at
him anxiously and he sighed.

"I know she's done nothing wrong," he
assured her quietly. "I have more faith in your daughter than
anyone else at Sterling & Sterling, but there are several
questions I must ask her myself."

If only T.S. felt as confident as he
sounded. He rose and walked to the window, prying apart slats in
the blinds to stare down at the street below. Strangers passed by
and he wondered what secrets they concealed. Lost in thought for
several long seconds, he did not even turn around when Anne Marie
finally spoke again.

"Are you going to tell her she's adopted?"
she asked in a tiny voice from the doorway.

He thought it over. "Only if I find it
necessary. Although I don't see why you don't tell her sooner or
later." He let the blinds fall back in place and sighed.

She whirled around and slammed the door
behind her with a violent crack. T.S. stared after her,
astonished.

T.S. sat behind a pile of employee files and
looked at his watch impatiently. It was nearly 2:00 and he had not
yet heard from Auntie Lil. He had been through most of the
remaining files thoroughly and could find no discrepancies in the
backgrounds of the women. He had pulled the files of all female
employees in the right age range with any reason whatsoever to come
in contact with the dead men, even including three dining room
employees. There were more than three dozen possibilities in all
and every one of them seemed to be from good homes and good
schools. No one had any strange or suspicious gaps in their
employment—they'd never have been hired in the first place if they
had—and all had references from reputable people covering virtually
every period of their lives: teachers, pastors, scout leaders,
community figures.

Again, he found it reassuring to remind
himself, proof that Sheila was adopted was not proof that she was
the killer.

His search was made all the more maddening
by Auntie Lil's insistence that something had to be there. He
sighed. Edgar Hale refused to return his calls, Sheila would not be
in until later and he didn't know where Auntie Lil was. What was
there for him to do?

The phone rang as he was contemplating the
necessity of going through the files once again.

"I've found her," Auntie Lil cried
immediately, in great excitement.

"The daughter? Be careful, she could be . .
."

"No. No. The dead woman. She's buried in
Brooklyn. It took me all morning to track her down. I had assumed
she’d be buried in Queens since she was Catholic." Auntie Lil
seemed to find this amusing and T.S. listened to her merry laugh
with distinct relief. She was safe. "I checked grave records for
hours and finally found her. I'm on my way there now. I just wanted
you to know I was fine."

"I was getting a bit worried," he admitted.
"You're not driving, are you?"

"No. I'm not a fool. Where would I park? Did
you find anything?" She hurried to brush aside any hint that she
might not be able to take care of herself.

He told her about Sheila's adoption.

"Don't fret about Sheila," she told him.
"You're an excellent judge of character. This marital business
explains some things. You'll feel better when you've talked to her
yourself. What about the files on the other women?"

"Nothing. Everyone looks clean. I don't know
what I'm looking for."

"Anything that could tie her into Patricia
Kelly. Maybe she's named for Patricia's mother. Or grew up in the
same borough. Went to the same school. An address that matches.
Have you memorized the Kelly information?"

"Well, no," he admitted. "You just said to
go through the other files."

"For heaven's sakes, Theodore. Use some
initiative. Compare them to the Kelly file. Look for a Magritte.
Anyone have a relative named Magritte?"

"No. Now that's something I would
remember."

"It's odd and very puzzling." She was still
a moment. "I know that 'Magritte' is important and I don't know
where to start. Are you sure the files are clean?"

"They seem to be. I'll compare them to
Patricia Kelly's one more time but after that I don't know what
else to do."

"Then why don't you try to talk to Mr.
Dorfen again? We've got to find out who Magritte is."

"Heavens. On a Friday? Who knows if he'll
even be able to walk."

"Perhaps he'll surprise you, Theodore. After
all, three of his colleagues have been murdered. That's enough to
sober anyone up."

"I'll give it a try," he promised.

"Good. I'll check in later," she said. T.S.
could hear the sounds of traffic whizzing by in the background. It
made Auntie Lil seem very, very far away and he was seized by a
sudden fear. Of what, he did not know.

"Call me back soon," he asked. "I'm trying
to reach Sheila. Maybe I'll have good news." He would offer her a
carrot to make sure she kept in touch. Besides, he was trying to
reach Sheila. He could think of no easy explanation for her
knowledge about Boswell's death, but she deserved the chance to
explain.

"I'll call you after I've seen the grave,"
Auntie Lil promised. "Now you go through those files and speak to
Mr. Dorfen again. Remember—think inconsistencies."

"Right." He hung up the phone and stared at
the files in front of him. Think inconsistencies.

The first inconsistency turned out to be a
whopper. When he reached for the Patricia Kelly file, he found that
it was missing.

The March day was glum—clouds and smog hid
what sun there was—and the air had cooled perceptibly by the time
Auntie Lil reached the cemetery in Brooklyn. My god, but she had
seen more graves in one day than she had ever thought the earth had
room for. She supposed they were already burying them in layers.
The thought of being confined, even in death, by another coffin
below or above her, was not a pleasant one. She made a mental note
to remember to change her will and demand burial upstate alongside
her beloved brother.

The trek to the far side of the cemetery was
long. It seemed to stretch endlessly, bounded on all sides by wide
thoroughfares and highways where drivers raced and honked with
abandon—respect for the dead ignored in favor of life in the fast
lane.

Shadows formed at the edges of the grave
sites when the afternoon sun finally broke through. Auntie Lil
wrapped her coat collar more tightly around her neck and shivered
in the breeze. The cemetery operators had resisted being entirely
greedy and a few large shade trees remained along the outskirts,
bordering a low stone wall that separated the graveyard from the
sidewalk. In the cold March afternoon, the bony tree branches
stretched out over the wall's barren stones with a distasteful
grasping look. Auntie Lil hurried by them quickly. The sun slowly
inched its way toward the west, casting unpleasant shadows on the
path in front of her.

Behind her, concealed in the darkness
beneath a large tree, stood the Asian man. He waited calmly in the
dark haven, motionless, his hands in his coat pockets. Only his
eyes moved slightly as he followed Auntie Lil's progress. When he
saw a third figure approach in the distance, he stepped back
further into the shadows and, unobserved, continued his careful
watch.

Oblivious to anything else, Auntie Lil gave
a small cry of triumph when she spotted the grave she was seeking.
She knelt in front of it and caught her breath. The gravestone was
as simple as the epitaph:

Patricia Kelly, 1938-1991

Beloved Friend & Mother

But it was not the stone that captured
Auntie Lil's greatest interest. She brushed her gloves off daintily
and lifted up a huge rotting bouquet of flowers stuffed into a
cheap gold-painted plastic vase. It was not at all appropriate for
the dead. It was, in fact, she was quite sure, a browned and
withered bridal bouquet. The ribbons were a dirty and tattered
white satin, bound around what had been a large bunch of white
roses and lilies of the valley. Dried baby's breath and selected
ferns completed the arrangement. Lifting the flowers into the air
had revealed a combination of items carefully placed about the
grave site. A cheap oval wooden box was propped against the
headstone. The top was garishly painted in bright colors—the kind
of inexpensive trinket made in Mexico that you could buy at any
import stove. She opened the lid slowly and found nestled inside a
diamond necklace of such brilliance that it sent out tongues of
fire in the waning afternoon light. Its quality confirmed John
Boswell's excellent taste in jewelry.

She placed the necklace
next to the withered bouquet and began to brush dirt off a buried
square, quickly unearthing a slim book bound in a heavy plastic
library cover. She scraped mud off of the front and
Women and Madness
emerged
as the tide, splashed across a lurid red-and-black illustration of
a woman screaming. Auntie Lil flipped to the inside back cover and
discovered "Property of Little Neck Public Library" stamped on a
small manila pocket. Little Neck? That was Stanley Sinclair's
hometown.

Another object was lodged in a mound of dirt
piled against the grave—a large sterling paperweight shaped like a
spoon. She read the inscription slowly, noting the decades-old date
and expected words:

"To Robert, with warmest
congratulations.

You're on your way to the top.

R.I.P."

She placed the objects in her lap and stared
out at the distant traffic. An item to connect each of the murders.
Carefully chosen items, she was sure. Auntie Lil held up the
paperweight and murmured, "Something old."

She tilted the necklace and it sparkled in
the light. "Something new," she whispered.

"Something borrowed," she thought, staring
at the book. "Followed one day soon by something blue."

She was so absorbed that she did not notice
a tall young woman with unruly blonde hair step lightly around a
corner and pick her way carefully over the soggy ground in
high-heeled shoes. Her head was down, lost in thought, and she
looked up only when she stumbled over an errant tree root. Her
green eyes focused on Auntie Lil, her face registering both alarm
and surprise. She stopped short several rows from Patricia Kelly's
grave and stood still, staring at Auntie Lil's kneeling figure. The
blonde woman trembled out of fear, excitement or both.

Under the tree, the Asian man took his turn
staring, his eyes darting from one woman to the other. He knew the
younger one. What was she doing here?

Auntie Lil caressed the objects with a
delicately gloved finger. The crux of the entire mystery had been
brought home to her very simply and infinitely sadly with what she
had found. Something old, something new, something borrowed,
something blue. Objects for a woman who had never had the
opportunity to fulfill the wedding tradition when alive. Auntie Lil
sighed. It seemed to her that Patricia Kelly had not yet found any
peace or dignity, even in death. That her unfilled hopes and abused
dreams still roamed the earth, restless and mourning. She touched
the withered bridal bouquet.

The younger woman continued to stare
intently as Auntie Lil carefully replaced the objects and leaned
the bouquet back in place against the grave. Auntie Lil reached a
hand out and gripped the gravestone, trembling with exertion as she
eased herself to her feet.

Auntie Lil was too absorbed in her sadness
to notice when the blonde finally moved from her spot. In an almost
complete reversal of Auntie Lil's own actions, the woman dropped
quickly to her knees at the nearest grave and wrapped a scarf,
which had been at her neck, tightly around her face. She inched the
bouquet she'd been holding onto the grave and bent her head as if
absorbed in prayer. When Auntie Lil passed by with an absently
murmured kind word, the young woman appeared too lost in sorrow to
reply.