Rehearsal for Murder (Maggie Ryan) (22 page)

She nodded, the lazy grin gone now. One of her fingers traced the design on her Danish mug. “They found the note when they got home. It was terrible. Ugly stuff about cutting off fingers—God, I’ve had nightmares about it! About my baby…. Anyway, it said specifically, no police.”

“Yes,” said Nick. “Steve Bradford was worried about that too. I’ll do my best.” Steve would have told him about the note too. So he asked obliquely, “And they’ve followed the instructions in the note, he said.”

“Right. Steve left just a few minutes ago to deliver the money. The guys have a weird sense of humor. Wanted the money delivered in a toy bear! There’s one for old Busby’s billiard room!”

Nick grinned. “I’m not supposed to laugh at him. He’s my employer.”

“Oh, I know.” She grew serious. “I suppose he thinks he’s doing right. And it’s his half-million bucks the kidnappers want, we all know that. Steve and Elaine can hardly tell him off. I mean, they’re like us and everyone else on this street, mortgaged up to their ears. This burg is a Chase Manhattan company town.”

“God, looks pretty comfortable to me.”

“Oh, yeah, can’t complain. Unless Bob loses his job, or one of us gets sick, or the baby. Then we drown without a trace, and Chase Manhattan finds a rounder peg to drop in this little hole.”

“Not much danger of that, is there?”

She lifted her shoulders an inch, frowning at her empty mug. “I’ve been lucky. I worry what would happen if we lost Bob’s income for some reason. I mean, here I am, seven months committed to having this kid, and no job of my own, no way to pay off this huge house. Not like Elaine. Steve is pretty well set because it’s her dad’s business. And if Daddy dies, then it’s her business.”

“So why are they mortgaged?”

“Oh, I told you Busby was antediluvian. He thinks it builds character or something to owe money to the bank.” She leaned back, stroked her blouse smooth over her distended belly, and mused, “I think they would have built enough character with all the trouble they had having a baby. That’s tough on a person.”

“Fertility problems?” he hazarded, hoping to keep the information coming. Rachel, less secure financially than her friend, had obviously given some thought to ways in which she was more fortunate.

“I guess so. And miscarriages. Elaine says once Muffin was born Steve treated her like a goddess or something. We were sitting by the dock one day, and she said, ‘I bet it would be fun to do it in the sailboat.’ And I said, ‘God, you mean you haven’t?’ And she told me how she was sort of on a pedestal.” Her cheeks colored. “My God, I shouldn’t be telling you this!”

“No, you’re right. It feeds into the whole kidnap situation. Better to hear it from you than to have to ask Elaine.”

“Yeah, you better not ask her about this.” The lazy grin came back. “Thank God my Bob doesn’t respect me that much!”

Ah, shrewd and lusty lady, you’ll find that being three is far more complicated than being two. Nick felt a stirring of sympathy for Steve. If Sarah, quickly conceived and smoothly borne, could wreak such emotional havoc, how much more complicated it would be if she also symbolized a long-sought prize! But Rachel wouldn’t understand yet. So he just smiled and said, “So long as Bob respects the mortgage payments, right?”

“Yeah. Bottom line. And listen, Mr. Private Eye O’Connor, if a single word of this last stuff gets back to Busby, I’ll personally slay you.”

“I know. I’m not an idiot. Merely a paid brute.”

“Well, brute, I only told you so you wouldn’t be bugging Elaine.” She still felt guilty.

He hastened to reassure her. “I shouldn’t have to now. Tell you what, when I leave I’ll go inspect your hedges. You can tell people I’m a landscape contractor bidding on a job.”

“Good idea. But listen, try to make old Busby understand.” Her dark eyes pinned him with their earnestness. “This is not a big game hunt. This time the quarry is a little girl, not a rhino. And we want her back alive. So tell him to quit making the kidnappers nervous. To quit sending guys like you around.”

“Yes.” She could be right. Or, he reminded himself, she could be warning him away because she herself was involved in the plot. He almost hoped she was; his presence might panic a kidnapper into doing something rash, but if Rachel was involved, she seemed cool, witty, not rash at all. Still, better keep her thinking that he liked her theory. He said, “I won’t be doing much until the little girl is home safely. After that I’ll check out Steve’s coworkers.”

“Good.”

Nick decided to risk another question. “Also, he sent me packing so fast that I didn’t get the address of the woman who gave Muffin to the kidnapper.”

“Mitzi’s address? Sorry, I don’t know. But you can get in touch with her at Montessori any day. But—”

“I know, I promised! Not until after the little girl is back. Thank you,” said the private eye automatically, closing his notebook. But Nick’s mind churned as he walked back through the house.

Rachel said she had gone to Montessori to pick up Muffin.

Not to Mrs. Golden.

And that put a different and even uglier slant on the case.

The one-eyed bear stared glumly at Steve.

Steve stared at the bills. Hard to believe how much it was.

Busby, fuming about the tight schedule, had grumbled that they’d only had time to mark the five hundreds. Fifty thou. Steve pulled one out of its bundle, squinted at it, finally spotted the little extra curlicue on McKinley’s portrait. Idiotic old Busby. A professional kidnapper would see that instantly. Well, he’d fix that—or rather, Busby Investments would. Banks were pulling these larger denominations out of circulation, and Busby Investments, a good-citizen firm, would cooperate fully and change them for hundreds. They were going to follow the instructions in that note, damn it, whatever the old man thought! Busby didn’t care about Muffin, he only cared about revenge on people who tweaked his nose.

But Steve had to stay cool, move calmly, so the secretaries wouldn’t ask premature questions. The rest of the bundle would be as safe here as anywhere. He unlocked his top left drawer and slid the bag and the bear inside, next to his gun. Beautiful, tiny gun. He frowned at it a moment, then loaded it. He’d feel better carrying the gun when the time came.

The bear looked at him from the drawer.

Steve slid the gun into his pocket, along with his new passport. That had cost money too. But it was completely confidential, his expensive contact had promised; and the man was real, or had been, with a birth certificate on file somewhere in Chile and probably old school records, in case anyone checked. José Santos, he was called. Blue-eyed, like Steve. A few years younger. But the photograph in the passport was Steve’s.

His plan was complete. He’d change the bills and wait here at the office, calm and respectable, until late afternoon. Then he’d leave, call Elaine from a booth. He’d talk in a funny voice, high-pitched, to tell her that the ransom had been received. And he’d give her the address of the Douglaston day-care center where he’d told Mrs. Golden to take Muffin today.

Then he’d catch the JFK Express, anonymous in the crowd, and be in time for the evening flight. Steve Bradford would never be seen again.

But José Santos, lucky man, would turn up in Caracas tomorrow, with half a million in his pocket and Susan on his arm.

Part Four

THE SHORT HAPPY LIFE OF JOSé SANTOS

Friday afternoon

March 9, 1973

XIII

Friday, 2 pm

March 9, 1973

Even being chief suspect in a kidnapping was not enough to dull Maggie’s appetite.

“It’s almost two o’clock,” she complained. “And they haven’t told people about it, if they don’t even want the police to know.”

“That’s assuming Rachel is telling the truth. At least hide the curly black hair, okay?” suggested Nick. “I’ll carry the baby. Not much we can do about your height.”

“You could keep putting off lunch. I’m shrinking already,” grumbled Maggie. She was scraping her hair back and tying her scarf over it tightly. But despite her complaints her eyes were lively again, anxiety and fatigue driven out by excitement. The pleasure of the hunt, of having a concrete problem instead of amorphous unease? Nick found it hard to imagine her an untouchable madonna now, with the imps back in her eyes.

But at the moment the highest priority was getting her out of the Bradford neighborhood, though she refused to go any farther than a cafe on the parkway not far from the Long Island Railroad station. Maggie sank her teeth into a cheeseburger and mumbled, “So somebody’s lying. Who? And where have they hidden Muffin? Because there wasn’t a sign of her around the Bradford house. Elaine Bradford was sitting in the kitchen. Just sitting, staring at the telephone. God, Nick, I want to throttle somebody! But who?”

Nick arranged Sarah’s blanket. She was sound asleep on the seat of the booth beside him. “Three possibilities,” he said. “Mrs. Golden, for starts. If she kidnapped Muffin, she’s done a good job of hiding her tracks. Told Bradford the wrong agency. Told you his name was Hartford.”

“Yeah, but how did she know I didn’t know his name?”

“True. Still, it was worth a try. If you’d corrected her, she could have pretended she misheard. Anyway, maybe she lied about her own name too.”

“Yeah.” Maggie looked glum but didn’t stop chewing. “God, I knew there was something not quite right there. I hope we end up with more identification of her than whatever Identi-Kit portrait I can make.”

“You think they’ll let you try, if they arrest you?”

She shook her head. “I just wish I could remember some of the other things she said. Maybe one would lead us to her somehow.” The cheeseburger was disappearing fast. “Okay. Number two, maybe Rachel is lying.”

“She’s certainly in an ideal position for a kidnapper,” said Nick. “She lives next door, and she’s pregnant so she has a good excuse to ask questions about the details of Muffin’s life.”

“That’s true.” Maggie chewed thoughtfully a moment. “And the parents seem to trust her. She’s even been told about the progress of the case. Knows about the ransom and the stuffed toy. But why would she tell you? And if she took Muffin from Mrs. Golden, why would she claim that she went to Montessori? It’s so easy to check.”

“Well, maybe she did go to Montessori, to throw the police off the scent, and then went to Mrs. Golden later.”

“Won’t wash. Because Steve would have told her where to pick up the kid, and he’d remember.”

“Which brings us to possibility number three,” said Nick.

“Steve my-friends-call-me-Buzz Bradford.” Maggie waved the waitress over and asked for pie and a second glass of milk. Then she continued, “But that won’t wash either. It’s his own daughter.”

“Still,” mused Nick, “it’s simpler if he’s the one who’s lying.”

“How do you mean?”

“If Steve told you the truth, both women have to be lying—Mrs. Golden about the agency, Rachel about where she went to pick up Muffin.”

“Yes.”

“But he’s the one who told you the name of the agency. He’s the one who told Rachel where to look for Muffin. He’s the one who didn’t give his full name or tell you how to reach him in case of trouble.”

“Or ask how to reach me in case of trouble. Right. And he’s the one, maybe, who told Mrs. Golden his name was Hartford.”

“Yes.”

The pie arrived, looking machine-made and aged simultaneously. Oblivious to its provenance, Maggie set to work on it. “I believe it with my head. But it can’t be true!”

Nick, contenting himself with coffee, asked, “Is it that you can’t believe such a successful guy would set you up?”

“Hell, no! For half a million I’d consider setting someone up myself! But Nick, it’s his own daughter!”

“Hey, you know parents aren’t all great. Kids get beaten, abandoned—all kinds of terrible betrayals. Look at Jaymie. At Ramona.”

“Yes,” she said stubbornly, “I know there could be stresses in his life. But we’ve all got stresses. Right now, if Dan can’t adapt his program, we’ll lose money on the Department of Corrections bid. And you’re back to making rounds. Stress, right? And yet Sarah’s the only part of my life that I know for sure won’t be sacrificed. Whatever happens.”

Nick nodded.

She waved in the general direction of Gardenport. “That sister from South Brooklyn told us about families with real problems. How could Steve Bradford have that much stress? All that money makes this place look like Oz to me.”

Nick took her hand. A bony, strong, hardworking hand. He said, “Gladstone was in politics for the money. Lots of mouths to feed, the family estate to maintain. He rose to the top, ran the greatest empire of its day. It’s hard to imagine a more perfect citizen of the world—loyal husband, devoted father, great statesman. But he was always tortured, pulled in one direction by his zeal to reform the world through religion, another direction by his oratorical talents, yet another by his taste for prostitutes.”

“You think maybe Steve got pulled too far in some direction? And wasn’t strong enough to resist? But his daughter—”

“I know. I can’t imagine anything in the world that would lead me to hurt or frighten Sarah. But it’s always a balancing act. Hell, Maggie, you know that from your own life! Maybe he’s got gambling debts, or a blackmailer.” He remembered what Rachel had said about Elaine’s being on a pedestal. “Or maybe he’s just noticed he’s middle-aged and life is passing him by.”