The Fregoli Delusion (16 page)

17

A small crowd had gathered by the
time Hank reached the doorway, a double-width arch that led from the gallery
loft into a wide hallway above the main staircase. He shouldered his way
through. A reporter and a cameraman were blocking the path of a petite
middle-aged woman who had been trying to pass them into the loft. An elderly
guest had intervened but had been pushed down by the cameraman. A young woman
dressed in period clothing, one of Constance’s graduate student volunteers, was
helping the old man back to his feet.

Hank held up the wallet containing
his identification and badge. “What’s going on?”

The camera swung toward him, and
the reporter held out her wireless microphone. “You’re Hank Donaghue, aren’t
you?”

“What’s going on here?” Hank
repeated.

“Mr. Vanderbeek was trying to help
Mrs. Benson,” the volunteer said. “This camera guy knocked him down. They have
no right to be here.”

“This is a public building and we
have every right to be here,” replied the reporter, whom Hank recognized now as
Rachel Pierk, a correspondent for WRTZ, the local CBS television affiliate.
“All we want is a few answers from Mrs. Benson and we’ll be on our way.”

“Have you called security?” Hank
asked the volunteer.

“Sorry, I didn’t have a chance to.
I was helping Mr. Vanderbeek.”

“Turn that off,” Hank told the
cameraman. He looked at Mr. Vanderbeek. “Do you want to press charges?”

“I might,” the old man replied.
“I’m going to have a helluva bruise on my shoulder from where he hit me.”

“Did you hit him?” Hank asked the
cameraman.

“He gave me a straight arm like he
was a football player,” Mr. Vanderbeek said, before the cameraman could
respond.

Hank looked at Rachel Pierk. “Did
you ask anyone for permission to come up here to interview people?”

“We don’t need permission. In
fact, I’d like a statement from you, too, and I don’t need permission for that,
either.”

“Yes, you do,” the volunteer
contradicted.

Hank turned to the cameraman. “I
take it you were filming when you straight-armed Mr. Vanderbeek.” He held out
his hand. “It’s evidence in an assault investigation. I’ll take it now.”

The cameraman lowered his camera
and looked at Rachel. “This isn’t such a good idea. Let’s go.”

“Hold on, it’s not that easy,”
Hank said. “Mr. Vanderbeek, do you want to press charges?”

The old man glared at the
cameraman. “If they clear the hell out of here right now and leave this poor
woman alone, I’ll forget it happened. Otherwise, kid, I’ll see you in court.”

Without another word the cameraman
turned around and walked away.

Rachel gave Hank a long look and followed
her cameraman.

“Are you okay?” Diane Benson asked
Mr. Vanderbeek.

“I play squash three days a week
with a personal trainer,” Mr. Vanderbeek replied confidently. “I’m as fit as a
damned fiddle and rarin’ to go.” He turned on his heel and headed straight for
the bar.

Diane looked at Hank. “Thank you.”

“You’re Diane Jarrett Benson?”

“Yeah. I guess it’s not safe to go
out to the washroom around here. Where can I sit down?”

“We could go back downstairs into
the atrium, if you like. I think they’ve finished clearing the tables.”

“That sounds like a good idea.”
She led the way through the loft to the staircase at the far side which took
them directly down into the atrium. Tables were now arranged along the walls
and spread with clean tablecloths. Catering staff flitted back and forth.
Already a few people had deserted the loft and settled down at the tables to
talk more comfortably. Diane chose a table and caught the attention of a
passing server. “Could we have a pot of decaffeinated coffee with cream and
sugar?”

“Absolutely,” the young man said.
He veered off toward the preparation area to get it.

Diane sat down and touched her
cheek. “Thanks again. Normally the press don’t bother me, but I’m a little
tired tonight.”

“That’s understandable.” Hank
turned his chair sideways and sat down so that he was facing the floor of the
atrium. “It’s been a difficult time.”

“I saw you on TV yesterday,” she
said. “You looked good. Better than the chief.”

“Thanks.”

“I hope it doesn’t take you long
to find whoever did this to Dad. I’d like to get my hands on them and strangle
them, very slowly.” She caught herself. “I shouldn’t be saying that to a cop.”

“How was your relationship with
your father? Or would you rather do this later?”

“No, no, that’s all right. That’s
why I thought we’d sit down. I knew you’d want to talk to me at some point and
I’d rather just get it over with. Ask your questions.”

Hank crossed his legs and folded
his hands on his knee. The server arrived with their coffee. He set the table
for them with cups, saucers, silverware, fresh napkins, pitchers of cream,
bowls of sugar and artificial sweetener, and a large pot of coffee. He poured a
cup for each of them. “Would you like anything else? We still have plenty of
pastries.”

“No,” Diane said. “I’m fine,
thanks. Hank?”

Hank shook his head.

“I saw you on TV last night,” the
server said to Hank.

Don’t say it
, Hank thought.

“You look smaller on TV.”

Hank smiled politely.

“You going to catch the guy that
killed that billionaire?”

“Normally I’d enjoy this
conversation with you, son,” Hank said, “but right now we’d like a little
privacy. Maybe later, okay?”

The server blushed. “Oh, sure, I’m
very sorry.”

Diane managed a thin smile as the
server hurried away. “Hero worship. Very cute in young men that age. You were
asking about my relationship with Dad. I was about to explain that it wasn’t
the usual father-daughter thing, but on the whole I’d say it turned out to be
fairly positive. I’m not sure how much you know about him.”

“Not a great deal.”

Diane sipped her coffee. “Mm.
Good. I’ll have to use this caterer the next time I have something. They’re
really very good.” She set down the cup. “Dad was born and raised in Baltimore.
His father worked in a shoe store and his mother died when he was eight or
nine. When Dad was twenty-four he went into partnership with a man named Paul
Gibbons to open up a medical supplies distribution business. Gibbons was a
former medic in the Korean War, so the story goes, and was selling bandages
wholesale or some such thing when Dad met him. About that time Dad married his
first wife, Judith Wilson, and they had Ned, my stepbrother. Judith died from
an infection a few weeks later.”

“That’s too bad,” Hank said.

“Yes, it was very sad. Not long
afterward, Dad learned that one of his suppliers, the Cross Bandage Company,
was going to declare bankruptcy because the owner had died and they were close
to insolvency. Dad arranged to buy the company for pennies on the dollar. At
the last minute Gibbons pulled out, so Dad found additional funding and bought
it on his own. He got Cross back on its feet within a year. Within three years
he’d bought two other small suppliers, bought out Gibbons’s share in their
business, and merged everything into The H.J. Jarrett Company. Within the
decade he took the company public and exceeded the million dollar mark in
personal income.”

“Impressive,” Hank said.

“Very,” Diane agreed. “During that
time he met my mother, Kathleen Whitaker, married her, and they had me. I’m
forty, by the way. In case you’re too polite to ask. Sorry, I keep forgetting
you’re a cop. I guess you’ll ask whatever questions you want to.”

She sipped coffee. “My mother was
a working girl when they met. She was dancing at a club in Baltimore when she
caught Dad’s eye. Apparently it didn’t take a lot of heavy thought for her to
decide to hang up the g-string and marry him. They actually stayed married for
twenty years, although she left and went down to Arizona when I was seven. She’s
still there. I stayed behind because I was in school and Dad refused to allow
me to be uprooted. Kathleen didn’t really care much, so I stayed here. Thank
God.”

Hank said nothing, looking at her
over the rim of his coffee cup.

“Booze, coke, you name it,” she
said. “Kathleen’s been in and out of rehab so many times they’ve practically
named a wing after her. I feel sorry for her, I really do, but I thank my lucky
stars my father put his foot down. Anyway, we were talking about Dad’s
business. In 1983 he bought a controlling interest in a pharmaceutical company,
and in 1995 he bought a medical devices company, and at that point he
reorganized into Jarrett Corporation. They have the three business segments: a
consumer products segment, including all their health care products; a
pharmaceuticals segment; and a medical devices and diagnostics segment. Each
segment generates over three hundred million in revenue.” She paused. “I heard
you went out to talk to Chrissy, so hopefully I don’t have to bother with the
rest of the domestic biography.”

“How do you and she get along?”

“Oh, we’re fine.” Diane waved her
hand. “She plays the dumb blond sometimes but I know she’s very bright. At
first I thought Dad had gone out of his mind, marrying her, like he was looking
for Kathleen Two or something. But it didn’t take long to understand, once you
got to know her. It was an unusual relationship but very good for Dad, I
thought. Very stabilizing.”

Hank reached for the coffee pot.
“More?”

“Please.”

He refilled their cups. Diane
drank her coffee black, but Hank added cream and sugar to his while he thought
things through.

“Did you ever work for your
father?”

Diane snorted. “Never. I knew better
than that. I got my degree here at State, business administration, then I
started my own businesses right away. I sold clothing wholesale for a while,
then office equipment—you know, photocopiers, shredders, blah blah blah—then I
unloaded that one and got into the personal computer wave when it was just
taking off. I made my first million and got out of hardware altogether.

“I did some day trading for a
while and made a few more millions, then I opened an investment counseling
business. That’s how I met David. He was an investment counselor too, and we
started bumping into each other at the same places. We fell in love, got
married, and decided we’d be good business partners, so we formed Benson
Holdings and, as they say, the rest is history. Today we’re handling more than
a billion in capital funds and we’re beating off the investors with a stick.”
She looked at him seriously. “Nothing’s guaranteed in this economic climate,
but our funds are the closest thing to it you’re going to find right now.
David’s got outstanding analytical skills, and my information network’s second
to none.”

Hank stirred his coffee and
sampled it. “So tell me about your father’s retirement plans. He was going to
divest, sell his controlling interest in Jarrett Corporation to you, and
retire?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“Although originally his holdings
were going to be left to your older stepbrother in your father’s will, do I
have that correct?”

“You do.” Diane smiled at him
ironically. “It’s okay, Lieutenant. You’re wondering if something’s wrong, if
somebody was going to get screwed in the ear by all this, but believe me,
everybody was happy with Dad’s sudden decision to cut loose and get a tan on
that pasty little body of his. Ned has absolutely no interest in being involved
with Jarrett Corporation, believe me. He
hates
business with a passion.”

“Oh?”

“He’s an academic. He teaches
American lit at Harvard. A full professor with tenure, a big old house in a
trendy part of Cambridge, and a wife and three kids. He’s published two books, one
on Hawthorne and the other on some guy, what’s his name? Bartram?”

“William Bartram?”

“Probably. Anyway, he’s got no
more interest in running a billion-dollar corporation than Porky Pig would. Dad
flew up to Boston to talk to him about it. Dad sells to me, spends the rest of
his time in St. Lucia smoking cigars, drinking rum, and enjoying his escape
from Maryland's horrible estate taxes, and when he dies all his properties and
cash and holdings go into a tax haven set up for Ned, except for what Chrissy
gets through their prenup and something for Kathleen. The new will wasn’t going
to mention me at all except for a nice little business in Bermuda that would
pay me back for some of what I was going to have to spend to buy him out,
because I’d already have the bulk of my legacy: Jarrett Corporation. Neat,
clean, everybody’s happy.”

“And Ned was okay with this?”

“Of course. You can ask him
yourself when he flies in for the funeral, but he was ecstatic. It would have
saved him the huge hassle of having to unload Dad’s interest in Jarrett, it
would have given him an enormous amount of sheltered cash, and he was
practically salivating at the thought of getting Dad’s holdings, especially in
St. Lucia, where it costs about half what comparable property does in Bermuda,
by the way.”