“Lewis, who knew who you were from the first moment he laid eyes on you, knew you were rich, rich, rich, and who planned to use you to help the Molloy crowd.”
“I wanted to hurt Lloyd,” she said, her lips trembling. “I wanted revenge. And — and I hated myself.”
“Good for you,” Jericho said.
“Last night, when Lloyd told me that he knew about Ward and me, I—”
“He knew?” Jericho sat up straight.
“He told me while we were driving out to White Hills. There’d been an anonymous letter. He’d checked on me and found out it was true. I knew how much it hurt him and I was glad for a moment. But he was wonderful about it. He took the blame, admitted he’d neglected me, begged me to give him another chance. I almost began to believe in him again.”
“Why do you suppose he told you he knew if he was planning to kill you?” Jericho asked.
She looked at him, her eyes wide. “So I’d know, at the last moment when the bomb went off, why I was dying.”
“That makes him into some kind of monster,” Jericho said.
Ellen Parker closed her eyes. “God help me,” she said.
The receptionist in the brokerage offices of Sheftel & Parker was not cordial.
“I’m afraid Mr. Parker can’t see you today, Mr. Jericho. If you’ve heard the news—”
“Give him this note,” Jericho said. “I think he’ll see me.”
Jericho felt out of place in the paneled waiting room with its rich green-leather furnishings. His corduroy jacket and turtlenecked shirt were altogether too casual for this palace of wealth. There was another out-of-place man sitting in one of the big chairs across the room. Jericho’s artist’s eyes picked up details that might have escaped others. A slight bulge at the other man’s waistline spelled gun. Cop, Jericho thought. The police weren’t risking another attempt on Parker’s life.
The receptionist, looking mildly surprised, reappeared. “Mr. Parker will see you,” she said.
She led Jericho into an inner room. He was aware that the waiting man had risen and was following him. In the inner room another out-of-place man faced him. He showed a police shield.
“Mr. Parker doesn’t know you, Mr. Jericho. Under the circumstances you’ll understand why we must make sure you’re not armed.”
Jericho raised his arms languidly. The man behind tapped Jericho over. There was a moment of tension when he felt a bulge in the pocket of the corduroy coat. It turned out to be Jericho’s pipe.
Lloyd Parker was about six feet tall, with soft, curly brown hair. He had a square jaw, and the crow’s-feet at the corners of his brown eyes suggested a man of good humor. But those eyes were red-rimmed, probably from lack of sleep. He looked like a man fighting exhaustion. This had been Fay’s kind of man, Jericho thought: gentle, undemanding, considerate. Most people would instinctively like Lloyd Parker under normal circumstances. Now he was undermined by tensions and anxiety. He stood in front of his big flat-topped desk, leaning against it.
“Your note, Mr. Jericho, tells me that you were a friend of Fay’s, which is why I agreed to see you. It also says that you know where my wife is. Why should you think that would interest me?”
“Aren’t you wondering if she’s gone back to Wardell Lewis?”
A muscle rippled along Parker’s jawline. “Just what, exactly, do you mean by that?”
“Oh, come, Mr. Parker, let’s not waste time with games. I’ve just been talking to your wife. I knew about the affair from Fay.”
“Fay? Fay knew?”
“Fay knew and was prepared to do anything to keep you from finding out about it. But you did find out.”
Parker’s face hardened. “What do you want of me, Mr. Jericho?”
“I want to ask you a question before I call in those cops out there and charge you with the murder of Fay Martin and the intention to murder your wife.”
Parker’s mouth dropped and he gasped for air like a landed fish. “You’re out of your mind!” he whispered.
“I think not.” Jericho’s voice was matter-of-fact. “Your wife got your instructions to go to the car, where a bomb was waiting for her. By mischance Fay offered to do the errand for her. I said in my note that I know where your wife is. I do. She’s not with Lewis, if that matters to you. But it must be obvious to you that she won’t see you or go back home with you. She’s afraid you might try again.”
“This is sheer madness!” Parker said. “I don’t want my wife dead. I love her. There’s nothing in the world that matters to me without her. I had nothing to do with the bomb, I sent no message asking her to go to the car, I had just been pleading with her to give our marriage a second chance.”
“When did you tell Fay she could stop looking for the person who was feeding Wardell Lewis with information about you?”
“Last night, just a little while before the debate was to begin. I told her the truth — that I’d found out Ellen was having an affair with Lewis, which explained his source of information.”
“She wasn’t shocked, Parker. She had told me earlier in the day about the affair. She was, as I told you, prepared to do anything to keep you from knowing.”
“She told me that. I was grateful, but I explained to her that Ellen was all that mattered to me, that I’d do anything to get her back.”
Jericho’s eyes wandered toward a small bar in the corner of the office. “Do you mind if I pour myself a drink?”
“Yes, I mind!” Parker said. “Does Ellen really think I tried to kill her?”
“She’s sure of it,” Jericho said. He went over to the bar and poured himself a bourbon. He looked at Parker and raised his glass. “Maybe I can persuade her that she’s wrong.”
“But you just threatened to—”
“I know,” Jericho said. “You have an extraordinary effect on women, Parker. One of them runs away from you and into the arms of a heel because she thinks you don’t love her enough. Another gives up being a woman for ten years just to breathe the same air that you do. But I don’t suppose Fay ever gave up hope that some day, somehow, you might be more than that to her.”
“Poor Fay.”
“Yes, poor Fay,” Jericho said. “It could have been this way, Parker. When she found out about your wife’s affair with Lewis she wanted to save you the hurt. Your wife’s death might be a terrible blow to you, but having your male ego shattered would be even worse. I think she had already planned a way when she talked to me at lunch yesterday. Maybe she hoped I’d come up with a better answer, but unfortunately I didn’t.
“So it was she, it was Fay who rigged the bomb in your car. Keys? There was a spare set which you’d put ‘in a safe place’ that you no longer could remember. Fay knew. Your secretary, Parker, your devoted, loving secretary knew. Your wife might not know your ‘safe place,’ or the size of your collar, or how you liked your eggs, but Fay knew; she knew everything there was to know about you and she cherished the knowledge.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” Parker said, his voice shaken. “How would she know how to rig a bomb? Fay? Impossible!”
“Quite possible,” Jericho said. “There’s an odd fact I know about her that you’d have no reason to know. When I first met Fay in Paris ten or twelve years ago she was a model. I am a painter. She was also a member of a wild young revolutionary group that was constantly demonstrating, bombing, and burning. Their aim was to get rid of General de Gaulle. They were trained by experienced people. She would know how to make a simple bomb.