“Ah, the Princess Patterson!” said Simmard as the other men rose. “Forgive me if I don’t stand, my dear.”
“Oh, don’t get up for me,” she said, her hand on the back of his wheelchair.
It was evidently an old joke between them and she dropped a kiss on his jowly cheek as she greeted her parents’ friends and smiled at me across the table.
She really was a princess, I thought. Poised and well-schooled in graciousness, yet nevertheless basking in her position and their approval. And if there was a trace of “I’m entitled” in her smile, well, who could blame her for growing up a little spoiled when one saw such overwhelming pride on Jay Patterson’s face and such uncritical love in Elizabeth’s eyes?
They left, and the noise level in the room continued to climb until conversation was possible only with the persons nearest, so I turned to Albert Han and asked the usual questions. He volunteered interesting facts about rattan and wicker and some amusing anecdotes regarding the perils of international trade. And he was courteous enough to ask me about life as a district court judge. I responded in kind with the tale of two drunk hunters who shot up a strip of retread from a tractor-trailer tire thinking it was an alligator.
Chick Simmard was back for the punch line and chuckled appreciatively. “I heard about that the last time I was down in Beaufort. Darlene Leonard was telling it. She speaks mighty highly of you, Judge Knott.”
“Please, it’s Deborah,” I said. “And I think highly of Mrs. Leonard, too.”
As he and Han began to exchange deep-sea fishing experiences, I glanced at Lester Craft on my left. He was at the fringe of a four-way conversation between the Pattersons, the Chicago robotics executive and the quiet woman who, I’d decided, was not Mrs. Simmard, and he seemed more than willing to turn to a one-on-one.
“Are you with the furniture industry, too?” I asked.
He smiled. “You could say so. I’m the editor of Furniture/Today.”
Normally a slick, full-color weekly, the tabloid-size trade paper comes out every day during Market with fresh updates on what’s hot, who’s buying, national and international trends, and provocative columnists, along with who’s hosting the best parties, and discreet gossip. Today’s front page carried as much news as was known about Chan’s death: Chandler Nolan Dies at Market/Foul Play Suspected in Sales Veep’s Death.
“I understand you’re a friend of Nolan’s mother-in-law,” he said. “And that you were with her when she found him.”
“Is that what Heather told you?” I parried.
“Who?”
“Heather McKenzie.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think I know anyone by that name.”
I smiled. “I wouldn’t have thought your editorial staff was so large that you wouldn’t know all your reporters.”
He continued to look at me blankly, still shaking his head. “We don’t have a Heather McKenzie on our staff.”
“But she has a Furniture/Today press badge. She’s a reporter—”
“Not for me, she’s not,” he said emphatically.
Could he be right? I remembered thinking her word choice was odd at the Century showroom when she said “I may actually get a real article after all.” And what else had she told me? “I think she’s on assignment from your Massachusetts office? Writing profiles of important Market figures?”
Massachusetts was the magic word. His face cleared as he finally recognized Heather’s name.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “The freelancer. Right.”
I decided that it might be fun to get Lester Craft into a poker game.
Except that it would be taking candy from a baby. His face was much too expressive to run a bluff.
Two things were now quite obvious: 1) he did remember Ms. Heather McKenzie; 2) she was not a reporter.
Not by Mr. Craft’s definition anyhow.
21
« ^ » “The rage for old furniture not only occasions a demand, at most extravagant prices, for genuine articles of undoubted antiquity, but has led to a revival of some old styles, and to very successful imitations.”The Great Industries of the United States, 1872
The dinner party broke up a little after ten.
Outside the restaurant, we thanked Judge Simmard for a delightful and delicious dinner and waited while he hydraulically hoisted himself and his chair into his van.
The April evening had turned too chilly to linger on the sidewalk after he’d driven away. Lester Craft said goodnight and headed for his own car in the Radisson parking garage and, to my surprise, boisterous Bob and quiet Nancy went off together.
The Pattersons were going on to a private party at the Emerywood Country Club and insisted that the hosts “would be delighted if you and Mr. Han came with us.”
But Albert Han had a car and driver idling at the curb and he wanted to go dancing at a lounge over in Greensboro.
The Pattersons accepted my regrets with polite regrets of their own and departed. Han was a little harder to dissuade. For all his western dress and speech, he seemed to have rather eastern ideas about women and I finally had to speak quite sharply before I finally convinced him that I was not a party favor thoughtfully provided by Judge Simmard.
I didn’t want to party or dance. I wanted to go sit quietly and consider all the things I’d seen and heard these last two days.
Driving back to Dixie’s house, I gave serious thought to Drew Patterson. Certainly she could have given Chan those penicillin-dusted brownies even though she claimed she hadn’t known how serious his allergies were. She said Chan was merely an old friend who had treated her like a kid sister, but had been fun to play with. Dixie said she’d wanted to marry him, but Dixie seemed to see would-be stepmothers to Lynnette at every turn.
Yet, say it was true. Nevertheless, even if Drew had been head over heels for Chan, was his leaving High Point without her motive enough for murder? In this day and age, are there really women who tell themselves, “If I can’t have him, no one will?”
Then there was all that love and pride the Pattersons had invested in their only child.
Dixie thought Jay Patterson was angry at Chan because Chan was leaving Fitch and Patterson, going to Malaysia, and perhaps taking with him valuable proprietary information about Fitch and Patterson business deals. But what if he’d also come to believe that Chan had trifled with his daughter’s affections? An aggressive, pugnacious man like Patterson—
“An aggressive, pugnacious man would have punched him in the nose and been done with it,” said the pragmatist in my mental ear.
On the other hand, as Chan’s employer, he might have known how serious Chan’s allergies were.
And Savannah seemed to trust Patterson. He had helped her take food at the ALWA party Thursday night and he might have seen me pick up that baggie from the floor, the one with my fingerprints all over it. I tried to remember if that baggie was still on the table when first Savannah, then Patterson and finally Drew walked away from the table, but it was just an insignificant little plastic bag and I had absolutely no memory one way or the other.
Dixie said Lavelle Trocchi had been there. She was accused of being Chan’s dupe, of letting him steal a preview catalog of her company’s new designs. She could be fired, her reputation within the industry destroyed. I suppose she could have heard the byplay on the brownies and seen me pick up the baggie.
No one mentioned seeing the Colliers, though. And while those two retailers—Kay Adams and Poppy Jackson—might cheerfully poison Chan, would they have known penicillin would do the trick and would Chan have taken brownies from them?