The guests in the photographs of Scottie and Babe Devens’s last party looked to Cardozo like a bunch of rouged-up clowns, living in a world that rained diamonds and tinsel and cocaine.
He couldn’t picture her in that society. Didn’t want to.
He pushed the buzzer of number 18 Sutton Place, a gray slate town house with French château turrets. A stiff-necked butler let him in.
“Would you care to wait in the sitting room, sir?”
“That’s all right, Wheelock. Here I am.”
Cardozo turned. Babe Devens was wheeling herself out of the elevator, hair honey blond and eyes sky blue, and his heart gave a little jump of pleasure. Her blue silk afternoon dress shimmered faintly. Smiling, she stretched out her hand. “You’re very kind to come.”
He took the hand, held it, and said “Hello,” and when she looked at him strangely he realized he’d forgotten to let go.
“Do you think it’s too warm for iced tea on the terrace?”
“The terrace is fine by me,” he said.
He followed her through a room that looked as though someone had robbed a museum to furnish it. The thought came to him that if he accidentally knocked an objet off a table he’d be busting two hundred thousand dollars. He felt clumsy and intimidated, and he made up for it by adopting a careful swagger.
She used her chair smoothly, her movements strong and practiced and precise. He opened the terrace door for her, and she wheeled her chair to a little wicker patio table.
A row of boxwood bushes and small dogwoods just beyond the flagstones afforded a token sort of privacy, marking the space off from the rest of the park. Beyond the hedge a tree-fringed lawn stretched almost to the river.
Cardozo sat and Babe rang a small silver bell.
He raised his eyes up to where lingering summer sunlight caught the roofs of the city. Wouldn’t this be the life, he thought.
A uniformed maid appeared.
“Mrs. Wheelock, we’ll have our iced tea here.”
The maid returned, bringing a carved-glass pitcher beaded with condensation and two tall glasses packed with ice cubes and fresh mint sprigs.
Babe poured, her arms braceleted and bare but in the sunlight downed with light blond hair.
“Help yourself to sugar or NutraSweet.”
The edge of Cardozo’s sleeve brushed her hand and her hand stayed there on the table as though nothing at all had happened.
“You don’t have to keep your jacket on,” she said.
He hesitated. “I’m wearing a gun. Your neighbors might think it was funny, you sitting here with a man with a gun.”
“They think it’s pretty funny my sitting here at all. If they don’t like your gun they can call the cops.”
He laughed and felt warm and happy inside. He took his jacket off, put it over the back of his chair, and hoped to hell there was no ring around his collar.
“It’s pretty here,” he said.
“I love this place. It has water, sky, trees. You wouldn’t think there’s nature in the city, but there is.” She took a swallow of tea. “You should know this—I’m not going hide it. It’s so good, it’s so nice just to talk to you.”
He looked at her, and the hair on the back of his neck came alive as though the lightest finger he’d ever felt had passed over it. “It’s nice for me too,” he said.
“You’re the only one who doesn’t treat me as though I’m permanently damaged.”
He sensed strength in her, not the willed force of sinew, but something gentler, surer, like a flower coming through rock. “You’re not damaged at all.”
She looked at him and he sensed gratitude. The shadows of the row-houses were crossing the lawn, stretching toward the river wall.
He took out his notebook. “Down to business, okay? A judge let me see the record of the second trial. Ted Morgenstern pleaded your husband innocent.”
“I thought Scottie pleaded guilty to a lesser charge.”
“He started out pleading innocent. This time the syringe wasn’t allowed in evidence. Which didn’t leave the state many cards to play. The state called four witnesses. The doctor. Your housekeeper, Mrs. Banks. Your daughter. And Billi von Kleist.”
Her eyes came up, surprised. “Billi testified against Scottie?”
“Not exactly against him. He said you left the party drunk, you left with your husband, it was two in the morning, he offered to go home with you, your husband said no thanks. The doctor said you were injected with a near-lethal dose of insulin sometime between midnight and four o’clock that morning. Cordelia said she saw your husband coming out of the bedroom at three in the morning. Mrs. Banks said Cordelia woke her up at three fifteen. So far it’s the same case the state presented in trial one—minus the syringe. Then Morgenstern takes over. He moves to put in evidence a psychiatric report on your daughter.”
Babe wrinkled her brow.
“The psychiatrist’s name was Dr. Flora Vogelsang. Do you know her?”
“I’ve never heard of her,” Babe said.
Cardozo’s glance flicked up at her. “Vogelsang’s still practicing. Has an office over on Madison Avenue. It looks like she examined your daughter, prepared a report for the defense, and came to court to back it up with her testimony.”
“What did the report say?”
“I don’t know. The trial record’s missing from that point on. Someone substituted two hundred blank pages. No way of knowing if the report was accepted into evidence, how Vogelsang testified; no record of the tender of a plea bargain.”
Babe’s eyes were intelligent and questioning. “Why would those pages have been taken?”
“Someone’s covering their—their behind. But you don’t have to be Albert Einstein to put it together. Your daughter was the eyewitness against your husband. Morgenstern couldn’t defend his client, so he did the next best thing—he attacked the witness. Bringing in the psychiatrist means he attacked her sanity. The upshot was, the state couldn’t use her. So what do you do. No eyewitness, no syringe, no case. You buy the plea bargain.”
When he had laid it all out he could feel the almost physical touch of her attention.
“I can’t believe Scottie would let his lawyer … He loved Cordelia, she was a daughter to him.”
“He was saving his skin.”
“Wouldn’t the jurors remember what was said?”
“They didn’t hear it. The judge would have cleared the courtroom. Morgenstern would have questioned Cordelia and pulverized her, the state would have seen it was hopeless and accepted the plea bargain, the jury would have been sent home.”
“Cordelia’s changed. I’m sure it has to do with that trial.” Babe Devens sat looking at Cardozo, her face anxious now and determined. “I wish I knew what that psychiatrist’s report said.”
“I’d like to know too.” Cardozo stood up and slipped back into his jacket. The seersucker cloth was still warm from hanging in the sun. “By the way—do you happen to know if Faith Banks had any health problems while she was working for you?”
“None that I know of,” Babe Devens said. “Why?”
“That insulin you gave me was hers. She’s a diabetic.”
The twilight was already dusky gray. Sunset was near. The darkening leaves hung quivering on the trees and shrubs and night was coming down very gently.
“I never knew that,” Babe Devens said.
“It’s not the kind of thing you’d necessarily notice. She just wouldn’t eat sweets or drink alcohol.”
“That’s true—we offered her champagne and she wouldn’t touch it.”
“The insulin in the brown bag could have been hers. I hate to admit it, but your ex-husband could have been framed. Which isn’t necessarily good news. Did you change the locks on the house?”
Babe’s glance came up at him watchfully. “If someone still wanted to kill me, they’ve had plenty of opportunity.”
“I’m not saying it’s likely. I’m saying be a little extra careful, stay alert.”
She nodded. “I had the locks changed.”
“Don’t give away too many keys.”
“I haven’t. I won’t.”
“And if anything starts worrying you, or if there’s anything you need—”