Lucia struck him as a woman who knew exactly what she wanted—she didn’t use words like “maybe” or “perhaps.” Hadley struck him as the sort of husband who would defer to his wife’s judgment in every matter but the important one—money.
“The Metropolitan Museum is doing just as much as any settlement house for the people of this city.” Lucia Vanderwalk’s glance, level and confident, turned diagonally across the table toward Cardozo. “Perhaps you don’t agree, Leftenant?”
“You’re right,” he said pleasantly. “I don’t agree.”
Lucia Vanderwalk tilted her head questioningly. “Have you been to the Metropolitan?”
“I investigated a robbery there ten, twelve years ago.”
“But have you ever been there unprofessionally?”
He met the dowager’s adamantly tolerant gaze. “I don’t have much time for things that don’t connect to work. Wish I did.”
“Sounds like you fellows are on the job twenty-four hours a day,” Hadley Vanderwalk said.
Cardozo nodded. “Pretty much.”
“But you’re certainly not working now,” Lucia Vanderwalk smiled.
“As a matter of fact, I am.”
There was a drawn-out, smiling silence. Lucia Vanderwalk observed Cardozo with interest.
“Seven years ago,” he said, “I helped investigate the attempt on Mrs. Devens’s life. That’s why you recognize me.”
Lucia Vanderwalk’s lips pulled into a thin line. She turned her eyes coldly toward her daughter. “Beatrice, this is shabby and absolutely irresponsible. You could at least show a little consideration for your poor father!”
Hadley Vanderwalk did not look the least bit troubled.
“If you and your husband had refused to plea-bargain,” Cardozo said, “the D.A. would have prosecuted on the original charge. Why didn’t you refuse?”
“Are we going to go into all this again?” Lucia Vanderwalk sighed.
“Did you have sudden doubts about the evidence? Or about Scott Devens’s guilt?”
Lucia Vanderwalk’s eyes defied Cardozo. “Neither my husband nor I had the slightest doubt whatsoever. Nor have we now.”
“After the first trial,” Cardozo said, “you invited a writer by the name of Dina Alstetter into your daughter’s house. Mrs. Alstetter found a bottle of insulin in a stud box in the bedroom. You let her keep that bottle.”
“Yes, she wanted to write a magazine article about it.”
“Didn’t it occur to you that the bottle should be taken to the police?”
“I am not going to submit to cross-examination in my own livingroom.”
“Your daughter’s house was searched and there’s no mention of that stud box or that bottle in any of the reports.”
“What finds its way into police reports is hardly my responsibility.”
“The insulin in that bottle was prescribed for Faith Banks.”
Lucia Vanderwalk’s face arranged itself into a careful blank. “Evidently my daughter’s housekeeper was a diabetic. Is that a crime?”
“Isn’t it a little odd that the evidence at the trial was insulin that Mrs. Banks found in Scott Devens’s closet?”
“I fail to see the oddity.”
“Mrs. Banks never told the police she was a diabetic. And the insulin that she claimed she found was never traced.”
Lucia Vanderwalk tapped her fingers together. “Mrs. Banks’s health and medications are all very mysterious I’m sure, but what has my daughter’s former servant to do with me or my husband?”
“Quite a lot, ma’am. You two paid Faith Stoddard Banks two hundred fifty thousand dollars. The money was transferred to her bank account the day after Judge Davenport closed the second trial to the public. On the same day you paid a half million into Scott Devens’s account. You’ve been paying him a quarter million and Mrs. Banks fifty thousand every year since.”
Lucia Vanderwalk exhaled loudly. “Hadley,” she commanded, “will you kindly say something?”
“I’m amazed at Lieutenant Cardozo’s research,” Hadley Vanderwalk said imperturbably.
“Tell him it’s not true!” his wife cried.
“It’s not true.” Hadley Vanderwalk paused to light his pipe. “The money went to Ted Morgenstern.”
A disbelieving expression flared on Lucia Vanderwalk’s face. “Hadley, how can you be so stupid?”
“Morgenstern took his percentage—a large one,” Hadley Vanderwalk said. “He passed the rest on to Mrs. Banks and to Scottie. Morgenstern’s a clever man. He organized a syndicate to back Mrs. Banks’s restaurant. He organized another to back Scottie’s career. Both have been profitable, I understand. Morgenstern gave us a chance to invest. We foolishly turned him down. Principle, you know.”
Cardozo took out his notebook and made a show of consulting his notes. “At the second trial Ted Morgenstern introduced a psychiatric and physical examination of Cordelia made by Dr. Flora Vogelsang.”
“That record is sealed!” Lucia Vanderwalk cried.
Cardozo gave her a long, slow look.
Mrs. Vanderwalk took a cigarette from a crystal box. “Dr. Vogelsang, for your information, is a vicious old Freudian and she should be burnt at the stake. She called Cordelia mad. Can you imagine, from inkblots and projective I-don’t-know-what’s she had the gall to accuse our granddaughter of inventing stories. I’m ashamed for Beatrice to have to hear this, but Dr. Vogelsang claimed Cordelia hated her mother and was in love with her stepfather. It was the most revolting oedipal offal, the lot of it.”
“Ted Morgenstern introduced another medical report into evidence,” Cardozo said. “Dr. Frederick Hallowell’s. That report showed that Scott Devens was infected with the same disease as Cordelia—gonorrhea.”
“Must we?” Lucia Vanderwalk snapped. Her finger tapped a furious bolero against her pearls.
“Yes, Mama,” Babe Devens said. “We must.”
“What were we to do?” Lucia Vanderwalk pleaded. “Let the papers get hold of it? Tell the world that Scott Devens had intercourse with his stepdaughter, a twelve-year-old? We had to protect the child.”
“Babe, you have to understand,” Hadley Vanderwalk said. “We thought you were lost and gone. We had to choose. Justice for our dead daughter—or a chance for our granddaughter. We chose Cordelia. Maybe it was wrong, but given the circumstances, that was the best decision we could make at the time.”
“The second trial would have destroyed her,” Lucia Vanderwalk said.
“Cordelia had no comprehension of what Scott had done to her,” Hadley Vanderwalk said.
“She was only a child.” Lucia Vanderwalk stubbed out her cigarette. The ashtray was Steuben. The table was Chippendale. The cigarette was Tareyton filter. “Scott seduced her with drugs. Terrible things—marijuana, cocaine …”
“Injections of morphine,” Hadley Vanderwalk said. “At twelve she was an addict.”
“You have no idea,” Lucia Vanderwalk said, “how hard that child has had to work to put her life back together, to put all this horror behind her, how hard she’s worked to get off drugs. It took courage and persistence. You’re not going to undo the healing of seven years, surely you’re not!” Babe absorbed the plea quietly.
“Don’t blame us for cooperating with Ted Morgenstern,” Hadley Vanderwalk said.
“If we hadn’t, he would have attacked Cordelia’s innocence.” A sigh settled on Lucia Vanderwalk’s lips. “Destroyed it.”
“Her innocence?” Cardozo felt the ambiguous weight of the word, felt its several facets. “Why do you say her innocence?”
“A child’s innocence matters!” Lucia Vanderwalk’s face was a mask of determination, mouth and jaw set. “A child’s belief in her own innocence matters!”
And suddenly Cardozo saw. “My God. Morgenstern got Devens off by accusing Cordelia!”
Lucia Vanderwalk’s face stiffened.
“He accused your granddaughter of the attempted murder! Cordelia, not Devens!” Cardozo felt a wave of certainty pass through his chest. “And you were afraid it was true. From the beginning you were afraid. That’s why you hired your own investigator. To protect your grandchild. Your investigator planted evidence. And to keep the accusation alive when Devens appealed, you planted evidence yourself.”