“Unless you want Ms. Levine to make multiple trips for days.”
“There’s that much?”
“Six thousand five hundred plus, Doug.”
“Wow. Who knew I was that popular.” Low laughter. “Sure, what the hell, it’s in my best interests. Also, I owe you for being a jerk.”
That admission parted Randi Levine’s lips and corrugated her forehead. As if straining to make sense of a foreign language. She recovered quickly, stood tall and turned impassive.
Milo said, “Really appreciate it, Doug,” and returned the phone to her. She looked everywhere but at us as Milo scooped up the dense wad of paper and sidled past her into the hallway.
“Be back in a sec.”
I sat there as Randi Levine continued to avoid eye contact. A minute or so later, she did what everyone does for distraction in the age of questionable information: got back on her phone, pulled up a screen, and began scrolling studiously. My chair put me close enough to catch an oblique glimpse of what occupied her attention. Women posing in bright colors. Fashion website.
I used the time to check for messages. Neither of us had spoken by the time Milo returned with two tomes. He handed one to her.
She logged off and we walked her to the elevator.
As we waited, she said, “I’ve never heard him like that before.”
“Like what?” said Milo.
“Vulnerable.”
“He’s been through a lot.”
“Obviously,” said Randi Levine. But her expression said the possibility of change was unnerving.
Chapter 36
Milo began leafing through Doug March’s Oxford English Dictionary of phone communication.
“Six thousand five hundred plus.”
I said, “Just under eighteen calls a day. Doesn’t seem excessive for a tycoon even if you eliminate weekends.”
“You calculated?” He laughed. “Of course you did.” He pushed the stack to the side. “Time to be a bad boss.”
He texted the young D’s to come by if they were in the station. All three were and they arrived together minutes later.
“Here’s the deal, kids.”
He explained. They remained expressionless.
“Yeah, it’s mind-numbing, sorry. But it could turn up something important.”
Alicia glanced at the printout. “Are we splitting it three ways or four?”
“Four,” said Milo. “God forbid I wouldn’t do my share.” He looked at me. “Nah, hiring you would be too expensive.”
Dividing the printout into rough quarters, he distributed the shares.
Moe Reed said, “Probably a lot of repetition, shouldn’t be that big of a deal.”
Sean Binchy said, “I was thinking the same thing. And if any of the numbers are landlines, we might be able to reverse-directory.”
Alicia nodded.
Milo said, “I don’t deserve you.”
Our next contact was two days later. Not by phone, he rang my doorbell just after ten a.m. looking haggard and carrying the Meagin March / Gio Aggiunta murder book.
I had a pretty good notion of what haggard meant, said nothing until he’d beelined to the kitchen, rummaged in the fridge, and drew out a bowl of leftover bowtie pasta tossed with peas, onions, and mushrooms.
“You mind? No breakfast, yet.”
“All yours. Want me to make you some eggs?”
“Nah, thanks, this’ll do.”
“I’ll heat it up.”
“Nah, thanks, cold’ll be fine.”
Settling at the kitchen table, the murder book at his elbow, he downed several forkfuls, drank the coffee I’d given him, wiped his mouth, rubbed his eyes then the rest of his face, and sat back, flushed and breathing audibly.
I poured my fourth cup of the morning and sat down.
Another dozen mouthfuls, then: “You haven’t asked so you figured out why I’m not smiling.”
“Nothing interesting in March’s call log.”
“Business, business, more business,” he said. “Airport lounges, hotels, drivers, longer conversations with investors, real estate agents, and contractors. Just bosses, no construction workers. And nothing remotely connected to New Orleans or San Pietro, just in the cities where March owns property or is building. The only personal calls were to Meagin.”
“How many?”
“A hundred twenty-three. Don’t bother activating your abacus, it’s less than two percent.”
“A couple of calls a week,” I said.
“Subtract travel times, sleep, and when he was home and it still doesn’t amount to much. And the conversations were what we saw on her phone, no more than a coupla minutes. ‘Hi, hon, how’s it going, I’ll be home whenever.’ Assuming he bothered with ‘hon.’ And same as Meagin, no texts.”
“Same reason,” I said. “In his case for business. Any chance he’s got another phone?”
“Anything’s possible, Alex, but I’m not feeling him as my suspect.”
“His reaction to the purple diamond.”
“Right from the beginning you figured he was no Olivier. Hearing him being kinda human when I told him about the diamond, I’ve come around. Why do you think it knocked him so low?”
“Sexual deceit was bad enough but maybe learning she’d bested him monetarily was too much to bear.”
“Not only is he socially inept, he’s not the financial alpha he thought he was.”
I said, “On top of being conned, he probably realized if he’d researched the price of purple diamonds in the first place — the way he does with his projects — he’d have known something was off. His choice was keep raging or admit he’d been taken and try to move on.”
“A little self-therapy.”
“Maybe hearing from his mother sped up the process.”
He laughed. “One place I do not want to be for Christmas is Stuffy Manor in Tuxedo Park.”
He ate more pasta, pushed the bowl away. “Speaking of denial, I’m probably doing all this psychologizing so I can avoid thinking about my reality.”
He ticked his fingers. “No physical evidence, no witnesses, no motive I can prove. Before I came here, I called Toni Bowman again, maybe her maid had heard from Irma. She gave me that you’re-an-idiot attitude: wouldn’t I tell you if she had? And I’m thinking, maybe not, you’re a hard-edged piece of work.”
He drew the bowl back and resumed eating. “You make this or Robin?”
“She did.”
“Thought so. Very subtle. So. You have any therapy for moi?”
“I think putting Gio aside was smart — one less distraction. Ditto for Doug as a suspect. Richard Barlett may very well turn out to be relevant but until you can come up with a solid link to Meagin, I wouldn’t spend time on him, either.”
“It’s all about her.”
“It’s all about her past,” I said. “And I keep coming back to revenge. I’d been thinking of a financial scam but now I’m leaning toward a mixture of money and emotion.”
“Like with the diamond.”
“Exactly. There was no need to set up a ruse for the money. Doug had already paid for lots of jewelry, he’d have likely agreed to come up with the full cost. My gut tells me she wanted dominance over two men because she’d been severely dominated and manipulated.”
“Playing games with the big boys and losing,” he said.
“Maybe I’m making too much out of the ghost orchid painting but I think she identified with it. Not just because she became a phantom. We’re talking a plant with no solid roots, parasitic, rare and hard to locate. Is there anything more you can do on the Florida connection?”
“Looked at their missings, including felons on the run. No one who could be her.”
The garden door opened. Blanche waddled in first, followed by Robin, smiling and looking energized.