It took only a week for Cullitan and his young staff of lawyers to do the financial research, but it was the longest week of Ness' life.
Patience was not his long suit, and waiting for that other shoe to drop, where Cooper was concerned, drove Ness quietly crazy.
He tried to tell himself that Gwen should not be held accountable for the possible sins of her father. He tried to convince himself that she had entered his life, his confidence, by chance. He nearly made himself believe it, too. They spent much of the weekend together, as they had the last several, and Saturday had been fine. They'd gone to the Hollenden Hotel where the newly redecorated Vogue Room was a futuristic dream world of coral and blue, silk wallpaper, and stainless steel, and they'd danced to Benny Goodman's orchestra, which played a bittersweet arrangement of 'Pennies from Heaven' and an intoxicating 'The Way You Look Tonight.' And when they wound up back at the boathouse, he'd had enough romantic build-up-and enough to drink-to believe in her, to believe in what they'd been sharing these past weeks.
Sunday had been tougher. He'd taken her to a movie, 'Born to Dance,' at the Hippodrome. She loved musicals. He didn't like any kind of movie, really, and his boredom led to daydreaming which led to sober reflection about the beautiful daughter of Captain Cooper, the lovely divorcee sitting next to him, eating popcorn as she stared at the silver screen, enthralled by Eleanor Powell who was dancing and singing 'her jinx away,' if the lyrics of her song were to be believed. He desperately wanted out of the theater suddenly; the matinee audience, a packed house, seemed like a mob that might turn on him any moment. Silly thought. He chewed his thumbnail.
Gwen had cooked a meal for him after the show. She'd done this a few times, perhaps to show him she could. She waited on him, wearing her red silk Chinese lounging pajamas. She catered to his simple meat-and- potatoes tastes, which he appreciated. And she seemed to be a good cook, good enough to suit him, anyway.
But it made him sad, somehow. The time he was spending with her here at the boathouse was too much like the time he used to spend with Evie at the Bay Village house. Gwen's brash modern-girl outlook was something that didn't show up much during these quiet evenings. Sitting in front of the fire together; playing two-handed rummy; taking turns stroking the fur of the cat who'd shown up at the back door last week. It was all so familiar. I've been here before, he thought. Why was he moving out of one life into another one, when the new one so resembled the old?
Any man, getting romantically involved for the first time after his marriage had gone on the rocks, was bound to have such feelings. This Ness knew. He also knew, as they sat in front of the fireplace, the moment fast approaching when they would head upstairs and tumble into bed, that the strain of the situation could not withstand the pressure of what he suspected about her father. Suspicions which, of course, extended to her motives for getting involved with him.
None of which he could discuss with her.
'I'm going to sleep down here on the couch tonight,' he said.
Cuddled up in a ball next to him, she looked at him and smiled the crinkly smile. 'Sure.'
'I mean it, Gwen.'
Her smile faded and her face became a blank, pretty mask that she hid behind, studying him. The soft flickering light from the fireplace made her look especially lovely. Without make-up, she seemed younger than her age. She had a very fresh-scrubbed and mid-western farm-girl look at odds with her practiced air of big-city sophistication.
'You do mean it,' she said, after a while.
'Yes.'
She stared at the fire. The stray gray cat was curled up in front of it, sleeping. 'Why, Eliot?'
'I think we're moving too fast. I don't think I'm ready for us to be where we've gotten to.'
'Am I that bad a cook?'
Laughing in spite of himself, he slipped his arm around her, his affection for her genuine. 'Not at all. You can make gravy with the best of 'em. It's just, I'm not ready to set up housekeeping yet.'
She pulled away from him. It wasn't a gesture of anger-of hurt, perhaps, but not anger. She sat there hugging her legs, staring into the fire.
'Have you finally gotten afraid of the publicity?' she asked. Softly. 'Have we been too bold? The hotel rooms- spending so many nights together here?'
He sighed. 'That's not it.'
Now she looked at him, her eyes moist, her lips trembling. Just a little. Just a little. She wouldn't crack, this girl.
She said, with the slightest tremor in her voice, 'You're keeping something from me, Eliot. I haven't known you long, but I know you well. What are you keeping from me?'
'Nothing.'
'Don't lie to me. Don't you lie to me.'
'Baby, I…'
'Don't call me 'baby.' Don't tell me we're through and then still call me 'baby.' '
'I didn't say we were through. I just said we were moving too fast.'
'What is it? What's come between us?'
'Please don't ask again.'
'It's Evie, isn't it?'
'What?'
She was nodding to herself. 'It's Evie. She wants you back. That's it, isn't it? She's had second thoughts and wants you back.'
'Yes,' Ness lied. 'You're right.'
She sat Indian-style now, her arms folded across her generous bosom. Her expression was firm, her tone ironic. 'And you feel you've invested too many years in the marriage not to give it another go. Give it a fair trial.'
'That's it exactly.'
She sat there peering into the fire, its warmth soothing. Outside the wind was howling, but it seemed far away. Her anger seemed to fade. Without looking at him, she reached out a hand and put it on his arm.
She said, 'I guess I can't blame you. And I don't blame her for wanting you back.'
He didn't know what to say to that. Evie, in the few phone conversations they'd had, had shown no sign whatsoever of wanting him back.
She stood. She smoothed her Chinese pajamas with both palms and smiled bravely. 'Better change my clothes.'
'Why?'
'I'm not staying the night, Eliot. I have my own car. I think I should just go.'
'You don't have to.'
'I think it would be easier on both of us, don't you?'
He said nothing at first, then nodded.
'I still plan to be in for work tomorrow morning,' she said.
'I plan for you to be. You do a fine job for me there.'
'Boy,' she said, with a one-sided smile as crooked as the Cuyahoga, 'knowing that makes me feel just swell.'
And she'd gone, and this morning at work, she'd been pleasant and businesslike and no one would ever have guessed anything was wrong between the two of them. But then they'd always kept their romance out of the office-even when they were alone in his private office, nary a knowing glance, let alone a kiss, was ever exchanged-and so it was business as usual.
And the first order of business had been to go over to Cullitan's first-floor office at the Criminal Court Building, where the other shoe finally dropped, but good.
Behind the wire-framed glasses, Cullitan's eyes were bloodshot. He'd been putting in even longer hours than usual, and Cullitan was perhaps the one local government official who put in longer hours than Ness. The big man sat at his big desk in his Spartan office and gestured to the ledger books and other papers stacked there.
'We've had good cooperation from the banks,' he told Ness, 'and even the cemetery companies. Of course,
