'Right.'
'I can explain this, Mr Corday.'
'Sure you can.'
'What're you going to do to me?'
He didn't hesitate. 'Jeeze, kid, you should've figured that out by now. I'm going to kill you.'
'Ma'am.'
One thing servants in the Tappley house learned immediately: You were to report any suspicious activity to Mrs Tappley or risk losing your job. To keep her happy was to keep her informed, and so the maids tended to eavesdrop on any conversations that the children hadwhen they were growing upor that Doris had now.
The upstairs maid had listened at the door as Doris spoke to Jill.
She went downstairs, saw Mrs Tappley in the cozy warmth of the den, and said, 'Excuse me, ma'am.'
Mrs Tappley sighed. She was at a particularly exciting place in her Barbara Cartland novel. 'What is it, Jess?'
'I'm sorry to interrupt.'
'I didn't ask you to grovel. I asked you to tell me what you wanted.'
'Yes'm.'
'Well?'
'Doris was on the phone.'
Interest flickered in Evelyn's eyes. 'Oh?'
'Yes'm. For almost ten minutes.'
'I see.'
'And she was talking to your former daughter-in-law.'
Evelyn sat up in her wingchair and put the book face down on her lap. 'She was talking to Jill?'
'Yes'm.'
'You're positive? Jill?'
'She said her name two or three times. That's what I thought was so funny, ma'am, her talking to her.'
'I appreciate you telling me this, Jess.'
'Yes'm.'
'I'll speak with you later.'
Jess nodded and left.
Evelyn didn't go back to her Barbara Cartland. Instead, she began thinking of her medicine cabinet, and something Dr Steiner had given her for when she felt a nervous attack coming on…
Mitch spent the early afternoon forcing himself to smile and pretend that he really enjoyed being called a moron.
The man doing the calling was a dapper yuppie from the DA's office named Fitzsimmons. Twice in the conversation he managed to sneak in the fact that he was a Yale alumnus, and three times he mentioned that he'd been on a Barbara Walters Special about crime prevention in the United States.
Nobody on the planet was half as cool as Robert D. Fitzsimmons imagined himself to be.
'I belong to the same club,' he said toward the end of the conversation.
'Club?' Mitch said.
'Country club.'
'Ah.'
Fitzsimmons studied him a moment, looking for any signs of irony in Mitch's face. He then glanced at Lieutenant Sievers as if he expected Sievers to reprimand Mitch in some way. They were in Sievers' office and had been for better than an hour.
'What I'm saying,' Fitzsimmons said, hooking his thumbs in the pockets of his vest and strutting around the office as if he were presenting a case to a jury, 'is that this should be your one and only case, Mitch. No other cases until this one is solved. I thought we had an understanding.'
'I'm not working on any other cases.'
'Of course you are.' He shook his head. 'I have my spies in the department, Mitch. I know what's going on. You're concerned about your lady friend.'
'I don't know why I would be,' Mitch said, letting a nasty edge come into his voice. 'She's only being charged with murder.'
Fitzsimmons of the seventy-five-dollar haircut addressed Sievers directly. 'I see two things wrong with Mitch working on his lady friend's case.'
'I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't call her my ''lady friend.' Her name is Jill.'
Fitzsimmons paused a moment and pursed his lips, as if pondering a vast and deep philosophical issue.
'All right, then. Jill it is.'
He still looked directly at Sievers. 'There are two things wrong with Mitch working on Jill's case. One, it takes him away from the case we want him working on; and two, it's hardly professional for a detective to work on a case involving somebody he's in love with.'
Sievers said, 'He isn't spending much time on it, Bob. Just an odd hour here and there. Most of the time he's working on your case.'
Fitzsimmons burst into rage, slamming his fist on the desk and spearing a long finger in Sievers' face. 'I told you I don't want him working on anything except my case! Do we understand each other!'
He had shouted so loudly that the cops outside the glass-walled office looked in.
Sievers sat there, eyes downcast, humiliated.
Mitch wanted to grab this candy-ass by the throat and throw him out the fourth-floor window.
'We understand each other,' Sievers said meekly. 'Mitch works on your case.'
'And I'm holding you personally responsible, Lieutenant, to see that he does.'
He was still angry. His neck was red behind his white collar. Spittle covered his lower lip. His parents had perhaps given him a little too much self-esteem.
He picked up his topcoat, which he'd laid neatly across the back of a chair, and his briefcase, which appeared to have cost about as much as Sievers made in a week.
'I don't like pulling rank but sometimes it's necessary,' he said.
Mitch wondered if this was a clumsy attempt at apologizing. Not that it would change his opinion of this jerk, even if it were.
Fitzsimmons walked to the door, opened it slightly. The collective noise of phones, computers, faxes and voices invaded Sievers' tiny domain.
Sievers still looked humiliated and whipped. When somebody this rich was murdered, there was always a lot of heat, especially when the DA put a country-clubber like Fitzsimmons in charge of the case.
Fitzsimmons said, 'I'm going to trust you'll do your job as I've outlined it, Lieutenant.'
He still wasn't favoring Mitch with any eye contact.
He left.
The asshole.
Mitch said, 'You OK?'
Sievers smiled sadly. 'You ever see that John Wayne picture She Wore A Yellow Ribbon?'
'Sure. It's one of my favorites.'
'You know how Wayne had this big calendar hanging on his wall and he checked off every day till he retired?' He smiled. Sievers was always good at bouncing back. 'I think I'm going to get myself a calendar. And meanwhile, go call that Cini girl. Keep the heat on her.'
'What about Fitzsimmons?'
'Screw him.'
