I nodded, wondering what that was about. As he hurried off, I walked out to the pool to try to talk sense to Mrs. Blanchette.
“Ma’am?” I said.
She whirled around like a sequined cobra. The contents of the big martini glass she was holding sloshed onto the maid’s dress. I could tell from her eyes and her breath that she’d already downed several of them. Maybe drinking and staying busy were her ways of working through her grief.
“Get me another one,” Mrs. Blanchette said impatiently, thrusting the glass at the cowed maid. Then she turned her attention to me.
“You again. What is it now?” she said.
“I must not have been clear about the danger you and your husband are in,” I said. “Your son-in – I mean, Thomas Gladstone – is targeting you, without question, as we speak. It’s not a good time to have people over. I’m going to have to ask you to postpone.”
“Postpone?” she said furiously. “This is the Friends of the Congo AIDS Benefit – in planning for the last year. Steven is flying in from the coast just for tonight. Sumner actually cut his vacation short. Do I have to supply last names? There’ll be no postponing anything.”
“Mrs. Blanchette, people’s lives are at stake here,” I said.
Instead of responding to me, she ripped a cell phone from her bag and flipped it open.
“Diandra? Hi, it’s Cynthia,” she said. “Could you put Morty on?”
Morty? Oh, Lord, I hoped it wasn’t the Morty I thought it was. I didn’t need that name dropped on me. Not even an ounce of it.
She stalked away, talking. The maintenance guy, up for a breath of air, stared at her back and muttered a Spanish word that was not used in polite company.
“You said it, amigo,” I told him.
When she came back a moment later, she shoved the phone at me, with a look of triumph on her face.
“Who is this?” came a harsh male voice.
“Detective Michael Bennett.”
“Listen up, Bennett. This is Mayor Carlson. There’ll be no more crazy talk of canceling this event. We can’t cave in to terrorism.”
“It’s not exactly caving in to terrorism, sir.”
“That’s how it will look. Besides, my wife and I are attending, so that’s an end to it. You call the commissioner and tell him to beef up security. Do I make myself clear?”
Right, I felt like telling him. A highly visible police presence will really be great for our trap. What did another bunch of dead citizens matter, compared to twisting by the pool with the A-list?
But those were the kinds of thoughts I grudgingly had to keep to myself.
“Whatever you say, your honor,” I said.
Chapter 69
As I walked back inside, I met the butler returning with Henry Blanchette. I’d never seen a more unhappy- looking man.
“I’m sure you’re finding my wife’s behavior somewhat odd, Detective,” he said.
“That’s not my job to judge.”
“She has a very hard time dealing with stress,” he said with a sigh. “There’ve been times in the past when much slighter things than this have pushed her over the edge. She goes into denial, drinks, and takes pills, and she’s impossible to deal with. But soon she’ll break down, and then I’ll take her to a discreet clinic, where they know her well. So if you’ll just bear with us for a little while longer.”
“I’ll do my best,” I said, actually feeling sorry for Henry. On top of his own grief and the danger of the situation, he had a crazy woman on his hands.
For the next half hour, I followed the mayor’s orders. I called Chief McGinnis, and within minutes a dozen plainclothes cops and detectives arrived on the back elevator along with the caterer.
I finagled the guest list from the butler and stationed two cops at the penthouse door with it, although it wasn’t like they’d really need to match names to faces, what with all the Hollywood, Washington, and Wall Street celebs due to arrive. I got several more men to pose as waiters, and even posted a couple of detectives outside by the roof pool. With this maniac, who knew? He might try to scale the building like Spider-Man, or maybe paraglide onto the roof.
Then I made a security check, going upstairs and wandering through the cavernous duplex apartment. This place could have fit even my family comfortably, and would still have a few rooms left over. I passed by his-and- her master bedrooms, marble bathrooms that ancient Roman emperors would have found plush, a white-on-white French chateau-inspired library with an ornate, coffered ceiling. Any minute, I expected to turn a corner and find gold and gems just dumped out onto the oriental rugs like pirate treasure.
I was passing by yet another bedroom when I heard human sounds. It was probably just one of the platoon of maids, but better safe than sorry. I drew my Glock and held it down beside my thigh.
But instead of a maid, it was Mrs. Blanchette that I glimpsed through the doorway. She was sitting on a small canopy bed, crying. Her husband arrived at her back and embraced her, his cheeks wet. She rocked back and forth, keening, her fists squeezing and pulling at the bedspread as he whispered in her ear.
This was their daughter’s room, I realized as I reholstered. I regretted all the negative thoughts I’d had about her. Despite appearances and her bristly personality, the woman was going through hell. A place I knew all too well.
I retreated as quietly as I could. At the top of the stairs, I spotted a photo of Erica, with a man I assumed was her first husband. They were walking with their daughters on a glowing white-sand beach beside deep blue water, laughing, the wind whipping their hair back.
As I stared, I thought of all the pictures I had of Maeve and the kids. All the happy moments, frozen and captured forever. That was it, wasn’t it? What life was all about. What could never be taken away. The moments shared with family and the people you loved.
Chapter 70
I coordinated security from the Blanchettes’ grand-hotel-sized kitchen – the farthest, most out-of-the-way corner of it that I could find. The last thing I needed was to be standing by the penthouse’s front door when the mayor arrived, so hizzoner could give me another earful.
Despite the short amount of time we’d had to beef up security, we’d managed to do an excellent job. Fortunately, the employees of the Blanchettes’ upscale catering firm had worked UN events and presidential fund- raisers, so we were able to get background checks from the Feds without too much fuss.
It was the guests and hosts who turned out to be the pain in the butt. When we insisted on bag checks at the door, I thought some of them would have to be sedated. We reached a compromise only when a borrowed metal detector was shuttled up from the Manhattan criminal courthouse, on the order of Mrs. Blanchette’s good friend the mayor.
About the only high note came when the Cajun head chef, Maw-Maw Josephine, heard that one of the Midtown North detectives had volunteered down in the Big Easy after Hurricane Katrina. Next thing we knew, all us cops were getting hooked up with as much gumbo, shrimp, and corn bread as we could stuff ourselves with.
It was ominously quiet during the first hour, as the most favored guests arrived for the pre-event private dinner. Of course I was relieved that everyone stayed safe, but on the other hand, I was hoping Gladstone would make a move so we could nail him to the floorboards. His unpredictability was burning a slow hole through the lining of my stomach. Or was that Maw-Maw’s Tabasco jambalaya?
I’d just done my hundredth radio check with the bored-stiff ESU gang across the street at Central Park, when
