entrepreneur with a variety of enterprises, who was the victim of a tax-collecting witch-hunt.
Today Geoff was observing him from the viewpoint of the connection he had had with Suzanne Reardon. What was it? he wondered. How serious had it been? Was Weeks the one who had given her the jewelry? He had heard about the paper found on Haskell’s lawyer that might have been the wording on the note that accompanied the roses given to Suzanne Reardon the day she died, but with Haskell dead and the actual note still missing, it would be impossible to prove any connection to Weeks.
The jewelry might provide an interesting angle, though, Geoff realized, and one worth investigating. I wonder if he goes to any one place to buy baubles for his girlfriends? he asked himself. Who did I date a couple of years ago who told me she’d been out with Weeks? he wondered. The name wouldn’t come, but he would go through his daily reminders of two and three years ago. He was sure he had marked it down somewhere.
When the judge called a recess, Geoff slipped quickly out of the courtroom. He was halfway down the corridor when from behind him he heard someone call his name. It was Bob Kinellen. He waited for him to catch up. “Aren’t you taking a lot of interest in my client?” Kinellen asked quietly.
“General interest at this point,” Geoff replied.
“Is that why you’re seeing Kerry?”
“Bob, I don’t think you have even the faintest right to ask that question. Nevertheless I’ll answer it. I was glad to be there for her after you dropped the bombshell that your illustrious client is threatening her child. Has anyone nominated you for Father of the Year yet? If not, don’t waste your time waiting for the phone to ring. Somehow I don’t think you’ll make it.”
77
On Monday morning, Grace Hoover stayed in bed longer than usual. Even though the house was comfortably warm, the winter cold seemed to somehow find its way into her bones and joints. Her hands and fingers and legs and knees and ankles ached fiercely. After the legislature completed the present session, she and Jonathan would go to their home in New Mexico. She reminded herself that it would be better there, that the hot, dry climate always helped her condition.
Years ago, at the onset of her illness, Grace had decided that she would never succumb to self-pity. To her, that was the dreariest of all emotions. Even so, on her darkest days she admitted to herself that besides the constantly increasing pain, it had been devastating to have to constantly lessen her activities.
She had been one of the few wives who actually enjoyed going to the many affairs that a politician such as Jonathan had to attend. God knows it wasn’t that she wanted to spend hours at them, but she relished the adulation Jonathan received. She was so proud of him. He should have been governor. She knew that.
Then, after Jonathan made the obligatory appearances at these functions, they would enjoy a quiet late dinner, or on the spur of the moment decide to escape somewhere for the weekend. Grace smiled to herself, remembering how twenty years after they were married, someone they chatted with at an Arizona resort remarked that they had the look of honeymooners.
Now the nuisance of the wheelchair, and the necessity of bringing along a nurse’s aide to help her bathe and dress, made a hotel stay a nightmare for Grace. She would not let Jonathan give her that kind of assistance and was better off at home, where a practical nurse came in daily.
She had enjoyed going to the club for dinner the other night. It was the first time in many weeks that she had been out. But that Jason Arnott-isn’t it funny that I can’t get him out of my mind? she thought as she restlessly tried to flex her fingers. She had asked Jonathan about him again, but he could reason only that possibly she had been with him at some fund-raiser Arnott may have attended.
It had been a dozen years since Grace went to any of those big events. By then she had been on two canes, and disliked jostling crowds. No, she knew it was something else that triggered her memory of him. Oh well, she said to herself, it will come in time.
The housekeeper, Carrie, came into the bedroom with a tray. “I thought you’d be ready for a second cup of tea around now,” she said cheerfully.
“I am, Carrie. Thanks.”
Carrie laid down the tray and propped up the pillows. “There. That’s better.” She reached in her pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. “Oh, Mrs. Hoover, this was in the wastebasket in the senator’s study. I know the senator was throwing it away, but I still want to ask if it’s all right if I take it. All my grandson Billy talks about is being an FBI agent someday. He’d get such kick out of seeing a genuine flyer they sent out.” She unfolded it and handed it to Grace.
Grace glanced at it and started to hand it back, then stopped. Jonathan had shown this to her on Friday afternoon, joking, “Anyone you know?” The covering letter explained that the flyer was being sent to anyone who had been a guest at gatherings in homes that were burglarized shortly afterwards.
The grainy, almost indistinguishable picture was of a felon in the process of committing a robbery. He was believed to be responsible for many similar break-ins, almost all of them following a party or social function of some kind. One theory was that he might have been a guest.
The covering letter concluded with the promise that any information would be kept confidential.
“I know the Peales’ Washington home was broken into a few years ago,” Jonathan had said. “Terrible business. I had been there to Jock’s victory party. Two weeks later his mother came home early from a family vacation and must have walked in on the thief. She was found at the bottom of the staircase with a broken neck, and the John White Alexander painting was missing.”
Maybe it was because I know the Peales that I paid so much attention to this picture, Grace thought as she gripped the flyer. The camera must have been below him, the way his face is angled.
She studied the blurry image, the narrow neck, sharp-tipped nose, pursed lips. It wasn’t what you’d notice when you look directly at someone’s face, she thought. But when you’re looking up at him from a wheelchair, you see him from this angle.
I would swear this looks like that man I met at the club the other night, Jason Arnott, Grace thought. Was it possible?
“Carrie, hand me the phone, please.” A moment later Grace was speaking to Amanda Coble, who had introduced her to Jason Arnott at the club. After the usual greetings, she brought the conversation around to him. She confessed that she was still plagued by the impression that she had met him before. Where did he live? she asked. What did he do?
When she hung up, Grace sipped the now cooling tea and studied the picture again. According to Amanda, Arnott was an art and antiques expert, and he traveled in the best social circles from Washington to Newport.
Grace called Jonathan in his Trenton office. He was out at the time, but when he got back to her at three-thirty that afternoon, she told him what she believed she had figured out, that Jason Arnott was the burglar the FBI was looking for.
“That’s quite an accusation, dear,” Jonathan said cautiously.
“I’ve got good eyes, Jonathan. You know that.”
“Yes, I do,” he agreed quietly. “And frankly, if it were anyone other than you, I would hesitate to pass the name along to the FBI. I don’t want to put anything in writing, but give me the confidential number on that flyer. I’ll make a phone call.”
“No,” Grace said. “As long as you agree that it’s all right to speak to the FBI, I’ll make the call. If I’m dead wrong, you’re not connected to it. If I’m right, I at least get to feel that at last I’ve done something useful again. I very much liked Jock Peale’s mother when I met her years ago. I’d love to be the one who found her killer. No one should be allowed to get away with murder.”
78
Dr. Charles Smith was in a very bad mood. He had spent a solitary weekend made more frustratingly lonely by
