I followed her past the pale blue living room into the family room at the back where I had interviewed Jeannine the week before. “Jeannine dear, someone’s come to visit you.”
Jeannine was sitting in one of the wing chairs at the window overlooking Lake Michigan. Her face was carefully made up and it was hard to tell how she felt about her husband’s death.
Across the room, feet tucked up under her on an armchair, sat Paige Carrington. She put down her teacup with a crash on a glass coffee table at her left arm. It was the first thing I’d seen her do that wasn’t totally graceful.
“I thought I recognized your Audi out there,” I remarked.
“Vic!” Her voice came out in a shout. “I won’t have it. Are you following me everywhere?”
At the same time Jeannine said, “No, you must go away. I’m not answering any questions now. My-my husband died yesterday.”
Paige turned to her. “Has she been after you, too?”
“Yes. She was out here last week asking me a lot of questions about my life as a corporate wife. What was she talking to you about?”
“My private life.” Paige’s honey-colored eyes flicked over me warily.
“I didn’t follow you here, Paige: I came to see Mrs. Phillips. I might start staking out your place, though-I’m kind of curious about who’s paying those monthly assessmerits. Astor Place-that’s got to run you seven, eight hundred a month without the mortgage.”
Paige’s face turned white under her rust-toned makeup. Her eyes were dark with emotion. “You had better be joking, Vic. If you try bothering me any further, I’ll call the police.”
“I’m not bothering you at all. As I said, I came here to see Mrs. Phillips… I need to talk to you, Mrs. Phillips. Privately.”
“What about?” Jeannine was bewildered. “I answered all your questions last week. And I really don’t feel like talking to anyone right now.”
“That’s right, dear,” her mother said. She turned to me. “Why don’t you leave now? My daughter’s worn out. Her husband’s death came as quite a shock.”
“I can imagine,” I said politely. “I hope his life insurance was paid up.”
Jeannine gasped. Paige said, “What a singularly tasteless remark, even from you.”
I ignored her. “Mrs. Phillips, I’m afraid I talked to you last week under false pretenses. I’m not from a survey research firm. I’m a detective, and I was trying to find out if your husband might have attempted to murder me two weeks ago.”
Her tightly clenched jaw went momentarily slack with surprise.
“My investigations have shown me that your husband had substantial sources of income beyond his salary. I’d like to talk to you privately about it. Unless you want your mother and Ms. Carrington to hear.”
At that, her composure cracked. “He promised me no one would ever know.” Tears carved two furrows in the makeup on her cheeks. Her mother hurried over with a box of tissues and fussed over her, telling her somewhat confusedly to go ahead and have a good cry.
I was still standing. “I really think we’d better continue this conversation alone. Is there another room we can go to, Mrs. Phillips?”
“What are you talking about?” her mother said. “Clayton had a very good salary at Eudora Grain. Why, when they made him an officer five years ago, he and Jeannine bought this house.”
“That’s okay, Mother.” Jeannine patted the older woman’s hand. “I’d better talk to this woman.” She turned to Paige and said with sudden venom, “I suppose
Paige gave her triangular smile. “I know a fair amount.” She shrugged her slim shoulders. “But who am I to cast stones, after all?” She picked up a sweater lying on the table beside her. “Better talk to Vic, Jeannine. If you don’t, she’ll only come in and burglarize the place so she can examine your bankbooks.” She drifted over to Jeannine’s chair and kissed the air by her cheek. “I’m going back to the city. I’ll see you at the funeral tomorrow afternoon-unless you want me to come up before then.”
“No, that’s all right, dear,” Jeannine’s mother said. “We’ll manage fine.” She bustled out to the hall behind the elegant younger woman.
I looked after them, puzzled. I assumed at first that Paige must have met Jeannine at some Eudora Grain function when she was dating Boom Boom. But that last exchange made it sound like a fairly close relationship.
“How do you know Paige?” I asked.
Jeannine turned her tear-streaked face to me for the first time since I’d mentioned the invoices. “How do I know her? She’s my sister. Why wouldn’t I know her?”
“Your sister!” We sounded like a couple of damned parrots. “Sisters. I see.” Actually, I didn’t see a thing. I sat down. “Did you take her to the party where she met my cousin?”
She looked surprised. “What party was that?”
“I don’t know who gave it. Probably Guy Odinflute. He lives around here, doesn’t he? Niels Grafalk was interested in buying a share in the Black Hawks. My cousin came up along with some of the other players. Paige was there and she met my cousin. I want to know who brought her.”
Jeannine swallowed a sly smile.
“But were you invited?”
“Mr. Odinflute may have asked us… We get asked to a lot of parties at Christmas. If you want to know who Paige went with, though, you ask her.”
I looked at her narrowly: she knew, but she wouldn’t tell. I turned my attention to the money. “Tell me about the invoices, Jeannine.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sure you do. You just said he’d promised no one would ever know. I called about them Saturday night-left a message with your son Paul. What did your husband do next?”
She shed a few more tears but in the end it came out that she didn’t know. They got back late. Paul had left the message by the kitchen phone. When Clayton saw it, he went into his study and shut the door. He made a phone call and left a few minutes later. No, not in the Alfa. Had someone picked him up? She didn’t know. He was very upset and told her not to bother him. It was about one-thirty Sunday morning when he went out. That was the last time she ever saw him.
“Now tell me about the invoices, Jeannine. He was padding them, wasn’t he?”
She didn’t say anything.
“People would give him bids on Eudora Grain cargoes and he would log the orders at one price but bill them at another. Is that right.”
She started crying again. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”
“You don’t know how he worked it, but you know he was doing it. That’s true, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t ask, as long as the bills got paid.” She was sobbing harder.
I was losing my temper. “Did you know what your husband’s salary was?”
“Of course I knew what Clayton earned.” Her tears stopped long enough for her to glare at me.
“Sure you did. And you knew ninety-two thousand, however good it looks compared to the other girls at Park Forest South High, or whatever it was, wasn’t enough to pay for a boat. This house. Your designer clothes. The kid at Claremont. Those high-ticket cars. The Izod T-shirts little Terri runs around in. Dues at the Maritime Club. Just out of curiosity, what does the Maritime Club run you a year? I was betting twenty-five thousand.”
“You don’t understand!” She sat up and stared at me with fierce, angry eyes. “You don’t know what it’s like when all the other girls have everything they want and you’re making do with last year’s clothes.”
This sounded like a real heartache to me. “You’re right-I don’t. My high school, most of us girls had a couple of dresses we started with as sophomores and wore out the door when we graduated. Park Forest South may be a bit tonier than South Chicago-but not a lot.”
“Park Forest South! My mother moved there later. We grew up here in Lake Bluff. We had horses. My father kept a boat. We lived down the road from here. Then he lost everything. Everything. I was a junior in high school. Paige was only eight. She’s too young to remember the humiliation. The way people stared in school. Mother sold the silver. She sold her own jewels. But it didn’t do any good. He shot himself and we moved away. She couldn’t stand the pity people like old Mrs. Grafalk dished out at the country club. And I had to go to Roosevelt instead of
