anyone, considering my penchant for a decent range of sins? After what happened to Hal last night, she could be forgiven for wanting to get numb.
Laurel slumped into a chair. “What bad angel has cast its spell on us, John? First Samuel and you in that terrible accident, and now this. It’s unbelievable.”
“I know.” I felt a kind of sorrowful connection with her now that both of us were struggling with a violent loss.
“I told him so many times those drugs would end up killing him.”
How much did I want to reveal? “I’m not sure it’s that simple, Laurie. Hal called me after I left the party. I rushed back, but he was already dead when I got there.”
“You found him? The police didn’t tell me that. What happened?”
“Someone at the party administered the fatal dose. A woman. She threatened me too.”
Her face went white. “You told the police about this, right?”
“I’ve just come from talking to them. They don’t believe me. With my previous record and enough drugs circulating at the party to start a pharmacy, their guns are aiming at me. That’s how they think.”
“Are you telling me Hal was murdered and you saw who did it?” She swayed. I grabbed her before she could fall and helped her over to the sofa, then sat down beside her. “This is scaring me, John. I don’t know who to believe.”
“Why would I lie about it? Look, I know how rough this is on you. I can see that.”
“It was horrible enough already, and now you’re telling me it’s even worse. I can’t get my mind around this.”
“Tell me about it. I’m having a hard time over losing Samuel and now this … thing with Hal. It’s as though a bomb has just gone off inside my head. Hal was the closest I came to having a brother.”
“I thought Samuel was your brother.”
“Sure, but he was forty years older than me, so he always seemed like my father. He played that role. I never knew my real father. When Hal was home from boarding school or camp we spent a lot of time together. We often sparred though. It wasn’t always that brotherly between us.”
Our talking calmed Laurel a bit. “I’m the only girl in the family,” she said. “I have four brothers. Believe me, sparring is normal.”
“But he carried it too far. Wouldn’t let it go even as adults. At Columbia we’d be out somewhere, at a party or something. We’d be raising the roof, having a fantastic time, and then he’d start getting all competitive with me. Thinking about it now, I should have called him on it then.”
“It goes back to how his father treated him. That’s exactly how Peter would behave.” She had a lovely voice. Her years in New York hadn’t altered what sounded like a Midwestern accent. “I guess I’m responsible for Peter now, along with everything else.”
I took her hand. “I’ll help you. Samuel and I visited Peter after he went into the nursing home. He still remembered me.”
She let out a deep sigh. “Why does everything have to go wrong at once? I feel like a ten-ton truck has just driven over me.”
“I think there’s a connection. Between my circumstances and yours.”
“What do you mean?”
“Can you think of anyone who would have had it in for Hal?” I asked.
“I’ve found out I didn’t know everything about his life. He kept things from me—I’m just starting to realize how much since he asked me to help sort out all his accounts and things. But do you mean going to the lengths of killing him? I can’t imagine who would do that.”
I bent my head and rubbed my eyes. “What did the police say?”
She took a minute to respond. “The detective was kind of guarded. He just said that Hal had died, probably from an overdose. A neighbor called 911 after hearing a disturbance. He’s the one who identified Hal. Thank heavens I didn’t have to. They aren’t releasing his body yet.”
“Laurie, Hal got tangled up in something. Nothing to do with opiates. He tried to sell a really valuable relic, a collector’s item. That’s what the woman was after. Do you know anything about it?”
“You think that’s why he died?”
“Yes.”
“I thought he sold everything from Peter’s collection. You handled it all for him. If something was left, why didn’t he go through you?”
“It didn’t belong to Peter. It was a stone engraving Samuel brought over from Iraq. Hal took it while I was in the hospital. This woman, Eris, found out about it somehow. Did Hal ever mention her?”
“Doesn’t ring a bell.” Laurel eased herself up and walked over to a credenza against the wall. Every inch of its marble top was covered with stacks of file folders and documents, along with some dusty photos sitting beside her computer. One of these, her wedding picture, showed a bride with high cheekbones, a slight Slavic tilt to her green eyes giving her face a faintly exotic look, her shiny brown hair swept up. She was dressed simply in a white satin sheath, holding a spray of ivory roses and baby’s breath. Beside her, Hal, ramrod straight in a severe black suit, looked uncomfortable, as though he already knew the marriage was doomed to fail. Like some omnipresent ghost, Hal’s mother, Mina, a little blurry but clearly identifiable, could be seen in the background.
Laurel saw me looking at the photo. “Do you know there isn’t one wedding picture with just the two of us? Mina always lurked somewhere, making sure she was in the shot.” She ran her fingers through her hair. Usually this was the gesture of a flirt. In her case it simply revealed an overload of worry and tension. She flipped through some of the files but didn’t find what she was searching for. “Somewhere Hal listed all the property that hadn’t yet been sold, mostly from this place, but I can’t find it.”
She turned toward me. “John, there’s something you need to know. Hal and I had talked about getting back together. With Mina gone and Peter in a place he’ll never leave, there was finally an opening for me. Hal was brow-beaten by his father and too close to his mother. He adored her. Did you know he used to call her his jewel?”
I shook my head and let her talk.
“Things had been going well. My sublet was up and he offered to let me stay here because he’d moved back to the townhouse temporarily to care for Peter. Everything was great until I discovered he was using heroin again, even though he’d sworn that was over with. We used to see each other every day. That stopped last week when I found out. I was furious.” Her bottom lip trembled.
“Junk is the devil, Laurie. It’s so hard to shake. Hal once told me he’d crawl through a sewer just to get some. He got that from an expert, by the way—William Burroughs. You can’t change the past. Try to just focus on the good times.”
A gush of tears threatened to turn into a waterfall. “Hal was desperate for money. He had to cover all the costs for the townhouse and for here. Taxes alone were more than six thousand a month, plus paying for Peter’s care.”
“Why not just sell the townhouse?”
“The power of attorney forbade Hal from selling it. Peter made sure of that before he got too sick to think.”
“What did Hal do with the cash from Peter’s collection?”
Laurel shut her eyes for a moment, trying to regain her compo sure. “He went through it all. He was losing his position, too. You know he was deathly afraid of social events, but he threw that party as a last-ditch effort to get on Colin’s good side—his contract was up.”
“Hal told me Colin fired him.” The few times I’d met Colin Reed he hadn’t impressed me. “How well do you know Reed? Does he know anything about antiquities?”
“Not well. I’d see him at NYU when I’d go there to meet Hal. Or at parties and stuff. That’s about it. Never liked the man much. He teaches the great German philosophers—Kant, Schelling. He’s considered an authority on Hegel. As far as I know, that’s about as close to the past as he gets.”
“Reed was there last night. Tried to implicate me, the bastard. I’m wondering why he’d do that.”
Laurel shrugged her shoulders. I noticed how graceful her movements were, even in her slightly inebriated state. “Don’t take it personally,” she said. “Reed’s the type who’d do that just for a laugh.”
“Where would Hal’s computer be—at the townhouse?”
