“Your daughter tried to commit suicide,” I said, “five years ago. Tell me about that.”
“You… you pig of a man,” she said.
“How come the only help you got her is this quack Rosselli?”
She sat even straighter and seemed to gather in on herself. Her primness changed to sternness.
“My daughter did not attempt suicide,” she said. “It was merely an accidental overdose of her medication.”
“How do you accidentally take twenty pills?” I said.
“She did not take twenty pills,” Heidi said. “She’s a nervous girl, she needs help sleeping. Perhaps under the influence of her pills she forgot she had taken them and took some more.”
“What’s Dr. Rosselli treating her for?” I said.
“He’s her doctor,” Heidi said. “He’s treating her general health.”
“Shrink out in the Berkshires says he believes she was sexually molested,” I said.
“By whom?” Heidi said.
“He doesn’t know.”
“Of course he doesn’t know,” she said.
“He says it’s usually someone in or near the family.”
“He’s a back-country witch doctor, for God’s sake,” Heidi said. “Why on earth would anyone listen to him?”
“Did you know that Van Meer is broke,” I said. “And Bradshaw was nearly so?”
“What has that got to do with my Adelaide?”
“Weren’t they the primary source of income for you and Adelaide?” I said.
“Absolutely not. I am entirely independent.”
“Since the moment Adelaide married Maurice Lessard?” I said.
“Goddamn you,” Heidi said. “I will not be treated like this. I don’t want you for a bodyguard or anything else.”
She turned and walked out of my office. The security detail closed ranks around her.
She paused for a moment and looked back at me.
“Fuck you,” she said.
And away they all went without closing the door. Hawk looked at me with no expression.
“At least her position clear,” he said.
“Does this mean I’m losing my charm?” I said.
“Yeah,” Hawk said.
59
“She tell him ‘Fuck you,’” Hawk said.
“Her, too,” Susan said.
“I took it as a proposition,” I said.
Susan smiled.
“The glass is always half full for you,” she said.
We were having dinner at Davio’s. Susan was doing something with a salad. Hawk appeared thrilled with his veal chop. I was having pasta with Bolognese sauce, which is what I always had. Traditions matter.
“Aside from ‘Fuck you,’” Susan said, “did you learn anything else?”
“I confirmed my suspicion that she knows a lot and lies about it,” I said.
“What do you think she knows?” Susan said.
“I think she knows pretty much everything,” I said. “She knew about her daughter’s suicide attempt, though she denied that it was a suicide attempt. I think she knew about her daughter’s molestation. I think she knew Rugar from way back. I think she knows that her second and third husbands would no longer be able to support her. I think she cannot support herself. Her daughter’s marriage to Lessard was probably providential.”
“Even if he’s dead?”
“Epstein says Adelaide inherits everything he would have, plus her husband’s share of the business, according to the pre-nup.”
“If Adelaide is alive,” Susan said.
“Even if she’s dead, her mother might be her heir,” I said.
“My God,” Susan said. “She wouldn’t have her own daughter killed.”
“She might,” I said.
Susan nodded.
“If one of us can even think of it,” she said, “someone could do it.”
“Also the bridegroom, Maurice Lessard, was, according to his sister, gay.”
“And he married Adelaide because?”
“She was his beard? She was gay, too, and they bearded each other?”
“The molestation might have a place in all of this,” Susan said.
“Might,” I said.
“She admit any of this?” Susan said.
“No.”
“Hawk?” Susan said. “You were there.”
“Spenser’s right,” Hawk said. “You sit and listen to her and you know she’s scrambling for cover. You know she’s lying.”
Susan nodded and ate a little salad and sipped a little wine.
“Not for nothing,” she said to Hawk, “but are you aware that, in those rare moments when you are perfectly serious, you lose your accent.”
“I am,” Hawk said.
Susan smiled.
“So if she knows all this stuff, and won’t tell you, then doesn’t that mean she’s complicit?”
“Be my guess,” I said.
“But exactly what is she complicit in?” Susan said.
“I don’t know for sure,” I said. “And it’s all guesswork and intuition. The courts do not welcome intuition.”
“But…” Susan said.
“But there’s an awful lot of money in the mix.”
“Cherchez la bread,” Hawk said.
“Wow,” I said. “Multicultural, too.”
“But,” Susan said. “Why all this huge huzzarah on the island? Kidnapping, shootings, and all that?”
“I been thinking about that, too,” I said. “When I’m not admiring Hawk’s linguistic range. I tried it from the other end, so to speak. If the deal on the island is so not Rugar, then who is it? If one were to throw a kidnapping, who would throw one like that?”
“Heidi,” Susan said.
I looked at Hawk.
“See,” I said. “Not just another pretty face.”
“No,” Hawk said. “Got nice legs, too.”
“It is just the kind of overproduced extravaganza that people like Heidi would throw,” Susan said. “Maybe she didn’t expect all the killing. Certainly she couldn’t have planned the hurricane. But…”
“Like a kidnapping thrown by a party planner,” Hawk said.
“Yes,” Susan said.
“But why would Rugar go along with it?” I said.
“Money?” Susan said.
“Always a good guess,” I said. “But it is so against his nature.”
