“They sent me instead,” Smithback replied, suddenly glad that it was 10:32 A.M.
The concierge turned around and disappeared into a small office. He came out again sixty seconds later. “Please pick up the house telephone on the table beside you,” he said.
Smithback held the receiver to his ear.
“What? Did George cancel?” said a small, crisp, expensive voice.
“Mrs. Wisher, may I come up and speak with you about Pamela?”
There was a silence. “Who is this?” the voice asked.
“Bill Smithback.”
There was another silence, longer this time. Smithback continued. “I have something very important, some information about your daughter’s death, that I am sure the police haven’t told you. I feel sure you would want to know—”
The voice broke in. “Yes, yes, I’m sure you do.”
“Wait—” Smithback said, his mind racing again.
There was a silence.
“Mrs. Wisher?”
He heard a click. The woman had hung up.
Well, Smithback thought, he had given it his best shot. Maybe he could wait outside, on a park bench across the street, on the chance she’d emerge later in the day. But even as he considered this, Smithback knew that Mrs. Wisher would not be leaving her elegant fastness for the foreseeable future.
A phone rang at the concierge’s elbow. Mrs. Wisher, no doubt. Eager to avoid a bum’s rush, Smithback turned and started walking quickly out of the lobby.
“Mr. Smithback!” the concierge called loudly.
Smithback turned. This was the part he hated.
The concierge gazed at him expressionlessly, telephone at his ear. “The elevator is over there.”
“Elevator?” Smithback asked.
The concierge nodded. “Eighteenth floor.”
The elevator operator slid open first the brass cage, then the heavy oak doors, depositing Smithback directly into a peach-colored foyer crammed top to bottom with flower arrangements. A side table was overflowing with sympathy cards, including a fresh stack that had not been opened. At the far end of the silent room, a set of French doors stood ajar. Smithback walked toward them slowly.
Beyond the doors lay a large drawing room. Empire sofas and chaise longues were placed at neat symmetric angles on the dense carpet. Along the far wall stood a series of tall windows. Smithback knew that, when open, they would afford a spectacular view of Central Park. But now they were tightly closed and shuttered, throwing the tastefully appointed space into heavy gloom.
There was a brief movement to one side. Turning, Smithback saw a small, neat woman with well-coiffed brown hair seated at one end of a sofa. She was wearing a dark, simple dress. Without speaking, she motioned him to sit down. Smithback selected a wing chair opposite Mrs. Wisher. A tea service had been laid out on a low table between them, and the journalist’s eye roved over the array of scones, marmalades, dishes of honey and clotted cream. The woman made no move to offer any, and Smithback realized the setting had been for the intended appointment. A brief uneasiness came across him at the thought that George—no doubt the real eleven o’clock arrival—might appear at any moment.
Smithback cleared his throat. “Mrs. Wisher, I’m very, very sorry about your daughter,” he said.
As he spoke, he realized he might actually mean it. Seeing this elegant room, seeing how little all this wealth mattered in the face of ultimate tragedy, somehow brought the woman’s loss forcefully home to him.
Mrs. Wisher continued to gaze back, hands folded in her lap. She may have made a barely perceptible nod, but Smithback couldn’t be sure in the dim light.
“Turn off that tape recorder,” said Mrs. Wisher quietly. Her voice was thin and a little strained, but remarkably commanding.
Smithback jerked his hand out of the pocket. “I’m sorry?”
“Please remove the recorder from your pocket and place it here, where I can see that it’s turned off.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Smithback said, fumbling with the machine.
“Have you no sense of decency?” the woman whispered.
Smithback, placing the recorder on the low table, felt his ears begin to burn.
“You say you’re sorry about my daughter’s death,” the quiet voice continued, “while at the same time turning on that filthy thing. After I invited you into my home.”
Smithback shifted uncomfortably in his chair, reluctant to meet the woman’s eyes. “Yes, well,” he babbled. “I’m sorry, I’m just… well, it’s my job.” The words sounded lame even as he spoke them.
“Yes. I’ve just lost my only child, the only family I had left. Whose sensitivities do you think should take precedence, Mr. Smithback?”
Smithback fell silent, forcing himself to look at the woman. She sat unmoving, staring steadily back at him across the gloom, hands still folded on her lap. A strange thing was happening to him, a very strange thing, so foreign to his nature that he almost didn’t recognize the emotion. He was feeling embarrassed. No, that wasn’t it: he was feeling ashamed. If he’d fought for the scoop, unearthed it himself, perhaps it would be different. But to be brought up here, to see the woman’s grief… All the excitement of getting assigned a big story drained away
