Courthouse (24 page)

The maid opened a double door in the wall, revealing the small, mirrored cocktail bar.

“Mrs. Wainwright will be with you shortly,” said the maid as she left the room. “She said to make yourselves a drink.”

Franco made a vodka and tonic for Marc and one for himself. He sat on a side chair, as Marc studied one of the paintings on the wall, twisting his head from the vertical to the horizontal. The painting was a mass of lines and color, seemingly without rhyme or purpose.

“This is like living in a museum,” said Franco. “You figure these pictures were expensive?”

“I'm sure they were. Very,” replied Marc.

“It's bad enough they don't make any sense, but if they cost a bundle too, it's even worse.”

Twenty minutes later the two of them were still waiting for Mrs. Wainwright to appear. Franco fixed another drink for himself. Marc's was still almost full. Finally, they heard footsteps.

“I'm very rushed. I'm sorry,” said Toni Wainwright breathlessly, sweeping into the room. Her face was heavily made up, almost as if she were wearing a mask. She wore a silk dressing gown, belted at the waist. It was long and green, embroidered with little gold figures. She wore nothing underneath, which was obvious from the view of her décolletage. “The hairdresser just finished me, and I still have to get dressed. Can we make this brief? I'm going, to the Children's Relief Gala tonight. I bought a table and now I'm going to be late for my own guests.” She sat on the couch.

The way she spoke, Marc knew she had had a couple of drinks while she was being prepared by the hairdresser.

“I guess we can make it brief,” said Marc. “I wanted to talk about the case. Especially about the actual scene when your husband was shot.”

“I'm really not going to have much time to talk,” she said brusquely. Now she crossed her legs and the green gown opened over her bare legs to mid-thigh. She put a cigarette in her mouth, looking at Franco somewhat impatiently.

“I'll get it,” said Marc, taking a lighter from the glass table.

“Thank you. Your friend seems too involved with my gin to light a lady's cigarette,” she said.

“It's vodka.”

Mrs. Wainwright looked ceilingward with impatient disdain.

Franco studied her, his jaw muscles starting to tighten. He glanced over at Marc. Their eyes met, and Marc shook his head.

“I'm really sorry for the hurry,” said Mrs. Wainwright “I forgot all about this benefit tonight. Old George Shaw is my escort.” She shrugged, almost to herself. “George is a pain in the ass. But he does have fifty million dollars and is
so
very social. Oh, I guess you wouldn't know that,” she said, aware of Marc and Franco again. She puffed on her cigarette. “Can you fix me a drink?” she said over her shoulder toward Franco.

Franco, his pique still aroused from her last remark, did not move.

“Sure,” said Marc. “What would you like?” He nodded to Franco, winking to ease him up.

“A very dry martini. Do you always speak for your friend?” Toni Wainwright asked caustically.

“Sometimes.” Marc smiled patiently. “Since you're in a hurry, let me ask you some quick questions.”

“I really can't tell you anything more than I already have. I told you everything. Am I going to get that drink?”

“I'm making it.”

“Oh dear, I think your friend doesn't like me,” she said, turning to Marc, a coy smile on her face.

“About Mister Wainwright,” Marc pressed.

“I was asleep, or drunk, or both. I don't know anything about it. Thank you, dear boy.” She smiled, leaning forward purposely as she took the drink from Franco. Her décolletage opened fuller as she did, as she knew it would. “All I can tell you is that Bob was a shit and spoiled my dinner party that night.”

“When you say Bob, you mean Mister Wainwright, your husband?” asked Marc.

“What other shit are we talking about, dear boy,” she replied. “What time is it? Tell me what time it is,” she said to Marc.

“Six twenty-five.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” she brought her drink down hard on the glass table. “I have to get going. I'm sorry, I can't talk any more. You'll have to call another time. Do call another time,” she repeated to Marc. “When just
we two
can have dinner or something.”

“All right, if you have to run,” said Marc. “Just let me ask you a couple of things quickly.”

“Come inside with me then,” she said, starting toward the door.

“No, I'd like to get the questioning over, and then you can get your dressing done by yourself,” he replied firmly now. He had had enough of her cuteness.

“Afraid of a little girl like me?” she asked.

“Hardly,” said Marc blankly. “Where did you get the pistol? You said you have a license for it. How long had you had it?”

“Not afraid of me, hanh,” she said, looking at him saucily from the side of her eye.

“Mrs. Wainwright, let's be serious. Where did you get the pistol, and how long had you had it?” Marc repeated.

“Zack Lord gave it to me. We went out to Colorado. We both have some cattle holdings in Colorado, you know, for tax deductions and all that?”

“Is that where you got the pistol?”

“Yes. Zack bought them, and had them shipped to a dealer here in New York,” she replied.

“Them?” Franco interjected from his chair to the side.

“Did he buy more than one pistol?” Marc picked up.

“There were two,” she replied. “Zack bought one for himself and gave one to me for a present.”

“Were they both the same?” Marc probed further.

“Exactly the same. Twenty-five automatic calibers, or something like that. They were made of solid silver, with scroll work and pearl handles. Now can I go? I have to pee.”

Franco stared at her.

“When did he buy the pistols?” Marc asked, ignoring her indelicacy.

“About six months ago,” she answered. “Look, I really have to get going. I don't have any more time for this.”

“Mrs. Wainwright,” Marc said impatiently now. “If you don't co-operate, you won't have time for anything else. You'll be behind bars for twenty-five years, and they'll be running benefits for
you
.”

She stared at Marc, then nodded slightly. “Go ahead, what else?”

“You say you had the pistol about six months?” Marc repeated.

“That's about how long Zack and I have been seeing each other. Oh, I knew him longer than that, of course. Saw each other for drinks occasionally. But Bob and I separated, say, about eight months ago. And Zack and I began to see each other more openly about six months ago.”

“And that's when you went to Colorado?” asked Marc.

“Shortly after we began seeing each other regularly, we went out to Colorado, to a cattle ranch, for a weekend in the big country, you know. And Zack bought the pistols then.”

“Where is Zack tonight?” asked Marc. “Is he going to this benefit?”

“No. He's in Florida,” she replied. “He had some contracts or something he had to work on with a couple of men from Texas. Why they met in Florida is beyond me. He's working on that damn octopus of his.”

“Octopus?” asked Marc.

“His mutual fund, conglomerate, corporation, holding company, or whatever the hell it is,” she said. “That's the company that owns all of his companies. Seems he's swallowed up so much, so fast, he needs a little time for digestion.”

“Is Zack having business difficulties?” Marc asked.

“No, his holdings are growing every day. Zack's getting richer and richer. I think one of these days we're going to have to ask permission to live on his world.” She puffed on her cigarette. “Bob—my husband—was always saying how he thought Zack's whole empire was going to bust apart one day,” she added. “But Bob was jealous. He was lousy at being jealous. He was lousy at everything,” she added. “And now, I
really
must pee. Give me a call and we'll talk for hours another day.” Without another word, Mrs. Wainwright disappeared quickly out of the room, her green robe flowing behind.

“That nasty little bitch,” Franco murmured.

“Cool it,” said Marc as they made their way to the front door. The elevator arrived and they rode silently to the street level.

“Another minute of that smart-aleck talk and I was going to kick her in the ass,” Franco splurted as they reached the sidewalk.

“Take it easy, Franco. She's a client, not a friend. We don't get involved with clients because we like the pleasure of their company.”

“I guess that's right,” said Franco.

They were both silent as they continued to walk toward the car. When they reached the car, Franco opened the door for Marc and then got into the driver's side.

“You know, I've been thinking,” said Franco.

“Go ahead,” said Marc expectantly.

“Well, you brought me along so I'd get some ideas, right?”

“Right.”

“Okay, then, here we go,” said Franco. “First, she's a nasty bitch.”

“That I figured out by myself.”

“Okay, next. Even if she's a nasty bitch, that don't mean she ought to get hung with a rap that ain't—isn't hers.”

“I'm with you so far,” said Marc. “Now what's the theory? Or do you want to wait to discuss it with Mrs. Conte?”

“We can discuss it some more later,” he said. “But I don't get the feeling that she killed him. I don't know why. But that's the feeling I get. What I do feel is that this nasty bitch gets drunk a lot. We know she was drunk the night her husband was killed; really drunk, is how she said it. Now if her being really drunk is a lot worse than she is now, then she wouldn't even know what she was doing or where she was when she's like that. People who know her would probably know that too. So when she was really drunk, like that night her husband was killed, someone who knew her could have knocked off her husband while she was passed out and put the gun in her hand.”

“That's really good,” said Marc irreverently. “
Except
, how did the killer in your theory get
Mister
Wainwright to Toni Wainwright's apartment on this particular night? How did the killer then get in himself or herself? How did the killer get Toni Wainwright's pistol to kill Wainwright with? And one final question, why?”

“I don't know those answers,” said Franco. “Not yet … I've got to talk to Mrs. Conte about that. But Mrs. Wainwright wouldn't know the difference if somebody did kill her husband even if she was there, if she was passed out drunk.”

“That may be true, but it's the rest of the idea that disturbs me,” said Marc.

“And how about that Zack Lord having the same pistol?” asked Franco. “That's something we've got to kick around some more.”

“Interesting,” said Marc. “But ballistics will probably indicate that Mrs. Wainwright's pistol fired the fatal shot. Of course, we don't know much about ballistics, do we?”

“You think I may be onto something, hanh?”

“No, I was just thinking about the fact that a ballistics man could get on the stand and testify that a bullet came out of a particular pistol, say Mrs. Wainwright's. And then, because we haven't done much research into the subject of ballistics, we'd have to accept it, as the jury, judge, and everyone else does now. But supposing ballistics isn't so accurate a science, or supposing the ballistics man isn't so sharp. Maybe he makes a mistake. But I don't know it, because I'm not up on the subject.” Marc thought quietly for a moment. “I think we'd better do some checking into ballistics.”

“And how about my theory?” asked Franco.

“Talk to Mrs. Conte and come up with some of the answers to the problems in your theory. Then you'll have something.”

“Thanks a lot.”

16

Saturday, August 19, 1:30
P.M.

Pescadorito's
hull lifted and fell through the gently rolling tide of Gravesend Bay as the boat passed beneath the vast span of the Verrazano Bridge. The bridge, arching from Brooklyn to Staten Island, over that part of New York Harbor known as The Narrows is the longest suspension bridge in the world. And yet, the dazzling effect of the bridge is somewhat diluted by ten other major bridges with in a five-mile radius.

Franco was at
Pescadorito's
helm. He wore jeans and a striped polo shirt. It was a hot day, and the sky was completely cloudless.

Maria was on the fore deck in a white bikini. She was lying down, sunning herself, her eyes closed. Her arms were braced on each side of her as the boat rolled on the ever larger waves. They were headed out to the ocean.

Marc was reading the New York
Times.
He wore bell bottomed jeans; no shirt.

“What are you doing?” Maria asked, not opening her eyes.

“Just reading the paper.”

“How come? I thought we came out here to get away from all the horrors they report in the papers.”

“Just checking,” said Marc. “I'm reading about this fellow who was arrested in Brooklyn last night, charged with killing a seven-year-old girl.”

“I heard that on the radio this morning,” said Maria. “That the case where he molested her and then tried to decompose her body in a pit of lye?”

“Those are the charges.” Marc continued his reading.

“I know everybody's entitled to a fair trial and all that,” said Maria calmly, her eyes still closed. “But a person like that is really sick. I don't advocate anything violent, but they ought to give him a frontal lobotomy or something, turn him into a harmless vegetable.”

“That's a hell of a thing.” Marc put the paper aside. “What could be more violent than that?”

“Molesting and killing a seven-year-old girl and trying to get rid of the body in a pit of lye, that's what,” Maria said emphatically, sitting up. She wore a printed cloth band about the top of her head.