False Pretenses (25 page)

“I'm all right, Liam,” Elizabeth said. “Truly.”

He kept a firm grip on her hands. “Tell me what happened, Mrs. Carleton.”

“A man in a big car . . . he tried to run me down, just like Mr. Foggerty said.”

“I'm taking you upstairs, then I'm calling the cops.”

She shook her head, but Gallagher ignored her.

He took her up in the elevator, sat her down, and went to the phone. He automatically asked for Lieutenant Draper.

Thirty minutes later, Gallagher let the lieutenant in. He hadn't seen him since . . . since that awful time when Mr. Carleton had been murdered and the lieutenant had questioned and questioned Mrs. Carleton. He realized suddenly that he probably shouldn't have called Draper. But he was here now.

“What's going on here, Gallagher? It is Gallagher, isn't it?”

Liam nodded.

Lenny Draper strode into the magnificent living room. A long time, he thought, a very long time, and she'd gotten off and was still living high off the hog. He motioned to the patrolman to stand by the door.

“It's Mrs. Carleton, Lieutenant. Some man tried to run her down.”

“Her deeds finally catching up with her, huh?” Draper said.

“See here . . .” Gallagher said, his face turning red.

“Don't give yourself an ulcer. I'll speak to her, all right?”

Draper saw her sitting still as a stone, on a sofa that would have paid his salary for a year. Her face was utterly white.

“Mrs. Carleton,” he said, sitting across from her. He pulled a pad out of his jacket pocket. “What happened?”

Elizabeth looked over at him. She shuddered unconsciously, remembering his endless stream of questions, his scorn, his contempt and disbelief at her answers. And finally that day when he'd read her her rights. Why had Liam called him, of all people?

“What happened?” Draper repeated, seeing the shock now.

Elizabeth moistened her lips. “Would you like some coffee, Lieutenant?”

“No. Would you like a doctor?”

She shook her head and her fingers began pleating the afghan Gallagher had put over her lap. “A man,” she said finally. “I know it was a man, and he was alone. He was driving a big car, dark blue I think. I was crossing the street and he revved the engine, speeded up, on purpose, you know, and he tried to kill me, to run me down.”

“How did you escape the car?”

“I jumped. Just like a broad jump in the Olympics. I landed between two cars and he kept going. He was probably afraid to stop because of . . . Foggerty.”

“Foggerty?”

“An older man who had a button missing on his shirt,” she said, and for the first time, she raised her eyes to his face.

She was in shock, Draper saw. His face tightened. He didn't want to feel sorry for her.

“Did you see his face?”

“No.”

“License plate? Anything, Mrs. Carleton?”

“No. It was too fast. I was afraid.”

“Where does this Foggerty live?”

Elizabeth just looked at him. Gallagher came forward, running his fingers through his hair. “I forgot to ask him. I know he lives close, say, a block down.”

Draper got to his feet. “All right, then. I'll find this Foggerty and see what he has to say. You should see a doctor, Mrs. Carleton.”

He left her still seated on the sofa pleating that useless afghan.

As they exited the town house, the patrolman asked in a low, excited voice, “It's her, isn't it, Lieutenant? The woman who killed her husband?”

“Yes, and she was acquitted,” said Draper.

“God, did you see that house?”

“I saw. I've seen it many times before. Find this fellow Foggerty. Evidently he saw the whole thing.”

 

It was close to ten o'clock that evening when Moretti walked in. Gallagher just stared at him.

“Hear you had a bit of excitement,” Moretti said, and his big face split with a smile.

“I'd say it was for the police, not the D.A.”

“Don't be smart with me, Gallagher. Oh, yeah, buddy, I remember your name. The
lady
upstairs in her castle?”

“The doctor came and gave her a sedative. She's probably asleep.”

“Good, call up. Maybe she'll tell me things I already know if she's out of it.”

“Scum,” Gallagher muttered under his breath. At least Kogi was home now. He called up and watched Moretti stride toward the elevator like a predator closing in on the kill. He'd been a bloody fool to call Draper.

Elizabeth walked slowly into the living room wrapped in a long bathrobe. She saw Moretti standing there, and sucked in her breath.

“What do you want?”

“Why, I represent law and order and justice, Mrs. Carleton,” he said smoothly. “Mind if I sit down?”

Elizabeth wished she could order him to leave. He
ignored her in any case and eased his considerable weight into her favorite chair.

“Hear you nearly bit the bullet,” he said amiably.

“Yes,” Elizabeth said. “I told Lieutenant Draper all I could remember.”

“Yeah, I know. Lenny called me, thought I'd be interested, which I am.”

“What do you want?”

“As for Foggerty, the old coot couldn't remember anything either. A pity, isn't it, Mrs. Carleton? It appears someone is after you now.”

“What do you want?” she asked again. The Valium was tugging at her, making her head feel light.

“Just wondered who wants you out of the way. Do you have enough paper to make a complete list for me?”

He grinned at her.

She was aware that Kogi had moved silently to stand protectively beside her, like a little Japanese banty rooster, she thought vaguely.

“Why don't you leave, Mr. Moretti?”

“What, no list, Mrs. Carleton? How's Draper supposed to do his job if you don't cooperate?”

He's really enjoying this, Elizabeth thought dully. She felt a flood of weakness, and merely shook her head at him. “I'm tired, Mr. Moretti. Kogi, see the gentleman out, please.”

Moretti called out after her, “Watch out for yourself, Mrs. Carleton. I surely wouldn't want you to follow in your husband's footsteps, now, would I?”

She was too tired, her mind too fogged to say anything. She simply turned and walked out of the living room. She heard him laughing softly behind her.

 

Kogi answered the phone the following morning, his voice muted. He wondered what to do, then sighed.

Elizabeth was watching television, a game show, and she hadn't moved in the past hour.

“It's Mr. Harley,” Kogi said, and handed her the phone.

“Hello,” she said, her voice flat and emotionless.

“What's going on? What's the matter, Elizabeth? I called your office and got some nonsense from Mrs. Stacy about you being ill.”

“No, I'm not ill, Jonathan. Just very tired. What is it you want?”

“I want you to stop acting like a whipped dog.”

She smiled, just a bit. If he only knew . . . A whipped dead dog. Or bitch. She stifled a laugh.

“Did you hear about Laurette Carleton?”

“No, but I've got an appointment to see her tomorrow.”

“You can forget it. She had a heart attack.”

Elizabeth jerked forward on the sofa. “What?”

“She's in very serious condition. A heart attack.”

“But she's . . . indestructible.”

“Evidently not. Why did you want to see her?”

“A private matter, Jonathan. None of your concern.”

“All right. I guess I deserved that. I want you to spend the weekend with me. I have a cabin in Maine, at a quaint place called Christmas Cove.”

Elizabeth stared at the phone.

“Do you enjoy boating? Hiking? A rustic cabin? The great unwashed out-of-doors?”

“Why are you asking me, Jonathan? You left in a rage.”

Jonathan grimaced. “I was a fool. I apologize. I want to see you.” He wanted to touch her, hold her, make love to her. But he knew if he said those idiot words, she'd probably hang up on him.

“To see you,” he said again. “Just to be with you.”

Something moved inside her, but she refused to give in to it.

“I've got to go, Jonathan. Perhaps some other
time.” She didn't want him to say anything more. She placed the receiver gently into the cradle.

She stared at the phone a moment, then picked up the remote control and snapped off the TV. Laurette, a heart attack. Her next thought was of Catherine. She tried her apartment. There was no answer.

She sat with a glazed look, wondering what to do. Kogi moved quietly up to her and gently placed a silver tray on the coffee table in front of her. “A croissant perhaps, Mrs. Carleton?”

She smiled up at him, and nodded. She watched him pour the coffee. Her eyes fell to the watch on his slender wrist. Timothy's watch.

“Kogi, that watch . . .”

“Yes, Mrs. Carleton?”

She frowned at it. “Oh, I don't know. Forget it. I'm coming down with early senility.”

 

I
t was a private hospital, of course, near Southampton. Elizabeth was directed to the coronary intensive-care unit. Huddled in the waiting room were Michael Carleton and Catherine.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“Michael,” Elizabeth said, nodding briefly toward him. “I came to see how she is.”

“Bad,” Catherine said, stepping toward Elizabeth. “Just one of us at a time. Brad is with her. Thank you for coming.”

Michael snorted.

Elizabeth moved more closely to Catherine. “I tried to call you when I heard.”

“I was in Boston.”

“I had an appointment to see her this morning, Catherine.”

“Well, we can be grateful for something. What if it had happened while you were with her? She was with Brad. He finally got the nerve to confront her about Jenny and everything else. Now he feels so guilty he can barely speak.”

“I don't imagine there will be a wedding now.”

“You're right about that. Jenny was sobbing her heart out on the phone when Brad called about Grandmother. I thought he was going to yell at her.”

“Is he going to break it off?”

“Probably. Yes, he's got to.”

“Well, well, a gathering of the infamous clan. And Mrs. Elizabeth Carleton—how interesting.”

Both women jerked about to see Moretti standing there grinning from ear to ear.

“The old lady couldn't have done it, huh, Mrs. Carleton? Flat on her back.”

“Please, Mr. Moretti,” Elizabeth said. “Please, just leave. None of this concerns you.”

“Just doing my job, Mrs. Carleton. Don't you want me to question these suspects? Doesn't it seem likely to you that one of them probably tried to kill you?”

Catherine turned pale. “What's he talking about?”

Elizabeth gritted her teeth. “Last night, a man tried to run me down. Mr. Moretti loves it.”

“The road to perdition is paved with many rich feet,” said Moretti. “How ‘bout you, Miss Carleton, you got an alibi for the . . . ah, the night in question?”

“Go to hell,” Catherine said very calmly.

“Bitches run in the family, I see,” Moretti said. He poked a finger toward the ICU doors. “The old lady going to make it?”

“The doctors think she just might,” said Michael.

“Did you try to do away with Elizabeth X, Mr. Carleton?”

Michael's jaw dropped.

“No, well, perhaps young Bradley. Can't shit without his grandmama's permission, can he? None of you can.”

“That's quite enough,” Elizabeth said. “If you don't leave, Michael will call the governor. Harassment, Mr. Moretti. Get out of here.”

“Sure thing, Mrs. Carleton. Just wanted to see the gathering of the vultures.”

He tossed a wave of the hand and walked down the corridor.

“Miserable excuse for a human being,” Catherine said.

“He's whistling,” said Elizabeth. “What were you doing in Boston, of all places, Catherine?”

To Elizabeth's surprise, she flushed. “Let's just say that since I'm on the road to reform, I've decided to bring someone else along with me.”

Elizabeth understood. It surprised her, but she said only, “I hope you know what you're doing.”

“Lord, I do too. Now, what's all this about someone trying to kill you?”

“Just as I said, someone tried to run me down in the street. And no, I don't have any idea who it was.”

“This is crazy. I think we should all move to California.”

“Or Peru.”

Catherine laughed. “That's what I suggested to Brad.”

“I'll leave now. You will keep me informed, won't you?”

“Yes, I will. Elizabeth, please be careful.”

Drake drove her downtown to her office. He said over his shoulder, “Did you know that the windows are bulletproof?”

“Good heavens. No, I didn't know.”

“Mr. Carleton had it done. Now I'm relieved. You're perfectly safe, Mrs. Carleton.”

“Thank you, Drake. I guess I don't go out for a pastrami sandwich anymore, do I?”

“No, ma'am. At least, not without me or Gallagher.”

She sighed. “Who could it have been?”

“I wouldn't be surprised if it weren't that dork of a D.A.”

Elizabeth laughed. “Moretti? I doubt it.”

She was reading a report on the last quarter's profits
from Paris at the Le Marcon shoe factory. The translation was abominable.

Millicent Stacy poked her head in the door. “Strange, Elizabeth. There's a woman on the phone asking to speak to you. She won't give her name, but she says it's urgent.”

Elizabeth started to refuse, then something stopped her. She nodded and picked up the phone.

“Yes? Elizabeth Carleton here.”

“You don't know me, Mrs. Carleton, but I know all about you. I used to live with Christian Hunter. Well, actually, he paid for my place, and he'd visit me. Did you break off with him?”

“Who are you? What is this all about? Are you a reporter?”

“I don't blame you for not wanting to say anything. Look, Mrs. Carleton, he was a crazy man the other night. He was talking about betrayal and all women being bitches. I just wanted to tell you. I'm leaving New York.”

“My God,” Elizabeth whispered into the phone. “Whoever you are, are you all right?”

“Oh, yeah, I just wanted to tell you.”

“Well, thank you. Please, be careful.”

The line went dead. Elizabeth sat back in her chair, her hands behind her head. So Christian had had a mistress. So what? So what if he'd been angry after she'd refused to marry him?

Susan walked out of the phone booth and waved down a taxi. The driver gave her a wink and a shrug and kept going.

“Damn,” she said, and stepped off the curb, her arm raised. She turned at the sound of loud honking, and never saw the car bearing down on her. It was a dark blue sedan and it struck her, hurling her ten feet out into oncoming traffic.

 

Elizabeth refused a call from Jonathan Harley. She
went by herself to Lincoln Center to see
Swan Lake,
her favorite ballet. Drake was waiting for her at curb-side at ten-thirty.

“I've got an invitation to meet the dancers, Drake,” she told him. “Could you bring the car around to the stage entrance in about thirty minutes?”

“Sure thing, Mrs. Carleton. I'll move the car around now.”

Elizabeth turned away, her steps quick because she was excited. She was nearly to the entrance when the explosion sent her sprawling to the sidewalk.

There was yelling, screaming, utter pandemonium.

She saw Timothy's limousine in flames. She saw one of the doors wrench off and hurtle into the air.

“Drake!”

She jerked to her feet and started running toward the spewing flames. Someone grabbed her arm. “It's too late, lady. God, someone blew him and the car to hell and back.”

The police were there within minutes.

Elizabeth stood huddled next to the curb. She watched firemen spray the car, saw them try to free Drake's body from behind the wheel. The police were going through the crowd. Several ambulances pulled up, sirens screaming.

It was unreal, a nightmare, and she was the cause.

“Lady? You all right?”

She looked up into the young police officer's face. “No,” she said very clearly. “No, I'm not all right, nothing is right now. That was my car, and my driver, Drake, is dead.”

She started laughing.

Someone was shaking her, but she couldn't stop laughing. She didn't know when the laughter turned to sobs.

She was aware of someone, a woman in a white jacket, slipping a needle into her arm. She was lying flat on her back, bright lights blinding her eyes.

“It's all right,” a woman said. “You're suffering from shock, and no wonder. Just a few bruises, a few cuts. Now, just breathe deeply, this will calm you down.”

“I should have been in that car, you know,” Elizabeth said. The woman in white just patted her arm. “I should have been in that car.”

She felt tears on her cheeks, dripping to her chin. Then she felt peaceful numbness filtering into her mind, then blessed darkness, then nothing.

 

“Elizabeth.”

She tried to turn her head away from the insistent sound of her name. She didn't want to leave the cocoon because if she did, she would know horror.

“Elizabeth, come on, sweetheart.”

Whose voice was that?

“It's me, Christian. Wake up.”

Christian! But hadn't that woman who'd phoned told her he was furious? “What are you doing here?” Was that her voice? She sounded like a dead frog.

“I told them you were my fiancée,” he said, and grinned. “It was the only way they'd let me in. There's a cop outside, keeping the press away from you.”

“Drake is dead,” she said.

“I know. But you're not. You're going to be just fine.”

“Until he tries again.”

“She awake yet, Hunter?”

Christian turned but didn't release Elizabeth's hand. “Lieutenant Draper,” he said. “She's not really with it yet.”

“What's wrong with her hands?”

“Cut on shattering glass, the doctor said.”

“My hands,” Elizabeth whispered, and slowly raised them. Both were bandaged. “My hands.”

“Your hands will be okay, Elizabeth, I promise. You can speak to the doctor in just a little while.”

“I need to ask some questions, Hunter,” Lieutenant Draper said. “First of all, what are you doing here?”

“I am a close friend of Mrs. Carleton's. I was driving nearby when the car exploded. I came right here.”

“Close friend, eh? Sure, fellow.”

“That's right, Lieutenant. Anything else?”

“Not for the moment. I'll want to talk to you some more later. Now, Mrs. Carleton, tell me what happened.”

Elizabeth opened her eyes and saw the car exploding, fragments bursting everywhere. She shuddered. “I don't know. I'd gotten an invitation to visit with the cast and told Drake to take the car around to the stage entrance. I should have been in the car.”

“And when he started the car, it blew. I'd say you're very lucky, Mrs. Carleton.”

“Drake wasn't.”

“No, but he was just a hired hand, wasn't he? Easily replaceable.”

“You're despicable,” Elizabeth said.

“Moretti should be here any minute. Why don't you try out that line on him?”

“Look, Draper,” Christian said, standing. “Why don't you just cut all this garbage?”

“The lady's always got a man to protect her,” Draper said, open contempt in his voice and on his face. “First her husband, and now you, Dr. Hunter. Where does what's-his-face fit in—Rowe Chalmers, big businessman from Boston, right?”

Christian clenched his fists. “Look, you son of a bitch, why don't you do your damned job?”

“Oh, yeah, I will. There were a good thirty people injured in the explosion, Mrs. Carleton. It would be nice if you rich folk could keep your feuds to yourselves.”

He strolled out of the room, leaving Christian staring after him. “He worked on your husband's case?”

“Yes, he did,” she said, and closed her eyes.

“Why didn't you tell me about the first attempt, Elizabeth?”

She shook her head on the pillow.

“Why?”

Why was he pushing? She'd thought for a while that he'd been responsible. But that couldn't be. He was here, with her, the same as he'd been before that night he'd asked her to marry him. “I got a phone call, Christian. It was from a woman who told me that she'd lived with you. She was afraid.”

Christian winced. He'd been too late. “What did this woman tell you?”

“That you had visited her after I turned down your marriage proposal. She said you'd acted crazy and that she was leaving New York.”

He said calmly, withdrawing his pipe from his pocket and going through the familiar routine, “It's true, in part, I suppose. I was angry and took it out on her. By the way, I told her to leave. It wasn't her idea.” He lit his pipe and drew on it. He pulled up a chair next to her bed. “Forget about Susan. She's not important. Now, since the damned police don't give a flying . . . well, since they don't care, talk to me. I want names.”

She couldn't very well tell him that he'd been on the top of her list. She stared at her bandaged hands.

Christian was silent, watching her. “You know, Elizabeth, the press is going wild over this. I'll speak to the doctor about when you can be released. Then maybe we can leave New York ourselves for a while until they catch whoever was responsible.”

Moretti walked in, not bothering to knock. He surveyed the scene in front of him and sneered. “Draper told me you'd finally come out into the open with your protector, Mrs. Carleton. He's now your fiancé, right?”