The Daughter-in-Law (22 page)

“Give it some time. Maybe we shouldn’t even mention a financial settlement for another year. Doesn’t time heal all wounds?”

Victor reported back to Jack and Alexandra.

“So exactly what does she want?” Jack demanded.

Victor let the air escape slowly through his pursed lips. “Probably more money. But I don’t think we’ll be able to find out over a con-
ference table.” He looked at Alexandra. “I think maybe you ought to invite her to dinner.”

Alexandra balked at the suggestion. Later that night, when she and her husband were dining alone, he raised the topic, suggesting that it might help things if Alexandra and Nicole were at least on speaking terms. “How in hell are we supposed to have a civil conversation in the face of all these accusations and counteraccusa-tions?”

Alexandra barely spared him a glance. “I want her out of my life, not sitting across from me at our dinner table.”

Jack pleaded that a settlement with their daughter-in-law was critical and argued that there would be no agreement unless the two women talked with one another and found some common ground they could stand on. “Just to be at peace with Jonathan’s memory, we ought to get his affairs settled,” he said.

It was later at night, when he stopped in her bedroom to kiss her goodnight, that she showed the first dent in her armor. “I could meet with her, I suppose. Not for any substantive conversations, but just to agree that we have to get through all this.”

He was buoyed. “Anywhere you say. Just the two of you with no lawyers, no seconds. I’d really appreciate that, and I think it would do a world of good.”

Jack conveyed the suggestion in person, unwilling to have its innocence tarnished by their attorneys. He chatted with Nicole, said he had something personal to ask her, and wondered if he might stop by for a drink. He detected an instant hesitation in her voice, but then she responded enthusiastically. “Is five o’clock good for you?” she asked.

“Perfect, and don’t go to any bother. All I need is a shot of Jonathan’s Scotch and a couple of ice cubes.”

She was in jeans and a sweater, minimum makeup and hair pulled back. And she hadn’t gone to any bother. On the coffee table she had arranged a bucket of ice, a pitcher of water, a new bottle of an expensive single malt, and two short glasses. The only extra was a bowl of peanuts. She sat while he went to work as bartender, commenting that it was Jonathan who had weaned him off his favorite blend and onto the single malt. Then he sat back, toasted to his son’s memory, and leaned forward to touch glasses.

“I want to apologize for the way our financial proposals were pre-
sented,” he began. “It may have seemed like ‘take it or leave it,’ but that certainly wasn’t my intention.” He explained that, unfortunately, there did need to be some resolution of Jonathan’s affairs that were entangled with the firm. He added that he also intended to assure her financial future, and guarantee her independence from the family purse strings.

The provision inviting her to use the Newport house had been made in the hope that they would see her from time to time.

She listened patiently, sipping her drink while Jack poured himself a dividend. Then she asked, “Does Mrs. Donner still think that I murdered her son?”

His eyes flashed, but then they lowered humbly. “I want to apologize for that, too,” he mumbled. “She’s still in shock, and she’s still looking for someone, or something to blame. If I could just get the two of you talking I think all these . . . suspicions ...”

“Accusations,” Nicole corrected.

“Yes . . . accusations . . . would stop. You’ve both suffered a loss. That should be something binding you together, not leading to . . . animosity.”

“I think we said it all at our last meeting.” Nicole wasn’t letting herself get caught up in his enthusiasm.

“Will you meet with her? I know I can arrange it. I’m certain that everything would work out if the two of you could just get past the first five minutes.” He hated begging like this. Jack’s personality was more suited to lifting her up and dropping her out of the window. But he needed a settlement and he was willing to grovel for it.

“Let me think about it,” she said. She tossed down the remains of her drink to indicate that their cocktail hour was over.

“I’d appreciate that,” he said, following her lead, and finishing his drink. Then, as she was leading him to the door he confessed, “Alexandra is really the only barrier to our getting all these problems straightened out. If we could just get through to her, it would make all the difference in the world.”

“Jack,” she said in the doorway, “you keep making excuses for Alexandra. And she pays you back by blaming you for everything. You deserve better.”

In the elevator, he found himself shaking his head. Was that bitch coming on to me? he wondered. She wasn’t the first woman who had told him how much better he deserved.

THIRTY-SIX

T
HE MEETING
was set for the next Sunday at two o’clock. Alexandra suggested the caretaker’s cottage that Nicole and Jonathan had shared as neutral ground. They could meet there, just the two of them, and chat for a while. And then maybe they could join Jack and Pam aboard the yacht for a sunset dinner. Alexandra’s voice sounded so genuine that Nicole found herself replying graciously. No, there was no need for Alexandra to send a car. She would enjoy driving herself. No, she wouldn’t stay over. She had matters to attend to on Monday, but she very much appreciated the invitation. If it were to be a war-ending treaty, it promised all the cordiality of Appomattox.

On Sunday, Nicole took the car out of the garage at noontime, and left the parkways so that she could drive the back roads. She circled both shores of Manhasset Bay, window-shopped the great manors of Kings Point and old Glen Cove, and then took the winding forest roads that led to the Donner estate where the security guard waved her through. She checked her watch as she got out of the convertible next to the cottage. She was early. She started down the path that led to the cabana and then to the bluff overlooking the sound. There was no more pleasant way to spend the fifteen minutes she needed to kill.

At five minutes to two, Pam left her mother in the main house and walked quickly toward the garage building. She noticed Jonathan’s car at the cottage and pulled up short. She hesitated, looked around, and when she didn’t see Nicole, crossed the lawn to the cottage.

“Nicole!”

There was no answer. Pam eased the door open and called in again. The only response was a hissing sound of gas coming from the kitchen. “Nicole! Nicole, where are you? Are you in here Nicole?” She glanced about quickly. The bathroom door was open
and there was no activity in the kitchen. She moved to the stove, checking left and right in case her sister-in-law had been overcome by the gas. All the burner controls were open, and she shut them off quickly. She thought of opening the windows, but the gas odor was overpowering. She took a quick glance around and then rushed for the open door. The last thing she remembered was pushing the “OK” button to deactivate the security alarm.

The explosion was like a thunderclap, echoing around the property so that no one was immediately sure of its source. Nicole had just reached the edge of the bluff when she heard it, and almost simultaneously felt the concussion, a thump against her back and neck. She turned just in time to see the fireball climb over the trees, and watched while a cloud of debris rose slowly and then fell like hailstones. A piece that looked like a window frame spun in a tight circle and glided off like a toy Frisbee.

The banks of mullioned glass along the facade of the main house rattled violently just as the sound struck. A few of the panes shattered and fell. Others cracked into spiderwebs. The concussion deflecting off the roof made the attics rumble like kettledrums and set the chandeliers rattling.

Alexandra, who had been about to leave for her meeting, dashed to a window and saw the debris cloud as it began to settle. Jack jumped up from his desk and ran out onto the grounds. He missed the fireball, but saw the smoke that began to rise, and heard the tapping of roof tiles as they fell into the woods. Instinctively, he raced toward the signs of trouble and was the first one to turn the corner of the driveway and see the shattered skeleton of the gardener’s cottage. He also saw a woman’s body, tossed like a rag doll onto the lawn.

The explosion had fired Pam out through the front door like a cork from a bottle. She had felt the impact, and the blast of heat that seared her blouse and burned the skin on her back and neck. She had no recollection of flying through the air for a distance of nearly thirty feet, or of crashing facedown on the lawn.

She had been stony silent when her father lifted her off the grass and carried her away from the fire. Her eyes had flickered and she had managed to smile when she recognized her mother and then Nicole. But she hadn’t really awakened until she was in the emergency room at the hospital with both her parents bending over her.

“It was gas,” she said unemotionally. “The cottage was filled with gas. It must have exploded when I was running out.”

“Oh, God, I’m so sorry,” Alexandra sobbed.

Jack wore a forced smile. “Everything is going to be fine. The doctors say you’re okay. Nothing broken. No scars ...”

“How did I get out?”

“Like a cannonball,” he laughed. “And not a minute too soon. The only damage was to the cottage, and we’ll put that back together again.”

It was a week later and she was back at home, sitting up carefully to avoid aggravating the burns on her back. Superficial, the doctor had called them, describing them as not much worse than a sunburn. But when she accidentally rubbed against the gauze covering, they hurt like hell.

The fire inspectors had found the stove intact, stained by the heat and chipped by the debris, but still in working order. The burner controls were all in the “off” position. The gas line to the stove was broken, which the explosion could have caused. But it seemed likely that it had broken earlier, and the gas line was the source of the leak. An accident, plain and simple.

Alexandra had a different answer. Nicole had blown out the pilot light and let gas seep into the cottage. Then she had used the telephone to dial her own cell phone, establishing a link between her and the house. “She walked down to the cabana, waited until she heard someone inside, and then triggered some sort of relay.”

Jack had rolled his eyes. “Some sort of relay? Is that what you plan on telling the police?”

“Well, I don’t know how those things work. But I know you can send a signal to turn on the lights, or open a garage door. All she needed to do was cause a spark.”

“Alexandra, for Christ’s sake, she had just arrived. Where in hell would she get the time to rig up a remote-control detonator?”

Alexandra had given it a great deal of thought. “It would take her ten seconds to blow out the pilot. And how long to dial her own phone? Another ten seconds? She didn’t have to install or connect anything. All she had to do was leave a device next to the phone so
that she could set it off with a signal from her own phone. Maybe just punch in the number three or something.”

“And she did all this . . . because ...”

“She did all this to get me out of the way,” Alexandra told Jack. “Pam wasn’t supposed to walk into the cottage . . . I was. Remember how nicely you had arranged everything? Just she and I for a little private chat. A chance for each of us to retract the hateful things we’d said to each other. A new beginning. I was supposed to walk in there alone in another minute for a caring embrace.”

Jack’s anger flashed. “Stop it, damn it! You sound as if you’ve lost your mind.”

But Alexandra went on. “She said she got there early so she walked down to the bluff. Why? Why didn’t she go into the house and make herself comfortable? Or walk up to the main house to tell me she had arrived? Why would she go a quarter of a mile away from where we were supposed to meet? The only answer is that she wanted me to walk into the trap that she had set.”

He took her hands and promised to investigate. He would have Greg Lambert bring in a team of arson specialists. Experts would go through the house. If the phone line had been active at the time, they would know it, and if there were some type of remote-control device they would find it. He expected precise, scientific answers to the questions about the cause of the fire.

“The fire inspectors found nothing,” Alexandra reminded him.

“Alexandra, they’re suburban volunteer firemen. They climb ladders and squirt hoses. They’re not arson experts.”

“Than you don’t think it was just an accident,” she challenged.

“I don’t know. Pam doesn’t remember if the gas jets were turned on. But if I find out they were, or if the gas was ignited over a telephone line, then I’ll have serious questions for our daughter-in-law. But for God’s sake, don’t go mouthing off with wild accusations until we have the facts.” He lifted her chin so that she was looking directly into his eyes. “Okay?” he asked.

“Okay,” she answered reluctantly.

But she was far from satisfied. From the very beginning she had suspected that the thing Nicole found most attractive about her son was his fortune. That wasn’t alarming in itself. Money was an asset, just like good teeth and a full head of hair. She expected it to attract
women and had already watched two or three young ladies play their best cards. One was an accomplished horsewoman who would have brought a couple of promising race horses to the marriage. Another dressed in various degrees of nakedness, displaying her amazing sexual potential. And there was an artist whose painting was right on the verge of world recognition. Jonathan had paid twenty thousand dollars for one of her abstracts and then agreed with Alexandra that it was best hung in the attic. They were all ladies on the make. Their ambitions were obvious and their sincerity pathetic. She had never really worried that Jonathan would be taken in by any of them.

But Nicole was frightening. She had jumped out of an airplane just to attract his attention. She had made a virtue of her up-from-poverty autobiography. She had underdressed rather than flaunt her abundant assets. And she had kept a respectable distance, letting him do the chasing. Somehow, Nicole had convinced her son that he had captured an elusive treasure. Somehow she had made him believe that the thought of his money had never crossed her mind.