While My Pretty One Sleeps (23 page)

She and Jack were introduced. Myra Bradley waved them to seats and got to the point. “As you are aware,” she said, “there is a matter of jurisdiction. We know the body was moved, but we don't know from where it was moved. She could have been murdered in the park five feet from where she was found. In which case, we take charge.”

Bradley indicated the file on her desk. “According to the M.E., death was caused by a violent slash with a sharp instrument which cut her jugular vein and sliced her windpipe. She may have put up a struggle. Her jaw was black and blue and there was a cut on her chin. I might add, it was a miracle the animals didn't get to her. Probably because she was pretty well covered by the rocks. She wasn't supposed to be discovered. Burying her there took careful planning.”

“Meaning you're looking for someone who knows the area,” Myles said.

“Exactly. There's no way to pinpoint the exact time of death, but from what her nephew told us she failed to meet him last Friday, eight days ago. The body was pretty well preserved, and when we check the weather we see that the cold spell started nine days ago, on Thursday. So if Ethel Lambston died on Thursday or Friday and was buried shortly thereafter, it would account for the lack of decomposition.”

Neeve was sitting to the right of the District Attorney's desk. Jack was in the chair beside her. She felt herself flinch, and his arm went over the back of her chair.
If only I had remembered her birthday
. She tried to push away the thought and concentrate on what Bradley was saying.

“. . . Ethel Lambston could easily have gone undetected for months, even to the point where identification would have been extremely difficult. She wasn't meant to be found. She wasn't meant to be identified. She was wearing no jewelry; there was no handbag or wallet near her.” Bradley turned to Neeve. “Do the clothes you sell always have your labels sewn in them?”

“Of course.”

“The labels in Ms. Lambston's clothing had all been removed.” The District Attorney got up. “If you don't mind, Miss Kearny, would you look over the clothing now?”

They went into an adjoining room. One of the detectives brought in plastic bags filled with rumpled and stained clothing. Neeve watched as the bags were emptied. One of them contained lingerie, a matching bra and panties, both edged with lace, the bra spattered with blood; pantyhose with a wide run up the
front of the right leg. Medium-heel pumps of a soft periwinkle blue leather were held together by a rubber band. Neeve thought of the racks of shoe trees Ethel had been so proud to display in her state-of-the-art closet.

The second bag held a three-piece suit: winter-white wool with periwinkle-blue cuffs and collar, a white skirt and a striped blue-and-white blouse. All three were soaked in blood and smeared with dirt. Neeve felt Myles's hand on her shoulder. Resolutely she studied the garments. Something was wrong, something that went beyond the gruesome end to which these garments and the woman who wore them had come.

She heard the District Attorney ask, “Is this one of the outfits that was missing from Ethel Lambston's closet?”

“Yes.”

“Did you sell her this outfit?”

“Yes, around the holidays.” Neeve looked up at Myles. “She wore it at the party, remember?”

“No.”

Neeve spoke slowly. She felt as though time had dissolved. She was in the apartment and it had been decorated for their annual Christmas cocktail buffet. Ethel had looked particularly attractive. The white-and-blue suit was handsome and very becoming with her dark blue eyes and silver-blond hair. A number of people complimented her on it. Then, of course, Ethel zeroed in on Myles, talking his ear off, and he spent the rest of the party trying to avoid her. . . .

There was something wrong with the memory. What was it? “She bought that suit with some other clothes in early December. That's a Renardo original. Renardo is a subsidiary of Gordon
Steuber Textiles.” What was eluding her? She simply didn't know. “Was she wearing a coat?”

“No.” The District Attorney nodded to the detectives, who began to fold the clothing and replace it in the plastic bags. “Commissioner Schwartz told me that the reason you began worrying about Ethel was that all her warm coats were in her closet. But isn't it a fact that she could easily have bought a coat from someone other than you?”

Neeve got up. The room seemed to smell faintly of antiseptic. She was not about to make a fool of herself by insisting that Ethel simply didn't shop anywhere except from her. “I'll be glad to do an inventory of Ethel's closet,” she said. “I have all the receipts from her purchases in a file. I can tell you exactly what's missing.”

“I'd like as full a description as possible. Did she usually wear jewelry with this outfit?”

“Yes. A diamond-and-gold pin. Matching earrings. A wide gold bracelet. She always wore several diamond rings.”

“She had no jewelry on. So we may have a simple felony murder.”

Jack took her arm as they left the room. “You okay?”

Neeve shook her head. “There's something I'm missing.”

One of the detectives had heard her. He gave her his card. “Call anytime.”

They headed for the door of the courthouse building. Myles was ahead, chatting with the District Attorney, his silver-white hair a full head over her dark-brown blunt-cut bob. Last year his cashmere overcoat had hung limply from his shoulders. After the operation, he'd looked pale and shrunken. Now his shoulders
filled out the coat again. His step was firm and sure. And he was in his element in this situation. Police work was what made sense to him, to his life. Neeve found herself praying that nothing would interfere with that job in Washington.

As long as he works, he'll live to be one hundred, she thought. There was some crazy expression: “If you want to be happy for a year, win the lottery. If you want to be happy for life, love what you do.”

Loving his work kept Myles going after Mother died.

And now Ethel Lambston was dead.

The detectives had stayed behind when they left, refolding the clothes that had been Ethel's shroud, clothing that Neeve knew would someday be seen again at a trial Last seen wearing . . .

Myles was right. She was a silly fool to come to this place dressed like a checkerboard, those idiotic earrings faintly jangling in this dark place. Neeve was grateful she had not removed the hooded black cape that covered the striking ensemble. A woman was dead. Not an easy woman. Not a popular one. But a highly intelligent woman who fiercely called the shots as she saw them, who wanted to look well but didn't have either the time or the instinct to fend for herself in the fashion world.

Fashion. That was it. There was something about the outfit she was wearing . . .

Neeve felt a tremor go through her body. It was as though Jack Campbell felt it, too. Suddenly his arm was drawn through hers. “You cared about her a lot, didn't you?” he asked.

“Much more than I realized.”

Their footsteps echoed down the long marble corridor. The
marble was old and worn, cracks fissured through it like veins beneath flesh.

Ethel's jugular vein. Ethel's neck had been so thin. But unwrinkled. At nearly sixty, a lot of women started to get the telltale signs of age. “The neck goes first.” Neeve remembered that that was what Renata would say when a manufacturer tried to persuade her to buy low-cut dresses in mature women's sizes.

They were at the entrance to the courthouse. The District Attorney and Myles were agreeing that Manhattan and Rockland County would cooperate closely in the investigation. Myles said, “I should keep my mouth shut. It gets awfully hard to remember that I'm not pushing the buttons at One Police Plaza anymore.”

Neeve knew what she had to say and prayed that she wouldn't sound ridiculous. “I wonder . . .” The District Attorney, Myles and Jack waited. She began again. “I wonder if I could possibly speak to the woman who found Ethel's body. I don't know why, but I just feel as though I should.” She swallowed over a lump in her throat.

She felt their eyes studying her. “Mrs. Conway has made a complete statement,” Myra Bradley said slowly. “You can look at that if you want.”

“I'd like to talk with her.” Don't let them ask why, Neeve thought wildly. “I just have to.”

“My daughter is the reason Ethel Lambston has been identified,” Myles said. “If she'd like to speak with this witness, I think she should.”

He had already opened the door, and Myra Bradley shivered in the crisp April wind. “More like March,” she observed. “Look, I have absolutely no objection. We can give Mrs. Conway a call
and see if she's in. We feel she's told everything she knows, but maybe something else will surface. Wait a minute.”

A few moments later she returned. “Mrs. Conway is home. She'd be perfectly willing to talk with you. Here's her address and the directions.” She smiled at Myles, the smile of two professional cops. “If she happens to remember that she got a good look at the guy who killed Lambston, give us a quick call. Okay?”

•   •   •

Kitty Conway had a fire blazing in the library, a fire that threw pyramids of blue-tipped flame from the glowing logs. “Let me know if it's too warm for you,” she said apologetically. “It's just that from the moment I touched that poor woman's hand, I haven't stopped feeling cold.” She paused, embarrassed, but the three sets of eyes that were observing her all seemed to signal understanding.

She liked their looks. Neeve Kearny. Better than beautiful. Interesting, magnetic face with those high cheek-bones, that milk-white skin accentuating those intense brown eyes. But her face showed strain; the pupils of her eyes were enormous. It was obvious that the young man, Jack Campbell, was concerned about her. When he took her cape he'd said, “Neeve, you're still trembling.”

Kitty had a sudden wave of nostalgia. Her son was the same type as Jack Campbell, a little over six feet tall, broad-shouldered, trim body, strong, intelligent expression. She deplored the fact that Mike Junior lived half a world away.

Myles Kearny. When the District Attorney phoned, she'd known immediately who
he
was. For years his name had appeared
regularly in the media. Sometimes she'd seen him when she and Mike used to eat in Neary's Pub on East Fifty-seventh Street. She'd read about his heart attack and retirement, but he looked fine now. A good-looking Irishman.

Kitty was fleetingly grateful that she'd changed from her jeans and ancient oversized sweater to a silk blouse and slacks. When they wouldn't accept drinks, she insisted on making tea. “You need something to warm you up,” she told Neeve. Refusing assistance, she disappeared down the corridor to the kitchen.

Myles was sitting in a high-backed wing chair with a striped red-and-burnt-orange upholstery. Neeve and Jack were side by side on a velvet sectional that was placed like a crescent around the fireplace. Myles looked around the room approvingly. Comfortable. There were few people who had the brains to buy couches and chairs in which a tall man could lean his head back. He got up and began to examine the framed family photos. The usual history of a life. The young couple. Kitty Conway hadn't lost her looks along the way, that was for sure. She and her husband with their young son. A collage of the boy's growing years. The last picture was of Kitty, her son, his Japanese wife and their little girl. Myra Bradley had told him that the woman who discovered Ethel's body was a widow.

He heard Kitty's steps in the hallway. Quickly, Myles turned to the bookshelves. One section caught his eye, a collection of well-worn books on anthropology. He began to glance through them.

Kitty placed the silver tray on the round table near the sectional, poured the tea, urged cookies on them. “I baked up a storm this morning; nerves after yesterday, I guess,” she said,
and walked over to Myles.

“Who's the anthropologist?” he asked.

She smiled. “Strictly amateur. I got hooked in college when the professor said that to know the future we should study the past.”

“Something I used to keep reminding my detective squads,” Myles said.

“He's turning on the charm,” Neeve murmured to Jack. “A most unfamiliar sight.”

As they sipped the tea, Kitty told them about the horse bolting down the incline, about the plastic flying into her face, about her blurred impression of a hand in a blue sleeve. She explained about the sleeve of her sweatsuit lapping over the lid of the hamper and how at that moment she'd known she had to go back to the park and investigate.

Throughout, Neeve listened attentively, her head poised to one side as though she were straining to catch every word. She still had the overwhelming feeling that she was missing something, something that was right before her, simply waiting to be pounced on. And then she realized what it was.

“Mrs. Conway, will you describe exactly what you saw when you found the body?”

“Neeve?” Myles shook his head. He was building his questions carefully and did not want to be interrupted.

“Myles, I'm sorry, but this is terribly important.
Tell me about Ethel's hand. Tell me what you saw
.”

Kitty closed her eyes. “It was like looking at a mannequin's hand. It was so white and the nails seemed a garish red. The cuff of the jacket was blue. It came to the wrist, and that little piece
of black plastic was sticking to it. The blouse was blue and white, but it hardly showed beneath the cuff. It was sort of crumpled. It was crazy, but I almost straightened it.”

Neeve let out a long sigh. She leaned forward and rubbed her forehead with her hands. “That's what I couldn't get. That blouse.”

“What about the blouse?” Myles asked.

“It . . .” Neeve bit her lip. She was going to sound like a fool to him again. The blouse Ethel had been wearing was a part of the original three-piece ensemble. But when Ethel bought the suit, Neeve had told her she didn't think the blouse was right for it. She'd sold Ethel another blouse, all white, without the distraction of the blue stripes. She'd seen Ethel wear that outfit twice, and both times she'd had the white blouse on.