Renee Bayard frowned at me, perhaps because she found my words unacceptably frivolous, or maybe because she didn’t want me to encourage her granddaughter’s lawlessness: a girl enterprising enough to climb out through her bedroom window and drive off in the middle of the night probably had plenty of other escapades under her belt.
“Do you have any idea how the young man-Whitney, is it?-came to die out at Larchmont? Is there any thought of whether it was an accident or intentional?” Renee Bayard asked.
“Whitby. I don’t know what the DuPage sheriff is thinking, but Catherine has just been explaining to me that Rick Salvi is an old friend of your family. Salvi might say more to you than he would tell the press.”
Renee Bayard cocked her head at Catherine. “Trina, you shouldn’t call Sheriff Salvi a family friend. He’s a political acquaintance.”
She turned back to me. “I know you don’t want to reveal client secrets, but are you looking into young Whitney’s-no, Whitby’s-death? If he was murdered-my husband spends the whole year out in New Solway now.”
“We should call the Lantners,” Catherine said. “If there’s a murderer roaming around New Solway, they need to be on the lookout.”
I shook my head. “If Mr. Whitby was murdered, it was more likely by some homeowner out there who resented his presence on their land. I assumed when I found him it was an accident: I assumed he was meeting someone by appointment, and that he tripped on a loose brick by the pool and fell in-because that’s how I happened to find him.” I broke off to look at Catherine, fidgeting on her ottoman. “Wouldn’t it be helpful to take some notes, in case you actually decide to write up our interview?”
“Yes, darling,” Renee Bayard agreed. “You should never assume that you will have an accurate memory of what someone has said.”
Catherine glowered at me, but went to the work counter built into the far corner of the room and fished a spiral notebook from her backpack. Her grandmother frowned over what I’d said. “But if he was meeting someone out there, why haven’t they come forward?”
“He could have been having an affair with someone who lived out there and was taking advantage of the old Graham house standing empty, although he’d have to have a key to bypass the security system.”
Catherine jabbed her pencil through the holes in her notebook and started pulling apart the ends of the paper.
“Is that what you think?” her grandmother asked.
“I did at first, but he didn’t have any keys on him, not even his car keys. It’s possible they fell into the pond when he went in, but his car wasn’t anywhere on the grounds. I suppose the sheriff’s police will be finding out how he got there-he could have gone by train.” I wasn’t hopeful about that-Salvi seemed to want to wrap the story up in a package and be done with it. “After I met with Mr. Whitby’s associates at T-square this morning, I did wonder if he’d gone out there to consult your husband.”
Ms. Bayard’s hand went to her throat in a reflexive gesture of selfprotection. “Why would-what made you think that?”
“It was a leap. Mr. Whitby was doing a story on someone in the Federal Negro Theater of the thirties. You probably know they were pilloried in Congress for being Communists. I just thought-if some of Bayard Publishing’s writers had been blacklisted, Mr. Whitby might have wanted your husband’s inside view on how that affected them.”
“Mr. Bayard doesn’t grant interviews these days. If a journalist tried to call-well, our staff are very protective. They would have turned him away.” “Then maybe Mr. Whitby tried to pay a visit without an invitation,” I said, wondering whether it was Calvin or Renee’s decision that he didn’t grant interviews. “The T-Square staff don’t seem to know why Mr. Whitby went to New Solway-unless his editor, Simon Hendricks, does and won’t say. Hendricks says they have a policy against talking to anyone at Bayard Publishing.”
Renee Bayard smiled faintly. “Augustus Llewellyn muscled his way into becoming a journalism giant against a great deal of opposition-he was
launching T-square about the time my husband acquired Margent magazine. None of the big banks would fund a venture by a black publisher. My guess is that Augustus is simply unwilling to make the white journalism establishment a present of one of his reporters’ work.”
“Didn’t Grample help him out?” Catherine said, continuing to twist the edges of her notepaper. “I thought he put together the consortium-” “Yes, darling, but we’re not talking about your grandfather right now. Why don’t you finish your interview with Ms.-“
I fished a card out of my briefcase. “Warshawski. If you know Mr. Llewellyn, do you think he’d be willing to talk to you about what Marcus Whitby was working on?”
She gave a grim smile. “The fact that my husband helped him get financing doesn’t make him an automatic ally of mine, but if I have time I’ll try to call him.”
Elsbetta appeared in the doorway. “Mrs. Renee, excuse me, a man is calling from a television station. Are you wanting to talk to him?”
Ms. Bayard cocked her head to one side. “You don’t know what it’s about, Elsbetta? No?” She brushed Catherine’s forehead with her fingertips and steamed out of the room as quickly as she had entered it.
“Your grandmother has a lot of energy,” I remarked. “Running a publishing house and looking after you-I couldn’t do it.”
“No one wants you to,” Catherine said. “You can stop bugging me now and go home.”
“I think I should give you a tip first. For Vineleaves.” I sat down again, facing her. “You told your grandmother a lie about Darraugh Graham and-no, don’t interrupt-it’s one she can easily check. The two of them know each other; when she asks him if he referred you to me, Darraugh will be astonished and he won’t bother to hide it.”
She flushed. “You could ask him to say I had called.”
“Why would I want to do that for a girl who’s been lying to me and stiffing me? I admit I terrified you by tackling you Sunday night, but I still don’t know why you were at Larchmont Hall the same night that Marcus Whitby died there.”
“It was a coincidence,” she muttered. “Can’t you believe that?”
“Not really. You’re a pretty accomplished liar-your grandmother, who’s known you your whole life, believes what you’re saying.” In the background behind us the phone kept ringing, and then the doorbell.
Catherine’s mouth set in a mutinous line. “I did not know this man was out there dead. And I never heard of Marcus Whitby, just because he was on the local news, which I don’t watch. And I am not the person he was meeting out there.”
“So who were you meeting at Larchmont?”
“That isn’t any of your business. Believe what you want, be with the sex police if you want, I’m not going to tell you.” Panic was rising in her voice. “There is someone in the old Graham house. And you know a way in that doesn’t trigger the alarms. What is it, I wonder?”
“You’re wrong, there’s no one in the house. If old Mrs. Graham thinks there is-she’s almost a hundred and she can hardly see.”
“She’s not blind, she’s just nearsighted, and she’s by no means deranged. And after talking to her, and talking to you, well, if she said your hair was green, I’d believe her before I believed you telling me it was brown.”
I paused, hoping she’d blurt out something-her flushed, turbulent face showed she wasn’t used to being called a liar. After a moment, I went on. “You wouldn’t have to meet a boyfriend there. As clever as you are about jumping out of fire escapes, if you wanted to see someone your grandmother didn’t like you’d find an easier way to do it, unless there was a thrill attached… Is that how you get into Larchmont? You shinny up a drainpipe or something to reach a third-floor window that doesn’t have the alarm system wired to it?”