Joe couldn't figure out where this was leading. Apparently, neither could Clyde, and he was not amused. He sat staring at his cards, scowling darkly. Well, he'd been touchy all week. Joe knew that he'd called Kate several times and that he kept leaving messages but she hadn't returned his calls. At one point, worried about Kate, Clyde had called the designer's studio where she worked. She was there, they told him, but very busy.
At the poker table, Clyde said, "If Traynor's so rich, why did he opt for a Lincoln instead of a Jag or BMW?"
"You mean, why didn't he buy from Beckwhite's?" Harper said, laughing. "What, you're getting a percentage from the showroom now? I'll take two cards."
Clyde flipped cards around the table. "Second-rate car. And a wife young enough to be his granddaughter."
Ryan and Charlie were silent, glancing at each other.
"Forty years younger," Garza said, his square, Latino face not changing expression. "He and Vivi were-have been married three years." Garza slid two chips to the center. "His fifth wife. But the first time around for her-first time for a legal relationship." He glanced at Harper again, the faint gleam of humor sparking between them.
Joe stretched and curled up with his chin on Rube's golden flank. Beside him, Dulcie closed her eyes. They listened with keen interest; they'd never before heard Harper and Garza amuse themselves at Clyde's expense.
When Harper raised the bet, Garza slid two chips to the center. "Vivi's first marriage," Harper said, "after a long line of live-ins and one-night stands. She's been busy for a girl of twenty-five. Apparently she's lived off rich men since she was fifteen."
Garza said, "I wonder if Elliott knew, when he married her, that she would be his last."
Clyde came to full alert. And in the laundry, Joe's and Dulcie's ears cocked sharply forward.
Clyde watched Garza raise the bet, then folded. Garza took the pot. No one said anything more, the table was silent, Harper and Garza stonefaced and ungiving. Joe wondered if a cat could expire from unfulfilled curiosity.
The poker players ran three more hands, talking only in monosyllables. "Raise you two." "Three cards." "I fold." Twice Clyde glanced across the kitchen at Joe, at first with the same unfulfilled curiosity, a moment of mutual sympathy-before he gave Joe that none-of-your-business, why-don't-you-go-out-and-play-like-a-normal-cat look that made Joe hunker down harder against Rube, stubbornly waiting for Harper's punch line.
28
Harper raked in the largest pot of the night, stacking his chips in neat rows. "That would have been tight," he said, "keeping a twenty-four-hour surveillance on the Traynors, pulling men off patrol."
Garza nodded. "Better off in custody. New York is sending Vivi's case file?"
Clyde stared at his cards and said nothing. And from the bunk in the laundry, Joe and Dulcie watched with slitted eyes, pretending to be asleep.
Harper said, "Homicide put it in the mail this morning. No wonder Traynor's agent was upset."
"All right," Clyde said, "that's enough. Let's hear it."
"If not for Traynor's agent," Garza said, ignoring Clyde, "hassling NYPD, they might never have identified the body."
Joe had sat up, staring at the two cops so intently that Dulcie nudged him. He lay down again, tense with interest. At the poker table, Charlie and Ryan were quiet, watching Harper feed the story to Clyde piece by puzzling piece, the captain loving every excruciating minute.
And Joe and Dulcie looked at each other, buzzing with questions. Had the case come down like Joe thought? Was that what Garza and Harper were saying? Had Adele McElroy and NYPD found the missing piece? Did Harper and Garza have to be so damned oblique? They were not only teasing Clyde, they were driving two poor innocent cats nearly crazy.
"You're not saying," Clyde snapped, "that Elliott Traynor is wanted in New York? For homicide? You're saying he killed someone? This guy is famous. You're saying he-"
"He didn't kill anyone," Harper said mildly.
"Vivi?" Clyde said. "Vivi killed someone?"
Harper shrugged.
Clyde laid down his cards. "No more poker. No more beer. Nothing more to eat until you guys lay out the story."
The officers began to laugh.
Ryan said, "… he and Vivi were married three years? Were married…?"
Charlie repeated what Harper had said earlier. "Did Elliott know that she would be last? That she would be Elliott's last wife, Max?"
Clyde said softly, "Elliott Traynor is dead. When did this happen?"
"Before we ever met him," Garza told Clyde.
Joe Grey felt his heart pounding, and felt Dulcie's heart pounding against him. He'd been right. A wild guess, a shot in the dark, and he'd pounced on the big one. Had nailed his quarry right in the jugular.
Clyde looked hard at Harper. "This is not Elliott Traynor, this guy in the Traynor cottage who's the spitting image of Traynor, who looks like Traynor's picture on his book jackets, who is supposed to be suffering from terminal cancer? Who is overseeing the production of Traynor's play and finishing up Traynor's novel?"
"Fry cook from Jersey," Garza said. "Dead ringer for Traynor."
Clyde shook his head. "And Traynor's agent was worried because his work was so bad? A fry cook is writing Traynor's book? And is Vivi a fake as well?"
"That's Mrs. Traynor," Harper said. "They came close to pulling it off."
"They killed him?"
"Not sure yet," Harper said. "New York's working on that."
"How did you…?
"Someone knew," Garza said. "Or suspected. Someone blew the whistle. Called the agent, told her it was time to take her problem to NYPD, to talk to the detectives."
Clyde shuffled the deck. "I'm getting lost here. It would be nice if you guys would start at the beginning."
"Talk about chutzpah," Harper said. "Fry cook with no literary talent, impersonating one of the country's top writers."
"And you have them in jail."
"Brought them in late this morning," Garza said. "They were packing up, getting ready to skip. We're holding them on illegal disposal of a body, until New York decides if it was homicide."
Garza counted his chips, then looked up at Clyde. "Elliott Traynor died six weeks before they were to fly out here. No one knew, there was no report made of his death. For all intents and purposes, Elliott boarded the plane with Vivi."
"No one might have known," Harper said, "except that Traynor's book wasn't finished when they left New York. When they got out here, the writing suddenly turned inept. Apparently this fry cook can't write worth a damn."
"What did they do with the body?" Clyde asked. "You can't just-"
"Seems Vivi dressed him in old ragged clothes, old shoes. Elliott had lost weight, didn't look well, and that fit right in. She left him in an alley-a dead John Doe, one of New York's homeless."
"Agent got concerned," Garza said, "because Traynor's last chapters were so bad. She started poking around, then called Max.
"Agent was waiting for us to check on Traynor, when someone from Molena Point called her. Suggested she get over to NYPD and talk to the detectives, take them a picture of Traynor."
Clyde didn't ask who called the agent. Under the table, his foot was tapping. He eased back his chair as if he found it hard to sit still.
"The agent's visit paid off," Garza said. "One of the detectives remembered a John Doe that looked like Traynor. Body was tucked away in the morgue waiting to be ID'd. The detective took the photo and ran with it. Got the agent to bring him some manuscript pages-some that Traynor sent before they left New York, and some later chapters that were sent from here."
Harper said, "Prints on the chapters Traynor wrote before they left the city matched the John Doe. The other set, on the chapters sent from Molena Point, are Vivi's, most of them. One or two that match up with the fry cook. And," he glanced at Charlie, "some prints where the housekeeper had moved the manuscript, when she dusted the desk."