Paine put the photos back into the envelope, holding it in his hand for a moment before putting it into his jacket pocket and starting the car.
This time the Grumbach estate was alive with activity. There were two police cars parked at an angle in the circular drive, two vans with leading cables that could only be television crews. Two suicides in the same moneyed family in one week was obviously news. The gardener was nowhere to be seen. At the front door Paine waited for the ghostly maid to answer, but the door was opened by Rebecca Meyer.
She was again in tennis whites. But now there were red puffy patches under her eyes, and her short hair was in disarray. As Paine stood there she brought her fingers up to her hair and drew them through it, making a nervous motion with her other hand.
"Come in," she said.
Paine took a step but she suddenly held her hand out and added, "No, don't. Let's walk." She stepped out quickly, closing the door behind her.
"I hope you don't mind," she said as she brought him around the front of the house, across the manicured miniature garden and onto a flat-stoned path toward the side. "I just can't stand it in there. The television people, the police, it's. . ghoulish." Once again her hand made its way up to her hair, but this time a tremble ran down her arm and made her shiver. "I'm sorry."
Paine said nothing, because she wanted to talk.
"My father," she said, "I was not very close to. In all honesty, I can say that when he killed himself I. . wasn't very sorry about it. But Dolores. ." The name trailed off; her hand made a movement out in front of her.
She regained some of her poise. They had rounded the side of the house and were making their way through a copse of trees as pampered as the rest of the grounds; each branch seemed sculpted to fit with every other, and there was not a leaf or blade of grass out of place.
Rebecca Meyer said, "I suppose that must sound hard, or something, my not feeling anything for my father?"
When Paine said nothing she added, "You think I'm cruel."
"I don't know you," Paine said.
"That's true," she said. "But I wanted you to know that. . I was not very close to my parents."
"Not many people are."
"Dolores and I got along better when we were younger. She's been a troubled girl the past few years."
"Lots of people are troubled."
"You're mocking me."
"No, I'm not," Paine said.
Rebecca Meyer stopped for a moment. She looked like she was going to cry. "I found her. She'd locked the bathroom door. She'd taken a bottle of sleeping pills and run a hot bath. She was dead when they got her to the hospital."
Paine thought of Dolores Grumbach drinking in front of him, telling him she was going to take a bath, just before he left her.
"Did she leave a note for you, or anyone else?"
"Just that note for you, laid neatly on top of the signed contract for your agency." She pulled a creased set of papers from the pocket of her windbreaker and handed it to Paine.
"Mr. Paine," the note read, "there is something for you at the Mallard Hotel. Enclosed are the signed contracts you requested. Give one copy to my sister Rebecca. The check attached will cover any initial expenses my father's money does not; I am sure my sister will give you whatever else you need." It was signed in neat script, "Dolores Grumbach."
There was a check for five hundred dollars clipped to the contracts. Paine looked up at Rebecca Meyer. She was regarding him curiously, her eyes searching his face.
"This is all there was?" Paine asked.
"Yes. Will you tell me what my sister left for you at the Mallard Hotel?"
Paine handed the three new photographs to Rebecca Meyer. She turned through them slowly, more carefully than she had when looking over the first set of black-and-whites.
"Have you ever seen any of them before?"
"Yes." She pointed to one photo of a man with short sideburns and a pin-striped suit. "This is Les Paterna," she said. "He worked with my father for a while, about ten years ago."
"Can you tell me anything about him? Was he close to the family?"
"He was at the house occasionally."
Paine put the photographs away. "Do you know where I might be able to reach him?"
"He's in the Westchester phone book. His company is called Bravura Enterprises."
They had reached the end of the path. It opened onto a vast glide of lawn. To the right, at the bottom of a hill, a flat tennis court was bounded by green fencing; behind that were a swimming pool and a skeet shooting range. To the left the lawn kept going, rising and falling steadily downward, till the Hudson River, a sparkling blue hedge of water, cut the world in two.
They moved gradually down to the right, stopping by the green chain link surrounding the tennis court. There was a bench, the kind you order from a store in Vermont, with strong pine planking laid across a green wrought-iron frame. Rebecca Meyer sat down. On the tennis court someone had left a towel and a pair of sunglasses. A racket had been tossed carelessly aside to land on the white foul line.
"I didn't tell the police about you or the note," Rebecca Meyer said.
"That will help."
"It's not any of their business."
Paine found himself drawn to look into her eyes, which were studying him again. There was something about her that he couldn't put his finger on. Something that disturbed and attracted him.
"I find it easy to talk to you," Rebecca Meyer said. The slightest of smiles touched her lips as she put her hand on his. "Would you mind telling me why?"
Paine drew his hand politely away from hers and put it on his lap.
After a moment, he asked her, "How close were you to your sister?"
"I loved Dolores very much. But I can't say we were very close. She was moody and cynical. When she was in school she spent most of her time by herself. She read a lot. My mother doted on her as much as on any of us, but all I can remember Dolores asking Mother for were books. My sister Gloria and I watched television and played tennis, Dolores read books."
They looked at the chain link fence.
"Is your sister Gloria here?" Paine asked.
"She was down from Boston for my father's funeral yesterday and then went home to her family. She'll be back tonight."
"Was she very close to Dolores?"
"Gloria is close to no one."
"Not even to your mother?"
Rebecca nearly laughed. "Gloria is exactly like my mother."
Paine waited for her to say more.
"My sister Gloria," she went on, "is gracious, smooth, cold, and everyone loves her." She stopped, took a long breath. "I'm sorry if that sounds bitter, but it's true. My mother and she always got what they wanted, which was everything."
"Your mother-"
"She died a year ago," Rebecca Meyer said. Then she added abruptly, "I think we should be getting back."
She got up and Paine went with her back toward the house. As they reached the grove of trees, Paine saw the man he had seen the day before. He was out of his tennis outfit today, leaning in a polo shirt and chinos against a tree bordering the path.
"The police have been looking for you," he said to Rebecca.
She brushed past him. "I told them all there was. This is Mr. Paine, a detective. This is Gerald."
"I know," Gerald said. "I told Inspector Dannon that Paine was here."
Rebecca turned on him. "I told you we were going to keep him out of this," she said between her teeth.
He spread his hands innocently. "What could I do? They asked where you were."
"Idiot," she said, continuing on to the house with Paine.
"I'd better go," Paine said.
She took his arm, squeezing. "Please," she said. "Not yet."