"All what?" Quill asked.
Meg nudged her with her toe. "Linda, can I sort of summarize what I think happened?" Linda nodded miserably. "Verger Taylor forced you, didn't he?"
"Not forced," said Linda. "It was my fault. I should know what men are like. I do know what men are like. Things just got kind of out of hand and, you know, you just sort of give up."
Quill found it hard to breathe. She clenched her hands and dug her fingernails into her palms.
"I told Curtis. He said, you can't fight the big bosses. But he wanted me to quit my job. Couldn't afford to quit. The pay was great. So Curtis went to talk to him. Mr. Taylor, I mean. He was going to punch him out."
Linda smiled through her tears. "Anyhow, Mr. Taylor said he was sorry. Mistook the matter, which he very well could have, I mean, he and that Mrs. Taylor fight like cats and dogs in public. Who knows what rich people like that do in their bedrooms? So he could have mistaken the matter. So he joked about it, really. Said to Curtis, looks like I have to pay a fine. Say, twenty thousand dollars. But he didn't want to embarrass me, so he said, you just take it out of inventory over the next year. I know the auditors. I'll fix it. Then, Mr. Carmichael found out about the inventory overcharges, and Mr. Taylor hadn't fixed things at all. I couldn't tell Mr. Carmichael it was an honest deal. That Mr. Taylor wanted to keep my name out of it, because he was sorry that he mistook me. So I lost my job after all." The tears came again, in a flood.
Meg, her face tight with rage, put her hand on Linda's arm. "Keep your name out of it?" she said, her voice shaking. "That bastard was keeping his own nose clean and set - "
Quill, her voice sharp, said, "Leave it, Meg." She rose from the lawn chair and shook Curtis's hand. "I doubt very much you'll hear any more of this, Mr. Longstreet. I'm sorry to have troubled you both. Linda? You take care of yourself." She wished she could tell her. She wished she could say, It's not your fault. You should have had Taylor arrested. You should...
You should have been born rich.
-11-
They drove back to the Combers Beach Club in silence and sat on the porch again. Quill drank iced tea without sugar and leafed through Taylor's appointment book.
"Turn to the week before he disappeared," Meg said. Quill turned to the start of the book for the January entries. It appeared as though Verger's aggression, when not directed toward helpless female employees, was directed toward his career. His days were filled with appointments, usually beginning at seven in the morning and ending well after midnight. Daily meetings had been scheduled through February; the frequency of appointments dropped off in March, but he'd scheduled himself well into the fourth quarter of the year. "Look at all the society entries. He's rated those with exclamation points. The yachting meet with the Lantanas has four, the Red Cross Ball has one, then three more were added in a different color ink because the First Lady's apparently coming. For God's sake, Meg, he even penciled in his appearance at our condo the night we got here! Look: 'eight forty-five, C. E.' - that must be Corrigan and Evan - 'at C.B.C.' - Comber Beach Club."
"What about yesterday?" Meg, still pale, had said only one thing on the drive home from the interview with Linda Longstreet: that she hoped Verger Taylor was dead, and preferably had died slowly.
" 'Board meeting at institute'-he was there, lucky me. 'Concorde and D.' Who's D? 'Kill Murex' scheduled for three P.M. Who or what is Murex?"
"A company, I think," said Meg. "Wait a second. Let me get the Palm Beach Post. It's got the stock listings."
"Since when do you read the stock listings? Is that in between snatches of the weather channel? You're becoming a true Floridian, Meg. Next you'll be getting one of those icky little dogs."
"No, stupid. If Murex is a publicly traded company, it'll be in there. That's all. As a matter of fact-we've got the last three days of the Post, don't we?"
"In the wicker basket in the den," Quill said. "Bring a paper and pencil when you come back, will you? I want to write this stuff down. Then we should give Jerry a call and turn the book over to him."
Tuesday had been a fairly light day for Verger. There'd been a lunch meeting with "D," apparently from the Concorde, then "D" had returned to the airport and Verger had executed Murex at three. There was a short meeting with E. K. - which was easy, Ernst Kolsacker - then nothing until nine P.M., which was noted "C. and E., Au Bar."
"Well, he didn't make that date," Quill mused aloud. Meg brought the business sections of the newspaper out on the terrace, her cheeks pink. "Now this is interesting, Quill. Murex was trading at six and a quarter on Monday, and jumped to eight and three quarters on Tuesday."
"There's reasons for Verger making his pile of money," Quill said. "How come we can't make money like that?"
"Because we don't play the market. Now, look at today's paper. Murex is down ninety percent. That's a lot. That's very unusual. That's something the SEC would look at."
"So we check that out." Quill started to scribble notes on the pad of paper Meg had brought. "I wonder how far back we should go with this?"
Meg didn't answer.
"Meg, I asked you..." She looked up. "What's the matter?"
"Look at this." She thrust yesterday's paper at Quill. "It's the section on bridge?"
"Look at the account of the tournament at the Palm Beach Polo Club yesterday."
"Oh, ugh, Meg. I like bridge, but reading scores is boring."
"Not this one. Read it."
COUPLE SET TOURNAMENT RECORD
In an excitedly fought series of rubbers at the Palm Beach Polo Club today, Luellen Barstow and Frank Barstow of Fairhaven, Connecticut, set local yachtsman David Young and his partner three thousand points. Playing North/ South, the Barstows scored a doubled no trump grand slam for a record two thousand six hundred points in the third rubber, setting East/West.
Quill stopped reading. She set the paper on the table, slowly. "The bridge scores in Cressida Houghton's game room."
"Copied right from that reproduction of the score." Meg's face was grim. "So the boys would have an alibi."
"Oh, my God." Quill shivered in the warmth. "No. Meg. It's not possible."
"Sure, it's possible. Remember the Menendez brothers."
"There's got to be another explanation." Quill took a couple of deep breaths. "For one thing-and it's the most obvious-we were there when the call from the kidnappers came through. And even if those boys are good actors, Meg, there was no question that both of them were in shock."
"Easy enough to have an accomplice. Maybe it was even Cressida Houghton herself."
"No." Quill shook her head decisively. "This can't be. Other than the fact that Verger was - is? - a bottom line sort of bozo, why would the boys want to have him kidnapped?"
"Corrigan said it himself-they don't have any money. So far, they're the only offspring, right?"
"Right."
"And Verger was going to marry a third time - to a nineteen-year-old, who is presumably fertile."
"But, Meg, there is no way that those two were pre- tending shock last night. No way."