“Thank you.” She helped the maid settle a tray onto the table between us, then poured coffee into delicate white cups. “It was my family’s home, and I was glad to move back into it after my father died. Mr. Deveer didn’t care for it, I’m afraid. He would have preferred a modern house in the hills, or perhaps a place at the beach. Although he never said so, of course.”
Why “of course”? I wondered.
Celia Deveer handed me my coffee. “Now tell me, what information do you have concerning my husband?”
“It’s not much to go on, but you may be able to tell me something that will give it more significance. Did Mr. Deveer have any connection with the Casa del Rey hotel?”
“You mean on the Silver Strand?”
“Yes.”
“Not that I know of. Oh, we’d attended the usual functions there from time to time. I came out in its ballroom, in fact. Why?”
“Their security chief, who died last weekend, seemed to think there was some connection.”
She sipped her coffee, looking meditatively off at the garden. “I can’t think what it would be. My husband was nowhere near the Casa del Rey when he disappeared.”
“They found his car at the airport?”
“Yes. But he didn’t take a flight out — at least not a commercial flight. That, however, means very little. Roland had a number of friends and associates with private planes. He could have left on any of them.”
“But surely the police have checked that.”
“Yes, they did. No one with any connection to my husband filed a flight plan that day. But again, that doesn’t mean much.”
“Why not?”
She smiled bitterly. “For a price, almost any pilot can be persuaded not to file a flight plan.”
I paused, unsure how to ask the next question. Finally I just plunged ahead. “In the newspaper account I read, you said you didn’t know of any reason your husband would disappear voluntarily. Now you seem to have changed your mind.”
The bitter lines around her mouth deepened. “Yes, I have, because certain things have come to light since his disappearance. Roland’s business enterprises were quite far-flung and complicated. A few months ago, he mentioned there might be some tax complications, something to do with our personal tax affairs having become mixed up with those of one of his holding companies. I was not to worry, he said, but I might be required to sign some forms.”
“And did you?”
“No.”
“So perhaps the trouble amounted to nothing.”
“Or perhaps Roland didn’t want me to know how bad it was.” She set her cup down and turned to face me, anger plain on her face. “You see, Ms. McCone, my husband attempted to shield me from the crude realities of his business whenever possible. I was to keep the home, raise the children, and amuse myself in typical genteel ways. But the home keeps itself, the children are grown, and I’ve never been contented with bridge or with volunteer work. I begged Roland to give me a more active part in his business affairs, but he flatly refused. I’m not a stupid woman, though, and I’ve done a fair amount of reading about finance. I know when something is wrong.”
“Did you ever broach the subject again, after the first time he mentioned it?”
“Yes. He told me not to trouble myself about it. I wasn’t equipped, he said, to understand.” She smiled, a caricature of mirth. “I find his assumption highly amusing. After all, I was the one who put Roland Deveer where he is today. Or where he was before he disappeared. I was the one who forced him to success. It was my money that founded his empire and kept it going through those first rough years. It was my prodding that kept him going. Roland Deveer was nobody when I married him. Nobody. And now he’s gone off and left...”
She paused, looking embarrassed. Ladies of her class didn’t blurt out their anger and resentments in front of strangers. Quickly I said, “I understand. So often it’s the woman who is responsible for the man’s success. But the man gets all the credit.”
“Yes. That was exactly the way it was with Roland and me. And now...”
“Now?”
“Now I don’t know. Something had to be terribly wrong for him to disappear the way he did. And I’m afraid that when it all comes out, it will be left for me to clear it up. But after his betrayal of me, I’m not sure I have the strength. Or the resources.”
“You mean financially?”
“Yes, Ms. McCone, financially. One of the things I’ve discovered in this last month is that Roland closed out all of our joint accounts, and liquidated a number of assets.”
“Is there any logical reason for that? Is he a gambler, for instance?”
“No, Roland was very strongly opposed to any sort of gambling. He felt it brought out man’s latent stupidity.”
“What about foul play? Could he have taken the cash out for some sort of business deal and been murdered by someone who knew he was carrying it?”
“His business arrangements seldom involved cash — and certainly not in that amount.”
“Then he disappeared with a substantial amount of money?”
“Very substantial.”
To a woman of Celia Deveer’s background, I imagined, “very substantial” would be large indeed. “Mrs. Deveer” I said, “did your husband have an office here at home? Somewhere he might keep personal papers?”
“His study, yes. But I’ve been through it, and so have the police.”
“Would you allow me to go through it? It’s possible something in there might have some other significance to me than either to you or the police.”
She hesitated. Her instinct for privacy seemed to be fighting with her anger at her husband. Anger won out. “Yes, Ms. McCone, I believe I will allow that. Come this way.”
We went inside and back across the hall to a door at its far end. Unlike the other doors leading off there, it was closed, as if Celia Deveer were attempting to shut off all reminders of her husband. She opened it and motioned for me to go in.
The room was paneled in dark wood, with built-in floor-to-ceiling bookcases. The volumes in them looked old and well-read. On the floor was a worn Oriental carpet, and a large mahogany desk stood in a recess by the windows.
“This was originally my father’s study,” Celia Deveer said. “Roland has not improved the library by so much as one book.”
I went over to the desk and began going through its drawers. The center one yielded the usual paper clips and pens and pencils. The top one on the right contained stationery, some printed with the address in La Jolla and some with Deveer Enterprises’ address downtown. In the drawer below that, I found a handgun — a .22, fully loaded and well oiled. I held it up questioningly.
Mrs. Deveer said, “Roland had a terrible fear of burglars, even though the house is wired with an alarm system.”
I nodded and put the gun back in the drawer. The other drawers held supplies and back copies of annual reports and other business publications.
On the desktop was a blotter, an onyx pen-and-pencil holder, and the standard desk calendar you’d find in any office. There was nothing written on the blotter, or hidden under it. Finally I started through the calendar, beginning a few months ago, when Mrs. Deveer said he had first mentioned possible financial problems to her, and continuing up to the day he disappeared. It contained the usual notations of social and business appointments, including the meeting he’d supposedly left to attend the afternoon he’d last been seen.
There was nothing I could see that was out of the ordinary in the calendar or the desk. I planned to continue searching, of course, taking out each drawer to see if anything was taped to its bottom or had fallen behind it, shaking out the pages of each book on the shelves. But I doubted I’d find anything of significance.