“And how do you have it figured?” she asked quietly. “Do you think that I fought with Clarissa over Jerry, and left her in a rage that brought on her heart attack? And that I carelessly dropped a piece of jade from one of my own bracelets, and another piece as I came home?”
“I don’t think you dropped that jade. I never said you did and I’m not saying so now.”
She gave him a level look of battle. “Making it nice for yourself?”
Lefty laughed. “Sure. But if you had dropped it the night you came home from Clarissa Crevellin’s, it wouldn’t be there now. Luckily, I can prove that much.”
Bina’s relief was mixed with a rising bewilderment. “But who would want to plant a damaging piece of false evidence on me?”
“You don’t know?”
“I don’t, Lefty.”
Lefty sighed, and tapped his coffee cup with an extended forefinger. “Well, let’s go back,” he said. “Remember the night you told me Clarissa had sprung the watchdog job on you?”
“Yes.”
“You were mad, clear through. You said the woman was out of her mind and you wouldn’t work for her anymore. You’d liked her up to that point. Remember what she said?”
Bina was leaning across the table, held by Lefty’s steady eyes. And, as though hypnotized, she saw the scene in the Crevellin study again in painful detail. Clarissa, immense and lumpy in her white chiffon robe, sitting behind her dead husband’s enormous desk.
“I did think,” she was quavering, “I could entrust my husband’s business to a member of the family. I have so much work to do on my League Committee this year, you know, and on the Christmas charity drive. Especially, when Jerry knows the estate will be his some day. But if these things are true—”
“Bina, I heard it from a very intelligent friend. This Dennis Moresby is so smooth. He involves men like Jerry, who have money in their care, by promising to make them extra money for themselves on the side.”
“But Jerry wouldn’t—!”
“I hope not.” Clarissa mopped her florid face with her lace handkerchief. “I sincerely hope not. And yet, my friend’s husband was tossing away her fortune, and she blames Moresby. After all, fond as I am of Jerry, I must face it. He’s hinted he was having some sort of trouble in his business in Boston when I offered to back him out here.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t dishonest trouble. And he’s so terribly fond of you.”
For an instant, Clarissa’s quivering bulk quieted. “I always thought so,” she said, her voice holding a sigh of wistfulness. But then her jeweled fingers began plucking at the desk blotter again. “But I can’t shut my eyes to the fact that my friend thought her husband was fond of her. She didn’t think he cared a fig about money. That’s why he deceived her so completely in his treacherous scheming.”
With a guilty start, Bina controlled her shudder as Lefty’s hand closed on her arm. His sympathetic eyes were still boring into hers. “You’re going to have to tell me, Baby.”
Bina fought a compulsive impulse to lay the whole disturbing problem before him as she’d always done in the past. But this time she couldn’t confide in Lefty. She just couldn’t. This time, in spite of his stern code of dealing only with facts, Lefty was prejudiced. She couldn’t explain to him how Clarissa, who was such a dominant clubwoman, could become jittery about business. He would use one case of jitters to forge a lethal weapon against Jerry.
She said, “Clarissa told me she wanted to be sure Jerry was not having secret meetings with Dennis Moresby. That was all, Lefty.”
Lefty’s lips tightened. He sighed. “Okay, we’ll play it your way. Did Clarissa Crevellin have Jerry’s secretary checking on him too?”
“Lorraine Danby? Oh no.”
“Why not?”
“She... she didn’t feel she knew her well enough.”
“That the only reason?”
“Yes... yes, of course.”
“Did the old girl have any special suspicions?”
“No.”
“You were awfully riled up when you got home over a pretty normal attitude for a woman trying to protect her property.”
Bina said with a sudden rush of honesty, “Jerry was so wonderful to her — thoughtful, affectionate. She had no right to suspect him of any crookedness.”
Lefty snorted. “You’d be surprised how thoughtful and affectionate a crook can be — especially to his victim.”
“Dad. Jerry’s no crook!”
“You didn’t know it,” Lefty said drily, “but you were in love with the guy then. That’s why I tried to get you to walk out on the whole deal. But you didn’t. You didn’t because you were afraid to let someone else check on him. Wasn’t that it?”
Bina winced. “You’re hurting me, dad.”
Lefty released her wrist, muttering absent apologies. But his gaze continued to bore into her. “I’m not saying there was anything out of the way about your falling for him. He’s the kind of guy, maybe, the help always goes for. I can even see how you, being your mother’s daughter, would try to keep peace between him and his aunt. But now his aunt’s dead. Somebody who knows we’re not satisfied about her death, is trying to frame you.”
“What... what do you want me to do?”
“Go down with me Wednesday to the Chief. Call the shots straight. Tell him everything you know about Jerry Crevellin.”
“I know he doesn’t wear jade bracelets.”
“It could be somebody who didn’t like your marrying him. Or somebody who figured they could make a father hush things up — call off the blood hounds.”
Bina sighed. “Maybe we should talk to Jerry.”
Leaning sharply forward across the table, Lefty growled at her explosively. “Bina, snap out of it! I’ll be the happiest cop in town if he’s okay. You know that. But he married you too fast — almost like he was grabbing for a shield. Can’t you get it through your head. If his aunt was standing in the way of something he wanted, it just could be you’re standing in the same place now.”
Bina felt like a winded fighter reeling back from a series of wind-up blows. But she faced her father with flashing eyes. “You’re being ridiculous, and you know it!”
Lefty’s hard gaze fought hers for a long minute, then he acknowledged defeat with a heavy sigh. He pushed back his dishes and reached for the check. “All right, we’ll do it alone. But if you change your mind, Baby, you’ve still got a home. And that city job you always wanted is open now.”
She didn’t answer or look at him.
He dropped an awkward hand on her shoulder. “Take care of yourself.”
IV
It was twelve-thirty by the time Bina got back to the apartment. There was a call from Jerry. She called his office. Lorraine Canby’s crisp but friendly voice said, “Well, Bina! I mean, Mrs. Crevellin! You two really surprised us!”
“We surprised ourselves,” Bina said.
“Best wishes! Just a minute, please—” While the girl answered the other phone, Bina shook off a sudden feeling of uneasiness. She reminded herself firmly that she had always liked and admired Jerry’s secretary, who had come out with him from his Boston office, even if Clarissa had not.
So what if Jerry had taken Lorraine to dinner a couple of times during those weeks she had been checking on him? Why should she have mentioned it to Clarissa? Jerry had been spending so much time in the social end of his business, leaving Lorraine practically running the office. And Clarissa didn’t want her even calling the house on the many evenings Jerry was there because she sounded “uppity — as if she owned both the office and Jerry”. So how else could he plan the work of his office?