“It was a man?”
Sy’s brows drew together. “You know, I am not sure. But I think so.”
“Did he get your wallet?”
“Oddly enough, he did not. Or my Rolex. Or my ring.” He raised his hand with the diamond pinkie ring. “And I still had my keys out, so he could have driven off with my car, for Chrissake. All he takes is my old briefcase. I have had that since law school. What did he think was in it?” Sy stared up at the ceiling for a few moments, his eyes squinting into the fluorescent light. “If you ask me, whatever he was hoping to find? He was disappointed.”
Hoping to find? It took Deirdre a moment to register what Sy was saying. “You think you were targeted because of something he thought you were carrying? But what?”
“I have been asking myself that very question.”
Deirdre swallowed hard as one possible answer occurred to her. “This could be my fault. This morning I told Bunny I’d given you Dad’s memoir.”
Chapter 37
So Arthur was writing a memoir.” Sy reached down the side of the bed and pulled a lever. With a hum, the head of the bed raised him to a sitting position. “I accepted as much.”
Accepted when he meant expected—the occasional slip like that was a reminder that Sy’s native language wasn’t English. “You didn’t know?” Deirdre said. “I thought for sure he’d have talked to you about it. Asked you to read it.”
“He did not. I can only assume that he had his reasons.”
“Earlier today I told Bunny that I’d found it. That I’d given it to you, and you were going to try to find a publisher.”
“Which is what I would have done, if you had given it to me.”
Deirdre winced at the tacit rebuke. “I’m sorry. I even told her that you thought it would be an easy sell.”
“Did you tell her why I thought that?”
“Because he wrote about the night Tito was killed.”
“Did he now?”
Deirdre shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. “He wrote about the party. How Bunny called him late that night and he came back and helped move Tito’s body from Joelen’s bedroom. That must have been before she called you.”
Sy let his head drop back against the pillow. The bruise on his forehead was an angry purple against his ashen skin.
Deirdre went on, “He wrote about Bunny showing him the dress that I’d been wearing and a knife that belonged to us. She warned him that if he wanted to protect me and Henry he’d keep his mouth shut about what happened.”
“You and Henry?” Sy tilted his head, considering. “Henry was there?”
“That’s who you saw driving away from the house. Not Dad. Henry crashed the car.”
“I always knew your father was hiding something, but I never guessed that. And Bunny thinks that you have given this manuscript to me? At least this is starting to make sense. You still have it. Someplace secure?”
“For now.” It was all Deirdre could do to keep herself from looking down at the messenger bag she’d dropped on the floor and where the manuscript was safe, at least for the moment. “Of course, it’s unfinished. There are just some notes at the end.”
“Notes about what?”
“Stuff he was going to write about, I think.” Deirdre tried to remember those scrawls on the final pages that had seemed like random thoughts. “Something about you and Mom and trust.”
“Ah, the trust.”
“The trust?”
“It is one reason why the estate is as small as it is. Years ago your father had me draw up a trust. Every month he paid a set amount into it. Elenor Nichol was empowered to draw money out. The trust expired a few weeks ago.”
Her father had been paying Elenor Nichol? That made no sense. Unless . . . “Starting right after Tito was killed?”
Sy’s expression told her she’d guessed right. “Some months after.”
“She must have been blackmailing him. He was paying her for her silence.” Deirdre looked at Sy but saw no reaction. “Sy, it’s got to be connected. My father stops paying into the trust. He starts to write about what he knows, but before he can finish, he’s killed. His office is burned to destroy the manuscript, only it’s not in his office. Today a fake police search of my father’s house fails to find it. Then you get mugged because—”
“What fake police search?”
“Two cops came and took Henry in for questioning, and right after that another one showed and ransacked the place.”
Sy’s eyebrows raised in surprise, then his brow furrowed. “I suppose it makes sense that the police would come back and also take your brother in for questioning.”
“Maybe. But the way they executed the search sounded sketchy. Mom said a single officer got out of an unmarked car, came to the door, flashed a badge, and bulled his way into the house. She just assumed he was legit. After all, he was in uniform, and when someone’s in uniform you don’t really see him, do you? You told us yourself they’re supposed to give you a copy of the search warrant and leave behind a list of what’s taken. This guy failed on both counts.”
“Not every police search goes by the book. Maybe he left the paperwork but your mother was so upset she—”
“Now I know she can be a little out to lunch, but Mom is not a complete idiot. Whoever she let in to search the house was not operating like a cop. I’m wondering if he’s the same person who mugged you because I told Bunny I’d given you the manuscript.”
“But—”
“In fact—” Deirdre cut Sy off, talking as fast as she was thinking, “That police officer who was there in your office building when you came to? Are you sure he arrived after you got mugged?”
“I . . . he . . . well of course I assumed after.”
“But you didn’t see who mugged you, did you?”
It took Sy a moment to get what she was suggesting. “You are saying I got mugged by a pretend cop?”
“Could have been. The first passerby would think the cop was there to help.” Deirdre remembered what Bunny Nichol had said about magic. Make the audience attend to what you want them to see.
“I guess it is possible,” Sy said, “but it seems so unlikely—”
“We should be able to figure it out. If a real officer responded, there will be a record of it, won’t there?”
“But how—”
“I know someone who can find out.”
“A fake cop.” Sy shook his head. “Suppose that’s what it turns out he was. Then what? Call the police? Deirdre, are you sure that is what you want? Why, they will ask, would anyone go to all that trouble just to keep an old movie hack’s memoir from being published?”
“He wasn’t a hack.”
“I know. I am just telling you what they will say. Before you know it, you find yourself having to speculate about what your father knew that was so”—he paused, searching for the word—“toxic. Do you want the world to know that you and Henry were there the night Tito was killed? Because you have no idea how quickly things can escalate from there.”
Sy was silent for a few moments, his eyes focused on the middle distance between them. “Remember those pictures that ran in the paper the morning after Tito was killed?” He shook his head. “Headlines that ran way beyond the facts? It was horrifying. And who do you think allowed photographers to go up to Bunny Nichol’s bedroom? Who gave them entrée and permission to photograph a fifteen-year-old girl, still distraught over what happened that night? Joelen hadn’t been charged with a crime.” His voice shook with rage. “Shameful. But it happened all the time. If you want to find out whether it still does, go ahead and call in the police. Just don’t be surprised at what happens next. You saw what it did to your friend.”
That stopped Deirdre. The events of that night had derailed both Joelen’s and Deirdre’s lives, but at least for Deirdre the aftermath had been a private affair.
“Maybe your father’s memoir is publishable. Hell, maybe it has the makings of a bestseller. I would need to read it in order to form an opinion on any of that. But for the moment at least, one thing is clear: that manuscript could get someone killed—”