I looked at Adelaide.
“Do you mind hearing this about your mother?” I said.
“No,” Adelaide said.
I looked back at Rugar.
“I left Bucharest at the end of 1984,” Rugar said. “And went on to Berlin and elsewhere. Heidi returned to her husband, Peter Van Meer. Adelaide was born in 1985. Heidi continued her affair with Bradshaw while living with Van Meer until 1990, when she divorced Van Meer, whose wealth had begun to decline, and married Bradshaw, whose wealth had increased dramatically with the death of his father.”
“What’s love got to do with it?” I said.
“Somewhere in the year 2004, Bradshaw’s wealth began to decline. He would never be poor in terms we would understand,” Rugar said. “But in a few years he would be unable to maintain Heidi at the level of exorbitance that she required.”
“And she came to you,” I said.
“They did, a few months ago,” Rugar said. “In Bucharest all those years ago, Bradshaw had become fascinated with the kind of specialty service I was able to perform. If he ever needed such, he asked, how could he reach me? I provided him a means.”
“Both of them,” I said.
“So Maggie Lane was right,” I said. “The estrangement was pretense.”
Rugar smiled.
“You underestimate Heidi,” he said. “It was, and was not, a pretense. She separated from him to coerce him but gave him sexual access, to keep him tied to her.”
I glanced at Adelaide. She was nodding slowly.
“Was Bradshaw in on it all the way?” I said.
“No, he was the yenta,” Rugar said. “Once he had reconnected us, he stepped away. I think he felt that the less he knew, the less he could be asked if things went badly.”
“So it was you and she?” I said.
“Yes.”
“From my vantage point,” I said, “it is the most cockamamie scheme I’ve ever seen. What were you thinking?”
“ Adelaide was engaged to be married to Maurice Lessard, whose family had more money than they could ever run out of. Adelaide would be his heir, from the moment of I do. Heidi was very careful about that. Bradshaw’s major asset was his large insurance policy in Heidi’s benefit, which he still maintained through the separation.”
“Which was probably another reason for her to remain in”-I glanced at Adelaide -“ah, sexual proximity.”
“Surely,” Rugar said. “Heidi’s plan was as follows. At the wedding, as soon as the vows were sealed, I would kidnap Adelaide. In the process I would kill Maurice Lessard, and Bradshaw. I would hold Adelaide for ransom, which Heidi felt sure her new in-laws would pay. She would collect on the insurance, get the ransom, be reunited with her daughter, and then Heidi and I could be together again with more money than we would ever need, especially when Adelaide shared her inheritance from Maurice. The whole thing would be done in such a way as to take the focus off the two murders.”
“Which,” I said, “if they were just routine murders, the cops would look at once for who benefited. And the finger of suspicion would point at Heidi and Adelaide.”
“Exactly,” Rugar said.
“But if they seemed an accidental by-product of a kidnapping attempt…”
“They would expend most of their energy looking for Adelaide.”
“And you’d get to walk into the sunset with Heidi,” I said.
Rugar’s smile was cold.
“I knew better,” he said.
“But you went for it?”
“I rejected it. I told her the plan was too convoluted. That she’d have to find someone else. I didn’t bother to ask her how her daughter might feel.”
“She said no, it had to be me. She couldn’t trust anyone else to do it.”
“I thanked her for her confidence but declined. And she said, ‘All right. I wasn’t going to tell you, but I have no choice.’ I said it won’t make any difference what you tell me. And she said, ‘ Adelaide is your daughter.’”
63
It was perhaps the longest silence I’ve ever sat through. Nobody spoke. Nobody moved. Except that Hawk tapped his gun slowly against his thigh as he stood. Behind me, through my bay windows, the day was darker, and the rain was hard now, streaming down the glass. Finally, Rugar spoke.
“I was somewhat startled myself,” he said.
“Have you authenticated the relationship?” I said.
“DNA,” Rugar said. “She is my daughter.”
“Did you know, Adelaide?”
“Not until my mother told us,” she said. “And even then I didn’t believe it until we had the DNA test. It made it easier to go through the kidnapping.”
I nodded.
“And that’s why you did it?” I said to Rugar.
“Yes,” he said. “I have no relatives. The thought of having one pleased me.”
“I’m surprised,” I said.
“As am I,” Rugar said.
“Until now you had thought Van Meer was your father,” I said to Adelaide.
“Yes.”
“Were you close to him?”
“No,” she said.
“How do you feel about your new father?” I said.
“I love him,” she said. “Papa is the first person I’ve ever had.”
I looked at Hawk. Silently, he mouthed the word Papa.
I looked at Rugar. He nodded.
“Okay, Papa,” I said. “Then what happened.”
“I knew enough about Heidi to know she would find someone to do this foolish scheme if I declined,” Rugar said. “And at least if I did it, I could see that it was done well, and I could look out for Adelaide.”
“So you agreed.”
“I told her I would do it,” Rugar said. “But she was to do nothing without clearing it with me.”
“Which she agreed to and ignored,” I said.
“She hired you,” Rugar said. “That would have been a deal-breaker had I known in advance.”
“Why’d she do it?” I said.
“Probably because I frightened her, and the entire adventure frightened her, and she wanted personal protection from someone who knew me.”
“She had the Tashtego patrol,” I said.
“She knew that those on duty would have to be eliminated if this scheme were to work.”
“So she hired me to protect her from the consequences of an action she initiated,” I said.
“Yes.”
“That’s crazy,” I said.
“I have thought since the beginning that some of what we were doing is putting on a kidnapping that was worthy of Heidi Bradshaw, and I still think so.”
I nodded.
“But hiring you was the ultimate mistake,” Rugar said. “I knew you would not leave it alone. I should have killed you as soon as I saw you.”
“Yeah,” I said. “You should have.”
“It would have jeopardized the timetable. And it would have caused several formidable people, on both sides of the law, to attempt revenge.”
Softly from his place at the wall, Hawk said, “Uh-huh.”
“Later,” Rugar said, “I tried to rectify my mistake by making another one. If you were to be killed, I should have done it myself.”
“But,” I said, “you had Adelaide to think about. You couldn’t take the same risks you would once have taken.”
“Your mind is quick,” he said. “What has made me so successful in my profession is that I am not bothered by death, and until Adelaide, that included my own.”
“Things do change,” I said.
“They do,” Rugar said.
“Things went awry, too,” I said.
“Yes,” Rugar said. “As you know, I am meticulous. But the plan was too foolish, and my co-conspirators were too…”
“Crazy,” I said.
“Something like that.”
“Was Bradshaw in on any of this?”
“I think,” Rugar said, “that he thought he was.”
He smiled faintly. “I doubt that he was apprised that I was to kill him.”
“He didn’t show,” I said.
“No.”