“I can’t say, Helena.”
“Not even to me?”
“Not even to you.”
She shrugged. “Well,” she said. “It was worth a try. Don’t you think, Theresa, dear? Always try. But I suppose it doesn’t really matter, anyway, because I know nothing about the woman. I told the police that this morning. A very tall detective with the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen came here to question me. Beautiful. What was his name, Theresa?”
“Hines.”
“That’s right. Hines. Those shoulders of his were incroyable. I wanted to make up things just so he’d stay, but that would have been illegal and I’ve broken enough laws in my life, as you’ll soon find out. So, I played it smart and told him the truth. I didn’t know her.”
And you also didn’t want to get involved in an investigation, Marty thought. Especially one of this magnitude. He sipped his tea, wondering how best to play this. Meanwhile, Theresa tilted her head to the other side and recrossed her legs.
“Whatever you say to me will be kept private,” he promised. “It’ll never come back to you. You will only ever be known as a source. I give you my word on that, Helena.”
“I’m sure you do,” Helena said. “But it changes nothing. I still didn’t know that woman. Like everyone else in New York, she kept to herself. Oh, there was a time when I tried to get to know her, but that was years ago, after she became famous for sentencing those men to prison for securities fraud. But it came to nothing.”
“Would you tell me about that?”
Helena shrugged. “It was Cecil,” she said dismissively. “He spoke about that woman every day for three weeks. When Wood became popular, he asked me to invite her to dinner. The stupid man was fascinated by her, had a little crush on her, wanted to know everything about her. But she never returned my calls or answered my invitations. The woman would have nothing to do with us. Nothing. It was as if we weren’t-us. You couldn’t imagine how that upset Cecil. He wasn’t used to being refused anything and went on about it for days.”
“Did you ever notice anything unusual in Wood’s behavior?”
“Like what?”
“You two were neighbors,” Marty said. “You must have seen her coming and going at some point.”
“Well, of course, I did,” Helena said. “But that was hardly an everyday event.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Marty said. “You saw her. You were able to draw conclusions, even if you were unaware of it at the time.”
Helena looked away and finished her tea. She fingered her brooch and said nothing. Theresa Wu shot him a concerned glance, which Marty ignored. Like Emilio DeSoto, Helena knew something. He saw it the moment she turned away from him.
“Come on, Helena,” he said. “This is important. Did you ever see anything unusual? Wood leaving late? Or maybe coming home drunk the next morning?”
“Now you’re describing half of New York,” Helena said, but it wasn’t with any real conviction. She turned to the window beside her and looked across the way. The reporters were packing up and leaving Wood’s home. Helena watched them go and her thin, narrow shoulders drooped a little. She sighed. “Oh, all right, Marty,” she said. “I’m too old for this and you’re too good. Yes, I know something. I was even considering putting it in the book, but I give up. I’ll tell it to you.”
She looked at him, her eyes suddenly and surprisingly hard. “But this goes nowhere. If it comes back to me, I’ll deny it all and make you look a fool. People believe old women like me. It’s one of the few treasures of being my age, this universal belief that the elderly are too sweet to lie. And even though I haven’t made a movie in decades, I haven’t lost my bag of tricks. I’m still one hell of an actress. Understood?”
Marty understood.
“When Cecil died, I had trouble sleeping. He was a big man in every way-this home became a vacuum without him in it and I wasn’t used to the silence. So I would wander around the house at all hours. I’d read or I’d phone friends in Europe or I’d watch television. Sometimes, I’d even turn on the radio and listen to music while thinking about the past and all I gave up for one man.
“One night, about a month after Cecil’s death, I was standing at my bedroom window thinking about that piece of ice that killed him when I saw a car pull up in front of Wood’s house. It was big and black and expensive, the kind of car you’d expect in this neighborhood, the kind of car Cecil would have bought for himself.”
“What time was this?” Marty asked.
“Late,” Helena said. “Past three.”
“In the morning?”
“Yes. It was winter and it was cold.”
“Could you see who was inside the car?”
“Just let me talk, Marty.”
He listened.
“No,” she said. “I never saw who was inside that car. But when Wood came rushing out of her house and swung open the passenger door, I saw from the interior light that the car was filled with people.” She lowered her voice a notch. “And all of them were naked, just as Wood was.”
Theresa excused herself and left the room.
Marty watched her go and felt the moment stretch. At first he wasn’t sure he had heard Helena right, but of course he knew he had. He thought of Wood’s tattoo, of the date smeared in blood above her bed, of her missing head, and wondered again where all this was leading. “She came out of her house naked?” he asked.
Helena nodded.
“You’re certain of this?”
“I think I know a naked woman when I see one, Marty. Kendra Wood wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing. And neither was anyone in that car.”
Later, as Marty was leaving, it was Theresa Wu who stopped him in the entryway.
She pressed a manila envelope into his hand and said in a quick, nervous whisper, “Early yesterday morning, while Mrs. Adams was still asleep, I saw this woman leaving Judge Wood’s home. I’m positive it was her. I’d know her anywhere.”
“Who is it?”
“You’ll see. And you mustn’t tell anyone I told you this. I’ll deny it all, just like Mrs. Adams. Neither of us wants a scandal right now. Neither of us can afford being connected in any way to this. But you’ll look into it, won’t you? I think she might be involved in what happened to Judge Wood. She was carrying a large box when she left that house. She looked frightened. Terrified. But there was something else on her face-rage, I think.”
Wu opened the door and asked Marty to leave. “Mrs. Adams mustn’t know,” she began in earnest, but Marty never heard the rest. By then, he had already opened the envelope and shaken out the paperback book Wu had placed inside it.
He turned it over and looked at the photo on the back cover. And when he did, his skin shrank away in chill.
The familiar, scarred face of Maggie Cain was smiling back at him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
6:49 p.m.
Maggie Cain.
She had lied about her relationship with Wolfhagen. She was under investigation by the FBI. She must have known that Boob Manly had pleaded guilty to the Coles’ deaths, and yet she had overlooked him for Wolfhagen, Lasker, Schwartz. And now this. Now Marty had an eyewitness who could place her at Wood’s home on the day of her death. An eyewitness who had seen her leaving with a box big enough to house a head. An eye witness who had seen fear on her face. Rage.
Maggie Cain was the biggest mystery in this investigation.
As many questions as he had about Wood and Gerald Hayes, the Martinezes, the Coles and Mark Andrews, his thoughts always returned to Maggie and to everything she wasn’t telling him. Had she hired him to research a book on Wolfhagen? Or did she have other motives?
He thought of Roberta and her warning about the three women. Was Maggie Cain the woman with murder in her heart? Or was that Linda Patterson?
He looked across the street to Wood’s home.