"When the insurance money comes in, I'm going to have a cool million. I own ten percent of Starrett Fine Jewelry, and that pays me about fifty grand a year in dividends. And when mother shuffles off, I'll be a very, very wealthy lady."
"So?"
"I want to buy you," she said. "I'm proposing, you stinker. Marry me, and you'll be set for life. I'll sign any kind of a prenuptial agreement your shyster comes up with."
He showed no sign of surprise or shock; just began to nibble on the green onion top.
"Why would you want to do that?" he asked.
"Because I'm tired of alley-catting around. I'm tired of one-night stands. I'm tired of burned-out men who are scared of making a commitment. I'm tired of living in my father's house, now my mother's. I want my own home and my own man. I'm about ten years older than you-correct?"
"More like fifteen," he said casually.
"Swine!" she said. "But what the hell difference does age make? I'm as young as you in bed. Right or wrong?"
"Right," he said.
"You betcha. There's nothing you've asked me to do that I haven't done. I can keep up with you. The body's not so bad, is it?"
"The body's good," he acknowledged.
"It should be-the money I spend on it. I may not be a centerfold, but I'm not a dried-out husk either. And you'll be getting financial security for the rest of your life. What do you say?"
He poured more vodka, and this time she lifted the drink from his fingers and took a gulp. She grimaced and handed back the glass.
"What would your family say?" he asked. "Your mother? Clayton?"
"Screw my family," she said wrathfully. "I've got my own life to live. I can't keep living it the way they want me to. I'll bet you don't let Helene run your life."
"Your mother could disown you," he pointed out.
"Not without a helluva court fight," Felicia said. "If she dies and I don't get half the estate, some lawyer is going to earn mucho dinero representing me. But that's all in the future. Right now I've got enough loot so that you and I could live the lush life. Well?"
"Interesting proposition," Turner said. "I'll have to think about it."
"Sure," she said. "Run it through your little computer and see if it doesn't make sense. Now let me prove that marrying me would be the smartest deal you ever made."
He finished his vodka, set the empty glass on the floor. "I have something for you," he said. "Want it now?"
"I thought you'd never ask," she said. "Where is it?"
"Top bureau drawer."
"How much?"
"A gram."
"You darling!" she cried.
Chapter 16
Two days before Christmas, Dora Conti went home to Hartford, lugging an espresso machine in a bulky carton. She had spent more than she intended, but it was a marvelous gadget. Not only did it make espresso and cappuccino, but it also ground coffee beans. And it had enough shiny spigots, valves, dials, and switches to keep Mario happily busy for days while he learned to brew a perfect cup of coffee.
Before she left New York, Dora called John Wenden. He reported there was nothing new on either the Lewis Star-rett or Solomon Guthrie homicides. The Department was checking out all discharged employees of Starrett Fine Jewelry, but it was going to be an arduous task.
"We got their employment records," Wenden said, "but there's been a big turnover in the last two years. This is going to take a long, long time."
"Did you get anything from Records about Callaway or the Pierces?"
"Not yet. They say they're working on it, and if I push them, they're liable to get pissed off and stall just to teach me a lesson. That's the way the world works."
"Tell me about it," Dora said. "I have the same problem in my shop."
Then she told him she would return to Manhattan on January 2nd and would call him when she got back. She wished him a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
"Likewise," John said.
So she went home, feeling guilty about leaving him alone for the holidays, and thinking what an irrational emotion that was. But he seemed such a weary, lost man that she worried about him and wished she had bought him a Christmas gift. A maroon cashmere muffler would have been nice. But then she wondered if NYPD detectives wore mufflers.
Mario was at work when Dora arrived home, so she was able to conceal his gift in the back of her closet. In the living room he had erected a bushy six-foot Douglas fir and alongside it, brought up from the basement, were boxes of ornaments, tinsel, garlands, and strings of lights. There was a big bottle of Frascati in the fridge, and in the wine rack on the countertop were bottles of Lacrima Cristi, Soave, Valpolicella, and-Dora's favorite-Asti Spumante.
They had a splendid holiday, all the better because they spent it alone. On Christmas Eve they made love under the glittering tree because it seemed a holy thing to do. Mario gave her a marvelous tennis bracelet, and even if the diamonds were pebbles compared to the rocks that Star-rett women wore, Dora thought it the most beautiful gift she had ever received, and her happiness was doubled by Mario's joy with his new espresso machine.
During the remainder of the week, Dora went to the office every day and wrote a progress report on the word processor, consulting her spiral notebook to make certain she could justify her surmises and conclusions. She left the nineteen-page report on Mike Trevalyan's desk late one evening, and the next morning she was summoned to his office, a dank chamber cluttered with files and bundles of computer printout tied with twine. The air was fetid with cigar smoke; during crises or explosions of temper, Tre-valyan was known to keep two cigars going at once.
He was a porcine man with small eyes, a pouty mouth, and all the sweet reasonableness of a Marine drill instructor. But the Company didn't pay him an enormous salary for affability. They wanted him to be irascible, suspicious, and to scan every insurance claim as if the money was coming out of his own pocket. He had worked as a claims adjuster all his life, expected chicanery and, it was said, was furiously disappointed when he couldn't find it.
"This case," he said, pointing his cigar at Dora's report, "it reeketh in the nostrils of the righteous. There's frigging in the rigging going on here, kiddo, and I'm not paying a cent until we know more."
"I agree," Dora said. "Too many unanswered questions."
"The cops think it was a disgruntled ex-employee taking out his grudge on Starrett executives?"
"That's what they think," she said.
"You know what's wrong with that theory?" Trevalyan demanded.
"Of course "I know," Dora said. "It doesn't account for the knife disappearing from the Starretts' apartment, maybe on the night Lewis was killed. That's the first thing I want to check out when I get back to New York."
"This Detective Wenden you mention-he should have seen that. Is the guy a bubblehead?"
"No, he's just overworked, running a half-dozen homicide cases at the same time. He happens to be a very experienced and conscientious professional."
Trevalyan stared at her. "You wouldn't have the hots for this guy, would you?"
"Oh Mike, don't be such an asshole. No, I haven't got the hots for him. Yes, we are friends. You want me to make an enemy of the detective handling the case?"
"Just don't get too close," he warned. "It's your brains I'm buying, not your glands. If he's as overworked as you say, he might try to sweep the whole thing under the rug."
"No," Dora said firmly, "John would never do that."
"Oh-ho," Trevalyan said, mashing out his cigar butt in an overflowing ashtray, "it's John, is it? Watch yourself, sister. This big-city slicker may be warm for your form, and is feeding you just enough inside poop to keep you coming back to him. And meanwhile he's working an angle you haven't even thought of."