Let Me Call You Sweetheart Page 15

  “What about telling Robin?”

  “I’m not sure. Not yet anyhow.”

  “Did you let Bob Kinellen know yet?”

  “Good Lord, it never occurred to me. Of course Bob has to know about this.”

  “I’d want to know if it were my child,” Geoff agreed. “Look, why don’t you give him a call and let me pour us another coffee.”

  Bob was not at home. Alice was coldly civil to Kerry. “He’s still at the office,” she said. “He practically lives there these days. Is there a message I can give him?”

  Only that his oldest child is in danger, Kerry thought, and she doesn’t have the advantage of a live-in couple to be there to protect her when her mother is working. “I’ll call Bob at the office. Good-bye, Alice.”

  * * *

  Bob Kinellen picked up the phone on the first ring. He paled as he listened to Kerry’s recounting of what had happened to Robin. He had no doubt who had taken the picture. It had Jimmy Weeks’ signature all over it. That was the way he worked. Start a war of nerves, then step it up. Next week there would be another picture, taken from long range. Never a threat. No notes. Just a picture. A get-the-message-or-else situation.

  It wasn’t an effort for Kinellen to sound concerned and to agree with Kerry that it would be better if Robin were driven to and from school for a while.

  When he hung up, he slammed his fist on the desk. Jimmy was spinning out of control. They both knew that it was all over if Haskell completed his deal with the U.S. attorney.

  Weeks figured that Kerry would probably call me about the picture, Bob thought. It’s his way of telling me to warn her away from the Reardon case. And it’s his way of telling me I’d better find a way to get him off on this tax evasion charge or else. But what Weeks doesn’t know, he told himself, is that Kerry doesn’t get scared off. In fact, if she perceived that picture as a warning to her, it would be like waving a red flag in front of a bull.

  But Kerry doesn’t understand that when Jimmy Weeks turns on someone, it’s all over for that person, he thought.

  Bob’s mind jumped back to the day nearly eleven years ago when Kerry, three months pregnant, had looked at him with eyes that were both astonished and furious. “You’re quitting the prosecutor’s office to go with that law firm? Are you crazy? All their clients have one foot in jail. And the other foot should be there,” she’d said.

  They had had a heated argument that ended with Kerry’s contemptuous warning, “Just remember this, Bob. There’s an old saying: Lie down with dogs and you’ll get up with fleas.”

  59

  Dr. Smith took Barbara Tompkins to Le Cirque, a very chic, very expensive restaurant in midtown Manhattan. “Some women enjoy quiet little out-of-the-way places, but I suspect you enjoy the high-profile spots where one can see and be seen,” he said to the beautiful young woman.

  He had picked her up at her apartment and did not miss the fact that she had been ready to leave immediately. Her coat was on a chair in the small foyer, her purse on the table beside it. She did not offer him an aperitif.

  She doesn’t want to be alone with me, he had thought.

  But at the restaurant, with so many people around them and the attentive maitre d’ hovering nearby, Barbara visibly relaxed. “It’s a lot different from Albany,” she said. “I’m still like a kid having a daily birthday.”

  He was stunned for a moment by her words. So similar to Suzanne, who had compared herself to a kid with an ever-present Christmas tree and gifts always waiting to be opened. But from being an enchanted child, Suzanne had changed into an ungrateful adult. I asked so little of her, he thought. Shouldn’t an artist be allowed to take pleasure in his creation? Why should the creation be wasted among leering dregs of humanity while the artist suffers for a glimpse of it?

  Warmth filled him as he noticed that in this room filled with attractive, elegant women, sidelong glances rested on Barbara. He pointed that out to her.

  She shook her head slightly as though dismissing the suggestion.

  “It’s true,” Smith persisted. His eyes became cold. “Don’t take it for granted, Suzanne. That would be insulting to me.”

  It was only later, after the quiet meal was over and he had seen her back to her apartment, that he asked himself if he had called her Suzanne. And if so, how many times had he slipped?

  He sighed and leaned back, closing his eyes. As the cab jostled downtown, Charles Smith reflected how easy it had been to drive past Suzanne’s house when he was starved for a glimpse of her. When she wasn’t out playing golf, she invariably sat in front of the television and never bothered to draw the drapes over the large picture window in her recreation room.

  He would see her curled up in her favorite chair, or sometimes he would be forced to witness her sitting side by side on the couch with Skip Reardon, shoulders touching, legs stretched out on the cocktail table, in the casual intimacy he could not share.

  Barbara wasn’t married. From what he could tell there wasn’t anyone special in her life. Tonight he had asked her to call him Charles. He thought about the bracelet Suzanne had been wearing when she died. Should he give it to Barbara? Would it endear him to her?

  He had given Suzanne several pieces of jewelry. Fine jewelry. But then she had started accepting other pieces from other men, and demanding that he lie for her.

  Smith felt the glow from being with Barbara ooze away. A moment later he realized that for the second time the cabbie’s impatient voice was saying, “Hey, mister, you asleep? You’re home.”

  60

  Geoff did not stay long after Kerry had called Kinellen. “Bob agrees with me,” she told him as she sipped the coffee.

  “No other suggestions?”

  “No, of course not. Sort of his usual, ‘You handle it, Kerry. Anything you decide is fine.’ ”

  She put down the cup. “I’m not being fair. Bob honestly did seem concerned, and I don’t know what else he could suggest.”

  They were sitting in the kitchen. She had turned off the overhead light, thinking they would carry their coffee into the living room. Now the only illumination in the room came from the dim light in a wall fixture.

  Geoff studied the grave face across the table from him, aware of the hint of sadness in Kerry’s hazel eyes, the determination in the set of her generous mouth and finely sculpted chin, the vulnerability in her overall posture. He wanted to put his arms around her, to tell her to lean on him.

  But he knew she didn’t want that. Kerry McGrath did not expect or want to lean on anyone. He tried again to apologize for his dismissive remark to her the other night, suggesting that she was being self-serving, and for Deidre Reardon’s intrusive visit to her office. “I had a hell of a nerve,” he said. “I know that if you believed in your heart that Skip Reardon was innocent, you of all people would not hesitate in trying to help him. You’re a stand-up guy, McGrath.”

  Am I? Kerry wondered. It was not the moment to share with Geoff the information she had found in the prosecutor’s file about Jimmy Weeks. She would tell him, but first she wanted to see Dr. Smith again. He had angrily denied that he had touched Suzanne surgically, but he had never said that he hadn’t sent her to someone else. That meant that technically he wasn’t a liar.

  As Geoff left a few minutes later, they stood for a moment in the foyer. “I like being with you,” he told her, “and that has nothing to do with the Reardon case. How about our going out to dinner on Saturday night and bringing Robin with us?”

  “She’d like that.”

  As Geoff opened the door he leaned down and brushed her cheek with his lips. “I know it’s unnecessary to tell you to double lock the door and to turn on the alarm, but I will suggest you don’t do any heavy thinking about that picture after you go to bed.”

  When he was gone, Kerry went upstairs to check on Robin. She was working on her science report and did not hear her mother come in. From the doorway Kerry studied her child. Robin’s back was to her, her long dark brown hair
spilling over her shoulders, her head bent in concentration, her legs wrapped around the rungs of the chair.

  She is the innocent victim of whoever took that picture, Kerry thought. Robin is like me. Independent. She’s going to hate having to be driven to and picked up from school, hate not being able to walk over to Cassie’s by herself.

  And then in her mind she heard again Deidre Reardon’s pleading voice begging her to ask herself how she would like to see her child caged for ten years for a crime she didn’t commit.

  Friday, November 3rd

  61

  The plea bargaining was not going well for Barney Haskell. At 7:00 A.M. on Friday morning he met attorney Mark Young in his handsome law office in Summit, half an hour and a world away from the federal courthouse in downtown Newark.

  Young, head of Barney’s defense team, was about the same age he was, fifty-five, but there the resemblance ended, Barney thought sourly. Young was smoothly elegant even at this early hour, dressed in his lawyer’s pin-striped suit that seemed to fit like a second skin. But Barney knew that when the jacket came off, those impressive shoulders disappeared. Recently the Star-Ledger had done a write-up on the high-profile lawyer, including the fact that he wore one-thousand-dollar suits.

  Barney bought his suits off the rack. Jimmy Weeks had never paid him enough to allow him to do otherwise. Now he was facing years in prison if he stuck with Jimmy. So far the Feds were hanging tough. They would only talk reduced sentence, not a free ride, if he handed Jimmy over to them. They thought they could convict Weeks without Barney.

  Maybe. But maybe not, Barney thought. He figured they were bluffing. He had seen Jimmy’s lawyers get him off before. Kinellen and Bartlett were good, and they had always managed to get him through those past investigations without any real damage.

  This time, though, judging from the U.S. attorney’s opening statement, the Feds had plenty of hard evidence. Still, they had to be scared that Jimmy would pull another rabbit out of his hat.

  Barney rubbed his hand over his fleshy cheek. He knew he had the innocent look of a dumb bank clerk, an aspect that had always been helpful. People tended not to notice or remember him. Even the guys closest to Weeks never paid much attention to him. They thought of him as a gofer. None of them had realized he was the one who converted the under-the-table cash into investments and took care of bank accounts all over the world.

  “We can get you into the witness protection program,” Young was saying. “But only after you’ve served a minimum of five years.”

  “Too much,” Barney grunted.

  “Look, you’ve been hinting you can tie Jimmy to a murder,” Young said as he examined a ragged edge on his thumbnail. “Barney, I’ve milked that as far as I can. You’ve got to either put up or shut up. They’d love to hang a murder on Weeks. That way they’ll never have to deal with him again. If he’s in for life, his organization probably would collapse. That’s what they’re gunning for.”

  “I can tie him to one. Then they’ll have to prove he did it. Isn’t there talk that the U.S. attorney on this case is thinking about running for governor against Frank Green?”

  “If each gets his party’s nomination,” Young commented as he reached in his desk drawer for a nail file. “Barney, I’m afraid you’ll have to stop talking in circles. You’d better trust me with whatever it is you’re hinting about. Otherwise I won’t be able to help you make an intelligent choice.”

  A frown momentarily crossed Barney’s cherubic face. Then his forehead cleared and he said, “All right. I’ll tell you. Remember the Sweetheart Murder Case, the one involving that sexy young wife who was found dead with roses scattered all over her? It was ten years ago, but it was the case that Frank Green made his name on.”

  Young nodded. “I remember. He got a conviction on the husband. Actually it wasn’t that hard, but the case got a lot of publicity and sold a lot of newspapers.” His eyes narrowed. “What about it? You’re not saying Weeks was connected to that case, are you?”

  “You remember how the husband claimed he didn’t give his wife those roses, that they must have been sent by some man she was involved with?” At Young’s nod, Haskell continued, “Jimmy Weeks sent those roses to Suzanne Reardon. I should know. I delivered them to her house at twenty of six the night she died. There was a card with them that he wrote himself. I’ll show you what was on it. Give me a piece of paper.”

  Young shoved the telephone message pad at him. Barney reached for his pen. A moment later he handed back the pad. “Jimmy called Suzanne ‘Sweetheart,’ ” he explained. “He had made a date with her for that night. He filled out the card like this.”

  Young examined the paper Barney pushed back to him. It held six notes of music in the key of C, with five words written underneath: “I’m in love with you.” It was signed “J.”

  Young hummed the notes, then looked at Barney. “The opening phrase of the song ‘Let Me Call You Sweetheart,’ ” he said.

  “Uh-huh. Followed by the rest of the first line of the song, ‘I’m in love with you.’ ”

  “Where is this card?”

  “That’s the point. Nobody mentioned it being in the house when the body was found. And the roses were scattered over her body. I only delivered them, then I kept going. I was on my way to Pennsylvania for Jimmy. But afterwards I heard the others talking. Jimmy was crazy about that woman, and it drove him nuts that she was always playing up to other guys. When he sent her those flowers he had already given her an ultimatum that she had to get a divorce—and stay away from other men.”

  “What was her reaction?”

  “Oh, she liked to make him jealous. It seemed to make her feel good. I know one of our guys tried to warn her that Jimmy could be dangerous, but she just laughed. My guess is that that night she went too far. Throwing those roses over her body is just the kind of thing Jimmy would do.”

  “And the card was missing?”

  Barney shrugged. “You didn’t hear nothing about it at the trial. I was ordered to keep my mouth shut about her. I do know that she kept Jimmy waiting or stood him up that night. A couple of the guys told me he exploded and said he’d kill her. You know Jimmy’s temper. And there was one other thing. Jimmy had bought her some expensive jewelry. I know, because I paid for it and kept a copy of the receipts. There was a lot of talk about jewelry at the trial, stuff the husband claimed he hadn’t given her, but anything they found, the father swore he gave her.”

  Young tore the sheet of paper Barney had used off the pad, folded it and put it in his breast pocket. “Barney, I think you’re going to be able to enjoy a wonderful new life in Ohio. You realize that you’ve not only delivered the U.S. attorney a chance to nail Jimmy for murder but also to annihilate Frank Green for prosecuting an innocent man.”

  They smiled across the desk at each other. “Tell them I don’t want to live in Ohio,” Barney joked.

  They left the office together and walked down the corridor to the bank of elevators. When one arrived and the doors started to part, Barney sensed immediately that something was wrong. There was no light on inside it. Gut instinct made him turn to run.

  He was too late. He died immediately, moments before Mark Young felt the first bullet shred the lapel of his thousand-dollar suit.

  62

  Kerry heard about the double homicide on WCBS Radio as she was driving to work. The bodies were discovered by Mark Young’s private secretary. The report stated that Young and his client Barney Haskell had been scheduled to meet in the parking lot at 7:00 A.M., and it was surmised that Young had disengaged the alarm system when he opened the downstairs door of the small building. The security guard did not come on duty until eight o’clock.

  The outside door was unlocked when the secretary arrived at 7:45, but she thought Young had simply forgotten to relock it, as she reported he often had in the past. Then she had taken the elevator upstairs and made the discovery.

  The report concluded with a statement from Mike Murkowski, the prosec
utor of Essex County. He said it appeared both men had been robbed. They might have been followed into the building by potential muggers and then lost their lives when they tried to resist. Barney Haskell had been shot in the back of his head and neck.

  The CBS reporter asked if the fact that Barney Haskell reportedly had been in the process of plea bargaining in the Jimmy Weeks case, and was rumored to be about to connect Weeks to a murder, was being considered as a possible motive for the double slaying. The prosecutor’s sharp answer was, “No comment.”

  It sounds like a mob hit, Kerry thought as she snapped off the radio. And Bob represents Jimmy Weeks. Wow, what a mess!

  As she had expected, there was a message from Frank Green waiting on her desk. It was very short. “See me.” She tossed off her coat and went across the main hall to his private office.

  He did not waste words. “What was Reardon’s mother doing coming in here and demanding to see you?”

  Kerry chose her words carefully. “She came because I went down to the prison to see Skip Reardon and he received from me the correct impression that I didn’t see anything new that would be grounds for an appeal.”

  She could see the lines around Green’s mouth relax, but it was clear he was angry. “I could have told you that. Kerry, ten years ago if I had thought there was one shred of evidence to suggest Skip Reardon’s innocence, I’d have run it into the ground. There wasn’t. Do you know what kind of hay the media would make of this if they thought my office was investigating that case now? They’d love to portray Skip Reardon as a victim. It sells papers—and it’s the kind of negative publicity they love to print about political candidates.”

  His eyes narrowed, and he thudded his fingers on the desk for emphasis. “I’m damn sorry you weren’t in the office when we were investigating that murder. I’m damn sorry you didn’t see that beautiful woman strangled so viciously that her eyes had almost popped out. Skip Reardon had shouted at her so loudly in the morning that the meter reader who overheard them wasn’t sure whether he should call the cops before something happened. That was his statement under oath on the stand. I happen to think you’ll make a good judge, Kerry, if you get the chance, but a good judge exercises judgment. And right now I think yours is lousy.”