Chapter Eleven #2
“I don’t know if it means anything. The last few years, before he died, he seemed more frail—his mind, I mean.
We’d talk on occasion during the year, and I noticed that.
He did say, a couple of times, that he had things put away he wished he’d given me.
That I was the only one who’d been his true friend as well as his lover, and he was going to arrange something. ”
“Did he?”
“No. Honestly, I think he forgot, or was just rambling some.”
“Any idea who he might have told?”
“He trusted me, so I really think I’d have been the first choice there.
But the one he was looking around at when we were married?
Well, she wasn’t the only one, but she sticks in my mind.
There was something off about her, something too smooth.
I even told him to watch out for her. ‘You watch out for that one, Henry. You want to be really careful there.’ But he didn’t listen. ”
“Do you have a name?”
“No, I’m sorry. I probably knew it at some point.
I think we were in France, maybe Italy, and hosting a party.
A big one. I think—I can’t be positive—but I think that’s the first time I saw her.
Gorgeous blonde, young. Several years younger than I was.
I doubt she was more than about twenty, but she’d been around. ”
She winced. “That sounds catty.”
“No, it’s an impression.” And Eve wanted just that. “Do you have more?”
“I don’t know who she came with. I do know she flirted with Henry, and he flirted back. Not just the way you might at a party, but more, and it hurt my feelings. He had that look in his eye, the one he had when he looked around at me when I was twenty.”
With a half laugh, she set the water cylinder down again. “It still hurts a little. I saw her a few more times. But as I said, she wasn’t the only one. She was just sort of the straw, you know? The last straw. Whatever that means.”
“Right? What does that mean?”
Lacey laughed again, and meant it. “Who the hell knows? She wasn’t the only one.
The last few months, he fooled around plenty, but this one stuck in my head.
In fact, a while back, I was in New York—the whole family—and I actually saw her coming out of a shop.
She saw me, too. And she gave me this look. ”
Lacey hissed between her teeth. “Excuse my language, she fucking smirked at me, then strolled away. I wanted to punch her one.”
“When was that?”
“Last December. We took the kids to New York for a week.”
“Do you think this woman might have spent time with Henry?”
“Yeah, wouldn’t surprise me a bit. It was that look.
He didn’t marry her. He told me when we split he was done with marriage.
He had to be because he couldn’t stop looking around.
At least he figured that one out. I guess the things in the vault are like the women.
He just couldn’t stop wanting what he didn’t have. ”
“Could you give me some names, other people at that party?”
“It was so long ago, but … I remember some. A few I keep in touch with. I could send those to you.”
“I’d appreciate that. Thank you for your time and cooperation, Ms. O’Ryan.”
“It’s no problem. Look, could you, when you find out who did this, could you let me know? We’re sending flowers to Aileen and her kids. It feels like it would be awkward to go to any memorial, but I’d really like to know the person who killed Henry’s son is behind bars for it.”
“I can do that. If you think of anything else—maybe the name of this particular woman will come back to you—please get in touch.”
“Absolutely.”
If she had it right, Eve thought, they—whoever—said the third time was the charm. Which made no sense. But she believed, in this case, the fourth time hit it.
She wrote her conversations up. It always helped to read as well as hear them. Then she walked back to Roarke’s office.
“Why is it a straw? Why is it the last straw?”
“It broke the camel’s back.”
“What’s a camel have to do with it?”
“That’s the expression.” He swiveled in his chair to face her. “The straw that broke the camel’s back.”
“Some straw isn’t going to do that. They’ve got those big, humpy backs.”
“That’s why it’s the last straw. It finally adds too much weight.”
“That’s stupid. Never mind. I think I hit on something with wife number four. Who also seems to be the most normal of Henry’s series of wives. How are you doing with the Interpol data?”
“I hope you can understand that I’ve found it very flattering to see how often I was investigated with no adverse results.”
“Should there have been?”
“Well, that depends on your point of view, doesn’t it then?”
“Right. Are you in a good place to stop?”
“I could be.”
“Maybe we could take that walk. It stopped raining, and I need to think. I sometimes think better when I run it by you, or somebody. And you’re here.”
“And I take it this applies to last straws.”
“Looks like it.”
“The bench by the pond is likely still wet. Let’s fetch a waterproof blanket and some wine.”
The sun sparkled now, and the grass, the leaves sparkled with it. The air felt light, felt clean, yet they’d talk of murder, deception, betrayal.
“For starters, he cheated on all of them. The first, and we’re talking about events from last century, is still bitter. Admits it. The second claims they had a fiery passion, but the flame died, blah blah. The third—”
“The victim’s mother.”
“So to speak. She said her maid was packing for her to go home—after she cut her spiritual retreat short—then the trip to New York. She couldn’t even remember her son’s wife’s name. It was all about her. The first mentioned a redheaded slut.”
“Ah.” As they came to the pond, he spread the blanket over the bench. “That’s where that came from.”
“Yeah, she’s the dancing-at-his-funeral ex.
The second tossed out a ‘blond bitch,’ which may or may not have been wife number three.
Number three lasted the longest, by the way.
Almost a decade. He bought her a penthouse in the settlement, which she sold right after Nathan, the youngest, hit eighteen.
She remarried that year, moved to Europe. ”
“I suspect something in the settlement discouraged her from doing either until both children reached legal age.”
“You think?” Her snicker held no humor. “Yeah, me, too. Anyway, she’s lazing around in Corfu at the moment while somebody packs her black outfit for her son’s funeral. She termed wife number four as a gold digger.”
“And is or was she?”
“Not in the traditional sense, no.”
She took the wine Roarke poured for her, and ran it through for him in detail.
“She sounds like an interesting and practical woman, and one who appears to have been genuinely fond of her first husband.”
“Came across that way to me. She credits him for giving her the opportunity to have the life she has. When she says they liked each other, I buy it. She says they talked a few times a year, and he sent gifts to her kids on birthdays, for Christmas.
“It’s easy enough to check that. But some other things rang bells.”
He tapped his glass to hers. “Ring them for me.”
“She said in the last couple years, when they talked, she could tell his mind was shaky. And he told her he had some things put away he wished he’d shown her, given her.”
“Yes, that’s a bell.”
“More, he was going to arrange to send her something. She says he didn’t, and I’m believing that, as the log on the tablet and the items in the vault check out.
Unless EDD finds something taken off instead of added, I’ll buy that.
Plus, she comes off truthful. He told her she’d been his only true friend who’d been a lover, and he wanted to give her something he had put away. ”
“Some part of him might have known he approached the end of his life.”
“Maybe. The third called him a man of secrets, and that’s clearly true.
I believe her when she says she didn’t know about the vault, but she also said she wasn’t surprised.
The second said this was all some mix-up, which is bullshit.
But the last? She said that he had a need to possess things, and she thought …
This is the Mira territory I was already going into.
She thought the things in the vault were like the women. He needed to have what he didn’t.”
“I understand that. I certainly needed to have what I didn’t.
But there comes a time, when you’ve more than even you could once imagine, it has to stop.
The need should be satisfied. I think, Eve, he was never happy.
Sporadically, yes, in the moment, perhaps.
But if you’re never content with what is, if you have no real balance in life, if you can’t love in a way that fills you, how can you be happy? ”
She looked over the little pond to the tree they’d planted together.
“So he looked for those moments in other women, younger and younger, in possessing shiny things that weren’t his to have.”
“I find it sad. And I wonder: Would I have ended up somewhat like that without you?”
“Not a chance. You stole—you didn’t pay somebody else to do it. You did it yourself.”
“And suddenly that’s a mark in my favor?” With a laugh, he put an arm around her shoulders. “I do adore you.”
“Also a mark in your favor. You don’t cheat.”
“Perhaps I fear the cha-cha, or the tango, or whatever dance you’d do on my mangled body when you’d be done with it.”
“You should.” She leaned against him. “But you don’t cheat, not just on me, but anyone. He couldn’t stop himself. One more bell, and this one keeps ringing.”
As it circled in her head, she sipped some wine. “The fourth wife said there was a woman—a blonde, very young. About twenty. It’s clear she thought old Henry started banging her. She said there were others, but this is the one that stuck in her head, or her craw.”
“The last straw.”
“She said there were others, but yeah, I think this one broke the humps.”
When he laughed, she frowned at him. “What?”
“Camel’s back, darling.”