Let Me Call You Sweetheart

50

Although Kerry had fixed Robin one of their favorite meals-baked chicken breasts, baked potatoes, green beans, green salad and biscuits-they ate in near silence.

From the moment Kerry arrived home and Alison, the high school baby-sitter, had whispered, “I think Robin’s upset,” Kerry had bided her time.

As she prepared dinner, Robin sat at the counter doing her homework. Kerry had waited for a time to talk to her, for some sign, but Robin seemed extraordinarily busy with her assignments.

Kerry even made certain to ask, “Are you sure you’re finished, Rob?” before she put their dinner on the table.

After she began to eat, Robin visibly relaxed. “Did you finish your lunch today?” Kerry asked, finally breaking the silence, trying to sound casual. “You seem hungry.”

“Sure, Mom. Most of it.”

“I see.”

Kerry thought, she is so like me. If she’s hurt, she handles it herself. Such a private person.

Then Robin said, “I like Geoff. He’s neat.”

Geoff. Kerry dropped her eyes and concentrated on cutting chicken. She didn’t want to think about his derisive, dismissive comment when he left the other night. Good-bye, Your Honor.

“Uh-huh,” she responded, hoping that she was conveying the fact that Geoff was unimportant in their lives.

“When is he coming back?” Robin asked.

Now it was Kerry’s turn to be evasive. “Oh, I don’t know. He really just came because of a case he’s been working on.”

Robin looked troubled. “I guess I shouldn’t have told Daddy about that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he was saying that when you’re a judge, you’ll probably meet a lot of judges and end up marrying one of them. I didn’t mean to talk about you to him, but I said a lawyer I liked had come to the house on business the other night, and Daddy asked who it was.”

“And you told him it was Geoff Dorso. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“I don’t know. Daddy seemed to get upset with me. We’d been having fun, then he got quiet and told me to finish my shrimp. That it was time to get home.”

“Rob, Daddy doesn’t care who I go out with, and certainly Geoff Dorso has no connection to him or any of his clients. Daddy is involved in a very tough case right now. Maybe you had kept his mind off it for a while, and then when dinner was almost over, he started thinking about it again.”

“Do you really think so?” Robin asked hopefully as her eyes brightened.

“I really think so,” Kerry said firmly. “You’ve seen me when I’m in a fog because I’m on a trial.”

Robin began to laugh. “Oh boy, have I!”

At nine o’clock, Kerry looked in on Robin, who was propped up in bed reading. “Lights out,” she said firmly as she went over to tuck her in.

“Okay,” she said reluctantly. As Robin snuggled down under the covers, she said, “Mom, I was thinking. Just because Geoff came here on business doesn’t mean we can’t ask him back, does it? He likes you. I can tell.”

“Oh, Rob, he’s just one of those guys who likes people, but certainly he’s not interested in me especially.”

“Cassie and Courtney saw him when he picked me up. They think he’s cute.”

I think he is too, Kerry thought as she turned out the light. She went downstairs, planning to tackle the chore of balancing her checkbook. But when she got to her desk, she gazed for a long minute at the Reardon file Joe Palumbo had given her yesterday. Then she shook her head. Forget it, she told herself. Stay out of it.

But it wouldn’t hurt just to take a look at it, she reasoned. She picked it up, carried it to her favorite chair, laid the file on the hassock at her feet, opened it and reached for the first batch of papers.

The record showed that the call had come in at 12:20 A.M. Skip Reardon had dialed the operator and shouted at her to connect him to the Alpine police. “My wife is dead, my wife is dead,” he had repeated over and over. The police reported they had found him kneeling beside her, crying. He told the police that as soon as he came into the house he had known she was dead and had not touched her. The vase that the sweetheart roses had been in was overturned. The roses were scattered over the body.

The next morning, when his mother was with him, Skip Reardon had claimed he was sure a diamond pin was missing. He said he remembered it in particular because it was one of the pieces he had not given her, that he was certain another man must have given her. He also swore that a miniature frame with Suzanne’s picture that had been in the bedroom that morning was gone.

At eleven o’clock, Kerry got to Dolly Bowles’ statement. It was essentially the same story she had narrated when Kerry visited her.

Kerry’s eyes narrowed when she saw that a Jason Arnott had been questioned in the course of the investigation. Skip Reardon had mentioned him to her. In his statement, Arnott described himself as an antiques expert who for a commission would accompany women to auctions at places like Sotheby’s and Christie’s and advise them in their efforts in bidding on certain objects.

He said that he enjoyed entertaining and that Suzanne often came to his cocktail parties and dinners, sometimes accompanied by Skip, but usually alone.

The investigator’s note showed that he had checked with mutual friends of both Suzanne and Arnott, and that there was no suggestion of any romantic interest between them. In fact one friend commented that Suzanne was a natural flirt and joked about Arnott, calling him “Jason the neuter.”

Nothing new here, Kerry decided when she had completed half the file. The investigation was thorough. Through the open window, the Public Service meter reader had heard Skip shouting at Suzanne at breakfast. “Boy, was that guy steaming,” was his comment.

Sorry, Geoff, Kerry thought as she went to close the file. Her eyes were burning. She would skim through the rest of it tomorrow and return it. Then she glanced at the next report. It was the interview with a caddie at the Palisades Country Club, where Suzanne and Skip were members. A name caught her eye, and she picked up the next batch of papers, all thought of sleep suddenly gone.

The caddie’s name was Michael Vitti, and he was a fountain of information about Suzanne Reardon. “Everybody loved to caddie for her. She was nice. She’d kid around with the caddies and gave big tips. She played with lots of the men. She was good, and I mean good. A lot of the wives got sore at her because the men all liked her.”

Vitti had been asked if he thought Suzanne was involved with any of the men. “Oh, I don’t know about that,” he said. “I never saw her really alone with anyone. The foursomes always went back to the grill together, you know what I mean?”

But when pressed he said that just maybe there was something going on between Suzanne and Jimmy Weeks.

It was Jimmy Weeks’ name that had jumped out at Kerry. According to the investigator’s notes, Vitti’s remark wasn’t taken seriously because, although Weeks was known to be a ladies’ man, on being questioned about Suzanne, he absolutely denied that he had ever seen her outside the club and said that he had been having a serious relationship with another woman at that time, and besides, he had an ironclad alibi for the entire night of the murder.

Then Kerry read the last of the caddie’s interview. He admitted that Mr. Weeks treated all the women pretty much alike and called most of them things like Honey, Darlin’ and Lovey.

The caddie was asked if Weeks had a special name for Suzanne.

The answer: “Well, a couple of times I heard him call her ‘Sweetheart.’”

Kerry let the papers drop in her lap. Jimmy Weeks. Bob’s client. Was that why his attitude changed so suddenly when Robin told him that Geoff Dorso had come to see her on business?

It was fairly widely known that Geoff Dorso represented Skip Reardon and had been trying doggedly, but unsuccessfully, for ten years to get a new trial for him.

Was Bob, as Jimmy Weeks’ counsel, afraid of what a new trial might entail for his client?

A couple of times I heard him call her Sweetheart. The words haunted Kerry.

Deeply troubled, she dosed the file and went up to bed. The caddie had not been called as a witness at the trial. Neither had Jimmy Weeks. Did the defense team ever interview the caddie? If not, they should have, she thought. Did they talk to Jason Arnott about any other men Suzanne might have seemed interested in at his parties?

I’ll wait for the pictures to come in from Suzanne’s stepfather, Kerry told herself. It’s probably nothing, or at least nothing more than what I told Joe today. Maybe Suzanne just had a good makeover done when she came to New York. She did have money from her mother’s insurance policy. And Dr. Smith did, in effect, deny that he ever did any procedure whatsoever on Suzanne.

Wait and see, she told herself. Good advice, since it was all she could do for the present anyway.