Mystery Heiress. Suzanne Carey
has died, and the police want to question Jake about it. They can’t seem to find him. It’s possible he might be in some kind of trouble.”
Though he hadn’t heard of Monica’s death, Sterling didn’t evince surprise. “Sounds like it,” he answered dryly. “But then, when hasn’t he been in some mess or another, lately?”
Erica was irritated at what she considered to be his cavalier attitude, and still ready to spring to the defense of the man who was still her husband. She didn’t consider an inquiry from the police a laughing matter. “You have contacts in the department, don’t you?” she asked, her soft, cultivated voice taking on a more strident note. “I want you to call them…find out what’s going on. And find Jake! If he disappears when the police need to talk to him, he’s bound to look guilty of something!”
Dropping the towel, which he no longer needed, Sterling reached for his bathrobe. “All right,” he conceded. “I’ll do what I can. Go back to bed and stop worrying. If you plan to go husband-hunting after all these years, you’re going to need your beauty sleep.”
Touchy on the subject of her breakup with Jake, not to mention her age, which, despite her still-youthful classic good looks, she didn’t consider an asset, Erica considered the remark a put-down. It sent her through the roof. “Sorry to shatter one of your treasured clichés about me, but I’m getting ready for a Saturday-morning class!” she snapped, slamming down the receiver.
A tight sensation in her chest, she quickly called Natalie for emotional support. For his part, Sterling started to dial Kate, the spirited family matriarch whom he knew to be alive and well, though her family believed otherwise.
Seconds later, he changed his mind. Instead of phoning, he’d drive to her current hideaway, a penthouse apartment atop the renovated LaSalle building in downtown Minneapolis. She owed him breakfast, dammit. The last time she’d offered him brunch in conjunction with a business discussion, his ulcer had been kicking up. He hadn’t been able to partake. Devoid of sympathy, she’d devoured her blintzes and strawberries under his nose with her typical gusto.
He decided to have a look at the morning paper first. Wincing slightly, he saw that Monica’s death had made the front page, above the fold. Described as “still under investigation,” it had been given a banner headline. A photo of the aging star, taken in better days, accompanied the text.
Scanning the story, which had been written by a reporter he considered competent, Sterling learned that Monica had been stabbed several times in the chest. She had also suffered an injury to her left temple. Signs of a struggle had been evident. Several of Monica’s Summit Avenue neighbors had seen a man leaving her mansion shortly before her maid returned and found her body. No description of the caller seemed to be available, at least to journalists.
Damn, Sterling thought, tossing the paper aside. What was Jake doing there? The woman was poison. It’s bad enough that Ben was fool enough to mess around with her. Reluctantly he admitted that Erica had a valid point. Kate’s oldest son might turn out to be in some very hot water.
Though she’d probably heard the news of Monica’s death by now, he doubted Kate had any inkling of her son’s involvement. If she did, he reasoned, she’d have phoned him immediately. No, Jake’s name hadn’t appeared in the news. And Detective Rosczak, whoever he was, hadn’t gotten in touch with her, because he didn’t know of her existence.
She wouldn’t have a clue.
It would be Sterling’s job to break the news. Brushing his teeth, he shaved and put on a crisp white shirt, a maroon silk tie, gray sharkskin slacks and one of his expensive but conservative cardigan sweaters. A few minutes later, with his thick white hair impeccably combed and an unobtrusive Patek-Philippe watch adorning his left wrist, he was taking the elevator down to the basement garage of his condominium apartment building and striding purposefully toward his maroon Lincoln Town Car.
The LaSalle, a twelve-story brick-and-stone building dating from 1920, had been built in a style Sterling thought of as Mississippi River Valley Gothic. It had originally served as Minneapolis’s YMCA. In recent years, its sturdy shell and somewhat decrepit interior had been exquisitely restored to contain thirty or so smallish, extremely private luxury apartments. You needed a key to operate the elevator. There were no nameplates—just numbers—beside the theft-proof mailboxes.
A child of the Depression era who’d grown up at a time when twelve stories constituted a fairly tall building, Sterling liked its cozy size, black-and-white terrazzo lobby, clubby woodwork and art deco details. He suspected Kate was similarly minded. Having moved around a great deal to avoid detection since she’d faked her death, she’d rented the LaSalle’s top floor several months earlier. It was divided into two penthouse apartments. Hers, luxuriously carpeted and decorated, boasted several skylights, a small fireplace and a sweeping bird’s-eye view of western Minneapolis and its adjacent suburbs.
As he backed his Lincoln into an empty space at the curb and went inside, Sterling thought about the strange set of circumstances that had prompted him and Kate to agree on the extraordinary step of letting her family believe she had perished. Had they done the right thing? Or were they fools to think their scheme would help them flush out a would-be kidnapper or murderer?
As yet, it had been spectacularly unsuccessful. For perhaps the thousandth time, he puzzled over the identity of the hijacker who had stowed away in Kate’s plane on her solo trip to a remote Brazilian village in search of a key ingredient for the Secret Youth Formula she was trying to develop for Fortune Cosmetics, then appeared in midflight to hold a gun to her head. The plane had gone into a nosedive in the ensuing struggle. By some miracle, Kate had been thrown free, to fall through the dense undergrowth, moments before it crashed and burned.
In Sterling’s opinion, her attacker had been a killer-for-hire, in the pay of some unknown enemy. It was fair to say he’d probably never be identified. His badly charred remains had been taken for those of Kate by the Brazilian authorities. Meanwhile, having suffered a concussion, multiple fractures and countless cuts and bruises, Kate had been found and nursed slowly back to health by the natives of a remote Amazon village.
Aware that someone had wanted her dead, and might try again if they realized they’d failed, she’d disguised herself when finally she was well enough to travel, and made her way back to Minneapolis with extreme caution. Sterling would never forget the morning she’d phoned, her husky voice laced with fear and umbrage as she whispered into the receiver, “I’m alive, Sterling. I’m alive. Don’t tell anyone.”
Though he had a key, Sterling knocked at Kate’s apartment door instead of letting himself in, as he sometimes did, since he hadn’t taken the trouble to call first. Kate let him in. Clad in a red Chinese-silk bathrobe that flattered her small, slim figure and complemented, rather than clashed with, her upswept silver-streaked auburn hair, she clutched a mug of black coffee in one diamond-studded fist as she led him to the living room and a breaking news program on the television.
“Sterling…come in! You’re never going to believe this!” she commanded, waving him peremptorily to a chair.
The story that had captured her attention was the same one Jessica Holmes had caught the evening before and Sterling had scanned in his morning paper—expanded as more details and peripheral interviews became available. Unlike Jess, Kate had a strong personal interest in the case. Recruited by her many years earlier to act as a spokeswoman for Fortune Cosmetics, Monica had repaid the favor by conducting an illicit on-again, off-again affair with Kate’s husband, Ben, for years. Or at least that was what Kate suspected. Further, she had long sensed Monica to be a deadly personal adversary.
“It’s Monica Malone!” Kate added. “She’s been stabbed to death!”
Given a cup of coffee by the maid, Sterling scowled as a news commentator recapped the story. But he couldn’t hide his growing concern. If Jake was involved in some way, he’d find himself facing an extremely nasty situation.
Kate hadn’t picked up on his worry yet. “So…what do you think of all this?” she asked, her color high, as the station took an advertising break.