At daybreak Quinta was seriously considering whether it was a decent hour to call Alan Seton. At seven she had her hand on the phone but managed to take it off again. At eight she punched in the unlisted Newport number she'd got hold of. A woman answered; Quinta resisted the urge to lower the receiver quietly into its cradle. "I'd like to speak with Alan Seton, please," she said, pretending not to recognize Mavis Moran's voice.
Great timing, she told herself.
She heard muffled voices and then Alan came on.
"Alan, I have something important to talk about with you," she said, coming straight to the point. "Last night when I was at the ball, someone poisoned Leggy, my father's dog. You probably don't remember; he was the little puppy—well, anyway, my father caught the person in the act. He saw her face clearly in the porch light. You have to understand that my father never, ever forgets a face. And he insists—and I believe him—that it was Cindy Seton who did it." She waited for his reaction.
The pause was so prolonged that finally she said, "Hello?"
"I understand," he answered in a low voice. "Will you be home this afternoon?"
Quinta said yes and he said, "One-thirty, then," and hung up.
Well, she told herself, that went pretty well. Everything except for the part about Mavis Moran being in his bed with him. Or was he in her bed? Or was neither of them in bed, but they were merely planning strategy? The morning after a ball? Probably not. Why the hell didn't they just marry and get it over with?
Too late, Alan. Looks like you've missed your chance.
The thought came and went in a second. She was getting mean. It seemed to be in the air.
She showered and dressed and went downstairs to find her father deep in research. News clippings covered the huge oak library table at which he liked to work; a thick journal lay opened in his lap. It was a familiar scene, and it signaled that her father, at least, had recovered from the shock of the night before.
"I called the vet," he said. "Leggy's doing all right; weak but responsive. I suppose," he added defensively, "you think I'm being stupid. He's only a dog."
"He isn't, either. He's family," Quinta replied, pouring herself a cup of coffee.
"Dammit, he is family," he agreed. "Who else have I got? Four daughters scattered to the four winds, and once you move on—"
"I'm not going anywhere, Dad," she said automatically. "What are you working on?"
"You'll laugh."
"I won't laugh."
He placed a bookmark carefully in the opened journal, closed it, and laid it on the table. Then he turned to his daughter and with an air of courage said, "I'm writing away for a copy of the proceedings of a meeting in Oslo of the International Paraplegia Association."
Quinta waited for more. "Apparently there's an experimental procedure," he continued, "where surgeons are taking part of the omentum, snaking it under the skin to the spinal cord, and using it to restore blood flow and, hopefully, lost movement."
He turned away from her and fiddled with the bookmark. "Okay, so it's experimental. So I'm sixty years old. There's no law against being curious, is there? Half the test patients have recovered at least some mobility. I said you'd laugh," he added, coloring.
"Oh, Dad," she said, sitting at the table beside his wheelchair. She took his hand in hers. "I'm not laughing at all," she said softly. "I'm thinking of the possibilities." Her eyes glazed over.
"Cut it out," her father warned. "I wouldn't have told you if I thought you'd start bawling on me. Not a word to your sisters. I don't want them feeling sorrier for me than they do. I only told you because—well, because you're you and not them. Knock it off, Quint, I said. Stop it." He looked away, embarrassed.
"Okay, okay," she said. She wiped her eyes quickly. "I just … feel good about it, that's all."
"Look, who knows how many years it'll take before there's any real breakthrough? Probably I'll be an old dog," he said. "But I'm not going to sit around in this chair and wait for her to come after me. I can tell you that," he added more vigorously.
Quinta sat up straight. "Oh glory, that's right—Cindy Seton. I almost forgot. I called Alan Seton and told him she's alive. He's coming by at one-thirty."
"Holy shit! With a straitjacket?" he said angrily. "How could you tell him that?"
"It doesn't sound as crazy as you think, Dad. Originally Alan did wonder whether his wife might have faked the suicide." Was she betraying a confidence? Quinta thought of Mavis Moran with him that morning and added, "Of course, it doesn't seem to have cramped his style any."
"When did he tell you his suspicions? During the interview? What else are you holding back?" Neil demanded, suspicious.
"That was pretty much it," Quinta said with a deliberately vague look.
"What did he say when you told him?" asked her father, rubbing his stubbly, unshaved chin. He too was trying to anticipate the next step.
"He didn't say a thing, but I don't suppose he's too happy about it," she said dryly.
Neil grunted. "You know the man better than I do. Well, well."
But her father didn't seem worried that Alan Seton would think he was crazy. In fact, he looked excited and rather pleased; he seemed to sense that, in some strange way, the waiting was finally over.
****
Quinta and her father spent the morning staring at the doorbell chimes. By eleven they were desperate for something to do. Despite the vet's warning not to come by, Quinta drove her father in their customized van so that they could see Legs for themselves. They were allowed to see the dog, who became wildly excited, and then the vet scolded them; so that was a bust. They went back home and searched the side yard for clues. That was a bust, too, but at least now it was one o'clock.
The mail came, and with it the latest issue of Neil's complimentary subscription to Cup Quotes. He snatched it up. "Alan Seton's going to be here in twenty minutes; I should try to be au courant," he said with one of his wry smiles.
He scanned the newsletter and ran into Quinta's black-and-white photo of the young demonstrator heaving a rotten tomato at Pegasus. With a low whistle he said, "If I were Alan Seton, I'd call this aiding and abetting the enemy. Nothing inspires a terrorist more than publicity, girl. Don't you know that?"
"I don't call it publicity," she argued, feeling guilty. "I call it news."
"I call it bad judgment," Neil said with his usual bluntness.
The doorbell rang. Quinta grabbed the newsletter and threw it in a drawer. "We can discuss it later!"
Neil Powers watched as his daughter ran to the hall mirror, raked one hand through her blond hair, straightened the collar of her yellow polo shirt, took a deep breath, and swung open the door. Alan Seton was leaning on the porch railing, hands in his pockets, apparently without a care in the world. He was whistling a tune. He didn't look distracted. He didn't look devastated. He didn't look tired. Neil was certain, as he watched from the other end of the hall, that Alan Seton hadn't understood the message.
"Hello, Alan. Sorry I woke you this morning," Quinta said. Neil thought he detected a touch of coolness in his daughter's voice.
"No problem. I had to put Mavis on a plane for New York, anyway," Alan replied evenly. He gave Quinta a quick, ironic smile and Neil thought, What's going on here?
"Mavis is having dinner with a potential sponsor," Alan continued, stepping over the threshold into the hall. "I can't name names yet, but the company is a major producer of board games. If anyone can land them, she can."
He saw Neil waiting for him and put out his hand. "Mr. Powers. It's good to see you again."
Neil nodded curtly and shook hands, surprised to realize that his own was a little clammy. So. He was letting himself be impressed. He felt like a child. He tried to cover his uneasiness with informed chatter before they launched into the subject of Cindy Seton.
"I've read that fund-raising is the number one concern among all seven American syndicates. How far from your goal are you?" he asked Alan politely. Why, he didn't know; he wasn't going to make up the difference.
"Oh, the average amount: a couple of million or so. We're working with a medium-sized budget—ten million—so we're not in as tough a shape as the fifteen-million-dollar syndicates. But it's still an uphill battle; it's all we ever think about," said Alan, glancing to see Quinta's expression.
"Have you sold billboard space on your winged keel yet? I read that one of the syndicates was offering to paint their keel with the logo of any company that could come up with a million bucks," Neil said, aware that his daughter seemed uncharacteristically self-conscious.
Alan turned to Neil and smiled. "To be honest, I thought that showed real ingenuity. But we plan to keep our keel under wraps until we've won the Cup, just the way the Aussies did in 1983."
Quinta, too, seemed anxious to avoid the real point of Alan Seton's visit. "I was wondering," she began hesitantly. "Normally in the early trial races, some of the boats hold back their best performances. They don't want to show their hand or peak too soon. But if you take the chance of not looking good, won't you scare off the funds you need in corporate sponsorship? Nobody wants to back a slow horse."
Her voice was quavering a little; she refused to meet Alan's gaze. It was very odd; Neil had always thought of his youngest daughter as exceptionally poised. And yet here she was, staring at the lamp behind Alan's head. Was she worried about his reaction to the photograph in Cup Quotes? She damn well should be, but somehow Neil thought not.
Alan, meanwhile, seemed impressed by the sharpness of Quinta's observation. More than impressed; he was downright pleased, as if she were a star pupil of his. What the hell right did he have to be pleased?
"You've just hit on our biggest dilemma," Alan said. "It's maddening. We've got to look impressive and still not give away the store to the competition. We'll all be sailing a fine line and hoping the sponsors can recognize sandbagging when they see it. The trouble is, some of them don't know a mainsheet from a bed sheet."
Who cared about fundraising? Cindy Seton was still alive! And yet the man who was her husband hadn't even brought up her name.
"This is all very well," Neil interrupted, conscious that he was bludgeoning his way into their exchange, "but maybe we should get to the point. You have better things to do with your time," he said, turning to Alan, "so here it is: the woman who poisoned my dog in my yard was the same woman who ran me down." He wondered why he chose to put it so brutally. "I'm sorry I can't make this more palatable to you. I know she's your wife—"
"That's not an issue," Alan said quickly.
"—and I know this is a hell of a distraction—"
"Now there you have a point," he agreed, his look grim.
"My father didn't want me to tell you," Quinta cut in. "But something has to be done, and soon. If it was just a question of an occasional rock through our living room window, we could put up with it—"
"Hold it. Back up," Alan demanded, "and start from the beginning."
Quinta did, with help from her father. From the original poison pen note to the gruesome episode of the night before, she laid out the campaign of terror before Alan. She tried not to sound lurid; she didn't need to. It was obvious, at least to Neil, that Alan was profoundly affected by her story: not once did his gaze leave Quinta's face, and when she was through, he whispered only, "My God."
"I'm accustomed to thinking that Cindy Seton ruined my father's life," Quinta added, with a quick look at Neil. "But now I think that she must feel my father ruined hers. You do believe us, don't you?"
"Oh yes," Alan answered grimly. "It's her style, all right. Now that I think about it, she has to be behind the pizzas, too." Quinta nodded, and Neil looked on in confusion. "I've never accepted her suicide," Alan went on. "For one thing, there was that damn shoe that she left behind in the Mercedes. One blue high-heeled shoe, never worn—and I think there might have been some pearls missing, though I can't be sure of that."
"Wouldn't the insurance company have a record?" asked Neil.
Alan shook his head. "None of her jewelry was insured. She'd been robbed before, and yet she insisted on wearing the originals everywhere. They wouldn't touch her after the first claim. Besides, Cindy bought new things all the time. She didn't keep track."
"It wasn't the perfect crime, in other words. Just close enough?" Quinta was sitting in the loveseat with her legs folded under her, chin on her fists, blond hair falling over her shoulders, eyes fixed in rapt attention on Alan's thoughtful face.
"Exactly," answered Alan, returning the intensity of her gaze. "Nothing could be proved."
For a moment no one said anything, and Neil felt eerily invisible: something was happening in the room, and he wasn't a part of it. It threw him back in time; he could almost feel the floor moving underneath him, the way the Virginia had on the high seas. Colin Durant and Laura Powers. Déjà vu; it frightened him. He didn't know what to do to break the spell, so he said roughly. "Now what?"
Alan seemed to shake himself loose, and the visible effort he made caused Neil's heart to pause. I can't believe it. He's in love with her, or on the way to it.
"Have you called the police?" Alan asked.
"How could we?" exclaimed Quinta. "The publicity would destroy your campaign, just like it did in 1983."
"My daughter convinced me it would be un-American," added Neil with a wry look at the pretty woman who used to be his pretty little girl.
"It's un-American to distract you at all," said Quinta in a voice filled with understanding. "But honestly, Alan, we don't know what to do."
"It's obvious what to do. We'll go to the police," he said.
"No! Can't you think of anything else?"
Alan began pacing the floor, walking off pent-up energy. "I can post a bodyguard inside your house. But I'm leaving for Australia in two weeks; they're packing up the Pegasus right now. I won't be back until February, after the races are over. You can't live under lock and key until then. No. We've got to go to the police. There's no other way."
Neil was inclined to agree with Alan and was about to say so when his daughter got in ahead of him. "We could try flushing her out," she said. "We could take out an ad."
"An ad?"
"An ad?"
"I know it sounds hokey, but what the heck: it worked for Holmes and Watson, didn't it? Cindy sounds unhinged enough to go for something like that. Psychotics read the personals, don't they? We could say, 'C. S.: We know you're out there,' and give our phone number."
"Quinta!" said Neil sharply. "Don't be frivolous."
"I'm not joking, Dad. We don't have that many options." She turned to Alan, lifted her chin, and said, "Well?"
Neil Powers had never seen that look in his daughter before, but he recognized it. It was a combination of defiance, allurement, enticement; a care-for-me-if-you-dare look. His mother had it down pat.
Neil stole a glance at Alan, half expecting to see Colin Durant. But no, the eyes were too blue, the hair nearer to brown, than the Frenchman's. And Alan, English to the core, was quicker to flush; it seemed harder for him to hide his emotions than Neil's French stepfather. But the electricity between Quinta and Alan—that, Neil had seen half a century before, in the cabin of the Virginia as she sailed hell-bent toward ruination.
"All right," Alan said at last. I think it's goofy, but … run the ad. I'll have a security guard stay inside—if that's all right with you, Neil—for the next few days. They can be very discreet; we can't have a tip-off. I'll be here when I can. If I know Cindy, that'll precipitate some further gesture on her part. If nothing happens by the time I'm scheduled to leave, we go to the police with this. I can't say how far over the edge she's gone—but I doubt that she cares any more for people than she does for dogs."
Quinta—still, after all, an innocent—looked shocked. But Neil was absorbing every word, and wishing he had a gun.