“Did Iris say anything to you about Edith’s boyfriend Nick?” asked Nita as she and Steele headed back to East Hampton.
“No, all we talked about was Ruth. I don’t think she knows that much about Edith, just that she and Ruth were roommates and the two of them got on really well. She did say that Ruth was going to a psychiatrist in the city, and that he told her it was okay to be seeing Pollock even though he was married. Iris thought that was bad advice, but of course it was just what Ruth wanted to hear. Her boss at the art gallery had given her the summer off—according to Iris, they close in August anyway—and Ruth couldn’t wait to start her ‘trial marriage’ with Pollock.
“But after a few weeks she was having second thoughts, which is why she went back to town for a couple of days last week. She told Iris she was afraid Jackson was cracking up, and she was having a hard time dealing with his moods.”
“I can understand why,” said Nita. “According to Jim Brooks, he was really depressed. How would a twenty-six-year-old girl know what to do about that? Cooped up all alone with him in the house, then snubbed by his friends when he took her out, it’s no wonder she needed a break. And why she wanted company. Someone her own age she could talk to when her boyfriend was down in the dumps.”
“Or in his cups, more like,” observed Steele with a smirk. “From what the neighbors tell me, the man wasn’t fit to live with, not lately, anyway. Dan Miller says he’d go through a case of beer every two or three days, and that’s not all he was drinking.”
“Well, drunk or sober, if we accept Ruth’s account, he wasn’t responsible for Edith’s death,” said Nita. She had filled Steele in on their conversation.
“Think she’s telling the truth?”
“Yes, I think she is. She could be covering up for Pollock, but in my experience it would be hard for someone to make up such a complicated and detailed story and not give something away, especially after suffering a concussion. Doc Abel is convinced that her amnesia was real, that she wasn’t just playing for time so she could come up with a plausible alibi for Pollock. Iris said she didn’t tell her Edith was dead, and she seemed genuinely shocked when she realized it on her own. Then it all came back to her.
“Edith’s necklace was the key that unlocked her memory, thanks to my son and his canine partner. And to a lucky break. Imagine the trail behind the Finches’ house leading right to the accident scene.”
“Yep. Walking straight through the woods, you cut off the corner from Gardiner to Fireplace. Good thing Sally’s got a sharp nose and TJ’s got sharp eyes.”
“By the way,” Steele continued, “Iris says their father is planning to persuade Ruth to sue Pollock’s estate. The auto insurance will pay the hospital bills, but he wants her to go for pain and suffering, lost wages while she’s laid up, and psychological injuries.”
“What?” Nita was appalled. “I thought Mr. Kligman was out of the picture.”
“He is—that’s to say he and their mother are separated. From what Iris tells me he’s some kind of businessman, sort of a hustler. Swoops in every now and again, takes her or Ruth out to dinner and a show, then drives his fancy car off into the sunset. Only turns up when it suits him. Iris called him to tell him about the accident and right away he sees dollar signs. He knows Pollock was a big-shot artist, so he probably figures he was loaded.”
Nita’s sympathies were all with Pollock’s widow. “Boy, I hope Ruth doesn’t go through with it. As if losing your husband isn’t bad enough, imagine being dragged into court by the woman he was cheating with when he died.”
When they pulled into the parking lot behind the Sea Spray cottages, Nita invited Steele in for a glass of lemonade and a strategy session.
“Let’s see if the boys are around. I think we’re going to have to take this investigation into the city, and I’d like to get Fitz’s opinion on how best to handle it.”
“You think Metzger’s boyfriend is a suspect?”
“Sure he is,” said Nita. “He would have had a motive if she was putting pressure on him to dump his wife. Suppose she told him to think it over while she was away for the weekend, even gave him the details of where she was going and warned him that she’d spill the beans if he didn’t come through when she got back to work on Monday.”
She continued to speculate. “So how about the opportunity? He could have followed her out on the train, hung around town until it got dark, even walked up to Springs—plenty of time, and he wouldn’t need to take a taxi that could be traced.
“Let’s say he gets to the house, finds Metzger alone—she’s waiting for Pollock and Kligman to come down, remember—and they go outside to talk things over. But she doesn’t see things his way, they start arguing, it turns into a fight, and he decides to shut her up for good. Maybe that was even in the back of his mind all along. What do you think, Harry?”
“I can see that,” agreed Steele. “He could have walked back to town and hopped the westbound milk train. Goes through East Hampton at midnight, give or take.”
“Milk train?”
“That’s the late-night run that collects from the dairies out east and takes the milk into the city for morning delivery. Don’t normally take passengers on that run, though every now and again somebody hops on. If he did, the conductor would likely remember him. But even if he did come and go by train, how would he know when she’d be at the house?”
Nita considered the logistics. “Well, he could have gone up to Springs during the day, kept an eye on the place, waiting for his chance to get her alone. Of course if he was just planning to reason with her it wouldn’t matter if she was alone, and maybe even a good thing if there were others to back him up, tell her to be sensible and not upset the apple cart.”
Steele was skeptical. “How likely is that? There’s Kligman, convinced that Pollock is going to get a divorce—why wouldn’t she encourage Metzger to hope for the same deal? Even Pollock might side with her, give the guy some man-to-man advice on the benefits of trading in the old model.”
“As it happens,” Nita reminded him, “again according to Kligman, who I’m inclined to believe, Pollock was taking advantage of those very benefits when Metzger was strangled. And Doc Abel says the medical evidence confirms that Kligman did have sex that night. So the coast was clear for Nick to make his move.”
“Who is this Nick, anyway?” asked Fitz, who had just come in from the beach with TJ. Having caught the tail end of Nita’s narrative, the boy’s ears were burning.
Fitz approached Nita and bent down to give her a kiss on the forehead, brushing aside a stray curl—a gesture of casual intimacy that brought a smile to Steele’s lips. “You two are a great team,” he observed.
TJ piped up. “What about me? Dad says I’m a detective, too.”
Nita reached over and ruffled his hair affectionately. “And so you are, Juanito. Wait ’til you hear how your sleuthing paid off. Let’s grab the lemonade and go outside, then Harry and I can put you both in the picture.”
Once they were settled on the deck, Nita and Harry recounted the morning’s developments. Now that the homicide was front-page news, there was no point in holding back any details from TJ, who soaked it all up avidly. He and Fitz had already been quizzed about it on the beach, and his father was proud of the way TJ handled himself.
“The kid’s got the makings, all right,” he told Nita. “He’s already perfected your skill of talking without saying anything,” he teased, earning a poke in the ribs. “What I mean is, he didn’t give anything away. You don’t have to worry about him blabbing to the other kids. He knows how serious it is, don’t you, son?”
Considering the next steps, they agreed it was vital to get the lab report as soon as possible. Chances were it would reveal the killer’s blood type, which could be matched against the suspects. So far there were only two—Ted Dragon, with the suspicious scratches on his arm, and Metzger’s boss-slash-boyfriend.
“Obviously we need to track down Nick,” concluded Fitz. “This Beautique Salon shouldn’t be hard to find. It must be in the phone book. I can take a quick trip into the city and question him, look for any telltale marks.”
Nita had a better idea. “How about I call Hector? No offense, honey, but you know what a master interrogator he is, and he’s right there in the city.” When she worked with Hector Morales on the Lam murder case back in ’forty-three, she had watched him question a prime suspect and marveled at his ability to tell truth from fiction in seemingly noncommittal answers. El Zorro was a nickname he had earned many times over.
“Are you kidding?” replied Fitz. “No offense taken. If only you can persuade Hector. Better use the pay phone so we don’t alert the whole town.” He went inside the cottage and came back with a handful of dimes.
“I’m going back to the station,” said Steele, “see if I can get Riverhead to hustle up that report. It’s been four days already. They should have it by now.”