Fortune Is a Woman - Elizabeth Adler [200]
He gripped the little gold compact so hard it buckled. He saw in his mind the concerned face of the room waiter asking if Mrs. Wingate had found her keys; he had let her in, he said, on Wednesday night….
“Senator Wingate, sir?”
He turned quickly to look at the uniformed police officer. “Can I help you, sir?” the man asked.
Buck shrugged, “Thanks, no. It’s just that I knew him, it’s a shock….”
“Surely, sir. I’m sorry about that, Senator Wingate. I guess you’ll feel better though, sir, now they’ve arrested the woman. Between you and me they are pretty sure she did it.”
Buck unclenched his hand from the compact as relief sagged through him, he was crazy to think what he had been thinking. Of course it was one of Harry’s women, some poor rejected girl….
“Everybody knew how he and his sister hated each other,” the officer continued. “That Harrison family’s been feudin’ for more than thirty years. She always claimed he killed her son and I guess it was only a matter of time before she got her revenge.”
Buck stared at the man, his face blank with shock. “What are you saying? Who has been arrested for Harry’s murder?”
“Why, his sister, sir.” The officer looked concernedly after him as Buck turned on his heel and strode away.
He almost ran back down the hill to Aysgarth’s, head down, hands in his pockets, his mind full of horrifying images of Francie being arrested, Francie terrified and alone, Francie in jail for Harry’s murder. A murder he knew for sure she had not committed.
Maryanne was sitting on the same chintz sofa, wearing the same peach peignoir she had last Wednesday night. She looked up from her book and gave him a relieved smile. “Darling, I’ve been so worried about you,” she said. “Where on earth have you been?”
He took the jeweled compact from his pocket and held it out to her. “I’ve been to get this,” he said, his voice tight with anger.
She looked at the compact and then at him. “Oh my goodness,” she said shakily, “I wondered what had happened to it. Did I drop it downstairs somewhere?”
“You left it at Harry’s,” he said evenly. “On Wednesday night.”
“On Wednesday night? Don’t be ridiculous, we were at Harry’s Tuesday, not Wednesday,” she said, flustered.
“We were at Harry’s Tuesday. You were at Harry’s Wednesday. The night you lost your keys and the room waiter had to let you in. Remember, Maryanne?”
She pushed a nervous hand through her immaculate hair. “Wednesday? Surely you’re wrong. Wasn’t I here, alone with you?”
“What was going on between you and Harry?” She put up a protesting hand and he said, “No. Don’t lie to me. I want to know what you were doing there.”
She shrugged her slender shoulders, defeated. “Harry was blackmailing me,” she said quietly. “Over you and his goddamn sister. I’ve been paying him off for years—oh, not from my own purse, so to speak, but managing to get nice little deals put his way…. through my family and you, Buck, though you never knew it.” She glared furiously at him. “It’s all your fault, if you had never had that stupid little affair none of this would have happened.” She looked up at him, her eyes hard. “She’s threatened him all these years, he told me so. And now they’ve arrested her for his murder. And if she hadn’t killed him then one day he would have killed her. They’re two of a kind.”
“Francie didn’t murder Harry,” he said, grabbing her roughly by the shoulders.
She smiled at him, that girlish innocent smile she could do so well. “Why, of course she did, Buck. You just don’t want to believe it. Harry told me himself she had accused him of killing her son in a fire. Don’t you think this was the perfect way to get her revenge?