
Definitely, a Crime of Passion
"Beware of the fury of a patient man," Henry Parker Britland IV observed sadly as he studied the picture of his former Secretary of State who had just been indicted for the murder of his lover, Arabella Young.
"Then you think poor Tommy did it?" Sandra O'Brien Britland sighed as she delicately patted homemade jam onto a delightfully hot scone.
The couple was comfortably ensconced in their king-size bed at Drumdoe, their country estate in Peapack, New Jersey. Matching breakfast trays complete with a single rose in a narrow silver vase were in front of them. The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, the London Times, and L'Observateur were scattered on the delicately flowered gossamer-soft quilt.
"I find it impossible to believe," Henry said slowly. "Tom always had such iron self-control. That's what made him such a fine Secretary of State. But ever since Constance died during my second administration, he's not been himself, and when he met Arabella there's no question that he fell madly in love with her. I'll never forget when in front of Lady Thatcher he slipped and called her Poopie."
"I do wish I'd known you when you were president," Sandra said ruefully. "Oh, well, nine years ago when you were sworn in for the first time you'd have found me boring, I'm sure. How interesting could a law student be to the President of the United States? At least when you met me as a member of Congress, you thought of me with respect."
Henry turned and looked benevolently at his bride of eight months. Her hair, the color of winter wheat, was tousled. The expression in her intensely blue eyes somehow managed to simultaneously convey intelligence, warmth, wit, and humor. And sometimes childlike wonder. At their first meeting Henry had asked her if she still believed in Santa Claus.
That was the evening before the inauguration of his successor. He'd thrown a cocktail party at the White House for the about to be sworn in members of Congress.
"I believe in what Santa Claus represents, sir," she'd replied. "Don't you?"
At seven o'clock when the guests were leaving, he'd invited her to stay for a quiet dinner.
"I'm so sorry. I'm meeting my parents. I can't disappoint them."
Henry had thought of all the women who at his invitation changed their plans in a fraction of a second and realized that at last he'd found the girl of his dreams. They were married six weeks later.
The marriage of the country's most eligible bachelor, the forty-four-year-old ex-president, to the beautiful young congresswoman twelve years his junior had set off a media hype that threatened to be unending.
The fact that Sandra's father was a motorman on the New Jersey Central Railroad, that she had worked her way through St. Peter's College and Fordham Law School, spent two years as a public defender, and then in a stunning upset won the congressional seat of the Jersey City longtime incumbent, earned her the cheers of womankind.
Henry's status as one of the most popular United States presidents of the twentieth century as well as possessor of a great private fortune and his regular appearance at the top of the list of the sexiest men in America made other men wonder why the gods had so favored him.
On their wedding day one tabloid had run the headline: LORD HENRY BRINTHROP MARRIES OUR GAL SUNDAY, a takeoff on the popular radio soap opera of the 1930s that five days a week had asked the question "Can a girl from a mining town in the West find happiness as the wife of England's richest, most handsome lord, Lord Henry Brinthrop?"
Sandra had immediately become known to one and all, including her doting husband, as Sunday. She hated the nickname but had become resigned when Henry pointed out that he thought of her as a Sunday kind of love, which was his favorite song, and how people who voted for her embraced it. "Like Tip O'Neill," he said. "That suited him. Sunday suits you."
Now seeing the genuine concern in Henry's eyes, she covered his hand with hers. "You're worried about Tommy. What can we do to help him?"
"Not very much, I'm afraid. I'll certainly check to see if the defense lawyer he hired is good, but no matter whom he gets it's a particularly vicious crime. Think about it. The woman was shot three times with Tommy's gun in his library right after he told people that she had broken up with him."
Sunday examined the front page picture of a beaming Thomas Shipman, his arm around the dazzling thirty-year-old who had helped to dry his tears after his wife's death. "How old is Tommy?" Sunday asked.
"Sixty-five, give or take a year."
Together they soberly studied the photograph. Tommy was a trim, lean man with thinning gray hair, and a scholarly face. Arabella Young's wildly teased tresses fell around her shoulders. She'd had a boldly pretty face and the kind of curves found on Playboy covers.
"May and December," Sunday commented. "They probably say that about us."
"Oh, Henry, be quiet. And don't try to pretend that you aren't really upset."
"I am," Henry said softly. "I can't imagine what I'd have done when I found myself sitting in the Oval Office after only one term in the Senate without Tommy at my side. Thanks to him I weathered those first months without falling on my face. When I was all set to have it out with Yeltsin, Tommy in his calm, deliberate way showed me how wrong I'd be to force a confrontation and then somehow conveyed the impression that he was only a sounding board for my own decision. Tommy is a gentleman through and through. He's honest, he's smart, he's loyal."
"But he's also a man who must have been aware that people were joking about his relationship with Arabella and how smitten he was with her. Then when she finally wanted out, he lost it," Sunday observed. "That's pretty much the way you see it, isn't it?"
"Yes. Temporary insanity." Henry picked up his breakfast tray and put it on the night table. "Nevertheless he was always there for me and I'm going to be there for him. He's been allowed to post bond. I'm going to see him."
Sunday shoved her tray aside, then managed to catch her half-empty coffee cup before it spilled onto the quilt. "I'm coming too," she said. "Give me ten minutes in the Jacuzzi and I'll be ready."
Henry watched his wife's long legs as she slid out of bed. "The Jacuzzi. What a splendid idea!"
Thomas Acker Shipman tried to ignore the media camped outside his driveway. The lawyer at his side had just forced his way from the car into the house. The events of the day finally hit him and he visibly slumped. "I think a scotch is in order," he said quietly.
Defense attorney Leonard Hart looked at him sympathetically. "I'd say you deserved one. I just want to reassure you that if you insist we'll go ahead with a plea bargain, but I do think we could put together a very strong temporary-insanity defense and I wish you'd agree to go to trial. You went through the agony of losing a beloved wife, then fell in love with a young woman who accepted many gifts from you and then spurned you."
Hart's voice became passionate as though he were addressing a jury. "You asked her to come here and talk it over and then when she arrived you lost your head and killed her. The gun was out only because you planned to kill yourself."
The former secretary of state looked puzzled. "That's how you see it?"
Hart seemed surprised at the question. "Of course. It will be a little hard to explain how you could simply leave Miss Young bleeding on the floor, go upstairs to bed, and sleep so soundly that the next morning you didn't even hear your housekeeper scream when she saw the body; but at a trial we'd contend that you were in shock."
"Would you?" Shipman asked wearily. "I wasn't in shock. In fact after that martini I barely remember what Arabella and I said to each other, never mind recall shooting her."
Leonard Hart looked pained. "I think, sir, that I must beg you not to make statements like that to anyone. Will you promise? And may I suggest that from now on you go easy on the scotch?"
From behind the drapery, Thomas Shipman watched as his rotund attorney was charged by the media. Rather like the lions released on the solitary Christian, he thought. Only it wasn't Hart's blood they wanted.
He had sent word to Lillian West, his daily housekeeper, to stay home today. He knew last evening when the indictment was handed down that television cameras would witness every step of his leaving the house in handcuffs, the arraignment, fingerprinting, plea of innocence, and less-than-triumphant return. He didn't want her subjected to their attention.
The house felt quiet and lonely. For some unfathomable reason his mind began to slip back to the day he and Constance had bought it thirty years ago. They'd driven up to have lunch at the Bird and Bottle near Bear Mountain and taken a leisurely drive back to Manhattan. It was when they impulsively wandered through local streets in Tarrytown that they'd come across the FOR SALE sign in front of the turn-of-the-century residence overlooking the Hudson River and the Palisades.
And for the next twenty-eight years, two months, and ten days we lived here happily ever after, Shipman thought as-deciding against the scotch-he wandered into the kitchen and reached for the percolator.
Even when he served as Secretary of State they managed occasional weekends here, enough of them to restore their souls. Until one morning two years ago when Constance said, "Tom, I don't feel so well." And a moment later she was gone.
Working twenty hours a day helped to numb the pain. I became known as the Flying Secretary, Shipman thought with a slight smile. But Henry and I did a lot of good. We left Washington and the country in better shape than it's been in years.
He measured coffee into the filter, snapped on the switch, and poured water enough for four cups. Enter Arabella, he thought. So ready with comfort, so alluring. And now so dead.
What had they said to each other in the library? He vaguely remembered how angry he had become. How had he been driven to such an act of violence? How could he have left her bleeding and stumbled up to bed?
The phone rang. Shipman didn't answer it. Instead he walked over to it, turned the ringer to "off," and disconnected the answering device.
When the coffee was ready he poured a cup and with slightly trembling hands carried it into the living room. Normally he'd have settled in his big leather chair in the library, but now he wondered if he'd ever be able to enter that room again.
From outside he heard shouting. He knew the media were still there but what was the point of all the racket? Yet even before he looked out the window, Thomas Shipman guessed which visitor had created such a furor.
The former president of the United States was on the scene to offer aid and comfort.
The Secret Service men tried to hold the media back. His arm protectively around his wife, Henry voluntarily made a statement. "As always in this great country, a man is innocent until proven guilty. Thomas Shipman was a truly great Secretary of State and remains a close friend. Sunday and I are here in friendship."
As the former president reached the porch, Shipman unlocked and opened the door. It was only when it had closed behind the Britlands and he felt himself embraced in a warm bear hug that Thomas Shipman began to sob.
. . .
Sunday insisted on preparing lunch for the three of them. "You'll feel a lot better when you have something hot in your stomach, Tom," she said as she sliced tomatoes, peppers, seal-lions and ham for a western omelette.
Shipman had regained his composure. Somehow the presence of Henry gave him, at least for the moment, the sense that he could handle whatever he had to face. Sunday's brisk, sure movements at the chopping board brought back a more recent memory of Palm Beach and watching someone else prepare a salad and dreaming dreams about a future that now could never be.
Glancing out the window, he realized that the shade was raised and, if somebody managed to sneak around to the back of the house, there was a perfect opportunity to take a picture of the three of them. Shipman got up and drew the shade to the windowsill.
"You know," he said, "pulling down this shade made me think of how last year some salesman talked me into putting an electric setup on the draperies in all the other rooms. They did something wrong in the library and when you click to open or close the draperies, you'd swear someone had fired a gun. You've heard about coming events casting their shadows before? Ah, well."
He sat across the table from Henry, thinking of the many times they'd faced each other across the desk in the Oval Office. Now he found the courage to say steadily, "Mr. President..."
"Tommy, knock it off."
"All right, Henry. We're both lawyers."
"So is Sunday," Henry reminded him. "And she worked as a public defender before she ran for office."
Shipman smiled wanly. "Then I suggest she's our resident expert. Sunday, did you ever launch a defense where your client was dead drunk and not only shot his... friend... three times but left her to bleed to death while he slept off a hangover?"
"I defended a number of people who were so high on drugs they didn't remember committing a crime."
"They were found guilty, of course."
"They had the book thrown at them," she admitted.
"Exactly. My attorney, Len Hart, is a capable fellow, but as I see it, my only course is to plea-bargain in the hope that in exchange for a guilty plea the state will not seek the death penalty."
Henry and Sunday watched as their friend stared unseeingly ahead. "You understand," Shipman continued, "that I took the life of a young woman who ought to have enjoyed perhaps fifty more years on this planet. If I go to prison I probably won't last more than five or ten years. The confinement, however long it lasts, may help to expiate this awful guilt before I am called to meet my Maker."
They were all silent as Sunday finished tossing a salad, then poured beaten eggs into a heated skillet, added the tomatoes, peppers, scallions and ham, folded the ends of the eggs into flaps, and flipped the omelette over. The toast popped up as she slid the first omelette onto a heated plate and placed it in front of Shipman. "Eat," she commanded.
Twenty minutes later, when Shipman pushed the last bit of salad onto a crust of toast and looked at the empty plates on the table, he observed, "It is an embarrassment of riches, Henry, that with a French chef in your kitchen you are also blessed with a wife who is a culinary delight."
"That's because I was a short-order cook when I was working my way through Fordham," Sunday explained. Then she said quietly, "Tommy, there have got to be some extenuating circumstances that will help you. We understand that Arabella had broken up with you, but why was she here that night?"
Shipman did not answer immediately. "She dropped in," he said evasively.
"You weren't expecting her?" Sunday asked quickly. "Er, no, I wasn't."
Henry leaned forward. "Tom, as Will Rogers said, 'All I know is just what I read in the papers.' According to the media, you had phoned Arabella and begged her to talk to you. She came over that evening around nine."
"That's right. She came over around nine." Henry and Sunday exchanged glances. Clearly there was something Tom was not telling them.
"Tom, we want to help you," Henry said gently. Shipman sighed. "Arabella had been phoning me," he explained. "I returned her last call and we agreed it was important to sit down and talk things out. However, we made no specific date. I did not expect her the night of the tragedy."
"Where did you keep the gun?" Henry asked. "Quite frankly, I was surprised that you had one registered to you. You supported the Brady bill."
"I'd totally forgotten it," Shipman said tonelessly. "It was in the back of the safe for years. Then it came up in conversation that there's going to be another drive to turn in guns for toys. I was clearing out the safe, came across the gun, and decided to contribute it to the drive. I left it out on the library table, the bullets beside it, planning to drop it off at the police station in the morning."
Sunday knew that she and Henry were sharing the same thought. Not only had Tom killed Arabella but he'd loaded the gun after her arrival.
"Tom, what were you doing before Arabella came in?" Henry asked.
They watched as Shipman considered and then answered, "I had been at the annual stockholders' meeting of American Micro. It was an exhausting day. I had a dreadful cold. My housekeeper prepared dinner at seven-thirty. I ate a little and went upstairs immediately afterward. I was suffering from chills and took a long hot shower, then got into bed. I hadn't slept well for several nights and took a sleeping pill. I was in a sound sleep when Lillian knocked at the door and said Arabella was downstairs. Lillian, I might add, was just about to leave."
"You came back downstairs?"
"Yes. Lillian left. Arabella was in the library."
"Were you pleased to see her?"
"No, I was not. I was so groggy from the sleeping pill I could hardly keep my eyes open. I was angry that she had simply come without warning. As you may remember, there's a bar in the library. Arabella had already prepared a martini for each of us."
"Tom, why would you even think of drinking a martini on top of a sleeping pill?"
"Because I'm a fool," Shipman snapped. "Because I was so sick of Arabella's loud voice and cackling laugh that I thought I'd go mad if I didn't drown it out."
Henry and Sunday stared at Shipman. "I thought you were crazy about her," Henry said.
"I was the one who broke it off," Shipman told him. "As a gentleman I thought it proper to tell people it had been her decision. Anyone looking at the disparity in our ages and personalities would certainly have believed that. The truth was that I had finally-temporarily as it turns out-come to my senses."
"Then why were you calling her?"
"Because she was phoning me in the middle of the night, every hour on the hour. I warned her that it could not go on. She pleaded for a meeting and I agreed to see her in the near future but not that night."
"Tom, why haven't you told this to the police? Everyone thinks it was a crime of passion."
"I think in the end it probably was. That last night Arabella told me that she was getting in touch with one of the tabloids and would sell them a story about wild parties during your administration that you and I allegedly gave together."
"That's ridiculous," Henry sputtered.
"Blackmail," Sunday breathed.
"Exactly. Do you think telling that story would help my case? At least there's some dignity to being punished for murdering a woman because I loved her too much to lose her. Dignity for her and, perhaps, even a modicum of dignity for me."
Sunday insisted on cleaning up the kitchen. Henry insisted on escorting Tommy upstairs to rest. "Tommy, I wish there were someone here with you," he said. "I hate to leave you alone."
"I don't feel alone after your visit, Henry." Nevertheless, Henry worried about his good friend. Constance and Tommy had never had children. So many of their friends from Westchester had moved to Florida. Others were still in Washington. As Shipman went into the bathroom off the master bedroom, Henry's beeper sounded.
It was Jack Collins, the head of his Secret Service detail. "Mr. President, William Osborne, the next-door neighbor, is insisting that Mr. Shipman must be given a message. He says Countess Condazzi is calling from Palm Beach and is distraught trying to reach him. The Countess insists that Mr. Shipman be notified that she is expecting his call."
"Thanks, Jack. I'll tell Secretary Shipman at once. And Sunday and I will be leaving in a few minutes."
"Right, sir."
Countess Condazzi, Henry thought. How interesting. Who can that be?
His interest was further piqued when on being informed of the call, Thomas Acker Shipman's eyes brightened and a smile hovered on his lips. "Betsy phoned. How dear of her!" But then the brightness disappeared from his eyes and the smile vanished and he said, "The Osbornes play golf with Betsy in Florida. That's why she phoned them."
"Are you going to call the Countess back?" Henry asked.
Shipman shook his head. "Absolutely not. Betsy must not be dragged into this mess."
A few minutes later, as Henry and Sunday were being hustled past the media, a Lexus pulled into the driveway beside them. A woman in her fifties, with a coronet of braids, used the diversion caused by the former president to slip up to the front door and let herself in. Henry and Sunday both noticed her.
"That has to be the housekeeper," Sunday decided. "She had a key in her hand. At least Tom won't be alone."
"He must be paying her well," Henry observed. "That car is expensive."
On the drive home he told Sunday about the mysterious phone call from Palm Beach, He could see from the way her head tilted to one side and her forehead puckered that she was both disturbed and thinking deeply.
They were riding in an eight-year-old black Chevy, one of the ten specially equipped secondhand cars Henry delighted in using to avoid recognition. The two Secret Service agents, one driving, one riding shotgun, were separated from overhearing them by a glass divider.
"Henry," Sunday said, "there's something wrong about this case. You can sense that."
Henry nodded. "Oh, that's obvious. I thought it might be that the details are so gruesome that Tommy has to deny them to himself." Then he paused. "But none of this is like him," he exclaimed. "No matter what the provocation I cannot accept that, even laced up on a sleeping pill and a martini, Tommy went so out of control that he killed a woman! Just seeing him today made me realize how extraordinary all this is. Sunday, he was devoted to Constance. But his composure when she died was remarkable. Tommy simply isn't the kind of man who flips out, no matter what the provocation."
"His composure may have been remarkable when his wife died, but falling hook, line, and sinker for Arabella Young when Connie was barely cold in her grave says a lot, doesn't it?" "Rebound? Denial?"
"Exactly. Sometimes people fall in love immediately and it works, but more often it doesn't."
"You're probably right. The very fact that Tommy never married Arabella after giving her an engagement ring nearly two years ago says to me that all along he knew it was a mistake."
"Henry, all this took place before I came on the scene. I read in the tabloids all about how much in love the staid Secretary of State was with the flashy PR person half his age, but then I saw a picture of him at his wife's funeral side by side with a picture of him snuggling Arabella and I was sure that he was on an emotional roller coaster. No one that grief stricken can be that happy a few months later." Sunday sensed rather than saw her husband's raised eyebrow. "Oh, come on. You read the tabloids cover to cover after I'm finished with them. Tell me the truth. What did you think of Arabella?"
"I thought of her as little as possible." "You're not answering my question." "Never speak ill of the dead, but I found her boisterous and vulgar. A shrewd mind but she talked incessantly, and when she laughed I thought the chandelier would shatter."
"That fits in with what I read about her," Sunday commented. "Henry, if Arabella was stooping to blackmail, is it possible that she's tried it before with someone else? Between the sleeping pill and the martini, Tommy passed out. Suppose someone else came in, someone who followed Arabella, and saw an opportunity to get rid of her and let Tommy take the blame?"
"And then carried Tommy upstairs and tucked him into bed?" Henry raised an eyebrow.
The car turned onto the approach to the Garden State Parkway. Sunday stared pensively at the trees with their copper and gold and cardinal-red leaves. "I love autumn," she said. "And it hurts to think that in the late autumn of his life, Tommy should be going through this. Let's try another scenario. Suppose Tommy is angry, even furious, but so groggy he can't think straight. What would you have done if you were in his position that night?"
"What Tommy and I both did when we were at summit meetings. Sense that we're too tired or too angry to think straight and go to bed."
Sunday clasped Henry's hand. "That's exactly my point. Suppose Tommy staggered upstairs to bed and left Arabella there. Suppose someone else she had threatened had followed her over to Tommy's. Nine o'clock's a peculiar time to just show up. We have to find out who Arabella might have been with earlier in the evening. And we should talk to Tommy's housekeeper, Lillian West. She left shortly after Arabella arrived. Maybe there was a car parked on the street that she noticed. And finally the Countess from Palm Beach who so urgently wanted to talk to Tommy. We've got to contact her."
"Agreed," Henry said admiringly. "As usual we're on the same wavelength but you're farther along than I. I wasn't thinking about talking to the Countess." He put his arm around Sunday and pulled her closer. "I have not kissed you since 11:10 this morning," he said.
Sunday caressed his lips with the tip of her index finger. "Then it's more than my steel-trap mind that appeals to you?"
"You've noticed." Henry kissed her fingertips, then pushed his lips insistently against hers.
Sunday pulled back. "Henry, just one thing. You've got to make sure that Tommy doesn't agree to a plea bargain before we can help him."
"How am I supposed to stop that?" "An executive order, of course." "Darling, I'm no longer president." "In Tommy's eyes you are."
"All right, but here's another executive order. Stop talking."
In the front seat, the Secret Service agents glanced in the rearview mirror, then grinned at each other.
The next morning, Henry got up at sunrise for an early-morning ride with the estate manager. At 8:30, Sunday joined him in the charming breakfast room overlooking the classic English garden. A wealth of botanical prints against the background of Belgian linen awning-stripe wall-covering made the room seem joyously, riotously flower-filled and, as Sunday frequently observed, was a long way from the upstairs apartment in the two-family house in Jersey City where she'd been raised and where her parents still lived.
"Congress goes into session next week," she reminded him. "Whatever I can do to help Tommy, I have to start working on right now. My suggestion is that I find out everything I can about Arabella. Did Marvin get a complete background check on her?"
Marvin Klein was in charge of Henry's office, which was located in the former carriage house on the two-thousand-acre property.
"Right here," Henry said. "I just read it. The late Arabella managed to bury her background quite successfully. It took Marvin's people to learn that she had a previous marriage in which she took her ex-husband to the cleaners and that her longtime off-again, on-again boyfriend, Alfred Barker, went to prison for bribing athletes."
"Really! Is he out of prison now?"
"Not only that, dear. He had dinner with Arabella the night she died."
Sunday's jaw dropped. "Darling, how did Marvin ever discover that?"
"How does Marvin ever discover anything? He has his sources. Alfred Barker lives in Yonkers, which as you probably know is not far from Tarrytown. Her ex-husband is remarried happily and not in the area."
"Marvin learned this overnight?" Sunday's eyes snapped with excitement.
Henry nodded as Sims, the butler, hovered the coffeepot over his cup. "Thank you, Sims. Yes," he continued, "and he also learned that Alfred Barker was still very fond of Arabella, improbable as I find that, and had bragged to his friends that now that she was finished with the old fuddy-duddy, she'd be getting together with him."
"What does Alfred Barker do now?" Sunday asked.
"Technically, he owns a plumbing supply store. It's a front for his numbers racket. And the kicker is that he's known to have a violent temper when double-crossed."
"And he had dinner with Arabella the night she barged in on Tommy."
"Exactly."
"I knew this was a crime of passion," Sunday said excitedly. "The thing is that the passion wasn't on Tommy's part. I'll see Barker today as well as Tommy's housekeeper. I keep forgetting her name."
"Dora. No... that was the housekeeper who worked for them for years. Great old girl. I think Tommy mentioned that she retired shortly after Constance died. The one we glimpsed yesterday is Lillian West."
"That's right. So I'll take on Barker and the housekeeper, but have you decided what you're going to do?"
"I'm flying down to Palm Beach to meet with the Countess Condazzi. I'll be home for dinner. And remember, this Alfred Barker is obviously an unsavory character. I don't want you giving your Secret Service guys the slip."
"Okay."
"I mean it, Sunday," Henry said in the quiet tone that could make his cabinet members quake in their boots.
"You're one tough hombre." Sunday smiled. "I'll stick to them like glue." She kissed the top of his head and left the breakfast room humming "Hail to the Chief."
Four hours later Henry, having piloted his jet to West Palm Beach airport, was driving up to the Spanish-style mansion that was the home of Countess Condazzi. "Wait outside," he instructed his Secret Service detail.
The Countess was a woman in her mid-sixties. Slender and small with exquisite features and calm gray eyes, she greeted him with cordial warmth. "I was so glad to get your call, Mr. President," she said. "Tommy won't speak to me and I know how much he's suffering. He didn't commit this crime. We've been friends since we were children and there never was a moment that he lost control of himself. Even when at college proms the other boys who drank too much got fresh, Tommy was always a gentleman, drunk or sober."
"That's exactly the way I see it," Henry agreed. "You grew up with him?"
"Across the street from each other in Rye. We dated all through college, but then he met Constance and I married Eduardo Condazzi. A year later, my husband's older brother died. Eduardo inherited the title and the vineyards and we moved to Spain. He passed away three years ago. My son is now the Count and I felt it was time for me to come home. After all these years I bumped into Tommy when he was visiting mutual friends, the Osbornes, for a golfing weekend."
And a young love sparked again, Henry thought. "Countess..."
"Betsy."
"All right, Betsy, I have to be blunt. Were you and Tommy starting to pick up where you left off years ago?"
"Yes and no," Betsy said slowly. "You see, Tommy didn't give himself a chance to grieve for Constance. We've talked about that. It's obvious that his involvement with Arabella Young was his way of trying to escape the grieving process. I advised him to drop Arabella, then give himself a period of mourning. But I told him that after six months or a year at the most, he had to call me again and take me to a prom."
Betsy Condazzi's smile was nostalgic, her eyes filled with memories.
"Did he agree?" Henry asked.
"Not completely. He said that he was selling his house and moving down here permanently. He said that he'd be ready long before six months were up to take me to a prom."
Henry studied her, then slowly asked, "If Arabella Young had given a story to a tabloid purporting that during my administration and even before his wife's death, Tommy and I had thrown wild parties in the White House, what would your reaction be?"
"I'd know it wasn't true," she said simply. "And Tommy knows me well enough to be sure of that."
Henry let his pilot fly the jet back to Newark airport. He spent the time deep in thought. Tommy was obviously aware that the future had promised a second chance at happiness and that he didn't have to kill to safeguard that chance. He wondered if Sunday was having any better luck in finding a possible motive for Arabella's death.
Alfred Barker was not a man who invited instinctive liking, Sunday thought as she sat across from him in the office of the plumbing supply store that she knew was a cover-up for nefarious activities.
He appeared to be in his mid-forties, a thick, barrel-chested man with heavy-lidded eyes, a sallow complexion, and salt-and-pepper hair, which he combed across his skull in an effort to hide a bald spot. His open shirt revealed a hairy chest and there was a scar on the back of his right hand.
Sunday had a moment of fleeting gratitude as she thought of Henry's lean, muscular body, the quick smile that showed his firm white teeth, the rugged features that were enhanced by a stubborn jaw, the sable-brown eyes that could convey or, if necessary, conceal emotion. At times she chafed at the presence of her Secret Service men, pointing out that since she'd never been First Lady, she didn't see why she had to have protection now. But at this moment, in this squalid room with this hostile man, she was glad to know they were outside the partially open door. She had introduced herself as Sandra O'Brien, and it was obvious that Alfred Barker did not have a clue that the rest of her name was Britland.
"Why do ya wanna talk to me about Arabella?" Barker asked her as he lit a cigar.
"I want to start by saying that I'm very sorry about her death," Sunday told him sincerely. "I understand you and she were very close. But I know Mr. Shipman." She paused, then explained, "My husband at one time worked with him. There seems to be a conflicting version of who broke up his relationship with Ms. Young."
"Arabella was sick of the old creep," Barker told her. "Arabella always liked me."
"But she got engaged to Thomas Shipman," Sunday protested.
"Yeah. I knew that would never last. But he had a fat wallet. Ya see, Arabella was married when she was eighteen to some jerk who needed to be introduced to himself every morning. She was smart. I mean, that guy was worth hanging on to 'cause there were big bucks in the family. She hung around for three or four years, went to college, had her teeth fixed, let the guy pay for everything, waited till his rich uncle died, got him to comin-gle the money, then divorced him."
Alfred Barker lit the tip of his cigar and exhaled noisily. "What a shrewd cookie. A natural."
"And then she started seeing you," Sunday prodded.
"Right. Then I had a little misunderstanding with the government and ended up in the can. She got a job at a fancy public relations firm. The chance to move to their Washington branch came up two years ago and she grabbed it."
Barker inhaled deeply, then coughed noisily. "You couldn't hold Arabella down. I didn't want to. When I got sprung last year she used to call all the time and tell me about that little jerk Shipman, but in the meantime he was giving her fancy jewelry and she was meeting lots of people." Barker leaned over the desk. "Including the President of the United States, Henry Parker Britland the Fourth."
He looked at Sunday accusingly. "How many people in this country ever sat down at the table and traded jokes with the President of the United States? Have you?"
"Not with the President," Sunday said honestly, remembering that first night at the White House when she'd declined Henry's invitation. Instead she and her parents accompanied him on Air Force One back to New Jersey the next day after his successor was sworn in.
"See what I mean?" Barker crowed triumphantly. "Mr. Barker, according to Secretary Shipman he was the one breaking off the relationship with Arabella." "Yeah. So what?" "Then why would he kill her?"
Barker's face flushed. His hand slammed on the desk. "I warned Arabella not to threaten him with the tabloid routine. But she got away with it before and wouldn't listen to me."
"She got away with it before!" Sunday exclaimed, remembering this was exactly what she had suggested to Henry. "Who else did she try to blackmail?"
"Some guy she worked with. I don't know his name. But it's never a good idea to mess around with a guy with the kind of clout Shipman had. Remember how he flushed Castro down the toilet?"
"How much did she talk about blackmailing him?" "Only to me. She figured it would be worth a coupla bucks." Tears welled in the unlikely pool of Alfred Barker's eyes. "I was just thinking," he said. "I'm nuts about quotations. I read them for laughs and for insight, if you know what I mean." "My husband is very fond of quotations too," Sunday encouraged. "He said they contain wisdom."
"That's what I mean. Wha'duz your husband do?" "He's unemployed at the moment." "That's tough. Does he know anything about plumbing?" "Not much." "Can he run numbers?" Sunday shook her head sadly.
"Arabella had a big mouth. A real big mouth. I came across this quote and showed it to her. I always told her her mouth would get her in trouble."
Barker rummaged through the top drawer of his desk. "Here it is. Read it." He thrust a page that had obviously been torn from a book of quotations. One entry was circled:
Beyond this stone, a lump of clay
Lies Arabella Young
Who on the 24th of May
Began to hold her tongue.
"It was on an old English tombstone. Except for the date, is that a coincidence or is that a coincidence?" Barker sighed heavily. "I'm sure gonna miss Arabella. She was fun."
"You had dinner with her the night she died."
"Yeah."
"Did you drop her off at the Shipman house?"
"I put her in a cab. She was planning to borrow his car to get home." Barker shook his head. "She wasn't planning to return it. She was sure he'd give her anything to keep her from spilling muck to the tabloids. Instead look what he did to her."
Barker stood up. His face turned ugly. "I hope they fry him."
Sunday got to her feet. "The death penalty in New York State is administered by lethal injection. Mr. Barker, what did you do after you put Arabella in a cab?"
"I've been expectin' to be asked that, but the cops didn't even bother to talk to me. They knew they had Arabella's killer. After I put her in the cab, I went to my mother's and took her to the movies. I do that once a month. I was at her house by a quarter of nine and buying tickets at two minutes of nine. The ticket guy knows me. The kid who sells popcorn knows me. The woman who was sitting next to me is Mama's friend and she knows I was there for the whole show."
Barker thumped his fist on the desk. "You wanna help Shipman? Decorate his cell."
Sandra's Secret Service men were suddenly beside her. They stared down at Barker. "I wouldn't pound the desk in this lady's presence," one of them suggested coldly.
. . .
Thomas Acker Shipman had not been pleased to receive the call from Henry's aide, Marvin Klein, ordering him to delay the plea-bargaining process. What was the use? He wanted to get it over with. This house no longer felt like a home but had already become a prison. Once the plea bargain was completed, the media would have their usual field day and then they'd drop interest and move on. A sixty-five-year-old man going to prison for ten or fifteen years didn't stay hot copy for long.
It's only the speculation about whether I'll go to trial that has them camped out there, he thought as once again he peered out from behind a tiny opening in the drawn drapery.
His housekeeper had arrived promptly at eight o'clock. He had put on the safety chain, but when her key did not gain entrance she had firmly pushed the doorbell and called his name until he let her in. "You need taking care of," she'd said sharply, brushing aside the objection he'd voiced yesterday that he didn't want her privacy invaded by the media and actually he'd prefer to be alone.
Lillian West was a handsome woman, an excellent housekeeper and cordon bleu cook, but she had bossy tendencies that made Shipman wistfully remember Dora, his housekeeper of twenty years who sometimes burned the bacon but had been a pleasant fixture in the home.
Also Dora had been of the old school and Lillian clearly believed in equality of employer and employee. Nevertheless, for the short time he'd be in this house before he'd go to prison, Shipman realized that he might as well put up with her takeover attitude and try to enjoy the creature comfort of delicious meals and properly served wine at dinner.
Realizing the necessity of receiving phone calls from his lawyer, Shipman had turned on the answering machine, so that when a call came from Sunday he picked up the phone.
"Tommy, I'm in the car on my way from Yonkers," Sunday explained. "I want to talk to your housekeeper. Is she in today and, if not, where can I reach her?"
"Lillian is here."
"Wonderful. Don't let her go until I have a chance to see her."
"I can't imagine what she'll tell you that the police haven't already heard."
"Tommy, I've just talked to Arabella's boyfriend. He knew of the plan to extort money from you, and from what he said I gathered that Arabella had done that before to at least one other person. We've got to find out who that person was. Maybe someone followed her to your house and when Lillian left she saw a car and didn't think it was important. The police never really investigated any other possible suspects. This ain't over till it's over."
Shipman hung up and turned to see Lillian at the door to his study. Obviously she had been listening to the conversation. Even so he smiled at her pleasantly. "Mrs. Britland is on her way to talk to you," he said. "She and the President apparently think that after all I may not be guilty of Arabella's death. She and the President have a theory that might be very helpful to me."
"That's wonderful," she said coldly. "I can't wait to talk to her."
Sunday's next call was to Henry's plane. They exchanged reports on the Countess and Alfred Barker. After Sunday's revelation about Arabella's habit of blackmailing the men she dated, she added, "The only problem is that no matter who else might have wanted to kill Arabella, proving that person walked into Tommy's home, loaded his gun, and pulled the trigger is going to be quite difficult."
"Difficult but not impossible," Henry tried to reassure her. "I'll get Marvin to check on Arabella's last places of employment and find out who she might have been involved with at them." When Henry finished saying good-bye he did not know why sudden uneasiness overcame him. Aside from his concern over Tommy's plight, what could possibly be causing this chilling premonition that something was very wrong?
He sat back in the swivel chair that was his favorite spot on the plane when he wasn't on the flight deck. It was something Sunday had said. What was it? With inch-by-inch precision he reviewed their conversation. Of course. It was her observation about trying to prove that some other person had walked into Tommy's home, loaded the gun, and pulled the trigger.
That was it. And there was one person who could have done that, who knew that Tommy was both sick and overwhelmingly tired, who knew that Arabella was there, who in fact had let her in. The housekeeper. She was relatively new. Had anyone checked her out?
Swiftly Henry phoned Countess Condazzi. Let her still be home, he prayed. When her now-familiar voice answered, he wasted no time. "Betsy, did Tommy ever say anything to you about his new housekeeper?"
She hesitated. "Well, jokingly." "What do you mean?"
"Oh, you know how it is. There are so many women in their fifties and sixties and so few men. When I spoke to Tommy the very day that girl was killed, I said I had a dozen friends who are widows or divorced and would be jealous of me. He said that except for me he intended to steer clear of unattached women, that he'd just had a most unpleasant experience. He'd told his new housekeeper that he was putting his house on the market and moving to Palm Beach. She seemed shocked when he told her that he wouldn't be bringing her with him. He'd confided to her that he was finished with Arabella because someone else had become important to him. He thinks the housekeeper got the crazy idea he meant her."
"Good God," Henry said. "Betsy, I'll get back to you." Swiftly he dialed Marvin Klein. "Marvin," he said, "I've got a hunch about Secretary Shipman's housekeeper, Lillian West. Do a complete check on her immediately."
Marvin Klein did not like to break the law by penetrating the computer records of others, but he knew that when his boss said "immediately," the matter was urgent.
Seven minutes later he had a dossier on fifty-six-year-old Lillian West, including her employment record. Marvin frowned as he began to read. West was a college graduate, had an M.A., had taught home economics at a number of colleges, the last one being Wren College in New Hampshire, and after leaving there six years ago had taken a job as a housekeeper.
To date she'd had four positions. Her references praised her punctuality, work, and cooking. Good but not enthusiastic, Marvin thought. He decided to check on them himself.
Five minutes later he dialed Henry's plane. "Sir, Lillian West had a long history of troubled relationships with her superiors in colleges. After she left the last job, she went to work for a widower in Vermont. He died ten months later, presumably of a heart attack. She then went to work for a divorced executive who unfortunately died within the year. Her third employer was an eighty-year-old millionaire who fired her but gave her a good reference. I spoke to him. While Ms. West was an excellent housekeeper and cook, she was also quite presumptuous and when he realized that she was intent on marrying him he showed her the door."
"Did he ever have any health problems?" Henry asked quietly as he absorbed the possibilities that Lillian West's history opened.
"I knew you'd want to know that, sir. His health is now robust but during the last several weeks of Ms. West's employment, specifically after he had given her notice, he became very ill with fatigue and then pneumonia."
Tommy had talked about a heavy cold and overwhelming fatigue. Henry's hand gripped the phone. "Good job, Marvin." "Sir, there's more. I spoke to the president of Wren College. Ms. West was forced to resign. She had shown symptoms of being deeply disturbed and absolutely refused counseling."
Sunday was on her way to see Lillian West. She would unwittingly alert West that they were looking into the possibility that someone else had murdered Arabella Young. Henry's hand had never shaken at summit meetings but now his fingers could barely punch the numbers of Sunday's car phone.
Secret Service agent Jack Collins answered. "We're at Secretary Shipman's place, sir. Mrs. Britland is inside."
"Get her," Henry snapped. "Tell her I must speak to her." "Right away, sir."
Five minutes passed, then Collins was back on the phone. "Sir, there may be a problem. We've rung repeatedly but no one is answering the door."
Sunday and Tommy sat side by side on the leather couch in the den, staring into the muzzle of a revolver. Opposite them, Lillian West sat erect and calm as she held the gun. The pealing of the doorbell did not seem to distract her.
"Your palace guard," she said sarcastically.
The woman's crazy, Sunday thought as she stared into the enlarged pupils of the housekeeper. She's crazy and she's desperate. She knows she has nothing to lose by killing us.
The Secret Service men. Jack Collins and Clint Carr were with her today. What would they do when no one answered the door? They'd force their way in. And when they do, she'll shoot us. I know she will.
"You have everything, Mrs. Britland," Lillian West said suddenly, her voice low and angry. "You're beautiful, you're young, you're in Congress, and you married a rich and attractive man. I hope you've enjoyed your time with him."
"Yes, I have," Sunday said quietly. "And I want more time with him."
"But that's not going to happen and it's your fault. What difference if he"-West's eyes scornfully glanced at Tommy-"if he went to prison. He tricked me. He lied to me. He promised to take me to Florida. He was going to marry me. He wasn't as rich as the others but he has enough. I've gone through his desk, so I know." A smile played on her lips. "And he's nicer than the others. We could have been very happy."
"Lillian, I didn't lie to you," Tommy said quietly. "I think you need help. I want to see that you get it. I promise that both Sunday and I will do everything we can for you."
"Get me another housekeeping job?" West snapped. "Cleaning, cooking, shopping. I traded teaching silly girls for this kind of job because I thought that somebody would finally appreciate me, want to take care of me. And after I waited on all of them, they still treated me like dirt."
The pealing of the doorbell had stopped. Sunday knew that the Secret Service would find a way to get in. Then she froze. When West admitted her, she'd reset the alarm. "Don't want some reporter trying to sneak in," she'd explained.
If Jack or Clint try to open a window, the siren will go off, Sunday thought. She felt Tommy's hand brush hers. He's thinking the same thing. My God, what can we do? She had heard the expression "staring death in the face" and now knew what it meant. Henry, she thought, Henry!
Tommy's hand was closed over hers. His index finger was insistently racing down the back of her hand. He was trying to signal her. What did he want her to do?
Henry stayed on the line. Collins was speaking from his cellular phone. "Sir, all the draperies are drawn. We've contacted the local police. They're on the way. Clint is climbing a tree in the back that has branches near some windows. We might be able to get in up there. Problem is we have no way of knowing where they are in the house."
My God, Henry thought. It would take at least an hour to get the special cameras and motion detectors over there. Sunday's face loomed in his mind. Sunday. Sunday. He wanted to get out and push the plane. He wanted to order the army out. He had never felt so helpless. Then he heard Jack Collins swear furiously.
"What is it?" he shouted.
"Sir, the draperies of the right front room just opened and there are shots being fired inside."
"That stupid woman gave me my opportunity," Lillian West was saying. "I didn't have time to kill you slowly and this way I not only punished you but that dreadful woman as well."
"You did kill Arabella," Tommy said.
"Of course I did. It was so easy. I didn't leave. I just showed her into this room, woke you up, shut the door, and hid in the study. I heard it all. I knew the gun was there. When you staggered upstairs, I knew it was a matter of minutes before you lost consciousness. My sleeping pills are much better than the ones you were used to. They have special ingredients." West smiled. "Why do you think your cold improved so much in these ten days since that night? Because I'm not giving it a reason to go into pneumonia."
"You were poisoning Tommy?" Sunday exclaimed.
"I was punishing him. I went back into the library. Arabella was just getting ready to leave. She even asked me where your car keys were. She said that you weren't feeling well and she'd be back in the morning. I told her I'd get them for her in a minute. Then I pointed to your gun and said I'd promised to take it with me and turn it in to the police station. The poor fool watched me pick it up and load it. Her last words were 'Isn't it dangerous to load it? I'm sure Mr. Shipman didn't intend that!' "
West began to laugh, a high-pitched hysterical laugh. Tears ran from her eyes but she kept the gun trained on them.
She's working up to killing us, Sunday thought. Tommy's finger was jamming the back of her hand.
" 'Isn't it dangerous to load it?'" West repeated, mimicking a loud, raucous voice. " 'I'm sure Mr. Shipman didn't intend that!'"
She rested the gun hand on her left arm, steadying it. The laughter ended.
"Would you consider opening the draperies?" Shipman asked. "I'd like to see the sunlight once more."
West's smile was mirthless. "You're about to see the shining light at the end of the tunnel," she told him.
The draperies, Sunday thought. That was what Tommy was trying to tell her. Yesterday when he'd lowered the shades in the kitchen, he'd mentioned that the electronic device that worked the draperies in this room sounded like a gunshot when it was used. The clicker for it was on the armrest of the couch. It was their only chance.
Sunday pressed Tommy's hand to show him she understood. Then, breathing a silent prayer, with a lightninglike movement she pressed the button that opened the draperies.
The explosive sound made West whirl her head around. In that instant Tommy and Sunday leapt from the couch. Tommy threw himself at West but it was Sunday who slammed her hand upward as the housekeeper began to shoot. A bullet whistled past Tommy's ear. Sunday felt a burning sensation on her left sleeve. She could not force the gun from West, but she threw herself on top of the woman and forced the chair to topple over with both of them on it as shattering glass signaled the welcome sound of her Secret Service detail arriving.
Ten minutes later, the surface wound on her arm wrapped in a handkerchief, Sunday was on the phone with the totally unnerved former president of the United States.
"I'm fine," she said for the fifteenth time. "Tommy is fine. Lillian West is in a straitjacket. Stop worrying."
"You could have been killed." Henry didn't want to let his wife stop talking. He didn't ever want to think that someday he might not be able to hear her voice.
"But I wasn't," Sunday said briskly. "And Henry, darling, we were both right. It was definitely a crime of passion. It was just we were a little slow figuring out whose passion was causing the problem."
The End

