Train From Marietta (30 page)

“Suit yourself. Look through the whole damn place. There’s nothing here.” John stared at his partner, and for just a moment, he saw a look of unease settle over his features. He wasn’t as confident as the words he spoke suggested.

For the next hour, the two police officers searched through the contents of the main room. They pulled books from shelves and rifled through their pages. They opened the drawers of an antique writing desk and spread out their contents on top. They even lifted each of the clocks off the mantel and looked underneath. Through it all, William stood with his hands in the pockets of his smoking jacket, John watching him.

Finally Detective O’Malley said, “We’ll need to look in the other rooms.”

“I must protest!” William argued. “Hasn’t this gone on quite long enough? You’ve ransacked my home!”

O’Malley ignored Jacobs’ protests and motioned the uniformed policeman toward the bedroom.

The two cops stepped into the room, John behind them. It was as lavish as the rest of the apartment. The four-poster mahogany bed on the far side of the room was covered with red satin. The bed’s sheets were of the same color but were bunched up at the foot of the bed, one large throw pillow on top of them. A large bureau with an equally large mirror sat in one corner. John walked over and picked up a woman’s brassiere.

“Company this evening?” he asked.

“Earlier tonight. She left an hour before you arrived.”

“Where do these doors go?” O’Malley asked, pointing at two doors to the left of the one that they had entered.

“One goes to my bathroom, the other to my closet.”

Detective O’Malley opened the door to the closet. The small space was stuffed full of clothing. He began to separate the items by sliding them along the clothes rod. Other random pieces of clothing littered the floor.

O’Malley nodded to the uniformed officer, who then went to work searching the room. Each of the bureau’s drawers was checked and rechecked. William looked incredulous when the officer got down on his hands and knees and looked underneath the bed.

Ten minutes later, when John was beginning to lose a little of his hope, O’Malley called from the closet, “Over here!”

The uniformed officer, with O’Malley’s help, began to throw blankets out into the room. Finally the two men stepped back to reveal another, much larger safe set in the back of the closet.

“I thought you said you only had one safe in the house,” John said bitterly.

“I seldom use it,” William said belligerently. “I haven’t opened it in years.”

“Open it,” O’Malley ordered. “Now!”

“I’m afraid I can’t.” William sank his hands into the pockets of his smoking jacket. “I can’t remember the combination.”

With those words, John lost control of the anger he’d been trying to restrain. Grabbing William by the front of his jacket, he slammed the man hard into the bedroom wall.

“Open it!”

William’s face was sweaty and white as he nervously stared at his old friend. John’s face was cold and hard. Veins stood up across his forehead, and his lips curled with hatred. Caught in a lie, William was still defiant.

“John, I swear … I know nothing about this,” William stammered.

“You no-good, lying son of a bitch! Open that goddamn safe, or I swear I’ll kill you!” John slammed him repeatedly against the wall. “Do it.”

“All right. All right.”

William knelt before the safe and with trembling fingers, turned the dial back and forth several times and then tried the handle. It refused to open. He whirled the dial again. After Jacobs had made several attempts, Detective O’Malley said, “Quit stalling.”

William looked up at him with hate-filled eyes but kept trying to open the safe.

A minute later the safe door swung wide. John reached in and pulled out a paper sack. The bag was filled with money—the ransom money he had given William to take to the kidnappers. Detective O’Malley produced a pair of handcuffs. When William was cuffed, the detective grabbed him by the arm and pulled him to his feet.

“I’m placing you under arrest for your involvement in the kidnapping of Katherine Tyler.”

“I want to talk to my lawyer,” William said defiantly. He opened his mouth to say more, but before he could speak, the sound of a crash came from the closed door to the bathroom.

“I thought you said you were alone,” Detective O’Malley said angrily. He pulled his revolver from his shoulder holster and moved to the door. “Come out of there!”

The men heard a click as the door was unlocked and then swung open. John stood as if rooted to the floor. He was speechless. Lila, his wife, in a flimsy gown and peignoir, came from the bathroom. Her beautiful head was held high. Not a hair was out of place. Diamond earrings hung from her ears.

“Lila!” John exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

“What do you think she’s doing?” William sneered. “You think you’re so smart. You can’t even hold on to your wife!”

“Lila, what is the meaning of this?” John demanded. He felt as if his world had been turned upside down and shaken. He’d imagined many ways in which his confrontation with William could go, but not one of them included his wife coming out of the man’s bathroom.

Lila looked down her nose at her husband as if he were far beneath her. “William and I were discussing a fundraiser for Senator Forrest. You frightened me when you came in, so I ran into the bathroom.”

“What?” John said in disbelief.

In that moment, John saw his wife in a different light. The little physical touches she and William had exchanged over the years suddenly took on new meaning. But what surprised John was that he wasn’t particularly hurt by her infidelity. Instead, he was rapidly piecing things together, arriving at a truth that nearly knocked him to the floor. “You were in on Kate’s kidnapping!” he blurted.

“What are you talking about?” she said.

“He knows, love.” William took a step toward her and was pulled back by the officer. “No point in trying to pull the wool over his eyes. Your little plan backfired.”

As if a light switch had been turned, the expression on Lila’s face changed. Gone was the innocent dignified wife caught in a simple misunderstanding. In her place was a sneering witch whose cat was out of the bag. “
My
little plan!” she shouted. “You had as much to do with it as I did.”

“Hush, love,” William warned. “Everything you say can be held against you.”

John didn’t want to hear any more. “Go home, Lila,” he said, “and start packing your clothes. I want you out of my house by noon tomorrow.”

“Your house?” She laughed. Her voice sounded different, harsher. “Don’t think that you can just throw me out! I’ve put up with you for twenty years. I deserve half of what you have.”

“Try and get it! You’ve lived pretty well these last twenty years. But enough of this. We won’t air our marital problems in front of the police and this so-called friend of mine.”

“Believe it or not, I
am
a friend of yours,” William said. “You’ve got to believe me, John. The only reason I was in on this scheme of hers was to keep Kate from being hurt.”

John balled up his fist and stepped toward his partner. As his arm swung, another, stronger arm grabbed him and brought his hand to a stop. John looked over to see O’Mal-ley shaking his head. “Just hold your temper, John.”

“You lying son of a bitch!” John yelled. He knew O’Mal-ley was right and that he shouldn’t strike William, but he had to let his anger out somehow. “You’re not wiggling out of this by telling that cock-and-bull story! I’ve talked to Kate and she told me everything. You would have had her killed if not for the Texas Rangers!”

“We’ve had our problems, John, but you have to believe William was behind this scheme.” Lila moved closer. “He will try to put the blame on me to keep his neck out of the noose.”

John glared at her. “Shut up, Lila. I don’t think I can stand to listen to one more lie coming from your mouth.”

“You know I’ve always loved you, John,” she pleaded. Like a chameleon, she’d again changed her skin. Now she was back to the loving wife. Her hand lightly brushed against John’s. Her touch made him sick.

“Is she under arrest?” he asked O’Malley.

“Not yet.”

“Go home, Lila,” John said. “Unless you want to go to jail with your lover.”

She stared at him for a couple of seconds, and he saw the chameleon change once more. She left the room with her head held up proudly. She wasn’t the least bit shamed by what she had done. The only emotional reaction he had was to wonder what all of this would do to Susan and to Kate.

Detective O’Malley took William by the arm and handed him over to the uniformed officer. “Take him down to the station and book him. John and I will be along soon.” William said nothing further as he left.

Once they were alone, O’Malley turned to John and said, “We’ll determine shortly if this is the money you gave to Jacobs. Once we get a match, he’ll be charged.”

O’Malley picked the sack up off the bed, tucked it under his arm, and led the way to the elevator. In the lobby, the detective asked the doorman to hail a taxi.

As the two men stood on the curb in front of the building, waiting for the cab to arrive, O’Malley took a cigar from his pocket. He stuck it in his mouth but made no attempt to light it. “I’m sorry you had to find out about your wife this way.”

“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. She’d been going out a lot. The shock of it was that it was William she was meeting.” He shook his head before adding, “More than that was the thought of her being involved in Kate’s kidnapping.”

The men were so intent on their conversation they didn’t see the car until it was almost on top of them. With only a second to spare, John shoved the police detective back. They both fell to the sidewalk as the car roared past, nearly clipping John’s legs. Whipping his head to the side, John saw Lila’s black Lincoln speed off down the street without its lights. He picked himself up and extended a hand to the detective.

“Jesus Christ, that was close!” O’Malley exclaimed. “Son of a bitch didn’t even have his lights on! Was he trying to run us down?”

“I think it was a she.”

“What are you saying?”

“It was my wife behind the wheel. It was one of my cars.”

The detective picked his hat up off the ground and slapped it against his pant leg. “I guess there’s more to Mrs. Tyler’s scheming than I thought. Did she think that with you out of the way, she’d have it all?”

“Then she would have been disappointed. I’ve made out a will leaving the bulk of my estate to Kate and just enough for Lila and Susan to live comfortably, but not richly. Even that will needs to be changed.” John shook his head. “I can’t believe she would try to kill me.”

“Well, it sure looks like she did. I guess she realizes that we can charge her as an accessory to the kidnapping.”

“She knows I’m going to divorce her now that I’ve caught her with William. At the very least, she’ll lose her place in society because of the scandal. That’s all that really matters to her anyway.”

The taxi pulled up in front of the building. Still shaken by what had happened both men tensed as the car approached. They climbed into the back, and O’Malley told the driver to take them to the 87th Precinct.

“After we have the money examined, we can file kidnapping charges against Jacobs,” the detective explained during the drive. “All we’re holding him for now is suspicion of kidnapping. The bigger question is your wife. Do you want to file charges against her for trying to run us down?”

John thought about it for a moment. There was a part of him that wanted Lila to be punished, to make her pay for her part in Kate’s kidnapping. She’d even tried to kill him. It would be easy to do, but in the end he realized that she’d lost enough. “I don’t, but what about you?”

O’Malley shook his head. “The kidnapping charges will be easier to prove.”

The cab pulled up in front of a big square building. Police cars lined the streets, and officers milled about. After they had stepped out of the cab and onto the sidewalk, John handed the driver some bills.

He followed O’Malley into the building. He wanted to get this over and done with. Both his life at home and his business had been turned upside down in a matter of hours. Things needed to be settled with both Lila and William. He would never forgive either of them for their part in Kate’s kidnapping. The sooner they were out of his life, the better. First thing in the morning, he would call his lawyer and start the ball rolling.

Chapter 28

A
S KATE WENT INTO THE KITCHEN
for breakfast the next morning, the hope that Emily was going to accept her as a friend was just that—a hope. The little girl sat at the table in a light blue dress, her dark hair pulled back. She would have looked like an angel if not for the frown on her face.

“Good morning,” Kate said cheerfully.

The only answer that the child gave her was to start banging a spoon against the table. “More sugar,” she ordered.

“You have two spoonfuls. That enough,” the Mexican woman said.

“I want more sugar! I’ll tell my daddy on you.” With that, the spoon-banging intensified. Yelena ignored her. Kate could only wonder if this sort of thing happened often.

Kate sat down at the table opposite Emily, then buttered a biscuit and reached for the jelly jar. Using her spoon, Emily moved the jar out of Kate’s reach. “I don’t like you,” she said.

Kate looked surprised. “I like you.”

“No, you don’t. You only like my daddy.”

“Can’t I like both of you?”

“When are you going?” the girl said quickly. It surprised Kate that there was so much anger, so much frustration, in the child’s voice. Maybe Tate was right. She had been spoiled.

Yelena turned from the stove and scolded, “That not nice,
niña. ”

“It is, too, nice,” the child blurted.

“Eat your Toasties, and after a while we cut out paper dolls.”

“I don’t like your old paper dolls.”

“What
do
you like?” Kate asked.

“I want you to go away,” she said loudly, and dropped the spoon on the table with a clang. She folded her arms across her chest and pursed her lips, all the while glaring at Kate.