Blood on the Street (A Smith and Wetzon Mystery, #4)

was more pollution inside than outside, and this was one of those times.
    She began walking uptown to the Drake to meet Rona, but her mind was elsewhere. How to find a murderer before he found her. Maybe she should marry Alton and get away from Smith and all this. The warring factions in her head took over. Marry? Marry? Who had even asked her? And the biggest question: Did she want it?
    The Drake’s bar area was part of the lobby, and Rona, haggard and hollow-eyed, her face framed by a black velvet headband, was sitting at a small table staring into a glass of deep-red wine. Her black suit looked a size too big and was too stark. A widow who’d hated her husband, she still looked like one bereaved.
    “Hi.” Wetzon slipped into a chair and shrugged out of her raincoat. “Club soda, please,” she told the waiter, who was just leaving the next table.
    Rona fingered her blond curls, nervous about something. “Thanks for coming. I know you said you have to be downtown at six.” Now her fingers played with the neck of the glass; she’d had a manicure, and her nails were blood red.
    “I’m okay on time. Actually, I’m glad you wanted to get together. There are a couple of things I’m curious about.” Rona nodded, but didn’t say anything, so Wetzon rushed onward. “What’s wrong with Barbara Gordon?”
    Rona watched her for a moment, almost wary. “She’s got a chemical imbalance that responds to medication. Lithium, I think. Most of the time she’s fine, but if she forgets to take her pills, she’s a handful.”
    Her club soda arrived, and Wetzon set it aside. “Is she dangerous?”
    Sighing, Rona stared down at her fingernails as if she’d just noticed their color. “You mean, could she have killed Brian and Tabitha?” She shrugged and took a sip of wine. “I don’t know. She’s had a few episodes, mostly directed at Jerry.”
    “Episodes? What kind of episodes?”
    “She can get abusive, physically, but as I said, it’s Jerry who bears the brunt, poor baby.”
    “How long have you known Jerry?” Wetzon kept her voice neutral.
    “I don’t know. A few years. Brian and Jerry go back a long way.” She thought for a minute. “They met at one of those private sanitoriums for the wealthy. Peaceful Farms or something like that.”
    “Who? Brian and Jerry?”
    Rona smiled for the first time. “No, Wetzon. Jerry and Barbara.”
    Doctor marries patient. Wealthy patient. Wetzon poked at the sliver of lime with her swizzle stick. “Jerry’s degree is in psychology?”
    “It would have to be. That or psychiatric social work.”
    “Who could have planted the gun in your house?”
    “You sound like the police.”
    “Humor me.”
    “Almost anyone. The nanny, Dickie, Penny Ann, Barbara, even Jerry. Tony. Graziella, my housekeeper. I know she was working weekends for Brian. Really, Wetzon—”
    Wetzon held up her hands. “Okay. I give up.”
    Rona finished her wine and propped her sagging body up. “Look, Wetzon, I don’t want you to take this personally. There’s just Megan and me now. The fighting is over, and I’m not bitter anymore. I’ve got to do what’s right for us.”
    Wetzon sat listening to the long preamble, waiting for the other shoe to drop. “But” or “so” would come next. It did.
    “So,” Rona said, “when Tony made me an incredible offer last night to come back to Bliss Norderman, I accepted.”

56.
    T HE BMT STATION near Carnegie Hall was the closest place to get a train to the west side of Union Square. Wetzon had made a valiant try, but failed to talk Rona out of going back to Maglia’s office. Aside from the sexual bond, which was strong, Maglia was offering her a heaping platter of all of Brian’s business without a catch. Oh, sorry—one catch. A minor thing for Rona, perhaps. She had to come back to Bliss Norderman. And immediately.
    Smith and Wetzon would never see a penny more on Rona’s placement, and there wasn’t a damn thing they could do. Wetzon could hardly wait to tell Smith. Oh, hell, why spoil the evening? Smith might be vindictive, and Rona might be disloyal, but after all, it was partly a business decision, and Wetzon couldn’t argue with that part of it, although she’d tried, reminding Rona of how despicable Tony had been. And Rona had replied that business was business, and that she would have done the same thing in his place. How do you argue with that?
    On the emotional decision, the other part, Rona had been equally unbending.