Hedging (A Smith and Wetzon Mystery)

Wetzon said, standing as well.
    “I want to see my uncle, then I’m sure Agent Judy will have someone drive me home.”
    “Gelber will drive you home. No one can see your uncle except his lawyer.”
    “So you’ll give me the name of his lawyer, like the nice lady you are.”
    Judy Blue nodded. “It’s finished. McLaughlin and his co-conspirators will be in jail for a long time.”
    “You said some of the diamonds were still missing,” Wetzon said.
    “The New Jersey police were able to account for the thirteen missing gems.”
    “I don’t understand,” Wetzon said. “What about the two men who drove up in the gray Mercedes, the ones who were trying to kill me?”
    “What men?” Laura Lee asked.
    Wetzon was shocked. “You must have seen them. They drove up and parked right behind the limo.”
    Laura Lee shook her head. “Jason, Natalie, and I came in a limo, and he sent the limo away before you got there, Wetzon.”
    Agent Blue hauled herself up. “I’m tired,” she said. “It’s been a long day.”
    “Two men,” Silvestri said. His voice was tight. “One of them grabbed Les in the Port Authority the same night as the explosion.”
    “Get the tape recorder, Gelber.”
    “Was there a car found on the site?” Silvestri said.
    “No. The pilot and copilot parked their cars in the garage.”
    “One of those men from the gray Mercedes tried to take me out of the hospital,” Wetzon said, a sick feeling in her gut. “He killed Carolyn Dorley.”
    Silvestri was flummoxed. “Les, for crissakes—”
    “I saw him, Silvestri. Outside Carolyn Dorley’s building—and he saw me.”
    “That’s not our problem,” Judy Blue said with finality. “It has nothing to do with us.”

55
    “YOU DON’T believe the gray Mercedes, or any of it, do you?” Wetzon asked, as they rode up the elevator.
    They’d driven uptown, Wetzon confused and defiant, Silvestri, silent. A parking space was vacant on the east side of Amsterdam, near Eighty-sixth Street. Silvestri grabbed it.
    “I believe you, Les, because how else did Veeder get there?”
    The thought staggered her. Bill with those murderers? No. Impossible. But Silvestri was right, how else had he gotten there?
    While Silvestri fed Izz, Wetzon stripped off her clothes and got under a hot shower. She needed to think, reason. It didn’t add up. Her brain was dense, too much information, too little to work with.
    Wrapped in her fuzzy robe, she brushed her wet hair forward over her face, and as she blow dried it, felt Silvestri in the bathroom doorway before she saw him. Did he have something to tell her? Was he telling her everything he knew? She turned off the dryer and flipped back her hair.
    “Harpo,” the crusader for truth and justice said.
    Her hair was a fright wig until she smoothed it into shape with the brush and tucked it behind her ears.
    “Feeling better?” He offered his can of Beck’s.
    “I need something stronger,” she said, as Izz wriggled past him into the still steamy bathroom and looked up at her with eyes wheedling for love and attention. “I’m—I don’t know—”
    “I’ll take her out and be right back. Don’t do anything—”
    “What would I do?”
    What she did was look at the light blinking five messages on her answering machine and turn her back. Tonight demanded comfort: A spoon and the container of Haagen Dazs cappuccino gelato from the freezer and a crawl into bed.
    She contemplated what she knew for sure.
    Out of the corner of her eye she’d seen the gray car pull up, but she was getting out of the limo intent on giving Jason the briefcase and hooking up with Laura Lee. Intent on escaping.
    A door slammed, locks clicked into place.
    “There’s no other explanation,” she told Silvestri when he sat down on the bed. Izz nuzzled her nose into the gelato. Wetzon popped the greedy nose with her spoon. “Dogs don’t eat ice cream.”
    “Boys do,” Silvestri said. He took off his shoes.
    They alternated spoonfuls until the container was empty. Comfort didn’t last long. “Oh, Silvestri, what’s going to happen?”
    “I don’t know. You saw the man near Carolyn Dorley’s building?”
    “He was in the crowd. He saw me. But he couldn’t know who I was. If anything, he knows me by the name Jason knew me—Mary Lou Salinger. If he knew who I really was, he could have grabbed me going or coming from the office. Or here.”
    “Makes sense. Why would you think he killed Carolyn Dorley?”
    “What else