The Groaning Board

said. “Most of the
people here are my clients. Why don’t we get this over with?”
    “Was Micklynn Devora your client?”
    “Her company is my client.”
    “Was there a will?”
    Wetzon caught a silent comment
exchanged between Hem and A.T. Had anyone else?
    “I’m sure there is a will.” Veeder
chose his words carefully. “Perhaps we should talk about it another time.”
    “Excuse me, sir,” Ellen said to
Silvestri, raising her voice. “Yes?”
    Everyone stopped in mid-speech.
    “Micklynn...” Ellen became flustered,
breathy. “Micklynn... she didn’t fall in.”
    “How do you know?”
    “She...“
    “Then she really was murdered,” A.T.
gasped. “Did you see it, Ellen? Detective, I want this child protected.”
    “No!” Ellen said.
    “Let her speak,” Silvestri said.
    “I’m not sure about this, Ellen,”
Bill Veeder said.
    “Give Bill a dollar, kiddo,” Hem
said. When Ellen looked utterly confused, Hem dug into the pocket of his ducks.
“Here, here’s a dollar. Take it and give it to Bill.”
    Silvestri watched the process, a
politely bored expression on his face. After Bill accepted the dollar from
Ellen, Bill told her, “I don’t want you to say anything.”
    “No,” Ellen said firmly. “This is
crazy. It’s not about me. Micklynn wasn’t murdered.”
    “Why do you say that, Ms. Moore?”
Silvestri asked, prompting her.
    Bill glared at him. “Ellen, I urge
you to say nothing.“
    “But I didn’t do anything. Listen to
me, please. Micklynn was really drunk and really upset last night. She kept
talking around in circles and finally admitted she killed Miss Gelber.“
    “My God!” A.T. said.
    “What did I tell you?” Smith said.
    Wetzon watched Silvestri. He was
trying to keep his cool and maybe the others thought he was doing it, but
Wetzon knew him, and it wasn’t working. His eyes met hers for a moment, then
went back to Ellen.
    “She was so depressed I was scared
for her, but then this morning she seemed all right, even kind of happy. She
said she’d found a way to fix everything.”

Chapter Forty-Three

     
     
     
    “Do YOU WANT TO GET SOMETHING TO
EAT?” BlLL ASKED. Since at this juncture he represented everyone involved, he’d
felt an obligation to be present at the preliminary questioning.
    “I want to go home,” Wetzon said. It
was late; she was tired, not hungry. And the reality of Micklynn’s death had
just begun to register. “My place.”
    “Uh-oh, sounds serious.” He looked
over at her, but she knew he couldn’t see much beyond what the streetlights
revealed.
    “It is.”
    “Want to be alone?”
    “No. Weren’t we going to spend
tomorrow together?“
    “Okay, why don’t we stop at my place
so I can get a change... I can send out for—”
    “I’ll wait for you in the car.”
    “My place is not enemy territory,” he
said.
    “Isn’t it?”
    So she waited in the car in front of
his building, confused, on a rolling boil like a pot of popover batter,
cleaning down the sides of the pot with each new thought.... Micklynn had had
plenty of sorrow prior to all this. Why take her own life now when she was on
the brink of international fame, not to mention fortune? It didn’t make sense.
Unless Ellen was telling the truth: that Micklynn had poisoned Sheila. Mick-lynn
had said she felt responsible for Sheila’s death. Ellen could have
misinterpreted....
    Bill tossed his duffel in the back of
the Mercedes, got in, and fastened his seat belt. “Everything okay?”
    She nodded.
    “I’m going to stop at the Carnegie
and pick up a couple of sandwiches. Corned beef on rye okay?”
    “Pastrami. Extra-sour pickles.”
    He grinned at her. “Welcome back,
Leslie Wetzon.” He’d showered and changed. And shaved. She touched the
smoothness of his cheek and he caught her hand and kissed her palm. “I want you
to take me seriously,” she said.
    “I do.”
    “I don’t need to be protected. I can
take care of myself. You asked me once why I wasn’t married. That’s why. If I’d
wanted someone to take care of me, I would have married—“
    “Alton Pinkus.”
    “You know about him? Goddammit, Smith
told you. I have no privacy.”
    “Don’t blame Xenia. I know that
Pinkus and Silvestri are the two men in your past.”
    “My past. Sounds as if I’m a
scarlet lady.”
    “Hardly.”
    “If Smith didn’t tell you, how do you
know so much about me?”
    “After Hartmann was killed, I cleaned
out his desk and files myself.”
    “No