Deadly Beloved(56)

“Did she know any of these administrators at her bank?” Bennis answered. “She might never have met any of them. She wouldn’t have had to. I know people with trust funds in nine figures who’ve never seen a single one of their trust officers.”

“I’ll check on that.” Gregor got his jacket and pulled open the door. “Anyway, Patsy MacLaren got married to Stephen Willis, who was acknowledged by everyone at the time to be a young man on his way up. A few years later they built the house in Fox Run Hill, and that was that.”

“What do you mean, that was that?”

“I mean that was all she ever really did,” Gregor replied. “She became a housewife. She bought furniture. She played golf. She didn’t even volunteer for things, as far as I can tell. She subscribed to a lot of magazines. She gave money to political candidates, including some to this Julianne Corbett person who’s giving this party.”

“Did she really?” Bennis started fussing with Gregor’s tie. “I don’t think that’s very surprising, Gregor. Lots of people gave money to Julianne’s campaign. She won her seat by a really large margin.”

“In this case there are coincidences I’d like to check into though,” Gregor said. “Patsy MacLaren’s roommate at Vassar was named Julianne Corbett.”

Bennis looked startled. “Really? Is it the same Julianne Corbett?”

“I don’t know. But here’s something else: The roommate Patsy MacLaren went to India with was also named Julianne Corbett.”

“I know that Julianne has been to India,” Bennis said. “She talks about it sometimes.”

“The only reason I’m letting you drag me off to this thing,” Gregor said virtuously, “is that I think Congresswoman Julianne Corbett has some answers to some questions that I have about Patsy MacLaren. This is going to be a fact-finding mission.”

“This is going to be an ordinary political cocktail party that everyone is going to be pretending isn’t a political cocktail party,” Bennis said firmly, “and you’re not going to get to talk to Julianne beyond a handshake. Not unless you arrive with your checkbook open and a letter from a PAC in your pocket. Your tie’s fine now, Gregor. Let’s get out of here.”

Gregor stood back and looked at Bennis. He didn’t really look at her very often anymore. Maybe what he meant was that he didn’t look at her for real very often anymore. He was so used to having Bennis around that she was just Bennis, a hovering presence trailing cigarette smoke and dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt. Now she was dressed in a long black thing with beads all over it and her hair was up on top of her head in a way that looked as if it was meant to be there. Bennis often wore her hair on top of her head, but haphazardly, so that it looked windblown.

“You look nice,” Gregor said uncertainly. The beads seemed to make the dress cling—oddly?—to Bennis’s body. The effect made Gregor feel that he ought to blush.

“You look very, very nice,” he went on incoherently. “I mean, I think I like your dress.”

“Good.” Bennis looked amused. “I think I don’t like what time it is here, and I think we’d better be going. Are you going to have any problem with that?”

“No.”

“Try to remember that this is supposed to be a party for Karla Parrish, the photographer,” Bennis said. “She went to Vassar with Julianne Corbett too.”

“Ah,” Gregor said. “So your Julianne Corbett did go to Vassar.”

Bennis pushed him out of the bedroom. “Go. We’re going to be late. We can talk about all of this later.”





2.


Of course they couldn’t talk about any of this later. Parties weren’t like that, and cocktail parties especially weren’t like that. This one was in a town house in Society Hill, a large brick structure with electrified carriage lamps on either side of its front door and bright new white paint on all its window frames. Gregor remembered investigating a murder in this part of town, the murder of a once-rich man. Gregor wondered whom the town house belonged to. He supposed it could belong to Julianne Corbett herself, but he doubted it. She hadn’t been in office long enough to have that kind of money.

Cabs were three deep in the street. The front doors of the town house were propped open. Gregor saw a dapper young man in a high collar and a black dinner jacket bustling back and forth with a clipboard, looking ridiculously happy.

“Is that young man some kind of assistant to Julianne Corbett?” Gregor asked Bennis as they stepped out onto the sidewalk and into the crowd.