Клео Коул - On What Grounds

At least now I knew that Darla had learned what my dear old dad had called the “slip-and-fall” ploy—a variant of which she was now threatening to use against the Blend.

Clearly, Darla was an opportunist. But just how far would she go to exploit an opportunity, that was the question. As far as pushing her pregnant stepdaughter, who’d just made the dance company of her dreams, down a flight of stairs?

As unpleasant as she was, it was still difficult to picture even Darla stooping so low.

“Bull’s-eye!” Matteo announced. He turned around and faced me, a dazzling grin on his handsome face. “Wanna know why Darla’s in New York?”

I raced to his side. “Why?”

“There are about thirty e-mails to a guy named Arthur Jay Eddleman, who appears to be the partner in the accounting firm of Eddleman, Alter, and Berry.”

“I found something, too.”

I showed Matteo the legal papers. Then I pointed to the list of e-mails on the computer screen. “Are these e-mails part of another lawsuit or something?”

“More like or something ,” Matt said with a bawdy tone.

“What?” I asked. “What!”

“I opened a few of the more recent e-mails in Darla’s download file first. By then they were Darla and Arthur. But when their relationship began, they were called ‘Muffy’ and ‘Stud366’—their chat room names.”

“You mean an Internet romance?”

“And a hot and heavy one, too. The first e-mails date back about three months, the last few were sent yesterday and today.”

I sat down and read the letters. It was obvious that once Darla had discovered the real identity of the affluent “Stud366,” she set out to hook the fat fishy and reel him into her net.

Darla’s e-mails made her out to be a respectable woman of independent means—not exactly the broke, unemployed ex-stripper she really was.

Yet from the letters themselves—barely literate with misspelled and misused words—Mr. Arthur Jay Eddleman would have had to be pretty darned gullible to be fooled into thinking Darla was even a high school graduate, let alone a cultured woman of wealth.

Some of her e-mails were vulgar and explicit enough, however, to get any male’s attention. And Darla Hart clearly had succeeded in getting Mr. Arthur Eddleman’s. With an explicit e-mail of his own, outlining all the things they might do together (and I’m not talking Central Park carousel rides and trips to the Statue of Liberty), he’d agreed to meet her when “she came to New York City on business.”

That’s why Darla had taken a room at the Waldorf-Astoria! It fit her false front as an independently wealthy woman, thereby assuring Mr. Eddleman she wasn’t after him for his credit cards, stock portfolio, or four-bedroom apartment on the Upper East Side.

Finally, Matt showed me an e-mail that was sent by Darla at eight o’clock in the morning on Thursday, the very day I found Anabelle lying broken at the bottom of the Blend’s steps—a letter gushing with happiness at the wonderful evening they’d spent together, and the night they’d spent together, too, right here in this room.

So while Anabelle was tumbling down stairs, her mother was tumbling in Waldorf sheets here with Mr. Arthur Jay Eddleman of Eddleman, Alter, and Berry, Accountants. Or at least it looked that way. She could easily have sent the e-mail as a ploy, to cover her ass.

“God,” I cried. “That name. Eddleman. I think he’s on the list!”

“List?” said Matteo. “What list? Who’s on the list?”

I pulled the silent auction program out of my evening bag—a little black lizard double-strapped Ferragamo knockoff, bought from an Eighth Street sidewalk vendor for $20 (as opposed to eBay for $650). The slick booklet included information on the items being auctioned as well as information on the St. Vincent’s programs for which the benefit was being held.

“Look, here at the back of the program is an extensive guest list for the dinner downstairs…” I pointed to the pages where the thousand names were listed in alphabetical order, table numbers printed beside each name. “See, under the letter E …Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Jay Eddleman. Looks like Stud366 is one of the guests at your mother’s charity ball. And he’s married. Bet Darla didn’t know that.”

“Curiouser and curiouser,” Matt said, eyebrow arched. “And how the hell did you remember seeing his name anyway? What did you do, memorize a thousand names?”

“I took a chance and looked up the name Engstrum earlier. Eddleman is two names away on the list. Look—Eddleman, Eggers, Engstrum.”

“I see,” said Matt. “But who are the Engstrums?”

“That’s the family name of Anabelle’s boyfriend—Richard Engstrum, Junior. You know what Esther calls him, don’t you? ‘The Dick.’”

“Oh, right.”

“The Engstrums have money and connections,” I told Matt. “So I thought someone from the family might be here tonight. We know Anabelle was pregnant, but we don’t know anything about how her boyfriend felt about it.”

“Right,” said Matt, looking closer at the names in the booklet. “Engstum is listed here all right.”

“Yeah, and it’s a jackpot, too. See…Mr. and Mrs. Richard Engstrum, Senior, are listed at table fifty-eight, along with their son, Richard, Junior.”

“Am I reading this right?” said Matt. “That boy is here partying when his pregnant girlfriend is lying in an ICU?”

“Yes.”

“The little shit.” Matt’s jaw worked a moment and his fists clenched. “Yeah. I’d like to talk to him all right.”

“Agreed. After we finish up here. Anything else we should check?” I glanced around the small room.

Matt rubbed the back of his neck. “I guess we could jot down some of the Web sites Darla bookmarked. Then we’d better get out of here.”

I loaned Matt a pen and small notebook I’d brought along. He jotted down Web sites while I put Darla’s papers in the suitcase and put everything back into the closet pretty much as I’d found it. I scanned the room one more time.

“That’s weird,” Matt said.

“What now?”

“We just talked about Richard Engstrum, didn’t we? Anabelle’s boyfriend.”

“Right.”

“Well, Darla has been doing some heavy research into—guess what?”

I hurried over to the laptop screen.

“Engstrum Systems,” I said.

“Yeah,” said Matt, “And the subsidiaries like Engstrum Investment. And look at this—newspaper articles about Richard Engstrum, Senior, the CEO.”

“Wow, the woman really is an operator,” I said. “Anabelle got pregnant with Richard Junior’s baby, and it sure looks like Darla was preparing to blackmail the kid into getting the money from Daddy.”

“ Preparing to blackmail. You don’t think Darla could have started blackmailing Anabelle’s boyfriend already?”

“No way. Darla’s too desperate for cash. If she is in the process of blackmail, there’ve been no payoffs yet.”

“In any case, Darla may have an alibi,” Matt said, closing the lid on Darla’s computer. “Looks like she was here having a romantic tryst the night her stepdaughter got hurt—if it was attempted murder, and not just a stupid bloody accident.”

“It wasn’t an accident, Matt. Don’t even say that.”

“But that’s what it still looks like, Clare.” Matt shook his head. “And we’re in deep trouble. Darla’s workplace injury claim was denied in Florida. Then her next money-making scheme to blackmail Anabelle’s boyfriend went bad because with Anabelle’s accident the girl’s pregnancy is now in jeopardy anyway. The woman’s got no money-making prospects left but to sue the hell out of us.”