Stuart Woods - Lucid Intervals

“About me?”

“Yeah. This is all your fault.”

“Herbie, calm down and tell me what you’re talking about.”

“You know what I’m talking about, Stone. It was you who insisted.”

“Insisted on what?”

“On the prenup.”

“Ah, yes. I did insist, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did. So I told Sheila to go and see you about it, and she went absolutely nuts: ranted and raved and started crying. It upsets me when she cries.”

“Does she… did she cry a lot?”

“Only when I tried to get her to do something she didn’t want to do, like not go shopping.”

“Or talk to me about a prenup.”

“Yeah.”

“Did you explain to her that she would need to see her own lawyer?”

“I thought all she needed was you,” Herbie said.

“Let me explain this to you, Herbie,” Stone said. “It would be unethical for me to represent both of you at the same time, so Sheila would have needed her own attorney. I would have insisted on that had she called me.”

“Even if we were going to get married?”

“Especially if you were going to get married. If she had signed a prenup without her own counsel and you later got divorced, she could get the prenup invalidated on the grounds that she was not properly represented.”

“Oh.”

“Now go on. What happened next?”

“Well, I couldn’t stand the yelling anymore, and I said I would talk to her some more about it after I went to the john, and I went to the john.”

“For how long?”

“Long enough to read most of a magazine.”

“How many minutes, Herbie?”

“I don’t know… twenty minutes, half an hour. Who’s counting? So I got dressed, and when I came out of the bedroom, Sheila wasn’t there. I looked all over for her, but she was gone. I figured she was out doing some revenge shopping and she’d be back when she cooled off, so I sat down in the living room to watch some more TV. Then I heard all these sirens, and they would get louder and louder and then stop, like they were in front of the building. So I went out on the terrace-the sliding glass door was open-and looked over the, whatchacallit, the edge.”

“The parapet.”

“Yeah, like that. And there were a couple of cop cars and a fire truck down on the street, and people were running around. So I went back inside and watched some of Ellen. Maybe five minutes later, the doorbell rang, and there were these two uniforms standing there.”

“What did you tell them?”

“They asked me if I knew a woman that sounded like Sheila from their description, and I said yes, that sounded like my fiancée. They asked where she was, and I said I didn’t know for sure, but I thought she might have gone shopping. Then these two detectives arrived, and they asked me a lot more questions, and I started to get the idea something was wrong. Then they told me Sheila was down on the sidewalk. I ran to the…”

“Parapet.”

“Yeah, and I looked down, and the ambulance was driving away and the doorman was scrubbing the sidewalk. The four cops all followed me out, and I said I had to go to the hospital. A detective said there was no need to do that, since she was dead.”

“Did you tell them about your argument with Sheila?”

“Well, yeah. I told them everything I knew, then they arrested me and took me down here to the precinct.”

“Did they tell you why they were arresting you?”

“Yeah, they said for murdering Sheila. Honest to God, Stone, all I did was ask her to go see you.”

“Herbie, you said the sliding glass door to the terrace was already open when you went outside.”

“Right. Sheila closed it when we came in last night. We were going out to dinner.”

“You didn’t touch the door?”

“No.”

“Do you know when it was last cleaned?”

“Yesterday. The maid came.”

“Did you touch the sliding door after the maid came?”

Herbie thought about that. “No. Sheila opened it when we went out there for a drink, and she closed it when we came in.”

“Where did you go to dinner?”

“At that place you told me about, Sette Mezzo.”

“Did you have a good time there?”

“Oh, yeah. Sheila was in a great mood, which she wasn’t always in, but she was last night. We laughed a lot.”

“Herbie, during the argument, did you happen to hit Sheila?”

“No, no. I never hit her in my life.”

“What was she wearing when you went into the john?”

“Silk pajamas,” Herbie said.

“Okay, you sit tight. I’m going to see if I can cut this short, before they arraign you.”

“Okay, hurry back.”

“I’ll do my best,” Stone said, and left the interview room.

Stone walked up to Dino’s office and was waved in and introduced to an attractive young woman who was sitting in one of Dino’s chairs.

“This is Carla Rentz,” Dino said. “She’s prosecuting your client, Mr. Fisher.”

Stone sat down and tried to look puzzled. “Prosecuting him? For what?”

“For murder,” the young woman replied.

“On what evidence?” Stone asked.

“Mr. Fisher was the only one present when she was thrown off the roof,” she said.

“Excuse me,” Stone said. “What evidence do you have that she was thrown off the roof?”

“Well, she’s dead.”

“Have you considered suicide?”

“Why should I consider suicide?”

“Because it’s one of two possibilities,” Stone said. “Either she was thrown off the roof, or she jumped.”

“What is her motive for suicide?”

“What is Mr. Fisher’s motive for murder?”

“I’m sure that will emerge.”

“Well, if a motive emerges, you may have cause to arrest Mr. Fisher but not now. Tell you what. Send a couple of Lieutenant Bacchetti’s detectives over to a restaurant called Sette Mezzo, on Lexington near Seventy-sixth. Mr. Fisher and Ms. Seidman had dinner there last night. Ask the headwaiter and their waiter what their demeanor was during dinner there. You’ll be told that they were very happy, enjoying each other’s company. You see, he was in love with her, and they planned to marry.”

“If they were so happy, why would Ms. Seidman commit suicide?”

“Anger is a motive for suicide; people kill themselves all the time, because they think it will hurt the people they’re mad at.”

“You say he was in love with her. Was she in love with him?”

“In my opinion, no,” Stone replied. “Ms. Seidman was a working prostitute who had serviced Mr. Fisher on a number of occasions, and when Mr. Fisher won a large sum in the New York State Lottery, her interest in him became more… acute, shall we say. And so did the interest of her employer.”

“You still haven’t given me a motive for suicide,” Ms. Rentz said. “Why was she angry?”

“She was angry because Mr. Fisher had asked her to sign a prenuptial agreement. She didn’t want to go back to her pimp and tell him that, so she was between a rock and a hard place. I had already spoken to her earlier about a prenup, and she became angry at the mention of it. She was uncontrollably angry before she jumped.”

“We didn’t find a prenup in the apartment,” she said.

“That’s because I hadn’t given it to Mr. Fisher yet. He asked her to go and see me about it.”

“Without her own attorney?”

“I would have insisted on that,” Stone said.

“Why didn’t you give Mr. Fisher the prenup earlier?”

“Because I’ve been out of town for a few days, in Maine. I just got back today. My secretary will be happy to give you a copy of the prenup I had prepared.” He gave her the address and Joan’s name.

“When the detectives arrived, Mr. Fisher feigned not to know that Ms. Seidman had… met her death. How could he have missed that?”