Stuart Woods - Imperfect Strangers

"He did a fine job," Sandy said.

"How kind you are."

"Where do you come from?" he asked.

"From a small town in Georgia called Delano."

"I didn't detect an accent."

"That's because I went to Harvard for my undergraduate work and med school and then to New York for my internship and residency. I've been in Yankeeland so long my accent has gotten scrambled; when I get a little drunker, it may reemerge."

Sandy was in love with her before dessert came.

Dessert was creme brulee, with a crust so thick you had to rap on it with the back of a spoon to break through, and with raspberries mixed in. Sandy was just beginning his when he looked up and saw Peter Martindale walk into the restaurant. Sandy watched, frozen, as Martindale and another man were shown to a table in the far opposite corner of the room.

"Something wrong, Sandy?" Cara asked, looking at him oddly. Her back was to the room.

"No, no, I was just entranced by this dessert."

"Me, too," she said, smiling at him. They had hardly exchanged a word the whole evening, he had been so preoccupied with pleasing Maggie.

Sandy raised a hand and summoned the maitre d'. "Mr. Chevalier," he said in a low voice, "someone I would rather not speak to has just come into the restaurant; he's sitting in the far corner. I would be very grateful if you would move that screen by the door a couple of feet so as to block his view of us."

"Of course, Mr. Kinsolving," the man said, and a moment later the adjustment had been made.

Sandy breathed easier, and he resisted the impulse to bolt from the restaurant. When they had finished dessert he suggested they have coffee in his suite. On their way out Sandy made sure to keep the screen between Cara and Martindale. After all, the art dealer believed his ex-wife dead, and Sandy didn't want to give him too great a shock.

As they waited for the lift, Sandy sidestepped to the front desk. "Is there a Mr. Peter Martindale registered here?" he asked, then prayed as the young woman flipped through the register.

"No, sir," she said.

"Thank you," he replied, then got onto the elevator with his party.

In the suite, they ordered coffee, then shared a bottle of port. Maggie, as she had promised, became more southern as she drank, and, Sandy thought, even more charming. He hoped the hell his son had the good sense to hold onto this young woman.

"How long will you be in town?" he asked his son.

"We're leaving for Stuttgart tomorrow, to pick up the car."

"And then?"

"France. Maggie wants to visit the wine country, so we're driving to Beaune for our first night."

"Would you like me to set up a tour of a vineyard or two for you?"

"Dad, that would be wonderful."

"It certainly would," Maggie chimed in. "It will probably be a bore for Angus, since he's grown up around wine, but I'm really excited about it."

"You get better and better," Sandy said.

Sandy lay in bed and stared at the ceiling, as Cara slept soundly beside him. This business with Peter Martindale was becoming too complicated. Tomorrow he was going to have to tell Cara everything. In effect, he would be trusting her with his future. He hoped he knew her well enough for that.

They were in the middle of breakfast before Sandy plucked up enough courage to begin talking.

"I have some things to tell you," he said.

She looked up from her eggs. "I'm all ears."

"This is going to be difficult for both of us, and I hope you'll hear me out before you start making judgments about me."

"I'll do my best," she said.

"I'm… acquainted with your ex-husband," he began.

Her eyebrows went up. "You know Peter? Why on earth didn't you tell me?"

"We met on an airplane-God, it seems like a year ago, but it was only in May."

"Oh," she said, relieved, "is that all?"

"I'm afraid not," he replied. "There's a great deal more."

"Tell me; I'll try not to interrupt."

He began with the movie on the airplane, with his drunken spilling of his life story, then went on to Peter's sly suggestion.

"He really proposed that?" she asked, shocked.

"Yes."

"He's even crazier than I thought."

"Probably." Sandy resumed his story, took her through the reading of Jock's will and his meeting with Joan.

"Oh, God, Sandy, I'm so sorry about Mr. Bailley's will," Cara said.

"Don't be sorry, just listen." He struggled on, telling her of his meeting in the park with Peter, then, before she could interrupt him, went on to his reconsideration of the plan and his message to Peter, canceling their pact.

Cara had put her fork down now and was pale. "Sandy, you did the right thing. Peter would have gone through with it."

"Peter did go through with it," Sandy said.

Cara's mouth dropped open. "Are you telling me that Peter murdered your wife?"

"I am."

"Didn't you go to the police?"

"Don't you understand? I couldn't do that; Peter would have implicated me, and I'd be in jail, now, awaiting trial for conspiracy to murder."

"But you backed out of the bargain!"

"Of course I did, but Peter would have denied that. You know him; don't you think he could have convinced the police that I was his accomplice?"

She nodded. "Yes, you're right; he could have convinced them. So how did you keep your part of the bargain?"

"Wait a minute," she said, and she stood up, looking frightened. "Is that what you were doing in that garage in San Francisco? You were there to murder me ?"

"Cara, please sit down and listen."

Slowly, she sat down, never taking her eyes off him, remaining on the edge of her seat.

"I was there to warn Helena Martindale that her husband intended to kill her. I had no idea you and she were the same person. I had no intention of killing her or you." This was not quite true, he remembered. He had, after all, contemplated doing just that, but he could never let Cara know he'd even considered it, or they would be finished.

She sat, obviously thinking hard. "Now I'm beginning to get it," she said. "You told Peter that you'd done it, didn't you? You told him I was dead."

"In the circumstances, it seemed the best thing to do. I needed some time without pressure from Peter to figure out what to do about all this, and I did the right thing, because he bought it. He thinks that your body is in the trunk of your car and that your car is at the bottom of San Francisco Bay."

She slumped against the back of her chair, dumbfounded.

He gave her a moment, then went on. "So, as long as Peter thinks you're dead you're safe from him; do you understand that?"

She tried to speak and failed, so she nodded.

"I mean, it's not a permanent solution to the problem; one way or another, sooner or later, he'll find out you're alive. I brought you to London to keep that from happening for a while longer." He looked at her closely. "Are you all right?"

She nodded. "I'm just running through it in my mind-who knows I'm alive that might inadvertently let Peter know? I don't think there's anybody. Saul Winner won't say anything-not on purpose, anyway, and Thea certainly won't, but that won't keep me from running into some mutual acquaintance on the street in New York who might mention it to Peter."

He was relieved that she was analyzing the problem. "I confess I actually thought of finding some way to kill Peter, but he was way ahead of me. He told me he'd written his own account of what happened to Joan, implicating me, and deposited it in his lawyer's safe."

Cara managed a wry laugh. "Well, Sandy, it was sweet of you to think of murdering my ex-husband, but it would be exactly like Peter to actually do what he said he did-the letter with the lawyer, so please put the idea out of your mind."