“Come on in.” To the secretary she said, “Jerry Williams is supposed to be here at nine-thirty. I should be done with Virgil by then, but, if I’m not, stall him. I don’t want him to go away.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Moore led the way back to the office, hung her parka on a hook, and asked, “What now?”
Virgil sat in the client’s chair and asked, “Was there some tension at the reunion meeting between Lucy Cheever and Gina?”
She tapped her lips with a forefinger, thinking, and said, “Maybe.”
“Why was that?” Virgil asked.
“Don’t know. They’re both about money. If there’s something there, you should probably talk to Marv Hiners.”
“But you said, ‘Maybe.’”
“Gina and Lucy are sort of rivals for the title of richest woman in Trippton. Lucy’s empire is growing. Whenever you’d see them together, they’d be a little gushy like they were the best of friends. They weren’t doing that Thursday night. If anything, they were cool with each other.”
“Okay,” Virgil said.
“That’s it?” Big smile.
“No... How often were you and Gina Hemming getting together with Fred Fitzgerald?”
Moore stared at him for a few seconds, sputtered, “What? What?”
Virgil said, “Hey, Margot—don’t bullshit me. I not only know about you guys, I actually bought myself a whip at the same place Fred got his.”
She sat in mortified silence, a tear leaking out of one eye. “This could ruin me.”
Virgil said, “Doesn’t have to. I’m looking for information, not publishing it. I can promise you, nobody will hear about you from me, nothing that you give me confidentially.”
She yanked open a desk drawer and pulled out a Kleenex, dabbed at her face. “I bet you made me wreck my makeup.”
“Yeah, well, Margot, I’m not trying to make you cry—I’m investigating the murder of a woman who was probably your best friend and you’re holding out on me. Don’t tell me about your fuckin’ makeup.”
“We... Gina and me and Fred... were playing. That’s all. And when I say Gina and me, I don’t mean we were all in bed in a pile,” she said. “Fred would come over to my place or I’d go over to his. He always went to Gina’s, because his place kinda scared her. We were playing. He had this little whip, he’d spank our butts a little, he’d put on handcuffs, and... do stuff. It was all pretend.”
“I don’t need the details on that, except... did the handcuffs ever leave marks on either of you?”
“A couple of times... you’d kind of struggle around. It was all play, but the handcuffs were metal, and sometimes you’d get marks. Did Gina have marks when you found her?”
“Yeah, but they were older, not from the night she died,” Virgil said. “How often would the two of you get together with Fred?”
“I was seeing him maybe... once a month. Gina more often, once a week.”
“Last Thursday?”
Another silence, then, “I know that Thursdays were good for her. Fridays and Saturdays are party nights in Trippton, out at the club, especially in the winter. She didn’t miss those because she was kind of lonely; she liked the social aspect of the club. Sunday was the night before she had to be back at work.”
“You’re telling me that Fred might well have gone over there Thursday night after the committee meeting.”
“I know he did on other Thursdays,” she admitted.
“Have you talked to Fred since I talked to you?” She looked away, and he knew what the answer was. “That looks like a yes.”
She nodded. “Yes, I did. I told him you were investigating, and I worried that you’d find him and that he’d mention my name. He was worried that no matter what happened, if his name came up, that you’d figure he’d killed Gina. He says he didn’t have anything to do with it but that you’d... frame him. Because of his prior record.”
“We don’t do that,” Virgil said.
