The Sandler Inquiry Part 16

"There is?"

"From what you tell me your father and mother had a nice enough romance during the war. He loved her enough to many her. What happened that made him want to come back a decade later and kill both of you?"

"Maybe you can help me find out," she said.

She stood, straightened her skirt, and appeared thoughtful as she saw him watching her.

"I suppose I should add one thing," she said.

"Yes?"

"You might be wondering. Men unnerve me. So I never sleep with them."

There was a long silence.

"I thought I'd mention this'" she said.

"If you're like most men, you were probably wondering."

"It never crossed my mind," he said, lying again.

He watched her close the door. She was gone before he realized that she'd left him no way to contact her.

Part Two

Chapter 6

The small eleven-pa.s.senger de Havilland STOL belonging to Air New England left New York's Marine Air Terminal at nine forty-five A.M. Thomas Daniels was one of the nine pa.s.sengers. For most of the flight, he was deep in thought,!

Strange about old Zenger, he mused. The man had once been close to a legend in New York legal circles. Bill Daniels's partner.

Or

"Shifty Little Adolph' as his detractors called him. Once he'd been brilliant. Once he'd been a firebrand. But then, abruptly in the mid- 1950s, he'd lost his stomach for law. One day his desire was gone and courtroom machinations no longer interested him. He was, as William Ward Daniels described it at the time, 'a different man' a man far more concerned with a leisurely and reclusive retirement than with the daily torment of a Manhattan legal practice.

Privately, Bill Daniels had explained it to his son. Zenger's retirement was somehow connected to the Sandler estate. But it never really made much sense. A visit or two by Zenger to the Sandler mansion and the attorney had decided it wasn't for him after all.

Now, two decades later, who cared anymore? Who even remembered? Thomas had never known his father's partner well.

The small airplane arrived in Nantucket at twelve fifteen. From the airport Thomas took a taxi to the residence of the long-retired attorney.

The taxi found Zenger's home with little difficulty. Zenger lived in a rambling, white-shingled old house on a promontory which dramatically overlooked the ocean. Thomas saw a curtain move near a downstairs window as he stepped from a long blue Chrysler taxi and paid the driver. Thomas glanced around as he pa.s.sed through a gate and followed a flagstone path across a brownish green lawn. A comfortable site to spend one's later years, he thought. Free from crime, pollution, and the real world.

Beyond the old house, and to the side of the promontory, a path led down to the ocean. The surf broke briskly against the sand beach which bordered Zenger's land. A st.u.r.dy wooden pier jutted out into the water.

Curiously, Thomas noted that two large pleasure boats-Chris Craft they appeared to be, the type used by sportsmen for deep water fishing -were tied up to the pier, rocking somewhat with the waves. Obviously somebody, Thomas thought, liked to venture into the deep waters beyond the Nantucket sh.o.r.e. Obviously Zenger, his father's former partner, since the boats were tied to Zenger's pier.

Zenger's daytime housekeeper, a dowdy dark-haired woman named Mrs.

Clancy, opened the solid oak front door.

"Mr. Daniels?" she asked.

Thomas nodded. He was taken to a downstairs sitting room congested with old overstuffed furniture. There sat Adolph Zenger.

The old man, considerably whitened and wrinkled since the last time Thomas had seen him, sat in a large leather armchair. An afghan covered his lap. Before him was a paneled window overlooking Nantucket Sound. Zenter's gaze did not leave the Water.

"Come in," he said as Thomas stood somewhat uncomfortably after walking a few feet into the room.

"I already am' said Thomas.

Zenger turned toward the younger man. The aging face creased into a slight grin.

"I know," he said. I'm not blind."

"You look well," said Thomas.

"d.a.m.n you!" snapped Zenger with convincing bitterness.

"What?"

"You know you've got one G.o.d-d.a.m.ned foot in the grave when people say that to you," he said.

"People stop asking you how you are and start telling you how well you look. Do I look that bad?"

"I only meant-" "It's obvious what you meant. Most people my age are dead." He eyed his visitor with keen interest.

"So. Bill Daniels's boy come up to see me. How long have you been practicing law now, Tommy?"

"Six years."

"Ever won a case?"

"Mr. Zenger," Thomas said with fading patience,

"I-".

"Answer me, G.o.d d.a.m.n it, or I'll have your obscenely young a.s.s heaved out of here!"

"Of course I've won cases," said Thomas evenly.

"You'd never know it, boy," he said.

"Never know you were Bill Daniels's kid. You haven't learned a thing."

Thomas was silent. Then the sharp old eyes mellowed and the smile was more friendly.

"I've had you on the defensive since you came into this room," said Zenger.