The Sandler Inquiry Part 44

"Is there any other house under discussion?" she asked impatiently. Her mercurial smile was already gone and the affectionate greeting had given way to a businesslike sense of priorities.

"With burglar tools" he said.

"Fine." "What?" he asked.

"I said fine she persisted.

"I'm afraid I wasn't serious Thomas said.

"I'm afraid I am She withdrew her hand.

"That house is sealed by law." He saw her grimace distastefully as he spoke. He could practically feel her disapproval.

"The state closes an estate upon the death of its owner. It would take a court order for us to get in. The fact is, I could file a motion for-" "You disappoint me," she said softly.

"I disappoint a lot of people He shrugged.

"But I won't break the law to win a case. I warned u already. I'm a lousy lawyer. Maybe that's the reason." She glanced back to the mansion, then to him, dark eyes probing.

Then the tension on her face melted. She took his arm and said, "I'm sorry. Let's walk down Madison Avenue ' They turned the corner, putting the Sandler mansion at their backs. The icy wind swept uptown toward them and blasted them head-on. With one arm she held her coat close to her and with the other held his. He could feel her warmth contrasting with the cold in the air. He wondered again who that warmth was and what she wanted.

"Tell me where you've been" she said, as casually as an old friend might.

"You've been away. Was it for me?"

"Partly," he lied. He told a fabricated story of interviewing old contacts and a.s.sociates.

"But did you discover anything important?" she asked.

"About my father? Or yours?"

"No," he said.

She shrugged.

"An honest answer, at least" she said. He glanced sideways at her and saw not the slightest hint of sarcasm on her lips.

Only a sudden smile as she looked ahead.

"Look at this" she said, "an art gallery."

"Madison is loaded with them " "I never knew that'" she said. She stood before a large plate-gla.s.s window in which the Ans.p.a.cher Gallery announced a showing by an American impressionist named Gerald Detweiler.

A smile crossed her face now. She was like a small girl beholding a toy store two weeks before Christmas. Her grin was impish, girlish, and excited, and she turned to him warmly now and asked as a child might ask a parent,

"Can we go in?"

"It's a free " country," he said.

"Come on, she said, sprightly, her clipped British accent slightly more not noticable.

"I never tire of other people's artwork." She pulled him along and they entered the crowded gallery. It was opening day of the exhibit.

The gallery, which occupied the lower three floors of a converted brownstone, was packed. She seemed to feed emotionally on the enthusiastic bustle of the gallery, as if it excited her and allowed her for a few minutes to put Arthur Sandler out of her mind.

She led him from one canvas to the next, canvases which rendered impressionistic interpretations to northeastern-American landscapes.

Factories by the sides of rivers, crowded beaches bordering empty oceans, dry-docked pleasure boats tied up beside foreboding dark lakes.

"Always man bordering nature' Leslie observed, moving from painting to painting.

"Bordering by confrontation. A standoff, really," she said.

"Do you go to galleries often?"

"I've never had much time for it" he admitted, wondering why she perceived so much on canvases where he saw so little.

"A shame," she said.

"You should make a point to go more often."

He vaguely resented her tone of voice, as if she were gently talking down to him.

"Maybe we should talk more about your father," he suggested.

"I.

have some questions."

She either didn't hear the question or chose not to hear it. She stepped close to a canvas, examining closely the texture of a Maine landscape dominated by pastel blues, greens, and yellows.

"Look at those brush strokes," she said.

"Detweiler studied Monet. You can tell. Sorry?"

"Your father," he said. He was slightly jostled by a stout dark man with a cigar pushing to get past, accompanied by a hard-faced woman with silver-blond hair.

Leslie's face twisted into a slight frown. She had forgotten about Sandler. Thomas had reminded her.

"What about him?" she asked, sounding as if the subject were an intrusion here. He began to sense an evasion, an unwillingness to discuss the very topic that had initially brought her to him. Why had she brought him into an art gallery, he wondered. To divert his attention?

"I'm trying to discover as much about him as possible," he said.

Her eyes glimmered and she gave him a smile.

"That's good. But you probably know more than I do already."

"Why do you say that?"

"Why- as if it were self-evident' you knew one man who knew him very well. Your own father."