Someone to Watch Over Me Read online

  “Right,” Shrader said. “But he really wanted Crescent Plaza, and Logan Manning not only owned the design, he also owned an option on the land it was designed to fit on. I figure Valente may have popped Manning so that he could do Manning’s wife and the Crescent Plaza project. Now that Manning’s dead, Valente will be able to buy the plans and the land, hire his own supervising architects, and build it himself. I’m sure Manning’s widow will make that very easy for him.”

  “You know,” McCord said thoughtfully, “I’m starting to wonder if Detective Littleton had it right from the very beginning. She’s said all along that she didn’t think Leigh Manning was sexually involved with Valente.”

  “I don’t remember saying exactly that,” Sam interjected.

  “You didn’t have to say it. You get this balky, stubborn look every time the suggestion comes up. My point is that Valente and Leigh Manning’s alliance may have been a straightforward business arrangement. Valente wanted the Crescent Plaza project for himself, and she wanted her husband out of the way because he was cheating on her.”

  Womack walked in and heard the end of that sentence. “How did you find out Manning was screwing around?” he asked.

  “Jane Sebring—the costar—told us this morning,” McCord replied.

  “The costar knew Manning was fooling around with the secretary?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Womack jerked his thumb toward the doorway. “Manning was screwing his secretary. Her name is Erin Gillroy. She burst into tears and confessed the whole thing just now. Who were you talking about?”

  “Jane Sebring.”

  His eyes widened and he looked ready to laugh. “Manning was screwing her, too? Hell, if I had a chance at Jane Sebring, I’d take it. That woman has—” He lifted his hands as if cupping breasts the size of watermelons; then he stopped and looked at Sam. “Littleton, why don’t you go talk to the secretary and see what you can get out of her, besides tears and snot? Take it easy on her, though; she cracks like a raw egg. All I asked her was how long she’d worked here and if she was familiar with Manning’s personal habits. She started bawling on the first question and confessed before I finished asking the second one.”

  “I’d like to talk to Sokoloff,” McCord said, standing up, but Womack stopped him with a question.

  In no hurry to deal with a weeping secretary, Sam walked slowly past the offices, stopping when she came to an open doorway of a large conference room. In the center, on a table, stood a scale model of a beautiful crescent-shaped plaza with art deco touches adorning its two soaring circular towers. The model was about five feet square and complete to the tiniest detail, including miniature fountains, ornamental streetlamps, pathways, and lush landscaping.

  A studious-looking man in his late thirties was gazing at it, his shoulders slightly stooped, his hands clasped behind his back. “Is that the model for Crescent Plaza?” Sam asked, walking into the conference room for a closer look.

  The man turned and pushed his glasses up on his nose. “Yes, it is.”

  “I’m Detective Littleton with the NYPD,” she explained.

  “I’m George Sokoloff,” he said.

  Sam’s attention reverted to the model in front of her. “This is breathtaking,” she said. “The towers remind me just a little bit of the top of the Chrysler Building. Mr. Manning must have been incredibly talented and incredibly proud of this.”

  He opened his mouth to say something, then quickly closed it again.

  “Am I wrong?”

  “Partly,” he said; then he squared his shoulders and said almost bitterly, “Logan was very proud of it; however, now that he’s dead, I see no need to go on pretending that this was a collaborative effort between Logan and me. The concept and design are all mine. In the past, I’ve agreed that the firm would receive the credit, rather than myself. This time, Logan promised I would be supervising architect and receive a share of the credit.”

  McCord’s voice bisected their conversation, and they both turned toward him. “How did you feel about letting Logan Manning take all the credit, or is that typical in architectural firms?”

  Sam tried not to think about how good it felt to watch Mitchell McCord walk into a room. His sport coats were no longer too big at the shoulders; he’d remedied that a couple of days after they started working together. Now they fit him beautifully, but she liked him best in open-necked polo shirts and the scarred leather bomber jacket he wore sometimes. Sam backed out of the conference room and quietly left McCord with the architect.

  Logan Manning’s office was at one end of a curving hallway that originated at a decorative paneled wall behind the receptionist’s desk. Erin Gillroy was standing in front of his desk, head bent, clutching a fistful of tissues. She looked up as Sam walked in. “Miss Gillroy, I’m Detective Littleton.”

  “Hello,” she said hoarsely but calmly.

  “Would you like to sit down?”

  “Not particularly. I think I’ll feel less vulnerable and foolish if I’m standing up.”

  Sam perched on the corner of Manning’s desk and took a pen and notebook out of her shoulder bag. “Detective Womack thought you might have an easier time talking to a woman.”

  “Really? He didn’t strike me as being a particularly sympathetic type.”

  In contrast to Womack’s description of Erin Gillroy, Sam’s impression of the young woman was that she wasn’t weak or timid. “How long have you worked here?”

  “Almost two years.”

  Sam made an issue of writing that down while she decided how to approach the next topic, but she needn’t have bothered, because Erin Gillroy answered the question without being asked. “My relationship with Logan Manning started—and ended—six months ago.”

  Sam studied her in silence, wondering why she was so willing to confess everything and get it out in the open to two detectives who were strangers. “Who else knew about it?”

  She clenched her hands into fists. “No one! The only person I ever told was my roommate, Deborah, but last night a reporter called and told her that he knew I’d had an affair with Logan Manning. And my roommate, my friend,” she emphasized bitterly, “did not feel it would be honest to lie to him about it, so she told him everything.” She looked at Sam and said fiercely, “Will you explain to me how someone who reads the Bible and quotes from it all the time, like Deborah does, can betray a friend and break a promise without a qualm, and do all that in the name of ‘righteousness.’ All Deborah had to do was hang up on the reporter, or take a message.”

  She gazed at Sam, waiting for an answer, insisting on one, and Sam said the only thing that came to mind: “Some of the most unkind, judgmental people I’ve ever known go to church every Sunday and read the Bible. I don’t know how some people are able to disassociate their own cruelty and shortcomings from their religious obligations and convictions, but many are able to do that.”

  “Deborah is one of them.”

  “How do you think the reporter found out about the affair?”

  “I don’t think he knew anything at all—he was just fishing! Reporters have been calling every woman Mr. Manning knew saying things like that. One of them called Jacqueline Probst last night and told her the same thing. Jacqueline told the reporter she’d sue if her name was mentioned; then she hung up on him.”

  “Who is Jacqueline Probst?” Sam asked.

  “One of the architects here. The detectives have already spoken to her. Jacqueline Probst is sixty-four years old. She’s almost old enough to be Logan’s grandmother.”

  Sam deliberately changed the topic for a moment. “Did you handle all of Mr. Manning’s correspondence and phone calls, personal as well as business?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you keep a call log?”

  She nodded.

  “I’d like to have that and some other records as well. We have Mrs. Manning’s permission.”

  “I’ll get you whatever you want.” Distracted, she ran her fi