“That’s right,” Nick said.
“Heard Detective Teague talk about you. You’re the private detective who was involved in that shoot-out on top of the hotel a year ago. Something about a fight over a woman.”
“That’s right,” Nick said. There was no point trying to explain the nuances of what had happened on the hotel rooftop. The public’s impressions had been fixed in stone, thanks to the press.
“I hired Mr. Sundridge to investigate my niece’s husband,” Eleanor explained.
Linda raised her chin. “My aunt is right. My husband was planning to kill me.”
“Don’t listen to my wife,” Norburn said. “She’s mentally unstable. She needs help. I’m going to arrange for her to enter an asylum.”
“Nonsense,” Eleanor said. “The only crazy thing she ever did was fall for your lies.”
“Linda is my wife,” Norburn said. “She can’t be made to testify against me.”
“That’s actually not entirely accurate,” Nick said.
But no one was listening to him.
Linda glared at Norburn. “I won’t be your wife for much longer, Gilford.”
“You can’t divorce me,” Gilford said. “You don’t have any grounds. I’ll fight you every step of the way. All I have to do is prove you’re mentally unbalanced.”
“There is no need for a messy divorce,” Eleanor said coldly. “My lawyer will file for an annulment immediately.”
“On what grounds?” Gilford yelled, his voice rising.
“Fraud,” Nick said. “Among other things, you married Linda under false pretenses.”
“Don’t worry, Linda,” Eleanor said. “With an annulment it will be as if the marriage never happened.”
Not quite,Nick thought.
The annulment of his short marriage to Patricia hadn’t been exactly magical. The problem was that, while the proceedings in such matters were always handled privately, everyone knew there were only a handful of legal grounds that could be used to annul a marriage. Fraud was one of them. So were bigamy and incest.
But there was another qualifying reason, the one that inevitably invited the most speculation and gossip:incapacity. It could imply insanity. It could also be interpreted as the husband’s inability to consummate the marriage.
In the past year he had discovered that rumors of either condition were pretty much guaranteed to destroy a man’s personal life.
He rested a hand on Rex’s head and watched the officers lead Gilford Norburn away in handcuffs.
“Maybe we should think about moving,” he said to the dog.
Chapter 7
Adelina Beach
The picture was perfect. Just what the client had ordered.
Vivian released the shutter. She stepped back from the tripod and the large view camera and smiled at the woman posing in the big, fan-back wicker chair.
“I think you will be very pleased with your portrait, Miss Frampton,” she said. “I’ll have it ready for you on Wednesday.”
Anna Frampton rose from the thronelike chair. She had requested something in the modern style.I don’t want to look stiff and straitlaced like my grandmother,she said when she booked the sitting.
Vivian had opened her inner eye while they discussed the effect that Anna wished to project. She had sensed a daring, defiant energy shimmering in the atmosphere around the woman. At the end of the meeting Vivian had directed Anna to return for the sitting dressed in menswear-style trousers, a leather flight jacket, and a pair of boots.
Vivian had done the makeup, going for movie-star drama. She had posed Anna lounging in the corner of the big chair, one leg thrown casually over an arm, and then she had fiddled with the lights andmade tiny adjustments to the drape of the trousers while she coaxed Anna into a sultry pout that would have done credit to Hepburn or Garbo.
