False Conception Read online

  Her husband put his arm around her, then looked at Russell and me in turn. “You see how vital this is? To both of us? So what’s going to happen is that I’m going to move heaven and earth to find that woman, and if you can’t do it, I’ll find someone who can.” Colbert looked as though he’d just declared war; I gave him credit for his zeal.

  “Maybe you should start again,” Russell offered. “Find another surrogate and do another implant.”

  “You know the odds, Stuart,” his wife protested in between her sniffles. “At every step, something can go wrong. It worked so perfectly this time, and your father seems so pleased, I just think it was our destiny. I think if we don’t find Greta Hammond we’ll never have a child and I don’t know if I can bear that. I just don’t.” She had worked so hard to suppress them, I felt guilty bearing witness to her tears.

  “We’ll find her,” Stuart Colbert declared above her heartache. “And that’s a promise.” He stood and began to pace.

  I wanted to like him for his resolve and to sympathize with his plight, but nothing I’d seen so far contradicted the picture of him painted by the columnists—spoiled, tactless, humorless, dictatorial. His interest in both his wife and fatherhood seemed somehow forced and artificial, which made it likely that the baby was being manufactured to be a buffer between two people who didn’t like each other much and as a glue to hold something together that otherwise would have shattered. But none of that was my business. At least that’s what I told myself, to keep from walking out the door.

  “What do you charge?” Colbert asked in the middle of my assessment, as he helped himself to a glass of water from a crystal carafe on the credenza.

  I glanced at Russell before I doubled my usual rate. “For this type of thing, it’s seventy-five an hour. Plus expenses.”

  “That’s outrageous.”

  “No, it isn’t. This is a delicate problem, and the down side is a long way down. But if you want cheap, I can get you cheap.” I glanced toward the translucent window. “There’s plenty of cheap half a block from here.”

  “Stuart?” Millicent asked rhetorically, her high-pitched squeal registering her objection.

  He wanted to spar with me some more but he relented. “Okay. You’re hired. But I bring in someone else if you don’t get the job done in a week.”

  “Fine, as long as I get that week on my own, before anyone else mucks up the field of play.”

  He hesitated, then nodded. “What do we do now?”

  “We look for motive. Basically, there are two possibilities. The first is that she took off on her own, to keep the child herself or to extort money from you. What I need to know is if there’s anything you know that I don’t that might suggest where she’s gone or why.”

  The Colberts looked at each other and shook their heads simultaneously. “Not unless she went back to her husband,” Stuart said.

  I shook my head. “I talked with her about him—I don’t think that’s likely. But I’ll check it out anyway. Do you know where he lives?”

  Colbert shook his head. “He was nothing; a common laborer. That’s all I know about the man.”

  “You met him?”

  He shook his head. “Of course not. I just remember her mentioning him.”

  “It sounded more personal than that.”

  “Well, it wasn’t.”

  He resented my prying but I was beyond caring what he felt. At some point in the meeting, I had begun working solely for his wife.

  “I’m still not clear how you found the woman in the first place,” I said. “For the surrogate business, I mean.”

  Stuart shrugged casually. “I just happened to see Greta on the street one day. It was a shock—I hadn’t thought about her for years, didn’t even know she was still in town. I started to say hello but for some reason the surrogate possibility came to mind and I held off till I could discuss it with Milly. We talked it over and we decided to go ahead.”

  “Why? Why pick Greta Hammond over all the other options?”

  The Colberts exchanged looks. “We knew her, for one thing,” Stuart said ambiguously. “Or I did, at least.”

  I waved my hand. “This building is full of women you know. Most of them are stunning; lots of them must also be smart. Why not use one of them?”

  Colbert’s look turned magisterial. “The models see pregnancy as a career killer.”

  “Not all of them, surely.”

  “All the ones that matter do. Anyway, Greta was a loyal, intelligent, competent employee. I relied on her a great deal in those days and, since we needed someone equally reliable to act as our surrogate, it seemed only sensible to use her.”

  I let his proprietary phraseology pass unchallenged. “Did you know the Hammond woman, Mrs. Colbert?”

  Millicent shook her head. “I’ve never seen her, even to this day. But I trust Stuart’s judgment on such matters.”

  I walked to the end of the room, then turned my back to the window. “Now comes the hard part,” I said.

  CHAPTER 14

  Hard part?”

  The phrase was voiced by a chorus of three, with a mixture of puzzlement, irritation, and maybe a little fear.

  I nodded. “The hard part is discussing who might have wanted to harm you like this. Either of you,” I added, when Millicent glanced quickly at her husband, as though he were the only conceivable target of spite.

  Stuart wasn’t buying. “Even assuming it’s a snatch, what makes you think it’s someone we know? Kidnapers and their victims aren’t usually bosom buddies, are they?”

  “But if this was just a move for money, why not take your wife? Or you, for that matter, since your father can presumably put his hands on more ransom than you can? Why mess with this surrogate thing?”

  “And how would they even know about it?” Russell added, which was a question I was about to ask myself.

  The Colberts eyed each other but said nothing.

  “What I’m getting at,” I went on, “is that the motive might be to wound one or both of you in the place where you’re most vulnerable.” I looked at Mrs. Colbert with what I hoped was understanding. “I’m sure it’s no secret that you’ve been wanting a child very badly.”

  She only shook her head. “No one could be that cruel.”

  “I’ve made a career out of them,” I said, then looked at Stuart Colbert. “The question is, who would want to make you miserable?”

  “Cynthia,” he said simply.

  “Your sister?”

  He nodded. “It’s no secret that we hate each other. Cynthia probably sees this baby as my latest attempt to curry favor with the old man.”

  “How do you mean?”

  His lip lifted cynically. “Line of succession and all that. Dad’s a big fan of primogeniture.”

  “I guess you need to explain,” I said.

  “There’s no mystery about it: Cyn and I are at war. We have been since we were kids, in one way or another, and it’s been an all-out dogfight ever since Daddy gave us each a store to run. The grand prize is the entire empire, of course—the stores, real estate, all of it.”

  “So you don’t own the women’s store yourself?”

  His chuckle was brief and sardonic. “Hell, no; I’m just a sharecropper. The old man gave me some property to work—the women’s store. I do well if the store does well; if the store takes a beating, I take a beating. Meanwhile, the old man still owns the whole ball of wax. All Cyn and I have are some Class B shares that pay a decent return provided we net enough to pay the dividends on Daddy’s Class A shares first.”

  “Are you on the board?”

  He nodded. “But it’s totally at Rutherford’s sufferance. I’ve got no real power—my own shares are nonvoting, so the only seat I control is my own. On any issue that comes up, Daddy’s got a majority in his pocket. Two of his henchmen are Russell’s law partners. Right, Russell?”

  “Right, Stuart.”

  “Your father is more likely to leave the business to you i
f you have a son. Is that it?”

  “I hope so. But what the old man thinks, no one ever knows till it’s too late.”

  He seemed to mean something by that, so I looked at Russell. “For obvious reasons, I have nothing to say on the subject of Rutherford’s testamentary intentions,” he said, then crossed his arms to close the issue.

  “Why doesn’t your sister have kids too?” I asked. “To stay even with you, if nothing else?”

  “She hates men,” the Colberts said in unison.

  It seemed a silly response. I looked at Russell to see how he took it, but he only smiled and shrugged.

  I turned back to Stuart Colbert. “Your sister hates men but runs a men’s store. Your father must have a puckish sense of humor.”

  “Humor has nothing to do with it,” he said, then lapsed into a fervid rant. “Have you seen the merchandise she stocks? Look at her window displays. Only a man-hater would think of dressing men like that. The manikins look like fops out of Edwardian England and the customers are more prissy than the manikins. If this weren’t San Francisco, she’d have been in Chapter 11 three years ago.”

  The bitterness rolled off his tongue so easily it was clearly a theme song. I waited for his fixation to subside, then cut more closely to the chase.

  “Do you have any evidence that your sister was prepared to take steps to defeat this pregnancy?”

  “No more than a few hundred snide remarks.”

  “But she knew about it?”

  He looked at his wife. “Not specifically, but in general. Having a child is all Milly’s talked about since we were married.”

  “Did your sister know about the surrogate?”

  Colbert shook his head. “I don’t see how. The only one who could have told her was Russell, and he wouldn’t do something like that, would you, Russell?”

  Despite the veiled threat in his principal’s tone, Russell only smiled and shook his head.

  “Who else might see this child as some kind of threat to them?” I asked.

  No one said anything.

  “How about your ex-wife?” I asked Stuart. “Where is she these days?”

  “Louise lives like Cleopatra on a houseboat on Mission Creek. The court makes me pay her eight thousand a month. With the help of her little capsules, she has a nice life.” His tone would have been a better fit if he’d told me she had shingles.

  “Capsules?” I asked.

  “Louise is addicted to a variety of tranquilizing medications. She’s stoned out of her mind 80 percent of the time.”

  There didn’t seem to be anywhere to go with that, so I looked closer to home. “How about the business? Is there anyone around here who doesn’t like the way Daddy is allocating the assets?”

  Stuart looked at Russell, but Russell was sitting this one out.

  “Harvey Gallatin is CEO of the combined stores,” Colbert said. “He has 10 percent of the Class B stock, just like Cyn and I do. He’d make a mint if we went public or got sucked up in a takeover. Which he would like because he knows he’s only a caretaker. No way he ever owns the business.”

  “How likely is a takeover?”

  “Not very at the moment. But Federated made a serious pass at us back in the eighties, as did KKR and some others. Even Macy’s made some inquiries, or so I’m told. Federated’s offer would have made Harvey 6 million before taxes. I know because I calculated my own share down to the last penny. But Daddy wouldn’t hear of it.”

  “Any chance there’s something like that going on now?”

  “A takeover? We would have heard of it, wouldn’t we, Russell?”

  “Probably,” Russell said.

  “But if the stores stay in the family after your father dies, Harvey won’t get his 6 million,” I pointed out.

  “Not unless Daddy splits his stock and Harvey and Cyn gang up on me. I certainly don’t have any intention of bailing out.”

  I took time to review the bidding, then decided to wrap it up. I was accumulating information but it wasn’t objective information, which meant there was no way to gauge its value.

  “Cynthia and Louise and Harvey,” I repeated. “Anyone else have a stake in this?”

  Stuart shrugged. “No one I can think of. Russell?”

  Russell shook his head.

  I looked at Stuart Colbert. “How about your mother? Is she a player?”

  “My mother is insane,” he said offhandedly.

  “Literally?”

  “Literally. I haven’t seen her in months.”

  “Is that of any relevance to this?”

  “None at all.”

  “How about you, Mrs. Colbert? Any sicko out there who would get a kick out of making you suffer?”

  She colored, then gulped, then shook her head. “Not that I know of. Of course not.”

  “I can’t believe there isn’t someone who was heartbroken when you married Mr. Colbert. An old boyfriend or two?”

  She shook her head.

  “Or maybe an old girlfriend of his?”

  That one brought a frown. “I don’t think so. But then Stuart would be the one to ask, wouldn’t he?”

  I kept my eyes on Millicent. “Was your husband divorced when you started seeing each other? Or does his ex-wife regard you as a home wrecker?”

  She was stung and she showed it. “They were already having difficulties when Stuart and I started seeing each other as friends. We talked about his problems with Louise—I was the only person in his life he could trust at that point and he badly needed someone to confide in. But I assure you we didn’t become lovers until after they divorced.”

  “Mrs. Colbert might not have believed that.”

  Stuart stood up. “Who gives a shit what she believed? Louise may be capable of a lot of things, but not this. She doesn’t have the fucking energy.” He looked at his watch. “I’m due in a staff meeting.”

  I looked at the three of them in turn. “Have we covered all the bases as far as motive is concerned?”

  One by one they nodded.

  “Okay. I’m going to start on Greta’s end. If I find a trail, I’ll follow it. If I don’t, I’ll be talking to the people you’ve mentioned.” I stood up. “If you need to know what’s happening, ask Russell. I’ll keep him up to date.” I looked at Stuart Colbert. “Unless you’d rather I reported directly to you.”

  Colbert shook his head. “If Russell’s against me, I’m screwed anyway—he can hang me out to dry any time he wants to. So go to it, Tanner. Save me my business.”

  “He’s not saving a business,” his wife interrupted angrily. “He’s saving a baby.”

  “And he’d better do it by next week,” Russell Jorgensen said suddenly.

  “Why?”

  “Because if that woman has messed this up, that’s all the time we have before we can call it off. The contract says no abortion after the first trimester of pregnancy.”

  CHAPTER 15

  At nine the next morning I was back on Kirkham Street, buzzing Mrs. Hapwood’s button. I told a white lie to get inside the building and another to get her to open her door. When we were finally face-to-face, she recognized me, but from the vertical folds in her face it wasn’t a happy experience. The fat gold cat didn’t care one way or another, although this time it had an eye open, so I wasn’t going to get away with anything.

  “You may remember I was here a couple of months ago,” I began when she had opened the door. “You showed me the unit across the hall.”

  “It’s rented now,” she pointed out.

  “I’m sure you found a nice tenant. The reason I didn’t take it myself is that my requirements of quiet are so particular, I was afraid with a young woman living overhead …” I shrugged to complete the excuse. “Anyway, the reason I’ve come is to see Ms. Hammond.”

  “Why?”

  “She has something of mine that I need to get back.”

  “What?”

  “A briefcase.”

  “Greta has your briefcase?”

>   I nodded. “After you showed me the unit that morning, I ran into Ms. Hammond at a nearby café. We got to talking and she was kind enough to invite me to join her for a glass of wine, which I did later that evening. We had a nice chat but, what with the late hour and the wine and all, when I left I forgot my case. Then I went out of town on business, and I moved, so this is the first chance I’ve had to come back for it.”

  “Seems like if it was important, you’d have been here before. But it’s no use anyway. Greta ain’t here.”

  I treated it as new information. “That’s unfortunate. Where is she?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Well then, when will she be back?”

  “Don’t know that, either. If you give me your number, I’ll have her call first thing I see her.”

  I frowned. “Do you have reason to believe that Ms. Hammond may have … absconded, for some reason?”

  “If you mean do I think she did something wrong,” Mrs. Hapwood said stiffly, “then no. I don’t have any sign of that at all.”

  “Nevertheless, you admit you don’t know where she’s gone, or when she’ll get back. That worries me. She must have known she had my case but she didn’t contact me to arrange a retrieval even though my business card was inside. Frankly, I’m beginning to think the authorities should be called in.”

  Mrs. Hapwood squeezed her cat until it purred in protest. “I hope you’re not saying she stole it.”

  “It appears at the very least she may have abandoned it.” I took time to consider the situation. “I will contact the police in five days. However, if the case is up in her apartment even as we speak, and you would be willing to let me retrieve it informally, then no such messiness would be necessary.” I gave her time to reflect. “You’re welcome to accompany me, of course. To see that nothing but the case is removed. It seems tragic to allow a criminal charge to loom over Ms. Hammond’s head when you could have prevented it so easily.”

  She was clearly in a quandary. “I respect my tenant’s privacy.”

  “I’m sure you do. But it’s not like I’d be rummaging around—a briefcase can’t be hidden in a cookie jar, after all.”