Louella told me that she and Lawrence lived in Marble Hill, the ritzy area on the edge of town that produced most of my clients. She slid a business card out of a slick leather purse and handed it to me.
“You wouldn’t have a photograph of your husband, by any chance?” I asked.
“This should help.” Louella held out a slick brochure. The front featured a picture of a distinguished-looking gentleman posing before a giant picture of a smiling kitten, or was it frowning? Large fuzzy letters announced KITTYLUV.
“And you can look up KittyLuv on the web. You’ll find Larry’s face all over the site.”
“One other thing before you go. Do you have a directory of the KittyLuv staff? It would help me run down prospective suitors.”
“No, but there’s one on their website.” Louella thought for a moment. “You’ll need a name and password to get that.”
“You’ll have to trust me a bit, Mrs. Lafonte. I’ll need to follow your husband’s schedule, where he goes, who he hangs with. Affairs have a way of advertizing themselves, if watched closely.”
Louella hesitated, then agreed. “Okay, here.” She wrote on the back of the brochure. “My e-mail name and password. It’ll get you on to the private section of the website. It’s not too interesting, but you can find names, addresses, phone numbers, and some meeting notes, that kind of thing. I doubt you’ll need it.”
“Your husband is there every day?”
“Most weekdays and Saturdays, although he does travel a lot for fund-raising events. Sometimes he takes the late train to the city to meet his accountant. He doesn’t usually get home until quite late, or sometimes stays over.” Louella paused, as if it just occurred to her that spending the night in the city might seem a bit suspicious. She added, “I really don’t keep track of all his fundraising; it’s really pretty boring.” It sounded like Louella and I shared an opinion about kittens.
“What makes you think he is having an affair?” It was a question that had been hanging in the air since we met.
She looked me in the eye. “A woman can tell. He keeps strange hours, doesn’t come home until late, not interested in making love, the usual.” Louella pushed her chair back and stood up, but I pressed for more details.
“You probably have some suspicion about who the lady is—that might give me somewhere to start.”
“Lady! Are you kidding?” Louella’s face turned red. “ That floozy little redhead who pretends to be his assistant. What’s her name? Vera. Vera something. Vera Booby is what she should be called.” She turned to leave.
“Would you like to know what I charge?” I thought I should bring the subject up.
Louella looked somewhat surprised, as though she couldn’t be bothered with such details. “Yes. What do you charge?”
$500 a day plus expenses.”
“Okay,” she shrugged.
Obviously I should have said $1,000 a day, plus expenses, health care, and a retirement fund—or perhaps included some more personal services.
Louella took one step toward the door but then turned back, “One more thing, Mr. Heron. All I want you to do is find one solid piece of evidence, proof of an affair. Nothing else. And everything you learn is for me alone. You do understand me?”
“Understood.”
The few patrons in the bar watched her cross to the door and disappear into the glare of sunlight that burst in from the outside. She had carved a path through the room that lingered on after she was gone. If Larry was having an affair, it wouldn’t be hard to track it down. But the puzzle that intrigued me was Louella. What would she do with the info? Was she after money? Did she want an excuse to leave her husband? Would she plan revenge? Louella didn’t realize that her life would also come under scrutiny. She was a woman who was not happy with her world. I recognized her predicament. I was trying to leave a world behind and she was trying to find one.
She hadn’t offered to pay the tab, a sure sign of wealth. I could consider the cost of the drinks as work expenses, but it probably wouldn’t be ethical to charge her for the second martini that LeRoy was already mixing for me.
3
Louella Lafonte left me sitting at a table in the back of the room at LeRoy’s. I carried my half-finished martini to the end of the bar, where I could sit with my back to the wall and enjoy a view down a length of the polished mahogany. Midday was a quiet time, and LeRoy didn’t need help to serve the customers at the bar and those seated at the tables. The drinking crowd wouldn’t descend on the place until later. He was good at his job, but the only place the aging hippie with a long graying ponytail was really comfortable was behind the bar. Get him out in the open and he was a product of a different time—a Woodstock holdover, one of those guys who spent his younger days smoking pot at peace marches. He was a good confidante however, as bartenders should be, and I could share almost any secret with him. He dried his hands on a towel and tossed it under the bar.
“So Blue, she looked much too fancy for you. Talk her out of one of those diamonds and you could finally trade in that rusty old Beamer of yours.”
“That’s true, though I still ended up paying for the drinks. But,” I added, “I got a job.”
“Congratulations. Who do you have to shoot?”
“Can’t tell you—professional ethics and all. But I do need to use your computer.”
“Be my guest. You know where it is. The office door’s open.”
I spent the next half hour in LeRoy’s small office logged on to the KittyLuv site. There were pictures of kittens, of course, and also a mission statement, a motto—‘A home for every kitten’—testimonials, success stories, and the many opportunities to make a donation. KittyLuv was a charitable organization devoted to improving the lives of cute kittens. Volunteers would find abandoned kittens, and KittyLuv would place them into loving homes. Kittens all over the world qualified for this service, and the site displayed before and after pictures from Europe, South America, and Canada. The before picture would show a scraggly little creature huddling behind a garbage can. In the after, the same kitten was clean and trimmed, snuggled happily into someone’s lap. Each kitten had a name and a story. For a small donation the cute little fellow would send you a personal thank you note. There was a chronology of past and future events and fundraisers, which Mr. Lafonte presided over. A few were in town, and at a couple of nearby high schools and colleges, but the biggest were in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. Louella Lafonte’s e-mail and password allowed me access to the site’s private area. I printed out a list of the office personnel: names, phone numbers, job titles, and a staff photo.
Back on my stool at the end of the bar, I asked LeRoy, “You know that KittyLuv outfit?”
“Of course. They’re just across the Park from here.”
“Do you know anybody there? Maybe some come in now and then to wash away the taste of cat hair.”
“A few drop by, but I don’t know the names, except for Samson, the chauffeur. He’s here quite a bit, and sometimes hits the strip club downstairs. I think he’s quite the ladies’ man.”
“Can you describe him?”