Murder For Love

"Agreed," Henry said admiringly. "As usual we're on the same wavelength but you're farther along than I. I wasn't thinking about talking to the Countess." He put his arm around Sunday and pulled her closer. "I have not kissed you since 11:10 this morning," he said.

Sunday caressed his lips with the tip of her index finger. "Then it's more than my steel-trap mind that appeals to you?"

"You've noticed." Henry kissed her fingertips, then pushed his lips insistently against hers.

Sunday pulled back. "Henry, just one thing. You've got to make sure that Tommy doesn't agree to a plea bargain before we can help him."

"How am I supposed to stop that?" "An executive order, of course." "Darling, I'm no longer president." "In Tommy's eyes you are."

"All right, but here's another executive order. Stop talk-ing."

In the front seat, the Secret Service agents glanced in the rearview mirror, then gri

The next morning, Henry got up at sunrise for an early-morning ride with the estate manager. At 8:30, Sunday joined him in the charming breakfast room overlooking the classic English garden. A wealth of botanical prints against the background of Belgian linen awning-stripe wall-covering made the room seem joyously, riotously flower-filled and, as Sunday frequently observed, was a long way from the upstairs apartment in the two-family house in Jersey City where she'd been raised and where her parents still lived.

"Congress goes into session next week," she reminded him. "Whatever I can do to help Tommy, I have to start working on right now. My suggestion is that I find out everything I can about Arabella. Did Marvin get a complete background check on her?"

Marvin Klein was in charge of Henry's office, which was located in the former carriage house on the two-thousand-acre property.

"Right here," Henry said. "I just read it. The late Arabella managed to bury her background quite successfully. It took Marvin's people to learn that she had a previous marriage in which she took her ex-husband to the cleaners and that her long- time off-again, on-again boyfriend, Alfred Barker, went to prison for bribing athletes."

"Really! Is he out of prison now?"

"Not only that, dear. He had di

Sunday's jaw dropped. "Darling, how did Marvin ever discover that?"

"How does Marvin ever discover anything? He has his sources. Alfred Barker lives in Yonkers, which as you probably know is not far from Tarrytown. Her ex-husband is remarried happily and not in the area."

"Marvin learned this overnight?" Sunday's eyes snapped with excitement.

Henry nodded as Sims, the butler, hovered the coffeepot over his cup. "Thank you, Sims. Yes," he continued, "and he also learned that Alfred Barker was still very fond of Arabella, improbable as I find that, and had bragged to his friends that now that she was finished with the old fuddy-duddy, she'd be getting together with him."

"What does Alfred Barker do now?" Sunday asked.

"Technically, he owns a plumbing supply store. It's a front for his numbers racket. And the kicker is that he's known to have a violent temper when double-crossed."

"And he had di

"Exactly."

"I knew this was a crime of passion," Sunday said excitedly. "The thing is that the passion wasn't on Tommy's part. I'll see Barker today as well as Tommy's housekeeper. I keep forgetting her name."

"Dora. No… that was the housekeeper who worked for them for years. Great old girl. I think Tommy mentioned that she retired shortly after Constance died. The one we glimpsed yesterday is Lillian West."

"That's right. So I'll take on Barker and the housekeeper, but have you decided what you're going to do?"

"I'm flying down to Palm Beach to meet with the Countess Condazzi. I'll be home for di

"Okay."

"I mean it, Sunday," Henry said in the quiet tone that could make his cabinet members quake in their boots.

"You're one tough hombre." Sunday smiled. "I'll stick to them like glue." She kissed the top of his head and left the breakfast room humming "Hail to the Chief."

Four hours later Henry, having piloted his jet to West Palm Beach airport, was driving up to the Spanish-style mansion that was the home of Countess Condazzi. "Wait outside," he instructed his Secret Service detail.

The Countess was a woman in her mid-sixties. Slender and small with exquisite features and calm gray eyes, she greeted him with cordial warmth. "I was so glad to get your call, Mr. President," she said. "Tommy won't speak to me and I know how much he's suffering. He didn't commit this crime. We've been friends since we were children and there never was a moment that he lost control of himself. Even when at college proms the other boys who drank too much got fresh, Tommy was always a gentleman, drunk or sober."

"That's exactly the way I see it," Henry agreed. "You grew up with him?"

"Across the street from each other in Rye. We dated all through college, but then he met Constance and I married Eduardo Condazzi. A year later, my husband's older brother died. Eduardo inherited the title and the vineyards and we moved to Spain. He passed away three years ago. My son is now the Count and I felt it was time for me to come home. After all these years I bumped into Tommy when he was visiting mutual friends, the Osbornes, for a golfing weekend."

And a young love sparked again, Henry thought. "Countess…"

"Betsy."

"All right, Betsy, I have to be blunt. Were you and Tommy starting to pick up where you left off years ago?"

"Yes and no," Betsy said slowly. "You see, Tommy didn't give himself a chance to grieve for Constance. We've talked about that. It's obvious that his involvement with Arabella Young was his way of trying to escape the grieving process. I advised him to drop Arabella, then give himself a period of mourning. But I told him that after six months or a year at the most, he had to call me again and take me to a prom."

Betsy Condazzi's smile was nostalgic, her eyes filled with memories.

"Did he agree?" Henry asked.

"Not completely. He said that he was selling his house and moving down here permanently. He said that he'd be ready long before six months were up to take me to a prom."

Henry studied her, then slowly asked, "If Arabella Young had given a story to a tabloid purporting that during my administration and even before his wife's death, Tommy and I had thrown wild parties in the White House, what would your reaction be?"

"I'd know it wasn't true," she said simply. "And Tommy knows me well enough to be sure of that."

Henry let his pilot fly the jet back to Newark airport. He spent the time deep in thought. Tommy was obviously aware that the future had promised a second chance at happiness and that he didn't have to kill to safeguard that chance. He wondered if Sunday was having any better luck in finding a possible motive for Arabella's death.

Alfred Barker was not a man who invited instinctive liking, Sunday thought as she sat across from him in the office of the plumbing supply store that she knew was a cover-up for nefarious activities.

He appeared to be in his mid-forties, a thick, barrel-chested man with heavy-lidded eyes, a sallow complexion, and salt-and-pepper hair, which he combed across his skull in an effort to hide a bald spot. His open shirt revealed a hairy chest and there was a scar on the back of his right hand.