Blue Smoke and Murder

19

SEPTEMBER 14

1:38 P.M.

Caitlin Crawford glanced up from the computer in her home office as her husband walked in. He looked out of place among the sleek modern furniture she loved. He was dressed like a weekend cowboy who’d never been on a horse. In the decade they had been married, she still hadn’t gotten used to his wardrobe. But she’d learned to accept it.

A rich man was entitled to his oddities.

And it was really odd that Tal had taken her for his third wife solely because she came from an upper-crust Pasadena family who could no longer afford its good breeding. He’d acquired her like one of his paintings, enjoyed parading her “class” in front of his friends and business associates, and kept on wearing his hick cowboy boots and bolo ties.

And losing money.

He has a lot to lose, she reminded herself. Anyone who can afford Pollock and Picasso has more money than he knows what to do with.

Caitlin’s mother hadn’t raised any stupid daughters. Caitlin might not know about the intimate details of her husband’s business transactions, but she had hired someone to keep tabs on all of his bank accounts. Cash was her bottom line. Being raised genteel and poor in a rich neighborhood had taught her what made the world go round.

It wasn’t sex.

But her husband didn’t make finding out about his accounts easy for her. Tal was old-fashioned about more than his wardrobe. She had a house account that he generously filled and never mentioned how business was, if she should spend less or more. If it weren’t for whispers and rumors, she wouldn’t have known that federal tax collectors had been taking a very hard, long look at some of his business write-offs. She didn’t know why, or what, or how serious the government’s case was. She only knew enough to be afraid.

If Tal went down, she’d go down with him.

“How did the meeting with Lee Dunstan go?” Caitlin asked. Her tone was upbeat, her smile warm, and her stomach tight with fear.

“I told you not to worry about a thing, baby. It’s all taken care of. The IRS will be sniffing up someone else’s butt real soon.”

She managed not to curse out loud. Or scream. Eighteen months ago, the head of the accounting firm Tal used for business and personal record-keeping had been indicted, tried, and sent to jail for fraud, leaving behind a lot of financial wreckage for the IRS to sift through, searching for taxes owed on unreported profits.

“I’m glad to hear it,” she said, smiling through her clenched teeth.

She just wished she believed it. But Tal never talked business with her, which left her dangling alone with her vicious fear of being poor again.

“Would you like to go over the guest list for the post-auction party?” she asked.

“I’d rather be whipped.”

Caitlin had been expecting that response. Tal had married her to add a gloss to his home, his entertaining, and his reputation. Because she’d been raised to be a rich man’s wife, she was good at gloss. Since she wasn’t the type to count money that wasn’t in her hand, she’d cut the guest list down to people who could do Tal’s various business interests some good, and to hell with his freeloading shirtsleeve relatives and old acquaintances. He wouldn’t miss them unless someone pointed out their absence.

The money saved would go to her own hidden bank account, along with everything she’d skimmed from the household account.

A woman married to an older man had to look out for herself. Though Tal would never admit it, he simply wasn’t as quick as he’d been five years ago. Or even last year.

“Then I won’t bother you with the details of the party,” Caitlin said, smiling.

“You need any more money in the household account?”

“Don’t I always?”

Tal laughed and pulled a checkbook out of his jeans pocket. “Fifty do it?”

“Sixty?”

“Hell, these parties just keep getting more expensive.”

“And you keep getting more business from them.”

Tal laughed. “You got me there. Sixty it is.”

Smiling, he wrote his wife a check for sixty thousand dollars. She was a bargain at twice the price.

Class couldn’t be bought, but it could be married.