knew. Mr. Sullivan’s valet, Richard, he may have known. But I’m not sure
about that.”
“So Christine Sullivan or her husband never indicated to you that there
was a safe behind the mirror?”
“My goodness no. I was her friend of sorts, but I was still just an
employee. And on]. with them a year. Mr. Sullivan , y never really spoke
to me. I mean that’s not the sort of thing you would tell someone like
me, is it?”
“No, I guess not.” Frank was certain she was lying, but he had been
unable to unearth any evidence to the contrary.
Christine Sullivan was the very type to show off her wealth to someone
she could identify with, if only to show how far she had suddenly risen
in the world.
“So you didn’t know the mirror was a one-way looking into the bedroom?”
This time the woman showed visible surprise. Frank noticed a blush under
the light application of makeup.
“Wanda, can I call you Wanda? Wanda, you understand, don’t you, that
the alarm system in the house was deactivated by the person who broke
in? It was deactivated by the appropriate code being put in. Now, who
set the alarm at night?”
“Richard did,” she replied promptly. “Or sometimes Mr. Sullivan did it
himself.”
“So everyone in the house knew the code?”
“Oh no, of course not. Richard did. He’s been with Mr. Sullivan for
almost forty years. He was the only one other than the Sullivans who
knew the code that I know of.”
“Did you ever see him set the alarm?”
“I was usually already in bed when the system was set.”
Frank stared at her. I’ll bet you were, Wanda, I’ll bet you were.
Wanda Broome’s eyes widened. “You’re, you’re not suspecting that Richard
had anything to do with it?”
“Well, Wanda, somehow, somebody who wasn’t supposed to be able to,
disarmed that alarm system. And naturally suspicion falls on anyone who
had access to that code.”
Wanda Broome looked like she might start to cry, then composed herself.
“Richard is almost seventy years old.”
“Then he’s probably in need of a nice little nest egg. You understand
what I’m telling you is to be held in the strictest confidence of
course?”
She nodded and at the same time wiped her nose. The coffee, untouched,
was now sipped in quick little bursts.
Frank continued. “And until someone can explain to me how that security
system was accessed, then I’m going to have to explore the avenues that
make the most sense to me.”
He continued to look at her. He had spent the past day finding out
everything he could about Wanda Broome. It was a fairly average story
except for one twist. She was forty-four years old, twice divorced with
two grown children. She lived in the servants’ wing with the rest of the
in-house staff.
About four miles away her mother, aged eighty-one, lived in a modest,
somewhat run-down home, existing comfortably on Social Security and her
husband’s railroad pension.
Broome had been employed by the Sulliv’ans, as she said, for about a
year, which was what initially had drawn Frank’s attention: she was by
far the newest member of the house’s staff. That in itself didn’t mean
much, but by all accounts Sullivan treated his help very well, and there
was something to be said for the loyalty of long-standing, well- aid
empi Ig p oy ees. Wanda Broome looked like she could be very loyal too.
The question was to whom?
The twist was that Wanda Broome had spent some time in prison, more than
twenty years ago, for embezzlement when she had worked as a bookkeeper
for a doctor in Pittsburgh.
The other servants were squeaky-clean. So she was capable of breaking
the law, and she had spent time on the inside.
Her name back then had been Wanda Jackson. She had divorced Jackson when
she got out, or rather he had dropped her. There was no record of arrest
since then. With the name change and the conviction far in the past, if
the Sullivans had done a background check, they might not have turned up
anything, or maybe they didn’t care. From all sources Wanda Broome had