Double Take

“You have the same lawyer as Dr. Ransom, don’t you?” Cheney asked. “Zion Leftwitz?”

“He’s one of my corporate lawyers. Simon Bellows is my civil lawyer.” He reached for his phone.

Savich looked over at Sherlock, who appeared thoughtful, then she slowly nodded to him. “Very well, Mr. Pallack,” Savich said. “Let me bottom-line this. You are married to a woman who greatly resembles another woman who disappeared from Maestro, Virginia, over three years ago. They look so similar they could be twins. Her name is Christie Noble. She’s Chappy Holcombe’s daughter. Perhaps you met her when you saw Chappy?”

“My Charlotte resembles this Christie? So what? Listen, I seem to recall Chappy had a daughter, but no, I never met her. You said she disappeared?”

Sherlock said, “You are acquainted with my parents, I believe, Mr. Pallack.”

“Yes, it is my pleasure.”

Cheney said, “You met Christie’s husband, Chappy’s son-in-law—Sheriff Dix Noble—when you dined at the Sherlocks last Friday night.”

Thomas Pallack became very still, his eyes darkening to become completely opaque, with malice, Sherlock thought. She never looked away from him as he said, “I remember the dinner and I remember the sheriff. Ah, I see now, that is why he stared at my wife throughout the evening. He believed she was his wife?”

Sherlock nodded. “Yes, but only for a moment. He realized quickly enough your wife wasn’t Christie. As Agent Savich said, she was Chappy Holcombe’s daughter. You said you never met her?”

“That’s right. Tell me, how did this sheriff know about Charlotte?”

“Do you remember a fundraiser you gave two, three weeks ago, Mr. Pallack?” Savich said. “One of your guests met your wife, and collapsed.”

“Why yes, Jules Advere. I felt very badly for him. But we dealt with it. I haven’t spoken to him but I understand he’s fine now. So what?”

“Yes, he’s feeling better. Do you remember leaning over him. Mr. Pallack, speaking to him?” Sherlock paused a moment, then said quickly, deliberately, “You said to him, your exact words, I believe—’My wife’s name is Charlotte. Do you understand? Don’t forget it.’ Now wasn’t that a strange thing to say, Mr. Pallack? It sounds remarkably like a threat to me. Could you please tell us why that made you so angry? Why you reacted that way to a guest who’d collapsed at your feet?”

Pallack erupted, roared to his feet, and slammed his fist on his desktop. “Dammit, you’re way out of line here. I have no recollection of anything like that occurring, none at all. Who the hell do you think you are to—” He stared hard at Sherlock. “I see now, it’s your father talking here. He told you about this and put his own unique spin on it, but—”

Sherlock said, “Our connection is to Chappy Holcombe. Jules Advere and Chappy go back a long way, as you must know. He called Chappy from the hospital, and since Sheriff Noble is Christie Holcombe’s husband, he flew to San Francisco to check it out. It so happens that Sheriff Noble is a friend of ours, and we hooked him up with my parents. None of this comes from my father.”

Savich said, “What Sheriff Noble found very odd was that when he told you he was from Maestro, you didn’t mention that your brother-in-law attended Stanislaus. Your wife didn’t say a word about it either. Help us make sense of this, Mr. Pallack.”

Thomas Pallack was flushed now, his eyes hot and dangerous. A man this angry, Sherlock thought, could shove a stiletto into your heart. He said, “I wondered how Corman and Evelyn could possibly know a hick sheriff from some bumfuck place in the South—so the dinner invitation was for the benefit of the sheriff, was it?”

“I couldn’t say,” Sherlock said. “But why didn’t you or Charlotte say anything, Mr. Pallack? It seems to me it would have been perfectly natural for your wife to jump right in when Sheriff Noble said he was from Maestro—goodness, her brother attended Stanislaus, seems she’d have remarked on what a small world it is, what a coincidence, and immediately engaged him in lively discussion.”

“Evidently my wife didn’t care to, if indeed he did say where he was from. Listen, the fact is, this Sheriff Noble was no one important, and he meant nothing to me or to my wife. He was simply a body at the dinner table to whom one was civil, nothing more.”

Pallack didn’t know his wife had met with Dix twice now since the dinner? Of course he might simply be pretending not to know. She said, “Mr. Pallack, after Jules Advere collapsed at your house, you had to know he would call Chappy. He was Christie’s godfather, after all. You had to know there would be follow-up.”