Death Through the Looking Glass by Richard; Forrest Page A

sense of history and old Yankee frugality.
    â€œBeatrice,” the soft voice said from the doorway. “How good of you to come.” Karen Giles extended both hands as she moved across the room toward Bea.
    She was a tall woman, dressed in black, with her blond hair pulled back in a severe bun. The simplicity of the hair style seemed to accentuate her perfectly proportioned facial features. She moved with a flowing, athletic stride, with just the proper hint of sexuality to her hips. The early thirties would be her approximate age, Lyon thought.
    â€œWe were sorry to hear of your loss,” Bea said.
    â€œThank you for your thoughts.” She turned to Lyon and held out a hand, her voice small and lilting. “Thank you also, Lyon.”
    The dampness of her palm belied her apparent composure. “If there’s anything we can do?”
    â€œThank you, nothing. The services will be in a few days, but I can’t really make any definite announcement until the police release the …” Her hands went to her face as her shoulders momentarily shook; then her composure returned. “Perhaps some sherry?”
    â€œThat would be nice.”
    Karen poured small measures of sherry from a cut-glass decanter on a sideboard and handed the glasses to the Wentworths. “Have you heard anything about that woman? The one who killed Tom? Have they caught her yet?”
    â€œThere isn’t any such person as Carol Dodgson,” Bea said.
    â€œI don’t understand.”
    â€œThe handbag in the airplane was a plant. Every attempt I made to trace the Dodgson woman turned up absolutely nothing.”
    â€œThen someone else murdered Tom?”
    â€œExactly,” Lyon said.
    Karen Giles sat back on the sofa, crossed her legs, sipped her sherry quickly, and then laughed. “I should have known. Tom would never play around. It didn’t fit his image.”
    â€œThe police have assumed that Tom went to the lake house to be alone with the Dodgson woman, there was an argument, and she killed him. But that doesn’t seem to be the case now.”
    Karen went to the sideboard and poured another sherry. “No, it doesn’t.”
    â€œWhy was he out there?” Lyon asked.
    She shrugged. “Tom liked to get away once in a while, to work on briefs or just to be alone.”
    Lyon had first recognized the impulse as an intelligence officer during the Korean War, when bits and pieces of seemingly unrelated information had been channeled across his field desk. He had learned to follow the instinctual, almost subliminal leaps of logic from random parts to a logical whole. “Have the divorce papers been filed yet?”
    Karen Giles turned toward him with a blank stare, and he noticed how blue her eyes were. “I don’t know.”
    The jump had been made, and he’d have to press it home. “The file will turn up at court, or there’ll be copies of the documents at his office.”
    She continued staring at him for long moments before speaking. “I suppose they will.”
    â€œWhat were the grounds?”
    â€œIrreconcilable differences. He wouldn’t have it any other way. You ought to know that, Lyon. Form and appearance were terribly important to Tom. To finish answering your question, Tom was filing on Monday. That’s why he was at the lake house.”
    â€œThat’s all.”
    â€œThat’s all you’re going to get.” Her voice had changed; the lilting boarding-school affectation had disappeared, to be replaced by a hard, cutting quality. “Screw the sherry. I’m going to have a whiskey. Anybody want one?” They shook their heads as she mixed a stiff drink at the sideboard. “Shall I let it all hang out?”
    â€œIf you want.”
    â€œThe police didn’t pick up the divorce thing or that I’ve been taking flying lessons. And there is some money involved. Term insurance, of course; Tom was too