My Gal Sunday by Mary Higgins Clark Read Free Book Online

who had been with him and Connie for some twenty years. So what if she had sometimes burned the bacon, she had always been a pleasant fixture in their home.
    Also, Dora had been of the old school, while Lillian clearly believed in the equality of the employee to the employer. Nevertheless, Shipman realized that for the short time he would be in the house before going to prison, he could manage to put up with Lillian’s takeover attitude. He would just make the best of it by trying to enjoy the creature comforts of delicious meals and properly served wine.
    Recognizing that he could not cut himself off completely from the outside world, and acknowledging that he actually needed to be available to his lawyer, Shipman had turned on the telephone answering machine and had begun taking calls, although screening out those that weren’t necessary. When he heard Sunday’s voice, however, he gladly picked up the phone.
    “Tommy, I’m in the car and on my way to your house from Yonkers,” Sunday explained. “I want to talk to your housekeeper. Is she in today, and if not, do you know where I can reach her?”
    “Lillian is here.”
    “Wonderful. Don’t let her leave until I have had a chance to visit with her. I should be there in about an hour.”
    “I can’t imagine what she’ll be able to tell you that the police haven’t already heard.”
    “Tommy, I’ve just talked with Arabella’s boyfriend. He knew of her plan to extort money from you, and from what he said, I gather that it was a stunt that she had pulled on at least one other person. We’ve got to find out who that person was. It’s entirely possible that someone followed Arabella to your house that night, and we hope that when Lillian left she might have seen something — a car, maybe — that didn’t seem significant at the time but could prove to be important. The police never really investigated any other possible suspects, and since Henry and I are convinced that you didn’t do it, we’re going to sniff around for them. So buck up! It ain’t over till it’s over.”
    Shipman hung up and turned to see Lillian West standing in the doorway to his study. Obviously she had been listening to his conversation. Even so, he smiled pleasantly. “Mrs. Britland is on her way here to talk to you,” he said. “She and the president seem to feel that I may not be guilty of killing Arabella after all and are doing some sleuthing on their own. They have a theory that might prove to be very helpful to me, and that’s what she wants to speak to you about.”
    “That’s wonderful,” Lillian West said, her voice flat and her tone chilly. “I can’t wait to talk to her.”
    Sunday’s next call was to Henry, on his plane. They exchanged reports on what they had learned so far, he from the countess and she from Alfred Barker. After Sunday’s revelation about Arabella’s habit of blackmailing the men she dated, she added a cautionary note: “The only problem with all this is that no matter who else might have wanted to kill Arabella, proving that that person walked into Tommy’s house undetected, loaded the gun that happened to be lying there, and then pulled the trigger is going to be difficult.”
    “Difficult maybe, but not impossible,” Henry said by way of reassurance. “I’ll get Marvin started right away on checking out Arabella’s last places of employment, and maybe he can find out who she might have been involved with there.”
    After saying good-bye to Sunday, Henry sat back to ponder what he had just learned about Arabella’s past He felt a strong sense of unease, but he couldn’t quite put it together. He had a growing premonition that something was wrong, but he couldn’t put his finger on just what it was.
    He leaned back in the swivel chair that was his favorite spot on the plane, other than the flight deck. It was something Sunday had said, he decided, but what was it? With almost total recall, he reviewed their conversation. Of