My Gal Sunday Read Online Free Page A

a bar in the library. Well, Arabella already had made herself at home by preparing a martini for both of us.”
    “Tom, why would you even think of drinking a martini on top of a sleeping pill?” Henry asked.
    “Because I’m a fool,” Shipman snapped. “And because I was so sick of Arabella’s loud laugh and irritating voice that I thought I’d go mad if I didn’t drown them out.”
    Henry and Sunday stared at their friend. “But I thought you were crazy about her,” Henry said.
    “Oh, I was for a while, but in the end, I was the one who broke it off,” Shipman replied. “As a gentleman, though, I thought it proper to tell people that it had been her decision. Certainly anyone looking at the disparity in our ages would have expected it to be that way. The truth was, I had finally —
temporarily,
as it turns out — come to my senses.”
    “Then why were you calling her?” Sunday asked. “I don’t follow.”
    “Because she had taken to phoning me in the middle of the night, sometimes repeatedly, hour upon hour. Usually she would hang up right after hearing my voice, but I knew it was Arabella. So I had called her to warn her that it couldn’t go on that way. But I certainly did
not
invite her over.”
    “Tom, why haven’t you told any of this to the police? Certainly based on everything I have read and heard, everyone thinks it was a crime of passion.”
    Tom Shipman shook his head sadly. “Because I think that in the end it probably was. That last night Arabella told me that she was going to get in touch with one of the tabloids and was going to sell them a story about wild parties that you and I allegedly gave together during your administration.”
    “But that’s ridiculous,” Henry said indignantly.
    “Blackmail,” Sunday said softly.
    “Exactly. So do you think telling that story would help my case?” Shipman asked. He shook his head. “No, even though it wasn’t the case, at least there’s some dignity to being punished for murdering a woman because I loved her too much to lose her. Dignity for her, and, perhaps, even a modicum of dignity for me.”
    Sunday insisted on cleaning up the kitchen while Henry escorted Tommy upstairs to rest. “Tommy, I wish there were someone staying here with you while all this is going on,” the former president said. “I hate to leave you alone.”
    “Oh, don’t worry, Henry, I’m fine. Besides, I don’t feel alone after our visit.”
    Despite his friend’s admonition, Henry knew he would worry, as he began to do almost immediately after Shipman went off to the bathroom. Constance and Tommy had never had children, and now so many of their close friends from the area had retired and moved away, most of them to Florida. Henry’s thoughts were interrupted by the sounding of his ever-present beeper.
    Using his cellular phone, he replied immediately. The caller was Jack Collins, the head of the Secret Service team assigned to him. “I’m sorry to bother you, Mr. President, but a neighbor is most anxious to get a message to Mr. Shipman. She says that a good friend of his, a Countess Condazzi who lives in Palm Beach, has been trying to get through to him, but he is not answering his phone and apparently his answering machine is turned off, so she has been unable to leave him a message. I gather that she has become somewhat distraught and is insisting that Mr. Shipman be notified that she is awaiting his call.”
    “Thanks, Jack. I’ll give Secretary Shipman the message. And Sunday and I will be leaving in just a few minutes.”
    “Right, sir. We’ll be ready.”
    Countess Condazzi, Henry thought. How interesting. I wonder who that can be?
    His curiosity deepened when, on being informed of the call, Thomas Acker Shipman’s eyes brightened, and a smile formed on his lips. “Betsy phoned, eh?” he said. “How dear of her.” But almost as quickly as it had appeared, the brightness faded from his eyes, and the smile vanished. “Perhaps you could