Rubout by Elaine Viets Page A

useful. Endora covered all those touchy stories that had Ladue-ites on the phone squealing to their lawyers and had their lawyers on the phone threatening to sue the
Gazette.
Writing about Ladue was financially and emotionally draining before Endora, and the paper avoided it whenever possible. But there were times when they couldn’t, especially when one of their suits made federal court. That’s when Endora proved to be worth her considerable weight in gold. She wrote stories with such wit and style, you actually thought she said something. Everyone was happy. Ladue had one of their own reporting things the way they wanted, and the
Gazette
staff didn’t have to tangle with Ladue. On the rare occasions when Endora overstepped herself and offended someone there, nobody complained to the
Gazette.
Her invitations simply dried up for a while. She never failed to get the point. A few younger writers at the
Gazette
groused because Endora seemed to do so little. The rest of us realized her true worth. Endora was getting up there and we dreaded the day she finally retired.
    At first I thought Endora was not in her lair today. Then I saw her behind a screen of wilting philodendrons she kept on the bookcase. Someone must be dumping
Gazette
coffee in the poor things again. She was at her desk, reading a book. She looked up from her paperback novel. “Yeah, Vierling, what can I do for you?” she said in a voice that could be heard on the other side of a hockey field. She always called me by my last name. It sounded very private school.
    “I’ve got the Sydney Vander Venter story,” I said. “I don’t know why they didn’t assign it to you in the first place.”
    “Because you were there when she was killed,” she said. “Anyway, Wendy stuck me with the Shop Till You Drop section about stores for the St. Louis super-rich. You know that’s like walking on goddamn eggs.”
    “I don’t envy you,” I said. I meant it. Some of that area’s biggest advertisers were not the most fashionable stores. Endora had to steer a delicate course to please editors and advertisers. “If anyone can carry it off, you can.” I meant that, too. I was on a roll, telling the truth twice in a row. I’d better quit while I was ahead. “I’m looking for information about Sydney. What can you tell me?”
    “Let’s see . . .” She stared straight ahead, as if the answer were written on her dingy wall. I knew she was going through the Ladue data bank in her head. “You know Sydney came from an old St. Louis family. A minor branch of the Gravois. Made their money in shoes, back when St. Louis was known for shoes, booze, and blues. The Gravois family had some money then, although most of it’s gone now.Not as much as the Vander Venters—they must be worth twenty million minimum—and that’s not counting the business.”
    “That much? And I heard Sydney’s mother-in-law Elizabeth was a tightwad.”
    “Elizabeth,” Endora said, and smiled. “That woman is a hoot. She’s the real brains of that family, you know. Elizabeth lives well, but she’s not ostentatious. Quality of life is what’s important to the Vander Venters, mother and son, and I admire them for that. She has another house in Maine, a fifty-foot sailboat, and I think she still has her place at Palm Beach, too.
    “Anyway, you asked about Sydney. Her father left her a small trust fund. Sydney went to Stephens College, you know, because she could take her horse to school with her.”
    “Did the horse learn anything?”
    “Very funny, Vierling. Don’t go South Side on me. I’m trying to help. I think Sydney married Hudson right after college. I know she was a model Ladue wife: devoted to her son, played bridge and tennis, chaired the right charity events, weighed the same at forty as she did when she married.”
    “Did she fool around on Hudson?”
    “Not that I ever heard. But he screwed around on her all the time. Mostly wives of friends. It was pretty quiet until he