Confessions of a Red Herring

by Dana Dratch

  “Yeah, “ said Trip. “Unemployment.”

  “Well, he didn’t stay long at the wake,” said Nick. “But he spent most of that time at the bar. I kept pouring, and he kept talking.”

  “That’s my man,” Gabby said, giving him a pat on the shoulder.

  “Piper reeled in a big client. Something called the Tryon Alliance. They wanted C&W to mastermind a big push to raise their profile. It was Piper’s client, so technically, he was in charge of it. But really Coleman was running things behind the scenes, crafting the strategy and the client pitch.”

  “That tracks. From what I saw in my three months, Coleman was a total control freak. Whenever he put anyone ‘in charge’ of anything, that just meant they did the grunt work.”

  “That’s pretty much what Piper said. And it really pissed him off. Anyway, about six months ago, there was a big meeting with the Tryon guys. Lots of pomp and ceremony. But at the end of the presentation—dead silence. The Tryon guys hated the plan. Too young. Too edgy. Which was what Piper had been telling Coleman all along.

  “And when the presentation bombed, Coleman acted surprised that Piper had recommended such a radical approach. He assured the Tryon guys that he’d take over their account personally, create a traditional, conservative campaign, and manage it himself.”

  “Thereby earning a reputation as the guy who can step in and fix anything,” I said. “And the next day he canned Alan Piper?”

  “Leave no witnesses,” Nick replied.

  “Six months is a long time to wait to settle a score,” Trip said.

  “Piper has a sick kid, and his wife’s working a job at Starbucks to cover their health insurance,” Nick said. “And they just lost the house.”

  “That would make the hurt fresh again,” Trip said.

  I could relate. Coleman had been dead and gone for a week now. But he was still finding new and creative ways to screw up my life.

  Nick nodded. “I think what bothered him the most was the way Coleman was having him blackballed in the industry. Forget getting a job, he couldn’t even get an interview.”

  Trip’s eyes met mine. “Lot of that going around,” I said.

  “Coleman spread the word that the campaign had been Piper’s baby,” Nick said. “And that it was so bad, so inappropriate, it almost cost C&W a big client. Never mind that it was Piper’s client in the first place. Or that it was Coleman who screwed up the campaign. Coleman claimed he had to fire Piper because the guy made a fool of himself—and the firm—in front of the clients.”

  “I don’t get it,” said Gabby. “Was Coleman setting the guy up to fail? Did he want to get rid of him?”

  “Nothing that personal,” I said. “It’s a typical CEO strategy. You want to try something new—in this case, a new strategy for a P.R. campaign. But you don’t know for sure if it’ll fly. So you set it up as someone else’s idea. If it fails, you cut ’em loose. If it succeeds, you step in and take the credit.”

  For half a minute, we were silent. Business gains and losses were one thing. But it was chilling to realize that there were some walking among us who could name the livestock and eat them anyway. Without a trace of remorse.

  “Piper says Coleman even fought him on unemployment,” Nick said quietly. “Lawyers. Hearings. Appeals. The whole deal. And, somehow, potential employers were getting all the juicy details.”

  That sounded like vintage Coleman. In his mind, it wasn’t enough to win. You had to “obliterate the enemy.”

  Fair enough, if you were up against a business rival. Not so much if you were going to war with some poor schmuck who was just doing the job you hired him to do.

  “Was he mad enough to kill?” I asked.

  “They just moved in with his wife’s parents. And his wife is scrambling to pick up enough shifts so they can keep up with the medical bills.”

  “So you’re saying yes.”

  “Not just yes,” Nick said. “Hell yes.”

  “What about Walters?” I ventured.

  “That man sure doesn’t talk much,” Gabby said.

  “That’s what he’s famous for,” I said.

  “I thought public relations was about glitz and glamour and making a splash,” she said.

  “That’s advertising. Public relations is about getting people to believe your side of the story without even considering the alternatives. It’s advertising that the public doesn’t recognize as advertising.”

  “Stealth advertising?” Nick said.

  “Exactly. And while Coleman was the master of promotion, Walters was the one you went to if you didn’t want the information to leak out in the first place.”

  “They have guys like that in Vegas,” said Gabby.

  “I don’t think it’s quite the same thing,” I countered.

  “You’ve got a dead body, girls pimped out to clients, and people lying to the police,” Nick said. “How is it different?”

  “Well, when you put it that way . . .”

  * * *

  An hour later, Nick and Gabby had retired to the guest room. Quietly, I was relieved to hear.

  Trip and I were sitting on the front porch, sipping beer. It was one of those perfect, balmy spring nights. The kind we usually don’t see until May or June. Even so, I was wrapped in two sweaters. I couldn’t seem to get warm. Maybe it was all the talk of death and disaster.

  “I didn’t want to say anything in front of the newlyweds, but I got you a lead on a freelance job,” Trip said.

  “Really? You’re kidding! What is it?”

  “It’s only a one-shot thing. And it’s not your usual cup of tea. But it’s a first-rate publication, and the pay’s good—three thousand.”

  Three thousand dollars! Hot damn! Up to now, I couldn’t even get the local ad rag to return my calls. OK, I hadn’t really called them. I had my standards. Plus if they had said “no,” it would have killed me.

  “What’s the assignment? What’s the publication? Do they know about my little situation?”

  I didn’t want to get my hopes up only to lose the gig when the editor discovered their new freelancer was the Lizzie Borden of Washington, D.C.

  “Know? Yes. Care? Not if you can make the deadline. Hence the three thousand dollars.”

  “What’s the deadline?”

  “Two and a half weeks from today.”

  Tight. But doable. “What’s the story?”

  Trip cleared his throat. “A first-person account of how to create a wedding gift registry.”

  “What?”

  “It’s for D. C. Bride. They want to know what a bride goes through when she drafts a gift registry, along with some tips on how to really do it up right. Apparently, you don’t just sit down and make a list anymore. It’s all computerized, and you take actual classes.”

  “They do know I’m not getting married?”

  “They do. And as long as you’re willing to pose as a bride when you do the reporting, you can come clean in the article. They’re even open to your writing it as a humor piece. As long as you leave out the Bridezilla references.”

  “So now I’m flacking for brides?”

  “Yup.”

  “OK, it’s a step up.”

  We sipped in silence for a few minutes.

  “Piper’s probably not the only one, you know,” Trip said quietly.

  “I know. I heard another guy at the wake with a similar story. Charlie Bingham. I’d be willing to bet Coleman’s probably got a few Pipers and Binghams for every year he’s been in business.”

  “And if a few of them came to that wake . . .”

  “That means they had motive and proximity,” I said.

  “But whoever it was, Coleman had to let them into the office. There was no forced entry.”

  “Coleman wouldn’t have thought twice about meeting Piper in his office. The victor hosting the vanquished. It never would have occurred to him that it could turn physical. Or that he’d lose if it did. But there’s another possibility.”

/>   “What’s that?” Trip asked.

  “That whoever it was had help,” I said. “From the inside. Someone to let him in. Someone who may well have realized that it would get ugly. And someone who didn’t stick around to be a witness.”

  “Who?”

  “Someone who knew about Piper,” I said. “And who didn’t want to be the next Piper.”

  “In other words,” Trip started.

  “Someone who out Coleman’d Coleman,” I said.

  We sat in silence, both of us letting this new possibility sink in.

  “Did you see Gabby in action tonight?” Trip said finally.

  “Yeah, she really knows her way around a tray,” I said.

  “She also knows her way around a wallet.”

  I sat forward suddenly. “What?”

  “She was picking pockets all night,” he said.

  “Nooo! Are you sure? Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “To who? The manager Tom approached to get you guys in there? Or the cops, who—if they checked—would discover that she was the only real waitress in the room?”

  “OK, good point,” I said.

  “She did put everything back.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She’d take a wallet,” Trip said. “Five minutes later, she’d return it.”

  “Robin Hood? Doing it for the thrill?”

  “More like doing it for the credit card numbers,” he said. “If the card’s missing, people tend to notice and report it. But if they still have the card, they don’t realize something’s up until the bill comes. If then.”

  “The online boutique,” I said, feeling suddenly sick. “She’s funding it with stolen credit cards.”

  Trip nodded. “That would be my guess. Do you think Nick knows?”

  “Normally, I’d say ‘no.’ I mean, he’s no saint, but trafficking in stolen goods isn’t like him. But he’s so in love with her, who knows? I’ve never seen him like this around a woman. Damn, I was really beginning to like her.”

  “Con men have to be likable,” Trip said. “Otherwise the cons don’t work.”

  Which was worse: that she might be conning my brother? Or that he might be in on it?

  “Who’d she hit?” I asked, finally.

  “A few guys whose suits and body language screamed ‘Centurion card,’” Trip said. “No one I recognized. Except for Chaz.”

  “She got Chaz?”

  “Why do I think she might have been doing that one just for fun?” he said.

  “Well, the girl is family,” I said. “We shouldn’t judge her too harshly, until we have all the facts.”

  “Sounds fair,” Trip said.

  We clinked cans.

  Chapter 24

  No matter how old you are, Saturday morning is still Saturday morning.

  When I was a kid, it meant instead of eating oatmeal at the kitchen table and going to school, I could eat Cocoa Puffs in front of the TV, watching cartoons.

  And when I woke up on this sunny Saturday, that’s exactly how I felt.

  No Coleman. No cops. No lawyers. No cleaning toilets. And, ID theft or not, my new sister-in-law was beginning to grow on me.

  But I still wasn’t signing for her packages.

  Since I’d drained my checking account and part of my savings to pay my dentist yesterday—in cash, thank you very much—I had just enough savings left for a couple of mortgage payments. And I still had to cover bills, groceries and anything else that came up before I got the check for my bridal story.

  Granted, I had Peter’s check. But how could I accept his money when he was already picking up the tab for Holloman?

  So I made an executive decision. With three people and a dog to feed, and nothing but some very iffy salsa in the fridge, I was going to take some of Nick and Gabby’s rent money and visit the farmers’ market.

  I padded out to the kitchen, hit the switch on the coffeemaker, and opened the back door for Lucy. She made a mad dash, tumbling down the steps.

  I dialed Trip. “I’m thinking of hitting the farmers’ market this morning. You wanna come?”

  Dead silence.

  “Trip? Is everything OK?”

  “You seem awfully perky this morning, considering.”

  “Well, why not? You can’t let the bastards get you down. It’s a warm, clear, beautiful Saturday morning. The sky is blue. The sun is shining. And Lucy’s chasing butterflies in the backyard.”

  I looked out through the screen. Actually, what she was chasing looked more like a cricket. Or a grasshopper. Possibly a roach. Nutty dog.

  “Oh my God, you haven’t seen the Sentinel yet, have you?”

  That happy, fluttery Saturday-morning feeling suddenly gave way to a fist-sized rock in my gut. “What’s in the Sentinel?”

  “It’s not as bad as it looks.”

  “How bad does it look? And what exactly are we talking about?”

  In my heart, I knew. My mind went blank. I felt numb. I almost didn’t want to see it. But I was now moving toward my front door, as if pulled.

  The Washington Tribune, my former paper, was—as always—in the center of my driveway. My “delivery boy” was a sixty-eight-year-old woman trying to keep up the payments on her Audi. And she had an arm like a Cy Young winner.

  The Washington Sentinel, on the other hand, was never in the same place twice.

  Today, it was wedged in an azalea bush. At various times, I’d retrieved it from mud puddles, trees, and even the top of my car. Last spring, a Sunday edition took out a dozen tulips along the walkway. And the time it landed on the roof, it stayed there until the guy came to clean the gutters six months later.

  I didn’t know who delivered the Sentinel, but I suspected he drank. Heavily.

  I scraped leaves off the bag, slipped it out, and unfurled the front page. Nada. So far, so good. I flipped to the metro front. And saw my own face staring back at me. Above the fold.

  “Vlod the Impaler?” screamed the giant headline above my giant headshot.

  No!

  “Red? Honey, are you OK? Alex?” I heard Trip’s distant voice from the phone in my hand.

  I rolled up the paper and ran back inside. At this rate, the mobs with burning torches would arrive any minute.

  “Alex? Alex!”

  “I’m here. I’m fine. What the hell?”

  “Mira’s column. It’s a doozy.”

  “You’ve read it?” I couldn’t get past my enormous head on the section front. Where did they get that photo? It actually looked like I was smirking. “How bad is it?”

  “Not great.”

  Which was the same thing he said after a fifteen-dollar haircut left me with bangs so short I looked like Mr. Spock.

  “How ‘not great’?”

  “Well, the upside is your mom and sister are still out of the country. And Baba’s grasp of English isn’t all that good.”

  I covered the photo with one hand, and forced myself to read the story. And what a story it was. Her lede:

  “Sometimes pretty girls do ugly things.”

  That’s what one source said, confirming that a celebrity’s sister is a prime suspect in a grisly, local murder. Alexandra Vlodnachek, sister of supermodel Anastasia, is reputedly “a person of interest” in the stabbing death of her former boss, Washington public relations executive Everett P. Coleman.

  Coleman, the managing partner of the prestigious, boutique P.R. firm of Coleman & Walters, was found dead in his office one week ago—stabbed in the back with his own silver letter opener.

  Vlodnachek had recently been fired from the company. And one industry insider, who knew Vlodnachek well, confirmed that she was scheduled to meet with Coleman at his office the very afternoon he was killed.

  Thanks, Chaz.

  Soon-to-be-released DNA test results are also expected to confirm that the strands of red hair found on Coleman’s body are Vlodnachek’s.

  Police questioned Vlodnachek, who immediately retained powerhouse D.C. cel
ebrity defense attorney, Richard C. Holloman. And she hasn’t said a word to authorities since.

  Yeah, because they haven’t called me.

  One possible motive: it’s rumored that Vlodnachek, who didn’t possess the requisite knockout looks to follow in her stunning sister’s footsteps, was writing an insider tell-all about the public relations industry. And, as one industry insider revealed, Coleman—a major player in local circles who was known for his networking acumen—discovered her plan.

  Vlodnachek’s actions—and her silence—have angered many in the tight-knit public relations community. But some refused to comment, for fear of angering the redhead, who has been called “volatile,” “vengeful,” and downright “dangerous.”

  No one spoke on the record because no one wanted to get sued. Come to think of it, could I sue Mira?

  Former co-workers are murderously angry themselves.

  “It’s outrageous,” exclaimed one beautiful, pre-Raphaelite blonde, speaking only on the condition of anonymity. “Everett Coleman was a good man. A family man. He gave her a chance—a shot at a real career with an elite agency. The idea that she abused his trust and used him like that—it’s monstrous.”

  And it went on from there. Nameless quotes. Groundless supposition. Plus a hundred and one words for “floozy.” I had, sources breathlessly “disclosed,” perhaps even seduced the victim himself. Before he came to his senses and repented, of course.

  In any event, I was a brazen siren using my average looks and loose morals to lure unsuspecting men to their dooms.

  Mira’s article was chock-full of phrases like “some believe,” “sources say,” and, at least twice, “one theory is.” Followed, of course, by one of Mira’s crackpot theories.

  In other words, enough wiggle room for Mira and the Sentinel, if I phoned Holloman. Which I was considering.

  Trip’s anxious voice broke my fog. “Alex? AL-EX!”

  “Son of a bitch.”

  “Ah, that’s my girl. Welcome back.”

  “I’m going to kill her.”

  “Can we at least clear you of the other murder first?”