Confessions of a Red Herring

by Dana Dratch

  I smiled and looked over at the sleeping russet form. Her little pink belly, shaved from the surgery, made her look even more vulnerable. I stroked her back.

  Gabby lowered her voice. “The truth is, I love how much she loves him.”

  “I know,” I said. “Me, too.”

  * * *

  I opened my eyes and got up to stretch, just as Nick walked through the big double doors with a smile on his face. He looked around the waiting room at everybody sleeping in chairs and shook his head.

  “You gotta see this,” he whispered to me. “Come on.”

  We walked into the recovery room. Lucy was curled up in her little doggie bed. “Rowr. Rowr, rowr. Ruh-urowr!”

  “She’s awake!”

  “She’s awake. And the doc says she’s doing great. If she keeps it up and the X-rays look good, we can take her home tonight.”

  “Oh my God, that’s fantastic! You hear that, Lucy?” I said stroking her. “You get to come home!”

  “And you’ll get to wear one of those little satellite dish collars,” Nick said in a high, happy voice. “Won’t you? Won’t you?”

  “Rowr.”

  “Oh, poor little baby,” I said. “She’s probably starving. When can she start eating again?”

  “She’ll get some liquid stuff for breakfast. Later today, some solid food. If she passes the poop test, she can come home.”

  Suddenly it dawned on me. Lucy couldn’t go home. None of us could.

  I filled Nick in on what had happened to Jennifer, and Trip’s plan to take us all to the Farm. Give Nick credit, after everything he’d been through, he didn’t bat an eye.

  “I don’t want to take Lucy that far from her vet. If anything happens, we’ve got to be able to get back here, quick.”

  “It’s in the middle of horse country,” I said. “They’ve got to have some good vets. I’ll talk to Trip and Dr. Scott.”

  “What are you going to tell her? That we’re running from a slasher, or that we’re running from the law?”

  “I was going to say we’re having work done at the house and have to stay with friends for a few days.”

  “Yeah, I’d go with that,” he said, yawning.

  “How much sleep did you get last night?” I asked.

  “Pretty much none,” he said. “Hey, did you know Baba can sleep with her eyes open? It’s really freaky.”

  “Yeah, she gets it from you. You do the same thing when you’re really tired.”

  “I do not.”

  “Ever since you were a kid,” I said. “Between you and Baba catnapping in chairs, it looked like The Walking Dead out there. I’m telling you, that alone kept me awake.”

  “Oh, please,” he said. “Little Miss I-Don’t-Snore. Every time you nodded off, it was like being on a flight path to Reagan National.”

  “Ruff. Rrrr. Rowr. Phfft. Ha-ruff.”

  “See? She agrees with me,” Nick said, ruffling the top of her head. “Hell, I don’t care where we go as long as we have a vet nearby, and the pup can take it easy for a few days. And I can get some sleep.”

  “Just leave everything to Trip and me. The place is great. It’s like a hotel. You’ll love it. It’ll be a mini-vacation.”

  “All the comforts of home without the crazed killers. Sounds good to me.”

  Chapter 50

  If anyone had predicted I’d start blubbering over the sight of a dog pooping, I’d have thought they were nuts.

  Honestly, I blame the sleep deprivation.

  Ever the party dog, Lucy slept most of the morning. Later that afternoon, when she took a short walk across the backyard of the vet clinic, she had more eyes on her than Oprah at a red-carpet event.

  Lucy being Lucy, she darted behind a flowering green bush to do her thing. Then she doubled back and put her nose to one of the white blooms.

  That’s when I lost it. Tears soaked my face, and I cried silently until my body shook. All the fear and tension of the past twenty-four hours flooded out.

  Trip put his arm around my shoulders. “You’re going to have to use your sleeve this time, Thelma. I’m fresh out of hankies.”

  I giggled and hiccuped. Then I took a couple of deep breaths. Out in the yard, Nick flashed a double thumbs-up to the crowd.

  “Heard anything about Jennifer?” I asked Trip, once I’d regained control of my voice.

  “Yeah, Billy Bob is really pissed off he was out of town for that one. But once he stopped swearing at me, he made a few calls. Seems the cops want to talk with one Mrs. Everett Coleman, but she’s missing.”

  “Like Chaz?”

  “Chaz is no longer missing,” he said. “Chaz is staying at a five-star resort in West Virginia, courtesy of Billy Bob’s company Amex card.”

  “Nice step up from a camping cabin. Is he talking?”

  “According to Billy Bob, he’s got diarrhea of the mouth. I think he’s afraid if he stops spilling, Billy Bob will turn him over to the cops. Which is about right.”

  “Anything useful?”

  “Remains to be seen,” Trip said. “Right now, a lot of first-person stories and hearsay. Don’t know how much of it is legit. We know he was feeding Mira a load of crap. But he claims your friend Walters is calling the shots.”

  “But the police want to talk to Margaret, not Walters.”

  “Yup. She’s officially ‘a person of interest.’”

  “Cop-speak for ‘suspect,’” I said. “So where is she?”

  “Housekeeper says she’s at a spa. When the cops tried to find out which spa, she claimed she didn’t know and lapsed into German.”

  “Margaret’s on the lam,” I concluded.

  “Sounds like. And Walters is playing it cool. Has one lawyer handling press calls, while another communicates with the cops.”

  “And?”

  “They interviewed him,” Trip said. “Briefly. Were in and out of his office in fifteen minutes. Either they don’t think he’s involved or, more likely, they don’t have enough evidence yet to sweat him on the murder.”

  “Because they don’t know Jennifer was trying to blackmail him.”

  “It’s your recording,” he said. “What do you want to do?”

  “Get everyone to the Farm. Talk to Holloman. Have him take me and the recording to the cops. After making a copy for Billy Bob, of course. God, it kills me that I have to hand this story off to someone else.”

  “So don’t,” Trip said. “Write a first-person, insider’s account. If we don’t buy it, sell it to the competition. Or Washington magazine. You’re the one with the inside track. You actually knew these people. You worked there every day. You saw how the place operated. And you’re the one who fought back. Bottom line: you get to choose. Not the cutthroats at C&W. Not the bigwigs at the paper. You.”

  “You really want to get me blubbering again, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, I figured I’d snap a blackmail shot with my cell phone,” he said. “We can run it with your story.”

  “It would still be better than that one Mira used. Where did she get it?”

  “Better question: where is Mira?”

  “West Virginia? Jail? Disney World?”

  “Don’t know,” Trip said. “She’s also disappeared. The cops wanted to chat with her about some of the things she allegedly ‘uncovered,’” he said, using giant air quotes. “First, she spouted the usual First Amendment defense. Then she vanished. Supposedly, nobody from her paper has heard from her. I say ‘supposedly’ because she could be chasing down leads. Or she could be shacked up somewhere with her billionaire wunderkind. Or maybe she really is gone.”

  “That’s weird,” I said. “As rabid as Mira is, it’s not like her to disappear in the middle of a story. Could she be tracking Margaret?”

  “Could be. But at the wake, she seemed more intent on nailing you. And after her column, she has a vested interest in proving you’re the guilty party. Ethical and unbiased, she’s not.”

  “Well, Chaz was missing, but we fo
und him,” I said.

  “Temporarily,” Trip said. “Billy Bob’s threatening to disappear him again if I leave them alone much longer.”

  “Chaz has that effect on people. So Margaret and Mira are missing.”

  “And Jennifer’s dead.”

  “And I can’t go home.”

  “That pretty much sums it up,” Trip said. “It might be a good time to start folding up the Big Top and get the circus wagons heading to the Farm.”

  “Have I said ‘thank you’ yet?”

  “You don’t have to thank me,” he said. “You just have to help me keep Baba out of the kitchen.”

  Chapter 51

  Later, I ducked into Lucy’s recovery room. The pup was snoozing, and Nick was watching her small chest go up and down.

  “Trip and I are gonna take the girls back to the house and pack a few things. Anything special you need?”

  “Just grab my shaving kit, a pair of jeans, and a couple of T-shirts,” Nick said. “I can hit a Walmart for anything else.”

  “Got it. Where’s Gabby?”

  “She needed to catch some shut-eye,” he said. “She’s taking a nap in the car.”

  When I got back to Nick’s Hyundai, Baba was already strapped into the passenger seat and Gabby was dead asleep in the back. Apparently, I was driving.

  “I’ll follow in my car,” Trip said. “Take it easy. Keep me in sight, and don’t lose me.”

  “Yes, Mom.”

  You’d think it would be easy to keep track of a big, shiny red sports car. But by the time we were back in my neighborhood, Trip’s Corvette was nowhere to be seen. I was hoping he’d somehow passed us.

  Just as I rounded the corner to my street, Gabby popped up in the backseat.

  “Oh, thank God,” she drawled, looking pained. “Sugar, I gotta use your little girl’s room. The sooner the better.”

  “Almost there. How many pots of that coffee did you drink?”

  “I lost count. People kept drinking it, so I kept making it,” she said, bouncing on the seat as I pulled into the driveway.

  I sometimes got an odd prickling sensation down the back of my neck when the animal-instinct part of my brain was trying to tell me something. It was the same feeling I’d had right before Trip and I found Jennifer.

  And I felt it now.

  Everything around my house looked normal. But something was different. Off. And after a night with almost zero sleep, I couldn’t even begin to guess what it was.

  So I checked the rear-view mirror and threw the car into reverse. Still no Trip.

  “Sugar, I don’t mean to be pushy, but you’re moving in the wrong direction. And I’m kind of desperate here.”

  “Slight change of plans. How’d you like to use a lovely Victorian powder room?”

  “Is it close by?” she said, squirming in the seat.

  “Virtually right across the street.”

  “Fine by me, honey. Right now I’d settle for a milk carton.”

  Cars lined half the street, and more were doubled up in Ian’s driveway. The garden party! We’d been so worried about Lucy, I’d totally forgotten about it.

  I wasn’t exactly dressed for a genteel tea. I was wearing the same T-shirt, jeans, and Windbreaker I’d inadvertently worn to a crime scene. And slept in.

  But I also didn’t want to go home right now. At least, not until Trip showed up and we could storm the place together. Or sneak over and secretly scope it out.

  Where the hell was he?

  Thanks to Gabby’s purse, I was at least wearing makeup. And one of the vet techs had managed to find us brand-new toothbrushes. Mine was purple with a gold doggy bone embossed on the handle.

  I figured if I could find a space on the curb near Ian’s house, Trip might realize we were over there and not at my place.

  Baba had nodded off on the drive home and was snoring softly in the passenger seat. In the back, Gabby had traded bouncing for rocking.

  “Look, sugar, there!” she said, pointing frantically.

  A parking spot—right smack in front of Ian’s rambling home. Vacant only because it was also right smack in front of a fire hydrant.

  “We’ll get a ticket. Or Nick will.”

  “Honey, I’ll come right back out and move it. I swear, I won’t be long.”

  I gave up and angled the car into the spot. If the cops showed up, maybe they could escort me home and figure out what was going on at my place. And find Trip.

  Where was he? And why wasn’t he here already?

  The second I was out of the car, Gabby threw the driver’s seat forward and scrambled out.

  I got back in and put a gentle hand on Baba’s shoulder. “We’re here.”

  She blinked and looked out the window. “Schtow?”

  “Something’s weird at my place. I don’t know what, exactly. And Trip’s not here yet. So we’re going to wait at Ian’s. Gabby’s in there already, using the bathroom.”

  “Da, hadasho,” she said, patting my knee. With that, she unbuckled the seatbelt, clutched her large black purse to her chest with both hands, and climbed out of the car.

  Harkins answered the door, outfitted in a black suit, gray silk vest, and matching tie. With white gloves. His face lit up when he saw us.

  “Good afternoon, ladies, and welcome!” he said, stepping back to open the door with a flourish. “Sir Ian will be so pleased that you’ve come. He will be with you presently. In the meantime, we have canapés and pastries on the back lawn, along with several varieties of tea and a bit of bubbly. Allow me to escort you.” He dropped his voice to barely above a whisper. “I believe your brother’s fiancée is indisposed but will join you shortly.”

  We must have been the last to arrive. While the house was virtually deserted inside, there was noise and music coming from the backyard. Harkins threw open the French doors to the patio.

  The party was in full, noisy swing. The neighbors would have complained. But most of them were here already. A string quartet was set up just off the patio. Guests were milling about on the lawn, animatedly chatting, laughing, toasting, and eating. And it was quite the crowd.

  If Ian wanted publicity, it looked like he was going to get it. I spotted two girls from the lifestyle section of my former paper, along with the main travel writer. And there was an equally strong contingent from the Sentinel. I prayed Mira Myles really was missing. If not, chances were she was here, too.

  In the far corner of the yard, I spied Lydia Stewart. Decked out in a fuchsia sheath dress, heels, and a white fascinator with a huge pink flower, she’d gone for full-on Ascot regalia. I also recognized the two guys in suits next to her—one was a freshman congressman, the other a longtime state official.

  I looked back at the closed patio doors behind me. The drapes were drawn. But the glass was so clean, I could see my reflection. I had to hand it to Ian, the place looked great.

  That’s when it hit me. Closed drapes.

  When we’d dropped everything to run Lucy to the vet yesterday, it was a sunny Saturday afternoon. While the windows were locked, the plantation blinds in the living room had been open. And we’d left in such a rush that all I did was turn off the stove and lock the front door.

  But when we’d pulled into the driveway a few minutes ago, the blinds were closed tight.

  Someone was—or had been—in my house. And Trip was headed there now. I had to warn him.

  I pulled out my phone. But it was dead. Again.

  Guess that’s what happens when you leave it on for two days straight.

  “Baba, Trip still isn’t here. I’m going to duck into the kitchen and try to call him. Why don’t you have a cup of tea and try some of Nick’s goodies? Gabby should be out here in a minute, and we can reconnoiter.”

  She fixed me with a dubious expression—a cross between disbelief and alarm. I honestly didn’t know what she was going to do next. But she gripped the straps of her big black purse and marched over to one of the tea tables. So far, so good.

>   With Baba safely surrounded by VIPs, and Gabby locked in the powder room, I needed to get to a phone and find out what was keeping Trip. And thanks to my tour of the house last week, I knew Ian had a landline in the kitchen.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw a familiar silhouette. And those beer-garden braids. I planted my feet and scanned the yard. Ian was nowhere in sight. Harkins was shuttling a silver tray of tea and cakes to the outdoor tables.

  A night of no sleep and I was jumping at shadows.

  I took a deep breath and turned to go inside. And saw her reflection looming in the glass.

  Margaret.

  “Well, hello, Alexandra. Not exactly dressed for a party, are we?”

  She was clad in a shapeless black silk thing that, on anyone else, would have been dubbed a “little black dress.” Not so little on Margaret. But, with the right accessories, it could take her from mourning visits to afternoon tea to poisoning her enemies over an elegant dinner. She was, literally, dressed to kill.

  Drink in hand, she sauntered to the far side of the yard and joined a group of couples chatting amiably.

  Numbly, I watched her, a thousand questions in my head. She looked over and gave me a friendly wave.

  I felt an icy current down my spine.

  My first instinct was to collect Baba and Gabby and run. But something told me we’d be safer here, in a crowd, than if we went off alone. I looked over and saw Baba on the opposite side of the yard. Harkins was pouring her a glass of champagne.

  I took another deep breath. We were OK for now.

  Still, I needed reinforcements. If Margaret really was a “person of interest” to the cops, I certainly didn’t mind letting them know where she was.

  Ian’s kitchen looked like it belonged in a hotel. Or an old English castle. Everything was restaurant-sized and spotless. Trays of food and tea were laid out with hospital precision. And there wasn’t a soul around.

  But the phone was exactly where I remembered it: on the wall next to a large farm-style sink. I was praying that Trip was OK. And that he hadn’t drained his phone like I had.