'Tis the Season Murder

by Leslie Meier

  The elevator came and they all got on.

  “Do you know what she did before she joined the magazine?” asked Lucy.

  “It wasn’t fashion, that’s for sure.” Cathy snorted. “I don’t think Elise could tell a Jean-Paul Gaultier creation from a Calvin Klein.”

  The elevator doors opened and Cathy sailed into the lobby, turning every head. The bellhops and desk staff all smiled and greeted her, and the doorman stepped smartly to open the door for her. Lucy and Tiffany followed in her wake as, smiling and waving at everyone, she swept through the door onto the sidewalk, where she suddenly stopped.

  Lucy watched, horrified, as a motorcycle with two helmeted riders dressed in gleaming black suits suddenly jumped the curb and came directly toward Cathy. She attempted to dodge the machine, and the doorman rushed to help her, but it was too late. She couldn’t avoid the bucket of red paint that drenched her beautiful fur coat.

  The driver wheeled the motorcycle around, attempting to escape, but the doorman heroically threw himself at the passenger. Lucy caught a glimpse of the driver’s shiny imitation leather suit, embellished with numerous zippers, as the motorbike roared off. She rushed to Cathy’s side and saw a uniformed cop pounding down the sidewalk to assist the doorman, who was struggling with the attacker he’d dragged off the motorcycle. The cop fumbled, attempting to handcuff the culprit, who took the opportunity to slip out of his grasp and dashed nimbly down the sidewalk and around the corner, leaving the two men bushed and breathing heavily.

  “Are you all right?” she asked Cathy, who was standing in the dripping coat, apparently in shock. Next to her, Tiffany was in tears.

  “I’m fine,” said Cathy. “Just a little stunned.”

  “Your poor coat,” wailed Tiffany.

  “I’m afraid it’s ruined,” said Lucy, who felt like weeping at the loss.

  “This old thing? I’ve had it for years. But why would anyone do something like this?”

  “Animal rights,” said the doorman, dusting himself off. “They don’t approve of wearing fur so they do stuff like this. They even picketed the Nutcracker performances this year. My granddaughter was in tears, all upset about the little bunnies that were killed to make fur coats.”

  “Well, they made a big mistake, then,” said Cathy, dropping her coat on the sidewalk. “Because now I’m just going to buy a new coat, and they’ll have to kill a whole lot of furry little critters—and they won’t be bunnies, I can tell you that.”

  “What a shame,” said Lucy, shaking her head over the coat.

  “If you don’t mind, I’ll need a statement,” said the officer, panting as he reached for his notebook.

  “Not at all,” said Cathy. She turned to go inside, pausing first to say good-bye to Lucy.

  Alone on the sidewalk, Lucy started walking in the direction of the hospital. But as she walked, she kept replaying the attack in her mind, like a video: the roar of the motorbike, the riders in their Darth Vader helmets, the arc of thrown paint, and then the splatters that fell like blood. Her steps quickened and she was quite out of breath herself by the time she reached the hospital.

  Chapter Eighteen

  THE NEW ETIQUETTE: WHEN IT’S OK TO E-MAIL

  The lunch trays had been delivered when Lucy arrived at the hospital but Elizabeth wasn’t much interested.

  “What exactly is Salisbury steak?” she asked, poking at a lump of mystery meat. It was covered with thick brown gravy and accompanied by an ice cream scoop of mashed potatoes with a puddle of bright orange margarine congealing on top.

  “Are you going to eat it?” asked Lucy, who had eaten nothing all day except a bowl of cereal and too much coffee.

  “No way. It’s disgusting.”

  “You don’t mind if I eat it, then?”

  “It’s your party,” said Elizabeth, grimacing as Lucy took the tray and set it on her lap.

  “When are they going to let me out of here?” asked Elizabeth. She was pressing the bed controls and suddenly shot from a reclining position to one that was bolt upright.

  “I’ve been wondering the same thing,” said Lucy, her mouth full of potato. “I keep hoping to run into the doctor but he’s never here when I am.”

  “I’m not sick anymore. I feel fine,” said Elizabeth, who was now lying on her back and raising her feet.

  “Did you tell that to the doctor?”

  “Sure. He just says that these things take time and I should be a patient patient.” Elizabeth snorted. “It’s his version of a joke.”

  “I wonder if it’s something to do with the investigation. Maybe the FBI wants to keep you safe or under observation.” Lucy had finished the main course and had moved on to the rubbery rice pudding. “Maybe one of the nurses can tell me something.”

  “They’ll just tell you to talk to the doctor,” said Elizabeth, who was now alternately raising her head and her feet.

  Finally satisfied, Lucy sat back and took a sip of brown liquid that could have been either coffee or tea. She looked around the room, bright with sunshine and fragrant with flowers. A small flowering bonsai tree in a jade pot caught her eye. “Who gave you that pretty plant?” she asked.

  “Brad and Samantha. They were here this morning.”

  “That was nice of them,” said Lucy, giving the plant a closer look. “Did you read the card?”

  “I didn’t notice it,” said Elizabeth. “But I did thank them. Really.”

  Lucy couldn’t help smiling. If there was one thing she’d pounded into her kids’ heads it was the importance of saying thank you and writing thank-you notes. That, and not opening someone else’s mail. She passed the little envelope to Elizabeth, who opened it and pulled out a white card.

  “There’s no message. It’s just his business card.”

  “Maybe the florist has a lot of corporate clients,” said Lucy, tapping her chin thoughtfully with her finger. It had worked for the Trojans, she thought, why not her? Besides, what was the worst that could happen? She’d get thrown out on her ear. It was a risk she was willing to take, if there was even a slight possibility of talking to Arnold. “You don’t need me, do you?” she asked.

  Elizabeth’s eyebrows shot up. “What do you mean? Where are you going?”

  “I have to make a delivery,” she said, grabbing her coat and shooting out the door.

  It wasn’t until Lucy was standing in the lobby of Nelco’s famous Millennium Building, holding an overpriced philodendron from a fancy florist in her hand, that she realized her plan needed work. She hadn’t realized that most New York office buildings had instituted strict security measures after 9/11 and the Millennium Building was no exception. Access to the elevators was blocked by a security checkpoint complete with a metal detector and several uniformed officers who checked bags. Lucy watched the procedure for a few minutes and was about to turn away when she made a startling realization: they were looking for guns and explosives, but they weren’t checking identities. And since she didn’t have any guns or explosives, they would let her through.

  She soon discovered, however, that the situation was quite different when she reached the top-floor offices of Nelco. There the elevator opened onto a once luxurious lobby that had been converted into something resembling the Berlin Wall’s Checkpoint Charlie. The formerly welcoming and spacious reception area had been awkwardly divided with a seemingly impregnable metal and glass wall that limited access to a pair of sturdy sliding metal doors that were activated only after one had cleared a metal scanner. The entire area was under observation from numerous video cameras, and at least twenty armed and uniformed private security guards were on duty; Lucy had never seen anything like it, not even at the airport. She was immediately assigned to one of the two lines of people awaiting entry. The process was slow as each person was questioned and checked against a list before being allowed to pass through the space-age doors.

  Lucy quickly decided that a quiet retreat was her best course of action. “Oops,” she said while turning to go
back to the elevator, “wrong floor.”

  Her way was immediately blocked by two of the largest men she had ever seen, both clad in matching blue and brown uniforms, with shaved heads and bulging biceps.

  “I made a mistake,” she said, appalled to discover her voice had become little more than a squeak.

  “Just come this way,” said one of the guards.

  “But I already told you, I made a mistake. This is the wrong floor.”

  “We have a few questions.”

  Before she could utter another word, she was hustled across the lobby and through a cleverly disguised doorway she hadn’t noticed before. She found herself in a small, bare room where she was immediately divested of her purse, coat, and plant and was thoroughly patted down by one of the guards while the other drew his gun and leveled it at her.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she shrieked.

  “Routine,” said the guard with the gun.

  “She’s clean,” said the other, who had worked his way down to her feet and removed her boots for examination, revealing a tattered pair of knee-highs.

  “Give me those back!” she demanded.

  Grinning, he handed the boots to her. “What is your business here?”

  “I told you,” she stammered. “I got off the elevator on the wrong floor.”

  His eyes were blank, his expression neutral. “What floor did you want?”

  “Eighty-four.”

  “Why?”

  “To deliver this plant.”

  “Who’s it for?”

  “Andrea Devine,” said Lucy, feeling rather clever for coming up with a name so quickly.

  “This Andrea Devine is with what firm?”

  “Sparkman, Blute, and Blowfish.”

  As soon as she’d said it Lucy realized she’d made a mistake. She whirled and lunged for the door, and was actually through it, when she ran straight into another guard. He was shoving her back through the door when the elevator binged and the doors slid open revealing Arnold Nelson himself.

  “What’s going on?” he demanded.

  “This woman attempted to gain unauthorized entry,” said the guard, who was gripping her firmly by her upper arms.

  “Let me go!” shrieked Lucy.

  “You again,” said Arnold, his eyes narrowing. “What do you want?”

  “I want to talk to you about your wife and my daughter and why they both got anthrax,” said Lucy. She spoke right up and was gratified to see that the people standing in line and waiting to be admitted were taking notice of the scene and looking on with interest.

  “Come with me,” said Arnold. His voice was quiet and authoritative.

  The guard let go of her arms and Lucy practically fell to the floor in amazement. Catching herself, she trotted after Arnold, like a little page carrying the king’s train. Everyone stepped back to let him pass, heads nodded, and people practically bowed and scraped. They eventually reached his office where his secretary’s eyes widened in surprise as Lucy was allowed to enter Arnold’s inner sanctum.

  Arnold lowered himself heavily into a leather chair behind his desk and indicated with a nod that Lucy should seat herself, too. “You’re that Stone woman.”

  “Lucy Stone. My daughter Elizabeth is still in the hospital with anthrax.”

  Arnold’s voice was serious. “Is she getting better?”

  “Yes,” said Lucy, surprised at his concern.

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “I want to know who did it. Who poisoned your wife and my daughter.”

  “How would I know?”

  Lucy’s eyes met his.

  Arnold didn’t get to be a multimillionaire because he was dumb. He got the point immediately. “You think I did it.”

  “Uh, of course not,” stammered Lucy.

  He looked straight at her. “I give you my word. I had nothing to do with it.”

  Arnold wasn’t a handsome man. He was short and fat and flabby. His eyes were too small and his nose was too big, but Lucy understood why he’d been so astonishingly successful. When he looked you in the eye and gave his word, you believed him.

  She sat for a minute, looking at the swirling design in the very expensive carpet. Raising her head she looked past Arnold, through the wall of glass behind his desk at the city stretched out far below. The view was magnificent, over the rooftops with their wooden water towers all the way down to the Wall Street skyscrapers and the Narrows beyond. An architect’s drawing of the City Gate project was affixed to the window. It was rendered in scale on some clear surface, allowing a viewer in the office to see what the towers would look like if they were built on Governors Island. Other framed drawings of projects were displayed around the office: a shopping mall in New Jersey, apartments in Westchester, dorms for Manhattan College and a lab for New York University. The stylized architect’s letters identified it as The Marcus Widmann Institute for the Study of Infectious Diseases. The image reminded her of something Geoff had said at the AIDS gala, that the lab project was in jeopardy.

  “You’ve had threats and you’re taking them seriously,” said Lucy, turning away from the image of the lab and meeting his eyes. “That’s why you have all this security.”

  Arnold shrugged. “It’s part of the business.”

  “No, this is not your average security setup. There are dozens of guards out there, and that barrier looks pretty serious to me. I bet it’s designed to resist sizeable explosions and the whole area can be sealed off in seconds in case of a poison gas attack.”

  Arnold didn’t say a word.

  Having gotten this far, Lucy wasn’t about to give up. “It’s about the lab you’re building, right?”

  Arnold’s eyes widened slightly, but he remained impassive, giving no other clue to his thoughts. “Like I said, I get threats all the time. I don’t pay attention. There’s no point, because once I’ve signed a contract, the project is going forward. If I say I’m going to build something, it’s going to get built.”

  “Do you know who’s behind these threats?” From somewhere deep in the back of her mind Lucy dredged up a tiny bit of information. “There’s even been sabotage, right?”

  He shrugged. “Construction is a tough business, and when you’re successful you make a few enemies. Competitors, unions, even neighborhood groups. That’s how it is.”

  Lucy couldn’t understand his attitude. Why wasn’t he angry? Unable to get to him, thanks to his impenetrable security, these saboteurs had sent anthrax to his wife. Why didn’t he want to get them? What was she missing here? “Don’t you want revenge?” she asked. “Don’t you want to make them pay for what they did?” She thought of Elizabeth, lying unconscious in the emergency room after collapsing at the photo shoot. “I know I do.”

  Arnold’s head was down. He was intently studying his desk’s burl-wood pattern. “I have confidence in the FBI,” he said. “They have their job and I have mine.” He glanced at his watch. “Now, I’m afraid I’m late for a meeting.”

  “The FBI?” Lucy couldn’t believe it. “They still haven’t solved the 2001 anthrax attack. Why do you think they’re going to do any better this time?”

  Behind her, the door opened and one of the guards entered. The message was clear: the meeting was over and one way or another, voluntarily or not, she was going to leave. Lucy got to her feet. “Thanks for your time,” she said. “And I’m truly very sorry about your wife.”

  “Me, too,” he said. Much to her surprise, Lucy believed him. He may have been a philanderer, but there was no doubt in her mind that on some level he truly loved Nadine.

  One of the security guards was waiting for Lucy in the reception area outside Arnold’s office. He helped her on with her coat, then presented her with her purse and the foolish plant, which she refused, before escorting her to the elevator. He accompanied her for the ride downstairs and walked her to the door, where he stood watching to make sure she left the building.

  Outside, the cold air was like a slap in t
he face. Lucy took a deep, invigorating breath. She felt as if she were waking up from a dream. She could remember bits and pieces but she couldn’t put it all together so it made sense. It was exactly the same feeling, she thought as she walked along, that she’d had so often upon waking. She would be afraid or confused and would lie in bed trying to remember the dream so she could discover its meaning. The most she could ever do, however, was to recapture a series of disjointed images. Yet always, there was the feeling that there was something more, if she could only remember it.

  Heading back to the hospital, she kept thinking about Arnold. What was he really like? There was the obnoxious womanizer she’d encountered at the ball, and then there was the angry Arnold at the funeral who had kicked her out. Today, she’d met the rich and powerful Arnold, secure in his skyscraper fortress high above Manhattan. None of these men seemed to bear any resemblance to Nancy Glass’s version of Arnold, the bereft widower in need of her tender loving care, or the suave salesman Arnold she’d seen on the Norah! show.

  Okay, Lucy admitted to herself, most people were a mix of contradictions, herself included. She loved her family; she loved getting away from them. Nobody was entirely consistent one hundred percent of the time, but Arnold certainly seemed to be an extreme example. Maybe, she thought, he had some mental problem. Split personalities? Schizophrenia? Or maybe he was just a chameleon who adapted to different situations with different responses.

  She didn’t know the answer, she concluded as she turned the corner by the hospital, but she now suspected that the anthrax attack was designed to send a message to Arnold and he’d gotten it. There had to be a reason for all that security. But who was trying to stop the lab? And were they the same group that was running around town tossing red paint and tomatoes?

  When Lucy returned to Elizabeth’s room she found Lance sprawled in the chair and clicking through the TV channels with the remote. He seemed quite at home, as if he’d been spending a lot of time there.