Killer Deal

by Sheryl J. Anderson

  “I’m pretty sure you didn’t ask one.”

  “Will you just do the article?”

  “Now you’re asking one.”

  “And you’re still not answering.”

  “I’ll do whatever it takes to write the article,” I said crisply. “Now tell us about the science lesson.”

  Cassady thought a moment, then offered, “Everything in the world is connected in unexpected ways.”

  There was also something unexpected in the brilliance of her smile. “Ah. Are we talking about the science lesson or the scientist?” I asked.

  “I’ll let you know tomorrow. After lunch.”

  “I don’t think I can stand the suspense. Don’t we at least get vital statistics?” Tricia asked.

  The waitress returned with Cassady’s cocktail and she let us sit in anticipatory silence until the waitress withdrew. We were hugely intrigued, she knew it, and she enjoyed it. “As I said, let’s wait until tomorrow and see if it’s worthwhile information. Tonight is about the next step in Molly’s career. To forward strides,” she toasted.

  “And to unexpected ways,” I returned.

  A surprising combination of the two capped off the evening. After relaxing conversation and even more relaxing cocktails, I made my way home and surrendered to jeans and a Tom Petty T-shirt, my favorite reading clothes. Dabbing a drop or two from Emile’s vial behind my ears for inspiration, I threw a bag of popcorn in the microwave and dove back into my stacks of research.

  Gwen Lincoln was taking shape in my mind as a strong, determined woman who had met her doppelganger in Garth Henderson and the combined intensity had been too much. Was it possible that there was a limit to how much of any one emotion a relationship could hold? Almost sounded like a physics problem for Cassady’s new friend.

  At a time when mega-agencies dominated advertising, Garth Henderson had prided himself on staying small and focused—a niche agency. Originally, GHInc.’s clients had been up-and-coming fashion folks. He’d had a good eye and most of his clients had done hugely well and stayed with him, which paid off handsomely in all sorts of ways.

  Ronnie Willis and his agency were cut from similar cloth, with slightly less sparkle. Ronnie’s clients and his campaigns for them had been more hit-and-miss than Garth’s, but there were occasionally brilliant campaigns and clients—like Emile Trebask—so a merger between like-minded artists had made sense.

  But now, with Garth gone, what was Ronnie gaining, other than a precariously poised client list, by going ahead? Was his own agency in that much trouble, that merging with a dead man’s company was better than staying solo? Or did he have faith in Gwen’s managerial abilities being able to translate from one field to another? Emile Trebask and Ronnie Willis were both placing a lot of faith—and a lot of money—in Gwen Lincoln’s hands. It made me want to meet her all the more.

  I was so deeply immersed in my reading that the sound of a key in the front door caught me unawares and literally made me jump. I scrambled to the door, surprised to glimpse Kyle through the gap as the chain went taut. I fumbled it open and he paused uncertainly in the doorway.

  “I didn’t think you were home.”

  “I wasn’t expecting you.” That sounded awful, so I added, “So soon.” I glanced at my watch, surprised to see it was a little after ten. “Oh, it’s later …” I gestured feebly to the stacks of reading. “I lost track of the time.”

  He closed the door gently behind him. “This okay?”

  Kyle had had his own key for about a month now. Danny and the other doormen adored him, so he came and went like any other resident of the building, even though we hadn’t reached formal consolidation. He had clothes, toiletries, and CDs here, but I wasn’t sure what the official tipping point was. Sports memorabilia on my bookshelves? Changing the answering machine to something cute about “we’re not here”? Return-address labels with both our names? The ultimate was certainly his giving up his apartment—I had the better deal for price and location—but I knew we weren’t there yet. How would I know when we’d arrived?

  “I’m really glad to see you,” I told him, trying not to sound too anxious.

  “Sorry about this afternoon,” he said, not taking his jacket off. He had about ninety seconds to take it off or I was going to get nervous, no matter how unattractive it might be.

  “Me, too.” He reached into his jacket, but left it on, and took out a folded sheaf of papers. Hefting them in his hand for a moment, he debated with himself one more time before holding them out to me.

  I leaned in and kissed him rather than taking the papers, because I wanted to and because it was important to show him I cared more about seeing him than about whatever papers he’d brought. His response was warmer than it had been at the precinct, but there was still a fair amount of reserve. And the jacket wasn’t budging, so I slid my hands inside it to ease it off.

  “New perfume?” he asked, his mouth against my ear.

  “Like it?”

  “Interesting.”

  “It’s Gwen Lincoln’s new scent.”

  He took a deep breath, but I wasn’t sure if he was checking out the perfume again or sighing. “I should go back,” he murmured and I stopped with my hands in back of his shoulders. “I wanted to bring these by, see how you were doing.” I slid my hands back out of his jacket and he laid the papers directly into my hand, watching for my reaction.

  While the papers were clearly important, I was still more concerned about him. In the year we’d known each other, we’d been through more than our share of ups and downs; the more we fell for each other, the more the downs hurt. I didn’t want this to become one. “Can you come back here when you’re done?”

  He gave me that look that somehow travels down the optic nerve to the muscles at the back of the knee and makes them go soft. “May I?”

  “Please.”

  He nodded vaguely. His attention seemed even more focused on the papers than mine was, to the point that he tapped them with his finger so I’d open them. Unfolding the sheaf, I discovered copies of incredibly official papers. The affidavits of probable cause that had been filed for the search warrant for Gwen Lincoln’s apartment the day after Garth Henderson’s murder.

  I felt like he’d brought me flowers and chocolates. Even better, because it went against the grain for him to do this, but he’d done it anyway. Maybe I could convince him to be excited about the article after all. If I didn’t make a fool out of myself and overreact right now. “Thank you very much,” I said with sincerity and, I hoped, not a trace of joyous squealing.

  “These are public documents, I’m not leaking anything to you,” he stressed. I nodded my understanding. “And if you wind up needing to talk to Detective Donovan, there’s still some work to be done there. Work you’re going to have to do.”

  Detective Donovan. “I’ll take it one step at a time,” I promised. And meant it.

  He laughed a little, which delighted me. “Hey, a new approach.”

  I deserved that, so I returned the laugh. But I really was determined to be different this time. It was important to both of us for a lot of reasons that I handle this article carefully. “I appreciate this very much.”

  “Even when I don’t approve, I still believe in you,” he smiled.

  “Appreciate that very much, too.”

  He took my face in his hands and kissed me with heat and gentleness wrapped into a delicious, dizzying combination. I tossed the papers behind me, hoping they were heavy enough to sail all the way to the coffee table, and slid my hands back inside his jacket.

  I got the jacket off and then the shirt. “Do you really need to get back?”

  “Yes,” he said, lifting me off my feet and walking toward the bedroom.

  “How soon?”

  “Try and watch the clock.”

  I didn’t even try. I did attempt to get up with him at about midnight, but he advised me to stay right there until he returned. He had some paperwork to finish so it could be on his l
ieutenant’s desk first thing, but he’d be back. Kyle’s a night owl bordering on insomniac and swears he does his best thinking in the middle of the night.

  I didn’t argue with him. I even thought I might fall asleep, but after the door closed behind him, the apartment got oppressively quiet and my mind started revving back up. After all, if he’d gone to the trouble of bringing those papers over, wasn’t it rude to let them languish on the coffee table—or even worse, the floor?

  They actually had made it to the table. I scooped them up and curled into my favorite seat, a well-worn leather club chair I’d inherited from a friend who’d moved in with a vegan, and started reading.

  The affidavits were fascinating. I’d never seen these documents before, with their crisp, detached delineation of the facts that led the police to believe they would find the murder weapon and/or other incriminating evidence in Gwen Lincoln’s apartment. There was, first and foremost, the fact that she’d found the body. Even though she had discovered it in the company of a hotel assistant manager, whom she had threatened with all manner of legal and physical damage if he did not open the door and let her in to see her soon-to-be-ex. Garth was living in the hotel while the divorce proceedings were being hammered out and Gwen had, allegedly, come by to visit him with legal documents. There were the proper phone records showing she had called him earlier in the evening to confirm when she was coming by, but the police believed all this could be ascribed to the careful crafting of an alibi, that she had in fact made the calls, then come to the hotel and shot him, then returned home until the appropriate time to leave again and publicly discover the body. The only people willing to vouch that she’d been home at the time of the murder were a maid with a long history of employment with Gwen and of drinking (cause and effect?) and a doorman who had been interviewed at home, where he was recovering from cataract surgery.

  Moving down the damning list, there were several statements from colleagues of Garth’s, describing screaming matches between the two of them that included Gwen spewing death threats. Once, according to the statements, she even specifically suggested “shooting him where he lived and she didn’t mean his heart.” There were other statements from friends, neighbors, and associates with further examples of the utterly heartless and completely ugly things people who used to love each other are capable of saying when the love is gone.

  Additionally, there were statements referring to how Gwen stood to profit from Garth’s death (though no mention of how she didn’t really need the money), how she’d believed she deserved a piece of the company because of all her “inspiration and support,” and how unhappy she’d been at the pending merger with Ronnie Willis’ agency, though the reasons why weren’t clear.

  It was also fascinating to see how high-strung statements took on a life of their own when they were part of an official government document. I wondered how damning some of my grander statements to ex-lovers, ex-friends, and current colleagues might seem in that context. My mother used to warn me not to do anything I’d mind seeing on the front page of the paper the next morning, which made me reconsider reckless behavior more than once, but I’d never imagined something I’d done turning up in official police documents prepared for a judge. Intimidating to consider.

  It had to be intimidating for Gwen, too. She hadn’t been arrested yet mainly because the murder weapon hadn’t been recovered and she had no guns registered in her name, and her fingerprints weren’t found in the hotel room. There was nothing concrete to tie her to the murder scene—yet—but nothing concrete to tie her somewhere else either. And then there was the fact that she had seemingly gone out of her way to threaten her ex on a number of emotional and hyperbolic occasions and had gotten particularly virulent just before his death. Forensically, she looked okay. Emotionally, she looked awful. In my limited experience, it was the emotion that counted in the long run.

  Somewhere around the quotes from the neighbor who commented on Gwen’s temper and the employee who said Garth was actually afraid of Gwen in the days before his death, I drifted off to a light, fitful sleep filled with dreams about a frenzied Gwen Lincoln throwing dishes at Eileen in the kitchen of the house my aunt and uncle rent in the Outer Banks every August. When I woke up at 7 A.M., I had a stiff neck and a smiling homicide detective on my couch.

  “Should’ve made a bet with you before I left,” he said, scooping the last bit of oatmeal out of his bowl. Kyle was showered, freshly dressed, and ready to leave again. I felt hugely cramped and rumpled by comparison. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist.”

  “So this was an exercise in temptation?” I stretched my way out of the chair and rubbed at the knot in my neck.

  He smiled apologetically. “I thought about moving you back into the bed, but didn’t want to wake you. We both needed our sleep.”

  “Thanks, I guess.”

  “And the papers weren’t about temptation. It was an attempt to meet you halfway,” he said, rinsing his bowl in the sink. He’s much neater than I’d expected a guy who’s always lived by himself or with other guys to be. He says his mother and sisters deserve the credit.

  “What can I do to reciprocate?”

  “Just remember you promised to stay out of trouble.” He grabbed his jacket, scooped me up for a kiss, and was out the door before my head cleared. The boy certainly knows how to make an exit. Unfortunately.

  Three

  GOING AFTER A STORY IS sort of like going after a guy. When you’re used to doing all the pursuing and all of a sudden you’re the one being pursued, it can be a little disorienting. It can also make you question what you were after in the first place and how badly you want it.

  I thought about staying home a few hours to finish going through all my research, but decided it was smarter to be in the office, close to Eileen and whatever mischief she might be brewing, and another coffee run for Owen if I needed more background. I’d barely dropped the hundred-pound stack of papers on my desk when the intercom line on my phone rang.

  “It’s Suzanne. Could I see you please?”

  I took a moment before answering because I was debating whether to speak into the phone or turn around, look the ten yards to Suzanne’s desk outside Eileen’s door, and just yell, “What?” Trying to start my morning off as politely as possible, I said, “Be right there” into the phone, then strode to Suzanne’s desk in under three seconds.

  Being Eileen’s assistant is a tough gig and Suzanne Bryant made sure we all knew it, wearing the squinted eyes and pinched smile of a martyr who can endure her pain as long as others notice her struggle. She’d only been on the desk a couple of weeks, so we were cutting her some slack due to the freshness of her suffering, but I was starting to sense a little enjoyment of the role on her part. This one bore watching.

  “It’s awfully early in the morning for me to have already done something wrong,” I said to test the waters.

  “Who said you’d done anything wrong?”

  “Am I not being called to the principal’s office?”

  “That’s not really fair, to Eileen or to me,” she huffed.

  “I never intended to be unfair to you,” I promised her. She cast a significant look at Eileen’s door, but I let my statement stand as is. “Did you need something?”

  Suzanne handed me a message slip. “You better hurry. She’s waiting for you.”

  “Eileen?”

  “Gwen Lincoln.”

  The message slip had a Central Park West address on it. Only catch was, I’d been planning on calling and setting up the interview with Gwen Lincoln once I’d finished all my research. It hadn’t occurred to me I’d be summoned at her convenience.

  “Why are you still here?” Eileen shrilled before her office door was even fully open.

  “I just arrived.”

  “Emile called minutes ago and said they were ready to see you. Go quickly, before they change their minds.”

  “Emile and Gwen?”

  “That’s not a problem, is it?” />
  Actually, it was sort of a problem to have other people dictating that the first interview of my first real investigative assignment had to happen before I was fully prepared, but I knew there was no room for argument. Making sure Suzanne had my cell number in case of another imperial summons, I threw a tape recorder and notepad into my bag and flew back downstairs and into a cab. Jotting my questions down in as organized and clear a manner as the lurching of the vehicle would allow, I managed to catch my breath by the time I arrived at Gwen Lincoln’s apartment.

  She promptly took it away again. I’d seen pictures of her, but was still unprepared as she stepped into the doorway of her apartment’s drawing room. It was a high-ceilinged room done in creams and golds and she was a luminous redhead, clear-skinned and statuesque, dressed in an amazing yellow Versace suit and a wicked pair of orange patent leather Brian Atwood pumps that showed off her yoga-sculpted legs to great advantage.

  I was perched on the edge of the brocade settee to which the maid had directed me, still trying to decide what nonchalantly professional pose to strike, when Gwen appeared. She looked me over boldly and smiled. I tried to figure out what amused her more—my outfit or my look of surprise.

  She strode over to me and I stood instinctively. Instead of offering her hand, she picked up the recorder from where it sat on the cushion next to me and flipped it on. “Molly Forrester,” she said into it with a tone that implied if that hadn’t been my name before, it was now. Tossing the recorder back to me, she indicated with the flick of an acrylic nail that I should lower myself back to the settee.

  “Ms. Lincoln, thank you for seeing me.”

  “Did I have a choice, kiddo? That was never clear to me.” She was in her mid-forties, but the “kiddo” seemed more a reference to our relative social standings than our ages. Taking the armchair across from me, she called, “Emile!” in the general direction of the doorway and I swore I heard it echo through the immense apartment. She turned back to me with a practiced smile. “It’s his party, he should be here.”