Was I letting my judgment of the people involved interfere? Was I not looking at Gwen as closely as I should have because she was bold and successful? Disregarding Ronnie because of his glib boyishness? Excusing Tessa because of her earnestness? Missing someone else entirely because I was confusing instinct with impression?
Much as I wanted to return to GHInc. and work my way from office to office like some crazed trick-or-treater, banging on doors and asking for motives, I knew I had to be better armed before I went back there, too. So I went to my building, overshot my floor, and prayed that Owen was in his office.
He wasn’t, but I found him two doors down, playing trashball with Kevin Bartholemew, his editor. Kevin was a doughy fellow with a wardrobe that hadn’t evolved much since high school—chinos in need of ironing and oxford shirts with fraying collars. He had a chronic sinus condition that caused him to snort continually in a teeth-gritting register, but he had a zesty sense of humor and he played trashball with his writers, which made him an enviable boss in my universe.
“Molly Forrester!” Kevin cheered as I stuck my head in his office, a gathering place for tottering towers of paper and books. “Say you’ve come for me and not the pretty boy.”
“I’d never presume to come for you, Kevin,” I smiled, “though I dream of it constantly.”
Kevin laughed so heartily that Owen missed his shot. “She wants something, but how can we resist?”
Owen picked up his ball and tipped his head at me. “Don’t look happy, Moll. Girls at GHInc. giving you a hard time?”
“What are you doing hanging out with Dracula’s widows?” Kevin exclaimed.
I was relieved that Owen looked as surprised by the moniker as I was. “I’m writing a profile of Gwen Lincoln.”
Kevin banked a large wad of newspaper off the wall near me and into the trash can. “Poor thing.”
“Me or Gwen?”
“Both of you, actually. That’s one weird group of babes over there. And Ronnie Willis thinks he’s gonna slide in there and ‘shake things up.’ Gonna have an estrogen-charged mutiny on his hands, is what’s gonna happen.”
“Why? He told me they were the agency’s greatest asset, he was crazy about them, yadda yadda.”
“Gotta be crazy to think he’s going to keep them all. Garth controlled them by keeping them all equal. Rumor has it, Ronnie’s talking about putting one of them in charge.”
“No one mentioned that to me,” I said, perplexed.
“Announcing D-day in advance defeats the purpose.”
I’ve seen people kill for love and for money. Was I now seeing the intersection of the two? I held my breath while Owen took his next shot, then asked, “During the merger, was there any talk about who’s getting equity stakes in the new entity?”
Owen frowned as his ball hit the rim and bounced out. “Ronnie and Gwen. That’s it. Garth was going to hold most of it, of course, and that’s been a major delay—Ronnie and Gwen dancing around who gets how much of that piece of the pie.”
I scooped up the ball, tossing it from hand to hand. “So they’re both getting more than they were expecting when the deal started.”
“You’d think they’d be happy, but there is no happiness in Manhattan. There is only the momentary sating of hunger,” Kevin said with a grin.
“And we all know how cranky hungry people get,” I said, taking my own shot. “And if someone promises you a piece of the pie and then takes it away, don’t you wind up even more hungry than you were to begin with?” The ball teetered on the pile already in the trash can, but when it slid down, it stayed inside.
“The gods of trashball say you’re on the right track,” Kevin said, stomping down the mound to make more room before his next shot.
“You think Garth’s death is tied to equity in the agency?” Owen asked. I was gratified to see that glint in his eye that reporters get when they smell a story brewing.
“I don’t know yet and I’d appreciate your not scooping me,” I said, backing out of the office.
“Hey, we’re all one big journalistic family, aren’t we?” Owen looked to Kevin for confirmation.
“I don’t mind the two of you helping each other out, I just don’t want to have to kiss Eileen at the next company function,” Kevin said.
“I’ll protect you, I promise,” I told Kevin as Owen raced up, caught his arm through mine, and rushed me down to his desk.
We were on the same wavelength. If someone wanted a piece of the action badly enough to kill for it, there was probably a pressing financial incentive. Maybe even big enough to have some public aspect to it, like legal filings. If we could find it, it would not only strengthen my theory, it would give me a persuasive entrée to that suspect. I promised Owen to share access to people and information and marveled how easy it was to offer that to someone I liked and respected.
Hopping from search engine to search engine, we found nothing on Tessa, to my chagrin. Lindsay wasn’t a candidate, but we checked her out anyway and only found a mention or two of events for Daniel’s group she’d attended. We discovered Francesca shared her name with a sixty-four-year-old microbiologist with a rather freaky Web site about an endangered breed of turtle. Helen had been a track star at UConn and was very active in alumni activities. Megan hosted a fan site for That 70s Show that was a little on the obsessive side, but nicely done. And just when I was about to think this theory was going to produce nothing but another brick in the wall, we learned one more thing. Two weeks after Garth Henderson was murdered, Wendy filed for bankruptcy.
Fourteen
“I’M NOT SURE I CAN do this.”
Tricia and Cassady looked at each other in alarm. Tricia even put down what she was holding to offer her hands to me. Cassady asked, “You want me to get you some water? Or maybe water back on a Glenfiddich neat?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I’m not sure what’s wrong with me. But something must be. I don’t feel like shopping.”
Tricia’s expression grew even more grave and she returned the exquisite Lanvin one-shoulder dress she’d been looking at to the rack. “We can always shop later.”
“We can also wear something we already own,” Cassady said.
“If we must,” Tricia said with a peppy sigh of sacrifice. “But let’s take care of one crisis at a time.”
We were supposed to be looking for dresses for Emile’s gala and had begun our pilgrimage at Saks. I don’t go to very many of these sorts of affairs, so my closet held limited possibilities; I don’t even visit the evening-wear department without several friends and good reason. Tricia and Cassady traveled in formal-dress circles more frequently, but were always willing to reexamine their wardrobe options. Besides, there is something delicious about rustling among the fancy dresses, feeling the sleek fabrics, and imagining that the dress which will make you irresistible, cover all your figure flaws, and therefore make itself worth its obscenely high price tag is on the next rack. Sort of the grown-up, or at least adolescent, version of playing dress up. Which is why it’s most successfully done in the company of other women. Playmates.
Yet though I was the one who had suggested the shopping excursion, I now found I didn’t quite feel like playing. Mainly because I couldn’t get Wendy off my mind. I’d tried to see her at the office and been told she was out, visiting a client. I’d left her messages with the receptionist and on her voice mail but hadn’t heard back from her. My efforts to loiter and “run into her” had been rebuffed by Tessa, who’d materialized in the lobby and asked me to make specific appointments for any further interviews—and to make them through her. Whether protective, controlling, or paranoid—or all of the above—Tessa was guarding the temple door now.
Gwen had not been in the office and, after a moment’s deliberation, I’d decided it was better not to drag her into a territorial skirmish at this point, to hold her in reserve until I was sure I was closing in on the truth. But to do that, I needed to get to Wendy.
On a playing fie
ld leveled by all of them being involved with Garth, Wendy stood out because of her financial situation. Love and money. Had she been getting enough—any?—of either from him? The timing suggested she had gone to him for help and/or a piece of the agency’s equity, he’d refused, she’d flipped out and killed him, and then, without options, was forced to file for bankruptcy. But suggestion wasn’t enough.
Especially because my cell phone rang. I grabbed it, hoping it would be Wendy, eager to talk to me. Instead, it was someone I wasn’t eager to talk to. “Hello, Peter.”
Cassady scowled and hissed, “Hang up on him. Right now. Or I’ll have to track him down and show him storage ideas for his phone he’s only dreamed of.”
I held up a placating hand, certain I could dismiss Peter quickly. “What can I do for you? Or not do for you, as the case may be?”
Cassady reached to take my phone from me, but Tricia restrained her, leading her off a few steps so the two of them could watch me, hawk-eyed, but also whisper back and forth without interrupting my conversation.
“I didn’t mean to ambush you this morning,” he said, sounding pretty close to contrite. Very close, for Peter.
“Yes, you did.”
“No, really, I meant to persuade you. Maybe even seduce you. Never ambush you. And I wanted to apologize for that.”
“Thank you.” This sudden outpouring of gentility was beyond fishy, but I had to admit—I was intrigued to see where it was leading. “That why you’re calling?”
“In part. I also wanted to apologize for the fact that I’m about to scoop you so bad, you won’t know what hit you.”
“Excuse me?”
“And I want you to know, while you’re sitting up late at night, trying to cover this story without mentioning my name every other paragraph, I’ll be wishing it could’ve been different.”
“Oh, Peter, you were so close to convincing me you’d gotten a black market sincerity transplant and then you had to go and spoil it.”
“I am sincere. In wanting you to know I am soooo close.”
“But are you closer than I am?”
We listened to each other breathe for a moment, trying to parse the silence. For an insane moment, I remembered why he’d been so fun to date—he’d always been a challenge. And now he was offering another one. No way could I let him win.
“See you on the newsstands,” he said after a moment.
“Not for long. We’ll be sold out.”
I hung up, probably just as he did, and looked at my friends. I knew they wouldn’t approve, but I expected them to be somewhat amused. Tricia, however, had her hands on her hips and Cassady was checking her watch.
“You told him you were close,” Tricia scolded.
“I am.”
“Not close enough,” Cassady said. “We need to get you and Wendy in a room together and get this thing worked out.”
“It’s not a divorce settlement, Cassady,” I said as she scooped her hand behind my back and guided me without subtlety toward the exit.
“Actually, in a way it is—you’re talking about a woman who is trying to get everything she believes she’s owed out of a man before her relationship with him is over,” Tricia said, falling in beside us. We were marching to the exit when a white Armani gown caught her eye. She stopped to sigh and we followed suit.
It really was gorgeous, though the price tag and the slit to the thigh took it off my list of possibilities. “If you’re going to show that much leg, why wear a long dress?”
Cassady flapped the dress so the mannequin’s leg flashed into view and then disappeared again. “It’s all about hinting at what they want and teasing how available it might be.”
Tricia laughed, but I was thunderstruck. That’s what I was doing wrong. Rather than just asking Wendy if we could talk, I needed to flash a little leg. Tempt her. And what better way to tempt a woman to talk than to offer her the chance to talk about another woman?
“Tessa means well but she’s in for a rude awakening,” Wendy told me an hour later as we sat at the bar in Bar Americain. Just as I’d hoped, after ignoring multiple messages requesting that we get together for a chat, she’d responded to a message asking for background, aka dirt, on Tessa.
I’d selected a fairly open and boisterous place so she wouldn’t feel I was expecting a furtive exchange of information in a clandestine setting. If I treated her like an innocent party, she might trip up and reveal herself to be anything but.
Tricia and Cassady had offered to escort me, but I worried Wendy would somehow feel she was being set up. Which she was, but I wanted to delay that realization as long as possible. I’d promised them I’d call them as soon as I was done meeting with Wendy and we’d regroup then.
“Why?” I asked, trying not to stare as Wendy repeatedly stabbed the orange slice in her old-fashioned with her cocktail straw. Cassady’s suggestion of Glenfiddich neat had stayed with me and I took a sip of exactly that while Wendy formed her answer.
“She thinks she’s in charge. Thinks she’s going to run the whole show. But Gwen and Ronnie are just hanging back until all the contracts are worked out and then, pow. They’ll be running things to the nth degree.” Wendy took a long sip of her drink, then set it back down and resumed her attack on the orange.
“I can’t blame her for trying to step forward, after all this time you’ve been kept in an artificial equality,” I said with an extra helping of sympathy, meant to provoke a reaction.
Wendy looked up at me so sharply that I thought someone behind her had dropped an ice cube down her back. “What are you talking about?”
Tessa hadn’t told any of them that she’d told me. Interesting. “I know about the arrangement,” I said quietly, reaching out to tap the charm on Wendy’s bracelet.
She stood up, ready to bolt. “You made a huge mistake,” she said huskily, “talking to that she-devil when you could’ve talked to any one of us and we would’ve told you …” “The truth” were the words she couldn’t bring herself to say. I could see some of the conviction draining out of her as she considered what exactly she could have told me. I had a sudden, deep sense that Wendy’s anger was a protective covering over a fragile core and I needed to proceed cautiously.
“At least stay and finish your drink,” I said gently. “Tell me your side of things.”
Wendy took a shuddering breath as I willed her back onto her bar stool. After a moment, she sat down, but the fragility went back under wraps and the straw went back into the orange.
“My side of things? Yeah, that would be interesting for your article on Her Majesty’s new reign, wouldn’t it? Because there are some of us who work hard, do anything,” she glanced up to make sure I was clear on what “anything” included, “to advance ourselves, build our careers, and we’re stupid enough to believe promises that are made and then when those promises are broken and we complain, somehow we come out looking like the bad guy.”
Taking a chance, I said, “Seems to me the only bad guy is the one who killed Garth.”
I waited for her to explode in angry defensiveness, but her eyes filled with tears and she drained most of her drink in one gulp. As she set the glass back down, she pulled together a wry smile. “The one who ruined my life.” She licked her lips lightly. “You gonna figure out who it is?”
“Maybe. You have any thoughts?”
“Only about what should happen to them when they’re caught. I think it’s time for boiling in oil to make a comeback, don’t you?”
“I don’t mean to diminish your loss, but has Garth’s death really ruined your life?”
“Your roots are showing.”
I don’t color my hair, so I couldn’t figure out what she was talking about. “Excuse me?”
“Somebody told me you started as an advice columnist. This the place where I get the pep talk about picking up the pieces and carrying on?”
I had to smile at that. “No, this is where I ask how much of a future you thought you would build with a man
who was sleeping with everyone you work with.”
“We had a deal,” she said, with enough ragged force that the people sitting around us stopped talking for a moment and looked over instinctively, then returned to their conversations.
“What was it?”
She shook her glass, listening to something much further away than the jangling of the ice. “Does that even matter now?”
“It seems to. Very much.”
The wry smile came back, more genuine this time. “My mistake.” She put the glass back down. “I’m over it. Rebuilding my life. But if Tessa thinks she’s going to be queen bee when this drops, she’s more of a head case than I ever gave her credit for.”
“Giving her a run for her money?”
“That’s just the thing—not her money, is it?” Wendy stood, picking up her bag and looking down at me with narrowed eyes. “I’d love to stay and chat, but I’ve said all I’m going to say about Tessa.”
“We can talk about other things,” I assured her.
“No. I don’t think we can. Thanks for the drink.”
I watched Wendy walk away, not so much studying her icy, angry demeanor as pacing myself so I could get up and follow her without attracting attention.
“You’re kidding, right?” the cabbie said when I slid in the back and asked him to follow Wendy’s cab. His voice said Boston or just south of there. His license said Bruce Hennessey. He was a tall, spindly guy who had to hunch over the wheel to keep his head from scraping the roof of the cab.
“Actually, I’m not,” I said, almost tipping over as he screeched away from the curb, apparently accepting the challenge. “Don’t people ask you to do that all the time?”
Bruce leaned forward, intent on his course, and it looked like his nose could almost touch the windshield, his neck was so long. “Idiots ask me constantly, then bust up laughing like they’re the only ones who ever thought of making that joke. But you don’t strike me as an idiot, so I thought I’d check.”
“I appreciate that.”
“So who is it? Your lover?”
Killer Deal Page 19