Kiss of Death

by Linda Palmer

  “Of course not! Tell her we’ll hide her pregnancy with props and camera angles when she starts to show, and by the time she’s ready to take maternity leave, I’ll have worked out a story to explain her temporary absence. I’m glad she told us right away, so we have time to plan. Remind me to talk to costuming about getting ready to dress her to disguise it.”

  “Will do.”

  “And stick a note on my computer to go through her future episodes,” I said. “I’ll take out any physical actions that could hurt her—no climbing, falling, or running. If I can’t revise a scene, we’ll hire a stunt double. Tell her she has nothing to worry about.”

  Betty chuckled. “Actually, I already did. I was sure that’s how you’d react. She left the office happy, and went to Craft Services to see if they had any lemon meringue pie.”

  I smiled at the image of delicate Clarice, queen of dressing-on-the-side salads, stalking the caterer for pie. “What’s the fourth message?”

  “Link wants to see you. He says it’s personal.”

  “All right.” I closed my eyes and visualized this week’s taping schedule. “He’s working Thursday afternoon. Ask him if he’d like to have breakfast with me Thursday morning. Pick some place away from the studio. I don’t want anyone on the show to see us together and get the wrong idea.”

  “How about I get you a wig and a false nose from costume?”

  I laughed. “We don’t need to go quite that far. I expect to be back in the office tomorrow afternoon. If there’s an emergency, you can get me on my cell.”

  Chapter 20

  I MANAGED TO catch the Jet Blue Airbus out of JFK that would get me to Boston an hour before my one o’clock lunch date with the Boston Chronicle’s gossip columnist, Cathy Chatsworth. Last night, I’d searched the Internet for a hotel within a few blocks of where I was due to meet her, and chose Adams House—partly because I liked the idea that it was more than 150 years old. Knowing nothing about my own origins, I always seemed to be attracted to buildings full of history.

  What I knew about the importance of Boston to the founding of this country came from my American studies classes. Everything I knew about modern Boston came from reading Robert B. Parker’s Spenser crime novels. I wished I had the leisure to walk along Boylston Street and try to guess from which window Spenser in his P.I. office could look down on Berkley Street. Another time. Not today.

  The cab from the airport dropped me at Adams House, a Federalist-style white structure, eight stories high, with tall, narrow windows arranged symmetrically on either side of the entrance, and a semicircular fanlight over the front door. The overall effect was stately.

  Inside, the decor was Early American, with tables and chairs that were either authentic pieces of the period, or excellent replicas. The wide planks of the dark-stained hardwood floors were polished to a high gloss. Woven scatter rugs added touches of color. A brass chandelier with electric candles and milk-glass sconces provided soft lighting. Murals depicting scenes from the Revolutionary War covered two walls.

  I signed in at the front desk, where a short young man in a too large jacket ran the credit card I’d used to secure the reservation, handed me the room’s key card, and asked if I needed help with my luggage. I declined his offer, explaining that I had only the tote bag I was carrying.

  Within ten minutes, I had dropped the tote off in my room on the fifth floor, quickly transferred cash and credit cards from my wallet into a small “ladies-lunch” clutch bag, exchanged my comfortable shoes for designer pumps, and was on my way.

  My destination was the Winthrop Plaza, on St. James Avenue. On my walk, I discovered that it was near Boston’s elegant Beacon Hill, and to the Freedom Trail, a narrow, red brick path, two horizontal bricks wide, set into the street. I’d heard that the Freedom Trail meanders past fifteen or sixteen historic sites. I would like to have seen them all, but right now, I was on urgent business. I promised myself I’d come back to Boston when there was time to explore this fascinating city.

  The Winthrop Plaza is as grand as an embassy. I entered under an emerald green canopy, and found myself in an impressive lobby that looked to be half the size of a football field. Crossing beneath a crystal chandelier big enough to have costarred in The Phantom of the Opera, I found the concierge desk. Behind it stood a patrician with silver hair and military posture, impeccably dressed in a dark suit. If he had auditioned for us, to play an ambassador, I would have hired him instantly. I told him I was meeting someone in the Santa Maria dining room.

  He directed me to an elevator at the rear of the lobby. “The Santa Maria Room is on the third floor,” he said. “It’s the private restaurant for our Colony guests.”

  “Colony?”

  “It’s our charming little hotel-within-the-hotel. For guests who desire the intimate feeling of a traditional inn.”

  I thanked him and headed for a pair of elevators, one of which opened before I could press the Up button.

  Getting off on three, I found myself facing a small, jewel box of a reception room, complete with another concierge desk and a few comfortable-looking chairs upholstered in dark green velvet, a shade deeper than the emerald greens below.

  A slender man with slick black hair and the straight posture of a guard on duty approached, introduced himself as the Colony’s concierge, and inquired, “Ms. Tyler?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ms. Chatsworth telephoned. She asked me to—ah, here she is.”

  I turned to see a woman in her late forties, more than six feet tall, emerge from the second elevator. In her cream and navy Chanel suit, she looked almost as thin as a biology lab skeleton, and her skin was pale as one percent milk. What kept her from looking deathly ill was the shimmering auburn hair that reached her shoulders in shampoo-commercial waves, and the bright predator’s gleam in her brown black eyes.

  I introduced myself to Cathy Chatsworth and extended my hand. She either didn’t notice, or simply ignored it, and swept through carved wooden doors into the Santa Maria Room. Like a one-woman entourage, I followed in her wake.

  The Santa Maria Room was a small restaurant with perhaps a dozen tables, enclosed in dark wood paneling. All but one of the tables were occupied, with couples or foursomes speaking in soft tones.

  A fireplace (unlighted on this day in June) rose tall against the outside wall. Soft lighting came from a brass chandelier with glass hurricane shades over electric candles. Paintings on the walls depicted the voyage of the Pinta, the Nina, and the Santa Maria, a theme which was completed by a portrait of Christopher Columbus. I recognized it as the one reproduced in my middle school history books.

  The Boston social columnist headed directly for the unoccupied table. In the center of the room, facing the entrance, it was set for four and had a “reserved” sign on it.

  “Sit there,” she told me, indicating a particular chair. She claimed the one next to it. Immediately, a waiter approached with menus, and asked what we would like to drink.

  “An apple martini.” Cathy Chatsworth turned to me.

  “They have an excellent wine list, unless you’d like something more bracing?”

  “Just iced tea,” I told the waiter. “With extra lemon and extra ice.”

  The waiter deposited menus, and was about to leave when she waved one thin hand at the fourth place setting. “Take that away. There’ll be three.”

  The waiter did as instructed.

  When we were alone, I asked, “Who’s joining us?”

  “I invited Laura Reynolds—one of our suspects. Her husband, George, was a plaything of dear little Veronica’s.”

  “Did Mrs. Reynolds know about that?”

  “Of course. Laura threatened to divorce him. He gave her a diamond necklace and promised to never, ever, ever do such a terrible thing again. When she thought he’d groveled enough, and after she’d had the diamonds appraised, she forgave him. They’ve lived happily for the last several months.”

  I had come to Boston for Nancy’s sake
, to try to find out about other people who might have killed Veronica, but now I faced a moral dilemma. Would evoking George Reynolds’s infidelity help Nancy, or just damage his repaired marriage?

  Cathy Chatsworth must have sensed my concern, because she said, “Oh, don’t worry about upsetting poor Laura. We won’t even discuss naughty George’s past transgressions.” Her lips curved into a wide grin that made her look like an evil happy face.

  The waiter returned with our drinks. Before I could put Sweet’N Low into my iced tea, she’d downed half of her apple martini.

  When she lowered her glass, I asked, “Did you know Veronica Rose very well?”

  “As well as you can know a woman who was, essentially, an empty Prada suit. I’d have said an empty hat, but she never wore a hat. Little Veronica could be moderately amusing, and she photographed well. She was always soo nice to me at the big events because she wanted me to write about what she was wearing, and use her picture in my column. To be frank, I didn’t like Veronica, but it was quite a spectator sport to watch her go after men. George Reynolds never had a chance. Neither did Ralph Hartley—and Gloria Hartley was supposed to be Veronica’s best friend. There you are: more suspects, just as I promised.”

  The waiter returned, bringing a basket of rolls and a little ceramic tub of butter, and asked if we’d like to order. Without consulting me by even so much as a glance, she said, “We’ll wait. Another martini.”

  Considering how thin my companion was, and her passion for apple martinis, I wasn’t sure how long it would be before we would order lunch. I took a pumpernickel roll from the basket and buttered it.

  Cathy Chatsworth looked at me biting into the roll with an expression on her face that was somewhere between disdain and disgust. “Bread has killed more people than guns,” she announced.

  Before I could swallow and reply, she continued telling me her theories about the Veronica Rose murder. “George and Ralph were Veronica’s two most recent conquests. Then she suddenly tossed them both on her personal trash heap and flew off to New York to recapture her ex-husband. Either of them could have killed her out of jealousy.” She lowered her voice. “I met Arnold Rose. Speaking woman to woman, I didn’t get any sexual vibes and never could understand what Veronica saw in him. He doesn’t come from a distinguished family, and it wasn’t money. Arnold’s very well-off—I’ve heard his income’s in seven figures—but Veronica’s late father was a billionaire, and she inherited everything.”

  “How did George Reynolds and Ralph Hartley feel about her dropping them?”

  “Miserable and desolate!” Cathy Chatsworth flashed a wicked smile. “The dolts didn’t know about each other—not until they read some tiny little hints in my columns. After that, right outside the Harvard Club, Ralph and George duked it out.”

  “Were either of them hurt?”

  “Lord, no. They were both too drunk. But it was a delicious blind item for my column the next day. Laura figured it out because George came home with a black eye and a ridiculous tale about running into a door. Honestly, wouldn’t you think an investment banker could come up with a better lie than that?”

  “Did the other wife—Gloria Hartley—know that her husband was cheating on her?”

  She chortled, and said in a childlike, singsong voice, “Not until she received an anonymous note …”

  Cathy Chatsworth was one of the nastiest people I’d ever met. If I’d been on any less important mission than clearing Nancy’s name I would have left the table. But I stuck it out, pretending not to be revolted by how she played with people’s lives. “What did Gloria Hartley do when she found out about her husband cheating?” I asked.

  The columnist shrugged. “She had a nervous breakdown. In the paper, I referred to her sudden disappearance from the social scene as an ‘around the world cruise,’ but the truth is she went to a hospital for the rich and upset in Geneva.”

  “Is she seriously ill?”

  “Oh, no, no, no. Not Gloria. After a few weeks she went to France to have her face and most of her visible body parts lifted. Now she’s living in Paris, spending Ralph’s money on a West Bank artist with a big … shall we say potential?”

  Okay, at least this unpleasant meeting had produced four possible suspects: Laura Reynolds, George Reynolds, Ralph Hartley, and Gloria Hartley. Each of them had been hurt badly by Veronica Rose. Even if Gloria Hartley was in Europe, that didn’t necessarily eliminate her. She could have flown to New York and returned to Paris the same day. Or she could have hired a hit man.

  My companion suddenly raised a gaunt arm and waved at the entrance to the dining room. A middle-aged woman with a blond pixie cut framing her broad face waved back and came toward us. She had a deep tan, and in a short-sleeved summer dress that revealed muscular arms, she looked healthy and athletic.

  As the new arrival reached our table, Cathy raised her voice to a cheerful trill. “Laura, darling, I’m so glad you could meet us. This is my new friend, Morgan Tyler. She’s a television writer and producer from New York. Morgan, this is one of my oldest, closest friends, Laura Reynolds.”

  “Hi,” she said. Her smile seemed genuine, but I had to wonder. If Laura Reynolds was really such a close friend to this woman, she might simply be putting up a pleasant front.

  Cathy scooted her chair closer to me and patted the cushion of the chair on her other side. “Sit here, Laura.” That put the columnist between us, with Laura Reynolds facing the restaurant’s entrance. Cathy’s voice took on a sympathetic tone as she asked, “How are you, Laura, dear?”

  Laura Reynolds seemed a bit startled. “I’m fine, but from that solicitous note in your voice, I must look a wreck.” She turned to me. “I played four sets of singles with the pro at the tennis club this morning. Cathy says I should confine myself to doubles now, and I suppose she’s right—” she flashed a friendly smile at the columnist—“but I can still run the legs off other women my age. I’m not ready to settle for doubles just yet.”

  Cathy signaled the waiter, ordered another apple martini and more iced tea for me. Laura Reynolds asked for white wine. Reaching for a menu, she said, “I’m ravenous. I hope they have the cracked crab today.”

  “We’ll order later.” Cathy took the menu out of her hands, and shooed the waiter away.

  I saw a flash of irritation in Laura Reynolds’s eyes, but she politely let Cathy Chatsworth’s rudeness pass and turned to me. “Is this your first visit to Boston?”

  “Yes, but it won’t be my last. It’s a beautiful city.”

  “I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else,” Laura said. “Where are you staying?

  “Adams House.”

  “That’s a lovely place. They have a desk in the lobby that’s been authenticated as having been owned by Abigail Adams. It’s supposed to be the desk where she wrote her wonderful letters to John. Did you ever read them?”

  “Yes, I did. She was an amazing—”

  “She’s dead,” Cathy Chatsworth said, taking a verbal ax to that conversational thread. Toying with her martini, she leaned closer to Laura. “Morgan’s up here investigating our Veronica’s murder.”

  I saw Laura Reynolds flinch slightly, but she kept her voice even as she said to me, “How terrible it must be for Veronica’s daughter, and for Arnold.”

  “They’re both pretty devastated, as you can imagine.”

  Beside me, I heard Cathy Chatsworth gasp. Both Laura and I turned to look at the columnist. She was staring at the entrance to the restaurant.

  “What is it?” Laura asked.

  “I thought … No, I did! I just saw George go past.”

  “My George?”

  “Yes, George Reynolds.”

  Laura shook her head emphatically. “It couldn’t have been. He’s in Cambridge today.”

  Cathy gave her a pitying look. “Oh, you poor dear.”

  “What are you implying?”

  The columnist patted her hand. “I heard a rumor—and prayed it wasn’t true. I came here t
oday to prove to myself it absolutely wasn’t true.” She reached into her handbag and removed a room key card. “But I found out that George keeps a suite here at the Colony. Room 317.”

  “No! Not after … he wouldn’t dare!”

  Cathy moved the key card across the tablecloth until it rested against one of Laura Reynolds’s clenched hands. “Room 317.”

  Laura stared down at the card. Her lower lip trembled, but then the line of her mouth hardened. Slowly, she uncurled her fingers and picked up the card. Without a word she stood up and moved toward the restaurant’s entrance and out into the reception area. I glimpsed her turning left.

  “Cathy, what are you—”

  The columnist shushed me. “I got a tip that George is being naughty again. Laura needed to know.” She picked up a menu. “Shall we order now?”

  “I’ve lost my appetite.”

  As though I hadn’t spoken, she said, “I’m going to have the tripe. I hate tripe, but that’s how I keep slim—by only ordering something I hate and then not eating it. Occasionally, if I’m feeling playful, and to give the waiter some exercise, I’ll send the dish back to the kitchen.” She glanced over at me. “You should talk to Ralph Hartley about Veronica. You can find him at his AA meeting. I’ve heard he goes to the same one every afternoon at four o’clock. In the basement of saint somebody’s Episcopal church on the corner of Sutter and Concourse. Find a taxi driver who speaks English. You can’t miss the building.”

  I wondered how Cathy Chatsworth could drink those martinis on an empty stomach and not be drunk. She wasn’t even slurring her words.

  Suddenly, a woman’s shriek split the genteel air of the Santa Maria Room, followed by sustained screaming of a volume that could have reached from the stage to the top balcony at the Metropolitan Opera House.

  All conversation stopped. A hush enveloped the room like a shroud.

  The Boston Chronicle’s gossip queen broke the silence. “It’s better to know the truth than to live in blissful ignorance.”

  Another yell from the hallway—this time it was a male voice, followed by pounding footsteps and the sight of a half-naked man wearing only pants and trying to struggle into a shirt. Just as he raced in front of the restaurant’s doorway, a water glass sailed through the air after him. It missed its target and shattered against the door frame as the man sprinted out of sight.