Following Polly

by Karen Bergreen

  He does look young, though.

  Polly Dawson’s secret young lover sure had a lot more reason to kill her than I did.

  Jean walks by. She looks at the young guy for a second. It seems at first that she might know him. It’s hard for me to read because I’m standing outside the window. But she stares at him for a second longer than you might look at a stranger. But this is my boy-crazy best friend, and the guy is pretty good-looking.

  To Jean’s credit, Polly’s lover gives her the once-over. Go Jean!! You just got checked out by Suspect Number Three.

  He disappears pretty quickly after that.

  I try to train my eye on Jean but she’s disappeared from my little window. I see Humphrey; he looks genuinely sad. He’s flanked by several gorgeous women I don’t recognize. They must be models for Polly’s lingerie catalog. Movie star after movie star appears in my line of vision. There’s Kelly LeRoue. She seems more interested in the Barneys accessories than in being at Polly’s service.

  Finally, I see Jean again. She’s no longer drinking Diet Coke. She has a glass of champagne in each hand. Why is she doing this? Jean, I try to telepathically convey, you know you can’t be trusted to drink. But I realize I’m too late. Jean is already tipsy. Five minutes out of my sight, and she has morphed into the Drunk Lady at the Memorial Service. And then I see why. She’s in deep conversation with Preston Hayes. Preston was one of the four male costars in the film. And the hottest. He enjoys the reputation of being the biggest womanizer in show business. And he just happens to be talking to my friend Jean. She’s laughing with him; his hand is grazing her arm. Well, this ought to help her get over her twenty-three-year-old paralegal. Hayes gives her a business card and then moves on. Phew. I don’t want her wasting time with him when she could be doing some real sleuthing.

  Okay, now Jean is talking to Humphrey. They speak for about a minute or so, and then she gives him a sloppy long hug. He has no idea who she is. He moves on.

  Charlie’s a little less outgoing. He’s talking with a woman I don’t recognize. They have been immersed in conversation for about ten minutes now. He lets her eat off his plate. It seems a little intimate for me, but I can’t concern myself with that now. If I’m not jealous of Jenna, I’m not going to be jealous of this woman.

  I see Preston Hayes again. The man is positively gorgeous. Thick, wavy black hair, tanned skin, a half smile, and bedroom eyes. He has one arm around each of the models. So much for his moment with Jean. I look around for the other stars and I can’t see them. Maybe they’re still upstairs.

  Charlie’s back in my line of sight. He is talking to, of all people, an un-uniformed Kovitz. I knew Kovitz would attend. He’s at the service for the same reason we—I mean Charlie and Jean—are. I wonder if Charlie is doing a decent job of justifying his presence at Polly Dawson’s memorial service. I can’t tell from the expression on either of their faces whether this encounter is a potential problem for me.

  I see D.M., Suspect Number One, entering Barneys. She moves very slowly. I’m trying to get a look at her face to see if I can make out any expression, but she’s too far away.

  Taupe is not her color. I can say that. At least she’s not wearing beige, but a simple black might have been an improvement. All in all, she looks terrible. Her eyes are swollen and she looks dumpier than she did when I was trailing her. She heads straight to Humphrey. The two embrace for at least a minute. They break apart only because Jenna McNair, Suspect Number Two, mourning stylishly in a low-necked black sheath dress with short capped sleeves, cuts in. I have a perfect view of them. She’s telling Humphrey something. Jenna and Humphrey then embrace. Their contact seems more furtive. She even strokes his face. But she darts off and suddenly ends up on the street. We’re right next to each other. Jenna does not recognize me. Not from Silvercup, not from the mayor’s party, not from the newscasts. Now that Polly is dead, Jenna is the principessa of self-absorption.

  I peer inside. Suspect Number One is at the buffet table loading her plate with all of the food Polly would never eat. Her eyes are filled with tears.

  Suspect Number Four, the library man, is nowhere to be found. Perhaps he’s keeping his distance. I reach into my pocket and find the crumpled note she has left him: 12/20 Tender Dutch.

  Oh, no. I see a cavalcade of news trucks heading up Madison Avenue. All I need is some earnest young reporter recognizing me from my minimal coverage. This is my cue to leave. I have to get back to Charlie’s house.

  I’m lounging on Charlie’s couch watching coverage of the memorial service when Charlie and Jean walk in the door. Jean rushes to me; she’s screaming.

  “Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.”

  I try to calm her down, but she continues:

  “Oh my God. I can’t believe it. Oh my God.”

  “I know,” I tell her. “Weird, huh?”

  “Tell me everything,” Jean urges me as she kicks off her Heiker pumps. Charlie, who has until this point been standing quietly in the doorway, goes into the kitchen to see if I’ve made him some lunch.

  I have.

  As Charlie is digging into his farfalle with butternut squash sage sauce, I tell Jean everything. I tell her about the following, and finding Polly dead in Otto & LuLu’s. I tell her about my near arrest and my escape. And then I tell her about my week of homelessness and subsequent rescue by Charlie.

  “I can’t believe you’re staying here,” was all that Jean could whisper.

  “The funny thing is,” I tell her, “after all I’ve been through in the last months, nothing seems weird.”

  “That, my friend, is because you’re in shock. If weird were a play, this would be it.”

  “So?” she asks as Charlie heads back into the kitchen.

  “So?”

  “Anything?”

  “Yes, Jean, we’re making passionate love every night right after we strategize how to keep me from going to prison for the rest of my life,” I say.

  “Nothing?”

  “I don’t even think about that right now.”

  “You liar.”

  She’s right. I’m fibbing a little, but we could spend the whole afternoon examining and analyzing Charlie when we should be figuring out how to clear me.

  “What did you learn?”

  “Well, we were only there for a few hours, but I think Humphrey’s genuinely distraught over his wife’s death.”

  “I agree,” Charlie says as he walks in the room eating from a batch of chocolate chip cookies I baked last night. I’ve silently been appointed cook-in-residence. Amazingly, I find myself loving it.

  “But I don’t know if Polly would be so sad if this tragedy befell her husband.”

  “Oh?” I ask, knowing that Jean was cheating on Humphrey with her young Chambers Street boyfriend.

  “I don’t know,” Jean tells me. “I got a lover whiff from a lot of the guys there. For example, every star of the movie except for Preston Hayes stayed away from Humphrey. I didn’t see one of them express their condolences to him.”

  “And he’s their director. I agree it’s a little strange.” I go into the kitchen to fetch us all coffee from Charlie’s trusty new coffeemaker.

  “Yeah, I heard the same thing,” Charlie breaks in. “I was talking to Merilee, Polly’s former personal assistant, and she said that a lot of people were ‘close’ to Polly.” Charlie puts quotation mark fingers around the word “close.”

  So that was the woman who had monopolized Charlie.

  “That could mean friendship,” I tell him.

  “It could, but in this case it doesn’t. I asked Merilee if Polly had a lot of friends, and she said, ‘I wouldn’t call them that.’”

  “Sounds like Polly hasn’t changed,” Jean quips. “Did you get any names?”

  “Nothing. I’m surprised she told me as much as she did. I think she was, too. I told her that I was at the memorial service with my sister, who had been chummy with Polly as a teenager.”

  “She must’ve loved
that.” I didn’t realize Charlie was such a good liar.

  “I think she was surprised. She said that she didn’t think Polly remained in touch with anyone from before she made it big.”

  “Sounds like she didn’t like Polly.”

  “I don’t think she liked her, but she wasn’t broadcasting that at the woman’s memorial service. She kept telling me that Polly was a great boss.”

  “Oh good, I told everybody I was in the counsel’s office at Polly’s lingerie company and what a great boss she was,” Jean chimes in. I picture Jean, the bad drunk, talking on and on about Polly, making a misstep with every word.

  “That was risky.” I try not to berate Jean. She’s taking these risks for me.

  “I know, but I thought if I said I did legal work, I wouldn’t get all muddled up in a lie. I was able to talk about myself pretty openly without having to worry about contradicting myself.” She’s still slurring her words.

  “What about that cute guy from the beginning of the party. I saw you making eyes at him.”

  “What are you talking about?” Jean asks rather defensively. She even appears to have suddenly sobered up.

  “The really cute guy. I couldn’t see what he was wearing, but he was the only person at the entire service who had a soul patch. Also, his hair definitely needs a trim. I thought I saw him kind of looking at you. I think he was…” I’m trying to find the words here. “I think he was admiring you.”

  Jean is about to say something, and then I interrupt her.

  “He was Polly’s lover.”

  “I have no idea who you are talking about.”

  I can’t read Jean here. Does she not believe me? Is she thinking that I killed Polly and am fabricating a lover? My warm and fuzzy drunk friend has been replaced by a slightly clipped shrew.

  We’re silent for a moment. Jean takes in a deep breath.

  “If it makes you feel any better,” she changes the subject, “I just got this general sense that nobody except maybe her husband was that bummed out about her death. So in that way, my friend, you don’t have to feel guilty about murdering her.”

  Charlie looks alarmed, but I start to laugh. I think it’s my first big belly laugh since Polly’s death. I go over to Jean and give her a great big hug.

  “I talked to Kovitz,” Charlie breaks in.

  I pull away from Jean.

  “And?” I feel my heart pounding in my throat. Kovitz could be my key into or out of prison.

  “And, you’re still their Suspect Number One, but they’re trying to play down anything having to do with you because your escape looks bad for the precinct.”

  “When you say Suspect Number One, does this mean that there’s a Suspect Number Two?”

  “No one specific that he mentioned, but Kovitz said that the department had reason to believe that Polly Dawson had a lot of enemies.”

  “Well, at least I’m not the only one who thinks that.” I’m excited for a moment. “Do they know about any of the stuff I told you about D.M., Jenna, the young lover, and the library guy?” I realize that I only know about these people because I was tailing Polly before her death. They all managed to keep a pretty low posthumous profile. “How about her husband? Don’t they always look at home?” I ask.

  “I asked him that, but Humphrey was on location in Maine the day Polly was killed.”

  “He could have hired someone,” Jean offers. Jean does not yet know about our other list of suspects.

  “No. The way she was stabbed it was personal.” I clearly remember Polly’s mutilated body.

  “I told you,” Jean says, “I’m really good at this. My guess is that our murderer is one of Polly’s lovers; a spurned lover, a lover’s lover, something like that.”

  I agree with Jean. I saw the stab wounds. This is personal.

  “Maybe it’s a lingerie competitor,” Charlie offers.

  “That doesn’t sound right,” Jean says dismissively.

  Again, I agree with Jean. No wonder we are friends.

  “I don’t think we should rule it out,” Charlie counters. He sounds wounded. We’ve ganged up on him. And I realize that Charlie believes his father was framed by a competitor, and that he may take our dismissal of his theory as a vote of nonconfidence in his father.

  Charlie, I’ve learned, is extremely sensitive.

  “Maybe Jean could look into this stuff.”

  I give Jean a look that says she has to go along with me.

  “Absolutely.”

  Charlie looks relieved. So I fill Jean in on my theories. I tell her that Jenna McNair may have killed Polly over some beautiful successful woman turf war, that D.M. could have murdered Polly because she couldn’t take her anymore, that Polly had a young lover who could have killed her for a million reasons: She loved him too much, he loved her too much.

  Jean is quiet during this part of the discussion. I think she’s still recovering from being dumped by the paralegal.

  I tell her that Polly may have had another lover. I describe the man at the library, but I withhold from Jean, as I had withheld from Charlie, the critical information about the “Tender” note.

  “Doesn’t sound like anything,” Jean tells me.

  “No—if you had seen them…” I try to convince her.

  “No. There is no them. A man was in the library while she was in the library. What about all of the other reading enthusiasts?”

  “That’s just it, Jean. They weren’t reading. Everyone else was. They were both just there at roughly the same time and left at roughly the same time.”

  “But they didn’t come in together?” Jean asks.

  “No.”

  “And they didn’t leave together?”

  “No.”

  “So, in conclusion, you have nothing.”

  I give up. I will tell Jean about the note when I get more information.

  I glance at the clock. It’s three-thirty in the afternoon.

  “Jean, shouldn’t you go to work?”

  “Are you out of your mind? I took a personal day. For weeks I was thinking that I would never see my closest friend again or, at best, I would be talking to you through one of those Plexiglas windows with a hole. But here you are. And I get to schmooze with celebrities, no less.”

  “I’m still a murder suspect,” I remind her.

  “I know, but we both know it’s ridiculous. So let me enjoy the moment.”

  Jean has a point. This should be the worst time in my life: I have no home and am instead completely dependent on a man with whom I’ve been secretly in love for years and years, who is being kind to me because he is kind. And because he thinks that I have some special power that can save his father. I may be days away from a humiliating investigation and trial, and weeks away from life in prison. And yet, I’m actually enjoying myself. I’m living in the moment. Funny how Mother and her acting squad were always talking about living in the moment, and I dismissed it as actorspeak, and yet I take delight from one instant to the next.

  “Let’s go out and celebrate,” Charlie says.

  “Eat Here Now?” I ask.

  “Of course.” Charlie smiles at me.

  This is one of those moments.

  I resume working on Charlie’s case the day after my reunion with Jean. The weather is clear and I’m energized. Kovitz has admitted that there is a possibility that I am not a murderer, I have made contact with my dearest friend, and Charlie and I seem more comfortable around each other. And, not that I’m bragging, but I notice that more and more of Charlie’s clothes are making their way onto my little shelf.

  Charlie also seems to respect my investigative skills.

  “Follow the whores,” Charlie cheers me on. Charlie, by the way, is wearing a towel around his waist. Okay. I admit he’s wearing a T-shirt, too. But the towel around the waist could mean one of two things: On the one hand, it could indicate some level of intimacy; on the other, it could be that he doesn’t even regard me as a woman.

  “Follow ’em
until you find something,” Charlie says. He’s brushing his teeth.

  He definitely doesn’t regard me as a woman.

  I leave Charlie’s apartment. I’m lucky it’s winter because I can hide myself in my hat and scarf. Actually, it’s Charlie’s hat. It’s blue with a white snowflake pattern and a pom-pom.

  “Very pretty,” I told him when he pulled it off the top shelf in his closet.

  “Very funny. It’s a ski hat,” he told me.

  “Are you a skier?”

  “No,” he told me.

  “Then it’s not a ski hat; it’s just a pretty hat.”

  “You win, Alice. You can have the hat.”

  I’m also wearing my newest pair of Charlie’s old jeans.

  “From when I was skinny,” he told me.

  I wanted to tell him that he was still skinny, but men don’t appreciate that. They like words like “lean” and “fit.”

  “You seem lean and fit to me.”

  Charlie smiles at me. “You’re just sucking up because you want my sweater.”

  “You read me well,” I told him. “And I am partial to the pumpkin-colored merino V-neck.”

  So here I am outfitted in complete Charlie-wear trying to find today’s hooker. Charlie has finally gotten Rosalie’s address. She lives in my neighborhood. Or should I say my former neighborhood. I take a cab to Fifty-second and Eleventh. I get out and I wait. Or should I say I lurk. Because that’s what it feels like in this part of town. Charlie thinks that Rosalie is the hooker who’s most likely to break.

  “She seems to feel for my father,” he told me.

  I’m not sure if my tailing her will produce any signs of her empathy. But Charlie’s hoping that I catch her conspiring with executives of Kelt Pharmaceuticals. And if I don’t see Rosalie engaged in any conspiratorial acts, then I will simply move to the next one on the list.

  Wow, this is my first time back in the neighborhood, and I kind of miss it. Don’t misunderstand. I love staying with Charlie, but it probably would have been better if our cohabitation was born out of our desire to move from being boyfriend and girlfriend to the next step rather than my desperate attempts to avoid jail. I guess I miss my stuff. I miss my little apartment. Jean used to call it my cave because the windows face a brick wall. Never a fan of natural light, I was fairly comfortable in my studio. I had my trusty TV, my only slightly splintering hardwood floors, and an ample supply of books.