Following Polly

by Karen Bergreen

“It’s a deal,” I say.

  Charlie grabs my hand. I’m certain he’s going to pull me into him and kiss me. But no. He just shakes it.

  It is, however, the longest handshake in history.

  I’m at Charlie’s computer again. I wasn’t as thorough as I could have been when I was reading Polly’s e-mail. I was dismissive of correspondence that bore any resemblance to fan mail. Even though Polly is dead and I’m alive, I find the public adoration annoying. If, however, reading a few fan letters could ultimately exonerate me, I’m willing to be annoyed. I can tell the fan mail because it comes mostly from personal e-mail accounts. The subject lines usually say: “We Polly Dawson,” or “We Principessa.” I read all of them. Most of them praise Polly for being so beautiful, and more than a few of her fans were surprised that someone with her looks was Harvard educated. They all praise her for the social good that she did. What social good? This is why I get annoyed.

  There are several e-mails from happycamper@yahoo.com. They date as far back as October, and it looks as if Polly opened the letters and saved them along with her unread mail. I look at the first one. “That was great, baby. Anytime.” I open a second. “You’re more beautiful today than you were yesterday.” Not exactly a poet, but he doesn’t sound like a psychotic fan, either. I see more: at least ten. All of them are short and complimentary. Several just say “great.” Happy Camper addresses her as Baby. Here’s a longer one. “Tomorrow, Baby, I’m taking you out. Not a hot spot—unless you’re describing the sauce. So don’t worry about being noticed.”

  “I’m taking you out.” Does he mean he is going to kill her? No. Happy Camper seems like a straight shooter. Not a hot spot except the sauce. He must be talking about a spicy restaurant. And one that isn’t glamorous. Mee-Hop.

  Happy Camper is Polly’s young lover. The one from the Chambers Street apartment.

  I go through every e-mail carefully. They all have that slightly enthusiastic albeit blasé tone. And they stop somewhat abruptly. The last one reads. “Hey Baby; cool to slow things down right now. But I was serious about what I wanted to do with us and this girl from my office.”

  As if Polly would ever have shared that spotlight.

  The e-mails from Happy Camper stop, and I don’t see any others that look remotely suspicious.

  Conclusion: Happy Camper, a.k.a. Polly’s young lover, didn’t kill Polly. Even if he were the father of the baby, he had no idea. No, I suspect Happy Camper is keeping company with another beauty. Who knows, maybe he found two.

  “If we can identify the father, we might be able to identify the murderer,” I tell Charlie as he walks in.

  Charlie sighs.

  “You disapprove of this, don’t you?” I say.

  “It makes me uncomfortable. It’s so sneaky. I’ve had bad luck with sneaky.”

  “Let me guess,” I say. “Your housemate? The one who hated to have food around.” I can’t bring myself to say “ex-girlfriend.”

  “The very one,” Charlie says.

  “Not all sneakiness leads to broken hearts,” I reassure him.

  “That’s what I keep telling myself,” Charlie says.

  Charlie’s in the shower. He’s singing. I can’t tell if he is off-key or if I don’t know the song. I don’t want to ask him though because he may stop. And I like it.

  He seems happy.

  He thinks we’re making progress on my case, and he wants to celebrate.

  “You know what tomorrow is?” he asked me just before he went into the shower.

  I had no idea.

  “Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. You’re so good with food and all. Maybe you could make us some yummy treats.”

  Valentine’s Day. I’ve always hated Valentine’s Day. It’s God’s way of punishing people for being alone. But now Charlie wants me to make treats for us. Does this mean we are Valentines?

  Now I’m confused, a whole new reason to hate the holiday.

  I want to call Jean to ask for her advice, but Charlie could come out of the shower anytime. She thinks Charlie is fixated on me. That he thinks I’m some kind of Superwoman.

  “Superwoman?” I asked her.

  “Yes,” she told me, “he thinks you have magical abilities because you can follow people without being seen.”

  I blushed when Jean told me this, and then I changed the subject.

  The truth is that even though I love Charlie, I can’t even try to be his Valentine until everything is resolved. And I don’t just mean my precarious legal situation. At the moment, I’m more concerned about what I know about his father. I can’t tell him. I can’t hurt him.

  Now we have a whole new lead on our case. Polly Dawson was pregnant. And the father of her baby was not her husband. Wow. And Polly knew her husband was infertile. Her husband knew he was infertile. Frankly, the whole world knew he was infertile.

  What if the father of Polly’s baby was her young lover? What if Polly had told him that she was going to tell her husband, leave him, and have their baby? What if the actor didn’t want a powerful director like Humphrey to be his enemy? What if that actor was Ian Leighton?

  That’s a pretty good motive for murder. Better than being a fired, disgruntled casting assistant.

  And there’s Humphrey himself. While it appears he didn’t kill Polly, he may have been someone else’s motive for murder. That’s not so far-fetched. Kovitz thinks I killed Polly because I was fired from Humphrey’s movie (and because I hated her).

  Was he cheating on Polly?

  According to Jean, Preston said he was cheating and Preston had given the police that tip. But Charlie said that Kovitz didn’t mention anything about Humphrey’s infidelity. So that means:

  A. Kovitz is lying.

  B. Charlie is lying.

  C. Jean is lying.

  D. Preston Hayes is lying.

  E. This is all a big misunderstanding.

  I’m not inclined to think that Charlie or Jean is lying to me. Kovitz could be withholding that particular piece of information from Charlie for some reason. But what reason? He was so detailed about everything else. And then there’s the possibility that Preston Hayes was lying. But why would Preston lie to Jean? Maybe he had a fling with Polly, and he’s trying to justify it by saying that Humphrey is a philanderer. They were together about as often as she and Ian Leighton were, and somewhere along the line those two ended up doing it in a lobster boat. But Preston Hayes doesn’t have the reputation of being a sex addict.

  Just a womanizer.

  Maybe he’s a gossip.

  I call Jean on the phone and tell her that I think Preston Hayes is a bad lead. He told us that Polly was faithful when she wasn’t.

  “But I kinda like him,” Jean tells me. Jean “kinda likes” a lot of people. She has a very welcoming heart.

  “I know, but I don’t think his information is good,” I tell her. “Maybe you can date him after this whole thing is over.”

  The truth is, I learn, nothing has even happened between Jean and Preston. He’s rubbed her lower back three times and run his fingers along her forearms twice. He’s sent her a dozen roses, but he hasn’t said anything to her about Valentine’s Day.

  “I’ve Googled him every day, and it doesn’t look as if he has a girlfriend or anything. He’s always linked with models, but they usually show up with him to fundraisers and charity events. He never seems to go to a private dinner or on a vacation.” Thus spake Jean.

  Preston Hayes may link himself with models to garner press attention because he’s two starring roles away from being an object of the paparazzi. Only at Sunrise is his second major feature film. He was something of a hit in last summer’s blockbuster, Frolic and Detour, where he played a hot young cable man who slept with all of his female customers. Critics unanimously agreed that the script was awful but that Hayes’s charm kept them in their seats.

  Mona was quite taken with him as soon as she met him. “Delicious,” she said. “Where has this man been all my life?”


  I picture Mona on a date with Preston, ordering eight meals for herself and asking for a shopping bag for all of the leftovers.

  I can’t tell Jean to terminate her budding romance because it’s not helping me, but I do tell her that he may not be as astute as he comes off.

  “He is an actor, you know,” I tell her.

  “I know.”

  I also tell Jean that it’s likely that Preston had a fling with Polly Dawson.

  “I don’t want to judge him for that,” she says in a way that indicates to me that I have to keep my mouth shut. She knows I will. You can’t fault a man for loving Polly Dawson. I don’t fault Charlie for loving an untrustworthy woman who refuses to have food in her home.

  I whisper to Jean that Charlie wants me to bake him something for Valentine’s Day.

  “Make him cupcakes with sexy messages,” she tells me.

  I want to ask what sort of sexy messages, but Charlie’s suddenly standing next to me.

  “Sounds great,” I say to her in a loud voice. “Bye, then.”

  I turn to Charlie.

  “Jean wants to continue to see Preston Hayes even though I told her he may be useless to us. She says she ‘kinda likes him.’”

  “Who are we to interfere with affairs of the heart?” Charlie says soberly.

  “We’re the number-one suspect and her accomplice in a murder of a celebrity,” I tell him.

  I’m mixing the ingredients for the cupcakes. This could be a good distraction for me from Ralston Brown, whom I now consider our number-one murder suspect. Especially now that we are pretty sure that Jenna McNair was redesigning her body, D.M. was playing chess, and Happy Camper had moved on. Although, now that he’s looking good for the murder, there are some other people that we should also consider, like Ian Leighton, potential father of Polly’s baby. There also may be people from Polly’s life to whom I was not privy: any of the other male cast members, another old boyfriend, or business partner, or some crazy fan. Just thinking about all the work ahead of us makes me nervous. I need the baking diversion. It’ll be fun. I like Jean’s idea. Write sexy messages on a cupcake. Sounds good, but it’s hard to fit a sexy thought onto that small surface. What’ll I write? “Bra”?

  I could always go for the more traditional “Be Mine” and “Love.”

  But that’s so impersonal. I need something that has to do with our special circumstances. Like “Innocent!” Or “Unfair!” I’m hoping it’ll come to me as I am cooking.

  I have a bottle of Grand Marnier in front of me. Maybe if I take a shot or two, I’ll be inspired. Wasn’t Hemingway an alcoholic?

  I’ve found this recipe on the Internet: chocolate Grand Marnier cupcakes. I’ll serve them on a platter surrounded by clementines. I haven’t baked anything in so long. This recipe’s easy enough. Right now I am sifting the flour, the baking soda, and the salt. Easy. Now I get to melt the chocolate with the Grand Marnier. I dip my finger in. Mmm. Now all I have to do is to mix the sugar, the egg, and the sour cream.

  Wait. Sour cream?

  I could have sworn it said heavy cream. I only bought heavy cream. I look in Charlie’s refrigerator to see if there’s any sour cream inside. Nothing. Of course not. The man is not exactly a collector of ingredients. I know I should go back to the Food Emporium. But it’s so cold outside and I can’t deal with the long line there. I know it’s just a couple of blocks away, but it’ll add a lot of unexpected time to the cooking project. And, I’m starting to feel the Grand Marnier. My little buzz will be ruined by a trip to the store. I could just use the heavy cream. Cream is, after all, cream. The cupcakes will just be a little less sour.

  I pour the mixture into pretty orange cupcake wrappers and put them in the oven.

  Life is getting better.

  Maybe tonight will be “the Night” for me and Charlie, after all. I’ll tell him that I’ve always loved him, and he’ll tell me that he knew there was someone right under his nose, and that it wasn’t until he found me going through his garbage that he knew that I was that someone. Then we’ll kiss, but I’ll have to tell him that we need to be strong until our lives are straightened out. He’ll agree, but he’ll also confide in me that this is the hardest test of them all.

  The buzzer sounds. The cupcakes are done.

  I go into the kitchen. All I have to do is ice these things and then write the romantic messages.

  I open the oven.

  Oh no. They don’t look like cupcakes at all. They’re just flat stumps.

  The cream! It was the cream. I should have bought the sour cream. I look at the clock. Charlie will be here in forty-five minutes. I need at least two more hours if I’m going to start all over again.

  Maybe I can save them. I’ll just create little domes out of the chocolate orange buttercream icing.

  The icing isn’t thick enough to give the cupcakes their necessary heft. So, I have to present Charlie with the stumps.

  And now, it’s going to be that much harder to include a romantic message in the icing. I was counting on a fairly ample diameter on which to fit the appropriate tidings. Without that, I don’t know what to write.

  I hear the door open.

  “That smells amazing.”

  It’s Charlie. I don’t have much time to come up with something pithy for the stumps.

  “Alice, I’m starving, and my mouth is watering.”

  I write the only words on the cupcakes that I can think of as I place them on the platter with the clementines.

  Charlie walks into the kitchen. And he’s staring at them. Twelve mutant cupcakes filled with self-revelation.

  Charlie starts reading the cupcake messages aloud:

  “‘Oops.’ ‘Uh-oh.’ ‘Yike.’” He looks at me. “I think it’s ‘yikes.’”

  “I know, but I couldn’t fit the S there, and that made it even more descriptive.”

  Charlie starts laughing.

  He keeps laughing.

  “The recipe calls for sour cream, and I used heavy cream.” I confess all.

  Charlie keeps laughing.

  He takes a bite of an oops.

  “They taste delicious.”

  “You must like icing,” I tell him.

  “I love icing,” Charlie says, “and I love these cupcakes. The little messages are perfect.”

  Perfect. Charlie thinks they’re perfect. I’m so excited, I almost miss his next comment.

  “I wanted to do something nice for you on Valentine’s Day,” he says.

  I get nervous. I wish Jean were here to help me script an appropriate reply.

  I say nothing.

  “I thought about it,” he continues, “and I think I thought of a really good gift.”

  I’m going to faint. Is it the Grand Marnier going to my head?

  “I’d like to watch television with you.”

  I’m stunned.

  “Is that your gift?” I ask him. I sound a spot ungracious.

  “Yes. I see you parked here in front of the tube, dying to talk to someone about all of these programs you watch. You can’t call anyone because you’re a fugitive from justice. So, I thought I’d donate my eyes and ears for an evening.”

  I don’t remind him that if I’m desperate I can always call Jean. “Sounds like a gift more for yourself than for me.”

  But it isn’t. I know. Charlie has no interest in television. He’s trying to do something nice for me. He has shared his apartment with me; now I can share my hobby.

  “Who knows? Maybe I’ll get hooked.”

  “Don’t get too invested in the guilt of anybody the police peg early on.”

  I’m explaining to Charlie how Law & Order works. “If you know who does it in the first ten minutes, then NBC thinks you’ll switch to another show for the remainder of the hour.”

  We’re sitting on his couch, my bed. I’m wearing one of Charlie’s pajama tops and a pair of his jeans. He looks as if he might have dressed and shaved for the occasion: a black cashmere turtleneck and a new pair of thi
ck winter khakis. We’re sitting as close as two people can without any physical contact.

  “But they have pretty good evidence here,” he tries to persuade me. “This killer has a motive: It’s his wife’s lover, he has no alibi for the time of death; and he works in a lab that has the capability of producing the poison that killed him.”

  “No, the detectives have missed something. They always miss an important piece of evidence. This guy isn’t guilty, I will bet you. And don’t think the next guy will be guilty, either. They always have to go through a few of them before they land on the real killer with the obscure but much more sinister motive.”

  “When you say bet, I was wondering what you could offer. You’ve already moved in here, I’ve given you half my wardrobe, and I’ve put you on allowance.”

  “Do you want me to move out?” I panic.

  “No, Alice. I like having you around.” And after he says it, he smiles a little. Our legs touch.

  My stomach does about six somersaults.

  I wonder if I should tell him that I’ve loved him from afar since college. And I realize he’s still talking.

  “Who knows? Maybe we could sell your story to Law and Order and you could pay me rent.”

  Maybe I should wait before professing my love.

  Law & Order goes into a commercial break when suddenly the local anchorwoman bellows: “Another murder in Manhattan: Could this be another bizarre plot of Polly Dawson’s twisted killer?”

  Another murder? The news break ends and a car commercial comes on.

  “Change the channel,” I tell Charlie. He starts pressing buttons on the remote. Obviously the wrong ones, because the car commercial is only getting louder. I grab the remote from him. I turn to New York 1; they call themselves New York’s only twenty-four-hour news station. It’s got to be there. No, it’s a one-hour sports special. Since when is sports news? I turn to CNN; Michael Ledyard is on again. I turn to MSNBC. I know it is hopeless. That channel never has any news. Clarissa Winnick, author of Men Fight, Women Bite is on explaining her Trifecta Defensive. She’s sitting on top of the current darling of World Wrestling Entertainment, Doctor Power, discussing the importance of the shriek, the kick, and the bite.