‘You mean if I were Rachel? ’Cause where I’d go and where a crazy celebutante would go … although, maybe not so different. Around here there’s not a lot of options, and Connecticut clubs close at one or two. So if she went partying, unless there’s some kind of after hours scene in Grenville, which there isn’t, the closest would be Brattlebury. And that’s not her scene.’
‘What are you thinking, Ada?’ Lil asked.
‘I’m thinking about what we know of Rachel from the press. She’s always getting picked up by the cops or getting thrown out of nightclubs. Even crazy people have habits. So if it’s the middle of the night and she’s missing, maybe she went clubbing.’
Lil nodded. ‘Or the part of her that likes to go clubbing wanted a night out. But like you said, it’s Grenville and Shiloh. A couple restaurants have bars, but nothing in town stays open past midnight.’
‘Then what Aaron said: let’s think out of town − Brattlebury, or even Hartford. Rachel was raised here, she’ll know where to go.’
‘It’s not New York,’ Aaron offered. ‘Although in the middle of the night, she could be in Manhattan in ninety minutes. And the two of you are not going to downtown Brattlebury or Hartford at four a.m.’
Ada caught their reflection in the hall mirror, two ageing Power Rangers; he had a point. ‘Here’s a thought.’ She headed back toward Lil’s office and settled behind the computer. She clicked on the browser as the other two followed. She typed in Rachel Parks and was offered four million hits. She refined the search and added the word nightclub. And finally, after hours. That got her down to thirty-seven hundred.
Lil grabbed a pad and pen and took notes. ‘That one,’ she said, noting a blog entry with a picture of Rachel apparently passed out on the sidewalk. ‘What’s the date?’
‘April 23rd,’ Ada said. ‘The day Lenore was shot.’ She read it aloud. ‘Brooklyn nightclub owner Casio Gomez was philosophical when asked about the latest celebrity meltdown at his trendy Park Slope club, Murielle’s. He said it was “the price of success”, although whether he was referring to the bad-girl behavior of Rachel Parks, or his nightclub, was unclear. Mr Gomez did point out that Murielle’s has a strict no-drinking policy for anyone under age and that at no time was Ms Parks served alcohol. One late night … er, early morning, reveler gave a first hand account of the famous train wreck’s behavior. “She might not have been drinking, but she was high as a kite.”’
Ada paused. She looked at the pictures of Rachel, her dress hiked up and not wearing underwear. And then at related posts and comments, where people had offered their two bits about that night. ‘She knew she was pregnant.’
‘Drugs and alcohol are not so good for a developing fetus,’ Lil offered. ‘Especially in the first trimester. And from everything you’ve said, she intends to keep the baby.’
‘Yeah, but even today – I mean yesterday – when we were shooting, everyone, myself included, was drinking a lot of caffeine. She had either water or herb tea.’ She scrolled back to a couple earlier entries.
‘But you said she dyed her hair,’ Lil said. ‘Most OBs discourage that. A certain amount of the ammonia gets absorbed through the scalp.’
‘I asked her about that. She said it was henna and the OB told her that it was fine.’
‘So that’s not adding up,’ Aaron said. ‘Either she’s taking care of her unborn child or she’s not. Or maybe she’s not even pregnant and the whole thing is a publicity stunt.’
Ada shook her head. ‘She is pregnant. I heard her talk with her doctor. And I do think she’s taking care of the baby.’ She stared at the screen. ‘Here’s another at the same club, two weeks earlier.’ There were pictures of Rachel and her brother seated with a couple of young actresses. They looked happy and healthy. In one, Rachel’s head was thrown back and she was laughing at something her brother had said. Clicking back to the browser she found several more sightings of Rachel Parks at the same club. Clearly it was a favorite.
‘Aaron, how late do after hours clubs go?’ Lil asked.
‘Speaking as someone who’s been to a total of two raves and one after hours club, I’d say things break up around six or seven in the morning. Kind of the vampire thing: when the sun comes up it’s time to crawl back home.’
Lil and Ada exchanged glances. ‘She could be in New York,’ Ada said.
‘Or turn up here,’ Lil added.
‘Or turn up dead,’ Aaron offered.
Ada shuddered. ‘Let’s not think that. For all of Rachel’s issues, there’s a sweetness to her. And I can’t help but think of how alone she must feel. We should split up.’
‘I’ll drive to Brooklyn,’ Lil said, as she looked down at her outfit. ‘This isn’t going to get me in, is it?’ She looked at Aaron.
‘No. Wear black and bring your press card and camera,’ he offered. ‘I should go with you.’
Ada looked at her grandson, aware that his heart was set on spending the day with the film crew.
‘You don’t have to,’ Lil said, aware of what he was about to sacrifice.
‘Yeah, I do,’ he said. ‘It’s fine. I don’t think the cast and crew of Final Reckoning will miss me.’
Ada got up and gave him a peck on the cheek. ‘I don’t care what anyone says, you’re the best grandson ever.’
‘Gee, thanks. We should get a move on.’ He looked at Lil. ‘Meet you at my car in five?’
‘Sure,’ and Lil headed back for a quick change, somewhat clueless about what to wear to a club that catered to night-prowling New Yorkers.
‘Why the change of heart?’ Ada asked Aaron.
He pushed back his bangs. ‘It’s fun and all, and I think you should milk this for everything it’s worth, but they’re not real.’
‘Who’s not real?’
‘Any of them. It’s like they’re all desperate for something. And they turn on each other and are constantly trying to make points with that Barry guy, or with Melanie. But behind their backs they say awful things. Who wants to be part of that?’
Ada nodded. ‘It is exciting, though.’
‘Yeah, but I don’t think I want that. So, overall, I’d say it’s been a good learning experience. But not for me.’
Lil reappeared, having done a lightning change into fitted black jeans, black turtle neck, flats and a black leather car coat she’d swiped from Ada’s side of the closet. Her silver-blond hair was tied back in a ponytail.
Aaron snorted and Ada raised an eyebrow.
‘I’m trying,’ Lil said.
‘It’s fine,’ Aaron offered. ‘Sort of like a sixties hipster; I’ll call you Dieter.’
After they’d left, Ada sipped tea and searched the Internet. The condo felt empty and she wondered if the show would go on. She thought about what Aaron had said about the cast and crew. Yes, she’d felt it, the desperation, but also the excitement. She looked at pictures of Rachel, invariably in a nightclub. Some were with her brother; several were of her unconscious or being carted out on a stretcher; and others showed her in designer gowns at award shows. There was even one with her, at age eleven, on Lenore Says. There was much darker material as well. Evidence of a porn tape, but whenever she clicked a link it was to find the offending material had been removed.
‘Interesting.’ She looked at the dates of the postings, over two years old. ‘Horrible,’ she said aloud, realizing Rachel would have been a minor. But their presence – now absence – raised questions. Who posted them? Who took them down? Who shot the video and who was she with? From there the questions grew darker. She’d been a minor, and whoever had posted or shared the video had committed a serious crime. Even viewing it, which she had nearly done, would be a violation of federal law. Had the authorities removed the postings from the Internet? Her mother? Her brother? A family lawyer?
She clicked on YouTube and entered Rachel’s name. Lots of small videos, mostly shot with camera phones. Engrossed in her task, she started at the sound of the doorbell and then the phone.
S
he picked up on her way to the door. ‘We’re here,’ Melanie chirped over the line.
‘That’s one question answered,’ Ada said.
‘What are you talking about?’ Melanie asked, as Ada opened the door.
‘Has Rachel been found?’ she asked.
‘No, but don’t worry, we’re prepared for all contingencies.’
Ada looked at the smiling brunet. Her face was scrubbed, her eyes bright. She was ready for a day of shooting and was prepared for all contingencies. That statement brought home the awful possibility that Rachel might not be found, at least not alive.
TWENTY-FIVE
At six a.m. Lil lucked out and found a parking spot for her Lincoln a block from Murielle’s, the nightclub where Rachel had been hours before Lenore was shot. ‘This is nothing like I remember,’ she said, as they got out.
‘You’ve been to Brooklyn?’ Aaron asked.
‘Ages ago. I went with some friends from college to a party. It looked nothing like this. It’s all so clean … it looks expensive.’
‘It is,’ he said. ‘Almost as bad as Manhattan. It’s a damn shame that Grandma couldn’t have hung on to Great Grandma Rose’s apartment on Delancey.’
‘It wasn’t an option,’ Lil said.
‘Come on, Dieter, there are ways.’
‘Don’t be a brat.’ She glanced at the GPS app on her iPhone. The address for the nightclub showed they were close.
‘There,’ Aaron said, indicating a broad store front with black curtains in the windows and a single light over the door. ‘That’s the address.’
‘Yeah,’ Lil said, recognizing it from the picture of Rachel on the sidewalk. Only then there’d been a crowd and an ambulance. ‘It’s so quiet.’
‘Yeah, weird.’ They crossed the street, and Aaron tried the door. ‘Locked.’ He knocked and looked for a bell. ‘Maybe there’s a secret code or something.’
Lil strained to hear any noise or music, but there was just traffic in the background, and a distant subway.
Aaron knocked again.
‘They’re closed,’ said a woman out walking her miniature dachshund.
‘On a Friday? That’s odd,’ Lil said.
‘Closed as in shut down,’ the woman said. ‘Under-age drinking. They’ll pay a fine and be open by tonight.’ She bent down to scoop up her dog’s leavings in a plastic bag. ‘Good girl, Millie.’
‘How long have they been closed?’
‘Since the night that Parks girl got carted out. I guess she’s nineteen, and drinking age in New York is twenty-one.’
‘You don’t know who owns this place, do you?’ Lil asked.
‘I do,’ she said. ‘Why?’ She deposited the plastic bag in the nearby garbage can.
‘I’m a reporter,’ Lil said. ‘I’m working on a story about Lenore and her kids.’
‘I can make a call. Who do you write for?’
‘I’ve got a syndicated column,’ Lil said.
‘Would I know it?’
‘It’s about antiques. Lenore’s production company is in my hometown shooting a reality show …’
‘Where her brother was shot?’ the woman asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Interesting. And why are you tracking down Rachel’s haunts?’
‘Not certain,’ Lil said. ‘Kind of why I’m here.’
Aaron squatted and started to play with the long-haired black dog.
‘Hmmm. I’m May, by the way, and this slice of cuteness is Millie.’
‘She is gorgeous.’
‘Yes,’ May said, ‘and she knows it.’ She tapped the screen of her cell and held it to her ear. ‘Casio, I’m outside with a lady reporter from Connecticut. She’s doing a piece on Rachel.’
Even from a distance Lil and Aaron could hear loud swearing in an Italian accent through the phone. May held it away from her ear. She mouthed, not looking good. ‘Casio, is that a yes or a no?’ There was silence. ‘He’s coming down.’
‘He lives here?’ Lil asked.
‘He and his wife own the building. Murielle’s is kind of a local institution and he’s pissed at getting shut down.’
They heard deadbolts turn. The door opened on to a short dark-haired man with a couple days’ growth on his chin. He looked at May, and then to Lil and Aaron. He squinted against the light. ‘Who are you?’ he asked.
‘Lil Campbell,’ she said and extended her hand. ‘And this is my assistant, Aaron Gurston.’
‘Huh …’ He hung back in the door. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘About the night, I guess the early morning, that Rachel got hauled away.’
‘Bitch,’ he snorted, followed by several choice words in Italian. ‘And the worst part was she didn’t have a drop of alcohol, at least nothing served here. My bartenders know to check and we card everyone. They know Rachel, and if they want to keep their jobs they’d never serve her.’
‘You use a bracelet system?’ Aaron asked, and before Lil could ask for clarification, he added, ‘So if you’re under age you get one color and if you’re legal you get another.’
‘Yes. We did not serve alcohol to Rachel Parks. I don’t know what twisted game that bitch was playing, but she wasn’t drunk. If you write the truth I’ll give you the number for our bouncer; he saw the whole thing. He told me she left the club without stumbling, and just lay down on the sidewalk. He tried to get her up, but she wouldn’t move. And because she’s famous people started taking pictures, someone called nine one one and now my club is closed for a liquor violation. And there’s not a damn thing I can do.’ The man’s face turned red. ‘They want to fine me fifty thousand dollars! We never served her alcohol, and there’s nothing I can do to prove it.’
Lil stared at the man. ‘I believe you,’ she said, thinking of her conversation with Ada. Rachel knew she was pregnant; she wasn’t drinking. ‘I might be able to help.’
‘How?’ The man opened the door wider, affording them a glimpse of high ceilings and a long corridor.
‘Do you have a card?’ Lil asked. She fished out one of her own.
‘Not on me,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you my cell. I’m Casio Gomez … this is my club, and if you can get me out of a fifty thousand dollar fine and get me back open, you’ll get a lifetime membership.’
May snorted.
‘What?’ he said.
‘Seems like she’d be getting the short end of the deal.’
‘If I can get you proof that Rachel Parks wasn’t drinking,’ said Lil, ‘do you think that would do it?’
‘What kind of proof?’
‘I imagine they did a breathalyzer on the ambulance and probably a toxicology screen in the emergency room. The trick is going to be getting protected medical information.’
Casio’s shoulders slumped. ‘The girl used drugs, lots of them. And what if she’d been drinking before she came to the club?’
‘Then it won’t work,’ Lil admitted. ‘But I’ve got good reason to think – and what you just told me about the doorman makes sense − Rachel Parks was sober as a judge when she lay down on your sidewalk. What I don’t understand is why she did it.’
Back in the car, Lil had Aaron drive as she made calls on the speaker phone, first to Ada. ‘Have they found her?’
‘No, and the show goes on,’ Ada said. ‘I’m in Lenore’s bathroom getting my hair and make-up done,’ she added, to let Lil know their conversation wasn’t private. ‘And by bathroom I mean something the size of one of our condos. She has an entire beauty parlor in here.’
Speaking softly, Lil gave her the upshot on the visit to Murielle’s.
‘Excuse me,’ Ada said. ‘Guys’ – she was talking to James the hairdresser and Gretchen the make-up artist – ‘I need five minutes of privacy.’ There was a pause on the line. ‘OK Lil, Rachel’s psychiatrist is with Mattie. I’m sure he can get copies of all of her medical stuff. And if Mattie doesn’t know this part … I’ll tell her. It’s bizarre. Why would Rachel just lay down on the sidewalk?’
>
‘For attention,’ Lil said.
‘From whom? Her mother? The papers? Her brother?’
‘It could have been for an alibi,’ Aaron chimed in from behind the wheel. ‘If she’s in the emergency room when someone kills her mother, no one can say she did it.’
‘Smart boy,’ Ada said. ‘Let’s take it further. We know that Richard was her guardian angel.’
‘Not to mention some less savory brother and sister goings on,’ Lil added.
‘Yes, well. A bit of a fallen angel then. But if she were in the emergency room, Richard would come to her rescue. He always did. So not only is it her alibi, but his as well. The two of them were in the hospital the morning Lenore was shot. And if the whole thing was a ruse on Rachel’s part, maybe it wasn’t for attention, at least not this time.’
‘So they hired someone to kill their mother?’ Aaron asked. ‘Then who killed Richard? And for all we know, Rachel …’
‘Don’t say it,’ Ada whispered.
‘It’s a possibility,’ Lil said. ‘She could be dead, and if we follow this through then maybe the killer is cleaning up loose ends, as in anyone that could implicate him or her.’
‘It doesn’t sit right,’ Ada said. ‘Look, give Mattie a call and try to track down those medical records; let’s at least see if this much is right.’
‘So how are they planning to film without Rachel?’ Lil asked.
‘Melanie says they’ve got more than enough from yesterday. She says they can cut and slice till no one would ever know. Don’t ask me how … and you want to know what they’re planning? Apparently it was even Rachel’s idea.’
‘What?’ Lil and Aaron said in unison.
‘A tag sale, even though they’re calling it an estate sale, but we both know it’s the same thing. The ad is going in today’s paper, and tomorrow they’re going to hold it right here in the driveway. They’re going to film the whole thing and at the end of the day tally up the takings. To keep it from being totally gruesome, Rachel wants the proceeds to go to charity. Today we film the three dealers who think they’re competing to liquidate Lenore’s estate.’
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