“I have stout. Is that okay?”
She nodded. “Better than okay,” she said with a flat note to her voice. “Just bring the bottle, I’m fine with it,” she yelled after me as I went in the kitchen to fetch our beers.
I’d join her. Yes, I would.
While I was in the kitchen, I made up a plate of cheese and meat and slices of bread.
“You didn’t show up for our lunch date,” she said when I set the plate down on a coffee table.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know we had one.”
“I received your invitation.” She looked me square in the eye.
“What invitation?” My heart was skipping around in my chest. Had I made a lunch date I forgot about? I’d never done that before.
“Well, it was an email,” she said. “Don’t you remember?”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve not checked my email in days. I’m in the thick of writing. Email is a distraction.”
Her head tilted. “Odd.”
“Are you certain it was from me?” Great. I’d made an appointment with an editor I hoped to impress and forgot about it. She wouldn’t work with me again.
“It was from your email address,” she said and reached into her bag, pulling out her phone. She fingered the phone and pulled up the email. Sure enough, it was my email address.
I sucked in air. Someone had hacked into my account. “Jesus,” I said. “Someone hacked me. I need to let the police know.”
“Why would they hack you? What exactly is going on?” Lucille’s voice rose, and her eyes slanted as she took me in. She didn’t trust me. Why would she?
“I’ll explain everything after I text the police,” I said.
“You’re damn right you will. I sat there for at least half an hour waiting for you.” She lifted the bottle to her mouth. No wonder she was miffed. I’d be miffed too if I thought I’d been stood up for lunch.
I texted Den, then kept my phone close by waiting on his response, which came in a few seconds. “On it, but in the meantime, change all of your passwords,” he texted. I wasn’t sure what “on it” meant. But probably he would go to the cybercrimes unit.
I turned back to Lucille, who was picking over the food, fashioning herself an open-faced sandwich of sorts.
“Thank you,” she said. “I’m more than a bit peckish.”
“Please,” I said. “Help yourself.”
She took a few bites, then focused on me. “Well?”
My mind raced. How to start? Where to start?
“You know that Justine was murdered. We think the same person killed another woman, a woman who looked like Jean Harlow, and then came after me.”
She took a swig of her beer. “What does any of this have to do with the book?”
“I need you to promise you’ll keep an open mind about this,” I said, standing. I paced the floor. “We’ve got most of the proof we need. We’re just waiting on a few more sources to come through.”
She set her stout down with a thud and huffed in exasperation. “Stop that infernal pacing. Sit down and tell me what the hell is going on.”
I sat, even though my nervous energy was raring to go. I forced myself to be still and reveal the story to her.
She was expressionless through most of it, eating, drinking, nodding.
At the end, her mouth dropped open. “Jean Harlow had a half sister? A half sister with CF ? She sent her ring to her on her deathbed? And you have this very ring in your possession?”
My turn to nod.
“Jesus Christ, woman. We’ve got a hell of a story here. Make sure your sources check out.”
“They do. Well, most of them. I’m still waiting on a few sources to check in, especially the DNA lab.”
She set her empty beer bottle down on the table. “We need to arrange a pre-release tour. This will work out for publicity and sales. We’re going to have a hit on our hands.”
“Wait. This man, this Luther Stone, he’s at large. The police are still searching for him. He’s dangerous. I’m not sure about putting myself out there yet. I allowed you to use me during Justine’s memorial service and it started this whole thing.”
She sank back into her chair with a thoughtful demeanor. “Maybe we can kill two birds with one stone. Luther Stone.”
“What do you mean?”
“If he wants to kill you, and he wants the ring, what better way than to give him what he wants?”
“Excuse me?”
“Hold on. Let me explain,” she said. “We hold a huge press conference. Very well publicized. All over the place. This is exactly the kind of thing publicists live for.” She took a breath. “We let the world know you’ve got the ring. You’ll be wearing it that day. Collectors will come, and so will Luther Stone.”
Was she suggesting what I thought she was? Using me as bait? “Hold on. That guy is nuts. He killed his own daughter. He’d not think twice about killing me.”
“Precisely,” she said. “It will pull him out of where ever he’s hiding. We’ll have the place booby-trapped with police and security. You’ll be safe. Safer than you’ve ever been in your life.”
Fifty-Seven
You can tell your editor that the NYPD does not use civilians as bait to catch a killer,” Den said over the phone, which left me only somewhat relieved.
I left it alone. “Have you gotten anywhere?”
“Not yet. None of the leads have taken us anywhere.” He paused. “But police work is like that. Sometimes just when I’m ready to give up, something happens.”
Which reminded me of my dad. Odd. I barely remembered him. I mostly recalled parts of him. His hand cupping my hand. The nook between his arm and shoulder where I’m told I’d crawl and lie. I remembered the feelings he left me with when he held my hand or hugged me.
We had given up on him a long time ago. You presumed a person dead when he was gone for such a lengthy period.
Why had he written to Mom after all these years? Didn’t he know what he’d put her through? Let alone his only child? I tamped down my confusion and anger and concentrated on the moment.
Den. On the phone. “We’ve learned that Luther entered the country seven months ago,” he was saying.
“Soon after our Jean Harlow look-alike arrived in Hollywood.”
“Yeah,” he said. “He was tracking her. I can’t believe it. Her own father.”
Den kept coming back to this. A cop who’d seen just about every form of deviation in human behavior. This part disturbed him. I didn’t know him well. Maybe he was troubled a lot. Perhaps he was too sensitive for it not to bother him. Most cops didn’t talk about their worst cases, but I had a hunch they were more like Den than not.
“Families can be complicated,” I said, once again, thinking of my own. My dad, gone for twenty-eight years. Husbands killed wives. When a woman showed up dead, the husband was always the first suspect. And, of course, they murdered their own kids. “But usually when a parent kills a child, it’s when they’re young. Or even as a teenager. In the heat of passion. To chase one down across the world, now that’s a different kind of killer all together.”
Den laughed a little. “Have you been investigating again?”
“Of course. I looked more into Luther. I know you guys are researching him, but I’m trying to understand him at least enough to write about him. I’m meeting with Maude later.”
“Who’s that?”
“She’s a psychoanalyst we often work with to help piece together personalities of people we never knew. Like Jean Harlow.”
Den grunted. “Let me know if she tells you anything helpful. I’m worried we’ll never get that first date.”
My turn to laugh. “We need a deadline.”
“Don’t you think we’ve both had enough deadlines?”
We signed off, and I hurrie
d to dress to meet with Maude. It would be only the second time I’d see her in person. We usually worked over the phone.
She sat at a table studying the menu. Short cropped gray hair surrounded her slightly chubby unmade-up face.
“Hello,” I said. “Nice place.”
“I come here often. Too often,” Maude said, glancing up at me. “How are you?” she asked after I sat down.
I shrugged. What do you say when a psychoanalyst asks you that question? Was it loaded? “I miss Justine, I’m stressed about the book and everything going on with it, and I’m finding it difficult to leave the apartment because I know the killer is out there. He could be here. He could be just outside the door waiting for me.”
Maude cracked a compassionate smile. “What you’re describing is normal. Your stress will go away when the book is done. You’ll always miss Justine, but it will lessen with time. And Christ, you were attacked. Everybody deals with that in different ways. You’ve gotten back in the saddle. That says something.”
The servers approached us. We ordered drinks and beet salads. We were saving room for dessert. This place had the best cheesecake in the city.
“So what you’re describing is not a typical father killing a son. Many times when that happens, they’re what we call family annihilators. Something has gone wrong in the marriage. Custody is an issue. It’s a threat to his masculinity,” she said as she sipped her Bloody Mary.
“So what about this guy?”
“I think his masculinity was also threatened, but for different reasons. His son identified as a woman. For some that would be difficult.”
I remembered Kate’s dad beating her when he found out she would get the operation.
“In my practice, I see more of the dads trying to be supportive and come to terms with it. They reach out to me for help. That says something about their character. But these other men? Very vengeful.”
“Small penises?” I said after a minute.
“Who knows? Let’s not go there, doll.” Maude paused, taking another long drink. “So you say he’s traveled around the world chasing his son for this ring his son supposedly had? It belonged to his mother’s family? Is he estranged from his wife as well?”
“Dead. He gallivants.” The beet salad was excellent. I ate every bite.
“From the picture you paint, I think he felt betrayed. His son turned into a woman, which was a threat to his masculinity. Not only did he become a female, he became Jean Harlow. Another blow. Deeper. Then she came here, bringing the ring with her to Hollywood to prove her relationship with Harlow. It’s like she was obsessed with starting over and shedding her past. Once again, betrayal.”
“And she ran to Justine,” I said. “Gave Justine the ring for safekeeping. Somehow he figured it out. And Justine wouldn’t give the ring to him.”
The server came along and took away our plates. “Desserts?” he asked.
“Cheesecake for both of us,” Maude said. The server nodded and walked off carrying the plates. “But it seems you’ve also got a man who may suffer from extreme delusions of grandeur. Many of these art collector types and wealthy guys exhibit similar traits. Not only does this guy think he has the right to do anything he wants, but he also thinks he has all the answers. If people don’t live his way, in his mind he’s justified in killing them.”
I drank my Bloody Mary. A cold tingle traveled the length me. His hands had been on my back.
“Simply put, you’re dealing with the worst kind of psychopath, someone who has no empathy for others, including his own child.”
Fifty-Eight
Lunch with Maude left me more frightened than I’d been before. But it gave me a better sense of who we were dealing with. I didn’t have access to police specialists, like Den did. And he was so busy that our conversations were few and brief.
One thought kept occurring: What if we were wrong? What if Luther wasn’t the man in the security video, not the guy who attacked me? Could we be wrong?
Chad Walters was mean enough to murder someone. But he was not the individual in the security footage. He was a pudgy guy. The guy in the recording was slender. Severn Hartwell was still a possibility, though. He was slim and his chin was kind of pointy. He was desperate. But was he desperate enough to kill?
I walked along Fifth Ave, the lunch crowd dwindling, and a sudden cold crept up my back again. Was someone watching me? I stepped over to the nearest shop. Ann Taylor. I’d never been in one before—too pricey and too vanilla. I peered out the window, my breath as uneven as the heart pounding in my chest.
I searched faces and found nobody remotely suspicious. But this nagging sensation wouldn’t go away.
“Can I help?” a woman said from behind me.
I gasped and turned to her.
“I’m sorry,” she said, smiling with her shiny pink lips. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“No, no, I’m sorry. I thought someone was following me,” I said. “I’m a bit paranoid. I guess.”
Her smile vanished. “My mom always said to trust your instincts. Maybe someone was following you.”
Dressed in a smart little blue dress, with jewelry to match, her name tag read Rhonda. She fingered her necklace. “Can I show you some clothes? Are you interested at all?”
I met her eyes. “Not really. I ducked in here because it was the closest shop. I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay,” she said with a lighter voice. “I’ll let you be, then. Good luck.”
“Thanks.” I turned back to the window, which is when I saw him, standing between a lamppost and a trash container, dressed in all black, shifting his weight and turning his face from side to side.
Luther Stone.
I pulled out my cell phone and tried to dial Den, but my hands were shaking so much that I wasn’t sure who I was calling.
“Brophy,” his voice said. Thank God.
“Den, Luther Stone is standing right outside of the Ann Taylor shop on Fifth,” I said, my voice low and raspy. “Den, he was following me. I’m inside the shop now.”
“Stay where you are,” he said and hung up.
I turned back toward the window. He was gone.
“Fuck,” I said out loud.
“Are you sure I can’t help you?” Rhonda came up beside me. “You’re shaking! Can I get you some water?”
I nodded.
“Why don’t you come with me?” She wrapped her arm around my shoulder and lead me to a chair outside the dressing room. Rhonda. So nice.
I melted in to the armchair. My knees and thighs soupy, shoulders and arms frigid. I was cold. So cold. Luther had been following me. For once I’d listened to my guts, and it paid off. The scent of Cotillion breezed by me as Rhonda brought me water and a jacket to wrap around me. Was she wearing Cotillion? My mouth wouldn’t form words to ask.
Two uniformed officers entered the store. One of the other sales clerks led them to me.
“Ms. Donovan?”
“Yes,” I said, chattering.
“How are you?”
I sipped water, hands shaking. I nodded. “Luther Stone was standing right outside. He was between the lamppost and the trash can. I think he was following me.”
The cop’s head tilted. “You think?”
“Yes, I just had this horrible feeling of apprehension,” I replied. “So I ducked into the shop.”
He scribbled something on to his pad. “What was he wearing?”
The sales staff was now more concerned with me and the cops than their store. Even the customers were gathering around.
“Okay, people,” the other cop said. “Just go about your business.”
“He was dressed in all black. Black jeans, I think, and a black jersey, plain.”
The cop lifted his shoulder and spoke into his device. “Suspect wearing all black. Last seen on Fifth
Ave. Over.”
“How are you?” he asked me again.
I didn’t want to answer. I felt like shit. But it was more than that. I was feeling ashamed of myself. Ashamed for allowing things to get this far. Ashamed I hadn’t done something more to help nab this guy. The man who’d killed Justine and the look-alike. A part of me understood it was a ridiculous way to feel. I mean, what could I do, right?
But he’d been right behind me. Following me. He was after me now. The attack in the park wasn’t enough. He wanted to finish me off. I swallowed the water.
“I’m shaken,” I said.
He nodded. “You got every reason to be. We’re taking you home. That okay?”
Luther had evaded the cops once again. A city full of police couldn’t seem to track down one slippery man.
As I walked into Justine’s apartment, my stomach settled, my heart calmed. A feeling of serenity came over me. If I could stay inside here for the rest of my life, this wouldn’t be bad. Of all the things I could imagine, stepping outside was not one of them.
I’d be fine here. A recluse. Den and Kate could bring me whatever I needed. Mom and Gram could visit from time to time. I’d order food and incidentals online. I could continue to work from here.
As I walked into the library, books all around me, the chaise where I slept, the delicate rose stained-glass window, I was certain staying here was the answer. I might never leave.
Fifty-Nine
A fever came over me and leveled me. For a night and a day, I did nothing but sleep, sometimes eat. I had no choice. I often had strange dreams when I was in the thick of a Lyme flare-up, but I didn’t think this was Lyme.
I imagined the fever cleansing me, getting rid of my unhealthy impurities. On the last day of my fever, I dreamed about Justine.
She was here in this room with me, looking twenty years younger.
“Why don’t you take the guest room? Sleeping on the chaise in the library can’t be comfortable. You need to take care of yourself so you can get the book done.”
The Jean Harlow Bombshell Page 25