The Last Night Out

by Catherine O'Connell

  Standing in front of massive entry doors more befitting a medieval church than a residence, I smoothed my hair and took a deep breath. Natasha might be irritated at me for being late for my own shower, but my mother would be furious. And when my mother was furious, it made everyone’s life miserable.

  Natasha’s butler answered the door. Yes, butler. Imported from England, he was one of the growing trends among the new wealthy. Hobbs ushered me into the foyer where Natasha was talking with two of my mother’s bridge partners.

  ‘Our guest of honor, finally,’ she announced, floating over to kiss me on both cheeks in her best imitation of Mrs Astor. ‘We were getting worried about you.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Traffic was insane.’

  I made my excuses to my mother’s friends, and we walked together down a wide hall, thick with oriental rugs and recently acquired collectible paintings. The rest of the guests were seated in the arboretum, drinking white wine and chatting politely amid potted orange and fig trees. Most of the women were my mother’s age, in their mid-fifties and beyond, wearing designer clothes and carrying purses straight from the pages of Vogue. Dressed in a simple beige shift I’d picked up on sale at J.Crew, and clutching a battered Coach bag, I was without doubt the least fashionable person in the room. My mother was seated on a rattan settee, wearing a canary yellow suit, a Hermes scarf draped across her shoulders and clusters of pearls at her ears. My younger sister, Laurel, sat next to her looking pissed that she had to be in attendance. I could hardly blame her. She was as battle-weary of the shower circuit as I was. Our older sister, Ellen, lived in New York City with her husband and kids, and had been lucky enough geographically to miss all seven of the previous showers.

  My mother shot me a withering glare when she saw me. Then she pasted a smile over the glare and sailed her perfectly made-up face across the room to cull me aside like a sheepdog would an errant lamb. ‘Margaret Mary,’ she said tersely, her use of my legal name putting me on notice. ‘Do you have any idea how utterly déclassé it is to be late for an event held in your honor?’

  ‘Please, Mother, save it. I’m really not feeling too well.’ Unlike the excuse I’d given Natasha about traffic being horrible, this was the truth. I’d spent the entire morning in the bathroom heaving my guts into the toilet, hopefully from a parasite in last night’s hamburger and not that other possibility.

  My mother regarded me seriously, motherly concern trumping her anger. She put a palm to my forehead. ‘You do look a little pale. Oh Lord, don’t tell me you’re getting sick. Not now.’

  ‘Mother, stop! It’s probably just a touch of food poisoning. Now c’mon, let get this show over with.’

  ‘Maggie!’

  In no mood to share another word with her, I stepped back into the arboretum. Being a seasoned shower veteran at this point, I issued warm greetings to everyone and made my apologies for being late. I fussed over Flynn’s mother and her friends, many of whom I was meeting for the first time. Natasha’s mother was there, of course. As one of my mother’s best friends, she was the principal reason I had no choice about this eleventh-hour shower at her daughter’s house.

  Of course, I was well aware of Natasha’s motive for sponsoring this superfluous event. Though Arthur’s wealth was substantial, his new money didn’t necessarily gain them entree into the circles that Natasha wanted to travel in. With Flynn’s mother and her friends in her home, Natasha had assembled a cross section of the women who belonged to the best clubs and served on the most important boards of Chicago and the North Shore. These were women who could finance a new wing to the Art Institute or deliver a gorilla to the Lincoln Park Zoo with a few phone calls. Natasha was a social climber with no summit in sight. Having this group in her house was a step towards the top.

  The butler announced that lunch was served and we filed into the formal dining room. An extravagant buffet of pastas, salads, shellfish and smoked fish was set on a long table around exotic flower arrangements in crystal vases. We filled our plates and retreated to the terrace where tables with open umbrellas were arranged around a scaled-down version of the Trevi Fountain. I maneuvered myself next to Carol Anne, who was the only one of our group who had accepted the invitation. Both Suzanne and Kelly had begged off, and rightfully so. Hoping to speak to my best friend confidentially, I tried not to explode when Natasha plopped down on the other side of me, quashing my intended conversation. I waved off a glass of wine and asked for an iced tea. My stomach was churning in a manner that made any thought of eating reprehensible, so I used my fork to rearrange the crab salad on my plate to give the appearance of having consumed some of it. My behavior did not escape my mother’s watchful eye.

  ‘Honey, you are so like your mother!’ she called from the adjacent table.

  The terrace quieted and all eyes turned to her. I put down my fork and waited in dread to learn what made us so alike.

  ‘I was such a nervous wreck before I married your father, I couldn’t eat either. My dressmaker got so tired of taking in my wedding gown, she told me not to come back until two days before the wedding.’

  Everyone laughed, leaving me to squirm uncomfortably under the magnifying glass of being the central figure. Sometimes, I just couldn’t believe the triviality that fell from my mother’s lips. I stuffed some crab into my mouth in direct defiance of her words and fought back the impulse to deliver it directly back to the plate.

  The spotlight turned from me as the guests resumed their previous conversations. Natasha, looking incredibly chic in a cream-colored dress that was most likely from some Oak Street boutique, gave me a wry smile, a piece of spinach stuck on her front tooth. Usually, I would have pointed out the green flag, but the mood failed me. Let one of the other women deliver the news, or, better yet, her husband after everyone had gone. ‘So what’s the latest news on Angie?’ she probed in a tone that sounded far too satisfied.

  ‘Last I heard, she was still dead.’ Then, feeling I had been too strident, even if it was directed at Natasha, I added, ‘From what I’ve heard, the police don’t have anything.’

  ‘Well, I’ve heard there were drugs involved. Personally, I think she was looking for someone to sleep with and it turned on her.’

  ‘Natasha, that’s a horrible thing to say. You know Angie was the last person in the world to look for a one-nighter.’

  ‘I don’t think so. In fact, I know otherwise. She tried to seduce Arthur once.’

  Carol Anne nearly choked on her food, while it was a challenge for me to suppress an ear to ear grin. Angie had been vociferous in her dislike for Arthur Dietrich, calling him the walking price tag, as he was always eager to share just how much his acquisitions cost. Including Natasha. He talked about his wife and her jewels and clothes as if they were part of his portfolio. Angie’s other nickname for him was the space invader because when he was around her, he was exactly that.

  Natasha was not put off in the least by our responses. ‘Go ahead and laugh, but Arthur told me that Angie came on to him at your engagement party here last winter, Maggie. As he was coming out of the bathroom. He said he practically had to fight her off.’

  I knew of the incident Natasha was referring to, but it hadn’t played out quite the way she described. In fact, it was a drunken Arthur who had cornered Angie leaving the restroom, shoving her against the wall as he tried to shimmy one of his paws up her blouse. Instead of being insulted or angry, Angie had laughed him off and walked away. His bruised ego must have driven him to turn the story around and carry it back to his wife.

  ‘Natasha, I’m sorry, but there’s no way Angie came on to Arthur.’

  ‘She did too. And that’s exactly what I told the police. You know the problem with you two,’ Natasha said, including Carol Anne. ‘You’re too trusting. Truth is, there’s always someone out there waiting to screw you. If I’ve learned one thing in life, it’s to keep one eye and one hand on what’s yours, because as soon as you relax someone’s going to try and take it from you.’ There was ble
ssed relief when the butler came up and whispered something in Natasha’s ear. ‘I have to see about the coffee,’ she said, putting her wine glass down and following him into the house.

  ‘Wow, she’s strung tight,’ said Carol Anne.

  ‘Nothing new there.’

  ‘So how are you feeling anyhow, my friend?’

  ‘I’m surviving, but barely.’

  ‘Any sign of you-know-what?’

  ‘No, but I’ve still got two more days before I enter the panic phase.’

  We stopped talking when my younger sister came and sat down in Natasha’s vacated seat. ‘I just wanted you to know that after watching this circus, if I ever get married, I’m eloping,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t I know,’ was all I could say.

  A bell rang and all heads turned toward the open patio doors. The butler announced that coffee was served and the procession of women filed back into the dining room where the table had been transformed into a French patisserie laden with fruit tarts, crème brûlée and dozens of chocolate selections. There was even an espresso machine set up at the end of the table. I skipped dessert and had a decaf cappuccino with skim milk. I thought how the coffee could be a metaphor for my life. Coffee without the kick. Milk without the fat. An unsatisfying version of the real thing.

  Following dessert, I played the good bride and opened the beautifully wrapped boxes awaiting me on a linen-draped table near the fountain. Despite being billed as a lingerie shower, I was relieved that most of my gifts were tasteful items like satin robes or elegant nightgowns, each held by me up to a chorus of oohs and aahs. That all changed when I got to the gift from Flynn’s mother. I opened the carefully wrapped box and folded back the tissue. It held a cherry-red lace teddy with a cutaway crotch and nipples. My face turned as crimson as the teddy. I looked at my future mother-in-law questioningly, and she nodded. I held up the flimsy piece for all to behold.

  ‘Can you tell I want to see Maggie pregnant right away?’ said Marguerite Hamilton. The entire terrace burst into laughter with the exception of the bride-to-be who wanted to crawl into a wormhole and die. I placed the teddy back in the box hoping her wish about me being pregnant hadn’t already been fulfilled.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Ron

  They sat on a quiet side street in the shade with the windows rolled down. O’Reilly watched his partner tuck into two Big Macs and a large fries, while he drank some more black coffee. ‘Where do you put all that food, anyway?’ he asked his partner.

  ‘Man’s gotta eat.’

  ‘Yeah, I know, but you ever think about leaving some for the rest of the world?’

  He took another jolt of brew. It was late afternoon, and to say he was exhausted from the legwork he and Kozlowski had put in since the predawn wakeup would be understatement. After parting company with Ms Delaney that morning, they had hunted down Lyle from The Zone who was none too happy to be rousted from bed in his Boystown apartment. He played box of rocks dumb as they threw questions at him about Angie, rubbing his sleep-encrusted eyes and swearing he didn’t know who she was. Hadn’t seen her in his life. Finally, O’Reilly explained quite succinctly that he and Koz were homicide, not vice, and if Lyle was helpful, vice might never get wind of his extracurricular occupation. Otherwise, well … to put it in football terms, they’d put narco on him like pass rushers on a quarterback.

  So Lyle had cooperated. Yes, Angie had come into The Zone around three a.m. to buy a gram. She’d also ordered a drink, but when it came time to pay for the drink and her collateral purchase, she couldn’t find her wallet. Knowing her to be trustworthy, Lyle comped her the drink and fronted her the gram based on her promise to come back the next night.

  ‘So then she left right away?’ O’Reilly asked.

  The rail-thin bartender ran a hand through his thinning hair. ‘Actually, she stopped to talk to someone on her way out. Dark-haired guy. Good-looking. I’d never seen him before. He seemed a little agitated after talking to her.’

  ‘But they didn’t leave together?’

  ‘Nah. She left alone. He stayed a while longer.’

  ‘You’re sure he stayed.’

  ‘Yah, I’m sure. I said he was good-looking, didn’t I?’ he said, a wistful look creeping behind the sleepy eyes.

  After they finished with Lyle, they visited Harvey Wozniak at his rental apartment. He was no stranger to them. They had interviewed him right after the murder. Though he had no alibi for the time period when Angie was killed, the shock on his face when they’d told him about her death had seemed so real O’Reilly hadn’t considered him a person of interest. Until now. After talking with the taxi driver this morning, he’d put Harvey back into the possibility pool. It didn’t take an Einstein to figure out who Angie had been yelling at from the cab.

  When they showed up at his apartment unannounced, Harvey had been a bundle of nerves. His hair-covered hands twitched the entire time the two homicide detectives sat on his shabby sofa and interviewed him, their faces impenetrable walls of copness that made him sweat.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us you saw Angie the night she was killed?’ O’Reilly asked, his gaze a cocked revolver.

  The scene came back to Harvey all too vividly, walking down Halsted Street in the early morning hours with his hand on Jennifer’s arm and his thoughts in her pants. Hearing his name called. Seeing his estranged wife hanging out the window of a taxi, screaming profanities at him like a woman possessed. You lousy cheating Polack! I’ll see you in court. I’ll get every penny.

  ‘Why didn’t I tell you I saw Angie? How could I? I mean, here she’s cursing me out one minute and then turning up dead the next. And me with no alibi. Hey, I watch TV. I know how that looks. Mistakes are made in this world all the time, and sometimes people pay for crimes they didn’t commit.’

  ‘So you’re telling me you dropped your date off and went straight home?’

  ‘Like I told you before. Yeah.’

  ‘I’m going to assume you’ve been intimate with her.’

  ‘Jennifer? Yeah. Not that it’s any of your business.’

  ‘So why didn’t you sleep with her that night?’

  ‘How can I explain it? My mood changed after seeing Angie. I just felt like being alone. Look, the day I met Angie, it was like the thunderbolt in Godfather II. I never hoped to have a woman like her for a wife. Our first years together were beyond fantastic until she shut me out of the bedroom.

  ‘Doesn’t it just figure, the first time I cheated – and it was the first time – with this hot gal from arbitrage who gave me a ride home, Angie comes home from work unexpectedly? My entire life went into the crapper after that day. I lost my wife and my house. My luck has gone to shit. I have margin calls more often than not these days. Look at this piece of shit I’m living in. Rental furniture.

  ‘So you ask me why I didn’t sleep with Jennifer that night. Let me give it to you straight. Sex with Jennifer is OK, but compared to sex with Angie it’s skim milk to cream. I lost interest.’

  Harvey smacked his leg in frustration. At his life, at his situation, at his loss of Angie. O’Reilly couldn’t know which. ‘I didn’t kill Angie,’ the big man said, his eyes filling with tears. ‘You’ve got to believe me. I loved my wife.’

  After leaving Harvey, they went in search of Ralph, the mysterious walking man. They found him easily enough. Having taken Kelly at her word, he had not strayed from the totem pole since morning. He retold his story of seeing a tall dark-haired man drop Angie’s body in the park and run off. And of covering the dead body in newspapers so she wouldn’t get cold.

  ‘You’d know this man if you saw him again?’ O’Reilly queried.

  The old man had nodded. ‘Yessir, I believe I would.’

  O’Reilly questioned his own sanity for even considering the eccentric Ralph as a witness. He watched his partner finish off his second Big Mac, wondering how the man would ever be able to eat dinner.

  ‘So what are you thinking?’ Kozlowski asked, draining h
is cola with a loud slurp followed by a belch.

  ‘I’m thinking about putting Wozniak in a lineup. Bring in the fruit from The Zone and the crazy guy in the park.’

  ‘Do you really think Wozniak did her?’

  ‘No. But might as well rule it out.’

  ‘What about the white truck in Kenilworth?’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Think it’s anything?’

  ‘You shittin’ me? When Ms Delaney told us about that truck I wanted to ask her what the hell she was smoking? Forget about that fucking white truck. It’s nothing.’ O’Reilly started the car. He was dying for a drink, could already taste the beer slipping down his throat at his neighborhood tavern. But before allowing himself the pleasure, he figured they might as well make one more stop. ‘All right, Koz. Since we’re in the neighborhood, let’s pay a quick visit to the bride. Then let’s call it a day.’

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  It took me three trips to ferry the shower gifts from my Volkswagen to my apartment. Sadly, the only meaning all those glossy boxes held for me was the obligation to write thank-you notes. I sat down on the sofa and pulled my legs up beneath me, feeling relieved to be back in my cocoon and away from prying eyes. I had barely eaten a thing at the shower and was having stomach pangs that I recognized as hunger. I went into the kitchen to make a peanut butter sandwich and was three bites in when there was a knock at the door.