Exposé: First of the Sally Harrington Mysteries (The Alexandra Chronicles Book 5)

by Laura Van Wormer

  "Are you working?"

  Looking down at the ground, he nods.

  "That's good."

  "Papa doesn't want to come back to Castleford," he says. "He wants to sell the house."

  Poor Pete. Except for that brief sojourn at college that time, he has never lived away from his home in Castleford. This an­nouncement from his father has to be turning his world upside down—if for no other reason than his satellite and ham radio equipment and hundreds of books and videos and cassettes will have to be moved somewhere. And working for minimum wage is not going to get him a very big place, not unless he gets into one of the complexes underwritten by HUD that offers af­fordable housing. But somehow I doubt any landlord is going to be eager to take in the town's conspiracy nut and his sixty­-foot antennae.

  I wonder if maybe the library would accommodate his equip­ment if he shared it with other patrons once in a while, though I don't think City Hall across the street would be so wild about looking at the antennae and monstrous satellite dish, either.

  No matter which way you look at it, big changes are coming to Crazy Pete's life. “I’m sorry to hear that," I say. “But I'm sure he'll come back up to spend Christmas with you. Maybe the summers."

  He looks at me.” He says I'm crazy."

  “He still loves you."

  Dejectedly Pete looks to the ground again. “If Mom hadn't died, everything would be okay."

  “Well, look at it this way," I say, “It will be wonderful to have your own home, your own hours, your own way of doing things."

  “I have my own home now," he says.

  “No, you have been living in your parents' home."

  He looks like he might burst into tears. “I know I should have moved out." At forty-something, he's at least on the right track. “But Mom liked me at home. It saved money."

  “You paid rent?"

  He frowns. “Well, sometimes."

  The poor lamb. I wish I didn't know there were so many equally lost, dependent children in this country, but there are. Study after study confirms it.

  “I’ll help you find a new home," I promise.

  “The library's hooking me up with a housing organization."

  “Good," I say. “And I'll help you with your budget."

  He looks like he's going to cry again.

  “You'll be a lot happier in the end, Pete, I promise you." No response. “I know it's very scary right now, but once you're set­tled and supporting yourself, you're going to know a joy and satisfaction you've never had before." I have a thought. “And you can get the dog you always wanted! We'll go to the Hu­mane Society and get the best dog in the whole wide world­—except for Scotty, of course."

  At this, Pete finally smiles. Then bites his lower lip, thinking. "I hope they don't snatch him to conduct experiments." I know better than to ask who.

  35

  I get up early Sunday morning not because I've set the alarm, but because of the sense of alarm my entire being feels about this day.

  I hit my desk to work on the Cochran profile at four-thirty and by ten my sense of panic has dissipated. From a profes­sional viewpoint, I am prepared for my meeting with Verity. I've got a good handle on how the piece will fall together; in­deed, I've hammered out a structure this morning. The only question is the strength of my nerve. Can I sit down with my employer and see her as the person who has given me "the op­portunity of a lifetime" in my career (how I've come to hate that expression), as opposed to the married woman who has re­tained Spencer as a trained stud for two years?

  He's done the same things with Verity he's done with me. But over and over and over and over and over for two straight years.

  Ten days, Sally. Get over it.

  Since I'm going over to Litchfield, anyway, I decide I might as well zip over to Cornwall first. I've got the address of the Cochran-Darenbrook country home and I'm curious to see it. My street atlas of the whole county pretty much pinpoints where Cassy's house is.

  To actually see the house, though, is proving a little more dif­ficult than I thought as I drive around Cornwall. It's on a pri­vate drive that stretches at least a mile back into the hills. At the end of it, as if that is not remote enough, an unassuming gravel drive begins, which trails back even farther into the woods. I know it is the Cochran-Darenbrook house because I recognize Jackson's sense of humor on a small sign next to the drive that reads Reckless Manor.

  Do I go up the drive or not? If I do, I will be invading their privacy when all I wanted to do was see the house. Well, when all else in my imagination fails, truth becomes an option. I call the house on my cell phone and tell Cassy, who answers on about the seventh ring, that I just happened to be in the area and was curious about their house. I tell her I can't stay more than fifteen minutes because I am expected at Verity's within the hour.

  "Just the kind of guest we love," Cassy laughs, "one that can't stay. By all means, just follow the drive."

  I bounce up the drive, ascending the hill, thinking you'd have to have a four-wheel-drive vehicle in the winter to make it. I wind this way and that, finally coming onto a small clearing. At first I think I am looking at the caretaker's cottage, but since this is the end of the road I quickly realize that this is the house. It is a simple, weathered, cedar-shingled home with a porch on two sides, a peaked roof, a large stone chimney and large windows that look old-fashioned, but up close I discover are those very expensive new ones. A navy blue Mercedes sports coupe is sit­ting near the house.

  Across the drive is a bam that doubles as a garage. I park near it. The double doors are open and I can see a massive, for­est-green four-wheel-drive Lincoln wagon parked inside. I can see a lot of other things as well—a Harley-Davidson road bike, two snowmobiles, a canoe, two sculls, a kayak, tennis rackets, cross-country skis, downhill skis, life preservers, backpacks, a tent, Coleman lanterns, fishing rods, a creel, hip waders, water skis, a folded up trampoline, a folded-up Ping-Pong table and what I think is an old cider press.

  To the side of the house, just down a slight grade, I see a large swimming pool with a brick-inlay terrace around it and a cedar picket fence around that. The house, I realize, is on top of the hill I drove up, for I can see quite a distance in three directions.

  "Hi!" Cassy greets me, coming off the front porch. Her hair is wet, slicked back flat against her head, and she is wearing a cot­ton skirt wrap over a one-piece bathing suit. Her face is a little shiny, no doubt from sunscreen. This is about as vulnerable as any subject can be. No makeup, wet hair, bathing suit. She looks every bit her age and is absolutely beautiful.

  "I had just finished my laps when you called.

  "I've got no excuse for disturbing you like this," I say, feeling embarrassed over my intrusion.

  "Come on in," she says, leading the way into the house, pausing only to remove a pebble from the bottom of her bare foot. "Jack!" she calls.

  We have walked into a vaulted living-room-kitchen area that has a tremendous stone fireplace. The windows are all open and a breeze is blowing through. All that separates the two rooms is a counter. A plain hardwood table in the corner serves as a dining table.

  This house is very different, needless to say, from the country home maintained by the Rhodes-Schroeders. Interesting. Par­ticularly since Jackson Darenbrook is on roughly the same fi­nancial footing as Corbett.

  I hear someone bounding down a set of wooden stairs and then Jackson appears from around the corner. "Hey there!" His hair is wet, too, and he is wearing swimming trunks and a t-shirt that, I bet, he had just run upstairs to put on because both are dry. As a matter of fact, looking back at Cassy, I note that while she is wet, her bathing suit is not.

  So I get it. They were swimming in the nude when I called. I find it wonderful. "Hi, Jackson," I say. "I'm so sorry to disturb you. It was just that I had some time to kill before going to Verity's—"

  "I was going to have you come here, anyway, at some point," Cassy says.

  "It's beautiful."


  "We love it," Cassy says simply.

  "Yeah," Jackson says, going into the kitchen area to open the refrigerator door, "it's great after New York. And in case you don't think we keep up with the neighbors," he adds, pulling out a bottle of Snapple, "we have a fancy-schmancy ancestral mansion in Georgia with seven bedrooms."

  "Ancestral, right," Cassy laughs. "Your father built it and your sister and brother-in-law live there."

  "That's what makes it ancestral," he insists, smiling. He holds up the bottle in his hand. "How about a shot of Mango Madness before going over to the Marchioness de Sade's?"

  "Jackson!" Cassy admonishes.

  "No thanks," I tell him. The Marquis de Sade was jailed in the eighteenth century for combining torture with sex, among other things, so I find this comment rather startling.

  "Let me tell you what old Corbie's up to these days," he says, leaning over the counter as a conspirator might. "He's muscling in on the Unibank-Mercantile Trust merger."

  I frown. "I thought it was a done deal."

  "That's what they thought, but Schroeder's threatening to mess it up. So they're going to have to pay him to butt out."

  "Jack," Cassy sighs.

  "He's after Bestro Cosmetics," he continues, ignoring his wife, "which Unibank holds title to under their reorganization. See, Sally, he's got this thing about models—and he figures that if he's the CEO of Bestro, then all the models will have to audi­tion with him, if you know what I mean."

  "Jack!" Cassy is genuinely annoyed now. "You don't know any of that."

  "Everybody knows it," he insists. "The guy is a dick head."

  "Out," his wife commands, pointing to the pool.

  He laughs, pausing to give his wife a kiss on the cheek before going outside. "Nice to see ya, Sally!"

  Once Cassy sees that her husband is safely out of earshot, she returns her attention to me. "So you're working on Sunday?"

  "It was the best time for Verity to meet."

  Cassy lofts one eyebrow. "You couldn't have finished the ar­ticle yet."

  "No." I shrug. “I think she's checking up on me. I'm not wild about the idea, but then again, I am new to the magazine."

  "You'll do fine, I'm sure." She looks around. "There's noth­ing much to show you, I'm afraid. There're just two bedrooms and a bath upstairs."

  "That's all right," I say quickly, moving toward the front door. "It was very good of you to accept my intrusion so grace­fully."

  "Not a problem," she says, following me. She stops in the doorway. "Good luck with your meeting."

  "Thanks." I feel awkward walking out, like I'm a stalker or something. I turn around. “I really didn't mean to invade your privacy, Cassy. It was just that I was curious about the house. And now that I've seen it, I'm so glad I did. It's far different­ and more wonderful than I imagined."

  She smiles. "Thanks."

  After she closes the front door, I walk to the Jeep feeling more than ever like a boar, just crashing in from the woods. A hus­band and wife enjoying some precious time alone together.

  I wish I could pretend that what Jackson said about Corbett doesn't alarm me, the implication that Corbett sleeps around, too. The number of sexual partners I need to be concerned about via Spencer and Verity is becoming alarmingly large.

  "Sally, you're right on time," Verity says, kissing me on the cheek and pulling me into her house. She must be a size six I de­cide, following her to the glass sunroom. I guess it's a solarium. Anyway, the windows are closed, the central air is on, and Ver­ity is dressed in linen slacks and a silk blouse. The glass-top ta­ble is covered with papers, magazines and photographs. There are not one, but three sets of reading glasses on the table.

  "My art director just left," she says. "I want to show you something." I follow her into a den. Sitting on the back of the couch, on the desk and on the mantel over the fireplace are large color Veloxes, pasted on cardboard backings, on exhibit.

  I am stunned.

  "That's the cover," Verity says, pointing, and there is a close-­up of Cassy Cochran that is so beautiful I don't know what to say. It reminds me of a studio portrait of the 1940s.

  I know Cassy will be terrified by it—and perhaps secretly pleased, for while some of it has been retouched, they have left enough lines for anyone to know that she is not a young woman. It is the portrait of a great beauty, caught in the last mo­ments of nature's full gift. But what makes the photograph so startling is that it captures so completely that special nuance Cassy possesses, that until this moment I couldn't put my fin­ger on—an aura of kindness, graced with wisdom and intelli­gence.

  The other photographs are great, too. There is one of Cassy and Michael (boy, did he look handsome back then), holding young Henry between them. There is one of her sailing with Jackson. There is one of her at maybe age two, sitting obediently next to her grimly beautiful mother. No doubt about it, the tech­nicalities of Cassy's physical beauty came from her mother.

  There is a picture of Cassy on the set of what looks like an ancient TV studio in Chicago. And then there is a series taken re­cently by the same photographer who took the cover shot: Cassy in the newsroom with Alexandra Waring; Cassy watch­ing The Jessica Wright Show from the control room; Cassy in jeans and blouse and Top-Siders, leaning back against a railing on the Hudson River; Cassy working in her office, half-glasses on, laboring over some kind of computer printout.

  "Wow," I finally say.

  "Wow indeed," Verity comments objectively. "She's very photogenic." Abruptly she turns to me. "So, dear Sally, this is what your words have to compete with." She smiles suddenly, and I see why Spencer would find her attractive. She's very powerful. At times Spencer can be very dominating in bed and I know he would love having a woman like this surrender to his control.

  Stop it, I tell myself.

  "Is everything all right?" Verity says, ducking her head a lit­tle, as if to see through my eyes into my soul.

  "It's just the pictures," I murmur, looking back at them. "They are wonderful."

  "Mmm," she says, leading the way back out. "I just hope the Darenbrooks' security is up to snuff. After this cover, every weirdo around will be obsessed with her." She glances at me over her shoulder. "How do you think Cassy will feel about them?"

  "I think she'll be frightened, at first," I say.

  Verity stops in her tracks and turns around. "Really? Fright­ened? What a curious word to choose."

  I regret using it. I am starting to feel protective of Cassy. "What I mean is, she's downplayed her looks all her life. That's a big piece of the story. Her mother, as you can see, was just as good-looking, but she did such a number on Cassy as a child, about how her looks would cause her nothing but trouble and how she could only rely on her brain, that Cassy will do almost anything to prevent people from looking at her that way."

  Verity and I go into the sunroom where she beckons me to sit. "So you think it's genuine, this aversion she has about her looks," she asks with interest.

  "It's not an aversion," I explain, "it's more like an instinct to instantly dismiss. Like if someone meets her and says some­thing about how beautiful she is, she'll get impatient and say, 'Thanks, yeah, I know, okay, can we please move on now?'"

  Verity smiles slightly. I bet she's had her share of this, too.

  "And something else I'm writing about is that since she's married Jackson, she seems to have become more comfortable with her looks."

  "It may not be him," Verity says. "It's easy for women to dis­count their beauty while they have it. It's another situation en­tirely when you begin to lose what you've taken for granted all your life. She may simply be at that point."

  I consider this. Then I pull a pad from my bag and make a note. "That's possible." I look up. "The only question is, how do you tactfully ask someone, 'Now that you're losing your looks, wouldn't you be more grateful about them if you could get them back?"

  Verity laughs. “Ah, I see you are the right one for this article, Sally."

/>   "So we'll see," I say absently, writing down another thought I have. When I look up, I remember Verity's connection with Spencer and I hate it. Why can't I just be another writer today, learning all I can from someone at the top of her industry?

  Damn it!

  What did he say? Something about the fact if Verity knew, she would want to hurt me?

  I shake it off. "Almost every person connected to Cassy through her work has mentioned how everyone has, or had, some kind of crush on her."

  Verity nods. "I've heard that, too. Particularly about all the old guys, they would be in love with her and keep promoting her." She sits back in her chair. "So, did she sleep with any of them?"

  "Any of her bosses?"

  She nods.

  "No," I say slowly, thinking. I make, then, my definitive an­swer. "No."

  "Never?"

  "Never."

  "Are you sure?"

  "I am sure," I say with conviction.

  "Well that's sort of a drag, isn't it?" the editor muses, pulling a manila envelope into her lap.

  "What Cassy would do," I say, "and I'm including this in the piece, is that she would have dinner with, for example, her boss at WST. And they would be romantic dinners, sort of. Like he would take her to a secluded table at the Russian Tea Room, the Carlyle or Le Cirque. It was as if she would consent to pretend­ing he was something special to her, when, in fact, it would be more a father-daughter relationship than anything."

  "So what about this father-daughter thing? Her father was a boozer, right?"

  "Yes."

  "And he died when she was young?"

  "Eleven."

  "So how does that factor into her relationships?" She's reach­ing back to the table to get her glasses.

  It's rather awful to be conducting an autopsy on someone's life like this, particularly when it's someone as nice as Cassy, but it's the nature of the business.

  "Michael Cochran's appeal was definitely wrapped up with her relationship with her father. It wasn't that they were so much alike, but Michael was a little older than she was, cer­tainly more experienced, more confident, and he absolutely adored her. It was like a dream come true for her, I think. He was bright and funny and protective like her father, but worked hard and got a lot of recognition professionally, whereas her fa­ther never held a job for longer than a year or two. So she thought Michael was very different. It wasn't until maybe ten years into their marriage that the drinking and womanizing be­came an issue."