One Dangerous Lady

by Jane Stanton Hitchcock

  Over the years, the case went cold. It caught Larry’s interest when he befriended John Keating at a meeting of a victims’ rights group in New York. Keating told him he had always suspected “the young Hatterson boy” of killing his daughter because she had rejected him. The disconsolate father kept tabs on young Hatterson and told Larry he had been in and out of trouble with the law for most of his adult life. Larry tracked Gregg Hatterson down. He was an alcoholic, living on the remnants of a trust fund. Larry learned that over the years Hatterson had boasted to several of his friends that he had “gotten away with murder.” Working with a retired private detective, Larry gathered enough circumstantial evidence to get the case reopened. New DNA technology proved that Gregg Hatterson and Mary-Ann Keating had been together that night. His semen was on her clothes. Eventually indicted and convicted of manslaughter, Gregg Hatterson was sent to prison for his old crime. Meanwhile, Julian Hatterson had vowed revenge on the man who put his son away. That man was Larry.

  I asked Larry what he meant when he said Carla reminded him of going to the Hattersons.

  “Let me see if I can explain it. I remember going out to East Hampton on this beautiful May day and walking all around the Hatterson property, looking at the trees and the greenery, smelling the sweetness of spring, feeling the warmth of the sunshine on my skin. The house is one of those huge, old, gray-shingled cottages. Very well tended. Very proper. All the hedges neatly trimmed, the grass freshly mowed. I went inside. It was filled with pricey early American furniture. Everything was so perfect it was hard to believe that something so horrendous had once happened there. And yet, after a while, I got this eerie, cold feeling. I could feel the crime all around me, like the vibration of it was still in the air, a secret that the place kept for years and years . . .” He paused, lost in thought for a moment. “Anyway,” he shrugged, “being with Carla Cole kind of reminds me of that day.”

  “You make her sound supernatural.”

  He smiled. “No, Jo, that’s the writer’s imagination—the instinct, the alchemy we rely on to tell us what’s true and what’s not. With Carla, I sense this terrible chill behind her beautiful façade, just like in that house. You can just feel it, you know, this evil vibration.”

  He had Carla’s number, all right.

  We talked a little more about the article. It was all I could do not to confess everything to him that morning. But something stopped me. I couldn’t bring myself to take the chance, nor to burden him with that terrible knowledge. We finished our coffee and I got up to leave. Larry walked me downstairs to the front door.

  “Thanks for coming over, Jo. You’re a good friend.”

  Just as I was leaving, I turned and said, “Larry, tell me something. Why do you keep all that hate mail? Why don’t you just get rid of it?”

  “Partly for insurance. I keep the particularly bizarre and vicious ones in case I get bumped off one day. It’ll give the police some leads,” he said with a grim chuckle.

  “Nothing’s going to happen to you,” I said, kissing him on the cheek.

  “Dead rats notwithstanding?” he said with a wink. “But I also keep them for another reason.”

  “What’s that?”

  “If ever I get too complacent, I’ll just reach down into that drawer and pull out one of those letters to remind myself that there are real crazies in this world. And real evil.”

  I walked home from Larry’s house, deep in contemplation. I suspected that he was beginning to put the pieces of the puzzle together, and that it was only a matter of time before he figured out the truth about my involvement in Monique’s death. Once he figured that out, the only question would be: Could he unmask Carla and protect me at the same time? If not, would he abandon what was arguably the biggest story of his career? Knowing Larry, I felt he would, in order to protect me.

  But who was Carla Cole? And what did she really want? Was there a purpose to her mayhem? Or was she like some sort of serial killer socialite, doing away with people just for the thrill of it? Some people think that great wealth puts them above the law and entitles them to do whatever they want to whomever they please. Had great wealth corrupted Carla? Or was her corruption always there, looking for a venue?

  I was also beginning to wonder if it was pure coincidence that the Coles had come to Barbados for the wedding. True, Russell was Missy’s godfather, but according to Betty, he had never taken the slightest interest in her before. Was it possible all this had been a setup and I had been the dupe? The facts spoke for themselves; Carla was on the board of the Muni and I was off.

  It seemed to me that what Carla wanted was to conquer that mirage commonly referred to as New York society. She was certainly not the first, nor would she be the last, to want to reign over the Big Golden Apple, to hold sway over its great institutions, have access to the most private precincts of privilege, give the parties everyone wanted to go to, and most importantly, to exile those whom she did not like to the B-list and make their frivolity in wanting to be included seem even more inconsequential than her own desire to exclude them. Social life in New York was more competitive than the Olympics.

  I’ve always thought of social life as an obsession, rather like murder, in that its importance lies solely in the mind of the perpetrator. Carla’s mind was an intricate maze. Getting to its center was a dangerous puzzle. The Minotaur was always lurking.

  It even frightened me to criticize her because it put me in mind of my late friend Clara Wilman’s famous dictum, Tell me what you criticize and I’ll tell you who you are.

  Sisters under the skin . . .

  Chapter 31

  For the moment, however, I tried to put Carla and Oliva out of my mind. Without the Municipal Museum, I no longer had a focus for all my energy. I had to find a new way to contribute to the community. This is not as easy as it sounds, particularly when you’ve dedicated your whole life to one institution. I realized more and more how the Muni had been another home for me—a home from which I was now exiled.

  I was sitting in my library one evening, looking over the financial reports of several, smaller institutions, weighing the possibility of my involvement with them, when the phone rang. I picked it up and immediately recognized the throaty voice at the other end of the line.

  “Hello, Jo. It is Carla. How are you?”

  “Fine, no thanks to you. What do you want?” I said curtly.

  “Jo, dear, I would love you to come and have tea with me tomorrow, if you are free.”

  “Why? So you can accuse me of stealing something else?”

  “Oh, Jo, what a ghastly misunderstanding that all was. You know, the more I think about it, the more I realize that someone must have put that stupid earring in your bag as a joke. And the footman thought that it was you. We older ladies all dressed up must look alike to these young men, no?”

  I didn’t want to tip her off to the fact that I suspected Captain Jenks was the footman who had accused me.

  “Carla, I can’t imagine we have anything to say to each other at this point.”

  “But I would like to talk to you about something.”

  “What?”

  “It is not something I can discuss with you over the telephone. It is a matter of some delicacy. Please, Jo. Do me this favor.”

  I casually wondered what Churchill would have done if Hitler had invited him to tea. I hesitated, then agreed to go mainly out of sheer curiosity.

  “All right, I’ll come. I’d like an official taster there, please.”

  She didn’t get the joke.

  “I am certainly not going to poison you, Jo! You will be quite safe, I promise,” she said seriously. “Shall we say four o’clock, cara Jo. I am looking forward to it.”

  I wasn’t.

  Just like its occupant, Carla’s grand apartment looked coarser in the daylight when sharp edges are more apparent. Far from Miranda Somers’s des
cription of a deep blue sea covered with fairy dust, the famous lapis lazuli floor looked like nothing more than what it was: a giant expanse of cold, blue stone, flecked with pyrite. All the gilt and grandeur was oppressive, like the clutter of an antiques shop. Mercifully, there were no footmen in livery around to greet me. In fact, Carla met me at the door herself, all smiles and charm, acting as if we were the greatest of friends.

  “You know, Jo,” she said airily as she led me through to the living room, “I do so wish you had not resigned from the museum. You and I could have had such fun together planning the Cole wing.”

  She motioned me to sit down on the brown silk moiré couch in front of a red coromandel screen. She sat catty-corner on an Empire chair with two gilded eagle’s heads at the end of each armrest. A butler came in carrying the tea service on a large silver tray. He laid the tray down gingerly on the crackled laquer coffee table in front of us.

  “Will you have some tea, Jo? Or would you prefer something more substantial?”

  Figuring I was going to need alcoholic assistance to get me through this, I said I wouldn’t mind a glass of wine if it were being offered.

  “Would you like a glass of champagne? I will join you.”

  “Champagne’s fine, thanks.”

  Carla didn’t have to say anything to the butler. He gave her a little bow and left the room.

  “So . . .” she began, “do you think your friend Clara Wilman would approve of what I have done to her old apartment?”

  I looked at her squarely. “Carla, I ask you again. What do you want?”

  “There is no need to be so tense, Jo. We are going to have a lovely chat. Can you not just relax?”

  “No.”

  The butler returned with a bottle of Cristal champagne in a silver ice bucket and two champagne flutes. He poured us each a glass. Carla raised her glass to me for a toast.

  “To friendship,” she said.

  I didn’t respond. I just drank down the delicate flute in one gulp. The butler poured me another, then Carla rudely motioned him to leave the room.

  “Well, let me tell you all about London,” Carla said, daintily picking a cigarette out of a gold box on the coffee table. “I went to Max’s ball and it was absolutely divine. Max sends his love to you, of course. He was so sad you were not there. People came from all over Europe so it was rather a chic crowd for England. Englishwomen have no idea how to dress, most of them. They have got bad clothes and great jewels. You see some of those old dowagers wearing the most extraordinary diamond parures. Inherited, of course. But Max appreciates stylish women. He really does. He has a wonderful eye, Max . . .”

  I listened to her go on about Max and his eye, wondering where this was all heading.

  “. . . And, of course, Jo, he is extremely fond of you.”

  “Well, I can’t think why, because we don’t know each other very well,” I said, thinking how it was Max who had started the searching of the evening bags at the party, which led to my embarrassment. I didn’t trust old Max any more than I did Carla at this point.

  “Your opinion means so much to him. He respects your taste and your integrity . . .” She put down her champagne glass and finally lit the cigarette she’d been holding. She exhaled a fine plume of smoke. She stared down and thought for a moment, obviously troubled by something.

  “Opinions of others matter a great deal to Max,” she said at last.

  “Really? It’s always been my impression Max didn’t give a damn what anyone thought.”

  “That is only what he pretends. It is all part of that British affectation. He cares, believe me. He cares a great deal what others think. Especially—how shall I put it? He cares what other people think in regard to himself.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  “Max likes his surroundings to be elegant. He does not want to be associated with tawdriness of any sort.”

  “That makes two of us. But you can’t always get what you want,” I said, pointedly looking at her.

  If Carla got my little barb, she ignored it.

  “What I mean is, Jo,” she went on, “Max would not like to be connected with anyone or anything which had a dubious reputation.”

  I began to see where she was headed, but I didn’t say a word. I just waited and let her go on.

  “You know, Jo, I did not grow up poor. I grew up worse than poor . . . I grew up on the fringes of wealth, so that from a very young age I understood its real power. But on the other hand, I also understood very well what it was like not to have it.”

  “And just where did you grow up, Carla?” I was interested.

  “That is not important,” she said irritably, waving her hand in the air as if she were brushing aside a fly. “What is important is that I grew up understanding that money can buy quite a lot, but wealth can buy anything.” She smiled. She looked like a cat when she smiled. “I always wanted to be not rich, Jo, but wealthy. So wealthy that I could command my own life with a great degree of certainty. It was my dream ever since I was a little girl and had to watch the humiliation that comes from being no one and nobody in this world. Wealth makes you invulnerable to everything—except illness, of course. But even then, you can get the best doctors with a lot of money.” She paused to take a little puff of her cigarette. “. . . And I am happy to say that I achieved my dream. You are looking at a woman who can buy anything, Jo—anything she wants. That is rare for a woman, no?”

  “I’m thrilled for you, Carla. But you can’t buy me, if that’s what you have in mind.”

  She leaned forward and said solicitously, “But I do not have to buy you, Jo. You are my friend.”

  In her mouth, the word “friend” gave me a chill.

  She went on, “Now, people will tell you that if they were rich, they would want all sorts of material things. Houses, planes, jewels, furs, what have you . . . But I will tell you what rich people really want more than anything.”

  “I’m all ears,” I said.

  “Privacy,” she said simply. “We want complete and total privacy. That is what we really crave, is it not? You yourself are rich, Jo. You know that I am speaking the truth.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.”

  “And anything that infringes upon our privacy—whether it is something as mundane as the noise from a neighbor or a photographer snapping our photo at an inopportune moment—is troublesome and irritating.”

  “Okay . . .” I began to see where she was headed.

  She took a drag of her cigarette and readjusted herself in her chair, crossing her shapely legs. She sighed hard. “Max and I had a long talk about this in London. You know, I am becoming quite fond of Max and he of me, I think. He has been so kind to me since Russell disappeared.”

  I could just see those sugar plum visions of herself as Lady Vermilion dancing in her calculating little head.

  “And just how is the search for your missing husband progressing?” I interjected in a purposely mean-spirited way.

  She ignored my insinuating tone of voice. “Sadly, there is no more news. There has not even been a dubious sighting in weeks and I am beginning to fear the worst. But I will never give up hope! He has disappeared before and he has returned before. And he will return again, I know it! I feel it!” she announced rather melodramatically.

  I shifted in my seat, wondering how she managed to keep a straight face.

  “Anyway,” she went on, “as I was saying, Max loathes publicity. Oh, he likes to have his picture taken at grand events, who does not? It’s rather amusing to see oneself in the pages of a magazine. But he really does not relish any sort of intrusion into his private affairs. And so I think it is rather difficult for him to be associated with me at this point, given the interest of the media in Russell’s disappearance.”

  “That’s too bad. But what can I do about it?”

  “J
o, it is all dying down now—this awful publicity. Thank God! I would hate for it to suddenly flare up again. So would Max.”

  “And—?” I said impatiently.

  “And, well, what concerns me now is that I feel that my privacy is about to be invaded.”

  “I’d say it’s been pretty invaded already, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes, but not quite in this way.”

  “What way are you talking about?”

  She sat up a little straighter in her chair. “Your friend Mr. Locket is writing an article about me.”

  “Not just about you. About the whole case.”

  “Yes, but I know that he has some rather mistaken notions about me. Lulu is cooperating with him and she must have told him terrible things about me.”

  Now I definitely got where she was headed.

  “Why don’t you give him an interview, then, if you’re so worried?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “Max thinks that would be a great mistake. He says it is always an error when people try to tell their side of the story. Silence leaves so much more to the imagination.”

  “Well, old Max has got a point there, Carla. But, on the other hand, if you leave too much to people’s imagination, they may not like you. They may, in fact, suspect you of evil deeds. So if you don’t talk to Larry, you take your chances, don’t you?”

  “Any article about me would naturally include Max. We have been seeing a great deal of each other. Max is very concerned what Mr. Locket might say about him.”

  “What can he say? That Max has been married a lot? That he has a dark side?”

  Suddenly stoney-faced, Carla leaned forward and pinned me with a dead-eye gaze.

  “Tell Mr. Locket that it would be very unwise of him to publish his article.”

  I was dumbfounded.

  “Is that a threat?”

  Her hand shot up in protest. “Not at all! A strong request.”

  “Like that dead rat you put on his doorstep?”

  She feigned innocence.

  “What are you talking about?”