by Lynn Harris
“Yeah,” said Lola. “In a world that one might think twice about bringing a child into.”
Or should I not have said that?
“Well, there’s that,” said Doug. “We’ll talk about it later. Let’s get under the covers.” Lola rolled over and sank into his spoon, his chin resting on her head. She could normally feel his jaw relax and open slightly as he drifted off. This time, she could have sworn she felt it tense and grind. But she was too sleepy to be sure.
“Lulu, are you all right?”
So much for sleeping past daybreak.
“Yes, Mom, I’m fine. How did—”
“Oh, good. Because I just had this terrible dream where these giant bugs were crawling in your eyes.”
Unbelievable.
“Mom, my eyes are fine.” Though they could stand to be closed at some point. “But—well, I guess I should tell you. There’s been another murder.”
“Oh, I know. Isn’t it awful?”
“You knew?”
“Saw it on the computer this morning. Poor girl. Her parents must be beside themselves,” said Mrs. Somerville. “And I see you found the body again. What are we going to do with you?”
Lola was silent for a moment, stunned.
“Mom, has Dad checked the basement for pods?”
“No, why?”
“You just—I thought you’d be more freaked out.”
“Well, of course, it’s awful, and awfully strange. But I trust you.
You can look out for yourself. And who knows, perhaps you’ll be able to help in some way.”
“Yeah,” said Lola. “Maybe.” Well, well. Denial seemed to be working its magic. That, or desperation. Could Mom have read my mind? Have we come to the point where even my mother thinks murder could pad my résumé?
Lola’s mind went on a tear. Maybe my parents sense my restlessness, or maybe—chicken? egg?—I’m twitchy because I feel like I’m disappointing them. Have I truly made them happy? Lola wondered, and not for the first time. They’re over the moon that I’m married, but, to their credit, they both know that doesn’t mean I’m, like, done. Far from! Progressive and understanding and artsy, even, as they are, do they secretly wish I had some sort of advanced degree, letters after my name? I’m not exactly struggling for food and shelter, but really, have I accomplished what they’d have liked me to? What do they say about me to their friends? Do they say, “She’s perfect!” or do they say, “She’s … so creative!” Have I done enough, been enough? Are they settling, at this point, for a mention or two of me in the tabloids? For the fact that at least I’m around people important enough to be murdered?
Lola’s mother’s voice cut into her thoughts.
“Just promise me one thing?”
“Sure, Mom.”
“I’m sending Dad out to mail you some latex gloves. Please wear them?”
Lola ran the dogs out, gave her plants a cursory watering, felt guilty about that, poured some coffee, peanut-buttered an English muffin, and sat down at her computer. Having guessed that something was off, the dogs were finally quiet. In the scheme of things, Lola actually liked it better when they drove her nuts. Poor pups.
Lola opened Royalty in her browser.
Journalists Know Three of Anything Is a “Trend,” but Can We at Least Call This a “Pattern”?
Posted by Page Proof
The bruised body of glamorous chick lit writer Daphne Duplex was discovered last night tangled in the pilings along the edge of Brooklyn’s notorious Lundy Canal. Ms. Duplex, the author of So Many Men, So Little Taste, is the second of two such authors to be murdered in as many days. The body of Mimi McKee, 31, was found stabbed the previous evening at Cabin 9, at the party celebrating the publication of her novel, Gay Best Friend.
Burial services for Ms. Duplex will be private, according to a representative for the family.
Police say the smartly dressed victim was strangled with a scarf—her very own trademark pink Hermès—and her body then dumped into the canal, which, despite current efforts at revitalizing, has not lost its reputation as a repository for mob hit victims and other unfortunates.
Police refused to comment on the specific cause of death or to say whether there could be a connection between the two murders. Yet it’s not hard to imagine what kind of person might have it in for two such vibrant, successful literary It Girls. For one thing, the popular genre of chick lit has its ferocious detractors, such as the militant Jane Austen Liberation Front, headed by Wilma Vouch.
Hey, that was my theory!
Ugh. Figures I’d be 0.5 step ahead of Wally, for 0.5 of one day. And I call myself a reporter who calls herself a detective.
Police briefly detained the notorious Vouch, whose organization has maintained that this fantastically popular chick lit genre, often featuring flighty singles who can hold down a cocktail better than a man or a job, “demeans women.” But does having “no sense of humor” make someone a murderer? Police again declined to say.
Then there’s always the age-old motive of envy. Ms. Duplex’s body was, coincidentally, discovered by fellow author Lola Somerville,
Spelled right. Thank you.
who was dog-sitting for Ms. Duplex at the time, and who has herself struggled for the kind of recognition enjoyed by many of her peers.
What?
Ms. Somerville is not currently a suspect in the case, according to police. But in the highly competitive world of women’s publishing, it would seem only natural that some would want others, well, gone.
Police continue to
Lola sat back in her chair. He did not write that.
She looked back at the screen.
Yes, he did.
Her cell phone rang.
“Where do I start?” asked Annabel.
“Right?” said Lola.
“First, I’m so sorry I didn’t call you back last night. The guy at trivia I mentioned, the guy who totally knew about bacillus and stuff? We were making out at The Back Room for like forever, and it’s out of cell range, so I didn’t know anything ’til I saw the Day on my way home. Cover story, natch.”
“What was the headline?”
“ ‘Chick RIP,’ ” said Annabel.
“Eew,” said Lola. “Wait, but what happened to Leo, then?”
“Oh, he dropped me off at home, but then Trivia Guy texted and came to pick me up after.”
“Poor Leo.”
Shit.
“Whaddaya mean, ‘poor Leo’?” Annabel asked, though Lola knew Annabel knew exactly what she meant. Lola meant, “Poor Leo, classic Mr. Right Under Your Nose, bearing and forbearing while you date everyone else.”
But she had not meant to say that.
Never, ever will I be the married friend who wants her single friend to see the light and settle down.
Or, at least, never will I admit it.
“I mean, poor Leo, missing a good trivia game,” said Lola. Wow, lame. Change subject. “Annabel, seriously, when do you sleep?”
“From 5 to 5:05 AM. Like you.”
“Right,” said Lola.
“Anyway. Daphne. The article. What the—you found the body?” asked Annabel.
“Pretty much,” said Lola. “Grand total of two.”
“This is unreal,” said Annabel. “PS, Lola, this is not as important as, like, death, but you totally have to call that guy. Wally. I also just read Royalty. You have to find out what he has against you.”
“You know, I think I wi—”
Lola’s cell phone rang. Except she was talking on her cell phone. Plus it was just a beep, not Mork & Mindy. Plus her chair had just vibrated.
It was Daphne’s phone, still in the pocket of her jacket, which was draped on the back of the chair she was sitting in.
Hell’s bells.
How did I forget that I had that?
“Hey Annabel, I—”
I can’t tell her I have it. She’d think I’m so blinded by my own ambition that I don’t know that keeping the phone
is illegal and insane.
But she’d be wrong.
I do know that it’s illegal and insane.
“I—you know what?” Lola changed course. “I’m gonna call that dork right now.”
Do I answer Daphne’s phone?
“It’s kind of early,” Annabel said.
Shoot, wait, the phone’s quiet now. But still. It could be a clue.
“I’m—I’m gonna write out what I’m gonna say, so I’m ready. It’ll help clear my head,” Lola said. “Call you back.”
She fished Daphne’s phone out of the pocket.
You dumbass. This is not going to be a clue. Anyone who knows she’s dead isn’t going to be calling her.
But could someone know I have the phone? Someone besides a basset hound?
Really, very unlikely.
Somerville, remember the difference between sleuthing and snooping.
She looked at the phone. Text Message Received. Read Now?
This is none of my business, thought Lola, pressing Yes.
Sixteen
7:20 AM, citigal: Liam Neeson buying gum @ Hudson
News in La Guardia.
Oh, for God’s sake.
Evidently Daphne subscribed—had subscribed—to the same celebrity-sighting text-messaging group as Lola did. The whole Celebuphone enterprise was not serious; it was ironic, Lola swore. Though she did wonder why everyone else on the list seemed to get to spot A-listers like George Clooney or Natalie Portman, while the only person she ever saw, practically daily it seemed, was Ethan freaking Hawke.
Anyway.
While I’m here.
She selected Recent Calls.
Lola recognized eight of the ten numbers Daphne had most recently dialed as the access number for Verizon voice mail—she must have just been checking her messages. The tenth number, Lola saw, gulping, was her own. That accounts for the mystery call to Lola’s phone, though not for the absence of a message. The most recent number, though also in area code 718, Lola didn’t recognize. She did a quick reverse-lookup on the Internet.
Destiny Car Service, Brooklyn.
The office was only a few blocks away, on Minna Street.
Daphne must have called for a pickup. A gal-about-town like Daphne doesn’t wait on taxi lines.
Could one of the drivers have killed her?
Lola did think about that sometimes. Though she’d been in New York for almost a decade, her mom still noodged her about taking cabs at night (“Keep the receipts. I’ll pay”) instead of the subway, which in Mrs. Somerville’s mind still looked exactly as it had in The Warriors. But for some reason, Lola’s mom—and everyone else—never thought twice about believing that it’s reliably “safer” to get into the backseat of a sedan driven by a strange man. Sure enough, you almost never heard about anything untoward, but you have to admit the social contract therein seemed to violate the order of things.
And so did the fact that Daphne had never made it home.
Lola left a note for Doug, threw on her jeans, leashed up the dogs, and set out for Minna Street.
Should she have told Doug where she was going? Probably. But how was she supposed to explain exactly what she was doing? He—like Annabel—would be appalled that she’d taken Daphne’s phone and even more appalled that her freelance sleuthing was all part of a bid for glory.
Also, there was that giant elephant in the bedroom wearing a big rhinestone necklace saying, “You kind of left the whole baby thing hanging,” so Lola really didn’t want to stick around there too long.
Yes, indeed, the note reading, “Walking the dogs, xoxo,” should suffice.
Destiny Car Service. Not much wider than its own door, the office was sandwiched between Verrazano’s Pork Store and an imposing new cigar bar called Humidor, which pretty much told you everything you needed to know about this neighborhood. The $7 drink and $300 stroller set had moved in (differentiating themselves, still, from the $17 drink and $800 stroller people in Manhattan) but had not yet edged out the superb ricotta cheesecake, Italian funeral homes, and big red-sauce restaurants where you went for lunch after communions.
A couple of Town Cars were parked outside Destiny. Inside were two metal folding chairs, a hardware store calendar with bikini-clad girls holding paint cans, and a giant, yellowed map of Brooklyn with the original neighborhoods—her dad’s own Canarsie, for one—that predated the names more recently imposed by colonizing real estate brokers. No North Wayside, no Upper Lundy, no nothing. It was like seeing a map that still said “USSR.”
There was an open box of store-bought donuts on the counter—a shame, Lola tsked, in a neighborhood with such good sfogliatella. The dogs sniffed the industrial carpet, a smorgasbord of ashes, ground-in dirt, and powdered sugar.
Behind a window of bulletproof glass sat a forty-some-odd-year-old woman with a telephone headset and a giant clip holding back her gray-blond hair. A copy of the Day lay by her foam coffee cup, whose top edge was scalloped with salmon lip prints. She was typing furiously, which was impressive, considering the length of her nails.
I can’t type that fast, and I bite mine, thought Lola.
“Excuse me,” she said.
The woman turned. Her eyes were reddened and bloodshot—no surprise given the amount of cigarette smoke coming from the guys playing dominoes in the back of the office.
“Hi,” said Lola. “I actually don’t need a car. I just have a question.”
The woman waited. She seemed weary. Bet she’s heard it all, thought Lola.
“It’s about my friend. I think she might have called you for a ride, but she, um, never came home. Do you think someone here might remember the phone call, or anything?”
The woman burst into tears.
“Oh, I—uh, ma’am, I’m sorry, I—”
The woman pushed the Day toward Lola like a croupier. She swallowed and sniffed. “Is this your friend?”
Lola paused, then nodded. “Yes.”
“Sure, she called us,” said the woman, blotting with a Kleenex. “But she never showed up at door four, outside United, like she was supposed to.”
Lola took a breath. “Are you sure? You don’t think anyone here, anyone here could have … ?”
“One of my guys? No way, kid. We’re like family. She never showed up, I’m telling you. I called her myself about a thousand times, but she never picked up.” A new wave of tears was interrupted by a phone call.
“Excuse me.” She pressed a button. “Destiny, where to?”
Lola took that moment to slip Daphne’s phone out of her pocket and check Received Calls, which duh, she should have done before. Sure enough. Ten straight calls from Destiny’s number.
By then the woman had hung up. “I loved her,” she sniffled.
“I … Did you know her, too?” asked Lola.
“I was her biggest fan,” said the woman.
Oh.
“I loved her book. She was my inspiration,” she went on. “See, I’m writing a memoir about my experiences as a single woman running a car service.”
Of course you are.
She gestured toward the computer screen, which Lola now saw was covered with lines of text, not blinking dots on a map or whatever it is a car service would have.
“Wow, that’s great,” said Lola. “What are you going to call it?”
“Right now I’m thinking: Destination: Destiny. What do you think?”
“Not bad!” said Lola. “Two Ds, that’s good …” She thought for a sec. “You’re a dispatcher, right?”
“Yeah, that plus owner, den mother …”
“Right. So how about Dispatches from Destiny?”
“Hey, I like it! Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” said Lola. “Anyway, I’m sorry to bother you. And sorry about, you know.”
“Me, too, kid, me, too.”
Lola turned to go.
“So what’s your name?”
“Destiny.”
Ah. Right. “I’ll look for your book.”<
br />
Lola smiled and turned toward the door. So much for that. Do I want a bakery treat?
Am I anyone’s inspiration?
As she reached for the door, someone outside did the same.
Oh my God.
Reading Guy.
Seeing Lola, he turned on his heel.
Lola yanked open the door. “Wait!” she yelled.
She tried to run after him, but the loping, distracted bassets held her back. A block and a half away, he got on a bus. The sign said Express to Manhattan. He was gone.
Seventeen
“Uh, hey, Destiny?”
Lola poked her head back in the door of the car service.
Destiny put down her Entenmann’s.
“Yeah?”
“You know that guy who was just on his way in here?”
“Yeah?”
“You do?” Lola walked back up to the window.
“Do I know who you’re referring to, or do I know who he is?”
“Both,” said Lola.
“Yup,” said Destiny.
“Who?”
“Can’t tell you,” said Destiny. “Privacy.”
“Are you sure?” asked Lola.
“Yup,” said Destiny. She cleared a couple of crumbs from the corners of her mouth with a lacquered thumb and forefinger and turned back to her work.
“Perhaps this will change your mind,” said Lola, raising an eyebrow and fishing for her wallet.
Damn. Two dollars would change nothing.
Destiny eyed Lola and her crumpled singles. “Nope.”
“Okay, thanks anyway!” I am the least cool detective ever.
Lola turned and headed quickly for the door.
Destiny’s voice came behind her. “You’ll have to wait for the book.”
Lola spent her two dollars on an espresso and a copy of the Day, to prepare for her irate phone call to Wally. Hello, New York Day, it’s been a while, she thought. (Doug certainly didn’t read it. He actually didn’t even read the Times; this was mainly a protest against the corny Monday “humor” section he liked to call “Homeless People Say the Darndest Things.” Her husband, he got his news from blogs.)
She sat on a bench outside the café. The dogs, still rather listless, settled onto the sidewalk. Poor guys, thought Lola.
Not quite ready to stomach the Daphne story, Lola flipped to the Books section, which at the Day was on the limited side, with maybe one story about the increase in TV sports ratings among females after the success of the novel Football Widow. Still, a small amount of industry attention was paid to its Chick Lit Bestseller List. Which, Lola had pretended to forget, came out today.