Amanda said, “Jane Doe is still in surgery. We have a lead on a gal named Delilah Palmer. Ever heard of her?”
Will shook his head.
“White female, twenty-two years old. Her sheet has prostitution and drugs times eight. Harding was her guardian angel. She’s been on the game for a while.”
“Angie worked vice when she was a cop.”
“Did she really?” Amanda put on a bad show of sounding surprised. “We’ve put out a high alert. This Delilah Palmer likely knows why Dale and Angie were killed, which either makes her our top suspect or our next victim.”
Will twisted the ring on his finger. He forced himself not to look at his watch, to do the math for how much time had passed since Sara had said that Angie didn’t have much time.
She would come back. Angie always came back. That’s how he would get through this. He would treat this time like every other time she disappeared, and a year would go by, two years and Will would find a way to accept that he had watched Amanda pretend to read a magazine while Angie had died alone. Just like she always said she would do. Just like Will had wished she would do because he wanted things to be easier with Sara.
He looked out the window. He tried to swallow. He felt that familiar tightness in his chest. The last thing he had said to Angie was that he didn’t love her anymore.
Then he had gone back to Sara.
Amanda put down her magazine. She stood up. She walked around the coffee table and sat on the edge of the couch. She smoothed out her skirt. She stared at the wall in front of her. Her shoulder touched his, and it took everything Will had inside of him not to lean against her.
She said, “You know my mother hanged herself in our backyard when I was a child.”
Will looked up. She had spoken matter-of-factly, but the truth was that he hadn’t known.
She said, “Every time I washed dishes, I would look out the window at that tree and think, ‘You are the last person who is ever going to make me feel this way ever again.’”
Will didn’t ask which way she meant.
“And then Kenny came along. I’m sure Faith has told you about her uncle.”
Will nodded. Kenny Mitchell was a retired pilot who’d flown test engines for NASA.
“Kenny was a stone cold fox, as we used to say.” She smiled her secret smile. “I couldn’t understand why he chose me. I was such a plain, silly girl. Very naive. Desperate to please my father. Wouldn’t say boo to a ghost.”
Will couldn’t picture Amanda being any of those things.
“Kenny was like a drug. At first in the exciting way, then in the bad way. The way that led your Jane Doe to vacuuming up two ounces of coke.” Amanda’s tone said she wasn’t exaggerating. “I lowered myself for him. I did things that I never thought I would ever, ever do.”
Will glanced back toward the closed office door. How long did water take to boil for tea?
Amanda said, “The hardest part was that deep down inside, I knew it. I knew he would never marry me. I knew he would never give me children.” She paused. “I could spot a lying perp from fifty yards, but I chose to believe everything that came out of Kenny’s mouth. I’d invested so many years of my life in him that I couldn’t admit that I was wrong. I was terrified of looking like a fool.”
Will sat back on the couch. If she thought that was how he was with Angie, then she was wrong. Will knew from the beginning that Angie was the wrong person for him. As for looking like a fool, everybody knew that she cheated on him.
Used to cheat on him.
Amanda continued, “Kenny and I had been together for nearly eight years when I met Roger.” Her voice softened when she said the name. “I’ll spare you the details, but let’s just say he caught my eye. He wanted to give me everything I didn’t have with Kenny, but I said no, because I didn’t know how to be with a man who wanted to be with me.” The softness had drained away. “I was addicted to Kenny’s uncertainty, that niggling little doubt in my gut that made me wonder if I could survive without him. I thought I could fix the pain inside of him. It took me a long time to realize that the pain was inside of me.”
Will rubbed his jaw. That hit a little closer to home.
Amanda turned toward him, her hand resting on the back of the couch. “We had this kitten when I was a little girl. Buttons. She kept clawing the couch, so my father bought me a water pistol and told me to shoot her every time she got near it. And I remember that first time I squirted her, she panicked and ran to me for comfort. She clung to me, and I petted her until she calmed down. That’s how I was with Kenny. That’s how you were with Angie.” Amanda said this with conviction. “It’s the curse of the motherless child. We seek comfort from the very people who do us harm.”
Her words splayed him open like a razor.
She said, “I think you never checked Angie’s bank statement because you were afraid that she’d closed the account. That she’d cut off that final tie with you.”
Will looked down at his hands, the broken skin from punching Collier, the fake ring that signified his fake marriage.
“Am I right?”
He shrugged, but he knew that she was right.
Angie had left him a letter. That was what was inside the second envelope inside her post office box. This one had Will’s name written on the outside in all capital letters, clear so that he could easily read it. The letter inside was a different matter. Angie had deliberately written him a note in her cursive chicken scratch because she knew that Will would not be able to read it. He would have to find someone else to read it for him.
Sara?
He cleared his throat. “What made you finally leave Kenny?”
“You think I’d ever give up?” She laughed deep from her belly. “Oh, no. Kenny left me. For a man.”
Will felt himself startle.
“I knew he was gay. I wasn’t that naive.” She shrugged. “It was the seventies. Everybody thought gay people could change.”
Will tried to get over his shock. “Was it too late with Roger?”
“About half a century too late. He wanted a stay-at-home wife and I wanted a career.” She looked at her watch, then at the closed door. “At least he showed me what an orgasm was.”
Will put his head in his hands and prayed for self-immolation.
“Oh, stop it.” Amanda stood up, indicating sharing time was over. “Wilbur, I have known you for more years than I care to admit, and you have always been a raving idiot in your personal life. Don’t screw things up with Sara. She is too good for you, and you’d better find a way to keep her before she figures that out.”
She grabbed his hand and slid the ring off his finger.
He watched her stomp over to the desk and toss the ring into the trash can. The metal made a dinging sound, like the hammer hitting the bell at the end of round one. “And don’t tell any of this to Faith. She has no idea her uncle is gay.”
The door opened. The receptionist said, “Mr. Kilpatrick will see you now.”
“Thank you.” Amanda waited for Will to stand up and follow her.
Will put his hands on his knees and pushed himself up from the couch. His head was spinning through the slide show of everything Amanda had just told him, but he forced himself to stop the carousel and put it on a shelf. None of what she’d said mattered. Angie wasn’t dead. She was off somewhere, the same place she always went to, and eventually one day his front door would open and he would hear those familiar words.
“It’s me, baby. Did you miss me?”
A loud rebel yell shocked Will’s attention back to the present. Two young guys in sharp suits high-fived each other as they celebrated something agent-y. The quiet of the lobby was gone. Phones were ringing. Secretaries were murmuring into their headsets. The floating glass stairs were filled with people who looked like they had stepped out of a magazine spread. Overhead, a giant LED sign counted up the number of millions the company had made for their players so far this year.
Except for the
staggeringly high number, not much had changed in the four months since Will had been here. The life-sized stickers were still on the walls. Every office door still had a beautiful young woman stationed at a desk outside. There were still photos of agents looking like Tattoo next to Mr. O’Rourke as they stood by their star players signing multimillion-dollar contracts.
The surly receptionist handed them over to another blonde, this one a few years older, probably with an MBA from Harvard because hot blondes who worked in offices like this weren’t just for show anymore.
The new blonde told Amanda, “I put your mint tea in the conference room, but Kip wanted to talk to you first.”
Will realized he should’ve asked Amanda what she hoped to accomplish here. It was normal procedure to talk to a building’s owner when a dead body was found on their premises, but this wasn’t Kip Kilpatrick’s first rodeo. There was no way he’d let them interview Marcus Rippy, even off the record.
It was too late to ask Amanda now. The blonde knocked on the office door, then let them in.
Kip Kilpatrick was sitting at a massive glass table in the center of his light-filled corner office. The ceiling soared twenty feet overhead. The dull marble slabs on the floor were broken up with heavy wool rugs shot through with strings of silk. The deep couches and chairs in the seating area had been designed for giants. Kilpatrick was not a giant. His small feet rested on the edge of the table, scuffing the backs of his bespoke leather loafers. He was leaning back in the chair, tossing a basketball into the air with both hands, talking into the Bluetooth earpiece stuck in his ear because he wouldn’t look douchey enough speaking into a regular phone.
Kilpatrick had other clients—a top-seeded tennis player, a soccer player who had helped the US take home the World Cup—but it was clear from his office who the real superstar was. It wasn’t just the regulation NBA Marcus Rippy backboard mounted high on the wall. They might as well have been standing in a Marcus Rippy museum. Kilpatrick had framed jerseys going back to Rippy’s youth league days. Signed basketballs lined the window ledge. Two Rippy bobbleheads sat on opposite corners of his desk. Championship trophies were on a specially designed floating shelf that had a pin light wrapping every inch of gold. There was even a pair of bronzed, size fourteen basketball shoes that Rippy had worn when he helped his college team win the Final Four.
Will had always assumed that Kilpatrick was a failed player. He was not too short, but not tall enough, the kind of guy who puppydogged the team, trying to be friends with the players while they walked all over him. The only difference now was that he at least got paid for it.
“Head’s up,” Kilpatrick said. He passed the basketball to Will.
Will let the ball hit him in the chest and bounce across the room. The sound echoed in the cold office. They all watched the ball dribble into the corner.
Kilpatrick said, “Guess you’re not a player?”
Will said nothing.
“Have I met you before?”
Will had spent seven months hounding Kilpatrick and his people over the Rippy investigation. There was probably a dartboard in the break room with his face on it. Still, if Kilpatrick was going to pretend they had never met, that was fine with Will.
He said, “Drawing a blank.”
“Me, too.” Kilpatrick bumped the glass table as he stood. The bobbleheads nodded. “Ms. Wagner. Can’t say that I’m happy to see you again.”
Amanda didn’t tell him that the feeling was mutual. “Thank you for moving up our meeting. I’m sure we’d all like to get this straightened out as soon as possible.”
“Absolutely.” Kilpatrick opened a small refrigerator packed with bottles of BankShot, an energy drink that tasted like cough syrup. He twisted off the cap. He took a mouthful and swigged it around before swallowing. “Tell me, what’s ‘this’ again?”
“‘This’ is a murder investigation that is currently taking place at Marcus Rippy’s nightclub.” When he didn’t respond, Amanda said, “As I told you on the phone, I need information about the development.”
Kilpatrick chugged the drink. Will glanced at Amanda. She was being unusually patient.
“Ahh.” Kilpatrick tossed the empty bottle into the trash can. “What I can tell you right now is that I’ve never heard of this Harding guy.”
“So the name Triangle-O Holdings, Limited, means nothing to you?”
“Nope.” Kilpatrick grabbed the basketball off the floor. “Never heard of it.”
Will had no idea where Amanda was going with her question, but for her benefit, he explained to Kilpatrick, “The triangle offense was made famous by Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls under coach Phil Jackson.”
“Jordan, huh?” Kilpatrick smiled as he palmed the basketball. “I think I heard of that guy. Like a really old Marcus Rippy.”
Amanda said, “Dale Harding was living in a very nice home owned by Triangle-O Holdings.”
Kilpatrick threw the basketball toward the hoop. It hit the backboard and he took the rebound for another shot. “Nothin’ but net,” he said, like he couldn’t simply walk up and touch the bottom of the net with the tips of his fingers.
Amanda said, “Triangle-O Holdings is registered in Delaware to a company that is registered in St. Martin, then St. Lucia, all the way through to a corporation held in Copenhagen.”
Will felt a tickle in his brain. The construction signs outside Rippy’s nightclub had a Danish flag in the logo.
Amanda had obviously noticed the same detail, but earlier and when it could better serve her purpose. “I’ve got the State Department making an official inquiry into the names of the corporation’s board and shareholders. You could make this a lot easier if you would just tell me.”
“No idea.” Kilpatrick tried to spin the basketball on the tip of his finger. “Wish I could help you.”
“You could let us talk to Marcus Rippy.”
He coughed a laugh. “Not a chance, lady.”
Will sneaked a glance at Amanda again, wondering what she was up to. She had to know they had lost their one shot at Marcus Rippy.
She asked, “What about the name Angie Polaski?”
Kilpatrick finally got the ball to spin. “What about it?”
“Have you ever heard of her?”
“Sure.” He slapped the basketball to make it spin faster.
“In what capacity?”
“Uh, let’s just say she provided a service.”
“Background checks? Security?”
“Snatch.” Kilpatrick got a look on his face that made Will want to punch him straight out the window. “She provided girls for some of my parties. Nothing was expected of them. I just asked that they be experienced.” He paused, and added, “Conversationalists. Experienced conversationalists. Like I said, nothing sexual was expected of them. They were all adults. They were paid for their conversation. Anything else was their choice.”
“Choice,” Will repeated, because he knew for a fact that Marcus Rippy preferred women who didn’t have a choice.
Amanda summed it up. “So you’re saying that Angie Polaski provided escorts for your parties?”
Kilpatrick nodded, his eyes on the spinning ball.
Will had to admit there might be something to what he was saying. Angie had loved working vice. She was always more comfortable walking the line between cop and criminal. She also knew her share of prostitutes, and she never had any problems with women making money any way they knew how.
Kilpatrick said, “My clients are high-profile celebrities. Sometimes they want a little discreet company. It’s hard for them to meet women.”
Amanda asked, “You mean other than their wives?”
Will thought about the working girls that Angie knew. They were low-level street walkers, drug addicts, some of them toothless, all of them desperate, none of them more than a few years away from a prison cell or a grave. Will might be able to imagine a world in which Angie pimped out some girls and told herself that she was doing them a favor, but the gir
ls she knew were not the kind of ladies that Kilpatrick’s clients would want to meet.
Kilpatrick said, “So, that’s what you wanted to know? What Polaski was doing for me?”
“Do you have her current address?”
“Post office box.” He picked up the phone, punched in some numbers, and said, “My office.” He hung up the phone. “My guy Laslo can give you the details.”
Laslo again. Will was right to assume the bullet-headed, Boston thug was an extra pair of dirty hands.
Amanda asked, “How did you meet Ms. Polaski?”
Kilpatrick shrugged his shoulders. “The way you meet these kinds of people is, they’re just there. They know what you’re looking for and they offer to take care of it for a price. Easy.”
Will said, “Like bribing witnesses in a rape trial.”
Kilpatrick looked at him. Something like a snort came out of his nose. “Yeah, now I remember who you are.”
Amanda asked, “What about a phone number?”
“Laslo will have it. I don’t deal with tradespeople.”
“Right,” Will said. “You just mail them the checks from your personal bank account.”
Amanda shot Will a daggered look. She told Kilpatrick, “We found a check written to Angie Polaski, drawn from your bank account.”
“The agency only pays for drinks and dinners. Anything else is on us.” Kilpatrick explained, “‘Business development’ is what we call it on our taxes.”
Amanda said, “Let’s talk about another development. The one where we found a dead body this morning.”
He started to spin the ball again. “I’ll let you get that from the horse’s mouth.”
Amanda said, “Does that mean that everything you’ve told us thus far has been from the horse’s other end?”
Kilpatrick took a beat to get her meaning.
There was a knock at the door. Laslo said, “Boss, they’re ready.”
Kilpatrick dribbled the basketball as he walked across the office. “Get these people Polaski’s deets. They’re cops. They’re looking for her.”
“Big surprise.” Laslo grabbed the ball and shot it toward the hoop on the wall.
The Kept Woman Page 15