Social Death: A Clyde Shaw Mystery

by Tatiana Boncompagni

  I picked the book up and tucked it under my arm. “Is that all?”

  “I heard about what happened in the field.”

  I felt a lecture coming on, one I didn’t feel the need to hear twice in one morning. “I already told the PD about it,” I said, hoping to head her off.

  “Did you make a statement?” Georgia removed one of her rollers, re-wrapping her hair and securing it again to her scalp.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the police are already keeping an eye on the guy.”

  Georgia studied my face. “OK, one more thing. I want you to come with me to a party Prentice Maldone is throwing tonight after the broadcast. It’s in honor of the merger.”

  “Why do I have to go? Can’t you take your husband?”

  Georgia’s bangles clinked as her torso shook with laughter. “Do I have to spell everything out to you?”

  “Not everything.”

  Georgia sighed. “There will be men there, Clyde. You do realize you have left about two, maybe three years—tops—to have a baby.”

  “Why are we talking about this? Last time I checked, you didn’t have a kid either.”

  “I have stepkids.”

  “Ex-stepkids. And they never called you Mom.”

  She threw me one of her quit-sassing-me looks.

  I crossed my arms across my chest. “Actually, Georgia, I just met someone. A lawyer, and he’s coming as my plus one to the Kravis benefit next week.”

  “One date does not a dance card fill,” Georgia snapped. “And anyway, I want to keep my eye on you.”

  “So that’s the real reason.”

  “You’re coming with me and that’s final. So get Sasha to do something with your goddamn hair. Looks like a fucking rat’s nest up there.”

  The party was held at a duplex gallery space in SoHo. Georgia gave her name in the lobby, and we were escorted upstairs in an elevator that opened directly into the party. At the center of the event space were two low-backed Italian sectionals and a Lucite coffee table with a huge orchid plant in an oval chrome planter at its center. Behind a glass staircase stood a large bar and a cluster of food stations serving pink rectangles of beef tenderloin and toro.

  Threading through the crowd, I recognized a few faces from the FirstNews legal and corporate departments. By the floor-to-ceiling windows, Mitchell Diskin towered over one of our morning anchors, a smiley blonde. I also recognized our noon and four o’clock anchors, a couple of members of Congress that contributed to FirstNews’s Sunday morning current-events talk show, and Naomi Zell, FirstNews’s CEO and the Kravis family’s recently appointed spokesperson.

  Georgia left me to go mingle. Actually what she said was, “You look pretty. Now smile, be nice, and pretend like you don’t crush testicles for a living. It should also go without saying but I’m going to say it anyway: Steer clear of the hooch.” Then she thrust me into a group of men dressed in expensive blue suits and Italian loafers.

  I introduced myself to them and then promptly excused myself as soon as Georgia had her back turned. I was about to walk out of the party when, huddled beneath the staircase, next to an Egyptian limestone bust, I spotted Delphine. She was dressed modestly in a dark short-sleeved dress and mid-height heels, and was standing with a man I took to be her husband. I tapped her lightly on the shoulder.

  “I’m surprised you’re here,” she said, looking startled to see me.

  “I could say the same.” The last time we spoke she seemed ready to go into hiding. What was she doing at a party celebrating Maldone’s purchase of FirstNews?

  “I’m only here because it’s what’s expected of me as a board member. We’ll be making an early exit.” She then introduced me to Hamish, who she quickly dispatched to the bar to retrieve us drinks. I’d ordered a tonic water, Delphine a vodka and cranberry.

  “Why haven’t you returned my calls?” I asked once we were on our own.

  “It’s the merger,” she said, lowering her voice. “No media interviews. Everything is supposed to go through Naomi. I’m sure you understand why it has to be this way.”

  “I do. But I’d still like to have a chat. I told you everything could be off the record.”

  Her brows knitted together. “But your message. You said I had to go on camera if we wanted to move the focus from Olivia’s personal life.” She was using my words against me. I hated when people did that. “I wish I didn’t have to say this,” Delphine continued, “because I know Olivia thought the world of you, but with the merger, things are very delicate. Now just isn’t the right time.”

  I touched the pearls at my neck. “I’m not just interested in talking to you for professional reasons. Personally, I feel… involved.”

  She gave me a tight smile. “Of course you do. You were her friend.”

  “It’s more than that. There’s something I haven’t told you,” I said. “The night Olivia was murdered, we were supposed to get together but I got stuck at work. She sent me a text I didn’t see until Monday morning. I’m not sure how I missed it on Friday night.”

  “What did the text say?” She cocked her head.

  I realized, from her reaction, that I finally had a card to play, one I wasn’t going to hand over without getting something in return. “It’s so loud here, I can barely hear you. How about we meet for coffee tomorrow?”

  I could tell she wanted to press me further but her husband had returned, and with him, Prentice Maldone. Hamish handed me my tonic water and Delphine her vodka cranberry. “About Olivia’s memorial service,” Delphine said, changing the subject. It had been scheduled for the following Thursday at 10 a.m. “I hope you can make it.”

  “I’ll be there,” I assured her, remembering the promise I’d made to Sutton to make a speech at the service. “I’ve been preparing something.”

  Delphine shifted her weight. “I’m afraid we need to keep the ceremony brief. My stepfather’s health is declining. We don’t want to tax him any more than necessary.”

  Only part of me felt relieved. Mostly I felt snubbed. Surely the Kravises could have found a few minutes for me if they’d wanted.

  “And please, Clyde, attend as a friend, not as a member of the press. We’d like to keep the details of the service private.”

  It wasn’t an unreasonable request, but something about it stuck in my craw. “Of course,” I replied, mustering a closed-mouth smile. What choice did I have?

  Delphine put a hand on her husband’s back, and the two of them said their goodbyes. After they left I thought Prentice would excuse himself, but instead he asked if he and I could speak privately. I assented, following him up the staircase to the doorway of a heated terrace devoid of either furniture or other guests.

  “Can I get you another?” He gestured to my drink, misunderstanding the reason for my reluctance to join him at the terrace’s plexiglass ledge.

  I lifted my glass to show him that it was still mostly full.

  “Not a lightweight, are you?”

  Maldone didn’t know my history, or that my tonic didn’t have any vodka in it. I took a few steps to the middle of the terrace. It was as far as my fear of heights would let me go. “Do I look like a lightweight?”

  He smiled indulgently. “I don’t think I should answer that.”

  “That answer wouldn’t play well on TV.”

  “What would?”

  “Changing the subject.”

  “I’ll remember that.” He took a long sip of his drink. “By the way, good show tonight.”

  We’d opened with a followup report from Connecticut and closed the hour with the editor of Charles Kravis’s memoir. “You watch Topical?”

  “Never miss it,” he replied.

  “Have you read the memoir?”

  Prentice leaned forward, gazing out at the view. “Charles is an interesting man. Patriotic. Hardworking. Highly conservative, yes, but a dedicated newsman. Not too many of those anymore.”

  “What are you?”r />
  “A businessman.” He turned back around and took another sip of what looked like Scotch. “I’m sorry I didn’t have much of a chance to get to know Olivia. All I know is the work she was doing with the foundation. It’s interesting, though, that she didn’t have a larger role at the network. Considering what I read in the memoir, Charles clearly thought the world of her.”

  “That was Olivia’s choice. She preferred being able to help people and change lives—for the better. That’s not what we always end up doing at FirstNews.”

  “Are the Kravises being helpful to you?”

  I didn’t know how to answer that. The truth was that they weren’t, but it would be disloyal—not to mention unprofessional—for me to say so. “As much as can be expected. It’s a rough time for them.”

  He set his drink down on the ledge. “May I ask you for a favor, Cornelia?”

  “Sure.”

  “In all likelihood, Olivia’s murder had nothing to do with network business—”

  “Was Olivia opposed to the merger?” I asked, interrupting him.

  He gave me a pointed look. “I’m sure I would be the last person to know that. A trusted friend, on the other hand.”

  “Olivia and I didn’t talk about network business. We discovered that it was better for our friendship.” Just saying that aloud reminded me of the other, not-so-insignificant topic we didn’t discuss. What else was she keeping from me? “So I didn’t know about the merger, let alone how she felt about it.”

  He considered my response. “The timing concerns me. I’m not a fan of coincidences.”

  “And I don’t believe in them.”

  “Then we understand each other.” He picked up his drink and moved closer to me, closer than would have been considered appropriate in an office setting. “Cornelia, can I depend on you to do something for me?”

  I nodded. Prentice was, after all, going to be my new boss.

  “I’d like you to let me know if you discover any correlation between this crime and the merger. Even if it’s something you can’t corroborate or put on the air, I still want to know about it.”

  Prentice led me back downstairs to the party. At the base of the stairs, he pressed his card into my hand. “That has my direct line on it. Please do not hesitate to use it.” Then he disappeared into the swarm of bodies.

  The party had doubled in size while I was upstairs. Georgia was nowhere to be seen. I elbowed my way through the room to seek out a few bites of food before I called it a night. Halfway to the door I heard a familiar voice in the crowd. It was Penny Harlich.

  What the hell is she doing here? This was a FirstNews and Maldone Enterprises party. Was it possible that Diskin was thinking about hiring her away from GSBC? I shuddered at the thought and should have put it out of my mind, but curiosity got the better of me. I abandoned my plans to leave and found the staircase. Up a few steps, I could watch Penny easily, not that she would be hard to miss in the spiky heels and skintight cherry-red dress she was wearing.

  She circulated the room, waving to some of the other on-air talent, getting a drink, but not stopping to talk to anyone. She was clearly looking for someone specific. A minute later, she spotted her prey. Downing her drink and fluffing her mane, she walked right up to Prentice, wrapping one of her tawny arms around his shoulders as she whispered something in his ear. He looked up at her and laughed. To a woman like her, a man like Prentice looked a lot taller standing on his money.

  I don’t know why I did it, but I took out my phone and snapped a picture. Then I ditched my tonic water and headed to the bar, where Penny was standing, waiting for a pair of refills for her and Prentice.

  “Enjoying yourself?” I asked.

  She gave me an icy smile. Her perfume smelled of cloyingly sweet gardenias and vanilla, and she had long nails that had been painted the same shade of her dress. Without wanting, my mind pictured them raking across Alex’s muscled chest. “I’m sorry, do I know you?” she asked.

  She knew who I was, but I introduced myself anyway. “Clyde Shaw. Topical Tonight. We kicked your ass last night.”

  “So you did. And I think I do recognize you. You’re the hag who works for Alex Amori.” She tapped the side of her face mockingly. “Or had he called you a nag? I can’t be sure. What I can be sure of is that the Hart family scoop is your last. I don’t care what kind of inside track you think you have on this case, I’ve got better.”

  Her response was anything but expected. Alex was right: Penny was smart. But my network loyalty prevented me from seeing her as anything other than my sworn enemy, which is how I would have preferred Alex see her, too. I took another glass of tonic from the bartender. “By the way, I don’t know how it works at GSBC, but at our network it doesn’t matter how much leg you’re willing to show if you don’t have the numbers to back you up. Yours are falling, and last I checked, you’re running out of skirt.”

  It would have been a perfect exit, if I hadn’t walked in the wrong direction of the elevator. I didn’t want Penny to see me doubling back on myself, so I kept walking and carved a little space for myself on one of the sectionals. I set my glass down on a side table and found my phone in my bag. There was a new text from Phil Drucker, the lawyer I’d met at Michael Rockwell’s firm. He wanted to know if he could get away with wearing his green lizard-skin cowboy boots to the Kravis benefit. I was reasonably confident he didn’t own a pair. I took a few sips from my glass and texted back. “By all means.”

  A moment later, his reply arrived. “Good. They go with the corsage I’m getting you.”

  I laughed to myself, took one last sip of tonic and slipped my phone back into my jacket pocket. Then I stood up and I started for the elevator, but with each step I grew more exhausted, the fatigue of the past two days finally catching up with me. I needed to splash some water on my face. A waiter pointed me in the direction of the bathroom, which turned out to be down a small corridor at the back of the gallery.

  I barely made it. Sliding open the door to the bathroom, my legs buckled beneath me, and my head banged into the indigo tile floor. I had just enough presence of mind to realize that what I was feeling wasn’t exhaustion.

  Someone had drugged me.

  The bathroom door opened. I discovered I couldn’t move. The room grew dark, and my whole body felt like it was sinking, being pulled under by a heavy fog.

  “You are treading on very dangerous ground,” growled a voice in my ear. In my deadened state, I couldn’t make out if it was male or female, or if it was even real.

  I gasped for breath. Everything was black. Fingers dug into my cheeks. “You’ll only get one warning.”

  Friday

  I woke up at a hospital, screaming, hooked up to an IV and a heart-rate monitor. I’d been dreaming, or remembering, I wasn’t sure which.

  “I’m here, Clyde. You’re OK. You’re safe.”

  It was Alex. His hand took mine. I felt nauseous as I looked around the room, gathered my bearings. The clock on the wall read half past five a.m. “What are you doing here?”

  A small Asian woman in blue scrubs entered the room and stood at the end of my bed. “Good to see you’re awake, Ms. Shaw. I’m Dr. Cho. You’ve been admitted to Beth Israel Hospital.”

  “What happened to me?”

  She walked toward me and grabbed my arm, feeling for a pulse. “Your blood test confirmed you received a large amount of Ketalar, otherwise known as Ketamine or Special-K. It’s sold to veterinarians as a general anesthesia and sedative, but is also used and sold illegally as a hallucinogenic and a so-called date-rape drug. Do you know how this substance may have been given to you?”

  I rubbed my forehead with my free hand. I looked to Alex, hoping he could fill in the blanks. “I wasn’t there,” he said to the doctor. “I was told she passed out at a party.”

  “Are you her husband?” Dr. Cho asked.

  “A friend,” Alex replied.

  “Colleague,” I corrected.

  The doctor wrote that
down in my file. “Did you have anything to drink at this party?”

  I nodded. “I had a couple tonic waters.”

  “Without anything else? No alcohol?”

  “No.”

  She made another note. “Did you ever leave your glass unattended?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  She put the file down, sidled up next to me and took out a small penlight, which she shined in my eyes, checking my pupils. “The effects are pretty immediate, within five and twenty minutes of drinking the substance, depending on how much food you had in your stomach.”

  I turned my head to Alex. “How did you know I was here?”

  “Penny saw you carried out on a stretcher and called me.”

  “Penny? Who else saw me?”

  “I think everyone there. All she said was that you were on a stretcher, passed out, and the paramedics were bringing you here.”

  “They just sent me here alone?”

  “One of Maldone’s assistants was in the waiting room when I got here at a quarter to midnight.” He ran a hand down the rumpled front of his denim button-down. “Alice, Maldone’s assistant, told me she found you on the bathroom floor and tried to revive you. When she couldn’t, she dialed 911.”

  Dr. Cho opened my chart. “Would you like for me to call the police?”

  I wanted to speak to Panda. If the hospital called the authorities, I didn’t know whom I’d get. With my luck, it’d be some rookie who would drown me in paperwork. “I can do that. I just need my cellphone. Is my purse around here somewhere?”

  Dr. Cho looked around the room. My coat was resting on a chair, but I didn’t see my purse. “Did Ms. Shaw have a bag with her last night?” she asked Alex.

  “It wasn’t here when I got here.”

  My throat seized. My notebook and tape recorder, with all my notes from Olivia’s case, were in there. I sat up and pawed at the tape securing the IV to my arm. “I’ve got to get it. I need to go.”