Equivocal Death
Page 15
must already own an apartment. Had she perhaps planned to retire 13
early? To collect art or antiques? To engage in some sort of philan-14
thropy? Or maybe it was simply a nest egg, put aside for a future she 15
had yet to plan. For a future she’d never have.
16
Chewing at her thumbnail, Kate felt a glint of pain. Looking 17
down, she saw that the nail was ragged, bitten down to the quick.
18
She stared at it in surprise and then examined her other fingers.
19
Without even realizing it, she’d gone back to biting her nails. She 20
hadn’t done that for years, not since that last year in law school.
21
When had she started again?
22
Kate’s eyes lingered on her right hand. On her forefinger, below 23
the bitten nail, she wore a small ruby-and-pearl ring set in gold.
24
A gift from her mother on her sixteenth birthday. Her mother.
25
That must be part of what had her so distraught. Strange she 26
hadn’t made the connection until now. Of course, it was differ-27
ent, death from natural causes versus murder. But at the time, she 28
hadn’t seen it that way. The cancer had seemed to her a murderer 29
of sorts, every bit as evil, as bent on destruction, as any human 30
killer could be.
31
It was more than five years since her mother’s death, but Kate 32
knew she hadn’t come to terms with it yet. It had happened in July, 33
the summer before her senior year at Barnard. At the time, she’d ort 34
just tried to keep busy. Funeral arrangements. Then selling the reg 35
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house. Once that was over, she was back in college. It was then 1
she’d decided on law school. Next came Harvard and Michael and 2
Samson & Mills. Plenty to keep her occupied.
3
Kate’s eyes returned to Madeleine’s brokerage statement. The 4
orderly records seemed an implicit rebuke. Kate thought of her 5
own haphazard files, a clutter of unopened correspondence. Once 6
a month, she received statements from the investment firm that 7
handled her mother’s estate. Once a month, she dumped them, un-8
opened, in a drawer. She couldn’t face them just yet, these 9
monthly reminders of her mother’s death.
10
Kate closed the file and pushed it aside. She reached for another 11
folder, then stopped, dropping her hand back to her lap. While she 12
couldn’t quite articulate the reasons, something about her position 13
here was making her uncomfortable. What was she doing in 14
Madeleine’s office, rifling through her papers? Madeleine had 15
never consented to her presence. And yet, here she was, privy to 16
the most intimate details of the dead woman’s affairs.
17
The more she thought about it, the stranger it seemed. What 18
had Carter Mills been thinking when he delegated this task to her?
19
He obviously thought she could be trusted, and she was grateful for 20
this confidence. Still, there was a nagging uneasiness. Was she 21
really the proper person for this role? And beyond that, what about 22
the murder investigation? Should anyone be here before the police 23
had taken stock? Carter had told her to leave everything as she 24
found it. And the office wasn’t the crime scene. It was just where 25
Madeleine had worked. Still . . .
26
Glancing at her watch, Kate saw that it was already eleven-27
thirty. As she turned to gauge her progress, her eyes encountered a 28
small, flat object lying at the bottom of the drawer, in the space 29
from which she’d taken the files. She peered closer to see what it 30
was, then picked it up. An unlabeled cassette tape. It must have 31
fallen from one of the folders that she’d removed. Damn. She 32
needed to be more careful. Maybe if she listened to the tape, she’d 33
be able to figure out where it belonged. She stuffed the cassette 34 sh
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1
into her purse, along with Madeleine’s black leather Filofax. These 2
smaller items she could take back to her office for review. No point 3
in hanging out in Madeleine’s office any longer than she had to.
4
Kate was moving on to the next file when the door swung open.
5
Her head snapped up and she was face to face with Martin Drescher.
6
Drescher stared at her incredulously, his eyes bulging froglike 7
from beneath bushy brows. “What are you doing here?”
8
Kate tried to stay calm. After all, she had every right to be here.
9
She was simply following instructions.
10
“Carter Mills asked me to prepare a summary of Madeleine’s 11
files,” she said, gratified to find that her voice held steady.
12
Drescher’s face had taken on the same orange-redness as his 13
hair. Even from across the room, Kate could smell stale tobacco 14
mingled with a fetid sweetness. Breath mints, perhaps?
15
“Let me make myself clear, Ms. Paine. I want you to get the hell 16
out of this office.”
17
Kate hesitated. She’d worked for Drescher, knew how quickly 18
his anger could escalate. But Mills was counting on her to get this 19
job done.
20
“Maybe I should at least call Carter,” she said, glancing toward 21
the phone on Madeleine’s desk.
22
“Ms. Paine, I said I’d take care of it,” Drescher bellowed. “Have 23
I —”
24
“Yes, of course,” Kate said quickly. She picked up her purse and 25
legal pad from Madeleine’s desk. “I’m sorry if I’ve done something 26
wrong,” she said, in a last-ditch attempt to salvage what remained 27
of the encounter.
28
Drescher gazed stonily ahead. If he heard Kate, he did not let on.
29
As Kate headed toward the door, she heard a rustle of papers.
30
Glancing back, she saw that Martin Drescher was already ab-31
sorbed, flipping rapidly through the files on Madeleine Waters’s desk.
32
w
33
Back in her office, Kate immediately picked up the phone and ort 34
called Carter Mills. Clara picked up. “He’s not in, Kate. Is there reg 35
anything I can do?”
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“I . . . if you can just tell him I called. Do you know when he’ll 1
be back?”
2
“He didn’t say. I’d guess within the hour, though. I don’t see any-3
thing on his calendar.”
4
Kate hung up. Where should she go from here? When in doubt, 5
make a list. Reaching in her purse for a pen, her fing
ers closed on 6
an unfamiliar object. She pulled it out, to see what it was.
7
The cassette tape from Madeleine’s desk.
8
And with it, Madeleine’s date book.
9
Kate bit her lip. In her haste to get out of Madeleine’s office, 10
she’d forgotten about the objects she’d pocketed for later review.
11
It is critical to the investigation that you leave everything just as you 12
found it. That’s what Mills’s protocol said. She considered re-13
turning the objects now, before they could be missed. But that 14
wouldn’t work. Drescher was probably still there. She’d have 15
to wait. If she was lucky, she could get Carmen to slip the items 16
back into Madeleine’s desk before anyone knew they were gone.
17
Until then, she might as well see what she had. If Mills coun-18
tered Martin Drescher’s directive, she’d have to make up for the 19
lost time.
20
Kate opened the cover of Madeleine’s Filofax. The first section 21
of the book contained a calendar of the week-at-a-glance variety.
22
Three days on one page, four on the adjacent leaf, with Saturday 23
and Sunday squished into a single tiny block. Madeleine had al-24
ready swapped out last year’s pages. The calendar seemed to be de-25
voted to private matters. Madeleine must have used this book as a 26
personal reminder, a supplement to some more comprehensive cal-27
endar that she probably kept on her office PC.
28
Kate scanned the few entries before Madeleine’s death, noted in 29
a small, precise hand. A haircut at Louis Licari. An alumni event 30
at Columbia. An appointment with a personal trainer from the 31
Madison Square Club. Then she came to January 5, the day Mad-32
eleine was killed. A single penciled notation. Dinner with Chuck 33
Thorpe. Ormond. 8 p.m. Kate stared at the entry as Thorpe’s face 34 sh
rose up in her mind. She recalled the smile he’d flashed her across 35 re
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the conference table, rife with animal cunning. She thought of 2
Carmen Rodriguez’s bitter words. Made her have dinner with him and 3
God knows what else. Was it just a coincidence that Madeleine had 4
dinner plans with Thorpe on the same night that she was killed?
5
On Wednesday, Thorpe had seemed truly angry, furious that he’d 6
been stood up. But could the whole thing have been an act?
7
Kate examined another few pages. Appointments that Mad-8
eleine would never keep. She found herself thinking about a 9
childhood friend. Julia, that was her name, had come up with the 10
concept of a death day. “Just like each year you have a birthday.
11
Each year, there’s the day that someday you’ll die. You just don’t 12
know what that day is.” That was back in the fifth grade. But the 13
idea had exerted a morbid fascination, and Kate had never forgot-14
ten it.
15
The notations for the days after Madeleine’s death were few and 16
far between. On January 24, she’d planned to have dinner with 17
SH. Kate paused for a moment, but the initials didn’t strike a bell.
18
On the following Thursday, she’d scheduled dinner with MD. Mar-19
tin Drescher? Turning back, Kate glanced at the days preceding 20
Madeleine’s death. Two dinners with MD, within a few days of 21
each other.
22
A sharp knock on the half-open office door. Before Kate could 23
respond, Carmen Rodriguez stormed into the room. From her rapid 24
breathing, Kate could tell that Carmen was upset.
25
“Martin Drescher was in Madeleine’s office when I got back.”
26
Carmen glared at Kate.
27
Kate raised her hands, in a show of helplessness. “Look, I’m 28
really sorry, but he just kicked me out. There wasn’t anything I 29
could do. When I talk to Carter, I’ll tell him it wasn’t your fault.”
30
Carmen’s features relaxed slightly. “When he left, he took a 31
file,” she said, her voice calmer than at first. “I tried to stop him. I 32
told him that Carter wanted everything accounted for. Everything 33
left like it was. But he ignored me. He wouldn’t even tell me what ort 34
he took.”
reg 35
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“Oh, great.” Kate rubbed her forehead. She could really use a 1
massage. Then, looking back at Carmen, she tried to muster a 2
smile. “Thanks for telling me. I’ll definitely let Carter know.”
3
“Okay, then.” Carmen left the room.
4
Kate looked back at the book on her desk. She quickly flipped 5
through the address portion of the date book — entirely free of en-6
tries — and then the memo and budget sections. Again, nothing.
7
Her review complete, Kate snapped closed the leather flap and 8
stowed the book in the top right-hand drawer of her desk.
9
Next came the cassette. Because the tape was unlabeled, she 10
couldn’t tell which side was first. Kate turned to a portable tape 11
player on the window ledge behind her desk. She opened the cas-12
sette compartment, flipped out a Cranberries tape, and snapped in 13
Madeleine’s tape. Then she pressed Play.
14
She’d just begun an ineffectual search for the case belonging to 15
the Cranberries cassette — why were those little plastic boxes so 16
hard to keep track of? — when a male voice broke the room’s si-17
lence. Turning up the sound she could just make out the muffled 18
end of a sentence, “— good time.” Then a woman’s voice, still 19
fainter and hard to understand. Kate caught the words “end of my 20
rope” and “can’t make me” — the last phrase uttered in a defiant 21
tone. And then the male voice again: “You think Ron can’t get any 22
girl he wants? You should be flattered.”
23
With a start, Kate realized that the male voice belonged to 24
Chuck Thorpe. She lowered her ear closer to the cassette player.
25
The woman’s response was incomprehensible, though there was no 26
mistaking her agitation. The next words that Kate could make out 27
were Thorpe’s. “I’m counting on you, baby. If you get my drift.”
28
This pronouncement was followed by footsteps and the sound of a 29
slamming door. A moment later, Kate heard a muffled click. Then 30
she was left with dead air.
31
She listened for a few moments more before fast forwarding to 32
see if the recording resumed. There didn’t seem to be anything 33
more. Kate turned off the recorder. What she seemed to have 34 sh
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stumbled on was a recording of Chuck Thorpe putting the screws 2
on someone. Could it be Madeleine? But even with the fuzziness of 3
the recording, she’d detected a nasal twang to the woman’s voice, 4
nothing like Madeleine’s uninflected speech. Besides, Kate simply 5
couldn’t imagine Madeleine subjecting herself to this sort of abuse.
6
No, it must be someone vulnerable to Thorpe, someone over 7
whom he exercised power.
8
Kate rewound the tape and played it back. You think Ron can’t get 9
any girl he wants? You should be flattered. Ron. She recognized the 10
name from the draft complaint. Ron Fogarty. The music executive 11
who had figured in Friedman’s allegations. Essentially, she’d 12
claimed that Thorpe had acted as Fogarty’s pimp, coercing female 13
employees to have sex with him. Could the woman on the tape be 14
Stephanie Friedman? Or one of the other women?
15
It seemed to fit.
16
Revulsion flooded over Kate, and she had to struggle to stay 17
clearheaded. “You’re a lawyer, ” she told herself. “Lawyers defend 18
their clients. ” Besides, she didn’t know anything for sure yet.
19
Only one thing was clear: if the recording was what it sounded 20
like, it could be disastrous to Thorpe’s defense. Within weeks, 21
Stephanie Friedman’s lawyers would be starting discovery. If this 22
cassette fell within the scope of their requests — as it undoubtedly 23
would — the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure would require that 24
Samson hand it over. No one would relish the prospect of trial 25
with this sort of ammunition in an opponent’s hands.
26
Where in the hell was Carter Mills?
27
As if on cue, the telephone rang. Kate grabbed the receiver but 28
instead of Mills’s sonorous tones, she heard a woman’s unfamiliar 29
voice.
30
“Ms. Paine? I’m Cathy Valencia, a detective with the New York 31
Police Department. I’m calling about our investigation of Mad-32
eleine Waters’s death. I understand that you were working with 33
Ms. Waters at the time she died.”
ort 34
“I . . . I’d just started.”
reg 35
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“Right. I have a few questions for you. Would now be a conven-1
ient time?”
2