Pretend You Don't See Her

by Mary Higgins Clark

  “Lacey, how about a cup of coffee?” Mars asked.

  “Yes, thank you.” She smiled gratefully at him, then warned herself again: Watch out. Remember—good guy/ bad guy. It was clear Detective Sloane had something new on his agenda.

  “Ms. Farrell, I’d just like to review a few things about this crime. You were pretty upset when you dialed 911 last night.”

  Lacey raised her eyebrows. “With good reason,” she said, nodding.

  “Absolutely. And I’d say you were virtually in shock when we talked with you after we got there.”

  “I guess I was.” In truth, most of what had happened last evening was a haze to her.

  “I didn’t escort you to the door when you left, but I understand you had the presence of mind to remember that you’d left your briefcase in the hall closet next to the door of the Waring apartment.”

  “I remembered it as I passed the closet, yes.”

  “Do you remember that the photographers were taking pictures at that time?”

  She thought back. The film of powder on the furniture. The flashes of light.

  “Yes, I do,” she replied.

  “Would you look at this picture then, please?” Sloane slid an eight-by-ten photograph across the desk. “Actually,” he explained, “what you see is an enlargement of a section of a routine shot taken in the foyer.” He nodded to the younger man. “Detective Mars picked up this little detail.”

  Lacey stared at the picture. It showed her in profile, gripping her briefcase, holding it away from Rick Parker as he reached for it.

  “So you not only remembered to get your briefcase, but you insisted on carrying it yourself.”

  “Well, in good part that’s my nature. And with my coworkers I feel it’s especially important to be self-reliant,” Lacey explained, her voice low and calm. “In truth, though, I probably was acting on automatic pilot. I really don’t remember what was in my head.”

  “No, I think you do,” Detective Sloane said. “In fact, I think you were acting very deliberately. You see, Ms. Farrell, there were traces of blood in that closet—Isabelle Waring’s blood. Now how would it have gotten there, do you suppose?”

  Heather’s journal, Lacey thought. The bloodstained loose-leaf pages. A couple of them had fallen on the carpet in the closet as she was jamming them into the briefcase. And of course her hands had been bloody. But she couldn’t tell this to the detective—not yet, anyway. She still needed time to study the pages. She looked at her hands, resting in her lap. I should say something, she thought. But what?

  Sloane leaned across the desk, his manner more aggressive, even accusatory. “Ms. Farrell, I don’t know what your game is, or what you’re not telling us, but clearly this was no ordinary murder. The man who called himself Curtis Caldwell didn’t rob that apartment or kill Isabelle Waring at random. The whole crime was carefully planned and executed. Your appearance on the scene was the only thing that probably did not go according to plan.” He paused, then continued, his voice filled with irritation. “You told us he was carrying Mrs. Waring’s leather binder. Describe it to me again.”

  “The description won’t change,” Lacey said. “It was the size of a standard loose-leaf binder and had a zipper around it so that when it was closed nothing would fall out.”

  “Ms. Farrell, have you ever seen this before?” Sloane shoved a sheet of paper across the table.

  Lacey looked at it. It was a loose-leaf page covered with writing. “I can’t be sure,” she said.

  “Read it, please.”

  She skimmed it. It was dated three years earlier. It began, Baba came to see the show again. Took all of us back to the restaurant for dinner...

  Heather’s journal, she thought. I must have missed this page. How many more did I miss? she wondered suddenly.

  “Have you ever seen this before?” Sloane asked her again.

  “Yesterday afternoon when I brought the man I know as Curtis Caldwell to see the apartment, Isabelle was in the library, seated at the desk. The leather binder was open, and she was reading loose-leaf pages that she’d taken out of it. I can’t be positive that this is one of them, but it probably is.”

  At least that much is true, she thought. Suddenly she regretted not taking time this morning to make copies of the journal before going to the station.

  That was what she had decided to do—give the original to the police, a copy to Jimmy Landi, and keep a copy for herself. Isabelle’s intention was that Jimmy read the journal; she clearly had felt that he might see something significant in it. He should be able to read a copy as well as the original, as could she, since, for whatever reason, Isabelle had made her promise to read the pages too.

  “We found that page in the bedroom, under the chaise,” Sloane told her. “Maybe there were other loose pages. Do you think that’s possible?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “Let’s get back to the smear of Isabelle Waring’s blood we found in the downstairs closet. Do you have any idea how that got there?”

  “I had Isabelle’s blood on my hands,” Lacey said. “You know that.”

  “Oh, yes, I know that, but your hands weren’t dripping with blood when you grabbed that briefcase of yours as you were leaving last night. So what happened? Did you put something in that briefcase before we got there, something you took from Isabelle Waring’s bedroom? I think so. Why don’t you tell us what it was? Were there perhaps more pages like the one you just read scattered around her room? Is that a good guess?”

  “Take it easy, Eddie. Give Lacey a chance to answer,” Mars urged him.

  “Lacey can have all the time she wants, Nick,” Sloane snapped. “But the truth is going to be the same. She took something from that room; I’m sure of it. And don’t you wonder why an innocent bystander would take something like that from the victim’s home? Can you guess why?” he asked Lacey.

  She wanted desperately to tell them she had the journal, and why she had it. But if I do, she thought, they’ll demand I turn it over immediately. They won’t let me make a copy for Heather’s father. And I certainly can’t tell them I’m making a copy for myself; they’re reacting as though I had something to do with Isabelle’s death, she thought. I’ll give the original to them tomorrow.

  She stood up. “No, I can’t. Are you finished with me, Detective Sloane?”

  “For today I am, Ms. Farrell, yes. But please keep in mind that being an accessory after the fact in a murder investigation carries serious penalties. Criminal penalties,” he added, putting a touch of menace into the words. “And one other thing: if you did take any of those pages, I have to wonder just how ‘innocent’ a bystander you were. After all, you did happen to be responsible for bringing the killer into Isabelle Waring’s home.”

  Lacey left without responding. She had to get to the office, but first she was going to go home to get Heather Landi’s journal. She would stay at her desk this evening until everyone else had left and make the copies she needed. Tomorrow she would turn over the original to Sloane. I’ll try to make him understand why I took it, she thought nervously.

  She started to hail a cab, then decided to walk home. The midafternoon sun felt good. She still had the sensation of being chilled to the bone. As she crossed Second Avenue, she sensed someone close behind her and spun around quickly to meet the puzzled eyes of an elderly man.

  “Sorry,” she mumbled as she darted to the curb.

  I expected to see Curtis Caldwell, Lacey thought, upset to realize she was trembling. If the journal was what he was after, then he didn’t get it. Would he come back for it? He knows I saw him and can identify him as a murderer. Until the police caught Caldwell—if they caught him—she was in danger, she was certain of that. She tried to force the thought out of her mind.

  The lobby of her building felt like a sanctuary, but when Lacey got off at her floor, the long corridor seemed frightening and, key in hand, she hurried to the apartment and quickly dashed inside.

  I’ll never carry this briefcase again, she
vowed as she retrieved it from under the couch and carried it into the bedroom and set it on her desk, carefully avoiding touching the bloody handle.

  Gingerly she removed the journal pages from the briefcase, wincing at the sight of the ones stained with blood. Finally she put them all in a manila envelope and fished around in her closet for a tote bag.

  Ten minutes later, that bag firmly under her arm, she stepped out onto the street. As she nervously hailed a cab she tried to convince herself that whoever Caldwell was, and for whatever reason he had killed Isabelle, he must surely be miles away by now, on the run.

  6

  SANDY SAVARANO, ALIAS CURTIS CALDWELL, WAS TAKING no chances of being recognized as he used a pay phone down the block from Lacey Farrell’s apartment building. He wore a gray wig over his sandy hair, there was a graying stubble covering his cheeks and chin, and his lawyer’s suit had been replaced by a shapeless sweater worn over faded jeans. “When Farrell left the police station she walked home and went inside,” he said as he glanced down the street. “I’m not going to hang around. There’s a squad car parked across from her building. It may be there to keep an eye on her.”

  He had started walking west, then changed his mind and turned back. He decided to watch the police car for a while as a test of his theory that the policemen had been assigned to guard Lacey Farrell. He didn’t have to wait long. He watched from half a block away as the familiar figure of a young woman in a black suit, carrying a tote bag, emerged from the building and hailed a cab. As it sped away, he looked to see what the cops in the squad car would do. A moment later a car ran the red light at the corner, and the flashing lights on the roof of the squad car went on as it leaped from the curb.

  Good, he thought. That’s one less thing to get in my way.

  7

  AFTER THEY RETURNED TO THE RESTAURANT FROM MAKING arrangements for Isabelle’s cremation, Jimmy Landi and Steve Abbott went directly to Jimmy’s office. Steve poured liberal amounts of scotch into tumblers and placed one of them on Landi’s desk, commenting, “I think we both need this.”

  Landi reached for the glass. “I know I do. This has been an awful day.”

  Isabelle would be cremated when her body was released and her ashes taken to Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Westchester to be placed in the family mausoleum.

  “My parents, my child, my ex-wife will be together up there,” he said, looking up at Abbott. “It doesn’t make sense, does it, Steve? Some guy claims he’s looking to buy an apartment, then comes back and kills Isabelle, a defenseless woman. It’s not like she was flashing expensive jewelry. She didn’t have any. She never even cared for that stuff.”

  His face contorted in a mixture of anger and anguish. “I told her she had to get rid of the apartment! Her going on and on about Heather’s death, worrying that it wasn’t an accident! She was driving herself crazy over it—and me too —and being in that apartment just made it worse. Besides, she needed the money. That Waring guy she married didn’t leave her a dime. I just wanted her to get on with her life. And then she gets killed!” His eyes glistened with tears. “Well, she’s with Heather now. Maybe that’s where she wanted to be. I don’t know.”

  Abbott, in an obvious effort to change the subject, cleared his throat and said, “Jimmy, Cynthia is coming over around ten for dinner. How about joining us?”

  Landi shook his head. “No, but thanks, I appreciate it. You’ve been wet-nursing me for almost a year, Steve, ever since Heather died, but it can’t go on. I’ll be okay. Stop worrying about me and pay attention to your girlfriend. Are you going to marry her?”

  “I’m not rushing into anything,” Abbott said, smiling. “Two divorces are enough.”

  “You’re right. That’s why I stayed single all these years. And you’re young still. You’ve got a long way to go.”

  “Not so long. Don’t forget I turned forty-five last spring.”

  “Yeah? Well, I turn sixty-eight next month,” Jimmy said with a grunt. “But don’t go counting me out yet. I’ve still got a long way to go before I cash in my chips. And don’t you forget it!”

  Then he winked at Abbott. Both men smiled. Abbott swallowed the last of his scotch and stood. “You bet you have. And I’m counting on it. When we open our place in Atlantic City, the rest of them might as well close their doors. Right?”

  Abbott noticed Jimmy Landi glancing at his watch and said, “Well, I’d better get downstairs and do some glad-handing.”

  Shortly after Abbott had left, the receptionist buzzed Jimmy. “Mr. Landi, a Miss Farrell wants to talk to you. She says to tell you she’s the realtor who was working with Mrs. Waring.”

  “Put her on,” he snapped.

  Back in the office, Lacey had responded to Rick Parker’s questions about her interview with Detective Sloane with noncommittal answers. “He showed me pictures. Nobody looked anything like Caldwell.”

  Once again she declined Rick’s offer of dinner. “I want to catch up on some paperwork,” she said with a wan smile.

  And it’s true, she thought.

  She waited until everyone in the domestic real estate division left before carrying the tote bag to the copier, where she made two copies of Heather’s journal, one for Heather’s father, one for herself. Then she placed a call to Landi’s restaurant.

  The conversation was brief: Jimmy Landi would be waiting for her.

  Pretheater was a busy taxi time, but she was in luck: a cab was just discharging a passenger right in front of her office building. Lacey raced across the sidewalk and jumped in the taxi just before someone else tried to claim it. She gave the address of Venezia on West Fifty-sixth Street, leaned back and closed her eyes. Only then did she relax her grip on the tote bag, though she still held it securely under her arm. Why was she so uneasy? she wondered. And why did she have the sensation of being watched?

  At the restaurant she could see that the dining room was full and the bar jammed. As soon as she gave her name, the receptionist signaled the maitre d’.

  “Mr. Landi is waiting for you upstairs, Ms. Farrell,” he told her.

  On the phone she had said simply that Isabelle had found Heather’s journal and wanted him to have it.

  But when she was in his office, sitting opposite the brooding, solid-looking man, Lacey felt as though she were firing at a wounded target. Even so, she felt she had to be straightforward in telling him Isabelle Waring’s dying words.

  “I promised to give the journal to you,” she said. “And I promised to read it myself. I don’t know why Isabelle wanted me to read it. Her exact words were ‘Show... him... where.’ She wanted me to show you something in it. I suspect that for some reason she thought I’d find what it was that apparently confirmed her suspicion that your daughter’s death was not a simple accident. I’m trying to obey her wishes.” She opened her tote bag and took out the set of pages she had brought with her.

  Landi glanced at them, then turned away.

  Lacey was sure that the sight of his daughter’s handwriting was starkly painful to the man, but his only comment was a testy, “These aren’t the originals.”

  “I don’t have the original pages with me. I’m giving them to the police in the morning.”

  His face flushed with sudden anger. “That’s not what Isabelle asked you to do.”

  Lacey stood up. “Mr. Landi, I don’t have a choice. Surely you understand that it’s going to take a lot of explaining to the police to make them understand why I removed evidence from a murder scene. I’m certain that eventually the original pages will be returned to you, but for now, I’m afraid you’ll have to make do with a copy.” As will I, she said to herself as she left.

  He did not even look up as she walked out.

  When Lacey arrived at her apartment, she turned on the entrance light and had taken several steps inside before the chaos in front of her registered. Drawers had been spilled, closets ransacked, furniture cushions had been tossed on the floor. Even the refrigerator had been emptied and left op
en. Appalled and terrified, she stared at the mess, then stumbled through the debris to call the superintendent; while he dialed 911, she put in a call to Detective Sloane.

  He arrived shortly after the local precinct cops. “You know what they were looking for, don’t you,” Sloane said matter-of-factly.

  “Yes, I do,” Lacey told him. “Heather Landi’s journal. But it’s not here. It’s in my office. I hope whoever did this hasn’t gone there.”

  In the squad car on the way to her office, Detective Sloane read Lacey her rights. “I was keeping the promise I made to a dying woman,” she protested. “She asked me to read the journal and then give it to Heather Landi’s father, and that’s what I’ve done. I took him a copy this evening.”

  When they got to her office, Sloane did not leave her side as she unlocked the cabinet and reached for the manila envelope in which she had placed the original pages of the journal.

  He opened the clasp, pulled out a few of the sheets, studied them, then looked at her. “You’re sure you’re giving me everything?”

  “This is everything that was with Isabelle Waring when she died,” Lacey said, hoping he wouldn’t press her. While it was the truth, it wasn’t the whole truth: The copy of the journal pages that she had made for herself was locked in her desk.

  “We’d better go down to headquarters, Ms. Farrell. We need to talk about this whole thing a bit more, I believe.”

  “My apartment,” she protested. “Please. I have to clean it up.” I sound ridiculous, she thought. Someone may have killed Isabelle because of Heather’s journal, and I might have been killed if I’d been home tonight, and all I can think of is the mess there. She realized that her head was aching. It was after ten o’clock and she hadn’t had anything to eat for hours.

  “Your apartment can wait to be cleaned,” Sloane told her brusquely. “We need to go over all this now.”

  But when they reached the precinct station, he did have Detective Nick Mars send out for a sandwich and coffee for her. Then he began. “All right, let’s take this from the top again, Ms. Farrell,” he said.