Pretend You Don't See Her

by Mary Higgins Clark

  The same questions over and over, Lacey thought, shaking her head. Had she ever met Heather Landi? Wasn’t it odd that on the basis of a chance meeting in an elevator months earlier, Isabelle Waring had called her to offer an exclusive on the apartment? How often had she seen Waring in the last weeks? For lunches? dinners? end-of-the-day visits?

  “She called early evening ‘sober light,’” Lacey heard herself saying, searching her mind to try to find anything she could tell them that they might not have heard before. “She said that was what the Pilgrims called it; she said she found it a very lonely time.”

  “And she had no old friends to call?”

  “I only know that she called me. Maybe she thought that because I was a single woman in Manhattan, I might be able to help her get some insight into her daughter’s life,” Lacey said. “And death,” she added as an afterthought. She could visualize Isabelle’s sad face, the high cheekbones and wide-set eyes hinting at the beauty she must have been as a young woman. “I think it was almost the way one might talk to a cabdriver or a bartender. You find a sympathetic ear, knowing that you don’t have to worry about that person reminding you of what you said when you get over the difficult time.”

  Do I make sense? she wondered.

  Sloane’s demeanor didn’t give any indication of his reaction. Instead he said, “Let’s talk about how Curtis Caldwell got back into the Waring apartment. There was no sign of forced entry. Isabelle Waring clearly didn’t let him in, then go back and prop herself up on the bed with him there. Did you give him a key?”

  “No, of course not,” Lacey protested. “But wait a minute! Isabelle always left a key in a bowl on the table in the foyer. She told me she did it so that if she ran downstairs for her mail she didn’t have to bother with her key ring. Caldwell could have seen it there and taken it. But what about my apartment?” she protested. “How did someone get in there? I have a doorman.”

  “And an active garage in the building and a delivery entrance. These so-called secured buildings are a joke, Ms. Farrell. You’re in the realty business. You know that.”

  Lacey thought of Curtis Caldwell, pistol in hand, rushing to find her, wanting to kill her. “Not a very good joke.” She realized she was fighting tears. “Please, I want to go home,” she said.

  For a moment she thought that they might keep her there longer, but then Sloane got up. “Okay. You can go now, Ms. Farrell, but I must warn you that formal charges may be pending against you for removing and concealing evidence from a crime scene.”

  I should have talked to a lawyer, Lacey thought. How could I have been such a fool?

  Ramon Garcia, the building superintendent, and his wife, Sonya, were in the process of straightening up Lacey’s apartment when she arrived. “We couldn’t let you come back to this mess,” Sonya told her, running a dust cloth over the top of the bureau in the bedroom. “We put things back in the drawers for you, not your way, I’m sure, but at least things are not still on the floor.”

  “I don’t know how to thank you,” Lacey said. The apartment had been full of police when she left, and she was dreading what she would find when she returned.

  Ramon had just completed replacing the lock. “This was taken apart by an expert,” he said. “And he had the right tools. How come he didn’t pick up your jewelry box?”

  That was the first thing the police had told her to check. Her several gold bracelets, her diamond stud earrings, and her grandmother’s pearls were there, undisturbed.

  “I guess that wasn’t what he was after,” Lacey said. To her own ears her voice sounded low and tired.

  Sonya looked at her sharply. “I’ll come back tomorrow morning. Don’t worry. When you get home from work everything will be shipshape.”

  Lacey walked with them to the door. “Does the dead bolt still work?” she asked Ramon.

  He tried it. “No one’s gonna get in while that’s on, at least without a battering ram. You’re safe.”

  She closed and locked the door behind them. Then she looked around her apartment and shuddered. What have I gotten myself into? she wondered.

  8

  MASCARA AND A LIGHT LIP LINER WERE USUALLY ALL THE cosmetics Lacey wore, but in the morning light, when she saw the shadows under her eyes and noted the pallor of her skin, she added blush and eye shadow and fished in the drawer for lipstick. They did little, however, to brighten her outlook. Even wearing a favorite brown-and-gold jacket didn’t help dispel a sense of gloom. A final check in the mirror told her she still looked limp and weary.

  At the door of the office she paused, took a deep breath, and straightened her shoulders. An incongruous memory hit her. When she was twelve and suddenly taller than the boys in her class, she had started to slump when she walked.

  But Dad told me height was delight, she thought, and he made a game of the two of us walking around with books on our heads. He said walking tall made you look confident to other people.

  And I do need that confidence, she said to herself a few minutes later, when she was summoned to Richard Parker Sr.’s office.

  Rick was in with his father. The elder Parker was obviously angry. Lacey glanced at Rick. No sympathy there, she thought. It really is Parker and Parker today.

  Richard Parker Sr. did not mince words. “Lacey, according to security, you came in here last night with a detective. What was that all about?”

  She told him as simply as she could, explaining that she had decided she had to turn the journal over to the police, but first she needed to make a copy for Heather’s father.

  “You kept concealed evidence in this office?” the older Parker asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “I intended to give it to Detective Sloane today,” she said. She told them about her apartment having been burglarized. “I was only trying to do what Isabelle Waring asked me to do,” she said. “Now it seems I may have committed an indictable offense.”

  “You don’t have to know much law to know that,” Rick interjected. “Lacey, that was really a dumb thing to do.”

  “I wasn’t thinking straight,” she said. “Look, I’m sorry about this, but—”

  “I’m sorry about it too,” Parker Sr. told her. “Have you any appointments today?”

  “Two this afternoon.”

  “Liz or Andrew can handle them for you. Rick, see to it. Lacey, you plan on working the phones for the immediate future.”

  Lacey’s sense of lethargy disappeared. “That’s not fair,” she said, suddenly angry.

  “Nor is it fair to drag this firm into a murder investigation, Ms. Farrell.”

  “I’m sorry, Lacey,” Rick told her.

  But you’re Daddy’s boy on this one, she thought, fighting down the urge to say more.

  As soon as she got to her desk, one of the new secretaries, Grace MacMahon, came over with a cup of coffee and handed it to her. “Enjoy.”

  Lacey looked up to thank her, then strained to hear as Grace tried to tell her something without being overheard. “I got in early today. There was a detective here talking with Mr. Parker. I couldn’t tell what he was saying, but I did hear that it had something to do with you.”

  Sloane was fond of saying that good detective work began with a hunch. After twenty-five years on the force, he had ample proof, for many of his hunches had turned out to be correct. That was why he expounded his theories to Nick Mars as they studied the loose-leaf pages that comprised Heather Landi’s journal.

  “I say that Lacey Farrell still isn’t coming clean with us,” he said angrily. “She’s more involved in this thing than she’s letting on. We know she took the journal out of the apartment; we know she made a copy of it to give to Jimmy Landi.”

  He pointed to the bloodstained pages. “And I’ll tell you something else, Nick. I doubt we’d have seen these if I hadn’t scared her yesterday by telling her that we’d found traces of Isabelle Waring’s blood on the floor of the closet, right where she’d left her briefcase.”

  “And have you though
t of this, Eddie?” Mars asked. “Those pages aren’t numbered. So how do we know that Farrell hasn’t destroyed the ones she didn’t want us to see? It’s called editing. I agree with you. Farrell’s fingerprints aren’t just all over these pages. They’re all over the whole case.”

  * * *

  An hour later, Detective Sloane received a call from Matt Reilly, a specialist in the Latent Print Unit housed in room 506. Matt had run a fingerprint that had been lifted from the outer door of Lacey’s apartment through SAFIS, the Statewide Automated Fingerprint Identification System. He reported it was a match with the fingerprint of Sandy Savarano, a low-level mobster who had been a suspect in a dozen drug-related murders.

  “Sandy Savarano!” Sloane exclaimed. “That’s crazy, Matt. Savarano’s boat blew up with him in it two years ago. We covered his funeral in Woodlawn Cemetery.”

  “We covered someone’s funeral,” Reilly told him dryly. “Dead men don’t break into apartments.”

  For the rest of the day, Lacey watched helplessly as clients she had developed were assigned to other agents. It galled her to pull out the tickler files, make follow-up calls regarding potential sales, and then have to turn the information over to others. It was the way she had started out when she was a rookie, but that was eight years ago.

  She was also made uncomfortable by the feeling of being watched. Rick was constantly in and out of the sales area where her cubicle was located, and she sensed that he was keeping close tabs on her.

  Several times when she went to get a new file, she caught him looking at her. He seemed to be watching her all the time. She had a hunch that by the end of the day, she would be told to stay away from the office until the investigation was concluded, so if she was going to take the copy of Heather’s journal with her, she would have to get it out of her desk when Rick wasn’t looking.

  She finally got her chance to retrieve the pages at ten minutes of five, when Rick was called into his father’s office. She had barely managed to slip the manila envelope into her briefcase when Richard Parker Sr. summoned her to his office and told her she was being suspended.

  9

  “NOT TOO HUNGRY, I HOPE, ALEX?” JAY TAYLOR ASKED AS he checked his watch again. “Lacey isn’t usually this late.”

  It was obvious that he was irritated.

  Mona Farrell jumped to her daughter’s defense. “The traffic is always terrible this time of day, and Lacey might have gotten delayed before she even left.”

  Kit shot her husband a warning glance. “I think with what Lacey has been through, nobody should be upset that she’s a little late. My God, she came within a hair of being killed two days ago, then had her apartment burglarized last night. She certainly doesn’t need to be hassled anymore, Jay.”

  “I agree,” Alex Carbine said heartily. “She’s had a rough couple of days.”

  Mona Farrell looked at Carbine with a grateful smile. She was never totally at ease with her frequently pompous son-in-law. It didn’t take much to make him testy, and he usually had little patience with anyone, but she had noticed that he was deferential to Alex.

  This evening they were having cocktails in the living room, while the boys were watching television in the den. Bonnie was with the grown-ups, however, having begged to stay up past her bedtime to see Lacey. She was standing at the window, watching for her.

  It’s eight-fifteen, Mona thought. Lacey was due here at seven-thirty. This really isn’t like her. What can be keeping her?

  The full impact of everything that was happening hit Lacey when she arrived home at five-thirty and realized that for practical purposes she was out of a job. Parker Sr. had promised that she would continue to receive her base salary —“For a short time to come, at least,” he had said.

  He’s going to fire me, she realized. He’s going to use the excuse that I jeopardized the firm by copying and concealing evidence there. I’ve worked for him for eight years. I’m one of his best agents. Why would he even want to get rid of me? His own son gave me Curtis Caldwell’s name and told me to set up an appointment. And I bet he’s not planning to give me any of the severance due after so many years of employment. He’ll say the firing’s for cause. Can he get away with that? It looks like I’m about to be in trouble on several fronts, she thought, shaking her head at the sudden bad fortune that had come her way. I need to talk to a lawyer, but who?

  A name came to her mind. Jack Regan!

  He and his wife, Margaret, a couple in their mid-fifties, lived on the fifteenth floor of her building. She had chatted with them at a cocktail party last Christmas and remembered hearing people ask him about a criminal case he had just won.

  She decided to call right away, but then found that their phone number wasn’t listed.

  The worst thing that can happen is that they’ll slam the door in my face, Lacey decided, as she took the elevator to the fifteenth floor. Ringing their bell, she realized that she was glancing nervously around in the corridor.

  Their surprise at seeing her gave way to a genuinely warm welcome. They were having a predinner sherry and insisted she join them. They had heard about the burglary.

  “That’s part of the reason that I’m here,” she began.

  Lacey left an hour later, having retained Regan to represent her in the likely event that she was facing indictment for holding on to the journal pages.

  “The least of the charges would be obstructing governmental administration,” Regan had told her. “But if they believe you had an ulterior motive for taking the journal, it could get a lot more serious than that.”

  “My only motive was to keep a promise to a dying woman,” Lacey protested.

  Regan smiled, but his eyes were serious. “You don’t have to convince me, Lacey, but it wasn’t the smartest thing to do.”

  She kept her car in the garage in the basement of her building, a luxury that, if everything went as she feared, she probably could no longer afford. It was one of several unpleasant realizations she had had to face that day.

  The rush hour was over, but even so there was a lot of traffic. I’ll be an hour late, Lacey thought as she inched her car across the George Washington Bridge, where a blocked lane was creating havoc. Jay must be in a wonderful mood, she thought, smiling ruefully but genuinely worried about keeping her family waiting.

  As she drove along Route 4 she debated how much she would tell them about what was going on. Everything, I guess, she finally decided. If Mom or Kit call me at the office and I’m not there, they’ll have to know why.

  Jack Regan is a good lawyer, she assured herself as she turned onto Route 17. He’ll straighten this out.

  She glanced in her rearview mirror. Was that car following her? she wondered, as she exited onto Sheridan Avenue. Stop it, she warned herself. You’re getting paranoid.

  Kit and Jay lived on a quiet street in a section of pricey homes. Lacey pulled up to the curb in front of their house, got out of the car, and started up the walk.

  “She’s here,” Bonnie called out joyously, “Lacey’s here!” She ran for the door.

  “About time,” Jay grunted.

  “Thank God,” Mona Farrell murmured. She knew that despite Alex Carbine’s presence, Jay was about to explode with irritation.

  Bonnie tugged at the door and opened it. As she raised her arms for Lacey’s hug, there was the sound of shots, and bullets whistled past them. A flash of pain coursed through her head, and Lacey threw herself forward, her body covering Bonnie’s. It sounded as though the screams were coming from inside the house, but at that moment Lacey’s whole mind seemed to be screaming.

  In the sudden quiet that followed the shots, she quickly ran a mental check of the situation. The pain she felt was real, but she realized with a stab of anguish that the gush of blood against her neck was coming from the small body of her niece.

  10

  IN THE WAITING ROOM ON THE PEDIATRICS FLOOR OF HACKENSACK Medical Center, a doctor smiled reassuringly at Lacey. “Bonnie had a close call, but s
he’ll make it. And she’s very insistent, Ms. Farrell, that she wants to see you.”

  Lacey was with Alex Carbine. After Bonnie was wheeled out of the operating room, Mona, Kit, and Jay had followed her crib to her room. Lacey had not gone with them.

  My fault, my fault—it was all she could think. She was only vaguely aware of the headache caused by the bullet that had creased her skull. In fact, her whole mind and body seemed numb, floating in a kind of unreality, not yet fully comprehending the horror of all that was happening.

  The doctor, understanding her concern and aware that she was blaming herself, said, “Ms. Farrell, trust me, it will take a while for that arm and shoulder to mend, but eventually she’ll be as good as new. Children heal fast. And they forget fast too.”

  As good as new, Lacey thought bitterly, staring straight ahead. She was rushing to open the door for me—that’s all she was doing. Bonnie was just waiting for me. And it almost cost her her life. Can anything ever be “good as new” again?

  “Lacey, go on in and see Bonnie,” Alex Carbine urged.

  Lacey turned to look at him, remembering with gratitude how Alex had dialed 911 while her mother tried to stem the blood that was spurting from Bonnie’s shoulder.

  In her niece’s room, Lacey found Jay and Kit sitting on either side of the crib. Her mother was at the foot, now icy calm, her trained nurse’s eyes observant.

  Bonnie’s shoulder and upper arm were heavily bandaged. In a sleepy voice she was protesting, “I’m not a baby. I don’t want to he in a crib.” Then she spotted Lacey and her face brightened. “Lacey!”

  Lacey tried to smile. “Snazzy-looking bandage, girlfriend. Where do I sign it?”

  Bonnie smiled back at her. “Did you get hurt too?”

  Lacey bent over the crib. Bonnie’s arm was resting on a pillow.