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Authors: Michael Craft

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Covering her face with her hands, the yogi slumped to the floor and burst into tears. Neil and I stepped forward and knelt with the woman, trying to comfort her.
But Esmond snapped. Gillian had apparently pushed him beyond the limits of his serenity training. Without hesitation, he stepped in front of Tamra, raised his left hand, and bitch-slapped his wife.
“Why, Esmond,” she said, utterly unruffled, “I didn't know you had it in you.” Her tone, for once, was anything but snide; she sounded proud of her wimpy husband for standing up to her.
“Yeah, well, it seems there's a
lot
you don't know about me—and never will.” He leaned down and helped Tamra to her feet, telling her, “Let's get some air. The stench in here is nauseating.”
Tamra stared for a moment at Gillian's face as if looking into a mirror. The stinging welt on Tamra's left cheek matched the one Esmond had planted on Gillian's right. Tamra opened her mouth, intending to speak, but quickly reconsidered. Turning, she steadied herself on Esmond's arm, and he led her from the room.
“Are you all right?” I heard him ask as they reached the foyer.
I didn't hear Tamra's mumbled answer.
“Gillian,” said Neil, “I hope we've seen the last of these outbursts. Try that on the wrong person, and you could find yourself behind bars.”
She smirked. “I highly doubt that. Besides, it was almost
worth
the payback from Esmond.” She rubbed her cheek, wincing. “Now, at least, I know how to get a rise out of him.”
Needless to say, I now wished that my curiosity about the curtains had not prompted me to visit the Reece house that morning. I'd seen far more than I'd bargained for, and most disturbing of all was the perverse pleasure Gillian took in being struck by her husband. I now seriously questioned the wisdom of my endorsement of the impending merger. Did I really want to put this woman at the helm of the company my uncle Edwin had founded?
Without elaborating, I told Neil and Gillian, “I need to go.”
“Me too,” said Neil. “I've got to find Todd before he blows out of town.”
With perfunctory good-byes to Gillian, we took our leave and stepped from the living room to the foyer. Opening the front door for Neil, I told him, under my breath, “Let's get the hell out of here before there's any
more
trouble.”
“Oops,” said Neil, looking down the sidewalk. “Too late, methinks.”
And up from the street strutted Glee Savage. Today's ensemble was black and white, stark and tasteful. Her oversize purse sported zebra stripes.
Meeting her halfway along the brick walk, we greeted her with hugs. After a round of hellos, I asked inanely, “What brings you to these parts, Glee?”
“Have you forgotten? I need to talk to Gillian.”
“Uh,” said Neil, “this morning may not be the best time for that. Gillian seems a tad—shall we say—vexed at the moment.”
Glee shrugged. “Then my visit should lighten her emotional load. I'm here only to apologize for yesterday's unfortunate run-in. I feel terrible about it. And I'll be sweet as pie—I want that photo feature for this weekend.” She winked.
“Good for you, Glee.” I laughed. “Work your magic on her.”
And she stepped up to the front door.
As Neil and I walked back to our cars, he shook his head, muttering, “If photos are running this weekend, let's hope they show curtains.”
Then we got into our cars and went our separate ways, I to my office at the
Register,
Neil in search of Todd Draper.
M
y morning at the office turned busy, not with breaking news, but with the everyday minutiae of running a business—a meeting with bankers, another with a potential new advertiser we were courting, and a third with representatives of our writers' guild, whose contract was up for renewal. Everything went routinely; in fact, the proceedings were dull. But I was grateful for the distraction, which occupied my mind and prevented my thoughts from lingering on the disturbing confrontations that had jump-started my day with a surge of adrenaline that caffeine couldn't match. My nascent hangover from the previous night's cognac had been nipped in the bud, and I was cruising noonward at warp speed.
Sometime after eleven, when my last meeting ended, I returned to my office to check proofs and read mail at my desk. Adrift in this sea of printed words—an altogether pleasant experience, compatible with my calling in life—I was rattled to the bone when my cocoon of silence was shattered by the twangy strains of the
William Tell
Overture seeping from my trousers.
I instantly stood, as if I'd discovered a venomous reptile in my pocket and needed to be rid of it—fast. I'd forgotten I was even carrying the phone, convinced that I'd broken it, rendering it harmless. But there it was, resurrected, taunting me from the warm, dark depths of
my pants. Esmond Reece, I recalled, was partially responsible for this intrusion, having invented some crucial thingamabob that had changed the world. I cursed him as I plucked his demon spawn from my pocket and flung it on the desk.
It continued to chirp, like some large black insect, and I decided the only way to silence it was to answer it. So I lifted the phone gingerly and flipped it open, wondering who was calling. It wasn't Lucy; I could see her through the glass wall of my outer office, leaning over someone's desk in the newsroom. Perhaps it was Neil, reporting on his search for Todd Draper. Curious to hear his update, I punched the green button and answered, “Yes?”
“Good morning, sir. I understand from our database that your investment portfolio—”
I punched the red button.
Then I stepped out to the newsroom. “
Lucy
,” I called across the hubbub. When she looked in my direction, I motioned her inside.
“Yes, Mark?” she said, stepping into my office. “What's up?”
“This
phone,
” I groused, pointing to it on my desk, not wanting to touch it.
She picked it up. “Something wrong with it?”
“It rings
entirely
too often.”
She grinned. “Welcome to the twenty-first century.”
“That's exactly what Roxanne told me.”
“
Really
?” she squeaked. Lucy was normally on an even keel, nose to the grindstone, but just mention Roxanne, and lesbian Lucy went ditsy. She could barely conceal her infatuation with my Chicago friend, now a married woman. Roxanne, in turn, took this doting as a profound compliment, a response rooted not so much in tolerance as in vanity.
“She sends her best, by the way,” I lied.
Lucy beamed. When her feet touched ground again, she asked, “So what's the problem with the phone?”
I sighed. “It's not just that it rings too often; it's
how
it rings. It's doing
William Tell
.”
“Huh?” A computer whiz, a crack researcher, and a true-blue techie, Lucy was left-brain all the way. Artswise, she was clueless.
I sang, “Ta-da-
dump
, ta-da-
dump
, ta-da-
dump
-
dump
-
dump
…”
“Hi-yo, Silver!”
“Yeah. Can you fix it?
Please?
”
She shook her head out of pity for my helplessness, studied the phone for a moment, then tapped a sequence of buttons so quickly you'd have thought she was dialing her own number. “What would you like? They've got Brahms' lullaby …”
“Just make it
ring,”
I said wearily, “like a
phone.”
She shrugged—I was hopelessly square. “How's this?” She played a demo.
“Fine, Lucy. Thanks.”
Placing the phone in its charger on my desk, she said, “As long as I'm here, I was wondering about our coverage of the merger tomorrow. Can I assume Charles Oakland will attend the ceremonial signing?” She winked, acknowledging the open secret of my pen name.
I laughed. “He'll be there.” Then I frowned. “Unless …” I strolled to the conference area in my outer office.
Lucy followed me. “Hmm?”
“Those due diligence issues raised by Tyler Pennell—let's just say that Gillian Reece and Perry Schield don't see eye to eye on the best means of addressing them. Truth is, Gillian doesn't want to address them at all.”
“The signing is scheduled for tomorrow at noon, so I'm holding most of page one for Friday morning's edition.”
“I hate to say it, but I think we should have an alternate layout as backup.” Trying to be helpful, I suggested, “Between now and then,
something
will blow up in the Mideast.”
Lucy's eyes widened. “The deal's in jeopardy?”
I sat at the round table. “I don't know. I hope not.” Reconsidering, I added, “I'm not sure what I hope.”
Sitting in the next chair, she asked warily, “Should I be taking notes?”
“No, but let me fill you in.” My mounting concerns fell into two categories, so I detailed for Lucy, first, what I knew of the accounting inconsistencies
discovered by Tyler Pennell in his perusal of the books at Ashton Mills. Second, and even more disturbing, was the animosity and physical violence that seemed to be spreading from Gillian Reece like a virus. “Until yesterday, I'd only seen bitch slaps on soap operas, but—”
“Since when do you watch soap operas?”
“Well,” I admitted, “I used to watch
Dynasty.
”
Lucy grinned. “Joan Collins fan?”
“Of course. And, brother, she could really smack'em. What a hoot. Point is, till yesterday, I'd never witnessed the real thing, and it was anything but funny. I've now seen four of these assaults, all involving Gillian Reece—twice pitching, twice catching.”
“Really, Mark, sports metaphors just
aren't
your strong suit. Don't even try.” Lucy crossed her trousered legs.
“And oddly”—I paused before I gave words to my thought—“Glee started it.”
Through a skeptical laugh, Lucy said, “Glee? You make her sound like a playground bully.”
“It's a disturbing image, I know. Glee gave me the whole story—a romantic feud with Gillian during their college days. Though I don't approve of physical aggression, I can understand what motivated her. More to the point, it seems Gillian also understood, as if she knew she had it coming. Unfortunately, it didn't end there. Now it's open season.”
“Well, at least Glee's out of the fray. She apologized by phone yesterday, and her piece on the house ran this morning.”
I nodded. “Neil and I ran into her as we were leaving the Reeces' today. Glee was heading inside to make amends in person—and to set up a photo shoot for her Sunday feature. I warned her she was walking into a hornets' nest.”
“I wonder how Glee made out.” Lucy reached for the phone on the conference table. “If we're serious about running a photo feature on Sunday, we need to get hopping.” She tapped in Glee's extension, waited a moment, then groaned. “Voice mail. I'll try Connie.” So she
dialed again, asking the downstairs receptionist, “Is Glee in the building?” She listened, then said, “Thanks, Connie,” and hung up.
I asked, “Well?”
Fingers to chin, thinking, Lucy reported, “Glee hasn't been in the office since she left for the Reece house—hours ago.”
I instinctively stood. “I'm going over there.”
Lucy stood. “I want to go with you.”
So I grabbed my keys and my phone, and we left.
D
riving Lucy to the edge of town, I wondered aloud, “Wouldn't Glee let us know if something had … gone wrong?” My question was prompted not by a premonition of what, precisely, might have gone wrong, but by the series of confrontations I had witnessed that morning. I wasn't sure of the exact definition of “bad karma” (perhaps Tamra Thaine could explain it to me), but I knew it when I saw it, and I had seen it in the Reeces' living room.
“Of course she would,” said Lucy, trying to sound convinced. “Besides, you know Glee—she keeps her own schedule. It doesn't mean a thing that we haven't heard from her.”
Ironically, Lucy's reassuring words seemed only to heighten our concerns. We rode the rest of the way in silence, our somber mood within the car seeming at odds with the colorful autumn landscape that blurred past the windshield.
As we entered the wooded development, I asked, “Have you seen the house yet?” I inflected the question with a bouncy tone, as if the purpose of our drive had no more urgency than sight-seeing.
Lucy shook her head. “From everything I hear, I'm in for a treat.”
“That's putting it mildly.” I tried not to sound facetious.
When we turned the last corner and the new house came into view, Lucy gasped. “Wow, I see what you mean.” The lilt of her voice conveyed
not only her enthusiasm for Neil's impressive architecture, but a sense of relief that our fretting seemed unwarranted. It was apparent at a glance that Glee was not there; her fuchsia hatchback, conspicuous anywhere, was nowhere in sight. In fact, the only vehicle parked at the house was Gillian's hulking Bentley.
“That's odd,” I said, pulling to the curb in front of Gillian's car. “When I was here this morning, there was hardly room to park, with trucks all over the place.” Among those trucks had been the Draper Studios van, now gone.
Removing her seat belt and opening the door, Lucy suggested, “Maybe they all went to lunch; it's noon.”
With a sidelong glance, I told her, “I didn't know tradesmen ‘did' lunch.”
“You snob.”
“I
mean,
don't they generally bring something to the job?”
“Beats me. I'm an office gal.” This was a first—Lucy referring to herself as anything other than a
woman.
As we got out of the car, I paused, looking up and down the vacant stretch of curb. “I'll bet the job is done. Gillian was really cracking the whip, and she knew about that photo feature. Shall we ask her if everything is ironed out with Glee?” I gestured toward the brick walk to the front door.
“Lead on,” said Lucy, and I escorted her up the walkway to the stylized but unpretentious portico that framed the home's entrance.
When I had visited twice before, Neil had accompanied me, walking through the front door unannounced. Amid the surrounding activity of landscaping and decorating crews, this seemed appropriate. Now, however, with the work finished and the lady of the manor home alone, the construction site had been instantly transformed into a private residence. Standing at the door, I rang the bell.
As we waited, Lucy looked about, taking it all in. “Now I understand what Glee meant in this morning's headline about ‘the “ah” factor.' It's breathtaking.”
I was delighted that Lucy shared Glee's enthusiasm for Neil's work; I shared it as well. But at the moment, I was wondering how long it
would take Gillian to answer the door. Had she not heard the bell? Was she soaking in the tub? Or was she simply ignoring us? I pressed the button again.
Lucy said, “I didn't hear chimes. Maybe they're not connected yet. Try the knocker.”
Nodding at this reasonable suggestion, I grasped the handsome, massive brass knocker (which Neil had sent to a metal finisher for nickel plating, claiming, “Yellow metal always looks cheap”) and gave the door a couple of solid clanks. As I did so, the door opened gently before us; though it had been closed, the lock had not caught. Poking my head inside, I called, “Gillian? It's Mark Manning.” Hearing no response, I added, “Anyone home?”
Under her breath, Lucy told me, “Maybe she's on the crapper.”
Wincing at the image Lucy had conjured, I told her, “Gillian's not the type.”
“What does
that
mean?” asked Lucy through a blurt of laughter.
I wanted to shush her, but I wasn't sure why. For some reason, I felt as if our presence there, with my foot through the door, was stealthy. Sidestepping the issue of Gillian's bodily functions, I wondered, “Where is she?”
Lucy grinned. “Maybe she's out on a lunch break with the paperhangers.”
“No,” I said, looking through the doorway, glancing about the foyer, “the walls are finished.” Meaningfully, I added, “But the windows are not.” I stepped inside.
Lucy followed. “My God,” she said, moving to the middle of the foyer, “it's a palace!”
I doubt if Neil would have appreciated the description, as his quest had been to build a home of understated elegance, with the emphasis on
understated
. To Lucy's eyes, however, it was glamour beyond reckoning—and she had seen only the front hall. “Wait till you see the living room,” I told her.
She wandered about the foyer, running her hand over the marble top of a sideboard. “Why, we could get a photographer in here yet this afternoon—except for those boxes.” She wrinkled her nose at
the cartons from Draper Studios that stood unopened beneath each window.
I explained, “I don't know whether Neil caught up with Todd Draper, and if he did, whether Todd agreed to stay on the job. In any event, the curtains aren't hung. The installation was supposed to take several days.”
Lucy arched her brows. “Those must be
some
curtains.”
“Fifty grand worth—in the living room alone. Care to have a peek?”
“Try and stop me.”
“In here,” I said, stepping her to the double doors that led from the front hall. “They were just getting started this morning, and that's when all hell broke loose”—in case the lady of the house was nearby, I lowered my voice—“with Gillian.”
Lucy bumped up behind me as I stopped at the doors, cracked one of them open, and looked inside. “All clear,” I told her, now feeling decidedly stealthy, traipsing through someone else's home. Opening the door wider, I whispered, “Come on. Let's take a quick look.”
And in we went.
Leading Lucy through the middle of the long, elliptical room, heading straight to the fireplace on the far wall, I explained, “Neil designed the living room as a functioning library, surrounding the perimeter with two-story bookcases, accessible by rolling ladders and the winding stairway.” I pointed while continuing, “Full-length windows circle the room. Todd Draper's crew managed to get one of the curtains up before Gillian threw a fit.
There
—I've never paid much attention to curtains, but are those drop-dead, or what?”
Hearing no gushy reply, I glanced over at Lucy, whose wide eyes were riveted not upon the curtains, but on the floor beneath them. Following her gaze, I caught my breath.
There lay Gillian Reece with her limbs at tortuous angles, unmoving, on the cold expanse of limestone. I wasn't sure if she was dead, but I knew she wasn't napping, not like that, twisted at the torso with her face flat against the floor.
Lucy and I rushed from the fireplace to the body on the floor, then knelt, both to get a closer look at the woman and to show our respect
for her presumed condition. Lucy was a seasoned journalist who'd had close encounters with unexplained death; I didn't need to warn her not to touch anything; I didn't need to explain to her that this was not only a front-page story, but a police case.
Had there been any hope of reviving Gillian, we would have attempted CPR. But I found no pulse in her neck, and the purple cast of lividity had already begun to discolor the side of her face against the floor—her right side.
The left side of her face, away from the floor, was gaunt and ashen, except for the cheek, which still seemed rosy, as if burning from the welt of another bitch slap.
Reaching inside my pocket, I found my phone.
 
Within half an hour, the street outside the Reeces' house was filled again, not with tradesmen's vans, but with an array of police vehicles.
Inside, the focus of activity was on the dead woman who lay on the floor. Towering over her was the shimmering, silken expanse of Todd Draper's magnificent curtains.
Sheriff Pierce, who headed Dumont's combined city and county police force, stood aside with Lucy and me. Pulling a notebook from the inside pocket of his green blazer, he asked, “There was no one else in the house when you arrived?”
“We didn't see anyone,” I told him. “We knocked and gave a shout or two, but no one answered. I assume no one else was here, Doug, but it's not as if we checked every room. We came to the living room directly from the foyer.”
He squinted. “And, uh, why exactly were you here?”
“As you saw in today's paper, we were planning to run a photo feature on the new house. Lucy and I wanted to confirm the scheduling.” I didn't mention that we were concerned about the meeting that morning between Glee Savage and Gillian, nor did I mention their confrontation of the previous day. I did detail how we'd found the door unlocked and how it opened when I knocked. “I wouldn't normally walk into someone's front hall like that, without being let in.”
“And what brought you into the living room?”
Sheepishly, Lucy answered, “I wanted to see the curtains.”
We all looked at the single panel of silk that hung near the body. I now noticed that the fringe had come loose or been torn from the top edge of the curtain, hanging to the side. Sealed cartons of more curtains were placed about the room, as earlier that morning, except one of the cartons, which had been opened—up on the balcony, nearest the partially finished window. A bundle of silk hung over the edge of the box; another had fallen or been dropped to the floor, near the rolling library ladder that was parked at the end of the balcony, next to the window.
“The guy who's staying at your house,” said Doug. “Didn't you tell me he made these curtains?”
“Todd Draper.” I nodded. “Well, his workshop in Chicago made the curtains. Todd has a crew to handle the installing, and he's up here to supervise. Since he's worked with Neil on previous jobs, he's staying at our house. The crew must be at a motel.”
Huddled around Gillian's body was a police team consisting of medical and evidence technicians, directed by Dr. Vernon Formhals, who served Dumont County as both coroner and medical examiner. As he rose from his task, his knees cracked. Stepping in our direction, he told Doug, “Too early to draw any conclusions, but it looks accidental.”
A powerful-looking but mellow-voiced black man, Dr. Formhals had a dignified air about him that always struck me as slightly professorial. He spoke with the trace of a Caribbean patois, an accent so barely perceptible, I'd known him at least a year before noticing it. I asked, “Did she fall?”
Formhals glanced at Doug, unsure if he should discuss such details in front of Lucy and me, the press. But Doug and I were known to be close friends, and in fact, we'd cooperated on several previous cases. He had become my primary news source regarding local stories of suspicious death, and I had lent whatever investigative skills I'd acquired during my reporting days at the
Chicago Journal
. He trusted my professionalism and knew that I would never violate his confidence, in print or otherwise. With a grin, he gave the coroner a go-ahead nod.
Formhals told us, “Yes, I presume she fell, sustaining serious injuries.
With no one else present to help, she died. The victim isn't far from the foot of that ladder, and the contorted position of the body indicates a fall. Had she been standing on the floor and been stricken by some sudden, catastrophic condition—say, a heart attack, stroke, or brain hemorrhage—she'd have collapsed, certainly, but the limbs and torso would not have been so twisted. A complete medical-legal autopsy is called for, and I suspect we'll find internal injuries consistent with those of an uncontrolled fall. Obviously, she wasn't shot, stabbed, or bludgeoned; there was no external bleeding.”
By then both Lucy and I had opened our steno pads, joining Doug in taking notes. Lucy asked the coroner, “Then you don't suspect foul play?”
“Not at the moment. If the victim fell from the ladder, it was an accident. If she was pushed, it was murder. My cursory examination, however, reveals no signs of a struggle.”
I asked, “Did you notice that … that ‘blush' on her left cheek?”
Formhals rubbed his chin. “I did. That's somewhat odd, I admit. An intriguing detail.”
BOOK: Bitch Slap
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