If Looks Could Kill (30 page)

“Carlotta, Cat told me you cleaned Heidi’s room every week. Can I ask you a question about that?”

She straightened up and turned back to me, the vacuum hose drooping in her hand. “The policeman, he ask me, did I see drugs
over there,” she said quickly. “I tell him no, never.”

“No, no, not that,” I said. “I was wondering what day of the week you worked on her room.”

“On Friday. That room I do every Friday.”

“Okay, great. By any chance, on the Friday before Heidi died, did you see any kind of shopping bag in her room? Maybe in the
trash basket. Someone may have dropped something off for her in it.”

She indicated no with a shake of her head.

“It could even have been a
plastic
shopping bag. Or maybe a large envelope.”

She looked at me quizzically, without saying a word. Then she turned and walked over to the bookcase, opening one of the cabinets
that ran along the bottom. I thought she was returning to her housework, having said all she was going to say, but she lifted
a large tan envelope from one of the shelves inside the cabinet, turned, and handed it to me. It was one of those padded Jiffy
bags.

“This, this was in Heidi’s trash?” I asked, stunned. I had come looking for this, convinced it was a possibility, but now
that I was holding it in my hands, I could barely believe it.

“Yes, I save it to use again.”

“Do the police know about this?”

She looked all nervous suddenly. “No. They don’t ask me about Friday.”

“That’s okay,” I said reassuringly. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

I had accepted the Jiffy bag, but I knew it wasn’t smart to be getting my fingerprints on it. I set it down on the antique
walnut desk behind me. After tugging two tissues from a faux tortoiseshell holder on top of the desk, I picked it up again
with the tissues as a barrier to my fingertips.

Though there was nothing written on either side, it obviously had been used to hold or deliver something and then opened,
because there was a row of pulled staples at the long end. Whoever had opened it, Heidi most likely, had ignored the little
zip tab along the side you’re supposed to pull. By pressing with my hands on each side, I puckered the end open and glanced
inside. Nothing. Next I turned it upside down over the desk and tapped the side a couple of times. There was a sound as something
hit the desk, the sound of something as small as a pebble. I shifted the Jiffy bag to the left. Lying on the desk was a small
white petal from a silk flower—broken off, I was almost sure, from the arrangement that had been on the gold Godiva box. The
sight of it almost took my breath away.

“Okay, thanks, Carlotta,” I said as casually as I could, as I used a tissue to scoot the petal back inside the Jiffy bag.

I tried to recall Cat’s words. “It was pale pink, I think,” she’d said. But white could have appeared pale pink in the dim
hallway.

“Let’s put this envelope back in the cabinet,” I told Carlotta. “There’s a chance the police might want to see it, so don’t
pick it up again, okay? Don’t tell anyone about it. I’ll tell Cat that it’s here.”

She watched expressionless as I opened the cabinet myself and laid the envelope back in the spot where she’d retrieved it.

I had gotten what I’d come for, but as long as I was here, it made sense to make another inspection of Heidi’s room. Something
might strike me differently now that I had a new perspective.

“Carlotta, I’ll let you get back to work,” I explained. “I’m just going to look in Heidi’s room for a minute, okay? Cat wants
me to help her,” I added, protesting too much.

I opened the bookcase door to the nanny apartment, and as I flipped on the light switch in the hall, the vacuum roared to
life obnoxiously behind me. I closed the door most of the way to lessen the intrusion of the noise. The first thing I noticed
was that the smell from hell had finally been vanquished. The second was that someone, Carlotta most likely, had been busy
down here. About ten new cardboard boxes stood around the room, four by the dresser and two by the bookcase already loaded
with Heidi’s possessions and the rest sitting empty and expectant, flaps up, in the middle of the room.

I glanced into each of the packed boxes of clothes. It was all the stuff I’d seen earlier in the dresser and wardrobe, folded
carefully as if it would soon be worn again, like clothes going off to camp or college. On the top of the box were two Ziploc
freezer bags filled with Heidi’s costume jewelry, but the Tiffany bracelet and earrings were nowhere in sight. Most likely
Cat had come down and retrieved them after I’d told her about them. I’d want to double-check that.

The two boxes by the bookcase were packed with Heidi’s meager collection of books, CDs, and tchotchkes, and I poked through
them both. There was nothing I hadn’t seen before. From behind the door to the library I heard the vacuum cleaner go dead.

The only objects from the bookcase that hadn’t been packed yet were the two photographs of Heidi, which lay on several sheets
of newspaper, waiting to be wrapped. I picked up the Circle Line souvenir photo and stared at it. The other girl in the picture
was
Janice
, I realized suddenly, though a Janice at least fifteen pounds thinner than she was today and with chestnut-colored hair,
not blond. And I realized something else with a start: Heidi was wearing a long turquoise raincoat, something I hadn’t remembered
from looking at the photo before. It could easily have been the same raincoat that I’d seen hanging in Jeff’s studio.

I walked over to the small writing table between the windows. Nothing had been packed yet from this area. Beneath the table
I spotted the trash basket where Carlotta had obviously found the Jiffy bag. Taking a seat at the table, I tried to imagine
exactly how everything had unfolded. I knew the truth now—I just didn’t know the details.

“What are you doing here?”

I jumped so high and so fast that I almost bit off my tongue. Scraping the chair across the floor, I turned awkwardly toward
the voice at the far end of the room. For a split second I almost didn’t recognize him. But then I saw that it was Jeff, his
long hair sopping wet and slicked back from a shower. He was bare chested and barefoot, wearing just a pair of unbelted jeans,
a relaxed, “down on the farm” style. But the expression on his face said he was anything but relaxed. In fact, he looked really,
really ticked.

“Oh, hi,” I said in a squeaky voice that sounded like something coming from a mouse who’s just figured out it’s made full-body
contact with a glue trap. “I didn’t realize you were home.” He must have been in the shower when I’d buzzed earlier and hadn’t
heard me.

“What are you doing here?”

“Well, as you know, I’ve been helping Cat with everything that’s going on.” I was doing the world’s most pathetic job of stalling,
trying to light on a good enough lie to tell.

“How did you get in?”

“Carlotta. She let me in.”

“What does Heidi’s room have to do with helping Cat?”

“Nothing directly,” I said, getting up slowly, my heart still racing. “I’ve just been trying to put it all together in my
mind. The candy. Cat. Heidi’s death. I thought maybe if I just sat here and thought back on finding the body, it would spark
an idea.”

“And did it—spark an idea?” Said sarcastically, not with any real curiosity.

“Maybe. But why don’t I just get out of here. Cat asked me to help, but I certainly don’t want to cause any problems.”

“Look, Bailey,” he said in a softer tone, taking a couple of steps toward me, “I don’t mean to be a hard-ass. But Cat never
said anything about you coming by today. A girl died in this room a week ago, and the next thing you know I hear someone prowling
around down here. All I could think of was that one of those lousy paparazzi had broken in.”

“Understood. Like I said, I didn’t realize you were home or I would have asked Carlotta to let you know I was here. Can I
get out from down here? So I don’t have to traipse through the house?”

“Yeah,” he said, thinking for a second. “If the extra key to the gate is still around. Let’s see.” He was charming Jeff now,
a southern boy with good manners. I followed his tanned back to the small foyer off the room, where he found the light switch
with his hand without having to look. It was a small, windowless space, with a hall mirror, a small table, and an empty coat
tree, a space I hadn’t gotten a chance to inspect before.

“Here we go,” he said, pulling a key from a hook by the door. He flipped open the lock to the door and we stepped into the
small vestibule under the stoop of the house, enclosed by the wrought-iron gate. He used the key to open the gate and then
swung it open.

“Going back to the office?” he asked with a smile.

“Yeah, probably.”

Before I could take a step outside, he laid one hand on my shoulder and leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.

“No hard feelings, okay?” he asked. He was so close that I could feel the dampness of his chest hair.

“Of course not,” I said, stepping quickly out into the courtyard. “Take care.” It was a goofy-sounding farewell in light of
the circumstances, but it was the best I could come up with, considering how rattled I felt.

I quickly walked the half block to Madison Avenue and wandered a block or two until I found a patisserie. It was right out
of France, with Provence-style tablecloths covering tiny wrought-iron tables and a big glass case of pastries. The clientele
were mainly rich stay-at-home mothers, some with toddlers, some solo and just back from a run in their spandex jogging shorts.
I snagged the one empty table in the rear and ordered a double cappuccino and a croissant.

I felt completely perturbed, but not just from my contretemps with not-so-nice, half-naked Jeff. It was from now knowing what
had
really
happened the night of Cat’s party: Someone had brought those toxic truffles to kill
Heidi
, not Cat. Last night this had been only a half-formed thought that slithered through my dream, then roused me from sleep.
But the Jiffy bag and the flower petal clarified everything.

Sipping my cappuccino, I thought about how my conversation with Jack Herlihy had teased my thought process in this direction.
The idea that things weren’t always what they seemed. That the magician sometimes pulled off his trick in a different spot
from where you were looking or at a different time.

Well, there’d been misdirection at Cat’s house, too. The truffles, which had appeared to be for Cat, had been intended for
Heidi all along. Someone had left them on the hall table to make it appear as if they were a hostess gift, then taken them
away and delivered them to Heidi in the Jiffy bag. Or, maybe, I thought suddenly, Heidi had been given her own set of truffles
(poison ones) in the Jiffy bag and those on the hall table were a perfectly harmless decoy set, placed there to flub up everyone’s
thinking. What had bugged me all along was the idea that the killer, by leaving the candy unattended on the hallway table,
had taken such a big chance. What if the box had been opened and the candy eaten by someone other than the intended victim?
But now I was certain that the box of truffles on the hall table couldn’t have killed anyone.

I tried to imagine how it might have been done. The killer arrives at Cat’s house the night of the party with the box of candy
and slides it out of a briefcase or tote bag onto the hall table when no one is looking. It sits there long enough for people
to notice it, for Cat to notice. Before things begin to wind down, when no one is looking, it gets slipped back into a bag.
Later, the box of poisoned truffles, tucked inside the Jiffy bag, is dropped off at Heidi’s. Slipped between the bars of the
gate, perhaps? Why not? It could be done easily, without a trace. No one but Heidi would see them. There wouldn’t have been
a note because the note would be proof to the police that they weren’t the same truffles as the ones in the hall. Heidi would
simply assume they were a surprise, a mystery gift from an admirer. Heidi had apparently opened the package Friday but may
have waited to eat the candy when she felt the full force of a craving.

The only possible hitch to the plan? If the decoy candy was opened at the party or put away before the killer was able to
take it back. But that wouldn’t have been the end of the world. There would have been no exposure. The only downside would
be that the murderer would be forced to come up with a plan B.

But why have such an elaborate plan to begin with? Why not just leave the candy for Heidi? Well, clearly to throw everyone
off. If it was obvious that Heidi was the intended victim all along, that would put Heidi’s life under a spotlight. And with
that spotlight shining, it would be hard for the killer to slip into the shadows.

At this moment, I had absolutely no idea who the killer might be. There were three things, however, I was sure of: Heidi’s
killer 1) had been in Cat’s house the night of the party; 2) knew Cat loved chocolate; and 3) knew Heidi had a proclivity
for pilfering food.

I gulped down the last of my cappuccino, paid the bill, and squeezed out past the tables of women on their second or third
lattes. Out on the sidewalk I dug out the slip of paper with Janice’s number and tried her on my cell phone. Though Janice
had claimed to be in the dark about the intricacies of Heidi’s social life, there was always the chance she hadn’t been telling
me all she knew—or she knew more than she realized—and I wanted another chat with her. The family’s answering machine picked
up. I had her cell number, too, so I tried that. She answered from what sounded like a wind tunnel.

“Janice, hi, this is Bailey Weggins.”

“Who?”

“Bailey, Cat Jones’s friend. We talked at the apartment last week.”

“Oh, yeah.” She sounded less than thrilled to hear from me.

“Look, I’ve got your earrings. Remember you asked me to find them. Can I bring them over?”

That pumped her up. “You’re kidding. You found them? The thing is, I’m not home right now. I’m in the park with George.”