If Looks Could Kill (39 page)

“My mother is driving him down tomorrow,” Cat said. “I had thought it was going to be today, and that’s all I’ve been thinking
about. But it turns out she’d planned some little outing for him today, and I didn’t want to throw her into a tizzy.”

“What are you going to do about a nanny?” I felt funny just saying the word.

“Well, the agency hasn’t sent anyone for me to interview, and I think it’s because of what’s been in the papers. So Carlotta’s
cousin is going to stay on. Right now, I’ll take what I can get.”

“Will she live in the apartment?”

“No, she doesn’t want to do that. But she’ll spend the night when we need her to. Jeff,” she said, dropping the nanny topic
with a thud, “you
must
show Bailey your studio this weekend. Jeff’s redone the top floor of the barn into a work space.”

“For photography?” I asked.

“Actually, no—I’ve been doing a little painting,” he said. He had to be one of the few people in the world who looked good
with a swipe of mayo on his mouth. “It’s always been a hobby—I’ve just been doing more lately. I’m not pretending to be Jackson
Pollock out here, but it’s a release, a way to unwind.”

“You’re being too modest,” Cat protested. “The stuff you’ve been doing is fantastic.” She was obviously still in the afterglow
of a nooner.

We talked for a few minutes about art, then clunkily moved on to real estate in Litchfield County. During coffee Cat began
to trace the inside of Jeff’s wrist with her fingers in this hypnotic way that would put a cat to sleep if you did it on its
head. What was going on? I wondered. Was she putting on some kind of show this morning for my benefit?

When we finished I helped Cat clear and put the few dishes we’d used in the dishwasher. Jeff announced he was taking the pickup
truck to collect some furniture they’d bought several weeks ago at an auction, and I got to watch a twenty-second wet kiss
before his departure—you’d have thought he was heading off on the
Millennium Falcon
.

Once he was gone, Cat showed me upstairs to the red-and-white guest room. When I asked if this was the room Heidi had slept
in, she explained that Heidi had used a small bedroom at the far end of the hall. She looked curious but didn’t comment on
my question. Instead, she suggested I meet her on the screen porch, saying she’d grab some blankets since it was cool outside.
She was already on the porch by the time I showed up there, reading a stack of
Gloss
copy. I’d brought Anne Boleyn with me. I’d managed to read two sentences when Cat, curled in a black wicker armchair across
from me, interrupted.

“Are you
okay?
You’re not still upset with me, are you?”

“No, of course not. Why?”

“When you called this morning you sounded kind of odd. And you seem—I don’t know. Is something bothering you?”

“You mean other than everything that’s happened in the last ten days? I’m tired. I’ve been running all over the place lately.”

“Bailey, I know you. And something’s eating you. Is it about me?”

My voice sounded squeaky when I responded. “It’s nothing. I’ve got some personal stuff on my mind and that’s probably coming
through.”

“You know what I wondered about at lunch?” Cat said. “That maybe it has something to do with me and Jeff.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, setting down my book. I didn’t have a good feeling about where this was headed.

“Well, it felt strange at lunch. I wondered if it’s hard for you to be alone with a couple—I mean, since your divorce.”

“You mean, am I still so traumatized from my divorce that I can’t bear to hang around happily married couples? No, I don’t
think
so.” My voice was dripping in sarcasm as I said it.

“You’re taking this the wrong way. I’m saying it with empathy. I mean, that kind of thing used to be hard for
me
after I’d broken up with someone. I just get the feeling being with me and Jeff makes you uncomfortable.”

My blood was boiling now. “The only thing that’s
uncomfortable
for me,” I said, “is being in such a phony baloney situation. You two act all lovey-dovey, but I know that you’ve had bigger
troubles lately than you let on. Troubles over
Heidi.”

I anticipated the full force of Cat fury, but instead she began to cry. In her turtleneck and jeans she seemed more vulnerable
than I’d ever seen her.

“How do you know that? Who told you?” she asked, wiping her tears away with the edge of the blanket.

“I just know.”

“Okay, okay,” she said, sniffling. “It’s true, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell you. I was too embarrassed. I love Jeff.
He’s not perfect, but there’s a connection I have with him that I’ve never had with anyone else. I started to suspect there
was something with Heidi, and it made me
insane
. I still don’t know for sure if anything really went on between them.”

“When did you become suspicious?”

“It was a couple of months ago. I told you how he wanted to shoot for
Gloss
and I wouldn’t let him and he was furious? Well, he didn’t get over it as quickly as I said. He started to pull away from
me. Physically. In this very slow, torturous way. He’d fall asleep while I was washing my face. When we
did
have sex he seemed distracted, underwhelmed. I’ve never had the kind of sex I have with Jeff with anyone else, and suddenly
it was falling apart. I tried to talk to him about it, and he told me I was imagining things. That’s why I did that stupid
thing with Kip. I was totally confused.”

“And where does Heidi fit into this?”

“I went by his studio one day to surprise him. I was trying to make nice. He wasn’t there, but I have a key and I let myself
in, thinking he’d be back soon enough. And then I started looking around. I hadn’t planned to, but once I started I couldn’t
stop. And I found these pictures of Heidi—kind of modeling pictures, but they were very, very sexy. I went bananas.”

“You confronted him?”

“Yes, and he said he had simply been doing her a favor. That she’d wanted to be a model and had asked him for help. He said
he hadn’t told me because he was afraid I’d take it the wrong way. When I suggested there might have been more than a photo
session, he acted indignant.”

“So why didn’t you just give her the boot—right that second?”

She pulled out the rubber band from her ponytail as if it had become too tight and swept her fingers like a comb through her
hair.

“You mean why didn’t I just shove her ass in the street and toss her bags after her, like I’m capable of doing? Because I
was afraid to.”

“Afraid?” I said. “Cat, I’ve never seen you afraid of anyone.”

“I know, but I was worried about making things even worse. If Jeff
was
having an affair, I might force his hand in some way. I was terrified he’d run off with her. If he
wasn’t
having an affair, he might get even more upset with me—for acting paranoid. I also didn’t know what
she
would do. If I threw her out, she might blab to the papers. I wanted to bide my time. Figure out the best way to handle it.
You want to know the reason I got so upset when you told me Heidi was the real target? I was afraid Jeff would think I’d killed
her.”

“When you first raised the idea of an affair to Jeff, why didn’t he try harder to allay your fears? If you ended up booting
him out, wouldn’t that put him in a bad situation?”

“You mean financially? There’s no prenup—he’d do just dandy. And besides, he knows that I couldn’t bear to lose him, that
I’d forgive an indiscretion.”

“How are things now?”

“Better. Not perfect, but better. He’s seemed really worried about me. And it’s such a relief not to have Heidi around. I
hated the sight of her.”

As she said the words, she caught herself. “You don’t suspect me in some way, do you?” she asked.

“I didn’t say that.”

“But you think it, don’t you?” she exclaimed. “That’s what all this business with Heidi has been about.” She started to cry
again. “Bailey, you can’t for a second think that I’m capable of that. You don’t think that, do you?”

“There are some things I wonder about,” I said. “Why did you call me that morning? Why not just go into Heidi’s apartment
yourself?”

“I was scared, just like I told you. I think it was in part because I secretly wanted her gone and I had this terrible sense
that I’d willed something bad to happen to her.”

“Why were you so quick to bring up the Tucker Bobb connection?”

“I wasn’t. As far as I knew, he’d croaked from an oversize ego. Leslie mentioned it, and once I heard the real way he’d died
it seemed like an odd coincidence—something worth looking into.”

“And why did you
really
arrange to meet Heidi that morning? What was going on?”

She unwrapped the afghan from her body, stood up, and began to pace up and down the porch.

“I’m going to tell you something that I’m ashamed of,” she said. “But you have to understand that I was desperate. I finally
figured out a way to get Heidi out of my house—without having to confront Jeff again. I called her and told her I needed to
talk to her. I’d decided to tell her that I suspected she might be responsible for a bruise on Tyler’s arm and that I was
giving her the option of resigning instead of having me report her to social services. I didn’t suspect her of anything, but
I knew if I set it up that way, she’d be too nervous to make a stink. And Jeff wouldn’t take her side.”

I looked at her, speechless.

“I know it’s awful, but I was insane with worry. I had to get her out of my house.”

We heard the front door slam several rooms away.

“Bailey, you’ve got to believe me,” she pleaded in a whisper. “I didn’t poison Heidi. I don’t even know how to cook.”

“Okay, I believe you, Cat.” But my head was spinning, and in truth I didn’t know what I believed.

C
AT PUT HER
finger to her lips in a
shhh
signal, and announced that she was going out to help Jeff unload their auction loot from the back of the truck. I offered
assistance, but she said they could handle it. I decided it might be best to make myself scarce for a while. I got my jacket
from my room, went the back way to the barn, and dragged out an old Raleigh threespeed.

For the next two hours I biked up and down backcountry roads, being careful to keep track of my route so I could find my way
back later. Though the day was cool, almost raw, it felt good to be on a bike, pumping hard, having the wind tousle my hair.
As I rode I couldn’t think of anything but my conversation with Cat.

I’d been blown away by her confession. Of course, there was a chance she might have lied to me, created a wild goose chase
of a tale to prevent me from figuring out what had really happened. She certainly hadn’t hesitated to mislead me earlier about
Kip and the state of her marriage. Yet I believed her. As I’d listened to that whole creepy story of her planning to tell
Heidi she suspected her of child abuse, it had the ring of truth.

As ugly as the situation was, I was in one sense relieved. I hadn’t been able to bear the thought that Cat, my friend of seven
years, was Heidi’s killer. As I pedaled along, watching for slippery patches on the road, a question formed in my mind: Why
was
I her friend? When it came to any choice, Cat always,
always
, picked what suited
her
, even if someone else might get hurt in the process. What did I really get out of the arrangement? And was it inevitable
that she would betray me or just plain ignore me at a time when I desperately needed help? What had the talentless Ms. Highland
said? “I hope you never make the mistake of trusting her.”

Since I was making the leap and believing Cat’s story, it meant that I was now back to my previous list of suspects. There
were Jody and Kip, of course. And Jeff. I’d wondered for days if he and Heidi had been getting it on and so, as it turned
out, had Cat. But according to Cat, Jeff had little to fear from getting caught or Heidi blabbing. Cat would have forgiven
an indiscretion because she couldn’t bear the thought of losing Jeff, and he probably had a sense of his emotional hold on
her. And if Cat
had
dumped him, he wouldn’t have to worry financially because there was no prenup.

Jealousy might be the motive, though. Maybe Jeff had discovered he wasn’t the only game in town and had blown a gasket. The
mystery man barged into my brain again.

As I pulled up to the house around five, I was surprised to see Cat outside on the porch, dressed now in slacks and a trench
coat and pacing back and forth.

“Am I late?” I asked. “What time are we supposed to be there?”

“It’s not that,” she said. “We have a Tyler emergency.”

“Oh, my God, is he okay?” I asked, heaving the bike against the house and scrambling up the front steps.

“Yes, yes, he’s okay physically. But my mother called and said he fell apart today. He became hysterical, crying for me and
Jeff. We’re going to drive up and get him.”

“The poor little guy.”

“It will take us almost two hours to get there, and my mother won’t let us leave without an attempt to force-feed us beef
Wellington. We should be back well before eleven, though.”

“That’s not a problem,” I said. “I’ll just read, watch a movie.”

“No, no, you can still go to Leslie’s. She’s expecting you. I called and told her the situation, and if you’re nervous about
getting lost, Clyde will pick you up and bring you back here later.”

“Why don’t I just bag it,” I said. “I don’t want to impose, and I’d be perfectly happy staying here.”

Jeff came out of the house in his jeans jacket, car keys in hand, and hurried to the BMW, giving me nothing more than a perfunctory
nod.

“You can’t bag it,” Cat said. “She’s got this other couple coming and she’ll be annoyed if you don’t go. It won’t be bad,
really.” She hurried down the steps as if it were a done deal. “Her number’s on the table,” she yelled as she jumped in the
car. “Give her a ring for directions—or if you want a ride.”