Killer Cocktail (16 page)

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Authors: Sheryl J. Anderson

Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Women Sleuths, #Amateur Sleuth

BOOK: Killer Cocktail
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“No, you’re going to Cassady’s. C’mon, I gotta hurry.”
“Okay, but why do I?”
Kyle walked over to the console table and unplugged my answering machine with a sharp flick of his wrist. “Because I don’t want you to be alone. Somewhere else you’d rather spend the night?”
“Yes, but that’s clearly not an option,” I answered, hoping he caught the compliment.
“Thanks. Let’s go.”
Fortunately, I hadn’t done a very good job of unpacking from the weekend, so it didn’t take me that long to toss stuff back in my overnight bag. Still, he was anxious enough to get going that he all but propelled me to the door once I was ready. “So were you going to stay with me tonight just because you think I’m in danger?” I asked as I locked up.
“What do you think?”
“That’s why I asked. I’m not sure what to think.”
He smacked the elevator button, then kissed me with great conviction. “Think again,” he said, guiding me into the elevator.
There’s something so magnificently romantic and perfectly New York about kissing in the backseat of a cab. Even a cab with duct tape holding the upholstery together, cheap incense burning up front, and a wiry young Cambodian practically giggling behind the wheel. There’s the sense of catapulting forward even as you’re wrapped around each other, something I’m sure was implanted in me by a film when I was young and impressionable—younger and more
impressionable, anyway. Of course, I’m the one who had to buy a Danish and eat it in front of Tiffany when I first came to town, too. Still, it’s fabulous.
As was the expression on Cassady’s face as she opened her apartment door. It wasn’t a smile of triumph, exactly, as much as an acknowledgment that she and Kyle had reached some new level of complicity, if not understanding. I felt like the MacGuffin in a Hitchcock movie, being handed off in a witty but urgent manner.
“If she’s very good, can she watch television before I tuck her in?” Cassady asked, indicating that we should enter. I crossed the threshold, but Kyle stayed outside.
“That’s fine. Just keep her off the phone.”
“I have to go into the office in the morning,” I said.
“Stay low-key and don’t talk about your theories,” he answered, holding up my answering machine to underline the point. He gave Cassady a look of gratitude. She nodded and he hurried back down the hallway.
Cassady’s in a great building in the West Seventies. Her apartment is very inviting, lots of earth tones tying together a tailored but comfortable collection of Scandinavian Modern furniture with some strategic pillows and a wall of floor-to-ceiling bookcases that balances nice, big windows. It’s the kind of place where you want to curl up in a corner of the couch to talk about current events and maybe eat fondue. I’ve flopped on the nut-brown leather couch and poured out my heart more times than I care to admit, but tonight, I felt uneasy about even taking off my jacket.
“This was his idea, wasn’t it?” Cassady eased me out of my jacket herself. I nodded. “He must genuinely be concerned about your safety.”
This time, I shook my head. “How did Veronica figure this out? I thought we were careful.”
Cassady pulled my overnight bag out of my hand and set it down on the floor. “We were,” she said, steering me to her kitchen. “But one of the benefits of being paranoid is that you spend a lot of time wondering who’s out to get you. And I’d imagine, after you kill someone, you’re bound to be paranoid.”
In the kitchen, on the immaculate heather gray Corian counter, which complements all the stainless steel so nicely, there was a mad jumble of color. Cassady had pulled half a dozen liqueur bottles out of her cabinet.
“That’s only just, since I haven’t killed anyone and I’m getting paranoid,” I acknowledged.
“But people actually are out to get you, Molly. So you’re not paranoid, you’re perceptive. But you’re not going to get any sleep tonight if you don’t think about something else for a while. So here’s our arts and crafts project for the evening.” She gestured to the bottles. “Pousse-cafés.”
I rarely have the patience to gently pour each liqueur on top of the other so they float in scrumptious bands of color and never mix, but I could see the benefit of concentrating on such a task now. And then downing the masterpiece when it was done. Cassady poured her first shot, then pushed the shot glass, a pousse-cafe glass, and the bottle of grenadine down the counter to me.
“But if Veronica feels the need to threaten me, then she’s basically confessing she did it.”
“Stop pondering and start pouring. You’re not doing anything more complicated than this tonight. Detective’s orders.”
“Since when are you and Kyle on the same team?”
“Since I figured out that he adores you almost as much as he should.” She didn’t look at me, just pushed the bottle of yellow Chartreuse to me, but I could still see her smile. And
I adored her for it. Nothing like having someone out to get you to make you appreciate who’s on your side. Confident in that, I was prepared to relax and enjoy Cassady’s company and my pousse-café tonight. And not think about going to question the florist until morning.
“
I should kill you
myself.”
Not a phrase to be bandied about lightly, especially among friends. Particularly among friends who are trying to solve a murder. But Tricia didn’t mean it lightly. She was furious. Also scared and tired and frazzled, but at the moment, she was concentrating on furious. I was concentrating on making sure our discussion didn’t turn into a floor show for my colleagues at
Zeitgeist.
Since I work at home a fair amount of time, I don’t have an office at the magazine. I have a desk out in the bullpen, the large, open central area of our Lexington Avenue office space, which is inhabited by the assistants and junior staffers. While the bosses sit in their offices and look out over the city through their glittering windows, we sit in row upon row of mass-produced desks and look in on the bosses through their narrow doorways. It’s how the caste system expresses itself in American business.
I actually don’t mind being out in the bullpen—better access to snacks and gossip—but I’m forever finding other people’s stuff in my desk and on it. Still, I understand the lure of available space in a crowded, institutional setting and I try not to complain. Unless the stuff is smelly, obscene, or otherwise
repugnant. Then I demand its removal. On the other hand, if it’s edible, especially if it’s chocolate, it’s fair game.
Cassady had insisted on escorting me to work, a noble gesture slightly undercut by the fact that she had a meeting two doors down. She’d deposited me at my desk like a mother dropping off a kindergartner, despite my protests that Veronica wasn’t about to try to take me out in the vast and densely populated bullpen. Unconvinced, she’d all but lashed me to my chair before promising to call in a few hours to discuss a “secure location” for lunch and then departing with the fever of having a mission still radiating from her.
Then, seemingly only moments later, Tricia was standing before me, pale and fragile. And furious. I’d turned off my cell so I didn’t have to think about it ringing with another threat. But it hadn’t occurred to me, when Kyle had unceremoniously disconnected my answering machine, that a friend might call and, getting neither answer nor machine nor cell this morning, think the worst. Which Tricia had done.
Then I, because I’m so good at it, made things even worse. “I didn’t think you’d worry because you didn’t know about the death threat.”
“Death threat?” Tricia echoed with enough volume and passion that my colleagues rose and turned as one, like meerkats catching the scent of a predator as the savanna winds shift.
I laughed as convincingly as possible, as though Tricia’s exclamation was the punchline to a hilarious joke. “I hadn’t heard that one,” I said, a little too loudly, waving dismissively to my coworkers with one hand and yanking Tricia down into a chair with the other. Once we were seated knee-to-knee, I kept the smile, but stopped laughing. “On my answering machine. I don’t want to talk about it here.”
Tricia went rigid. “You think it’s someone here.”
I tipped my head uncertainly. “No. But no one here knows anything yet and I’d rather keep it that way.”
“Then you’d best get up and come with me now, because we have talking to do.” Tricia stood up again, a perfectly polite smile on exhibit for anyone who was still craning to see what we were up to.
“Let me check in real quick, then we’ll go,” I said, pointing in the direction of my editor’s office.
“Just don’t get sucked in to some lonelyhearts debate. This is more important.”
“This is my job.”
Tricia leaned in, her lips almost at my ear. “Are you getting death threats because you recommend honesty and good communication in a relationship?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
“Then this is more important.”
“Point taken.” I hurried past three rows of colleagues who rushed to look engrossed in their work and presented myself at the desk of Genevieve Halbert, gatekeeper to the beast. Make that, personal assistant to the editor. Genevieve is a preternaturally perky young woman who either does some fairly heavy medicating in the morning or is just wired like no one I’ve ever met. She’s sorority-girl blond and pretty and comes off kind of buttoned-down, all Ann Taylor and Talbots, but she has a toothy, relentless smile and this eerie, irritating, monosyllabic chirp.
I made sure to speak loudly enough to please the eavesdroppers, too. “Morning, Gen. She in?”
“Yep.” Genevieve lifted her hands off her keyboard and placed them on her desk, showing me I had her full attention.
“May I see her?”
“Nope.” Genevieve pointed with one French-tipped nail
to the light on her phone that indicated Eileen was talking to someone.
Perfect. “Okay. Tell her I checked in, but had to go out to do some research.”
“’Kay.”
My duty done, I cruised back to my desk. “Research?” Tricia whispered when I returned. “Will she buy that?” I nodded, this not being the moment to elaborate. Tricia and I picked up our handbags and I aimed us at the elevators.
A moment too late. “Molly Forrester, what’s your deal?” The voice shrilled across the bullpen, but this time, the meerkats ducked. They recognized the cry of that predator and knew to stay out of its path.
Eileen strode toward me, a sheaf of paper crumpled in her hand. By “strode,” I refer more to the purposefulness of her steps than their size, since Eileen is a very petite woman whose stride is roughly equal to my mince. I thought briefly about trying to outrun her, but then decided that facing the music now might make for a slightly less angry song.
Quickly reviewing my last set of letters in my head, I tried to figure out what had set Eileen off. The letter from the woman who’d given her boyfriend a threesome for his birthday and now couldn’t figure out how to top that for Christmas? Or the one who wanted to throw a divorce shower for her best friend and wondered if male strippers would be inappropriate?
Eileen wore a form-hugging Lilly Pulitzer of lime green cotton sateen with pink straps and accents. Her Kate Spade patent leather pumps in matching pink had three-inch heels that boosted her clear of the five-foot mark. As she stopped before me, scowling and hands on her hips, she reminded me of Buttercup, the green Powerpuff Girl. The mean one.
“Good morning.” She didn’t correct me, so I plunged
ahead. “I’m sure you have notes on my column, but I’m on my way out, so could I talk to you when I get back? Thanks.”
“I told you I wanted an update on your article first thing,” she snarled, batting at her spiky bangs with the sheaf of pages.
“I stopped by, but you were on the phone,” I explained, realizing with quick dread where this conversation was headed and wondering how on earth I was going to keep from having it in front of Tricia. “But that’s why I’m going out, actually. Let me do some quick research and I’ll fill you in when I get back.”
Eileen shifted her scowl over to Tricia. “This is research?” she asked, as though Tricia were a stack of books.
“I won’t be long,” I said as evenly as I could, trying to ease Tricia and myself back toward the elevator.
Tricia, whose proper upbringing never fails her and whose reflexes are faster than mine, held out her hand in greeting before I could stop her. “Tricia Vincent. You must be Eileen.”
Eileen gave Tricia’s hand a perfunctory squeeze. “So it is research. How’s your brother?”
Tricia’s expression didn’t change a whit, but her eyes slid over long enough to give me a glimpse of fury, then slid back to Eileen. “As well as can be expected.”
“Maybe you should write your article from Tricia’s point of view, Molly,” Eileen suggested. “A unique perspective. We appreciate your cooperation,” Eileen purred to Tricia, who was digging at her cuticles with a fervor I’d never seen before.
“Thank you, Eileen,” I said with the extra lilt that makes it mean “go away.”
Eileen knew exactly what I was trying to do and deliberately stood her ground. “What’s wrong with your column?”
“Nothing. Why?”
“Because you thought I was going to complain about your column. Why?”
“I write a column, you were looking for me, and you sounded upset. I drew a natural conclusion.”
“Hope you investigate a murder better than that.” Content now that she’d been cruel, Eileen strode away.
I stood still for a moment, beaming pure loathing at her departing back and waiting for her hair to burst into flames. No such luck. When I turned back to Tricia, my own hair seemed to be in danger. “And you’re getting death threats. Imagine that,” Tricia hissed. “I should kill you myself.”
The main difference between friends and lovers is how easily they can hurt you. You expect a lover to hurt you, at least for the first six months, so you keep your guard up. But you don’t expect a friend to kick you in the gut, so not only are you unprepared, it hurts a lot more.
Tricia’s anger stunned me and left me fumbling for my breath and a clear thought. I felt cornered, scrambling for a defensible position. What I wanted to do was scream, “This was all your idea!” but what I did was lean in and keep my voice down, hoping Tricia would follow my example. “I haven’t agreed to write the article yet.”
“Your editor doesn’t seem to know that.”
“She’ll figure it out.”
“Why can’t you tell her?”
“Because if she thinks I’m doing the article, she’ll back off.”
“How nice for you.” Tricia braced her Ferragamo silver bow clutch in her hands like a board she was going to present for my karate kick. Or maybe like a board she was going to smack me with. “I came here to talk to you about what happened last night, but since I don’t want that to wind up in this or any other magazine, I’d better go.” She pushed past me.
“I want to discuss this.”
“I don’t.” Tricia headed for the elevator and I followed her with my head at the proper angle so I didn’t have to catch the eye of anyone else in the bullpen, but not so low that it looked like I’d been chastised. Even though I had.
I caught up with Tricia at the elevator. “I’m just using her desire for an article as a cover for my own investigation.”
Tricia’s eyes slid to me again and this time, I could see tears brimming. “Who else are you using, Molly?”
It was another kick, but this one felt different. I was sort of ready for it. And instead of surprised hurt, it made me angry. I wanted to kick back. “You asked me to help. Everything I’ve done has been to help you and David.”
“And what about your article?”
“What about it?”
“What about my family’s privacy?”
“If your brother is arrested, what kind of privacy are you going to have then? I’m trying to keep that from happening.”
“And if you get another career boost, that’s fine, too.”
“Tricia, stop it!”
The elevator doors opened and Tricia stepped on without looking at me. “Fine. I’m done. How about you?”
The doors slid closed before I could scream or kick or do any of the several highly mature things I was considering. I moved on to other options. I thought about going back to my desk. I thought about going back to my apartment. I thought about going back to school and majoring in something easy, like quantum mechanics.
I was working hard to put this encounter in perspective. Tricia was devastated, that was clear, and I reminded myself that she was lashing out at me because she knew she could. Because I was there. Because I’d forgive her. Because she thought I deserved it. It was that last one that galled me.
I’d gotten involved in this case at Tricia’s request. I hadn’t
thought about an article until Eileen had suggested it and even then, I’d hesitated. But I couldn’t stop now. Someone was threatening to kill me, so I had to be doing something right. And whether I wrote the article or not, I needed to solve this murder so I could figure out who wanted me dead next.
I got out onto the sidewalk by rote and hailed a cab. I had no idea how things had gone with her family the night before. I was so caught up in being right and being threatened that I wasn’t thinking about the toll this had to be taking on her. No wonder Tricia was angry.
And no wonder my cell rang as I was getting in the cab. “I’m going to skip right over the fact that you’ve left your office without an escort and go straight to Tricia,” Cassady said with frigid crispness.
“Is she all right?”
“In a word, absolutely not.”
“I still have to do this,” I responded. “If the florist can confirm that Veronica threatened Lisbet before the weekend, that’ll increase the case against her. I know Tricia thinks I’m betraying her, but all I want to do is help David.”
“Let’s ignore the fact that you have a point,” Cassady said, warming slightly. “You’re still running around town without protection. Kyle will have my head if something happens to you.”
“I’ll be the soul of discretion. I swear.”
“Do you want me to meet you at the florist?”

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