Killer Heels (12 page)

Honestly, my first thought was that I was impressed. How had they managed to be involved, right under our noses, and not have anyone suspect a thing? The consensus among the writing staff was that the bulk of Yvonne’s most annoying character traits were a direct product of the lack of regular sex in her life. The staff was approaching a willingness to sacrifice small animals to pagan deities to get the woman laid so the world would be a happier place. But if my hunch about the picture was right, there was a different cause of Yvonne’s lack of love for humanity.

Then, too, just because they had been a thing didn’t mean they were still a thing. Maybe their affair had ended badly and that had made Yvonne that much more of a joy to be around. I pulled the picture out of the frame to see if the date or anything was printed on the photograph. With the picture out of the way, a small key on a thin red ribbon fell out. It was tiny, less than padlock size. My sweep of the room hadn’t revealed any locked drawers or any locked boxes inside locked drawers. What was the key to and why did Teddy keep it in the picture frame?

I turned my attention back to the picture. There was no date on the back, just an inscription:
You will be mine forever. Y.
Figures that Yvonne was as demanding a lover as she was a boss. Not “Will you be mine?” or “Hope you’ll be mine,” but “You will be mine.” I wondered how Teddy felt about the issuance of that command.

Particularly because underneath the picture, MAARTEN was written in Teddy’s big blocky handwriting. St. Maarten? I flipped the picture back over and looked at it hard, scrutinizing the details of the bar behind Teddy. Not that I spend a lot of time at bars staring at the back wall, but I’d be willing to put money on their being at the Ritz Carlton right here in Manhattan, not in St. Maarten. So what did “Maarten” mean?

I was sitting there with the picture in one hand and the key in the other when the door opened. With a move that was so smooth I couldn’t believe I’d done it, I stood up and slid my hands into my pockets, concealing their contents, just as Gretchen stepped into the room. She looked at me, standing there with my hands in my pockets like I had all the time in the world, and smiled shakily.

“You want any help?”

I thought about asking her to help me sweep up the broken glass, just so she could feel useful, but decided it was far smarter to get her out of the room as soon as possible. “No, there isn’t really that much,” I assured her, now feeling that I could not take my hands back out of my pockets lest she discern the outline of either frame or key and want to know what I was stealing from the office of her dearly departed boss.

“Teddy wasn’t much for clutter. He only kept the important stuff,” Gretchen sniffed.

The picture in my hand seemed to give off heat as I nodded. “That’ll make it so much easier on Helen.”

Gretchen made an explosive sound that I mistook for a guffaw until I saw the tears streaming down her face. “Poor Helen!” was all she managed.

I nodded in what I hoped passed for sympathy, but I didn’t want to encourage Gretchen’s grief too much for fear that our boss, the murder suspect, would return to the scene of the crime to see what all the wailing was about.

So I assured Gretchen that I could handle packing, shooed her out with as much grace as I could muster, closed the door, and did what any sensible girl with a murder clue in her pocket would do. I called my best friends to see if they were free for lunch.

6

“Murder is just an extreme form of social interaction.” I knew it was a bold statement, but since I was sitting on the floor of Cassady’s office, barefoot, with lemon chicken dangling from my chopsticks, I felt I could get away with it.

Tricia reached over and felt my forehead, then shrugged to Cassady and returned to her beef and broccoli. “It doesn’t seem to be a fever-induced delirium.”

“What I’m trying to say is that you don’t have to be psycho to kill someone.”

“But it helps. Especially on the defense end of the process.” Cassady was at her desk, multitasking mightily. Cassady’s office looks more like a college professor’s burrow than fancy lawyer digs. She has overflowing built-in bookcases on two walls, with windows I don’t think she ever looks out, despite the view of Lincoln Center, on the third, and seascapes painted by her little sister framing the door. The Mission furniture is elegant but practical and there are books, files, and periodicals balancing on every available surface. I love it.

Cassady had agreed to meet for lunch, as long as “meet” consisted of all of us having Chinese in her office because she had a filing deadline. I had suggested that we wait until dinner in that case, but she’d snarked about the body count rising by then and a healthy lunch being a crucial step in the investigative process. Fortunately, all Tricia said was she had no plans she couldn’t change and she’d be happy to meet.

Also fortunately, Tricia was her usual diplomatic self when I told her about Yvonne semi-volunteering her for Teddy’s reception and my not exactly throwing myself in front of that train. “How interesting. A funeral reception,” was her first reaction.

“I think Yvonne envisions it more as an industry party with a guest of honor who happens to be dead,” I offered.

“Not exactly my stock in trade.”

“I know. You can say no if you want to.”

Tricia’s hands seemed to be having a whispered conversation of their own, skittering back and forth across each other as she thought. I tried to anticipate the sticking point. Tricia loved a challenge, so that wasn’t it. I’d already mentioned the money/no object thing, so that wasn’t it. What was it?

Tricia’s hands stopped, then softly wove themselves together. “It could help you with your investigation, right? Access to the guest list and all that sort of thing?”

She’d caught me by surprise. I hadn’t thought of it that way and I never would have expected her to think of it that way. “Absolutely.”

Cassady scoffed. “She’ll have this thing cracked long before the funeral. Just plan the damn party.”

Tricia agreed that she would, but I could see the gleam in her eye. She was starting to like the thought of helping me. I liked it, too. It was a vote of confidence, which led me to start expounding on what I knew so far and to offer up my theory of murder as bad manners.

The point I was trying to make was that just because Yvonne was acting normal—relatively—by the time I saw her didn’t mean that she couldn’t be a suspect. Particularly if Edwards was busy suspecting Helen and she had seemed far more normal than Yvonne. Though that was really an unfair comparison, given that she was far more normal than Yvonne, period.

“So do you think Yvonne suspects that you suspect her?” Tricia asked. She shot Cassady a worried look. Cassady sensed it coming, looked up to receive it, and nodded in agreement.

“What’s that about?”

“You need to be careful, Molly.” Tricia wanted to help, but she was still concerned. I could respect that. When I stopped and thought about what I was doing, I was a little concerned, too. So I was doing my best not to dwell on it.

“If Yvonne did kill Teddy, she did it because of romantic betrayal. Fit of passion and all that. Why would she want to hurt me?”

“Because you’re going to prove she’s guilty of murder?” Cassady frowned at me like I was a child who’d pressed both hands against a hot stove and then had the nerve to cry. I was definitely not going to dwell on this.

“It wouldn’t cross her mind. I haven’t said anything to her about the whole journalism deal.”

“But she’s bound to find out about your meeting with Garrett Wilson at
Manhattan
about your investigative article. Good news travels fast, but gossip travels faster.”

“Please. Like that’s going to happen.”

“Like tomorrow at noon, sweetie.” Cassady chuckled in delight, a rich, throaty sound that I find infectious and charming, except when I’m the laughee. I’m sure I looked confused, which just made her chuckle harder.

I looked to Tricia for help, but she was beaming almost maternally. She pointed back at Cassady with her chopsticks. “She did it, not me.”

“Did … ?”

“Got you a meeting with Garrett.”

Every morsel of Chinese food I’d just scarfed down, plus a few major organs, somersaulted into one big knot in the middle of my abdomen. Garrett Wilson. Features editor at
Manhattan
. A man known for launching—and crushing—great careers. At a magazine that mixed brainy with trendy so well that both sides benefited—less geek, more chic. It was the perfect place for an article about Teddy’s murder but it never would have occurred to me to aspire to it. And now that Cassady had engineered a miracle that made such aspiration possible, I had no idea if I could pull it off.

“I sat next to him at a first amendment thingy a couple of weeks ago, I insisted that he keep his hand on his own thigh, and he insisted that I take his card. I figured someone should benefit from the whole experience, so I called him.” Cassady got up from her desk and came at me, chopsticks raised. “And all it will cost you is one Szechuan dumpling.” She speared said dumpling from its carton beside me and retreated to her desk.

“I don’t know what to say.” I was actually moved but I knew Cassady wouldn’t tolerate high-flung emotion.

“My. Let’s all linger and enjoy this historic moment.” She winked at me and devoured the dumpling.

Panic started to sneak into the picture. “I can’t tell him I think Yvonne did it. I can’t tell anyone that. Yet.”

Cassady shook her head. “Sell him on the article being about the search, not about who actually did the killing. The fact that you’re going to come up with the identity of the actual killer by press time is just a marvelous bonus.”

“Who
are
you going to tell about Yvonne?” Tricia asked evenly. She has this way of withholding judgment that makes you so aware of the thin ice beneath your feet that you wish she’d just come right out and tell you you’re being an idiot. In a polite and loving way. A helpful way.

Still, I knew what she was getting at. “No one. Until I know more. All I have is a hunch at this point.”

“And a purloined key in your pocket.” I’d shown them the picture and the key briefly before we ate. “Maarten” didn’t ring any bells with them, other than vacation fantasies, and they agreed that it looked like the Ritz Carlton in the picture. But maybe the key was … key. Cassady drummed her fingers against her cheek in a caricature of deep thought. “What do you suppose it unlocks?”

“Yvonne’s chastity belt?” Tricia ventured.

I shook my head. “It doesn’t look antique.” They chuckled and I dug the key out of my pocket, then pushed aside the law journals and periodicals swamping Cassady’s coffee table to create a space where they could both see it clearly. “It doesn’t have enough teeth for a safe deposit box or even a padlock.”

Tricia started to pick it up and Cassady moved like she was going to smack her delicate hand. “Bad enough Agatha Christie has her prints all over it already, let’s go easy.”

I hadn’t thought of that. Not only had I stolen evidence, I’d contaminated it. Assuming the key was evidence. Assuming that I was on the right track at all with my whole Yvonne theory. Assuming that I wasn’t in way over my head. But I didn’t want to get into all of that right now, so I just said, “Damn.”

“We can work with this. There’s a reason you handled it, Helen asked you to pack his desk, so on and so forth, but you do need to go kinda easy from here on in,” Cassady cautioned. I appreciated the use of the pronoun “we.” Not that I wanted to drag either of them into harm’s way. Assuming I could even see harm’s way from where I was. Assuming—never mind, we’ve already been there.

Tricia leaned in close to the key, making a show of not touching it. “You know what this reminds me of?”

“Leaning over to put your nose on a glass coffee table reminds me of college, but I can’t believe that’s what you were going to say,” Cassady admitted.

Tricia straightened up, but kept her eyes on the key. “You don’t know everything, Cassady. Most things, but not everything.”

Cassady and I exchanged a look of appreciation that Tricia sniffed at. “We’re going to uncover all kinds of secrets here.”

“My music box,” Tricia persisted.

“That’s where you kept your coke?” Cassady persisted in return. “I can’t believe we never looked there.”

Tricia deliberately turned so only I was in her field of vision, which just amused Cassady more. “I had a music box when I was little, really beautiful polished walnut. My father got it on a business trip to Vienna.”

“And you wound it with a key like this?” I asked.

“No, it had a drawer in it for keepsakes and the key that locked the drawer looked like this one.”

We all stared at the key for a moment and all I could think of was
Alice in Wonderland
, when Alice has to get the key off the table, but the cake makes her too small and the drink makes her too big. Or is it the other way around? And, as Grace Slick pointed out, the ones that Mother gives you don’t do anything at all. “Eat me,” indeed. Had I already fallen down the rabbit hole?

“So maybe Teddy gave Yvonne a keepsake box?” I ventured.

“Or just something special to keep in her box,” Cassady said, enjoying the double entendre a little too much.

“Must be pretty special if she was willing to kill him over it,” Tricia continued.

“‘If I can’t have you …’” I suggested.

“Think he was breaking it off?” Cassady asked.

“Maybe Helen found out and told him to. That would explain why Yvonne thinks so highly of Helen these days.” I got to my feet as gracefully as possible. “I think it’s time to get back to the scene of the crime.”

“Back to the office so soon?” Tricia stood like the perfect hostess, even though it was Cassady’s office.

“Back to
Femme
. That’s where Yvonne and Teddy met, as far as I know. My friend Stephanie Glenn’s still there. Maybe she can tell me if that’s where they hooked up, too.”

“Think Woodward and Bernstein learned all about people’s sex lives when they were chasing Watergate?” Tricia asked.