Killer Heels (6 page)

To listen to her, you’d think Yvonne had lost the love of her life, rather than a colleague with whom she rarely socialized and frequently argued. Both Yvonne and Teddy were on the hothead end of the spectrum and they disagreed loudly and often, over everything from the magazine business to movie reviews. A couple of times, I thought Teddy was trying to get fired, but eventually I realized they both loved a good shouting match, so it really wasn’t a problem for the two of them. Even though it drove those of us who had to listen to it crazy.

Sort of the way Yvonne was driving me bonkers now. “Oh. Poor. Helen.”

“Yes, Yvonne,” I said automatically.

“What will we say?!” Yvonne sobbed a little more and I literally bit my lip.
We
? God help us. In my column, I’ve had to give people some pretty harsh news: He’s cheating on you, leave him; she’s lying to you, dump her; he’s in denial, run very, very fast. But there was nothing in my archives to prepare me for breaking the news of Teddy’s death to Helen. And there wasn’t even a very long ride to give me time to practice what I was going to say. But I was absolutely going to find a way to stop Yvonne from saying it first. And I had less than ten minutes in a speeding police car to figure out how.

I have to admit, it was kind of cool having the detectives pick me up. I was standing on the sidewalk, gulping outside air, willing my Sigourney cheekbones into full being, when the car screeched up. Detective Lipscomb was driving a very clean but very plain Oldsmobile and he laid on the ocean liner–size horn and cut off two taxis and a BMW to pull to the curb. The other drivers started screaming and flipping him off, then Detective Lipscomb got out and flashed his shield at them. The taxi drivers stopped screaming and went away. The BMW guy kept screaming, but he drove away, too.

Detective Edwards got out and opened the back passenger door for me. I could tell that everyone on the sidewalk was watching and I figured, the way the night had been going, that I’d trip and fall flat on my face three feet from the car. I was wearing unfamiliar shoes, after all, and slender heels at that. But I imagined
les
cheekbones buoying me aloft and I walked with what I hoped was grace and poise to the car. Detective Edwards stayed at the door so it was clear to all the onlookers that I wasn’t being arrested. I’m sure there was a lot of speculation going on as to what my story was and it was kind of cool to be the object of speculation, since I’m usually the speculator.

I mean, don’t you see things in passing that make you wonder, “What’s that all about?” A couple quarreling in a restaurant, a man running down a crowded sidewalk, a woman weeping as she hails a cab—we see all these fragments of other people’s life stories as we pursue our own. And I often get sidetracked by those fragments and try to fill them in, imagine what led to that moment and what might happen next. Maybe it’s the journalist in me. Maybe it’s because it’s easier than attending to my own fragments.

I got up to the car and looked Detective Edwards right in the dazzling blue eyes. “Thank you,” I said, trying to make it sound layered with many meanings.

“No, thank you,” he replied with a wry smile as Yvonne popped her head out from the back seat.

“Molly! Thank. God.” She held her arms out to me, but there was no graceful way to embrace her without getting in the car first. So there was this uncomfortable tangle of arms and legs that I hoped the speculators on the sidewalk missed and somehow, I was in the back seat with Yvonne. Detective Edwards closed the door behind me, got in front with his partner, and we screeched away.

“Ms. Forrester,” Detective Lipscomb growled in greeting.

“Detective Lipscomb,” I returned as pleasantly as I could, given that Yvonne was twisting my hands into pulp.

“Oh. Molly.” Yvonne has bleached her hair so many times that it has acquired a faint lavender undertone and an odd scent not found in nature. She hugged me to her and I had to twist my neck as far as possible to keep my nose from being buried in the platinum Brillo pad on top of her head.

I struggled to sit up. Why was everything making it so hard to breathe tonight? “Yvonne, I know you’re upset, but it’s not going to help Helen if you show up hysterical.”

“You’re right! So right!” Yvonne was still wringing my hands and I had to pull them out of her grasp while the skin was still attached. “So glad you’re here!”

I glanced up at the detectives to see if either of them seemed glad I was there. Detective Lipscomb was concentrating on his driving, but Detective Edwards was looking back at us. More precisely, he was looking at Yvonne, and it was clear from his expression that he was growing less fond of her by the moment. His eyes slid over to meet mine for just a moment and a hint of a smile played across his face. Then he turned back around and I was left to consider the possible implications of the smile.

“I want you to come in tomorrow morning. This morning. Whatever,” Yvonne raced on. “Help me tell everyone! Need to plan a service. Write an appreciation.”

“Yvonne, let’s take this one painful step at a time. Let’s talk to Helen and see what we can do for her. Then we’ll figure out what we need to do for the magazine.”

“Yes!” Yvonne leaned forward and poked Detective Edwards in the shoulder. “Told you! Best advice columnist there is. Didn’t I?!”

“Yes, ma’am,” Detective Edwards replied.

I considered advising her to be more careful about poking armed homicide detectives, but I decided to let it go. There were no doubt going to be plenty of opportunities to correct Yvonne as the night progressed and I would have to conserve my strength and choose my battles.

We reached Helen and Teddy’s building way too quickly. They owned a condo on West 82nd and Detective Lipscomb must have made every green light between Django and there. It was an older building with a crumbling grace to the sandstone exterior. I had no idea what I was going to say or do and was, in fact, beginning to have grave doubts about Yvonne’s and my being there at all. But the detectives assured us that it was helpful to have a familiar face on hand when they broke the news, so we followed them as they showed their shields to the doorman. He was an older man, with deep smile lines at the corners of his mouth. He wasn’t interested in giving the cops any attitude and he figured things out pretty quickly when Detective Lipscomb said we needed to see Helen Reynolds.

“How bad’s Mr. Reynolds?” he asked as he ushered us into the lobby. It was heavy on the dark wood paneling and someone had overcompensated with an area rug with way too much orange in it, just this side of painful. When no one answered him right away, the doorman knew exactly what that meant. He picked up the house phone and, as he dialed, asked, “Who should I say wants to see her?”

“Molly Forrester,” I blurted, wanting to give Helen the extra few minutes it would take us to get up to her apartment before she found out she was a widow. And I was determined to keep Yvonne as quiet as possible.

The doorman announced me to Helen, then held out the phone to me. “She wants to talk to you.”

I took the phone and was amazed that my hands weren’t shaking more visibly than they were. “Helen?”

“Molly,” she said groggily, “it’s almost two o’clock.”

“I know and I wouldn’t be coming by at this hour if it weren’t important. I’m so sorry, but I need to come up.”

“Teddy’s not here, Molly.”

“I know.”

I could feel the quality of silence at the other end of the phone change. “Okay,” was all she said. The line went dead.

I handed the phone back to the doorman. He replaced it gently in the cradle, then called the elevator for us. We stood together in uneasy silence until the elevator doors opened. “Mr. Reynolds was a good man,” the doorman said as we filed past him. We all nodded in agreement.

Upstairs, Helen was standing in the doorway, watching the elevator. I got off first and she glared at me, her mouth compressed into a thin, white line. Then Yvonne and the detectives got off the elevator, too, and Helen’s look of anger collapsed into confusion. I grabbed Yvonne’s sleeve to keep her from sprinting down the hall and engulfing Helen. The hallway suddenly seemed very long and yet somehow, not long enough.

Yvonne started to sniffle. I yanked on her sleeve as inconspicuously as possible as we drew within reach of Helen. I started to say something, I’m not sure what, but Helen cut me off, pointing to the detectives. “Who are they?”

“Mrs. Reynolds, I’m Detective Edwards—”

Helen screamed. That made Yvonne scream. I grabbed Helen, Detective Edwards grabbed Yvonne, and Detective Lipscomb herded us all into the apartment. No need to wake the neighbors; Helen had enough to deal with for the moment.

We got Helen to the couch in the living room. She had clearly had a free hand in decorating the apartment. Everything was soft floral prints and rounded corners and highly polished woods. All the furniture had plump cushions topped with firm throw pillows. Laura Ashley without the benefit of English restraint. I wondered if we were going to be able to sit down or if we would just slide off the shiny rounded surfaces and land with a soft thud on the plush patterned carpet. I was willing to bet that she made Teddy take his shoes off before he put his feet on the hassock, with its skirt of infinite pleats. I couldn’t quite picture him being comfortable in such a room. His office was just this side of chaos and he seemed to revel in it. Was it a reaction to all this precision? It was becoming clear that I didn’t know Teddy as well as I thought I did. Was I getting in over my head here?

“He’s dead,” Helen gasped as though she needed to say it before anyone else could. Was it any less awful that way? Or was she hoping someone would correct her?

Instead, Yvonne responded with, “Stabbed. Right in the—”

“For God’s sake, Yvonne,” I implored. Yvonne looked like she was about to take offense, so I sent her into the kitchen for a glass of water and a box of tissues. The detectives sat across from Helen, giving her a moment to collect herself. I was kind of amazed how they hadn’t had to say anything and she knew why they were there. Who knew the angel of death wore such a cheap suit?

“When you called … from downstairs … I thought …” Helen struggled to get the words out between the tears. Her face already had a light gloss to it, probably night moisturizer. It smelled like Oil of Olay. I’d seen Teddy and Helen’s wedding picture a million times—it sat on Teddy’s credenza, facing out the door of his office. And even though I’d seen Helen countless times, I’d never compared her to the young woman in the picture. Since they’d gotten married almost twenty years ago, Teddy had filled out and Helen had contracted. The angles in her small, pale face were sharper, her brown hair had gone from a cap of curls to a severe bob, and she seemed almost bony. Was this maturity or had something deeper taken its toll?

Yvonne came back with the tissues and water and we let Helen help herself. Yvonne plopped herself on the other side of Helen but, to her credit, wrung her own hands instead of Helen’s. Helen blew her nose and took a deep breath. “You said you knew he wasn’t home,” she said finally. “I thought you were coming to tell me you were having an affair with him.”

Me and Teddy? Never happen. That was my first thought, but thank God I didn’t blurt that one out—or laugh. Though it did explain Helen glaring at me as I got off the elevator. It was actually very moving to imagine Helen thinking of Teddy having an affair, with me or anyone else. Poor rumpled, sweaty Teddy wasn’t exactly a poster boy for passion, especially with male models and wannabes wandering through the office hallways all the time. But I guess Helen figured we could all see in him what she saw in him—whatever that was.

Maybe that’s the sign of a good relationship, that you see your partner as being as desirable to any other woman as he is to you. I’ve never had a very good handle on the whole jealousy issue, but I’ve heard the theory that if you’re not a little jealous, you don’t care enough. On the other hand, did a wife being jealous or suspicious ever stop a husband from messing around? A man who’s going to stray is going to find a way, my grandmother used to say. I hope that didn’t have any relevance to my grandfather, but who knows. My Grandmother Forrester was one of those women who whispered when she had to say “cancer” and arched her eyebrows instead of saying “sex” or “menstruation,” so it’s not like we got a lot of straight information from her. Not that we really wanted it. The only thing weirder than trying to imagine your parents having sex is trying to imagine your grandparents having sex. I think there’s actually a rule against it in the Old Testament.

“You suspected your husband of having an affair?” Detective Lipscomb spoke gently. The transition from officer of the law to father confessor caught me by surprise.

“No, not really,” Helen fumbled. “It was this bizarre thought, when Molly called, and I was half-asleep, I don’t know what I was thinking …” She looked to me for reassurance and I gave her my sagest nod. But at the same time I found myself thinking: She’s blurting. But not the way I’d been blurting all night. More the way a child will blurt out a story to explain how the lamp got broken or who ate the last piece of chocolate cake without asking. Had she actually suspected Teddy?

Could Teddy have been having an affair? I scanned my mental images of Teddy in the office, which was really the only place I ever saw him. Had his behavior changed? Had his routine changed? I thought as carefully as my jangled emotions would let me, but I really couldn’t see anything that would point to an affair. Except the diet. Teddy had been a big guy and it had never seemed to bother him until the last month or two. He told everyone that he was dieting because his doctor had read him the riot act. But what if the motive was romantic, not medical? What if he figured there was no need to slim down for Helen because she loved him no matter what, but there was now someone in his life worth making the effort for? Someone who might not love him no matter what, someone he had to get buff for? Who was Teddy sleeping with? Or maybe even, trying to sleep with? Poor Helen.

“Were you home all evening, Mrs. Reynolds?” Detective Lipscomb continued.