Farewell, Dorothy Parker (32 page)

“You don’t understand.”

“Outside,” he said.

“But—” she began, but before she could plead her case, a sound even louder than the siren erupted. It was her cell phone. Every head in the theater turned toward her.

She reached for it as fast as she could, but the room went dark again and she couldn’t see what she was doing. She let Buzz usher her out the door into the lobby.

“I’m so sorry!” she said. “Really.” She looked at the caller ID on her phone. It was Detective Diehl again. She silenced the ringer and slipped it back into her purse.

Violet explained the situation to the security guard just as she had done with Brooke. “Please,” she said. “You have to let me back in to look for her. She might be in there right now!”

Buzz scratched his chin. “I think she is,” he said.

“You do? Really? Oh, please,” she said, rushing for the door.

He grabbed her arm. “I can’t let you back in.”

“But—”

“Just wait here,” he said. “The movie ends in less than twenty minutes.”

“That’s too long!” she said. “She needs to take her medication.” Violet felt her cell phone vibrating in her purse. “And the police are involved. Everyone’s looking for her!”

He sighed. “
I’ll
bring her out. You wait here.”

Thank God, thank God, thank God,
Violet thought, as she paced the hallway, waiting for Buzz and Delaney to emerge. This whole nightmare was about to end. Delaney was safe. Safe! And Violet wouldn’t have to worry about being suspected of kidnapping her niece. In fact, she would be a hero for being the one who found her.

She rubbed down the goose bumps on her arms and stared at the door to the screening room. Any minute, it would open and become the happy ending to the terrible story that started on the day of the tragic accident.

Violet thought back again to that day at the hospital, after Delaney had stabilized and regained consciousness. While still groggy, the girl repeatedly asked for her mother, and Violet said the same thing each time, “I’m here with you, sweetheart. It’s Aunt Violet. I won’t leave you.”

But finally, after Delaney had taken her first small meal and was wide awake, Violet knew it was time. She could have called the nurse and asked her to summon the in-house psychologist, who had offered to help break the news, but Violet thought that would only make it worse. It should be just the two of them sharing this quiet, unbearable moment.

“I want to see my parents,” Delaney said, when she finished her apple juice. “Where are they?”

Violet took her hand. “You know you were in a terrible car accident, right?”

Delaney pushed her tray away and stared at her aunt. Violet wondered what was going through her mind. Was she remembering? Replaying the terrifying scene? And then something changed. A darkness passed over the girl’s eyes, and her spirit seemed to shrivel as tears spilled down her cheeks.

She knew.

“Are they dead?” she asked.

Violet nodded. “Yes.”

“Both of them?”

“I’m sorry.”

Delaney pulled her slender hand from her aunt’s grip. “I wish…” she said, and paused. Violet felt her own heart constrict as she waited for her niece to finish the sentence.

Delaney scratched at the corner of the medical tape holding her IV in place. It looked like she was trying to get a grip so she could peel it off. But the cast on her wrist made her efforts clumsy.

“You have to leave that alone, hon,” Violet said.

The girl ignored her and kept scratching.

“Del?”

Delaney looked up as if she had forgotten someone was in the room with her.

“I’m going to take care of you,” Violet said.

Delaney went back to picking at the tape.

“Del, please,” Violet said, laying a hand on Delaney’s shoulder.

The girl didn’t say anything, but she moved to the side of the bed. Violet took it as an invitation to get beside her for a hug. She lay down and embraced her poor niece. Delaney rested her wet face on her aunt’s shoulder. Violet held her close, trying to convey that she loved her and would never leave her, and that it would all be okay.

“I wish I was dead, too,” Delaney said.

They had come such a long way since that dark moment. And when the door to the screening room opened at last, Violet was weeping with joy and fear and expectation. But what she saw made her throat tighten. Buzz emerged with a young blond girl who looked scared and confused.

Violet shook her head. “It’s not her. That’s not Delaney.”

Chapter 36

A short time later, Violet pulled into an illegal parking space on West 44th Street, diagonally across the street from the entrance to the Algonquin Hotel, and held tight to her steering wheel. She tried to imagine what would happen if she went inside and Barry Beeman spotted her. Would he accuse her of stealing the guest book? Would he demand that security detain her until the police arrived? And then what? The detective on Long Island probably considered her a kidnapping suspect by now. Once he learned where she was and what she had been accused of, she could well be arrested on felony charges.

This could go very, very badly.

I should just turn around and go home, she thought. If I go straight to the police station now, maybe I can talk my way out of any trouble. But if I get nabbed here, it’s all over.

Violet pulled out her cell phone and sent Delaney another text message:

She turned the ringer back on and dropped the phone into her purse, not terribly hopeful that Delaney would respond.

While she waited, Violet stared at the entryway, trying to convince herself it would be ridiculous to go inside to look for the pair. But it was
no use. Violet had read too many books about Dorothy Parker to underestimate the significance of this place in the life of the legendary wit. And after spending all those decades flitting around the Algonquin only when the book was open—and being at the mercy of whoever might close it—she would likely relish the opportunity to experience the place on her own terms.

Violet’s phone rang again. She looked at the caller ID. Suffolk County PD. She dropped it back into her purse.

Courage. This was something she had to do, regardless of the consequences. She got out of the car and approached the entrance to the Algonquin, putting her face right up against the dark glass doors. She couldn’t see much beyond the vestibule, where there was another set of dark glass doors leading to the hotel lobby.

“Can I help you, miss?” the doorman asked.

“Maybe you can,” Violet said. She took out her cell phone and scrolled to a recent picture of Delaney. “I’m looking for my niece,” she said, handing it to him. “Have you seen this girl within the last couple of hours? I think she may have gone into the hotel.”

He adjusted his hat as he looked at the image. “I don’t think so,” he said. “But a lot of people come and go.” He gave the phone back to Violet. “Maybe somebody at the front desk saw her.”

She nodded and moved toward the door.

“You going to leave your car there?” he asked, pointing across the street.

“I’ll only be a few minutes,” she said. “You think I’ll get a ticket?”

He held the door open for her. “Fifty-fifty,” he said. “Try not to take too long.”

Violet hesitated, worried. And then scoffed at her own stupid knee-jerk anxiety.

“And I doubt you’ll get towed,” the doorman added.

“It’s a tow-away zone?” Violet asked.

“I’ve only seen them tow one car in all the time I’ve been working here.”

“That’s a relief,” Violet said, and then thought to add, “How long have you been working here?”

“Almost four weeks.”

Great. Just when she thought this day couldn’t get any worse.

“I’ll be quick,” she said, and stepped into the darkened interior of the Algonquin Hotel.

Normally, Violet loved entering the historic hotel. But today, instead of feeling charmed by the place’s rich history and antique decor, she was almost nauseated by a chill of foreboding. The past felt like a threat to her now—a physical thing that could swallow Delaney whole.

Violet did a quick scan for Barry Beeman, who was nowhere in sight. Matilda, the Algonquin’s famous cat, sat at her perch on the front desk, looking bored. She seemed to glance at Violet contemptuously, as if she knew about the stolen guest book.

The maître d’ at the lectern was not the handsome Middle Eastern man who had been on duty the day she had created a scene and made off with the guest book, but a short, portly man with elegantly lush white hair—someone who wouldn’t know her connection to the missing artifact. Thank goodness, Violet thought, as she approached.

She showed him her niece’s picture on her phone. “Have you seen this girl?” Violet asked.

“I don’t think she’s arrived yet,” he said, clearly assuming she was meeting Violet there for dinner. “Would you like to look around?”

She said that she would, and threaded her way through the armchairs and sofas to the back of the room, glancing at every face. No Delaney. No Dorothy Parker. Likewise, she didn’t find them in the Oak Room, a supper club off the lounge.

Violet boldly approached the front desk and showed the cell-phone
picture of Delaney to a uniformed woman who looked like a round-faced Cindy Crawford.

“Have you seen this girl?” she asked. “She’s my niece, and I think she might be here.”

The woman passed Violet’s phone to the other two people behind the desk, but none of them had seen her. Violet asked where the hotel’s corporate office was located.

“Second floor,” the attractive woman said. “Is there someone I can call for you?”

Second floor—just as Violet had feared. Contrary to popular belief, the Algonquin suite Dorothy Parker most fondly remembered was not the one on the eleventh floor named in her honor, but, as she had once informed Violet, a more obscure room on the second floor. It was the only place in the hotel Violet wanted to scout out, but it was also where she was most likely to run into the general manager.

This was going to be tricky, but Violet knew what she had to do.

“Would you mind buzzing Barry Beeman and asking him to come down?” she said. “Tell him Violet Epps is here.”

The woman picked up the phone at the front desk and relayed the message.

“He’ll be with you in a moment,” she said to Violet. “He’d like you to wait right here.”

“Of course,” Violet said, but as soon as the woman looked back at her computer screen she inched away, finding a place to position herself in the shadows on the other side of the elevator bank, near the closed stairway. She wedged herself tightly against the cabinet holding the fire hose, and hoped Barry Beeman didn’t glance to his right before approaching the front desk.

Within moments, the elevator dinged and opened, and Violet watched as several people emerged. Barry Beeman was not among them. Then the door to the stairwell opened, almost hitting her in the face.
And there he was, tall and rigid in his dark suit. He charged right to the front desk without seeing her, and Violet slipped into the stairwell.

She went straight to room 209, which had been Dorothy Parker’s residence for several years after she and Edwin Parker, her first husband, split up.

She knocked on the door. There was no answer. She tried again.

“Delaney?” she called. “It’s Aunt Violet. If you’re in there, please open up.”

Nothing. Violet pressed her ear to the door but couldn’t hear anything. She knocked again and waited. A chambermaid pushing a housekeeping cart turned the corner, and Violet wondered if she would be able to talk the woman into opening the room for her. It would take a bit of fiction. Violet didn’t know if she had the acting chops to pull it off, but it was worth a try.

Violet knocked again on the door and called, “Honey? Open up, it’s me.”

“You lose your key, miss?” asked the chambermaid.

Yes! Just the reaction she had been hoping for. Violet was grateful for her newfound courage.

“I…left it in my room. Thought my husband would be here, but I guess he went out.” Violet paused and waited. Was her story compelling enough for the woman to break the rules and let her in?

“They help you at front desk,” the woman said. “You get new keycard.”

Damn.

“Okay, thanks,” Violet said. “I’ll do that.” She turned to go and affected a pronounced limp that she figured wasn’t very convincing. But once she was committed, she knew she had to do it all the way down the hall. She felt like an idiot.

“Miss, wait,” the chambermaid said, opening the door with her master key. “I let you in.”

Violet turned. “That’s very kind of you,” she said.

Violet shut the door behind her and looked around. It was indeed a suite. The living room was clean, spare, and modern—clearly nothing like it had been in Dorothy Parker’s day. There was a closed laptop on the desk, a copy of
The Wall Street Journal
on the coffee table, and a John Grisham novel on the orange leather armchair.

“Hello?” Violet called, just to be sure the room’s actual resident wasn’t there.

There was no answer, so she quietly stepped into the empty bedroom. The bed was made but rumpled, as if someone had been sitting on it. A few art museum brochures were spread out on the dresser, and three pairs of men’s shoes were neatly lined up in the corner. Violet opened the door to the bathroom. There were toiletries on the counter—a small tube of Colgate Total, Speed Stick deodorant, shaving cream, and a razor—and a damp towel on the floor. The shower curtain was half closed. Violet hesitated before looking behind it, the murder scene from Hitchcock’s
Psycho
too vivid to shut out.