Icing Ivy (16 page)

S
he walked, preoccupied, the box in her arms, up Eighth Avenue toward the Port Authority Bus Terminal.

Ivy hadn't changed at all. Still as competitive and insecure as ever, she had lied to Jane about her apartment and the kind of job she had. At
Skyline
, she had lied to Judy Monk, saying she lived at Sutton Place. Jane laughed out loud. She had to hand it to Ivy; she must have figured if she was going to lie, she might as well go all the way. Ivy had even felt compelled to lie to the slovenly Miss Jordan, who had referred to Jane and Ivy as “rich broads,” and to Rafael, the superintendent, who believed Johnny wanted to marry Ivy.

Ivy's dreams, all lies.

Like her and Jane's friendship?

“You okay, ma'am?”

Startled, she looked up. A young police officer had approached her, his expression solicitous.

“Yes, I'm fine,” she said. “Why?”

“I saw you crying . . . lugging that box and all.”

“I'm fine,” she repeated, “but thank you.” She gave him a grateful smile, and he gave her a curt nod back. Then she crossed 40th Street and entered the bus terminal.

She checked her watch and realized she'd just missed the 3:00
P.M.
Lakeland bus to Shady Hills. She decided a cup of coffee would taste very good right now, and went into a sandwhich shop, settling at a small table with a large cappuccino and a chocolate almond biscotti.

As she sipped, the rush of commuters outside the café blurred and Ivy's ransacked room came into sharp focus.

Johnny had done that, of course. Not himself—he was too smart for that. The day after he killed Ivy, he hired some thug to pose as Ivy's brother to get her address out of Judy Monk, then as “the roach man,” to do Johnny's ransacking for him. Obviously Johnny had decided that whatever he had told Ivy in confidence about his shady dealings was no longer safe. It made perfect sense: If he and Ivy had broken up because of Johnny's indiscretions with Carla Santino, Ivy would no longer feel any obligation to keep Johnny's secrets.

And so he had murdered her.

Then he had sent his man to search Ivy's room for any incriminating notes, papers, files.

Jane frowned. One thing didn't make sense, though. Rafael had said he'd never met Johnny. In that case, Miss Jordan probably never had, either. Ivy wouldn't have wanted Johnny to see how she lived—her reason not to have given him her address.

Then if neither Rafael nor Miss Jordan knew Johnny, why did he feel a need to send someone else to search Ivy's room?

Jane shrugged. Perhaps the reason had nothing to do with whether Rafael and Miss Jordan knew Johnny. Perhaps Johnny had simply been unable to do it himself because of another commitment; perhaps he was somewhere too far away to get to the room as fast as he would have wanted to, and so he sent someone else. Perhaps it was simply that Johnny didn't want to run the risk of being identified later.

Had the searcher found what he was looking for? Jane wondered. If yes, then Johnny's job was done; he was safe; his secrets had died with Ivy. If no—the likelier scenario, for even Ivy would have been smart enough not to leave such information in such an insecure place—then he would keep looking, for Ivy must have made notes, written something about her story, somewhere. But where had she kept them?

Jane sat up sharply. But of course.
With her.
In her purse.
In her luggage.

She frowned. What had happened to Ivy's handbag ? To the big suitcase she'd brought with her from New York? Jane whipped out her cell phone and called Stanley. Buzzi at the desk said he was out, so she called his cell.

“And how is your new year so far?” he asked jovially.

“Fine.”

“You don't sound very convincing.”

After his demands that she stop playing detective, she was hesitant to ask him even one question about Ivy's case. But the worst that could happen was that he would say no. She hoped he still remembered what a good time they'd had at his apartment Tuesday night. Then, taking no chances, she decided to remind him. “You're a very good dancer, do you know that?”

“What?”

“I loved dancing to your Sinatra albums. Can we do that again soon?”

“Of course,” he said, his voice relaxing. “But that's not why you called, is it?”

“Well, no, not exactly. Stanley, what happened to Ivy's purse and suitcase?”

“Her what?”

“Her things. The stuff she had with her at the retreat.”

“Oh. Why?” he asked suspiciously.

Where to begin? She'd done so much without him to reach this point. “Stanley,” she said, mustering her courage, “I have good reason to believe Ivy was murdered because of a story she was pursuing for the newspaper she worked for,
Skyline
.”

“I'm listening.”

“Last Friday—the day we found Ivy's body—someone got into Ivy's apartment pretending to be the exterminator and trashed it. I think whoever it was was looking for Ivy's notes, files, whatever she had written down about this story.”

“And did this person find these notes et cetera?” he asked, sounding interested.

“We have no way of knowing. There's a chance he didn't. In which case, there's only one place those notes could be. In her handbag, in her suitcase—among the things she carried with her.”

“So you're saying that if we go through Ivy's things and find out what story she was after, we'll know who killed her.”

“Right. So.” Energized, she sat up and shook back her hair. “Where are her bag and suitcase?”

“Here at the station, of course.”

“And can we have a look through them?”

“Sure, but it won't do us any good. We've already looked. Nothing in there but clothes, makeup, toiletries, and so on. Oh, I almost forgot, three issues of
The National Enquirer
. Jane,” he said, a note of impatience coming into his voice, “do you really believe we didn't think of that?”

“Well . . . I didn't know if you knew about her job at the newspaper.”

“Of course we did. Jane, when someone is killed—when we're conducting a murder investigation—we make it our business to find out all we can about the victim. Because it's true that, as you point out, clues from the victim's life almost always point to the identity of the killer.”

She slumped back into her seat, toying with her coffee stirrer. “I see.”

“Listen, if you want to look, come look.”

“I don't see the point,” she said lifelessly.

“But you can if you want. I certainly won't stop you.”

She said, “Why are you being so cooperative? I thought you wanted me to stop playing detective?”

“I do. But it's no skin off my nose to show you something like a suitcase and a pocketbook. Besides, these things will probably go to you eventually anyway. As far as we've been able to tell, Ivy had nobody. No relatives and few friends. You were the best friend she had.”

That deep despair swept over her again and she saw Rafael's serious face before her, the big mustache moving as he said,
Miss Ivy said this friend Jane was always there for her, a true friend.

“Are you there?”

“Yes. Sorry.”

“You want to look, then?”

“No . . . On second thought, yes. I'll come by in the morning.”

“Jane, are you all right? You sound odd. Sad or something.”

“Sad or something?” she said, faintly amused. Really, were all men like Stanley? He really was a dear, but sometimes he could be so utterly clueless. “My best friend is gone, Stanley. Yes, I'm sad.”

“Right,” he said, abashed. “I'm sorry, Jane.”

“It's all right,” she said softly. “See you tomorrow.”

Snapping her cell phone shut, she put on her coat. Then, with a deep sigh, she grabbed the box and headed through the crowd toward the escalator and Platform 405.

She passed the newsstand, which featured racks of books among the magazines. She spotted a paperback edition of Jennifer Castaneda's second-to-latest novel,
Mojito
.

She stopped and took down a copy. The cover depicted a beautiful golden-skinned Latina woman peering seductively out from under a huge straw hat in vivid circular stripes of fuchsia, canary, and lime. The hat reminded Jane of hats and bags she had seen at the straw markets in Antigua on her vacation the month before. In the woman's hand was a tall, wet highball glass of pale green liquid full of bubbles and ice cubes, a mint sprig on top—presumably the drink called the Mojito.

Then Jane realized that the woman under the hat was Jennifer Castaneda herself. Jane flipped the book over and gazed down at Jennifer's author photo, in which she was gazing out from under a much smaller hat. In all other respects the photograph was strikingly similar to the cover illustration.

An ambitious woman. Poor Vick Halleran. Had he had any idea of what he was getting himself into when he fell in love with Jennifer Castaneda?

Shaking her head, Jane replaced the book on the rack. She thought about Vick again, and realized all at once that while she was in New York, she really ought to see him. She moved to the edge of the crowd, set the box against the wall, found Vick's home number in her address book, and dialed it on her cell phone. It rang quite a few times, and she had almost decided to hang up when he answered.

“Hello, Jane. This is a pleasant surprise,” he said, though he sounded puzzled and perhaps a bit uncomfortable to hear from her.

“Vick, I'm here in the city and wondered if I could take you to lunch. You busy?”

“Not anymore. I've just finished teaching my writing workshop at The New School—I had my home calls forwarded to my cell phone.”

“Then you can do it?”

“I'd love to.”

They arranged to meet at the school and go to lunch from there. Jane took a taxi to Twelfth and Sixth. Vick was waiting for her on the corner, a big smile on his round face.

“What a treat,” he said, taking the box, which he insisted on carrying for her. “I can't remember when I've seen you so many times in such a short period.”

He led the way to a diner two blocks from the school and they took a booth. “So how are you, Vick?” she asked. “I'm sorry the retreat ended the way it did.”

“It's certainly not your fault. What a horrible thing. That poor woman. Have the police got any leads?”

“ No.”

He lowered his gaze to his place mat, which bore a map of Greece. “The retreat wasn't going well for me anyway, Jane. I might as well tell you this now. Jennifer and I are getting a divorce.”

“Oh, Vick,” she said, putting her hand on his. “I'm so sorry.”

He gave his head an uncaring little toss, though he still wouldn't look at her. “Last night Jennifer finally confessed she's still having an affair with her agent, Henry Silver. She's moving in with him.” Finally he met her gaze. “I suppose it was pretty clear at the retreat that things weren't exactly right between Jennifer and me.”

“Yes, I have to admit it was. I'm terribly sorry.”

“Thanks, Jane, I appreciate that.”

“Vick,” she said, shifting in her seat, “there was something I wanted to talk to you about at Tamara's party Monday night, but I never got the chance.”

“Oh?”

“Last Thursday night—the night before Ivy was found murdered—when Ivy and Jennifer came back into the lounge after they had their cigarettes, why did you look so uncomfortable?”

He blinked, brows lowered. “You weren't there, were you?”

“ No.”

“Then how do you know about it?”

“Carla told me.”

He eyed her warily. He was quiet for a long moment, his face deeply troubled, his gaze fixed on the window beside their booth. The waiter arrived, and they ordered sandwiches.

Jane waited. Vick met her gaze, watched her for a brief moment, and seemed to make a decision. “It was because of something that had just happened,” he said.

“Yes?” she prompted.

“In our room, before we went down to the lounge, Jennifer and I had a hideous fight. I accused her of continuing her affair with Henry. I said I would leave her if she didn't end it. She told me she was planning to leave me anyway; she just hadn't wanted to leave before her book was done.”

He shook his head in wonder. “That's what she's like. A cold, calculating, ambitious monster. I've never met anyone like her. I loved her once, you know. I think I still do. But I never imagined that she was this kind of person.”

Jane nodded sympathetically.

“There's more,” he said. “Jennifer left our room, and I went downstairs a short time afterward. I went to the lounge and found her there. It was extremely uncomfortable for us both. After a short time, Jennifer announced she was going outside to have a cigarette. I'm positive she did this just to get away from me.”

Jane said, “And Ivy went with her.”

“That's right. As Jennifer walked out of the lounge, she tossed me a look”—his hands clenched—“this smug, self-satisfied expression that made my blood boil. It was like she was saying, ‘I win.' I don't know. All I do know is that at that moment I decided to confront her again. I left the lounge and went outside. I saw Jennifer and Ivy standing together in the parking lot, a good distance away. They were smoking. As I made my way toward them, they separated. Ivy walked to the edge of the path that led to the pond and started down it . . .”