If Looks Could Kill (8 page)

“And what about drugs?”

“Drugs?
Is someone saying she did drugs?”

“No, no. It’s just I wondered—because she was sick. There’s a chance someone might suggest it.”

“Heidi wouldn’t take any drugs,” Janice said, shaking her head. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but she thought that sort
of thing was beneath her.”

Little G had begun to fuss in his walker, maybe because the blue dog had vanished from the screen.

“You want a bobbie, G?” Janice called to him. He gave a grunt of approval, and she got up and went to the refrigerator, grabbing
a short bottle already filled with milk. As she walked toward him, both arms shot straight up to take it from her. I wondered
if there was anything wrong with me because at such moments I wasn’t overwhelmed with baby lust.

“He’s way too old for a bottle if you ask me,” said Janice, rolling her eyes as she sat down again. “But his mother lets him
have them. She doesn’t know how to say no to him.”

“Did you know Heidi’s boyfriend—Jody?”

“God, that relationship was
sooo
over. But yeah, I’ve met him. He’s an annoying person.”

“In what way?”

“He made Heidi think he was much more important than he was. He told her he was like the manager of that Starbucks but he’s
really just the assistant manager. He told her his family in Colorado was rich, but that’s not true, either. After she broke
up with him, he kept calling her, bothering her.”

“Was he still annoying her?”

“I think he finally took the hint, if you know what I mean.”

“Was she seeing anyone else yet?”

A long pause.

“I don’t know,” she said finally. “Heidi told me she was taking a break from guys. She wanted to, like, take some time to
herself. But . . .”

Janice leaned back in her chair and lowered her head, her hands in her lap. Her blond hair cascaded down in front of her face.

“But what?”

“Heidi claimed she didn’t want another boyfriend, but I can’t picture Heidi without a guy,” she said, glancing up through
a fringe of hair. “I almost got the feeling . . .”

“Yes?” I urged delicately, not wanting to look as if I were pouncing.

“I almost wonder if she was seeing some guy but didn’t want to introduce me to him. Like . . . like she was embarrassed of
me or something.”

Her plump lower lip began to tremble and a tear squeezed out from behind each eye.

“If only I’d talked Heidi into going out with me Saturday night, she might be alive,” she wailed. “I would have seen her getting
sick and I could have helped her.”

“Janice, you shouldn’t feel that way,” I said. “We don’t know yet how she died. There’s probably nothing you could have done.”

Little George chose this moment to hurl his bobbie across the large square coffee table, overturning an empty liter bottle
of Diet Dr Pepper, which then skidded onto the floor. It seemed like a good time to exit.

“Look, Janice,” I said, standing, “I better let you get back to work. Let me give you my number, and if you’ve got any questions,
call me at
Gloss
—I work with Ms. Jones—and just leave a message.” I handed her a card with my phone numbers, and she gave me her cell phone
number on a scrap of paper.

“What were you going to tell me, though?” she asked as she walked me to the door. “You said Mrs. Jones wanted you to get in
touch.”

“We just wanted to be sure you were all right. We know what good friends you and Heidi were.”

“Oh, yeah,” she said.

“I don’t know anything about the funeral,” I said, stopping by the door. “I assume it will be held in the town where Heidi’s
relatives live. Did you know anything about her family? Did she ever talk about them?”

“Her parents were dead. She had this aunt she hated. She didn’t want to talk about her—she said she was a witch.”

She bit her lip then, as if she were deliberating about saying something. I stood very, very still, waiting.

“Look, there’s one thing I need to mention,” she said finally. “I loaned Heidi a pair of earrings about a month ago and she
kept forgetting to give them back. Do you think I’m going to be able to get them? They cost like forty dollars.”

“Of course. I can ask Carlotta to look for them.”

She described the earrings—dangly gold with a pearl on each end—and I said good-bye. Once outside I flagged down a cab, and
as it headed toward Cat’s I pulled out my notebook and began jotting down notes from my conversation.

I hadn’t gathered a ton of info, but what I had was interesting. Point A: According to Janice, Heidi didn’t drink or do drugs,
which, if accurate, put the kibosh on the idea that her death might have resulted from an overdose. Of course, she could have
ingested too much of something without knowing it. As Paul had said, she may have been slipped a date rape drug.

Point B: Heidi had told Janice that she wasn’t interested in dating right now, but, like Janice, I was dubious about this.
Twenty-two-year-old girls don’t take sabbaticals from boys and booty—at least intentionally. It sounded as though something
were cooking, something that Heidi hadn’t wanted Janice to know about. Interestingly, Cat had remarked yesterday that Heidi
had seemed detached lately.

But if she had a new guy, why wasn’t she with him Saturday night? Maybe he was out of town or unavailable for some reason.
Maybe she
had
been with him and hadn’t wanted to tell Janice about her plans. She could have lied to Janice and gone out on a date, though
there seemed to be no reason she would have also lied to Cat, telling her she was staying in. Maybe the mystery man came to
her
place that night. Did he know anything about what had made Heidi fatally ill?

Point C: And why, if there really was a new man in her life, keep it a secret? Sure, there was the chance she was embarrassed
to introduce him to Janice, but Cat hadn’t been in the loop, either. Maybe
he
wanted it kept a secret. He was older and didn’t want anyone knowing he was dating someone who was practically jail bait.
Or he was married. That would certainly explain the need to keep it under wraps. And not only would he want discretion because
of his situation, but Heidi would want it, too, knowing that Cat would have no tolerance for the situation. This could also
explain why Heidi was apparently alone Saturday night.

A married man. New York was overrun with them. Heidi could have met one while she was out pushing Tyler in the stroller. She
could have met one at a bar, his wedding band stuffed in his pocket. She could even have met one at Cat’s house, at one of
her many shindigs.

As I neared the corner of Park and 91st Street, I froze on the sidewalk. What if she
had
fallen for a married guy she’d met at Cat’s house? What if it was the married guy in residence, the one who belonged to Cat?

I
SHOOK THE
thought of a Heidi/Jeff liaison out of my head for the time being because (1) it seemed fairly preposterous; and (2) what
I needed to focus on now was dodging any press lurking outside of Cat’s. As the cab sped down the block, however, I saw that
it was deserted in front of the town house. I paid the driver, and before springing up the stoop, I paused to stare at Heidi’s
apartment. A strip of yellow police tape was stretched across the iron gate.

I climbed the stoop and rang the doorbell. It was answered by Carlotta, Cat’s housekeeper from Guatemala, a woman of around
fifty who wasn’t a hair over five feet tall. She kept the chain on the door until she saw who it was.

“The reporters aren’t here anymore, Carlotta?” I asked as she let me in.

“No more, Miss Bailey. They go already. Yesterday it was not berry nice.”

“Is Cat here? She asked me to drop by.”

“She know. She ask you go to her office. You know, the third floor?”

I’d been in the upper part of the house only a couple of times in the four years Cat had owned it. On the third floor were
a large master bedroom and bath and a small study for Cat. On the fourth and top floor were Tyler’s room, a guest bedroom,
and a darkroom/office for Jeff, though as far as I knew he did all of his work in his studio downtown.

As I stepped onto the third floor landing, I spotted Cat standing in her study, with her ear to a cordless phone. She was
wearing a pair of flat-front khaki pants in some sort of stretchy-looking fabric and an orange top with an off-center zipper
in the front. How was it that she could carry off orange so well? The few times I’d tried it, I’d looked like a crossing guard.
She also had on a pair of faux cheetah-print heels. Cat was a notorious shoe slut, and she especially liked the kind that
showed off what she called “toe cleavage,” which this pair certainly did.

I fell into the kilim-covered armchair and glanced around the room. The walls were a hunter green, and the color, combined
with the dark shutters on the windows and the wooden overhead fan, could make you feel as if you were in a novel by Somerset
Maugham. Cat hadn’t said a word into the phone since I’d entered the room, and it was clear from her expression that she was
growing impatient with whoever was yapping into her ear on the other end. Finally she cut the person off.

“So she refuses to wear leather. We’ll put her in something pretty by Dolce and Gabbana. Or Versace. Let’s just get the date
nailed down.”

She listened for a minute, simultaneously gesturing for me to pick up the newspapers on the desk behind me. I started to mouth
that I’d seen them, but suddenly she was riveted to what she was hearing.

“What?” she yelled. “She thinks silkworms are mistreated?” A pause. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. Forget it. I’m not
going to get into any kind of dance with a nut like that. Her last two movies were dogs, and she should consider herself lucky
if we asked her to model the Cheryl Tiegs Kmart collection. We’re going to have to find someone else.”

The person at the other end was obviously Rachel Kaplan, the
Gloss
entertainment editor, who apparently was now making a stab at getting Cat to reconsider her decision to cancel some petulant,
PETA-sympathizing star’s shot at a cover.

“Tough,” Cat said. “She sounds like a lunatic, and I know just what would happen. We’d go along and get to the shoot and find
out she won’t put on cotton because—because it’s bad for boll weevils or something. I’m not taking any chances. Who else has
a movie in October?”

Long pause. “No—she’s death on a newsstand.”

Another long pause. “She could work, though she’s got that heinous publicist who never gives us anybody. Before you try, have
Peter call in some paparazzi shots of her. We need to do a chubby check. I’ve gotta go.” She put the phone down without bothering
with good-bye.

“I thought you’d never get here,” she said, flopping down in the other armchair. “You want anything to drink—or eat?”

“In a minute, maybe, after we talk.”

“Did you find out anything about Heidi?”

“A bit. I didn’t hook up with Jody yet, but I spoke with Janice. She said Heidi rarely drank and didn’t do drugs. She was
pretty adamant. How did you find Heidi, anyway?” I asked. “Did you get her through an agency?”

“No, it was a word-of-mouth kind of thing,” she replied. “She’d been working up in Westchester and she wanted to get out,
to find a gig in the city.”

“You said Heidi and Jody hadn’t been going out for a while. Do you think she’d hooked up with someone else?”

“Not that I know of.” She had paused just a beat before answering.

“Heidi always spent weekends here, even if you guys were up in Litchfield?”

“For the most part. Though she came up with us a few times this spring. We didn’t expect her to work weekends, so she’d do
her own thing, go off on a bike for the day. Why?”

“I’m just wondering what she may have been up to. Janice told me that Heidi hadn’t wanted to spend as much time with her lately.
She’d become kind of secretive, too.”

“That’s the kind of thing I need you to look into,” she said, leaning forward. “Like I said, I don’t want any weird surprises.
Did you see what the
Post
did with this already? They said she died in my basement. They’re making it sound like the Jon-Benet Ramsey case.”

“I’m happy to help, Cat, but if Janice doesn’t know anything and Jody’s not likely to, that doesn’t give me much to go on.”

“Why don’t you take a look at some of her things and see if you can find anything out from that? I should do it myself, but
I can’t bear to.”

“But are the police finished with the room? Surely they don’t want people traipsing around yet.”

“They spent a whole day there and they’re done. I called last night and they said it was okay to use the room—though I can’t
imagine who’d want to.”

“Well, I can look around down there, but I assume if there was anything interesting, the police took it with them.”

“They told me they took her address book and purse. But there may be other stuff that you’d recognize as significant and they
wouldn’t. I just want to make sure she wasn’t into anything weird.”

“Fine. I’ll poke around. There are a few things I need to clarify with you first, though.”

“Okay, shoot.”

This wasn’t going to be easy. For all the confidences that Cat had shared with me, she loathed being questioned directly about
her private life.

“Was there a reason you were worried about Heidi that you didn’t want to share with me?”

“What do you mean?” she asked. “I’m not following you.”

“Well, it’s just that you were so anxious over the simple fact she wasn’t answering the door, and as it turned out your fears
were totally justifiable. Did you have some concern that you weren’t sharing with me?”

“Was I holding something back? No, not at all. It was eight in the morning, she was supposed to be home, her lights were on,
and she wasn’t answering the door. It seemed like reason enough to worry.”

“On the phone you didn’t mention the lights being on, did you?”

“I don’t remember
what
I said,” she replied impatiently. “I was alarmed, I called you for help. I think most people would say my gut instincts are
on the mark.”