Killer Deal (12 page)
Authors: Sheryl J. Anderson
“So you’re the other heroine,” he said, making the last word sound as much like “idiot” as he possibly could.
His anger was understandable. “I owe you both an apology. It was a stupid thing to do and I shouldn’t have dragged you along with me, Lindsay.”
“I was going to do it with or without you,” she said quietly.
“Lindsay,” he said, sounding more like an impatient tutor than a distressed husband.
She dabbed at her eyes with the last dry spot on the tissue in her hand and I noticed her cuff drooping oddly; she’d ripped her blouse in the melee. “Your blouse, what a shame,” I said.
Daniel inspected the tear and shook his head. “One down, four to go.”
Lindsay managed a small smile. “I have this blouse in five different colors. I couldn’t resist.”
“It looks great on you, I can see why.” Maybe it was some foxhole-bonding thing, but I was liking Lindsay. Then she grabbed my hand and pulled me down on the bench next to her. “Do you think Jack Douglass had something to do with Garth’s death?” Now I was liking her even more.
“Lindsay,” Daniel repeated.
“Why, do you think he did?” I asked, causing Daniel’s brow to furrow even more deeply.
“After the ad launch, he was furious about his political friends backing off, even angrier than he was today. Garth told him all that mattered were his sales figures and how the ad was tracking.”
“Typical,” Daniel interjected.
“Jack went off about how wrong that was, how Garth had ruined his life, his reputation,” Lindsay continued. “Garth said he’d calm down eventually.”
“When was this?”
“Right before Garth died. A week, maybe.”
“Did you tell the police about it?”
“Sort of. They asked us about disgruntled employees, business rivals—”
“Like Ronnie Willis?”
Lindsay’s eyes widened. I’d mentioned him as a rival, but Lindsay was zooming off in a whole different direction. “Oh. Ronnie said Garth’s death was only the beginning. I didn’t believe him, but …”
So Ronnie was flinging the paranoia around more freely than I’d realized. On some level, he’d probably be pleased rather than threatened by Douglass’ meltdown, seeing it as vindication of his theory. But I didn’t buy it. How careless was it for Douglass to blast in and do this if, in fact, he had killed Garth? Hiding in plain sight was one thing, renting a billboard was another.
Ronnie’s theory rang especially hollow as I watched Gwen enter the reception area, flanked by another detective and Wendy. She was masterfully poised for a businesswoman who had just encountered a gun-wielding client. Not that I expected her to be a quivering mass of nerves, but she could at least look a little rumpled. Actually, what she looked like was a woman who had exactly what she wanted. The question was, how had she gotten it?
“How did we not see this?” she asked expansively, not being clear who the “we” encompassed. “All the finger-pointing that’s been going on and it never occurred to me.”
“To point the finger at Jack Douglass?” I asked, not to be difficult but to be sure I understood her train of thought.
“To suspect him in the least. He’s such a gentleman and this is not the way you’d expect a gentleman to settle his grievances.”
I nodded, thinking of Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, but not wanting to send her down that path.
“You weren’t here for his fudgsicle meltdown or you might think differently,” Wendy said.
“You think Jack shot Garth?” Lindsay asked.
Wendy pursed her lips, then quickly pressed them together again, automatically fixing her lipstick. “I don’t know
about that, but he was practically foaming at the mouth.” She tossed a glance at me. “He’s the one who called us sluts.”
about that, but he was practically foaming at the mouth.” She tossed a glance at me. “He’s the one who called us sluts.”
“I still think it’s quite fertile ground for the police to explore while the rest of us get back to work,” Gwen declared, sweeping us all with an imperious look that ended on Daniel. “Do you work here?”
“I’m Lindsay’s husband, Daniel,” he said, offering his hand. “Lindsay called me and I ran over to make sure she was okay.”
Gwen blinked slowly. “Weren’t we just talking about gentlemen? And here’s one in our midst.” She patted his hand before releasing it, then gave Lindsay a smile. “You’re a lucky girl, Lindsay. And how fortunate you’re in a position to drop everything and race over here, Daniel,” she said, packing an impressive dose of condescension into a short statement.
“Daniel’s director of development for Rising Angels,” Lindsay explained with a touch of defensiveness. Rising Angels is a terrific nonprofit that works with children whose parents are in prison, getting them mentors and tutors and taking them to educational and cultural events. Really noble work. “He’s only a couple of blocks from here.”
“This is an expensive neighborhood for a nonprofit,” Gwen observed.
“Our offices are over at St. Aidan’s, they donate the space, it’s the only way we can swing it,” Daniel explained. He gave Lindsay a quick peck on the cheek. “I do have to get back. Take it easy.” He nodded to the rest of us and hurried out.
“He doesn’t like to talk about work that much, he feels like people think every conversation is a request for donations,” Lindsay said with an odd mixture of apology and pride.
“Why is it the guys who are working hardest to make the world a better place are the ones who don’t like to talk about work?” I asked.
“You married to a do-gooder, too?” Wendy asked.
“I date a police detective.”
They all reacted to that, Gwen more sharply than the others. I was hoping she’d say something that would hint at how uncomfortable and/or guilty that made her feel, but instead she leaned in with a startling intimacy. “Then work your magic to find out where they are with Jack Douglass and why they hadn’t questioned him before.”
I knew the answer to the second part: because you look so much more guilty than he does. But my answer was, “He’s not on this case.”
“Still. Cops talk to each other, don’t they?” I didn’t answer, not about to tell her that if I ever was going to summon up the nerve to lean on Kyle for information, it would be for my article about her, not to provide her with the inside scoop on where she was ranked on the suspect list. My silence didn’t sit well with her. “Have I gone too far? God knows, the last thing I need right now is an aggrieved journalist evening the score in a major publication. If an apology is what you seek, consider one offered.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “I must have a cigarette. Who will descend with me?”
“I will,” Wendy offered promptly.
“Wait here,” Gwen commanded and strode back toward her office, either to get her cigarettes or to smack a few more people around before taking her break.
Lindsay tugged at Wendy’s sleeve. “What do you think happened with Jack?” I realized they hadn’t had a chance to talk since the to-do, so I hung back quietly, eager to hear their take.
Wendy glanced at me, hesitated more for show than for conscience, then answered with a grim smile. “Gwen happened. She called him this morning and told him she wasn’t going to honor the discount Garth had offered him when he got so upset about the fudgsicle campaign. She said the agency had delivered on its promise and any collateral damage was his problem, not hers.”
Lindsay gasped, while I envisioned Gwen in a chef’s coat and hat, stirring a great big stewpot with a roaring fire underneath
it. Lindsay voiced my question. “Are you saying she provoked him?”
it. Lindsay voiced my question. “Are you saying she provoked him?”
“I’m saying she’s trouble and we have to be careful. I’m beginning to think we have no idea what she’s capable of. And if you print a word of that,” Wendy said, looking daggers at me, “I will deny it and drag you through courts until you cry for mercy.”
“Wendy,” I said gently, “you’re going to do really well in business once you learn to speak your mind.”
“I think the fact that people are showing up in my workplace with weapons gives me the right to speak frankly, don’t you?”
“I’m not sure I see a direct correlation, but I’m not a constitutional scholar.”
“Wendy, what should we do?” Lindsay asked, but Wendy didn’t have a chance to answer because Gwen was striding back to us, a cigarette already in her hand.
“Here’s a question for you all. How do I break this to Ronnie?” Gwen stopped beside us, tapping her cigarette against a beautiful sterling case. “He needs to know what happened, but I’m worried his fantasy coming true might be a bit much for him.”
“It’s not his fantasy, it’s his fear. And it looks like it might be well-grounded,” Wendy protested.
“But Ronnie was nowhere in sight and I didn’t hear Jack Douglass ask for him once. Do you think that will hurt Ronnie’s feelings?”
It was Wendy who looked like she was hurt. Why would Gwen’s riffing on Ronnie bother her? Then again, she wasn’t taking it all with the same grain of salt I was, that most of this cavalier attitude about Ronnie was to cover up how close Gwen and Ronnie really were. It didn’t bother me to hear her mock Ronnie’s conspiracy theory because I didn’t think Ronnie really believed it himself. Had Wendy bought in? Then again, Wendy wasn’t exceptionally fond of Gwen, so perhaps she was throwing in with Ronnie to stake out territory as the new regime took form. There are women
who prefer to work for men. With the past few female bosses I’ve had, I’m ready to give it another try.
who prefer to work for men. With the past few female bosses I’ve had, I’m ready to give it another try.
“Molly, my dear,” Gwen said, “what must you think of us now?”
“It’s been an interesting morning,” I agreed. “And I wasn’t quite finished with the interview when Mr. Douglass arrived.”
“I am so sorry.” Gwen glanced at her watch. “Do you need everyone and when do you need them?”
“I could sit with you, see what I can fill in if that might be easier,” Lindsay offered.
“Lovely. You two kindred spirits work it out and let me know how it goes.” Gwen caught Wendy by the arm and swept her off to the elevator.
“I don’t mean to butt in,” Lindsay said quickly in their wake, “but I would be happy to help.”
“I appreciate that.”
“Maybe we could do drinks after work or something.”
Why is it that you can go for great stretches of time and no one wants to see you, then suddenly everyone wants to see you at the same time? “I might have something then already, but let me call you later in the day and we’ll figure it out. Thanks for this morning. It was memorable.”
Lindsay grinned and gave me a quick hug, startling but sincere. “Pretty amazing, that’s for sure.”
I clacked across the stone floor and rang for the elevator. Lindsay gave me a quick wave and headed back to her office. There was such a fascinating array of personalities in the Harem, I could understand Ronnie’s fascination with them, looks and talents aside. But killing to control them seemed extreme for Ronnie. If he was involved in this, there had to be some other motive.
I was trying to imagine the conversation as Gwen told Ronnie about Douglass when my phone rang. “Hey, you,” I said, seeing that it was Kyle.
“Can you talk?”
“Sure. How are you?”
“Fine. How’s your day going?”
“Pretty wild, actually.”
“Can’t wait to hear about it. Wanna have drinks after work? Say, six o’clock at Bemelman’s?”
No matter what I said, it was going to be the wrong thing. Gwen was right: Cops talk to each other. And men pick all the wrong times to share.
AS I MAY HAVE MENTIONED, watching the man you love walk up to you is a thrilling, wonderful thing. Unless he’s angry. Then it’s a thing that makes you contemplate a convent, assumed identities, maybe even celibacy.
On the phone with Kyle, I’d asked if I could call him back from the office. When he hung up without answering, I’d taken that as a yes. His fuming presence on the sidewalk outside my office building contradicted that.
“I can explain,” I said as he approached, immediately kicking myself for not having a stronger starting position.
“Don’t doubt it. I’ve never known you to be without an explanation.” His eyes, normally breathtakingly warm, were hard and cold. I’ve seen Kyle mad before, but it’s generally been in defense of me. Being on the receiving end was tough.
“He sought me out,” I persisted.
“He holding someone you love hostage and forcing you to meet him?”
That took me by surprise. Hyperbole doesn’t come naturally to Kyle, so it was an indication of his anger that he was going for the grand. “He’s not forcing me to do anything.”
“Jack Douglass needed five stitches and might have a cracked vertebra in his neck,” Kyle countered, switching tracks on me.
“That all happened before Donovan even showed up. He had nothing to do with it.”
“Except if he’d closed his case, Jack Douglass wouldn’t be running around with a damn gun.”
“You don’t know that Jack Douglass killed Garth Henderson.”
“And you don’t know that he didn’t!”
Now I was starting to get angry. I loved my job and I wanted the man I loved to respect that—and me. I wasn’t saving the world like he did, but I was trying to make a difference. “Okay, I didn’t turn down the opportunity to talk to Donovan. But he made the offer and I’m trying to do my job.”
“Makes one of you.”
“What?”
“He’s a lousy cop, Molly. He plays politics instead of working a case and this could be the one that blows up in his face. I don’t want to see you get dragged into some stupid, humiliating mess because he’s a jerkwad.”
“How does his being a bad cop threaten me, other than his giving me lame information?”
“You can’t stay out of harm’s way when you’re working with a good cop, what’s gonna happen with a shitty one?”
My father says certain efforts are like banging your head against a brick wall: it’s so nice when you stop. I hadn’t realized I was carrying a little knot of resentment in the pit of my stomach until it unfurled in a rush of warmth. I’d misjudged Kyle’s motives completely. He wasn’t trying to keep me off his turf, he was trying to keep me safe. “I’m not going to team up with him,” I said quietly, “I’m just going to talk to him. Get his perspective.”
Kyle shifted unhappily. “I’m not asking you not to, because that wouldn’t be right and because you wouldn’t stop anyway,” he said flatly, “but I am gonna tell you, it’s a pretty lousy idea. There’s no way the department’s not going to look bad here and I hate to think of you being part of it.”
“Part of the mess or part of pointing it out?”
“Both. I got two words for you: O.J.”
I could almost see the gremlins scurrying at our feet, dragging the bricks and mortar in to start building a wall between us. “Do you want me to cancel with Donovan?”
“Damn it, I want you to be a nurse.”
Stunned, I stared at him while I tried to figure out a more intelligent response. I knew this was about safety, about conflicts of interest, but it was still hard to hear him saying he wanted me to be something other than what I was and certainly something other than what I really wanted to be. He took in my expression and shook his head, struggling with his own thoughts. I couldn’t bear to think where this conversation might go, so I wrenched it in a new direction. “Is this about the uniform?” I asked after a moment.
“Yeah,” he said, trying to muster a smile, “it’s all about the uniform.”
“The shoes, too?”
“Nah, I hate the shoes.”
We both stared at our own for a few moments. Battle lines had been drawn, but we were crawling toward the DMZ. Leave it to me to thump on a landmine to see if it’ll go off. “I so hugely admire what you do and I’m sorry Donovan doesn’t do it as well. But I want to understand as much about the case as I can.”
Kyle’s eyes came up slowly, some of their warmth restored. “Don’t let him play you.”
I nodded. “I won’t.”
Kyle’s hand shot up behind my head, his fingers twisting in my hair as he pulled me to him with a sudden and almost painful firmness. Startled, I tilted my face wrong and our teeth collided. I committed to the kiss anyway, but he laughed and released me, throwing his arms out in surrender. “When our timing’s off, it’s really off.”
I laughed back, tapping my front teeth, hoping we were on solid footing again, at least for the moment. “Good way to lose a tooth.”
“Ask your new friend Donovan about that,” he said, stepping away from me.
“About what? Are you telling me you’ve kissed Wally Donovan?”
Kyle sighed and said, “Call me as soon as you’re done,” before heading down the sidewalk, vanishing around the corner before I could say anything else. I felt like I’d successfully swerved to avoid a pothole, though I wasn’t quite sure my wheels had regained traction yet or how close to the shoulder I was. But I was pretty sure we’d kicked up some serious gravel.
I was still working on getting back to cruise control when I got upstairs to the office, only to be greeted by someone sitting at my desk. Since I come and go all day, people often snag my desk for a moment or two to grab a phone call, talk to the people who sit near me, or eat particularly fragrant lunches in a place where they won’t have to contend with the fumes for the rest of the day. So someone being in my chair wasn’t that startling, it’s just that the person in the chair usually works at the magazine. Today’s squatter worked at Willis Worldwide. At the reception desk.
Having enraptured my neighbor Carlos, she was deep in conversation with him, the two of them leaning into each other so they were almost forehead-to-forehead. While she was being earnest, he was trying to figure out where her tattoo started. Nevertheless, it gave me a moment to rack my brain in a futile search for her name. Had she ever told me? I didn’t think so. Had I ever asked? My bad. Why was she here? I couldn’t imagine. Her System of a Down T-shirt and Diesel jeans were both tight enough that I could tell she wasn’t carrying a weapon, unless it was nestled down among the tentacles, and that gave me hope I could handle whatever had brought her to my desk.
“Hope I’m not interrupting,” I said by way of greeting, setting my bag on my desk. She jumped up so suddenly Carlos almost snagged his nose on her décolletage, but he snapped his head back just in time.
“Remember me? I’m Kimberly, from Ronnie Willis’ office? I’m sorry I came by without calling, it was kind of an
impulse and I hope it’s okay because you sort of said I could,” she said as Carlos frowned at me for intruding on what he had thought was a promising discussion and rolled back to his own desk.
impulse and I hope it’s okay because you sort of said I could,” she said as Carlos frowned at me for intruding on what he had thought was a promising discussion and rolled back to his own desk.
“Of course, Kimberly, it’s nice to see you again,” I said, resisting the impulse to say her name three or four more times so she might think I’d known it all along. I couldn’t remember saying anything that might encourage her to drop by unannounced, but given the events of the morning, I wasn’t eager to disgruntle anyone. And if Kimberly was bringing me pearls of wisdom from Willis Worldwide, I was eager to check them out.
“It’s just, there’s this situation I wanted to ask you about, these friends of mine, and I was coming over this way anyway, so …” She shrugged at the machinations of Fate and her acceptance of them. Intrigued and puzzled, I suggested we move to the conference room, disappointing Carlos but guaranteeing me as much privacy as one ever gets at
Zeitgeist.
Zeitgeist.
Our conference room is a nook of blond wood and linen accents, a little homier than the Willis conference room. Kimberly ran her hand appreciatively along the highly polished table before curling up into a chair as though we were settling in for quite the chat. I thought about sitting across the table from her, make things official, but decided to sit next to her and make things more friendly. Much easier to pick people’s brains when they think you’re a friend.
“So what can I do for you, Kimberly?”
“I’ve been thinking I should talk to you, ever since you came in to see Uncle Ronnie.”
I blinked slowly, not sure if I should betray surprise. While her incongruous presence at the front desk now made slightly more sense, I was sure she hadn’t mentioned they were related and neither had Ronnie. What other secrets might she have to share? “What did you want to talk to me about?” I asked, trying not to sound too hopeful.
“This situation.” She clacked her tongue stud on her teeth a moment, weighing a decision. “With some … friends of mine.”
“So you mentioned out front. Could you be more specific?”
Clack, clack, another decision. “Remember that letter that we were talking about, the one you can’t tell me about who wrote it, but I still know?”
I nodded enthusiastically to cover my disappointment that her business call was about column stuff, not about my interview with her boss. I’d be attentive enough to be polite, but move her gently but firmly along so I could get back to work. “Right.”
“This is actually about someone else.”
“Okay.” I glanced at the wall clock because glancing at my watch would have been rude. She had three minutes to get to the point.
Clack, clack. “Suppose you were working with someone you knew pretty well.”
“Okay.”
“Maybe even someone you were, like, related to.”
I didn’t know how to make it clearer to her that she had my full attention now, short of announcing it on the office intercom. I leaned in like she was about to tell me a delicious secret. Oh please, oh please. “Okay.”
“So you know things about this person that no one else knows.”
“Such as?”
“That his wife broke her mother’s best china platter over his head at Easter dinner because she found out he was having an affair and now the whole family is going to have to find a different place to have Easter because Granny’s not going to let them back under her roof all at one time, ever again, because she’s still pissed at them. Or something like that.”
Plausible deniability is just as important in a family as it is in government. You promise to keep a secret, but then you realize it serves the greater good to let that secret slip, yet you want to still be able to sit at the table, should Granny ever invite everyone over again, and not feel like a traitor. Kimberly wasn’t playing around, she was making a deal with her conscience—and I was the beneficiary of that deal.
“I bet it would be hard not to think about that every time you saw that person. Especially if it had only happened last Easter,” I added, looking to establish a time frame.
She nodded, her mouth pulling into a thoughtful frown. “And then what if you found out that this guy you were so close to was about to start working with the person he’d had the affair with?”
Granny could’ve broken the platter over my head at that point and I wouldn’t have even blinked. “I think I’d be concerned,” I answered carefully, “especially if the man and the woman were supposed to work together really closely. Like partners or something.”
“Exactly.”
I wanted to shout “Goal!” or at least throw my arms up in the touchdown signal, but I kept my hands folded in my lap and considered how it changed my view of the world to know that Ronnie Willis and Gwen Lincoln had had an affair as recently as last Easter. It meant passions were high and fresh when Garth and Gwen began their divorce and Garth and Ronnie began their merger. Did Garth know any of this? And was that why he was dead? “It’s a tricky situation,” I said after a deep breath.
For the first time since we’d sat down, Kimberly looked me in the eye and I could see she was trying not to cry. This was hard for her, but I knew if I told her she’d done the right thing or said anything to verify directly that she was ratting out her uncle, she’d bolt and not only would I never get to talk to her again, she might tell her uncle he needed to stop talking to me, too. “I don’t know what to do.”
“It’s not your responsibility to do anything,” I assured her sincerely, placing my hand on hers. She’d given me a fascinating new piece of information, the least I could do was try to help her find some peace of mind.
“I don’t want to see anyone else get hurt.”
I held my breath as I asked the next question, like a child approaching a butterfly poised on a flower. “Anyone else?”
“It took his wife months to stop crying and it would be
awful to have her go through that again if things started back up, don’t you think?”
awful to have her go through that again if things started back up, don’t you think?”
“Absolutely.” I dared take one step closer to the butterfly. “Did anyone else get hurt?”
“Granny’s still pissed about the platter.”
“What about the partner? The woman? Did anyone in her life find out? Or get hurt?”
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