Killer Deal (6 page)

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Authors: Sheryl J. Anderson

BOOK: Killer Deal
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“Gwen!” Emile objected.
Another statement aching to file itself in an affidavit. But then again, if she was being so injudicious with me, there was an excellent chance she was also being truthful. A liar would be more careful. “Do you have a theory about who did kill him?”
“Another list?”
“That many possibilities?”
She took a deep drag and fixed me with an intense look. For the first time, I recognized the woman I was accustomed to seeing in newspaper and magazine photos. “Actually, no.”
“Why not?”
“His life was filled with dependent people. Which is one of the reasons I left. I wanted to be in a marriage, not a cult.”
“It was my understanding,” I said gently, “there was indiscretion on both sides.”
She laughed with unexpected richness. “Aren’t you polite.”
And it was agonizing. I wanted to cut to the chase, but I could tell Gwen Lincoln was accustomed to being in the driver’s seat and challenging her was sure to be counterproductive. I could also sense Emile Trebask’s blood pressure creeping up as the conversation continued to hover around the murder and not the merchandise. “I was trying to be appropriate.”
“Miserable, isn’t it?”
I couldn’t help but smile. “I just haven’t had a lot of practice.”
“Don’t bother. People are going to judge you unfairly no matter what you do or say, so why not do and say what pleases you? You’ll never please them.”
“Thank you. Did you kill your husband?”
Emile sprang to his feet. “That’s enough.”
Gwen laughed even louder this time. “Good girl. No, I did not. Emile, sit down.”
Instead, Emile stood over me. His hands swirled futilely in my face a moment, then buried themselves in his pockets, but not before I saw they were trembling. “Ms. Forrester, I asked you to do this article to support Gwen in our new business venture, not to cause even more ridiculous speculation about Garth’s death.”
“Emile,” Gwen said, her voice soothing, “let’s rethink this. What’s going to get our beautiful venture more attention—a polite little chat where we avoid the elephant in the room or an article that will have everyone talking about us?”
Was it as apparent to Emile as it was to me that he had lost control of this situation? Was this typical of their relationship or was she just being tenacious about this particular subject? She seemed to be burning to say something, but waiting for me to ask the right question. Putting a patrician hand on Emile’s shoulder and easing him back into the chair, she sat on the arm as he had before.
I pursued. “If you didn’t kill him, do you know who did?”
“No,” she said. Emile tensed as though he were going to get up again and I wasn’t sure for a moment if the “no” was to him or to me. But she was looking right at me even as she slid her arm around his shoulders, either to comfort him or hold him in place. “Isn’t this nicer than wasting our time playing games? And this is what you really need to know, not how Emile and I got together or why we picked this scent or what’s next on our agenda.”
“All of that’s important, too,” I said honestly, looking at Emile. I wanted to get the best information possible for the article, but it would all be for naught if Emile got too upset and narced me out to Eileen, who would take great delight in canceling the article. A little voice in the back of my head
did question whether Gwen was putting on a show for me, but I still didn’t sense any insincerity on her part. Her hands were rock steady, even if Emile’s weren’t. What was he so nervous about? “But I would like to get back to dependence. Do you feel these people were emotionally or financially dependent?” I asked.
“Both. His little fan club at the agency couldn’t live without him on either level. And if Ronnie Willis thinks he’s just going to slip into Garth’s place—in the agency and in their hearts—he’s delusional.”
“Why?” The joining of the two niche agencies had created a lot of buzz in the volatile advertising world, but it had all been positive.
Emile must have felt we were headed back to solid ground, because he answered that one. “They were spinning it as a merger, but Garth was actually bailing Ronnie out. Ronnie was about to lose some major clients until Garth dangled the merger in front of them.”
“Does that include you?”
Emile shrugged grandly. “I was already gone. Ronnie’s terrific, but he wasn’t keeping up with me. I wanted more, and Gwen assured me Garth could provide that.”
“Accepting Garth’s offer made Ronnie crazy,” Gwen added with a tight smile, “but at least it let him cling to his illusions of power. The only thing worse than wanting power and never getting it, is having it and losing it. It drives people to extreme behavior.”
I looked at Emile, waiting for him to tense up again, but despite the fact that his business partner had just accused someone of murder, he did nothing but trace the crease in his pants leg with his finger. Was he agreeing with her or ignoring her?
There hadn’t been much in the police paperwork or the press accounts to bolster the theory of Ronnie Willis as a suspect. He’d been questioned because of the merger, but it had been brief and unproductive. According to a statement released by his lawyers, anyway. Besides, even if it were painful for him to cede some of his kingdom to Garth Henderson, if
Ronnie Willis had been on the brink of financial collapse, why would he have harmed the man who was rescuing him? “Mr. Willis doesn’t gain anything by Mr. Henderson’s death. He still shares control of the company. With you.”
“You’re assuming he’s capable of rational assessment,” Gwen answered. “Again, you’re being far too polite. I don’t think poor Ronnie has ever fully accepted just how fragile his position is. It’s not too, too difficult to imagine him seeing himself taking over and guiding the new agency to great heights.”
And apparently not too, too difficult to imagine him with a gun in his hand. I thought of a drowning swimmer who, in his panic, fights so hard that the lifeguard is the one who drowns. Could Ronnie Willis have turned on Garth Henderson, his savior, out of frustration or envy or panic? Had he known that would leave him with Gwen Lincoln as a partner instead?
“Do you anticipate any difficulties working with Mr. Willis?”
Emile covered his face with his hand, but Gwen smiled sadly. “Ronnie and I have been traveling in the same circles for a while. We aren’t close, but I think we have a foundation to build on. Of course, the idiot called me the morning after Garth was killed and remembered to offer his condolences first, then told me he wanted to make sure Emile and I were going to stay with the firm because he’d be sure to take great care of us. ‘In Garth’s memory.’” Eyes closing briefly, she shook her head. Even a woman who believes you should always say what you want to say had her definition of being inappropriate.
When she opened her eyes again, they were brimming with tears. She tried to blink them back, rather than call further attention to them by wiping them away. “I identified the body that same morning. Now that’s part of ‘Garth’s memory, ’ too.”
Emile was up out of the chair in a flash, linen handkerchief at the ready, arm around her. “You don’t have to talk about this part at all.”
Gwen accepted the handkerchief, but pressed on, her voice surprisingly strong. “They tried to show him from an angle that minimized the damage I could see, but it was still so … And his mouth, his beautiful mouth …”
“His mouth?” All I knew about was the two gunshots.
“Cut.” She drew two nails down her top lip, indicating vertical slices on either side of the fulstrum. “I wanted to kiss him good-bye …” She drew in a shuddering breath and in a sudden sweep, walked out of the room.
Not sure if that was my exit cue, I rose slowly. Emile stared at the floor for a moment, then looked out the door. When he looked back at me, he was smiling apologetically. “I had hoped this wouldn’t happen.” I started to blurt out an apology, but he wasn’t talking about me, thank goodness. “I wanted her to do this article because she needs to be thinking about other things, but everything is still Garth, Garth, Garth. He certainly screwed us over here.”
So he was blaming the dead guy, she was weeping for him, and I was trying to keep my head from spinning. I’d realized this wasn’t going to be a simple profile, no matter how much Emile wanted that, but this was turning out to be more of a maze than I’d expected. Hoped for, even.
“If she’s not back by now, I’m going to have to go get her and this could all take a while. Why don’t I call you at the magazine and we’ll set up a new appointment.”
I gave him my cell phone number, explaining my erratic presence at my desk, and he walked me to the front door. “You see she still loves him.”
“Yes.”
“Too bad there’s not an off switch for that. But then, life wouldn’t be nearly as interesting if we could control our emotions, right?”
A fascinating spin on a survivor’s grief, so I just nodded. My gut told me Gwen Lincoln wasn’t responsible for Garth’s death, but I was still troubled by how hard Emile was working to make sure I believed that.
Emile shook my hand and I was out in the hallway, ringing for the elevator in one fluid sweep. As I descended, I
considered my next move and decided I needed to talk to Ronnie Willis.
I’d promised Kyle I wouldn’t try to outrun the detectives on this case. I’d promised Eileen I’d concentrate on Gwen Lincoln. But if the goal was to write about Gwen Lincoln’s innocence, wouldn’t it help to prove who was guilty? And what, dared I think, could it hurt?
I DON’T LIKE TO LIE. Particularly because I’m not as good at it as I might be. So I attempt to do it as infrequently as possible and to confine it to exchanges with people who deserve it. That’s why it was so nice, at last, to be in a position where I was digging into a story and could tell the truth about who I was and why I was digging. Or most of the truth, anyway.
The pleasure of making my first official call as an investigative journalist was only marred by having to listen to a hideous instrumental version of “Brass in Pocket.” Aside from forcing me to confront the gritty cultural question of who’d thought it was proper to reduce such a great song to a series of airy clarinet riffs, the call was successful. I started off with the communications director of Willis Worldwide, explaining to her that I needed to speak directly to Mr. Willis because I was a magazine reporter doing a profile of Gwen Lincoln and was interested in Mr. Willis’ feelings about going into business with her. The hope that other, more illuminating information might also come to light, I kept to myself.
The communications director parked me on hold, leaving me with the song. Fortunately, the interlude was brief and she was soon back to tell me that Mr. Willis happened to
have a brief opening in his calendar if I could come to his office in an hour. Sign me up.
The offices of Willis Worldwide were only a few blocks away on Madison, so I had time to go over some of the questions raised by my brief stay with Gwen. Did Ronnie see this business arrangement as a merger of equals or was he aware of the perception, in Gwen’s mind at least, that Garth had been saving him? Could he go forward without Garth and with Gwen? And where did he stand on the issue of Gwen and her guilt?
Still refining my questions as I got off the elevator, I was completely unprepared for what was behind the receptionist’s desk. Not the petite brunette with the headset, pierced eyebrow, and tongue stud, which had to make answering the phone and saying “Willis Worldwide” eight hundred times a day even more enjoyable. The poster on the wall behind her. A huge blow-up of the ad that had made Ronnie Willis an advertising sensation fifteen years before. A Somalian boy of no more than six looked straight at the camera with searingly sad eyes. His emaciated frame was draped in a woman’s spangly gold evening wrap, but his malnutrition-distended belly poked through. The caption read: DOES THIS MAKE ME LOOK FAT?
The posters had been part of a fashion-industry-backed campaign to raise funds for African famine relief, but the explosion that issued forth from the TV pundits, talk radio ranters, and op-ed exorcists had not paid much attention to that part of the story. Instead, Ronnie Willis had made a name for himself in advertising by angering, insulting, and outraging people. He had proudly embraced it as his modus operandi ever since. He and Garth were kindred spirits, but if what Gwen Lincoln had told me was true, Ronnie’s magic touch had faded while Garth’s had continued to shine.
The impatient clicking of a tongue stud against teeth brought me back to attention. The receptionist frowned at me expectantly.
“Hi. Molly Forrester, here to see Ronnie Willis.”
“Really.”
Not that an icy attitude is uncommon in the ranks of Manhattan receptionists, but this was a stronger dose than I was expecting. I’d smiled at her as I’d approached, looked her in the eye when I spoke to her, and been warm and polite in tone. Now I tried to keep my return “Really” cheerful. What had I done to earn the coolness?
“You don’t seem his type,” she continued.
“Excuse me?”
“You called just a little while ago, right? And he moved stuff around to see you right away. I figured that meant you’d met him at a club last night or something but, like I said,” she sniffed, “you don’t seem his type.”
“I’m interviewing him for a magazine article,” I said, not sure why I felt I had to explain myself to her. At least it got a smile in response, though I couldn’t be sure if it was because she’d been right that I wasn’t his type or because a magazine writer was more interesting than a day-old club date.
“Which magazine?” Interest piqued, she leaned forward. As the V-neck of her tee gapped, I caught a glimpse of a tattoo that looked suspiciously like a tentacle rising out of her cleavage.
“
Zeitgeist,
” I answered, taking care not to look directly at the tattoo or any other part of her chest while I waited for her to say something cutting about the magazine. She was not exactly our target demographic.
“Oh, right. ‘You Can Tell Me.’ I knew I recognized your name.” She punched a button on her console and said my name into her headset as I tried to imagine her reading my column in line at the tattoo parlor. “Ronnie’s assistant’ll be right out. Have a seat.”
She indicated the low-slung sofas to her right, but I had to hover a moment longer. “You’ve read my column?” I asked, trying to sound offhanded and not surprised. Meeting people who know my column—especially unlikely candidates—is a wonderful way to get perspective on the letters and my advice. Of course, they aren’t always pleasant encounters, like the sales clerk at Good Guys who read my name off my credit card and proceeded to chew me out in front of the entire
store because I’d allegedly encouraged his girlfriend to move out and stick him with half the rent, a three hundred dollar phone bill, and an STD. I was quite sure I hadn’t given that specific advice, but he’d been equally sure I was lying.
Fortunately, the receptionist seemed more bemused than angry. “Yeah. People can be so screwed up.”
“True.”
“That one last month, about the cow who was stealing all her sister’s boyfriends? I so know who wrote that one.”
“I keep all that confidential,” I said preemptively.
“I respect that, I wasn’t trying to get you to tell or anything, it was just so clear to me that it was pretty wild to see it there in print and think, ‘Hey!’”
She smiled with great satisfaction and I nodded back, happy she had no issue to settle with me. “As long as you don’t want me to name names, I’m always happy to discuss the column,” I said.
“So are you really here for an article or did Ronnie write you a letter?”
“I’m doing an article on Gwen Lincoln, but Mr. Willis is part of the story.” I almost didn’t finish the sentence because of the odd look that crossed over her face when I said Gwen’s name. It was more than concern she might lose her job because of the merger, but I couldn’t quite identify it.
She sat back in her chair and fiddled with the neckline of her shirt, as though trying to tuck the tentacle back down out of sight. “Yeah. Have fun with that.”
Before I could ask her what exactly she meant, a silky voice called my name. A catwalk castoff slouched her way down the hall toward me, her brown hair as long and straight as her body, her face blankly beautiful. “This way please,” she said, pivoting to go back from whence she came without pausing, leaving me to scramble to catch up. I threw a look back over my shoulder at the receptionist, but she turned away. I was going to have to get back to her.
The hallway walls were painted an unsettling shade of deep orange and adorned with other framed ads created by
Ronnie and his agency. They were all familiar, but as I looked around, I didn’t see one less than three years old. Had someone forgotten to cycle in the new hits—or hadn’t there been any?
Ronnie’s assistant deposited me in a conference room featuring floor-to-ceiling windows with nothing in front of them and withdrew. The space was nearly filled by a mammoth conference table of highly polished cherry and severe matching chairs. An immense plasma screen on one end of the room was balanced by whiteboards on the other. Everything else was glass—glass walls on one side, windows on the other. It made the whole room feel like it was suspended, rather than being connected to the rest of the building. It wasn’t a completely pleasant sensation. I eased past the table, wanting to check out the view, but the closer I got, the more I felt I was tipping forward, on the verge of falling through the glass and plummeting twelve stories to the hum of Madison Avenue below.
“Wanna jump?”
Startled, I turned quickly as Ronnie Willis slid into the room. He was taller than I’d expected from his publicity photos. His thin face was very boyish, despite the deep creases at the corners of his eyes. A neatly trimmed beard and mustache obscured the lines around his mouth. A few bold strands of silver poked up in his thick black hair and his eyes were a warm, mossy green. He was one of those men who, feature by feature, are quite attractive but somehow the whole package doesn’t hold together the way it should, draping a sense of awkwardness over him.
“Should I?”
“Seems to cross most people’s minds,” he shrugged. He slid his hand across mine in greeting. “Ronnie Willis.”
“Molly Forrester.”
“Hope you don’t mind, my babysitter wants to horn in.” He gestured vaguely to the doorway, now filled by a severe young woman in a black MaxMara suit and a terrific pair of Jimmy Choo kidskin slingbacks.
Meeting her halfway, I shook hands with her. “Paula
Wharton, communications director. We spoke on the phone,” she said in a tight, unhappy voice.
“Nice to meet you in person.”
Ronnie sighed. “I don’t have anything to hide about what Garth and Gwen mean to me, or about anything else in my frigging life for that matter, but Paula’s got to monitor me anyway. Thinks I don’t know how to behave, especially around women.” He winked at me with overblown zeal, then bugged his eyes at Paula, awaiting her reaction.
She glanced at him without smiling and sat down at the far end of the conference table. Ronnie leaned his forehead against the window, looking straight down to the street. His jacket shifted oddly on him and, for a moment, he looked like a scarecrow peering down from his perch at the worms in the field. “Does make you kinda dizzy, doesn’t it.”
“I was actually worried about falling, not thinking about jumping,” I said, not eager to return to the window.
“Wind up on the sidewalk one way or the other,” he said, forehead still on the glass. “What’s the difference?”
I couldn’t tell whether he was trying to provoke a reaction or was genuinely philosophizing. A glance at Paula didn’t help; she was keying something into her BlackBerry. I wanted Ronnie to be relaxed and speak freely, but wasn’t sure that could happen with Paula acting as watchdog. But maybe if I played his game a little, that would help. “Isn’t the difference control?”
“Yeah, right,” he snorted. “Like that’s not the greatest illusion in life.”
“Yet your profession is all about control. Controlling what we want, what we think we need. Which controls our spending, eating, socializing …”
He swung back from the window. “Ohmigod. You’re on to us and now I have to kill you.” Paula’s head snapped up. As old a joke as it was, it was truly startling in this context. I couldn’t manage a laugh in response and Ronnie winced. “Sorry. That was stupid, wasn’t it. You’re here about Garth and I’m making … See, that’s why she’s here. I am an asshole sometimes. Please, have a seat.” Suddenly all knees
and elbows, he pulled a chair out from the conference table for me.
I didn’t sit down right away. I’d heard tales of Ronnie’s goofy charm, but this seemed more like antic desperation, tap dancing before the music even started playing. Paula put away her BlackBerry. “I’m actually more interested in Gwen Lincoln,” I reminded him.
Ronnie drummed his hands on the back of the chair as though he needed to bring it to my attention that the chair was available. “Yeah, but that still means you’re here about Garth. He was the link between Gwen and me. I’m gonna do everything I can to preserve the relationship now that he’s gone, but it’ll never be the same. Just gotta hope fortune’ll smile on the brave. Or at least not crap all over me.”
“You’re not confident of the success of the new agency?”
“Sit down and we’ll talk about it,” he said with a surprising edge to his voice. More than impatient, he was now troubled I hadn’t taken a seat. Or that I was asking the wrong questions. Not wanting to anger or annoy him, I sat down, putting my notebook and tape recorder on the conference table. Somewhat relieved, Ronnie swooped around the table to sit facing me, giving me a smile, then glancing at Paula.
“Future of the agency,” she prompted.
“Yeah. I know I’m damn good and so are my people. Garth’s people are tremendous. Gwen’s wonderful. But how many things in life really turn out the way we expect?” Ronnie shifted in his chair, having some difficulty getting comfortable.
“Ronnie’s just being alert and cautious, as any good leader would be, about the process of mixing two companies. Especially in light of the tragedy,” Paula elaborated. Ronnie looked as though he were going to disagree with her assessment, but then his mouth shut and he nodded in agreement.
“My bond with Gwen is what really matters, what I want most to save,” Ronnie said, working to focus.
Not exactly the impression I’d gotten from Gwen. “Is it in danger?”
“It’s hard to do business with friends, that’s all. Not that I
could ever replace Garth for her or Emile or any of them, but I gotta do what I can to protect them all.”

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