One Dangerous Lady (30 page)

“Maybe, but she claims the reason is that she doesn't want her privacy invaded. She's also worried about what Max Vermilion is going to think of her when it comes out. Naturally, I told her I couldn't help her, that there was no way I was going to persuade you not to write it. Then she threatened me again, insinuating she knew I was being blackmailed. But this time I called her bluff. I told her that I doubted she knew the
reason
I was being blackmailed or she certainly would have used it by now. And then I turned the tables on her.”

“How?”

“Well, I said my blackmailer was a pretty unsavory character and maybe Max would be interested in how
she
happened to know such a creature. I think that worried her a bit. Anyway, I naïvely imagined that I'd gotten the upper hand for a change. Then that clipping arrived.”

“When?”

“Last night. I couldn't believe it when I saw it. But, Larry, she didn't get rid of that woman for me or even for herself—although I bet they had
some
relationship! She got rid of her to show me what she's capable of. She'll have you killed, too, Larry. She really will. She won't let you publish that article. I know that you're pretty fearless, but I don't want to lose you, if you don't mind. So will you
please
reconsider, Larry?
Please?
For me?”

He shook his head and was silent for a long time. Finally he spoke: “Jo, you realize that now, more than ever, I can't back off.”

“But you see what she's capable of!” I said, exasperated.

“That's exactly why I have to get to the bottom of this—precisely because she is capable of such horror. I have to expose her if I can. This is what I
do
, Jo. This is my life. After Helena died, I thought of becoming a monk. I also thought of killing myself. But as you can see, I chose the more infernal path, writing. I made a silent promise to Helena that I wasn't going to let someone get away with murder just because they have a lot of money. And I'm not going to break that promise, not now. . . . I intend to rent that boat even if I have to go into hock to do it. I'm going to find that hidden room and see what's in it. Carla knows I'm on to something and I want to find out what that something is.”

I admired his courage.

“Okay,” I said after thinking it over. “If I can't dissuade you, then I guess I'll just have to help you. I have money. You arrange the trip and I'll pay for it.”

L
arry called the charter company and booked
The Lady C
for a two-week cruise in July, only three weeks away. Though summer isn't exactly the peak season for the Caribbean, Larry felt it was important to go back as soon as possible to exactly the same spot where Russell Cole had disappeared. He told me he spoke to Captain Rankin and arranged for the yacht to meet us in Bridgetown in Barbados. I set about preparing for the trip.

Carla phoned me two days later.

“Did you get my little present, Jo, darling? Isn't it nice that there is no need for you to buy any more diamonds, except for those you want to wear? Are you not happy about that? And I want you to know that there is no need for you to write me a thank-you note.”

That low, purry voice of hers gave me the creeps. I had no idea how to respond.

“What do you want, Carla?”

“I understand that dear Larry is back from Florida, and I was wondering if you had a chance to speak with him about the article. And if so, what did he say?”

I didn't like it one bit that she knew where Larry had been. She was obviously having him followed. I wondered how much more she knew. Did she know about the specs, or about my having rented
The Lady C
?

“Call him yourself, Carla,” I said and hung up.

I immediately phoned Larry.

“She knows you went to Florida,” I told him.

He didn't seem too concerned. “Oh, I'm sure she's having me tailed. So what? I've been tailed before.”

“But what if she knows about the blueprints? She'll try to get them, won't she?”

“They're well hidden. Anyway, they don't prove anything.”

“What if she finds out we rented the boat?”

“Jo, I told you. This just comes with the territory. I'm pretty sure that Carla's swept her path clean. In thinking about it, I doubt she would have left any incriminating evidence on that boat. But you never know. And I just have a hunch about that room. Anyway, I want to see it. I've spoken to Captain Rankin at length. I told you, he was the Coles' old captain—the one they fired to hire Jenks.”

“Larry, is there a chance that Russell's still alive? I mean, I know she's evil and she had that woman killed, but do you think Russell really
could
be having one of his episodes, and she just took advantage of that?”

“It's possible, I suppose. But then you have to wonder why she's going to such great lengths to shut me up.”

“Have you written a lot more of your article?”

“A good chunk, yes. I haven't shown anything to my editor yet. I've shown more to you. I just have a hunch about that boat. Anyway, don't worry so much. We'll have fun, Jo. I like this Rankin fella. I trust him. I really do. I think he's—” He stopped, midsentence. “Wait a sec, there's my other line.”

Larry put me on hold and came back seconds later. “Speak of the devil . . .” he said.

“Carla?” I asked incredulously.

“You got it. Call you back.”

I waited nervously by the phone. Five minutes later, Larry called me back.

“Jo?” he said, sounding shaken.

“What the hell did she want . . . ?” He didn't say anything. “Larry, what's wrong?”

I heard him take a deep breath to collect himself. “She told me I should stop trying to avenge my wife's death by attacking innocent people.”

“She's so full of shit.” I was angry.

“She also said, ‘Remember how Helena died.' She said her name, Jo. She must have researched the case.”

Although I didn't know the particulars of his wife's death, I understood from Larry and others it had been a particularly gruesome murder.

“
Oh my God
. . . Larry, will you please,
please
be careful?”

“Don't worry, I will. But I wanted to tell you this before we were so rudely interrupted. I think Rankin's on our side. He's discreet, but I believe he shares my concerns about our Miss Carla.” He paused for a moment, then said, “Jo, I don't say this lightly. She is one dangerous lady.”

Over the next few days, Larry and I spoke on the phone several times, finalizing the details of our trip. Larry never alluded to the dark secret I had confided in him, but I knew he had to have thought about it. How could he not? I thought about it all the time.

 

Chapter 34

O
n June 19, at a little before five o'clock in the morning, my phone rang, waking me out of a deep sleep. It was Betty calling from California. Her voice was somber and urgent.

“Jo, I'm so sorry to wake you up, but we just got back from a party and turned on the TV.” She paused. “Have you heard about Larry Locket?”

“No, what?” I was still drowsy.

“Oh God, Jo . . . he's dead.”

I shot up from the pillows.
“What?!”
Panic surged through me.
“Oh my God!”

“Turn on your television. It's on CNN right now.”

I fumbled for the remote on the night table and flicked on the set. The TV screen bloomed in the dark room. My hands were shaking so hard I could hardly find the station. Finally, I tuned in to CNN, where a sunny blonde morning anchor was standing in front of Larry's house in the Association, talking into a mike. There were policemen, firemen, and paramedics milling around in back of her. Dark smoke billowed from the house. I forgot that Betty was on the phone as I listened to a recap of the crime.

“. . . And if you're just joining us, some very sad news today. Lawrence Locket, the world-famous crime writer, himself became a victim in the early hours of this morning in his own home . . . I'm here in front of Locket's townhouse in the Association, one of the most secluded and safe areas of New York City. After talking to neighbors, police are speculating that sometime during the night, Mr. Locket returned home and surprised a robber who had broken into his house. The robbery turned violent and Mr. Locket was apparently bludgeoned to death. . . .”

A picture of Larry flashed on the screen.

“. . . The robber then set fire to the house and fled. This very exclusive community in which Lawrence Locket lived has never experienced a violent crime in its hundred-and-forty-year history. Now its most famous resident is dead and police say they have no leads—although they concede that because of the nature of his work, Mr. Locket had a lot of enemies. Whether this was planned or just a haphazard break-in that ended in violence and arson is yet to be determined. For now, though, Lawrence Locket, the man who was always digging up crimes in unexpected places, has himself been murdered in a most unlikely place—his own backyard. Again, Lawrence Locket, dead at the age of sixty-seven, the victim of an apparent robbery arson gone bad. . . . This is Dawn Dressler, CNN. . . .”

They switched over to the main morning anchor, who said there would be “more on the amazing life of Lawrence Locket later on in the show . . .”

I turned off the TV and picked up the telephone. “Betty? Are you still there?” I said weakly.

“I'm here, Jo . . . poor Larry. It's just
unbelievable.
You must be in shock . . . Jo? You okay?”

“Let me call you back.”

I felt faint. I hung up and headed toward the bathroom. I felt like I was walking through cobwebs. I turned on the bathroom light and caught sight of myself in mirror. A haggard face, drained of all color, stared back at me.

My dear friend was dead.

Murdered.

And I knew who did it. I knew, too, that no one would ever believe me. Not in six billion years.

I splashed cold water on my face and neck. A fearful sadness overwhelmed me. I felt an immense emptiness. I burst into tears.

F
or the rest of the day I sat glued to the television set for any new scraps of information. I watched the biography of Larry Locket's life, which played over and over again on all the stations. I knew most of it already. Larry was born in a suburb of Atlanta. His parents owned a mom-and-pop insurance company and in subsequent interviews, Larry said it was the insurance business that gave him his “first taste of human larceny,” and sparked his interest in crime reporting. He graduated from a local college and the Columbia School of Journalism and then went to work as a cub reporter, covering the courts for the
New York Times.
In New York he met and married his only wife, Helena Gervasi, a paralegal at one of New York's top law firms. The black-and-white photograph of young Larry and Helena at their wedding was poignant, particularly if you knew what happened to Helena a scant three years after it was taken.

Helena disappeared one afternoon. Ten days later, a partially burned and decomposed body was found by a hiker on a muddy trail in the Pine Barrens in south central New Jersey. Seasoned officers at the scene called it “one of the most sadistic murders” any of them had ever witnessed. The body was soon identified as that of Helena Gervasi Locket. After ten months of dogged detective work, her alleged killer was identified. A circumstantial case was brought against Grant Mortenson, a rich client of the law firm for which Helena Locket had worked. Mortenson was an attractive, clean-cut, thirty-seven-year-old man who had apparently developed an obsessive crush on Helena Locket and stalked her for a number of months. There was innovative tire-tread analysis that linked his Jeep to tire marks at the scene.

However, at his trial, a high-priced legal team made it appear as though their relationship had been consensual. Mortenson took the stand in his own defense. He told the jury how much he had cared for Helena and how she had cared for him. He said she was even thinking of getting a divorce and that her death had “shattered” him. His lawyers produced the foremost expert in tire-tread marks to debunk the prosecution's contention that Mortenson's Jeep had been at the scene of the crime.

Mortenson's legal team successfully smeared Helena Locket's name and refuted key evidence. And because Mortenson himself was rich and good-looking, and because the presiding judge in the case seemed more interested in impressing the media than in the trial itself, Mortenson was, incredibly, acquitted. Several of the jurors interviewed after the verdict said Mortenson had made a “credible” witness, and that given the circumstances and testimony of the defense's experts, there were grounds for “reasonable doubt.”

Helena's death and her killer's acquittal was the turning point of Larry's life. Although Larry had alluded to it many times during the course of our friendship, I never fully understood just how gruesome or heartbreaking it had been. Larry had told me he'd thought about hiring someone to kill Mortenson, and now I understood why. The biography aired an old interview he gave right after the trial where he had predicted that Mortenson's pathology was so deep and furious that he would surely kill again. A scant ten months later, Larry's grim prediction came true. Mortenson killed another woman, and this time there was hard evidence linking him to the crime. The disturbing thing about this murder was that it gave a further glimpse into the horrors and the suffering that Helena Locket must have endured. Larry attended his trial and wrote about it for
Vanitas
magazine. Mortenson was convicted and he received a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

The biography then went on to show the highlights of Larry's amazing career. There was footage of him at other high-profile trials he covered and on the sets of the movies that were based on his best-selling books. He had been a great advocate for victims' rights and they showed a poignant interview with him where he said in his laid-back southern drawl, “It's an obscenity when people get away with murder just because they have money. Justice may be blind, but she's not deaf and dumb. The law must not be for sale.”

The final frames of the biography concentrated on a studio portrait of Larry, which had been used on the back cover of his latest book. There he was, frozen in time, dapperly dressed, glasses perched on the tip of his nose, pipe in hand, looking as leprechaunish as ever. His own voice, taken from a radio interview nine months earlier, was broadcast over the image: “Look, quite frankly, there are some blows in life from which you don't recover. You just have to learn to live with them and, hopefully, turn your own sorrow into something positive. I hope I've helped a few people along the way.”

As his name and the dates of his life appeared in black script under the photograph, I sat there sobbing.

F
or the next few days, the media was saturated with stories about Larry Locket's brutal murder and his extraordinary life. The police continued to report that there were no leads. As Larry had no living relatives, Betty and I took it upon ourselves to organize a memorial service for him. The morning of the service, I opened up the
New York Times
and read the following headline on the bottom of the front page: “
Cole Collection Donated to the Municipal Museum.
”

The article began:

Justin Howard, chairman of the Municipal Museum, announced today that Carla Cole, the wife of missing billionaire Russell Cole, has donated the couple's famous collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings to the museum, along with a landmark pledge of one hundred million dollars, which will be used to build a wing to house the art. The collection, along with the grant to build the wing, is estimated to be worth well over one billion dollars and therefore constitutes the largest single donation in the history of the Municipal Museum, and indeed the largest ever given to any museum in this country.

Edmond Norbeau, director of the Municipal Museum, said of the gift, “We are profoundly grateful to Mrs. Cole for her breathtaking generosity. The Cole collection and its special wing will be a stunning jewel in the Municipal Museum's crown.”

The story went on to say how Carla Cole was becoming “a new force to reckon with, both socially and economically.” It referred to her as a “philanthropic juggernaut” and a “financial wheeler-dealer,” heralding the increasing numbers of women who are important benefactors in this country. Tagged onto the very end of the article was the information that Courtney Cole was petitioning the court to have her father declared legally dead and that she was suing her stepmother for “fiduciary malfeasance.”

Betty called me to discuss the article, and, as usual, cut right to the chase: “Courtney Cole can petition and sue all she wants,” Betty said, “but there's no body. So for all we know, Russell Cole could be painting nudes in Tahiti.”

I detected a note of sympathy in Betty's voice.

“Don't tell me you're on
Carla's
side now?” I said, horrified.

“Christ, don't say
that!
It's just that Russell's had such a goofy history. I mean who the hell knows? All I can tell you for sure is that the woman is buying so much art from Gil, it's ridiculous. She's going into contemporary art and you know what that means . . . a fortune! Did you know that she hates the Impressionists? She couldn't stand Russell's taste in art. She either wants Old Masters or contemporary. That's what Gil tells me. Isn't that amazing . . . ? By the way, what are you wearing to Larry's memorial?”

“A shroud. To match my mood.”

I couldn't even tell Betty my suspicions about Carla's involvement in Larry's death. She would have thought I was crazy. Given Carla's new role in the city's fortunes, no one—not even my best friend—would believe such a woman was capable of such an act.