Singer 02 - Long Time No See (17 page)

Driving home on the Long Island Expressway, I put Dan out of my mind, tried not to devote even one neuron to Nelson, and didn’t waste a microsecond on post-modernist Geoff. Musing over murder most foul, I decided, was far more comforting than contemplating the unholy trinity of me, men, and my future. Except I found little comfort. I was beginning to feel uneasy about the case. The more I learned, it seemed, the less I knew, not the sort of progress I wanted to report to a client like Fancy Phil.

What could I tell him? That I’d spent the day at the library searching databases for all variations on Courtney Bryce Logan, Courtney Bryce, StarBaby, Courtney AND Princeton, and Courtney AND “Patton Giddings.” All that popped up was a wedding announcement, the fact that Courtney had been treasurer of Princeton’s Class of ’86 Fund, and an article from
The Olympian
in Washington state, Courtney’s hometown paper, reporting her murder with quotations from a few of her Summit High classmates, one of whom had used the adjective “shrewd” where “smart” might have been more seemly.

And when I’d gotten home from the library in the late afternoon, there had been a message on my voice mail: “The clock’s ticking. You got anything yet?” No name of course, but there was no doubt it was Fancy Phil. With more than a hint of strained patience in a gravelly baritone unaccustomed to expressing forbearance.
“You got anything yet?”

Did my client simply and sincerely want to discover the truth? Or had he wound me up and sent me searching to find out all that was find-outable, that is, to see if there was any evidence the average detective might miss that could lead back to Fancy Phil himself, or to Greg, evidence he could then destroy—along with the historian who’d dug it up?

Nelson Sharpe hadn’t warned me about Phil Lowenstein just so I could swoon and throw myself into his arms. Basically, Nelson was saying: This guy doesn’t just have a nasty temper. This guy can order a murder, although if he likes you, he’d probably ask one of his associates just to maim. What kind of lunacy or presumptuousness had led me first to knock on Greg Logan’s door, then after that let me think I could handle his old man?

So the next morning, feeling a little shaky, I phoned Mary Alice Mahoney Schlesinger Goldfarb and my next-door neighbor, Chic Cheryl, to try to track down some of Courtney’s friends. Mary Alice said she knew “tons” of them, but, under not very rigorous cross-examination, was unable to come up with any names. On the other hand, Chic Cheryl blared out not only names, but net worth and country-club memberships. Also, according to CC, the explication I’d gotten from Jill Badinowski of the social stratification among younger, stay-at-home mothers was in error: They formed cliques not based on the status of their occupations in their former lives—cosmeticians vs. bankruptcy lawyers—but on the wealth of their husbands, a notion that would have desolated me for weeks had I not been so eager to gather enough information that I could get to Fancy Phil before he decided to get to me.

After writing down Chic Cheryl’s candidate for best friend, Kellye Ryan, I must have had some “When Irish Eyes are Smiling” stereotype in the back of my head, because the tall, tan, slender, long-limbed near-beauty who rang my doorbell that Friday afternoon was a surprise.

“Hey,” she greeted me.

“I appreciate your coming over,” I told her.

“No prob.” Kellye didn’t seem to notice the missing “lem.” “Nice house. Hey, I’m glad you’re doing something to—what’s that word?—whatever, to honor Court.” Although she did appear to be vocabularily challenged, she was alert and self-confident. I led her through the house, out the back door, and offered her a seat on an old cedar bench. Unobtrusively, she flicked off what might have been an atom or two of pollen before executing that deft bent-knee, ass-to-seat maneuver that indiscernibly transforms the naturally graceful from a standing to a sitting position. “So much publicity. Yuck. It’s nice someone wants to hear nice things about her.”

“I do want to hear nice things,” I assured her. “But if I’m going to write about it, or turn it into an oral history, it’s my obligation to ask all sorts of questions. My job isn’t to commemorate Courtney Logan, even though I’m sure she deserves it.”

“Gotcha,” she replied. Kellye Ryan did not look like the average Shorehaven mommy, in a T-shirt and khakis with just enough forgiving Lycra to get her through dinner at Burger King without having to open her zipper. Instead, she wore one of those dresses of palest peach silk and lace that is barely distinguishable from a full-length slip. As she was at least five feet ten, it ended mid-thigh, which in her case was not a problem.

With the dark hair pulled back into a bun at the nape of her neck and her almost black eyes, Kellye looked like a beautiful flamenco dancer. That is, until she smiled. Then she looked like a flamenco dancer from Transylvania. Dracula teeth: Her upper canines were so elongated they appeared to pierce her lower gums. I had to stop myself from lowering my chin to protect my neck.

“Tell me a little about yourself,” I prompted. “What’s your background?”

“You know.” Sensing this might not be quite enough, she went on. “College, Bard. After, Bill Blass.”

“Were you a model?”

“Uh-uh,” she said, while giving me a modest little shrug to acknowledge the compliment. Then she got busy aligning the two spaghetti straps on her slip-dress.

“What did you do there?”

“Marketing.”

I sensed a little more small talk was needed before I started asking her about her murdered friend. “Did you like working in the fashion industry?”

“I mean, to work for Bill Blass? Total, total dream job.”

“Uh-huh,” I found myself saying.

“The whole line. Quality. Down to the seams. Beautifully finished. You
never
have to be ashamed to take off your jacket.”

“Right. And now?”

“Married, two kids.” Her smile slowly faded and a sorrowful expression elongated her face. “Same as Court.”

“How did you meet her?”

“Tennis tournament. Rolling Hills.”

“That’s a country club?”

She nodded. “Yeah. They paired us. Doubles team. I mean, Mutt and Jeff. Short and tall. But we were great. Together. We started playing singles. A powerhouse, that girl! Fridays. Strategy, strategy. And a killer serve.”

“And you became close friends?”

“Right.”

“What was she like?” I asked.

As Kellye considered she scraped some invisible lipstick or crumbs from the corners of her mouth with the tips of her pearl-colored pinkie nails. “Court? Smart. Adorable. I used to kid her. Call her Miss Perfect,” she said, smiling sadly. “But she was. Always there for you. Great friend. Totally, totally in love with her kids.”

“And what about her husband?”

“In love with him, too,” she said quickly, although I noticed the “totally, totally” was dropped. “She was cute looking, too. But smart enough not to wear ruffles, you know? Princeton, and it’s not easy to shake that boring, Ivy style, so she was a little too safe fashionwise. But who’s going to argue with Armani?”

“Not me,” I said.

“And always ...
doing.
StarBaby. Before that Citizens for a More Beautiful Shorehaven, president one time. Volunteer, Island Hospital. Something else with cancer. Tennis, running, learning golf. And doing for Trav and Morgie? Like the day she ...” Kellye, suddenly breathless, pressed her hand against her chest and paused to compose herself. “The day Court was missing. Got killed probably, but who knew that then? She made a Halloween pumpkin cake. You wouldn’t believe it! Two cakes in bundt pans. Put them together, one on top of the other—you know, bottom to bottom, with frosting for glue. It honestly did look like a pumpkin. Orange frosting, black frosting eyes, and she smushed together green gumdrop thingies for the stem. I said, ‘Court, you don’t have enough to do?’ and she said, ‘Yes, but wait till the kids see this. They’ll be’ ... Some word like ‘so happy.’” Kellye’s eyes grew moist. A tear rolled out onto her black lower lashes. She carefully dabbed it off with the side of her index finger to avoid smudging her mascara.

“I’m sorry,” I told her.

‘“Sokay.” Her tears kept flowing. Kellye Ryan might have been deficient in language, but perhaps not in intelligence and definitely not in feeling. I found a tired Kleenex in my back pocket and handed it to her. “When she was missing,” she finally went on, “I couldn’t stop thinking. Sicko people out there, you know? Like the guy who killed Versace. Except not gay. And creepier. So I was petrified. Like what could be happening to her? I didn’t want to think about all the things that could be—oh, Jesus!—done to her. But I couldn’t help it. And then when they found her body ... I just pray whoever shot her in the head just did it, not later after doing like sex things or torture things.” She folded the tissue and inserted it under her lashes, holding it at one eye, then the other until the tears finally stopped. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” I replied. Kellye closed her eyes for a moment to regain her composure. Then she nodded—I’m okay now—patted around her nostrils with the tissue, and swallowed hard. She crossed her legs at the ankle, and swung them over to the left, in that uncomfortable posture women’s magazines urge upon you to look ladylike and/or to prevent onlookers from having an I-Thou relationship with your pudendum. “Did Courtney ever talk about her past?” Kellye shook her head. “Old boyfriends?”

“Uh ... Some guy at Princeton. Chip? Chuck? One of those names.”

“Any last name?” I asked.

“Uh-uh.”

“Did she ever talk about her family?”

“Uh-huh. Only child. Crazy about gymnastics, but even though she was skinny then ... You know how they say: ‘You can’t be too thin.’”

“Anything else?”

“Her mother was born-again for a little while. She talked about Jesus
really
loud at Taco Bell or one of those places. Courtney said she was so mortified she wanted to die.”

I waited. Kellye got busy twirling a silvery bangle around her wrist. I said: “I’d like to ask you a painfully direct question.”

“Okay.”

“You’re describing a terrific person. So who in the world would want to hurt Courtney, or get her out of the way? I’m trying to get a handle on her for this history and I can’t seem to get past that question.”

“I can’t either. I guess ... maybe ... one of those serial killers.”

“Is that what you told the police when they questioned you?”

Kellye shook her head and her white-gold or platinum earrings made a tiny tinkling sound. “They didn’t question me.”

“Did they call you or—?”

“No. Nothing. I was surprised. Best friends. They called a couple of the others. But not me. I asked Denny, my husband, should I call them? I was at Court’s the day she was missing. Or killed. But early, when she put the cake together. My Dexter is seven and her Morgan is five, so ... What you’d expect. Boy, girl, age difference. Would they trick-or-treat together? Of course not. So Denny, my husband, said: ‘Do you have something to tell the cops? Something that would help them?’ So I said: ‘No.’ So he said: ‘Then don’t get involved, babe.’ Denny’s a lawyer. Tax, but ... hey, they know. Right?”

“Right. Did Courtney herself seem to change in any way over those last few months, before she disappeared?”

Kellye bit her lip while she thought, a youthful gesture that might have been endearing except for her fangs: “Yes and no,” she finally responded. I waited. “Like I said about her being perfect.” Kellye bit again. “But you know when a friend is just going through the motions. Court was doing that for weeks. Toward the end. Maybe months. At tennis she’d call out ‘Good shot,’ but I could tell. She wasn’t in it. And she kept canceling. Her mind was someplace else. And Halloween, with the cake. She couldn’t
not
bake—I mean, Veterans Day cake, Chinese New Year cupcakes, and like, is she Chinese? Every holiday. But she was, you know, at least fifty percent flaked. For like a month, maybe two or three, before.”

“Did you ask her if anything was wrong?”

“Sure.”

“And what did she say?”

“That she was—what do you call it?—preoccupied with StarBaby. But it was starting to take off. Everything was fine.”

“The marriage?”

Kellye shrugged her exquisitely tanned shoulders. “She said it was. I mean, she would have liked it if Greg had, whatever. Bigger ideas. She wanted him to open up on the West Coast. New York was okay, but it’s, like, ethnic and they want dinner to be a dinner. Not soup, salad, or a sandwich. Even
and
a sandwich. But California is spelled L-I-T-E. Except Greg said no.”

“Why?”

“Capital.”

“Is that what Courtney told you?”

“Uh-huh.”

“But other than that?”

“They were fine.” She nodded, satisfied with her account. But a second later she was shaking her head.

“What made you think it wasn’t fine?” I asked.

“ESP.” I offered what I hoped was a nod more encouraging than her own had been. “And ask yourself: Why do people get flaked?”

“Did you think she was frightened?” I asked. “Or under pressure of some sort?”

“Not
that
kind of flaked.”

“You mean Courtney might have been interested in someone else?”

“I hate to say this, but I did kind of think: Some guy? I mean, what could make Court go, like, through the motions. Not have her heart in her pumpkin cake. And she
bought
Morgan’s costume. Queen Amidala.” I was trying to think of a way to ask Kellye who that might be when she added: “If you said to me, Hey, here’s a billion dollars. Who could Court possibly get hot for, even though she was always hinting Greg was the hottest guy ever.” At this thought, Kellye covered the front of her neck with both hands, then stuck out her tongue as if she were choking. Then, in case I didn’t get it, she added: “Gag, double-gag.”

“What’s wrong with Greg?”

“Q-U-I-E-T.”

“What?”

“He’s too quiet. It’s creepy. Denny, my husband, says it’s because his father is a Jewish Mafia guy. Greg’s father. Not Denny’s. Denny’s father has an air-conditioning company in Glen Cove. And not Jewish. Half Irish, half Polish, or something else foreign. I think. Whatever. But Greg wants everyone to think he’s got class, not that he’s like a gangster. That means low-key. So when he’s with you he acts so low-key it’s like he’s not there. So you won’t think he’s—what’s that word? For always pushing people around and stuff?”