Size 12 and Ready to Rock (27 page)

“Four service requests and one incident report,” Jamie says, pulling the administrative forms from the residence hall director’s in-box. “Looks like there was a leaky sink in 1718. The engineer on duty fixed it. The rest of the stuff was kids asking to get the guards taken off their windows so they could open them wider than two inches to take a picture of the fountain in the park. Like that will happen. Oh,” she adds—and it’s an “Oh” that’s accompanied by a face crinkled with concern—“one thing . . .”

I do not like the sound of that.

“What,” I say flatly.

“Well, it looks like a group of girls from one of the suites ditched their chaperone after she fell asleep and snuck downstairs—”

“
What
?” I demand, taking the incident report from her and scanning it. As I do, my heart begins to thump. The form, which is in triplicate, has been filled out in blue ink by Rajiv—he was the resident assistant who’d been alerted to the situation—is extremely detailed, and goes on for some pages. The girls are named. The first name I see is Cassidy Upton.

“Why?” I ask. “Where did they think they were going to go? Didn’t we relieve them of their IDs last night?” This was a plan Lisa and I had hatched. In order to keep the girls from sneaking out of the building at night, we were requiring them to surrender their New York College–issued photo IDs to the resident assistant on duty every evening. That way, if they did sneak out, they’d have to notify the RA in order to get back into the building.

“Yeah,” Jamie says. “Well, it didn’t matter, because the girls didn’t leave the building. They ran into some of the basketball players in the lobby—”

I drop my head onto the desk with a groan. “Don’t even tell me.”

“I’m afraid so,” Jamie says.

“Please say”—I lift my head to beg Jamie— “that they made popcorn, watched a
Glee
marathon in the lounge, and went to bed. In separate rooms.”

“I can’t,” Jamie says. “Because they didn’t. You know Magnus, the really tall one? Well, he bought them some beer from that deli around the corner. Then they all went downstairs to the game room to drink and play foosball and pool.”

I continue to scan Rajiv’s cramped handwriting, anxious to find out what happened next. “This is not appropriate Tania Trace Rock Camp for Girls behavior,” I mutter under my breath.

“No, I’d say not,” Jamie says, looking vaguely amused. “Wynona was watching them the whole time, of course, on the security monitors.”

I glance over at Wynona, who looks up from her coffee and says mildly, “You should have seen those girls’ faces when I went down there and asked what in the hell they thought they were doing.”

I want to walk over and throw my arms around Wynona’s neck. But I realize that would be inappropriate.

“Were they surprised?” I ask her instead.

“I don’t know what kind of place they think we’re running here,” Wynona says. “One of them was actually standing on the pool table, doing a kind of stripper dance for the boys. ‘Does this look like a Hooters?’ I asked her. And those boys. They know better than that. I asked them, ‘Aren’t you in enough trouble already? Do you really want the president of this college finding out you’re buying beer for girls who are in the ninth grade?’ ”

“Then what happened?” I ask.

“Well, of course, the boys claimed the girls told them that they were twenty-one. But what twenty-one-year-old wears Hello Kitty underwear? I said to the girl on the pool table, ‘Baby, put your clothes back on. You know I got that entire stripper dance you just did on my security camera? I’m of half a mind right now to give that tape to your mama. And if you were my child, I would slap you from here to Newark.’ ”

“Let me guess,” I say, not even having to glance down at the incident report form to check the name. “That was Cassidy Upton?”

“How would I know?” Wynona demands. “They all look the same to me, with those skinny bodies and all the makeup. I called for Rajiv, took away the beer, and sent for the coach.”

My eyes nearly pop out of my head.

“You called Steven—I mean, Coach Andrews?”

“You best believe I did. He posted his private cell number right here”—she points to a slip of paper taped to the guard’s desk—“with a note that says, ‘Call if boys get out of hand.’ So I called, because I knew he’d want me to. He came over, got those boys down from their rooms, took them outside, and when they came back—probably two hours later—I have never seen anyone look as dog-tired. He made them run around the square fifty times.”

Whoa. I had tried to run around the square once and had been pretty sure my uterus was going to fall out.

“What I want to know is,” Wynona asks after taking a sip of her coffee, “what’s going to happen to those girls? What those boys did was wrong, but those girls weren’t exactly innocent flowers either, if you ask me.”

I nod. She’s right about that. Rajiv had noted in his report that, after he escorted the girls back upstairs, a fight broke out. Mallory St. Clare had called Cassidy Upton “a stuck-up bitch.” Cassidy responded by calling Mallory “a dirty whore who needs to take a shower in order not to be so dirty.”

All three girls, of course—along with the basketball players, despite Steven’s punishment—would be having a mandatory meeting with Lisa after such antics. The question was whether Lisa would tell Mrs. Upton what had gone on. As the girls were minors, it seemed likely.

But what about Tania? She was the one—along with Cartwright Records Television—who was supposed to be responsible for keeping these girls busy during their stay at her camp.

“Perfect,” I say. “This is just perfect.” Stephanie will be thrilled that her plan to turn three talented vocalists into backstabbing little divas is turning out so nicely.

“There are also,” Jamie says, “these.” She hands me ten registration cards. They’re the cards residents sign upon checking in, noting that they’ve received their key. All ten have keys taped to them and signatures under the checkout line.

“They checked out?” I ask, bewildered, even though it’s obvious.

“Yeah,” Jamie says. “Last night. I guess Tania Trace Rock Camp didn’t sound like so much fun after hearing that a guy got murdered by one of Tania’s own fans, right here in the building.”

I can feel my mouth pressing into a thin line. “That isn’t exactly how it happened—”

“Well,” Jamie says, “that’s how they’re reporting it on the news. A few of the girls’ parents heard about it and freaked. Some of the moms checked out with their daughters. One dad drove all the way from Delaware to pick up his daughter. The roommate went with them. The others checked into hotels. I’ll guess they’ll be flying home today. Lisa dealt with it. I’m sure you’ll hear all about it.”

I’m sure I will.

“Thanks, Jamie,” I say.

“I’m sorry, Heather,” she says, looking as if she means it. “I guess none of this is going the way we’d hoped. Oh, and none of us is quite sure what to do about the stuff in the package room.”

“What stuff in the package room?” I ask, perplexed.

She hands me the key. I walk over to the door, unlock it, and can barely believe the sight that meets my eyes. The entire room is filled with deliveries. Not just roses, but every conceivable kind of flower, including lilies and carnations and huge sunbursts of gerbera daisies, bunches of balloons, teddy bears, candles, fruit baskets, store-bought cards, and handmade cards, some three feet tall. Most of them are addressed to Tania, but some are addressed to Jared, or “In Memory of . . .”

“People started stopping by with this stuff last night, and it’s been coming ever since,” Jamie says. “I’m not sure why. Tania’s not the one who died. But I think they figured out that the cupcakes were for her and that someone wanted to hurt her. Some of them have been crying so much they could hardly talk. We didn’t really know what to do with it all, so Gavin started locking everything into the package room. We’re going to run out of space in a little while, though.”

My eyes inexplicably fill with tears, looking at all the teddy bears holding signs that say,
GOD BLESS YOU!
and the handmade cards—some of them in Spanish—that say,
WE WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU.
Tania may have her problems, but there’s something about her with which people really seem to connect. I can’t help thinking that if people knew the truth about the hardships she’s had to overcome—the
real
hardships, the ones she’s too ashamed to speak of and has struggled so long to hide—they’d love her even more.

“Thanks, Jamie,” I say, closing the door and handing the key back to her. “I’ll talk to the network and see if they can send someone down to collect it all. Keep accepting whatever people bring—unless it’s food, of course. Tell people you’re not allowed to accept any food. And if a creepy-looking middle-aged man comes by—”

She looks at me blankly. “A middle-aged man? What exactly does ‘creepy-looking’ mean? Because some of the girls’ dads have been by, and they’re a little creepy-looking—”

I realize I’ve jumped the gun a little. Cooper had left a message for Detective Canavan the night before, asking him to call us back as soon as he could, even though I’d argued that this would betray Tania’s trust.

“She told me to tell
no one,
” I’d said to him. “And I’ve already told you, and now you’re going to tell the police—”

“The man is a murderer, Heather,” Cooper said. “Tania’s going to need to stop worrying so much about the public relations angle of this thing and get real. It’s all going to come out, one way or another.”

“It isn’t the bad PR she’s worried about,” I’d said. “It’s that he’s going to hurt her baby.”

“Well, his chances of doing that are going to be a lot slimmer once he’s locked up in Rikers,” Cooper said.

It was hard to argue with that line of reasoning. When Detective Canavan called back early this morning, I was the one who picked up the phone. He’d listened to everything I’d had to say about Tania’s former husband—I didn’t sugarcoat it—interrupting only to say the occasional swear word. When I’d finished, he’d said, in his most sarcastic tone, “Well, this is great, Wells. This is just fantastic. We got a homicidal maniac on the loose, and you tell me I have to keep it to myself because of your ex-boyfriend’s new wife’s
feelings?
I got news for you. This ain’t a Lifetime special, and I ain’t John Stamos.”

I refrained from mentioning that it was hardly likely that Lifetime would cast someone as young as John Stamos to play him. Possibly Tom Selleck.

“We’re only keeping you in the loop as a courtesy,” I said, “because you’re a friend.”

Cooper winced when I said this. At the time I hadn’t realized why . . . until the detective blew up.

“I’m not your friend!” he shouted into the phone. “I’m an officer of the law! You just told me a witness—your good friend Tania Trace—lied under questioning, not once but twice. As a citizen of this city, she had a duty to reveal what she knew.”

“She’s scared,” I said. “She went to the police before for help, and they didn’t offer her any. Isn’t there a statute or something for that? Like the burning bed defense?” I’d actually seen a movie about this on Lifetime.

“Burning bed, my ass,” Detective Canavan growled. “I
wish
she’d burn this guy in his bed. That’d save me a whole lot of paperwork. You know what I was doing all night? Questioning hippie vegetarian cupcake bakers, trying to figure out if anyone at that Pattycakes place might remember having sold a dozen gluten-free jimmy jobs with vanilla soy gummy whatevers to anyone who mentioned Tania Trace, or if any of them put the poison in the cakes personally. But guess what? Lab results actually came back in a timely fashion for a change, and it turns out those things weren’t vegan or vegetarian or whatever the hell they were supposed to be at all. They didn’t even come from Pattycakes. Guy only used a Pattycakes box. He made the damned cupcakes himself out of a mix, which, if you ask me, is how the hell you’re supposed to make a cake in the first place. Quite the artist he was too, with the icing. Bought the little violets, though. He didn’t make those.”

“This is good to know,” Cooper said, looking excited. “It means Gary Hall is definitely staying someplace in the city, a place with a full kitchen, so that narrows down the number of hotels it could be. He could even have a lease, which we could trace—”

“Goddammit, Cartwright,” Detective Canavan yelled. “Take me off speakerphone! You know how much I hate that.”

Cooper picked up the phone, and the two men started talking. That’s when I decided it was time to go to work, so I could do what I’m about to go into my office to do now.

“You know what,” I say to Jamie. “I’ll type up a Persona Non Grata—”

“Wait,” Jamie says. “A PNG? So they know who did it? They figured it out? Because Gavin still feels really bad he couldn’t describe the guy all that well—”

“We’re not completely sure,” I say carefully. “But we think we have a lead. And tell Gavin not to worry. The guy’s not really all that memorable.”

Unless, of course, you happen to have married him. Then you may not only remember him, you may never be able to get rid of him.

Jamie heaves a shudder. “I bet
I’d
remember him,” she says.

I’m hoping that, with my efforts, Jamie never has a chance to test her theory.

Chapter 20