The Crasher (47 page)

As she spoke, she wanted to die. It was true. Johnny could never know. If he ever found out, he’d be convinced forever she
was nothing but a tramp.

Esme confirmed it. “No, I suppose you can’t.” She shuddered dramatically. “To think you were with the murderer just
before it happened. I can’t bear to think of what might have happened to you if you hadn’t escaped.”

When Ginny didn’t answer, Esme said slowly, “It may have to come out, Ginny. It’s all part of the evidence, pointing to the
violent kind of man Stern is. Perhaps you should speak to a lawyer-one of Ted’s cousins-perhaps he could help.”

Cousin! If only Ginny had never had a cousin.

Ashamed she was allowing Esme to believe Stern was guilty, Ginny cried again, “No! I don’t know why I told you, but I had
to tell someone.”

“What about your own cousin, Alex, the cousin you love so much? Can’t he advise you what to do?”

Was Esme reading her mind?

“You always say he knows what to do about everything,” Esme continued. “Can’t you tell Alex what you’ve just told me?” There
was often a suspicion of sarcasm in Esme’s voice when she mentioned Alex’s name, but not today.

Sure that her stricken expression must be giving Esme some idea of the fear her words conjured up, with a big effort, Ginny
smiled weakly. “Oh, Alex and I don’t see each other much anymore. He’s got more important things to do than visit his unemployed
relatives.”

Esme was looking at her searchingly. Did she suspect something, or was Ginny, as usual, being paranoid?

Ginny suddenly desperately wanted to be alone. “I don’t feel too good, Es,” she said. It was true. “I think I’ll take a sleeping
pill and try to get some sleep. This whole business has really shaken me up.”

“I bet it has. Can’t I do anything?”

It took another twenty minutes before she could persuade Esme that all she really wanted was to be left alone to get some
rest. “You won’t tell anyone, will you? Especially not Ted?” Ginny pleaded as Esme still hovered in the doorway.

“Cross my heart and hope to die, but do think about seeing a lawyer. I’ll come by tomorrow or perhaps it would be better if
you tried to act normally? Why don’t you let me take you out to lunch? We could meet at Mortimer’s.”

“Let’s talk in the morning.”

When Esme finally left, Ginny had a warm bath and tried to think what she would be doing if, as Esme put it, she acted normally.
One thing, for sure. She would have called Poppy by now to offer her condolences, comfort, something.

With a jolt she again realized she hadn’t seen Poppy at the library, although, for once, she’d been sure Poppy would be there,
wearing the georgette wraparound she liked so much, because she wanted a version in black “without a fitting, Ginny darling.”

Ginny frowned. It was strange. Despite the crowd, Poppy was always such a standout, but right up until the fateful moment
when the first gong had rung for dinner and she’d made the sickening mistake of agreeing to go “somewhere quiet” with Stern,
there had been no sign of Poppy Gan. She’d been so intent on breaking through the maelstrom to meet Quentin Peet, could she
have missed her? Surely not, but then something else had been on her mind. What was it? A cold wave of terror went through
her. Oz. She’d been intent on giving Oz the slip, too.

Ginny sank back on the bed. How could she have forgotten Oz, the man she’d already offended publicly at Esme’s wedding, the
man who’d admired her cloak and taken it to the cloakroom, who’d said he would meet her at her table, hoping they could get
together later?

Why hadn’t she heard from him? Had he already gone to the police, the press? Would she read all about herself in the next
day’s papers?

Calm down, Ginny. Act normal, Ginny. For all you know Oz is off in some far-flung place on assignment or too busy in the studio
to read the papers or to think about you or your cloak.

She picked up the phone to call Poppy.

An answering service picked up. “Who’s calling?”

“An old friend…”

“I’m afraid Ms. Gan isn’t here at the moment. What’s your name and number?”

Quickly Ginny hung up. She went over to her sewing machine, determined to pull herself together. There was a yard of poplin
on top. For the new dart she’d been experimenting with, a dart curved like a crescent moon, a dart she intended to place in
strategic places on a form-fitting dress, to increase body consciousness.

She sat down, trying to concentrate, trying to summon up her usual enthusiasm that could turn a piece of material into high
fashion.

After a few tries, she gave up. Perhaps in the morning. Perhaps next month or next year. It was time for the sleeping pill.

When she woke up it was cold and dark and just after midnight. Oh, Johnny, where are you when I need you so badly?

She threw on a sweater and walked the route she’d run so feverishly only the night before, this time to the late-night newspaper
stand, where she bought first editions of the morning papers.

They were all full of the arraignment of Arthur Stern in connection with Svank’s death. There was a picture of Stern looking
browbeaten beside a mountain of a woman, his wife Muriel. She was glowering at him, although she was quoted as saying her
husband had her unswerving support and the city would live to rue the day they’d “tried to frame my Arthur.”

Described in the
News
as ‘the bulldog billionaire,” Svank was now pictured in all the papers, several times with glamorous women, including two
ex-wives Ginny wondered if Poppy had ever known about.

In the
Post
there was a picture of Svank with Poppy. “In happier days,” wrote the
Post.
Oh, yeah, thought Ginny. Poppy was wearing the dress which had garnered such enormous press coverage with its “derrière siren
skirt,” the skirt she’d saved after Svank had tried to rip it apart.

Even the august
New York Times
devoted a good chunk of space to the story, reporting that “Svank, one of the library’s biggest donors, had been the honored
guest of the library’s president that night”

Nowhere in any of the reports did it mention that Svank had brought Poppy to the dinner-or anyone else for that matter. Finally
she found the sentence she was looking for. “A close friend of Svank’s, the model Poppy Gan, has been questioned by the police,
although she did not attend the dinner because she was out of town at the time.”

Stranger and stranger. Ginny closed her eyes wearily, remembering Poppy’s often-repeated explanation for not keeping her promise
to include her at various events. “I never know where I’m going to end up. I get the week’s agenda, but that doesn’t mean
I’m always invited. He’s gotta lotta business, you know.”

Did he fall or was he pushed? On the
Times
Op-Ed page a famous defense attorney gave a case history of another sensational death, explaining the finer points of the
law and how, if Stern’s defense lawyer could prove it was not premeditated, a manslaughter charge, Murder 3, could lead to
the accused’s release after a comparatively short sentence.

Guilt overwhelmed Ginny. She had to go to Caulter and tell him everything, that Stern should not have been accused of anything,
except attempted rape. Even as she thought about it, she visualized the look on Johnny’s face when the facts came out.

She quickly flipped the pages over. To her amazement, anger, and frustration, on the Style page a sizable fashion box was
devoted to the “new chic swagger of a cloak.”

Here was the golden chance she’d longed all her life to achieve, and she couldn’t claim an inch of credit.

In the morning she called Esme to say she couldn’t lunch; she’d forgotten she had a long-standing date to help Lee with a
fashion shoot out on Long Island.

Ginny was dreading that Lee would want to gossip about Arthur Stern, but luckily the clothes came late, the model had a rash,
and Lee had too much to contend with to talk about anything except the job in hand.

When Ginny arrived back in the loft, she saw on the local TV news that a camera crew had been combing New York
City streets to capture every cloak-wearing woman in sight. In less than forty-eight hours cloak wearing had become a major
trend.

Another sleepless night, and worse was to come. Esme brought
Women’s Wear Daily
to lunch the next day. It carried a spread on the most fashionable cloaks in town, with Barneys offering an almost exact
replica of the Mystery Woman’s Napoleonic version, “in fabric,” a store spokesman pontificated, “similar to that used in Napoleon’s
campaign tents.”

“You’ve got to do something,” Esme said fiercely. “Other designers are stealing your ideas, claiming them as their own, while
you’re cowering in terror, all because you don’t want Johnny to know you nearly lost it to the murderer at the library-”

“That’s not the reason.”

“Well, what is it, then? Stern’s out on bail, living in high luxury with his old battle-ax of a wife, who’s bound to know
what he gets up to when he’s off the leash, and you’re as usual the one who’s suffering. It’s not right, Ginny. How about
me telling Johnny what happened?”

“Are you out of your mind? If you even mention doing such a thing again, Esme, I’ll never forgive you.”

Where was Alex? Where was he hiding? Was he still in the country? Round and round her mind went, over the same ground. Once
she would never have believed Alex could be a thief. Now she accepted the fact, horrifying though it was. But a killer? No,
she couldn’t, just couldn’t accept that the cousin she’d so looked up to, respected and adored, would deliberately take another
man’s life, even if it was the loathsome Svank.

She remembered Alex telling her he’d been wrong; she’d been right. Svank was-how had he described him? “A greedy, dangerous
fiend.” But Alex had gone on working for the fiend. “He’s still someone very much to know if you have something he wants.”

Someone had had something Svank wanted-badly enough to fight over it. If it hadn’t been Alex in the hallway,
who could it have been? It was someone who knew that she and only she could prove Arthur Stern had never laid a finger on
Svank. Someone who right this second could be thinking she and only she could identify him as the real killer, someone who
wouldn’t hesitate to eliminate her-once he found out who she was. Why wasn’t Stern using her as an alibi? Had he been too
drunk to remember?

As she went back over the same old ground, increasingly the evidence pointed to Alex. He must have seen her face illuminated
by the lightbulb on the stairwell. He must have guessed she was the mystery woman in the cloak, because he was one of the
few people in the world who knew about her crashing. Because she hadn’t come forward to exonerate Stern, he must think she
was still willing to protect him and, determined not to give her any more agony, he’d taken the jewels and escaped.

She prayed she’d got it right, that Alex, at last, was thinking of her. She prayed, for the good of Alex’s soul, that Svank’s
death had been an accident, despite the gunshot she’d heard.

The papers obviously weren’t getting all the facts, because although a gun had been mentioned, Svank’s gun, the coroner’s
report had given as cause of death a fatal crushing of the skull. Would she ever be able to forget the sound of body, bone,
matter hitting that marble floor? Never.

Alone in the loft, she thought she heard someone trying her front door. “Alex, is that you?”

She told herself she wasn’t afraid, but again her mother’s words came back. “He isn’t who you think he is… he’s a monster…”

It wasn’t the front door. It was a latch on the shutter outside the window, blown loose by the wind.

Esme had stuck
WWD
in her shoulder bag. It was as if she wanted her to brood, hoping perhaps she’d suddenly call the trade paper and give them
the scoop of the year.

“Hi, I’m Ginny Walker, the Mystery Woman. I left my cloak behind, running away from Arthur Stern. He wasn’t
busy killing Svank; he was busy trying to rape me.” Gimme a break, Esme.

All the same, rereading the Barneys story the next day Ginny decided that never knowing what the next hour might bring, she’d
go to see for herself exactly what Barneys uptown store’s replica of her cloak in “Napoleonic tenting” was all about.

As she was leaving, Johnny called. She’d never heard him sound so pleased with himself. “What’s up? Have you won the lottery?”

“Better still. I’m on the verge of a big story. Don’t think I’ll have to go back down to San Juan. I probably have enough.”

“Are you coming home?”

“Soon, babe. Soon. I’ll let you know. What’s with the cloak?” Her silence sent him into a series of “tut tut tuts.” Then,
“I’ll deal with you, young lady, when I get back,” he said. “By Sunday at the latest.”

Despite a resolution to save as much as she could for the rainy day she was sure was now imminent, when she saw a cab slowly
cruising by she hailed it. She’d use the subway to get back.

The jerking, stopping, starting and bumping over Manhattan’s many potholes was just what she needed to sharpen all her senses.
These days with so little sleep, half the time she was going through life like a sleepwalker. She craved sleep; she longed
for oblivion to escape from the pain of her thoughts. She stared out at the graffiti-laden walls, the barricaded shuttered
buildings, that seemed to have taken over the city all the way up to the mid-Forties.

As the neighborhood improved, the traffic got worse. Seeing the meter she knew she should get out and walk, but it was beginning
to rain, and she hadn’t thought to bring her umbrella; she didn’t want to arrive at Barneys a sodden mess.

In the middle of a gridlock on Madison Avenue at Fifty-fifth Street Ginny’s stomach did a somersault. Crossing the road on
the far side, weaving in and out of cars and trucks, walking as fast as they could, were, surely, Poppy, wearing
huge dark glasses with… Ginny took a deep breath, blinking her eyes to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating… with Alex.

She didn’t hesitate. She jumped out just as the traffic began to move. There was a hideous screeching of brakes as a FedEx
truck had to slam on everything to avoid her. “What the fuck… where d’you think you’re going?” She could hear people cursing
her, yelling, the taxi driver bellowing, but nothing and no one was going to stop her.