The Jinx (15 page)

“I ran into Professor Beasley in the Square. He was on his way here and told me what happened.” I looked at him carefully, eager to discern anything that would indeed betray him to be the Creepy Violent Stalker, but all I saw was a guy with a serious shiner and what appeared to be serious concern on his face. Although, the ability to dissemble effectively was likely a prerequisite for a Creepy Violent Stalker. “Anyhow, will you excuse me? I want to make sure Sara's all right.”

I didn't want to excuse him, but I didn't have a valid reason to stop him. I doubted he'd be able to get past the policeman outside Sara's door, anyhow, and if he did, Edie was in there with Sara. If he were the Creepy Violent Stalker, it would be hard to try to kill her again tonight.

The Porters were busily conferring with someone who looked like a doctor (he was wearing a white coat), and Matthew had surreptitiously joined them. Barbara Barnett was standing off to one side, peering at the small screen of her cell phone. Despite their oddly limited mobility (Botox-induced, perhaps), her features had managed to twist themselves into an expression of impatience. She looked up when I approached and gave me a forced smile.

“This is very upsetting,” she said. “Edward and Helene were actually at my house this evening, paying a condolence call, when we heard what happened. I've been trying to track Adam down. I asked him to help with security, and he said he'd be able to line someone up for tonight, but we clearly need to get somebody on duty right now.”

“I think it's been taken care of,” I explained, and told her about the police officer outside Sara's door. I said goodbye, and she joined the Porters as they headed for Sara's room. I met Hilary and Matthew back at the elevator. “I think we're done here,” I said.

“Are you sure?” asked Hilary.

“Not really, but I don't know what else I can do.” I pressed the call button for the elevator, and this time the doors immediately slid open. The three of us got in, and Matthew pushed the button for the ground floor. The doors had almost slid shut when we heard a voice call, “Wait!”

Matthew fumbled for the door-open button, getting to it at the last possible moment. O'Connell and Officer Stanley rushed into the elevator.

“What's going on?” I asked.

“I can't say,” said O'Connell in the sort of tone that shut off further inquiry, even for Hilary. We were silent as the elevator made its laborious descent, and he was off like a shot as soon as the doors opened, his partner running silently after him.

O
'Connell managed to give Hilary the slip on the way out of UHS, largely because the rest of us were physically restraining her. We offered up a nightcap at Shay's, one of our favorite college haunts, as a consolation prize.

“Cheer up,” said Jane. “It will give you an opportunity to hit on undergrads.”

“True,” agreed Hilary. “But what if he was rushing off because they've found something out about the prostitute killer? Or maybe another body? It would be amazing to see a fresh crime scene. I mean, I trust in my journalistic abilities to paint a vivid scene for the reader, but it would be a lot easier if I were actually there.”

“Yes, but we don't know if there even is a crime scene, much less where it is,” Emma said. “So come along to Shay's and have a drink.”

She agreed, but she wasn't happy about it. “Rachel was right. O'Connell is just my type.”

“You have a type? Just one?” asked Luisa skeptically.

It was now close to eleven on a Friday night, and not surprisingly the place was packed. In warmer months, we would have opted for the front terrace facing JFK Street, but since the snow was still coming down and the wind chill must have been a few hundred degrees below freezing, we pushed our way inside. While Hilary and Luisa negotiated with undergrads for their tables and Jane went to the ladies' room, the rest of us threaded our way through the crowd to fetch drinks at the bar. As Sean struggled to catch the bartender's attention, I turned to Matthew. “What exactly did the doctor say?” I had to yell to make myself heard over the cacophony of music and voices.

“Pretty much what I'd thought. Some sort of stimulant or amphetamine injected into the IV bag.”

“Is that the sort of thing that's readily available?” asked Emma.

“Sure,” he answered. “Not necessarily at the drugstore, but without too much effort, especially online. For example, there are pills and powders that you can get from dozens of Web sites that contain ephedra. A bunch of people had heart attacks when they were taking it, and it's been banned by the FDA, but it's still not hard to come by.”

“What's it for?” I asked.

“And if it's so dangerous, why would anyone take it?” added Emma.

“A lot of people use it for weight loss. And athletes take it, too. For weight loss, and to do more—run faster, hit harder—that sort of thing.”

“You know,” I said, remembering, “I think my boss, Stan Winslow, was on something like that last year. He was even more manic than usual but he lost ten pounds. But not without driving everyone crazy in the meantime.”

“It amazes me what people will do to lose weight,” said Matthew.

“That's easy for you to say. Not everybody has to worry about ordering extra desserts to maintain zero percent body fat,” said Emma.

“Hey, we all have our problems.”

“Matthew,” I asked, “is ephedra the sort of thing that body builders would take?”

“Sure.”

“Excuse me for a minute. I need to make a call.”

Inside was too noisy, so I stepped out onto the front terrace, bracing myself against the bitter chill of the wind. Between the streetlights and the light spilling out from the bar, I could make out the phone number on the card O'Connell had given me earlier that day. I punched in the digits once, but my fingers were stiff from the cold, and the phone slipped from my grasp and clattered on the ice-covered flagstones. I cursed and stooped to retrieve it. Only after I'd turned it off and then on did I get a signal, and I dialed the number again. I'd hoped to get a receptionist or an answering service that could connect me directly to the detective, but instead I got his office voice mail. I left a detailed message, letting him know that he might want to look into the supplements Grant Crocker took as part of his weight-training regimen.

 

I returned to the Charles shortly after one in the morning, exhausted and uneasy after a tumultuous day. My friends and I had managed to secure a corner table at Shay's, and we'd talked for a long while about who could be behind the attack on Sara Grenthaler and my suspicions of Grant Crocker, which led to a long and animated discussion of Detective O'Connell, which led in turn to a long and animated discussion of Jonathan Beasley. His good looks were uniformly acknowledged, even by Matthew. We skirted around the topic of Peter, and for that I was grateful.

I checked for messages on my way up to the room, but there was still nothing. It was just as well—I didn't have the heart to listen to whatever additional excuses and lame apologies Peter might have come up with for his continued absence.

The suite was quiet. A single lamp glowed dimly in a corner of the living room, and a thin trail of light came from the bedroom, likely left on by the housekeeping staff when they'd come to turn down the bed. I hung up my coat and kicked off my shoes. The new attack on Sara and everything that had ensued had given me an excuse to put off thinking about Peter and Abigail on their jewelry-store crawl for a couple of hours, but the still room and its feeling of emptiness now seemed like an overly obvious metaphor for how I was feeling inside.

So, I did what I usually did in such situations and stole a page from Scarlett O'Hara. Tomorrow, I said to myself. I'll think about it tomorrow. I went into the bedroom, steeling myself for the empty bed and the breakup it foreshadowed.

But Peter was there. Not awake, but not snoring. He lay sprawled on his stomach, a pillow cradled in his arms, his shoulders brown against the white of the duvet.

I probably should have awakened him and had it out, there and then. But I lacked the energy. And part of me wanted one more night as Peter's girlfriend. I'd liked it, liked how he made me feel, and I didn't relish the prospect of giving it up, even though I recognized I had to, because either he was going to dump me for Abigail or I was going to dump him before he could dump me.

I sank down onto my side of the bed, and he stirred a bit but didn't wake up. He just kept breathing, evenly and deeply. There was a note on my pillow, a folded piece of paper. I opened it up and read it by the light of the lamp on the nightstand.

At least it wasn't an e-mail. And, if I hadn't known about his shopping trip with Abigail it might have done the trick. And if I hadn't been quasikissing Jonathan Beasley, I would have felt just dandy. In fact, I would probably have tried to coax Peter awake. But it was all too clear that the only reason he was even here was to grab a few hours' sleep and a change of clothes.

Instead, I undressed, put on an oversize T-shirt, and slipped into bed.

 

Tired as I was, I did the requisite tossing and turning. There was just too much going on, and none of it good, to possibly sleep. I tried to focus on mentally preparing for the board meeting at Grenthaler Media, but this made me think of the commitment I'd made to Sara, to protect her interests, which inevitably led me back to the attacks. My bet was definitely on Grant Crocker as the perpetrator, and I tried to piece together not only how he had done everything but why. Lessons learned from Lifetime Television for Women could only provide so much insight. Male psychology had never been my area of expertise, I commented to myself. Which, of course, brought me back to Peter, and Abigail, and Jonathan. All in all, I'd had more peaceful nights. I finally drifted off around four but woke up briefly at six, conscious of Peter's arms around me, warm and familiar. I drifted off again, with a renewed sense of well-being, but when I reawakened at eight he was gone and so was the well-being.

The drapes were open, revealing that the snow hadn't let up. If anything, it was coming down harder than the previous evening. The thick white flakes swirled outside the window, almost completely obscuring the view to the river. Below me, the park was completely blanketed in white.

I showered and then padded into the living room for my first Diet Coke of the day. Peter had left another note, this one stuck to the door of the minibar. He'd written it in a hurry, judging by his scrawl, but it seemed to say that he was on his way back to the conference and would something indecipherable me later. I called UHS as I popped my soda open. Sara was sleeping but in stable condition, I learned, and yes, there was a police officer stationed outside her door.

I wanted to crawl back into bed, and I definitely looked like I should, but I'd promised too many people that I'd be at the Grenthaler Media emergency board meeting that morning. I surveyed the clothes hanging in the closet with distaste. On a day like today, nobody should have to put on anything but sweatpants or, at the very best, jeans. But here I was, struggling into stockings and the same black suit I'd worn to the memorial service on Thursday and trying to corral my hair into a passable imitation of professional calm.

I was scowling by the time I got into a cab. My mood was rapidly descending from less-than-chipper to downright ornery. Even worse, the driver wanted to chat. About politics.

It was a very long fifteen minutes.

 

Samuel Grenthaler had launched his company from a poky apartment in Somerville. Now its headquarters occupied a redbrick complex that sprawled over the better part of a full city block in Kendall Square, a neighborhood better known for biotech and software start-ups and shiny new condos. Even on a Saturday, the lobby was bustling. Several Grenthaler magazines were published from this building, and for their employees weekends happened after an issue was “put to bed,” which could be any day of the week.

The receptionist had my name on a list, and he gave me a pass and buzzed me through the glass-paneled doors that led to the elevators. The security here was much better than it was at UHS. The meeting was on the second floor, so I opted for the stairs rather than wait for the elevator, deciding I could now cross out “exercise” on the day's to-do list. I reached the boardroom a few minutes early, but there was nobody there as yet, so I ducked into the ladies' room. The ten-foot dash between the cab and the building's entrance had exposed me to a massive gust of snow and wind, and I had the feeling that it hadn't done much for my hastily fashioned chignon. Sure enough, the mirror above the sink reflected somebody who looked like me but had a red mop on her head instead of hair. I undid the clasp and began fiddling with the wayward strands.

The door opened and Barbara Barnett strode in. I was wearing what I'd always thought of as my “Power Suit,” a severe black Armani. Barbara seemed to be wearing her own version, an alarmingly bright royal blue outfit that looked like the product of a
Falcon Crest
costume designer channeling her counterpart on
Dallas.
But I had to give Barbara credit. The miniskirt might not be the outfit of choice for the sorts of meetings I was used to attending, but she still had the legs to carry it off.

She gave me a big smile, and we made ladies' room small talk, mostly about Sara's condition and the security at UHS. Watching her touch up her already perfect makeup was fascinating to me, given that the contents of my own makeup bag yielded little but a tube of drugstore mascara and a Bonne Bell strawberry-flavored Lip Smacker. “I bet Abigail uses grown-up makeup,” said that mean little voice in my head. I mentally shushed the mean little voice while simultaneously managing to secure my hair back in a knot that looked almost intentional.

It seemed only polite to wait for Barbara, so I watched while she finished outlining her lips with one brush and then used another brush and two different pots of lip gloss to fill in between the lines. “You have such beautiful skin, honey. It must be nice not to need all of this war paint,” she said to me, putting away the tools she'd just used and taking out a small pillbox.

“I probably do need it,” I replied. “I just lack the hand-eye coordination required to put it on.”

She laughed. “It does take practice. But a young, fresh-faced gal like you—you don't need as much help as I do. And how do you keep your cute little figure?” She looked me up and down with an evaluative eye before opening the pillbox and selecting a yellow tablet, which she swallowed dry. She put the pillbox back in her bag.

I'd never really thought of my figure as “cute.” Mostly just scrawny. And klutzy. When what I'd always longed for was willowy and graceful. “I miss a lot of meals,” I said. It made for an easier answer than trying to argue with her assessment. And it was the truth. Too many evenings found me scavenging for food among the vending machines in the pantry at Winslow, Brown, hungry but unwilling to prolong my hours at work by taking the time to order in a proper dinner.

“Well, you're a lucky one,” she replied as we left the ladies' room.

I didn't feel particularly lucky that morning. But I thanked her, assured her of her own enviable svelteness and followed her into the boardroom.

A half hour later I was feeling even less lucky.

 

Brian Mulcahey called the meeting to order. Tom had not only been CEO, he'd been chairman of the board, and Sara, who served as vice chair, was out of commission for today's meeting, so running the agenda fell to Brian. The other board members seated around the table included Barbara, Edward and Helene Porter, and four “outsiders,” including the senior partner at one of Boston's more prestigious law firms, the CEO of a local insurance company, the CEO of a local industrial concern and a retired professor from M.I.T. The crackdown on corporate governance in the post-Enron era had called for more outsider presence on the boards of public companies, but since Grenthaler was privately controlled it had felt little pressure to reshuffle its board's composition, and it was still more than half “insiders.”