The Oxygen Murder (9 page)

I’d never done anything like this before. I tried to think of a word other than “theft” to characterize my rash behavior. Borrowing? Temporary custody? Obstruction of justice also came to mind. Not an improvement.

When I thought I’d walked far enough from Tina’s neighborhood, where Dee Dee might be picking up lunch, I ducked into a bookstore café and ordered the largest cappuccino on the menu.

I sat down and pulled the letter from my purse, keeping it low on my lap. The sheet was wrinkled from being crammed into my bag. I was relieved that it had no creases at the one-third points as an original might, from insertion into a business-sized envelope.
This means it’s a photocopy,
I thought,
or a scanned color copy to preserve the letterhead.
I breathed easier, by a nanohair.

I decided to keep it hidden on my lap until my drink was delivered.

I felt deceitful enough to start my own PI firm.

C
HA
TER
E
IGHT

L
ori walked from Coffee And to her building, crossing her fingers, saying every prayer she could remember from first grade, making promises to God to donate more to charity. Okay, to
start
donating to charity. Until now she’d considered
herself
a charity, but that would stop, she vowed.

She needed to get into her apartment.

The breakfast meeting with Gloria—she wondered if she was supposed to call her
Aunt
Gloria—was a disaster. The woman should have been a cop herself, the way she got Lori to say things without thinking. She had that soft, pleasant voice that misled you into thinking everything she asked was innocuous. Lori knew she’d blown it this morning, talking about Amber’s Midwest home and family. God, she’d even mentioned the crush she’d had on Amber’s brother, Billy Keenan.

She turned the corner on West Forty-eighth. Halfway down the street, Lori could see a cop on her stoop, a short flight up from street level. He was young and cute—but so was she. She’d at least give it a try.

“Hey,” she said, mildly flirtatious.

The cop had been shifting his weight from one foot to another, the keep-your-blood-moving dance of winter. When he saw Lori, he stopped and swung his club, like a baton, at his hip.

Lori knew how to lift her dark eyebrows just enough to express intensely personal interest:
You have captured my attention,
they said. She knew she had the best haircut to show off her high cheekbones and delicate chin, and she took advantage of the new styles to accentuate her petite figure. The short black jacket and bright scarf she wore
today gave her a jaunty, sexy air she wasn’t above using to her advantage. Not exactly what Greer, Friedan, and Steinem advocated in her women’s studies texts.

“Hey,” the cop said.

Lori noticed the curly red hair under his cap, and how tightly his jacket fit across his chest.

“Wow, that stick is awesome,” she said.

The cop smiled and blushed.
Good.

“How you doin’ today, ma’am?”

“I’m great. Did you see the tree lit yet?” Lori couldn’t tell if he wore a wedding ring under his heavy gloves.
Please don’t let him show me pictures of adorable red-haired children.

“Yeah, I was down there last night, on my trusty steed.” The cop straightened his shoulders and held his arms in position to hold the reins of an imaginary horse.

“Wow, you’re a mountie, too?” Lori asked, fishing her keys from the front pocket of her tight-fitting pants. She moved closer to the door. The front entrance had been redone recently, with metal framing, and from the outside the rust-brown edifice looked like a doorman building, though it was far from it.

“What floor?” the cop asked.

Lori winked. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” She reached for the door handle.

The cop stepped between Lori and the door. Still smiling, but not as malleable as Lori had hoped. “Actually, I have to know. Part of the building is off-limits.”

Lori gave a hopeful look, though she felt it was a lost cause. “I’m on four.”

Oops, why hadn’t she lied? It wasn’t as if she was the most honest person around these days.

The cop shook his head and wagged his finger.
No go.
“New York’s finest are still working up there.”

Lori put her hand on her hip. One last effort. “Just for one tiny minute?”

The cop took off his hat and scratched his head. “You know I can’t do that.”

At that moment, uniformed officers—an entire crew of them, it seemed to Lori—opened the door from the inside and marched out, carrying boxes of stuff. Her stuff, she could tell. She saw one of her flowered pillows sticking out of a carton.

Her stomach rolled. It might as well have been her life passing before her, and then out of her hands.

She wondered how carefully they’d go through everything. She could ask Uncle Matt, but she hesitated to bring up anything about the case, especially with his wife nosing around. Not that it mattered. The money was in plain view.

“You can come back in an hour or so. Then maybe we can grab some lunch,” the redheaded cop said, jerking his head toward the lowend diner on the corner.

“Yeah, maybe,” she said.

“Some other lifetime,” she mumbled to herself, and walked down the steps to the street.

Work was the only thing that would bring some sanity back into Lori’s life. Whatever else was going on, there were still ozone issues to deal with for her video, and maybe doing something that made a difference to the world would give her perspective. Wasn’t that why she started Pizzano Productions in the first place? She’d wanted her parents to be proud of what she did with the money they’d left her. If she couldn’t double or triple her inheritance, the least she could do was use it well.

She’d thought of producing something more immediately profitable, like the exercise videos and food-show DVDs some of her classmates turned out, but she couldn’t get rid of the investigative bug.
All the President’s Men
had unduly influenced her, Uncle Matt used to tell her.

Lori ducked into a store, found a quiet spot in men’s shoes, and checked her BlackBerry. She scrolled through dozens of e-mails, mostly junk, but stopped at one that was only a half hour old, from an interviewee on her list for the ozone video. Rachel Hartman, the public relations officer for Blake Manufacturing, had agreed to see her ASAP at Rachel’s West Forty-sixth Street apartment, to spare Lori a long subway ride downtown to where the facility was. ASAP was fine with Lori, who was only a few blocks away and in need of a distraction.

Rachel’s apartment was on the corner of Ninth Avenue, on a block called Restaurant Row, and above a bistro that was one of Lori’s favorites. As she climbed the steps to the third-floor, Lori could smell the vinegar peppers, the garlic bread, and the salami and cream cheese rolls they served on their antipasto plate. She’d had nothing but a couple of sips of coffee and two nervous bites of a croissant with Gloria this morning, and she was hungry. After the interview, she’d treat herself to a late lunch at the bistro.

Rachel led Lori into her spacious, well-appointed living room. Lori gave a fleeting thought to switching careers, except she doubted PR paid this much, either. A benefactor, Lori figured, or a rich husband was behind this. A beautiful Tiffany-like (or was it genuine?) tulip vase on a low glass coffee table was one of many lovely objects of art in the room.

Tall and strawberry blond, with legs long enough to fill one of those five-story ads for lingerie, Rachel could have had her pick of sugar daddies.

“I’m home sick today,” Rachel said, with the slight lisp that came with an overbite. “But don’t worry. I’m not contagious. I’m taking a mental health day. Translation: Christmas shopping. My sister’s in town from Los Angeles. Anyway, I thought if we did this interview, I wouldn’t feel quite so guilty.”

Rachel turned to give Lori a conspiratorial grin. The way her hair bounced, she could have been posing in a photo shoot in front of Macy’s.

Lori smiled and took a seat as Rachel indicated, on a beige leather couch. A tea service was already on the coffee table. Rachel poured a fruity-smelling brew from her seat across from Lori. Rachel, who was dressed in a light brown that complemented her décor, was either well organized or well staffed, Lori thought.

“I’m sure this won’t take long, and Bloomie’s is open late for the holidays,” Lori said.

Rachel pointed to a handwritten list of stores and times, on the light oak end table next to her. “Believe me, I know, but my sister likes to hang around the Village. She’s staying down at one of those places with arty suites. She thinks midtown shopping is too upscale.”

This apartment surely is,
Lori thought. “The Village is a great place to stay,” she said, playing it safe.

Rachel rubbed her hands together as if the apartment were chilly, which it wasn’t. “So. Questions?” Rachel asked.

Lori was happy the schmoozing was over. “We already have the footage from your Tenth Street facility,” she said. “I just need to clear up some points for the narration.”

The footage was from Amber, of course. Lori remembered the day Amber had left the studio and headed to Blake Manufacturing. She’d made some comment about how boring it was to shoot scenes of guys in Darth Vader helmets and thick, fireproof aprons.

“They made me take a picture of some drawing they’ve done showing a close-up of stuff welded together, like on a valve or a wheel. How exciting.” Amber had stopped to mimic yawning. “Who’s going to stay awake during those scenes?”

“I guess you don’t get the same thrill as when you’re crawling in the bushes snooping on some guy who has a wife and two mistresses on the side,” Lori had responded.

“Definitely not.”

Lori suspected that Amber wouldn’t have lasted too much longer at her job with Pizzano Productions. Eventually she’d have been able to afford her own facilities and would have gone with Tina full-time or found some other sleazy way to make money. Now Lori needed a new cameraperson anyway, a little sooner than she’d thought she would.

“The narration?” Rachel asked, apparently not for the first time.

Lori came back to the present, to Rachel’s couch and blue toile tea set. “Right, what I’ll be saying in the voice-over.”

“So you won’t be showing me saying anything?”

Lori tried to determine whether the beautiful PR lady did or did not want to be seen in the video. “What are your thoughts, Rachel?” she asked. She could practically hear Professor Moore in his class on interview techniques:
Whenever possible, let the subject feel part of the production process.

Rachel put her lovely fingers to her mouth, avoiding direct contact with her lipstick. Lori figured it was just as likely she was reviewing her Christmas list as thinking about the documentary. Lori had the
feeling Rachel had already decided not to be seen. She wouldn’t be surprised: People, especially PR personnel, didn’t want to be held to what they said in interviews, and it was easier to deny quotes if there was no visual documentation.

“Oh, let’s leave me out of this,” Rachel said finally. “It’s not about me. It’s to showcase the company.”

“Fine, but I’ll tape this conversation if you don’t mind.”

Rachel raised her eyebrows. “I don’t know . . . ”

Lori waved her hand and talked quickly. “It’s for my own reference, I promise. Because I don’t have the greatest memory.” Lori touched her head.
Duh,
she implied, showing Rachel where her memory cells were weak. “This way I won’t have to keep bugging you with questions.”

“Okay, then.”

For a few minutes Lori asked Rachel for general information about Blake Manufacturing. She’d get to the tough questions once the PR lady was relaxed and trusting. She took diligent notes as Rachel talked about the management of the company (the owner was a certified journeyman tool and die maker and accomplished mechanical designer, blah blah blah), the overall organization (the employees profited from a system where they were allowed to grow professionally and at the same time have a variety of learning experiences, blah blah blah), and other employee-friendly policies (Blake welcomed union welders and had a commendable retirement plan, blah blah blah).

Rachel had her own messages ready, no matter what Lori asked, and slipped them in wherever possible. “We manage all phases of the customer’s project, from material specifications to welding and machining to the finishing process to the final assembly and inspection. Our goal is to exceed our customer’s expectations, whether they’ve ordered a custom bicycle or a staircase or a—”

“This is all good stuff,” Lori said.
Is that a direct quote from your Web site?
She wanted to ask.

Rachel, apparently encouraged, went on. “Everything’s changed so much with computers,” she said. “We do a three-dimensional model to evaluate designs before a costly fabrication process. The customer can see the concept graphically at all stages.”

“Can you tell me a little about who’s responsible for the oversight of federal regulations for the company?” Lori asked.

Rachel cleared her throat. “Of course, but I just wanted to add a bit more about this three-D stuff, because it’s fascinating. We now offer three-D animations that can be packaged with a product. You know, more and more vendors are including videotapes or DVDs with the product, showing how to assemble the pieces, or even mass-mailing them to attract new buyers.”