If Looks Could Kill (19 page)

But it was tough. With no gorgeous Dr. Herlihy around to distract me, my mind kept coming back to the Kiss, to all the hang-ups.
Right now the killer was only sending me messages, but what if he—or she—suddenly turned up the heat? It was clear to me that
he wasn’t simply a person who had hated enough to kill. He was frighteningly reckless—after all, he had left the truffles
for Cat without really caring if someone else ate them—so I had every reason to be worried. Landon was right, that the smartest
thing for me to do was back off. But I couldn’t see myself curling up in a ball and whimpering. I was too concerned about
Cat’s safety, too angry over Heidi’s senseless death, too pissed as hell that someone was threatening me, and, yes, too excited
about being in the middle of it. Besides, at this point there’d be no way to signal to the killer: “Hey, leave me alone, I’m
not playing junior detective anymore.” So tomorrow, as planned, I’d go out to Bucks County and see if I could discover if
there was really a connection between the two incidents, and if I couldn’t find one, I’d come back to New York and continue
to dig things up. I’d talk to the
Gloss
staffers, find out what I could about the people from other magazines who’d attended the party. And I’d watch my back at
all times.

What I needed to do right this minute, however, was start my Marky piece. Maybe I’d have more luck on the computer. I pushed
off the bench, tossed my cup in a trash container, and hurried through the park. As I crossed under the marble arch at the
north end of the park where Fifth Avenue starts, I turned quickly and looked behind me. I had the weirdest sense someone was
following me. Yet when I turned no one was there.

I
WAS ON
the road to Bucks County, Pennsylvania—I-78, to be exact—by nine the next morning, and I couldn’t wait to put a hundred-plus
miles between me and Manhattan. Not only had I ended up with two more hang-ups the night before, but I’d done something supremely
stupid in the K.C. department.

I wish I could at least plead intoxication as the reason for my dumb-ass behavior, but the entire evening I’d drunk only two
Amstel Lites—well, and part of a third. In fact, the throbbing headache I was experiencing as my Jeep sped along the highway
was not the hangover kind. It was due to a highoctane blend of fatigue, the heebie-jeebies, and a splash of self-loathing.

Much to my surprise, K.C. had called late Thursday afternoon as I sat nose to the grindstone in my home office, finished with
the outline for Marky and two pages into the first draft. For me the secret has always been generating the first paragraph
of an article, because everything flows from that. I’d nailed it pretty early this time, using something Jack Herlihy had
said, Jack of the pale blue eyes and beguiling butt. For a guy who wasn’t my type, I was having a hard time keeping him from
my thoughts.

When the phone rang, I was sure it would be Cat or Detective Farley, since neither had yet returned my call. I could barely
contain my surprise when I heard K.C.’s voice. We exchanged how-are-yous, he briefly described a deal he was winding up (was
that supposed to explain why he’d been incommunicado?), and I told him about finding Heidi dead, which both surprised and
shocked him (I guess he didn’t peruse the
Post
on a daily basis). He asked a few questions, and I offered some broad answers, not bothering to get into much detail on the
phone. Then, out of the blue, he changed direction, bringing up our mutual friend Mitch and his sister Trudy’s singing gig
that night. Was I going? he wanted to know. Fumbling for the right answer, I ended up with the brilliantly precise, “Maybe—but
I’m not sure.” He made a flip comment about Trudy’s singing talent and sounded suddenly distracted (did I have some sort of
deficit
, I wondered, when it came to holding a man’s attention?). Then, to my absolute stupefaction, he announced, “Well, then maybe
I’ll see you there. I think I’m going.” And he signed off.

I was tempted to hurl the phone off the terrace in fury. What was that call all about? Had he simply wanted to check in, say
hello? Had he intended to ask me out but done a 180 when I’d failed to sound cute enough on the phone? Or was he trying to
arrange to meet up with me without having to lay out any cash? Let him go, I told myself. Cut the rope and turn your back
as he drifts out to sea.

There was no point in returning to my piece after that. Three-hour stretches of writing are about my maximum, and I’d hit
the wall. I made myself a cup of coffee and tried Cat again. Carlotta answered and passed the phone to her.

“Where’ve you been?” I asked, slightly irritated. “I tried you earlier.”

“In bed. With the kind of migraine that only comes around once in a century. I could barely lift my head earlier.”

“Sorry to hear that. Look, I’ve got some news.”

I filled her in on my conversation with Dolores, finding the Kiss, and my plans for the Bucks County trip. Rather than peppering
me with questions, she just listened and offered a few huh-huhs. Either the migraine medication had dulled her brain or she
was unraveling from all the stress she was under. I was relieved when she said that she and Jeff were going to Litch-field
for the weekend. I gave her Landon’s number and told her to get in touch if she had any trouble.

I’d no sooner put down the phone than Farley called. I started to thank him for returning my call. “What’s the deal?” he asked,
cutting me off, and I blurted out the story of the Kiss and a description of the hang-ups. He didn’t say anything at first—the
infamous dead silence that cops love—and then the questions started. What time did this happen? Was anyone around? Where was
the candy now? When I told him I had the Kiss, he said he wanted me to drop it off and be careful not to touch it directly.
Yet he didn’t sound overly concerned. I wondered if he thought I was just being paranoid or was PMSed. Then things got worse.
He ended the conversation with a lecture on not meddling in police business. I hung up feeling both annoyed and agitated.

I was too wired to stay in for the evening, waiting for the next hang-up, so I decided I’d drag myself out to hear Trudy sing.
Yeah, K.C. would be there, but I’d just ignore him and flirt with any good-looking guy who crossed my path. My attire: the
tiniest skirt I owned and a tank top that squeezed my breasts so tight that I almost needed an inhaler.

I headed out about nine, superconscious, as I hailed a cab, of who was around me. I had the driver first take me to the Nineteenth
Precinct on the East Side and wait two minutes while I dropped the Kiss off in a shoebox with Farley’s name on it. From there
we headed to the hole-in-the-wall on the West Side where Trudy was doing her gig.

There were loads of couples there, married friends of Trudy’s, and only a few single pals of Mitch’s, most of whom I’d met
before. No K.C. During a break, a ridiculous guy with a large head and hair as thick as roof thatch started chatting me up.
In the six weeks since I’d met K.C., I’d let every other romantic prospect fall by the wayside, so I had no one but myself
to blame for the fact that I was forced to spend part of a night talking to a man who could easily have been the son of Howdy
Doody.

K.C. snuck in around ten, and after offering him a perfunctory hello, I proceeded to give him the cold shoulder. But later,
as I was pulling my jacket off the hook in the back corridor, he cornered me and laid on the charm real thick. I was feeling
slightly sorry for myself right then, so I let him buy me a drink at the bar and gape at my Sluts R Us outfit for a while.
The longer I sat there and the more he told me how fantastic I looked, the more I could feel my defenses caving. By midnight,
I’m sorry to say, I was doing the mattress mambo at his place in the West 80s. I have no good explanation for my stupidity.
Maybe my undeniable physical attraction to K.C. and my fears over the fact that I was being stalked by the killer formed a
speedball of pure horniness. I bolted at six the next morning in a weak attempt to regain an air of mystery. K.C. was probably
waking up right now, struggling for a second to remember who had made the indent on the other side of the bed.

For the time being, though, I could leave all that behind me. I was on my way out of town, to a place two states away. There
was just enough traffic on the road to keep my mind temporarily off both my K.C. follies and the hang-ups I’d discovered on
my machine when I returned home—the last at close to midnight.

I’d been out to Bucks County a couple of times before, al-ways to visit Landon. The county covers an area north of Philadelphia,
and though some suburban sprawl is pushing its way in, much of the region is still rural and charming, with old stone houses
from the 1700s, rambling stone fences, and covered bridges. The drive out takes you first past Newark Airport and through
the stinky, industrial part of New Jersey, but there’s a spot on I-78 where that suddenly all falls away and you see your
first red barn and silo and the world becomes both sylvan and serene. I hit that spot just after ten and my headache began
to recede to something the size of a tiny, tiny ding.

I had two interviews arranged for the day. There was Darma, of course, and late yesterday afternoon I’d also managed to arrange
an appointment with Dr. Kate Tressler, a doctor with the Doylestown Hospital ER, where, according to his obit, Tucker Bobb
had expired. I’d been bounced around on the phone to about ten different people at the hospital before I found her, and when
I did I proceeded cautiously. If you’re trying to arrange an interview with an M.D., the worst thing you can do is trigger
the statement “I think you need to go through the PR people.” If you’re dealing with anything the least bit controversial,
the PR people will shut you down. So I told Dr. Tressler that this wasn’t for a story, that I wasn’t interested in quoting
her, that I was helping an editor whom someone might have attempted to poison and I desperately needed background info. She
let her guard down and agreed to meet with me. Our appointment was set for three-thirty, about an hour after I should be done
with Darma.

I got off I-78 at Exit 7 in New Jersey, drove into Pennsylvania, and then picked up smaller roads that eventually took me
to the small, quaint town of Carversville. Landon’s place was a charming Victorian-style house, a few blocks from the main
street, with a wraparound porch and an in-ground swimming pool. Being his houseguest was as close to paradise as you could
get. He’d originally planned to come out this morn-ing, too, but had left a note under my apartment door saying that due to
a client crisis he wouldn’t be arriving until around nine that night.

I pulled up to his house just before eleven. The azalea bushes in his front yard were on fire with color, and there were flowers
in pinks and reds and purples bursting out of the windowboxes and the border gardens along the front of the house. As I let
myself in with the key he’d loaned me, I wondered if it would be weird to be in Landon’s house without Landon. And it was.
There was no crackling fire, no Mozart, no votive candles twinkling on every surface, no aroma of cassoulet from the kitchen.
It was almost as if I had mistakenly entered the wrong home.

After dropping my bag in one of the upstairs guest rooms, I opened a can of soup for lunch. The house was totally silent,
except for the drip of the faucet. Once I’d cleaned up, I changed into a yellow cotton dress, a yellow cardigan, and a pair
of slingbacks. I left early for Darma’s, allowing myself plenty of time to get lost on the twisty backcountry roads of Bucks
County.

I did get lost, too, maddeningly so, for about twenty minutes. Darma lived on Old Hollow Road, but I had to find Beaver Road
first, and it wasn’t where she’d said it would be. After a while I even suspected that she had sent me on a wild goose chase
and was snickering in her living room at this very moment. Finally I pulled over and asked directions from a guy getting into
his pickup truck, and he sent me back and around. Just when I was about to lose my mind, I found Old Hollow, coming in north
of where I was supposed to. The driveway to her place was a road itself, and it wound for about a quarter mile through maples
and oaks and fir trees, past the welltended ruins of two stone outbuildings, down into a hollow that seemed a million miles
away from anywhere.

The main house was amazing. All stone and easily over two hundred years old, long and rambling with two-feet-deep win-dows
cut into the stone walls. I parked the car in a courtyard by a large wooden barn that appeared to serve as a garage. There
were two other smaller barns off the courtyard, and I caught the edge of a man, in a denim shirt and jeans, slipping into
one of them just as I climbed out of my Jeep. Walking round the side of the barn, I almost had a heart attack. A peacock,
neck stretched and feathers dragging on the ground, stood ten feet in front of me. Tucker Bobb had certainly been playing
the role of lord of the manor before he died. He’d come from a rich southern family, I’d once read, which put him in a different
bracket from Dolores’s.

By parking at the barn, I was near the back of the house, so I walked around to the front on a brick path bordered on both
sides by spring flowers. It took two rings of the bell and several knocks before I heard the crack of the door opening. And
there was Darma. She was beautiful and striking, in a trophy wife sort of way—pale skin, long blond hair in zillions of Raphaelite
waves, a slim figure with major boob action. Her clothes were maximum country squiress: a man-style white shirt, tan jodhpurs,
black riding boots, all tied up in a pink
pashmina
.

“I thought we said one o’clock,” she said, sounding as if I’d just wrecked her day.

“I’m sorry, I ended up getting lost.”

“Well, come in,” she said. Wow, this was going to be fun.

She led me silently through a series of rooms, and as we walked I discovered the main drawback of this beautiful old house.
It was as dark as a church on a January day. The windows were partly to blame, so small and deep, and blocked on the outside
by those big maples. We ended up in a sunroom at the far end of the house, a big open room with floor-to-ceiling windows and
walls the color of raw silk. But it was dark as well, just not as dark as the rest of the house.