If Looks Could Kill (31 page)

“No problem. I’m uptown, just a block from the park, so tell me where you are and I can just meet you.”

She explained that it wasn’t Central Park, but Carl Schurz, a park that ran along the East River in the 80s. I could find
her in the playground, she said, but George was already whiny so I’d better hurry. I told her to hold tight, that I’d be there
in ten minutes.

As I headed east in a cab, I flashed back on Cat’s party for Dolores, trying to see it from a new angle. Someone on the premises
that night had come to kill Heidi. Jody, of course, was a prime suspect. He hadn’t been invited, but he’d popped in to “say
hi.”

Other possibilities? It was a book party, with guests who on the surface were totally unconnected to Heidi. Yet there could
be a connection somewhere. And if so, there was a good chance it was a connection based on those old standbys—love and lust.
A connection that had been intense, perhaps secretive, and then had unraveled. As Jack Herlihy had said, murder is motivated
by big emotions. It wasn’t hard to imagine a few that could have been churned up by a girl who looked like Heidi: jealousy,
perhaps, or rage over having been rejected or betrayed.

Jeff came quickly into my line of sight. It was now clear from looking at the Circle Line photo that Heidi may have been a
visitor at Jeff’s studio. Maybe she’d simply been dropping off something or stopping by with Tyler, but there was also a chance
that Jeff had been knocking boots with Heidi behind Cat’s back. A year ago it would have been hard to imagine, but if his
assignments had evaporated and he was feeling frustrated, and disenfranchised, a randy romp with a twenty-two-year-old who
probably perceived him as Fashion Photo God would do a lot to make his ego swell again. But, of course, if Cat found out,
all hell would break loose. Yesterday I’d considered whether Jeff, in the throes of an affair, had tried to murder Cat so
he could escape the marriage without losing any of the perks. But maybe he didn’t want out of his life with Cat. He could
have killed Heidi so that Cat would never learn the truth. This morning I’d gotten just a taste of how angry he could get.

But I also couldn’t lose sight of the mystery man, the one who had introduced Heidi to jazz and diamond-studded jewelry but
apparently preferred to fly below the radar. I didn’t think he and Jeff were one and the same. Maybe he’d been at the party.
Maybe he had a reason to want Heidi dead.

Another thought to consider: the writer Nancy Highland. According to Dolores, Heidi had apparently pulverized her son’s heart
and then skipped town. Had his mother decided to exact revenge on his behalf ? Was he there himself ? No, he couldn’t have
been. His name wasn’t on the guest list and I didn’t recall seeing a guy that young.

It took more than fifteen minutes to get to Carl Schurz, a park that abuts the East River. I dashed in through the entrance
at the south end, past the hot dog cart, taking one wrong turn before I remembered where the playground was. I was nearly
out of breath by the time I found Janice listlessly pushing George in one of those baby swings that’s basically a leather
bucket with holes for the legs. She had her cut-offs on today and a too tight Planet Hollywood T-shirt.

“I can’t stay much longer,” she announced as she spotted me. “He’s, like, ready to blow.”

“Mainly, I just wanted to give you these,” I said, fishing the earrings out of my purse and handing them to her.

“I appreciate that, I really do,” she said. She stopped pushing George and spread open the tissue I’d wrapped the earrings
in. Her nose wrinkled as she saw that the fake pearl was missing.

“They were like that when I found them in her drawer,” I told her before she could say anything. “The pearl must have fallen
off while Heidi was wearing them. Maybe that’s why she hadn’t returned them. She was nervous about telling you.”

“That’s so typical,” she said, shaking her head. “I hate to speak evil of the dead or whatever that expression is, but Heidi
could be so freakin’ selfish sometimes. These cost me like forty bucks.” Janice no longer appeared to be deeply entrenched
in a state of mourning.

“Look,” I said, pulling my wallet out of my purse and extracting two twenties, “I know Cat would want you to have this.”

“Wow,” she said, taking the money without the slightest hesitation and stuffing it along with the earrings into the pocket
of her cut-offs. From the other pocket she wiggled out a nearly crushed pack of Marlboro Lights and a butane lighter and fired
up. As she exhaled a long stream of smoke, George let out something between a grunt and a whine because the swing was wobbling
to a stop.

“
Okay, okay
,” Janice said irritably, and began pushing him with one hand.

“Have you heard about what’s going on?” I asked.

“Sort of. Jody told me that the papers said there was something wrong with some candy Heidi ate, and that now it looks like
it was supposed to be for Mrs. Jones. But he doesn’t know more than that. The whole thing is major nasty.”

“Jody? You talked to Jody?”

“Well, I went by Starbucks. He’s really an okay guy, you know. And I think Heidi made up some of that stuff about him lying
to her. It’s like she was afraid I wouldn’t respect her for dumping him, so she made him look bad.”

“And you definitely don’t have any idea who she was dumping him for?”

“No,” she said, taking a drag from her cigarette. “But there must have been
someone
. The way she didn’t have any time for me anymore. Besides, that’s just Heidi. She would never be without a guy.”

“Could it have been someone who had anything to do with
Gloss
?” I was thinking of the party, of course.

She wrinkled her nose. “Well, I don’t think she liked going there. A few months ago she had to take something there for Mrs.
Jones and she made me go with her so I could bring it upstairs. She just didn’t want to go near that office.”

“But she never said why?”

“No.”

“Did she ever tell you anything about a guy she was involved with when she worked in Westchester?”

“Oh yeah, Mr. Westchester. There was some dude up there who was loco over her. But I didn’t get any of the details—just that
she once said she would have gotten in trouble if anyone found out.”

“Do you know if she still had any contact with him?”

“Don’t think so. She never really liked him all that much. It was just for the challenge, the thrill. Like I said—Heidi always
had to have a guy. She wasn’t happy if all the guys weren’t in a lather about her.”

George let out a howl and we turned to see him flailing in his swing. No amount of pushing was going to ameliorate the situation.

“I’ll let you get back to your job,” I said.

“Yeah, thanks,” she said sarcastically. She crushed out her cigarette with the tip of her black mule and lifted the wailing,
writhing George from the swing and into his stroller. “Why all this interest in Heidi?” she said as she fought to fasten the
seat belt around George, who in protest was arching his back like a bow. “I mean, I thought someone was trying to kill Mrs.
Jones.”

“I’m just trying to get a sense of Heidi’s life. One more question, okay? When did Heidi stop wanting to spend as much time
with you?”

She thought for a second.

“ ’Round January or February, I think,” she said. “Yeah, that’s right. I remember ’cause my birthday is on February fourth
and she didn’t even go out with me that night.”

“But according to Cat, Heidi invited you up to their house in Litchfield for a whole weekend in March, right?”

Janice stared at me, uncomprehending. “No, she didn’t invite me to Litchfield for a weekend,” she said finally. “She didn’t
invite me anywhere for a weekend. Look, I gotta go.”

She took off with the stroller, half running. And I just stood there, my mind racing.

I
THOUGHT AN
ice-cream bar, something chocolate coated, would get my brain working at maximum capacity. I bought one at the entrance of
the park and headed over to the river promenade. I started walking north, along the length of it. There were very few people
around, just a few speed walkers in Lycra and people with dogs—pugs, dachshunds, corgis. It was so quiet, you could hear the
sound of the river being pulled toward the harbor. A tiny red tugboat suddenly appeared from the north, silently leading a
black nameless barge down the river. As I walked I considered the significance of Heidi’s lie.

She had told Cat that she wanted to take her friend Janice to the house in Litchfield for the weekend, but according to Janice
she hadn’t been invited. I would bet money on the fact that her intended houseguest had actually been a guy. That’s why she
had canceled when Cat told her she’d be coming up, too. Jeff was totally off the hook on this one. He was tied up with an
event in the city that weekend and Jody had been dumped by that time. More than likely, it was the mystery man.

Who could it be? There might be a clue in the fact that Heidi had wanted to shack up in Litchfield that weekend. Of course,
she simply may have wanted to show off the place and play princess for two days. But it
could
mean that on a weekend that Cat planned to be in the city, Heidi felt uncomfortable having this particular guy coming in
and out of the nanny apartment. And for some reason they couldn’t use
his
place. I was back to where I was a week ago: Everything about this guy spelled married. Heidi must have been pissed about
having to cancel her tryst at the last minute, about having to call the guy, and—

But what if Heidi couldn’t call his house because his wife was there, or maybe she tried but his wife picked up the phone,
or maybe she knew he’d already left by the time Cat so rudely wrecked her plans. Omigod.
That
was why Kip had shown up in Litchfield. Not to bed Cat, whom he’d never shown one ounce of interest in, but
Heidi
.

I know this sounds mean, but I started to laugh. In fact, it made me want to howl, just picturing Kip discovering Cat on the
other side of the door and, in a desperate attempt to save his ass from the shredder, confessing that he had a yearning in
his loins for her. And better yet was Cat buying it, so blinded by her belief in herself as the hottest girl in any room that
she never considered another possibility. No wonder he’d had an iffy stiffy. He’d come within a hair, so to speak, of being
exposed as the shagger of the family nanny and had been forced to complicate things further by taking his boss to bed. Ugly
as hell, but hilarious.

Yet I was the only one who would find it funny. Kip must have been crazy with worry since then that he’d be found out, that
Cat might learn about his affair with Heidi and thus realize the true reason he’d taken his lust on the road to Litchfield.
If Cat discovered the truth, there’d be no limit to her rage. As we knew, if there was one thing she hated—more than untantalizing
story titles, more than people who spoke in squeaky voices at meetings, more than wimpy men—it was being humiliated. Though
she couldn’t fire Kip for personal reasons, she’d find a way to do it, that’s for sure, and she might even make certain that
his wife learned the sorry details of his adulterous spree with Heidi. There would be a big price to pay. Maybe Kip had taken
precautions to make sure that his relationship with Heidi would never be exposed. He’d had that weird scowl on his face the
morning after Heidi’s death. He’d used that pathetically lame puddycat excuse to avoid coming to work. It didn’t smell good.

And how ironic. This morning, as I’d seen everything about the case shifting, I’d decided Kip was irrelevant, but now he was
smack on the suspect list again. Was
he
the vodka-drinking jazz lover who had bought the Tiffany jewelry? I had to find a way to talk to him. He hadn’t been at the
meeting today and that meant he wasn’t on the premises. I used my cell phone to call his delightful assistant and suss out
what was going on. She sounded thrilled to hear from me again (God, I hope she didn’t think
I
was having an affair with him) and explained curtly that Kip had a personal matter to handle, and though he was coming in,
it wouldn’t be till later in the day. This time there wasn’t any mention of the kitty.

Before she had a chance to hang up on me, I asked to be transferred to Cat. I needed to do whatever damage control I could
before she spoke to Jeff about my unauthorized visit to the town house. I also wanted to take her up to speed on where my
thinking was now. What I wasn’t going to do was reveal to her that she’d taken part in a comedy of sexual errors at her country
house. The truth would be utterly embarrassing. Beyond that, she might go flying off the handle at Kip before I had a chance
to talk to him.

Audrey put me through to her right away.

“That looked like a pretty big meeting you were having,” I said. “Productive?”

“There wasn’t any real point to it. I was taking your advice. Trying to show I’m still in control. Where are you, anyway?
The connection is bad.”

“I’m up near your house, and I need to give you a headsup on something.”

“Is everything okay? Did you find something out?”

“Yes and yes. But I had a little bit of an awkward situation. I had Carlotta let me in to your town house because I wanted
to look at Heidi’s room again. I didn’t realize Jeff was home, and he seemed pretty annoyed when he found me there.”

One of her famous long pauses. Then finally, “I don’t get it. Why would you be in Heidi’s room?” The connection started to
break up as she spoke, so I stood up from the bench and walked along the promenade to see if I could find a better spot to
talk from.

“Well, that’s what I wanted to tell you—you’re there, right? The more I look into this thing, the more I think that Heidi
might have been the one the poison was meant for all along.”

Silence. Had I lost her—or was she sitting there at her black granite desk stunned by what I’d said?

“Look, let me shut the door,” she said finally. I heard her set down the phone, and it was thirty seconds before she came
on again.