If Looks Could Kill (32 page)

“What are you talking about?” she snapped.

“I think someone wanted Heidi to die, not you. The candy was meant for her all along.”

“It makes no sense. How could anyone be sure that Heidi would take the candy?”

“But it didn’t work like that. I’m losing you again. Can you hear me? Look, I’m coming in and I’ll explain it in person.”
She was gone. I tried three more times to get through—but without success.

As I headed across the park, I made a game plan for myself. I would go back to
Gloss
and not only explain things to Cat, but make a few phone calls. Somehow, and I dreaded this, I was going to have to tell
Detective Farley about what I’d found. But before I called him, I needed to go by a Godiva store and be absolutely certain
that the flower petal I’d found in the Jiffy bag could have come from a box of their chocolates—though in my own mind I had
no doubts. I also wanted to make contact with Nancy Highland, the writer. And of course Kip. I’d have to hang around until
he got there, and hopefully, unlike yesterday, he’d eventually surface.

But before any of that, I was going to drop by Starbucks and have another chat with Jody.

On East End Avenue, which the park borders, there wasn’t a cab in sight, so I decided to walk, which took longer than I expected.
By the time I got to Starbucks I was hot and sweaty and my feet were burning. It wasn’t all for nothing, because Jody was
on duty behind the counter, working up a head of foam in a silver pitcher of milk. He didn’t look overjoyed to see me, but
when I indicated with a hand gesture that I’d like to talk to him, he nodded and gave me the five-minute signal. I took a
seat at a table that was sprinkled with grains of sugar.

Since it was midday, the place was bustling, predominantly with freelance-looking types like myself. It was ten minutes before
Jody finally headed my way, and as he got close to the table he cocked his head, meaning that we should go outside. I followed
him to the same spot on the sidewalk where we had spoken before.

“This isn’t a good time for me to talk, you know,” he said. He was about two shades away from belligerent.

“I’m sorry, I should have called first. But I was up at Cat’s this morning and I thought I’d just drop by, see how you were
doing.”

“Why would you care how
I’m
doing?”

“I know you were close to Heidi at one point, and I’m sure this is hard for you,” I said. “It’s not really any of my business,
but on the other hand, I accidentally ended up in the middle of this thing.”

He relaxed his stance a little, leaned back against the wall. His hair was shorter than it was the last time I saw him, no
longer flopping in his eyes, yet out of habit he jerked his head to get it off his forehead, a kind of phantom-limb reaction.

“So all this stuff in the paper—that it was Cat Jones who was supposed to die. Is that legit?”

“That’s what they’re saying,” I said, avoiding the truth, “but I don’t know any specifics. Have the police been back to talk
to you?”

“No. That first week I thought they might be looking at
me
, thinking I’d decided to off Heidi ’cause she ditched me. I guess now, though, they’re on to who hated Cat Jones.” I figured
he was more than relieved at the latest turn of events.

“Where did you and Heidi meet, anyway?”

“Here,” he said. “She came in one day last fall, with that friend of hers, Janice.”

“What was Heidi really like? I met her, but I never got a chance to know her.”

“A knockout, but then I guess you know that. At first I thought she was Swedish or German, you know, on account of her being
a nanny and the way she looked. You’d walk down the street with her or into a bar and people would just go bugeyed.”

“What kind of person was she?”

“God, I don’t know. Overall, she was nice, I guess.”

“Why just overall?”

“Heidi’s primo concern in life was Heidi. I don’t blame her, really—she had such a messed-up life growing up. But she could
get crabby if things weren’t going her way. And she used people. You know, to get what she wanted. Like Janice. All she was
to Heidi was somebody to hang with when she didn’t want to go someplace alone.”

Another flick of the imaginary bangs.

“And what about you?” I asked. “Did you feel used?”

“What makes you so interested?”

“Just curious.”

“Yeah, I guess you could say she used me. She didn’t have any dough, really, and she was new to New York, and I became the
guy who showed her around, bought her dinner. And I bet I gave her and Janice five hundred free lattes between the two of
them.”

“Why did she call things off with you?” I asked.

“Didn’t say. Well, what she said was she thought we should, quote, take a break.”

“Another guy?”

“Who knows? Probably. A million guys wanted to get in her pants.” He glanced into the store to check out what was going on.
“But like I said, all she told me was that she needed a break, meaning I didn’t do it for her anymore. Heidi had big plans
for her life. Someone who works at Starbucks didn’t really fit with those plans.”

“What kind of plans?” I asked.

“Well, she didn’t want to be a nanny for long, that’s for sure. She thought about modeling. That guy, Cat’s husband, took
some pictures of her, and she took them around to some modeling agencies. The problem was her height. She’s—she was like five
seven, but they told her that to be a model you kind of have to be an Amazon—five nine, at least.”

“That was nice of Jeff to do,” I said evenly, careful not to let on that this latest piece of info had raised a huge red flag
in my mind.

“Yeah, I guess. I mean, that’s what the dude does for a living.”

“Was Heidi thinking of quitting her job with Cat?” I asked.

“Yeah—when the time was right. She needed something like modeling to happen for her before she could quit. But like I said,
I really hadn’t seen much of her lately, so I don’t know what her schedule was.”

“But you dropped by the night of the party?”

“You wanna know why?” he said, pushing himself off the wall. “She owed me three hundred dollars. She’d borrowed it, here and
there. I may be moving back out west, and I wanted to make one more attempt at getting it back.”

He glanced into the store again. “I gotta go,” he said, turning back to me. “We’re packed.”

“Just one more question,” I said. “Did you ever buy Heidi a Tiffany bracelet?”

He looked puzzled by the question. “Why—d’you find something like that?” he asked.

“Yeah. I thought maybe you’d given it to her as a gift.”

“Yeah, right. I’ve never even
been
in Tiffany’s.”

He strode back into the store, busing a table on his way across the room, and I walked over to Park Avenue, where I flagged
down a cab to go back to
Gloss
.

I was unsure of what to make of Jody. He looked like an Eagle Scout, but didn’t
seem
like one. He could have decided to kill Heidi in a state of jealousy and rage over being dumped. Though he clearly wasn’t
the sharpest knife in the drawer, he’d spent time around the 91st Street household and might easily know about Cat’s passion
for chocolate and Heidi’s penchant for pinching food. It was hard to imagine him planting the Kiss in my office, however.

What was really disturbing me was what Jody had said about the photo session with Jeff. Maybe it had been done with Cat’s
blessing (and it could explain what Heidi’s coat was doing in Jeff’s studio). But something told me that Cat wasn’t in the
loop on Jeff’s attempt at star making. I couldn’t imagine Cat liking the idea of Heidi prancing around on seamless paper with
Jeff’s Nikon trained on her. Besides, why would Cat want to do anything to encourage any more nanny turnover in her life?

I’d learned a heck of a lot more about Heidi today. In the brief time I’d known her, she’d appeared cool and inaccessible,
but now I could see she was also needy, ambitious, and perfectly willing to use people to get what she wanted—and then move
on. Eve Harrington with an Aprica stroller.

What was fascinating, I thought as the cab sped down Central Park West, was how Heidi had worked her way up the food chain
in the months before she died, setting her sights higher each time. She’d left Indiana for a nanny job in Westchester County,
but as soon as an opportunity in New York City presented itself, she’d snared that. She’d immediately gotten involved with
Jody, who’d been eager to provide small loans and hot drinks. When that wasn’t enough, she’d looked elsewhere. Kip, apparently,
was one of her next conquests. He was older and more successful than Jody, though I wasn’t sure what specifically he’d had
to offer. Maybe just the thrill of the conquest or of doing something naughty. As Janice had pointed out, Heidi liked it when
all the boys were in a lather for her. It was clear what Jeff had to offer her. He’d helped her pursue the fantasy of a modeling
career. But what I didn’t yet know was whether sex had been part of the equation or if he’d simply snapped the photos as a
favor to a young woman in his family’s employ.

I wondered where those photos were now. And I wondered if Kip really was the mystery man or if there was yet another guy—and
if so, where he belonged on the food chain.

When I got to
Gloss
I swung through the pit on my way to Cat’s office, but when I was halfway there, I saw that the lights were off in her office
and Audrey was not at her desk. I walked down the corridor toward Kip’s office, on the off chance he’d come in earlier than
planned. His assistant was on the phone and gave me a shake of the head as I walked by, indicating, “Noooo, he isn’t there.”
Yesterday she’d been wearing a white tank top and a rayon faux Pucci skirt. Today she had on the same skirt but with no tank,
just her jeans jacket buttoned like a shirt. She was doing a lame job at disguising the fact that she hadn’t been home to
change her clothes in the last twenty-four hours.

Next stop: Polly’s office. She was staring at her computer screen with a grin on her face.

“My, don’t we look happy this afternoon?” I remarked. As I stepped into her office, she swiveled her chair around so she was
facing me.

“You know what I’ve discovered, Bailey?” she said in mock seriousness. “I can be happy all day long, even during a brain-pulverizing
meeting like the one we had this morning, knowing that I’ve only got a few weeks left.”

“Don’t remind me. Speaking of brain-pulverizing meetings, is Cat around this afternoon?”

“No. She apparently had a lunch with some advertisers, then a meeting up in corporate. She doesn’t seem at all thrilled to
be on-site these days. Here—have a seat.”

“Nah, I’ve gotta finish my story. I should have it to you tomorrow, by the way.”

“Why the rush?”

“Didn’t you hear? Cat moved it from September to August.”

“God, nobody tells me anything these days.”

“Are things still going to hell in a handbasket here?”

“Pretty much. People are anxious, and they’re so busy gossiping and trying to dig up details, they’re not getting their work
done. According to Miss Leslie, we’re about four days behind schedule for August. Did you see ‘Page Six’ today?”

“No, why?”

“That new guy in art, Jason, resigned at the end of the day yesterday, on top of that dimwit in beauty, and ‘Page Six’ has
this item about rats leaving Cat’s sinking ship.”

“Who’s minding the store around here—not to mix metaphors?”

“Leslie on her end. Me on mine. Since Cat is barely glancing at copy these days, I’m tempted to send through all the outrageous
and ridiculous stuff and give the reader something extra for her money. Listen to this.” She turned back to her computer screen.
“This is
supposedly
from a reader letter. The health editor put it through for her ‘Health Q and A.’

“ ‘Sometimes,’ ” she read, “ ‘I experience
pooper pains
. These sharp pains in my rectum happen suddenly, usually when I’m resting. Is this normal?’ I could let this go through,
you know, and Cat wouldn’t even notice. Have you ever
heard
of pooper pains? I hadn’t until four minutes ago. But maybe there are millions of women suffering and we could blow the lid
off the problem. To say nothing of introducing some snappy new terminology to the language.”

“On that note”—I laughed—“maybe I should go back and get some work done.”

I strode back to my office, curious and anxious about what I’d find. The fashion office was completely empty, though the lights
were on, and the mannequin Fat Ass was standing in the middle of the room—in nothing but a short white cape. One entire wall
of the room was lined with new fall boots—yellow ones, red ones, turqouise ones, all with really pointy toes. Most of them
were flopped over on their sides, as though they’d grown tired of waiting around.

I entered my office cautiously, flipped on the light, and glanced around. Nothing seemed out of place.

The first call I made was to order a chicken salad sandwich, and then I checked my e-mail and my voice mail at home and the
office. There was a message from someone offering to fix me up with an optometrist named Bob, two calls from friends at other
magazines, both asking if I was still alive and suggesting I find a new work site, and a message from my college roommate
saying she’d be in town at the end of May and wanted to get together. No booty call from K.C., but of course it was early
in the day for that sort of thing. And no call from Jack Herlihy saying he wanted to take me up on my offer for a tour. I
felt relieved—and at the same time I felt a pang of disappointment.

Once I’d played all my messages, I called Audrey, who was now back at her desk, and got Nancy Highland’s number—she lived
in Scarsdale, a hotsy-totsy suburban town about an hour north of New York City. My pretext for calling her, I’d decided, would
be the same I had used with Dolores: Help, I’m putting together an anthology of articles and I could use your guidance. A
nanny or housekeeper answered and explained that Ms. Highland was in New York City for the next two days working on publicity
for
Love at Any Cost
. This woman hadn’t the faintest interest in telling me where she was staying. I called Audrey back for the name of the publicist
at the book company and managed to reach her on the first try.