If Looks Could Kill (37 page)

“Just curious.”

“Whatever trail you want to follow is fine with me. I still need your help, Bailey. You know that, right?”

“Okay, I’ll keep at it,” I said.

She looked anxious to leave suddenly, and she opened the door herself. I said good-bye, promising to help, to get in touch
when I had info, to let her know what time I’d be arriving in Litchfield tomorrow.

It was now after ten and I was getting a later start than I’d planned. Without even bothering to clear away the breakfast
dishes, I turned on my computer and went through my Marky piece one last time, tweaking a few things here and there. Overall,
I was satisfied with it, but I couldn’t help thinking that it would have been better if I hadn’t been forced to slam it together.
When I was done, I made calls to several freelance writer friends who’d worked for
Women’s Journal
on and off, but only one was in and she hadn’t heard about the cookie caper. Unfortunately, I didn’t know anyone on staff
I could call directly and pump for news.

Now it was noon and I was anxious to get moving. I decided to switch the order of my plan and go to the Godiva store first
and then work my way over to
Gloss
. From my terrace door I could see that it was pouring outside, so I threw on my own trench coat and a pair of black rubber
rainboots. Not quite the Cat Jones look, but then I wasn’t traveling by town car. At the newsstand above the subway station
I picked up both the
News
and the
Post
to see if either had a word about Crock Pot Patty, but there was zip. The train was surprisingly mobbed for so late in the
morning, and I had an unpleasant ride uptown, wedged against a bunch of hot, wet bodies.

The Godiva boutique, a wood-paneled sliver of a shop on Fifth Avenue and 54th, was empty when I arrived. I figured with Mother’s
Day behind us and summer looming, it probably wasn’t one of their busier seasons. The shelves displayed various sizes of the
classic gold box, some simply sporting the traditional gold elastic around them, others with different types of decorative
arrangements on top. I decided to start from the front of the store and work my way to the back systematically. I’d been at
it for only a minute when a thirtysomething black saleswoman in a dark pantsuit floated in my direction from the back of the
store and asked if she could be of help. I told her I wanted to pick up a box of candy for a friend but wasn’t sure what my
options were. She took me through the store, showing me the selection, and as I glanced over the merchandise, I saw absolutely
nothing with a white or pink flower on top. I bought a box of truffles, thinking this would keep the saleswoman in an accommodating
mode, and as she rung up my purchase I asked if they offered a simple white or pale pink flower arrangement for the top.

“We just have what’s displayed here.”

“Are these arrangements standard, or do they sometimes change?”

“They change, from season to season. Are you giving the truffles for a birthday?”

“Actually, I’m curious if a small white flower I have came from one of your boxes.”

“It might have. We sometimes do have flowers.” She was handing me my change and looking eager to get over to a man who had
just entered the store, shaking off his umbrella. “Do you have it with you? I might recognize it.”

I told her I didn’t but might come back with it. She gave me a wan smile, as if it had just dawned on her I might be a psycho.
I left the store, stuffing the little shopping bag she’d given me into my tote bag.

The quickest route to
Gloss
from Fifth and 54th Street was on foot, and I sloshed over, getting wetter and grouchier by the minute. Now what? I wondered.
Earlier, I’d been sure the flower petal I’d found in the Jiffy Bag must have come from the Godiva box but I hadn’t found the
proof I’d hoped for. Of course, all the police would have to do is compare the petal with the flower they had in their possession,
but I didn’t have that luxury. And I didn’t want to create a ruckus about the whole thing if there was a chance I was wrong.
Could I get the petal out of Cat’s house and return with it to the store?

Things were deadly quiet at
Gloss
when I arrived, not unexpected considering we were now entering that predictable two- or three-day lull following the close
of an issue; but these days it was hard to tell how much of the mood at
Gloss
was normal and how much related to the pure freakiness of what was going on. From the foyer by the elevator I peeked around
the corner to the pit—it was like a ghost town there—and then followed the back way to my office, hoping to avoid Leslie.

My office appeared untouched, untossed. I wondered how long it would be before I could walk into the room and not feel squeamish.
I slipped out of my trench coat, shook off the water, and hung it on the back of the door. I tossed the boots and the umbrella
out in the corridor and slid on a pair of shoes that I had stuffed in my tote bag.

I’d come to the office to hand in my article, and I planned to get that out of the way immediately, resisting any temptation
to continue to tweak it. The reading by Nancy Highland was at three-thirty, so I’d have to leave around three. Hopefully I’d
get the chance to chat with her and see just how big a path of destruction Heidi had bushwhacked through her life—and from
there I might have a sense of whether it made any sense to consider her a suspect.

But then what? I felt anxious to continue to pursue the Heidi theory, but at the same time I still wasn’t 100 percent sure
I was on the mark with it. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that what I needed to do was move down two parallel
roads—simultaneously. Road number one: I had to get whatever proof I could that my Heidi theory was correct. Road number two:
Even while I was trying to prove my theory, I had to proceed as if it
was
true, trying to figure out who had murdered Heidi. If the killer had sent the “bad” cookies to Patty Gaylin to confuse matters,
it indicated that he or she was feeling pressured, cornered. I didn’t like thinking about what their next move might be.

I’d already talked to the obvious people in Heidi’s life, snooped around her apartment twice, turned over every stone in sight,
and interviewed the two ex-lovers I knew of, Jody and Kip. What I hadn’t managed to do was figure out who the mystery man
was, the lover of vodka and jazz and the giver of fine jewelry. I’d assumed at first it was Kip, but he’d clearly been replaced
by someone else. Something told me that if I figured out who he was, I’d find myself far closer to the truth. But how could
I do that?

I walked my Marky article down to Polly’s office and left it in her in-box. Neither she nor her assistant was anywhere around.
Back in my office I ordered some New England clam chowder and when it arrived devoured it with three bags of those tasteless
little crackers they send with it. As I munched on them, I decided on a strategy. First, I was going to take Cat up on her
offer and go to Litchfield tomorrow. Maybe, just maybe, I might learn something up there. I’d get maximum exposure to the
Cat-Jeff rapport, and I could better evaluate Jeff as a possible suspect. And since Heidi had spent time at the Litchfield
house—and had even planned to entertain the mystery man on site—there might be something revealing. Farfetched, I know, but
it seemed better than hanging around New York without any obvious leads to run down.

As for today, once I was done with Nancy Highland I was going to go back to the town house. Cat was on her way to Litchfield,
Jeff was safely in Miami, but Carlotta would probably be there. I’d take along a Polaroid camera from the art department,
shoot a picture of the damn petal, and show it to the saleswoman at Godiva, hoping she could verify that it had once been
part of an arrangement used on top of a truffles box.

I left at exactly three for the reading. The bookstore, on Madison at 71st, turned out to be one of those small independent
stores that has somehow managed not to be driven out of business by the big superstores. I worked my way to a small open area
in the back of the store, where Nancy Highland had already begun her reading. There were about twenty people, all women, sitting
on black folding chairs or leaning against bookshelves. A small table had been set up with a plate of Milano cookies, apparently
all that was being done to fulfill the “tea” aspect of the event.

According to a poster, the story, a selection from
Love at Any Cost
, was “Afternoon in Algiers,” and from what I could tell, having arrived a few minutes late, it was about a middleaged divorced
woman who goes on holiday to northern Africa and falls in love with the younger man leading her tour group. She said each
word with the seriousness of purpose you’d bring to a reading of James Joyce’s “The Dead.” I tried to look riveted, but it
was very, very tough.

Though the crowd was small, it was enthusiastic, obviously a collection of friends and fans, and they all seemed to want to
speak with Nancy when she was done. I hung back, waiting for each person to finish her questions and comments, but it was
clear after about twenty minutes that two women in particular were not going to budge. If I was going to strike, it would
have to be now.

“Nancy, hi,” I said, stepping forward and extending my hand. “We met at Cat Jones’s house a few weeks ago. I really enjoyed
your reading.”

She looked at me with distaste. She had one of those small, freckled faces that is considered cute as a button until the age
of twenty-four, when it starts to shrink, like a week-old peach. She was wearing a hot pink Chanel suit with shiny gold buttons,
perhaps in an attempt to overcompensate.

“You’re the one from
Gloss,”
she said finally. “I can’t believe you came to this.”

“Well, I’m a writer, too, and I was interested in hearing you. Do you have a minute to talk?”

“Actually, I don’t,” she said brusquely. “I’m going to dinner with a couple of friends and they’re waiting for me.”

“It’ll only take a second—and it’s very important.”

“All right,” she said with a big sigh. “But please make it quick.”

I lowered my voice because the two friends were hovering nearby. “As you may have heard, Cat Jones’s nanny, Heidi, died the
other night.”

“Why, of course I’ve heard. The police have been all the way to Scarsdale to ask me about the party. As I told them, I know
absolutely nothing.”

“Cat’s concerned about some of the things that have come to light about Heidi. She asked me to find out whatever I could.”

“Oh,
that’s
amusing,” she said. “She’s decided to do the background check
now
.” As she talked, she cocked her head back and forth, the way you would if you were saying “Tick, tock, tick tock.”

“I know Heidi worked for you and that you had some problem with her.”

“Who told you that? Dolores?”

“I heard she made trouble, had an affair with your older son,” I said, avoiding giving her an answer.

“My
son?”
she said incredulously. “You
have
been talking to Dolores, haven’t you? She can’t keep a story straight. No, it wasn’t my son. Heidi
toyed
with my son. She teased him and tortured him, which I found out only after he went to Chapel Hill last fall and told me on
the phone. But she had bigger fish to fry. The one she got
involved
with was my fellow country club member, Mr. Mercedes Dealership with a wife and two kids. It all came out after she left
Scarsdale. The wife has chosen to forgive him, but I can’t imagine why—he’s pathetic.”

“Did you see Heidi at the party at Cat’s?”

“Briefly. She scurried off like a rat when she spotted me. I still haven’t called my son yet to tell him she’s dead.”

“He’s at Chapel Hill, you say?”

“Yes, with a lovely new girlfriend. You know, at the time we were livid when Heidi left so soon, in part because we’d paid
her airfare from Indiana. But it turned out to be the best thing in the world. She was nothing but trouble. Cat Jones stole
her away and got exactly what she deserved. It must be terrible working for that woman. I hope you never make the mistake
of trusting her.”

She turned her back to me and sashayed off to join her friends, who both shot me a glance suggesting they thought I must be
a stalker/fan. I slunk out of the store. The rain had stopped, finally, but it was rush hour and it seemed pointless to try
to hunt down a cab for the twenty-block ride to Cat’s house. The bus stop was right in front of the bookstore and as a number
1 lumbered up I hopped on, figuring it would take less than fifteen minutes to make it to 91st Street.

If I was to believe Nancy Highland, she had no good reason to be on my suspect list. Heidi had left her in the lurch, made
her son cry briefly, and created an awkward situation at the club, but those weren’t very exciting motives for murder. I needed
to concentrate all my efforts now on finding out who the mystery man was.

I jumped off at the corner of 91st and Madison, and when I was several houses away from Cat’s, I spotted Carlotta coming down
the front steps in a black raincoat.

“Carlotta, hey,” I called, jogging toward the stoop. “Has Cat already left for Litchfield?”

“Two hours—at least, Miss Bailey.”

“Oh, shoot, I was hoping to catch her,” I lied. “Are you done for the night, Carlotta?”

“Yes. I no like staying alone at night anymore.”

“Because of what happened to Heidi, you mean?”

“Yes, it scares me. I tell Mrs. Henderson that.”

She climbed down the last two steps, an indication that she wanted to get moving. There was no way I was going to try to convince
her to go back in the house and let me take a photo. She’d be highly suspicious and probably would find some excuse to refuse.
I fell in step beside her as she headed east, probably on her way to the Lex line at 96th Street.

“I don’t blame you for being scared,” I said. “This must all be very upsetting.”

She didn’t say anything, just nodded.