“She’s done with you, Jake. So am I,” Lara replied.
Jake backed out of the pool house. “Wait, Lara, please. I know you’re upset, but let’s look at this as an artistic experience we can both learn and grow from.”
In the real world, Cassady smacked Jake on the back of the head. “There should be a law against you.”
On-screen, Jake kept trying. “I made a mistake. But it made me realize what a treasure you are. Why, when I’m living
with Godiva, did I have a craving for a Hershey bar? I don’t know. I’m weak, I’m stupid,” he wheedled.
“Amen, brother,” Tricia said. Jake was sinking down in his chair; even he was embarrassed by his conduct. Only Lara was getting any pleasure out of watching him make a fool out of himself.
“I’m so sorry,” on-screen Jake said. “What can I do to make you feel better?”
That’s when the camera fell—or was thrown down, it seemed now—and Lara started pummeling him. It was hard to understand what Jake was saying as he worked to calm her and pull her into his arms. Especially because there was an odd sound and then voices somewhere else offscreen.
“What’s that?” I asked.
We all leaned in as Lara backed it up. “I didn’t play it through with the audio before.”
She backed up to the point where the camera fell and played it again. She cranked the audio and we all held our breath, listening. We could hear Lara crying and Jake apologizing and something jangling, like wind chimes but not as melodious. Then the other voices. One was indistinct, but Lisbet’s was loud and defiant, saying, “I don’t care anymore. About any of you.” The other person said something and Lisbet repeated, “I don’t care!” even more defiantly. Then Lara picked up the camera and she and Jake walked away, leaving Lisbet and the indistinct voice alone in the pool house.
But who was it? I asked Lara to back it up one more time. She did and I closed my eyes to concentrate on just the sound, as blasphemous as Jake and Lara might find that. As I waited for the sound, my own memory of the pool house rushed back. Running up to see Lisbet lying there, wet and
dead. Aunt Cynthia walking out with her shoes and the champagne bottle.
I felt ill. The sound came again. That jangling of gold on gold. Ring upon ring of bangles clanging together with every grand wave of her arm. I opened my eyes and found myself staring at an ashen Tricia who looked ready to faint. Jake and Lara had left Lisbet alive in the pool house.
But what if Aunt Cynthia hadn’t?
Dear Molly, If I’m
willing to lie to a man, does that mean I don’t care for him as much as I thought I did? Or am I naive to think that any relationship can be completely truthful? This question has tremendous implications for my future in dating, working, and voting, so I’d appreciate an honest answer. Signed, Diogenes’s Daughter
Tricia grabbed my hand as we stepped out of the elevator and headed for the door of her parents’ apartment. “You sure you’re ready for this?”
I’d heard so many lies in the last few days and told enough of them myself that I thought it was time to tell the truth. “Nope.”
Tricia actually seemed relieved. “Okay. Me either. So what do we do?”
“I’d say turn and run, but I can’t run in these shoes.” Of course, I don’t think Mr. Blahnik had fleeing in mind when he designed the d’Orsay black satin pumps I was wearing, even if they did have only a two-inch heel. And honestly, running wasn’t actually that appealing at the moment. The thought of going into this luncheon and pretending all was unchanged while trying to seek out a way to corner Aunt Cynthia was daunting, but it was enticing, too.
Tricia, Cassady, and I had stayed up all night turning it inside out and upside down, but Aunt Cynthia had maintained her theoretical integrity as a suspect. While Lara and Jake had retired to the bedroom to “discuss their relationship,” the three of us had raided Jake’s kitchen and, over a midnight supper of cheese and crackers, microwave popcorn, Lucky Charms, and a couple of bottles of Rosemount Estates Shiraz, we laid out what we knew.
Aunt Cynthia had been the last one in the pool house with Lisbet. She’d emerged from the pool house with Lisbet’s shoes and a champagne bottle that she could have disposed of well before the police started digging through her trash. She knew the house better than anyone else, so she could have stashed the bottle somewhere no one else would have found it. She was bigger than Lisbet, played tennis three times a week so she was stronger than Lisbet, and had been decidedly more sober than Lisbet.
But why? Why would she have done it?
“Image vincit omnia,”
Tricia had surmised, her eyes brimming with tears. “Aunt Cynthia’s not a model of decorum, but even she has her limits. And she loves Davey. Perhaps she felt Lisbet had gone too far, embarrassing herself at the party and then sleeping with Jake. Aunt Cynthia doesn’t mind a scene, but she hates a mess. And Lisbet was a mess.”
“Aunt Cynthia doesn’t strike me as the sort who’ll crumple easily, even with Molly’s knack for asking the proper question at the improper time,” Cassady said. “What’s the next step?”
“There’s not enough to call Kyle and certainly not enough to tell Detective Cook,” I admitted. “Tricia, are you going to the luncheon?”
“More than ever. And you’re invited. Both of you. Let my mother try and keep us out.”
“What’s it going to do to your relationship with your parents if you help nail your aunt for this?” Cassady asked gently.
Tricia spent a moment carefully picking green clovers out of the box of Lucky Charms, then lining them up across her palm. “Nothing worse than what it will do if I know she’s guilty and they close ranks around her.”
That and the fact that Jake and Lara never emerged from the bedroom led to a discussion of relationships in general and the limits of forgiveness. Which led to my having to call Kyle. I didn’t mentioned my suspicion of Aunt Cynthia because I knew it would only infuriate him because I didn’t have coherent supporting evidence. Yet. I only told him that Lara had been driving the hit-and-run SUV, and she and Jake were coming in with their lawyer later in the morning to give statements and aid in the investigation as much as they possibly could. Cassady would be with them, but I didn’t tell him she was going to spend the morning introducing them to their lawyer, a friend of hers, or that she would have the footage in her pocket; she was going to hold that in reserve until the proper moment. And to buy Tricia and me some time at the luncheon.
The call with Kyle hadn’t been as strained as I’d expected. Almost, but not completely. I’d actually considered calling Kyle at work in the hopes that he wouldn’t be there yet and I could leave a message with another detective. But that seemed cowardly, so I called him on his cell and didn’t ask where he was. He didn’t ask where I was either. That and the fact that we’d gone all night without talking didn’t bode well for future conversations or for the future itself.
Why was I putting this case between us? Had I sensed his six-month stumbling block? Was I giving him a way out so that I could put the blame on his sense of professionalism
instead of my lack of allure? Was I really so into solving this murder that I was making it the most important thing in my life? Or was it just that solving a murder seemed simpler than solving my own life? Maybe too many years of dating in Manhattan had so muted my emotions that I could only handle strong feelings in other people’s lives.
The phone conversation had ended with Kyle asking me, “Do I want to know how you found any of this out?”
“Probably not,” I answered.
“Do I want to know what else you know?”
“Definitely not. But I will call you soon.”
The Pause took hold of the entire conversation and we left it at that, as cold and spiky as it was. I tried not to think about it now, as Tricia and I prepared to plunge into the bosom of her family and pluck out her aunt as a murder suspect.
Nelson answered the door. He was wearing a gorgeous Armani suit, which was apparently his city uniform. “Your parents are receiving guests in the drawing room,” Nelson informed Tricia. “Your aunt is in the kitchen, instructing the staff.”
“And my brothers?”
“With your parents. Your sister-in-law, as well.”
Tricia made a face like the word didn’t smell good and as we entered the drawing room, her look grew that much darker. In the drawing room, stationed at Mrs. Vincent’s elbow, was Rebecca, wearing a Nanette Lepore multihued embroidered skirt and yellow scalloped sweater, Christian Louboutin yellow patent leather T-strap sandals, and the emerald necklace. With the marble fireplace behind them, flanked by bookcases filled with leather-bound volumes, they looked like they were posing for a portrait artist. Or maybe just posing.
“How nice,” Tricia whispered before marching resolutely over to her mother and sister-in-law and kissing them both on the cheek. I followed along, but only said hello.
Mrs. Vincent shook my hand briefly. “Hello, Molly,” she said politely.
“Thank you for coming. We appreciate your support,” Rebecca said, squeezing my hand like a politician. “I understand you’ve been trying to help, and it was a nice thought.”
I had a couple of not so nice thoughts about that, but out of respect—for Tricia, not for anyone else—I kept them to myself.
“Nice necklace,” Tricia complimented. I couldn’t have sounded so even and I’d never asked to wear the thing.
Rebecca patted it reverently. “Thank you.”
“I thought it would look so nice on her and she’s been such an angel through all this.” Mrs. Vincent pressed her cheek to Rebecca’s. I had to give Rebecca credit, she was playing her part admirably, even though her holier-than-thou attitude was going to send me screaming to the bar in another two minutes.
“So,” Tricia asked, “is there an agenda for today?”
If her mother noticed the double question, she managed not to blink. “Cocktails, then lunch, then there will be an opportunity for people to speak to David and offer their support.”
On the other side of the room, half a football field away, Mr. Vincent had a son on each side of him and was working the crowd, in political/fund-raising mode. The guests were almost all in formal business attire, suits in respectable colors and cuts, restrained shoes, minimal jewelry. Even the few flashy standouts were flashy only in that deliberate Park Avenue way.
The guest list appeared heavy on the senior Vincents’ friends and lighter on the junior end of the spectrum. I didn’t know if that was planned or a function of my generation’s inability to show up anywhere on time. But I also surmised that one of the purposes of this gathering was to assure the senior Vincents that their friends were familiar with tragedy, too, and were standing by them. Or at least, not shunning them.
“Anything I can do to help?” Tricia offered bravely.
“That awful Crawford girl is here and I understand she’s dating a young man at the
Times.
Perhaps you and Molly could talk to her and make sure she’s not gathering information for him,” Mrs. Vincent said.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Tricia said.
“We don’t have to worry about that with you, do we, Molly?” Mrs. Vincent continued.
“No, ma’am, I’m not dating anyone at the
Times
,” I assured her. “In fact, I’m thinking about canceling my subscription. I heard a rumor they hired an old boyfriend of mine, Peter Mulcahey, who doesn’t write or behave nearly as well as I do.” Mrs. Vincent laughed, but Tricia glanced over at me, wondering if I was deliberately sidestepping the issue of my own article. Which I was.
“Is Aunt Cynthia here?” Tricia asked, making it sound like a casual afterthought.
“Last I knew, she was in the kitchen straightening out the caterer. Go find Regan Crawford, dear, and make sure she’s not reading anyone’s diary.”
“I’m this far from giving Regan the keys to the attic. Just for starters,” Tricia told me through clenched teeth as we walked out of the room and down the hallway.
“We looking for her?” I asked.
“Only if she’s hiding behind Aunt Cynthia,” Tricia
replied. She stopped outside the door to the kitchen, turning to face me. “After Aunt Cynthia agrees to talk to me, you should be safe for ten minutes. So, excuse yourself to go to the bathroom. She’s staying in the room on the right, just past the bathroom. See what you can find, then I’ll meet you back in the drawing room and we’ll go from there.”
What I was hoping to find was the dress Aunt Cynthia was wearing the night of the party or the robe she had on poolside or anything else that might have been overlooked by the police and by Aunt Cynthia herself that might now yield evidence tying her to Lisbet’s death. “On the right. Got it.”
Tricia took a deep breath and pushed open the kitchen door. The Vincent kitchen made the ones in Viking magazine ads look cramped and dowdy. It was a vast expanse of gleaming steel, brilliant glass, and sparkling tile. At the moment, it was crowded with white-jacketed hired help filling trays and preparing plates while Aunt Cynthia argued with a chef over the amount of dill in the salad dressing.
Her point made, Aunt Cynthia detached herself from the chef, missing the vicious look he gave her back, and came to greet us. “Friendly faces!” she exclaimed, hugging Tricia so enthusiastically that the bangles clanged mightily, seeming to resound throughout the room. Aunt Cynthia offered me a kiss on the cheek, which was sufficient since I knew why I was really there. Followed by a pat on the cheek and one more chorus of the bangles.
“I hate to interrupt, but I need to talk to you,” Tricia told her. “Could I have a moment?”
“Anything you want,” Aunt Cynthia assured her. I followed the two of them as Tricia led the way back down the hallway to a small sitting room decorated in a hunting theme that was just this side of precious.
Tricia sat on a brocade loveseat and pulled Aunt Cynthia down beside her. “Molly and I were just discussing, Dad doesn’t look at all well. Do you think the stress is too much for him? Should he excuse himself from the meal?”
Aunt Cynthia frowned. “I thought he looked flushed, but I wasn’t sure. This has been so hard on him.”
I stood up. “I’m sorry. The rest room?” They pointed in unison. “I’ll be right back.” I slipped out of the room as Aunt Cynthia launched into a recitation of all the ways in which her brother had not been properly caring for his health even before the tragedy and Tricia nodded encouragingly. Funny thing was, Mr. Vincent looked great, but whatever worked.
Out in the hall, I took a moment to get my bearings. Just past the bathroom, on the right. I checked the hallway in both directions to make sure no one was coming and slunk down to the door. There was an awful moment when I thought it was locked, but I gave the knob an extra twist and it opened.
The room was a guest room, with the careful anonymity of a room that has to serve a wide range of people. The sleigh bed and matching dressers were gorgeous, though the ice blue drapes and bedspread were too cool for my taste. But it was the armoire I was interested in.
My heart pounded as I eased open the doors of the armoire, hoping against hope that the multicolored tiered silk dress would be hanging right in the middle. It wasn’t. In fact, the armoire was half-filled with men’s clothes. Were these Nelson’s clothes? How open were they being about their relationship?
I skimmed through the hanging clothes with a growing sense of dread. These weren’t Aunt Cynthia’s clothes. They were Rebecca’s. The men’s clothes were Richard’s. I
rethought the directions Tricia had given me and realized I’d made a stupid mistake. She’d said the room was on the right and she’d said it while she was facing the main entry. I’d gone right with my back to the entry. I was in the wrong room.