Icing Ivy (17 page)

At this, Jane sat up straighter, listening intently.

“. . . and I saw my chance to have it out with Jennifer. I hurried up to her. It was dim; the parking lot lights aren't very bright. I was furious as I approached her, got angrier and angrier the closer I got. I was so mad I thought I'd—I'd have a heart attack or something. Anyway, I walked right up to her and said, ‘Listen, you ice bitch. If you leave me I'll sue you for everything you're worth. I'll ruin your career.' Then I grabbed her shoulder and spun her around—to discover, to my horror, that it wasn't Jennifer but Ivy. She was wearing Jennifer's white fisherman's knit sweater. Jennifer must have lent it to her.”

“What did Ivy do?”

“She just stared at me. I was mortified, of course. I apologized to her, asked her to please forget it, and hurried back to the lodge.

“
That's
why I looked so uncomfortable when Jennifer and Ivy came back into the lounge. I was wondering if Ivy had told Jennifer what I said to her. I can't see how she wouldn't have.”

“No,” Jane agreed, “neither can I.”

Their lunch arrived and they began to eat, but neither of them was particularly hungry. They made awkward small talk about the publishing business, about the course Vick was teaching.

After lunch, outside on the sidewalk, she gave him a kiss and a tight hug and told him again how sorry she was and not to be a stranger. Then she watched him walk away, a sad, middle-aged man with lowered head and slumped shoulders.

I
t was dark as Jane stared out the bus window at the buildings of Weehawken, thinking about what Vick had told her. Was that really all there was to it? Perhaps he was telling the truth as far as it went; perhaps he really had mistaken Ivy for Jennifer. But had he only spoken to her?

What if it had actually been Ivy who went down the path, and Vick followed her, thinking he was following Jennifer? What if Vick, in his fury toward Jennifer, had grabbed Ivy, mistaking her for his wife, and killed her?

Vick had always struck Jane as the sweetest, most gentle of men, but it was common knowledge that very often when this kind of person blew, he blew big-time.

But why would Vick have been carrying the ice pick?

Moreover, why would
Jennifer
have left Ivy and started down the path? What was she doing there? Back at her office, Jane decided simply to ask her. She finally tracked her down at Henry Silver's office.

“Jane,” Jennifer said, as if speaking to a child, “you can't call me here.”

“Why not?”

“Because I'm—I'm busy. I'm in a meeting. What is it you want?”

“I just want to ask you a question.” When Jennifer made no response, Jane went on, “Last Thursday night, when you and Ivy went outside to smoke your cigarettes, why did you leave Ivy and go down the path that leads to the pond?”

“How do you know I did that?”

Jane hesitated, then said, “Vick told me. He also told me about his mistaking Ivy for you.”

“I know all about that,” Jennifer said impatiently. “Ivy told me everything.”

“So? Why did you go down the path?”

“Um . . . hold on,” Jennifer said; then, muffling the phone, “Henry, baby, I'm going to take this call in that empty office, okay?” She came back on the line. “Wait a minute, Jane.”

After a few moments Jennifer picked up again. “All right. When Ivy and I were having our cigarettes, Ivy told me that that sleazeburger, Larry Graham, had the hots for her and wanted her to meet him on the path at nine. I started teasing Ivy about it. Then, just as a goof, I ran over to the path to see if Larry was already there waiting for her. I did start down the path, but it was so dark I couldn't see three steps in front of me. I got creeped out and turned around and came back out of the woods. Any more questions?”

“No,” Jane said, thanked her, and rang off.

It was almost time to go home. She tried to concentrate on the first draft of a manuscript she had recently received from Carol Freund, one of her biggest clients, but it was no use. She stared out her office window at the village green, dark gray and winter-gloomy. It had begun to snow, the flakes drifting toward her window and melting when they hit the glass.

Drifting . . . A conversation with Stanley came back to her, about the reception Adam and Rhoda had hosted, about people drifting in and out. Then she remembered passing Arliss's room and hearing her berating someone. Whom had Arliss been berating, and about what? It might be totally irrelevant . . . or it might not. She decided to call Arliss and ask her to lunch.

“Why, Jane?” Arliss asked with characteristic bluntness. “I just saw you last week.”

“I know, but there's something I want to discuss with you.”

“Go ahead.”

“I'd prefer to do it in person.”

Arliss let out an impatient groan. “Now you've got me all nervous, like you're going to tell me something bad about one of your clients I'm publishing.” One client Jane had with Arliss was Carol Freund, whose manuscript sat before her on the heap.

“No, it's nothing like that. That much I can tell you.”

“I see,” Arliss said, though she clearly didn't. “Are you free tomorrow?”

“Absolutely,” Jane replied, and they made arrangements.

 

 

The following morning, Jane stopped at the Shady Hills Police Station. Stanley was waiting for her in his office doorway. They stepped inside and briefly kissed.

“I've been thinking about our conversation yesterday afternoon,” he said, dropping into the seat behind his desk as she sat down in his visitor's chair. “I shouldn't ask you this, because I already know the answer, but you never did stop playing detective, did you?”

“Nope. Haven't gotten much of anywhere, though,” she added ruefully.

“Neither have we,” he admitted. “Though one of the men I had searching the woods did find a flashlight Adam has identified as one he kept in the storage room. It was under a bush near the beginning of the path down to the pond.”

“Interesting,” she said. “Now. Do you want to know what I've learned?”

“You know I do.”

“Good,” she said, hunkering down, and carefully told him what she'd learned so far from all the people she'd talked to. It took a good half hour.

“That's a lot,” he said when she was finished, his tone full of admiration.

“Thanks. Only problem is, any and all of them could have killed Ivy. Every single one had both motive and opportunity. The only ones in the clear are Adam and Rhoda and the people at their reception. Actually,” she corrected herself, “the people at the reception aren't even in the clear. You told me everyone was drifting in and out.”

“That's right.” He grinned mischievously. “What if together the people at the reception planned Ivy's murder, one of them carried it out, and then they all covered for each other? Like that Agatha Christie novel.”

“Stanley,” Jane said in annoyance, “this is no joke.”

“I'm not joking.”

“Yes, you are, and it's not funny. This is my oldest friend we're talking about.” She gazed dejectedly at her fingernails, which she realized she needed to have done. “I'm very frustrated—”

“Of course you are.”

“—that you don't understand how important it is to me to discover the truth behind what happened to her. You're treating this like all your other cases.” Tears came to her eyes.

“I'm sorry, Jane. I didn't mean it to sound that way. I do know how important she was to you.”

She sniffed. “Apology accepted. Now where's the bag and the suitcase?”

“Oh, right. Just a minute.” He left the office and returned a moment later with Ivy's red leather drawstring handbag and a large black suitcase on wheels. He handed the bag to Jane.

She opened it, peered inside, and rummaged about. Stanley had been right. She found nothing but everyday items like keys, chewing gum, cigarettes, a lighter, some makeup, a nail file, a purse containing a few bills and some change, a Visa card, an ATM card, Ivy's driver's license, and photos of Marlene and Jane. No notes, no paper, not even a small notepad.

She pulled the bag shut and placed it on Stanley's desk. “All right, how about the suitcase?”

He placed it on his desk and unzipped it. In it lay a messy assortment of clothes, more makeup, a pair of running shoes, a small blow-dryer, and, as Stanley had said, three issues of
The Enquirer
. Idly Jane lifted out the tabloids and regarded them. On the top copy, someone—presumably Ivy—had drawn a mustache on Cher. With a little laugh Jane flipped to the next newspaper. The headline read
HOLLYWOOD STARS' INCOGNITO TRICK—NO MAKEUP
! Below it was a quiz titled
Guess Who?
consisting of a row of women's unmade-up faces, labeled only A, B, C, and D. Beneath each picture Ivy had penciled in her guesses: Demi Moore, Kelly McGillis, Roseanne, Mary Tyler Moore.

“Ever the intellectual,” Stanley quipped, and Jane shot him an icy look. Shaking her head, she placed the newspapers back into the suitcase.

“Wait, missed something,” Stanley said, and pulled out the third tabloid, whose left margin was crammed with messy ballpoint doodles.

She glanced at them and shrugged. A French poodle with exaggerated pom-pom fur. The word
Johnny,
written three or four times in different sizes. A snowman. A banana. Dollar signs. Two palm trees—

Jane pulled the paper closer.

“What is it?” Stanley asked.

“Nothing,” she said, though unsure why. Ivy had drawn the same image four times: two palm trees, trunks crossed, with six coconuts at the base of their trunks.

“What?” he asked insistently. “Hieroglyphics?”

“Mm, that's it,” she said, dropped the papers into the suitcase, and zipped it shut. “You're right,” she said with a sad little smile. “Nothing here.”

At the door of his office he gave her a kiss. “I'll call you later.”

 

 

“Well, what is it?” Arliss said before her bottom had even settled in her chair. They were at Dig, Jane's least favorite restaurant.

“Take it easy,” Jane said. “Why are you still wearing your coat?”

“I'm not,” Arliss said, and shrugged it off, letting it fall onto the back of her chair.

“Why don't you check it?”

“I never check my coat. Why should I pay somebody a dollar to hang up my coat and then take it off the hanger for me?”

“Wow. I guess publishing salaries are as bad as ever.”

“Easy for you, Jane Stuart. Big-shot agent with hotsy-totsy clients. I'm a single woman—yes, making a not-gigantic salary—and I have to be careful.”

Jane had never considered herself either a big shot or hotsy-totsy, but did not respond to this comment. Nor did she remind Arliss that she, too, was a single woman who had to be careful. Of one thing, however, she was reasonably certain: She earned more money than Arliss.

Arliss flipped the napkin off the bread basket and tore two thick slices off the French bread. She began slathering one of them with strawberry butter. “Even the way I eat,” she went on in her annoying monotone. “I make lunch my big meal of the day so that Millennium can foot the bill.”

“All right, Arliss, ” Jane said, rolling her eyes, “I get the point.”

Arliss made an unattractive pouting expression with her mouth. “Fine. So,” she said, meeting Jane's gaze, “what is it you couldn't discuss with me on the telephone?”

“It's about the retreat.”

Arliss looked at her in frank surprise. “What about it? Did they find out who killed your friend?”

“No, that's not it. It's about something I heard you say.”

“What?” Arliss threw down her slice of bread. “What did I say?”

The waiter arrived. “Would you like to hear our specials today?”

“No!” Arliss barked at him, and he turned and fled. “Now what's this all about, Jane? Stop pussyfooting around. What were you doing, eavesdropping on me or something?”

“Not intentionally. It was last Thursday night, after the group reading. I was heading down the corridor to my room when I passed your room and heard you, well, yelling at someone.”

Arliss eyed Jane coldly. “What was I saying?”

“Now let me see if I can remember. It was something like, ‘If you want to keep this working, you have to read them.' Then you called whoever it was you were talking to lazy and said something like, ‘You should have told her you can't talk about them.' Who were you talking to? What were you talking about?”

Arliss looked at her as if she were crazy. “Why should I tell you that? What business is it of yours? What does it have to do with anything?”

“Now calm down. My guess is that it was Brad Franklin you were talking to, and that the ‘her' you were referring to was Ivy. If I'm right, your conversation could have something to do with Ivy's murder.”

Arliss pondered this, rubbing a few strands of her lank brown hair between her thumb and forefinger. At last she said, “You're right, it was Brad I was talking to. I remember it now. We were talking about his work as an instructor at the retreat. He was complaining to me that it was turning out to be more work than he'd expected and he didn't want to do it. I told him he had to read Red Pearson's work more carefully. You remember that Red was Brad's student.”

“Yes, I remember,” Jane said flatly, staring at Arliss. “What about when you said, ‘You should have told her you can't talk about them'? Who were you referring to? Shouldn't have told
whom
about
what?
”

Arliss pursed her lips and shrugged.

Jane said, “Know what I think?”

“No, what?”

“That you're lying.”

Arliss slammed her hand down on the table, drawing the attention of the couples to either side. “How dare you call me a liar!”

“Knock it off, Arliss.” Jane checked her watch. “I haven't got all day. Either you tell me the truth or I sic Detective Greenberg on you.”

Arliss calmed down somewhat. “Supposing—just supposing—I'm not telling you the truth about what I was saying and who I was saying it to, what makes you think I was talking about Ivy?”

“Well, were you? You still haven't told me who ‘her' was. If you were talking about Ivy, it's important. Everything Ivy did and said is important in this investigation. So . . . were you talking about Ivy?” Jane peered at her shrewdly. “Did it have anything to do with Ivy's saying Brad had a cushy setup?”

Arliss tossed her head from side to side. “Oh, all right—yes!”

“Okay,” Jane said with a note of triumph, “now we're getting somewhere. Let's start again.” But suddenly the truth came to her, like a light being switched on in her head. Her mouth fell open, and she stared at Arliss in wonder.

“What is it?” Arliss asked suspiciously.