If Looks Could Kill (15 page)

“You going into
Gloss
today?”

“No. I was going to go right after lunch, but I’m not feeling up to it. I have some things to take care of, and then I think
I’m going to work from home one more day.”

The driver jumped out at this point, as if he had picked up some infinitesimal signal from Cat that it was time to open the
door. As she slid into the backseat, a thought suddenly occurred to me.

“Hey, one more question,” I said, leaning in through the open window. “I never asked about Kip. Anything to report there?”

Much to my astonishment, she blushed—not on her face, but on the delicate white skin of her neck. It was faint but swift,
like a Cabernet seeping through a white cloth napkin.

“No, nothing,” she said. “I’m happy with his work, we get along.”

“I’ve heard people complain that he’s arrogant.”

“Not to me. Like I told you, he’s doing his job well. There’s really nothing to say.”

The driver must have sensed that this was one of those “I’ve said all I’m gonna say” moments because he put the car in drive.
I gave Cat a quick “See ya” as the driver pulled the car seamlessly into the traffic on Madison Avenue.

It was one-thirty and I headed east, in the general direction of the Lex line but in no big hurry. My goal was to wander and
think. I had come to lunch hoping to make progress, to discover that Cat had recalled something of significance. What I’d
gotten was not at all what I’d been expecting. First there was her betrayal of Polly. Polly must be furious at Cat, but she
hadn’t breathed a word about it to me. Was she angry enough to want to poison Cat? I
did
adore Polly, and it troubled me to think that she could ever be a suspect. And Leslie. That was a freaky little story Cat
had shared. Was there more to it than she had let on? And last but not least, what was up with Kip? I don’t think Cat was
aware that she’d blushed or that I suspected any disingenuousness on her part, but it was clear that her statement “There’s
nothing to say” was a big fib. Was something going on between her and Kip? And if the answer was yes, had Jeff gotten wind
of it?

Finding myself suddenly at the corner of Lex and 88th, I realized I was only a couple of blocks from the Starbucks where Jody
worked. Heidi was no longer the center of the story, but in the interest of some closure, I decided I’d pop in and see if
I could talk to him.

He was there this time, a good-looking and very buff guy in his late twenties, wearing the black baseball cap and green apron
and sliding chairs back under empty tables. I introduced myself, and it was clear that he’d been told I’d dropped by before.
He suggested we go outside, and I followed him out to an area on the sidewalk near the side entrance, a few feet away from
a Dumpster.

He turned out to be one of those guys who’s better looking from ten feet away. He had a monobrow that up close made his hazel
eyes appear slightly cross-eyed and surly. As we talked I saw that he had an annoying habit of flicking his brown bangs off
his forehead every few seconds.

“This must be awfully hard for you,” I said as he leaned against the wall of the building.

“Yeah, that’s an understatement. And I can’t get any information.”

“What do you need to know? Maybe I can help,” I said.

“What happened?” he said testily. “I just want to know what happened.”

“No one really knows right now. It looks like Heidi might have died from something she ingested. Have the police talked to
you yet?” Farley had said they had but I was playing dumb.

“Yeah, and they came by here Sunday—which was real sweet of them.”

“What were they interested in knowing?”

“Did Heidi do drugs, that kind of thing—or was she depressed. They were all over the map. I told them that she barely touched
alcohol. And I have no clue whether she was depressed that weekend. I had the weekend off and was out of town. Besides, Heidi
and I were over—I hardly even saw her anymore.”

“Where’d you go last weekend?”

A flick of the bangs. “New Jersey. A bike race. And yeah, I got proof.”

“When was the last time you
did
see Heidi?” I asked.

“I dropped by the house last week. It was the night Cat Jones had one of her big parties going. But Heidi was busy and I never
said more than hi to her.”

He glanced at his watch, then into the store. “I gotta get back,” he said. “What did you say your name was again?”

“It’s Bailey. Bailey Weggins.” I pulled a business card from my wallet, offered it to him, and told him to call if he needed
anything, though he seemed as interested in staying in touch as he did in eating a tongue sandwich for lunch.

As I walked toward the subway stop, thoughts of Heidi that I’d pushed from my mind came rushing back again. The hair crusted
with vomit, her faded eyes, the sea foam green towels. She’d snitched those truffles and had died an awful death, all by herself,
because of it.

There were so many questions about the case, but one thing in particular had been bugging me ever since my discussion with
Cat at lunch. Hadn’t the murderer taken an awfully big chance leaving the candy on the hall table? It was obviously a hostess
gift, so the killer could be reasonably sure that at the end of the evening it would be waiting there, beckoning Cat. But
the killer also must have known there was a possibility something unpredictable could happen to the box. Cat could have opened
it and passed the candy around at the party (not likely, because she didn’t like to share, but as Cat had informed me, the
caterers had
almost
done that). Or someone in the household could have opened the box and eaten the candy before Cat got her paws on it (exactly
what
had
happened).

Of course, maybe that didn’t totally matter to the killer. Maybe he or she had factored that in and was happy to settle for
wreaking havoc in Cat’s life. In some ways, that was an even scarier scenario. It was one thing to long to take down your
nemesis, quite another to kill innocent bystanders. The situation seemed more dangerous than I’d even realized. And I was
now smack in the middle of it.

A
S SOON AS
I returned to my apartment, I made a pot of coffee and spread the forty-seven résumés from the envelope on top of my dining
table. For the next hour I pored over each one of them, looking for anything the teeniest bit weird, focusing on individuals
who’d attended the party but reading the others as well. Funny what you don’t know about people. One of the fashion editors,
for instance, who I’d always assumed was as dumb as a sponge, turned out to be a Harvard grad; the associate book editor had
spent two years as a masseuse, specializing in hot stone massage; and good old Kip, who referred ceaselessly to his years
at Princeton, had started out there but ended up graduating from the University of New Mexico. But beyond that there was nothing
that made me go, “Oh boy.”

I also didn’t come up with anything that suggested a connection between the attempt on Cat’s life and Tucker Bobb’s death.
Two junior people on staff had worked at both
Gloss
and
Best House
, but neither had attended the party.

Since the résumé exercise proved to be a bust, I turned my attention to the other item at the top of my to-do list: talking
to Dolores. On the subway ride home I’d come up with a good strategy. I’d call Dolores and tell her that I was putting together
an anthology of my articles (true, of course) and since she had done such a brilliant job editing
her
recent anthology,
Love at Any Cost
, I’d be grateful for her advice (ridiculous lie). After finding her number in the company directory I kept at home, I placed
the call. An assistant answered, a woman who sounded old enough to have worked for Clare Boothe Luce during
her
magazine days. I explained my request, and after putting me on hold for about ten minutes, she offered me either tomorrow
afternoon or next Monday. Needless to say, I opted for tomorrow.

I also made a call to Polly and suggested, as casually as I could, that we get together for lunch or a drink. She was crazy
busy because of the July close, she told me, and said maybe we could grab a drink after work on Friday or sometime over the
weekend. That was the best I was going to do.

Though I’d made tentative plans to see a movie that night with an old friend from
Get
, I begged off. Instead I took a load of clothes to the dry cleaners, hit the gym, ordered a deep-dish pizza to be delivered
at home, and spent another half hour going back over the rÉsumÉs, concentrating this time on just the people who had been
at the party. Nothing jumped out at me. The rest of my evening couldn’t have been more of a bore. No crank calls. No calls,
in fact, from anyone. I went to bed around midnight, fell asleep just after one. Up again at 2:44. Last clock sighting before
morning: 4:10.

On Wednesday I was at
Gloss
early. I wanted to be on the premises to observe whatever I could, and I also needed to get some work out of the way. The
final of my stalking story would be coming through midday, so I had the morning to concentrate on Marky and the poltergeist.

Around ten-thirty I headed down to Cat’s office, taking the long way so I could check things out. Polly was on the phone with
her door partially closed; Rachel, according to her assis-tant, had not yet returned from breakfast with a publicist; Leslie
was holding her weekly production meeting at the conference table in the pit; and Kip was nowhere in sight. As I got closer
to Cat’s office, I could see her through the glass wall, sitting at her sleek black desk, reading with a frown on her face.
I tapped on the glass before entering. The first thing Cat did was thrust a copy of the day’s
New York Post
toward me, with her thumb on an item reporting that Cat Jones’s nanny had most likely been murdered and Cat was probably
the intended victim.

Who would have planted that? she demanded. As far as I knew, Jeff, Leslie, and I were the only ones in the loop, and I certainly
hadn’t been blabbing. I pointed out that the reporter may also have gotten it from contacts in the Nineteenth Precinct. Cat
went off on a tear about how the police didn’t seem to give a damn about her safety. I let her rant for a minute, and when
she calmed down she admitted that they had called with one piece of news: The autopsy had seemed to confirm a death by poison,
though the toxicology reports, as Farley had said, wouldn’t be in for days. Had the police been interviewing people? I asked.
They’d talked to Carlotta, the caterers, and Jeff once more, but that’s all she knew of.

“I thought I’d feel better being here, having something to do,” she said, wringing her hands. “But I’m scared. I may call
Jeff later and have him pick me up.”

I mentioned my upcoming meeting with Dolores and left her office with an assurance that I was delving into things, as promised.
The fact that other reporters were digging around gave me an added sense of urgency.

Just after I returned to my office, the phone rang. It was Megan Fox from
Best House
.

“Sorry not to call back yesterday,” she said. “I was jammed up.”

“No problem. I know we vowed to have lunch soon, but I

was actually calling for another reason. I need some info on Tucker.”

“Well, first and foremost, he’s dead.”

“You’re funny,” I said, flipping open my steno pad so I could take notes. “Was it in October? Is that when he died?”

“That’s right. Why so curious?”

“I can’t explain right now, but I’ll fill you in later. Someone told me lately that he died from eating poison mushrooms.
Is that really true?”

“Now what little bird told you that?”

“A little bird who sounded awfully sure of itself,” I said.

“I didn’t realize that theory was circulating out there. As far as I knew, it had been kept under wraps.”

“So it’s true?”

“I don’t really know.” She sighed. “What I
do
know is that it’s not just some urban legend. It was a theory that apparently was proposed by one of the doctors.”

“What was the party line, though?”

“Kidney failure, but it was all kind of mysterious. He had what seemed like a nasty stomach flu, but it got worse fast and
he died within a couple of days.”

“Did it happen here in the city?”

“No, out in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where he had a farm. But it started here—he got sick one Wednesday or Thursday afternoon
before going there for a long weekend. By that night he was in the hospital out there. His kidneys and liver shut down and
he ended up dying two days later. It was later that one of the PA doctors said that his symptoms were similar to what happens
if you eat bad mushrooms.”

“So how did he eat a poison mushroom in New York City?”

“Now, Bailey, you’re putting words in my mouth. I don’t really know if he
did
eat any poison mushrooms. But mushrooms were a hobby of his. He belonged to this club that looks for morels and stuff in
Central Park. He was always rooting around there—at lunchtime or after work. So maybe he went out at lunch that day, picked
the wrong kind, and took a few bites on the way back to the office.”

“But were there any tests—to show whether he’d eaten bad mushrooms?”

“Apparently it’s not easy to detect that sort of thing.”

“Did anyone ever talk to his wife about it? He had a wife, right?”

“Yeah, Darma,” she said dismissively. “Wife number two. One of our former food editors, in fact.”

“Oh, gosh. I think I knew that once, but I’d completely forgotten. Did he ditch number one for her?”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t such a crime. The first one looked like the sister of Jabba the Hutt. And she was just as evil.”

“So did this Darma ever volunteer whether she believed the mushroom theory?”

“No, she was pretty buttoned up, if you’ll excuse the expression. We saw her at the funeral and that was it. Didn’t even return
calls. She had some professional movers clear out his office. Apparently she also sold their Manhattan place and is ensconced
full-time out in Bucks County.”