If Looks Could Kill (38 page)

“You must have known Heidi pretty well,” I said. “Do you miss her?”

She stopped in her tracks and turned to me. “I don’t miss her,” she said, her dark eyes holding my gaze. “She make a lot of
trouble.”

“What do you mean, Carlotta?” I urged as she resumed walking.

“She make trouble with Mr. and Mrs. Henderson. It wasn’t so good.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Big trouble. But no, I shouldn’t say.”

“Please, Carlotta,” I said. “I only want to help Cat.”

“He act berry friendly to her. They have big fights about that girl. Please, I shouldn’t say.”

Having dropped the bomb at my feet, she hurried away.

C
AT HAD LIED
to me. Lied to me big-time. She had assured me that things were all better between her and Jeff. And she had told me she
hadn’t a clue about whether Heidi was involved with someone else. I felt totally jerked around, used. But I also felt something
else: a churning in my stomach. Suddenly Cat had a motive for murder.

As thoughts raced through my head, my paced slowed and Carlotta edged away from me. I doubted I could elicit any more info
from her, so I let her go. I took a right on Park and decided to make my way toward the subway as well. I’d get on the Lex
line at 86th.

I ambled along, thinking, fuming, worrying, paying practically no attention to the people around me, to the puddles on the
sidewalk, to the traffic hurtling by. I felt betrayed and angry, but I also felt worried and totally unsure what my next move
should be.

And then things went from bad to worse. At 86th Street I absentmindedly crossed to the south side of the street, which I didn’t
need to do to get on the downtown train. Twenty feet from a French bistro, I froze. K.C. was climbing out of a cab with a
woman—no, two women, both twentysomething and as giddy as can be. I quickly took two giant steps to the right, pressed myself
against the front wall of the closest building, and lowered my head so he wouldn’t recognize me—but not so much that I couldn’t
see. As the three of them huddled laughing on the sidewalk, a second guy launched himself out of the front seat of the taxi,
tucking his wallet into his back pocket. Maybe they were all just pals. But as the other guy draped his arm around one of
the girls, K.C. pressed his hand possessively along the back of the other.

I felt a momentary urge to hurl, but I fought it off and backed up toward Park Avenue. I hurried away, south on Park, and
finally at 77th Street I spotted a cab going the wrong way and flagged it down.

When I got back to my place that night, I was almost shaking. I kicked off my rubber boots and dumped my bags in my office.
I had practically nothing in the house to eat, but I was too hungry and too agitated to wait for take-out, so I chopped the
moldy parts off a hunk of cheddar I had in the fridge and made a cheese omelet. I wolfed it down at the dining room table.
Afterward, as I was trying to scrape all the egg from the pan with a tattered scouring pad, I started to bawl my eyes out.

It was hard to tell what was contributing the most to my misery—K.C. or Cat or just everything that had happened over the
past two weeks. I hadn’t been on a real crying jag since two months after my husband moved out (and everything burst out during
a tiff with a rude shoe salesman). After about fifteen minutes, when the sobs were down to sniffles, I felt better. But that
didn’t mean I had any answers—or knew what to do.

As far as K.C. was concerned, I was willing to accept the fact that I had no one but myself to blame. He’d never done anything
to indicate that he wanted an exclusive thing with me, and the Daisy razor should have been a warning to me that I was in
occupied territory. I’d stupidly been trying to convince myself that our spontaneous couplings reflected a lack of game playing,
but what they’d really been was nothing more than a way for him to secure some easy action. Christ, the girl he was with tonight
had at least managed to snag a meal from him, something I hadn’t done for over two weeks.

Maybe Landon had been right. Maybe I’d become enamored of K.C. because he was ultimately unavailable.

And then there was Cat. She had misled me, but that wasn’t the worst of it. She might be the one who had poisoned Heidi.

I pondered her behavior over the past two weeks, especially the things she’d done that had seemed slightly “off.” First there
was her Sunday morning call to me. She’d been so convinced there was something the matter with Heidi—despite the lack of any
overwhelming evidence—and so adamant that I had to fly up to her place. If she’d killed Heidi, she may have thought that arranging
for me to find the body distanced her slightly from everything.

There’d also been the weirdness of her plans that weekend—sending Jeff and Tyler to the country because she supposedly needed
to work and then heading out to East Hampton. Had she even
gone
to East Hampton? Her reason for wanting to see Heidi so early on a Sunday had also seemed lame.

Other things suddenly jumped out at me. Cat had told me right away that Heidi pinched food. She’d pointed out that the chocolates
Heidi had eaten must have been the ones that had been left for her. She had also brought up the Tucker Bobb connection—I remembered
Leslie saying that on the phone.

Last but not least was how testy she’d gotten when I’d told her I thought Heidi was the intended victim.

Yet if she was in a rage about an affair between Jeff and Heidi—and she would be—then why take it out on Heidi and not Jeff?
Because she still wanted Jeff? Maybe what had gone on between Heidi and Jeff was more than just a fling. Maybe Jeff, the husband
who was six years younger, had fallen hard, and Cat knew that the only way to end the situation was to eliminate Heidi completely.

Of course, if Jeff and Heidi had really been having an affair, Jeff was a suspect, too.

I wondered what I should do about going to Litchfield. I still felt an overwhelming desire to learn what had really happened
to Heidi. But would it be dangerous to spend a night in a house with someone who might very well be a murderer—and might suspect
I was getting closer to the truth?

I had to go. I had to know the truth. Besides, something in my gut was telling me that it just
couldn’t
be Cat. Yes, her behavior had been strange, but there were other explanations for everything. She’d called me that morning
because she’d been scared and, as it turned out, justifiably so. She’d brought up Heidi’s pilfering because we were talking
about her eating habits. She’d mentioned that the box of Godiva truffles was a gift to her because that’s exactly what it
had appeared to be.

Besides, there were several factors that undercut the notion of her guilt. Why would she intentionally bring so much misery
down around herself by killing Heidi and making it look like she, Cat, was the target? Unless she hadn’t anticipated the degree
of the fallout. Second, why would she deputize me to snoop around, to turn up the ground, if there was a chance I’d find something
linking her to the killing? Unless, of course, she’d wanted to have me stumble on any incriminating info before the police
did. And why would she send me on a hunt for the truth and then try to scare me off with hang-ups and candy? Unless, of course,
she was a total psychopath.

I had to go to Litchfield to reassure myself, to see if I could shake the truth about her marriage out of her. I’d tell her
I’d discovered she’d suspected there was something between Jeff and Heidi, and I’d weigh her reaction and her explanation.
There was Jeff to consider, of course. There was a chance he was the killer. But I would be careful. And surely he wouldn’t
pull anything with Cat around.

The rest of the night was pretty much a bust. Thanks to my sob fest, my eyes were all puffy, my brain was pounding to get
out of my skull, and it seemed pointless to attempt anything like a run to the movies. A friend from
Get
called around eight to commiserate about how she’d finally gone to bed with this new man in her life and during the night
he’d screamed, “You’re hogging my blankie!” Was that enough reason, she wondered, to dump him? God,
I
thought so, but I hedged, figuring that as of tonight it was clear I was about as big a moron as there was in the man department.
After I hung up I took a bath and leafed through a six-month-old issue of
Gloss
that I’d never gotten around to looking at. As I got to the tip on how to soften coarse pubic hair (apply ordinary hair conditioner),
I decided to try bed. I flopped around for an hour, my brain jammed with thoughts about K.C., Cat, and Heidi. I made a stab
at some muscle relaxation exercises, flopped some more, and fell asleep around one. It occurred to me, just as I felt sleep
overtake me, that I’d gone the whole night without a hang-up.

I was up early on Thursday, just before seven. Though the weather forecast had called for a nice day, it was overcast and
cool. I ordered my Jeep from the garage and headed to the gym for forty-five minutes on the treadmill. Back home, I phoned
Cat, told her to expect me for lunch, then showered and threw two days of clothes into my overnight bag. I figured I needed
to be on the road by ten.

As I was shutting off the lights in my apartment, the phone rang. Leslie. The new, friendlier model.

“I heard you’re going to Litchfield today,” she said. “Do you need a lift?”

“Thanks,” I said. “But I’ve got a car. You’re going up today?”

“Yes, Clyde and I are taking a three-day weekend. I just barely got the July issue out the door and I need a break.”

“Well, thanks for the offer,” I said, trying to get off. “Maybe I’ll see you around up there.”

“By the way, I promised to call you if I had an update on Patty Gaylin. But I haven’t heard a thing.”

“Thanks, me neither.”

“I take it you’re still helping Cat. Any luck?”

“Maybe,” I said. “But look, I’ve got to dash now. I promised Cat I’d be there for lunch.”

I was halfway out the door when I stopped, dropped my bag to the floor, and went back to the phone. I dialed Jack Herlihy’s
number. His machine picked up and I left a message saying I’d be out of town for the weekend, but back on Sunday if he wanted
a tour. I left Cat’s number. My voice sounded high and squeaky, as if I’d just sucked on a tank of helium. As soon as I hung
up, I felt like an idiot. Watch. Now that I’d gone out on a limb, he wouldn’t be interested.

I made good time in the Jeep, reaching Litchfield County in just over two hours. It’s not unlike Bucks County up there, but
it’s been spared the push of the suburbs. The countryside is lush, rolling, with beautiful old houses and horse farms. Even
on a gray, overcast day it was breathtaking.

Cat and Jeff’s home wasn’t one of the biggest houses in the area, but it was charming and roomy, an old white clapboard farmhouse
set just off the road, with about twenty acres of fields and woods behind it, a huge red barn, and several smaller outbuildings.

Despite the fact that it was cool today, the front door was open halfway. I peered in through the screen door and, not seeing
anyone, rapped on the frame. No answer. I called out hello—twice—but got no reply. Cat’s BMW was in the driveway, and so was
their pickup truck. They couldn’t be far.

I opened the screen door and stepped inside. The scent of lilacs filled the air, but the house was totally silent.

I called out Cat’s name a couple of times, and still nothing. Setting down my overnight bag and laptop in the front hallway,
I sauntered off to the left, toward the kitchen. The house was long rather than wide, so that you could shout from one end
of it and not hear someone at the other. There was no one in the kitchen, but I spotted signs of life: Three places had been
set at the farm table by the fireplace. I headed back toward the other end of the house, checking the dining room, living
room, screened-in porch, and small, wood-paneled library at the opposite end of the house from the kitchen. No one.

As I walked back toward the hall, I heard voices and footsteps. Cat came down the stairs, barefoot, wearing jeans and a tight
spandex-y black turtleneck with short sleeves, no bra. Her blond hair had been pulled up in a high ponytail. Jeff was behind
her, at the top of the stairs, and I caught the final motion of him zipping his jeans. Great. Nothing like catching your hosts
with their pants nearly around their ankles.

“You scared me for a second,” Cat said. “We didn’t hear your car, but then I heard sounds in the house.”

“I’m not too early, am I?”

“No, we were just getting ready for lunch.” She hugged me casually and Jeff said hello as he came down the rest of the stairs.
No chapped lips on my cheek today; nothing sinister, either. Just friendly but distant Jeff.

Lunch was take-out salads and cold cuts that Cat had picked up in town earlier. While Jeff went to the basement to grab a
bottle of wine, I helped her open the cartons and spoon food onto plates. Though there were still dark circles under her eyes,
she seemed relaxed in a way I hadn’t seen since before that horrible Sunday. I guess that’s what sex before lunch will do
for you. Just before we sat down the phone rang, and after a minute I could tell she was talking to Leslie, mostly about work
stuff, but I heard her ask, “What time should we be there?” When she got off she announced that Leslie had asked the three
of us to dinner tonight. Something not to look forward to.

It was hard for me to generate much enthusiasm for lunch. My stomach was doing a weird dance, from pure nervousness, I was
sure, and the mood at the table didn’t help. Jeff was friendly, but in a detached way, making a few bland comments about California
wine versus French and then getting absorbed in his food. And Cat seemed quiet for Cat. As I watched her tear off a piece
of bread from the baguette, I couldn’t help but think that those same hands may have made the poison truffles.

“So when is Tyler getting here?” I asked, trying to find a topic. “I bet you’re happy beyond belief.”