Lethally Blond (14 page)

When it finally came time to dress for my trip uptown, I spent more energy than I would have liked selecting an outfit. That’s because Locket, I knew, would be checking me out, running her eyes up and down me and then widening them slightly in that way of hers, suggesting that I had a skanky wet stain on the front of my pants. I didn’t want to award her any more power than she already possessed. I finally settled on a pair of black slacks, a long-sleeved black sweater, and killer red slingbacks. And the diamond studs my mother had given me after my divorce to make up for the jewelry my husband had pawned for his gambling debts.

As I’d expected, the apartment building she lived in on Central Park West was one of those big, imposing stone edifices that look as though they could survive a massive meteor attack. Her apartment, on the other hand, was far
more
than I’d expected. I’d assumed, of course, that she and Alex lived in something spacious and classy—why wouldn’t they? But after she’d ushered me into her gallery-size foyer, I saw that the apartment behind her was beyond sumptuous and seemed to go on forever. The ceilings were easily fifteen feet high.

“A slight change of plans,” she announced before I even had a chance to say hello. “Alex just called, and his golf game is over earlier than expected. I certainly don’t want him to find you here.”

“What if we run out for coffee?” I asked. I was
not
going to let her out of confessing whatever dirty little secret she had planned to spill to me.

“Actually, I thought we could go over to the Central Park Boathouse for a drink. I can give the dog a walk.”

She turned and headed down a hallway to the right of the gallery, where it seemed the bedrooms must be. Halfway down, she gently slapped her thigh several times and called out the name Muchi. Why wasn’t I surprised by the name of the dog?

As she entered a bedroom in search of what I knew for certain would be a dog no bigger than a head of Bibb lettuce, I edged my way to the back of the gallery and peeked into the living room. It was gigundo, with three different seating areas, fabrics splashed with oranges and gold and pale, minty green, killer views of Central Park, and a floor-to-ceiling limestone fireplace that you could roast a pig in. Through a doorway at the end of the living room, I could see a huge dining room, also looking onto the park, with not one but two huge round tables. This would be tough to have to relinquish.

At the pitter-patter of little feet, I spun back around. The dog was indeed a teacup pup, a fluffy little white thing with coal black eyes that I knew was neither a pug nor a Chihuahua, but I had no clue to the breed and didn’t care enough to ask. Locket had tied a Hermès scarf around her head and donned a pair of big round black sunglasses. In her slim yellow pants and crisp white blouse with three-quarter sleeves, she looked as if she were attempting to channel Jackie-O.

After crossing Central Park West and entering the park, we walked about another twenty minutes before reaching our destination—and she didn’t say a word to me the entire way. I took her silence to mean that we would wait until we were sitting down—and she didn’t have to concentrate on yanking Muchi’s nose out of every dog turd that she encountered—to talk. Heads turned as we walked, people either recognizing Locket even behind the headgear or guessing that with so much camouflage going on, she had to be
somebody
.

When we reached the Boathouse restaurant, nearly on the East Side, she steered me to the outdoor café part along the side and then toward a table by the water. There were still a few people rowing boats on the lake, many of them clunkily, as if they’d never used oars before. The lake was that mossy green color of hip waders and almost thick looking, though you could see flecks of orange from the koi. Though the willows and maples bordering the lake drooped from the lack of much rain late this summer, they were still vivid green. The trees in my mother’s backyard were probably already tinged with yellow, but there wouldn’t be a sign of autumn in Central Park for weeks.

“So what did you want to see me about?” I asked after we’d each ordered a glass of wine and she’d positioned Muchi on her lap—as if she were holding a large powder puff. I’d spent the walk through the park waiting and wondering exactly what she had up her sleeve, and I didn’t have any patience left.

“I’d like to know what you were insinuating last night—about me and Tom?”

For all her haughtiness, she couldn’t prevent the catch in her voice when she said his name.

“I wasn’t insinuating anything,” I replied.

She let out a breath, clearly confused by my comment. “Well, it certainly sounded like you were. I have a reputation to maintain, and I can’t have people going around making careless remarks.”

“Actually, I was calling a spade a spade. I
know
you were involved with Tom sexually.”

She still had her sunglasses on, a disadvantage for me, but I could spy her eyes just enough through the lenses to spot the alarm that registered in them.

“How dare you,” she said in an angry whisper. A young guy at the next table shot a look in our direction, probably not because he’d overheard her words, but because her whole body had stiffened and her mouth was tight in anger. Muchi seemed to sense her discomfort, too, and raised her itty-bitty snout. I hoped she wasn’t contemplating leaping across the table and taking a bite out of my face.

“Locket, let’s not play any games,” I said. “I know, and you know I know. That’s why you wanted to meet with me.”

“What is this—some kind of extortion?”

“No, all I want are facts. I know you were in Andes the day Tom died. I want you to tell me what happened that day.” I was playing a hunch, based totally on the empty bottle of Veuve Clicquot and the rumpled bed.

“Did you
date
Tom or something? I thought you were
Chris’s
girlfriend.”

“I’m a
friend
of Chris’s—and I was looking into Tom’s disappearance for him. Now I’m trying to find out who killed him.”

“Just for sport?” she asked sarcastically.

“No, because I’m worried that the local sheriff’s office may have a hard time investigating a case that took place up there but has so many ties to New York. Now, tell me about your trip to Andes.”

She started to open her mouth, and all I could think was, Bingo. But then a young woman dressed in tennis whites and a visor and carrying a tennis bag barged over to our table.

“Do you mind my asking what kind of dog that is?” she asked. “I want one like that.” There was something about her manner that suggested she’d recognized Locket, and I guessed that the dog inquiry was a ruse just to get up close to a legendary soap star.

“It’s a Maltese—and they’re very ferocious,” Locket said in exasperation. The girl looked irritated and plopped down at the table that had just emptied behind us. I hoped I hadn’t lost momentum.

“Should I repeat the question?” I asked.

“Why should I have to tell you?” she asked.

“If the answer is satisfactory, I may be able to keep it between the two of us. Otherwise I may have to take action.”

She thought for a moment, the fingers of her right hand pressed against those inner-tube lips. They were so ripe, they looked almost edible.

“First you have to tell me how you developed this little theory of yours,” she demanded. “If you have information, regardless of whether it’s true or not, someone else may have it, too.”

“No one else has access to the info I have,” I lied. “Of course, that’s not to say someone else hasn’t learned about you and Tom in some other way. Tom arrived at Andes on Saturday morning, and my guess is that you met him there sometime that afternoon.”

Locket exhaled loudly. “All right, I
did
go see Tom that afternoon,” she confessed. “That weekend I was staying with some friends of mine about an hour south of Andes, and I drove to Tom’s house for the afternoon. But he was very much alive when I left, I can assure you.”

“Is there any chance Alex knew about your affair with Tom?”

“Absolutely not,” she declared with indignation. But I could tell by the way she stiffened again that the same thought had crossed her mind recently.

“How can you be so sure?”

“He was working that day—in New York. Things are fine with us—he had no idea.”

“What about Harper?” I asked. “Could she have figured it out, that you and Tom were lovers?”

She lifted her hand from its spot on Muchi’s back and took a sip of her wine, which until now had gone mostly untouched.

“It’s possible,” she said, setting down the glass. “Harper had started to put more pressure on Tom lately. I could tell from her behavior that she wanted to take the relationship up a notch. But Tom wasn’t ready for a long-term relationship with anyone, let alone her.”

“Was that a problem for you—did
you
want to take things with him up a notch?”

She snorted. “You
can’t
be serious. I worked my fanny off to get from some no-name town in West Virginia to where I am today, and I’d hardly throw it away for a boy toy, no matter how hot he was between the sheets. Tom was a wonderful diversion for me—and I for him. We provided a certain—
comfort
to each other.”

“What about Deke—did you know about Tom’s problem with Deke?”

“Deke? I have no idea what you’re talking about. Believe it or not, our relationship didn’t involve a lot of
talking
. I’m not the kind of woman who needs chitchat.”

“So—”

“Look, I wish I knew who killed Tom, but I don’t. You asked me to tell you about that afternoon, and I have. I’ve kept my end of the bargain, and I expect you to as well.”

“What time did you leave that afternoon?”

“At around four. I needed to get back to where I was staying.”

“What were the last words Tom said to you?”

“Pardon me?”

It was kind of a wacky question, but I wanted to hear how authentic she sounded. It would give me a sense of whether he was really alive when she left.

“You heard me.”

“He walked me to my car and said good-bye, and then he kissed me.”

“And that was it? Nothing about his plans for the rest of the day?”

“No,” she said, but she’d hesitated for a second before responding.

“What?” I demanded.

She glanced around the area. The girl with the tennis visor was reading a magazine. There was just one last boat on the lake, and the people in it were rowing toward shore. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a turtle surface and poke its head above water.

“I talked to Tom later on the phone,” she admitted. “He wanted to be sure I arrived back okay to my friends’ house, so I called him. It was about five-thirty.”

“There wasn’t a record of it on his cell phone.”

“I called the house phone. He’d given me the number since his cell phone got such bad reception up there.”

“And he said something about his plans then?”

“No, he said he had to get off the phone. Somebody had just driven up.”

CHAPTER 12

A
n editor I used to work with once cut the word
thunderstruck
from a lead I wrote, saying it was not only hyperbolic but antiquated. Yet I don’t know what word could have better described how I felt at that moment with Locket.
You stupid, silly, Botoxed, blubber-lipped ninny!
I wanted to scream. She possessed information of crucial importance to the police, and she was just sitting on it to protect her bony ass.

But I didn’t scream. I didn’t want to do anything to freak her out and thus derail the revelation that was in the process of unfolding.

“Driven up?” I said. “He used those exact words?”

“Yes. He said someone had just driven up.”

“He didn’t say who it was?”

“No, and I didn’t ask. I didn’t butt into Tom’s business.”

“And when you called him, where was he?”

“I don’t know. He just said he was working—painting.”

“Did he say anything else? Anything at all?”

She paused, foraging through her memory. “He made a strange comment that I thought might be a quote—like from a play or a poem. He said he had to—let me think—‘arm himself against some unhappy words.’”

“Sounds Shakespearean,” I said, puzzled. Chris had tossed out a line from
Merchant of Venic
e when we’d first met, so it would be worth asking him if he recognized it. Alan Carr, however, might be an even better resource.

“Had you ever heard him use that phrase before?”

“No, never.”

“Locket,” I said as calmly as I could, “Tom may not have offered up a name to you, but this is still a critical piece of information for the police to know. It’s evidence that Tom knew the person who killed him—that it wasn’t a stranger.”

“But the person who stopped by didn’t necessarily kill him,” she said defensively, almost petulantly. “I heard that the police aren’t sure when he died. It could have happened the next day for all they know.”

“Aren’t we dealing with an awfully big coincidence, then? Tom’s holed up for the weekend in a town where he barely knows anyone anymore, and as far as I can tell, you’re one of the few people he’s informed that he’s there. All of a sudden someone drives up, and he tells you that he’s about to come face-to-face with someone’s unhappiness. That
has
to be just before he was murdered—it’s essential that you go to the police with this information.”

“I
can’t
do that,” she exclaimed in a loud whisper, a hint of her Southern roots suddenly creeping into her voice. “There’s no way in the world I can let Alex find out I was up there.”

“This is a murder investigation, Locket.”

The sun was beginning to sink in the sky somewhere behind the buildings that rimmed the park; Locket slipped her sunglasses off her face and dropped them on the table. Her eyes betrayed both worry and anger.

“I bet the next thing you’re going to tell me,” she said, “is that if
I
don’t do it,
you
will.”

“No, I’m not going to say that. I don’t have to. Because the police are going to have a record of that call, and it’s only a matter of time before they contact you about it. I just think it would be a lot smarter for you to take control and reach out to them first.”

She caught her breath, started to say something, and then bit her tongue. She took a sip of wine as if she were fortifying herself.

“All right, I’ll do it,” she announced as she set the glass down firmly. “But I have to pick the right moment. I can’t do it when Alex is hovering around me. I’m not shooting any scenes on Tuesday, and that’s going to be the best time. I’ll call that detective I spoke to—he gave me his card.”

Something was cooking in that little brain of hers—something that had eased her worry. I couldn’t figure out what it might be.

“And you know what—I don’t have to say I was involved with Tom,” she added. “I can just tell them I was calling him about something to do with the show—a scene we were shooting.”

Oh, so that was it. Well, let her lie about that, I thought. What mattered was that she was going to tell them about the phone call—and the cops were surely smart enough to fill in the blanks.

Locket signaled for the check, and I decided to let her pay since she was Miss Moneybags. After she’d slid several bills from her wallet and laid them on the plate, she looked directly in my eyes.

“You probably think I’m so cold, don’t you. But I cared about Tom, I really did. After they decided to cast me as the lead, they tested me with him—for the part that went to Chris in the end. We had a special connection from that moment on.”

“I heard Tom came pretty close to landing the part. Do you know why they went with Chris instead?”

“Yes—but you can’t say anything to
anyone
about this. They thought Tom was terrific, and they were all set to go with him, but they found out that he’d been in rehab—for an addiction to antidepressants. They just weren’t going to take a chance with someone like that. I don’t think he ever realized the reason why—
I
certainly never brought it up with him.”

“Was Tom going to stick with the show? I heard things hadn’t been going so well for him.”

“I don’t know. He wasn’t all that invested in it after he lost the big part of Jared. He wanted to be able to try out for other things.”

She glanced at her watch, a white ceramic Chanel rimmed around the face with a couple of rows of dazzling little diamonds, worth many thousands. “Look, I have to get moving,” she announced irritatedly. Her tone indicated she’d just managed to reconnect with her inner diva. “I don’t want Alex wondering why I took the dog out long enough to circumvent the reservoir twice. Are you weady, Muchi?”

It was pretty clear she didn’t want me moseying on back to Central Park West with her, so after she departed with a curt good-bye, I sat for a while at the table, sipping my wine and thinking.

There was a chance, I knew, that parts of her story were a bunch of malarkey. Just as she’d thought nothing about twisting the truth for the cops, it would have been easy as pie for her to lie to me to protect herself. Maybe she really
had
killed Tom, and the whole bit about talking to him on the phone was just a fabrication calculated to add a layer of authenticity to her story. Of course, the phone records, which she’d seemed to have lost sight of, would either back her up or sink her.

I was inclined to believe her. It was one thing to cover her ass by making up a story, but the part about the Shakespearean quote seemed like such an odd element to throw in.

So if Locket didn’t do it, who did? Who had pulled up in a car late that afternoon and caused Tom to predict an eruption of unhappy words? Harper could certainly fill the slot. Let’s say she came back early from the West Coast, knew about the Andes house, and headed up there. She may even have seen Locket’s car and waited for her to depart (God, maybe she’d simply smelled her trail of patchouli), and that could have led to the fight from hell.

Deke was another strong possibility. If Tom had made noises about exposing Deke’s dishonesty to management, Deke could have decided to confront him about it. His intent may not have been to kill Tom, just to make him back off, but the situation could have escalated into violence.

And then there was Alex. The fact that he’d been down on Tom lately suggested that he’d picked up a whiff of the affair, or at least of an attraction between his star and the boy toy, and he could have decided to follow Locket when she went out of town that day. But if it had been Alex pulling up in the car, wouldn’t Tom have announced that to Locket? Maybe not. He may have not wanted to alarm her until he knew what it was all about.

As I drained the last of my wine, I glanced around me. The outdoor café had nearly emptied, and the last of the boats had been tied up on the shore of the lake. I picked up my bag and headed out of the park, past joggers and bikers on their final lap. I caught the subway at Lex and 68th Street and rode it to Astor Place.

I stopped at the grocery near my apartment and scarfed up a couple of chicken breasts, arugula, and cherry tomatoes in order to make chicken Milanese. Before I let myself into my apartment, I scribbled a note to Landon on an old envelope I dug out of my purse and slid it under his door. I could feel the early twinges of the Sunday night blues, and sharing a meal with him would help ameliorate things, especially if he provided a bottle of a super Tuscan, something he almost always did when I cooked Italian.

Chris had called when I’d switched off my phone during drinks with Locket, saying that he’d arranged for me to meet him at nine-thirty at Chelsea Piers. He gave me all the info I needed and said he’d see me the next day. Jessie had checked in, too, and I returned the call as soon as I’d dumped my supplies in the kitchen. She wanted to be filled in on anything that had happened at the party after she’d left and, as she put it, the latest developments in the sordid love triangle I now found myself in the middle of.

“I was no whiz at geometry,” I said, “but if I remember correctly, by definition you need three sides to make up a triangle. Since Beau has no interest in me, that only leaves two.”

“I told you he was gawking at you. These two girls kept trying to chat him up, and he would do this thing of looking off as if he were contemplating some brilliant answer, but he was always looking in your direction, checking you out.”

“Well, if there was any chance of ever seeing him again, I blew it.” I told her what had happened outside of the bathroom.

“Ouch. But I like what you said about the one postcard. Very funny.”

“Do you think there’s anything I can do? Landon told me I should just call him and ask him what he was going to say earlier. That I have nothing to lose by doing that.”

“
God, no
,” she exclaimed. “Landon is such a wienie to say that. If you go crawling on your belly like a reptile, you look desperate. You need to be a challenge to him, make him want you bad.”

“Well, the star of the show wrapped himself around me as tight as a python. Doesn’t that make me a challenge?”

“Too
much
of one. Guys don’t like challenges they can’t surmount.”

I sighed. “So are you saying there’s really nothing I can do?”

“No, I didn’t say that. You have to try what I call the sugar-and-spice strategy—and I suggest it only because Beau appears to have the hots for you—otherwise it would be pointless.”

“Okay, so tell me,” I demanded.

“Pick a time you don’t think he’ll be around and call his cell phone. Do
not
talk to him in person. Tell him there’s no need for him to call you back, you just wanted to apologize for being a little snippy. Make it light and say something funny. But not directed at
him
, Bailey, okay? Tell him good luck on his project—that you’d love to see it when it comes out.”

“How is that sugar and spice?” I asked.

“The sugar part is you being nice, not bitchy like you were last night. The spice part is you being kind of elusive. Not needing him to call back and saying you’d love to see the project when it’s finished, which is probably going to be a whole fucking year from now. You’ve opened the door just enough to let him kick it down if he wants to.”

“Okay, okay, thanks,” I said, doubtful.

“Just one condition. If you end up with Beau, you have to give me Tad Hamilton. He’s to die for.”

After I hung up, I didn’t give myself time to digest her comments and advice. I tried Harper again but struck out just as I had earlier in the day. I left another message on her voice mail saying I
really
had to talk to her. Then I made the call I was dreading—to Professor Alan Carr.

“Who did this to Tom?” he asked before I could get more than a couple of words out. “Do you know?” It was pretty clear he’d been drinking; he wasn’t slurring his words, but there was a sloppiness to them that suggested a few glasses of booze.

“No, but I am going to do everything possible to find out.”

“How could someone kill him? He was the world’s nicest guy. Tom wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“Maybe that was his problem. Too nice of a guy.”

“How do you mean?”

“He didn’t know how to say no to people. Damn, I can’t believe it.”

“I have a question for you, Professor Carr. Like I said, I’m doing what I can to investigate Tom’s death. Shortly before he was killed, he apparently told someone he was arming himself against some unhappy words. Do you know if that’s a line from a play—and what it might mean?”

The phone went quiet as he thought, but after a moment I almost wondered if I’d lost reception.

“Profess—”

“‘Be thou armed for some unhappy words.’ Baptista says it in
The Taming of the Shrew
.”

“What are the circumstances?” I asked. That was one play of Shakespeare’s I probably hadn’t read since high school.

“Petruchio is sure he won’t have a problem wooing Katherina because he’s as obstinate as she’s supposed to be. Baptista wishes him luck but predicts he’s in for trouble. He tells Petruchio, ‘Be thou armed for some unhappy words.’”

“Would that line or the play itself have had any kind of special meaning for Tom?”

“He did a scene from it here for a class. Not that particular scene, but he played Petruchio. I remember because he was so goddamn good. And later he told me he did the play in New York. At some off off Broadway place. Or maybe it was just in a workshop.”

“But why would he quote that particular line?”

“I dunno. Tom loved Shakespeare. He loved to toss out lines from the plays.”

“Speaking of plays, did Tom mention he’d written a play?”

“Yes, it was a great little play he hoped to stage. Do the police have any leads? We’re all sick about this.”

I revealed that the police weren’t sharing much with me, but before I hung up I promised him I would pass on what I knew when I knew it.

Washing the arugula, I considered what I’d learned about the line. If Tom were in the habit of quoting the Bard, he might have used that phrase whenever he was faced with unhappy words in life. But there was a chance it could have a more particular significance. What I needed to do was find out when and where Tom had been in the play. I had turned over his résumé to the sheriff in Andes, but Chris might know about Tom’s stint as Petruchio.