Night Vision (28 page)

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Authors: Ellen Hart

BOOK: Night Vision
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“Okay.” Jane figured she'd eat something and then take off. She planned to spend the rest of the day looking for David.
 
“Let me pour you a glass,” said Freddy. He was standing in the kitchen, opening a bottle of Roederer Cristal Rose Limited. Jane
couldn't even imagine what it had cost. If it was under a thousand bucks she would have been surprised.
On the table in the dining room was a feast of hors d'oeuvres: a one-kilo tin of Beluga caviar surrounded by Russian-style blinis and crème fraîche; smoked salmon and dill timbales; fresh pears, green grapes and Roquefort cheese; and a plate of mango slices, foie gras, strips of rare roasted duck breast that had been drizzled with white truffle oil and chestnut honey. Jane knew what it all was because Joanna was standing next to it, martini in hand, explaining everything in great detail.
When her cell phone rang, Joanna's mood grew strained. “I'm going to break every goddamn phone I own. It's never anything but bad news.”
Jane commiserated. “I know what you mean.”
“Will you be a lamb and get that, Freddy?”
“Will do, Babycakes.” He brought Cordelia and Jane each a filled champagne flute, then picked up the cell off the coffee table in the living room. “Yeah?” said Freddy. He listened a moment. Glancing back over his shoulder, he said, “Joanna, it's somebody named Hillary. She says she has an appointment with you.
Right now.
” He shot her an is-this-for-real look.
“Tell her I've changed my mind,” said Joanna.
Freddy made quick work of brushing the woman off, then returned to the dining room. “I don't know about you folks, but this boy is starving.”
“Have you heard from David?” asked Jane, sipping the champagne. It tasted like vinegar in her mouth.
“Not a word,” said Joanna. “I told the police what I think. David couldn't have murdered Gordon. It's impossible. If he'd just come back here, I'm sure we could straighten everything out. Besides, the real murderer will be caught eventually.”
“Or maybe not,” said Freddy. “Be fine with me if he got away with it.”
“If David does come back to the loft, will you call me?” asked Jane.
“Of course,” said Joanna. “I know how much he means to you, too.”
They all took their plates into the living room and sat down.
Faye brought up the rear. Jane had met her only once before—at Cordelia's card game last night. She'd sat in for about an hour, been very talkative at the table, but today, she seemed subdued. She glowered at Freddy as she sat down on one of the chairs. Jane wondered what the look was all about.
For the next half hour, Joanna talked about how relieved she was. Jane tried to follow the conversation, but it was impossible. All she could think about was David. She stayed long enough to have a slice of linzertorte, then excused herself. As she was heading out the front door, she saw a delivery man speeding toward her down the hallway. “What's that?” she asked, nodding to the package in his hand.
“Flowers,” he said. “Are you—” He looked at the delivery slip.
“Joanna Kasimir?”
“No,” said Jane, feeling instantly wary. Drawing her eyes away from the package, she stepped back inside and said, “Joanna, there's a flower delivery for you.”
All conversation stopped.
Joanna's eyes, sparkling from several drinks, registered shock.
“Flowers?” repeated Freddy. Rising from his chair, he said, “I'm sure it's nothing, babe. Let me take care of it.” He signed the slip, then carried the package over to the dining room table and tore off the paper. Underneath was a bouquet of pink tea roses.
Jane closed the door and came back inside. She locked eyes with Cordelia.
“This … this has got to be a joke,” said Joanna, giving a high, nervous laugh. “Freddy, is there a message?” She tried to sound light, but there was an unmistakable quiver in her voice.
A small white envelope was attached to a plastic card holder. Freddy opened it and read it silently.
“What does it say?” asked Joanna.
He looked up. “It's just what we thought. A joke. Let's toss the whole thing in the trash.”
“No,” said Joanna, standing up this time. “Read it.”
“Babycakes—”
“Read it !”
Clearing his throat, he read,
“‘See how much I love you?
Maybe
now
you'll understand.'”
H
illary stood just outside the Greek restaurant on the first floor of the Linden Building and stared at the open cell phone in her hand. Had she heard the man right? Joanna wasn't interested in giving an interview? She'd promised!
Hillary backed away from a pillar, then turned and rushed for the door.
Charging out into the gray afternoon light, she pressed her hands to the sides of her head, trying to stop her brain from spinning out of control. Somehow, she found her car, climbed in, and drove home, barely registering the other cars, the traffic lights, the people out walking or riding their bikes. Before she knew it, she was in the driveway of her father's house.
“Fuck,” she screamed, glancing over at the new briefcase she'd brought. She'd gone out yesterday to look for one. Two hundred and seventy-nine dollars. All leather. She wanted to impress Joanna with her professionalism. She'd bought a Waterman fountain pen with a gold tip. Another hundred bucks. A digital camera so she could take pictures. Three hundred and change. A wool, rayon, and silk suit jacket and slacks. Anne Klein. Nordstrom. Even on sale it was over three hundred. But it fit like a glove, made her feel important. Stylish.
So what was she supposed to do now? Go inside and impress her fat-assed father with how cool she looked?
Entering through the back door, she felt as if sharp claws were digging at her shoulder blades.
“Hill, that you?” Her father was in the living room, as usual. Watching something inane on the tube.
“Yeah,” she yelled back. She opened the fridge and grabbed a Coke.
“Hill, would you get me a Sprite?”
“No. I'm busy,” she said, adding, “you damn pervert,” under her breath as she dashed up the stairs.
Flinging the briefcase on the bed, she cracked the top of the can, then stomped around the bedroom. She had to figure out what to do next. She'd signed a contract with the editor at
Mill City Magazine
that she'd have a feature article to him by tomorrow morning. They wanted it ASAP, mostly because they didn't want anyone else scooping them. The money she would earn would not only cover everything she'd bought but also put some cash in the bank. Joanna Kasimir's name was like catnip to an editor. Hillary had talked it up, said they were friends, that she'd picked Joanna up at Flying Cloud the day her private jet had landed. That she'd never used her journalism degree before, but now she felt it was time. The guy wanted a résumé, samples of what she'd written, but Hillary said to take the deal or leave it. If he didn't want it, somebody else would.
She liked playing hardball with the big guys, felt that she was born to do it. This was her big break. How could Joanna have shafted her? They were kindred spirits. Sisters.
Sitting down on the bed, Hillary pulled off her jacket and unbuttoned her blouse. She moved slowly, deliberately. Once she'd undressed, she hung up the new suit in the closet and then picked up her Coke and walked into the bathroom.
She stood next to the toilet and examined herself in the mirror. “You're a loser,” she said, a disgusted sneer on her face. “I hate you. You're a worm. You deserve nothing and that's what you get. You're fat. Ugly. Useless!” A rushing noise filled her ears. She was repulsed,
sickened by the sight of her breasts, her hair, her face. Everything about her was just gross.
She opened the medicine cabinet and took out a razor. She felt like a spectator watching someone else. Staring at her image in the mirror, she cut herself, sliced her upper thigh right next to the other cuts that had healed into scars. Blood trickled down her leg. It wasn't real. But then the pain hit. She closed hear eyes, breathed in deeply, felt a sense of release.
It wasn't enough. Easing down against the shower door, she cut herself again. Her upper arm, where nobody could see but Cody. He didn't understand. He never would. Each time she cut again, the tension in her body eased a little more. A few more drops of blood dripped onto the bathroom floor. She set the razor on her knee.
“I hate you,” she said, staring up at the ceiling. “I hate you, Joanna Kasimir. You ruined everything. You'll pay for treating me like I'm nothing. That's a promise—and I
keep
my promises.”
W
ith Mouse in tow, Jane began her search for David by covering the bars closest to the Linden Building and then fanning out. It was slow, tedious work. She had a photo of him in her wallet, a close-up, one he'd sent her several years ago. He and Diego had taken a cruise to the eastern Caribbean. He was standing on a beach in St. Maarten, looking windblown and happy. Examining his face, she had a hard time believing it was the same ravaged-looking man she'd seen last night in the stairwell.
At the Gay Nineties on Hennepin, one of the best-known gay bars in the Twin Cities, she talked to lots of people who hesitated over the snapshot. One man, a dark-haired preppy type in his early thirties, hesitated the longest, but in the end, said David looked like a man he'd talked to last night, but he couldn't be sure.
At the Brass Rail, Jane spoke with anyone who would talk to her. She must have handed out thirty cards. Before she left, she ran into a real lowlife character—a seedy-looking guy with tin-colored hair. He smelled bad and looked dirty. His face lit up when he saw the picture, but he turned back to his drink without comment. When she pressed him on it, he said he'd never seen the man before and to leave him
alone. Jane pulled one of her cards out of her pocket and set it down next to his beer.
Around seven, feeling tired and dispirited, she took Mouse for a walk down by the Mississippi River. They both needed some fresh air. She'd been racking her brain all afternoon trying to think of where David might have gone. She had a headache from all the thinking.
As she sat down on the bench, she gazed at the water. It was a gray, dreary evening. The river looked hard, like it was made of liquid slate. If David wanted to drink and be invisible, he'd probably pick someplace dark and divey, someplace out of the way. Considering all the dark, out-of-the-way dives in the Twin Cities, Jane figured she could be at this for years.
“Okay, Mouse. Just listen. If David thinks he's losing his mind, and if you add to that the knowledge—real or imagined—that he may have killed someone, I think it's possible he took off. He ran away from Atlanta. I think there's a better than even chance that he's done the same now—left Minneapolis. You agree?”
Mouse liked to listen, but he wasn't quick with opinions.
“It's a hard call.” Looking down at the phone in her hand, she pushed in the number for Nolan. When he picked up, she said, “It's Jane. Where are you?”
“Working at home.”
“Did you hear about the roses Joanna received today?”
“Got an earful from both her and her boyfriend.”
“What do you think?”
“I think,” he said, releasing a breath, “that we've been spinning our wheels. All this time we thought Luberman was sending the flowers. Now it turns out it was someone else.”
Jane had come to the same conclusion.
“Hitchcock called me a few minutes ago. Get this. Around one this afternoon, they pulled a woman's body out of Whitefish Lake.”
Her eyes fastened on the river. “Is it—”
“They found a ring on one of the fingers. The father ID'd it. The
body's pretty badly decomposed, so they'll have to do tests to make sure, but Hitchcock sounded pretty positive.”
Jane's thoughts started to ricochet like pinballs. “That means whoever killed Luberman thinking he was doing Joanna a favor, if he'd just waited, if he'd just given it a little more time, none of it would have been necessary.”
“The police would have done their job and Luberman would be behind bars by now.”
Jane shook her head, trying to absorb what it all meant. “So if Joanna hadn't hired you and sent us chasing after him, none of this would have happened. It was her fear that drew him back into her life. Talk about a tragedy of errors.”
“That about covers it. But we've got to move on because there's someone out there who may still present a danger to Joanna.”
“I wondered about that, too.” She looked down at Mouse, pulled his ear.
“I had Joanna's people in L.A. send me the current files on the crazies in her life. It's all on a CD. I never looked at it because I thought Luberman was our man.”
“Do the police have a copy of the CD?”
“I burned two copies. Sent one over to Drea. That's what I've been looking at for the last half hour. What fries me is the bizarre stuff people do. Get this. One fan in Florida sends her his hair clippings—every time he gets a haircut. You wouldn't believe the kind of crap people mail her. 'Course, I shouldn't be surprised after what I've seen in my lifetime, but I have to admit, I am. Hey, I don't suppose I could get you to take a look at this file.”
“Is the file divided by areas of the country?”
“No, by levels of potential danger. You got anything on your agenda for the rest of the night?”
“I've been out looking for David.”
“Any luck?”
“Nope.”
“Then stop by. I'll give you the disk and you can take it home. If you find something, let me know.”
Jane figured she might as well keep busy. She had no desire to spend any more time running around the city, looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack.
As she hung up, a runner came past. Mouse tugged at the leash. And that's when Jane remembered Brandy. At least she was safe now that Gordon was dead. But she probably hadn't heard the news.
Using her cell phone again, she called directory assistance and was put through to the IHOP in Eagle Ridge. The man who answered said that Brandy wasn't there. She was supposed to be working the evening shift but hadn't come in and hadn't called. He sounded frustrated, said he'd called her house about an hour ago, but there was no answer.
Panic squeezed Jane hard. She disconnected and tapped in 411 right away, asked to be connected to the sheriff's office in Eagle Ridge.
“Hi, my name's Jane Lawless. I live in Minneapolis. There's a woman in your town you need to check on—something might have happened to her. Her name is Brandy Becker. She was dating Gordon Luberman. You know who he is?”
The officer said he did.
“Brandy didn't show up for work tonight, and she doesn't answer her home phone. Can you send someone over to her house to see if she's okay? It's urgent. She could be hurt—or worse.”
Once Jane was assured an officer would be sent immediately, she asked if someone could call her back, let her know that Brandy was safe. She gave the man her cell number, thanked him, then hung up.

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