Park Avenue (Book Six in the Fifth Avenue Series) (35 page)

CHAPTER
FORTY-SEVEN

When her driver dropped
her off at home, Leana had, in that brief span of time, enough time to know
exactly how she felt.
 

She left the Bentley with
Sean, thanked him for his help, said she’d see him tomorrow and stepped quickly
into her building.
 
She appreciated
him, but wondered when the time would come when she wouldn’t feel so paranoid
about being out in public.
 
Because
of all that had happened, she was feeling more and more like a prisoner.
 

And it was getting old.

She decided to call
Anastassios the next day to see if he had learned anything about the murders
that happened on his ship, and if he still felt there was a link to what was
happening to her now.
 
There was a
possibility that they were coincidences.
 
But in her gut, she felt that couldn’t be the case.

She called out Mario’s
name when she entered their penthouse, but there was no answer.
 
It was still reasonably early.
 
He could be at his restaurant with his
brothers for all she knew.

She went to the phone and
called her father.
 
When he
answered, she said, “There’s no need to wait.
 
I’ll take on the Columbus Circle project
and manage Pepper there.
 
You’re
stuck with her on her other projects.
 
Sorry about that.
 
I need to
see how this plays out between us before I move forward with any plans that
might affect my future.”

“Fair enough,” George
said.
 
“But if those are your terms,
there’s a condition.
 
As we agreed
upon earlier, you work Columbus and your hotel at the same time.
 
You’ll need to do both, because I’m
losing time.
 
I promise to keep
Pepper in check.”

“You think you can do
that?”

“If she wants to work for
me, I can.
 
Are you agreeable to
that?”

It was a lot to take
on.
 
If she split her time like
this, she could fail with her hotel and also with her father’s project.
 
Could she do it?

I can do it.

“I’ll agree to it,” she
said.
 
“I’ll be onsite tomorrow
morning.
 
Tell Pepper I expect her
there by five, but you need to have a good, long, definitive talk with her
beforehand.
 
She needs to understand
that she will be answering to me, not you.
 
Me.
 
If she acts up, I’ll
give her one warning.
 
If she
continues, I’ll fire her from the project.
 
That could happen as early as tomorrow if she doesn’t have her act
together.
 
Those are my terms.
 
Otherwise, I’m out and will go forward
on my own.
 
As for my hotel, I’ll be
spending afternoons and evenings there.
 
No exceptions.
 
I plan on
succeeding with each.”

“Those are big plans,” he
said.
 
“Especially considering the
deadlines.
 
You’re ready for this?”

“I was ready five years
ago.”

“I won’t have you fire
Pepper out of spite.”

She wasn’t offended by
the comment.
 
It was a natural
concern given her relationship with Pepper.
 
“I don’t intend to.
 
She just needs to understand the chain
of command.
 
If she doesn’t and she
pulls anything that undermines me, I’ll contact you first before I take
action.
 
Fair enough?
 
I think you’ll agree that, if she does
misbehave, we’re better off without her than with her.
 
We each have deadlines to meet.
 
We each agree that your project must
succeed with minimal interruptions from someone who is pissed off that she
didn’t get her way.”

“You’re sounding more and
more like Celina,” he said.
 
“And
maybe even me.”

“Let’s
set the record straight.
 
I’m my own
person.
 
I’m not Celina.
 
I’m not you.
 
I’m Leana Redman.
 
Don’t forget it.”

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

It was ten days before
Piggy French’s body was found in her townhouse off Park, and when it was
discovered, it had become a bloated host to a nest of feasting maggots.
 

It was her maid,
Esperanza, who found Piggy with her nose smashed on the parlor floor and who
screamed at the sight of her dead employer resting in the cracked surface of
her own blood.
 

Sobbing, she screamed
again when she came upon Marvin’s decomposing body in the kitchen, where flies
were buzzing around him, zipping in and out of him, and where the air was more
foul than it would be around heaps of trash stacked three deep on a city street
in the middle of a blistering July heat.

When the police arrived,
a ruined Esperanza, who only spoke broken English, told them that she had been
on her yearly vacation to Miami to visit family and therefore didn’t find them
earlier.
 
She was questioned about
the moldy tea in the tea service beside Piggy, which was confiscated so it
could be tested.

“Miss Piggy drink lots of
different herbal teas, but she mostly liked the Goose,” she told the detective
who questioned her.
 

“The Goose?” the woman
said.

“You know, the Grey
Goose.
 
The vodka.
 
Miss Piggy called it ‘the Goose.’
 
She called it her ‘big way to get
through the day with an ‘A’.’
 
She
was funny that way.
 
She was big
drama queen.
 
Like my nephew, Juan
Carlos, whose drag name is Fleeta Sailors.
 
I know he’s going to burn in hell, but I love him anyway.”
 
She looked down at her former employer,
and put a hand over her heart.
 
“Oh,
Miss Piggy, you used to make me laugh more than Honey Boo Boo.
 
I’ll miss you.”

“Was Ms. French an
alcoholic?”

“Oh, sure.
 
She big drunk.
 
I used to find her passed out on the
bathroom floor, usually mumbling on about needing more of the Goose.
 
But since I couldn’t move her after she
got so fat, I’d just clean up around her.”

“You’d what?”

“I’d grab the Spic and
Span and clean up around her.
 
Miss
Piggy didn’t mind.
 
I don’t think
she really knew.
 
But somebody had
to clean up her vomit, so I did it.
 
It was my job.
 
And besides,
she was good to me.
 
She gave me big
yearly bonus, so I could go to Florida.
 
She was kind that way.”

When she was asked if
Piggy had any enemies, Esperanza shrugged.
 
“No, no.
 
Everyone like Miss
Piggy.
 
She had lot of friends.
 
She just didn’t see them anymore.”

“Why is that?”

“The Goose.”

“Everyone has an enemy,
Esperanza.
 
Certainly Piggy, with
all her money, had hers.”

“She had those two
ex-husbands who called her that mean word,” Esperanza said.

“What word?”

“This was long time
ago.
 
I don’ know.”

“What was the word?”

Esperanza
genuflected.
 
“
Heyzeus Cristo
.
 
I don’ wanna say it.”

“I’m asking you to say
it, Esperanza.”

She lowered her voice to
a whisper.
 
“They each call her a
coño
.”

“A what?”

“You know.
 
Coño.
 
Concha.
 
Pucha.
”

“I don’t know what that
means.”

“Cunt!” Esperanza shouted
in frustration.
 
“They call Miss
Piggy a cunt!”

Though
the tea was being tested for its compounds, each death was considered
accidental until it could be proved that foul play was involved.

CHAPTER
FORTY-NINE

James Cullen learned all
of this through various resources.
 
With Piggy French dead, people in the know were talking, especially
about the maggots found feasting on Piggy’s face, mouth and eyes, the news of
which was as much a titillation as it was as an abomination in their
circles.
 

Telephones rang.
 
Emails shot across the city as new
information was leaked.
 
At dinner
parties on Fifth and on Park, where Piggy had been a mainstay before the Goose,
the pills and the unwanted orgasms felled her, she was a source of conversation
that stood singularly at the trough.
 

Her death shook
society—as well as the society columns and the gossip blogs—and
Cullen absorbed it all with a thrill. Her undoing would have pleased his old
friend, Louis Ryan, if only because of all the times Piggy snubbed him.
 

Louis was of the new money,
and thus was never good enough for her.
 
She publicly humiliated him at parties, which Cullen, whose social
status was on par with Piggy’s, thought was cruel and unnecessary.
 
He never understood her, but now, at
this point, he’d never have to understand her again.

Now, in his office high
at the top of Manhattan Enterprises, he sat at his desk, opened the Times to
the obituary section, and saw the familiar faces of three people he once knew,
but who, like Piggy, were no longer among the living.

There were the Baron and
Baroness of Dorchester, each shown in their prime in older photos from one of
the grand dinner parties they were famous for giving at their over-the-top,
rococo-decorated penthouse on Fifth.
 
Cullen had been to several of those parties, and he had tried to
convince the baroness to invite Louis Ryan to one of them so he could
assimilate into society, but she always refused.

“He’s not one of us,
James.
 
He’s new.
 
Common.
 
And I hate what he’s doing to the
city.
 
All of those beautiful old buildings
torn down so he can construct those towering heaps of hideous glass.
 
I know you went to school with him.
 
I appreciate that, as well as your
friendship.
 
I know that even the
most unfortunate bonds can be made while at university.
 
But he never will be invited to one of
my dinner parties.
 
His presence
would tip the balance too far into the murk, and likely would leave the evening
there.
 
Who in our set would talk to
him, for heaven’s sake?
 
That man
looks like an ogre and has the manners of one.”

On another occasion, when
Louis pressed him, James tried to reason with the baron, who had none of
it.
 
“You know I’ll never go against
my wife, James.
 
I received my title
by marrying her.
 
And besides, Ryan
would sink the party by the end of the first course.
 
He’s crude and unformed.
 
He’s not respected or admired, and he’s
especially not generous.
 
With all
of his billions, show me one charitable organization that he’s funded in this
city.
 
Just one.”

“I can’t.”

“I know you can’t.
 
Look.
 
Greed rests upon the plates of too many
that attend our parties, but at least they are skilled enough not to show their
hands as readily as Ryan does.
 
All
give at least a portion of their fortunes away to those in need.
 
Many sit on the right boards.
 
Some begin meaningful foundations and
sustain them.
 
They also attend
church, which Ryan doesn’t.
 
And
he’s Catholic, not Protestant, which doesn’t sit well with anyone.
 
They understand the rules, whereas Ryan
doesn’t.
 
I’m sorry.
 
He never will be welcome here.”

Cullen told all of it to
Ryan, who felt slighted and never forgot it.
 

Cullen skimmed through
each obituary and saw that their deaths were being ruled a murder-suicide, with
the baron shooting his wife before shooting himself in the head.
 
There was mention of a note the baron
left behind, written in his own hand that hinted at a long-term battle with
depression.
 
“I don’t see the point
of this anymore,” he wrote.
 
“Living
in her shadow has become impossible for me.”