Stabbing Stephanie (16 page)

Jane stared at Audrey in surprise.

“What shocks you, that she took my guy or that she lies like a rug?”

“Well—” Jane blustered. “Both!”

Audrey nodded simply. “You watch out for her, Jane. Get rid of her as soon as you can. She's trouble. She's a lying, conniving bitch, and she'll do you wrong as fast as she did me if it suits her purposes.” She finally turned and lifted her cleaning off the rack. “Unbelievable,” she muttered, and without a good-bye—unusual for Audrey—she walked out of the store.

Jane turned back to the counter, where Marie still stood, patiently waiting. From Marie's expression, Jane could tell she'd heard everything.

Jane realized she hadn't put down her cleaning tickets. She handed them to Marie.

“Thanks, Mrs. Stuart,” the older woman said, and suddenly stared at the store's plate-glass window. Jane turned, following her gaze, and jumped.

On the other side of the glass, Ivor stood perfectly still, watching them. Recognizing Jane, he smiled. She gave him a tentative little smile back.

“Please, Mrs. Stuart,” Marie said in a rush. “Don't encourage him. He's always here—on the sidewalk, on the green—bothering people, asking for money. I've complained to the police, but they don't seem to want to do anything.” She looked at Jane's ticket, then looked up again at Jane. “You're still seeing that nice Greenberg fellow, aren't you?”

“Yes . . .” Jane said, surprised.

“Put in a word, will you?” Marie said, and headed toward the back of the store to find Jane's cleaning.

“I
t sounds like a remarkable book, Jane,” said Hamilton Kiels, executive editor at Corsair Publishing. “When did you say you're closing?”

“Tuesday, December fifth. That gives everyone enough time even with Thanksgiving—and it gives me time to go on vacation.”

“Got it. Can't wait to read it.”

“You're gonna love it. Watch for it tomorrow morning.”

Jane hung up and went out to Daniel's desk. Next to his computer was a large stack of phone messages—not unusual for a Monday morning, even this early. Looking up, he pointed to a box he'd placed on a table against the far wall that they used for collating materials and preparing submissions.

“Ten copies of
The Blue Palindrome,
ready to go. I'm just finishing up the cover letters.”

“Great. Thanks. I feel really good about this project. I think it's going to go big.”

“From your mouth to God's ears,” he said, turning back to his computer and resuming typing. “Oh,” he said, looking up again, “your messages.” He handed her the pile of slips. She flipped through them. The calls were nearly all from clients; there were a few from editors to whom she'd already pitched
The Blue Palindrome
. One was from Arliss Krauss, probably calling to get some idea of whether any other publishers had expressed interest. Jane had made it clear that everyone would receive the manuscript at the same time, but Arliss probably hadn't believed her. Jane would call her first.

She finished returning her calls a little before noon. She had no lunch plans today and went out to ask Daniel if he'd like to go to Whipped Cream with her. He'd get to see Ginny that way.

“Thanks, Jane, but Ginny and I actually have plans already.” He looked down shyly. “We've got an appointment to look at an apartment.”

“I
see,”
Jane said, beaming. “How wonderful. I hope you like it.”

“Thanks, Jane.”

She got her coat from the closet, wished him luck, and went out, starting across Center Street toward the green.

“Jane! Jane!”

Stephanie, in her mink, a newspaper under her arm, approached rapidly from the right. Apparently she'd walked from her office around the corner. From her expression it was clear she had something important on her mind.

“Stephanie—what's the matter?”

“Jane,” she said, reaching her, “Jane, are you free for lunch? Can I take you out for lunch?”

Stephanie's offer to treat was all the evidence Jane needed that Stephanie needed to talk.

“Yes, I'm free. Are you okay?”

Stephanie opened her mouth to speak, closed it, opened it again—clearly she didn't know where to begin. “I'll tell you at lunch. Where should we go?”

“Whipped Cream?”

Stephanie frowned, glancing across the green at the café's quaint brick front. “Where your friend Ginny works?”

“Yes, but she won't be there now.”

Stephanie considered this, then shook her head. “Too . . . popular. Where else?”

“There's Giorgio's,” Jane said, pointing to the left. “Good pizza, sandwiches, but nothing fancy.”

“It's fine.” Stephanie had already started along the sidewalk.

Seated in a booth in the storefront restaurant that had a gigantic mural of Italy on one wall, Stephanie set down the newspaper she'd been carrying, slipped off her coat, and laid it beside her on the seat. “Jane, something happened at the office today, something strange, and I wondered if I could confide in you about it. I don't know who else to talk to.”

“Of course,” Jane said, dreading whatever it was. She'd had enough “strange” to last her several years. “Now, what happened?”

“It was a little after I got to work this morning, not long after you and I drove into the village together. I'd picked up a
New York Times
at the newsstand before I walked over to the office, and I was sitting at my desk reading it, and I noticed something odd.”

A young man in a white apron appeared with menus. Jane didn't have to look—she wanted a slice of broccoli-olive pizza and a Diet Coke and ordered it. Dr. Stillkin be damned.

“Same,” Stephanie said. The minute the young man was gone, she continued. “Anyway, I noticed something odd in the paper. It was a small story about a jewelry dealer in New York City who'd been found murdered.”

Jane chuckled cynically. “Nothing unusual about that.”

“No,” Stephanie said, shaking her head impatiently, “hear me out. The reason it struck me as odd is that the name of the man was familiar to me, but I couldn't remember how I'd heard it.”

“What was his name?”

“Wachtel. Irwin Wachtel. It's not a common name.”

“No,” Jane agreed. “I wonder how you'd heard it.”

“It drove me crazy, but finally I remembered. Yesterday Faith and I were helping Kate with a jacket shoot, and Faith needed something from her office. She asked me to get it for her. I found it on her desk. While I was picking it up, I noticed that Faith's Rolodex was open to a card with that name on it. Just the name and a New York phone number. I didn't think anything of it, of course; it meant nothing to me. Until this morning, when I found the story saying he'd been murdered.”

Jane laughed skeptically, though the image of Faith Carson taking jewels from Roy Lynch flashed into her mind. “Are you saying Faith murdered Mr. Wachtel?”

“No! It's just that it is an amazing coincidence; you have to agree that it is. When Faith came in this morning, I mentioned it to her in passing. I showed her the story in the
Times,
and then I told her that when I'd gotten those papers for her I'd noticed his name in her Rolodex.”

“What did she say?”

“She denied ever having heard of him!”

Jane frowned. “How strange . . . Maybe she'd dealt with him once briefly a long time ago, written his name on a Rolodex card, and forgotten. It happens. In fact, it sounds like something I might do.”

“True. Anyone might do that. I just shrugged it off, figured something had happened like you just said—she'd known him once for some reason and forgotten. And I chalked the whole thing up to coincidence. I said something to that effect to Faith, expecting her to go along with it, but she was quite adamant. She
did not
know this man, she said, and
she never had.”

Stephanie's face still looked troubled.

“And something more happened?” Jane ventured.

“Mm. I shouldn't have done this—I don't like to snoop—but I couldn't help myself. Faith went to the ladies' room and I went in her office and checked her Rolodex. Wachtel's card was gone.”

“Gone?”

“Gone. Faith must have taken it out, and she must have done it between yesterday and this morning. But why? Jane, it
has
to have something to do with Wachtel's murder.”

The young man brought their order. Jane took a bite of her pizza. “What are you saying?”

“I . . . I don't know. Jane . . .” Stephanie wrinkled her brow in troubled concentration. “Don't you see? All that's happened? Faith comes to town, meets Lillian Strohman, Lillian agrees to do a book with Faith—and Mrs. Strohman's maid gets murdered! I see Irwin Wachtel's card in Faith's Rolodex, he's murdered—and the card vanishes! Something's going on up there, Jane.”

Jane had to agree that these coincidences didn't look good. Stephanie wasn't even aware of what Una had seen. But what did Stephanie want from Jane? She asked Stephanie.

“Jane, I think Faith is involved in something bad. I've known this woman for twenty-five years—known her well—and I would never have thought this possible, but I think she's involved with these two murders. I do.”

“And . . . ?”

“If only you could see this place, Carson & Hart, for yourself... You know publishing, Jane; you'll know better than I could if something is up.”

Jane frowned, not just at what Stephanie said but also because she'd found an olive pit on her slice. She removed it from her mouth and set it to one side of her plate. “What does my knowing publishing have to do with the possibility that Faith Carson is a murderer?”

“No, I don't mean that; I'm not being clear. What I mean is, you know publishing and could fit in at Carson & Hart quite convincingly. You could find out if something is wrong without my—my having to take my suspicions to the police. After all, she's my oldest friend, my best friend. She's an international celebrity. How would it look for me to start throwing around accusations involving murder?”

“Stephanie,” Jane said, out of patience now, “just come out and tell me what it is you want me to do.”

Stephanie picked a burned piece of broccoli off her pizza slice and set it on the edge of her paper plate. Then her gaze met Jane's.

“I want you to work at Carson & Hart. I want you to go undercover.”

“G
o undercover! What are you talking about?”

“Look.” Stephanie picked up the
Times
—presumably the one that carried the story of Irwin Wachtel's murder—and turned to the Help Wanted section. An ad was circled in red. Stephanie turned the newspaper around and pushed the ad in front of Jane.

There was a phone number with a Shady Hills exchange. Jane stared at Stephanie. “You don't want me . . .”

“Why not? It's perfect. You could apply for the job as someone I know; I'll vouch for you. Then, as I said, you'd be in a better position than I am to know whether something's going on. You know, you could snoop around . . .”

“But, Stephanie, this is outlandish! I have a job of my own.”

“But it would only be for a short time. I think you could get to the bottom of this within a few days.”

“I'm going on vacation this Saturday—that's five days from now.”

“I know. I'm certain you'll have discovered whatever there is to discover by then. And then you can just quit!”

Jane shook her head, regarding Stephanie as if she'd gone mad. “This is the craziest thing I've ever heard. No, Stephanie. I'm sorry, but it's just not something I'm willing to do.”

Stephanie's gaze dropped to her pizza slice and a tear fell from her cheek to the edge of her plate. She grabbed a paper napkin from the dispenser and wiped her eyes.

“Please, Jane, I'm begging you. You've . . . investigated things like this, I know you have. That business with your nanny, and Florence told me how you helped find out who that girl was hanging behind the inn. Am I asking so much? A few days of your help. And if you tell me nothing's wrong up there, that everything's on the up and up, we'll forget all about it and that will be that. Jane,” she said, looking into her eyes, “Faith Carson is the only friend I have. I
need
to know what's going on. Please.”

Thoroughly put out, Jane cast her glance away, taking in the floor-to-ceiling refrigerator containing soft drinks at the far end of the restaurant, the mural of Italy, Giorgio tossing pizza dough into the air.

And then she saw him.

Kenneth.

He was sitting in a booth, alone, and he was turned all the way around, his arm on the back of his seat, looking at her. Her mouth opened; she stared.

Do it, Jane,
he was urging her.
For my cousin. I know she's a jerk, but she's my cousin and she needs help. I'd help her if I could, but I'm not here anymore so I can't. She needs you, Jane. Please. Help her
.

She looked back at Stephanie, who was taking a sip of her Diet Coke.

“How would this work?” Jane asked.

Stephanie looked at her eagerly. “Well,” she said breathily, “I'll just go back now and say I thought of someone who might like the job. I'll say you're an old family friend. You'll have to make up a name. You'll come in tomorrow, interview with Faith and maybe Gavin—though I doubt he'll get involved at this level—and I'll talk you up. You'll tell them you can start right away. Once you're up there, you'll look around, see what you can find out. I'll help you as much as I can, of course, but I'm convinced you'll find things I wouldn't.”

“But someone will know me,” Jane protested. “I live right here in town.”

“No, I've thought that all through, Jane. Don't you remember? At Puffy's party, you never got a chance to meet Faith and Gavin. When they drove me home and I asked them to come in, they said another time. They don't know you!”

“What if someone who does know me comes in?”

“No one goes up there! Faith always meets with her socialite writers at their homes. So no one will blow your cover.”

This was insane. Jane took a deep breath, glanced back at the booth where she'd imagined seeing Kenneth. He was gone, but she could still hear his voice, soft, urging.
She's my cousin. Help her out. She needs you, Jane
.

So, it occurred to Jane, did Florence. Her dear friend Una was dead, and perhaps Faith Carson
was
somehow involved.

“All right. You'd better let me have that ad.” She shook her head. “Daniel's going to think I've gone all the way over the edge.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you,” Stephanie said, squeezing Jane's hand. “But do you think you should tell Daniel what you're doing?”

“Daniel is like family to me. I could trust him with my life. I'm telling him. I'm also telling Stanley. Heaven knows what
he'll
think.”

“Okay, okay.” Stephanie pushed the paper closer to Jane. “Take this, and I'll go back now and say I've thought of this wonderful person I know who would love the job.” She stood up, her pizza barely touched, her soda cup still nearly full, and started to leave. Suddenly she turned back to Jane. “What's your name?”

“What?”

“Your make-believe name. What shall I say your name is?”

“I don't know,” Jane said impatiently, and for some reason a picture of Audrey in her pink angora flashed into her mind. The sweater girl.

“Lana.”

“Yeah, like Lana Turner. Lana's a pretty name.”

“All right. Lana what?”

Jane let her gaze move around the table. She saw the olive pit at the edge of her paper plate.

“Pitt. Lana Pitt.”

“Eew,” Stephanie said. “What an awful name.”

Jane gave her a warning look meant to tell Stephanie not to push her luck.

“Okay, okay. Lana Pitt. Thanks, Jane, really. Kenneth would be proud of you.” And Stephanie ran out of the restaurant.

Jane reread the ad in the
Times
and couldn't help laughing. The last time she'd been an assistant was when she'd been assistant to Kenneth at Silver and Payne, seventeen years before. She rose, tucking the newspaper under her arm, and started to go when she remembered Stephanie hadn't treated her to lunch after all. Shaking her head, she tossed a few dollars on the table and went up to the register to pay.