The Key Read online

  I also told him about my most recent exchange with Man of the People. “I think the guy’s a crackpot. I don’t know what he’s trying to accomplish, sending me random pictures from the Princeton alumni magazine. Speaking of which, does the name Flipper Brisbane mean anything to you?” I asked.

  “Flipper? That’s really the guy’s name?”

  “Apparently. You’re sure you’ve never heard of him?”

  “I think I’d remember somebody named Flipper.”

  Maybe it was a dead end. Maybe Flipper Brisbane, whoever he was, just happened to be in that photograph by chance. If so, Man of the People had proven himself to be pretty much useless. I vowed to be more selective in my choice of anonymous correspondents going forward.

  I gave Jake my new e-mail address. “You can use that to get in touch if you hear anything interesting. I’ve been staying away from my usual phone numbers and e-mail.”

  “Do you need anything? Are you okay for cash? Do you have a place to stay?”

  “I appreciate your willingness to aid and abet.”

  “It must be the blond thing.”

  “Thank you for offering, but I’m fine. I’m staying with a college friend. She has a loft downtown.”

  “Emma the artist?”

  There was a photo of my friends and me pinned to my bulletin board at work, one we’d taken a couple of summers ago, at Jane and Sean’s house on Cape Cod. I’d forgotten that Jake had asked me about it once when he’d been in my office. “You have a good memory.”

  “The Furlong name is pretty famous, even if you don’t know much about art. Besides, she looked cute.”

  “She is cute. In fact, she’s beautiful. But taken.”

  “They always are.”

  There was another long and awkward pause.

  “I should probably get going,” I finally said.

  “Me, too. I’ll e-mail you, okay? And get in touch if you think of anything I can do.”

  “Thank you, Jake.” He wrapped me in a hug, holding on for an extra beat.

  I let Jake go before me, intending to wait a few minutes before taking off myself. The door had barely swung shut when a man at the next table got up to leave.

  His chair had been hidden behind a display of mugs and packaged coffee beans when I’d been sitting across the room, and once I’d slid into Annabel’s vacated seat Jake had blocked any view of him. His back was to me now as he walked away, but I recognized him from the suede jacket and the set of his shoulders. It was the same black-haired stranger who had been at the St.Regis the other night. The one Hilary wished had been buying her drinks.

  We were only a couple of blocks from the hotel; it was possible he worked in the area, and that was why I kept seeing him.

  But just in case, I rushed to follow him as soon as he was out the door. I looked to the right and to the left when I reached the street, and I spotted him jogging west. Soon he was twenty feet or so behind Jake, and he slowed his pace to a walk, dropping in behind him.

  Then Jake turned the corner, and so did the stranger.

  There had been a lot of people in Starbucks, and there were a lot of people on the street, and there were any number of reasons somebody would go west on 57th Street and then turn on to Park.

  But maybe my concern that Jake could be a target, too, wasn’t so far-fetched.

  Either way, by the time I reached the corner myself, I’d lost sight of them both.

  I debated for a moment whether I was giving in to baseless paranoia before finding a pay phone and dialing Jake’s cell phone. His voice mail picked up, but I left a message, warning him to be on the lookout for dark-haired men in suede jackets.

  chapter nineteen

  I arrived back at Emma’s before anyone else had returned, which was a good thing, because somebody would probably have seen fit to lecture me about the risks I took in leaving the apartment, and Hilary definitely would have mocked the wig. She didn’t believe in platinum blond for anyone but herself.

  E-mail yielded no messages from Man of the People, nor did the Internet or TV provide any news of interest. I wanted to call Peter, but there wasn’t a safe way to reach him, even if I had known what to say. By the time my friends started drifting in, the sun had set, I’d finished the second bag of chips I’d started that morning, and I was alternating between eyeing the leftovers from the previous evening and eyeing the lonely pint of aging Häagen-Dazs in the freezer.

  Jane’s timing was superb. I’d just concluded that cold pad Thai would add some much-needed carbs to my all-carb diet when her key turned in the door. She had stopped to pick up groceries and announced that she would be creating a Mexican feast. “We can have dinner and discuss what we all found out today.”

  This sounded like a reasonable plan, but I realized with regret that I wouldn’t be able to do the promised meal justice if I started in on the leftovers. It was easier to make this decision once I saw that Jane had gone to the trouble of buying avocados and chilies for fresh guacamole. “Let me help,” I offered. “I can smush the avocados. It will be both productive and cathartic.”

  She didn’t even stop to think before she answered. “No. Even though there aren’t any sharp objects involved, you carry some sort of food preparation hex around with you. Things always go wrong when you try to help.”

  “Nothing went wrong the time that I helped with the—” I searched my memory for a time when nothing had gone wrong but came up empty. I changed tacks. “How am I supposed to get better if nobody will let me practice?”

  “I don’t know. But you’re not going to practice on any of us, let alone my unborn child.”

  Hilary came in right then and deposited her own collection of shopping bags on the table. “Speaking of unborn children, I picked up some tequila.”

  “What does that have to do with unborn children?” I asked.

  “Nothing, really. But the good news is that because of Jane’s unborn child, she won’t drink, so there’ll be more tequila for us.” She pulled some limes out of one of her bags. “Salt or no salt, Rach?”

  I looked at her blankly.

  “For your margarita?”

  Emma and Luisa arrived as Hilary was lining up drink ingredients on the kitchen counter. “Margaritas—perfect,” said Luisa. “I think I’m going to need a stiff drink to get through all this.” She held up a stack of hand-labeled DVDs.

  “What ‘all this’is that?” asked Jane, turning from the stove where she was doing something complicated with peppers and onions.

  “Recordings of news programs on all of the major networks and cable news channels from six to seven on Tuesday night. It took the guy at my firm a while to dig them all up and put them on disk for me.”

  “So I guess that means we won’t be watching The O.C. tonight?” asked Emma.

  “It hasn’t been the same since the first season,” I said sadly.

  “I know, but I still have such a crush on Seth.”

  Jane began assembling chicken enchiladas with a tomatillo and sour cream sauce, Hilary mixed a pitcher of margaritas, and Emma was deemed sufficiently competent to make guacamole. Luisa retreated to the window at the far end of the loft to smoke, and I sat and waited for dinner to be ready.

  The margarita Hilary handed me was tart but mostly just strong. It only took a few sips before I found myself coming clean about my day’s outing. I did get a scolding, as expected, with Jane tag-teaming Emma and Luisa. Hilary was more interested in the dark-haired stranger in the suede jacket, but this topic was quickly exhausted given how little I knew about him, so she turned back to Jake and Annabel.

  “They were really an item? The same Jake from work, your Mr. Just-a-Nice-Guy-from-the-Office Jake?” she clarified.

  “It’s a small world, and he is just a nice guy from the office,” I said. It didn’t seem worthwhile to mention his questioning look and the awkward moments after he noted the absence of my engagement ring—I was still processing that myself. “His relationship with Annabel was appar
ently nothing serious, not to mention a long time ago,” I said instead. “And it was actually sort of touching how embarrassed he was about getting dumped.”

  “I think it reflects well on him that he’s able to stay friends with an ex-girlfriend, that she would turn to him when something terrible has happened,” said Jane. She had a tendency to see most glasses as half-full.

  Hilary used a finger-down-her-throat gesture to indicate that this sort of talk was likely to make her ill. She had a much more cynical view of human nature.

  I helped myself to some chips and guacamole. “Enough about Jake,” I said. “Jane, did you get anything on Naomi? Jake says Annabel’s scared of her, that she thinks Naomi’s the killer and is going to come after her next, but maybe she’s just trying to deflect suspicion away from herself.”

  “I don’t know about Naomi going after Annabel, but she does seem worth exploring further,” Jane said. “I went up to Caldecott’s and was able to track down the teacher I know without too much trouble, and we arranged to meet for a late lunch. That place is quite the institution, by the way. I think I was the only person who didn’t arrive in a limo or a chauffeured SUV. And there was some serious bling going on with the mothers doing the dropping off.”

  “That was probably just the nannies,” said Emma, herself a product of a Manhattan private school.

  “Does anybody actually say ‘bling’ anymore?” asked Hilary.

  “Nobody on the Upper East Side ever did,” I told her.

  Jane cast a wistful glance at the pitcher of margaritas. “Anyhow, I met up with Alex—my teacher acquaintance—at one, and it was pretty easy to turn the conversation to Naomi. I guess Caldecott has a couple of scholarship students, but for the most part all of the kids’ parents are fabulously wealthy and are always trying to outdo each other at fund-raising events. Which makes Naomi Gallagher a bit of a rarity. Not only does she not have the resources to oneup anybody at the next school auction, this wasn’t the first time she was late with the tuition for her daughter, and she’s been pretty vocal about her ex-husband being the problem. She’s referred to him as ‘my ex, that stingy schmuck,’so many times in her conversations with the finance office that the term ‘stingy schmuck’ has become a running joke with the Caldecott faculty.”

  “That strengthens Naomi’s motive,” I said. “Her needing him to cough up his child support was nothing new.”

  “Wait, it gets better.”

  “What could be better than ‘stingy schmuck’?” asked Hilary.

  “On Monday afternoon, Naomi came in person to drop off the check she’d gotten from Gallagher. She must have come straight from his office. And guess what she said to the headmistress?”

  “‘I’m going to kill the stingy schmuck by poisoning one of his stupid pencils, so you won’t have to worry about the tuition being late ever again, and then for good measure I’m going to push his secretary in front of a moving subway train?’” I guessed.

  “Close,” said Jane. “She said that she was confident that there wouldn’t be any further problems with the tuition.”

  “That is pretty good. But it would be better if she’d said the part about killing him and Dahlia.”

  “Sorry, Rach. But I did find out where Naomi lives and also where she works. I thought I’d try to track her down tomorrow. She has a scary reputation—apparently the phrase used most in the faculty lounge is ‘total bitch’—but maybe I can sound her out a bit more about her ex and about Dahlia. And about you, to see if she knew enough about you to frame you.”

  “Pregnancy is making you bold,” said Emma.

  Jane shrugged modestly. “What about you? Did you come up with anything on Annabel?”

  She groaned. “I went to Janeane Proust.”

  “No!” I exclaimed, aghast. “I am so sorry, Em. I didn’t realize that’s what you were planning to do.”

  “Who’s Janeane Proust?” asked Hilary.

  “More like what. It’s unadulterated torture disguised as an exercise class,” Emma said. “But another Manhattan institution, and very popular with the lunching ladies crowd. Not that any of them actually lunch. It would counteract all of the time and money they spend at Janeane Proust. And on liposuction.”

  “Sounds like fun,” said Jane.

  “I think there’s a good chance I may not be able to walk tomorrow—I barely made it home. You owe me an extended session with a qualified masseur, Rach.” I reached for the pitcher and topped off her drink instead.

  “Does it work?” asked Luisa.

  “Anything that hurts this much has to work.”

  “You look really toned already,” Hilary said.

  “I did two classes in a row, just to talk to as many women as possible. And it was awful, like my mother’s address book come to life, combined with intense physical anguish. By the way, when did the double air kiss give way to the triple air kiss?” Emma was usually on the quiet side. The pain and the margaritas had loosened her tongue considerably.

  “I haven’t even mastered the single air kiss,” said Jane.

  “Does Annabel go there? To Janeane Proust?” Luisa asked.

  “Of course. Everybody who’s anybody may not go, but everybody who wants to be somebody considers it a must. However, the word is that she’s been slacking off of late.”

  “Slacking off at Janeane Proust?” I said. “Quel scandal.”

  “There’s been a ton of gossip about her,” Emma continued. “First, she spent a fortune on that new apartment, and the word on the street is that her husband wasn’t pleased.”

  “Which street would that be?” Luisa asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “Fifth, obviously,” said Emma,“and selected stretches of Park, darling. Also, even though she’s been skipping class, everyone says she’s looking very well—that she’s glowing. And you know what that means.”

  “She’s pregnant?” asked Jane.

  “She has a good facialist?” asked Luisa.

  “No. That’s code for having regular—and satisfying—sex.”

  “That you have to add the satisfying part is really sad,” said Hilary.

  “Presumably not with her husband?” asked Luisa.

  “That’s the implication.”

  “Maybe she’s been seeing an ex-boyfriend on the side,” Hilary suggested pointedly. Everyone looked at me.

  “I didn’t pick up on that vibe,” I said. “She and Jake together…they really looked like they were friends and nothing more. I had more physical contact with him than she did.”

  “I’ve saved the best part for last,” said Emma, thankfully before either Hilary or Luisa could make any of the responses I’d inadvertently set myself up for with my last comment.

  “Which part is that?” asked Jane.

  “The part about the divorce lawyer. Actually, lawyers. Annabel’s been asking around for recommendations. Discreetly, of course, but none of these people are discreet. And the wife of Gallagher’s own divorce lawyer is a Janeane Proust addict. And a few weeks ago she started talking about renovating their Hamptons house.”

  While everything Jane and Emma had learned strengthened the argument that both Naomi and Annabel should be considered more seriously as suspects, we seemed to be the only people who were looking in any direction that didn’t include me.

  “I made some calls,” said Hilary, as we lingered over the remains of the enchiladas. “I even dropped by the offices of a few crime reporters I know, and it sounds like the press coverage is going to heat up. The case against you is entirely circumstantial, but there are a lot of little things that look pretty convincing when you add them all up. And the bad news is that the investigating detectives are focusing all of their efforts on adding up those little things and on finding you. You were probably right to run, but that only confirms your guilt in their eyes.”

  “What’s the good news?” I asked, trying not to sound as bleak as I felt.

  “I bought an extra bottle of tequila, just in case one wasn’t eno
ugh?”

  “Matthew talked to Peter,” said Emma. “And he didn’t have anything else to report on things the police found. So that’s good, right?” But she was reaching, and even she knew it.

  “We just need to do more work,” said Jane, striving for a confident tone. “I’ll talk to Naomi, and Emma will get more dirt on Annabel.”

  “And maybe there’s something on those DVDs,” said Luisa. “We can start watching right now. Or as soon as I’ve had a cigarette.” She took her case and lighter in hand.

  “I’ll contact some business reporters, too. To see if there’s anything on Perry and Gallagher to follow up on,” offered Hilary.

  “Great,” I said, but my voice sounded hollow. The gossip about Naomi and Annabel had been interesting, but it didn’t change the fact that my situation wasn’t good and appeared to be getting worse. The key that would unlock the answers to this puzzle was nowhere in sight. I tried to take comfort by reminding myself that at least I was safe here at Emma’s, and at least I had the support of my friends.

  “Oh, no,” said Luisa from the window.

  “Out of smokes?” asked Hilary.

  “I’m afraid it’s more serious than that,” she answered.

  We all turned to look. Flashing red-and-blue lights streamed through the window, illuminating Luisa’s olive skin.

  And then the downstairs buzzer sounded, long and loud.

  chapter twenty

  W e wasted precious seconds gaping at each other in horror. A moment later, we could hear footsteps on the stairs.

  “That stupid outside door,” said Emma. “It never locks properly.”

  “Let’s meet them on the stairs, and see if we can stall them for a minute,” Jane said to her.

  Hilary tossed me the small duffel bag we’d prepared for this possibility, and we raced to the back of the loft, to the bedroom.