Authors: Janice Weber
Emily wandered toward Chinatown, picking her way between stuporous, befouled bodies. Unnamed odors emanated from the Asian
markets. Had Byron really been a hot number here, as O’Keefe had said? It wasn’t beyond belief. At last, a telephone: Emily
called her sister in New York. “Philippa? Did you survive your interrogation?”
“Barely. Your friend swallowed about a pound of pure heroin.”
“So I hear. Detective O’Keefe just told me.”
Philippa didn’t react to Emily’s information, but listening had
never interested her. “My nerves are shot,” she said. “Maybe we should just tell the police everything.”
That meant going to New York and trying to square three generations of fibs. For what? Byron would remain dead. “Does Simon
know about our switch last night?”
“I didn’t get a chance to explain before the police woke him up. Now he’s a basket case. He called a minute ago, sobbing.
He regrets not telling you that Byron was dead in the men’s room. Our stories didn’t match and now he thinks the police suspect
him of murder.”
“Serves him right. Do you have to stick around, Phil? What’s your schedule for the week?”
Philippa’s schedule was fairly blank for the next month. She had some kind of denture endorsement in November, then nothing
until January. “Simon set up a few interviews last night, didn’t he?” she asked hopefully.
“Not for you. Listen, I want you to get on the first plane to Boston. Pay cash and use a different name. I’ll pick you up
at the airport. You’ve got to disappear for a while.”
Boston! Great! Then Philippa realized that Emily’s invitation probably had nothing to do with Guy Witten. “Why?” she asked
warily.
“I think someone’s trying to kill you.”
After a short silence, Philippa cackled hysterically. “For Christ’s sake, Emily! Forget that dentist! He was harmless!”
“I wasn’t even thinking of the dentist. How’s your face, by the way.”
“A mess. So who’s trying to assassinate me?”
“This isn’t a joke, Philippa. Were you told how Byron took an overdose? In a couple of dried cherries. Guess where they came
from.”
Philippa thought a moment. “Uh—Portugal?”
“Oh come on! They came from my drink! Your drink! Your stupid vodka with four dried cherries! Byron thought eating them would
bring him luck so I gave him my glass before we went into the theater. Half an hour later he was dead. I think someone meant
those cherries for you.”
Philippa was about to cry “Bosh!” when she suddenly recalled a pickup truck screaming through the front of Cafe Presto two
nights ago. Had that not been an accident after all?
“Phil?” Emily said. “You there?”
“No. I’ll call you from the airport.” Philippa stuffed three suitcases with absolute necessities and fled without notifying
Simon. Odd, now that she thought about it, him not telling Emily that Byron had kicked the bucket in the men’s room. The great
joy of Simon’s life was passing along bad news.
Emily waited for her sister at Logan Airport. As usual, Philippa wasn’t hard to spot; she wore the same head-to-toe black
veils and lace that she had worn to Dana’s funeral, plus a floor-length sable coat, perhaps unaware of the fundamental distinctions
between herself and a Stealth bomber. “We really stepped into it, haven’t we?” she cried to Emily as they walked toward the
baggage claim. “To think that I could have been dead this morning! Or you, if you had really played the part and swallowed
those cherries! How horrifying!”
“That dentist saved your life. Maybe you should get beat up more often.” Emily noticed men staring at them as they passed.
First they looked at Philippa, a specter in impenetrable black. Then they looked at Emily in jeans and sweater. Invariably,
their eyes returned to Philippa: What they couldn’t see was obviously much more intriguing than what they could. Inwardly,
Emily sighed; even in veils, Philippa outdid her. She stopped at the baggage carousel. “What color’s your suitcase?”
“Midnight blue. There are three.” Noticing Emily’s frown, Philippa added, “I wasn’t sure what the weather would be.”
“Cold. Where you’re going, anyway.”
“What do you mean? Aren’t we going to your house?”
“No. You’re going to the cabin in New Hampshire for a few days.” Emily pulled Philippa’s first suitcase off the carousel.
“I hope you didn’t pack too many ball gowns.”
Philippa did not reply; her brain was already churning through ways to lure Guy Witten up to a remote cabin in the woods.
There was a fireplace, she remembered. Fantastic. “I
guess you can’t come up because you have to work,” she said, trying to sound disappointed.
“I got fired this morning,” Emily said, retrieving the second suitcase. “But that’s neither here nor there. I don’t think
we should both be at the cabin. Your whereabouts should be a secret. I might not even tell Ross.” She got the last, heaviest
suitcase. “You didn’t tell Simon what you were doing, I hope.”
“God no! I just left a note that I had to get away for a few days. He’ll presume it’s a man.”
“What about the police?”
“I’m done with the police. They don’t need any more statements from me. Here, let me take that bag.” Philippa grabbed the
smallest one. They loaded the car and began driving north. “This is going to be fun,” Philippa said, removing her hat and
heavy veil. “I haven’t been camping in years.”
Emily edged into the fast lane. “This is not a camping trip, Philippa. I’d be pretty worried if I were you. Who would want
you dead?”
“I was thinking about that on the plane. I came up with about twenty names. People I’ve seriously offended over the last few
years. Most of them are actresses I edged out of roles.”
“They’d kill you for that?”
“Hey, I’d do the same if I had the chance. Then there are eight other women.”
“Like who?”
“Mostly wives of men who have befriended me. Vicious bitches.”
Emily glanced at her sister’s purpling face. “Did you include Ardith in that list?”
“Who? Oh, Dana’s wife? Of course not. She doesn’t count.”
“Why not?”
Philippa threw her hands into the air. “Because Dana didn’t count! Come on, Emily, you don’t think she’d put me on a hit list
because I spent a few days fishing, do you?”
“You’re not entirely blameless in her husband’s death.”
“Get serious! She should be sending me a commission!”
Emily blew past a busload of leaf peepers. “What about this
dentist? Is he a psychopath? He did a real job on your face, Phil.”
“How many times must I tell you to forget the dentist? Besides, he wasn’t even in New York the night of the party. I know
that for a fact.”
“Yeah? Where did he tell you he was?”
“At his aunt’s funeral in Wyoming,” Philippa lied. “His favorite aunt. Auntie Annie.”
“All right, all right. So who else is on your enemies list?”
“A few talent agents. But they would never kill me. There’s no money in it.”
“Any of your ex-husbands, maybe? Looking to save a little alimony?”
“Emily, only one would have the panache for such a thing. And I pay
him
alimony.”
They drove in silence for quite a while. “Maybe I’m mistaken,” Emily said finally. “Maybe it wasn’t the cherries and Byron
did OD on something else. He was pretty depressed after Simon got through with him. I really didn’t know him that well, as
the detective reminded me this morning. Maybe some nutcase was tampering with food. Maybe you weren’t a target at all.”
Philippa wondered again about that truck crashing through the window of Cafe Presto. How could she have been the target? No
one alive knew she had flown to Boston that evening to see Guy Witten. If anyone had been following her, it would have been
much easier just to shoot her as she sat on that bench at Faneuil Hall. Why wait until she was inside Cafe Presto? Wreck an
innocent man’s storefront? Aha, maybe the problem was on Guy’s end. Philippa tried to remember her phone conversation with
him. It had been short but not sweet: They had agreed to meet at ten. Then he had slammed the phone down. Anyone eavesdropping
with dire intent would have shown up after ten at Cafe Presto ... looking for Emily.
“Tell me, Em,” Philippa said innocently, “who knew you were going to New York?”
“Ross. Why?”
“I guess your husband would have no reason to kill you, right?”
“Of course not! Good Lord, Philippa! What a thought!”
“Well, you have to look at all the angles. I was just thinking that if someone wanted to knock you off, not me, the
Choke Hold
party would have been the perfect opportunity.” Philippa observed the scenery for several miles, waiting for her sister’s
confession. Finally she became impatient. “Are you sure you haven’t ticked Ross off somehow?”
Emily went cold: Did Ross know about Guy? She didn’t think so. He would confront her with it, wouldn’t he? The way he had
confronted her with Dana? “I can’t believe you would seriously think that my own husband would kill me, Philippa.”
“Well, maybe someone else,” Philippa replied. “Can you think of anyone who might want you out of the way?”
Guy Guy Guy. “Afraid not.”
Damn! Why wouldn’t Emily just spill the beans? Didn’t she realize that affairs were as respectable as prnuptial agreements?
Both helped to focus husbands and wives on the permanence of marriage. “I guess we’re back where we started, then,” Philippa
said testily. “On the face of it, looks like someone’s after me. What are you going to do?”
Emily wanted to throw everything into O’Keefe’s lap and run away. But then he’d wonder why she hadn’t told him about Philippa’s
stomach ache, her bruised face, their little switch in New York, the cherries ... little details adding up to a suspicious
whole. Eventually he’d discover her affair with Guy. No, better keep O’Keefe out of this. “First I’ll try to find the waitress
who served Byron that drink,” Emily said. “Then I’m going to get the guest list from the lady who organized the AIDS benefit.
Maybe you’ll recognize an enemy or two there. Then I think you should ask Simon for a list of everyone who’s called about
you over the last few months.”
“I could answer that myself, dear,” Philippa said. “No one.”
“Come on, you don’t have a fan club? People don’t ask for your autographed picture? Maybe we’ll find some sort of correlation.”
Philippa grabbed her seat belt as the car swerved down the exit ramp. “How long is this going to take, Em? Am I supposed to
stare at the lake until you find out?”
“Why not? The weather’s beautiful. You can’t be seen with a face like that. I thought you had nothing else to do anyway.”
Emily pulled onto an uneven country road. “It won’t take more than a few days.”
“Maybe we should explain everything to the police. Let them take care of it. You don’t have the time for this.”
“I just lost my job, remember? How the hell else am I going to amuse myself?” Emily pulled into the parking lot of a shopping
mall. “I wouldn’t involve the police. They’ll tell the newspapers.”
Philippa perked up. “Hey, that might be just what Simon needs.”
“Sure. Have him plant the story in every rag he can. Then some wacko slasher can read about it and decide to join the fun.
Stay here, Phil. I’ll be back in ten minutes.”
Emily bought groceries. When she returned to the car, her sister was listening glumly to a rock station, hoping to hear a
capsule review of
Choke Hold.
She snapped the radio off as the deejay read a capsule review of Julia Roberts’s new movie instead. “Your cabin has a bathtub,
doesn’t it?” Philippa asked finally as they entered an unpaved driveway. “I can’t live without a bathtub.”
“Sorry. Showers only. You can bathe in the lake, of course. Very invigorating this time of year. The quiet will grow on you,
Phil. Read a book. Watch television. Contemplate life.”
“God! That would drive me to suicide!”
Emily stopped the car in front of the cabin. Beyond the rear deck, protected by tall spruce, the black lake gleamed in the
midday sun. She had thought many times of coming up here alone with Guy. She still thought about it. It was one of her fondest
fantasies, right up there with having children and being twenty again. “Don’t give me this suicide crap, Phil. You have it
all.”
“
Had
it all! You have no idea how wretched it is to outlive your usefulness!”
“No, I wouldn’t have any idea. That’s because I’ve never been useful in the first place.”
“You are a spoiled brat/’Philippa snorted. “Women would die to be in your shoes. You’ve got a great house, a great husband,
a job you don’t need, total freedom.... You’re set for life. What the hell else could you want?”
Having again provided Emily with the perfect opening, Philippa waited to be told all about Guy Witten. Instead, after a long
silence, Emily said, “Children, maybe.”
“Not that again! You’re too old! You’d be senile before they went to their first prom! Ross would have a heart attack trying
to play touch football with his six-year-old! Be realistic, Emily. There are certain things that neither of us is ever going
to have. A mother, for one. Children, for two. Just let it go.” Philippa sighed. “Go back to your husband. Get a life. He’s
your best friend.”
Emily looked oddly at her sister. “What do you mean,
go back
to your husband?”
“I meant drive back to Boston,” Philippa lied quickly. “Bake Ross a cherry pie.”
“So he doesn’t kill me?” Emily asked sarcastically.
“That’s right.” Philippa opened her door and stretched in the sunshine. “I hope you got some decent food for me. My stomach’s
still upset from that food poisoning.”
Emily started unloading groceries. “Your stomach might feel better if you went on the wagon for a few days.” She carried two
heavy bags over a rocky path as Philippa followed gingerly in her high-heeled boots. “When was the last time you were here?”
Emily asked, unlocking the cabin door. “Was it with Gary?”
That had been Philippa’s fourth husband, the one who plucked his eyebrows and pretended to be British. “I think so,” Philippa
said, looking around the living room. Pure Ross: simple yet extravagant. “Hasn’t changed a bit, has it?”