Authors: Kate White
“There’s just one more thing,” I said. “Sharon was going to bring a photograph with her of a Barbie doll that she believed Vicky Cruz had left in her mailbox years ago. If you find it, could you give me a copy?”
Nowak said that he wasn’t sure if that would be possible.
“Good job,” Lisa said once we were outside. “I’m going to reach out to Potts now. I want to beat the police to it.”
I said goodbye and, desperate to be home, headed toward Third Avenue to hunt down a cab. Within seconds, I could feel fear galloping up on me again. If Vicky had killed Sharon, did that mean my life could be in danger? I flashed on my experience in Westport, the silhouette on the curtain.
As soon as I was in the cab, I checked my phone. Alex had called three times while I was being grilled by the police.
“My God, this is awful,” he exclaimed when I shared the details. “It’s too big of a coincidence for it not to be related to your case. Vicky must have found out that Sharon was here.”
“Do you know if Vicky was at work yesterday?” I asked.
“Yes, her show was live. I saw her on the floor once.”
“She could have slipped out in the late afternoon. Or gone to the apartment after the show.”
“Do you think she went there with a plan to kill Sharon?” Alex asked.
“The murder didn’t appear premeditated. She might have stopped by, hoping to reason with Sharon, convince her not to go public. When Sharon refused, she could have become enraged and struck her with the first object she laid her hands on.”
“I’m going to see what I can find out from a buddy in the DA’s office.”
“By the way, I had to give your name to the cops, Alex. I’m so sorry to drag you into this.”
“Don’t worry about it. Look, I need to book a guest for tomorrow. But I want to talk more about this later. How are you doing?”
“I won’t lie, I’m pretty shaken. You want to come by after the show again?”
“Sure. Hang in there till then. And Robin? Be careful, okay?”
I practically stumbled into my apartment. As soon as I closed the door, I let the tears come. For Sharon. Each time I’d spoken to her, I’d been so caught up with my own cause that I hadn’t focused on what she’d been through. She’d lost a job she loved, too. And been framed by an evil woman. And now she had died trying to clear her name and help me do the same.
Around four, Lisa rang. From what she could infer, she’d reached Potts before the cops. She said he’d listened intently and asked her to meet him at the University Club at eleven the next day.
I’d no sooner disconnected than the phone rang and I saw Ann’s name on the screen.
“There’s something going on,” she told me. “Lots of closed doors, and Potts wants me on call tonight. I don’t know if it has anything to do with you, but I thought you should be aware of it.”
“Thanks,” I said. “It might have to do with me. I can’t reveal anything more right this minute.”
“Do you want me to see what I can find out?”
“Um . . . yeah. But please don’t bring up my name.”
“Right. I’ll be in touch if I hear anything.”
“Okay. Thank you.” I’d almost not uttered those last two words, but they’d slipped out nonetheless.
“You’re welcome, Robin. I’m going to prove I’m not the person you thought I was a few days ago.”
Alex arrived at 8:45, his face grim. Instinctively, we hugged as soon as he’d stepped through the doorway.
“Are you still reeling?” he said.
“It just keeps running through my mind on this horrific loop.”
I led him into the living room.
“You hear from the cops?” I asked.
“Yeah. Thankfully, they let me drop by the precinct at around five rather than having them show up at work.”
“It went okay?”
“Yeah, I think so. It was a little bit weird when they asked what I was doing last night. I know that’s routine, but it’s unsettling.”
“Were they okay with your alibi?”
“I don’t really have one. I went home after work, crashed on my couch, and never saw a soul.”
“They can’t for a second believe you were involved.”
“It doesn’t seem so. Mostly, they wanted to know background information. Why Sharon was here, why I was helping you, my thoughts on Vicky.”
“It’s
got
to be Vicky, right?”
“I would think so. Tell me about the crime scene, will you? So far I haven’t been able to glean anything from my contacts.”
“Lots of blood. Not only on the rug but arcs of it on the wall. There was a decorative urn lying on the floor, and I’m assuming she was struck with that.”
“More than once, obviously.”
“How do you know?”
“I was at plenty of crime scenes in my old job. If Sharon had been struck just once, the blood would have leaked from her head onto the floor. Blood on the wall means someone hit her at least twice. When you strike an open wound, it’s similar to splashing in a puddle.”
Cringing, I pressed my hands to my face. “I feel responsible. Like I beckoned Sharon to her death. And all for my job. She died because I wanted to get back on the air.”
“Hey, don’t think that way,” Alex said, touching my shoulder. We were still standing in the middle of the living room. “Neither one of us ever anticipated anything like this.”
“It’s just all so horrible.”
“Hey,” Alex said again, pulling me into a hug.
“I’m also being selfish,” I said. “With Sharon dead, I’m practically right back where I started.”
“Let’s not get ahead of the situation,” he said. “We’ll figure it out.”
Instinctively, I leaned in to him even more and let my head drop on his shoulder. For a brief second, my anguish seemed to diminish. I drew back after a moment and was looking straight into his eyes. I reached out without thinking and touched Alex’s cheek gently with my hand.
He lowered his face and kissed me softly on the mouth.
I surrendered briefly to the kiss, then pulled back. There was no denying the truth. I’d liked that kiss, but it made everything too complicated.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s just . . . right now. . . . I don’t want any entanglements, Alex.”
“I hear you,” he said. “You have more than enough to contend with. Besides, I should let you get some rest.”
“Promise me you’ll do the same. Thanks to me, this has been a dreadful week for you, too.”
“It’s all been my choice. Call me if anything comes up.”
As I closed the door behind him, I could feel that my neck was flushed.
I took a long hot shower after his departure, but it did nothing to quell how distraught I was over Sharon’s death. Throughout the night, I tossed fitfully, sleeping only short stretches at a time. At moments, staring into the darkness, I thought of the kiss between Alex and me. I’m attracted to him, I realized. It had been sneaking up on me day by day. In the short months we had worked together, I’d always mentally acknowledged his appeal, but I’d tended to think of him as the guy the interns mooned over. He was five years younger than I was. A senior producer. And yet, a bond had formed between us over the past week and a half, and the sexual heat had intensified, like a brush fire fanned by a breeze.
But as I’d insisted to Alex, I couldn’t go there now.
When I woke the next morning, there were a few seconds when I did nothing but relish the feel of cool sheets around my body. Then memories of yesterday rammed into me. Sharon murdered.
Coffee in hand, I raced through news sites, looking for anything I could find on Sharon’s murder. The
Daily News
and
New York Post
both had fairly big stories—nothing like a bludgeoned-to-death blonde on the Upper East Side to titillate the public—but there was no mention of a suspect and thankfully no reference to me.
Lisa’s meeting with Potts was at eleven. As the hour approached, that was all I could think about. At noon, Lisa sent an email saying that, due to her schedule, she would be unable to talk by phone most of the day, but she was pleased with the way things had transpired. Potts and Carey had listened carefully, volunteered nothing, but asked for a follow-up on Monday. “They’ve clearly heard from the police and don’t want to be on the wrong side of the issue,” Lisa wrote. “Progress.”
It looked like the situation might finally be shifting in my favor. Though it would be dumb to get too far ahead of events, I needed to at least consider what would happen if Vicky were arrested and the truth surfaced at last. There was a more than decent chance that I’d be offered my job again. I wondered if I was mentally ready for it. I’d have to interact with Carter every night. Have to work with people like Tom who’d never bothered to contact me. Certainly, my return would require a considerable PR initiative.
I would have loved to go for a run that afternoon. It had been days since I’d circled the reservoir in Central Park, my go-to method for de-stressing and clearing my head. But I didn’t like the idea of being that far from home. Not after what had happened to Sharon.
Late in the day, Ann called. “I wanted to give you another heads-up,” she said, her voice low, “though I suspect you may know this. A woman Vicky Cruz used to work with was murdered yesterday, and Vicky’s being questioned by the police. According to her lawyer, it’s just for background information.”
So things were fully in motion. Of course, talking to Vicky was not the same as arresting her. I had no idea whether the police had discovered any evidence linking her to the homicide. “It’s not just for background information,” I told her. “There’s a good chance Vicky murdered this woman.”
“Is this related to your situation somehow?”
“Yes. The woman came here to help me clear my name.”
There were several seconds of silence. I sensed Ann deliberating.
“I’m driving out to East Hampton tonight,” she said. “Why don’t you come with me? I’ll have a phone glued to my head, but you can at least lie by the pool and try to relax.”
Surprisingly, I was tempted. This way I’d be be privy to every piece of news Ann heard. It would also be a chance to see if we could repair the damage to our friendship.
“You sure?” I said.
“I’d really love to spend time with you, Robin. Please say yes.”
“Okay, but I don’t think I can pull it together tonight. Why don’t I take the Jitney out there tomorrow morning?”
“Perfect. Just let me know which one you’ll be on.”
While I’d been talking to her, a call had come in from Maddy. I rang back immediately. After what Alex had revealed, I had a whole new view of my sweet little second cousin. But I needed her at the moment.
“You said to call if I heard anything,” she said.
“Yes, what’s up?”
“It just feels kind of, you know, tense around here.”
“Because of the changes?”
“Partly. But it seems like more than that. Everyone’s really on edge.”
“Keep your ears open, and let me know if you hear anything specific.”
“Of course, Robin. Do you want to grab coffee tomorrow?”
“I’m going out to Ann’s place this weekend. Why don’t I touch base on Monday?”
The one person I hadn’t heard from today was Alex. I wondered if the awkward moment last night would impact the rapport we’d developed. I couldn’t let it. I glanced at the clock in my kitchen. It was an hour before the show was due to go on. I sent Alex a text asking that he call when
The Pulse
was off the air.
It was nine o’clock by the time he touched base. “Wait till you hear this,” he said after I shared news from my end. “Despite our warnings to be discreet, Sharon apparently told a few former coworkers that she was going to New York and why.”
“How’d you hear this?”
“I reached out to that guy Nate in Albany, the one who connected me to Sharon. Needless to say, he was pretty upset with me. But he ended up divulging information.”
“So one of Sharon’s pals may have been loyal to Vicky and leaked the information to her.”
“Exactly. Here’s an even bigger bombshell: Nate talked to Sharon’s boyfriend, Hal, who told him that he had a voice mail from Sharon early Wednesday evening saying that Vicky had called her, wanting to talk. The boyfriend tried to reach Sharon several times that night, but she never picked up. I bet the person who betrayed Sharon passed Vicky her cell number, too.”
“Do you think Nate could have tattled to Vicky?”
“He’s an older guy, and he seems pretty genuine. Says he thinks it was an editor at the station who’d always loved, in his words, working both sides of the street. He thinks she may have stayed in touch with Vicky and turned over the info to curry favor.”
“Why would Sharon end up meeting with Vicky? Wouldn’t she realize how dangerous that could be?”
Silence.
“You still there?” I asked.
“Yes. I was just wondering if Sharon might have been open to discussion.”
“What do you mean?”
“What if Vicky offered to pay her to keep quiet?”
I groaned. “I don’t want to believe that,” I said. “And if Vicky was willing to pay Sharon, why turn around and murder her?”
“Maybe it was all a ruse to wrangle her way into the apartment. Or maybe Sharon ended up demanding more than Vicky wanted to pay.”
I wasn’t buying it. Even if it was true, I was still the catalyst for Sharon’s death. I felt exhausted suddenly. “I probably should get to bed,” I said. “I’ll be away this weekend, but I’ll stay close to my phone. There’s bound to be news.”
“You aren’t going back to Westport, are you?”
“Not on my life. No, I’m taking the Jitney to East Hampton tomorrow morning. To stay with Ann Carny.”
“Have a good weekend,” he said. “I’ll be in touch.”
Thirty minutes later, he phoned back. “A lawyer pal called last-minute and invited me to Sag Harbor. Can I give you a lift out that way tomorrow?”
“Actually, that would be great,” I said. A ride would make the trip far less of a hassle. Plus, it would guarantee a chance to make certain everything was smoothed over with Alex, that my pulling away from the kiss hadn’t done any damage.
I texted Ann the update, and then fell into bed. Sharon was in my dreams that night, trying to say something I couldn’t understand. When I woke with a start in the morning, I felt completely frayed.