Hanging Hannah (7 page)

“You're right. I should get that thing out and just get it done!” He looked at her searchingly. “I bet you're great with your writers, or authors—or whatever you call the people you represent.”

“ ‘Writers' and ‘authors' are fine; also ‘clients.' ” She shook her head. “It's just common sense. To be a player, you gotta get it finished. I don't care if it's a book or a screenplay or a piece of music. A half-finished masterpiece sitting in someone's desk drawer doesn't do anybody any good.”

“So true,” he said, clearly inspired. “Tonight I'm getting out that manuscript—provided your promise is still good.”

“I brought it up! Of course it's still good. Though I must caution you, I can't guarantee that even if I like it I'll be your agent.”

He looked crestfallen. “Why not?”

“Because I've made myself a promise—never to mix business with pleasure. I've tried it, and believe me, it doesn't work.”

He nodded. “You mean that Haines guy you were seeing. I used to see you in here with him once in a while. One time you seemed to be . . . having an argument, and he walked out on you.”

“My, my, you
were
watching closely, weren't you?”

“Yes, I was. And because I saw you with him, I didn't call you when I wanted to.”

“You should have,” Jane said ruefully. “You would have saved us all a lot of trouble. Anyway,” she went on, her voice cheerful, “that's all over now. He's back in New York where he belongs.”

“And you think my business with you might turn into pleasure?”

Now it was Jane's turn to blush. “Yes,” she said, looking him straight in the eye in a way she knew would make Ginny proud of her, “I do.”

“So,” he said, playing along, “just supposing you liked my manuscript, if you became my agent, I couldn't ask you out. And if I asked you out, you couldn't be my agent.”

“That's right.”

“And if you don't like my manuscript?”

“Well, then there wouldn't be any conflict, and you could ask me out.”

He pondered this. “I see.... Of course, in order to find out whether you liked my manuscript, you'd need to read it first.”

“That generally helps.”

“But it's not finished, as I've just told you. So . . . let's not wait to find out if you like it. Let me just ask you out now. Then I won't even show you my manuscript.”

“Except as an interested friend.”

“Right. So . . . will you go out with me?”

She felt herself flush. “Yes,” she said, barely able to contain her delight. Out of the corner of her eye, over Greenberg's shoulder, Jane saw Ginny behind the counter, silently jumping up and down.

“Great!” he said. “What shall we do?”

“I know. This Thursday is a publication party in New York for a book by one of my clients. Would you like to come as my date?”

“Sure! Rub elbows with the literati and all that!”

Jane made a doubtful face. She had never thought of anyone at Corsair as belonging to the literati. But she thought he would have fun. “Then that will be our second date.”

“Good,” he said, looking truly pleased. “Now that we've got the important stuff out of the way, what was it you wanted to see me about?”

Jane felt a sinking in her stomach at the thought of poor stooped Doris and her Arthur. Hesitantly, she told Greenberg what Doris had told her about Arthur's encounter with the strange young girl who fit the description of the woman found hanging in the woods. She left out Doris's slight doubt about Arthur's innocence.

Greenberg was all business. “Of course you're right—I'll have to have him in for questioning.”

“Would it be all right if I came along—for moral support? As I told you, he's quite scared. So is Doris, for that matter.”

“You can come along with them to the station, sure, but I'll have to see him alone. I'd like him at my office at eight-thirty tomorrow. If for some reason he doesn't show up, I'll have to send someone to pick him up at the Senior Center or at his house.”

“I understand. Thank you.”

He simply gazed at her; she could tell he was lost in thoughts of the story she'd just told him.

“You know,” Jane said, watching him closely, “Doris—and . . . other people—feel pretty certain that poor girl didn't kill herself.”

He looked at her, his expression giving away nothing.

“The reason they think so,” she went on, “is that apparently the tree had no branches from which she could have jumped after putting the noose around her neck.” She watched him for a reaction.

He seemed to hesitate. Then, with a guarded look, he said, “That's correct.”

“And if she'd put something on the ground to stand on, it wasn't there when we found her. A rock, a log . . . Unless someone had taken it away.”

He allowed a small smile. “Doris is sharp. We—the police, I mean—came to the same conclusions. But let me ask you this: Why would anyone have taken it away? That suggests someone wanted to make a suicide
look
like murder.”

Jane shook her head to signify she had no idea. “This is where you come in.”

“Sounds as if you and Doris have
already
come in. And why not?” he asked with a devilish grin. “You are North Jersey's Miss Marple.”

She gave a great groan. “Not that again, please.” Agreeing to that interview was turning out to be the worst mistake she'd ever made.

He shook his head. “We can't imagine why anyone would want to make a suicide look like murder, so . . . we're treating this as a homicide. In which case, this Arthur could be a vital clue. His story may be a cover-up.”

Jane sat up at this implication.

Greenberg sipped his tea. “I really should pick him up now, but I'll stick with what I agreed to and wait for him to show up in the morning.”

Jane found herself growing increasingly alarmed at what she knew he must be thinking. “If Arthur
had
killed this poor girl, why would he have volunteered all that information—about showing her the cave, for instance?”

“Because he knew we'd find the cave anyway. Like I said, he could be covering himself.”

“And have you found the cave?”

“Sure,” he said matter-of-factly. “We found that late Sunday afternoon. It was obvious the young woman had been living there.”

“Why didn't you tell me this sooner?”

He sat back and looked at her, laughing. “I don't suppose you've thought of this, but I really shouldn't be telling you anything at all, ever!”

She shot him a mischievous grin. “But you are. Why is that?”

He gave a little shrug. “Because I know I can trust you. But I'm breaking rules here.”

She waved the word away. “Rules!” She laughed. “We're on a date, for goodness' sake! You're . . .
confiding
in me.”

“You twist words around.”

“I'm a book person—that's my job.” Suddenly she had an idea. “Will you show me the cave?”

He looked at her askance. “Why?”

“I'm curious, that's all. Maybe there's a clue there to who this woman was.”

“Has it occurred to you we've already searched it with that in mind?”

She grinned. “Sure, but they don't call me North Jersey's Miss Marple for nothing.”

He paused for a moment, considering. “All right,” he said finally, “I don't suppose there's any harm in it. It's not the crime scene. But you can't touch anything—and you can't tell anyone I showed it to you.”

“I could have found it on my own,” she pointed out.

“Would you have looked for it?”

“Maybe.”

“Why are you so interested in this?”

An image of Doris, lonely and defeated, flashed before Jane's eyes. “Because,” she answered honestly, “if Doris says her nephew isn't capable of hurting anyone, I believe her. Which means that if this young woman was murdered, someone other than Arthur murdered her. There may be a clue in the cave to who that person is.”

“A clue we haven't found,” Greenberg said.

“Perhaps,” Jane said, rising, and grabbed the check Ginny had left on the table.

“Please, let me,” he said.

“You can get the next one,” she told him. She paid the bill, said good night to Ginny, and borrowed the phone to let Florence know she'd be home a little later than she'd originally planned.

 

“I've never been in a police car,” Jane said, and got into Greenberg's cruiser, which he'd parked right in front of Whipped Cream. Later he would drive her back to her car, parked behind her office.

Greenberg drove around the green, tawny gold in the light of the setting sun. The trees that towered over the lush grass and the white bandstand were perfectly still, and suddenly Jane remembered the whipping of the wind in the trees when they had found the hanging girl, the stirring of her hair. She forced the image from her mind.

Greenberg started down Plunkett Lane, negotiating its twists through the thick woods. “This isn't exactly what I had in mind for our first date,” he joked.

“Our first date is over. This is just . . . business.”

He shot her a frown and slowed to a stop. The road ended there. Before them stood a wall of thick trees and bushes, behind which lay Hadley Pond. Several times Kenneth had taken Jane and Nick fishing there. They had caught perch and sunfish. That image, too, Jane forced from her mind.

Greenberg grabbed a flashlight from the glove compartment. They got out and Jane followed him into the woods by way of a path that began between two pines. Fortunately, there was still plenty of daylight, for rocks and low bushes were plentiful, even on the crude path, and walking was difficult.

“Is it much farther?” Jane asked, struggling not to stumble in her medium heels.

“Just a little.”

A few moments later they reached what appeared to be a solid wall of rock, the lower part of its face obscured by bushes. Jane frowned in puzzlement, then watched as Greenberg bent slightly and ducked between two of the bushes, seeming to disappear. “It's in here,” he called back to her.

She followed him through the bushes and saw that he had squeezed between two outcroppings of rock that formed the cave's entrance. She stooped to enter. Inside she found Greenberg standing against the right wall, aiming his flashlight at the cave's center. The ceiling was high enough that Greenberg had to stoop only a little to stand up straight. Jane, at five-foot-nine, rose to her full height and slowly surveyed the space.

It was narrow, about seven feet long by four feet wide. The still, cold air had a dank, mushroomy smell.

On the cave's dirt floor lay a grimy blanket of indiscriminate color. Scattered all about were bits of waxed paper, plastic wrap, aluminum foil, crumpled-up napkins, empty Coke cans. “Who was she?” Jane wondered aloud. “What was she doing here?” She crouched to get a closer look.

“Remember, don't touch anything,” Greenberg said.

“I remember,” she said, and let her gaze travel from one end of the cave to the other.

Something odd caught her eye. Near the head of the blanket lay a folded piece of paper that was neither wax paper nor napkin, but appeared to be a page torn from a magazine.

“That,” Jane said, pointing. “Have you looked at it?”

Greenberg crouched beside her and shined his flashlight on it. “That?” he said. “It's garbage—wrappings from her food.”

Jane shook her head. “I don't think so. It's got printing on it. May I look at it?”

With a little exhalation of annoyance, he leaned forward and gingerly picked up the piece of paper between two fingers.

Oh
, she thought,
you can touch
.

Carefully he unfolded the piece of paper. Jane watched closely. The folds in it were sharp, as if the paper had been folded many times along the same lines. Finally, he had it fully open. Jane drew in her breath sharply, for she had seen this page before.

It was the story
People
magazine had run about Jane and her detective work. In the middle of the page was the close-up photo of Jane, Daniel, and Laura with Winky on Jane's sofa. The reporter had insisted that Winky wear a deerstalker cap, and the poor thing looked truly ridiculous trying to peer out from under its brim. Jane was grinning widely.

Greenberg turned over the page. Here was the remainder of the story and more photos: the members of the Defarge Club during one of their Tuesday night meetings (minus Penny, because Alan had gone bowling in Boonton that night and demanded that Penny watch Rebecca); Florence and Nick standing in front of Jane's house; and the group shot of other Shady Hills residents, all dressed in detective-style trench coats, standing together on the village green in front of the bandstand.

Jane stared at the page in complete bewilderment. “Why on earth is this here?” she asked softly.

Greenberg shrugged, and out of the corner of her eye she saw him shoot her a suspicious look. “Good question,” he said, refolding the page and putting it back where they'd found it. Then he rose, clearly signaling that it was time to leave. Jane sensed that he now regretted having agreed to show her the cave.

Jane rose, too. Starting to follow Greenberg out, she cast a final glance at the cave's contents, still visible in the reflected glow of his flashlight. Something else caught her eye and she stopped short.

“May I borrow your flashlight for a second?”