“Hell, yeah. You could tell what day of the week it was by which of the babes came by with work for him. Francesca on Monday, Helen on Tuesday—”
Garth was killed on a Friday. “Who had Friday?”
“Free night. Guess he liked to keep that one open for social things, ya know? But then he’d dive right back in on Saturdays with Lindsay and Sundays with Wendy. Poor bastard worked way too much, but I guess it takes some of the edge off to be doing it with knockouts like them.”
That was the question that suddenly parked itself in the forefront of my mind. Was Garth Henderson “doing it” with one of his knockouts? Had Gwen Lincoln come to see him and managed to surprise him with one of his “girls”? Gwen’s views on infidelity seemed flexible enough that even if she were having an affair with Ronnie Willis, she could be enraged by finding her husband
en flagrante
with a protégée.
“When they found him, were the beds made up?”
“Chocolates still on the pillow.”
Not the kind of detail likely to occur to you as you throw the bedclothes up and pretend to the rampaging ex-wife that nothing’s going on. Besides, what I’d learned about Garth, he struck me as the sort who’d flaunt his conquests, not cover them up. “Any sign of anyone else?”
“Nope. Room service brought up dinner for two, but it hadn’t been touched. There was a drink on the table, that was it. Hell of a way to go, all alone like that.”
“All alone except for the person who shot him. Twice,” Tricia pointed out.
“Yeah, there is that.”
“What’s the talk on the hotel staff? Who do you all think did it?”
“Chuck in room service, he’s running a betting pool. Even money’s on the wife.”
“Who are the long shots?”
“A hooker. That new business partner. The mayor.”
“The mayor?” Tricia asked, offended on several levels, including the fact that her father did a lot of work for him.
Jimmy shrugged. “Darnell, one of our bartenders at Be-melman’s, he always bets on the mayor, no matter what you’re betting about. Says it’s a political statement.”
I tried to imagine Gwen Lincoln standing here, facing Garth and some horrible realization that made any other resolution inadequate, and pulling the trigger. Twice. And then having the impressive presence of mind to come back to the hotel a short time later and help “discover” the body.
“So everybody’s betting on her, but no one remembers seeing her that night—until the body was found,” I said, partly thinking out loud, partly for clarification from Jimmy.
“Yeah, bugs me, too. Maybe we’re just so used to seeing her around that it didn’t register. Or that she comes over so often, she knows how to get by everybody.”
Unfortunately, that made sense. It was easy enough to do the math. Anger multiplied by love divided by divorce plus gun equals dead guy.
Unless I was wrong.
It hit me with that cold, clammy certainty that pours over you at the instant the locked car door closes and you see your keys still in the ignition.
Unless I’d been looking at the wrong relationship in Garth’s life. Unless the variable of love represented not his wife, but one of the reasons he left his wife. Unless the person who loved Garth enough to kill him was someone else who came to the hotel regularly, knew its routines and his. Unless the person who killed Garth Henderson was a member of his Harem.
“DEAR MOLLY, WHY DO I
have such a hard time admitting that I’m wrong? And why is it only about certain things? I actually don’t have that much of a problem admitting that I’m wrong about facts, but when it comes to feelings—don’t hold your breath. Does this mean I’m passionate or I’m stubborn? Does this mean I’m wrong more often than I want to admit or I’m right so often that I’m out of practice? How do I learn to let go of the feeling without taking down a bunch of other feelings, maybe even a whole relationship, with it? Would it be easier never to say I’m wrong? Signed, Objectively Subjective
When I realized I might very well have been pursuing the wrong theory about Garth’s death, I had a sudden and intense desire for fresh air. Almost as though I was dishonoring Garth by bringing my bad theory into the room where he died. My suspicions about Gwen and Ronnie had been primarily intellectual, but this one I felt deep in the pit of my stomach, that raw and spiky nausea that comes with migraine headaches and guilt attacks.
“No one saw any of the ‘babes’ that night?” I asked Jimmy again, just to be sure.
“Nope.” He shook his head and checked his watch, but Tricia straightened up from her inspection of the carpet near
the death chair and looked at me sharply. Picking up on something in my voice or manner, she knew I’d switched tracks.
“What?” she asked impatiently.
“Just clarifying.”
“No, you’re not. You’re formulating a new theory and I don’t see it. Share.”
I didn’t want to be rude to Jimmy, who’d been marvelously forthcoming from his particular point of view, but I also didn’t want to discuss a newly germinated possibility in front of him. “Nothing to share.”
Her top lip curled in the beginnings of protest, but then she looked at Jimmy and clamped her lips together, realizing. “Fine.”
Jimmy’s housekeeping friend banged open the door, startling us all. “Housekeeping,” she barked reflexively. Giving us all a sullen glare, she declared, “You gotta go now.”
“Checkout time so soon?” Tricia said with a pleasant smile.
“You two got what you needed?” Jimmy asked solicitously, as though we were going to be coming back regularly and he wanted to be sure we parted friends, despite the housekeeper’s grim demeanor.
“I think so,” I told him, not explaining that it was what he had told us rather than shown us that was really helpful.
“What about your souvenir?” Rhonda growled.
“Excuse me?” Tricia said with the offense of a woman who doesn’t even take the free shampoo, much less consider packing the towels and bathrobe.
“Don’tcha gotta prove to your club you were in here?” She grabbed a tented card from the bureau and held it out to me. It was a service survey, asking for feedback on our stay at the Carlyle. A rough but bold hand had filled in the room number and signed, as housekeeping supervisor, Rhonda. I thanked her and took the card. “Oughta be collecting stamps or taking dancing lessons,” she said, leading the way back out into the hallway.
Jimmy escorted us back down to the lobby. Still eager to be of assistance, he wondered if there was anything else we needed. What I did need was for him to remember seeing one of the Harem the night of the murder but that wasn’t going to happen, so it was time to move on. We thanked him graciously for his help, he wished us great success in our secret society, and we made a quick yet graceful exit.
Outside, we paused. More correctly, Tricia grabbed me and wouldn’t let me so much as make eye contact with a cab until I answered her questions. “What is it? What did you figure out?”
I explained the new coalescence of my theories. “It just kept bugging me that everything Gwen got out of the murder she could have gotten out of the divorce. She’s just a little too pragmatic for the ‘if I can’t have you’ histrionics.”
Tricia considered that thoughtfully and eased the pressure on my left arm. “So what’s the protégée’s reason for blowing him away?”
“I’m still working on that part. Mind if I work on it in the cab?”
“Not if you don’t mind if the cab takes us to Cassady’s first.” Tricia nodded to the doorman, who signaled for the next cab in the queue to advance.
“My not minding has been taken for granted,” I said, following Tricia to the cab. “You really think we should go to her apartment?”
“She’s not answering at the office or on her cell and before I jump to any assumptions about her lack of well-being, I’d like to make sure she isn’t in bed with the flu or otherwise detained. It’s just not like her to go this long without calling either of us.”
Tricia was right. Cassady was the kind of friend who would literally call to say hello—and only hello—on days she was too busy to chat. Even if she were in court, she would’ve texted one or both of us with some wry comment about the proceedings, just to touch base. And the fact that I had explained I couldn’t talk that morning because of an incident involving police other than Kyle and she hadn’t called
me back at least three times since, pressing for details, was a definite sign that something was up.
As we rode up to the West 70s, Tricia and I returned our attention to my new theory of the murder. Everyone agreed that the Harem was hardworking and dedicated, so it wasn’t hard to imagine one of them having a superbly deep emotional commitment to the agency. The kind that overwhelms your life, casting such a deep shadow that not much manages to grow in its shade. If that utter devotion were capped by an affair with the CEO, and the CEO then hurt her in some way … But what way? He was getting a divorce, so he was about to be “free.” Had she been looking for something more?
“Were they worried about their jobs at all, with the merger going through?” Tricia asked.
“Not that I’ve uncovered. Ronnie Willis makes it sound like they’re the whole reason he wanted the merger. And I still think we’re dealing with an element of passion, given the way he was shot.”
“So, when you sleep with your boss, what’s the breaking point?” Tricia tilted her chin up at me expectantly.
“I don’t know.”
“Roger Leary.”
“I did not sleep with Roger Leary!” Roger Leary was a self-proclaimed Casanova and semitalented jerk who had somehow worked his way up to editor at
Scoop,
a brassy, biting weekly mix of gossip and fashion. All I can say in his defense is he gave me my first decent magazine job. Given the kind of guy he is, it’s not enough to get him into Heaven, but it’s all I’ve got.
“Of course you did.”
“No, I did not.”
“Then why did you stay in that grotesque job so long?”
“Because I was hoping to sleep with Matt Grovesnor, the assistant editor, but that never happened either. Besides, if I had slept with Leary, don’t you think I would’ve mentioned it?”
“Not necessarily. There are some secrets so shameful that
they don’t come out until years and years later, even among the best of friends.”
“Like you and Sam Burnett.” Sam was a slick and slippery GOP centurion who’d worked on a campaign with Tricia’s dad back when we first got out of school and Tricia still thought she was going to do that kind of work, too.
“Exactly.”
“Seriously?! I was just guessing. How long?”
“Only three times.”
“What was the breaking point?”
“They sent him to New Hampshire to put out some fires before the primary and I found I didn’t miss him in the least.”
“Not exactly a passionate commitment.”
“To the job or him. Bet your girl has both.”
I agreed. I just had to figure out which one of the Harem was such a go-getter that she’d kill her boss for derailing any of her plans.
But there was another go-getter on the agenda first. The cab dropped us in front of Cassady’s charming old building and the doorman greeted us warmly, confirming that Cassady was home. He called to let her know we were on our way up and she was standing in her apartment doorway as we got off the elevator. Wearing jeans and a sweatshirt.
I’ve seen Cassady naked more often than I’ve seen her in jeans and a sweatshirt. This is a woman whose idea of bumming around is Banana Republic chinos and a James Perse tee, with a spritz of cologne instead of perfume. Even more perplexing was the MIT emblazoned across the sweatshirt; I couldn’t think of anyone we knew who had gone there.
“We should’ve brought you soup,” Tricia exclaimed.
“I’m not sick,” Cassady said, leaning on the doorjamb and watching with a sly smile as we advanced. “I wanted to work from home today.”
“Were you going to tell us?”
“I might have mentioned it to Molly if she hadn’t been too busy wreaking new havoc with New York’s finest.”
“I called you back and you didn’t answer,” I said in self-defense.
Cassady stretched luxuriantly, like a cat preparing to move to a sunnier spot. “I’ve been bad.”
Tricia and I stopped, reacting to the same low trill in her voice. “Are you alone?” I asked, amazed I hadn’t considered this until now. Several pressing matters were vying in my mind, true, but I still felt inattentive.
Cassady pointed inside her apartment like a car-show model. “It’s safe to come in. Trust me.”
Inside her apartment and away from neighbor’s ears, we dropped our handbags and our pretenses. “I’ve been worried about you,” Tricia proclaimed.
“Yes, it was wrong of me not to let you know I was fine and just otherwise occupied. I apologize,” Cassady said, giving Tricia a brisk kiss on the cheek and heading for the kitchen. “Sadly, it’s not cocktail hour yet. What form of caffeine can I offer you until it’s five o’clock?”
“Did the physicist go to MIT?” I asked, anxious to unravel and put aside this mystery since there was more than one on the table.
“He did. For about three decades, judging from the stack of degrees he carried out of there.”
“So he’s an older man?” Tricia asked, floating delicately to a semi-flopped position on Cassady’s sofa.
“Yes, he’s Molly’s age,” Cassady called in from the kitchen. I’m three weeks older than Cassady and those three weeks may be her favorite part of the year. “But he’s educated to a ridiculous extent, so he seems even older.”
“So what was it about this graying gravity that swept you off your feet to such an extreme that you stayed home from work and turned off your phone?” I asked.
“He’s got a great sense of humor.”
Tricia and I groaned in perfect harmony, honed by years of Cassady’s checkered romantic track record. All of her greatest debacles began with that sinister phrase: “He has a great sense of humor.” Not that Tricia and I didn’t value that
trait in a man. It’s just that it’s so tough to make Cassady laugh that she’s willing to overlook a host of other, major imperfections—bad manners, massive debt, a wife—to stay with a funny man much, much longer than is prudent. Invariably, the breakup ratchets her criteria up even higher and the next guy has to try that much harder.
“When do we get to meet him?” I asked.
“I’m not sure.”
“Excuse me?” Tricia sniffed. “Have we been found wanting?”
“No, not at all, it’s just that he’s actually kind of shy and I don’t want to spring the two of you on him. It might be overwhelming.”
“Was that a compliment?” Tricia asked me as Cassady returned from the kitchen with a carafe of iced coffee, cream and sugar, three different flavors of Italian syrup, and glass mugs. She set the tray down and we began to assemble our own concoctions, giggling like kids with a junior chemistry set.
“Aaron is a gentle soul and I want to take care in introducing him to the two of you.”
“Is he a physicist or an orchid?” Tricia asked.
“You two remember Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle?” Cassady asked, as though it were a logical response.
“Isn’t that the one that proves whatever outfit I select, I’m not sure what shoes to wear with it?” I attempted.
“No, no, it’s the one that says the more a man claims he wants to commit, the less certain you can be about what he’s really after,” Tricia said.
“The principle states,” Cassady, who slept through more science classes in college than both Tricia and me combined, explained, “that the act of observing a subatomic particle affects the behavior that’s being observed, making it impossible to determine both direction and velocity.”
Tricia didn’t seem any more certain of how we were supposed to respond than I felt. “That strikes me as sad, actually.”
“No,” Cassady said with a sly smile, “it just means that since I’m still trying to determine direction and velocity—”
“You don’t want us to observe him until you’re sure where you’re going and how fast you’re going to get there,” I hypothesized.
“Precisely.”
Tricia pouted. “That could take ages.”
“Let’s stick with the scientific mode and examine past data. When has it ever taken Cassady ages to make her mind up about a man?” I asked.