He entertained me with other stories from Peyton Place until we stopped in front of a gorgeous building on Riverside Drive. He rolled forward into a shadow and we watched Wendy walk up to the door and be greeted with familiarity by the doorman. She even stopped to chat with him.
“Nice place,” Bruce said. “This where she lives?”
Could explain the bankruptcy. “I’m not sure.”
I reached forward with the money and Bruce grabbed my hand. “I’m not gonna hear about you on the news when I get home tonight, am I? ’Cause if you’re gonna go in there and do something stupid, I’m gonna drive away right now and drop you somewhere you can’t do no harm.”
My initial alarm dissipated into appreciation. “I just need to talk to her. I promise, I’ll be kind and careful.”
Bruce nodded slowly. “Okay. ’Cause I can pick you out of a lineup.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I said, sliding out of the cab.
Improvising on the way, I ran up to the door, just as the doorman was closing it behind Wendy. “Wendy! Wendy!” I called. “Wait!”
The doorman opened the door again and called in for Wendy. She stepped back out, then looked daggers at both of us when she recognized me. “Go away, Molly.”
“Just one more question.”
“No, Molly.”
The doorman stepped forward protectively. “Want me to call Mr. Willis for you?” he asked Wendy.
I actually felt dizzy as all the thoughts swirled together. Wendy couldn’t afford a place here. It was Ronnie’s place. This was how she was rebuilding her future. She’d moved from Garth to Ronnie, securing her position in the new regime before the merger was even finalized. Did that mean Ronnie and Gwen had broken up or was Ronnie emulating Garth and balancing them both, as it were? Or did
Wendy not care, since she’d been through this before with Garth?
I don’t know that it’s possible to admire amorality, but you can certainly give props to naked ambition—and apparently, naked was how Wendy’s ambition expressed itself best. “I think it would be very helpful to have Mr. Willis be part of this conversation,” I told the doorman.
“If we call anyone, it’s the police,” Wendy snapped.
“What a lovely idea! Let’s make it a scene. I love making scenes, don’t you?” I fished my cell out of my bag and flipped it open. “What should I tell them is happening? Were you planning on hitting me or—”
Wendy grabbed me by the arm and dragged me inside with her, calling back over her shoulder for the bewildered doorman to ignore her drunken friend. Inside, it was like the lobby of a resort hotel with glistening marble, brass accents, lots of ferns. Elegant and echoingly empty.
Wendy snatched my phone away from me. “What’s it going to take to get you to shut up and ignore all this?” she hissed, watching the elevators lest one suddenly spit out someone she knew.
“A conversation with you and Ronnie.”
“No way.”
“Okay then. Good night, Wendy.” I took back my phone and headed to the front door, hoping she couldn’t tell I was walking as slowly as possible so she’d have plenty of time to stop me.
“Wait. I thought you had one more question.”
“I’m pretty sure I have my answer,” I said, gesturing to her surroundings. “I’ll just fill in the rest for myself.”
She was still frowning as we walked into Ronnie’s picture-perfect apartment on the second floor. She had her own key, which said a great deal about the relationship, and she let us in without calling out to him, which said even more. I thought the apartment was empty until Ronnie swung out of a doorway and pointed a pistol at us.
Wendy shrieked, which made me feel better about wanting to do the same thing. Ronnie quickly pulled up the gun
with one hand and reached out to her with the other. “I’m sorry, baby, I’m sorry. I didn’t expect you so early.” He pulled her to him, rubbing her back and stroking her hair while she caught her breath. I stroked my own hair and tried not to hyperventilate. Men pointing guns had become too much a part of my daily routine, but I still wasn’t used to it. I was going to write a big check to the Brady Campaign once I got paid for this article.
Ronnie quickly seated us in his exquisite living room with its river view and highly polished woods, and whipped up a pitcher of martinis. All with the gun either in his hand or lying within reach, which I found highly disconcerting. “Mr. Willis,” I finally dared, “could we put the gun away?”
“Not at all. I’m in danger. You’ve chosen to follow my sweet girl home, so you’re in danger. I need to protect myself and those around me, don’t I?”
“You can’t think Jack Douglass is still after you,” I said, wincing because it sounded ruder than I’d intended.
“Jack is a cog in the wheel and it’s turning, running, getting ready to grind us down,” Ronnie said, handing me a martini with his gun-less hand.
So the enemy was closing in but we still had time for a cocktail? Ronnie’s perception of reality might be skewed to a greater degree than I had considered before. “Why do you still think someone wants to kill you?” I asked, setting my glass down untouched. I wanted to stay sharp for this conversation. Even if Wendy had killed Garth, now that she was sleeping with Ronnie, didn’t that make Ronnie safe? Of course, she’d been sleeping with Garth before she killed him. Maybe Wendy had a hard time breaking up with men.
Wendy chugged down her martini. Her hands were trembling and I wasn’t sure if that was from my closing in on her or because she believed Ronnie was in danger. Or maybe Ronnie was in danger because of Wendy and I’d thwarted her plans by showing up when I did. But if she’d killed Garth because he’d gone back on his deal with her, she wouldn’t kill Ronnie now, when he hadn’t had the opportunity to deliver on the deal, would she? And she wouldn’t do
it in front of me, would she? Because then she might have to consider me a disposable witness and we didn’t want to go there. Maybe I needed a sip of martini after all.
“So how much do you know, Molly Forrester?” Ronnie asked, finally perching on the edge of the couch, his martini and his gun each balanced on a knee.
“What do you want to tell me?”
“I was looking forward to a bright, new future working with Garth. Now I’m being dragged down by his death. Obviously, I had nothing to do with it.”
“Do you know anyone who did?” I asked, knowing he wouldn’t out Wendy, but wondering if he harbored any suspicions.
To my surprise, he looked directly at her. She shook her head forcefully, eyes screwed shut, begging him not to speak. This was a conversation they’d had before. “Gwen Lincoln is the only one who benefits directly,” Ronnie said in a silky whisper, still watching Wendy.
“Oh, Ronnie,” she moaned.
“Wendy thinks we’re going to lose the agency completely if Gwen is arrested,” Ronnie said, picking up the gun and petting the barrel in a way that made me nervous and nauseous. “Final negotiations will get held up, papers won’t get signed, all that sort of thing. She’s very protective of the agency.”
Wendy erupted. “I poured my soul into that place and I am not going to let it fade away because some people can’t keep their pants or their lips zipped.” I wasn’t sure whether she was accusing Ronnie or Garth or both, but Ronnie was unruffled by the statement. “It’s going to be my agency—”
“Our agency,” Ronnie corrected, a little less silky this time. This is what he meant by “working with the woman he loved”? He and Wendy staging a coup and somehow easing his old lover, the widow of her old lover, out?
“Of course,” she said, hurrying over to snake her arms around his neck and kiss him heartily. Even then he kept the gun clutched in his hand, which was making me increasingly
nervous. I even shifted in my seat, trying to ease myself out of the line of fire should Ronnie suddenly shoot.
But then there was a shrieking, hair-raising scraping sound out on the balcony and the gun swung immediately in that direction. Ronnie nearly dumped Wendy off his lap as he stood, hurrying not to the french windows but to the light switch near the hallway door. Wendy and I were still reacting and she was whispering, “What was that?” when Ronnie plunged the room into darkness.
Ronnie hurried back to where we sat, pulling us wordlessly to the floor so the sofa shielded us from anything or anyone who might come in through the french doors. He crouched beside us, but not as low. I could smell the adrenaline sparking off him. He was eager for a confrontation.
“Could be anything—” I attempted.
Ronnie hushed me vigorously. Wendy went into a fetal crunch, her knees and forehead against the front of the sofa, hands on the back of her neck, like the old educational films about protecting yourself from a nuclear attack. She was trembling again, but from fear or tension or guilt, it was impossible to tell.
I took a deep breath and mentally listed all the benign causes of the sound I could think of and imagined how much we’d all enjoy Ronnie’s reaction when the truth was revealed and he realized it was nothing but a cat or a neighbor moving flowerpots or a car down on the street. But then another sound inserted itself into the cacophony in my head, clear and riveting and unexpected, like Joni Mitchell joining in with Neil Young’s “Helpless” from offstage in
The Last Waltz.
But this wasn’t someone breaking into song. This was someone jiggling the knob and trying to break open the french doors.
Chaos happens so quickly it’s hard to sort out, even much later. Ronnie stood with his gun out and shouted an impassioned but unintelligible warning. I jumped to my feet, clinging to the idea that everything was still okay and screaming for Ronnie not to shoot. Wendy stayed on the floor and screamed from there.
Though everything else seemed to be happening too fast, I could swear I could see the bullet as it left the gun, flew across the room, plowed through the glass, and plunged into Peter Mulcahey.
FRIENDSHIP HAS MANY LEVELS. CASUAL friends, who you’ll speak to pleasantly when you run into them but you wouldn’t hunt them down or cancel other plans for the pleasure of their company. Good friends, who can be trusted to keep a secret, an appointment, and your purse while you’re on the dance floor. And then there are great friends, who appear at any hour at any location just because you ask them to and ask no questions. Not until they arrive, anyway.
“Are you the one who shot him?”
I was so glad to see Cassady walking across the surgery waiting room toward me that I hugged her before I even attempted an answer. She was dressed simply in a cotton sweater and chinos, which made me feel better about having interrupted any grand event when I’d called and asked her, with a minimum of hyperventilation and even less explanation, to come to St. Luke’s Hospital because Peter’d been shot. I did mention that the police would be coming and going. Graciously, she’d said she’d be right there and withheld all further comment until now.
“My moments of wanting to shoot Peter are behind me,” I said, releasing her reluctantly. I was still more rattled than I wanted to admit to anyone, including myself, and it was reassuring to anchor myself to her for a moment.
“I wouldn’t have blamed you, I was just clarifying.”
“Ronnie Willis was the one who shot him and he doesn’t seem the least repentant about it, which is a whole different story.”
“Ronnie Willis? Why were you and Ronnie Willis and Peter Mulcahey all in the same place—with or without a gun?”
I took a deep breath in preparation for diving into the explanation, but Cassady wagged her finger at me to hold it. “Before you start, this is Aaron.”
The breath escaped me in a little puff of surprise. In my disarray, I hadn’t registered the man standing slightly behind Cassady, hands in his pockets and head cocked to one side. My hand shot out of its own accord. “Thanks very much for coming, Aaron. Nice to meet you.”
He gave me a slightly uncomfortable but still pleasant smile and shook my hand. He wasn’t at all what I’d expected—not that I’d been sure what to expect. I’d resisted the leather-patched-tweed-jacket stereotype because Cassady would have glided right past that, but I’d had no theory beyond that. Aaron was a little shorter than Cassady—who wasn’t—and leanly built, with prominent cheekbones and long, tapered fingers. He wore black jeans and a heather gray merino polo, but the casual elegance was undercut by the red Chuck Taylors. His brown hair was tightly curled and his eyes were deeply, warmly brown. I immediately understood Cassady’s new interest in physics. “Sorry for your difficulty,” he said in a rich, rolling voice.
“Thank you.”
“Is Tricia coming?” Cassady said, tapping on my hand so I’d let go of Aaron.
“Voice mail.”
“Me, too. Well, you’ll just have to repeat yourself when she gets here because I’m not waiting. What the hell happened?”
I gave them a synopsis of the evening, concentrating on the events at Ronnie’s, and occasionally glancing over at Aaron to see how this was all striking him. He listened with interest and without judgment. Cassady took care of the
judgment, shaking her head and even rolling her eyes a time or two. She sighed heavily when I explained about Peter having just come out of surgery and the various groups of detectives with whom I’d been chatting while I was waiting.
“Why on earth was Peter on the balcony?” Cassady asked.
“Pursuing his theory that Ronnie killed Garth. Looking for evidence, even though Ronnie wouldn’t talk to him and the doorman wouldn’t let him in the building.”
“I won’t speak for you journalists, but in legal circles, we call that ‘breaking and entering,’” Cassady explained.
“I think ‘trespassing’ is being discussed at the moment, since he never got the opportunity to break or to enter.” The detectives involved so far had plenty to listen to, talk about, and consider. The original duo had responded to the apartment and been told by various people at various levels of hysteria that this incident was related to other cases: Peter insisted they consult with Detective Donovan because of the connection to Garth’s death and Ronnie wanted them to talk to Detective Hernandez because of his Jack Douglass conspiracy theory. I’d tried to advance the theory that it was all a misunderstanding, a function of overzealous reporting, but they were so underwhelmed by that line of reasoning that they let me follow Peter to the hospital.
Ronnie and Wendy followed quickly behind because Ronnie had started having chest pains while the paramedics were treating Peter. I’d checked in on him while Peter was in surgery and he was feeling better, though tethered to an impressive amount of equipment. Wendy started screaming at me the moment she saw me, which got me booted out of the E.R.
Just before Cassady and Aaron had arrived, Detectives Hernandez and Guthrie had checked in on me; they were back downstairs now, conferring with the latest additions to their specialized fraternity. Detective Donovan had yet to show, and I wasn’t looking forward to his arrival. Perhaps the current detectives would have dismissed the need to talk
to me further by the time he got there. Not that my timing is ever that good, but I always hope.
“So what are we waiting for?” Cassady asked now. “Not that I don’t love hanging out in hospitals with you, Moll, but the kind of shots they dispense around here is not the kind you need.”
“I wanted to talk to Wendy again before I left.”
“Good idea, because she’s going to be so open to sharing right now,” Cassady said grimly.
“How could she make any of this my fault?”
“You suspect her of killing Garth, don’t you?”
“Yes, but I didn’t tell her that yet. And I certainly didn’t tell Peter. Peter came of his own accord and Ronnie shot Peter of his own accord and I’m an innocent bystander in all this.”
“The addition of a quark to any defined space impacts results whether there is a visible interaction between the particles or not,” Aaron offered.
“I’m some sort of particle?” I wasn’t sure whether it was a compliment or an insult, but given the way my evening was going so far, I was willing to formulate a hypothesis or two.
“A reactive agent is my guess, but it’s early,” Aaron said with far too much enjoyment for a guy who had only just met me.
“Your name’s come up once or twice,” Cassady explained.
“Let me take care of this nasty little situation and I’ll tell you a few stories in return,” I promised Aaron, who kept smiling.
“We came to rescue you and take you away from all this. Let’s go,” Cassady said.
“I really need to talk to Wendy. Should probably talk to Peter, too,” I said, knowing how well that would go over. Sure enough, Cassady responded with a withering glance. “I tried to see him in post-op before, but they tossed me out. Of course,” I said, suddenly inspired, “now that his brother is here, we really should try again, don’t you think?”
Before Cassady could protest, I slipped my arm through Aaron’s. Smiling bemusedly, Aaron willingly walked with
me to the senior nurse who guarded the entrance to the recovery area like a Beefeater in white polyester. The nurse was intimidating in girth and manner, exuding that vibe that insanely busy people get which says, “Is it really worth bothering me?” We bravely paused before her and Aaron mellifluously said, “You’re treating my brother, Peter Mulcahey.”
“Waiting for a room,” she said, doing her best not to acknowledge me.
“Could I see him?”
Now the nurse frowned at Cassady and me. “Can you control your backup singers?”
“His girlfriend and my wife. I’ll do my best,” Aaron answered. I wanted to turn around and catch the expression on Cassady’s face, but I didn’t dare throw off anyone’s concentration.
The nurse sniffed skeptically but led us down the hall, the people in the curtained areas popping in and out of view like vignettes of suffering and rejoicing, to the back corner where Peter was propped, naked from the waist up, a huge expanse of thick gauze taped to his side and tubes peeking out from multiple locations. His grin as he saw us was positively lopsided and when the nurse announced that his brother had come, Peter, who has only sisters, nodded sleepily yet enthusiastically. “Hey, bro!” he greeted Aaron.
The nurse gestured for us to stand close around the bed and started to close the curtains behind us. “We gave him something for the pain. It affects people differently.” She paused behind me, speaking sternly. “Only a few minutes and if you cause any trouble, I’ll have those police back in here to haul your pretty little butt outta here for good.” With a pointed flick of the curtains, she withdrew.
“A reputation already. Nice work,” Cassady whispered.
“Thanks for coming to get me, guys, it means so much to me,” Peter gushed as though he were hosting a birthday party rather than sporting a bullet wound.
“Peter, we’re not taking you home.”
“Please? I’ll be good.”
“They have to keep you for a while,” I said gently.
“No, they don’t. I feel much better now.”
“Ask him again when the morphine wears off,” Cassady suggested.
Somehow, I felt responsible for Peter’s condition and wanted to do something, perform some act of penance. “There anyone you need us to call?”
Peter fumbled to take Aaron’s hand. “My brother’s here and that’s all that matters.”
“Knock it off, Peter,” Cassady suggested.
Peter swung his bleary eyes in her direction. “Did you know I got shot? Are you the one who shot me?”
“Sadly, no,” Cassady said. “Gotta say, this is sure to yield valuable information, Molly. It’s a good use of your time.”
I gestured for her to be patient just a moment longer. “Peter, what did you think you were going to find in Ronnie’s apartment?”
“The Pentagon Papers,” Cassady muttered.
“The gun. And I found it! The hard way!” Peter was increasingly heavy-lidded and thick-tongued. The strength it had taken for him to rouse himself from the surgery sedatives was ebbing quickly.
“No, no, different gun.” Ronnie had turned the weapon over to the police immediately; it was a 9mm and Garth had been shot with a .32.
“Oh, then the original merger agreement. Kimberly said it changed and Ronnie was really, really pissed.” Peter sank back into his pillows, drained.
It took me a moment to place the name. “Ronnie’s niece Kimberly? The receptionist? She’s your inside source?”
“And you’re my best girl.” Peter let go of Aaron’s hand and grabbed mine, squeezing much harder than I would have thought possible in his chemical haze.
“That’s very sweet,” I said, trying to extricate myself, but his grip was like a Chinese finger trap—the harder I tried to get loose, the harder he held on.
“I love you, Molly.” Peter yanked on me, trying to pull
himself back up out of his pillows, but he wound up knocking me off balance. I caught myself, bracing my hand on the bed. Which is why I was leaning over him as Tricia entered. With Kyle.
“Are we interrupting?” Tricia asked with classic Vincent aplomb.
“Damn, my family’s gotten big,” Peter drawled, his eyelids at half-mast.
Tricia stood in the gap in the curtains, looking at Peter with concern. Kyle stood behind Tricia, one hand in his pocket, the other to his bottom lip, staring at me. I had no idea why he was there. I hadn’t called him. Which, I realized, was going to be a problem because I’d called Tricia and Cassady, but I hadn’t called him. And I hadn’t called him because I knew I was there with Peter and I didn’t want him to know I was there with Peter and I also didn’t want him to know I was hanging around people with guns again.
There are searing, formative moments in my life that continue to play in my mind so vividly that I literally flinch when I remember them: throwing up onstage in the third grade Christmas pageant (I still get stage fright); thinking Tom Garrett was asking me to the prom when he was seeking my advice about asking my best friend (I now ask a lot of questions before I answer one); and walking in on a college suitemate in the midst of a ménage à trois (I always knock first). This moment was etching itself into my memory as though a branding iron were pressed against what little gray matter I possessed.
“Does this look like a place to have a party?” The senior nurse flicked the curtains back imperiously and pointed to the exit.
“We’re family,” Cassady attempted.
The nurse gave us a sickly sweet smile to assure us she knew we were, in fact, liars. “Sweetheart, you could be Jesus Christ and the Apostles and I’d still throw you out. Too many of you in here. Go away and let him rest.”
“Can Molly stay?” Peter asked mournfully.
“No,” Cassady and Tricia answered for me. They pulled me out of his reach and hustled me down the hall. Aaron and Kyle brought up the rear. I heard Aaron describe himself as “Cassady’s new friend” and held my breath when Kyle paused before saying he was my boyfriend. Maybe he wasn’t as angry as he looked.
“Why’d you bring Kyle?” I whispered to Tricia, trying to sound calm and curious.