J
ane returned to Cordelia's loft the next morning around eleven-thirty. She used her key to let herself in. An energetic Mouse greeted her at the door with a wagging tale and breath that smelled like spaghetti sauce. “Jeez, Mouse. I can't turn my back on Cordelia for five minutes without her feeding you some crap.” From the other side of the screen that separated the living room from the den, Jane could hear Cordelia's voice.
“Woowie wow! That must have been
really
fun.”
Jane peeked around the screen. Cordelia was standing next to the desk, wearing a dark green football jacket with white leather sleeves over a loose gray cotton shirt that hung untucked over black leggings. She raised her eyebrows and mouthed, “Hattie.”
“Finally,” whispered Jane, lowering herself into a chair to listen.
“I yuv ⦠I mean love you too, sweetheart,” said Cordelia. She listened a moment more. “I know. I miss you tons and tons. But I'll see you tomorrow, okay? Can you wait just a little while longer?” She sat down, pinched the bridge of her nose with her free hand. “I know, Hatts. But it won't be long. And then, when you get home, we can make hot chocolate. I'll even make Fluffernutter sandwiches for us. What? Yes, we can watch
Mildred
again. I promise.” She put her hand
over the mouthpiece and whispered, “The kid loves the movie
Mildred Pierce.
Begs to watch it. Isn't she amazing?”
Back to the conversation with Hattie, Cordelia said, “I miss you, too. Listen, Hatts, we've only got a minute before Octavia comes back to your room, so give the phone to Cecily, okay? Oh, give me a kiss before you go.” She listened, then smooched back. “Did you catch my kiss? What? No, Hatts, I can't see your new stuffed dog through the phone. Well, because you can't
see
through the phone, that's why. Can you see me? You can? Well, I guess my eyes aren't as good as yours. Now hurry, sweet pie. Give the phone to Cecily.” She mimicked a scream, flung herself back against her chair, and closed her eyes. “Yes, I'm sure the doggie has pretty eyes. But I can't see them, okay. No, Hattie, even if you hold the doggie real close to the phone. Hattie, listen to me. I need to talk to Cecily. This is very important. No, honey, there are no monsters in your room, I promise.” Except for your mother, she said under her breath.
Cordelia was at her wit's end when she finally breathed, “Cecily. Okay, what's the plan?” She looked down, chewed her lower lip. “Right, I'll be there. Eleven on the dot. Give Hattie a hug from me, okay? Tell her I miss her like crazy. I'll see you both tomorrow. Now hang up quick before the witch finds out you called.”
Cordelia clicked off the phone and slumped in her chair. “I feel like I've been through a war.”
“But a war you're winning,” said Jane. “Sounds like Hattie is going to be dropped off tomorrow?”
“Radley's bringing her to the theater. Cecily told him that's where I'd be. Octavia has a morning massage.” She rolled her eyes. “So she won't be coming along. Boo-hoo. I won't get to say good-bye in person. I know this sounds paranoid, Janey, but I won't relax until Hattie's home where she belongs.”
“Apparently Octavia must've changed her mind. She thinks your loft is a safe place for Hattie to come home to after all.”
Cordelia snorted. “What a crock. Cecily said she could tell that Octavia was about to go tilt. Being around a kid for so many days in a row was taking a definite toll. She wants to assert her mommy
power, make me sweat, but in the end, she can't hold out forever. That's my one ace in the hole.”
“I'm so glad you finally got a chance to talk to Hattie.”
“What about you? How's David?”
Jane had called Cordelia last night after she and David got back to her house. She didn't want Cordelia to worry. “I just dropped him off at the U. He'll stay overnight so they can assess his sleep pattern. God, I hope, whatever it is that's wrong with him, that they find a way to help.”
“What about the police? They want to talk to him, right?”
“I know,” said Jane, playing with one of the snaps on her jeans jacket. “But I have no intention of telling the police where he is. It would only put off the meeting with this doctor, maybe indefinitely. The cops can wait. David can't.” She glanced down at Mouse, who was sitting at her feet, his head resting on her knee. “Did you feed him spaghetti?”
“Me?” said Cordelia, innocence incarnate. “Certainly not. I know you have rules about what he can eat.”
“Then he must have opened the can all by himself.”
“Bad Mouse,” said Cordelia, glaring down at him. “Hey, changing the subject, we've got to talk, girlfriend. I spent some time last night looking through the CD Nolan gave you. Guess what?”
“What?”
“There are two names on the list that we know. Personally.”
“Who?”
“Well, Faye for one. Doesn't surprise me. Apparently, she's been writing Joanna for over twenty years, giving her advice on her love life. She wasn't in the supercrazy category, but she was definitely someone whose mail Joanna's gatekeepers continued to read.”
“She kept writing even when Joanna didn't answer her?”
“They all did. Thousands of them. It's insane.”
“What was the other name?”
Cordelia picked up a pencil and tapped it against her coffee mug. “Noel Dearborn, my intern at the Allen Grimby. He wrote her several times in the past few months. His name was only on the list
because his last letter was nasty. He was mad that she didn't answer his first letter personally.”
“You think
he
could've been the one who sent her flowers?”
Cordelia shook her head. “I don't know what to believe anymore. But here's the other piece of news. Joanna and Freddy have flown the coop.”
“Meaning what?”
“You weren't the only one who didn't come home last night.”
“Where are they?”
Cordelia tried to suppress a grin. “You'll never guess. They checked into a hotel down in Bloomington. They're getting married today! In their hotel room. It's all arranged.”
“It is? They are?”
“And we're invited. Actually, they need us to be witnesses. It's all very hush-hush. Freddy went down to get the license yesterday. Didn't even pop the question until last night.”
“So that's where they were,” said Jane, recalling that Faye had said they'd left the building. “Freddy took her somewhere romantic and proposed to her?”
“Well, no,” said Cordelia, picking up a pencil and tapping it against her coffee mug. “There's more to the story. Remember that woman we met at Flying Cloud last week? The one who wanted to interview Joanna?”
“Vaguely.”
“Seems she tried to commit suicide last night. Slashed her wrists. When she was brought into the emergency room, she used the name âCordelia' and gave them Joanna's cell phone number as her next of kin. It was all a ruse. Joanna smelled a rat because they'd just seen me, but when she couldn't get me on the lineâwe must have been down in the basement talking to Bonifay in Madridâshe and Freddy called the goon squad and had a limo take them to the hospital. To hear Joanna talk about it, it was all pretty grim.”
“Huh,” said Jane. “I guess it makes sense then that Fayeâ” She stared at Cordelia, cocked her head. “No it doesn't.”
“What doesn't?”
She thought it through for another couple of seconds. “When we knocked on Faye's door last night, she was surprised to see you. She gave the impression that she thought you were sick.”
“Yeah, now that you mention it, I remember.”
“But if she didn't talk to Joanna or Freddy before they left, then how did she know about that call? She must've thought you were at the emergency room. And if you were in the hospital, how could you be standing outside her door?”
Cordelia nodded, thinking it over. “She kept looking at me funny. I didn't understand why.”
“Cordelia, think about it. There's no way she could have known about it unless she knew Hillary and Hillary told her. Orâ”
“Or she'd bugged the loft?”
“Bugging equipment is easy to get your hands on and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to use. If she had access to the loft, and we know she did, she could have planted a bug before Joanna arrived.”
“That's sick.”
“She obviously feels deeply connected to Joanna if she's been writing her all these years.”
“And she sure as hell doesn't like Freddy.”
Jane stood and reached for the phone. Tapping in the numbers for the security detail downstairs, she waited through three rings until the line was picked up.
“Melby.”
“This is Jane Lawless. I'm up in Cordelia Thorn's loft. I wonder if you could give me a call if you see Faye O'Halleron leave the building. She owns the loft next to Joanna Kasimir's up on four. She's in her seventies, about five-nine, dyed red hairâ”
“I know her,” said Melby. “You're in luck. She left about an hour ago. She goes out most days around ten, comes back in the early afternoon, sometimes with groceries.”
“Great, thanks.” As she clicked off the phone, she looked over at Cordelia. “Come on. I want you to search Joanna's loft for a bug, and while you're doing that, I'm going in to take a good long look at Faye's place. You got keys, right?”
“We've got to hurry, Janey. I promised Joanna that we'd be at the hotel by twelve-thirty. That's when the minister arrives. We don't want to keep them waiting.”
Â
Jane stood just inside Faye's front door, deciding what to look at first. The loft was essentially open, with bookcases and curio cabinets separating different sections. The living room was off to her right, a study off to the left. Nothing high-tech or electronic jumped out at her. She pulled back a long, mirrored folding door in Faye's bedroom and glanced into the closet. The apartment might smell like an ancient ashtray, but everything was neat and organized. And that's why a plastic sack stuffed haphazardly in the far corner behind a metal shoe rack caught her attention.
Crouching down, Jane pulled it free. Whatever was inside didn't weigh much. As she worked on the knot at the top, a whiff of something foul leaked out. She drew her head back and waved the stink away. When she finally got it open, she nearly gagged. Inside was a women's raincoat and gloves soaked in blood. “Jesus,” she whispered, moving it aside with the tips of her fingers. Beneath the coat were Joanna's white jeans and blue silk shirt, the clothes she'd changed into after her flight to Minneapolis last week. The coat was by far the bloodiestâstiff near the collar, the sleeves still dampâbut the jeans and shirt were also covered. The stench discouraged her from examining them any closer.
It was pretty clear what they meant. Joanna was the one who'd attacked Luberman with the knife. But why did Faye have them hidden in her closet? And how had Joanna known Luberman was coming to the lofts? He'd already been shot by an unknown assailant behind a downtown bar, so he was hurt, undoubtedly weakened. Had she seen him approach the building from her back window? Had she panicked? However she ended up in the stairwell, she must have done the deed, then rushed back to her loft to change out of her bloody clothes and try to hide the fact that she'd just committed a murder. She'd even come down to talk to the police, looking terrified, acting like she didn't know what had happened. Jane felt like a fool. It had never occurred
to her that Joanna had been acting. Maybe the terror was real, but everything else was a lie, calculated to throw the police off the track. Worst of all, she'd allowed the police to think David might be the killer. She'd left her brother to swing in the wind while she'd gone off with Freddy to get married.
Jane glanced back down at the bloody clothes, then closed and tied the sack. She carried it out to the living room, then continued her search for anything electronic that Faye might have used as a monitoring device. It seemed more clear than ever that she knew what was going on inside Joanna's loft.
After a quick check of what appeared to be a guest bedroom, Jane entered the study. On the desk she found an old computer. Next to it was a personal address book. Behind and to the right of the computer was a lump covered by a flowered silk scarf. Jane pulled the scarf off the top.
“What have we got here?” she whispered. Easing back the desk chair, she sat down and stared at two tiny video monitors. She switched one on. Up flickered a black-and-white shot of Joanna's kitchen. She switched on the second one and found herself gazing at Joanna's bedroom. “This is sick,” she said out loud. Playing with the dials on the front of the little monitor, she brought up the living room and the dining room. She heard some humming. Then a familiar voice burst into song: “And I ⦠e ⦠I ⦠e ⦠I will always love â¦
chocolate
⦠e ⦠I ⦠e ⦠I ⦠e ⦠I ⦔