Over Her Dead Body (10 page)

“Just one more question,” I said. “Is there anyone on your staff who might have been angry with Mona?”

“
My
staff?” he said, coiling back.

“I’m just wondering if someone who worked here once worked for
Buzz
and might be nursing a grudge.”

“Not that I know of. Like I said, I think you need to look closer to home. Like that dude who was canned.”

I thanked him for his help and made my way back along the maze of corridors and through the door to
Buzz.
The tussle between Kiki and Mona might be very significant, and I needed to find out what the subject matter was. As I passed the small conference room, I saw that Jessie was still there, flipping her cell phone closed.

“My sister called just as you were leaving,” she said as explanation. “Do you have any siblings who drive you insane?”

Before I could reply, we heard voices in the hallway and looked in unison toward the door. A stream of five or six people were making their way down the corridor.

“What’s up?” Jessie called out to one of the senior editors.

“They just sent an e-mail telling everyone to come out to the front,” he said. “They’re going to make an announcement.”

“Omigod,” Jessie said to me in a hushed voice. “Maybe they’ve made an arrest.”

CHAPTER 6

J
essie and I followed the sullen-looking
Buzz
staffers out to the open area of offices up front. Nash was waiting at the very end of the pod, by the table where the daily meetings were held. It was as far away as possible, it seemed, from the spot where Mona had lain last night, her body writhing like a hose that someone had accidentally dropped to the ground as the water spurted out. Next to Nash stood Tom Dicker, dressed in a slim-fitting navy suit and yellow tie. His face, which seemed to be forever pinched in irritation, was a splotchy bronze color, as if he’d applied self-tanner with a blindfold on. From where I stood, his small eyes looked no bigger than dimes. He was rocking nervously, suggesting that he’d soon be making an announcement.

This ought to be good, I thought. Dicker was known in the industry as “the prince of malaprops.”

The space wasn’t ideal for such a big gathering. While some people moved up near the table, others hung back, snaked around the workstations in the pod.

“Come on up this way,” Dicker demanded, gesturing impatiently to those who were hanging back on the periphery, unsure what to do. “I have a few things I need to say.”

The people he was gesturing to shifted in position but barely moved, refusing to be herded. Dicker made no attempt to hide his displeasure. Someone once wrote in a profile of the man that he related to people on the creative side about as well as a puma would relate to a parakeet. Nash whispered something in his ear, and Dicker took two steps forward.

“Let me start by saying that I’m sorry I didn’t have the chance to talk to you earlier,” he announced, his voice strident. “I’ve been dealing with the police and all the media—though I know Nash has had the chance to speak to some of you folks.

“First things first. I am terribly sorry about Mona, as we all are. She was a terrific editor, and she made this magazine a great, great success, and I’d like for us to all join in a minute of silence for her.”

People lowered their heads, but there were no tears, at least not any that I could see, and many pairs of eyes darted around the room, checking out everyone else’s reactions. For all the remorse people were showing, you would have thought Dicker had asked us to bow our heads in memory of Betamax recorders or the Backstreet Boys.

“Okay,” he said brusquely before a minute was even up, “the next piece of news is that the police are hard at work on the situation, but at this point in time there’s nothing to announce. Of course, if any of you know anything that the police ought to know, you oughta tell them. I’ve also tightened up security, so there’s no reason for anybody to feel nervous.”

One of the fashion editors raised a hand, and Dicker glared. “This is
not
a damn press conference,” he seemed to say with his eyes. He nodded begrudgingly in her direction.

“Will there be any kind of, like, memorial service for Mona?” she asked.

“It’s gonna be private,” Dicker said. “Down the road we’ll probably do something ourselves, but we have to coordinate that with the family.

“Okay, next on the list,” he continued. “Nash will be taking over here for the time being. I know that telling you to return to normal is easier said than done, but we have a magazine to put out and we can’t misunderestimate how important it is to stay focused on that right now. And I don’t want to hear about anyone talking to the press. That’s against the rules here—and anyone who does it will be suspect to termination.”

Oh God. He was making George W. Bush seem like William Jennings Bryan. As he’d been speaking, I’d discreetly scanned the crowd. A few people were smirking. Most, however, looked anxious. I figured it had as much to do with the professional precariousness they now found themselves in as it did with the murder itself.

“Oh, and one more thing,” Dicker said bluntly. “I know some of you were wondering about the barbecue at my place in East Hampton on Saturday. That’s still on. I think it’s important for us to follow normalcy as much as possible. The buses will be in front of this building at eight o’clock. Be on time.”

A few other hands shot up around the room, but Dicker, ignoring them, turned to Nash and spoke something under his breath. Then he blasted toward the door to reception like a speedboat taking off from a dock.

“I know you all have a lot of questions,” Nash said with uncharacteristic softness to his voice, “but unfortunately there’s not much I can add. The police aren’t releasing a great deal of information. Right now, let’s put all our energy into turning out a great magazine. If I hear of anything significant that I can share, you’ll all be the first to know.”

Something told me that wouldn’t be the case, but Nash nonetheless managed to radiate both credibility and concern. I glanced around the room. Whereas some people had practically scoffed as Dicker spoke, everyone seemed to be lapping up Nash’s words.

“And speaking of sharing,” he continued. “Some of you have asked if we’ll be covering the crime in
Buzz.
The answer is absolutely yes. Mona was a celebrity in her own right, and we’re in the business of covering celebrity news. Bailey Weggins will be overseeing our coverage of the crime, and Ryan is preparing a profile of Mona. Please cooperate fully with them. We’ll be following this story for as long as necessary.”

People disbanded slowly, reluctantly, as if they believed that by lingering they might pick up a few more scraps of information. I scanned the crowd one last time. Several staffers were gazing in my direction, perhaps intrigued by the news that I would be writing up Mona’s murder. One of those eyeing me was Ryan, who had finally surfaced today. I was anxious to talk to him, but I saw him drift off down one of the corridors, and I decided to wait until he was free and we could do the interview with some degree of privacy.

Back at my desk, I stuck the guest list in an unmarked file folder and checked my voice mail. Nash’s assistant had called earlier to say that he could meet with me around six but that he’d prefer to do it outside the office. She offered the name of a nearby bar. Then I dug out the number Mona had given me Tuesday morning for Kimberly. This time I reached voice mail at least: “I’m not here—leave a message.” The twang was familiar, and I was pretty sure it must be Kimberly. I left my name and my affiliation and said that I wanted to speak to her about the party for Eva Anderson.

I was tempted to track down a number for Kiki and call her, too, but first I wanted to learn if Hilary knew anything about the altercation. The more information I had in my possession, the better my advantage in any conversation with Kiki.

Since the police were now gone from the premises—for the time being, at least—it was safe for me to begin interviewing people on staff. I placed an order over the phone for lunch, then grabbed my notebook and began to make my way around to people’s desks and offices—in no particular order. I nabbed people when I found them and when they weren’t on the phone, though I kept an organized master list of names so I’d be sure to miss no one.

Over the next few hours, I talked to about twenty-five people on staff—mostly from fashion, art, and production. During the first few interviews, I realized that people seemed defensive—perhaps they were feeling guilty for having harbored animosity toward Mona. Because of that, I proceeded gingerly with my questions, trying not to appear as if I were creating a suspect list in my mind. First I asked what time each person had cleared out last night and whether he or she had seen Mona at any point. From what I could tell, there had been almost a mass exodus around six. However, a designer in the art department nicknamed Spanky admitted that he hadn’t split until seven-thirty, and when he had there was still one person left in the art department, a freelance designer named Harrison. That was most likely the guy Robby had said held the door open for him. Harrison wasn’t scheduled to come back to
Buzz
until Friday. I jotted down his number from the art director.

After I’d learned each person’s schedule, I probed deeper. Do you have any idea who could have done this? I asked conspiratorially. I tried to make it seem as if the name of the person I was interviewing had never crossed my mind. But, of course, everyone was a possible suspect, and I watched people’s reactions carefully.

At three, I cut short one interview and headed toward Hilary’s office. She was on the phone when I stepped into the doorway, a sly smile on her face that made it seem as if the person on the other end might be describing a booty binge with George Clooney. She signaled with a long manicured finger that she’d be just a sec.

I hadn’t had any trouble relating to what Jessie had told me about Hilary. In the month and a half I’d known her professionally, I’d never seen Hilary with anything other than an expression of smug self-possession on her face. Women like her seemed incapable of being rattled by
anything,
whether it was a roomful of strangers or an insanely cute boy or even one of life’s endless curveballs. I just wished
I
could be more like that. It seemed that no matter how much experience I gained in life, I walked around occasionally looking like someone who just realized that she’d locked the keys in her car.

Hilary’s appearance was like that of no one else who worked at
Buzz.
She wore pastels rather than black, and her look was pure Junior League, the south of the Mason-Dixon line branch—big blue eyes, shoulder-length golden brown hair tousled just a bit, and lips so thick with gloss that they could snare a small dog. She was slightly plump by Manhattan standards, but if you plopped her on a country club lawn in Georgia, she’d be considered the toast of the town.

Today she was wearing a minty green skirt and a long-sleeved white shirt, unbuttoned low enough to reveal the lacy edge of her bra.

“So you’re the one who found Mona,” she declared as soon as she set down the phone. She motioned for me to take a seat in a black chrome chair in front of her desk.

“That’s right,” I replied, trying by my flat tone to display
nada
interest in revisiting it. “As Nash was saying, I’m going to be—”

“And she was still alive when you found her?”

“Unfortunately, I can’t really discuss the details.”

“Saving it all up for your story?” she asked coquettishly.

“Actually, the police have asked me to withhold the details.”

She stared at me, her gleaming lips pursed as if she were mulling over whether or not to believe what I’d just said. “That’s got to be tough, then,” she announced finally.

“What?”

“Keeping details from
yourself.
I mean, if you’re writing the story and you’re the one who found her, you have to be a real good girl to hold back.”

“True,” I said, wondering if she’d ever had one good-girl instinct in her entire life. Despite the Junior League attire, she came across, just as Jessie had said, like the kind of chick who was always conniving, plotting, trying to make sure she scored exactly what she wanted. “It’s a delicate balance. But anyway, the reason I’m here is that I’d like as much background on the party as possible. I need to retrace Mona’s last steps for the story. You saw her there, right?”

“Um-hm. Though she wasn’t there for very long.”

“What about other people from here? Who did you see at the party?”

She arched her back in a stretch, her breasts straining against her shirt, and sighed as she recollected. I tried not to stare at her boobs, but it was tough because they were about three inches from my face.

“Ryan and Jessie were there. And Nash—though he came in latish. Mona’s husband, Carl, was there, too, if that counts—I guess no one was staging a production of
King Lear Jet
last night or another one of his riveting plays. And from what I hear, your friend Robby was
supposed
to be there—to cover Kimberly—but I never saw him.
Apparently
he used the party as a way to get back in the building. He seems to be suspect
numero uno.
Would that upset you—to find out he did it?”

“It would upset me to find out that
anyone
I knew did it,” I said. “I hear Mona had a fairly unpleasant confrontation with Eva Anderson’s publicist. Did you happen to see it?”

“See it, yes. But I didn’t hear it. I skedaddled over there to find out what was going on, but by the time I worked my way through the crowd, it was over. I tried to find Mona later—to see if she wanted me to write it up as an item—but she’d disappeared.”

“But can—”

“I told the police, by the way. I thought they ought to know, even though Robby seems to be their personal favorite for the murder.”

“But can you take a wild guess about what Kiki and Mona went toe-to-toe over? Do you think it had to do with something you guys had written about Eva?”

She shrugged her crisp white shoulders. “I really haven’t a clue,” she said. Her tone was cagey, and for all I knew she was lying—or
pretending
to lie in order to look as though she had a big bag of secrets.

“Of course, it could have been about another client altogether, right?” I asked.

“Kiki doesn’t have any other clients that matter to
Buzz
.”

“Is she with one of those big celebrity PR companies—like PMK?”

“No, she runs her own small firm. Her specialty is hot new talent—and she guards them ruthlessly. Unfortunately when her clients become superstars, they tend to move on to the bigger agencies. Eva is one of the few who’ve stayed.”

“Tell me about Kimberly Chance, will you?” I said, switching gears. “I hear she wasn’t too fond of Mona.”

Hilary chuckled wickedly. “Try
despised,
” she said. “She blames us for all her woes, including losing a beauty contract. She has a passable voice, I suppose, but about as much charisma as a carrot stick. Of course, if she included a few of those in her diet, it might make all the difference. Have you seen how much she’s porked up? I can’t believe someone even
considered
giving her a beauty contract.”

“Is it true that Mona made up the nickname Fat Chance?”

“Now, Bailey, you know what our motto is, don’t you? What happens in the ‘Juice Bar’ department
stays
in ‘Juice Bar.’ I mean, I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”