Over Her Dead Body (7 page)

“Its possible, I suppose. But security seemed especially tight tonight.”

“I know. I thought they were going to scan my pupils.”

“You went to the party?”

“Yeah—for just a while, though. I had another event to cover, so I left around eight. I was gone before they rounded everyone up.”

“Who else was there from
Buzz
?” I was wondering who was still on the floor when Mona was attacked.

“Nash. Hilary, that blond chick who works for ‘Juice Bar.’ Ryan. I spotted him just before I left. And of course Mona and her husband.”

“
Mona
was at the party?”

“Yeah, she always tried—
tried
—to go to stuff like that on nights when we weren’t closing. Though obviously she went back over to the office at some point.”

Why? I wondered. To meet someone?

“What do you think’s gonna happen?” Jessie asked. “Will the place be crawling with cops?”

“Oh, you can count on that for at least the next few days,” I said. “I suppose Nash will run things, don’t you?”

“Yeah. Let’s pray they give him the job. That way all of our jobs are safe.”

“Oh gosh, we’re missing the news,” I said, peering at my watch in the candlelight. “Let’s check it out, okay?”

But we were too late. By the time I turned on the TV in my bedroom, there were sports guys barking on every channel. Jessie and I went back into my living room and spent a few minutes speculating about what would happen over the next few days—what Dicker might do, how intrusive the press was likely to be in our lives, how people on staff would behave.

“Do you think someone we work with did this?” she asked.

“I’m afraid it’s a possibility,” I admitted. “Though everyone who was at the party is a potential suspect.”

“I’m glad I left early. Well, I’d better get moving. Thanks again for letting me come up and hang for a while.”

“Oh please, it was just what I needed,” I said. “Before you go, one more question. Did Mona ever work late on Tuesday?”

“Not that I know of.”

“So what was she doing in her office, do you think?”

“Maybe she went back to get some work she’d left behind—just like you did.”

She might be right. I wondered whether the killer had been at the party and had seen Mona sneak away and followed her. Or was it someone who was at the office late and had gone down to Mona’s office when he saw her pop in unexpectedly?

“Do you think someone at the
party
did this?” Jessie asked as if she’d been reading my thoughts.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Perhaps tomorrow we’ll learn more.”

“Yeah,” she said distractedly.

“You going to be okay?” I asked.

“Oh sure. I mean, I feel overwhelmed by this weird floating anxiety, but do I think someone is going to sneak into my apartment tonight and smash
me
over the head with a paperweight? No.”

“What makes you say paperweight?”

“Isn’t it always a paperweight?” she asked, forcing a smile. “Good night. See you tomorrow.”

I opened the door and watched as she headed toward the elevator.

“Oh, by the way,” she said, turning midway down the hall. “You heard about Robby getting fired, right?”

“Uh-huh,” I said, keeping my face as neutral as I could manage. “Were you there today when it happened?”

“Yes, and it was ugly. I don’t think he threatened her or anything—he just crawled out of her office as if he were doing a scene from
The Passion of the Christ.
But once he was back in his office, he started slamming things around, kicking his wastebasket. They ended up sending security to escort him out. It’s a good thing they yank away your ID when you leave. Otherwise the cops would be all over him.”

I didn’t say anything, just nodded as if I intended to give her comments some thought after she left. But as I shut the door, I sighed in worry. If the police didn’t find evidence pointing to the contrary, Robby certainly was going to have the cops all over him. Could he actually have done it? And what kind of position did that put
me
in? I’d been less than truthful to the police tonight.

I undressed for bed, and after turning on the radio in my bedroom, I adjusted the dial to WINS, the New York City all-news station. Next I filled the bathtub and added some green-tea bath gel I had left over from a
Gloss
beauty giveaway. It was close to ninety out and taking a bath seemed borderline insane, but as soon as I sank into the water, my body almost moaned in relief. Unfortunately, the water did nothing to relax my brain. I kept thinking about Mona. If Robby hadn’t attacked her, who had? From my bedroom I heard the droning of radio news—snippets about a rapist on the loose in Queens and a taxi that had jumped the curb in midtown. Then, suddenly the announcer was talking about Mona. The controversial, widely known editor of
Buzz
had been murdered in her office tonight, he reported. Another woman on the premises had been injured, but not seriously. No arrest had been made.

Before I fell into bed, I tried Robby again to see if he’d managed to track down a lawyer, but his answering machine picked up. I left a message for him to call me if he needed a name.

I slept fitfully, a million odd dreams appearing and then dissolving in my head before I could even grasp the story lines. In the morning, I wolfed down half a bagel and chugged coffee while scanning
The New York Times.
The Mona story was referenced in a small box on page one and then received full coverage in the “Metro” section. I was even mentioned indirectly, as in “her nearly lifeless body was discovered by an employee.” There was an official obit in the back, detailing Mona’s history of turbocharging magazine sales. They said she was known for being tough. What they didn’t say was that she’d been an überbitch to work for.

I picked up both the
Daily News
and
New York Post
on the way to the subway, and they had Mona’s picture plastered on the front page along with as many of the lurid details as they’d been able to gather. They reported that she’d been hit in the head but that the police weren’t saying with what. There were also shots of party guests, including Eva Anderson, leaving the building. Eva’s dress was a white Grecian design. A clasp midway down the deep V prevented her boobs from leaving the state.

The situation outside the office building was even zanier than it had been last night—there were photographers, reporters, TV crews, and lots of ordinary but curious citizens. The latter were probably tourists who’d been on their way to blow some money at the Disney store and ended up with Mona’s murder as a bonus. Police barricades had been set up to keep the crowd at bay, and I had to flash my ID at a security guard before I even entered the building.

It was almost as crazy on the
Buzz
floor. Not only were two security guards in the reception area, but a patrol cop was cooling his heels there, too. The receptionist had this stunned expression on her face, as if she’d just heard that Godzilla had crawled out of New York harbor this morning and was now making his way up Sixth Avenue.

Inside the offices, the mood was an odd mix of somber and electrified. People were gathered in small clusters, talking, obviously pumping one another for details and speculating wildly. Some appeared sober, shaken by the news, but there were others who seemed to be containing their excitement, the way they’d looked the day Nash’s wife had stormed into his glass-walled office, called him “a lying fuck-face,” and hurled her purse at his head. As I walked by one of the clusters, a deputy editor volunteered that the daily meeting had been canceled.

The vestibule outside Mona’s office was still cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape, and through the partially closed door I could see at least two people puttering around inside her office—police doing follow-up work. And lo and behold, Detectives Tate and McCarthy were in Nash’s office, talking to him and Thomas Dicker, who was pacing the room like the proverbial caged tiger.

Neither Jessie nor Ryan was at their desks, but Leo was there on the phone, his computer screen displaying a grid of photos all featuring Jennifer Lopez dressed in a coral bikini. Apparently, life at
Buzz
hadn’t ground to a complete halt because of Mona’s death.

I threw my purse under my desk and checked my voice mail. To my dismay, I discovered that along with a couple of personal messages there were about ten calls from reporters and television producers hoping to talk to me. Word was obviously seeping out that I’d been at the murder scene. It was going to be tough to stay beneath the radar over the next few weeks. Among the personal messages was one from Cat anxious for details (natch!) and another from my next-door neighbor Landon, saying he’d heard about Mona and was desperate to chat. I left a message on his answering machine saying I’d catch up with him later.

Next I headed for the kitchenette. Several staffers I recognized but barely knew were congregated there, talking in low voices. They stopped speaking as I entered and eyed me curiously. After pouring myself a large cup of coffee, I slipped down one of the back corridors to do something I’d been unable to accomplish last night: check out the passage between
Track
and
Buzz.
I’d noticed the door before when I was back in the magazine storage room and someone had come through from
Track,
but I’d never been through it myself.

It was a big heavy metal door, closed at the moment. I glanced around, made sure no one was skulking about, and pushed down the handle. Though there was a lock on the door, it wasn’t locked now. On the other side, I saw a deserted back corridor area similar to the one I was standing in but obviously belonging to
Track.
Along one wall was a row of framed posters of albums from the sixties, including
The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.
Anyone would be able to pass from one magazine to the next.

How ironic, I thought. You practically needed to be strip-searched to gain entrance to
Buzz
or
Track
from both the street and the reception area, but once you were at one magazine, you could easily sneak into the other if you desired. There was every chance that the murderer had slipped through the door last night—perhaps leaving the party for a confrontation with Mona or then returning there after killing her so he wouldn’t be seen coming out of the main door from
Buzz.
On the other hand, the killer might have been a
Buzz
staffer who had never gone to the party but had lingered late at the office. He could have gotten away by slipping into the party or simply by heading down the stairwell. Or, of course, the killer could be Robby.

As I returned to my workstation moments later, Nash was walking in my direction and he indicated with a fast cock of his head that I should follow him back to his office. The detectives were not in sight at the moment, and neither was Dicker.

“Take a seat,” he said in that no-nonsense way of his.

I obliged, dropping into one of two leather-and-chrome chairs in front of his desk. He was a husky, fairly attractive guy, somewhere in his forties, with silver-tinged black hair that he wore slicked back at the sides and a pair of black reading glasses perched perennially halfway down his nose. He looked a little fatigued today but nonetheless totally in command. He was wearing a tie for a change, a black one against his black shirt and jacket.

“You hear about Robby?” he said, peering with his deep blue eyes over his reading glasses.

“What about him?” I asked warily.

“He apparently snuck into the building last night. Says he was looking for some letters in his desk. You didn’t see him when you were here, did you?”

So the word was out. That meant Robby was in deep doo-doo. I only hoped he’d tracked down a good lawyer.

“No, the place was empty when I arrived,” I said. “Do you think the cops believe Robby did it?”

“All I know for sure is that they had him at the precinct for questioning early this morning. And one of the detectives here today asked me all the details about his firing. How pissed he seemed, whether he made any threats.”

My stomach sank. “Do you know if he had a lawyer with him?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t know. He’s your buddy, isn’t he? Do
you
think he did it?”

“Robby’s a wonderful guy. I just don’t think he’s capable of something like this.”

“Well, the cops clearly have him in their sights. Speaking of which, the reason I called you in is that we have to cover this crime and I want you to be in charge of the reporting.”

“For
Buzz
?”

“Yeah, for
Buzz.
Mona wasn’t an Oscar winner, but she
was
a celeb of sorts and even people in Oshkosh know her name. Besides, she edited
this
magazine. We can’t ignore the story.”

“Of course. . . .” I paused for a moment.

“What’s the matter? You’re not too upset about this to write it up, are you?”

“Of course not. But the very fact that I’m personally involved presents a problem. I can’t exactly be objective.”

“Look, Bailey, in case you haven’t noticed, we’re not
The New York Times
. Just cover the story the way you’d cover any other celebrity crime for us—and plan to do as many follow-ups as necessary.”

“Okay, but there’s something else. The killer could very well be someone who works here. Are you going to feel comfortable with us airing that amount of dirty laundry?”

“We don’t really have a choice. We have an obligation to report on this. Besides . . .” He stopped himself. “Let me worry about any fallout.”

I couldn’t help but imagine what he’d been
tempted
to say. It was probably something like “Besides, newsstand sales will go through the fucking roof.”

“Fine,” I said. “Thanks for the opportunity. You know people at
Track,
right? Can you get me a list of everyone who attended the party last night?”

“I’m already working on that. You should know that we’re going to do a big sidebar on the party—on all the VIPs who were toasting Eva right next door to where Mona was attacked. Are you thinking some party guest did it?”