Pretend You Don't See Her (17 page)

 
          
How
can I bring up Heather Landi’s name without seeming too abrupt?
she
wondered, reminding herself that Kate was only in town
for a week.

 
          
*

 
          
“I
made these cookies this morning,” Lacey said as she set a plate on the coffee
table. “Try them at your own risk. I haven’t baked since high school.”

 
          
After
she poured the coffee, she tried to steer the conversation around so that she
could introduce Heather’s name. In her journal, Heather had written about
meeting Tom Lynch after a performance. But if I say that I saw the show,
chances are I would have remembered if I’d seen Kate in it, Lacey thought. She
said, “I went down to New York about a year and a half ago and saw a revival of
The Boy Friend. I read in your bio in the program tonight that you were in it,
but I’m sure I’d remember if I’d seen you.”

 
          
“You
must have gone the week I was out with the flu,” Kate said. “Those were the
only performances I missed.”

 
          
Lacey
tried to sound offhand. “I do remember that there was a young actress with a
really fine voice in the lead. I’m trying to think of her name.”

 
          
“Heather
Landi,” Kate Knowles said promptly, turning to her cousin. “Tom, you remember
her. She had a crush on you. Heather was killed in a car accident,” she said,
shaking her head. “It was such a damn shame.”

 
          
“What
happened?” Lacey asked.

 
          
“Oh,
she was driving home from a ski lodge in Stowe and went off the road. Her
mother, poor thing, couldn’t accept it. She came around to the theater, talking
to all of us, searching for some reason behind the accident. She said that
Heather had been upset about something shortly before that weekend and wanted
to know if we had any idea what it was about.”

 
          
“Did
you?” Tom asked.

 
          
Kate
Knowles shrugged. “I told her that I had noticed that Heather was terribly quiet
the last week before she died, and I agreed that she was worried about
something. I suggested that Heather may not have been concentrating on driving
when she went into the skid.”

 
          
It’s
a dead end, Lacey thought. Kate doesn’t know anything I don’t already know.

 
          
Kate
Knowles put down her coffee cup. “That was great, Alice, but it’s very late,
and I’ve got to be on my way.” She stood,
then
turned
back to Lacey. “It’s funny that Heather Landi’s name should come up; I’d just
been thinking about her. A letter her mother had written to me, asking that I
try again to remember anything I could that might give her a reason for
Heather’s behavior that weekend, finally caught up with me. It had been
forwarded to two other cities before reaching me here.” She paused,
then
shook her head. “There is one thing I might write her
about, although it’s probably not significant. A guy I’ve dated some—Bill
Merrill, you met him, Tom—knew Heather too. Her name came up, and he mentioned
that he had seen her the afternoon before she died, in the après-ski bar at the
lodge. Bill had gone there with a bunch of guys, including a jerk named Rick
Parker who’s in real estate in New York and apparently had pulled something on
Heather when she first came to the city. Bill said that when Heather spotted
Parker she practically ran out of the lodge. It’s probably nothing, but
Heather’s mom is so anxious for any information about that weekend that she’d
surely want to know. I think I’ll write her first thing tomorrow.”

 
          
The
sound of Lacey’s coffee cup shattering on the floor broke the trancelike state
she had entered when she heard Kate’s mention of Isabelle’s letter and then of
Rick Parker’s name. Quickly covering her confusion, and refusing their help,
she busied herself with cleaning up the mess while calling out her good nights
to Kate and Tom as they headed for the door.

 
          
Alone
in the kitchen, Lacey pressed her back against the wall, willing herself to be
calm, resisting the urge to call out to Kate not to bother with the letter to
Isabelle Waring, since it was too late for it to matter to her.

 
          
AFTER
NEARLY FOUR MONTHS OF INVESTIGATION, U.S. ATTORNEY Gary Baldwin was no nearer
to locating Sandy Savarano than he had been when he had still believed Savarano
was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery.

 
          
His
staff had painstakingly studied Heather Landi’s journal, and had tracked down
the people named in it. It was a process that Isabelle Waring also had
attempted, Baldwin thought, as he once again studied the police artist’s
rendering of Sandy Savarano’s face as drawn from Lacey Farrell’s description of
him.

 
          
The
artist had attached a note to the drawing: “Witness does not appear to have a
good eye for noticing the kind of detail that would make the suspect
identifiable.”

 
          
They
had tried talking to the doorman in the building where the murder took place,
but he remembered virtually nothing of the killer. He said he saw too many
people come and go there, and besides, he was about to retire.

 
          
So
that leaves me with only Lacey Farrell to personally finger Savarano, Baldwin
thought bitterly. If anything happens to her, there’s no case. Sure, we got his
fingerprint off Farrell’s door after her apartment was burglarized, but we
can’t even prove he went inside. Farrell’s the only one who can tie him to Isabelle
Waring’s murder. Without her to ID him, forget it, he told himself.

 
          
The
only useful information his undercover agents had been able to glean about the
killer was that before his staged death, Savarano’s claustrophobia apparently
had become acute. One agent was told: “Sandy had nightmares about cell doors
clanging closed behind him.”

 
          
So
what had brought him out of retirement? Baldwin wondered.
Big
bucks?
A favor he had to repay?
Maybe both.
And
throw in the thrill of the hunt, of course. Savarano was a vicious predator.
Part of it could have been simple boredom. Retirement might have been too tame
for him.

 
          
Baldwin
knew Savarano’s rap sheet by heart. Forty-two years old, a suspect in a dozen
murders, but hasn’t seen the inside of a prison since he was a kid in reform
school!
A smart guy, as well as a born killer.

 
          
If
I were Savarano, Baldwin thought, my one purpose in life right now would be to
find Lacey Farrell and make sure she never gets the chance to finger me.

 
          
He
shook his head, and his forehead creased with concern. The witness protection
program wasn’t foolproof; he knew that. People got careless. When they called
home, they usually said something on the phone that gave away their hiding
place, or they started writing letters. One mobster who was put in the program
after cooperating with the government was dumb enough to send a birthday card
to an old girlfriend. He was shot to death a week later.

 
          
Gary
Baldwin had an uneasy feeling about Lacey Farrell. Her profile made her sound
like someone who could find it difficult to be alone for a long stretch of
time. Plus she seemed to be exceptionally trusting, a trait that could get her
in real trouble. He shook his head. Well, there was nothing he could do about
it except to send word to her through channels not to let her guard down, even
for a minute.

 
          
MONA
FARRELL DROVE INTO MANHATTAN FOR WHAT HAD
become
her
standing Saturday dinner date with Alex Carbine. She always looked forward to
the evening with him, even though he left the table frequently to greet his
regular customers and the occasional celebrities who came to his restaurant.

 
          
“
It’s
fun,” she assured him. “And I really don’t mind. Don’t
forget I was married to a musician. You don’t know how many Broadway shows I
sat through alone because Jack was in the orchestra pit!”

 
          
Jack
would have liked Alex, Mona thought as she exited the George Washington Bridge
and turned south onto the West Side Highway. Jack had been quick-witted and
great fun, and quite gregarious. Alex was a much quieter man, but in him it was
an attractive quality.

 
          
Mona
smiled as she thought of the flowers that Alex had sent her earlier. The card
read simply, “May they brighten your day.
Yours, Alex.”

 
          
He
knew that the weekly phone call from Lacey tore her heart out. He understood
how painful the whole experience was for her, and the flowers were Alex’s way
of saying it.

 
          
She
had confided to him that Lacey had told her where she was living. “But I
haven’t even told Kit,” she explained. “
Kit
would be
hurt if she thought I didn’t trust her.”

 
          
It’s
funny, Mona thought, as the traffic on the West Side Highway slowed to a crawl
because of a blocked right
lane,
things have always
gone smoothly for Kit, but not for Lacey. Kit met Jay when she was at Boston
College and he was in graduate school at Tufts. They fell in love, married, and
now had three wonderful kids and a lovely home. Jay might be pontifical and
occasionally pompous, but he certainly was a good husband and father. Just the
other day, he had surprised Kit with an expensive gold-leaf necklace she had
admired in the window of Groom’s Jewelry in Ridgewood.

 
          
Kit
said that Jay had told her business suddenly had become very good again. I’m
glad, Mona thought. She had been worried for a while that things were not going
well. Certainly in the fall it was obvious that he had a lot on his mind.

 
          
Lacey
deserves happiness, Mona told herself. Now’s the time for her to meet the right
person and get married and start a family, and I’m sure she’s ready. Instead
she’s alone in a strange city and she has to stay there and pretend to be
someone else because her life is in danger.

 
          
She
reached the parking lot on West Forty-Sixth Street at seven-thirty. Alex didn’t
expect her at the restaurant until eight, which meant she would have time to do
something that had occurred to her earlier.

 
          
A
newsstand in Times Square carried out-of-town newspapers—she would see if they
had any from Minneapolis. It would make her feel closer to Lacey if she became
familiar with the city, and there would be some comfort in just knowing that
Lacey could be reading the paper as well.

 
          
The
night was cold but clear, and she enjoyed the five-block walk to Times Square.
How often we were here when Jack was alive, she thought. We’d get together with
friends after a show. Kit was never as interested in the theater as Lacey. She
was like Jack—in love with Broadway. She must be missing it terribly.

 
          
At
the newsstand she found a copy of the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Lacey may have
read this same edition this morning, she thought. Even touching the paper made
Lacey seem closer.

 
          
“Would
you like a bag, lady?”

 
          
“Oh,
yes, please.” Mona fished in her purse for her wallet as the vendor folded the
paper and put it in a plastic bag.

 
          
When
Mona reached the restaurant, there was a line at the checkroom. Seeing that
Alex was already at their table, she hurried over to him. “Sorry, I guess I’m
late,” she said.

 
          
He
got up and kissed her cheek. “You’re not late, but your face is cold. Did you
walk from New Jersey?”

 
          
“No.
I was early and decided to pick up a newspaper.”

 
          
Carlos,
their usual waiter, was hovering nearby. “Mrs. Farrell, let me take your coat.
Do you want to check your package?”

 
          
“Why
not keep that?” Alex suggested. He took the bag from her and put it on the
empty chair at their table.