Pretend You Don't See Her (20 page)

 
          
“It
wasn’t a cock-and-bull story, Mr. Landi,” Nick Mars said heatedly. “We want to
find Mrs. Waring’s killer just as much as you do. But if Ms. Farrell hadn’t
taken that journal from Isabelle Waring’s apartment, apparently with the idea
of giving it to you, we might be a lot further along in this investigation.”

 
          
“But
I believe that it was after it arrived here that this journal was stolen,”
Steve Abbott said, his voice dangerously quiet. “And are you now suggesting
that Ms. Farrell may have tampered with the journal?”

 
          
“We
don’t think she did, but we can’t be sure,” Sloane admitted.

 
          
“Be
honest with us, Detective. You can’t be sure of very much except that you
botched this investigation,” Abbott snapped, his anger now evident. “Come on,
Jimmy. I think it’s time we hire our own investigator. With the police in
charge, I don’t think we’ll ever find out what’s going on.”

 
          
“That’s
what I should have done the minute I got the call about Isabelle!” Jimmy Landi
said, getting to his feet. “I want the copy of my daughter’s journal I gave you
before you lose that one too.”

 
          
“We
ran off extras,” Sloane said calmly. “Nick, get the set Mr. Landi gave us.”

 
          
“Right away, Eddie.”

 
          
While
they waited, Sloane said, “Mr. Landi, you told us very specifically that you
read the journal before you gave it to us.”

 
          
Jimmy
Landi’s eyes darkened. “I did.”

 
          
“You
told us that you read the journal carefully. Thinking back, would you say
that’s true?”

 
          
“What’s
carefully?” Jimmy asked rather irritably. “I looked through it.”

 
          
“Look,
Mr. Landi,” Sloane said, “I can only imagine how difficult all this is for you,
but I’m going to ask you to read it carefully now. We’ve gone through it as
thoroughly as we know how, and except for a couple of ambiguous references in
the early pages about something involving an incident that happened on the West
Side, we can’t find anything even potentially helpful. But the fact is that
Mrs. Waring told Lacey Farrell that she’d found something in those pages that
might help prove your daughter’s death was not an accident—”

 
          
“Isabelle
would have found something suspicious in the Baltimore catechism,” Jimmy said,
shaking his head.

 
          
They
sat in silence until Nick Mars returned to the interrogation room with a manila
envelope which he held out to Landi.

 
          
Jimmy
yanked it from him and opened the envelope. Pulling out the contents, he
glanced through them,
then
stopped at the last page.
He read it,
then
glared at Mars. “What are you trying
to pull now?” he asked.

 
          
Sloane
had the sickening feeling that he was about to hear something he didn’t want to
know.

 
          
“I
can tell you right now that there were more pages than this,” Landi said. “The
last couple of pages in the set I gave you weren’t written on lined paper. I
remember because they were all messed up. The originals of those pages must
have had bloodstains … I couldn’t stand the sight of them. So where are they?
Did you lose those too?”

 
          
UPON
ARRIVAL AT THE MINNEAPOLIS–ST. PAUL AIRPORT, Sandy Savarano went directly from
the plane to the baggage area where he picked up his heavy black suitcase. Then
he found a men’s room and locked himself in a stall. There, he placed the
suitcase across the toilet and opened it.

 
          
He
took out a hand mirror and a zippered case containing a gray wig, thick gray
eyebrows, and round glasses with a tortoiseshell frame.

 
          
He
removed his contact lenses, revealing his charcoal brown eyes, then with deft
movements placed the wig on his head, combed it so that it covered part of his
forehead, pasted on the eyebrows, and put on the glasses.

 
          
With
a cosmetic pencil he added age spots to his forehead and the backs of his
hands. Reaching into the sides of the suitcase he took out orthopedic oxfords
and exchanged them for the Gucci loafers he had been wearing.

 
          
Finally
he unpacked a bulky tweed overcoat with heavily padded shoulders, placing in
the bag the Burberry he had worn getting off the plane.

 
          
The
man who left the stall looked twenty years older and totally different from the
man who had entered it.

 
          
Sandy
next went to the car rental desk where a car had been reserved for him in the
name of James Burgess of Philadelphia. He opened his wallet and took out a
driver’s license and a credit card. The license was a clever fake; the credit
card was legitimate, an account having been set up for him using the Burgess
name.

 
          
Cold,
bracing air greeted him as he exited the terminal and joined a group of people
waiting at the curb for the jitney to take them to the car rental area. While
he waited he studied the map the clerk had marked for him and began to memorize
the routes that led in and out of the city and to estimate the length of time
each should require. He liked to plan everything out carefully. No
surprises—that was his motto.
Which made the unexpected
arrival of that Farrell woman at Isabelle Waring’s apartment all the more
irritating.
He had been surprised and had made a mistake by letting her
get away.

 
          
He
knew that his attention to detail was the main reason he was still a free man,
while so many of his fellow graduates of reform school were off serving long
prison terms. The very thought made him shiver.

 
          
The
clanging of a cell door … Waking up and knowing that he was trapped there, that
it would never be any different … Feeling the walls and ceiling close in on
him, squeezing him, suffocating him …

 
          
Underneath
the strands of hair he had so carefully combed over his forehead, Sandy could
feel beads of sweat forming. It won’t happen to me, he promised himself. I’d
rather die first.

 
          
The
jitney was approaching. Impatiently, he raised his arm to be sure the vehicle
stopped. He was anxious to get started, anxious to begin the task of finding
Lacey Farrell. As long as she was alive, she remained a constant threat to his
freedom.

 
          
As
the jitney stopped to admit him, he felt something slam against the back of his
legs. He spun around and found himself facing the young woman who had been his
seatmate on the plane. Her suitcase had toppled over against him.

 
          
Their
eyes met, and he took a deep breath. They were standing only inches apart, yet
there was no trace of recognition in her expression. Her smile was apologetic.
“I’m so sorry,” she said.

 
          
The
jitney door was opening. Savarano got on, knowing that this clumsy woman had
just confirmed that with his disguise he would be able to get close to Farrell
without fear of recognition. This time she would have no chance to escape him.
That was a mistake he would not repeat

 
          
WHEN
MILLICENT ROYCE AGREED TO TRY HER OUT ON A volunteer basis, Lacey suggested
that she spend the rest of the afternoon familiarizing herself with the files
in the computer and going through the mail that was stacked on the reception
desk.

 
          
After
four months away from an office, it was pure pleasure to be at a desk, going
through listings, familiarizing
herself
with the price
range of homes in the area covered by the agency.

 
          
At
three o’clock, Mrs. Royce took a potential buyer to see a condominium and asked
Lacey to cover the phone.

 
          
The
first call was a near disaster. She answered, “Royce Realty, Lace—”

 
          
She
slammed down the receiver and stared at the phone. She had been about to give
her real name.

 
          
A
moment later the phone began to ring again.

 
          
She
had to pick it up. It was probably the same person. What could she say?

 
          
The
voice on the other end sounded slightly irritated. “I guess we got cut off,”
Lacey said lamely.

 
          
For
the next hour the phone continued to ring, and Lacey carefully managed each
call. It was only later, when she was jotting down the message that the
dentist’s office called to confirm Millicent Royce’s appointment for the
following
week, that
she realized being back in her
own milieu could be a trap. As a precaution she went through all the messages
she had taken. A woman had phoned to say that her husband was being transferred
to Minneapolis and that a friend had suggested that she call the Royce agency
to help her find a house.

 
          
Lacey
had asked the usual real estate broker questions: price range? How many
bedrooms? Any limits on the age of a house? Was school district a factor? Would
purchase be contingent on sale of present home? She had even put the answers in
real estate shorthand: “min. 4BR/3b./
fpl
/
cen
air/.”

 
          
I
was proud of myself, she thought as she copied the woman’s name and phone
number on a different sheet of paper, careful to disguise her working knowledge
of the business. At the end she added the message, “good potential prospect due
to immediate relocation.” Maybe even that sounded too knowledgeable, she
thought, but let it stand when she looked up to see that Millicent Royce was on
her way in.

 
          
Mrs.
Royce looked tired and was obviously pleased to get the messages and to see how
efficiently Lacey had separated the mail for her. It was nearly five o’clock.
“I will see you in the morning, Alice?” There was a hopeful note in her voice.

 
          
“Absolutely,”
Lacey told her. “But I do have a lunch date I can’t break.”

 
          
*

 
          
As
she drove back into the city, Lacey felt a letdown setting in. As usual, she
had no plans for the evening, and the thought of going back to the apartment
and preparing another solitary meal was suddenly repugnant to her.

 
          
I’ll
go to the gym and work out for a while, she decided. At least between that
exercise and the run this morning, I may be tired enough to sleep.

 
          
When
she got to the gym, Ruth Wilcox beckoned her over. “Guess what?” she said, her
tone conspiratorial. “Tom Lynch was really disappointed when you didn’t show up
this afternoon. He even came over and asked if you’d been here earlier. Alice,
I think he likes you.”

 
          
If
he does, he likes someone who doesn’t really exist, Lacey thought with a trace
of bitterness. She stayed in the gym for only a half hour,
then
drove home. The answering machine was blinking. Tom had phoned at four-thirty.
“Thought I might see you at the gym, Alice.
I enjoyed Friday
night. If you pick this up by seven and feel like having dinner tonight, give
me a call. My number is—”

 
          
Lacey
pushed the STOP button on the machine and erased the message without waiting to
hear Tom’s phone number. It was easier to do that than to spend another evening
lying to someone who in different circumstances she would have enjoyed dating.

 
          
She
fixed herself a BLT on toast for dinner. Comfort food, she thought.

 
          
Then
she remembered—this was what I was eating the night before Isabelle Waring
died. Isabelle phoned, and I didn’t pick up. I was tired and didn’t want to
talk to her.