If Looks Could Kill (17 page)

“I’m struggling with my intro a bit. A book editor once told me that when people pick up an anthology in a bookstore, they
skim the introduction, and if it’s tantalizing enough, they buy it. Did your editor give you any guidance on the intro? Is
there any advice you’d offer me?”

She looked at me stupefied, as if I’d just asked something completely inane, like did she believe in the existence of an Antichrist
or what was the cup size of her bra. Then she shook her head in irritation.

“Do you want to talk to my editor? Is that it? You don’t have an editor yet?”

“No, no, I have an editor, but I thought you—Look, this is obviously a busy time for you. Why don’t I get going. If I have
other questions, I can give you a call.”

I stood up from the sofa, but she just sat there, brain still racing. At that moment Madge finally materialized through the
doorway, carrying a small wooden tray with two cups of what appeared to be Sanka.

“For God’s sake, Madge, where were you? Look, I forgot to tell you, Herb isn’t going to be home for dinner tonight so you
can make me the halibut. And I’m going to need a taxi in ten minutes. Let them know downstairs.”

Where was she heading off to all of a sudden? I couldn’t tell whether I’d triggered some kind of tizzy or this was the way
she was naturally. I’m sure it had occurred to her that if someone had attempted to kill Cat, she would be a very obvious
suspect.

“You think it’s the husband?” she asked, still on the sofa.

At first I wasn’t sure whether she was talking to me or making some final point to Madge, who was clearing room for the Sanka
on the coffee table. I volleyed back an “Excuse me?”

“Mr. Jones. Do you think he might be responsible?”

“I can’t imagine that,” I said, trying to look aghast. “They have a very nice life together.”

“He didn’t seem very happy to be there that night, if you ask me.”

“No couple’s perfect,” I said. “But overall Jeff and Cat seem to have something special.” I’d obviously just developed a rare
form of Tourette’s syndrome that involved verbally hurling out saccharine clichés rather than obscenities.

“Most people don’t even try these days,” she snapped. She stood up finally and edged her way out from behind the coffee table.

“You know, I invented togetherness,” she said.

“The expression?” I asked, mystified.

“No, the whole thing. The idea of it. I did the first articles on it. In 1971. In those days magazines had power. They shaped
how people thought, how they acted.”

“That’s not true anymore?”

“Not on your life. People don’t respect the magazines that are published today.”

Seemed like a good time to be making my getaway. I said as pleasant a good-bye as I could manage, and she told me that Madge
would see me out. Then she steamed across the room and out a doorway on the other side.

Rather than hop on a subway home, I walked a few blocks until I found a coffee shop. I wanted the chance to jot down verbatim
as much of my conversation with Dolores as possible—which would be tough, considering it had been like dialogue from a play
by Ionesco.

I asked for a cappuccino, and then, realizing I was ravenous, I ordered my dinner—a cheeseburger and a glass of red wine.
Once I’d re-created as much of the conversation as possible, I sat back and considered the significance of it all, particularly
the moment at which I had told Dolores that Cat was the intended victim. Could she have been faking her shock at that news?
I didn’t think so. She had honestly appeared flabbergasted. Besides, my read on Dolores was that she’d been so busy bulldozing
her way through life that she’d never learned the art of camouflaging what she wanted or the way she felt.

And if she didn’t know Cat was supposed to die, then she could hardly be the demon candy maker. That meant I needed to concentrate
on all those magazine people at the party—and also figure out what was going on with Cat and Jeff.

I flipped back a few pages in my steno pad to the notes I’d taken down about Tucker Bobb. If he really had died from poisonous
mushrooms and someone had tried to kill Cat with some type of poison, then there definitely might be a connection. Maybe someone
had a vendetta against women’s magazines and was attempting to systematically off the editors. Other editors’ lives might
be in danger as well.

It was about six-thirty when I finished my meal and a second cup of cappuccino. As I stuffed my pad into my tote bag, I realized
to my complete dismay that I had left several research files for my Marky story at the office—I could suddenly picture them
on my side chair, where I’d set them just as Leslie had dropped by, demonstrating all the charm of a blowtorch. Since it was
essential for me to begin crash writing my piece at home tomorrow, I’d have to make a trip back to
Gloss
tonight. Major bummer.

Subwaywise, there was no easy route from the coffee shop back. I decided I’d hop a cab to the office but then subway home.
It would be almost seven by the time I got to
Gloss
, but since it was a closing night, I figured there’d still be plenty of people around.

But there weren’t. As I walked into the pit I spotted only one person, a guy in the production department, and he was busy
buckling his knapsack. His only acknowledgment to me was a nod of the head, and then he swung his knapsack over his shoulder,
flipped a baseball cap on his head, and strode away. Maybe there was a company softball game tonight. Or maybe people didn’t
want to stick around because they were just too damned freaked out about everything that had happened.

I hurried through the empty pit and turned left onto the main corridor. Polly’s office was dark; so were Kip’s and Leslie’s.
The only sound was the buzzing of the exit sign over the stairwell door. As I neared the turnoff to my corridor, I heard something
just around the corner, the sound, I thought, of someone stepping on the pedal of the water fountain. But three seconds later,
as I swung around the corner, I saw that the corridor was empty. Except for the mannequin nicknamed Fat Ass, which was standing
in front of the darkened fashion department, wearing a shaggy burgundy sweater without any pants. I glanced behind me. Nothing,
no one. I was starting to get a bad case of the creeps.

I walked the length of the short corridor to my office. To my surprise, my office door was closed. I never closed it. Maybe
one of the cleaning people had been by and shut it by mistake. I pushed open the door and hit the light switch. My trash basket
was still full, and the space hadn’t been tidied up. Weird. My forgotten files, however, were sitting right there on the extra
chair, just as I had pictured them in my mind. As I shoved them into my tote bag, something caught my eye from the left. I
spun my head around. Sitting smack in the center of my desk, all by its lonesome, was a silver-wrapped Hershey’s Kiss.

T
HE SIGHT OF
the Kiss made me catch my breath. It was just a little piece of chocolate wrapped in foil, yet it delivered a big, ugly message.
I backed clumsily out of my office and shot a glance up and down the corridor. No one. Nothing. Part of me wanted to tear
out of there, but the other part of me, the part that was more pissed than scared, wanted to find out whatever I could. I
dug around in my purse for a tissue, stepped back into my office, my heart beating hard, and carefully picked up the Kiss
with the tissue. As soon as I’d tucked it in my purse, I cautiously retraced my steps to the main corridor. Still empty. I
heard a rumble from the pit and froze, waiting. A cleaning lady, not a day under sixty, rounded the corner pushing a large
cart with a trash bag and a slew of cleaning products. “Excuse me. Have you seen anyone else on the floor?” She looked at
me seemingly without comprehension, and I wondered if she spoke English. I gave it one more shot. “Have you—”

“I just got off the elevator. I didn’t see anyone.” I overlooked her rudeness because frankly I was glad for the company.
Before heading back toward the pit, I walked the length of the main corridor in the opposite direction, toward the coffee
station and a short back hallway with offices for the articles editors and copy editing department. Not a soul in sight.

There was one more thing worth inspecting: the signout log in the lobby. I took the back way to the elevator bank and headed
down to the main floor. As I signed my own name into the book, I glanced over the rows of names. Most of the people I knew
at
Gloss
, including Kip, Polly, and Leslie, had signed out between six and six-fifteen. Nothing unusual jumped out at me.

The subway home was packed, but I hardly noticed. I was too busy concentrating on the evil Kiss that was now resting in the
zipper compartment of my bag.

There was only one reasonable explanation for it. Heidi’s killer had put it there. Sure, staffers at
Gloss
sometimes left treats on my desk, but no one would make that kind of gesture these days in light of everything that had happened.
Surely the killer knew there was no chance I’d eat it. It had been placed there obviously to scare my pants off, to intimidate
me. Clearly word was out that I was helping Cat, and this was a message that said “You better mind your own beeswax.” I would
now bet that the hang-ups were part of the same scare tactics.

From the Kiss on the desk it wouldn’t be a big leap to conclude that the killer worked at
Gloss
. And I certainly had names to consider: Polly, who Cat had enraged; Leslie, who she’d infuriated; Rachel, who she’d dressed
down; and Kip, who she’d possibly seduced. And the staff might include other walking wounded I didn’t know about.

Yet there was also a chance someone from the outside had gotten onto the floor. There was no receptionist by the elevator
bank, and though visitors were supposed to sign in at the guard’s desk on the ground floor of the building, it was fairly
easy to slip by, especially at busy hours and if you looked the part.

My heart was still beating faster than it should have when I stepped off the subway. As soon as I got home I phoned Cat. Her
machine picked up. Then I checked my own machine. Only one call, Landon saying hi. No K.C. It was Wednesday night, and this
meant he was not interested in guaranteeing himself a position on the weekend dance card. How had I been so blind early on
to what a commitment-phobe he was? Stay calm, I told myself. Resist the urge to scream.

What I should have done next was throw some laundry into the machine down the hall, because the only clean underwear I had
was a pair of granny briefs from a three-pack I’d bought in a Texas Wal-Mart when I was delayed doing a story down there.
But I had no interest in leaving the security of my apartment. I still felt rattled from the damn Kiss. I decided that first
thing the next morning I’d call Detective Farley and ask him what he wanted me to do with it. I’d also try to reach Cat again
and fill her in on my meeting with Dolores as well as the nasty treat I’d been left. Plus, there was a piece of information
I wanted to extract from her. I had remembered, too late to check the log, that Jeff was supposed to come by to pick her up
at work. What time had he arrived? And had he gone upstairs to her office or waited in the lobby? Last, but not least, I was
going to begin finding out what I could about Tucker Bobb’s death.

After throwing on a T-shirt for bed, I splashed some of the Courvoisier usually reserved for company into a brandy snifter.
Maybe that would take the edge off my anxiety. I’d just fallen into my bed and was channel surfing with the TV remote when
the phone rang. I picked it up, figuring it was probably Landon. There was just breathing—about four seconds’ worth—and then
a click. I checked the caller ID box in my office, but I knew what it would say: number blocked. I felt the same flood of
fear and anger that I’d experienced in my
Gloss
office earlier. I added one more thing to my list for the next day: Call the phone company and see what recourse I had in
dealing with the hang-ups.

When I woke the next morning (time I fell to sleep: roughly midnight; number of awakenings: two), my bed was in a pool of
sunlight and I felt better, less frazzled—though there was an annoying pounding above my left eye, probably from the brandy.
I stepped out onto my terrace and scanned the dozens of apartment buildings I could see to the west. Somewhere out there was
a killer, a killer who now was toying with me.

As soon as I’d wolfed down a toasted English muffin, I called Detective Farley. He wasn’t due in, they said, until the afternoon,
so I left a message. I didn’t have any luck with Cat, either. At the town house I got only the machine, and at work her voice
mail. I left messages both places, asking her to call ASAP.

Next I called the phone company, and after a Kafkaesque experience with voice mail, I hooked up with a human actually eager
to help with hang-ups. Unfortunately, she said, there was no way to unblock the number and see who had been harassing me.
But what the phone company
did
offer these days was a service that allowed calls from blocked numbers to be intercepted. The person would be asked for their
name and if they didn’t give one, they would be disconnected. It worked not only with stalkers, but also for telemarketers—I
would never again have to listen to a pitch for a new credit card. But I passed. Right now I was reluctant to shut out my
mystery caller using this kind of tactic. Doing so might aggravate him or her, prompting more aggressive behavior. Besides,
just as he was keeping tabs on me with the calls, I was able, in a way, to use the calls to keep tabs on him.

Finally, I set about trying to get the number for the Merry Widow Bobb—without having to call my
Best Home
contact back. It turned out to be a breeze. A bio of Bobb on the Web gave the town in Bucks County where his farm was located,
and he was still listed with directory assistance.

Darma Bobb sounded breathless when she answered, as if she’d just hurried in from outside, and she was curt as could be when
I identified myself as an editor at
Gloss
. I explained to her that I was calling on behalf of Cat Jones and had something of the utmost urgency to discuss with her.
Would it be possible for me to drive out tomorrow and talk with her? She pressed me to tell her why. I was afraid if I did,
she’d find a reason to dodge a visit from me, so I kept insisting that what I needed to say was too sensitive to get into
over the phone. Her curiosity edged ahead of her irritation, and she relented. We agreed on two P.M. Landon’s weekend home
was in Bucks County, too, in a town called Carversville, and as soon as I hung up, I left a message on his machine, asking
if I could bunk down there Friday night. It would spare me a second two-hour drive in one day. I also called Polly and suggested
we meet Sunday night rather than Friday because I had to go out of town.