Killer Cocktail (28 page)

Authors: Sheryl J. Anderson

Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Women Sleuths, #Amateur Sleuth

BOOK: Killer Cocktail

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Garth Henderson had specialized in blurring the line between provocative and incendiary. His clients often got extra bang for their advertising buck because Garth’s campaigns, with their hefty dose of sexuality, received vociferous attention from the media. So you not only saw his ads in the places he’d paid to run them, but on news programs and in magazines that critiqued them, often finding them salacious and inappropriate. Clients generally found them hugely effective.

The only publicly unhappy client in recent memory had been Jack Douglass, the CEO of Douglass Frozen Foods. To launch Douglass’s new soy ice cream line, Garth and his agency had designed a campaign that featured a buxom young movie actress, best known for appearing on latenight talk shows in a drunken tizzy, apparently about to perform oral sex on a soy fudgsicle. The television commercial had shown her stripping the wrapper off the fudgsicle with mounting excitement, then slowly raising it to her mouth while she licked her lips. The tagline of the campaign was
C’mon, you’ll like it. You know you will.

Sales had soared, particularly among college-aged men, but the critics and pundits had howled mightily. And Mr. Douglass, a neo-con who was reportedly being wooed by heavy hitters to segue into a political career, found himself being excoriated by those very same wooers as the media tempest crescendoed. Even when it died down, Mr. Douglass’s political future was said to be dim at best. But Garth Henderson signed several new clients.

“The Garth Henderson article,” Eileen repeated with that
vinegary touch of impatience that makes us all love her so. “I have a new take on it.”

Apparently, the new take including actually doing it. When the news of Henderson’s death broke, all the murmurs of Gwen Lincoln’s name intrigued me. That only sharpened when the police investigation seemed to stall. I’d pitched the idea of an article on the couple—and the murder—to Eileen but she’d shot it down, dismissing Garth’s death as “when good divorces go bad.” So why this change of heart?

As I pondered that question and whether I dared ask it, a tall, angular man with marvelous cheekbones and a wild and thick head of sandy blond hair stepped out of her office. I placed the hair before I placed the face; it was Emile Trebask, the ascendant design demigod. You can find his reflection in some surface in all his print ads, smiling approvingly as dazed teenagers who have partially pulled on the clothes he designs grope each other for the camera. It’s become a game to find Emile when each new ad comes out—sort of like finding the
Ninas
in Hirschfield’s drawings. Or perhaps more accurately, the fashionista’s version of
Where’s Waldo?

I was surprised to see him walking out of Eileen’s office. We go to people like him, they don’t come to us. Eileen smirked at my reaction, thinking I was impressed. “Molly, you know Emile, don’t you?”

Of course I didn’t. I’d slapped down plenty of cash over the past few years to buy his clothes, but I’d never met him. I’d have to do some serious social climbing to even approach his strata. Eileen knew that and, I suspect, was enjoying the fact. “Haven’t had the pleasure. Mr. Trebask,” I said, offering my hand.

He shook it gently, as though one of us might break. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t me he was worried about. “Ms. Forrester,
I’m so glad you’re going to be talking to Gwen,” he said with his famous clipped accent; it was much debated in the fashion press whether it was Swiss or Affected.

Proudly, I did not gasp. Not only was there suddenly an article on the Garth Henderson murder, but I was doing an interview with the prime suspect? What did Emile Trebask have to do with it? More to the point, what did Eileen get out of it? I smiled and said, “Thank you, Mr. Trebask,” while I tried to find the connection between all these interesting questions.

“I thought the world of Garth, a terrific talent, but to try to lay it at Gwen’s feet. It’s absurd. Gwen could not step on an ant, much less blow off someone’s balls.”

At first, the last word sounded somewhere between “bowels” and “bells,” so I thought he was trying to be discreet. When I realized he was being anything but, I bit the inside of my lip to maintain a professional demeanor and nodded. Mr. Trebask took that as encouragement to grow even more animated. “It’s very important people understand exactly what’s going on here.” Since I myself was a little confused on that point, I nodded again. “Gwen’s being made the scapegoat and that is not right. If we let people know the truth, then the police will have to look a little harder, won’t they, and allow people to get on with their business. And their lives.”

I refrained from nodding yet again while my memory frantically Googled itself for some connection between Gwen Lincoln and Emile Trebask. Then Trebask pressed a small glass vial into my hand and I remembered.

“Success,” he murmured.

Lifting the vial to my nose, I sniffed gently and smelled cedar and honeysuckle, undercut with something smoky and musky. The sweet smell of success indeed.

“It’s lovely,” I said. Success was going to be the first perfume in the new Trebask Fragrance line and Gwen Lincoln was Trebask’s partner in the venture. She’d been an executive at several cosmetics firms, but equally important, her first husband had died young and left her incredibly wealthy. There’d been a fair amount of talk after Garth was killed that he’d found some weak spots in their pre-nup and was going to wring her out in divorce court. She’d dodged a bullet and he hadn’t. Twice, actually. Or so that rumor had gone.

So had Emile come to Eileen looking for an article to prop up his business partner during a crucial time? It was a noble gesture on his part, but I couldn’t figure out what Eileen was getting out of it, which was always the pivotal part of any equation involving her.

Trebask lightly touched my hand again and for a moment, I thought he was going to take his perfume sample back. “Your piece on the murder of Lisbet McCandless was very powerful. I’m sure you’ll do just as well here.”

“Thank you,” I said, still improvising.

“And you.” Trebask turned back to Eileen. Her reptilian smile grew, consuming even more of her tiny face than I’d thought possible. “You will be an amazing addition to my celebrity model line-up at the Gala.”

“Emile, I’m so honored.”

The pieces slid into place with slimy ease. Horse-trading was alive and well at
Zeitgeist.
Trebask was looking for help in swaying public, if not police, opinion and Eileen had bartered an article in the magazine for an ego turn in one of Trebask’s fashion shows. Since he’d said “Gala,” it was probably the show he was putting on to launch the perfume while raising funds for the Fashion Industry Mentor Project, which encouraged at-risk youth to consider careers in
fashion through internships and mentorships. I’d donated money to them before and suddenly felt very protective of the organization, imagining teeny meanie Eileen prancing down the catwalk and pretending to be a model at their expense.

But I couldn’t dwell on it that now, because I was grappling with the most thrilling part of this strange symbiotic seduction: I came out of it with a feature article assignment.

KILLER COCKTAIL

Copyright © 2005 by Sheryl J. Anderson and Mark Edward Parrott. Excerpt from
Killer Deal
© 2006 by Sheryl J. Anderson and Mark Edward Parrott.

St. Martin’s Paperbacks are published by St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

eISBN 9781429993166

First eBook Edition : March 2011

EAN: 9780312-99255-2

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2004066448

St. Martin’s Press hardcover edition / August 2005
St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition / May 2006