The Finishing School (41 page)

He’d be at Holbrooke during the transfer of the ten million, then. It was more evidence pointing to Seward’s involvement. But at least the fact that he was gone now meant he couldn’t stop Melanie from wringing information out of his wife.

Melanie stood up. “Take me to Mrs. Seward,” she demanded.

“If you insist, ma’am.”

The maid turned, leading Melanie down a darkened hallway to a set of ornately carved double doors. Following her into the gloom of the bedroom, Melanie nearly gagged on the heat and the smell. It must’ve been ninety degrees in there, with a close odor consisting of equal parts unwashed flesh, musty sheets, and stale cigarette smoke. Charlotte Seward languished on a heap of pillows in the halo of a single lamp, wearing a satin bed jacket with a large wet stain down the front. The table next to her bed was littered with dozens of tiny prescription bottles—some open, some closed, some empty and lying on their sides.

“Excuse me, ma’am, this lady from the police, and she say she need to see you,” the maid announced.

“What the
hell
!” Charlotte said, her eyes darting toward Melanie with alarm. She was rail thin, with a frozen face that spoke of too much Botox and plastic surgery.

“I tell her no, but she insist, ma’am,” the maid said.

“Magdalena, you’re on thin ice already, and you pull a stunt like this?” Charlotte fished around on the bedside table for a cigarette, which she lit with shaking hands.

“Melanie Vargas from the U.S. Attorney’s Office. I’m investigating your daughter’s death.”

“Whoop-de-do. That doesn’t give you the right to barge into my
bedroom
!” Charlotte said, dissolving into a fit of phlegmy coughing.

“I apologize for the intrusion, but we’re at a critical point in the investigation, and I really need your help. I want the people responsible for your daughter’s death caught and punished.”

“Hooray for you. Now, get the hell out of here, or I’m calling the authorities.”

“You miss the point, Mrs. Seward. I
am
the authorities. I need to ask you some questions. You can answer them here in the comfort of your home, and I’ll go away and leave you alone.
Or
I can drag you before the grand jury.”

Charlotte contemplated Melanie with eyes that were simultaneously sunken and much too bright. Judging from the massive pharmacy on her bedside table, it wasn’t difficult to see why. After a moment she sighed, her shoulders drooping in resignation.

“Magdalena, leave us please. Close the door on your way out, and no listening at the keyhole. I know your sneaky ways.”

The maid cast her employer a long-suffering glance and strode out of the room.

Charlotte waited until the door snapped shut, then turned to Melanie. “Honestly, you’re wasting your time. Whitney got careless with drugs and OD’d. Locking up some dealer isn’t going to bring her back. Besides, I don’t know where she got her stash. She didn’t get it from
me
, I assure you. Heroin was not my poison. I didn’t think it was hers either.”

“I’m not interested in your drug use, Mrs. Seward. I’m not even concerned with your daughter’s. I’m here because I have new evidence suggesting Whitney was murdered.”

Charlotte had been dragging on her cigarette, but Melanie’s words sent her into another violent coughing fit. “Jesus, you’re kidding,” she said after a moment, her eyes watering.

“No. Unfortunately, I’m not.”

“Sit down,” Charlotte said, nodding toward a chair in the corner. Melanie pulled the chair over to the bed.

“You know, I loved my daughter,” Charlotte continued. “Things between us were never easy. But I loved her a great deal.”

“Of course. I’m a mother, too. I understand.”

“To hell with that motherhood crap. This was different. Whitney was the only good thing I ever did, the one thing I accomplished in my life. So if somebody killed her, that would really
piss
me off.”

“Well, I would hope so.”

“I’d do anything in my power to hunt that person down.”

“Of course.”

Charlotte shook her head. “But, you know, I find what you’re saying hard to believe. Whitney OD’ing makes so much more sense to me than somebody purposely killing her. You see, Whitney was like me. A thrill seeker. When you’re born with everything, what else is there? Whatever you achieve, people think it was handed to you. What’s left but to flame out spectacularly? When she died, I assumed that was what she was doing. Asserting her personality. You could almost say I applauded her choice.”

No wonder the girl went so wrong, Melanie thought. Her mother set the perfect example of a wasted life.

“Our evidence is solid,” Melanie said.

“But who would want Whitney dead?”

“What about your husband?”

“You’re not here to investigate
him
, are you?”

“It depends. Carmen Reyes is missing. She was working on the Holbrooke endowment campaign, and somebody’s trying to embezzle a lot of money from it. Your husband may be involved.”

“
Carmen
,” Charlotte said, startled, and looked away.

“Do you know something about Carmen?”

“I just—No, I’m not sure.” She kneaded her forehead with her fingers.

“What about the Holbrooke endowment money?”

“Well…” Charlotte fell silent, looking absently at her cigarette, which was dripping ash onto the comforter.

“Mrs. Seward, you can’t pick and choose what to talk to me about. Things may fit together in ways you can’t understand.”

“I don’t want James arrested. I’ve spent too much time and money keeping him
out
of trouble to let that happen.”

“I’m going to follow this trail wherever it leads. If it leads to him, I’ll find out anyway. So you might as well tell me whatever you know about the endowment money now.”

Charlotte looked gaunt and ill, and there was misery in her eyes. “Honestly, I don’t know. He’s sleeping with that headmistress, and she’s an evil, scheming little
bitch
. James would do a lot for money. He’s stayed with
me
all these years, hasn’t he? All right? Satisfied, now that you’ve humiliated me?”

“I’m not trying to upset you, Mrs. Seward, but I have to ask these questions. Carmen Reyes disappeared from
this
apartment the same night your daughter and Brianna Meyers died. I know you were here then. Is it possible your husband—”

“Wait a minute! You say Carmen was here, in my house?”

“Yes. She came upstairs around seven-thirty. I know your husband brought you home around nine o’clock.”

“Let me ask you something,” Charlotte said, her mind behind her tortured eyes working furiously. “What exactly is the evidence you have that Whitney was murdered?”

“The toxicology screen found a suspicious mix of substances in her blood.”

Charlotte clutched at her throat as if she couldn’t breathe. “
What
substances?”

“Highly lethal doses of heroin and OxyContin—”

“Aaagh!” Her eyes popping, Charlotte hauled herself to the edge of the bed and began digging furiously among the bottles on the bedside table. Tears began to stream down her hollow cheeks.

“What is it? Are you okay?” Melanie asked, alarmed.

“Bud! I trusted him! I thought he was helping her. Yes, here it is!” she cried, holding up an empty bottle. “OxyContin. It was full, and now it’s empty! He was here that night. I’m remembering.”

“
You
know Bud?” Melanie asked, startled.

“Of course.”

“The Bud who worked for Jay Esposito?”

“For
who
?”

“Jay Esposito, the nightclub owner.”

“
Bud
worked for a nightclub owner?”

“Yes, the same one your daughter was dating. Esposito was murdered last night.”

“Whitney was dating a nightclub owner who was murdered? I never heard
any
of this! Are you making it up?”

“No. Of course not! Listen, Mrs. Seward, please, this is
extremely
important. You say Bud was here that night. What can you tell me about him? Do you know his last name or where he lives? A telephone number, a physical description? Anything, anything at all that might help us locate him.”

“Are we talking about the same man? Bud
Hogan
! He was Whitney’s guidance counselor at Holbrooke! I remember now. I came home in bad shape. Whitney took me to my bed. I heard a voice calling, and it sounded like Carmen. I’ve known the child for years, you see. Then it just…
stopped
, like she’d been silenced. I asked Whitney about it, and she told me I was hallucinating. Which was entirely possible, given everything I’d ingested that night, so I believed her. I passed out. And then, sometime later, I woke up to find Bud standing over my bed, going through my pill bottles. He told me I was dreaming and to go back to sleep. So I did.”

“Harrison Hogan is
Bud
?” Melanie said.

“Yes, that’s what Whitney called him. And he killed my daughter!”

AS SHE LEFT the Sewards’, Melanie reached Detective Leary on his cell phone and explained what she’d just learned. She needed a patrol car dispatched to Harrison Hogan’s apartment right away. But there was a problem. Charlotte Seward hadn’t known Hogan’s home address, and it turned out his telephone number was unlisted. That meant that the fastest way to get the address—short of asking somebody at the school, which might tip Hogan off—was sending a rush subpoena to the telephone company. But by the time Melanie could get back to her office, type a subpoena, and fax it over, Hogan would be long gone with the money, and Carmen would probably be dead. No—their best bet was intercepting Hogan at the school before he could transfer the ten million.

Detective Leary agreed and said he would back her up as soon as he could get there.

“But I’m on the Williamsburg Bridge now, heading for that warehouse Esposito owned,” he said. “Remember? The one we found the key to? I just got a call from the blue-and-white that checked the scene. Whole place is drenched with blood.”

“Blood? From…from who?”
Trevor
!

“Don’t know. It can’t be from Deon Green, because he was killed in that subway station. But they didn’t find no other body.
Somebody
got seriously hurt there, that much is clear, and not too long ago neither. So when you think this money transfer is gonna happen? Should I just come straight to you and leave this for later?”

“
No
. What you’re doing is much more important. I have a witness missing. It could be related.” She told him about Trevor.

“Okay, I’ll be on the lookout for a body matching that description.”

That was
not
what Melanie wanted to hear, though she couldn’t ignore the terrible ring of truth to it. She wouldn’t let herself think about Trevor dead. Not now. There was still work to be done, and she needed to hope in order to function.

“However you want to play it,” Detective Leary was saying. “But if I’m not gonna back you up myself, let me find you some other guys.”

“Yes, but here’s the problem: If the school’s suddenly crawling with cops, this scumbag will just disappear with the missing girl. We’ll never find her, or my witness either, since he definitely knows where both of them are.”

“I can ask for plainclothes instead of uniforms, if that helps.”

“That would be better,” she said.

“Let me see what I can do. With Christmas and all, not a lot of guys working overtime. Give me your cell number, and I’ll call you soon as I know something. But do me a favor, okay? Hang back till you hear from me?”

“I’ll try. But hurry, okay?”

Melanie needed every second between now and seven-thirty to prepare for what was coming next. The worst thing she could do would be to walk into an encounter with a known killer with no backup and no way to defend herself. She of all people knew how stupid that would be, because she’d done it once before, on the Jed Benson murder case. She’d survived, but she’d rather not make that same mistake twice.

Rushing toward her apartment, Melanie called Dan’s cell phone but only got his voice mail. Even under these crazy circumstances, Dan’s voice on the recording thrilled her. God, she was gone on this guy. It scared her how much. She took a deep breath and left him an all-business message detailing what she’d learned and what she planned to do. This call was just intended to keep the team in the loop, after all. But before she hung up, she couldn’t resist adding something more private.

“Hey, listen, I hope you’re not mad that I ran off. I had no choice. Like you said, I step up when my name’s called. There’s something I want you to know, though, something I want to tell you before—”

Her other line beeped.

“Oh. Hold on,” she told Dan’s voice mail, and picked it up. “Hello?”

“Melanie?” said a young girl’s voice.

“
Lulu
? Where are you?”

“Listen, something bad is going down. Dr. Hogan is messed up.”

“Do you know where he is? Or where Carmen is? You need to tell me!”

“I think he’s gonna take her to Holbrooke to try to get some money. Then I’m afraid he’s gonna kill her.”

“Yes, I know. I’ll be there to stop him, don’t worry.”

“Me, too! I’m going over now.”

“
Don’t
, okay? Let me handle it. I’ve got the police coming and everything. Just go home. I promise you, I’ll protect Carmen.”

“I know my way around the school. I can help.”

“Lulu,
no
. It’s not safe.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Lulu said, and hung up.

Damn. Lulu wasn’t going to listen. Melanie clicked to the other line, but Dan’s phone had cut off. She’d reached her apartment by now. She’d better go in, and fast. She needed something from her closet, and it wasn’t an outfit.

Melanie unlocked the front door and walked into darkness.

“Hello?” she called, flipping on the light.

Silence echoed back at her. A note taped to the mirror above the front-hall table read, “Maya much better. Took her to my place for the night. Steve.”

Her stomach hurt with how much she longed to see her daughter. But it was a quarter to seven. She didn’t have a moment to spare if she wanted Carmen to live.