'Til Death Do Us Part (12 page)

“Okay, so let’s say someone
is
out to get her. Got any ideas?”

“No, I mean, there’s a long, long list of people who don’t like her. People who feel she’s cheated them or stolen their recipes or not given them credit. But I can’t think of anyone capable of going to this kind of extreme—I mean, killing innocent women.”

Though Maverick’s theory made sense, I spent the next few minutes asking her about the wedding weekend just to cover my bases. Had she noticed anything strange or disturbing? She thought, her brow wrinkled, then shook her head slowly. I also inquired carefully about Peyton’s cousin, not wanting to throw unnecessary suspicion on Phillipa but eager to learn just how upset she’d been about being passed over as a bridesmaid. Maverick appeared to be out of the loop on the subject. And she remembered little about the car accident—she’d been riding in the second car with me and hadn’t seen the crash.

“You still think the deaths have something to do with the wedding, don’t you,” she said.

“I’m not dismissing your theory. I think it makes a lot of sense. But last fall Robin asked Ashley if she’d seen anything strange at the wedding, and I keep coming back to that.”

“There
is
one thing,” she said suddenly.

I froze, my wineglass at my lips. “What?” I asked.

“That fight between David and his best man. Remember how they started practically shouting at each other during the rehearsal in the church—not knowing we were right on the other side of the screen?”

“I was thinking about that last night,” I admitted. “I don’t remember much about it—other than that it seemed work related. Do you recall what they said?”

“No, just that David seemed to be chewing Trip out—which pleased me at the time since that Trip seems way too big for his britches. Do you think it’s significant?”

“Well, it couldn’t have been that major of a disagreement considering that they’re still working together. Maybe the flare-up was due simply to prewedding tension.”

I glanced at my watch. It was nearly seven o’clock. Landon was going to be at my place at eight. I needed to get rolling.

“I better split,” I said. “But let’s stay in touch, okay? I promise to let you know if I hear anything relevant if you’ll do the same with me.”

“Absolutely. Safety in numbers.”

“Speaking of that, what about Prudence? I hear she’s in London, but someone should get in touch with her.”

“I can do that. We have some mutual friends there, so I happen to have her number.”

She walked me to the door, rubbing her arms as if she were suddenly cold. She had relaxed as we’d spoken, but now she looked wigged-out again.

“One more question,” I said as we reached the door. “What advice would you give Peyton now? I mean, if she called you tonight and asked for your opinion on how to handle this from a PR perspective, what would you say?”

She let out a soft sigh. “Well, the first thing I’d tell her to do is get out of her house. Famous people tend to panic when this sort of thing happens, and they make the mistake of holing up and obsessing. But you’ve got to get out in full makeup, have lunch, and look as if you aren’t damaged in any way. And then . . .”

Her eyes glanced up to the right as she spun a plan.

“And then I’d announce something big—for instance, that Peyton was talking to a large network about a syndicated television show of her own.”

“What if she doesn’t have anything like that in the hopper?” I asked.

“Doesn’t matter,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s called a phantom project. It doesn’t have to exist.”

God, I thought, I was clearly hopelessly naive when it came to this PR stuff. Perhaps I should have gotten some advice from a spin doctor after my divorce. I might have been told to charge around Manhattan in full makeup, looking as though I didn’t give a damn, instead of limping off like a deer that had taken a glancing blow from an SUV.

I said good-bye and stepped outside. She closed the door quickly behind me, not even bothering to wait for me to board the elevator. I stood in the hushed hallway for several minutes, my anxiety growing, until the elevator finally arrived with the sound of rushing wind.

Running late, I opted for a cab rather than the subway. I had the driver let me off by the deli across from my apartment building, where I picked up some salad greens and a carton of cream. I’d decided to make Landon a salad and fettuccine Alfredo. Peyton had pointed out last night that whipping up dinner for us had eased her stress, and I was hoping standing over a hot stove would do the same for me. Besides, over the past year, I’d been doing my best to learn how to cook.

During my marriage we ate out more nights than we ate in. At first I’d enjoyed it. My husband, a lawyer, seemed to have money to burn, and I liked sampling restaurants all over the Village, SoHo, and TriBeCa. But eventually our restaurant hopping took on a manic quality. I offered on many occasions to try to wrestle a chicken breast to the ground at home, but my suggestions were always rebuffed. Only later did I learn that by then my husband was knee-deep in gambling debts. Sitting in a dark booth in a restaurant on Prince Street or North Moore probably seemed a million times better to him than hanging out at our apartment, wondering if someone was about to show up at the door with a tire iron.

In the first months after we’d split, I felt incapable of eating solid foods, let alone
cooking
them. But eventually, as I started to get my bearings back, I decided to try my hand in the kitchen. Not only, I reasoned, would cooking enable me to repay Landon, who was constantly inviting me over for cassoulet or coq au vin, but I’d also be able to have the occasional dinner party.

My first attempts in the kitchen were nothing short of pathetic. One night I made a shrimp dish with a roux sauce, and because of some misstep on my part, the flour and water turned into plaster of paris. I served the shrimp in what appeared to be—and tasted like—tiny body casts. But over the next year I managed to teach myself a dozen fail-safe recipes: chicken with two vinegars, barbecue spareribs, bluefish baked with potatoes, and a few pasta dishes. Nothing fancy. Nothing that involved blanching or braising or wrapping a bundle of herbs in cheesecloth—but tasty enough to serve friends. I was going for something particularly simple tonight because I needed to discuss my situation with Landon.

He arrived with a bottle of wine just as I was setting the salad on the table. Landon’s about five ten, compact, with close-cropped silver hair and a perpetual tan. For seventy he looks fantastic. He must have come directly from a meeting because he was wearing a navy sports jacket and a pin-striped oxford-cloth shirt, open at the collar. He designs hotel lobbies for a living, though lately he has started to work less and travel more.

“Wow, this is an expensive wine,” I exclaimed as I glanced at the label. “I don’t know if I deserve it tonight. I’m serving you a main course that’s ninety percent butterfat.”

“Actually, I’m hoping a good wine will help purge the memory of my date last night.”

“Oh no,” I exclaimed. “Bad?”

“Let’s just say things fell a little
short
of my expectations. Do you remember how I told you I met him?”

“You sat next to him at that dinner party, right?”

“Correct. And remember how I told you that I hadn’t noticed him during cocktails? Well, the reason is the man is
five feet four
.”

“You’re kidding! And you couldn’t tell that when he was sitting down?”

“No, he’s extremely low waisted.” He had taken a corkscrew from the cabinet in my living room where I store my meager liquor supply and opened the wine with a soft pop.

“Oh God. I know you’re not wild about shorter men.”

“Dearest, at this point in my life, I’d settle for short, but this wasn’t short. You’ve heard of that condition called Munchausen by proxy? This was
Munchkin
by proxy.”

I burst out laughing, but there must have been something in my expression because he paused, wine bottle in one hand, corkscrew in the other.

“What is it?” he asked. “Something’s up with you.”

“Yeah, something awful. Remember that wedding I was in last spring? The one where you said my dress had enough fabric to have decorated half of Versailles? Well, three of the bridesmaids are dead now.”

“What?”
he exclaimed.

“It’s a whole terrible saga, and I’m desperate to tell you about it. But sit, why don’t you. I’ll put on the pasta and then we’ll talk.”

Over salad, I shared the whole story.

“My goodness, how dreadful,” Landon said as I stepped inside my tiny kitchen to drain the pasta into a colander. “And you’re thinking someone
killed
the three of them?”

“I don’t know what to make of it yet,” I called out. “Ashley certainly thought her life was in danger, and she turned out to be right. All I know for sure is that I’m having a hard time dismissing it as a bizarre coincidence—especially after seeing Ashley’s body lying there. I’m afraid that if I’m not careful, I’ll end up in a story called ‘Four Funerals and a Wedding.’”

“And what do the police have to say?”

“I’ve only talked to the ones in Greenwich. They appear competent, and yet they’ve apparently concluded that both deaths under their jurisdiction were accidents. And that’s the problem. On the surface they
do
seem accidental. There’s not a shred of evidence of foul play.”

“I wonder what the motive for murder could be. Do you think someone is out to sabotage Peyton Cross?”

“That’s exactly what Maverick, the PR person, suggested. But I keep coming back to the remark Robin made about the wedding—about the possibility that something strange went on there that we might have witnessed. Or maybe that Jamie witnessed and said something to Robin about. Jamie apparently gave Robin photos she took of the wedding, and there’s a chance they hold a clue—but I can’t see anything of significance when I look at them.”

“What does Peyton have to say? This must all be pretty disturbing to her.” He took a sip of his wine and stared at me over the top of his glass, waiting for my answer.

“To be perfectly honest, she seems more concerned with how all of this is affecting
her
.”

“I hate to sound like a player hater, but she doesn’t appear to be a very nice person.”

“I’m trying to see it from her side. She’s got a lot at stake these days.”

Over dessert—baked apples, which I served with mounds of whipped cream—I changed the subject. Just like Ashley, I found that talking about the situation had made me feel
more
anxious rather than less. So instead we discussed the trip Landon was planning in May to Provence and a lobby project he was considering on the Upper West Side.

I slept fitfully that night. From my bedroom I could hear the wind rattling the door to my terrace, and I crawled out of bed once to check it. Several times I thought how good it would be to have Jack lying next to me, then chided myself for being such a baby.

Despite my exhaustion, I bounded out of bed in the morning, anxious for my meeting with Alicia. But as I stepped out of the shower, she called to say that she needed to fill in for someone at a shoot today and would have to postpone our appointment until Monday. I just couldn’t wait that long. I went into pester mode and she finally agreed to meet me at seven that night after the shoot was over. Jack wasn’t due in until late anyway.

After hanging up, I tried to reach Peyton—both at home and at the farm—and I was informed by someone at each end that she was out and wasn’t expected back anytime soon. Maybe she was charging around in full makeup, getting ready to announce a special TV project.

Next, I called the Post-it number again. Still voice mail. I left another message. I also tried my contact in the medical examiner’s office. She had five minutes to spare, she said, and I asked her to talk to me about death by falling. If it was a homicide, what kind of evidence might there be? She let out a long sigh and explained that these were often tough cases to prove. If there was a struggle, you might see scuff marks, even a shoe left behind, but if the person had been caught off guard, there’d be little evidence. “It’s actually a pretty decent way to kill someone,” she concluded ruefully. I assured her I wouldn’t take this as advice and hung up.

With the rest of the afternoon free, I set to work on my article about the missing wife in New Jersey. I was now running a few days behind, and I needed to hustle. I reread some of the transcripts and started the first draft. It was a gripping story, yet my mind was constantly yanked back to my own situation.

At six, I threw on a long jeans skirt, black boots, and my black turtleneck sweater, eager to finally meet up with Alicia. Just as I was reaching for my coat, the phone rang. The elusive Carol Blender was on the line.