'Til Death Do Us Part (18 page)

As soon as I’d digested the note, I returned to the vestibule. The doorman had said that he hadn’t seen who’d left the note, but I pressed him, asking if there was anything at all that he could tell me. What he did do was lead me outside to where one of the building porters was chopping at a patch of ice on the sidewalk with a shovel. The doorman explained the situation and asked the porter if he’d seen anything. No, nothing, he said. But as we turned to go, he called out to us.

“A man,” he said. “He come out of the building a little while ago. I never see him before. Maybe it was him. Maybe not.”

“What did he look like?” I asked urgently.

“I don’t know. Tall, I think. Long coat.”

A man. A long coat. Was he really the one who’d left the note? If he had, it was surely the same guy who had assaulted me Friday night. As I let myself back into my apartment and turned on the lights in both the living room and the bedroom, my thoughts took a side step. Was it possible that
Jack
had left the note? He’d been wearing a long coat tonight, and the porter might never have seen him before. Did the note mean “Don’t do this, Bailey. Don’t be such a jerk”? No, that was ludicrous. No matter how angry Jack might have been, I knew for certain that he’d never do something threatening like that, especially at a time when I was concerned about my own safety.

I tried Jack’s number right after that. I wanted to apologize for acting immaturely, for not allowing us an opportunity to sort out the problem. I also knew how comforting it would be to hear his voice. But all I got was his voice mail. I tried two more times, once as late as eleven, and still no answer. He might have been screening his calls, not wanting to talk to me. I never left a message.

At about ten after eleven the phone rang and I figured it had to be Jack. I let it ring twice, just so I wouldn’t seem desperate. But it wasn’t Jack. It was a guy’s voice I didn’t recognize asking, “Is this Bailey Weggins?” An alarm sounded in my head.

“Yes,” I said cautiously. “Who’s this?”

“It’s Chris,” he said. “You called me earlier.”

“Oh, uh, sorry,” I stammered. “Thanks so much for returning my call. I wasn’t sure you’d even remember me.”

“Sure, I remember. I’ve been hanging by my phone ever since you took my number, wasting away. I weigh about fourteen pounds now.”

I laughed. “Sorry about not calling before. My work got pretty crazy. I’m a writer, and I end up having to travel a fair amount.”

“Understood. I’ve been on the road a lot lately myself.”

“Acting?”

“Here and there. Mostly modeling right now. I’d like to pack that part of it in, but it pays the bills, so I’m stuck with it for the time being. I’ve spent the last month in Miami—that’s where most of the work is in the winter.”

“Is that where you’re calling from—Miami?”

“Yeah. It sounded as if you had something pretty important on your mind.”

“Important. And pretty weird.”

I took him through an abbreviated version of the saga—the three deaths and Robin’s question to Ashley. After I’d given him a second to express his astonishment at the whole thing, I asked if he recalled anything seeming strange to him that day.

“Gosh, it was so long ago,” he said. “Lemme think . . . I mean, there was the bride. I don’t think I’d ever met anyone as strange as her.”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s obviously a friend of yours, so I should watch what I say, but she was an awesome bitch that day. Fortunately I don’t have too much downtime in my work, so I haven’t done a huge amount of weddings, but of the ones I’ve done, I’ve never seen a bride so involved. Usually it’s the mother shrieking at the staff or one of those wedding helper babes. But this chick was all over everybody.”

“Yeah, well, she’s developed into a major control freak since I knew her in college. But what about something more serious? A quarrel between two of the guests? Someone making a threat? Doing something dishonest?”

“Nah, not off the top of my head. I’ll think about it, though. And you know what? There’s a guy down here, another model, who worked that gig, too. I’ll ask him if he remembers anything.”

“That’s great. I’d really appreciate it.”

“I’m probably gonna be down here for a lot of the winter. But maybe when I get back we can grab that drink.”

“Sure,” I said. The chances of him calling in three months were next to nil, so there was no reason to go into a long song and dance about my being involved. “And look—I really appreciate your calling.”

That turned out to be the high point of the evening. The rest of the night was pure hell. My insomnia, which I’d kept mostly at bay since I’d met Jack, returned with a vengeance, like some swamp monster that had been waiting in the ooze, with all the patience of an immortal, for just the right opportunity. I flailed around in bed, alternating between feeling fearful for my life and miserable about Jack. What if he was so mad he’d decided he was never coming back?

As I’d driven along I-95 to Greenwich today, I’d decided that the only consolation about having to spend the day in Preppyville, investigating three deaths, was that it would keep my mind off my spat with Jack.

Once in the library I headed toward a large room with the word
Periodicals
over the entrance. The person manning the desk in there was a dapper guy in his late sixties or seventies, dressed in a blue-and-white-striped dress shirt and tie, possibly a retiree who was just volunteering. I explained that I wanted to look something up in the police blotter in the
Greenwich Times
from last April and asked if they had papers that far back—or would I have to resort to microfilm.

“May I make a suggestion?” he asked. “If it’s the police blotter you’re looking for, I’d use the
Greenwich Post
. We’ve got a year’s worth down that aisle over there, and they’ve got an even bigger police blotter than the
Times
. If someone so much as spits on the sidewalk, they cover it.”

He turned out to be absolutely right. The
Post
was a small community paper, tabloid style in format, and as I opened the edition for the Saturday of the wedding, I saw that they had more than two full pages’ worth of assaults, larcenies, fender benders, DUIs, and other assorted infractions under the heading “Police Watch.” It appeared that nothing had been denied inclusion. There was an item about a dog biting a FedEx deliveryman, one about a guy arrested for sneaking into his tenants’ homes and using their cable and computer services, and another about two girls who had gotten into a catfight in a bar and attempted to yank each other’s hair out.

It took me only a few seconds to find what I’d come for—under the subhead “DUI.” “Greenwich resident Andrew Flanigan, 22, of Davidson Street, Greenwich, was arrested Friday evening after the car he was driving ran a stop sign and collided with another car at the corner of Spruce and Horton damaging both vehicles. A Breathalyzer test administered by police at the scene showed that he was intoxicated. It was his third arrest for DUI in two years. He is being held in lieu of a $2,000 cash bond to appear in State Superior Court. The driver of the other vehicle, Sam Dirney, 47, of Cos Cob, sustained minor injuries. He was treated at Greenwich Hospital and then released.”

So the driver who’d caused the accident had been drunk. That certainly upped the ante. It meant he’d be in more trouble than he would have been simply for running a stop sign. I would try to track him down sometime over the next two days.

As I pushed open the front door of the library, the wind shoved it back at me, forcing me to give the door all my weight just to get through. Stepping outside, I watched a woman coming up the stairs lurch backward as the wind whipped off the blue felt hat that was covering her head.

The first person on my Greenwich hit list was David’s ex-wife, Mandy Slavin, and I’d decided that the best strategy was to drop by unannounced. Phoning in advance seemed like a poor idea because I was sure she’d tell me not to even bother. I had her address, and I’d gotten what seemed like decent directions from a gas station attendant on the way into town. I was just hoping that because of the weather she’d decided to hole up at home today instead of running around town shopping for shoes or whatever rich divorced chicks did.

I’d be lying if I claimed not to be slightly anxious about heading toward her house all alone. What if she really
was
the killer? But I was betting on the fact that owing to her divorce settlement, she probably had household help and wouldn’t pull anything if other people were around. I decided that if I arrived at her home and it was empty or I felt the slightest bit uncomfortable, I’d hightail it out of there faster than you could say “community property.”

It took me forever to find the damn place. Not that the directions were bad, but her home was on a winding wooded road, and with the snow so high, it was tough to see the numbers on the gates. By the time I finally pulled into her driveway, it was noon.

It was an ultramodern white house with tons and tons of glass. Two vehicles were parked outside the garage: a beat-up blue Ford and a van that said “Bud’s Landscaping.” I was definitely going to have protection—if I managed to get into the house.

I rang the doorbell, expecting a maid to answer. To my surprise, it was opened by a woman I assumed was Mandy herself, a tall, stylish blonde, probably in her early forties. She was wearing tan pants, a tan turtleneck with an Hermès scarf knotted at the front of her neck, and diamond studs as big as hubcaps, which sparkled in the cold winter sun.

“Yes?” she said, curious but not unfriendly.

“Ms. Slavin? My name is Bailey Weggins. I know this is going to sound strange, but I need your help. I was a bridesmaid in Peyton and David’s wedding. Three of the other bridesmaids are now dead. I’m desperately trying to figure out what happened, and I was hoping I could get some background information from you.”

She gazed at me for a moment, not speaking, her pale blue eyes watering slightly as the wind whipped through the doorway.

“Why don’t you at least come in from the cold?” she said, cocking her head in the direction behind her and swinging the door open wider. “And please, call me Mandy.”

As soon as I stepped inside, I was enveloped in the warmth of the house.

“You said Bailey Weggins?” Mandy asked. “The writer Bailey Weggins?”

“Yes—yes, that’s me,” I said, taken aback.

“I’ve read some of your articles—in
Gloss
. They’re quite compelling.”

“That’s nice of you to say,” I replied. She’d caught me totally off guard by the compliment. Was she really a fan, or had she been busy researching me in recent weeks?

“I’ve learned the hard way, though, not to read them right before I turn the lights out at night,” she said, smiling. “Why don’t we go into the living room?”

I didn’t feel any reservations about accompanying her into the house. For the moment, at least, she seemed hell-bent on charming the pants off me rather than murdering me. Plus, as I trailed her down a long, wide hallway, I spotted a guy in a beige uniform and green apron, obviously from Bud’s Landscaping, fussing with a huge vase of apple green flowers.

Midway down the hallway, Mandy turned left and I followed her into a stunning two-story living room. The colors were mostly neutral—white walls and curtains and two facing sofas covered in pale beige suede. But splashes of royal blue around the room brought it all gloriously to life: pillows and side chairs in blue-and-white batik, matching Chinese ginger jars, and ovals of blue on a large tapestry above the arched doors that led to the dining room. At the bottom-right-hand side of the tapestry was a big signature: Calder. A painting on the wall above the fireplace looked as if it might be a Picasso. If Mandy had any motive for trying to wreck David and Peyton’s life, it certainly wasn’t that she’d been stiffed in the divorce settlement.

“Your place is beautiful,” I said, meaning it.

“It’s a bit California for Greenwich,” she said. “But I’m an L.A. girl, born and raised, and after my divorce I decided that since I couldn’t move back there, I’d just bring it here.”

“What prevented you from going back?”

“My daughter is only eleven—it’s a very delicate age, so it’s important that she not feel distanced from her father. I was about to have some coffee. Would you like some?”

“That’d be great,” I said. I figured that since she hadn’t been expecting me, there was little chance it was laced with cyanide.

We sat across from each other on the two facing sofas, and I slid off my coat. I was glad I’d opted for something a little on the dressier side—black slacks, a cobalt blue button-down shirt, and my black leather jacket. Nothing from Hermès, but I wasn’t embarrassing myself, either.

As Mandy gracefully poured the coffee from some fancy-looking silver pot, I studied her. She was attractive and youthful looking, her blond hair fringed in a hip style around her face. Yet there was something oddly embryonic about that face—it appeared almost seamless and not quite formed in places, perhaps from work she’d had done to it.
Gloss
had recently run an article about the pluses and pitfalls of Botox and brow lifts and collagen injections that could super size your lips until they were as thick as fire hoses, but I had no skill at telling whether someone had actually indulged in one of these procedures.