Exposé: First of the Sally Harrington Mysteries (The Alexandra Chronicles Book 5) Page 7

  The reception area of Expectations is elegant, with thick beige carpeting, light-colored wood furniture, a chintz sofa and wing chairs. On the wall are splendid covers of Expectations from yes­teryear. There is a magnificent vase of irises and snapdragons.

  I am surprised to find a real, live receptionist sitting behind a massive desk. These days most executive suites in publishing look great but offer a single pathetic telephone on a coffee table as a way of welcome. I tell the receptionist who I am and who I am here to see.

  "Ms. Harrington?" a voice inquires shortly thereafter. It be­longs to an older woman, somewhere in her sixties. "I'm Doris Black, Verity's executive assistant."

  We shake hands.

  "Will you come with me? She's taking part in a phone con­ference that has run over, but she didn't want to keep you wait­ing."

  Doris Black is in slacks, silk blouse and flats, and I wonder if I am overdressed in my Donna Karan skirt and jacket (a deal from my last outlet-mall shopping trip.) When she shows me into Verity's office, though, and I see that Verity is in an Armani suit and heels, I am glad I have dressed exactly the way I have.

  Still on the phone (wearing a delicate headset), Verity waves hello to me from behind her desk and then shrugs, as much as to say, I don't know who these people are and why I have to talk to them? Doris shows me to a chair at a small conference table in the corner of the office. "Can I get you something to drink?" she whispers. "Coffee? Tea? Mineral water? Orange juice?"

  I say water is fine and sit back, ostensibly taking my notes out of my briefcase and reviewing them, but in reality using the motions as a cover to case the joint. It is very nice digs. The first thing I notice is that the rug appears to be a genuine Oriental silk. At twelve by eighteen, I can't imagine how much it cost. Thirty thousand, maybe? How could Verity let people walk on it? And then I remember that her husband is a kazillionaire and has no doubt bought it for her. She has a remarkable desk, too, a massive, turn-of-the-century piece that looks like walnut. There are several plants along a windowsill that spans the length of the office and the view of the East River is spectacular.

  "At last!" Verity cries, ripping the headset from her head and springing up. "And you're here—-on time, may I add, looking fantastic and well rested."

  She gives me a hug of sorts, clasping my arms and simulta­neously brushing her cheek against mine while holding the rest of my body at bay, and then whirls us over to the conference ta­ble where she flings a copy of the contract onto the table.

  "Did you get my fax?" she asks, sitting down.

  "Sunday. I was impressed."

  "Good," she says absently, slipping on glasses and scanning the papers. "How long is it going to take you to review the agreement?"

  "Oh, I already have."

  She looks at me over the top of her glasses.

  "I had a literary lawyer review it."

  The side of her mouth hitches up slightly in an approving smile. "And?"

  "And he tells me this agreement is not only fair, but more generous than your standard one."

  She sits back in her chair. "Any changes?"

  I shake my head. "He wanted to know who I was sleeping with at Expectations."

  She throws her head back to laugh. "Ah, supportive of our hard work."

  I guiltily think of my own skepticism about beautiful women who rise quickly in the ranks.

  "So he said you could sign it?"

  "Yes."

  "Great!"

  She slides the contract over and I take a moment to make sure it's the same agreement she had faxed.

  "You sign there and there, and then I'll sign, too." We com­plete this part and she shuffles through more papers, pulls out a check and hands it to me.

  It is for five thousand dollars and it is made out to me.

  "That is also the kill fee," Verity explains. "The money you get to keep if, for some reason, we don't run the piece. Al­though I can't imagine why we wouldn't."

  "Thank you," I say. The check should say quit money on it, be­cause I am afraid this is what it might take to get time to write this piece.

  Verity slides over an American Express card. "And sign the back of this, please. At the completion of the assignment I'll ex­pect that back—or, who knows, maybe you'll write something else for us."

  I feel a wave of excitement pass through me.

  "You are to use it for your out-of-pocket expenses, airline tickets, hotel, car rentals, meals, et cetera, but I have to warn you, it's only for five thousand and that can go very quickly when working on a story. And no, what you don't spend, you don't get to keep, so use it in good health and get that story." I sign the back of the credit card and let it lie there to dry.

  "Now, the story of Cassy Cochran," Verity says, sitting back in her chair. "Tell me what you think. I'm sure you've done some kind of research on her since Saturday."

  "Truthfully?" I ask. "I think this piece is going to be tricky."

  She looks interested. "How so?"

  "To all appearances, Cassy Cochran seems too well balanced and too well liked to make very interesting reading."

  Verity nods. "Indeed, we should all suffer from that—too nice of a reputation." She leans forward to rest her elbow on the table. "But I'm interested in the way you said, 'to all appear­ances,' as if there might be something more."

  "I don't know that there is," I admit.

  "So how would you make this piece interesting reading?"

  "Well, she's very beautiful and so the photo shoot would be wonderful. I mean, she's a woman, you know, 'of a certain age,' and yet, wow, she looks great."

  "Agreed. And we will be making the most of it. She's agreed to do a shoot with Ryder for us."

  I let out a whistle. He is one of the top-five glamour photog­raphers.

  "But what about your piece?" Verity asks. "How are you go­ing to make that more interesting? How are you going to get be­hind the appearances?"

  "Well, of course, I think it'll liven things up to have inter­views with famous people, like Alexandra Waring and Jessica Wright—"

  "Yes," she says in a deeper voice, "but what else?"

  "Well, to be honest, I think the more interesting stories may lie with her husband."

  Verity's eyes light up. Encouraged, I race on. "The first husband evidently had a bad drinking problem, and the second, Jackson Darenbrook, well, his history is so extraordinary—his eccentric millionaire father who is suspected of having killed his first wife, his half siblings born by four different women, his rise to power in the family business, his own beautiful first wife dying in the coun­try club pool, his years outdoing Warren Beatty on the dating scene, his hiring Cassy to run DBS News and then promoting her to president of the network and then getting romantically involved with her-If I gesture with one hand. "I think it's go­ing to be her relationships with these men that are going to be the most interesting."

  Verity is nodding, thoughtful.

  "Also," I continue, "her father died when she was young and I can't seem to find out the cause of death, which makes me wonder if there might be something there. Something, perhaps, that would tie in with her future relationships with men. And when I say relationships, I don't just mean romantic, or sexual, I mean with all the male bosses she's had. It's hard to believe a woman who looks the way she does didn't get hit on every five minutes, particularly twenty-five years ago."

  Verity waits for me to continue, and when I don't, she says, "Anything else?"

  "Not that I wish to share right now."

  A subtle smile appears on the editor's lips. "Keep your cards close to your chest, eh? Well, that's good. But you'll check in with me? Maybe come by for a progress report in the next week or two?"

  I nod. "If you'd like."

  She starts gathering the papers. "What about your job at the paper? This story's going to take the full five weeks, you know that."

  "I'm getting a leave." One way or another.

  "All right, that's it then," she says.
"Except—" She rises and walks over to her desk and comes back with a business card and a thick manila folder secured with a rubber band. She gives me the card first. "This is my personal line here at the office, my number at home and my cell phone number. You may call me anytime."

  Instantly I am reminded that I have been given this chance not because of my brilliant writing career, but because Devon and I stumbled on the Schroeders in the middle of nowhere when they needed help.

  "And this is a copy of our file on Cassy Cochran," she ex­plains. "Addresses, phone numbers, pertinent facts, some inter­views. I am going to make a courtesy call to her this morning and introduce you as the writer, but I will let you set up your own appointments. I'll tell her to expect your call this after­noon."

  I nod. "Thank you."

  "Also, Doris will show you an office you can use when you're in town. It's more like a cubicle, really, as other writers need space, too—but you will have a phone and a desk and a PC you can call your own for the next five weeks."

  "This is unbelievable," I marvel.

  "You did me and my family a great service, Sally, and now I only wish to do one for you. Although," she adds, "I'm sure you would have moved on to bigger things on your own, any­way—rather, returned to the bigger things you were doing be­fore your mother got ill."

  The surprise I feel at the mention of Mother's illness evi­dently shows on my face, for Verity smiles while edging me to­ward the door. "Surely you don't think I hand out twenty-thousand-dollar assignments willy-nilly to just anybody? I did some checking."

  I hastily smile. "Yes, of course."

  She sees me out the door, does that sort-of-hug thing again and hands me over to Doris. As the executive assistant leads me away, I glance over my shoulder to see that Verity is still watch­ing me from the doorway of her office. She offers a little wave, and I smile and give her a little wave, too.

  10

  As soon as I am clear of Manhattan and speeding along the Bruckner Expressway toward Interstate 95, I call my voice mail at the Herald-American to find out what's happening. Doug called and Joe Bix, the other reporter on the Kaegle's Pond Mur­der, wants to touch base. The last message is from my boss. "Call me as soon as you get this if not before."

  "I'm on my way back," I tell Al when he comes on the line.

  "It's a very good thing," he says pleasantly, "because in or­der to wring your neck I need you in front of me."

  "Oh," I say.

  He loses it. "What is this about you harboring the prime mur­der suspect at your house last night? That you got him a lawyer, brought him to the police station and then friggin' left town without saying a goddamn thing?"

  "I'm on my way in."

  "How can you possibly justify—"

  "Helping someone you know damn well is not up to defend­ing himself, Al? Is that what you're going to ask me?"

  "What the hell kind of reporter are you? You work for me. Get it?"

  "Yeah, well, maybe we better talk about that," I say, clicking the phone off.

  I drive for another ten minutes on 95 before punching in the numbers for the paper again. I reach our electronic switchboard and punch in Joe's extension. He's there.

  "Hi, Joe, it's Sally. Do they know who the victim is yet?"

  "Not that they're telling."

  "No surprise there. Where's Crazy Pete?"

  "Still downtown."

  "They taking care of him, you think?"

  "Yeah. He's okay. Actually, it's probably better he's down there, because the popular theory is that whoever killed that guy may want to kill Pete."

  "Whose theory is this?"

  "That's why I was calling you," he laughs. "I thought it sounded like a rumor you might have started."

  "Well, I didn't."

  "Did you really give Crazy Pete a place to stay last night?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "Was Doug there?"

  "No."

  "Well... Would you care to give a guy a quote about last night for his story?"

  Now I laugh. "When I get in, I'll show you what I've got, okay?"

  Zipping along 95 at a good clip now, I make another call. "Attorney Wrentham," Doug says after snapping up his phone. On TV prosecutors have big offices and secretaries. Well, in Doug's outfit, they have one secretary and a whole lot of prosecutors at a whole lot of desks in one big room.

  "Hi," I say.

  "How did it go?"

  "Great. Really good. I start now. She gave me a check for five thousand dollars and an American Express card for expenses with a ceiling of five thousand."

  He gives a low whistle. "Have you talked to Royce yet?"

  "I'm on my way into work now."

  There is a pause in the conversation. "Come on, Sal," Doug finally says, "renew my faith and tell me you were going to mention the fact that you were harboring a fugitive last night. Or were you just going to let it slide?"

  I smile. "I was just going to let it slide. The truth is, I didn't know what else to do with him. He was scared to death and I wanted to get ready for my interview."

  "Earth to Sally," he says, "he could be a murderer."

  "No, not Pete." I change lanes as I change the subject. "So, you guys know who the victim is yet?"

  "Yep."

  I wait. "Well?"

  "Sorry. Murder's not your thing anymore, anyway, Sally."

  "Oh? What is?"

  "Glamorous celebrities in the big city."

  "Yeah, right. Any chance of a hint about the identity of the victim?"

  "Talk to D'Amico. Any chance of dinner tonight?"

  "No dinner, but you can sleep over. And I'm going to sleep, big-time. And Scotty wants you to come over because you throw sticks a lot farther than I can, particularly when I've had no sleep."

  "It's going to be late," he warns me.

  "Me, too. So I'll call you," I promise, hanging up.

  I drive for the next forty-five minutes in silence, thinking things over, most of all about how I am going to handle the de­mands of the job I have and the chance of a lifetime I have just received.

  I am also thinking about the bills I can pay off with that five­-thousand-dollar check in my purse.

  It's not until I am taking the connector in Milford between 95 and the Merritt Parkway that I realize the big red Chevrolet pickup truck with blackened windows has been behind me for quite some time. As I approach the split in the connector I re­main in the right-hand lane, as if I'm going to go north on the Merritt. At the very last second I veer into the left lane to go south, causing the driver of the car I've cut in front of to quite rightfully lean on the horn.

  The red truck swerves to follow suit and swings in behind the car honking at me. The truck accelerates suddenly onto the shoulder, starting to pass that car on the right. Going around the curving ramp, I pull to the left of the car in front of me on the other shoulder. Now several cars are honking. The truck speeds up even with the car that is between us in the proper lane. I slow. He slows.

  I turn on my flashers and slow way down and then floor it, shooting onto the Merritt, swerving into the passing lane and flying over the iron-grid Sikorsky Bridge at seventy. After pass­ing a couple of cars, I swing into the right lane, exiting the Mer­ritt at Shelton, where I barely slow down to run the red light at the end of the exit ramp before turning right on Route 110.

  Within seconds I hear a siren and, relieved, see a cop car speeding to catch up. I pull over and wait for the officer to ap­proach my car. "License, please," he says.

  I lean out the window to look back down the road. "Do you see a big red Chevrolet truck with blackened windows, offi­cer?"

  "I would like to see your license," he says from behind his sunglasses. His partner remains in the patrol car and I bet she is radioing in my plates.

  Seeing no truck, I hand the officer my license. He examines it carefully and looks at me again. "Registration?"

  I get it out of the glove compartment and pass it to him as re­quested.


  "Insurance card?"

  I hand it to him.

  He examines them all in silence, shuffling them over and over like he's in some sort of a card game, and looks up. "What kind of driving do you call that? That you were doing?"

  "Defensive," I say. "I'm being followed. A red Chevy pickup with darkened windows. It has a combination plate, but I couldn't read the numbers. It started tailing me on 95, maybe as far back as Westport, and then he made his move on the con­nector and I was doubling back, trying to shake him."

  There is a hint of a smile. "By whom are you being fol­lowed?"

  Great, a literate cop. "I don't know, officer, but I do know that yesterday I discovered the body of a murdered man in Castle­ford and so the next day when some truck with dark windows starts tailgating me on a highway, I want to get away from him."

  He looks back down the road behind us. And then back to me. "You're the reporter?"

  I nod. "For the Herald-American in Castleford."

  He nods. "Heard about that." He looks back down the road again. "So where's this truck that was tailgating you?"

  "Back on the bridge, I should think," I say, "looking for me."

  "And why would anyone be looking for you, do you sup­pose?"

  "I didn't want to find out." I look at my watch.

  "In a rush?" he asks.

  "I promised the police I'd be back in Castleford by one."

  "You know," the officer says, "this is a very impressive story of yours, Ms. Harrington. But even so, I'm afraid your ticket is going to be just plain vanilla, running a red light. I'm going to overlook the speeding, though. Which I shouldn't, because you were going fifty in a twenty-five-mile-an-hour zone. Wait here."

  He takes his time writing out the ticket in the patrol car. While watching in the rearview mirror for a glimpse of the truck I know the officer thinks I've made up, I call into the pa­per and tell Al's assistant I am slightly delayed. Finally the of­ficer comes back to hand me the ticket. Only then does he take off his sunglasses. "I hope everything works out for you," he says. "It sounds like you're leading a complicated life."