“Sure.” Cassandra tore a piece off the back of her sketchbook and handed it to me. At the top I wrote budget increase for costumes and below that I wrote a figure.
“Will that help?” The figure I wrote was a little bit less than the figure Holly was considering. Cassandra always enjoyed a negotiation. I looked up at the set—still a bright, shiny white. I imagined actors in costumes, lights, maybe with some props. There was a lot that could affect the set. I couldn’t make a decision for the company, but if push came to shove, I’d counsel Holly to pour more money into costumes if possible.
Cassandra wrote down another figure, a little over what Holly had had in mind. I wrote down Holly’s figure.
“I think I might be able to talk them into this. Afraid that might be it.”
“Then that will have to do. Trust me, Sully. The audience will be grateful that we’re telling a story with the costumes. Folks pay attention to what you wear. That’s why it matters. They pay more attention to that sometimes then anything else. Which is why”—she looked at my yoga pants with disdain—“you need to let me get you some pizazz.”
“All right, you win. I’ll try to jazz it up while I’m here in the big city.” I got up and walked down the center aisle, out into the lobby. I texted Holly: Cassandra’s all set. I sent the budget number.
Great, thanks, she replied.
I’m going out for a bit, I texted. I need to buy a scarf.
I also needed some fresh air. To clear the cobwebs. Theater folks live by the adage, “The show must go on.” No matter what, the job takes precedence. Come to think of it, cops work by the same adage. No matter what, the work gets the attention. And what was I doing? I’d put Mimi’s death into a box and ignored it.
I put my coat back on and set out to the shops on the next block. A little window-shopping, a realignment of my humanity. I sighed and thought about Mimi Cunningham. A woman was dead, and I’d only been thinking about how that affected my grant application. I needed to do better, to be better, than that.
• Nine •
The thing about a walk in February is that the clear blue skies always make it seem like a good idea while you’re inside. But once you set foot outside, you realize you need a destination. The bone-rattling cold is not to be suffered for long periods of time without reason. Today it was a damp cold. My father would’ve said that it smelled like snow. I hoped not. Getting around was hard enough without the white stuff to add to the challenge.
I went into the first store I came upon rather than going the extra block to the bookstore. This was the type of shop I normally avoided like the plague. Full of accessories, jewelry, tchotchkes, and pocketbooks, all grouped by color. But it was warm, so I decided to stay and look around. I gravitated toward the sea of black but then forced myself to walk over to the mountain of red. I found a scarf that I liked: deep red and muted white painted cabbage roses interspersed amongst sage green vines. It was long and very wide but could be scrunched up to a much smaller size. Happily, it also came with a diagram that showed me the different ways of using it. I saw a necklace with black and white flowers and shiny silver leaves. Dangle earrings with a black ball on the ends. I put them all in the basket and continued to wander around. I was choosing accessories with my gut because my brain was otherwise occupied.
I thought about Holly’s reaction to Mimi’s death, and her implication that Mimi had somehow been involved with her father’s disappearance. I remembered Hal’s pale, drawn face. He’d lost a friend. Babs’s sudden disappearance indicated that perhaps Hal had lost a wife as well. Babs. I needed to follow up with her, make sure she was okay. Holly was going to text me the address in Vermont. I checked my phone. No text from Holly yet, so I sent one asking for the information.
I checked my phone ringer and realized I’d turned it off. It had become habit to turn off my ringer whenever I walked into a rehearsal room or theater. Problem was, I often forgot to turn it back on, giving me unexpected respites from the cacophony of daily life. I walked up to the counter and put my basket down. The woman at the counter asked if I had a shopping bag with me.
“No, sorry to say. I usually do, but I used them all up for groceries. I might be able to fit it all in my purse,” I said.
“You’d hate to lose anything,” the clerk said. “You can buy one for ten cents or would you rather get one of our cloth ones for a dollar? They’re wicked cute.”
I looked at the bags, thought of all the ones in the back of my car, and decided to add one more to the collection. I put a black and red one on the counter. “Great choice,” she said with a smile. The perky clerk then announced the total of my sale, and I was a bit shocked at the figure. That was the last time I’d go shopping after a pep talk from Cassandra. I took a picture of the bag and texted it to Cassandra. Your fault.
While the clerk was wrapping every item carefully in tissue paper, I checked my voicemail.
“Sully, it’s Gus. Assuming you heard about Mimi? Horrible news …
garble garble garble … Need to talk … Doesn’t make sense … Call me as soon as you get this.”
I handed the clerk my card and called Gus back. He didn’t pick up his cell phone, so I called his office.
“Good morning. Knight, Smythe, and Brown,” a well-modulated voice said.
“Hello, this is Sully Sullivan. Could you connect me to Gus Knight?”
“It’s Kate. I was hoping he was on this call. That’s why I picked up,” she said. She didn’t even try not to sound annoyed. “Gus should be here. He’s blown off two meetings already this morning. We have a conference call in five minutes. I know things are crazy, but you’d think he’d keep me in the loop.”
“In the loop? What do you mean?” I signed the credit card slip and picked up my bag, mouthing “thank you” to the salesperson. She nodded and cheerily started refolding scarves at the front counter. I walked toward the front door but stepped to the side to finish the call in the warmth of the store.
“I came in this morning to find out he’d dropped all of our Century Project and Century Foundation clients. Without talking to me. You just don’t do that— you just don’t cut off twenty-five percent of your income—”
“I thought the Cunninghams weren’t clients?” I asked.
“They aren’t clients. But there are concentric circles, six degrees of separation. I was negotiating deals with, working with, companies who are working with the Cunninghams. But he decided we need to separate those as well. Without talking to me. It’s a mess. People got letters of separation this morning, phones are ringing off the hook, email is blowing up.”
I didn’t know what to say. I could defend Gus, but I wouldn’t. I assumed, based on the Gus I knew once upon a time, that he had a very good reason for doing what he was doing. But not to talk to Kate about it? I didn’t blame her for being angry. I would’ve been too, even if he was in the right.
“Kate, I don’t know what to say. I’m trying to track Gus down; he left me a message—”
“Which is more than he did for me. I’ve been trying to find him all morning. I have no idea where he is.”
“Well, I’ll try to find him too, and if I get hold of him I’ll make sure he gives you a call.”
“Like he’d listen to you more than he’d listen to me. Actually, strike that. He probably would. Bastard.”
“He certainly can be. Hang in there, Kate.” I ended the call and left the store.
I called Gus’s cell phone, got voicemail again. This time I left a message. I walked outside and took a deep breath, feeling the knife of the freezing cold air slicing through my lungs. Waking me up. Forcing me to be worried. I felt my phone buzz in my hand and quickly took my glove off so I could accept the call.
“Hello?”
“Sully, its Gus.” He was shouting. Not really shouting, just speaking loudly. It sounded like he was near a construction zone of some
sort.
“Where are you? Are you all right?” I asked.
“In the tunnel. There’s construction going on. What else is new? There’s construction everywhere these days.”
“Gus, focus. What’s going on?”
“You heard about Mimi Cunningham?”
“Yes. Terrible news.”
“Terrible, of course. Terrible. It’s just that … I don’t know, the timing is too perfect.”
“The timing? Of a murder? What are you talking about?”
“Dammit, I don’t know what I mean. Yesterday I decided to …” His phone broke up. I was afraid I’d lost him, but then he came back on the line. “Don’t you think that’s odd?”
“Think what’s odd? Gus, I lost you for a minute. Gus. Gus? I lost you again.”
“Sorry. Damn tunnel. Where are you? Can we meet?”
“I’m near Bay Rep. Of course we can meet. Where?”
“Can you get to Harvard Square? How about Cambridge One? In an hour? That’ll give me time to check with … call you if …but I …”
“Gus? I’ve lost you again! I’ll see you at Cambridge One in an hour.”
I went back to the theater to talk to Holly. I explained that I was going over to Harvard Square for lunch.
“I’m going to take the car. Will you let Stewart and Harry know? I’ll check with them on my way back, and if they’re done with rehearsal I’ll come by and pick them up. You sure you’re all right? Everything under control for now?”
“So far so good, knock wood,” Holly said. “Cassandra and I had a great talk. Thank you for that. I’m still working on the set fabric, figuring it out. I think I have a good lead. Anyway, I thought I had the Vermont address in my contacts but I don’t. I must have put it in my car GPS. When I get a minute, I’ll see if I can find it in an email and text it to you. Are you still willing to—?”
“Of course I am. I think we’ll both feel better if we know Babs is up there and all right. It doesn’t seem like her to just leave like that, does it?”
“No. But like Hal said, this anniversary has thrown us off our game a little bit. I’ve put off having a funeral for my dad until … we agreed that after a year went by, if we hadn’t heard from him again, we’d have a memorial service. I never really thought we’d get here.”
Impulsively I reached over and gave Holly a hug. Before I started working in theater, I was not a hugger. But being around theater people, living in the heightened reality of emotion, I’d realized the power of human contact even from relative strangers. Holly returned the hug, giving me a squeeze at the end.
“Thanks, I needed that,” she joked with a watery smile.
“Holly, you know what I was thinking about when I went out to buy a scarf ?” I pulled the scarf out of the bag and tossed it around my neck. She picked up the end and pulled the tag off gently. “Thanks. I thought about how good theater folk are at compartmentalizing. When we’re in the theater, or in rehearsal, we focus on the work at hand. Real life doesn’t intrude. But sometimes, maybe it should. I wonder if Babs got tired of real life not intruding. Anyway, I’m not going to make excuses. She shouldn’t have left you in the lurch like this. But some unsolicited advice. Okay?” Holly nodded. “First, ask me anything. If I don’t have the answer, I’ll help you figure it out. Don’t hesitate for a minute. Second. Write a note to the Bay Rep board, let them know what’s going on. Better to keep them in the loop. Third? Take care of yourself. Let life intrude. Mourn your father. If you don’t, it’ll pop up on you. Okay?”
“Okay,” Holly said. “Thank you, Sully. Now I know why Dimitri is so glad you’re here.”
“We’ll get through this,” I said. “All of it.”
When I was in college, Cambridge One was a Chinese restaurant. It may not have been great food, but it tasted wonderful after an evening of carousing in the Square. Raising the drinking age had affected a lot of restaurants that catered to drunk, cheap undergrads, and the Chinese restaurant had closed several years ago. In its place was a grilled pizza place with polished concrete floors, cherrywood booths, and a large window that overlooked a cemetery. Gus and I had eaten there a lot when we were together, but I doubted that it was sentiment that made him choose it. Instead, he just wanted a place I would know but where not many folks would know me. Harvard Square had changed a lot in the past five years. I put my car in a parking lot. More expensive than a meter, but less expensive than a ticket. Who knew how long this would take?
I got there a little early and was shown to a table in the back. I sat on the outside so that Gus could see me and I could see him. I ordered a soda. No Gus. Then I ordered a pizza—steak, tomatoes, arugula, and Gorgonzola. I ate my half and started to nibble on his. By the time I was down to the last two pieces and had checked my cell phone for the hundredth time, I was officially worried. That was cemented when I saw Antonia Vestri walk through the door and head right to my table.
“Sully.”
“Toni.” So much for small talk. You’d think I’d have more to say to my ex-partner, one of the best cops I knew, after six years.
“Where’s Gus?” she asked.
“Dunno. We’re divorced. But you knew that.” Gus got Toni in the divorce. She’d decided to stay on the side of law and order, and Gus was that. Not that I’d put up much of a fight. I was career poison to be around those days, and I didn’t want Toni to get infected. I’d given up most of my friends from my former life. But I still missed some of them. Especially Toni.
“He was going to meet you here at two. Did he leave already?”
“He never showed. How do you know he was supposed to meet me?”
“He told me. When he called to arrange a time to come to the station, to talk about his relationship with Mimi Cunningham.”
“Relationship?”
“Business relationship. Apparently it had been fractious of late. Things are escalating quickly in the Cunningham case. That’s to be expected; she was a VIP. So I thought I’d come in and talk to Gus off the record. Give him a heads-up. Folks want him to come in for questioning this afternoon.”
“About the murder?”
“Shhh. Jeeze, Sully, you’re still loud. You going to eat that piece of pizza? What the hell is this, lettuce? Who puts lettuce on pizza?” Toni took a bite, then finished the rest of the piece in two bites. She picked up the second piece and gestured at me. “Damn, woman, you did a good job getting rid of the rest, didn’t you?”
“Help yourself. And yeah, I was hungry. What’s up with this questioning crap?”
“Gus was one of the last people to see Mimi Cunningham alive. And the department got a tip that he had information. Anyway, we called Gus’s office, found out he was out. I called his cell. He called me back on my personal cell, and I explained the situation.”
“That you were going to question him?”
“I wanted to give him notice, as a friend. Believe it or not, he appreciated the call. He said he had something to tell me. We had a bad connection, but he mentioned he didn’t have a lot of time since he was meeting you here at two. So, where is he?”
“I don’t know. Honestly. He never showed. And hasn’t called.”
“And you tried him?”
“Yeah. Between calls and texts, at least a dozen times. No answer.”
“Just a sec.” Toni tried Gus’s cell and left her own voicemail. Then a text. Then she called Kate and had a quick conversation. From what I gathered, Kate hadn’t heard from him either. Finally she called someone else, presumably at the station. No one had heard from him.
“And you have no idea why he wanted to talk to you?” Toni asked. The waitress brought her a glass of water and asked if she wanted to order anything. Toni said no and took a sip of water.
“No. His cell phone kept breaking up. He said he was in a tunnel. He asked if I’d heard about Mimi Cunningham’s murder. T
hen he said that something seemed wrong, and something about wanting to wait until two to meet with me so he could have time to do something. I didn’t hear what.”
“Sounds like our conversation. In and out, in and out. Any ideas?”
“About what it meant? No,” I said.
“Did you know the victim?”
“Mimi Cunningham? We’d met a few times at different functions. But we’d never had a conversation that was about anything more than the Cliffside. That’s my theater.”
“Yeah, I’d heard you were working for a theater. Gus said you were doing well. Interesting career change.”
“Well, you know how it was.”
“I don’t, actually. We never got around to that conversation.” Toni took another sip of water and put the glass down so hard that water bounced onto the table. She didn’t move to wipe it up.
“C’mon, Toni. I was persona non-grata at work. I wanted to keep you clean.”
“We were friends, Sully. I tried to be there for you.”
“I know you tried.” I’d pushed her away when she’d tried to get me to see Gus’s side of the story. I wasn’t ready for that conversation until a couple of years later. “I’m a jerk, what can I say?”
Toni sighed. “A lot more than that, but we’d need a good meal and a decent bottle of wine. What’s say we wait until Gus can be there too.”
“You’re worried about him?” I asked.
“Yeah, a little. He sounded like he was confused about something. Gus doesn’t confuse easily.”
“You think it had something to do with the murder?”
“Yeah. But who knows what it was? Gus is running in pretty tony circles these days. And his girlfriend, Kate, is useless. He’s probably just stuck somewhere and his cell died.” The way Toni had said Kate’s name summed up her opinion, and it wasn’t good. We’d worked together for a long time, and not only had a shorthand but also understood tone. Made working cases a lot easier.
“That must be it,” I said. “How about if I call you if I hear from him?”
With a Kiss I Die Page 12
