Killer Deal

by Sheryl J. Anderson

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You will. Later,” I said. When Detective Donovan comes to get you. But I couldn’t say that or she’d run for the door. And that was an option I was reserving for myself.

  “You should really go sit down, Lindsay,” Tricia urged. “They’re about to start the show.”

  The soundtrack had shifted to something more bluesy, full of synthesizer arpeggios. The Success theme song, I supposed. Up on the catwalk in black tie and tails and a fuschia shirt, Emile was yelling into a wireless mic, welcoming his friends and peers to his extravaganza. The crowd was applauding, whooping, or screaming, depending on their level of inebriation.

  Lindsay wouldn’t budge. “Why won’t you talk to me?”

  “Please go sit down,” I said, glancing guiltily at the doors.

  “What did I do?”

  It was the question I’d been struggling with all afternoon and I was shocked at how disingenuous it sounded coming from her. “Nothing,” I said flatly. “Right?”

  The wounded expression on her face gave way to something more guarded. “What are you talking about?”

  “She’s not talking about anything,” Tricia said, inserting herself between us. “We need to sit down and so do you.” Tricia took me by the arm, blocking Lindsay’s attempt to do the same, and walked me back toward our table.

  If I’d just followed her and kept my mouth shut, it might have all been fine. But I couldn’t do it. I had to say back over my shoulder, “Whoever you’re covering for, I hope they’re worth it.”

  “Molly!” Tricia hissed, yanking on my arm as though it were a cutoff valve.

  “What are you talking about?” Lindsay repeated, sounding angry this time.

  “Molly,” Cassady warned.

  “Tell me!” Lindsay insisted.

  “Molly.”

  I have a short name, yet people are able to pack huge quantities of emotion into it. In this case, the fury Kyle compacted into two syllables was staggering and left me blinking in its wake.

  “There’s an explanation,” I began.

  “What a surprise,” he said tautly. “We had a deal—”

  Gwen Lincoln swooped down and cut him off. She looked terrific in her backless Trebask gown of emerald satin, as long as you ignored the fury on her face. “I can’t imagine what’s going on here, but you clearly haven’t noticed that the program has begun. Now sit down, all of you, before I have you thrown out.”

  Kyle reflexively reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his badge, showing it to Gwen and all the people seated nearby who were craning their necks and attempting to figure out what was happening in our unhappy little cluster.

  The badge did not have the desired effect on Gwen. “Because you people haven’t made my life miserable enough. Whatever it is you want, must you do it right here, right now?”

  “I’m so very sorry, Gwen,” Lindsay said, suddenly her steely self again, “this situation should never have gotten this far.”

  “Damn straight,” Cassady muttered.

  “I’ll have security escort them out at once,” Lindsay said.

  The chorus of “What?”s that answered her almost silenced Emile up on the catwalk, but Gwen hurriedly gestured for him to continue. He was bringing out the celebrity models, so most people were having no trouble ignoring us, but I worried that wasn’t going to last much longer.

  “If I leave, I’m taking you with me,” Kyle told Lindsay.

  “This isn’t your case,” she replied tartly.

  “We all work in the same house,” he explained, “and I’ll help out a brother officer anytime I can.”

  Gwen looked at Lindsay with surprise. “What do they want with you?”

  “It’s a setup,” Lindsay replied. “To make you look bad. To push you to say incriminating things about Garth’s death.” I had to hand it to her: these advertising babes are quick.

  And she knew exactly what buttons to push with Gwen. Gwen sneered at Kyle. “How dare you come to my event and attempt to provoke me—”

  “That’s not what’s happening,” I protested.

  “Stay out of this, Molly,” Kyle said quietly.

  “I’m getting security,” Gwen announced and she hurried away.

  “Who’s her event planner? I would’ve been all over this,” Tricia whispered.

  “Why don’t we talk outside?” Kyle suggested to Lindsay. I didn’t know if Detective Donovan was outside, but it was reasonable to assume he would be soon.

  “Where are you trying to take my wife?” Daniel strode up, his tuxedo jacket open, face flushed, looking for a fight. I hadn’t even realized he was there.

  Kyle showed Daniel his badge, then slid it back in his pocket. “This doesn’t have to be unpleasant. Let’s just take it outside.” Kyle stepped forward to take Lindsay’s arm and stepped straight into the wild right that Daniel threw, every ounce of his weight behind it. Kyle’s head snapped back and he rocked off his feet. We all scrambled to help him—Tricia, Cassady, Aaron, and I—but we didn’t react quickly enough. He fell with a loose, heavy thud, his head smacking the floor as he landed. He was out.

  Above us, a radio DJ known for her sexually provocative talk was flashing some serious décolletage and streaming her own commentary about how hot she looked as she pranced by on the catwalk. She had the full attention of most of the room, but Kyle hitting the floor had garnered us increased interest from surrounding tables.

  Two men and one woman stood and identified themselves as doctors. They, Aaron, Cassady, and Tricia immediately attended to Kyle, but I whirled on Daniel. “You son of a bitch.”

  Daniel wavered a moment, weighing the full impact of what he’d done by assaulting a police detective and then he took off. Sprinted away.

  “Daniel!” Lindsay screamed after him, her voice so full of betrayal it ran through me like an electric current.

  “Lindsay. Are you covering for Daniel?”

  She caught herself on the back of a chair, but her knees still began to buckle as the color drained from her face. Her mouth worked, but no sound came out. So I took off after Daniel.

  I waitressed one miserable summer in college and the slaloming between tables, dodging people and chairs and napkins on the ground, came back to me like riding a bike. Daniel headed toward the kitchen and I relished the thought of grabbing him and running him through the meat grinder, assuming they had one, but he made a sudden hard left toward the entrance to the backstage area where all the models, real and otherwise, were getting ready.

  I would’ve expected the dozens of seminude women to scream or at least protest as Daniel raced through their midst, but most were pretty blasé about it. It wasn’t until they realized I was chasing him and that Lindsay was now chasing me that they began to perk up. A few screamed, but mainly they covered themselves, cleared out of the way, and watched with interest. A stage manager ran over, headset flipped up, to hush them all while grabbing the next model and throwing her in line.

  But no one made a move to stop Daniel. And the only person who tried to stop me was Eileen, swathed in impossible layers of teal tulle and hot pink silk, who attempted to stand in my path as I raced by her. “Molly Forrester, what the hell—”

  I cut around her at the last possible second, my sights still on Daniel. “Stop him!” I yelled, trying to get someone to respond, but all they did was look in his direction. I raced on as he headed toward a set of double doors that led back into the service corridors of the hotel. Suddenly, I was skating, sliding on someone’s silk chemise that had fallen on the floor. I pinwheeled madly, trying to keep my balance, and while I managed to stay upright, just barely, it slowed me sufficiently for Lindsay to catch up with me.

  She grabbed me by the hair, but I twisted free. She clawed at me as I tried to go after Daniel and I turned around and smacked her across the face. She gasped as did several of the models. A few of them clapped.

  “You don’t understand,” she wailed.

  “Damn st
raight,” I snapped, then turned back around to go after Daniel, who threw himself against the handles of the double door. Alarms whooped and emergency lights flashed. The stage manager let loose a piercing profanity and some of the models screeched and put their hands over their ears. The music paused out front for just a moment, then the stage manager jammed his headset back down, started barking into it, and grabbed Eileen and dragged her off for her entrance.

  The music started up again. Daniel spun off the double doors, hugging the wall, trying to stay as far away from me as possible, while I clambered over chairs, clothes, and models to get to him. His path was blocked by a huge mound of equipment cases and he had no choice but to circle back around and come my way. I advanced on him, praying he didn’t have a weapon and reassuring myself that he would have used it by now if he did.

  He was cornered. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with him, but I had him trapped, his back against the catwalk. “Daniel, they’ve tested the gun. They’ve got you,” I said, hoping he’d see the futility of attempting to flee.

  “It’s her gun.” He pointed over my shoulder at Lindsay. I knew she was coming up behind me, but I didn’t dare take my eyes off him to see exactly where she was.

  “Daniel!” she screamed again.

  “Shut up!” he screamed back and I threw myself at him, trying to be as aerodynamic as possible, but he moved too quickly and as I hit the floor, he climbed up onto the catwalk. Ignoring the pain in all the impact points and the possible damage to my dress, I scrambled up, kicked off my shoes, and climbed up after him, dodging the stage manager and following Daniel out into the blazing light of the ballroom.

  “Molly!” Tricia screamed from somewhere out on the floor, but the lights were blinding and it was hard to see. I had to squint to see Daniel backing down the catwalk in front of me, gauging his possibilities for escape. People gasped and called out, rising from their seats. Emile asked everyone to remain calm, but that made everyone more nervous. I could sense the little flames of panic igniting all over the room.

  Daniel suddenly stooped and grabbed a corkscrew out of a waiter’s hand, then grabbed the model on the runway beside him and put the point to her neck. It was Eileen. She glared at me, her fury overriding her fear. “This is your fault, Molly Forrester!”

  Daniel slid his hand up to cover Eileen’s mouth and she had the good sense not to struggle with him. “Please let her go, Daniel,” I asked. He shook his head.

  “Please, Daniel,” Lindsay said, drawing up even with me. I glanced at her briefly, but she was focused on her husband. She wasn’t trying to take me out anymore, she wanted to help me bring him in.

  He shook his head again, ferociously this time. “It was supposed to work.”

  “I know, honey, I know,” she said, bitterness leaking into her voice.

  “I didn’t want to kill him.”

  A collective gasp rose from the crowd and there was a flurry of activity at every table. At least half the guests were taking out their cell phones to take pictures of what was going to happen next.

  And what happened was that Eileen, impatient with her restraint and the interruption of her moment in the spotlight, bit Daniel’s fingers as hard as she could. He screamed in pain and brought the corkscrew down like a knife, determined to return the favor. And I, acting out of instinct and not out of love for Eileen, tried my flying tackle again, with somewhat better success. I say “somewhat,” because I managed to knock Daniel away from her and jar the corkscrew from his hand, but my trajectory was such that I took Eileen with us on our trip off the catwalk and onto the floor, breaking her arm and dislocating Daniel’s knee. I rolled away with no injuries, other than those to my pride, my career, and my relationship.

  I’d love to be remembered as a knockout, but this wasn’t exactly what I’d had in mind.

  Twenty

  I USED TO THINK I was willing to do anything for love. Climb a mountain, write a sonnet, give up a throne. Then I discovered what some people actually will do in the name of love—get breast implants, wreck marriages, commit murder. So I decided that, while I like to think of myself as a true romantic, my willingness to make an eternal declaration of passion probably falls somewhere between getting a tattoo and getting a gym membership. I’ll leave the messier stuff to other people. And do my best to learn while cleaning up after them.

  Two days later, still nursing my bruised bones and ego, I tried to do some cleaning up, but Kyle wasn’t interested. He’d come up with a plan of his own and he was going to see it through. I’d tried to dissuade him, but he’s about the only human being on earth more stubborn than I am.

  Even as Eileen, Daniel, and I flew off the catwalk, the police were bombarded with calls as people stopped taking pictures with their phones and started calling 911. Detective Donovan, in his tuxedo, arrived just ahead of the massive uniformed response. He thought he was coming late to the party with the bombshell news that the gun was registered to Daniel’s secretary, who had reported it stolen a week before the murder. He found Kyle, groggy but conscious, handcuffing Daniel as the glitterati fled the ballroom.

  Not that Daniel was about to go anywhere until the paramedics reset his knee. Kyle and Detective Donovan had a brief conversation with Daniel that included reading him his rights while waiting for the paramedics to arrive. Meanwhile, Tricia and Cassady picked me up off the floor and placed me at a table where Lindsay was crying quietly but continuously. Emile had already swept Eileen up into his arms and spirited her away to another table where everyone else from Zeitgeist was tending to her.

  “This is all my fault,” Lindsay sobbed as they eased me into the chair next to her.

  Cassady sucked air between her teeth. “You have the right to counsel, honey, and I’d be embracing it pretty tightly if I were you.”

  “And you didn’t kill Garth, so it’s not your fault,” I said, earning a dark look from Cassady.

  “No, I didn’t. Daniel did,” Lindsay affirmed.

  “Detective Donovan!” Tricia called, motioning for him to join us quickly. We all waited anxiously, wanting Lindsay to continue but not wanting to push her and perhaps make her shut up.

  “Garth wouldn’t sleep with me, so Daniel killed him,” she said with jaw-dropping matter-of-factness.

  “You have to run that one by me again,” I said as both Tricia and Cassady grasped my shoulders so hard that I was going to have welts and permanently improved posture.

  “They were all getting ahead by sleeping with the bastard. I wanted my chance. But he wouldn’t sleep with me because I’m married.”

  Aaron appeared with a pitcher of water and a couple of goblets he’d procured from another table. He froze as he picked up Lindsay’s conversation, until Cassady nudged him gently. She helped him pour water for all of us, but only Lindsay took her glass. We all waited while she took a drink; I know I was holding my breath and I’m pretty sure everyone else was, too.

  “Daniel and I talked about it, examined the pros and cons. It seemed the only thing to do to maintain a competitive edge was … compete. So I let Garth know I was interested. And—he rejected me.” She put her water goblet down with such force that the bowl snapped off the stem. Tricia took the pieces from her quickly, before she could hurt herself.

  “Then why did Daniel shoot him?” I asked, worried that I knew the answer.

  “Because he loves me,” she said with forceful bitterness. “Because he wants to see me happy. Fulfilled. Successful. And it seemed like no matter what I was trying to do—get ahead at my job, get pregnant—Garth was blocking my path.”

  “How was Garth keeping you from getting pregnant?” Tricia asked with gentle bewilderment.

  “We need help. IVF. And our salaries just aren’t enough. But how could I get a raise when Garth wouldn’t see me on the same level as the rest of them?”

  “So you were going to sleep with your boss to get a raise,” Cassady said, careful to clarify and not question.

  “To have a baby. Save
my marriage. Oh, God,” she exclaimed. “You don’t get it, do you? Garth wouldn’t even give me the chance. That’s all Daniel went to ask for. A chance. We’d turned ourselves inside out, looked at this a million different ways, and it seemed like the only option we hadn’t tried. We convinced ourselves we could be okay with it as long as it got us where we wanted to be.”

  Lindsay took a deep, shuddering breath. “But Garth said no. To me. Damn him! I’m every bit as good as the rest of them. Maybe even better. At anything. At everything. But he said no.” Her body shrank as tears squeezed through her tightly clenched eyelids, her breath catching raggedly. “It was okay to have me run a campaign or train one of those other—” She stopped as more tears spilled out. “But not to have me for …” Her face went slack and she let the last of the tears drop. “Because he didn’t want me, we couldn’t have anything we wanted.”

  I was thinking about reaching out to pat her hand, shake her, do something, when Lindsay suddenly jerked upright and looked at everyone with a smile that beamed with pride. “I think that hurt Daniel more than losing our chance for a baby. Garth turning me down.”

  This version of “Stand By Your Man” would have taken even Tammy Wynette’s breath away. All we could do was stare at her in silence. I tried to imagine Daniel seeing himself in the role of defender as he marched into the hotel room and demanded that Garth sleep with his wife.

  Detective Donovan joined us then. “Mrs. Franklin, your husband’s being taken to the hospital; my partner’s going to ride along with him. I thought you and I could have a chat.”

  Lindsay sniffed hard and I handed her a dinner napkin. “Pull up a seat, Detective Donovan, I was just telling everyone what happened,” Lindsay said, gesturing imperiously to a chair.

  “It would be more appropriate—” Detective Donovan began.

  “I owe my friend an explanation,” Lindsay said, moving the imperious gesture to me.

  “No, you don’t,” I said, mindful of Cassady and Detective Donovan wanting to upholding the law, much as I wanted to hear the rest of the story.