Following Polly

by Karen Bergreen

  I turn to Charlie to share my frustration. He’s not on the couch. Is he irritated that I grabbed the remote control from him? I am desp—Oh, there he is at his desk sitting in front of the computer.

  “I just logged on to the Internet.” He turns around. “Mona Hawkins is dead.”

  Mona Hawkins is dead.

  Dead.

  The story is now on TV: Mona Hawkins was found dead in her office. Stab wounds. The killer left no clues this time. The newscaster is reporting that according to preliminary forensic reports, the knife wounds were consistent with those inflicted on Polly Dawson. But the murder weapon was different.

  Of course the murder weapon was different. The Polly Dawson murder weapon is at the fifth precinct station house. I should know: It was found in my living room.

  The newscaster is talking.

  “An NYPD insider reports that Mona Hawkins was stabbed at approximately six this evening. So far there have been no clues as to the killer’s identity or motive in the killing. Police are not saying whether they believe at-large suspect Alice Teakle is responsible for this killing. Teakle was brought in for questioning on December 31 of last year, but she escaped police custody. Until now police have been silent as to whether Teakle was considered a danger, but after tonight’s events, they will broaden their search. It turns out, police tell us, Alice Teakle was formerly employed by the murder victim and was fired only several months before she allegedly killed Polly Dawson, who was married to the director of the film she was casting. It is believed that Ms. Teakle may blame Humphrey Dawson and Mona Hawkins and others associated with the film for her unemployment.”

  Six P.M.! I was frosting the mutant cupcakes at six P.M., just moments before Charlie got home. Our cupcakes. Charlie knows that I was here. He now knows for sure that I’m innocent. Of course, he can’t go to the cops with this information. It’ll ruin everything. They’ll arrest him for being an accomplice for obstruction of justice or something like that.

  “This may put a wrench in suspects one through four,” Charlie says as if I hadn’t thought of it, “but we have a new angle. All we have to do now is find out who killed Mona,” Charlie tells me. “Whoever did this, he or she is really lucky to have you. You are the perfect scapegoat.”

  “Maybe I’m being framed by Suspect One, Two, Three, or Four,” I tell him. “Look, the killer left all those clues the last time. And the clues pointed only to me or to somebody who’d been tracking my whereabouts. And now Mona’s dead. She’s the one who fired me, which is apparently the reason for my killing spree.”

  “Let’s put our suspects aside for a second. Does anybody have a beef with you? An old work rival? A former boyfriend.”

  I don’t know how to tell Charlie that I don’t think I made that kind of imprint on anybody. My old boyfriends seemed to have gotten over me before the relationships ended. A work rival seems drastic.

  “I don’t think so,” I answer.

  “Could there have been something going on with the movie? Something we didn’t think of. Something illegal. And the killer thinks that you know about it, and he’s trying to send you some kind of message.”

  “That one Law and Order episode must have had an impact on you,” I tell him. “It’s just so far-fetched. The director wasn’t killed. None of the producers were killed. It was the director’s wife and a casting director.”

  “How about the spurned lover angle? Suspect Three, the young lover. And then Ian Leighton, and any other man she may have seduced?”

  “I buy that for Polly. But Mona Hawkins’s closest thing to a lover was a profiterole.”

  “Maybe it’s just a coincidence,” Charlie offers.

  “Not if the report was correct that that knife went in the same way.” The truth is I know nothing about knives and how they’re supposed to enter a victim. Maybe there are only a couple of knife entry routes, but the reporter made the match here seem significant.

  Too bad I am such a Law & Order fan. I wish I watched CSI. I need a show with some forensic assistance. Even Quincy M.E. would be more helpful to me at this point.

  I want to call Jean, but she’s on a date with Preston Hayes. He came through, finally, and invited her to a star-studded Valentine’s Day party. She took a day off from her job to primp.

  “I need to buy new underwear,” she told me this afternoon. “Just in case Preston makes his move.”

  It’s really weird. Preston Hayes, the new Mr. Hot Hot Hot, is romancing my friend. He has been on five outings with her. He has taken her to big fancy parties, and last week the two spent an evening with another couple, Preston’s best friend Ted Swinton, the new It novelist, and his wife in Park Slope. Jean has an annoying habit of talking about Ted Swinton as if they are best friends. She casually throws his name in every sentence. Two days ago she was referring to a cabernet he recommended.

  “My impending murder conviction is doing wonders for your social life,” I told her as she was deciding between two teddies.

  “I’m sorry, is it insensitive of me to be asking you for lingerie tips?”

  “Go ahead. This whole thing is surreal.”

  And I wasn’t lying. I may be jobless, homeless, on the run, facing a life in jail, but I’m enjoying myself. Something I don’t recall ever doing before. Maybe it’s because I have a sense of purpose now. I’m still fascinated with Jean’s romantic life, and not because Preston Hayes may be my ticket out of a guilty verdict. No. I think I am no longer living vicariously through her. Instead, I’m relating to her. I’ve become acutely aware of every interaction I have with Charlie. I notice, for example, that his leg was touching mine just minutes ago on the couch. I notice that he has started talking to me about topics other than his father or my plight. I notice that he now stands a little closer to me when we speak than he did when I first moved in. Then again, when Charlie found me I hadn’t bathed in over a week and I was wearing a riding helmet.

  I told Jean to wear something comfortable. She’s going to be at a party all night and she doesn’t want Preston to see her fiddling with her underthings.

  “But what if we go back to his apartment?” Jean asks.

  “He’s not going to be examining your underwear. You can worry about that when you get engaged.”

  “You don’t think we are going back to his apartment, do you?”

  The truth is I don’t. Preston has gone on five dates with Jean and hasn’t made a move. Jean notes that he has touched her suggestively on her forearm, her back, her face, and her hair.

  “We held hands in front of his best friend,” she reminded me.

  True, but my gut is telling me that Preston will not make any move tonight.

  “You think he’s encumbered?” Jean asked me.

  “I do,” I told her. “Maybe an on-the-way-out girlfriend or a secret wife.” Or he’s pining over the death of Polly Dawson.

  “Or a secret life?”

  “Maybe you are transmitting ‘don’t touch me’ signals,” I told her. A lot of men have told me that I frequently send off this signal.

  “Could be. I mean, I really like him, and maybe I’m just getting smarter about jumping into bed so quickly.”

  I wonder if Preston is making a move right now. Someone should be having a successful love match. Whoever killed Mona also killed my hopes for romance tonight.

  Charlie has gone to sleep early. There was no point in prolonging this ultimately unpleasant evening. I sit by his phone and his computer waiting for Jean to call or e-mail. If things with Preston have moved on to the next step, then she might not have turned on a TV or logged on to a computer in the last few hours. But most certainly Preston would find out. The casting director for his movie was murdered less than two months after its director’s wife was killed. Surely, someone contacted him.

  I keep checking the Internet for updates on Mona’s death. “We are all very shocked and saddened,” Jed Rausch, one of her former assistants, has told the press. Jed Rausch was the guy who gleefully told me
about Mona’s stomach surgery and her ties to the gay porn industry.

  “She was a brilliant casting director,” Farron Moore, a casting rival, said.

  I wish people could be honest in these interviews. She was a despicable freak and at least two hundred people will be dancing on her grave. As for motive, we all had it, but only one person was brave enough or grandiose enough to kill her.

  There’s little information about the killing. The most recent report says that Mona was killed inside her office at six P.M. None of her employees were there.

  “She told us to go home; it was Valentine’s Day,” Jane Somers told a reporter. I had never met Jane. I assume she was hired to replace me.

  Valentine’s Day? Did Mona Hawkins have a Valentine? Stranger things have happened, i.e., my life. But Mona. Mona’s romantic dinner date would be the dinner itself. I have seen the woman undress a guinea hen with her eyes. True, she lusted after some men, but they were only a fantasy. I think she may have actually gotten off on food.

  But even a nine-course tasting menu at Jean Georges could not have inspired her to let her minions leave early for the day. She was never generous. She never even wanted to appear generous. No, Mona wanted the office empty for some reason. But what reason?

  She must have been meeting someone there.

  But who? Surely not a lover. If there were such a tasteless individual, he would have met her in her home. Maybe he was an actor trying to seduce her for a job. Better to send her a tin of assorted mini muffins than to arrange a rendezvous. No, there was some kind of meeting. And the police, who didn’t know Mona, don’t find it odd that she had emptied out her office. Of course it makes sense to let everyone out early on Valentine’s Day—if you have a heart.

  Mona was meeting someone and she didn’t want anybody to know.

  We have to go to Mona’s office.

  I tiptoe into Charlie’s room, immediately feeling bad about waking him.

  Charlie’s bedroom is huge. I’ve been inside it a handful of times, mindful that we don’t share the same property rights here. His room is bigger than my room—his living room, I mean. It could use a little work, though. And though the living room may not be featured in Architectural Digest, its homey combination of academic and personal clutter is endearing. His bedroom, however, is positively austere. The bed is right next to the door, and across the room are two enormous windows, which lack any treatment whatsoever. The rest of the room is filled with dead air.

  “Did your ex-girlfriend take the window dressing with her?” I will ask him after we get engaged.

  On the wall adjacent to the bed is a huge fireplace. Charlie uses it for storing clothing; my guess is that it is laundry because Charlie has not done any since I moved in. I grab a shirt from the pile. Without thinking, I bring it to my face. It smells like Charlie.

  I hear a little mumble from the bed. Charlie is turning over in his sleep. I smell his shirt again, and I’m tempted to crawl into the bed with him. There are sounds coming from across the alley. They’re loud enough for me to detect music of a sort, but too soft to determine any specific tune. I take in a deep breath, accidentally inhaling Charlie’s scent from his shirt.

  I love this moment.

  How crazy am I?

  “Walter?” I whisper.

  Nothing.

  “Walter?” A little louder.

  “Hmmmm?”

  “Walter. It’s me, Alice.”

  “Alice.” Charlie is whispering my name.

  “Can you help me?”

  “Come to bed, Alice.”

  Come to bed?

  Charlie’s eyes are closed. Is he asleep? I lean into the bed to see if he’s awake, and Charlie grabs my waist and pulls me on top of him, our legs entwined.

  We are kissing.

  I can’t believe this. My lifelong dream is happening as I am on the precipice of prison.

  “God, I’ve been wanting this,” he whispers in my ear.

  I know I should stop. Time is running out. Boy, can he kiss.

  “I…” I start to say, but Charlie is kissing my earlobe.

  “We have to…”

  What is it we have to do again?

  He pulls me in closer.

  “Walter. I am sorry to do this, but I need you to help me.”

  He’s still kissing me. I have been waiting my entire adult life for this moment, and it’s happening. I guess I could have this one night with him before I get carted off to prison. At least I’ll have memories. My arms go around him as he holds me closer still. His mouth is doing something magical to my neck as his knee comes between my legs.

  Then, the thought of eternal confinement endows me with a large dose of reality.

  I get up abruptly.

  “We don’t have to do this,” Charlie says. His chest is bare and he is gently holding my leg. I must have pulled his shirt off.

  “Oh, no,” I tell him. I’m staring at his shoulders. They’re lean and muscled, like a swimmer’s. “I want to do this.” More than you possibly know. “But we need to go to Mona’s office.”

  “Mona’s office.” Charlie repeats this robotically.

  “Yes.” I touch his leg. “I’m really sorry. But we have to go check out Mona’s office to see if the killer left any sorts of clues.”

  “Alice,” Charlie is fully awake now, “we both saw the same news report. They said the killer left no clues.”

  “Let me explain something to you.” I’m sitting up but taking care not to move my leg, lest Charlie remove his hand. “A. The news gets everything wrong. B. The police think I’m the killer and they might not be looking for the right stuff. And C, I know the Mona Hawkins Casting office better than any cop.”

  Charlie gets up. He grabs a pair of corduroys from the clothing tower and pulls them over his pajamas. He sees me looking at him.

  “It’s cold out. Okay?”

  I don’t say anything.

  “Well?” he asks.

  “Well what?”

  “Is that what you’re going to wear to the crime scene?”

  I take a look at myself. I’m still wearing Charlie’s pajama top. It is fully unbuttoned, and I am suddenly self-conscious. I run out of the room speaking loudly about the importance of hurrying.

  We’re two blocks away from Mona’s office. Nineteenth and Sixth. There’s going to be a security detail there but Charlie tells me that he doesn’t think there will be more than one or two officers.

  “Are you sure?” I whispered to him in the cab downtown. I know there is evidence in Mona’s office, and I have to get it before the police mess up the investigation. Or the killer plants more incriminating evidence against me.

  “I’m not sure, but it seems they have an idea that this is about revenge and not about robbery. So, the police may not stay on location for too long.”

  Add that to the fact that it is 3:15 in the morning and their resources may be thin.

  Charlie and I discuss our plan. He’ll distract the cops and I’ll get into Mona’s office.

  “I feel like we’re in an episode of I Love Lucy,” Charlie tells me. It’s probably his only TV reference point—especially since we didn’t even get through an entire installment of Law & Order.

  “Did they ever have an episode where Lucy gets the chair?” I ask.

  “No. And lucky for you, the death penalty was imposed a lot more in New York during that time than it is now.”

  “That’s cheery,” I tell him.

  Charlie grabs my upper arm and looks me in the eye. He holds my gaze for an extra second.

  He pities me. He loves me. He pities me. He loves me. He pities me. He pities me.

  I gently pull his hand off my arm. “We should get moving.”

  “So, it’s as we discussed?”

  “As we discussed,” I say.

  Charlie hands me his keys and his wallet, and turns to leave.

  “Wait,” I tell him.

  “What?”

  “This.” I run my hands
through his hair for a second before I move it around a bit.

  “I wanna rough you up a little.”

  “You’re right,” Charlie says, his voice coarser than usual. “Maybe we should make it look more authentic.”

  And I can’t figure out quite how he does it, but Charlie falls to the ground.

  What I hear next is a cross between a groan and a cry.

  “What happened? Are you okay?”

  I can’t see anything because it’s so dark. Charlie moves into the light of a streetlamp and I can see that his forehead is bleeding. He shows me the heel of his hand and there is a pretty substantial gash and three small scratches. I’m about to tell him that we should call the whole thing off, when I see that he’s smiling.

  “There,” he tells me.

  “What have I done? I’ve turned this sweet straitlaced lawyer into a con artist.”

  “No, the folks at Kelt Pharmaceuticals did that.”

  I’m brought back to reality. Charlie isn’t flagellating himself for me; we made a deal. He gets the cops off my back and I help his father. His father who drowns his pain from his wife’s death by frequenting hookers.

  “Go to it,” I tell him.

  And Charlie runs off. I hear him from afar seconds later.

  “Help! Help! Help! Please! Is there a police officer around here? Somebody, help!”

  I can hear voices but I can’t make out the words. It’s most likely the cops that are guarding Mona’s town house. They’ve rushed to help Charlie. Charlie’s telling them that he was mugged. They took his wallet and his keys. He describes the mugger. A Russian guy, he thinks. Some sort of Eastern European accent. Charlie tells the police that he’s okay. That not much money was involved, but that he’s spooked. The guy has his keys. The cops take his statement and are kind to him. Charlie told me that they’ll discourage him from pressing charges.

  “It keeps the crime rates low. The police try to convince you not to report anything. They especially discourage it if they think they’re not going to solve the crime,” Charlie told me in the cab just minutes ago.

  “Are you sure? That seems so wrong.”