Hush

by Kate White

  “What do you mean?” Steve said. “What else would I tell them?”

  “Nothing. I just don’t want to be caught off guard again.”

  “That was it-and again, I’m sorry. Is everything all right?”

  “Yes, I’m just feeling a little rattled,” she said. “Because of everything. I’ll be back in a little while.”

  It was hot out, in the mid-eighties, and the walk did nothing to calm her, only left her blouse damp and sticky with sweat. But at least she could relax with the knowledge that Steve hadn’t seen her on Crosby Street, or going into Keaton’s.

  Upon her return, even the receptionist was now gone from the waiting area, though she found Maggie, Rory, Chelsea, and Emily bunched by the kitchenette, whispering. Clearly they’d been discussing the murder.

  “Oh, there you are,” Maggie said, smiling weakly.

  Lake glanced at her watch. It was twenty to four.

  “Was Dr. Levin looking for me?” she asked.

  “No, but a man called for you. He wouldn’t leave his name.”

  It was hard for her to imagine who it would be. Hotchkiss? Had she ever told him the name of the clinic?

  She started to turn to get back to the small conference room, but caught herself. She should stay, she thought. Gossiping with these four would help keep her in the loop-though she would have to be careful of every word she spoke.

  “So how’s everyone doing?” she asked, forcing a sympathetic smile.

  “I’m scared to death,” Maggie said. “I asked my sister to spend the night with me.”

  “You don’t think you’re in danger, do you?” Lake asked.

  “I just don’t want to be alone,” Maggie said. She turned to Rory. “What are you going to do? You shouldn’t be under stress in your condition.”

  “I know-I have to think of the baby,” Rory said. “Colin’s going to be away for a few more days and our house is kind of secluded. I’ll probably call a friend.”

  Emily shook her head.

  “You girls are being silly. It’s not like there’s some serial killer out there stalking people who work at fertility clinics.”

  “What do the police think?” Lake asked. “Was it a burglary?” She’d tried to make her voice seem natural, but her words sounded stilted to her, like she was acting in a high school play.

  “They asked me if I knew if he was seeing someone,” Maggie whispered. “Like it might have been one of those crimes of passion.”

  “They asked me that, too,” Rory said. And then she turned to Lake. “Did they ask you that, Lake?”

  “No,” Lake said. “But then again they wouldn’t. They know I’ve just been here a short time.”

  “But you knew him, didn’t you?”

  “Keaton?” Lake said, startled. “Um, no. I only met him when I started here.”

  “Oh, I saw you talking to him for quite a while yesterday. I thought you might have known him from before.”

  Was that why the police had asked if she’d known him previously-based on something Rory had said?

  “No, I didn’t.” She could hear a slight defensive edge in her voice. “We were just talking about work-”

  “Well, speaking of work, I’ve got things to do,” Emily said. “Can you give me a hand, Maggie?”

  Good, Lake thought. She didn’t want any more awkward conversation about Keaton and was glad for the excuse to leave. The group broke up and Lake walked away.

  It was almost four. Before going to Levin’s office, Lake returned the folders of articles she’d been reading to the storage room in the back of the clinic. She was pretty certain she’d studied every press clipping and journal article filed there, but just to be sure, she thumbed through the drawer once more. With her mind on everything but the presentation, she needed all the inspiration she could get.

  Finding nothing she hadn’t already seen, she pulled the lower drawer open. It seemed to contain mostly old correspondence. Just as she was about to close it, she noticed a hanging file with the word “Archer” in the tab, and Lake could see pages of a magazine peeking out. She tugged the file out of the drawer. At a glance she saw that it was an article about the fertility business. She slapped the file closed and took it with her.

  By the time she arrived in Levin’s office, the doctors had already gathered there-Sherman, Hoss, Steve, and Matt Perkins. Brie was there, too, perched on the windowsill.

  “We’ve had two calls from reporters since I spoke to you,” Levin said grimly to Lake as she sat down. “The Daily News and Channel 7.”

  “We should have seen something like this coming,” Sherman said. “You pick someone flashy and this is what happens, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Dan,” Levin said. “The fact that he was a good-looking guy doesn’t mean we should have expected he’d end up murdered.”

  “It’s ironic, isn’t it?” Sherman said. “We finally decide to get serious about marketing and we end up with a mess like this.”

  “It doesn’t have to turn into a mess for you,” Lake interjected. “But you do have to do some damage control.”

  “Damage control?” Brie asked curtly. “You make it sound as if we’ve done something wrong.”

  “That’s not at all what I’m saying,” Lake said. “This is an external situation beyond your control, but it has the potential to impact your business. I know a PR person who specializes in crisis management. I’d suggest bringing her onboard briefly. She-”

  “But isn’t that what you’re supposed to be doing?” Brie said. “PR?”

  “Please, Brie, let her finish,” Levin said. Brie straightened her back, looking irritated.

  “I’ve got a PR person on retainer as part of the marketing plan,” Lake said, “but she’s not an expert at handling a crisis, and neither am I. You need a real pro here. The woman I’m suggesting doesn’t come cheap, but I highly recommend that you hire her.”

  “I think it’s essential,” Hoss said. “We don’t have a choice.”

  It was agreed that Lake would make the call. After that, there was thirty more minutes of anxious talk-about dealing with patient questions, upsets to the schedule, and just getting through the next few days. Levin and Hoss dominated the discussion, while Sherman mostly shook his head in disgust. Steve and Matt Perkins looked shell-shocked and spoke up only when they were asked specific questions. Finally, Levin suggested that everyone go home and try their best to relax.

  “I also recommend that you not discuss this with anyone outside your immediate families,” Lake added.

  Everyone streamed out of the office, and as Lake followed them to the door, Levin called to her.

  “Do you think this woman can really help?” he asked, rising from the desk.

  “Absolutely,” Lake said. “She’s handled situations far worse.”

  He crossed the room, buttoning his jacket. She saw him glance at the file in her hands.

  “Where did you get that?” he asked sharply.

  “From the file drawer in the storage room-I’ve been reading all the clippings.”

  “Well, that’s not one you need,” he said, grabbing the file from her hand.

  6

  IT WAS JUST before six when Lake finally arrived home. Following the awkward encounter with Levin, she’d returned to the small conference room and left a message for Hayden Culbreth, the crisis guru she’d recommended. Then, totally spent, she’d packed up and hailed a cab for the West Side.

  After tossing down her bags, she sank into one of the arm-chairs in her living room. She began to sob. Sensing something was wrong, Smokey leapt into her lap. As he nuzzled her chin, Lake stroked him and blinked back tears. Her eyes swept the living room, with its comforting shelves of books and pretty landscape paintings. What she’d told Molly and Keaton was true. Though the past week or so of her life could hardly be described as blissful, she had started to feel at peace again and hopeful about her future. But that all changed in an instant. Everything in her life was in jeopa
rdy now-her kids, her work, her future. She’d given in to a desperate hunger for approval and connection-and to her own raw desire-and because of that she might end up losing custody of her kids. There was even a chance she’d be arrested for murder.

  After forcing herself up off the chair, she left a second message for Hayden. Thirty minutes later, as Lake stared at a frozen slab of vegetable lasagna, knowing she had to eat but wondering how she could summon any appetite, Hayden returned the call. Lake outlined the situation to her, and made an urgent pitch for her to come on board as a consultant.

  “I’m totally swamped right now,” Hayden confessed in her Alabama drawl, “but I can’t turn this down. I’ve done damage control on everything from drug companies that sold tainted drugs to a CEO who used company funds to rent a water park for his kid’s birthday-but never a murder. That’s very, very sexy.”

  “So that’s a yes?” Lake said.

  “Yes, but we need to hit the ground running. This is going to be big and move fast-it’ll probably be the plot on Law and Order next week. Can you arrange for me to meet everyone at eight tomorrow morning?”

  Lake assured her it wouldn’t be a problem. Next she phoned Levin.

  “That’s terrific, Lake,” he said. “I’ll let Dr. Sherman know. I think this first meeting should just be the senior team.”

  His tone was almost obsequious; she wondered if he was trying to make up for rudely grabbing the file out of her hand earlier.

  Next she needed to summon the energy to write the kids. She skipped the stories and riddles and scribbled a simple message:

  “I can’t wait to see you both on Saturday and meet your new friends,” she wrote. “I’ll be there right at ten.”

  She wanted to add more but she was already feeling weirdly fraudulent, reminiscent of when Jack was beginning to withdraw and she’d had to act normal in front of the kids. What would she say if she were being totally honest? “Mommy may be implicated in a grisly murder, so there’s a chance I won’t be able to come after all”?

  As she slipped the paper into the fax machine, she wondered how she was going to handle bumping into Jack at the camp. Prior to her recent conversation with Hotchkiss, she’d hardly relished seeing him there, but now the idea seemed unbearable.

  She nuked the lasagna and pushed it around on a plate as she drained a glass of wine. She tried to calm herself but she kept picturing Hull and McCarty at their precinct desks, searching their notes for clues and combing through evidence reports. The crime-scene people would have lifted her fingerprints but because hers weren’t in the system, there would be no match. Her DNA would be meaningless, too. But if she gave the cops any reason to truly suspect her, they could take her fingerprints and her DNA and then they would know she’d been in Keaton’s bed.

  Closing her eyes, she let her head drop into her hands. In her mind she could see the horrible, oozing gash from one side of Keaton’s neck to the other. Whoever had slashed him must have been overwhelmed with rage. So who had Keaton managed to infuriate? Was it a woman he’d bedded and then dumped? He’d told Lake that he’d bought his place six months ago; he was likely visiting the city even before consulting with the clinic. So this fury could have been building for weeks. It was a fury that would have been directed at her, too, if she hadn’t been safely asleep on the terrace. She let out a moan as she contemplated what her fate would have been.

  Another question gnawed at her. How had the killer gained entry to the apartment? Had he-or she-possessed a key? Or had the person jimmied the lock somehow? Maybe Keaton actually let the person in while Lake was sleeping, perhaps even assuming that Lake had left. But if Keaton had answered the door, he wouldn’t have been stabbed in his bed.

  She considered Hayden’s comment about how big the story would become. Lake had been so preoccupied about her own connection to the murder that she hadn’t even considered the ramifications of just being employed by the clinic. Reporters might start to hound her. She wondered, in fact, whether the nameless person who’d called her at the clinic yesterday had been a reporter who’d gotten wind of her name.

  Something unformed began to nudge her, but it was only later, when she was crawling into bed, that she recognized what it was: Keaton’s comment to her about a snag in his plan to be a partner. During today’s meeting in Levin’s office, there’d been no mention of any hitch. Either Levin had chosen not to bring it up in front of the associate doctors or the snag had only occurred in Keaton’s mind-and he hadn’t yet shared it with Levin.

  Lake anticipated hours of fitful tossing that night, but she fell into a stupor almost instantly. Twice she was jounced awake by nightmares. She couldn’t remember the first one-it evaporated as soon as her eyes shot open. In the other, someone called on the phone about her children-saying their names, laughing, and then hanging up.

  She woke with a start at six. For a brief moment she remembered nothing-but her stomach was knotted, as if she’d forgotten an urgent task. Then, like a tidal wave, the memory crashed against her. She hurried to retrieve the Times from on top of the mat outside her apartment door. The story was in the Metro section, a half-column long. It described Keaton as an L.A. ob-gyn and fertility specialist living part-time in New York. No mention of the clinic. So maybe the story wasn’t going to be huge after all.

  But later, at a newsstand on her way to the bus, she picked up the Post and cringed as she saw Keaton’s photo splashed across the front page with the headline: BACHELOR DOC SLAIN DOWNTOWN. The photo was like a Hollywood red-carpet shot. He was in a tux, emerging from some event, looking handsome and cocky, like George Clooney at the Golden Globes. She forced herself to read the story. This time it included the name of the fertility clinic.

  The Daily News had a more formal photo, the kind you’d see in a program for a medical conference. And this article had one new piece of info: Keaton’s super had found the body. When Keaton hadn’t shown up at the clinic yesterday, Levin had probably told Brie to try to locate him. In the course of looking for Keaton, his super had somehow been tracked down.

  When Lake arrived at work, she found that the mood was an awful mix of somberness and agitation; people were both despondent and all churned up.

  “Can you believe all the stories about this?” Maggie whispered to her as she set her things down in the small conference room. “I mean, it’s like the Laci Peterson case or something.”

  “Have any reporters called you?” Lake asked.

  “Not me in particular, but they’ve been calling here all morning.”

  Lake could see the strain on Maggie’s face.

  “How are you doing, anyway?” she asked. “Did your sister end up staying with you?”

  “Yes-but it didn’t do much good. I had the worst nightmares. I might ask Dr. Kline for some advice when he gets a minute today.”

  “Oh, he’s here?” Lake asked, realizing she hadn’t seen him since before all this happened.

  “Yes, he was away for a few days but he’s back now. He was totally shocked to hear the news.”

  Lake and Maggie agreed to try to get their minds off everything and get some work done. At five minutes to eight, Hayden Culbreth arrived, wearing a dazzling purple silk shift that contrasted boldly with her blond bob. As promised, she hit the ground running.

  “Let’s start,” she said to Levin as soon as Lake had introduced them.

  Sherman had joined them in Levin’s office, along with Hoss and Brie, notebook and pen in hand. Brie ran her eyes up and down Hayden, her disapproval loud and clear.

  “So far you’ve done a decent job of handling things,” Hayden announced. “By that I mean no one on your staff has blabbed to the press. But they still might be tempted to. We need to implement a lock-and-load strategy.”

  “Good God,” Sherman said. “It sounds like you’re suggesting firearms.”

  Hayden pursed her lips and gave her head a little shake. “Of course not. But to protect the reputation of the clinic, you have to lock down communicati
on-make sure that no one, and I mean no one, discusses this with the media. Let them know that their asses will be in the ringer if they do.

  “But at the same time,” she continued, “keep people here in the loop and give them updates on what you learn from the cops. When there’s secrecy and people don’t know what the hell is going on, they start buzzing-sometimes to reporters.”

  “I assume you’ll handle all the press calls,” Levin said to her.

  “No, we’ll let the NYPD do that.”

  “The NYPD?” Levin exclaimed. “But-”

  “It’s best to have the police take those calls. When the press contacts you here, the person fielding those calls-and let’s designate someone smart to do it-should say that all calls are being referred to the New York City Police.”

  “But isn’t that why we’ve hired you-to handle those calls?” said Hoss. Despite her haughtiness, she looked tired and drained, her black hair lanky, as if she hadn’t bothered to wash it today. She was probably concerned, like everyone else, Lake thought, about what all this might do to her reputation.

  “You’ve hired me to devise a strategy,” Hayden said. “If I talk to the press and they quote me, they’ll say I’m a rep for your clinic-and name the clinic. And you want to distance yourself from this as much as possible. We’re following the same approach abortion clinics use when they’ve been bombed-keep the name of the clinic out of the paper by letting the cops do all the talking. Now let’s talk about ‘load.’ That means you load me up on information. I need to know about Dr. Keaton.”

  Levin, who was still wincing from the abortion clinic comment, briefly went over Keaton’s bio-Cornell med, a fellowship in reproductive endocrinology, the L.A. practice. Again, no hint that Keaton might have had second thoughts about coming on board. Had Keaton not had a chance to share his misgivings with Levin, Lake wondered-or was Levin keeping something to himself?

  “Well, that’s all nice and good,” Hayden said, “but what I’m really interested in is why someone wanted to murder him. According to the papers, it doesn’t sound like he was killed during a burglary.”