by Kate White
“Well, well,” he declared. “You were holding out on me, Devon. I had no fucking clue you could sing like that.”
She looked at him slyly.
“I—I thought you didn’t like ballads,” she said. Her words had sounded just a little slurred, which surprised me. I hadn’t seen her drink anything but water before dinner, and her wineglass was nearly full.
“I believe I’ve just changed my mind. Of course, I do need to know who you wrote the song about.”
Devon stared at him intensely. “You’ll have to guess—like everyone else,” she said teasingly. “But what a nice surprise you like it.”
People shifted in their seats collectively, and I half expected someone at the table to shout, “Get a room!” I wondered what Tory was thinking. Turns out I didn’t have to wait long to find out.
“Nice surprise?” Tory shouted, her voice shrill with sarcasm. She was just a few feet to my right, and her outburst startled me so much, I nearly jumped. “It’s no fucking surprise at all. It’s why you invited us, isn’t it?”
The whole table just sat there in stunned silence. Devon didn’t answer but stared at Tory, the famous mouth pursed and her eyes squinted, as if she had no idea what Tory could possibly mean.
“You wanted Scott to play your stupid ballad in front of me and Tommy,” Tory said, “so I’d have to sit here watching him get a woody as he listened to it.”
Ahhh, I’d wondered if things might come to a boil this weekend.
“I’m sure Tommy’s just being complimentary,” Scott said. “There’s nothing to get excited about.”
“It’s none of your fat business,” Tory snapped. “You want to fuck her, too, I bet.”
“Oh, please, Tory, that’s enough,” Tommy shouted from across the table. “Stop being so freaking obsessed and eat your pie.”
“Why don’t you stick it in your piehole,” she said. She picked up the cobalt blue goblet in front of her and tossed the remains of her sparkling water at Tommy from across the table—though most of it ended up splashing on Whitney. As Richard watched the water trickle down Whitney’s cleavage, Tory stormed off, digging the heels of her boots hard into the bare wood floor.
Sandy moved toward the table decisively, a large rag in hand, and simultaneously Scott passed Whitney his own napkin for her to dab the water off. Then he turned back to the rest of the table, where we all sat speechless.
“Well,” he said, looking like a guy who’d seen far worse and wasn’t going to be thrown off his game by a minor hissy fit, “who would like to join me for a few hands of poker?”
“I’m in,” Richard said, his voice liquidy. Several other people volunteered as well.
“Not me,” Devon said, pushing back her chair. “I’m—I’m going to bed.” I realized suddenly that she was tipsy, and as she stood up at the table, she wobbled a bit. At her body weight, I guessed, even a couple of sips of wine could leave one blotto. “Jane, lez go.”
“I’m not ready, actually,” Jane announced bluntly. She looked self-satisfied, as if she’d been waiting all night for a moment to assert her independence.
“I don’t care. You gotta come.”
“Sorry, this is one mess you’ll have to take care of yourself,” Jane said.
Devon scowled halfheartedly and moved toward the stairs, swaying slightly with each step.
“Devon, let me help you,” Cap called after her. He started to jump from the table.
“No,” she called out over her shoulder. “Don’t need you.”
Whitney rested her hand on Cap’s arm. “Honey, let her be. She clearly wants some time alone.”
After a couple of awkward moments, people began to rise from the table and take positions around the room. For the next hour or so everyone played cards or pool—except Whitney, who sat tightly next to Cap and seemed to be lost in thought. Despite Scott’s attempts to keep things jovial, the party never regained the festive mood from earlier. At about eleven Tommy threw down his cards and said he was calling it quits for the night. I couldn’t help but wonder what might get tossed at him when he opened his bedroom door. Soon afterward, I said good night, not wanting to be the last to leave, and discreetly winked at Jessie.
Heading back through the passageway, I saw that the snow was coming down hard now—and that there was close to a foot on the ground already. I didn’t like the look of it. Getting out to the main road tomorrow wasn’t going to be easy even with the long driveway plowed.
As I dressed for bed, I couldn’t help but think of Beau. If I hadn’t let my annoyance get the better of me, I would have been snuggled up in bed with him in Manhattan right now, instead of being nearly snowbound in a barn with a bunch of totally wacky houseguests who liked to get sloshed or stoned, expose their boobs, and hurl drinks across the table.
Had I totally overreacted about the Sedona trip? I wondered. I knew part of the reason it bugged me so much was that it raised the ghost of the trip Beau had taken to Turkey last summer, not long after I first set eyes on him. I didn’t like anything at all about that trip.
Beau and I had first met in the Buzz office building, on one of the corporate floors. I’d gone up there to talk to someone, and Beau was meeting with the head dude, Tom Dicker, to discuss a documentary film project. When I spotted him across the reception room, it was like being hit by a lightning bolt, and not long after we were having this crazy fling.
He’d been very clear from the start. He was looking for fun, not a relationship—in part because he wasn’t ready and in part because he was heading off to Turkey soon to make a documentary there. I was fine with the fling part for a while, but as I found myself falling hard, I told Beau I needed to break it off. To my surprise he said that he was pretty smitten and asked if I’d give him a chance to mull it over when he was in Turkey. He promised to stay in touch.
But then all I got was one lousy postcard. I gave up after a while, feeling more than sorry about the loss, and became involved with a young actor named Chris Wickersham. I never expected to see Beau again. But after he returned in September, he let me know that he’d fallen for me and wanted to make a full commitment. He sounded genuine, and things had overall been good with us since. Except that I couldn’t unload my doubts. Like I’d told Jessie, I had the sense he’d talked himself into a commitment because he didn’t want to give me up.
I grabbed my BlackBerry from my purse and checked to see if I’d missed a call or text from Beau. I hadn’t. I called his cell, knowing it was still early in Sedona. All I got was voice mail. I left a message telling him I was going to bed but would talk to him tomorrow after his flight landed. I wished him a good trip. There, I thought. I can be a big girl.
I fell asleep pretty easily, exhausted from the group psycho-dynamics of the evening. And then all of a sudden I was awake again and wasn’t sure why. I squinted at my watch: 2:47. The wind was howling fiercely outside my bedroom window, and I guessed that the noise must have woken me. But as I lay quietly listening I heard a sound that wasn’t the wind. Someone, somewhere was wailing.
Maybe it’s just Tommy and Tory having makeup sex, I told myself, but a second later I heard it again—a cross between a wail and a moan, and it was louder now and desperate sounding. I took a deep breath, threw off the covers, and projected myself out of bed. Cautiously I opened the bedroom door a crack. I couldn’t see anything but I heard someone—a woman, I thought—moan again off to the left. I opened the door wider and peered along the corridor.
A complete stranger, a female, was standing in front of the room across and down a bit from Jessie’s. The door to the room was open, and the woman was leaning against the door frame, looking pale and disoriented. She was dressed incongruously in a parka, a flannel nightgown, and a pair of snow boots. Just as I was about to ask where in the world she’d come from, I realized it was one of the two girls who’d assisted Sandy at dinner. Her long curly red hair, which had been pinned into a tight bun earlier, now flew in long strands from her head like wind s
ocks. It occurred to me that she’d probably been marooned here because of the snow and had been given the room to stay in.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, taking a few steps closer to her. “Are you sick?”
“She won’t wake up,” she said, shaking her head. “You’ve got to help me.”
“Who?” I asked. “Who won’t wake up?” It felt as if I was in some crazy dream sequence, and for a split second I wondered if she might be sleepwalking.
“Devon Barr,” she said plaintively. “I keep trying to wake her, but she just lies there in bed. Her eyes are open but she won’t say anything.”
Chapter 4
“But—what were you doing in her bedroom?” I stammered. I had no clue what was going on.
“Sh-she called extension seven and asked me to bring her some water. She said she didn’t feel well and couldn’t get it herself.”
“Okay, okay,” I said, hurrying toward her. “What’s your name?”
“Laura. Laura Ash.”
“Okay, Laura, calm down. Let me see what’s going on.”
There was a lamp burning on a bedside table, and when I stepped into the room I saw that Devon was lying on her back in bed, the duvet kicked to the floor. The top sheet was pulled up just to her waist, revealing her naked torso and small, delicate breasts. I moved closer, and when I saw her eyes, I nearly jumped out of my skin. Her eyes were wide open, totally blank, and slightly faded.
“Devon,” I called. “Devon, talk to me.”
Instinctively I grabbed Devon’s shoulder to shake her, and when I touched her skin I found that it was a little bit cool, like a piece of porcelain. Frantically I fumbled for her wrist and took her pulse. Nothing. I felt a tremble through my whole body. Devon Barr was dead.
I spun around toward the door, where Laura was standing, peering into the room and looking helpless. “I’m confused,” I told her. “When did Devon call you?”
“Why?”
“Just tell me, Laura.” Based on the temperature of the body, it was impossible that Devon had just made a phone call.
Laura lowered her eyes, like a dog in trouble.
“About an hour and a half ago,” she muttered.
“What? You mean at like one fifteen?”
“Yes.”
“Where have you been all this time?”
“In one of the bedrooms above the garage. After she asked me to bring the water, I planned to, really, but I was already in bed and before I could get up, I—I fell back asleep.”
“So you woke up about an hour and a half later and decided to just traipse up here?”
“No. Uh, she called again.”
“You mean just before you came up here? That’s impossible.”
“Well, I thought it was her,” she said, her voice quivering now. “The phone rang. By the time I answered, there was no one there. I just assumed it was her calling to see where I was, and I hurried up here. I didn’t realize how much time had passed.”
“Okay, I need you to go wake Scott. Tell him he has to come over here right away.” By the look on her face, you would have thought I had told her that a spaceship full of Martians had just landed and we needed to start tearing ass through the woods. “Laura—” She was starting to work my last nerve.
“But I think he’s with that girl. Your friend.”
“That’s okay. Just knock hard and tell him it’s an emergency and he has to come to Devon’s room.”
“What should I tell Scott? That she passed out?”
“No, she’s dead.”
“Dead? Omigod.”
“You’ve got to wake Scott, Laura. Just please hurry up, okay?”
I could have gone myself to fetch Scott, but I didn’t want to leave Laura in charge of the scene—and to be honest, I wanted a chance to look around.
After Laura stumbled off, I glanced back down at Devon’s body. Within hours the luminescent skin would turn waxy, her limbs would stiffen, and the face that had made a fortune would begin to sag. She had seemed like a bitch on wheels, totally self-absorbed, but I couldn’t help but feel rocked and saddened by her death. She was so young, so beautiful—and, as it turned out, so talented, too.
How had she died, I wondered? The first word that flashed in my mind for some reason was overdose—maybe because she’d had a rocker boyfriend. I glanced toward the bedside table to the right of the bed. Besides the phone, there was an empty water bottle, an iPod, an iPhone, a tin of lip balm, a crushed pack of cigarettes, and a saucer piled with butts.
But just because there was no sign of drugs didn’t mean she hadn’t taken something or even shot it up, and she’d been wobbly when she’d left dinner. But suddenly a memory rushed my mind: Devon in the woods this morning, crying and saying she wasn’t safe. I ran my eyes over her body. There were no visible bruises on her neck or torso—and no blood on the sheets.
What I did see as I stared at her naked torso was how thin she really was. Beneath her breasts, the outline of almost every rib was apparent. Several models had suffered heart attacks in recent years as a result of anorexia. Was that how Devon Barr had died? I wondered. Certainly being intoxicated tonight would have only complicated matters.
Until an autopsy was conducted, the police would treat her death as suspicious. Both a police crime scene unit and the local coroner would be brought in to check out the room. I had no right to snoop around, and I certainly wasn’t going to do anything to muck up the scene, but there was no harm in letting my eyes continue to wander.
The bedroom was similar to mine—spacious, with a small separate sitting area at the far end—though decorated differently, in blues and greens. There were wads of clothes scattered on not only the chair and loveseat but also the floor.
As my eyes scanned the room, they finally reached the darkened doorway to the bathroom. I took a few careful steps in that direction. When I reached the door, I tugged the sleeve of my pajamas down over my hand and, after a couple of moments of fumbling, flipped on the light switch. If Devon had been doing drugs, there might be evidence in here.
The bathroom was a mess. There were black suede boots lying limply on the floor along with the cream-colored blouse she’d worn at dinner and two damp bath towels. Cosmetics littered the counter surrounding the sink, as if she’d simply upended her makeup bag. Mixed among them were used Q-tips and cotton balls, a tube of Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour Cream Skin Protectant, and different lotions and creams—plus another empty water bottle. Without moving my feet, I leaned forward and squinted at the bottles and tubes. No sign of drugs. But something else of interest. Standing among them was a small brown bottle of syrup of ipecac. I hadn’t seen that stuff in years.
Syrup of ipecac, I knew, induced vomiting, something I learned when I was reporting an accidental poisoning story for the Albany Times Union. Parents were once encouraged to store it in their medicine cabinet in case their kid decided to chow down on some toxic household cleanser or a bottle of aspirin, but that strategy was no longer recommended by doctors. The problem was that vomiting could sometimes make a poisoning situation even worse. For instance, when you throw up lye, it just scorches your throat all over again.
But why would Devon be toting it around? I wondered. Searching my mind, I seemed to remember reading once that bulimics used ipecac to support their efforts. So perhaps Devon had suffered from bulimia, not anorexia.
Suddenly I picked up the sounds of people barreling down the corridor. I quickly flicked the bathroom light off and stepped back into the bedroom. Two seconds later Scott bolted through the door with Laura in tow.
“She’s dead?” he blurted out. “What happened?” His jeans, which he had clearly thrown on in a hurry, were still unzipped and his shirt was unbuttoned, revealing his naked chest, covered lightly with greying hair.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “She called Laura just after one o’clock for some water. Laura fell back asleep and finally brought it up a few minutes ago. It looks as if Devon has been dead for at least an
hour.”
“Christ, this is a total nightmare,” he said, sweeping his hand through his hair. “What are we supposed to do?”
“You need to call nine-one-one. Do you know what shape the road is in—I mean, has Ralph started plowing it yet?”
“He’s come down with a bad cold and he said he barely made a dent in it.”
“Well, the cops will have a four-wheel drive, so hopefully they won’t have much trouble. But an ambulance or morgue van might not be able to get through. When you speak to the nine-one-one operator, you better tell her about the road conditions here. And you might want to mention that this is a high-profile person.”
He took a few steps closer, and I realized he was about to pick up the phone on the bedside table.
“Scott, I wouldn’t use that phone,” I said. “There’s a chance foul play was involved. We shouldn’t get our fingerprints on anything in the room.”
“Foul play? You think someone killed her?”
“It doesn’t look that way, but that’s up to the police to rule out.”
He sighed, shaking his head in discouragement.
“All right, I’ll go grab my cell phone. Laura, you need to run down to the cabin and wake Sandy—and Ralph, if he’s up to it.”
She moaned, as if he’d just asked her to hike into town.
“Laura, go!” he barked, and she turned on her heels. He no longer seemed like the charming I-won’t-even-mind-if-you-tell-another-guest-to-stick-it-in-his-piehole host from earlier in the evening. I guess finding a dead houseguest will do that to you.
“Where’s Jane’s room, by the way?” I asked as he hesitated in the doorway, looking discombobulated.
“She’s next door on the right.”
“Why don’t I wake her while you’re calling 911? She may have a number for Devon’s parents. Once you’re off the phone, I’d suggest you wake Cap.”
“You’re not planning to phone this in to the night desk at Buzz as soon as I leave, are you?” he asked, studying me intently. I couldn’t tell from his tone whether he was being sarcastic or dead serious.
