Exposé: First of the Sally Harrington Mysteries (The Alexandra Chronicles Book 5)

by Laura Van Wormer

  "I doubt it," I say.

  "Can I call you?"

  "Sure."

  "When are you coming back in?"

  "I'm not sure."

  "Will you stay with me when you come back?"

  "I don't think so, Spencer," I say softly. "I have a lot of work to do. I need to have all my things organized around me."

  I hear something that sounds close to panic. "Sally, you are going to see me when you come back."

  "Yes." Although I suddenly feel sickened, because it doesn't sound like such a bad idea, simply not to see him next week. To just get my work done and let my head clear and see if there is really anything to see.

  Even in my dazed state I know damn well this sexual obsession and attachment has little or nothing to do with who we are as people. In fact, maybe that's why I feel sickened right now, because I suspect it is the unhealthiest part of me that is responsible for it.

  "Of course I will," I say. I could be lying, but I feel compelled to at least placate him. I know Spencer is a little off; I mean, he is kind of, well, swoony. But he's also told me he used to have a bad cocaine habit and since he kicked it, a little over five years ago, he hasn't been the same. "Us," he says, is the first thing that has made him feel flush with energy and excitement.

  "Spencer, we'll talk this weekend," I promise. "But we both need to get some sleep, a little time to think things over."

  "If you sleep with him or something just don't tell me, okay?"

  Sleep with Doug? Suddenly I am angry, angry enough to bring up what I should have brought up to Spencer at the be­ginning. "I couldn't possibly sleep with Doug, even if I wanted to. I can't do it until I know for sure I haven't made some sort of a—a medical mistake. I never even asked you about your sex­ual history."

  There is a silence. "You mean like herpes."

  I feel sick at the thought. I can't even mention AIDS. "Yeah."

  "You think you might bring something home to him?" He is upset.

  "I have no idea, do I?" I am upset, too. "It's not you, Spencer, but your ex. How do I know where she's been, what she's given you, or what you've passed on to me?"

  "Or what your blond Adonis in L.A. gave to you," he says.

  "I know where he was and that's why I broke up with him!" I say. "And I know where Doug's been and what precautions he took, and I know what my GYN has confirmed, as recently as six weeks ago—that I don't have, and never have had, any sex­ually transmitted diseases."

  "So now you're asking me."

  "Yes." I wish I hadn't gotten so upset, because if Spencer does have something it's unlikely he's going to tell me about it when I'm yelling at him.

  Damn it, this stinks. Five minutes and it's gone from bliss to problems. I want to go home, I want to forget about the whole thing.

  "The truth is," Spencer says quietly, "I was treated for VD in grad school. I have had no trace of anything like that since." He pauses. "And I have had several follow-up checkups. Nothing. The last was not even three months ago."

  I feel slightly better, but not great. Spencer and I have been fools. Lucky fools, maybe, but only time will tell.

  "Sally," he says, "can't you just stop by my apartment on your way out of the city? Just for fifteen minutes or so? I could leave the office now and meet you. I swear I won't hold you up." He pauses. "I can't let you leave town feeling this way. I want you to leave knowing that maybe we were crazy to give in to what we did, but that we did it together—and I am not a total loss. I mean, you may find—and I hope you do—that there is a pretty good guy here. Who certainly means well because, well, I've been around, Sally, and I swear to God I know I've never met anyone like you. And I can't just let you slip out of my life because I screwed up the beginning."

  "It wasn't just you," I murmur. And then I sigh. Although I find his words are making my heart pick up again, I still have a headache, my stomach doesn't feel great and I long for the sight of my little house and Scotty. "We'll see each other next week," I promise. Now I mean it. "I need to go home, Spencer. I need some time. And I need to talk to Doug. Because even if it turns out we don't—you know. Whatever. I can't let Doug go on thinking that everything is fine. Because obviously it's not. Or I'm not."

  "There's nothing wrong with you, Sally Harrington."

  I wish I could laugh, but I can't. Because something is obvi­ously wrong with me. Why else would I be sitting here, thirty years old, telling a stranger that I've been having sex with for two days that I need to tell the man I know I love that some­thing's wrong with our relationship?

  Spencer lets me go. I check out of the hotel and get the Jeep and start the drive back to Castleford. I have only gotten to the East Side, near the entrance to the FDR, when I pull over in front of a delicatessen on First Avenue. I go inside and get a bot­tle of lemonade, get back into the car and drink it. And think. Then I pick up the cell phone and call Spencer's office. He has left. I call his apartment.

  "Hello?" He almost sounds afraid.

  "Hi, it's me," I say, my heart pounding.

  "Where are you?"

  "About three blocks from your building."

  "Really?" Wisely he does not say anything else. He knows I'm on the fence.

  "I want to see you," I finally say.

  "Oh, Sally. Thank God. Come right over. I'll meet you in the parking garage."

  I start the Jeep and drive over. As promised, Spencer is wait­ing in the garage of the building. I hand over the car, take the ticket. "It'll be about two hours," Spencer tells the attendant, and he puts his arm around my shoulders and leads me into the building. "I have to leave in a couple of hours," he says to me. "Something I can't get out of it."

  I don't say anything. I'm too scared to say anything.

  We take the elevator up to the hall that seems very familiar to me now. We go into his apartment and I lean over to pet his cat, Seela, and say hello. She is an orange tabby.

  "Best bargain I ever got," he murmurs, taking my bag and briefcase and putting them down and coming back to me. He gently picks up the cat. "She cost five bucks and came with her own can of cat food." The cat purrs and rubs her head under his chin.

  I close my eyes. Spencer puts the cat down and wraps his arms around me, holding me tight. "I'm so scared," I whisper.

  "I know, I know," he murmurs back.

  Part III

  Appearances

  20

  The telephone is ringing and I am trying very hard not to hear it. Finally I give up and surface through the pillows. Scotty, eyes bright and tail wagging, is creeping toward me like G.I. Joe. He's trying to come up and lick my face in such a way that I won't consider him a nuisance and send him back down to the foot of the bed. He can't help it. He is so happy to be home. And, frankly, so am I.

  I glance at the clock. It is nearly eleven in the morning! Poor Scotty. He has patiently let me sleep for ten hours. "Hello?" I say, picking up the phone and sliding out from under the covers.

  "Sally, it's Cassy Cochran calling."

  "Oh, hi," I say, walking through to the living room to let the now-dancing Scotty out the front door.

  "I'm so sorry to bother you," she says, "but I thought I should let you know as soon as possible. I have to go out of town for a few days next week and I'm not sure when I'll be back. With any luck, maybe Wednesday. Chi Chi will call you as soon as we know."

  "That's all right," I say. "I've got a lot of other interviews to do."

  "And Chi Chi's helping you set them up, right?"

  "Yes, she's been great."

  When I get off the phone, I wander into the kitchen to start some coffee. The long stretch of sleep has done wonders for me. That horrible heavy feeling in my head is gone and I don't feel so rocky. I don't even feel particularly guilty, perhaps because I took a long, hot soak last night when I got home and feel like the evidence is gone.

  I haven't talked to Doug. And it is strange that he has not called. I call his apartment. His answering machine picks up. "Hi. It's Sally. I
just woke up after ten straight hours of sleep. Give me a call when you can."

  Next call. "Joe," I say to his answering machine. "I'm in Cas­tleford. Let's get together and go over what you've got and what I've got."

  Next call. Buddy's house. I get his wife. "Alice? Hi, it's Sally Harrington."

  "Sally, how are you?"

  "Great, thanks."

  "Buddy tells me you're writing an article for Expectations. That's so exciting!"

  "Yeah, well, we'll see. I just hope I'm up for the job."

  "Oh, Sally, you are always so good at everything," she says good-naturedly. "Remember when you said you couldn't play golf? And you beat everybody?"

  "Well maybe after I finish this piece," I say, "we can go for a round. Take the baby. Put the car seat in the golf cart. And I'll walk. Heaven knows, I need it."

  "There's Buddy," she says. "Let me get him for you."

  "This is a low blow, Sally Harrington," Buddy says when he comes onto the phone, "calling me at home on a Saturday."

  "I just wanted to let you know that I'm here," I say inno­cently.

  "Okay, thanks," he says.

  "Wait a minute!"

  "What?"

  "Well, what's going on?"

  "I'm coaching a girls' soccer team and we've got a tourna­ment this weekend, that's what's going on." He hangs up. It's okay. I'm used to it. Guess he hasn't caught the murderer yet.

  "Hi," I say to my mother, "did you get my note that I took Scotty last night?"

  "Are you joking?" she asks me. "If I came home and found Scotty gone without a trace, do you think anyone in Castleford would have slept last night?"

  I laugh. "So where were you? Out gallivanting after mid­night?"

  "We went to a party, if you must know."

  I hear someone in the background on mother's end of the phone and I am stunned. I know it is Mack. He couldn't have stayed over last night, could he have? With Mother?

  "Mack says hello," Mother says. "He just arrived to help me stake out the new greenhouse."

  Phew. I don't think I can handle two loose women in our family. "So you're really going to build it?"

  "After all these years, yes, I'm really going to do it." She laughs a lighthearted laugh and I wonder how long, if ever, it's been since I've heard it. She sounds so young. "I'm doing it be­cause Mack is going to build it for me. He's trapped some poor engineering student from the university into making this his senior thesis or some such thing."

  I thank Mother for baby-sitting Scotty and we reconfirm our date for brunch tomorrow.

  Scotty and I are getting ready for a run when the phone rings.

  "I wasn't sure you were coming back," Doug says.

  I feel a truly dreadful pang. "Well, I'm here."

  A pause. "So what's up? How did it go? I figured when I didn't hear from you things were going well."

  "She's quite a person," I say to him. "In fact, she reminds me of Mother."

  "No one is like your mother."

  "Well, I think if Mother had gone into broadcasting, she might have been like Cassy Cochran."

  "Is she really that beautiful? Like her pictures?"

  "She looks older in real life, but somehow it works to her ad­vantage. Don't ask me how."

  We continue to talk in a stilted kind of talk, as if it's been years, and I ask him if he wants to have dinner and, much to my relief—and then to my slight dismay—he tells me that he can't, he's made plans. He isn't volunteering what his plans are, ei­ther, which lets me know he is very angry.

  "Let's meet for coffee this afternoon," he says. "Can you come into New Haven? Meet me at Barnes & Noble?"

  This is even weirder. He doesn't want me to come to his apartment; he wants me to meet him at the bookstore at Yale. What could he possibly know?

  "Sure. Four's fine."

  When we get off, I know he knows. And it's weird how part of me realizes we have to break up, and another is absolutely scared at that thought. But how could Doug possibly suspect something already?

  After Scotty and I go for a run, Joe Bix surfaces and tells me he'll have dinner with me—at my house—at seven-thirty.

  I feel rested and much better after my run. Without shower­ing or anything, I sit down at my desk and start playing my in­terview tapes with Cassy and transcribing them onto my com­puter. It's interesting to listen to us. The material is good. The only new interesting angle is at the end of the tapes of the first day, where there is a little bit left from when I left the recorder running in Cassy's office when Alexandra and Will Rafferty barged in.

  "So that's the Expectations writer," Alexandra's voice says, as if I am a new species of animal.

  "She seems very nice," Cassy insists.

  "Pardon me if I find it a little hard to believe that Verity em­ploys any 'nice' writers." The three laugh.

  "But I think she has," Cassy says.

  "Well this one is so nice," Alexandra announces, "she's left her recorder on so she can find out what we're talking about." And there the tape stops.

  I turn the recorder off and sit back in my chair.

  It is a great chair. It belonged to my father. It is walnut and has five legs on wheels, arms and spring action that lets me re­cline. Whenever I lean back to think, I smile because I can see my father.

  I wonder what he would think of Spencer.

  21

  I see Doug sitting at a table for two in the cafe area of Barnes & Noble. He is wearing dress slacks and shirt, blue blazer and loafers.

  Cocktail party clothes, I surmise, but I vow not to com­ment on it. He kisses me hello on the cheek and has trouble meeting my eyes. I go up to get my cafe mocha and sit down. "So are you ever going to tell me where Pete is?" I ask him.

  He shakes his head.

  "Even if I already know he's up at Carmella's cabin?"

  Car­mella is an officer of the court who has helped out the D.A.'s of­fice before with a "safe" place to stash a witness. I have no par­ticular reason to believe Pete is at Carmella's, except that I like Carmella, and she's the only other person—besides me—who would take pity on Pete.

  From the stony look Doug gives me I think I might have guessed right. "Anyway," I say, clearing the air with my hand, "is Pete being helpful to you guys?"

  Doug suddenly looks very tired. He runs his hand through his hair and drops it on the table. "I warned Carter that he's crazy."

  "Well, we all know that. But if he happens to mention why I had to be the one to find Tony Meyers's body, I'd appreciate someone telling me."

  "I'm sure George Bush knows," Doug says. "Why don't you give him a call?"

  I frown. "What are you doing with him, anyway? You obvi­ously don't think he killed Meyers—"

  "They're letting him go," Doug interrupts. "He's probably back in Castleford already."

  "Good, thanks. It gives me time to wash the guest towels."

  This gets a rise out of him. "Don't let him back into your house, Sally."

  "What am I going to do? Let him sleep on the woodpile? His father's not here, who's going to look after him?"

  "He can look after himself."

  "What, with all the Masons and the aliens after him?" I say, breaking up.

  I can't help it. Neither can Doug; he's laughing, too.

  "Oh, my," I sigh, covering my face with my hands. "How did I ever get myself into this?"

  "The murder? Or whatever it is that you're' doing in New York?" Doug asks.

  Slowly I bring my hands down. "I'm writing an article in New York."

  "That's not what I meant."

  We just sit there, looking at each other, waiting for the other to say something. "Doug, what is going on?" I finally say.

  "You tell me."

  "I'm not sure," I say, "but I do know you're acting very strangely."

  "No, Sally," he says quietly, "it's not me that's acting strangely. A few days ago we were talking about the future and now... "

  I lower my eyes to my coffee. "And now what?
"

  "I came in Thursday night to see you. You weren't at the ho­tel. You weren't anywhere, and I finally gave up at three o'clock in the morning and I came back to New Haven."

  "Why didn't you call me?" I say, knowing that my face is get­ting red.

  "I called your cell phone, Sally. It was shut off."

  "I mean at the hotel. Why didn't you leave a message, so I'd get it?"

  "You didn't tell me you were going out," he says. "You said you'd be working at the hotel. You went to the theater the night before. But you didn't say you were going out again, and the fact that wherever you were, you were there long after the bars and clubs closed, tells me that maybe you were doing some­thing you didn't want me to know about. And that sucks, Sally. I feel like a complete and total asshole. I'm sitting out here thinking about looking for a job in New York if things work out for you, and you're not even gone twenty-four hours and you're already doing your best to forget me." He leans forward. "So where the hell were you?"

  "I was at the apartment of a book editor named Spencer Hawes," I say, an image flashing through my mind of me want­ing to climb on top of Spencer at one point, doing exactly what Doug always wanted me to do. "I met him through Verity, he invited me to his party, I got loaded and went to sleep until the party was over and he rolled me into a cab. I'm not proud of it."

  He is studying my face. I have been as honest as I can be. He has a choice now. He can ask me how many other people were at this party or he can let it go and tell himself things might be okay after all.

  He relaxes a little, exhaling through his nose. But he fools me, choosing something in between, something that indicates he knows things are not okay. "Just so you know," he says over his coffee cup, "I'm going out with Jane tonight to a cocktail party. And then we're having dinner."

  Jane. This is the woman we broke up over last time. He used to work with her and was dying to sleep with her and I told him to go ahead and get it out of his system and while he was at it, get out of my life. I suspect Jane is a little bit off emotionally, be­cause she is wildly attractive and yet Doug didn't sleep with her, but chose to come running back to me after a few dates in­stead.