And then came the rat incident.
Larry returned home from a dinner party late one night and found a cardboard box on his doorstep. Inside the box was a dead rat lying on top of a newspaper clipping. The clipping just happened to be from a recent Page Six, in which the staple We Hear section had a squib about Larry,
We hear . . . that Larry Locket is sharpening his mighty pen to write the tale of missing billionaire Russell Cole for Vanitas magazine, and that he won’t stop until he gets to the bottom of the intriguing story, which may prove to be as deep as the Caribbean Sea . . .
Larry called me up that night, apologizing for the lateness of the hour. He told me what had just happened and tried to laugh it off.
“Who do you think put it there?” I asked him.
“Oh, Carla, definitely . . . I mean, not she herself. I’m sure she had someone plant it. But it’s a warning from her.”
I offered to come over at once, but he said that wasn’t necessary.
“I’m used to intimidation, Jo,” he said. “It’s part of the territory. I found it rather amusing, that’s all.”
His manner was light and offhand, but I could tell he was shaken, which wasn’t like Larry.
“That’s not the real reason I’m calling, though. Can you come over for breakfast in the morning, Jo? I have something I’d like to show you.”
Breakfasts weren’t exactly my thing, but I was concerned about him, so the next morning I got up early and went over to see him.
Larry Locket lived in a secluded, little-known spot in the city located just off Lexington Avenue in the upper Sixties, called the Association. Nestled in the shadow of an old church, it was a quaint cluster of turn-of-the-century houses surrounding a communal square. Like so many of the most interesting places in New York, the little enclave was hidden from public view. Having no open access, it had remained over the years a place of great serenity and refuge, a throwback to another era when neighbors all knew each other by name and greeted one another with friendly nods as they took their daily constitutionals.
Larry had once explained to me that houses in the Association were hard to come by. They were put on the market infrequently, and when one did come up for sale, a tacit agreement between all the homeowners dictated it must first be offered privately to residents of the garden, who would quietly put the word out to family and friends. Only when those possibilities were exhausted was the precious commodity given over to a single real estate agent—one handpicked by the president of the Association. It was important to everyone that new homeowners blend into the carefully cultivated atmosphere of cooperation and trust. For as long as anyone could remember, there had never been a robbery or any violent crime within the Association. Such was the unblemished record of safety that some people occasionally forgot to lock their doors.
It was a balmy spring morning as I walked through the garden dotted with stately old shade trees and bordered with neat, well-tended flower beds. Larry’s brick Victorian-style house was located halfway around the south side of the square. I had been there countless times. I rang the bell repeatedly before Larry answered. He finally appeared at the door in slippers, wearing a bathrobe over a pair of pajamas. There were dark circles under his eyes.
“Oh, Larry, I woke you up . . . I’m so sorry!” I said.
“I wish. I haven’t slept a wink,” he confessed, letting me in. “Come in, come in. I apologize for not being dressed yet.”
He seemed grateful I was there and offered to make me some breakfast. I just wanted some strong coffee. He fixed us a little tray of coffee and biscuits and led me upstairs to the second floor, where his office took up nearly the entire space.
Every time I walked up those steep, highly polished wooden steps, I nearly slipped.
“Your stairs are lethal,” I said. “You ought to get a runner.”
“You always say that,” he said with a smile. “And I always say I will . . . one of these days.”
Larry had combined three rooms to make his office. The large space, decorated in beiges and browns, lined with custom-made bookcases and antique wooden file cabinets with brass handles, was where he really lived. His black computer sat catty-corner to the large English partners desk. The sweetish aroma of old pipe tobacco smoke permeated the atmosphere. The sole photograph, nestled into the bookcase nearest his desk, was a small, fading color candid shot of a pretty, dark-haired young woman sunning herself on a rock in a mountain landscape, all smiles and health. It was a picture of Larry’s dead wife, taken shortly before she was murdered twenty-some years ago.
“Sorry about the mess,” he said as we walked around a little obstacle course of newspapers and books, which were stacked in neat piles on the floor. “When I’m working, it’s hopeless in here.”
He set the tray directly on top of a bunch of magazines on the glass coffee table in the sitting area. He motioned me to sit down on the comfortably worn, old leather couch. He sat on one of two chairs flanking the low table. He poured me a cup of hot espresso. The strong coffee gave me a welcomed jolt.
“First of all, the rat . . .” he began. “I mean, it’s not exactly like finding a horse’s head in my bed, Jo, but it’s a little disconcerting, I have to confess. It’s usually so safe around here, I’m always forgetting to lock my door.”
“So you think it’s a message from Doña Carleone,” I said facetiously.
Larry chuckled. “Well, it’s a little coincidental the beastie would be wrapped in that particular article saying I was writing about her, don’tchya think? But who knows? Let’s face it, Jo, Carla Cole’s not my sole enemy in life.”
That was an understatement. Larry was known for taking on the rich and powerful, many of whom had publically vowed to get even with him one day. In the course of Larry’s career, he’d had many threats against his life, but he never backed away from a confrontation where justice was at stake. I thought of Larry Locket as a modern-day David going up against a slew of rich Goliaths. Not many people had stood their ground as often or as successfully as Larry against such a varied array of formidable foes.
Larry rose from his chair and went over to the antique wooden file cabinet set into the far wall behind his computer. He stooped down, pulled out the bottom drawer, and pointed to a deep pile of mail strewn inside.
“Hate letters, crazy letters, macabre artwork. Hardly a day goes by when I don’t get something from one nut or another. They write to the magazine and the magazine forwards them to me. The number of letters I got on Carney alone would’ve filled three of these drawers. I put them all in a box in storage.”
He was referring, of course, to Jackson Carney, the scandal-drenched circuit court judge who had vigorously denied any romantic involvement with one of his young law clerks after she was found drowned in the East River. Larry uncovered evidence that Carney, a self-proclaimed devoted family man with a wife and four children, was indeed having an affair with the young woman. He wrote a blistering article about the case, revealing Judge Carney to be not only a chronic womanizer, but a pathological liar to boot. The article helped wreck Carney’s career. He was not re-elected to the bench.
In fact, there were many instances when Larry had used his great instincts and investigative powers to either rake up cold cases or pursue current ones that looked as if they had derailed. Like an infamous “Daddy Deer” trial in Seattle, in which Michael Posner, the twenty-four-year-old heir to a timber fortune, was accused of murdering his wealthy father on a hunting trip. Young Michael maintained he mistook his father for a deer. He also claimed his father had abused him for most of his adult life. Consequently, it was dubbed the “Daddy Deer” case by the tabloid press. The trial ended in a hung jury, so the judge declared a mistrial. Larry strongly believed that Posner was lying about the abuse and that he had shot his father on purpose in order to get his hands on the family fortune. Working with the local authorities, Larry discovered
a disgruntled ex-girlfriend of Posner’s who showed him letters the young man had written to her, boasting of how he was going to shoot his father one day and make it look like an accident. Posner was convicted in a second trial. He had vowed to get even with Larry from prison.
Or the infamous Deke Wilson trial in Los Angeles, which had people glued to their TV sets for months. Wilson was the rap star accused of hacking up his girlfriend and stuffing her body parts into a Styrofoam cooler, which he allegedly threw off his yacht into the Pacific Ocean. The cooler was found, along with DNA evidence connecting Wilson to the case. The trial exposed the hedonistic and violent lifestyle of a megastar in the music business, and shone a spotlight on all the toadies who catered to him, giving him drugs, women, money, whatever he wanted. The prosecutor, who seemed more interested in his television persona than he was in a conviction, stretched the case out for months with boring expert testimony, endless sidebars, and long-winded rulings. The jury acquitted the charismatic performer in less than an hour. Wilson then found God. Larry wrote a blistering denunciation of the way the trial had been conducted and ridiculed Wilson’s conversion. Wilson told a tabloid that Larry Locket was the devil and some God-fearing Christian should kill him.
Larry’s life was nothing if not confrontational. He shut the drawer, walked back to his chair, and sat down again, crossing his legs. Larry looked dapper even dressed in his bathrobe and pajamas, which were from Turnbull & Asser. He was wearing velvet monogrammed slippers.
“So how far along are you on your article?” I asked him. “Are you almost finished?”
“No, no. Lots more work to be done,” he said, motioning to the piles of notes, clippings, and photographs strewn across his desk. “What do you think of this for a title: ‘Cole Storage, the Tale of a Missing Billionaire.’ ”
“Great,” I said.
“And what are these?” I said, picking up some photographs on the coffee table.
“Courtney gave those to me. They’re some pictures she took on board The Lady C a couple of years ago. Apparently, Carla doesn’t like to have her picture taken. And she didn’t let Courtney take too many pictures of the boat, either.”
“Now that you mention it, there were no photographers at her party for Missy Waterman. I thought that was a little strange, given that it was a bridal dinner.”
I started thumbing through the pictures. They were views mostly, but there was one group shot of the crew.
“He looks very familiar,” I said, pointing to a fair-haired young man standing in the back row.
“You met him. That’s Jasper Jenks. He was the captain of the yacht when Russell disappeared. But he was only the bosun when that was taken.”
I looked harder at the photo. “My God, Larry . . . I think . . . wait . . . you know, that could be the footman!”
He squinted. “What footman?”
“Remember the footman who accused me of taking Carla’s damn earring that night? I think that’s him. I knew he looked familiar at the time. Don’t you remember the footman who said he saw me put the earring in my bag? The one she very grandly told to leave? I think that’s him.”
“Jo, are you sure?”
“Not sure, but I think so. I mean, someone planted that earring and framed me. I bet it was him.”
Larry looked at the picture thoughtfully. “That’s very interesting indeed,” he said.
“You think I’m right? Could it have been him?”
“Well, here’s the deal with Jenks. They fired their regular captain right before the trip when Russell disappeared, and promoted Jenks from bosun to captain. In order to do that, they had to re-register the boat in the Cayman Islands, because this fellow is from Australia and an American-registered vessel can only be commanded by an American captain. And that’s one of the big things that’s been gnawing at me: Why did Russell Cole replace his old captain right before that trip? Jenks had no command experience, so why would Russell have entrusted his precious yacht to him?”
“That’s exactly what Gil Waterman said the day he disappeared. I thought maybe Carla had a crush on him or something. What do you think, Larry?”
“Well, there are a few possibilities, but one is that Jenks may have been in on the plot—if there was a plot.”
“And you think there was?”
“I do. If Russell was killed on board the boat—and I suspect he was—Carla would definitely have needed help, both with the murder itself and disposing of the body. Given my theory that rich people like to hire others to do their crimes, maybe Jenks is our killer.” Larry’s eyes glittered with intensity.
“But you can’t prove it.”
“No . . . but now that I suspect it, I know what to look for.” He shook his head. “I wish to hell I’d been able to talk to Lulu’s spy.”
“Carla’s very clever at covering her tracks, isn’t she?” I said.
“Well, maybe not as clever as she thinks,” Larry said. “Have a look through the rest of the pictures, Jo. I’ll just go change.”
He put down his coffee cup and left the room. I thought I detected something odd in his manner. I continued thumbing through the photos, and then I came to one that arrested my attention. It was a shot of some big costume party taken aboard The Lady C. Off to one side were two women in similar halter dresses, wearing matching blonde wigs. They were holding drinks with little paper umbrellas in them, mugging for the camera. One of the women was Carla. Despite her animated expression, her eyes were, as usual, as lifeless as two stones. However, it was the woman beside her who really caught my attention. It was Oliva, my blackmailer. I recognized her, despite the blonde wig.
I sat for a few moments just staring at that picture, wondering if Larry had made the connection and if that were the real reason he’d wanted me to look at the photographs. He finally came back into the room, dressed in beige trousers, a blue blazer, and the colorful shirt and tie that were his trademarks. He stood at the door and lit his pipe, eyeing me through the smoke.
“So what’d you think of the pictures, Jo?”
I was flustered. “Well, they’re interesting. Courtney took them, did she?”
“Yes. A couple of years ago on her last visit to the yacht.” He walked behind me and looked over my shoulder. “That’s an interesting one there, isn’t it? I was struck when I saw it. Isn’t she the spitting image of Countess de Passy?” He pointed at Oliva with the stem of his pipe. “Of course, it can’t be the countess because she was dead by the time that picture was taken.”
I pretended to examine the photograph more closely. “Um, now that you mention it, there is some resemblance. I wouldn’t say she’s the spitting image, though.”
“That’s just because she’s wearing a blonde wig. But with dark hair . . . ? She’d be a dead ringer for your old nemesis.”
I glanced up at Larry, who was staring down at me with an enigmatic smile. “So, um, do we know who she is, anything about her?” I asked him, terrified his answer would be yes.
“No. She was just a guest on board the boat that night.”
I put the pictures back into the envelope and handed it to Larry. He walked over to his desk and sat down, laying the envelope aside. I remained silent. Facing his computer, Larry stared at the document on the screen.
“Is that your article?” I asked him.
“Just notes. . . .” He sighed. “I don’t know, Jo . . . for the first time in my career, I feel I’m at a loss.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, contrary to every other assignment I’ve had, it seems that the deeper I get into this particular story, the more I don’t want to know.”
He turned and looked at me pointedly. I knew what he was thinking. We both knew what was being left unsaid. I felt sure that by showing me those pictures, Larry was hoping I would confide in him. And I knew that if I ever told another living soul the truth about my life,
it would be Larry Locket. But I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Not that day, anyway.
“Writing is such an odd process,” he went on. “No matter what the subject, the writer is always, in some sense, writing about himself or discovering something about himself. Writing is like friendship in a way—always bigger than the sum of its parts. I want you to know, Jo, that I consider you a dear friend.”
“And I you, Larry.”
Larry went on, “I also want you to know that if, in the course of my investigation, I uncover something that will be detrimental to our friendship, I will not write this article.”
This was an amazing moment. “Larry . . . I can’t ask you to do that.”
“I know. You didn’t ask me. I’m just telling you. I’ve been in this business a very long time, Jo. I know people who would chop up their mothers to get a good story. But to me, no story is worth a good friendship. I guess I’ve just been around too long. I know that stories are a dime a dozen, but real friends are very rare.”
“Thank you, Larry.”
He exhaled fiercely. “That having been said, however, there’s something about Carla Cole that is so deeply disturbing to me that I really feel she needs to be exposed. I’ve never run across anyone like her before. Oh, she’s shiny, polished, and polite, all right. And when you look at her, it’s impossible to believe she’s done what I suspect she’s done. . . . This may sound odd, Jo, but she kind of reminds me of the time I visited the Hatterson house.”
One of Larry’s most famous cases involved a twenty-year-old unsolved murder that had taken place on Long Island. Mary-Ann Keating, the beautiful, seventeen-year-old daughter of John Keating, who was then president of the elite Millstone Club, was found raped and bludgeoned to death on the beach near her parents’ house in East Hampton. The young woman’s murder was never solved, although police at the time strongly suspected the involvement of Gregg Hatterson, the nineteen-year-old son of Julian Hatterson, a billionaire from New Jersey, whose house was two doors down from the Keatings.
One Dangerous Lady Page 28
