Bad Publicity

by Joanne Sydney Lessner

“What?” Hugh exclaimed.

  “Sunil is exaggerating,” she said lightly. “A senior partner died of a heart attack, and the other turned out to be…nothing. It’ll be fine. There will be hardly anyone there.”

  Sunil’s dark eyes widened. “And that doesn’t strike you as a problem?” He turned to Hugh. “Will you talk some sense into her?”

  “I’m not sure I really understand.” Hugh glanced at his watch. “But if our time is limited, we’d better get started.”

  Before Sunil could protest, Hugh started the introduction to “Don’t Go Away Mad.” Isobel directed the song to Sunil’s stormy countenance, and by the time she finished, they were all laughing. They ran through their duets, and then Hugh turned to Sunil.

  “I think you’re done for now. I’ll just finish up with Isobel, and we’ll reconvene…when did we say…Saturday, right?”

  Hugh’s phone rang. While he took the call, Sunil finished stuffing his music into his bag and pulled Isobel with him to the door. “I still don’t feel right about you going back there at night.”

  She shook him off. “Four women proofreading German? Our greatest danger is drowning in consonants.”

  “I’m serious. If you feel uncomfortable for any reason, get out of there.”

  “Of course.”

  “I’m going to call you later, just to make sure you’re okay.” He leaned forward and gave her a peck on the cheek. “Sing pretty.”

  She closed the door behind Sunil and returned to the studio. To her surprise, Hugh was sitting on the couch.

  “Just thought I’d relax for a sec,” he said.

  Isobel frowned. “Okay, but I do have to leave in fifteen minutes.”

  “No rest for the weary,” he said, pulling himself up. But instead of sitting down at the piano, he paused at her side and entwined his fingers in hers. She felt a flutter in her stomach as he caressed her face and then kissed her. His touch was gentle, his lips soft and sweet with the lingering mint of his tea. She reached up and encircled her arms around his neck, and with this encouragement, he grew more passionate. After a moment, she pulled away.

  “I’ve been longing to do that from the moment you came rushing into that audition room,” he said breathlessly.

  The fifteen minutes passed quickly, and it was another hour before Isobel finally pulled away, setting her blouse to rights and returning stray wisps of hair to her ponytail.

  “I really have to go,” she said huskily.

  “Must you?”

  “I promised I would go back tonight. And I like to keep my promises.”

  Hugh sat up from the couch, knocking over the ever-present stack of music books in the process. “Then promise me you’ll come back tomorrow evening.”

  “Tomorrow we’re going to see Delphi in King John, remember?”

  “Can we have our own private first-night party back here?”

  To Isobel’s annoyance, she thought suddenly of James, but she quickly closed her mind against him. “I promise.” She brushed a lock of hair off Hugh’s forehead with her lips. “Now aren’t you glad I’m a person who keeps her promises?”

  Despite her bravado, Isobel had to admit there was something distinctly creepy about entering the Dove & Flight building at night, alone. For once, she didn’t mind flashing her photo ID at the security guard and signing in, although she wished he had at least bothered to look up before waving her through to the elevators.

  When she arrived on the floor, she buzzed and waited. A few moments later Penny answered the main door, bedraggled and bleary-eyed.

  “Am I glad to see you,” Penny said. “Come on in. We’re in the small conference room.”

  The fluorescent lights shone harsher than usual against the blackness of the night sky, and Isobel’s eyes took a moment to adjust to the halo that seemed to shimmer over every surface. As Penny led her down the hall, Isobel glanced out the window at the office building across the street, where a few other put-upon junior staffers were also working late. She found their presence, distant though it was, vaguely reassuring.

  “Dorothy said I could leave when you got here once we bring you up to speed,” Penny said.

  She pushed open the door to the conference room, where Dorothy and Katrina were seated at the table. Empty chip bags and sandwich wrappers littered the credenza next to a collection of soda cans and a half-melted bucket of ice. With a start, Isobel realized that not only hadn’t she set foot in this conference room since the day she’d discovered Jason Whiteley dead, but Katrina was sitting in his chair. If the others hadn’t registered the coincidence, she wasn’t going to call attention to it, so she pushed the image of Jason’s dead body from her mind and dumped her stuff on an empty chair.

  “Where do we stand?” she asked cheerily.

  Katrina glowered at her. “Why do you sound so happy?”

  Isobel suppressed the urge to giggle. “Rehearsal went great.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re like an hour late.”

  Dorothy looked up from her work. “It should go faster now that you’re here. Some of it will be familiar to you from the other draft.”

  Katrina was leaning her head on one hand, absent-mindedly stuffing soy crisps into her mouth and circling words with a red pencil. “You know, I actually took German freshman year. Too bad I never studied,” she mumbled through crumbs.

  “Is anyone else here?” Isobel asked, with a vague gesture meant to encompass the entire office.

  “I was in Harm’s Way earlier, and it looked like everyone had gone,” said Dorothy. “Nobody’s down here but us.”

  “Can I go now?” Penny asked.

  “Sure, that’s fine.” Dorothy waved her off. “You’ve been a big help, but it’s really a three-person job.”

  Katrina pushed her papers aside. “I need a break.” She reached for her Diet Coke, gulped down the rest of it, and set the can on the table. “I’ll walk you out,” she said to Penny.

  Dorothy gave Isobel a wan smile. “I really appreciate your schlepping back down here.”

  Mustering all her willpower not to indulge in a sensory recall of Hugh’s curly brown hair and sinewy back, Isobel nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak.

  Content at having given lip service to inconveniencing Isobel, Dorothy immediately became all business, with the renewed vigor of a general outlining the battle plan to a fresh recruit.

  “We’ve inputted all the new information, and Penny laid out the photographs they want to use. Katrina is proofreading our document against their data sheets. You can help her by starting at the end and going backwards until you meet in the middle.”

  “Okay.” Isobel pulled forward the stack of papers Dorothy indicated and looked around.

  “What do you need?”

  “A red pencil.”

  Dorothy shoved aside some papers. “Katrina must have taken hers.”

  “That’s okay. I’ve got a few. Be right back.”

  Isobel returned to her desk. As she reached over her computer keyboard for the pencils, she saw a business envelope tucked under it. She opened it and slid out the contents.

  It was a list of the entire Dove & Flight staff. There were ‘X’s next to many of the names, and a handwritten note from Jimmy at the bottom. One name was circled twice.

  ‘X’ means they’re out. I circled Wilbur, because not only is he out of a job, he’s going to lose his home. Angus set him up in a company apartment in the building and was funneling something extra into his pension. All gone now. Buh-bye.

  Wilbur Freed.

  Isobel glanced up sharply, half expecting him to materialize suddenly from around the corner. When he didn’t, she exhaled slowly and considered this provocative tidbit.

  Nobody noticed Wilbur. He was as invisible as his job, unnecessary and redundant, taken for granted. Slinking stealthily from office to office, Wilbur was perfectly positioned to eavesdrop on private discussions about the merger. He must have been better informed than anyone about the twists and turns of the p
rocess.

  He likely also knew who took which medications, and where he could find them.

  Wilbur’s identity was tied up in the old world of public relations—Angus’s world—Barnaby’s world until he’d turned traitor. When Angus had succumbed to his heart attack, Wilbur must have been crushed. What if they had been working together? Perhaps Angus had poisoned Jason’s coffee at Starbucks. When Barnaby met with Jayla and revived the merger, Wilbur must have realized that Angus’s efforts to preserve his legacy were for naught. It would have been easy for him to swipe the digoxin from Sophie’s desk and doctor Jayla’s coffee.

  “Isobel!”

  She jumped and flung a hand over her pounding heart. It was Katrina.

  “Don’t creep up on me like that!”

  “Sorry.” Katrina yawned. “Will you duck into Dorothy’s office and grab the FedEx envelope on her desk?”

  “Sure.”

  Isobel watched Katrina weave sleepily down the hall. As she stuffed Jimmy’s paper into her pocket, her cell phone rang. It was Delphi.

  “Hey, what’s up? How’d your dress rehearsal go?”

  There was no answer, just heavy breathing.

  “Delphi? Are you butt-dialing me?”

  “Here,” rasped a voice.

  Panic gripped Isobel. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

  “Stuck…in…elevator. Oh, my God…gonna die…”

  “What elevator? The one at the studio?”

  “Crappy…piece of…shit…”

  Isobel glanced at her watch. It was eleven o’clock. Delphi must have gotten trapped leaving the rehearsal.

  “Okay, listen to me,” Isobel said in measured tones. “Is there an emergency button?”

  “Pressed.”

  “That’s good. That was smart. Do you know if anyone heard it?”

  “Graham. Getting…help…”

  “Great! I’m sure they’ll get you out of there in no time.”

  Delphi gave a strangled groan. Isobel racked her brain for a way to calm her friend.

  “Do you have any water with you? If you do, take a sip.”

  There was silence on the other end, and then Delphi said in a clearer voice, “Okay.”

  “Good.” Isobel continued to the other end of the hall to Dorothy’s office. “Just keep talking to me, okay? How was the dress?”

  “F-f-fine.”

  “Do you want to hear about my night? Hugh and I hooked up. I had to cut it short, because I had to come back to the office. I’m working late on that annual report.”

  Delphi didn’t answer.

  Really? Not even interested in Hugh? Isobel thought. This is serious.

  “How about this?” She spotted the FedEx envelope on Dorothy’s desk. “Why don’t you recite some of your lines to me? Maybe that will calm you down.”

  Delphi whimpered a response. Isobel wasn’t sure whether it was affirmative or not, until Delphi began to speak, haltingly, and quietly.

  “‘Grief fills the room up of my absent child, lies in his bed, walks up and down with me, puts on his pretty looks…’”

  “That’s great! Keep going.”

  Isobel reached for the FedEx envelope, and then stopped abruptly, her hand in midair.

  “‘Repeats his words, remembers me of all his gracious parts,’” Delphi continued.

  Ignoring the envelope, Isobel picked up the photograph of the dark-haired girl on the horse.

  “‘Then, have I reason to be fond of grief? Fare you well: had you such a loss as I—’ Holy shit! They’re here. Oh, thank God. Isobel, you’re the best!”

  But Isobel was only barely paying attention. As Constance’s lament to her dead child echoed in her ear, she examined the photo and knew she had seen the girl somewhere else.

  More importantly, she knew where.

  FORTY-ONE

  James took his eyes off Jayla’s still form just long enough to look at his phone, which was vibrating in his hand. Isobel. After the way she had hung up on him last time, how could she be calling him again?

  He had been sitting next to Jayla’s gurney for the last three hours, and now Isobel was checking up on him. He didn’t want to admit he’d done what she’d demanded he do, so he set the phone on his knee and let the call go to voice mail.

  Jayla looked so frail and beautiful, her chocolate skin and tangled dreadlocks set in relief against the stark white sheets. There was something both touching and disappointing about seeing her so…unempowered was the only word he could think of. She looked like a storybook princess—or would have without the tubes snaking out from her nose and arm. It was strange to see her forcefulness squelched. It depressed him to think that if it could happen to her, it could happen to anyone.

  His phone gave a little buzz, and the message icon lit up. He’d deal with Isobel later. He hated when she was right, and she had been this time. Say what he would about Jayla, she had gotten him to AA, and she had cleaned him up more than once, both before and after. Except for the last time, when Isobel had stepped in.

  He felt a surge of self-loathing, as he recalled his idiotic assumption that it had been Lily in his apartment that night. He shifted the kaleidoscope in his mind and looked back on that night through the rearranged crystals. Isobel, not Lily. He doubted she’d kept the kind of unwavering vigil he was now keeping over Jayla. If he knew Isobel at all, she’d have taken the opportunity to snoop. And what would she have found?

  Any number of things. His pre-law books, his college application, his anti-depressants—if she’d been in the bathroom, which of course she must have been. This was just as bad as sleeping with someone drunk and not remembering what barriers of intimacy had been crossed.

  Which brought him back to Jayla. If she woke up and saw him there, she would jump feet first into the assumption that his presence meant more than it did. He’d done what was right. He’d checked up on her, he’d sat with her, he would leave her a note, so she’d know he’d been there, but the time had come to do what he really should have done hours ago.

  “Michael? It’s James. No, wait, don’t hang up—it’s about Jayla.” He proceeded to tell her fiancé what had happened.

  “I was so worried! She didn’t come home, and she wasn’t answering her phone,” Michael said. “I’m on my way. Will you stay until I get there?”

  He glanced at Jayla. She was as motionless as a statue, her breathing finally even.

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “You’re the best, bro. I owe you.”

  “Yeah, you already owed me,” James muttered.

  As he disconnected, the phone vibrated again in his hand, and he read Isobel’s text as it flashed across the tiny screen.

  At office. Need backup immed. Need YOU.

  James didn’t hesitate. Whispering a good-bye to Jayla and an apology to Michael that he knew neither of them could hear, he grabbed his coat and ran out the door.

  FORTY-TWO

  Isobel walked slowly back to the conference room, clutching Dorothy’s FedEx envelope and turning over her discovery in her mind. What was it Delphi had said at the bar the other night? If it was someone in Jason’s personal life who happened to work at Dove & Flight, the clues were elsewhere.

  She pulled out her phone. Still no word from James. She detoured to the main office entrance and propped the door open, just in case. Then she returned to the conference room.

  Dorothy was alone, resting her chin on her fist, staring into space.

  “Where’s Katrina?”

  “Kitchen.” Dorothy looked at Isobel. “Did you get the FedEx envelope?”

  Isobel held it out, but the older woman shook her head.

  “Look inside.”

  Isobel tried to steady her trembling hands as she set her phone next to Katrina’s empty Diet Coke can. She slid the papers out from the envelope. They were copies of newspaper articles. Isobel skimmed the first one and caught her breath. It was just as she thought.

  Barnard Student Dies of Alcohol Poisoning


  Isobel looked up. “I—I didn’t know you had a daughter.”

  “It’s hard for me to talk about, as you can imagine. She was diabetic.” Dorothy held Isobel’s gaze. “And it wasn’t alcohol poisoning. It was murder.”

  “But if she drank too much—”

  “She did not drink too much! She didn’t drink at all. Ever. She knew what it meant for her. What she didn’t know was what a sneaky son of a bitch her boyfriend was.”

  “Jason Whiteley.”

  “One weekend when she was home, I overheard her telling a friend that he was always trying to get her to drink. Said it would loosen her up. No matter how many times she told him, how many times she explained, he persisted. The irony is that the amount of alcohol that killed her would hardly have had any effect on a normal person. She couldn’t tolerate it at all.”

  Isobel returned her glance to the article.

  Nell Berman, 18, daughter of Dorothy and Daniel Berman, was found unconscious in a fraternity on the Columbia campus. Efforts to revive her were unsuccessful, and she was pronounced dead at St. Luke’s Hospital.

  Isobel flipped through the other articles. They outlined the fallout, highlighting James’s expulsion. Her quick perusal revealed only one brief mention of Jason.

  “Your friend took the rap,” Dorothy said.

  Isobel looked up. “My friend? How do you know about—”

  “I saw him here with you. The day Angus died.”

  Isobel cast her mind back to the day James had come by to invite her to dinner. She vaguely remembered an exchange with Dorothy. Either James didn’t see her or didn’t recognize her. But clearly, she had recognized him.

  Dorothy broke in, as if reading her thoughts. “That’s when I realized that you knew.”

  Isobel started to protest that she didn’t know a thing until about ten minutes ago, but thought better of it.

  “So you decided to punish Jason yourself?”

  Dorothy buried her hands in her face for a moment, but when she looked up again, her bright blue eyes were clear. “I was finally starting to get past it all, when he showed up one day here as a client. Fortunately, I didn’t have to deal with him directly. He probably wasn’t paying any attention to the rest of us. He may not even have realized who I was. I look different now. My hair is gray. But I took the steps. I was prepared. I visited my son at his dental office and took the Demerol from there. It wasn’t hard to sneak Angus’s digoxin from Sophie’s desk.” Her face contorted with regret. “I guess I killed Angus, too. He didn’t have the medicine that would have saved him.”