Jill looked at David: antique Chinese elephants?
He seemed to find that odd; resumed watching Eric crack his knuckles.
And to Bruno Shepard, “who gave me my chance,” Jody left her collection of 1930s movie posters “to decorate those really depressing blank walls in your production office.”
Bruno jerked irritably in his chair. “Movie posters? She left me goddamn movie posters?”
For the first time, Eric Rennie’s eyes met his. In fury. “If you hadn’t browbeat her, we wouldn’t be here.”
“Oh yeah, it’s my fault,” Shepard sneered back at him. “You didn’t exactly calm her angst.”
“Brought on by you!” Rennie yelled, reddening. “You stoked our conflicts for more goddamn chemistry. Changed the scripts to give her better lines-”
“Gentlemen,” Arender admonished, adjusting his shirt cuff again; and David, dropping his head in disgust, muttered, “Enjoy the floor show.”
Jill nudged him. They saw Simpson open mouthed, pushing at his wire rims, watching Rennie and Shepard as if they were incomprehensible aliens. He’d spent his life caring for others, bringing forth and protecting life, and here these ridiculous, petty, narcissistic egos were going at each other as if forgetting this gathering’s tragic reason.
So stunned was Simpson, in fact, that he seemed not to hear the first time the hospital was mentioned.
Then he blinked, and sat upright. “Would you repeat that?” he asked, seemingly unaware of Graham’s startled eyes on him as he leaned his bulk forward. “I don’t think I heard right.”
“Maybe you did,” Arender smiled, and repeated: “To the pediatric and OB/GYN clinics and research departments of Madison Memorial Hospital, which I came to love like a place to call home, I leave the entire remainder of my estate.” Arender smiled again and said, “Ah, that will come to over ten million dollars. Had been eight million plus, but her manager invested well.”
Simpson fell back in his chair. He and Graham looked dumbstruck. To astonished Jill and David, Simpson’s brilliant blue eyes gaped through his spectacles, Did I hear right? They nodded in disbelief.
Simpson pressed the side of his face, and Graham ran a shaking hand through his hair. “We’ve had so many cutbacks…” he sputtered in a whisper. “Such a pity it had to come…”
But Arender was already droning Jody’s last bequest, which was to Jill and David. “…my most precious possession, my antique doll collection. I know you’ll care for my dearest little friends.”
All eyes stared at him. Then turned to the two OB residents.
“Dolls?” David stopped pulling off his parka with one arm still in a sleeve. It was suddenly hot in here. His scrub top was rumpled.
“Antique,” Arender smiled nervously, fiddling again with his cuff which seemed to bother him. “Valuable, but the possession Jody loved most.”
Jill darted to David’s ear. “Don’t say we’ve seen them,” she whispered.
Frowning, he whispered back, “That creepy bunch with the parasols? The automaton?”
She nodded, and suddenly the others were up and the room was abuzz. Simpson was taking little steps and muttering about his pills and saying he couldn’t believe this. “It’s extraordinary,” he stuttered to Jill and David, his arms squeezing them both as they rose too. “And from your friend. I never met that sweet girl. Oh my God.”
They tried to smile. Jill peered back to Arender, who was thanking them all for coming. Graham started herding Simpson out, still gibbering and astonished, as an assistant came to pull Robin Abel out to answer a call, and Deborah Wylie tugged at Jill’s parka sleeve.
“Come to Reid’s office?” she invited, like a plea.
Her husband was yards away, frowning at the photo of Arender’s dreamed-for schooner.
And Arender was beneath him, ducking and scowling at his presence, already taking a call. Also cradling the phone in the crook of his shoulder as he peeked under the cuff that was bothering him.
A bandage! No, two bandages! The heavy duty fabric kind, about four inches long, both of them wrapped around his wrist. Jill knew those bandages. “Extra strong adhesive,” read the labels on those blue boxes in the pharmacy.
Got a laceration there, Jay? Cut yourself on something like…flying glass?
Arender caught Jill’s gaze and frowned, stopped poking at his wrist and leaned back, casual again with his phone call.
David, turning from Deborah, caught Jill’s gaze too and followed it.
“I saw,” he whispered. And touched her arm, urging her out. “We’ll talk.”
Deborah was waiting for them.
23
“The bandages,” Jill whispered fiercely in the seconds they had in the hall. “Could Edna Polsen have seen Arender?”
“But why would he… There was nothing-”
“They hated each other. I’m calling Kerri.”
“Wylie first. He’s not going anywhere.”
At first glance Reid Wylie’s office was like any lawyer’s, the floor and surfaces cluttered with stacks of files - but the wall behind his chair was a gallery. Toward the corner, modestly, the usual diplomas. The remaining expanse was a mix of police plaques and citations and enlarged photos of Blues greats. Muddy Waters in the center, a blown-up black-and-white of him on his guitar howling his soul out with his eyes closed and his head back. “Hoochie Coochie Man!” read the caption. Other photos were of cool guys with guitars at smoky mikes, and old men strumming on crumbling porches.
It was ten past five. Beyond the window, the glass and steel canyons of Midtown were an early evening galaxy: dazzling, mesmerizing, every window lit. Jill went to look down. “Yeow,” she said, pulling back.
Deborah, standing by the desk, smiled weakly. “You’re not used to views from the thirty-eighth floor?”
“Hospital just goes to fourteen floors,” Jill mumbled; and David, leaning on the jamb surveying the room said, “We seldom look out.”
The view had made Jill dizzy, and in her blur she saw those dolls again: Painted china faces gazing out at them, holding hands, seeming eerily alive…
Why did you leave them to us, Jody? What were you trying to tell us?
The head cleared. Deborah motioned them to chairs facing Reid’s desk, and started to pull up a third chair for herself. “Oh,” she said, wincing, leaning both hands on the chair. “I shouldn’t have…”
David jumped to move the chair for her, and she thanked him. “I’ve got a little problem with my back,” she groaned. “My leg, actually.”
They were sympathetic. Knew the problems of sciatica, its pain in the outer side of the leg caused by spinal disk damage. Deborah said she was only thirty-six. “I always thought sciatica was for old folks.”
“No, you’re right on schedule,” Jill said, sitting.
David added, “It’s common in the thirties, especially if you’ve been athletic or done heavy lifting.”
“Argh, we’ve done both,” Deborah sighed, seating herself carefully. “Went rock climbing in Moab, and I fell, hurt my back. Got better, then tried to move a refrigerator. Smart, huh?”
David and Jill groaned in sympathy. Then looked around.
Surprise: they were in another, smaller, half circle facing a lawyer’s desk. An empty desk, likely awaiting Reid’s arrival.
Had they planned this? Reid wanting to be heard about something, telling his devoted, in-pain wife to arrange it?
Deborah exhaled, and made a troubled gesture around them. “You see the personality of this room. Does it look like someone who could kill?”
They told her no. She seemed more woozy. From her seat she pointed to Reid’s police commendations, distinguished service awards, life saving awards there and there on the wall – too small for them to read from where they sat, but she knew them by heart.
“He’s a wonderful, caring person,” she said emotionally. “The police know that. They just want the easiest person to pin this on.”
Jill decided to f
ish for a reaction. “A crazy thought? What if this wasn’t about Jody after all? What if this was just someone trying to set Reid up?”
Deborah looked surprised for a second, then shook her head. “God only knows,” she said softly.
David pointed at a photo next to Muddy Waters: a man in a spotlight before a mike, his tousled dark head down, his face half covered by his hands clutching a harmonica. “That Reid?”
“Yes.” Deborah smiled wistfully at the photo. “He’d just left the force and was almost done with night law school, exhausted, chronically sleepless. But he never missed a jam session. Said his band and I were the only things that helped him hang on.” She sighed sadly, tugged on her dress hem. “His hair was longer then.”
We were happier in the struggling days. Jill remembered her saying that.
Deborah glanced apprehensively back at the door, and lowered her voice.
“There’s jealousy in this place. Reid’s looks and our clients get him in the papers. He plays his blues harmonica with his cop band, gets headlines, and makes the firm look good.”
Then she met Jill’s eyes, as if belatedly processing what Jill had guessed at a moment ago. “Yes, someone could have made it look like he went after Jody-”
“Deborah, c’mon.”
Reid Wylie was taciturn as he came in holding his phone. “Gold Chainz just got arrested. I gotta go down there.” He went to his desk, bending and rummaging through a drawer. Then looked up as if just registering that Jill and David were there.
He straightened. “I suppose you’re wondering why Jody left you those dolls.”
“You have any idea?” David asked.
“No.” Reid’s dark-eyed gaze swept unhappily over Jill. “She probably figured they were precious to her, so they’d be precious to you.”
“That’s not possible.” Jill leaned forward. “Those dolls are delicate and have tiny, dangerous pieces. Jody played with our eighteen-month-old, fretted about everything he put in his mouth.”
Reid shrugged as if saying how could he know, slammed his drawer, and nervously checked his watch. “Chainz…” he muttered.
Deborah seemed not to have heard the doll discussion. “Stay a minute,” she pleaded with her husband. “Chainz knows the drill. Get booked and keep his mouth shut.”
“Can’t keep that mouth shut.”
“He’s learned,” Deborah persisted. “I was just starting to tell about the…animosities around here.”
Reid stopped what he was doing. Blew air out his cheeks and sat on the edge of his desk. Deborah glanced apprehensively at the door again.
Jill got up to close it.
“Things were bitter between Jody and Arender,” Reid said quietly.
“I told Jill.” Deborah shifted uncomfortably. “I didn’t say why.”
Reid nodded. Folded his arms. “Jody did an indie film in Africa last summer. That’s when she starting changing. Heard how great she was, started re-writing her lines, fighting with her director -- so we asked Jay to go over and mediate. He wound up having to re-draft her whole contract. They fought. Jody wore him out.”
Jill took her seat again.
Deborah said, “Jay came back seriously uptight. Angry. It seemed to involve more than just their fighting over the contract, but neither would talk about it.”
“Was Jay at that party?” Jill asked, studying Reid’s hands. No cuts or scrapes.
“Briefly,” he said.
“Did you mention their antipathy, this Africa story to the police?” David pressed.
Reid gave a twisted smile. “Yes. They didn’t seem interested. Jody’s quitting the show wouldn’t have affected Jay career-wise, and there’d been nothing…romantic between them.” He colored. “The cops want something more convenient.”
He checked his watch again, and straightened. “Gotta go. Chainz is probably bellowing in his cell. Incriminating himself. Picking fights.”
He crossed the room and opened the door to Robin Abel with her hand up, ready to knock. She looked at him, startled, her free hand carrying an armload of files.
“Oh God,” she said, her eyes switching from Reid, who hurried out, to Deborah. “The calls, the damned calls!” She entered, waving a hand full of pink call-back slips. “You’d think these divas could wait? Give you a bleeping minute?”
She bent to give Deborah the messages. As Deborah scanned them Robin spewed angrily, “That screenwriter who’s threatened to kill the guy he’s fighting for screen credit? He’s on your line now and on his ledge, threatening to jump. I tried to deal with him, reminded him you were going through a nightmare for God’s sake, but he-”
“I’ll take it.” Deborah got to her feet with effort – Robin helped: “Today’s bad, huh?” - and beckoned Jill and David to follow. “Want to see my office?”
“Ah, we have to jet too,” Jill said tensely, but caught David’s look: Let’s go.
24
They walked the hall, with Robin following and bitching about “narcissists! Self-obsessed crazies and I’m sick of ‘em!”
It was a smaller office, with the usual mess of work waiting. Files and documents crammed the desk, the floor, the sofa along the wall. Cases that raged on and on. People fighting or expecting to fight, once they were past the phony smiles and handshakes.
David and Jill remained standing, checking out photos on Deborah’s wall as she said glumly, “Want to hear what my work’s like?”
She flicked on her speaker and sighed, “Sean, stop it.”
“That you, Deborah?” The voice was weak, self-pitying.
“Yes, it’s me. Everything’s fine.”
“What?” Barely intelligible through sounds of traffic and horns. Right, he was on the ledge.
There were photos of Reid performing, at a gun shooting range wearing ear mufflers, in a tux with other men in tuxes, plus a photo of him and Deborah younger, embracing before a glowing desert sunset. There were also pill bottles on the desk. David picked up a couple; looked at them.
Jill subtly looked at them too.
“I said everything’s fine.” Deborah was trying to scan pages Robin held, rubbing her temple, angling her head to read yellow Post-its with hurried scribbling on them. “Reid’s gone through every word of your contract and checked it. That’s your script and no re-write guy can – ”
“I get sole credit?”
“Yes! Yes!”
“You wouldn’t shit me?”
“Have I ever? Has Reid? And what are you doing, calling up and scaring everybody…” Deborah stopped, looking helplessly up to Jill and David. The traffic coming through her speaker was suddenly dimmer, and there were clunking sounds.
Jill bent to her, conspiratorial. “I think he’s climbing back in.”
Deborah nodded and lowered her voice, her face grim. “Were you really on the ledge, Sean?”
“I was sitting in my window. Facing out, really thinking of it. But this -- Jesus, I thought I was dog shit.”
“Don’t do this again, Sean.”
“This is great! It’s really hitting and it’s great! Uh, can I get production credit too?”
“Sean – ”
“Oops, another call’s waiting. I’ll get back to you.”
The line went dead.
Deborah sagged, looking miserable. David put a hand on her desk and leaned to her sympathetically. “Not even a thank you?”
His parka was unzipped, revealing the V of his scrub top and the top of his chest hair. Deborah looked and flushed. Looked up at him – his eyes were warm – and she colored more; looked away.
Jill saw.
David did too, and straightened, looking surprised.
Robin was trying to get Deborah’s attention to more pink slips: from a TV anchor negotiating his contract; a Broadway costume designer trying to get out of hers; a Wall Street big shot hustling his How-I-Did-It book; another book author, and an eighty-three-year-old grandma making exercise videos for golden agers.
“Call this bo
ok author first,” Robin said. “She had a screaming match with her editor and wants to break her contract.”
“Is she on the ledge too?”
“No, she’s threatening pills. Jeez Deb, your hands are shaking.”
“How can that be? I’m numb. Dizzy.”
Jill and David had moved toward the door. “We gotta go,” Jill said.
Deborah blinked up at them, drained, as if just coming back to herself. “Please, please. Help us out of this nightmare.”
They said they’d try, waved ‘bye to Robin, and headed out.
In the cab heading back, Jill called Kerri. “Where are you?” she asked, taking a deep breath.
“Central Park West. Just re-interviewed some party guests. Got nothing. We’re nowhere. Dead end.”
Jill filled her in on Jay Arender, his bandages, and the fact of his deeper than they’d realized hatred of Jody. “Does it sound worth showing his photo to Edna Polsen?”
“I’ll say! My God, just when we were ready to throw ourselves down in frustration. I told Alex this Arender was too damn cool when we interviewed him and he had no alibi.”
“Too damn cool isn’t probative.”
“Right. Okay, we’re on our way. Got a picture of Arender?”
“I’ll email it to you.”
“Fabulous. We’ll call Edna first. Hope she lets us in.”
“Hope she answers her phone.”
“How do you two do this? Not one of those lawyers would have given us a second interview, and Edna hates cops. We’re desperate. Have you seen those attacks on us in the press? We’re taking heat from everywhere.”
“Sing Cole Porter if Edna doesn’t let you in.”
“Cole – oh damn, which one?”
“Try Anything Goes.”
“I know it! Shit, my head’s splitting. Lyrics please?”
Jill sang almost comically: In olden days a glimpse of stocking/Was looked upon as something shocking/Now heaven knooows/Anything Goes.
“Now I remember. Listen girlfriend, if this gets back to the precinct-”
“My lips are sealed. I’ll send you Arender’s pic.”
EMBRYO 5: SILVER GIRL (EMBRYO: A Raney & Levine Thriller) Page 12
