A Job to Kill For

by Janice Kaplan

  No response.

  I kept going. Breathe twice, pump fifteen times. Breathe twice, pump fifteen times.

  Cassie sputtered.

  Thank God.

  Her chest was moving up and down, just slightly. I had to do something about the head gash. I rushed to the bathroom, grabbed a pale yellow Hermès towel, and charged back, pressing it against the wound to stanch the bleeding. In a moment the towel was bright red. I got another and held them both tightly against her head.

  “Cassie, what happened?” I whispered.

  Her lips were chalky, her eyes still closed.

  I heard someone pounding on the front door and rushed to the foyer, flinging open the door. Two EMTs in short-sleeved blue uniforms stood at the ready, holding their emergency medical equipment.

  “She’s barely breathing!” I screamed. “You’ve got to do something! She could die!”

  “Where is she?” asked the taller of the two, who couldn’t have been old enough to buy a beer. His elbows stuck gawkily from under his sleeves, and he had a rash of acne across his forehead, but he charged in, not hesitating for a second, and followed as I raced back to the study.

  “Tell me what happened,” he said.

  Choking out a few details, I dropped to my knees next to Cassie. The lanky young EMT pushed me aside and quickly evaluated the patient.

  “No pulse. No breath,” he called out, starting to press on her chest, with the CPR maneuver I’d already tried. “Prepare to intubate her. Start an IV.”

  The second EMT—shorter than his partner, but with the broad chest of someone who spends a lot of time at the gym—put a hand under my elbow. “You need to move aside,” he said, practically lifting me up. Then he grabbed for his radio and I heard him calling for backup.

  The next few minutes passed in a confusion of blood, equipment, needles, and tubes. I stood to the side, reeling in horror.

  “No response,” said one of them.

  “Give her some epi,” insisted the other. “We’ve got to get this heart started.”

  The backups started arriving, two by two. A pair of policemen came in, and then two LA firemen. A second pair of EMTs dashed in, and then another couple of cops—the emergency-response version of Noah’s ark. People called out suggestions and radios spluttered with static and barked instructions.

  “Let’s get her to the hospital,” someone said. “We’re not saving her here.”

  In seconds, Cassie was on a stretcher, being whisked out the door. I rushed after, negotiating with the EMTs about which hospital they’d go to. We exchanged a few sharp words, but then they nodded and were gone. Far below, I heard loud sirens blaring—and then silence.

  I went back to the living room, sunk into a chair, and dropped my head to my knees. The buttery leather cuddled around me, but I didn’t feel any comfort.

  “You okay, ma’am?”

  I sat up and looked straight into the concerned face of a cop. She was slim, with clear skin, bright blue eyes, and straight brown hair pulled into a ponytail. The stiff uniform masked her shape, but she’d cinched her belt tightly around her waist and her gun just accentuated the gentle curve of her hips. I had to figure her for a real cop, but she might as well have wandered off a primetime set at CBS.

  “I’m okay, but I don’t know about Cassie. It happened so fast,” I said.

  “Are you a relative?”

  “No, I’m Lacy Fields. A friend, I guess. Her decorator.” I shook my head, trying to clear the confusion. “But her husband. We should call her husband. Roger.”

  The cop—whose nametag identified her as Officer Erica McSweeney—pulled out a clunky phone that doubled as a walkie-talkie. “What’s the husband’s phone number?”

  “No idea,” I admitted. “Maybe I can find it on Cassie’s cell.” I stood up shakily, headed back to the foyer, and grabbed Cassie’s bag from where she’d casually abandoned it on the gold-flecked eighteenth-century table. At another time, I would have paused to admire how the bold shades of the leather-and-alligator Louis Vuitton purse played gracefully against the mellow-colored antique. Now I just grabbed the bag (which, according to Vogue, cost fourteen thousand bucks and had a four-month waiting list) and rummaged inside, finding a slim silver phone tucked inside a perfectly sized felt pocket. With Officer McSweeney peering over my shoulder, I scrolled down, found an entry for ROGER—CELL, and hit the button.

  Three rings. Four. Just as I started to hang up, I heard Roger’s voice.

  “Cassie, hello,” he said. The caller ID must have flashed on his screen, and I noticed a slight chill in his voice.

  “It’s not Cassie. It’s Lacy Fields.”

  No reply, but I could hear noise in the background and a waiter saying, “May I get you another glass of wine?”

  “Lacy Fields, the decorator. I’m at your apartment, and Cassie…”

  “I know who you are, Lacy,” Roger said, his voice unexpectedly warmer. “In fact, I’m having lunch at The Grill, and you’ll never guess who’s with me.”

  He repeated my name to someone, and suddenly I heard gales of female laughter. Roger chuckled, said something sweet to his companion, and handed the phone over.

  “Lacy, you caught me having a drink with my darling Roger,” said a familiar voice. It took me only a second to place it.

  “Molly, is that you?” I asked. Molly Archer, my best friend since college, my Tri Delta sorority sister.

  “Yes, darling, of course it’s me.”

  As fresh-faced kids just out of Ohio State, we’d moved to LA together, and while I got married and had babies, Molly built one of the most powerful casting agencies in Hollywood. She had recently made Variety’s list of the town’s most powerful people—well below Jerry Bruckheimer, but several spots above Paris Hilton’s hairdresser.

  Next to me, Officer McSweeney shifted uncomfortably, anxious to do her job.

  “Molly, tell Roger something happened to Cassie,” I said firmly to my friend. “Something awful. She’s just been taken to the hospital.”

  “Oh my God.” The flirtatious tone drained from Molly’s voice, and I heard her repeat the ghastly news to Roger. He got back on the line, and I handed the phone to the concerned cop.

  “Officer McSweeney here. LAPD. Am I speaking to Cassie Crawford’s husband?” she asked, as if worried that I’d mistakenly dialed Cassie’s chef, chauffeur, or masseuse. Roger must have said yes, because she reported that Cassie had suffered a medical emergency and the ambulance had taken her to Cedars Medical Center.

  “EMT usually goes to LA General, but your friend insisted on Cedars,” McSweeney said, looking at me. Cedars was the best hospital in town—the place where my husband, Dan, had been a plastic surgeon for most of his career.

  From my position five feet away, I could hear Roger firing questions at McSweeney. How had this happened? How serious was it? Would she be okay? His loud voice sounded scared.

  “She stopped breathing from unknown causes,” said McSweeney, avoiding any specifics. “You should get over to the hospital right away.”

  “I’m on my way,” Roger said.

  When she hung up, I shakily shoved some papers and fabric samples back into my own Coach tote—not as classy as Cassie’s, but functional—and got ready to leave.

  McSweeney casually put herself between me and the door.

  “Um, Ms. Fields, if you wouldn’t mind, I could use your help. You’re the only one who might have a clue what happened.”

  I should have felt a thump of hesitation. Almost a year ago, Dan had been charged with murder for a death he had nothing to do with. We’d found the real killer, and all had returned to normal. But I didn’t want to go through anything like that again.

  On the other hand, nobody had mentioned foul play here. And I had nothing to hide.

  “Can I ask you a few questions?” McSweeney asked.

  I nodded and sat down on a black Breuer side chair. She put a small digital tape recorder on the table between us. “If you wouldn�
��t mind, just give me a chronology of events. Everything you saw.”

  I didn’t mind at all. I spoke carefully, struggling to make sense of what had happened. But it didn’t make any sense. I had just gotten to the part where Cassie climbed the ladder when McSweeney’s walkie-talkie burst into activity. She apologized and began talking. In the rush of static and excited voices, I finally realized that it wouldn’t have mattered if the ambulance had gone to LA General, Cedars, or the moon. The victim had no heartbeat. The doctors in the ER had valiantly tried to resuscitate her, but it was too late. Cassie Crawford was dead.

  If the police had mobilized quickly when Cassie fell, now they rushed in like bargain hunters at a Gucci sample sale. In what seemed like minutes, so many uniformed cops and plainclothes detectives swarmed in that they probably had a quorum for a union vote.

  I had barely absorbed the news about my latest—and late—client when white-coated forensics experts appeared and began dusting for evidence. I sat numbly as my decorator’s dream transformed into a CSI showcase. I finally thought to call Jack Rosenfeld, family friend and lawyer. His secretary said he had run out of the office, but when she heard my trembling tone, she connected me to his cell phone.

  “Cassie’s dead?” Jack asked, stunned, after I’d quickly outlined the situation for him. “Cassie Crawford, Roger’s wife?”

  “It’s too unbelievable,” I said, my voice breaking. “One minute she was showing me a damaged picture frame, and the next minute she was dead.”

  “You were the only one with her.”

  “Right.”

  “Listen to me, Lacy,” Jack said sternly. “I’ll get there as soon as I can. But be careful about saying anything until I arrive.”

  “You want me silent?”

  Jack sighed. “I’ve learned not to ask for the impossible.”

  “Well, it’s too late, anyway. I’ve told them what happened, and they asked me to stay and sign a statement. I’ll just stick with the truth. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “That’s what Martha Stewart said before she went to jail.”

  Given the current stock price, jail had turned out to be a good thing. Before I could mention that, I heard a loud thwack in the background.

  “Are you playing tennis?” I asked. Not really a surprise. Jack played hard in a court of law, but he generally preferred a court with a net.

  “I’ll shower and come right over.”

  “Don’t worry. Play well,” I said, nobly.

  “No, I’ll quit right now,” Jack insisted. “My opponent happens to be the LA district attorney. If I default, he moves up the ladder. He’ll love that. And from what you’re telling me, I’d better keep him happy.”

  Default a set? Jack must be seriously worried. The tennis ladder at the Beverly Hills Racquet Club aroused more competitive instincts than America’s Next Top Model. The winner got a magnum of champagne, and the sixty-buck bottle of bubbly seemed to mean more to most of the men at the club than their seven-figure salaries. Now Jack would give up a victory to come be my advocate—and I hadn’t even known I needed one.

  We hung up, and a thought about Cassie’s last minutes suddenly struck me. I headed back to the library to investigate, but yellow crime-scene tape had been strung across the doorway and two burly cops stood staring at the blood-spattered floor.

  Unexpectedly, I heard the melodic notes of Beethoven’s Piano Trio in B flat, also known as the Archduke trio. The frenzied activity in the apartment came to a sudden halt as everyone looked around.

  “What’s that?” asked one of the cops.

  “The doorbell,” I said, slightly abashed. I prided myself on being the decorator who thought of everything. Setting the right mood mattered, and I’d decided that a simple ding-dong would never do for the Crawfords. So I’d had the ringer programmed with something a little classier.

  In the foyer, the front door stood slightly ajar. With all the cops coming in and out, nobody had actually closed it. When the Beethoven sounded again—wrong music for the current mood—I followed Officer McSweeney to the front, where she swung open the door.

  “Can you believe it?” said the man on the other side, loudly. “I never even got keys to my own apartment. Cassie had them.”

  With that, Roger Crawford strode into the penthouse he’d paid for but apparently never seen. A few worry lines streaked across his brow, but otherwise he seemed like a man in control. His perfectly tailored, blue-striped Brioni suit didn’t have a wrinkle, nor did his crisp white shirt. The French cuffs at his wrist sparkled with engraved gold cufflinks and were just the right length not to cover the Patek Philippe watch. In the areas money couldn’t buy, he was less impressive: slightly balding and barely average height. He got his stature from his success, not his size.

  The woman who came in a moment after him, however, took my breath away.

  “Molly, what are you doing here?” I hissed to my barely recognizable longtime best friend.

  “Roger needs me,” she said nobly. “He’s devastated. I couldn’t abandon him at a time like this.”

  “Cassie’s dead,” I said bluntly.

  Molly nodded. “We raced to the hospital, but it was too late. Roger wanted to come over here. He’s shocked. We’re both shocked.”

  Something about that we sounded a little too cozy to me. And everything about Molly had me reeling. Instead of the practical Prada pantsuit she always wore to work, she’d wrapped herself into a neck-plunging Diane von Furstenberg dress that swung sexily as she walked. She’d traded her much-loved Tod’s flats for strappy stiletto sandals that showed off an unexpectedly perfect pedicure. Most stunning, Molly’s trademark mass of thick dark curls had disappeared and shiny, stick-straight red hair now framed her pretty face.

  “What did you do to yourself?” I asked, too distracted by her transformation to stick to more serious subjects.

  Molly coyly tucked a glowing strand of hair behind her ear. “Fabulous, right? Japanese-process hair-straightening. Seven hours, but worth every minute.”

  A plainclothes cop came over, planting himself a little too close to Molly. “Ma’am, I’m Detective Burrows. If you’ll come with me for a moment, I’d like to ask you a few questions,” he said.

  Molly looked briefly shaken, probably more at being called ma’am than at the thought of talking to a cop.

  I put a hand on Molly’s arm.

  “She needs to come with me to the ladies’ room first,” I said, anxiously digging my fingernails into her soft skin.

  Molly looked puzzled. “Why is that?”

  “Tampax problem,” I said.

  Detective Burrows stepped aside stiffly, too embarrassed (or confused) to follow us. I practically dragged Molly into the guest powder room, quickly locking the door.

  “Tampax problem?” she asked, with a little giggle. “Have you forgotten how to use them?”

  “I had to think of something to say,” I said brusquely. I took my hand off her arm and sat down on the red brocade bench I’d imported from Paris to grace the far side of the makeup table. No guest of the Crawfords should have to stand to put on lip gloss.

  Molly took a bottle of Annick Goutal perfume from the countertop (I’d accessorized every inch of the place) and started to dab a drop behind her ear. I grabbed the bottle from her and slammed it back into place.

  “What’s going on?” I asked angrily. “Roger’s wife is dead. The police are swarming. And you flounce in here like some femme-fatale floozy. Are you crazy?”

  “Roger’s a friend,” Molly said mildly.

  “I had no idea you even knew him.”

  She raised a well-tweezed eyebrow. “How do you think you got the assignment to decorate this place? I mentioned you to Roger and he told Cassie.”

  I started to stand up, then plopped back down, my knees shaking too hard to hold me.

  “You never said anything.”

  Molly sat down next to me. “I would have,” she said putting a comforting hand on my shoulder, �
�but we haven’t seen each other much lately. I’ve been wild at work. You’ve got those three gorgeous kids keeping you busy. It’s happened before. We always catch up eventually.”

  True enough. My daughter, Ashley, and her new best friend, Tara, talked together all day at school, gossiped via cell phone in the afternoon, and IM’d all night. But friendship changed between fourteen and forty.

  I looked at my redheaded pal.

  “Are you and Roger involved?” I asked.

  “It’s complicated,” she whispered, even though nobody could hear. “Involved, but not how you think. We’ll talk about it later.”

  I nodded. “We will. But get this—cops don’t deal with complicated. They deal with suspects. Here’s how I see it. Roger’s the husband, so he’s tops on their list already. I happened to be the last one to see Cassie alive, so put me at number two. Now if you’re involved with him and me, you’re right up there at number three.”

  “Roger wouldn’t kill Cassie,” Molly said, a look of horror crossing her face. “Neither would you. Or me. Anyway, who says someone killed her? The doctors told Roger the cause of death was unknown.”

  Now I did manage to stand up. “Maybe it’s unknown to them right now,” I said. “But trust me. By tomorrow, everyone in LA is going to know that Cassie Crawford was murdered.”

  “She couldn’t have been murdered. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Murder never makes sense.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  Well, that seemed a fair question. I peered in the mirror and swiped on some Kiehl’s lip balm. What was I going to do? In the midst of all this madness, I had to keep my priorities straight.

  “I’m going to Jimmy’s swim meet,” I said calmly. “If I leave this minute, I can get there before the medley relay.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “Why would I be joking? Cassie will still be dead tomorrow. But today is the only chance for the Pacific Palisades Porpoises to win the six-and-under league championship.”