I called Evan and read it to him on the phone. He was still a little worried about having to live up to the fun part. I assured him he’d rise to the occasion. He was also worried about finding a toy boat that looked like the one they’d be taking. I convinced him that was an unnecessary detail and any boat would do. I emailed him a copy of the letter as we spoke.
‘Let me know what happens,’ I said. I heard him take a breath and I was afraid he was going to suggest that I go on the cruise to watch them from afar, but thankfully he didn’t.
I let out a heavy sigh as I moved to my last assignment. I always wrote the piece from the animal’s perspective. I did some research and found out that Rocky was what was called a tuxedo cat and that what Melissa said about some cats being huggers was true. It seemed that sometimes it was a sign of affection; at other times, it was the cat trying to grab onto its prey. I was sure that in this case Rocky’s hug was affectionate because there were no claws involved. I also read something that said cats picked their human companions.
I started to write trying to put a spin on his age. My name is Rocky and I’m looking for a forever home. I could lie about my age, but here it is – I’m eight, but I still have a lot of good years ahead of me. It also means I’m past the crazy kitten stage. If you take me home, I will show my appreciation forever. My specialty is giving hugs. You won’t find many cats that do that. I stopped to pull up the photo I’d taken before I said anything about his markings. When I looked at the picture I was stunned. His big yellowish eyes had a pleading quality and he was holding out one paw as if to say take me with you.
Did that mean he was choosing me?
I thought back to how he’d hugged me. Tears were rolling down my cheeks before I realized I was crying. There was no way I could let him down. Well, it looked like I’d succeeded at my assignment. I hadn’t even finished writing the piece and Rocky had found his home.
TWELVE
I know it was crazy, but as soon as I decided to adopt Rocky, I was sure a hoard of people would show up at the Pet Emporium and want to give him a forever home. So I was on the phone when the pet store opened telling Melissa the cat would be coming home with me. She laughed. ‘I knew you were a good writer,’ she said. ‘You sold yourself.’ She promised that no matter what, she wouldn’t let anyone else take the cat.
I’d barely hung up when the phone rang. It was Mrs Parker and I’d just gotten out a hello, when she started to speak. ‘I need to see what you have so far for Rachel’s memory book.’
‘I could email something to you,’ I said, thinking over what I had.
‘No,’ she said. ‘It must be in person. Today. This morning.’ It was a definite command.
I looked at my watch and tried to calculate when I could get there. ‘Can we make it as late as possible?’ I would have to get the train and walk to her place.
‘I don’t care what you have to do, but you’ll have to get here by 11:30. I have a luncheon.’ Her tone was curt and the message clear, I worked for her.
Now I was glad that I’d done the work on it the night before, but it was still in very rough form. It would give her an idea what it was going to look like, and I could tell her what else I planned to add. I hoped that was enough because there was nothing else I could do since she’d insisted on seeing it that morning. I threw on a pair of leggings and a loose T-shirt for the dance class, then covered it with a long black sweater that made it look more professional. I printed up what I had, packed up the albums in the bag and left for the train. I rushed to the station and got to the platform as the train was pulling in.
I was annoyed that I’d had to drop everything to meet with Mrs Parker, but she was the client. The grocery bag of albums weighed me down as I walked from the downtown station to their building. At least I’d only have them one way.
It wasn’t a particularly cheerful day either. The sky was a mottled gray and the air felt sharp. The only positive was that it wasn’t raining. I checked in with the doorman when I arrived in the lobby of their building. He called upstairs and got the OK before he opened an inner door and directed me to the elevator.
She was alone this time and attired to go somewhere fancy in a dress with a jacket and heels. Her dark hair looked as if it had been professionally blown out and her makeup was perfect. She seemed impatient as she brought me into the apartment. I held up the bag with the albums and she instructed me to put them down against the wall in the hall.
She brusquely told me to sit. ‘Let me see what you have,’ she said.
I took out a folder with the printout I’d brought. ‘I wasn’t expecting to have to show you anything today,’ I said. ‘It should give you an idea what I have in mind.’
She waved her hand as if to demand the pages and I gave them to her.
As she began to look through them, I explained what was going to go where. ‘There will be more from the teachers that Rachel worked with.’ I pointed to the placeholders and then to the rough idea of the purse story. ‘This is just a sample of the type of anecdotes I intend to include.’
‘She gave away a Victor Luis purse! Do you know what those things cost? I don’t know about using that story. It makes her sound a little crazy.’
‘Or someone with a good heart,’ I said. Mrs Parker glared at me.
‘She was taking tap classes?’ Mrs Parker said as she read down the page. ‘That makes her sound sane at least.’ She shook her head and let out a sigh.
I explained about the dance gym, omitting that I’d gotten a gig writing copy for them, figuring she’d probably think I should give her a discount since I’d been at the gym to find out about Rachel when I’d gotten the job.
‘I want to get a story from Luke to include,’ I said, pointing to a spot on the page where I planned to put it.
‘You better run it by me before you put it in. Who knows what he’ll say?’
‘But he was her husband and she seemed crazy about him.’
‘That might have been another sign of her bad judgment. I don’t know what’s up with him.’ She sounded perturbed. ‘Rachel was clearly going through something. Mr Parker and I thought she might need to be hospitalized, but Luke said that it was all because she was having trouble sleeping and that he was sure if she got some good nights of rest everything would straighten out.’ She was silent for a moment and was clearly thinking something over. ‘What I meant to say was that we thought she needed to be hospitalized because she seemed so exhausted. That’s probably why she fell.’ She seemed anxious to change the subject and looked over the pages again. She pointed to the biography. ‘There’s a mistake here,’ she said. ‘Rachel’s mother’s name is Candace.’
‘You’re not her mother,’ I said, surprised. ‘But you never said anything when I was helping with her vows.’
She looked at me coldly. ‘There wasn’t any reason to tell you. It had nothing to do with what you were hired for.’
I felt my face grow hot as I realized that I must have just seen a name starting with C in the obituary and assumed it was Camille. It was the kind of mistake I shouldn’t have made. I assured her I’d take care of it.
‘What happened to Rachel’s mother?’ I asked, wondering if Mrs Parker would answer, or just tell me that it was none of my business. She surprised me by actually answering my question.
‘She died a few years ago,’ Mrs Parker said. I waited to see if there would be more of an explanation, but she launched back into her bad relationship with Rachel. ‘I tried my best to step in and take her mother’s place, but you saw how she was when you were helping with her vows. Whatever I said was poison. When I implied that something seemed a little strange with Luke, she went nuts.’ Mrs Parker looked directly at me. ‘Luke is a good-looking man with a lot of charm. I saw with my own eyes how women seem to flock to him. Rachel was cute, but not a beauty, though she came with a lot of perks. And the way he insisted on keeping the job as a bartender after Mr Parker offered to bring him into the family business seemed off to me.
’
I didn’t know what to say. It turned out not to be a problem. Mrs Parker looked at her watch and then got up abruptly and I got the message that we were done. As she walked me to the door, I brought up getting a story from her. She thought it over for a moment. ‘My daughters and I put on a bridal shower for her; maybe put something about that in the book.’
‘Could you give me some details?’ I said.
‘You’re a writer. Just make something up. We just care that it sounds good,’ she said. ‘I’ll be in touch to check on your progress.’ As soon as I stepped into the hall, she closed the door behind me.
I checked the sky when I got outside. The day hadn’t brightened any, but it still felt good to be outside, now that I didn’t have to carry the bag of albums. The dance class didn’t start for a while and I wasn’t picking up Rocky until later. I had a lot to digest after finding out that Camille was the second Mrs Parker.
I liked to walk when I had a lot of thinking to do, so when I reached Michigan Avenue I headed north. The background blurred in my consciousness and I got lost in the rhythm of my steps. I had no sense of passing shops and food places or the wide street clogged with traffic. How could I have missed the name Candace in the obituary? It was hardly professional. Mrs Parker could have fired me on the spot. It took several blocks before I calmed myself, realizing that other than vowing to be more careful in the future there was nothing I could do, and I forced myself to let it go.
My breath came out in a gush as I stopped berating myself. My thoughts jumped to processing that Camille Parker wasn’t Rachel’s mother. Of course now it all made sense. It wasn’t a strained mother-daughter relationship at all. It was a stepmother-stepdaughter situation. So Rachel’s mother had died, as mine had. I was pretty sure I’d been younger than Rachel, but the end result was the same – feeling abandoned. I suddenly felt more of a connection to Rachel.
I suppose I was lucky that my father didn’t remarry. He had some ‘friends’ but he kept them separate from me. Most of his time was taken up with his job teaching and his job trying to finish bringing me up. I shuddered to think what it would have been like if he’d married someone like Camille. The wicked stepmothers of fairy tales came to mind.
I wondered how Mr Parker had handled his wife’s death. I wondered how he was dealing with Rachel’s death. I’d never met him and only seen him once briefly. I’d gone to the wedding to hear them say the vows I’d helped with. He’d walked Rachel down the church aisle and stood to the side during the ceremony. Even at a distance, he seemed a little stiff, and I knew there wasn’t a chance in the world that he and Rachel would break into some elaborate choreography during their first dance like so many YouTube videos showed.
The wind hit me and turned my hair into a crazy salad as I crossed the bridge the spanning river. It blew the flap of my trench coat open. I struggled to pull it shut and buttoned it so it would stay closed. Below the water was a murky greenish color and the Architectural Tour boat was just beginning to load. I wondered how Sally would respond to my note from Evan. I’d made a point to call their last meeting a date. Calling it a date made his intentions clear. I hadn’t said anything about it to Evan, but I was thinking that if she truly wasn’t interested in him, it would be better to find out now. I was rooting for him, but I also didn’t want him to get his hopes up if she just viewed him as a friend.
I continued walking when I got to the other side of the bridge. I hadn’t thought of a destination, but when I looked up and saw the Bellingham Hotel, it seemed as if my unconscious had brought me there. All Mrs Parker’s talk about Luke and his job had made me curious about the bar.
The Bellingham was a historic building that had been updated to keep up with the times without losing its charm. The upper portion of the building was dark brick with the kind of decorative features nobody bothered with anymore. The entrance was quite grand with an arched hood that offered protection from the elements. Gold-colored metal with an embossed design framed the doorway.
Evan had called the bar The Top of the Town which I imagined meant it was on the top floor, but I checked with the concierge anyway. He directed me to an elevator that went directly to the small structure on the roof of the hotel. Crossing the lobby, it suddenly occurred to me that Sally and Evan both worked here. I didn’t really want to bump into either of them. It would be so awkward.
The elevator had once had an attendant, but now was automated with a button to be pushed for top-floor bar. The elevator door opened into an entrance area and as I stepped out, I looked directly into the bar. I did a quick survey of the place. Everything about it said elegant oasis. The stone floor had an inlaid design which went back to another time. Lime-colored upholstered chairs were arranged around low tables. The actual bar was small. The seats running along the counter were more like chairs on stilts than stools. French doors looked out on a small terrace area and beyond the street was visible. By today’s standards, the hotel wasn’t very tall, but the position of the building still gave the top floor a nice view of Michigan Avenue.
I stepped closer to look outside. There were potted trees with a few leaves still hanging on the branches. Planters with yellow chrysanthemums added some color.
‘That area is closed,’ a male voice said in a friendly tone.
I turned and saw it was Luke. He was surprised to realize it was me and greeted me with a smile. ‘The patio is closed for the season,’ he said, ‘but there’s plenty of seating inside.’ He gestured toward the empty tables and chairs. ‘We don’t officially open for ten minutes, but if you’re really in need of something, I can bend the rules for you.’
I chuckled at the thought of me being in such need of drink as if I was some sort of alcoholic. ‘No, thanks,’ I said. It couldn’t have been further from the truth. It must have been something in my body chemistry, but even a half a glass of wine made me feel uncomfortable, as if there was velvet stuffed in my head.
I decided to get right to the point and told him I’d just been at the Parkers. ‘I had no idea she wasn’t Rachel’s mother,’ I said.
‘Oh.’ He sounded surprised. ‘I didn’t realize you didn’t know.’ He’d gone behind the bar and pointed to the row of empty seats, inviting me to take one. ‘I know you drink coffee from the other day. It’s a fresh pot.’
‘That sounds good,’ I said, sitting down. He was certainly more hospitable than Camille Parker had been.
‘I’m assuming Camille wanted to see you about the book you’re making.’ He poured a cup of coffee for both of us and pushed mine across the shiny black surface of the bar.
‘I could have sent her an email with what I had, but she wanted a meeting.’
He gave me a knowing nod. ‘It’s a power trip.’
‘That’s for sure. She doesn’t really care about what I put together as long as it keeps to the image they want to project. She told me she didn’t care if I made stuff up.’ I shook my head.
‘She doesn’t want my input. I was only there the other day for window dressing. At least she’s consistent. She’s never been a fan,’ he said.
‘She was pretty spare on details about what happened to Rachel’s mother,’ I said, hoping he’d have some details.
‘She died before I’d met Rachel.’ He paused to take a sip of his coffee. ‘Rachel said it was an accidental overdose.’ He looked at me directly. ‘There’s no reason you shouldn’t have the whole story. Rachel wasn’t so sure it was accidental. Candace was rather a fragile princess and, well, if she thought she was about to lose her husband to another woman …’
‘Was the other woman Camille?’ I asked and he nodded.
‘I got all of this from Rachel, but Camille was Richard Parker’s assistant. In other words, his “work-wife.” Rachel thought there might have been more wifely duties than just keeping his schedule straight. They barely waited six months after Candace’s death to tie the knot.’
I let it sink in. It made it seem even clearer why Rachel would have had bad
feeling toward her stepmother.
‘It was hard for Rachel. She wanted to be part of the philanthropic endeavors the family business was involved with, but Camille was always trying to push Rachel off to the side and bring her daughters into the middle of things. They were bridesmaids at our wedding.’ He shook his head. ‘Rachel only agreed to it because her father pushed her to do it.’
‘Was Rachel close with her father?’ I asked.
Luke shrugged. ‘He’s always been all about work and I gather was never particularly involved with her growing up. Except to let her know he wasn’t happy with her choices of work or, well, of me. I might have been marginally acceptable if I’d accepted his offer. He wanted me to take some job in the shipping business. They’re expanding into passenger cruise ships on the Great Lakes. If it had been working on a ship, I might have considered it. I like working directly with people, not administrative paper pushing. He didn’t take it well when I wanted to continue on here. You can imagine he insisted I sign a prenuptial agreement. And they’re really sticking to it. The boat and the apartment were gifts to her only. That’s what you get for not reading the small print,’ he said with a mirthless laugh.
It was interesting that he spoke without anger about the Parkers and the way they treated him. He seemed like the kind of person who let whatever happened just roll off of him.
He took another sip of his coffee and set down the cup. ‘To change the subject … I’ve been thinking about what you said about wanting a story from me.’ He gestured toward a seat down the bar from me. ‘This is where Rachel and I met.’
Some patrons came in and he excused himself and went to help the couple. He greeted them by name and followed as they took a pair of seats around one of the low tables. When he came back to the bar, he picked up a phone and I heard him placing a food order. As soon as he was done, he began work on their drinks which turned out to be just wine. He delivered them and stood for a moment talking to them.
Murder Ink Page 9
