So Pretty It Hurts

We were in the middle of the living area now, a huge, open loft space with honey-colored wood floors, white pillars, and an exposed sprinkler system on the ceiling. At the near end was a seating area with an L-shaped sofa, and at the far end, an ultra-modern, spare-looking kitchen featuring all stainless steel appliances. Between the two areas was a sleek metal dining table and eight chairs that looked like they might never have been used. A huge abstract painting took up one wall. And that was about it. The place looked barely inhabited.

“How long had Devon lived here?” I asked.

“About two years. I know—not very homey, is it? But she traveled all the time, so I guess that was her excuse. She has a place in London, and I hear that’s nicer. Not that she ever invited me.”

“So her mother called and asked you to take care of a few things?” I said.

“She says she wants to be sure all the valuables are protected. Yeah, right. She just wants to guarantee that no one else gets their dirty little paws on them. Plus, I’ve got household bills to go through. Cap asked me to stay on the payroll and take care of stuff for a while.”

“So you’re dealing mainly with Cap, not Christian?”

“Well, Cap was her manager,” she said, as if I’d failed the Supermodels 101 course in college.

“I just wondered. I figured there’d be loose ends to tie up with the modeling agency.”

“Cap will take care of that. Devon probably wouldn’t want me talking to Christian anyway.”

“Why’s that?” I asked.

“I think she’d gone off him lately.”

So Jane was clued into the situation, too. “How do you know?”

Jane shrugged. “She ignored him all weekend.”

“And you have no idea why?”

“Nope. And it doesn’t matter now, anyway.”

“Tell me about Devon’s mother,” I said. “What’s she like, anyway?” I asked it evenly, not taking my eyes off Jane’s face.

“TP type. You know, real trailer park. I don’t know if she actually lives in one—I only met the woman once, when she came to New York—but she had single-wide written all over her. Chain-smoker face like a dried prune.”

“I hear the funeral’s private—are you going?”

“I would soooo love to get out of it, but I have to show. It’s back in her hometown in Pennsylvania. I guess it’s about a two- or three-hour drive from here.”

Of course, you’re going to go, I thought. You’ll be able to gather more grist for your tell-all. I was dying to ask if she knew where the service would be, but I didn’t want her to know I was giving any thought to possibly going out there myself.

“Look,” she said. “Can we hurry this along? I thought you had some top-secret news you wanted to share.”

“There are a couple of things I need to discuss with you.”

“All right, why don’t you come back here?” she said, cocking her head toward the back of the apartment. “We can talk while I keep working.”

I followed Jane, walking past an all-white master bedroom with clothes flung over nearly every inch of the bed and furniture. It was the only part of the apartment that seemed lived-in.

“In here,” Jane said, indicating what appeared to be a second bedroom that had been turned into a fairly basic office. There was a simple desk with a flat-screen computer, several filing cabinets, and cardboard boxes haphazardly strewn near the walls. A small window offered a view of the rooftops of SoHo, studded with shingled water tanks and soot-covered chimneys. Jane plopped down into the chair at the desk and motioned that I should help myself to a white folding chair.

“Soooo?” Jane said impatiently as she tore open a piece of mail.

“I don’t know if you’ve heard the news yet. Devon died of heart failure due to her anorexia.”

“I guess us fatties don’t have it so bad after all. So is that why you came here? To tell me something I already knew?”

“No, but before I share, I wanted to pick your brain. I’m wondering if something might have exacerbated Devon’s condition.”

“Like what?” Jane said. “She saw outtakes from a photo shoot and decided she needed to crash-diet?”

“No, not exactly. Certain drugs can make the condition worse. Remember we talked about the ipecac? Well, diuretics can create problems, too. Did you ever know Devon to take any?”

“Nope.”

“And you never saw anything like that in her bathroom?”

“There were two places that were off-limits to me. Her purse and her bathroom. So if she was stockpiling anything like that, I wouldn’t know.”

“There’s no harm in taking a look in her bathroom now, is there?” I asked.

“Shouldn’t the police be the ones checking it out?”

“Well, they’re over two hours away. And if we find anything, we can turn it over to them. It will help in their investigation.”

“Sure,” Jane said after a moment. She seemed curious suddenly, and I wondered if she was thinking that a discovery could help her book pitch. “Why not? The master bath is off her bedroom.”

I followed her back down the hallway and into the bedroom. While I stepped gingerly around some of the clothes on the floor, Jane kicked stuff away with her feet as if it was trash.

“The cleaning lady comes in later today,” she said. “Sometimes I think Devon liked to leave her as big a mess as possible.”

The bathroom was huge, white, and spa-like, and the entire area behind the sink was wall-to-wall mirror. Just as in the bathroom Devon had used at Scott’s place, there were upended beauty products scattered on the countertop. I glanced down at them, searching for any kind of prescription drugs, but there were only cosmetics, skin care products, and an ashtray full of cigarette butts.

“What about in the medicine chest?” I asked, cocking my head toward it. Jane yanked open the door. It was crowded with more beauty products, but the middle shelf was devoted only to drugs. There was Ambien and Zantac and a couple of bottles of over-the-counter painkillers. No sign of any diuretic. A large white bottle was behind the front row, and delicately I reached behind and plucked it out. Prenatal vitamins, prescribed by a Dr. David Stein on Park Avenue. Date: October of last year. As I glanced toward Jane to check out her reaction, I saw her dark eyes widen in surprise.

“What the hell?” she asked, gawking at the label. I noticed that her face now had a sheen of sweat, as if the space was making her feel overheated. “Oh, wait, don’t some chicks take these to make their hair glossy?”

“Actually Devon was apparently pregnant last year, and then miscarried,” I explained. “I take it you didn’t know.”

“What? No, no, I—I didn’t know,” she sputtered. I could almost see her brain churning.

This might be the moment, I realized, to go for a blunt approach and see what Jane coughed up.

“That tidbit should be of real interest to you, right?” I said. “I mean, it’s a nice little element to add to your book.”

She’d still been staring at the label, but now she spun her head toward me in surprise, her nostrils flared.

“I hope you’re not going to deny it, Jane,” I said. “You’ve been busy for weeks trying to sell a book about Devon.”

She smirked and shrugged a shoulder.

“So what?” she said. “It’s a free world and I can write what I feel like writing—just like you can.” Her tone was a mix of defensiveness and defiance, like a shoplifter who’s convinced she deserved the stolen clothes as much as the rich girl who would have paid for them.

“Except that I’m not making stuff up so that it comes across as more salacious,” I said quietly.

“What are you talking about?” she demanded. I could tell she was getting agitated. The sheen of sweat on her face seemed to be glistening even more now.