“Listen to me, Heather.” Magda’s carefully lined lips tremble. “You’ve got to find the person who did this to her. You’ve got to find him, and bring him to justice.”
I’m on my feet at once. But I can’t go far due to Magda’s death grip on my hand.
“Mags,” I say. “Look, I appreciate your faith in my investigative abilities, but you’ve got to remember, I’m just the assistant hall director… .”
“But you’re the only one who believed those other two girls, last semester, were murdered! And you were right! Smart as he is, that Detective Canavan, he couldn’t’ve caught their killer—because he didn’t even think they’d been killed. But you, Heather… you knew. You’ve just got this way with people… .”
“Oh,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Yeah. Right.”
“You may not think so, but you do. That’s why you’re so good at it. Because you don’t know you can do it. I’m tellin’ you, Heather, you’re the only one who can catch the person who did this to Lindsay—who can prove she really was a nice girl. I’m begging you to at least try … .”
“Magda,” I say. My hand is starting to sweat from her grip on it. “I’m not a cop. I can’t involve myself in their investigation. I promised I wouldn’t… .”
What is Magda even thinking? Doesn’t she know that this guy, whoever it is, isn’t shoving people down elevator shafts? He’s strangling them, and chopping their heads off, then hiding their bodies. Hello, that is a lot different. It’s a lot more deadly, somehow.
“That little pom-pom girl has the right to a good and proper rest,” Magda insists. “And she can’t have it until her murderer is found and brought to justice.”
“Magda,” I say uncomfortably. How would a grief counselor respond, I wonder, if one of his patients demanded that he solve the brutal slaying of the individual the patient was grieving over? “I think you’ve been watching a few too many episodes of Unsolved Mysteries. ”
Apparently this was not the proper way to respond, since Magda just clutches my hand harder and says, “Will you just think on it, Heather? Just think on it for a while?”
Magda had once told me that, in her youth, she had been a beauty queen, runner-up for Miss Dominican Republic two years in a row. It isn’t actually that hard to believe now, as she gazes up at me with all the intensity of a pair of headlights set on high. Beneath all that makeup, the drawn-on eyebrows, and the six-inch-high hair, there’s a dainty loveliness that the entire contents of the Duane Reade cosmetics aisle couldn’t hide.
I sigh. I’ve always been a sucker for a pretty face. I mean, that’s how I ended up saddled with Lucy, for God’s sake.
“I’ll think about it,” I say, and am relieved when Magda loosens her grip on my hand. “But I’m not promising anything. I mean, Magda… I don’t want to get my head chopped off, either.”
“Thank you, Heather,” Magda says, her smile beatific despite the fact that her lipstick is smeared. “Thank you. I’m sure Lindsay’s spirit will rest easier knowing that Heather Wells is looking out for her.”
I give Magda a final pat on the shoulder and with a little smile she gets up to go, wandering down the hallway to the dining office, where the staff hangs their coats. I look after her, feeling… well, a little strange.
Maybe that’s because all I’ve had to eat today is a smoked mozzarella sandwich—with roasted peppers and sun-dried tomatoes, which are sort of vegetables, I guess—and a grande café mocha.
Then again, maybe it’s because I’ve made her feel so much better, and I don’t even know how. Or, actually, because I do know how. I just can’t believe it. Does she honestly think I’m going to launch my own private investigation into Lindsay’s death? If so, she’s been inhaling way too much nail-gel dust.
I mean, what am I supposed to do, go around looking for a guy with a cleaver and a girl’s body in a fresh grave in his backyard? Yeah, right. And get my head chopped off, too. The whole thing is ridiculous. Detective Canavan isn’t stupid. He’ll find the killer soon enough. How can anyone hide a headless corpse? It’s going to have to turn up sometime.
And when it does, I just hope I’m somewhere far, far away.
6
You think you and me are like glue
You’re stuck on me, I’m stuck on you
Only you don’t know me, not one bit
If you think that I’m that whipped.
“Whipped”
Written by Heather Wells
It still isn’t snowing by the time I leave work, but it is pitch-black outside, even though it’s just a little past five o’clock. The news crews are still parked along Washington Square Park, across the street from Fischer Hall— in fact, there are more of them than ever, including vans from all the major networks, and even CNN… just as President Allington had predicted.
The presence of the news vans isn’t doing much to deter the drug trafficking in the park, though. In fact, I run into Reggie as I turn the corner to Cooper’s brownstone. Although at first he hisses, “Sens, sens,” to me, when he recognizes me, his expression turns grave.
“Heather,” he says. “I am very sorry to hear about the tragedy in your building.”
“Thank you, Reggie.” I blink at him. In the pink glow from the street lamp, he looks surprisingly harmless, though I’ve heard from Cooper that Reggie carries in an ankle holster a.22 that he has, upon occasion, been called upon to use. “Um… you wouldn’t happen to have heard anything about why the girl was killed? Or by whom? Would you?”
Reggie’s grin is broad. “Heather,” he says, sounding delighted, “are you asking me what the word on the street is?”
“Um,” I say. Because put that way, it sounds so terrifically dorky. “Yeah. I guess I am.”
“I haven’t heard anything about it,” Reggie says, and I can tell by the way his smile has faded—but, more to the point, the way he maintains steady eye contact with me—that he’s telling the truth. “But if I do, you will be the first to hear about it.”
“Thanks, Reggie,” I say, and start back down the street… only to pause when I hear Reggie call my name.
“I hope you are not thinking about getting involved in whatever this young lady was messing with, Heather,” he says to me. He’s not smiling at all now. “Because you can bet she was messing with something… and that is what got her killed. I would not like to see that happen to a nice lady like yourself.”
“Thanks, Reggie,” I say. Which is not what I want to say. What I want to say is,I wish people would have a little faith in me. I’m not that stupid. But I know everyone is only trying to be nice. So instead I say, “Don’t worry, I’m leaving the investigating to the professionals this time. Anything you tell me that you hear, I’m taking straight to them.”
“That’s good,” Reggie says. And then, seeing a group of typical West Village dot commers, he hastens away from me, murmuring, “Smoke, smoke. Sens, sens,” at them.
I smile after him. It’s always nice to see someone so dedicated to his calling.
When I finally finish undoing all the locks to the front door of Cooper’s brownstone, I can barely get it open because of all the mail that’s piled up beneath the slot. Turning on the lights—Cooper must still be away on his little stakeout—I scoop up the enormous pile, grumbling at all the coupon packs and AOL trial disks. I’m asking myself why we don’t ever get any real mail—just bills and savings offers—when Lucy comes careening down the stairs, having heard me come in. In her jaws is a Victoria’s Secret catalog that she’s apparently spent the afternoon savaging into a droolly mess.
Lucy is truly a remarkable animal, given this special ability she has of singling out the sole catalog most likely to make me feel inadequate, and destroying it before I ever even get a chance to open it.
