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“And it’s not like you have anyone.” He shakes his head again. “Any family, or anyone to look after you.”
“But neither do you,” I remind him.
“That’s different,” he says.
“I don’t see how,” I say. “I mean, except that I’m younger than you.” But what’s seven years, really? Prince Charles and Lady Diana were twelve years apart… and okay, that didn’t turn out so well, but how likely are we to repeat their mistakes as a couple? If Cooper and I ever were to become one, I mean. Neither of us even likes polo.
“Besides,” I say, remembering what I’d seen out of the ambulance window. “I do have a family. Sort of. I mean, there’s Rachel and Magda and Pete and Patty and you—”
I didn’t mean to add that last word. But there it is, floating in the air between us. You. You’re part of my family, Cooper. My new family, now that my real family members are all incarcerated or on the lam. Congratulations!
Cooper just looks at me like I’m crazy (how unusual). So I add lamely, “And Lucy, too.”
Cooper exhales slowly.
“If you really feel strongly that what happened wasn’t an accident,” he says at last, pointedly ignoring the We Are Family speech (don’t think I don’t notice), “and you really think someone is trying to kill you, then I suggest we go to the police.”
“I tried that,” I remind him. “Remember?”
“Yes. But this time I’m going with you, and I’m going to make sure—”
His voice trails off as a petite, attractive brunette comes rushing up to the waiting room desk, all breathless and leather-skirted, her left hand weighted down by a massive diamond ring.
Okay, so I can’t actually see the ring from where I’m sitting. I still know who she is. I’ve seen her with her mouth around my ex’s you-know-what. Her image will be forever burned onto my retina.
“Excuse me,” she breathes to the stony-faced receptionist. “But I believe my fiancé is here. Jordan Cartwright. When can I see him?”
Tania Trace, the woman who’d taken my place in Jordan’s heart and penthouse—not to mention my position on the music charts.
“Funny,” Cooper observes. “She looks as if she’s handling the pain quite well.”
I glance at him curiously, then remember that he’s referring to something I’d told him some time ago, after I’d first moved in.
“Oh sure,” I say. “Because she’s strung out on painkillers. But I’m telling you, Coop, you can’t have that much plastic surgery and expect to live a pain-free life. I mean, she’s been almost completely reconstructed. In reality, she’s a size eighteen.”
“Right,” Cooper says. “Looks like my brother’s in good hands now. Shall we go?”
We go.
And none too soon, if you ask me.
19
Shout out to my
Homegirls
Shout out to my
Friends
Shout out to the
Ones who love me
On those I can depend
Shout out to the
Girls out there
Who buy their own
Damned diamond rings
Shout out to you sisters
I’m with you to the end
“Shout Out”
Performed by Heather Wells
Composed by Dietz/Ryder
From the album Summer
Cartwright Records
The first person at the Sixth Precinct I tell my story to is a pretty but tired-looking woman at the front desk. She has her long black hair in a bun, which I assume is regulation hairstyle for policewomen.
I make a mental note not to major in criminal justice.
The woman directs us to a pudgy guy at a desk, to whom I repeat my story. Like the receptionist, he looks bored…
… until I get to the part about Jordan. Everybody perks up at the mention of Easy Street.
The pudgy guy has us wait a few minutes, and then we’re ushered into someone’s extremely tidy office. We sit across from a very neat desk for a minute or two before the owner of the office walks in, and I see that he is none other than cigar-chomping Detective Canavan.
“You!” I nearly shout at him.
“You!” he nearly shouts back. He’s holding a Styrofoam cup of coffee and—what else? — a doughnut. Krispy Kreme glazed, from the look of it. Lucky duck.
“To what do I owe the pleasure this time, Miss Wells?” he asks. “Wait, don’t tell me. This wouldn’t happen to be about somebody crowning a Backstreet Boy, would it?”
“Easy Street member,” I correct him. “And yes, it would.”
Detective Canavan sits down at his desk, removes the unlit cigar from his mouth, tears off a piece of his doughnut, and dunks it in his coffee. He then puts the coffee-soaked piece of doughnut in his mouth, chews, swallows, and says, “Pray enlighten me.”
I glance at Cooper, who had remained silent at my side through two recitations of my tale. Seeing that he isn’t going to be any help this time, either, I launch into it for a third time, wondering, not for the first time, what it is I find so attractive about Cooper anyway, since he can be so uncommunicative sometimes. Then I remember the whole being-so-hot-and-kind-and-generous-to-me-without-asking-anything-in-return thing, and I know why.
Detective Canavan clasps his hands behind his head as he listens, tipping his chair back as far as it will go. Either he has forgotten his Mitchum for Men or he is just a very profuse sweater, because he has large perspiration stains underneath his arms. Not that this seems to bother him.
“So,” Detective Canavan says, to the water-stained ceiling panels, when I’m through talking. “Now you think the president of New York College’s kid is a murderer.”
“Well,” I say, hesitantly. Because when he puts it that way, it sounds so… dumb. “Yes. I guess I do.”
“But you got no proof. Sure, this guy here’s got a condom. A condom we could probably prove is his. But which wouldn’t be admissible in court. But you got no proof any crime has actually been committed, with the exception of this planter over the side of the terrace, which could have been accidental—”
“But those planters have been up there for years,” I interrupt. “And none of them ever fell down until today—”
“Coroner’s report on both dead girls states cause of death was accidental.” Detective Canavan quits gazing at the ceiling and looks at me. “Listen, miss—is it still miss?”
Unaccountably, I feel myself blushing. Maybe because if it hadn’t been for Tania Trace, by now it would have been Mrs. Although I sort of doubt it would have remained that way for long.
“It’s Ms.,” I say firmly.
Detective Canavan nods. “My wife’s a Ms. now, too. Anyway, listen, Ms. Wells. Kids that age? They’re dopes. Accidents are the leading cause of death for people ages seventeen to twenty-five. Kids are trying to find themselves, taking stupid risks—”
“Not those girls,” I say, firmly.
“Maybe not. The point is, Ms. Wells, you got nothing on this guy. You don’t even have a definite murder to pin on him. If the Backstreet Boy dies, then maybe we’ll have something. Maybe. But the coroner could just as easily rule that one as accidental as well.”
“Well,” I say. I have to admit, I feel very let down. Detective Canavan hadn’t laughed outright in my face this time, I’ll admit, but he hadn’t taken a single note, either. I pick up my backpack.
“Sorry to have wasted your time. Again.” I get up, and Detective Canavan looks at me like I was nuts.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he demands. “Sit down. I’m not through with you yet.”
I sit back down, perplexed.
“What’s the point?” I ask Detective Canavan, with more asperity than is, perhaps, necessary. “You obviously think I’m some kind of nutcase. What do I need to stick around here for? I can get laughed at by my own friends”—I keep my gaze averted from Cooper’s face. “I don’t need to go to the police for that.”
Detective Canavan finishes the rest of his doughnut, then picks up his cigar. He looks at Cooper.
“She’s a fiery one,” he comments, nodding at me.
“Oh, she’s that,” Cooper agrees, gravely.
“Wait.” I glance from one man to the other, suspicion dawning. “You two know each other?”
Cooper shrugs. “I’ve seen him around the neighborhood,” he says, referring to Detective Canavan.
“Can’t swing a dead cat without running into this guy behind a parked car or mailbox, shooting film of some poor schmuck whose wife is leaving him,” says Detective Canavan, referring to Cooper.
“Great,” I say, feeling more inadequate than ever. “That’s just great. Well, I hope you two are enjoying your little laugh at my expense—”
“Do I look like I’m laughing?” Detective Canavan demands. “Do you see so much as a smile upon my face? Your boyfriend over there, I don’t see him laughing, either.”
“I see absolutely nothing amusing about the situation,” Cooper says.
I look at him. He isn’t smiling. And he hasn’t, I noticed, objected to being called my boyfriend. I look back at Detective Canavan.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I point out loudly—to what purpose, I cannot imagine. But I’m sure my cheeks are crimson.
Detective Canavan nods at me as if I’d said something along the lines of The sky is blue.
“Now, Ms. Wells,” he says. “We do have a very high number of nutcases, as you call them, who come in here to report various crimes that may or may not actually have occurred. Some of these so-called nutcases are honest citizens who want to help the police to do their job. I would put you in this category. You have done your duty by relating your beliefs in this matter to me, and I, in due course, will investigate them.”
“Really?” I perk right up. “You really will? You’re gonna question Chris?”
“I will do so.” Detective Canavan sticks his cigar back in his mouth. “Discreetly. That is my job. It is not, however,your job. I strongly advise you, Ms. Wells, not to involve yourself any further in this matter.”
“Because you think Christopher Allington might try to kill me, too?” I ask, breathlessly.
“Because I think Christopher Allington might try to sue you for making false accusations, and he’d have a pretty good case, too.” Detective Canavan ignores my crestfallen expression. “What you’re suggesting, Ms. Wells, is that Christopher Allington is not only a serial killer, but a killer of such intelligence and skill that he not only leaves no evidence linking him to his crimes—save for an alleged condom—but leaves no trace that a crime has even been committed. I hate to disappoint you, but in my experience, killers aren’t that smart. They are, in fact, remarkably stupid people. That is why they have killed: They are so limited intellectually, they saw no other way out.”
Detective Canavan’s dark gray eyebrows furrow together in thought as he goes on. “And despite all the media hoopla around them, I have yet to meet an actual serial killer myself, and I have investigated over seven hundred homicides. So I suggest you keep a low profile as far as Christopher Allington is concerned, Ms. Wells. I’d hate for you to lose your job over something like this.”
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