Chapter 36

“HARRISON LANDERS?” NANCY said, looking at the name frozen on the screen. “Isn’t he your old boss?”

“I didn’t know he’d been a screenwriter in Hollywood,” I said. “I knew he used to write for Another World . . .”

“I loved Another World! Especially Linda Dano,” Penny said. “I watched almost every episode from the time I was in junior high.”

I acknowledged Penny with a nod and told her, “I buy Linda Dano’s tote bags from QVC.” But I wanted to stay focused on what we’d just learned. “If Harrison wrote Hot Ice, then he probably knew Teresa from way back when.” I said.

“What are you thinking?” Nancy asked.

“There are so many little pieces to this puzzle, and there’s no picture on the box to give us a hint about what piece to put where,” I said. But as I spoke those words, a part of the picture was actually beginning to take shape in my mind.

I turned to Penny. “Will you play a role for me?”

She gasped in horror. “On Love of My Life? Oh, I couldn’t—”

“No, I mean here in the den, on the phone? Would you call someone for me and pretend?”

Penny sighed with relief. “Oh, sure. What do you want me to do?”

I took my personal phone book from the small desk in the corner of the room and flipped pages until I found the number I wanted. “I’m going to dial Teresa Radford on my cell. Then you’ll get on the phone and ask to speak to her. Say that you’re calling to confirm her appointment for a facial. If she’s home and gets on the line, pretend you’ve made a mistake, apologize for bothering her and get off the line. I just want to know if she’s at home.”

Penny nodded, Nancy looked puzzled and I began to punch in the number.

“I don’t get it,” Nancy said.

I shushed her because the phone was ringing on the other end. I handed the cell phone to Penny just as someone at Teresa’s picked up.

Penny startled us by playing her part with a German accent. She introduced herself as “Elke” and asked to speak to Mrs. “Rotford” about her “Schoenheitspflege.”

Her what?

We moved in closer, Nancy on one side of Penny and me on the other. We held our collective breath as “Elke” listened to the other end of the line. “Ach!” Penny said into the phone. “Mus’ be mistake . . . Danke . . . Guten Abend.” She quickly disconnected the line and replaced the receiver.

“The boy answered,” she told us in her normal voice. “He said his mother isn’t home, and asked me to call back tomorrow.” Penny smiled impishly. “He didn’t want to take a message—he probably couldn’t spell ‘Schoenheitspflege.’” She saw our quizzical looks and said, “It means ‘beauty treatment’ in German.”

“You speak German?” Nancy asked.

“Just a few words; we have a German masseuse at Natasha’s. What do we do now?” Penny asked. The excitement in her voice indicated she was eager for another assignment.

“Nothing tonight,” I said. But I was lying. I looked at my watch and saw it was ten minutes to eleven. I needed to get rid of them as quickly as possible. “You two go home,” I said. “I’ll think about the next step and we’ll talk tomorrow.”

Penny and Nancy decided to share a cab. I called downstairs to Frank at the desk and asked him to please get one for them. As soon as they left, I threw a black suede blazer on over my sweater and jeans, grabbed my keys and the little emergency money change purse that snapped around my wrist and slipped out of the apartment. I stayed in the shadows of the courtyard until I saw Nancy and Penny get into a cab. As soon as it was out of sight, I hurried out and had Frank flag down one for me. A yellow cab screeched to a stop in front of Frank, and I climbed into the back.

“Central Park West and Sixty-Fifth Street,” I told the driver.

He grunted disapproval at the short ride and subsequent small fare, but slammed the vehicle into gear, punishing the metal for his bad luck in getting stuck with me. I was going to see Harrison. Since he was habitually a night owl who never went to bed before 2 A.M., it wasn’t likely I would disturb his sleep. I was beginning to think Winston Yarborough might be right, Teresa had killed Damon. Physically, she would have been able to do it. And she knew the layout of the building because she had lived there. I wanted to know what Harrison thought. I needed to see his face when I asked the question. If he had known Teresa years ago in Hollywood (which he never mentioned in the years we worked together), he might have some reason to feel protective of her. He was a man who, if he had he lived in the days of King Arthur, would have had a seat at the Round Table. If there was a woman in need and a dragon to be slain, Harrison was—or at least he had been—the man for the job.

The cab screeched to a stop at Central Park West and Sixty-Fifth. As I leaned over the front seat to pay the driver, I caught a glimpse of someone coming out of Harrison’s building. A woman. The moment I saw her, I ducked back into the shadow of the cab’s rear seat, but I may not have been quick enough. There was at least a fifty percent chance that the woman—Teresa Radford!—had seen me. She stepped backward into a pool of darkness near the building’s entrance.

And waited.

In a whisper, I told the driver to take me back to the Dakota.

Grumbling, he started the motor again and made an illegal U-turn. In a cloud of exhaust fumes, we were on our way back up Central Park West. I leaned against the well-worn and heavily patched imitation leather of the back seat, listing in my mind the questions that had to be answered before I would be able to see the whole picture. Was Teresa Radford “the lady” Agata mentioned, whose visits made Harrison feel better? And, if so, would she have told Harrison she had killed Damon? If she had? If she was guilty, it would be the answer to Winston Yarborough’s prayers. And, had Teresa lured Serena into the stairwell and killed her with a sock full of quarters?

Here was where I hit the wall. Why would Teresa have killed Serena?

Maybe Harrison was right, Serena’s death wasn’t connected to Damon’s. Maybe she really was killed by a psycho she met in a bar?

There was one more question, and it hit me with the force of a blow: If Teresa was the murderer but didn’t tell Harrison; if Harrison figured it out, would she kill him, too?

I had the driver stop at the nearest payphone, got out and told him to wait for me. As fast as my fingers would work, I deposited coins into the slot and dialed.

“Hello?” It was Harrison’s voice. Holding my hand tight over the mouthpiece, I sighed in relief.

“Hello?” he said again, annoyance in his voice. I disconnected the line. Because I’d called from a public phone, Harrison would have no way of knowing who had just rung his number.

I DIDN’T SLEEP very well that night.

At seven o’clock the next morning I called Chet Thompson’s number at his Waverly Place sublet. When he answered, he sounded fully awake. “I was just thinking about you,” he said.

I let that pass without comment and got right to the point. “There’s something I want to talk to you about, but not on the phone. Can we get together this morning? Just for a few minutes.”

“I’ve got a meeting with my publisher on the East Side,” he said. He thought for a moment. “How about the Central Park Carousel at noon.”

“The carousel?”

His voice was warm as he said, “I’ll treat you to a ride on the horse of your choice, then I’ll buy you a hot dog with everything.”

“An irresistible offer.”

“One of many I hope to make you,” he said. His voice was soft; it made me remember his kiss, and my pulse accelerated. This was verbal foreplay, and another time I might have enjoyed it. There wasn’t time right now.

“Noon at the carousel,” I said, keeping my voice light.

We hung up and I started to work. There was one script I had to write, another that needed to be edited, plus I had more advance story to rough out. It was going to be a busy day, and I wouldn’t be able to work this evening, because whether or not Chet agreed to help me, I was going to be out stalking a murder suspect.

I LOST TRACK of the time creating a romantic courtship scene for Kira and Cody. It was ten minutes after noon when I arrived at Sixty-Fourth and Fifth Avenue, the entrance to the Central Park Carousel. I spotted Chet right away. He was pacing—it was more like marching—up and down just inside the park, frowning and speaking into his cell phone.

His obvious impatience annoyed the hell out of me.

I was only a few minutes late!

I was not going to allow some man I barely knew to become possessive. When he looked up, our eyes connected, and a powerful wave of relief spread across his features. It was then that I realized it wasn’t impatience I had seen; Chet had been worried.

“No—it’s okay, she’s here,” he said into the phone. “Thanks.” He disconnected and hurried toward me. “Are you okay?”

“Were you talking to someone about me?” I asked.

“Penny—I called her at Natasha’s to see if you were there. I was going to call your friend Nancy next, and if you weren’t there, I’d have called that Phoenix guy.”

That made me mad. “Are you crazy? I’m only ten minutes late!”

He waved his cell phone at me. “You have all my numbers, you should have called! Two people have been murdered . . .” He didn’t add “and you could be next,” but I saw it in his eyes. My anger evaporated.

“I was working and I lost track of the time,” I apologized. “Next time I’ll call.”

He took me by the arm, gently. “Maybe I overreacted.”

The Central Park Carousel is housed inside a squat, round building. I had passed it many times, but this was the first time I had ever gone inside. There were dozens of large horses and two elaborate chariots, so beautifully carved and painted they took my breath away.

Chet paid our admissions. “What’s your pleasure?” he asked.

“Those two,” I said, pointing to a pair of caramel-colored horses with their heads thrown back. We mounted them and grasped the poles. The carousel started to revolve, and an organ began playing “And the Band Played On.” The horses and chariots circled a large central drum, which was adorned with beautiful, intricately carved figures. My favorite was a big, black circus seal with a shining coat, balancing a bright, red ball on the tip his nose.

And the band played on . . .

WHEN WE WERE having hot dogs and soft drinks on a quiet bench outside the carousel building, I got right to the reason I’d called. “You told me you know Teresa Radford. How well do you know her?”

The hot dog stopped an inch from Chet’s mouth. “What exactly are you asking?”

“Not . . . something deeply personal—”

“The answer to ‘did I ever sleep with Teresa’ is no,” he said. I was glad to hear it, but I shrugged to convey the pretense it didn’t matter.

“Do you know her well enough to call and invite her out to dinner tonight?”

“Yes,” he said. “No guarantee she’d accept. What’s this about?”

So far, I hadn’t seen anything in his eyes that made me think he would protect Teresa. “I’d like you to call and ask her to dinner tonight. If she says yes, then I want you to call twenty minutes before you’re supposed to meet and cancel the date. Tell her you have some emergency. But if she turns you down because she already has plans, that’s good.”

“You’ve lost me,” he said.

“I want us to stake out Teresa’s building and follow her when she goes out.”

“What makes you think she’ll go out if I break our date?”

“She’ll be all ready. My guess is she won’t want to waste the preparations.”

He was staring at me, comprehension in his eyes. “You think Teresa murdered Radford, don’t you?”

“I think it’s possible,” I said. I used my fingers to tick off several reasons. “She hated Damon. I just found out she’s an expert with a rifle and pistol. She knows Damon’s building. She’s in terrific physical shape, so twenty flights of stairs aren’t beyond her capabilities. Last, if I die within six months, her son inherits Damon’s entire estate.”

He was looking at me as though he didn’t know whether to laugh or be impressed. “You’ve got reasons,” he said. “If not very good ones.”

I dismissed his skepticism with a wave of my hand. “If Teresa is the killer, I’m afraid she might go after someone else.”

“This plan of yours has holes in it you could fly an airbus through, but count me in. At least I’ll get to spend time alone in my car with you.”

“In the front seat,” I said, “with our eyes on her building and your hands on the steering wheel.”

I’d finished my hot dog and was wiping mustard off my fingers with a napkin. Chet had eaten only half of his, but he folded the uneaten half into a napkin, balled it up and then tossed both our napkins and empty soda cups into the nearest trash can.

“I’ll keep my hands on the steering wheel tonight,” he promised, “but I can’t guarantee how I’ll behave in the future.”