“Michelle.”
“Michelle what?”
“Lauren never said.”
“Same age as Lauren?”
“Approximately. Around the same height, too. Dark-haired, maybe Latin.”
“Blonde and brunette,” he said, and I knew what he was thinking: Someone ordering a matched pair for the evening.
After I’d left, how far had Lauren and Michelle taken things?
He said, “Anyone mention the name of the company they worked for?”
“No. And even if you find the guys who organized the party, I doubt they’ll admit to anything. We’re talking medical school professors and financial types, and this was four years ago.”
“Four years ago would be right around the time Lauren was working for Gretchen Stengel. So maybe Gretchen had a party-rental sideline.”
“Where is Gretchen?”
“Don’t know. She served a couple of years for money laundering and tax evasion, but your guess is as good as mine.” He closed his pad. “Investments … So maybe Lauren stayed in the game. Be interesting if she and Michelle maintained a relationship.”
“Andrew Salander said Lauren didn’t have any friends.”
“Maybe there were things Lauren didn’t tell Andrew. Or he didn’t tell you.”
“That could very well be,” I said. Thinking: Lauren lied about the research job, so she’d probably erected other barriers. Constructing her own confidentiality.
Now all her secrets were trash.
9
THE HOUSE WAS too easy to find.
Two-story white colonial at the end of the block, almost grand behind black stripes of iron fencing, so brightened by high-voltage spots that it seemed to inhabit its own private daylight. Mullioned windows, green shutters, semicircular driveway, two gates, one marked ENTRY. Milo tightened the knot of his tie as I parked. We got out and walked toward the entrance gate. The night seemed drained of life force, or maybe it was the task at hand.
Lights yellowed a couple of upstairs windows, and the fanlight above the front door flashed chandelier sparkle. A white Cadillac Fleetwood blocked the view of the front door. Shiny enough to be brand-new but of a size no longer hazarded by Detroit. Handicap license plate. A metallic blue Mustang coupe, also spotless, was parked behind the Caddy, trailing the big car like an obedient child.
Milo glanced at the call box, then at me. “Either way.”
I pushed the button. A digital code sounded, then a ringing phone.
Jane Abbot said, “Yes?” in a sleepy voice.
“Mrs. Abbot, it’s Dr. Delaware.”
Her breath caught. “Oh . . . what is it?”
“It’s about Lauren. May I please come in?”
“Yes, yes, of course. . . . Just one second, let me . . . Hold on.” Her voice climbed in pitch with each truncated phrase, and the last word wasa tight screech. Moments later the door opened and Jane Abbot ran out wearing a quilted silk robe, hair pinned up. In her hand was a remote control that she aimed at the gate. Iron panels slid open. She was two feet away when we stepped through.
Ten years since I’d seen her. She was still trim and fine-boned, the blond hair now a salon ash barely darker than the platinum Lauren had sported. The decade had hollowed her face and loosened her skin and acid-etched fissures in all the typical places. As she ran toward us she breathed through her mouth. Fluffy slippers flapped on brick.
Milo had his badge out, but it wasn’t necessary. He had that terrible sadness on his face, and Jane Abbot’s curse was comprehension. She raised her hands to her head, jerked away from him, and stared at me. I had nothing better to offer, and she screamed and beat her breast, tripped and stumbled as her legs gave way. A slipper flew off. Pink slippers. The things you notice.
Milo and I caught her simultaneously. She struck at us, all bones and tendons, oddly slippery through the chenille of her robe. Her grief was raw and head-splitting, but no one else came to the door of the house. No reactions from the neighbors either, and I had a sudden taste of the solitude she’d face.
I picked up the slipper, and we guided her across the driveway and back inside.
Except for the chandeliered entry and a front room lit by a ceramic table lamp shaped like a beehive, the house was dark. Milo flipped a switch and revealed an interior surprisingly modest in scale: low ceilings, white wall-to-wall carpeting, furniture that had been pricey during the fifties, grass-cloth walls painted pink-beige and crowded with what looked to be real Picassos and Braques and tiny Impressionist street scenes. A sliver of eastern wall held built-in white bookshelves filled with hardcover books and black-spined folders, interspersed with framed plaques and gilded trophies. A rear wall of glass looked out onto nothing. We sat Jane Abbot down on a stiff, ocean blue sofa, and I settled next to her, smelling her perfume and metallic sweat. Milo took a facing armchair much too small for him. His pad wasn’t out yet. It would be soon.