"Did they tell you about the coroner"s report? That Thomasina was poisoned that morning and not the night before?"
Uncle Graham nodded. "They"re aware. It"s not relevant."
Cangemi came out and had the nerve to smile at her. Laura didn"t get to ask why night and morning were the same thing.
CHAPTER 11.
"We are not going to talk about your sister at all. Whatever you need to know, you can get through her lawyer. I"m going to ask you things, and you"re going to think they implicate her. So I want you to know, I"ll see it if you"re lying to protect her." Cangemi put two fingers to his eyes, then used them to point to her.
"She"s not a murderer."
He slipped a booklet from a manila envelope and slid it toward her. A naked female waist, as seen from behind just above the b.u.t.t cleavage, made her think immediately of p.o.r.nography. But the rest sparkled in soft pink, floral and lace, strawberries and cream. The script at the top, rendered in deep mauve with a lens flare in the corner, said The Pandora Agency.
"Okay?" she asked.
"Have you ever seen this before?"
She took the opportunity to flip through the booklet. It was about thirty pages long, in an expensive matte finish. There were about twelve girls, each with a two-page spread. The photography was totally professional, as was the presentation of the girls, despite the lascivious cover. She flipped to the back page, where the real information would be. She caught an address in Belgium, a couple of funny European phone numbers, and a New York address-277 Park Avenue, 17th floor, the building with the atrium. Below that were three names. She only caught the head of the agency, who was none other than Sabine Fosh.
"Oh, look," Laura said. "No pictures of Ruby, and Thomasina"s fake name right here. What do you want? A cookie?"
"You"re a pit bull, you know that?"
She couldn"t help but be flattered. "My sister spends half an hour picking a nail color." She pushed the modeling catalog toward him. "Ruby isn"t Sabine Fosh. That was Thomasina. You know that from the wallet. I mean, this is like... wait. You think they were in on this whole thing together, and they had a business dispute, and Ruby killed Thomasina over it? Really? Have you met my sister?"
"What I think isn"t important."
"Yeah, and did you talk to Bob Schmiller before throwing my sister under the bus?"
Cangemi cringed and shifted in his seat, as if jolted by a shot of discomfort.
"You okay?" Laura asked.
"Just this huge pain in my a.s.s since you walked in the room."
Everyone"s a G.o.dd.a.m.n comedian. Laura tapped the top of the booklet. "I"ve never seen this before."
He pushed it back toward her. "What about the girls? Seen any of them before?"
She took the book back reluctantly. She wanted to see the girls, but she didn"t want to look too eager. Cangemi seemed to know her and her curiosity streak all too well. The girls were a uniformly feminine type, with yards of sheened, slightly curled hair. The agency was apparently not for supermodels or runway stars. Big eyes. Perfect skin. There were no exceptional looks. No girls with a big honking wedge of a nose planted on an otherwise perfect face. No characters. Nothing striking or shocking.
Except their ages.
Laura held up a picture. "Do you think she got her period yet?"
"Third period math?"
She huffed. They were babies. Totally not MAAB-ready. Photoshop could take years off a middle-aged woman, and s.l.u.tty makeup could add a couple to a girl, but the babies in the brochure were dewy and sweet. Possibly they were of age, but no man with a heart or moral compa.s.s would take one to dinner. And no man with a fear of the law would take one to bed.
"I know her," Laura said, pressing the page open on a girl with brown eyes the size of meatb.a.l.l.s. "I met her at Baxter City. She was with Rolf Wente."
Cangemi took the booklet to get a better look. "Baxter City, huh? You"re washing windows on the side?"
"They have this really nice red African tea. You should try it next time you go."
He smiled. It was the best reaction she"d ever gotten from him after a wisecrack.
"So, were she and Rolf business or personal?" he asked.
"Depends on what business you"re in."
"Catch her real name?"
"No, unless it"s really Susannah, which I doubt. She was just giving Penelope Sidewinder the fan treatment."
He nodded as if he knew the reviewer by name, and maybe he did, working Midtown South. He had to pick up something from the garment center.
"Did you ever tell me your real name?" she asked. "The first? The one your mom uses to call you?"
"I told you."
"Your mother calls you Detective?"
"Only when I bring her in for questioning."
"So," Laura said, knowing she sounded like a guy making a pickup line to someone completely out of his league, "you think Thomasina and my sister were repping underage girls and putting them on a runway? Then my sister got p.i.s.sed and killed Thomasina because she"s just like that."
"It"s a cutthroat business."
"I thought she was poisoned."
"You"re just a pistol. Who signed the contracts for your girls?"
"To be honest, I picked girls for their body type. Once I laid that down, Ruby was in charge of the models. She said she was getting everyone from Roquelle"s agency, and all the contracts I signed were from Mermaid. I didn"t count the contracts, and I only read one. So I"m not saying one or two didn"t slip through from somewhere else, but I think if we were getting girls from Pandora, Ruby would"ve mentioned it, especially if she was a partner or whatever you think she is."
He leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers together. She saw from his expression that he was trying to weave together strands of knowledge, and what p.i.s.sed her off was that it was knowledge she didn"t have.
"I could help you if you"d tell me everything," she said, swinging for the fences.
"You think?"
"Yeah. I could tell you something."
"Odds are pretty good I know it already."
"You sure Bob Schmiller didn"t do it?"
Cangemi had absolutely no reaction. His face was either dead from the boring nature of the information or the hard work he put into looking like he didn"t have a reaction.
Laura pressed on. "He called her, yeah, and I know he was away, but if he just put one bad pill in her bottle, he could afford to wait until she took it. Even better if he was away while it happened and he called her like she was alive. He could be patient, right?"
Cangemi held up his hand. "You can have all the fun you want making guesses. We don"t do that."
Laura was undeterred by his perch at the higher moral ground. "Bob had to get rid of Thomasina. Ivanah was starting to get involved in his garment business, and they were bound to meet. There"s more gossip than a soap opera. The secret would die, and what would happen? A divorce? It would cost him a fortune. That woman isn"t stupid; she"d rake him for everything he has. And the fact that you"re looking at me like that means I hit on something, doesn"t it? I mean, just because I haven"t heard you brought him in for questioning doesn"t mean you haven"t. And whatever he said, you believed him, because he has the money to cover his tracks. And there"s Ruby, who has, maybe, a pot to p.i.s.s in."
"I know you don"t get that these accusations are serious. You think you"re just talking. And you got this whole problem with not having a filter."
"Just tell me you spoke to Bob Schmiller. He could have planted poison on Thomasina and left on some business trip and waited it out. The question is, when did he plan that trip? Before or after she threatened to tell his wife about them?"
"Isn"t he your backer?"
"So?"
"Maybe you should stop talking about him like that." He slid the Pandora book back into the envelope and stood. "You should go before you say something really stupid."
He unceremoniously walked her to the lobby and left her with Uncle Graham like a father giving away the bride. Then he walked away as though he had more important things to do.
"They"re releasing her in an hour, maybe two," Uncle Graham said, tapping on his BlackBerry. "You can wait if you want."
"Have they questioned Bob Schmiller?"
He looked at her suspiciously. "Why do you ask?"
"Because he was having an affair with her, one. And two, he could have done it."
He put his phone in his pocket. "Is this what you did earlier this year? Grasp at straws?"
"As a matter of fact, yes."
"Thomasina was not having an affair with Bob Schmiller, I promise you."
"You"re hiding something from me."
"When Ruby comes out, you can ask her about it. But for now, leave it alone."
"I can"t."
"Yes, you can, and you will. I"ll wait here for Ruby and make sure she gets home. Why don"t you get some rest?"
"I"m not tired."
He put his hands on her shoulders. "Do you trust me?"
"Yes."
"Then let me get you a cab."
She let him because he was her uncle, but she didn"t go home.
CHAPTER 12.
She held onto a sliver of spite and used it to get her uptown, that and the cab, which had a Jeremy St. James ad on top. Saint JJ. Coming in Spring. As much as her heart tried to hold onto the rage that pushed her to the Schmillers" house, her body kept remembering Jeremy.
Central Park West had never had a renaissance like other neighborhoods. There had been no metamorphosis from dangerous to dumpy to hip to satisfactory to desirable to inaccessible. It had always been a fortress for money, even if the walls around it were in the imaginations of the citizens of the rest of the city. There had always been a doorman, an awning with bra.s.s stands, and a no-parking zone right in front because the residents could not be inconvenienced by a parked car outside their building.
Naturally, the Schmillers lived in the shiniest building with the gargoyles and stone bal.u.s.trades on the top two floors overlooking Central Park and 73rd Street. She wondered about Bob"s part in choosing the condo. He didn"t seem like a polished, shiny guy. He seemed like an ex-football player with the talent for turning lemon-drop companies into lemonade-flavored cash. If she"d been his real estate agent, she would have pegged him as more of an Upper East Side kind of guy.
Laura had a million reasons to be there, yet she still needed to come up with an excuse to show up after sunset. And she needed flowers. She took a detour to a Korean market and bought the loudest, gaudiest bunch she could lay hands on.
"Hi," she said to the doorman, whose nameplate advertised his name as Harvold. "My name is Laura Carnegie. I"m here for the Schmillers."
"Are they expecting you, Ms. Carnegie?"
"Nope."
"Lovely flowers." He picked up the handle of a circa-1970s wall phone. He said her name and Ivanah"s without judgment, hung up, and pointed her to the elevator. "Press the b.u.t.ton marked "P.""
She did, and the bra.s.s doors slid shut with a rickety creak. They probably paid extra for that little sound of authenticity, like the wood paneling inside, and the wool carpet, and the tungsten light. The elevator coasted, then halted, opening onto a small hallway with one door. Their apartment took up the entire floor. Nice. She knocked.
A short man in a grey wool suit with a blue tie and wireframe gla.s.ses answered. He held a leather folder in his hand and stopped short when he saw her. "Are you the lady Harvold called up about?"
"Yes. I"m Laura Carnegie?" d.a.m.n that little question mark lilt.
"One of the Sartorial sisters, I presume?"
"Wow, that is such a better name than what we came up with."
"Not a stretch, actually. She"s up in the garden. Would you like to follow me?"
He led her through the biggest apartment she"d ever seen. Quite possibly, it was bigger than Gracie Pomerantz"s house, or the same, but more horizontal, and either tasteless or suffering from an overabundance of taste. The crushed velvet couch was as deep a pink as ripe strawberries and the pattern was perfectly not too big or small, with a matching loveseat, and both had black trim that Laura realized was leather. Everything had chrome or Plexigla.s.s, and every room they pa.s.sed had some sort of animal skin.
"I"m sorry," Laura said. "I didn"t get your name?"
He turned around with his hand out. "So sorry. I"m Buck Stern."
She tried not to laugh. Buck Stern was a good name for a deep-voiced radio broadcaster or a soap opera star. Not this pipsqueak.