Carol O’Connell - Killing Critics

Charles danced one dance with her and then lost her to another partner and another. The dancing men came in legion. The ball gown lived its own life, capturing the lights and threading them into the fabric. Twirling amid the green satin fireworks, Mallory seemed not to touch the ground at all.

J. L. Quinn captured her for a waltz. They made a striking partnership, opposites of dark hair and light, turning, twirling. The other dancers slowed to watch the pair, and some of them altogether stopped. The fascination for beauty overcame envy in the pinch-faced women with too little flesh, and the men with red-veined noses and too much flesh, socialites who had no breasts, and the gangly boys who had no beards.

Charles stood alone, not dancing and not wanting to watch anymore.

Quinn held her out to admire her, and then pulled her close again, dancing her toward the center of the room. “My God, it must have been sheer hell growing up with a face like yours.”

“I’ll tell you just one more time,” said Mallory. “Dance me over to Gregor Gilette and change partners with him. Do it now.”

“And give you up? I’d rather be killed outright.”

“I’m a cop, I can arrange that.”

Contrary to a direct order, Quinn was not leading her in the direction of Gregor Gilette, but quite deliberately leading her away. She regretted leaving her gun at home.

“There’s really no need to disturb Gregor. I can tell you anything you need to know,” said Quinn.

He probably could, but would he? She didn’t think so, not without a weapon to his head, and perhaps not even then. “Did your brother-in-law have any enemies twelve years ago?”

“Of course he did. He’s a profoundly talented architect. You can find a list of his enemies in any copy of Architectural Digest .”

“What about the art community?”

“He and Sabra had a few common enemies. I suppose Emma Sue Hollaran would be at the top of that list. The woman scorned-you know that song.”

“She was involved with Gregor Gilette?”

“Only in her dreams.”

“So she was jealous of Sabra.”

“Yes. The animosity was rather overt. Hollaran used to be an art critic for an upscale newspaper that’s since gone under. The editor thought her barnyard critiques would make a nice contrast to the good writing in the other columns. She tried to destroy Sabra in the column. But Sabra’s work was critic-proof. Now Hollaran is on the Public Works Committee and perfectly positioned to go after Gregor in a more direct fashion.”

Mallory caught sight of Gregor Gilette dancing closer. “Did you ever talk to Gilette about my interview? Did you even ask him if he’d cooperate off the record?”

“He can’t go into that horror again. I want you to stay away from him.”

“Is that his decision, or yours?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“You didn’t talk to him, did you? I thought you wanted to help me.”

“I do, Mallory. But there’s nothing Gregor can tell you.”

“You stopped the police from interviewing the family twelve years ago. You’re not going to do it again.”

“Oh, but I will. He’s been through quite enough. Now that’s the end of it.”

Quinn’s elderly mother waltzed by in the arms of a young man. The old woman was a graceful dancer, but Mallory noticed the wince when the young man pressed her hand for the turn. Mrs. Quinn was probably arthritic, though she hid the pain well.

So, the old lady was fragile. Good.

“You know, Quinn, I don’t think anyone ever got around to interviewing your mother, either. She looks like she’s pushing eighty.”

Quinn held her away at arm’s length as though she had just bitten him, and rather viciously. “There was never any reason for the police to talk to my mother. No one even suggested it.”

“I can question Gregor Gilette. Or I can go after your dear old mother. Choose one .”

And now they had come to a standstill in the center of the room, as all the dancers swirled around them.

“You know I could-”

“Have me fired? And I suppose you thought Markowitz was afraid of losing his job? He wasn’t! Markowitz let you get away with a lot because he figured he could use you. You were his tour guide through the art community. But I don’t think you were as useful as you could’ve been. I think you held out on my father, and I think you’re holding out on me.”

“You can’t possibly believe-”

“It’s a given. Everybody does it. Who wants to strip naked for a homicide investigation? If you want to go after my badge, go for it. But if you get it, I’ll have to get even with you, won’t I? I’m good at revenge. I’ll turn your life inside out, and I know how to do that. I’ll see you in tabloid hell. You only think you know what naked is. And you don’t want to think about what I could do to an old woman like your mother. I could do her with my eyes shut. Now change partners with Gilette.”

Emma Sue Hollaran began the tortuous journey across the ballroom floor. She was moving slowly, smiling despite the pain and nausea. Her swollen, bruised legs were encased in the tightest long-line girdle made. Every step was agony in this grotesque parody of the little mermaid of fairy tale, whose every step on human feet was the thrust of knives through her soles. Emma Sue was in constant pain now, but she had become accustomed to it over the years of surgeries.

Resplendent in her designer gown of iridescent colors, she was closing the distance on Gregor Gilette. He was stirring every part of her mind and the nether regions of her body where pain could not obliterate simple longing, ungodly desire that never ended. Once she had sent him love letters every day. He had never answered one of them. It was Sabra who eventually responded, if one could call it that.

Ah, but Sabra was gone, and Gregor was back from his long exile in Europe.

Emma Sue Hollaran banished Sabra from her thoughts and all the way to hell where she belonged, for Gregor Gilette was turning around now. Any moment he would see her in her finest hour, her new-formed body, her much worked-over face.

She was closer to him, nearly there, almost within touching distance. And now she was staring into his remarkable eyes, which penetrated her facades and knew her secrets; they probed the places of heat and sex, all the soft places. She felt herself being drawn into him as if she had no more substance than light. For this one stunning moment, she was young again, with all her possibilities intact.

Her hand fluttered up to her chest to quell the havoc there of blood rushing unchecked through her veins, heart pumping faster, chasing blood with blood, filling her with warmth and flooding her face with a vivid redness. Every step toward him was a knife wound, but she would have endured much more for this moment of triumph. She had waited so long.

And now.

His eyebrows shot up with recognition-followed closely by the revulsion in his eyes.

He turned away from her as introductions were being made to a young woman in a green satin gown. And now, Gregor and this woman were revolving, spinning away from her, locked in one another’s arms, moving across the floor with grace and speed.

He was out of her reach.

She turned away from the dancing pair and, trembling, she walked aimlessly through that room, awash in physical pain and the worse agony of humiliation. Finally, she summoned a cab to take her home to a bed that was too wide.

At fifty-eight, Gregor Gilette was far from old. His white hair was incongruous with the bull’s chest and the limber, supple motions of the body. His golden-brown eyes were remarkably young, and the craggy contours of his face also insisted on youth and strength. It was a face where paradox lived, beautiful and yet strikingly grotesque, animal sensuality and keen intelligence.