Laura Lippman - Another Thing to Fall

“What did they say at his job?” Tess asked, knowing that Tull would have checked with the suspect’s co-workers as well.

“All they know is that his mom called in early Wednesday, said he was sick, too sick to even talk on the phone, expected to be out all week. Look, I’ve got a patrol on his house. He’s going to try and come back, maybe as early as tonight. He’s not bright. Even his own mother isn’t putting him forward for genius status. He’s probably scared and freaked out, trying to figure out if there’s anywhere he can go on the lam. But he doesn’t have the resources.”

Tess whisked a mozzarella stick through the marinara sauce. She had always liked this particular brand of bar food, but her fondness for it had soared when it was demonized by the Center for Nutrition and Public Policy as one of the worst possible foods to eat. She kept a mental list of such foods – pad thai, kung pao chicken, fettuccine Alfredo – and tried to eat them as frequently as possible.

“I know the rule of thumb is that the obvious suspect is the obvious suspect,” Tess said. “My only concern is if there’s any connection between him and the problems that have been dogging this production. Could this guy be our arsonist, for example?”

“If the problems stop now, you’ll know.”

“Yes, or maybe someone else will have figured that out as well, and will use this as an opportunity.” She was thinking of Selene. If she had been creating the problems on set, what would she do now? What if she had hired Greer’s ex-boyfriend to be her private little troublemaker, and he had been sidetracked by whatever had happened between him and Greer? Selene’s trip to New York could have been an elaborate alibi. Only – did it even count as an alibi? She could have left the restaurant anytime after Tess passed out. She was spotted at Penn Station at noon, but it had been a very conspicuous sighting, the kind of thing tailor-made for cell phone video cameras and TMZ.com. The gossip item put her at the SoHo Grand about 11 A.M. That was at least eleven hours – more than enough time to return to Baltimore, and go back to New York, with six hours in between. Do it in a private car without an E-ZPass, pay cash for whatever gas you need, avoid red-light cameras at intersections, and it was possible to make the trip without leaving a single electronic footprint.

It was all very interesting, but Tess was working for Flip, and the last thing Flip wanted was for his star to be connected to Greer’s death. Tess was supposed to be using her relationship with Tull to ensure that the production was shielded, as much as possible, from scandal. And based on what Tull was saying, she should be happy on that score. Yet she felt a mild, nagging discontent. Maybe it was nothing more than the cheese inside its deep-fried coat, growing rubbery and cold.

Back in Selene’s condo, Whitney poured Tess a glass of port.

“Roomies again,” she said, toasting her. “After all these years. But is this the future we envisioned for ourselves, babysitting a spoiled twenty-year-old?”

“I can hear you.” Selene’s voice came from the living room, where she was watching a huge plasma television with the sound turned off. Selene used the television the way a baby interacted with the mobiles hung over a crib, lying back and letting the images wash over her, although without any evidence of intellectual stimulation.

“I wanted you to,” Whitney assured her. “I want you to hear every syllable that emanates from my mouth. I’m going to school you, girl.”

Tess snorted port. Whitney attempting the outmoded slang of school was too funny. She suspected Whitney knew as much.

“So, who did we expect to be, all those years ago? How are we different?” Whitney asked. Tess didn’t jump in. She knew Whitney had her own set of answers and would want to go first. “We’ve traded Coors for Taylor Fladgate. And instead of Kent House, our dorm, we’re in a Baltimore high-rise that neither of us can afford.”

Tess was sure that her friend could afford such an apartment, but she had the WASP habit of cheapness when it came to big-ticket items. Whitney would probably live and die in the guesthouse at her parents’ mildly run-down valley home because it was free.

“We were both going to be journalists,” Whitney continued. “You, a crusading investigator, part Nellie Bly, part Woodstein. Me, a globe-trotting foreign correspondent. Now you’re the owner of your own business, and I run the family foundation. Upgrade?”

“Downgrade, I would think,” Selene snarked.

“My uncle Toddy married an actress,” Whitney said, addressing Tess in a stage whisper. “He was disinherited.”

Selene got up and flounced into her room, slamming the door behind her.

“She hates me,” Whitney said cheerfully.

“Good, then you’re doing your job. How was the day on set?”

“ Tedious . Why do people think it’s glamorous, spending hours in a big drafty barn of a place, watching people say and do the same things over and over again?”

“Did they give you one of those little headset thingies that allows you to listen to the scene?”

“Yes, but I turned the sound off after the third take. I couldn’t take listening to that dialogue. I felt like my IQ was dropping by the minute.”

“And the day was problem free?”

“For our purposes. The tiny woman, Lottie, said the energy was a little off, because people are upset, but it seemed to be going well. Johnny Tampa was pissed because someone left an unflattering photo of him in his trailer. What a fat load he is. Remember how-”

“No,” Tess said quickly, knowing where her friend was heading and prepared to disavow it, three times if necessary, like Peter denying Jesus before the cock crowed. She was never going to admit to her youthful yearnings toward Johnny Tampa.

“Oh you did too have a crush on him when you first got to school.” Whitney spoke with the smugness of a true friend. “What were you thinking? Even thin, he wasn’t that attractive.”

Tess looked out at the harbor, so beautiful at night. Her thoughts followed her eyes eastward, to the mouth of the bay and then across it, time-traveling to the pretty little college campus where two girls had met, two girls who were at once so much younger and older than the girl who had just closeted herself behind her bedroom door. “ We thought that we would never get old, much less fat. Well, fatter, in my case. We thought our metabolisms would never change. We thought we would get everything we wanted. We were, in short, twenty.”

Whitney laughed in rueful agreement. “What if someone had made you a bargain, all those years ago, offered you all this? Not just the apartment, but the life, too? The money, the beauty, the attention. Would you have wanted it under these conditions – life in a fishbowl, a job at which you have very little control?”

“Honestly? At twenty? I think I would have said yes. I think almost anyone would. At twenty. Not now.”

“Poor baby,” Whitney said, looking at the closed bedroom door, sotto voce for once. “She’s already beaten the million-to-one odds by becoming a successful actress. Now she has to face the ten million-to-one odds of becoming an actress who finds work past the age of thirty-five. Remember the silent stars whose careers ended when the talkies came along? For women, it hasn’t really changed.”

“Marie… Dressler, the one whose dog ate her,” Tess recalled.

“Wrong Marie,” Whitney said. “Marie Dressler was in Dinner at Eight . You’re thinking of Marie Prevost. Remember, Nick Lowe had a song about her. He rhymed winner with doggie’s dinner . And then there was Lupe Velez-”