Линвуд Баркли - Elevator Pitch

No cameras, Arla thought. No TV crews. No reporters hanging about. They were all still outside, beyond the police tape. Not even Glover or Valerie Langdon had witnessed Headley’s visit with the boy and his dad.

They’d hired her to analyze data. But that wasn’t going to stop Arla from suggesting that they find a way to highlight some other sides of Headley’s personality.

That was what her gut was telling her.

A silver-haired man in a black suit spotted Barbara Matheson entering the lobby of Clappison’s Funeral Services and approached noiselessly, as though floating on air.

“May I be of assistance?” he asked in a soft, unctuous manner.

“I’m looking for the Chatsworths,” she said. “Ken and Sandy. Parents of Paula.”

“Yes, of course,” he said solemnly. “A terrible, terrible thing. This way.”

Barbara realized she was speaking barely above a whisper, and this man’s reply was equally sedate, even though there was no one else around. There was something about entering a funeral parlor that made people act like they were in a library. Someday, she thought, she’d like to throw a party in a place like this. Take her best shot at waking the dead.

Barbara followed the funeral director through a set of doors and down a hallway to a small receiving room. Broadloomed, four big comfy chairs, velvet drapes at the window. Barbara thought that if it weren’t a room for grieving, it would be perfect for choosing which whore you wanted to spend the next hour with.

In one of the chairs was a woman Barbara assumed had to be Paula Chatsworth’s mother, and the man pacing the room with a phone to his ear must be her husband, Ken. Sandy Chatsworth had no phone in her hand, and seemed to be staring off into space. Dazed, numb with shock, Barbara guessed.

But she did look up when Barbara came into the room. Her eyes were pink and puffy.

“Ms. Chatsworth?” she said.

“Barbara?” Sandy said, suddenly focusing, extending her hands, which Barbara took in hers. Ken was still pacing the room. “Ken, it’s—”

He held up a finger. The introduction would have to wait.

“Hello?” he said into the phone. “Listen, I’ve been on hold for fifteen goddamn minutes. I want someone to tell me — hello? All I want is some answers about—”

He took the phone away from his ear, his mouth wide with astonishment. He looked ready to spout a series of obscenities, but then, mindful of where he was, changed his mind.

“I got cut off,” he said, looking at his wife. “After waiting that long, they hung up on me! The sons of — Jesus!”

“Keep your voice down,” Sandy said.

He shook his head, still not believing it. Finally, he looked blankly at Barbara, as if wondering who the hell she was.

Barbara reached out a hand. “Mr. Chatsworth. I’m Barbara.”

“Oh, right, sorry,” he said, hitting his forehead with the butt of his hand. “God, you got here fast.”

“You caught me at a good time,” she said. “How are you doing? A dumb question, I know, but—”

“They’re getting Paula ready to send home,” Sandy said. “We’re going to have a service in Montpelier on Friday. So many people back home want to pay their respects to Paula. Everyone is devastated.”

“Of course,” Barbara said.

“All her friends from school, at least those who haven’t moved away like Paula did, are coming. Flowers have been coming to the house. Thank goodness our neighbor’s been watching, taking them in. And one of her friends set up some kind of Facebook page, but I don’t know much about that.” Sandy’s voice trailed off, as though she realized that flowers and Facebook pages weren’t very important.

“How’d you get here?” Barbara asked Ken, since he’d been so worried about the logistics of coming to New York.

“Flew,” he said. “I don’t think... I don’t think I could have driven in this traffic.” He turned his head, as if looking through the walls to the street outside.

Barbara nodded. “Even those of us who live here can’t get used to it.” She paused. “Who were you trying to get on the phone?”

“Someone with the city.”

“Who? What department?”

“I’ve been getting bounced all around. I want to talk to whoever’s in charge of making sure the goddamn elevators in this city are safe. I want to know how this happened. I want to know who screwed up and got our daughter killed.”

“Sure,” Barbara said. “You want answers. I understand that.”

“No one’s telling us anything,” Sandy said.

“Sometimes,” Barbara said slowly, “and I certainly don’t want to be making apologies on behalf of the city, but things can get overlooked. I don’t mean with the elevators, but maybe that’s true. I mean the personal touch. People doing their jobs forget about how this is all actually affecting you. They forget there are folks like you who are really hurting and deserve to be updated on what’s going on. And every one thinks it’s someone else’s job to talk to family. But an accident like what happened with Paula, that’s the sort of thing that’s going to be fully investigated. At some point, someone will talk to you.”

“Oh, someone already came to talk to us,” Sandy said. “That’s why we called you.”

“Yeah,” Ken said.

“Who?” Barbara asked.

“Didn’t give us a name,” Ken said. “Sandy asked if he had a card or anything he could leave with us but he didn’t give us one. He just said he’d find a way to get in touch with us if and when he needed to.”

“He was,” Sandy said slowly, “kind of nice. I mean, he said all the right things, about expressing his condolences and all.”

“But he didn’t say who he was or who he represented?” Barbara asked. “Was he someone who works here, at the funeral home?”

Sandy shook her head. “He made it sound like he was with the city, you know, the city government. Whoever looks into these types of things.”

“So what did he say? What did he want? Did he find you here?”

Ken nodded. “He said he’d called around, found out where Paula had been taken after she... after she left the hospital.”

Sandy said, “He said he wanted us—”

“—to keep our mouths shut,” Ken said, cutting her off.

“What?”

“He didn’t say it like that,” Sandy said. “But that was the implication.”

“Tell me what he said,” Barbara said, feeling a tingling at the back of her neck. “Exactly. Or as best as you can remember.”

Sandy thought a moment. “He said he was very sorry for our loss. He said it was a very terrible thing that happened. He said all aspects of the incident were being looked at and—”

“Is that the word he used? ‘Incident’? As opposed to ‘accident’?”

She looked to her husband, who nodded. “Yes. He called it an incident. Anyway, he said they were looking into it, and asked for our patience, and said we weren’t to talk to anyone about it.”

Barbara blinked. “Why?”

“He didn’t mean, like, friends and family,” Ken said. “He meant, well, people like you.”

“He didn’t want you talking to the press? To the media?”

Ken nodded. “He said we needed to keep a lid on this while the cause was being determined. So, anyway, this was early this morning, and after he left, I started thinking, what the hell, this is America, last time I checked, right?”

“Pretty sure,” Barbara said.

“And if we want to talk about what happened to our daughter, and we ask for answers, that should be our right. But first I wanted to call around and see what they’d found out. Maybe find out which department that guy was from. And no one wants to talk to me. I keep getting passed from department to department.”