MARY CLARK - Every Breath You Take

“What’s up?”

“I just got back from PUNCH, where I spoke to Ivan in person. Consider him properly chastised. He won’t be talking about the show to his clients, or anyone else for that matter.”

“Thanks. Did he say anything more about who Penny’s mystery boyfriend might have been?”

He shook his head. “He said he never noticed any kind of flirtation between Penny and either Carter or Peter. His initial reaction was to remind me that Tiffany came across like a crackpot with a wild imagination.”

“She was eccentric,” Laurie said, “but she had a distinct memory of Penny saying something about her maybe being involved with someone in the family. I see no reason for Tiffany to lie about that.”

“Fair enough. I did press Ivan on it, and he certainly conceded the possibility. He said Carter was the more likely of the two, since he was always dating around. He said he’d never heard a word about Peter being unfaithful to Anna, but he also said it wouldn’t surprise him if Peter got tired of being—quote—‘bossed around by Queen Anna.’ ”

“Another thought dawned on me after you left,” Laurie said. “What if Tiffany was talking about Ivan?”

“That doesn’t make any sense. The entire reason Ivan named her as a suspect was because Penny didn’t take his side after Virginia was killed.”

“Maybe she didn’t take his side because she didn’t want the family to know she was seeing Ivan behind her boss’s back.” Laurie was thinking out loud now, the way she used to with Alex. “Or she could have suspected Ivan after the fact and tried to keep her distance.”

“Then why did Ivan point us toward Penny?”

When she had these brainstorming sessions with Alex, each of them would build on the other’s observations, getting closer and closer to the truth. But, with Ryan, every statement felt like an argument, as if his immediate instinct was to shut down her ideas.

“He didn’t point us to Penny,” Laurie said. “Not really. He gave her to us as an alternative suspect, but didn’t tell us where to find her.”

“Speaking of which, I heard you call whoever was on the phone by the name Penny. You found her?”

“She contacted me, actually. She saw the write-up in Page Six.”

“So Ivan helped us after all.”

“Accidentally, yes.”

“You’re meeting her tomorrow at one-thirty?”

Laurie made a mental note to start closing her door during phone calls. “Yes, at her apartment down in Tribeca.”

“Great. I’m free. I’ll swing by here at one. We can take my car.”

35

That afternoon, Laurie sat alone at her conference table, studying the binder she had received from Detective Johnny Hon. Specifically, she was looking at photographs taken of the exhibit space that night, after Virginia Wakeling’s body had been discovered in the snow behind the museum. Technically, the costume exhibit being celebrated at that night’s gala wasn’t an actual crime scene. Whatever caused Virginia to fall to her death had happened on the museum’s roof.

But by all accounts, an alarm had gone off inside the “Fashion of First Ladies” exhibit just minutes before Virginia was found. Was it a coincidence? Possibly. But it was also possible that someone had triggered the alarm to divert Security to one area of the museum while Virginia’s killer—or killers—followed her upstairs.

What was bothering Laurie was the location of the alarm that was triggered. According to the investigation that night, the museum’s Security Department told police that the alarm was set off in “Gallery C” of the exhibit. Looking at photographs, Laurie saw that Gallery C was a large, open room with two rows of mannequins positioned on either side, with a wide aisle in between for visitors to roam. The alarm that was triggered was set off when someone—or something—crossed a light beam protecting the display on the east side of the room.

Without seeing the actual physical space, Laurie was having a hard time visualizing the layout of the exhibit. However, according to its preface, the official book attempted to capture the exhibit as its curator intended, presenting the exhibit’s contents in the same order they would have been encountered if the reader had walked through the galleries in person. Based on what Laurie inferred from the book, she believed that Gallery C was located roughly in the center of the exhibit. If she was correct, that would mean that it was not immediately adjacent to either the entrance to or exit from the exhibit.

If you were trying to set off an alarm as a diversion, Laurie wondered, would you wander all the way to the middle of the gallery space? The decision struck her as strange.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a light tap against her open door. She looked up to see Grace.

“Hey there,” Laurie said.

“Do you have a second to talk?” Grace asked.

“Of course. Come on in.”

36

Grace, always so confident, appeared tentative as she walked over to her usual spot on the white leather sofa. She carried a spiral notebook in one hand, a pen in the other. Laurie joined her by the windows, sitting in the adjacent chair and looking to Grace expectantly. Grace cleared her throat, as if steeling her nerves.

Laurie smiled, hoping to calm her. “I’ve actually been meaning to speak to you, Grace. I think I know what this might be about.”

“You do?”

She nodded. “I just hope I’m not too late. You aren’t giving me your notice, are you?”

Grace’s eyes widened. “Of course not. Are you kidding? I love my job here.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” Laurie said, letting out a sigh of relief.

“How could you even think I’d leave?”

Laurie shook her head. “You just seemed so serious when you walked in. And I’ve noticed recently that you’ve been dressing differently—more staid and reserved. I was only half-joking when I said I was worried you might be going out on job interviews.”

“No, the thought never even crossed my mind.”

“I can’t tell you how happy I am to hear that. I really don’t know what I’d do without you, Grace. So what did you want to talk to me about?”

“Remember how yesterday morning, Jerry said he wished we had access to some of the dresses from the first ladies exhibit at the museum?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I couldn’t stop thinking about how excited he was about the idea, so I started looking up information about where the dresses came from.”

“According to the head of security at the Metropolitan Museum, the dresses weren’t a part of their permanent collection. Most came from presidential libraries and other museums.”

“I know, but that’s not all of them. A few came from private collectors, so I started researching what I could find out about those people. One of them is a guy named Gerard Bennington.”

The name did not ring a bell to Laurie. “And who is Gerard Bennington?”

“Quite the character from what I can tell. He’s a renowned fashion photographer. He is a regular in the front row at Fashion Week and is friends with all the snazzy tastemakers. He also fancies himself a talented vocalist. He even auditioned two years ago for Find a Star .”

Find a Star was a talent show produced by Fisher Blake Studios. After launching the careers of three Grammy Award–winning pop artists, the show’s popularity had waned in the last few years. Laurie’s understanding from Blake was that the show was still a money-earner for the studio because of all of the product placements.

“I wonder if he still owns the dresses.”

“That’s why I wanted to talk to you. I hope you don’t mind, but I took the initiative. I got his number from one of the production assistants on Find a Star and called him. He has two dresses that he lent to the museum for the exhibit—one was Jacqueline Kennedy’s; the other belonged to Betty Ford.”