(31/40) Murder, She Wrote: Madison Avenue Shoot Page 15

  It was Anne Tripper’s ring.

  How did it get in the carpenter’s room?

  I didn’t know, but now that Frank was safe at home again, I was determined to find out.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Grady, of course, was thrilled at the news that Frank was safe and sound. His news was good, too. He’d engaged a local lawyer with whose help he had convinced the police that he wasn’t a flight risk. Grady had promised that he wouldn’t leave the country, and the police had agreed to release him without bail the following day.

  “I don’t even want to leave the apartment,” he told us. “And I’m not sure if I’m kidding.”

  “What time can we pick you up?” Donna asked. She was on the phone in the bedroom and I listened on the extension in the kitchen.

  “I’ll have to wait for Detective Chesny to get here, and then fill out some paperwork. If you get here by ten or eleven, that should be fine. Chesny wants to talk to Frank. It’s okay with me if it’s okay with you.”

  “What do you think, Aunt Jessica?” Donna asked.

  “As long as he agrees to have you sitting with him during the interview.”

  “I can’t wait for you to be home,” Donna said, brushing away a tear, “to have the family together again. We’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Earlier Donna had called Mary from the cab on the ride home from the lot where the police had rescued Frank from the truck. She’d left the number for Detective Chesny on her bedroom night table, so that call had to wait. Once back in the apartment—and after thankfully being allowed to speak with Grady to tell him the news of Frank’s rescue—we fielded the callbacks from the messages we’d left earlier. Ricky Pepper was extremely apologetic. He thought Frank had already gone back inside the building when he’d locked up the truck.

  “Please tell the little guy I’m really sorry this happened. He was a great helper. I’m glad he’s safe at home.”

  We called Jennifer, who was thrilled that Frank was found, and we told the trucking company that the crisis was over.

  We didn’t explain to Frank the real reason why Grady wasn’t there—we simply said his father had some business to attend to.

  Frank was so exhausted he didn’t question our explanation. Donna made him his favorite dish for dinner, macaroni and cheese. Halfway through the meal, Frank nodded off at the table. We got him into pajamas, and after a quick brush of the teeth, he fell into bed, asleep before we pulled the covers over him.

  After breakfast the next morning, we told Frank about Betsy.

  “Do you think God punished her for being mean to me?” Frank asked.

  He was sitting on the sofa, his chin on his chest, legs dangling, feet several inches off the floor. Donna perched next to him, her back very straight. I sat across from them in an armchair.

  “No. I’m sure not,” I said. “Everyone has good days and bad days. If God punished all the people who behaved badly, there wouldn’t be a lot of people left in the world, would there?”

  “I guess not.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that, Frank,” I added. “You were not in any way responsible for Betsy’s death. I hope you believe me.”

  Frank’s nod was not convincing. He fiddled with the white iPod wire that was hanging from his pants pocket.

  Donna put her arm around him. He rested his head on her shoulder, his fingers still busy with the wire. “Even if you were very angry at her for yelling at you,” she said, “even if you wished at that moment that she would just drop dead—you know what?—you couldn’t make that happen.” She gave him a squeeze. “Wishes don’t kill. We don’t have that power. And it’s a good thing, too. What would’ve happened to me when I grounded you for getting into that fight at school? You were very angry with me then, weren’t you?”

  Frank smiled, but it faded quickly.

  “She wasn’t very nice,” he said, kicking one sneaker against the front of the sofa, “but I’m sorry she died.”

  Donna put her hand on his leg. “We are, too, sweetheart.”

  Frank looked up at her. “Are we going to her funeral?”

  “No, dear. She wasn’t a friend of ours, and we don’t know her family.”

  “Since we were all in the building where Betsy died,” I said, “the police want to ask us a few questions.”

  Frank sat up straight. “Mom wasn’t there.”

  “That’s true,” Donna said. “But I’d like to come along to be with you. Is that all right?”

  “Well . . . okay. Are those police guys from last night going to be there? They were cool. Will it be like it is on television? Are they going to tape me?”

  “I don’t think so, Frank,” I said, “but you can tell us afterward what you thought of it.”

  “Awesome! I’m going to tell Michele.” He hopped off the sofa.

  Donna and I exchanged looks. Frank’s upset at Betsy’s demise had been short-lived, but I didn’t fool myself that we’d heard the last of it. Children often take a while to process new information. We’d keep an eye on him and raise the topic again if he seemed affected by it.

  “Do you recognize this object?”

  Frank nodded.

  “Tell the gentleman what it is, Frank,” Donna said.

  “It’s a ring.”

  “Is it yours?”

  Frank swallowed. “I . . . I found it on the floor in the carpentry room.”

  “Did you tell anyone you’d found it?”

  Frank hesitated, a worried look on his face. Then his eyes brightened. “I told my mom and Aunt Jessica.”

  “What time was it when you found this ring on the floor of the carpentry room?”

  Frank shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “No idea?”

  Frank looked to his father.

  “He doesn’t wear a watch, Detective Chesny,” Grady said.

  The interview room was much nicer than ones I’d seen before where there were bare walls and few pieces of furniture, usually nothing more than a desk and a chair, and sometimes a computer. This room was painted a soft blue, and while there were no pictures on the walls, it was furnished like an executive office with comfortable seating, a desk, and a bookcase, the shelves of which held a few law-enforcement magazines. Grady and Donna occupied a sofa with Frank between them. Detective Chesny sat in one of the two chairs opposite them. I sat in the other. Behind him, on the desk, he had an array of items to which he could turn—a lined legal pad, pens, a tape recorder to back up the digital camera affixed to the wall, a paper evidence bag, and Frank’s earphones. When we arrived, Donna had given Chesny the ring and explained that Frank had found it, but the detective asked us not to talk about the details until he had a DVD recorder running. He had been very careful in questioning Frank, but it was clear he wasn’t sure how to handle a nine-year-old. Grady helped out.

  “Frank, did you find the ring after we left the filming of Aunt Jessica’s commercial, or before?”

  “After.”

  Grady looked at the detective. “Aunt Jessica’s filming was over around six,” he said, “so Frank must have found it after that.” He addressed Frank again. “Please tell Detective Chesny what the carpentry room looked like when you found the ring.”

  “Um, they were packing stuff up.”

  “Who was, Frank?”

  “The grips. Ricky and Bob. Ricky was mad that someone had moved his stuff. He said it wasn’t fair for them to have to do all the loading, but Bob said there was more shooting tomorrow—um, today—so they could leave a lot of it in the room.”

  “And where was the ring?”

  “On the floor next to the wall.”

  “And what did you do when you found it?”

  Frank squirmed in his chair. “I was going to show it to Ricky, but he was pulling stuff out of the room to take to the truck and he dropped a clamp, one of those orange things. He asked me if I could get it and I did. I just put the ring in my pocket, and then, um, I guess—” He mumbled something.

&n
bsp; “What was that, son?”

  “I guess I forgot about it,” he said softly, and hung his head.

  “That’s okay, sport. Detective Chesny will find out whose it is and make sure they get it back.”

  “I know who it belongs to,” I said.

  Chesny frowned at me. “You do?”

  “Yes. It’s Anne Tripper’s ring. She was wearing it at the meeting we had at the advertising agency last week. I didn’t see her wearing it yesterday, but it’s definitely her ring.”

  Chesny wrote something on a piece of paper and slipped the ring into a plastic bag. He looked at Frank. “Did you see Miss Archibald or anyone other than Ricky and”—he consulted his notes—“and Bob in the carpentry room?”

  Frank shook his head.

  “You have to answer, dear,” Donna told him. “The tape recorder can’t hear when you shake you head.”

  Frank nodded at his mother. “Um . . . I mean, okay. I mean, what was the question?”

  Chesny repeated it.

  “Uh-uh. We were the only ones there. We took some stuff from the room next door and then a few things from the carpentry room. And then . . .”

  “And then, what?” Chesny asked.

  “And then I had to go to the bathroom.”

  Chesny sighed.

  “Frank, did you notice anything unusual in the carpentry room when you were there?” I asked. “Something that was different from the way it was earlier in the day?”

  “You mean other than all the stuff that was in it that wasn’t there in the morning?”

  “Yes. Or anything else you may have noticed. Perhaps you remember something Ricky or Bob said.”

  “Well, when I got back to the room from the bathroom, I heard them arguing. Ricky was mad that no one had cleaned it up.”

  “What was supposed to be cleaned?” I asked.

  “The floor. Ricky said he always swept it clean before they packed up for the day. But whoever put the stuff away did a messy job. He was afraid he’d get blamed.”

  “Certainly someone to talk with,” I suggested to Chesny.

  “I have my whole team out questioning the crew,” he replied, but he wrote Ricky’s name on his pad. “Anyone they haven’t spoken to yet, they can reach tomorrow. I’m releasing the scene so the production company can finish the shoot.”

  “You are?”

  “We know who we have to talk to. It’ll be easier having them all in one place.”

  “Who do they have left to shoot?” Grady asked me.

  “Lance Sevenson, I imagine. He was in the middle of his shoot when we found Betsy. And Cookie never finished doing her commercial.” I found it strange that the campaign would continue in the wake of a murder, but when money is at stake, practicality often prevails.

  Chesny looked at Frank. “Anything else you can tell me, young man?”

  Frank glanced at Grady before shaking his head. “No, sir.”

  “If you remember anything after you leave here, I want your word that you will report it to me.” He handed Frank his business card, and gave another one to Grady.

  Frank studied the card carefully before putting it in his pants pocket. “I will,” he said solemnly.

  Chesny pushed the button to turn off the tape recorder and stood, indicating the questioning of Frank was concluded. “I let them reopen on the condition that they have to have everyone who was there yesterday come back, even if they’re not assigned work. And I’ll want a list of whoever doesn’t show.”

  “Frank and I were there,” Grady said to Detective Chesny, “but I’d rather we didn’t bring him back, if it’s okay with you. He’s missed two days of school already and I’d like his life to get back to normal.”

  “It’s okay, Dad. I don’t mind.”

  Grady put his hand on Frank’s shoulder. “I do, son.”

  “We don’t need him there,” Chesny said, “but I reserve the right to question him again if I need to, and you as well.”

  Grady agreed.

  As Detective Chesny escorted us out, Frank looked back longingly at the desk. “What about my earphones?” he asked.

  “We’re going to hang on to them a little longer,” the detective replied. “But if you continue to cooperate with us, you’ll get them back eventually.”

  “Awesome!” Frank said.

  And on that note, we went home.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Grady’s sigh of relief was audible when he entered the apartment. He and Donna looked exhausted, but happy. Frank couldn’t wait to tell Michele how he’d been questioned by the police, and to show him Detective Chesny’s business card. I decided to give them some space to process everything that had taken place, and to enjoy being back together as a family.

  “Where are you going?” Grady asked as I prepared to leave their apartment.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I said, not being entirely truthful. “I thought I’d enjoy a stroll around the city, maybe do a little shopping. “Besides, you three have some catching up to do.”

  “Will you be back for dinner?” Donna asked.

  “You go ahead without me,” I said. “I may be a little late.”

  “We’ll wait till you get home,” Donna said. “You’re an important member of this family and it will be wonderful for us to be together after all the upset.”

  I left the apartment and stood on the sidewalk. It was a little after one.

  I’d had a message on my cell from Cookie the night before, telling me she’d arranged for my belongings to be brought to Donna and Grady’s apartment from the Waldorf. “Jimbo and I are just devastated,” she’d said. “Ah’m prayin’ that that precious little boy is found safe and sound. No problem gettin’ your clothing over to the apartment, and if there’s anything else I can do for you, you just holler, heah? They’re planning to start shooting the commercials again day after tomorrow. I know your spot is done—in the can, as I think they say—but Ah’m hoping you’ll drop by. Hate to go back home without seeing you again.”

  That’s funny, I thought. She never mentioned Betsy. Perhaps she didn’t want to add to my upset about Frank.

  I walked to the corner, hailed a cab, and gave the driver the address for Mindbenders. That represented my little white lie to Grady and Donna. The last thing I wanted to do was to go shopping. Now that Frank had been found, I felt compelled to make some rhyme or reason out of Betsy Archibald’s murder. I could hear Seth Hazlitt’s voice in my head as we drove through the city’s clogged streets: Here you go again, Jessica, pokin’ your nose into where it doesn’t belong. He’d be right, of course. I’d given up years ago trying to rationalize my innate need to get to the bottom of things, especially when it involved a murder, to say nothing of my having been at the scene of one. It’s in the genes, I suppose, embedded in my DNA.

  Mindbenders, the agency at which Betsy had worked as creative director, was housed in a sleek but small building on Hudson Street in Greenwich Village. I wondered whether her death would have caused the agency to close, but that wasn’t the case. It was open for business.

  I’d become expert at coming up with reasons for, as Seth usually put it, my “snooping.” In this case, I convinced myself that I was simply going there to give Kevin Prendergast my condolences. But when I asked for him at the reception desk in the building’s lobby, I was told that he was not expected in that afternoon. It was not surprising. Perhaps he knew Betsy’s family in Canada—Matt Miller had said she was from Toronto—and had gone to offer his sympathies, or to help arrange for her funeral, which was undoubtedly premature. The medical examiner’s office would not have released her body yet, not in an ongoing murder investigation.

  I thought about leaving, but when the receptionist turned away to pick up the phone, I took advantage of her distraction to join a group of people waiting for the elevator. I rode it to the third floor and looked out over the white pods, their black-clad office bees pecking away at their black laptops. I walked down the side of the pods, observing their occup
ants. No one seemed upset, nor did anyone respond to my presence. They were all working with great concentration. Halfway to the conference room where last week’s meeting had been held, I spotted what might have been the only sign of mourning. Someone had left a black rose on one of the tables between a sofa and a chair.

  I picked up the flower and twirled its stem between my thumb and index finger.

  “That’s mine!” someone exclaimed.

  I looked up. It was the young man whose work Betsy had praised the last time I was there.

  “Kip, isn’t it?” I said.

  “Yes,” he said. “I left that rose for Betsy. No one here wants to make a fuss. They all want to go on with business as usual. It’s disgusting. They’re afraid if they acknowledge that she isn’t here any longer, clients will start looking for a new agency.”

  I sat on the black felt sofa and returned the rose to where Kip had left it. “Business can be very cold,” I said. “I barely knew Betsy, but I’m so sorry that she died. You must feel a terrible sense of loss.”

  “Yeah, I really do. Not that it means anything to them.” He glanced over his shoulder at the other people hard at work.

  “Sometimes people have difficulty expressing what they feel,” I said. “And I imagine Betsy could be stern at times. But you seem to have had a good relationship with her. I wish I’d known her better. Can you tell me a little about her?”

  He perched gingerly on the canvas chair. “Sure,” he said, swallowing, his Adam’s apple prominent in his thin neck. “She wasn’t as tough as everyone says she was. She was pretty nice to me.”

  “No one is ever as bad as people make them out to be,” I said. “How long have you worked at Mindbenders?”

  “About a year.”

  “Do you know everyone here?” I indicated the expansive space with my hand.

  “It’s hard to know everyone. Some people only come in every once in a while. The teams, the ones you work with, those are the people you get to know, but everyone else . . .” He hesitated, then finished, “It’s a fairly big agency.”