32
The morning after Laurie met with Tiffany Simon, she had the New York Post open on her conference table to the Page Six column, which, ironically, was now on page twelve of the paper.
At least it wasn’t Ryan who had leaked their current case to the Post. According to the write-up, Ivan was overheard talking about it during a training session.
Now, she and Ryan were in her office, trying to decide what to do about it.
“I honestly don’t see the problem,” Ryan said. He was actually smiling smugly, as if proud of the development. “It’s free publicity for the show. Ratings are the currency of our business.”
He was sounding more like Brett every day. Laurie wondered if he knew about the image that was making the email rounds throughout the studio’s staff. It was a picture of Brett holding the hand of a smaller version of himself, on which someone had pasted the image of Ryan’s face. The thought bubble above Brett’s head read, “I love my mini-me.” Laurie strongly suspected that Jerry was the culprit behind the Photoshop job, but she certainly wasn’t going to point an accusatory finger.
“We’re not the only team that can delve into this case, Ryan. Now that word’s out that we’re working on it, other media outlets could beat us to the punch. Ivan breached his participation agreement by telling a client about our project.”
“So what do you want to do about it now, Laurie? Pull the episode after all this work?” He gestured to the documents and photographs covering Laurie’s office. “Hold back Ivan’s participation fee? Trust me, he doesn’t need it. Look, I’ll talk to him about the article. He was chatting with a client. He didn’t mean for it to wind up in the press. I’ll tell him to be more discreet.”
She realized that, under the circumstances, there was nothing else to do about it. They had gone too far to pull the plug now. “Fine. When you talk to him, can you ask him if he knows anything about Penny Rawling dating someone in the family?” She brought him up to speed on her interview of Tiffany Simon, including Tiffany’s suspicions that Penny had a romantic interest in someone in the family. “She thought Penny had a secret boyfriend in the picture who might have been at the gala that night. If it was a member of Virginia Wakeling’s family, that might change everything.”
“It would have to be Carter, right?”
“Unless it was Anna’s husband, Peter. Marriage doesn’t stop some people.”
“Scandalous,” Ryan whispered conspiratorially. “I’ll ask Ivan what he knows.”
• • •
Two hours later, Jerry was giving Laurie a preview of a preliminary slide show he had put together for their episode. As he suggested, it was a contrast between glamorous photos of one of the most selective parties in the city and darker images that hinted at the violence that had unfolded on the roof above. A gurney covered by a sheet. Blood in the snow. Crime scene tape at the roof’s entrance.
“This is just a slide show. Once we jazz it up, it will be much more dynamic, like moving images.”
Laurie was flipping through the notebook that Detective Hon had compiled for her, making sure that they didn’t miss any critical information or images. “I can’t shake this feeling about the alarm that went off that night.” The alarm was tripped by someone crossing a sensor around an exhibit of six mannequins. Laurie was looking at photographs of the portion of the exhibit that was entered. The exhibit appeared undisturbed. “It was just minutes before Virginia went over the railing. I don’t buy that as coincidence.”
“I don’t think the police thought it was a fluke, either. The alarm distracted Security, which allowed her killer to slip into a staircase to the roof.”
“And yet Ivan was their leading suspect.”
As usual, Jerry was following her train of thought with ease. “If he acted alone, he’d have had to trip the alarm, run upstairs, kill her, and come back down.”
“Certainly possible,” she said. “But previously when we talked about the connection between the alarm and the murder, we were assuming that one person set off the distraction, while the killer or killers ran upstairs.”
“So if it’s Ivan, did he have someone helping him?”
Laurie thought about Tiffany’s account of Penny gloating over a relationship with someone in the family. According to Tiffany, Penny said that she had her eyes “on the prince,” or perhaps the “golden boy.” Ivan was positioned to be the future Mr. Virginia Wakeling. Was it possible Penny’s mystery man was Ivan? Ivan had been the one to mention Penny as a potential suspect, but he also insisted he had no way of helping them find her.
It was a stretch, but it was possible. Laurie was about to lay out her theory to Jerry when Grace tapped on her door and then poked her head in.
“Sorry to interrupt, but I thought you’d want me to. I’ve got Penny Rawling on the phone. She saw the Page Six piece and wants to speak to you.”