3
Ryan stood in her office, with his hands on his hips. Looking at him objectively, she understood why one of the raging debates among fans of her show was “Who’s cuter? Alex or Ryan?” She had an obvious preference for one, of course, but Ryan was undoubtedly handsome, with sandy blond hair, bright green eyes, and a perfect smile.
“This view is amazing, Laurie. And your taste in furniture is impeccable.” Laurie was on the sixteenth floor, overlooking the Rockefeller Center ice skating rink. She had decorated the office herself with modern, but welcoming, furnishings. “If this were my office, I might never leave.”
She took a small amount of pleasure in the hint of jealousy she detected in his voice, but she didn’t need his small talk.
“What’s up?” Laurie asked.
“Brett seemed eager to get started on the next special.”
“If it were up to him, we’d have two specials a week as long as the ratings held. He forgets how much work it takes to completely reinvestigate a cold case from scratch,” she said.
“I get it. Anyway, I have the perfect case for our next episode.”
She could not ignore the use of the word our. She had spent years developing the idea for this show.
As many unsolved murders as there were in this country, only so many of them met the unwritten criteria for the cases explored by Under Suspicion. Some cases were too unsolved—no suspects, the equivalent of random guesses. Some were essentially solved, and the police were simply waiting for the evidence to fall into place.
A very narrow category in between—an unsolved mystery, but with an identifiable world of viable suspects—was Laurie’s specialty. She spent most of her time scouring true-crime websites, reading local news coverage all around the country, and sifting through tips that came in online. And always there was that intangible instinct that told her that this case was the one she should pursue. And now here was Ryan, certain that he had a novel idea for them to work on.
She was confident that she would already be familiar with any case Ryan mentioned, soup to nuts, but did her best to appear appreciative that he had a suggestion. “Let’s hear it,” she said.
“Virginia Wakeling.”
Laurie recognized the name immediately. This wasn’t a homicide from the other side of the country. It had occurred just a couple of miles from here, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And it wasn’t especially cold, either. Virginia Wakeling was a member of the museum’s board of trustees and one of its most generous donors. She had been found in the snow behind the museum on the night of the institution’s most celebrated fundraiser, the Met Gala. It was one of the most star-studded, high-profile events in all of Manhattan. She had died after a fall—either a jump or a push—from the museum’s roof.
Wakeling was a big enough presence in the art world that there were murmurs the museum might even suspend the annual gala the following year when there was still no explanation for her death. But the party continued on, despite the absence of a solution to the ongoing mystery.
Laurie remembered enough of the facts to offer an initial opinion. “It seemed pretty clear that her boyfriend did it.”
“As in ‘Under Suspicion,’ ” Ryan said, wriggling his fingers in quotes.
“It looks like a closed case to me. He was considerably younger than Mrs. Wakeling. It seems as if the police are sure that he was the killer even if they can’t prove it. Wasn’t he a model or something?”
“No,” Ryan said. “A personal trainer. His name is Ivan Gray, and he’s innocent.”
The knot in Laurie’s stomach grew tighter. As strongly as she had ever felt about any of her cases, she had never been certain about anyone’s guilt or innocence, especially at the outset. The entire purpose of her show was to explore an unsolved case with an open mind.
She was fairly certain that Ryan had not stumbled onto this case by accident. “Do you happen to know Mr. Gray?” she asked.
“He’s my trainer.”
Of course, she thought. It made perfect sense. When Grace and Jerry were discussing Ryan’s idiosyncratic hours, they may as well have analyzed his various workout hobbies: hitting golf balls at the Chelsea Pier driving range, spin classes at SoulCycle, circuit training at the gym around the corner, and, if Laurie had to guess, some latest workout craze with his new pal, Ivan Gray.
“Yoga?” she guessed.
Ryan’s face made his opinions about yoga clear. “Boxing,” he said. “He’s the owner of PUNCH.”
Laurie wasn’t exactly a gym rat, but even she had heard of the trendy workout spot dedicated to boxing. Their flashy ads were emblazoned on subways and the sides of buses, depicting perfect-looking New Yorkers in fashionable exercise clothes and boxing gloves. The thought of punching an object named Ryan Nichols actually sounded pretty good to Laurie.
“I really appreciate the suggestion,” she said coolly. “But I don’t think that case is right for the show. It’s only been three years. I’m sure the police are still investigating.”
“Ivan’s life has been basically ruined. We could help him.”
“If he owns PUNCH, apparently it hasn’t been ruined entirely. And if he killed that woman, I’m really not interested in helping him. He could be using us to try to get free publicity for his gym.”
Laurie couldn’t help but think back to the grief Ryan had given her only a few months ago. He hadn’t even been officially hired yet, but he took it upon himself to tell her that the case of a woman already convicted of killing her fiancé was unsuitable for her own show because he was so certain she was guilty.
Ryan was looking at the screen of his iPhone. If it had been Timmy, Laurie would have told him to put it away.
“With all due respect, Ryan, the case isn’t even cold yet,” she said dismissively. Her own husband’s murder went unsolved for five years. Even without any suspects, the NYPD kept assuring her the entire time that they were “actively working” the investigation. “The last thing I want is to hurt our relationship with law enforcement by interfering.”
Ryan was tapping on his phone screen. When he finished, he tucked his phone in his pocket and looked up at her. “Well, let’s hear him out. Ivan’s in the lobby and is coming up.”