Chapter 26
Mallory
Sunday Evening
Three Days After the Outing
From her bedroom closet, Mallory extracts a boxy fuchsia blouse and wide-legged pants, striped in pink and white. “Seriously?”
She holds up the offensive pieces. “Is she part clown?”
On the floor by her feet, Harley wags his tail.
“I’ll consider that agreement.” She riffles through the hangers, past sundresses with fruit on them—a banana, seriously, Mallory?—and light-wash jeans and lacy cardigans that skim the floor. There’s no consistency here. Soccer mom from 1985, children’s
librarian, a seventy-five-year-old widow. Her eyes widen. “Think ‘I’ve got nothing to wear’ would get me out of this?”
Harley rolls onto his back.
“Yeah, me neither,” Mallory mutters.
And her mind returns to her dad. A dad who calls her “MallieMoo.” A dad who loves her mom. A dad who didn’t leave.
A dad who could have her arrested.
Her hand shakes as she scoops up her glass of bourbon, neat.
She’s trying, without success, to loosen the choke hold on her nerves that came with seeing her police officer father.
She’ll have to tell Ilena and Aubrey. Except it’s not exactly dinner party conversation.
Her brain hurts. All she wants to do is have this bourbon, maybe another, and hell, one more, and flump into the couch and eat popcorn and watch Titanic to remind herself that things could always be worse—she could have woken up on the Titanic.
Ilena’s gone full-on Stepford. Among the thousand reasons this dinner party is absurd is that Ilena knows better than to include
Mallory. Give her a crowd of a hundred or a sofa with her two best friends, not a table set for six or eight that always winds
up with an extra chair jammed around a leg for the solo Mallory. Though at least today Jonah won’t be there trying to set
her up with some colleague whose descriptions of valve replacements or cartilage scraping would put her to sleep in her lobster
bisque—an Ilena specialty.
Has Ilena looked him up? The sinking feeling that she hasn’t, that the combination of the unfathomable divorce in their world
and equally as incomprehensible Felix and the baby here has caused Ilena’s husband of thirteen years to vanish from her thoughts
makes Mallory reach for her drink.
She sips her bourbon and fingers the fabric of a maroon sheath dress, the most subdued thing in the closet.
“I’ll make it work, I mean, obviously, I will.” As she grabs hold of the hanger, her breath catches. Behind the dress is a
tan plaid Burberry coat just like the one she and Ilena purchased together. They’d traded it back and forth for years. She’s
not even sure who has it now. She leans in and sniffs, but there’s no hint of perfume from either of them.
She leaves the coat in the closet and carries the dress to the bed.
Harley flips himself back over, prancing beside her ankles.
She’d texted Ilena back, saying that they didn’t have time for this, that they had to concentrate on figuring out next steps.
And besides, she couldn’t come because of the dog.
Ilena ignored the first part, and for the second, said she would invite Noreen who could watch Harley.
Well-played, Stepford.
Mallory finishes her bourbon and fruitlessly searches the underwear drawer for something other than a bralette, the source
of that sag she noticed when she first woke up here. She slips into the dress, which only accentuates the droopiness. She
grabs the plaid coat from the closet and sets it on the bed beside her purse.
She then opens her inbox, fighting the urge to touch the marks on her arm. Hope swells at the new email that flies in. It’s
from the restaurant that catered the AIM outing. She contacted them to request a detailed inventory of every item served.
She didn’t go through Noreen. The Noreen of here seems more staid than their Noreen, and Mallory wasn’t up to conjuring the
perfect lie to cover why she was asking, which was to determine if Mallory had means as well as motive.
Like in their world, the food list includes allergen notations for every dish. Crackers of wheat. Crackers of cauliflower.
Crackers of spinach. (Spinach?) But none made of nut.
She lets her hand knead her forearm. Christ, Mallory, what did you do?
Harley gives his pathetically endearing whine and she grabs his leash just as the intercom buzzes. In her world, someone’s
always making the rounds for signatures in this neighborhood. Petitions to clean up the river, allow a marijuana festival
in the park, save some dilapidated building that George Washington once masturbated inside of; even the stuff Mallory believes
in means she loses twenty minutes minimum.
She hooks the leash onto the harness on Harley’s back, slides her feet into hideous orange house clogs, and heads down the stairs to the front door.
She opens it, rolling her eyes that this time, whatever they want her signature to help them put up or take down or preserve is deemed special enough to bring along a camera crew.
“Not interested.” Mallory elbows past a woman in a drapey black tunic and dark-wash jeans.
“I’m sorry,” the woman says, a hint of a New York accent assaulting the vowels. “I was looking for Mallory Latham. Maybe I
buzzed the wrong unit?”
You did, lives on the tip of Mallory’s tongue, but then the dude with a scruffy beard and hair past his ears lowers the camera he’s
holding. Emblazoned across his T-shirt is the Shandy Shane logo.
We wanted to confirm . . . availability for . . .
Shit.
“Georgina?” Mallory asks, grateful for her well-practiced ability to remember names.
“Ms. Latham? Is this a bad time? Earlier, I thought we confirmed—”
“It’s fine, completely fine. Remind me, and sorry, it’s been a day, this is for . . .”
Georgina shares a loaded look with scruffy bearded dude. “Background, B-roll, walk-and-talk, driving—”
“I don’t have a car.”
Another look.
“Just an example,” Georgina says. “There’s lots we can do. If now’s still a good time? We’re only in from the city for a couple
of days. Then we go back to edit, and we’ll return with Shandy Shane the morning of the interview at AIM with you and Mr.
Fields.”
“Yes, spectacular, Mr. Fields, AIM.” Mallory’s attention shifts to the rumble of a car turning down her block.
She gets a glimpse of the black-and-white and the lights on top.
Her unfortunate timed run-in with her father must have energized him for some more father-daughter bonding.
When the police car approaches with a woman behind the wheel, relief washes over Mallory.
(Disappointment too.) “Sure, right. Now is great, this is great.”
The police car rolls to a stop right in front of her building.
“Actually.” She steadies the tremble threatening her voice. “Why don’t you head on up and get settled? Third floor, door’s
unlocked.”
The door to the police car creaks open, and a woman with a swimmer’s build and dark hair in a severe bun trains her mirrored-sunglass
gaze directly on Mallory.
Shit, shit, shit.
“Really.” Mallory steps over the threshold and propels Georgina into the entryway via a forceful prod of her elbow. She lifts
Harley’s leash, and his head quirks up. She owes the furball for being so damn cute. “He likes his privacy. I’ll be up in
a jiff.”
“Jiff” isn’t something she normally says, but it seems to fit this Mallory based on her cheery wardrobe.
From inside the entry, Georgina says, “Uh, sure, Ozzie can get some establishing shots of the condo, if that’s okay?”
“Ozzie?”
Scrubby beard sticks out a fist.
Mallory awkwardly meets his cupped hand with her own holding the leash.
The police officer talks into her shoulder as she starts down the front walk.
Right leg bent at an unnatural angle, body still, eyes open, opaque and not moving.
Damn you, Heidi Hoffman.
Mallory yanks the door to the building shut and hurries down the front stairs, Harley tight to her heels. She tries to stave
off the police officer, but she’s too slow or the officer’s too fast and they meet in the middle of the front walk.
“Mallory Latham?” the woman says.
Mallory tries to remember if she left the condo windows open. How good are camera mikes? “Hmm, good day to you.”
The police officer cocks her head. “Officer Middlebury. Got a minute?”
“I do, but not sure he does.” Mallory lifts Harley’s leash, playing into that flighty persona this Mallory apparently has.
“I got so wrapped up in the Real Housewives, I plum forgot the little nugget!”
Right then, Harley has a bowel movement.
The officer says, “That’s settled then, now looks like we got a moment.”
Mallory starts to shrug, but then Harley twirls adorably, and he really is doing all he can to earn his keep. “Breed, right?
That’s what you wanted to know? Everyone does. He gets me stopped more often than a bus on Mass. Ave.” She laughs. Officer
Middlebury doesn’t.
“How long you had him?” The woman pulls down those sunglasses.
“Not long.” The dog is her link to Grayson. She has to tread carefully. “Actually, I’m just watching him for a friend.” Mallory
lowers her voice. “I’m not much of a d-o-g person.”
“But this friend still asked you to watch him?”
“It was a last-minute thing. Wrong place, wrong time, I guess.”
“When was this?”
Officer Middlebury is acting super casual, like they’re old friends who just happened to run into each other on their way
out of a boozy brunch. But the questions are too pointed, and she knew Mallory’s name, and damn you, Heidi Hoffman.
“A couple of days ago.” Mallory sneaks a glance up at her condo.
“Listen, I’d like to keep this between us, but it was a work thing with too many cocktails, and well, I happened to be there the next morning when my friend had to go out of town unexpectedly.
I said I’d watch the dog. Good to try new things, right? ”
“Depends on what the new thing is,” the officer says. “This friend got a name?”
“Of course.”
“And?”
You already know, don’t you?
“Grayson Fields, but let’s not spread that around. Work colleague, and all.” No response, and Mallory clears her throat. “I’m
sorry, I’m going on about the dog and my sex life. Did you need something? Is this about the music next door? Let me tell
you, at times it’s breaking the sound barrier.”
Officer Middlebury pushes her sunglasses up on her head in a total power move that makes Mallory’s toes curl.
The officer says, “You should file a complaint.”
“Oh, I don’t like to start things, but if you need another statement, you know where to find me.”
“Good to know, because we’re just at the beginning stages here.”
“How many stages are there to a noise complaint?”
Officer Middlebury’s smile drips with condescension. “Perhaps I haven’t been clear. The beginning we’re at is looking into
the disappearance of Grayson Fields.”
Nerves make Mallory release a bubble of laughter. “Sounds like a magician show.”
The officer doesn’t even blink.
“Oh, oh, you’re serious?” She draws Harley closer. “But Grayson’s just on a trip. Isn’t he?”
“You tell me. You seem to know more than anyone. Where was he going?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t say.”
“How long was he going to be gone?”
“A few days,” Mallory says noncommittally, then adds, “Grayson’s not really the best with details. But maybe you could try his secretary? She’s in charge of his schedule.”
“But you might have been the last to see him.” The officer bends to give Harley a scratch under his chin. “We’re still waiting
for footage from the building’s cameras, but the gentleman with the bad back at the security desk can’t remember seeing him
leave. We’re still trying to nail down a timeline.”
Here’s her opening. “Well, maybe I can help. We left before he did. I think about . . .” Vague is better, right? “It was after
brunch.” Mallory scrunches up her cheeks, as if deep in thought. “I’m sorry, we had mimosas, plural, so I’m not exactly sure
of the time.”
“We, meaning you and Mr. Fields?”
“He had some, yes, and Ilena and Aubrey, my friends and business partners, though Ilena technically only had the juice because
she’s pregnant.”
The officer stands, giving a slight (fake) chuckle. “They stayed over too? You all must be really close.”
Mallory refrains from sinking her teeth into her lip, straightens her spine to accentuate the several inches she has over
the officer, and lobs that chuckle right back. “They came over in the morning. We were celebrating. Actually, we were celebrating
what’s happening upstairs. My company—our company—is going to be on The Shandy Shane Show. They’re doing some B-roll footage today. I really shouldn’t keep them waiting. Is there anything else I can do for you,
Officer?”
“This interview, is it local?”
“Yes, though I’m not sure if they use an audience. I can ask, if you’re interested.”
“I only stream. Don’t even have cable.” The officer hands Mallory a card. “Let me know if you do have to travel for any reason.
We might have some more questions.”
“Sure thing. I’ll also ping him myself. But he’ll be back soon. Nothing would stop him from being on TV.”
“Really?” Officer Middlebury says with renewed interest.
Mallory wants to kick herself. “You know men with big egos.”
“You aren’t worried?”
What would someone who has no idea what’s happening say?
“I wasn’t, but I guess I’m starting to be, a little.” She scoops up Harley, the sheath dress doing nothing to hide the fading
marks on her forearm. Mallory adjusts the dog to cover. “Is it okay if we check in with you?”
The officer gives nothing away. “Absolutely. Open dialogue.”
“Perfect.”
“Perfectly perfect.”
They stand there, each waiting for the other to blink. Officer Middlebury turns so slowly it’s totally another power move—a
display the officer doesn’t need to make because Mallory’s fucked. Because of Heidi Hoffman, because her mom had that damn
freezer, because Mallory didn’t listen to Ilena and report Grayson’s death when she woke up in his penthouse. Christ, why
didn’t she? Because whatever the truth is, it would have been easier to spin it as an accident then.
Mallory watches the officer stroll to her car and is about to turn away herself when the officer pivots, her eyes floating
to Mallory’s forearm. “You never told me.”
Mallory stills. “Told you what?”
“The breed?”
“Cockapoo.”
“Cute. Unlike that.” The officer gestures to the front walk. “Fifty dollar fine for not curbing your dog.”
“I’ll be sure to—”
“Just be careful. Wouldn’t want to wrinkle that dress.”