A Clean Kill

forty-one

Remy was on the sofa in the living room of Wayne's suite on the tenth floor at the Plaza Hotel when two detectives knocked on the door. Her backpack was beside her, ready to go, and she was watching the news about Alison's murder. The day before when she was questioned for hours by the police, her thoughts had been all over the place. Whenever things had gone badly for her in the past, she'd hit the road and taken off. A pretty girl with some college education and a way with food, she'd always' been able to get a job cooking somewhere.

Experience had taught her long ago that most people weren't very good, or at least weren't good for long—like her dad promising to stay off the bottle. So when things soured, she just moved on. She liked to think of herself as an actor in a movie, waiting for her real life to begin. Now the wish for a bus was strong, but she couldn't run away with so many people watching. She jumped at the knock on the door.

"Police, open up."

She pulled herself off the sofa and went to the door. Two overweight men she hadn't seen before were standing outside. They looked bloated from too many french fries and doughnuts and might have a stroke if they had to run after her. The thought that she could beat them in a race didn't comfort her.

"Remy Banks?" one queried.

"Yes. Could I see your identification?" she said with more determination than she felt.

She looked down the long empty hall behind them and considered bolting as they reached for their gold shields. She wondered if they would shoot her in the Plaza. Too late, the shields appeared, and they blocked her escape route as she studied them. "No one's here," she said meekly, as if there were the slightest chance they hadn't come for her.

"That's okay, little lady. We're going for a ride."

That was all they said. They herded her between them, like a criminal, downstairs and through the hotel lobby. She got into the backseat of a black sedan, and they drove. away with her as their hostage, not telling her where they were going or anything else. Rage and rebellion coursed through her. She wanted to kill them. At a police station on East Fifty-fourth Street, they marched her upstairs, through a space full of people, to a small room with a mirror that she knew was a viewing window. Her heart thudded as she thought of all the men outside watching her and making the kind of remarks she knew men made when they could get away with it. She didn't feel safe there at all. Since she'd found Maddy's body, time had slowed down. When she was left in the interrogation room, it stopped altogether. It seemed as if a week had passed before an angry guy who looked like a mobster opened the door.

"I'm Detective Tommy Piccaterra," he said.

"I'm Remy Banks. I want a lawyer," she replied. It was the only thing she could think of to say. If Wayne could have one, she should have one, too.

"What do you need a lawyer for?" Tommy Pic-caterra was a wiry guy with a broken nose and a sheen to his skin.

Remy glanced at his big-knuckled hands and guessed that he'd done some fighting in his time. She had another scary thought—that he was there to rough her up before the other guys came back in. "So you don't hurt me," she said.

He laughed. "We don't hurt people here," he replied, walked out, and shut the door, leaving her alone again.

After about an hour, she heard a commotion outside, and Piccaterra returned.

"Someone's coming in. We have to move," he said.

He didn't say who was coming. When she reached for her purse and backpack, he said, "Don't worry about it. Someone bring it to you."

She got up with a sinking feeling that she-would never see her things again, suddenly realizing that this was probably how people felt when they went to prison. She was that afraid of these detectives. No one looked at her as she moved through a bunch of them, talking on their cell phones. Out in the hall Piccaterra opened the door to another, smaller room that had no windows or ventilation or two-way mirror. When he put her in there and closed the door, she remembered her mother locking her in a closet as a child for her own protection against her father when he was on a drinking binge. Like then, she couldn't calm down as she listened to the activity in the hallway outside. She could hear people talking, their footsteps going up and down the stairs. Her purse with her cell phone in it was gone. No one brought that or her backpack to her, and no one came to ask her questions.

By late afternoon she was hungry and thirsty and worse than that, she was exhausted but too frightened to close her eyes to sleep. She'd been up late the night before and hadn't had anything to eat or drink since the bagel and coffee at seven. She didn't know what was happening. She wondered if the detectives were too busy with other things and had forgotten her, or if they were getting her the lawyer she'd asked for. She doubted that. More likely they were trying to scare her, and it was working really well. She was terrified.

Finally, just after four thirty, the Chinese lieutenant opened the door and walked into the room. April Woo Sanchez didn't look as good as she had the day before. Her suit was wrinkled, and her face was pale. "How are you doing?" she asked.

Remy exhaled with relief. "I would have called you, but those cops took my phone," she said quickly.

"Is that so? Why would you call me?"

"You said you would help me. This is very scary," she blurted out.

"Not as scary as it was for Maddy and Alison," the detective snapped.

Remy looked at her hands. She'd expected a little more sympathy than this.

"You know Alison was murdered this morning after you met with Lynn?" Woo said.

"Yes. 1 saw it on "TV. At least you can't pin that one on me."

"That's not a smart response. You want to tell me why you had a meeting with Lynn this morning?" she said sharply.

"It wasn't a meeting. Can 1 go to the bathroom?"

"Of course, you can go to the bathroom. This isn't prison." She opened the door, checking her watch for the time. "The bathroom is right down there, but be quick. I'm running late."

Remy was annoyed by the sharpness of her tone and shocked by the reference to prison. She hadn't expected this from the woman who'd been nice to her yesterday. She moved to the door. The stairs were right in front of her, but the detective was watching her. She couldn't run down the stairs and get away. If this wasn't prison, she thought, it was very close. She went into the bathroom, washed her face, drank some water, and returned to the little room, where the detective quickly ended a conversation on her cell phone.

"Sit down, Remy. You told me a lot of lies yesterday, and now someone else is dead," she said coldly.

"I was scared. 1 didn't want to get anybody in trouble," Remy said defensively.

"Well, you got yourself in trouble. Mr. Wilson told me about your relationship with him. 1 know how many times you spoke with Lynn yesterday, and that you visited her this morning, right before Alison was murdered. You're in this very deep so you better start telling the truth." "I didn't kill anybody." Remy started to cry. After a minute she wiped her eyes on her sleeve. "What do you want me to do?"

"Let's start all over." The detective took out a pen and a black-and-white-speckled pad. "How did you come to be employed at the Wilson house?"

"I already told you this. I got into the institute." Remy looked at the ceiling, then at the door. "It takes a couple of years, and it's expensive. I knew if I worked in a restaurant, the hours would be difficult, plus living expenses in the city would be too much. I was told if I were a live-in chef in someone's house, I could have most days during the week to go to school, and cook in the evening and on weekends."

"Who told you that?"

"The admissions people at the institute suggested I call the Anderson Agency and they would find me a good job."

"Was Mr. Wilson the first interview you did?"

"Yes."

"Did you know Mr. Wilson before you went there?"

"I'd heard of him, of course. He's a legend. I didn't meet him until I interviewed for the job."

"And what happened?"

"I told you this. He promised I could work m his new restaurant." She rolled her eyes.

"What does that mean?"

"I think he only said it so I would take the job. She wanted a nanny for the children, but I never would have done that. He wanted a chef. Turned out, I did both."

"According to him, you did more than that."

"It didn't mean anything," Remy said sullenly. "A good meal is more important to him than anybody. He liked to go out and party; Maddy wanted to go to bed early. I was just his dessert." She said this coolly, as if she were a guy, and it didn't matter.

"How did you feel about that?"

"I liked him until Maddy died." Then she started crying again. "I really did like him, and I never wanted to hurt her."

"Remy, if you or Wayne hurt Maddy, you better tell me now because it's going to come out. You can't keep this thing secret."

"I didn't hurt her that way. Didn't Derek do it?" she asked meekly.

"No, Derek was somewhere else by then. What changed your feeling about Wayne?"

"He was such a creep. He wanted me to tell the kids we were going on vacation to the Plaza. He wouldn't tell them the truth." She shook her head. "I didn't want to stay there. Did you see my picture in all the papers? It was horrible. He made me look bad."

"Uh-huh." The cop didn't seem impressed.

"And then he told Andrew to fire Lynn."

"When did he say that?"

"I heard them talking on the phone last night." She focused on the detective, remembering something. "He cooked dinner for you at the restaurant, and Andrew wanted him to get a lawyer. It was all crazy."

"Is that why you went to see Lynn this morning?"

"I wanted her to know what the plan for her was. Jo Ellen loves drama. She likes it when people get in trouble."

The lieutenant got up and went out of the room. She came back a few seconds later. "Do you want something to eat?"

"I'd like a tuna sandwich, but they took my purse. I don't have any money."

"Don't worry. We can afford that much," Woo assured her.

Remy looked at the peeling paint on the ceiling. "It doesn't look like it," she remarked.

"You're a smart-ass," the lieutenant said. "You want to know what happens to people like you? They get caught."

Remy didn't like that. A few minutes later a female uniformed officer came to the door. "What do you need?" she asked.

"A tuna sandwich on rye toast and a Diet Coke for me, please," Remy said meekly.

"I'd like hot water, and would you get several Diet Cokes, please. Thanks." The lieutenant handed her some money, then shut the door. "Tell me about your relationship with Lynn and the Anderson Agency," she said.

"I thought you were in a hurry," Remy said.

"Not anymore."