Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 135, No. 1. Whole No. 821, January 2010

Heartbeat by Katia Lief

Katia Lief is most often published as “Kate Pepper.” Four paperback-original suspense novels from Signet Onyx have appeared under that pseudonym over the past few years. Publishers Weekly called the latest, Here She Lies (which is about identity theft), “a suspenseful, well-written yarn that will leave most readers guessing until the final twist.” The earlier Kate Peppers are One Cold Night, Seven Minutes to Noon, and Five Days in Summer. For her EQMM debut, the author chose to use her real name.

The office holiday party, in the big conference room down the hall, had been under way for over an hour, its excitement intensified by a blizzard that had shut down transportation throughout Manhattan. Everyone was stuck here, Champagne was flowing, and the party promised to stretch on for as long as the storm outside continued.

But Effie Miller had decided at the last minute not to attend. She occupied her roost outside the chairman’s office, where for nearly twenty years she had served as his loyal executive assistant, and stared at the check for two million dollars. It was blue, drawn from an account at Citibank, typed and signed by the accountant of Ames Vanderbilt, of the Vanderbilts, one of the private Stollit Fund’s regular investors. The check had yet to be deposited, thanks to the storm, a force majeure for which Effie was grateful. It had been that kind of day: a day of extraordinary forces she felt powerless to resist.

First, that morning, the call from her oncologist giving her the bad news. Then a decision.

She slipped the check into the top drawer of her desk. To Ames Vanderbilt and Ted Stollit, two million dollars wasn’t all that much; while to her, two million dollars was two million dollars. It staggered her imagination to think of what she could accomplish and enjoy with that amount in the approximately six months of life she had left. Now that she allowed herself to think this way, it was outrageous, criminal, the way these amounts flowed as if they were nothing.

The blizzard was growing in strength. Through the glass partition between their offices, she could see Ted. He was leaning back in his chair with his ankle-crossed feet propped up on the credenza, gazing through his wall of casement windows into the black-and-white dazzle of nature at its best and worst as snow danced on the backlit stage of Park Avenue at night. His office was dark, except for one lamp, and in the obscurity, his silver hair glistened. In the distance, the top of the Empire State Building was illuminated in horizontal stripes of red and green; yesterday, the lights had been blue and white.

Effie was just locking her desk drawer, and was about to get up, when the outer door to the hushed chairman’s suite she shared with Ted opened. Ebullient chatter spilled in. She hung the key around her neck, where she always wore it on the gold chain Ted had given her years ago, and let it fall into her pink silk blouse.

“Effie, aren’t you coming to the party?”

Jay Patel, the young investment analyst who had taken a shine to her, treating her with the unflagging affection of a dutiful grandson — though she was only almost fifty-three — was well on his way to being drunk. His cheeks were flushed and his usually neat, dark hair looked as if someone had run her fingers through it.

“Of course; when I’m finished here.”

“It’s after six! You can’t always work.”

“Just one or two more things to finish up.”

“Can’t I at least bring you a glass of Champagne?

“That would be lovely. And bring one for Ted, too, if you don’t mind.”

Jay was back in moments with two slender flutes, which he set on her desk, knowing that only she was permitted to intrude uninvited upon their elusive chief executive.

“Isn’t it your birthday over the break?” Jay lingered.

“The day after Christmas.” She smiled to deflect the whimper of sympathy that always came next. It was true: Her birthday was often forgotten in the exhausted aftermath of the holiday, but she was used to it by now. Over the years she had developed a system to avert loneliness: a movie, a meal out at her favorite Chinese restaurant, a book under a cozy blanket on her couch until bedtime. She was always relieved when the next work week began.

“As long as you won’t be alone.”

“Oh, don’t worry about me,” she said; and he nodded as if this simple advice made absolutely perfect sense.

She smiled again, and waited, until finally he turned around. When he was gone, she rose and locked her door. Her office was a larger, more expensively appointed space than most of the Stollit Group’s executives occupied, with a carpet that cost more than Effie’s annual salary, an ultra-modern, impractical desk, and four Le Corbusier cowhide chairs surrounding a glass coffee table that was too low... all picked out by Ted’s late wife, Linda, and quietly, stubbornly accepted by Effie over the years. Now his fiancée wanted to redecorate — the twenty-nine-year-old former waitress, lately decked out in cashmere and diamonds, had remarked, with a glance at Effie, that the “entryway” to Ted’s “throne room” was in need of a “serious facelift.” A chill had run through Effie when she overheard that comment: It was as if the girl knew how she, Effie, had felt about her boss all these years. That she was in love with him, and that when Linda died and he bypassed her for a younger model, as they said, she had been heartbroken. Every night for two months, after the appearance of the waitress half a year ago, she had cried herself to sleep.

Effie stood there, in the quiet of her space, summoning courage. She picked up the two glasses of Champagne, crossed the room, and tapped the rim of one flute against the glass of Ted’s door. He turned, saw her, saw that she had Champagne for him, and smiled. Reaching beneath his desk, he buzzed her in and the door swung slowly open.

“Happy holidays, Ted.” She handed him one of the glasses over his glowing Makassar ebony desk.

“Happy holidays to you, too, Effie.”

He came around and stood in front of her, stooping slightly, as he was considerably taller than she was. Their glasses made a musical tinkle, a lovely sound, when he touched his to hers. Effie sipped her Champagne, letting it linger on her tongue a moment before swallowing. Then she took another, longer sip as her nerves began to compose themselves.

“I’d like to talk to you, Ted, if you have a minute,” she said.

He opened his arms and released one of his smiles: broad, friendly, exposing crooked rows of whitened teeth. He was sixty-one years old, handsome, one of those men who aged well. “Effie, you, of all people, don’t need an invitation to have a conversation with me.”

She wished he wouldn’t flirt with her, or whatever it was he did that felt like flirting. She took another sip of her Champagne.

“By the way, did Ames’s check ever get here?”

“Yes, but too late. I have it in my desk.”

“Bring it to me, will you?”

“Ted — I have something to say.”

His smile faded; he cocked his head. “Yes?”

She hated to tell him this, because it would change everything. But she had had to miss a day of work last week to see the doctor and he had already asked her twice if she’d gotten the test results. He had lost Linda to breast cancer and, since then, if anyone he knew had a medical scare, he had shown inordinate concern.

“To begin, well, I heard from my doctor.”

“And?” He put his glass on the corner of his desk, leaned forward, and touched her shoulder. The warmth of his hand radiated through the thin barrier of silk. She wished he would take his hand off, because it only made it harder; once she walked out of here, chances were she would never see him again.

“Pancreatic cancer. Late stage. I’m a goner.” She tipped up her glass and let the Champagne flow into her mouth.

“Effie.” Now both his arms were around her and she had a terrible thought: She should have sprung the same news on him a year ago, before it was true, before he met the waitress. Maybe, if they had found their arms around each other like this when she was healthy, a future for them might have tempted his imagination. But she was finished with lying. That was the whole point.

She pulled away, reached for his Champagne, and drank that, too. “Sorry. I’ll get you some more.”

He stopped her from leaving by holding onto her arm. “How long do you have?”

“He said six months, but it was only a guess.”

“I’m sorry, Effie. Really sorry. What can I do?”

She was intoxicated, and now the rest came more easily. She knew she could walk away, take the check with her, and that would be that; but if it was the last thing she ever did, and it might be, she had to take a stand.

“There’s nothing you can do for me anymore, Ted. Obviously I’m not going to keep working.”

“Of course not. But there is something I can do for you. Where do you want to go? Anywhere — name it. How do you want to spend the rest of your life? Tell me, and it’s yours.”

“I want to accomplish something,” she said. “Do something courageous.”

His eyes clouded a bit; it wasn’t the answer he expected. “Let me send you to Polynesia, to Moorea. I’ve heard it’s the most beautiful place on earth. Sandy wants to go there for our honeymoon.”

“No, thank you.” She took a breath. “It’s about Mr. Vanderbilt’s check. We can’t deposit it.”

“Oh?”

“This has to stop.”

She watched the muscles of his jaw grind. This was the moment she had most feared: when she stepped beyond his control.

“This isn’t the time for an attack of conscience. You’re sick, so let me help you. But you don’t have to bring everyone down with you.”

“Everyone?” Just you. He knew as well as she did that they were the only people with access to the Stollit Fund’s account; the Stollit Group was a separate entity that handled the firm’s other, legitimate business.

“Effie, I’m not sure you realize how special you are to me. This has always been our secret. Not even Linda knew.”

“I’ve thought about that. She died never knowing, which in a sense made your marriage, all those years, honest — as in a tree falling in a forest that no one hears makes no sound. She never knew, so it didn’t happen. When you remember her now, it must help you to think of yourself as a good man.” The remittance of that thought, which had taken months to clarify, lightened her.

“What exactly is it you’re trying to say to me, Effie? Are you planning to call the Securities and Exchange Commission? Is that it?”

Her gaze veered away from him and landed on Dora Maar au Chat, Picasso’s painting of a disarranged woman seated on a chair with a black cat on her shoulder, Ted’s most recent acquisition. He had paid over ninety-five million dollars for it at auction — ninety-five million dollars of other people’s money. The thought settled into her consciousness, weightily, as if for the first time; and as her attention skipped across the room — the photograph of his Hamptons beach house, another photo of his house in the south of France, the solid-gold golf-ball paperweight on his desk, the statuettes of bulls scattered throughout his office — she felt the onslaught of despair, as if she had just now walked in on a robbery. She probably didn’t have enough time left in her life to understand how, and why, she had given her trust without reservation to a thief, or where, or if, she would find the courage to disown him now.

“What I’m trying to say is,” she felt a little woozy, and cleared her throat, “what I’m trying to say is...”

“Are you dizzy, Effie?” He stepped toward her. “Come here — some fresh air might help.”

His hand wove around her back and she felt his fingers cling to her waist. It was an almost sexual feeling of closeness; her body relaxed and swayed into him. Would it be so bad to allow herself the fantasy of Effie-and-Ted one more time? And then another dreadful thought: She had the power to blackmail him. Not for money, but as so many men had done to women through history — for sex. She banished the idea immediately. What she had always wanted from Ted was love.

Together they looked out into the blizzard, fourteen flights above the abandoned snow-covered streets. He pulled up the handle of one of the windows and pushed it open. Frigid air and icy snowflakes rushed at them. She stopped breathing, closed her eyes, and turned her face against the protective shield of Ted’s chest.

“Effie,” he whispered. He gently stroked the side of her face. His fingers wandered down along her neck — much as she had imagined. Her body grew warm in the freezing air. Her brain seized on the contrast: life and death; love and sex; honesty and lies. She felt, for once, imperfectly human. Alive.

“Ted.” She struggled to reverse herself. “I won’t... I can’t...”

“Shh.”

He undid the top three buttons of her blouse, leaned down, and kissed her breast. Breath rushed out of her. Her mind blanked.

“Effie,” he whispered again.

She put her hand to his head and pressed his ear to her chest. “Can you hear my heart? It’s beating so fast.”

“I hear it.”

He kissed her, tenderly, carefully. It was exactly as she had imagined it would be: slow, arousing, drenched with emotion. She felt as if her heart was swelling, actually swelling, and opened her legs as his hand traveled up her skirt. When the fabric was gathered at her hips, she allowed him to help her backward onto the credenza. She wanted to reach forward and touch him, too, but didn’t dare. Her mind had never pictured that part of it; it was always what he did for her, and how she let him.

“Effie.”

She felt the chain snap off her neck as she fell backward out of the window. Her blood sobered, her brain awoke. She was flying through the air, flying, her body twisting incrementally in the downward rush toward the expanse of untouched snow.

Ted closed the window and shook ice crystals off his arms. He dropped the gold chain and key into his pants pocket and straightened his tie. On second thought, he opened the window and threw Effie’s Champagne glass out after her. How tragic: a drunken suicide on the day she learned of her terminal cancer. He left his own glass where it was, empty on his desk, and crossed through his office into hers. He unlocked the top drawer of Effie’s desk. Ames Vanderbilt’s check was sitting right there. He folded it and slipped it into his wallet, relocked the drawer, and dropped the key back into his pocket.

When he opened the suite’s outer door, he felt a click as the lock button popped up. How perfectly she always anticipated his needs, protected him. He would miss her in that way.

“Ted!”

It was young Jay Patel, coming down the hall. Beyond them, in the conference room, Ted heard music, laughter.

“Jay, did I miss the all the fun?”

“Still going strong. I was on my way back to make Effie come. She’s such a party pooper, isn’t she?”

Patel was slurring, stinking drunk. Ted slapped the young man’s back and steered him toward the party.

“She’s just putting on her lipstick. Come on, show me where to find a drink.”

Copyright © 2010 Katia Lief