On What Grounds

Twenty-Four

George Gee and his Make-Believe Ballroom Orchestra had just begun bouncing big band swing off the four-story ceiling, coaxing a slow parade of couples toward the dance floor, when Matt and I returned to the charity dinner.

“The band’s good,” said Matt over the jaunty jump of woodwinds and barking brass.

“Very,” I said. “That’s George Gee and his band. They’re the darlings of the Rainbow Room these days.”

The Rainbow Room was one of the most elegant dinner-dance clubs in New York—high atop Rockefeller Center, it was about the only place left where dancing cheek-to-cheek in elegant evening clothes was even remotely possible.

“Wanna take a spin with me?” Matt asked.

I gave him the puh-leeze get real look. “I’m going for the Engstrums,” I said, double-checking the seating chart in the silent auction program.

“What are you going to do?”

“Stir up the nest,” I said. “See what flies out.”

“Good. I’d like a whack at Junior, myself.”

I noticed Matt’s fists clenching and made a split-second decision.

“No,” I said. “Let me do this, Matt. I’ve got an act in mind. It will work better solo. Get a drink at the bar and wait for me there.”

“Really? You think you can pull something off alone?”

“Sure,” I said, even though I wasn’t. On the other hand, the Vanderweave impersonation went pretty well, and my doing it alone was a much better bet than bringing Matt along wearing his fury on his sleeve.

“Well, okay, honey, if you’re sure. You knock ’em dead for me. Especially that little shithead.”

The “honey” caught me off guard, but I let it pass. Matt and I were working well together tonight, I thought to myself as I wove around the tray-toting waiters and crowded tables in the vast ballroom. We were even having a little fun with each other, but that didn’t mean we were a couple again. Matt had to know that, I assured myself, so there was no need to set him straight.

The Engstrums were seated at table fifty-eight, about mid-room and not far from the dance floor. I recognized Richard, Senior, from photographs in the Web site articles Darla had bookmarked on her laptop.

A typical Swedish blond, the man wasn’t exactly an albino but close. A white rabbit would be a fair comparison.

His wife, “Fiona,” according to the articles, was a brunette of the Jackie O. variety. A willowy WASP in the way all socialite wives are willowy WASPs (even when they’re Greek or Jewish or Nordic and not even technically the garden-variety Anglo-Saxon Protestants). I don’t know why they all have the same looks and mannerisms. Maybe it’s the extreme hygiene and slight dehydration from hours spent at spas and health clubs that cause the perpetually pinched, unamused look, the long, strained neck, the tight lips and drawn skin.

In face and form, Richard, Junior, appeared to take after his mother with a svelte stature, refined features, and dark hair. Odds were good he was part of the type I’d encountered many times before among the wealthy of this burgh. The “born of money and indifference” earmarks were there: floppy haircut, careless posture, even the “sensitive, intelligent boy” look about the eyes. Odds were he’d play up the latter in the presence of check-writing Mother and Daddy, but would drop it fast around his male college friends, who would share his penchant for mocking everyone and everything but their own pursuits of pleasure, usually drinking, drugging, and copulating.

Beside him sat a gravely thin young brunette with sunken cheeks and an expression of above-it-all boredom. Her little black sleeveless dress, the conforming little socialite number sold as a WASP “classic” by every high-end boutique in the city, seemed to be the carbon copy of his mother’s. The two even wore similar strings of pearls at the neck.

Since I was certain that Anabelle had been seeing Richard, Junior, over the summer—and was now pregnant with his child—I had assumed upon approaching the table that the bored young woman sitting beside Junior here was a sister or cousin of his.

Time to find out, I thought.

Gathering my courage and suppressing some but far from all of my nerves, I glided up to the table with as haughty a mask as I’d ever pulled off. “Excuse me,” I said, looking down my nose as far as I dared without appearing ridiculous, “but are you Mr. and Mrs. Engstrum?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Engstrum. “And who might you be?”

The tone was not polite and not meant to be. It was a tone for intimidating and squashing, for warning a possible inferior to keep her distance. I’d come up against it countless times before and so barely batted an eyelash.

“I go by C. C., and I’m helping out the Town and Country photographer tonight,” I said with an intentionally plastic smile. “Taking a few notes on select guests so we can follow up with a photograph. Would you mind speaking with me?”

Richard, Senior, looked right through me about halfway into my spiel. “I’m getting a drink,” he said to his wife and brushed past without so much as a “Pardon me.”

The rudeness didn’t surprise me. Richard, Senior, was the sort who saved his efforts and manners for people that “mattered,” and I was not pretending to be from the Wall Street Journal or Financial Times. My periodical front was the bible for the modern American social register, which meant Mrs. Engstrum was the one I had to buffalo—and the one I meant to buffalo.

I knew very well the best leverage I could apply in this situation was one mother to another. For that, I’d need to reel in Mrs. Engstrum.

“Town and Country, you say?” she asked, pausing at length to eye my Valentino gown with the judgment of the hypercritical. One can only assume I’d passed her evaluation process at the subatomic level when she finally said, “Yes, I’m sure we can spare a few minutes. Why don’t you sit down?”

The response was designed to make me feel ever so grateful for her time, as if having a husband with a NASDAQ symbol were akin to inheriting the English throne.

Get a grip, sweetie, I was dying to say. Your husband’s $95-a-share IPO was worth about two bucks the last time I looked. Not a spectacular calling card in the e-rolodexes of the little silver Palm Pilots on that ballroom dance floor.

But I didn’t say that, of course. What I did say was “Thank you so much!”

And I sat.

The East Indian couple at the far end of the table rose just as I sank down, leaving a total of six empty chairs at this table for ten.

Presumably the Engstrums had so enthralled their fellow dinner partners with sparkling wit and dynamic conversation that their six dinner companions had run for the bar or the dance floor the very first chance they got.

I pulled my small notebook and pen out of my purse.

“Now, Mrs. Engstrum, let’s start with you. I know your first name is Fiona—would you mind confirming the spelling?”

After the pretense of getting the family names correct for the “photo captions,” I turned to the young woman sitting beside Junior.

“And you are?”

“Sydney Walden-Sargent.”

“And your age, miss?”

“Nineteen.”

“She’s a sophomore at Vassar,” said Mrs. Engstrum. “And you can print that she is indeed related to the celebrated Sargent family.”

“Oh, yes, of course,” I said, scribbling away.

The Sargent family, per se, hadn’t achieved anything in any field that could be considered consequential. But they were famous nonetheless. The reason: Their legendary cousins, who had been winning national political offices and influencing government policies for decades. Thanks to their famous cousins, the Sargents had gained the clout to secure everything from executive positions at major corporations, and ambassadorships, to seats on prestigious New York museum and performing arts boards.

“They’re engaged,” said Mrs. Engstrum. “You can print that, too.”

“Engaged, you say? How nice. Congratulations.” I turned to Anabelle’s beau. “Young Mr. Engstrum, you must be very happy. When did you first ask Miss Walden-Sargent to be your wife?”

The glazed eyes of Richard, Junior, attempted to refocus. Clearly, making any effort for this conversation was not high on his agenda (a chip off the old block). “What?” he said.

“I asked how long you’ve been engaged,” I told him.

“Oh, how long,” he repeated, glancing at Syndey. “Awhile, right? Last February.”

“Valentine’s Day! It was Valentine’s Day,” said Sydney Walden-Sargent, leaning toward me to imply I should make it sound good in the caption. “It was very romantic.”

Junior smiled weakly and shrugged. “Yeah, that’s right.”

That’s right?! I wanted to scream. No, you little shithead, that’s wrong. If you were engaged to little Miss Vassar here, then why the hell were you sleeping with Anabelle Hart half the summer? I felt my fingers squeezing the life out of my felt-tipped Scripto.

“Just a few more questions,” I said tightly but was interrupted by the appearance of one of the Waldorf-Astoria’s black-jacketed waiters.

“Coffee, decaf, or tea?”

They were about to serve dessert, I realized. Matt and I had missed the entire dinner. I hoped Madame wouldn’t be hurt that we’d disappeared on her and her guests, but we were doing this for a good cause—her cause, saving the Blend.

“Nothing for me,” I said to the waiter, hoping I could make it back to table five in time for coffee at least.

“Tea,” said Mrs. Engstrum. “For all of us. Bring a pot, please.”

“Tea?” I asked. “You prefer tea, do you?”

“We got into the habit when Richard was working in London. It’s all we’ve been drinking now for over a decade.”

“Isn’t that interesting. I mean, in this age of specialty coffees. You, too, Mr. Engstrum?” I asked Junior. “You’re a tea drinker, too? No espresso or cappuccino for you?”

“Ugh, no.” He made an incensed sensitive-boy face. “Euro-trash mud. Wouldn’t touch the stuff.”

Now I really wanted to wring his neck. Not just for the insult to my business but because I hadn’t forgotten that wet wad of tea leaves I’d discovered dropped into the double layers of garbage bags after the inside layer had been twisted closed for the evening. A cup of tea was the very last thing Anabelle had prepared and discarded before her fall. And since Anabelle was not a tea drinker, that meant her attacker was.

Time to play rough, I decided.

“Miss Walden-Sargent,” I said, turning toward her, “were you by any chance in the city this past summer?”

“No,” she said. “As a matter of fact, I was studying in Grenoble then touring with my parents.”

“How interesting. Then you aren’t a dancer?”

“A dancer? What do you mean?”

Junior’s look of indifference was suddenly wiped clean. He sat up in his chair, his eyes wide.

“I mean, miss, that Mr. Engstrum here was seen frequenting the Lower East Side clubs this past summer with a young dancer, so I thought maybe there was some mistake about the date of your engagement—”

“Madam,” barked Mrs. Engstrum, “I don’t know who may have repeated such a tale to you, but you’re seriously mistaken. You know, I have friends in the executive office of Town and Country, and I wasn’t under the impression they employed checkout counter tabloid reporters. This interview is over, and after I’ve made a phone call or two, I’m sure your career will be, as well.”

“Well, I see my time is up,” I said, rising.

Mrs. Engstrum glared at me as if I was about to leak national security secrets to our mortal enemies. “Your time is up all right. And you’ll be facing a lawsuit if you print a word of that lie.”

“Interesting that you’ve called it a lie,” I said, my eyes shifting to Richard, Junior. “But your son has not.”

Before she could issue another threat or force her son into supporting their little cover-up, I turned and departed, heading straight for the exit.

As I’d hoped, Mrs. Engstrum caught my arm just as I was pushing through one of the many sets of double doors along the back wall of the ballroom.

“Oh, no you don’t,” she snapped, pulling hard enough to bruise.

“Ow! Fiona, ease up, there.”

“How dare you threaten us with your lies,” she hissed, yanking me toward a deserted corner of the hallway. “How dare you—”

“How dare I!” I rounded on her. “How dare your son, madam. How dare your son sleep with Anabelle Hart, get her pregnant, and then try to kill her this past Wednesday night and make it look like an accident.”

The woman’s face went completely ashen.

Bingo, Bingo, Bingo.

Junior had done it all right, and she knew it. I’d hit a bull’s-eye.

“Who are you?” Her voice was barely there.

“Clare Cosi. I’m part owner and full-time manager of the Village Blend, the site of your son’s depraved assault on Anabelle.”

“Richard didn’t hurt Anabelle. You’re wrong. He made a mistake sleeping with that girl, a stupid, stupid mistake, but he didn’t do anything to hurt her, I swear—”

The woman looked absolutely stricken, and I faltered. The way the words came out—they felt so earnest and sincere. Was she telling me the truth? Or was her sincerity just a mother’s gullible belief in her own son’s innocence? Had Junior lied to her so well that she believed him? I didn’t know, but I had to keep going now—it was the only way to know for sure.

“Richard did hurt Anabelle, Mrs. Engstrum. I found the evidence after the Crime Scene Unit left. I haven’t brought it to the police yet, but I plan to—”

This was a lie, of course. A handful of tea leaves in a garbage bag did not prove a damned thing, but Mrs. Engstrum wouldn’t know that and neither would Richard.

“I just wanted you to have a chance to help your son,” I said, continuing the bluff. “I’m a mother, too, and one mother to another, I’m pleading with you to tell your son what I told you—talk some sense into him. If you convince him to give himself up by noon tomorrow, then I’ll destroy the evidence. The authorities will go much easier on him if he turns himself in and you know it.”

Fiona Engstrum looked stricken, stunned, pale as a ghost. Her eyes dampened with unshed tears.

“You’re wrong,” she rasped. “You’re wrong. I called Richard Thursday morning. He was in his fraternity at Dartmouth. He was there the whole night, and I’m sure he can find witnesses to that fact…I’m sure he can…”

Something inside me twisted. How could any mother face hearing this about her child? And what if I was wrong? What if Richard didn’t do a damn thing?

I couldn’t even imagine what I’d do if someone accused my own child of such a thing. But then Joy would never in a million years do what Richard Engstrum, Junior, had done. Even if he hadn’t caused Anabelle’s accident, he’d clearly abandoned her. Maybe a night of tossing and turning was something he deserved even if he wasn’t guilty. Anabelle didn’t have that luxury. She was flat on her back in St. Vincent’s ICU.

My resolve hardened.

“Remember. Noon tomorrow,” I said coldly and walked away.

I could feel the woman’s eyes burning a hole in the back of my Valentino. It took all my self-control not to steal a look at her as I strode back toward the ballroom doors, but to my credit I made it to the bar, where Matteo stood, without once turning around.