The Chemistry of Death

Chapter 10

Vivian glanced up and down Park Avenue. It was busy this time of morning. Yellow taxis and black town cars moved like a seemingly endless conveyor belt to deliver office workers to the towering glass building in front of her.

Tesla had suggested she speak to an Iris Wu, a friend of Sandra Haines. He’d sent her the woman’s work phone number. Vivian had tried to find that information on the Internet herself, to see if that was how he did it, but she’d come up empty-handed. He probably had access, legal or illegal, to databases she’d never see.

However he got it, the number worked. Iris Wu had agreed to meet Vivian for fifteen minutes at 10:15 precisely. Vivian guessed that a lot of tasks had been juggled to carve out that much time. Iris Wu, the short phone call told her, was a busy woman.

Vivian gave her name to the round-faced security guard on the ground floor at 10:05, figuring it would take her a good ten minutes to get through the layers of bureaucracy and security surrounding Iris Wu. Turned out Vivian was a good guesser, because at exactly 10:15, she was admitted to a sterile, modern waiting room where she checked in with a receptionist who looked like a model — emaciated and blond, with an asymmetrical haircut that Vivian was still trying to figure out when Iris Wu arrived a few minutes later.

Wu wore a black business suit with a purple silk top that made her look like an expensive plum, but her handshake was as strong as your average Marine’s. “I apologize for the delay, Miss Torres.”

Vivian didn’t need to check the time on her phone to know the woman was less than two minutes late. “I appreciate you taking the time to speak to me, Miss Wu.”

Wu swiveled around and marched down a hallway, moving at a pretty good clip for someone her height, in high heels that looked like they cost more than Vivian made in a week. “We can speak in the conference room.”

A few seconds later, they were seated across from each other at a wide table made out of a grayish wood. Eight empty chairs ranged around the table waiting for a more important meeting to start. A triangle that was probably a phone sat in the center of the table.

“I understand you were friends with Sandra Haines.” Vivian didn’t think Wu needed any preliminaries.

Something flickered in Wu’s eyes, but it was gone almost instantly. “I was.”

“I’m investigating her death—”

“You mean her murder?” Wu said.

Vivian leaned forward. “What makes you think she was murdered?”

“I don’t think he pushed her in front of that train, but that bastard Slade is as responsible for her death as if he had.”

Legally, not true. Vivian didn’t see the point of parsing the distinction with Wu. “Slade?”

“Slade Masterson. Sandra’s boyfriend. I guess you’d have to call him her ex-boyfriend since he dumped her the day she died.”

“Why?”

“He found someone richer, that’s why. Slade was sponging off Sandra, and he found a better source of cash, so he cut her loose.” Wu’s nostrils flared. “After three years of whatever the hell their relationship was, he sent her a text message saying it was over, he’d changed the locks, and she could get her stuff from the doorman.”

That was pretty cold. “How do you know this?”

Wu tugged one purple sleeve, adjusting how much of it peeked out of her suit jacket. “Because she came into the office and told me.”

Which fit with Tesla saying they were friends. “What happened after that?”

“We went out. After a couple of clubs, Sandra’s goal was to have some fantastic revenge sex and move on. She met some guy and ditched me.” Wu’s bitter tone was clear.

“Who was the guy?” Seemed like he was a better suspect than Slade.

Wu shrugged. “Some random guy. I think he was blond? Tall. Nice suit. Anyway, the guy she left the club with might not even have been the guy she ended up with. She said she was going hunting and didn’t need me around.”

More bitterness. Sounded as if Iris wasn’t happy to have been left for some cute stranger. Or maybe she felt responsible for leaving her friend alone on the night she died. “Did the guy have a name?”

“Why would he need one?”

“Because he might have been the last person to see your friend alive.”

A muscle worked in Wu’s jaw. “I thought she jumped in front of the A train at 72nd Street. The train driver said Sandra was alone in the tunnel. So that makes the train driver the last one to see her alive.”

“How did you find that out?”

“After I identified Sandra’s body.” Wu swallowed back tears. She was tough. “I asked.”

“I’m sorry you had to see your friend like that.”

“What would you know about it?” Wu glared at her.

“I served in Afghanistan and Iraq. I’ve identified friends’ bodies.”

“I’m sorry.” Wu looked down at the table. “I still can’t believe she would do something like that. Sandra was brilliant. She was funny, even if she worried too much.”

“Did you follow her out of the bar?” Vivian didn’t want to ask her straight out about her alibi.

“I left before she did. As soon as she said she was going hunting, I went home.”

“Alone?”

“I had to work the next day, and I was in a relationship anyway. We’re getting married in June.”

“Congratulations,” Vivian said automatically. She could double check that alibi later, but Wu didn’t strike her as someone who had murdered her best friend.

“Plenty of fish in the sea.” Wu sighed. “She could have found someone else easy. Instead, she threw it all away because some asshole changed the locks. She could have replaced him with another asshole in a week.”

Maybe she was through with assholes. “Was she generally depressed?”

“She had dark moments, sure. She always came out the other side. I would have called her a mostly hopeful person. Until Slade.”

“Do you have his contact information?”

“I’ve been waiting a long time to give it to someone who might use it to nail the bastard.” Wu took a yellow sticky note out of her pocket. A man’s name and address were written on it in a feminine hand, one much more elegant than Vivian would have expected from Wu’s no-nonsense manner.

It sure sounded like Sandra had committed suicide — dark moments, recently dumped, drunk, and out on the tracks. A lot of things had conspired to end Sandra’s life.

“Of all the ways to go, I never thought she’d jump in front of a train,” Wu said.

“Why is that?” Vivian had never really thought about what methods her friends might use to commit suicide.

“She never took the subway. We always took cabs or walked.”

That was one thing out of place. “Why?”

Wu shrugged. “She never said, but I always thought it was weird.”

Had Sandra been afraid of the subway? What would Tesla do if he were afraid of subways? Considering all his other mental problems, it was a damn good thing that one wasn’t on the list. “Do you have anything more to add?”

“Did they ever find her bag?” Wu asked.

Vivian went on alert. “What bag?”

“She had this custom Prada clutch. Worth a fortune. A guy gave it to her, some coke dealer she dated for five minutes. Anyway, I always thought it was weird that it wasn’t with her when she died. She watched that thing like a baby. Never let it out of her sight. I always wondered if someone pushed her in front of the train to get it.”

Clearly Katrinka wasn’t the only one who knew how much that bag had cost. “Did you tell the police?”

“I told the guy at the morgue, and he said he’d pass it along.”

Vivian had read the files. The purse hadn’t been mentioned, but evidence had pointed to a suicide, which is how it had been labeled, and that made the missing purse irrelevant. The transit authorities and the police had been fairly thorough. Sandra’s death looked like a tragic accident, nothing more.

Except that her bag, along with several lipsticks, had turned up miles from where she died.

“Do you know what kind of lipstick Sandra might have been carrying?”

Wu’s eyebrows rose. “Christian Dior 999. It was her favorite, since Natalie Portman modeled it. She was crazy about Natalie Portman. The red was too dark for Sandra, but she wore it anyway. Why?”

“Just a line of inquiry,” Vivian said. “It probably doesn’t mean anything.”

Her mind jumped to three smooth black tubes laid out on Tesla’s pool table. That lipstick meant something.