The Jinx

Twenty-Two

M y fairy godmother, who had been egregiously negligent of late, made a cameo appearance in the guise of the empty cab that was pulling up the street. I was out of Jonathan’s car like a shot, yelling a hasty goodbye and promising to talk to him later while throwing myself in front of the taxi. It skidded to a stop, and I raced around to the side, opening the door and slamming it shut behind me. “Copley Place,” I said, “and step on it.” The driver obliged, and I turned to look out the back window. Jonathan was standing by his car, clearly stunned. I gave him a fake smile and a wave and reached over to lock the doors on either side of me.

My head was spinning. I felt like Linda Blair in The Exorcist, minus the satanic possession and spewing green slime parts. Jonathan Beasley-Love Story guy himself-was a serial killer?

My head slowed its spinning long enough to begin ticking off pieces of evidence. First, nobody that good-looking could be normal. Second, he had one of those stupid scarves that the police had linked with the crimes. Third, now that I thought about it, he did seem to have a complex of some sort when it came to Boston’s underclass. I remembered the off-putting way he’d spoken of how his ex-wife had become caught up in their problems, and the resentment that seemed to tinge his words. Maybe that was what motivated him?

But the clincher pretty much made all these pieces of evidence superfluous-because the clincher was that Jonathan Beasley was carrying bodies around in duffel bags and loading them into trunks.

And, even worse, he’d quasikissed me.

Blechh.

And not just once.

Double blechh.

I found a piece of Kleenex in my coat pocket and used it to scrub at my cheeks and lips until the tissue disintegrated into pieces of lint that I had to pick out of my mouth. We were crossing the river on the Mass. Ave. Bridge by then, and the driver was eyeing me in the rearview mirror with a concerned expression.

“Everything okay back there?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said with dignity, forming the words as clearly as I could around a mouth full of tissue fragments. I seemed to be making quite an impression on the Boston area’s fleet of taxi drivers.

Copley Place had sprouted several new appendages since I was last there, including a couple of new hotels, a new office building that bore more than a passing resemblance to R2-D2, and a maze of shopping arcades. I’d passed the same Ann Taylor three times before I realized that I was repeatedly missing the turnoff that would take me to the pedestrian walkway to Copley Place proper and the restaurant we’d designated as our meeting place.

I scurried along the passageway, ignoring the stores I passed and zigzagging through the crowds of Saturday shoppers in search of post-holiday bargains. By the time I’d reached my destination I felt as if I’d run a marathon.

My friends were seated calmly around a table on the floor of the mall outside the restaurant, chatting and sipping coffee and orange juice. “Hil, do you have Detective O’Connell’s card?”

She smiled. “Well, good morning to you, too. There’s something white on your lip.”

I tried not to snarl. “Do you have it?” I repeated.

“Do you want me to help you get it off?”

“Get what off?”

“The white thing.”

“No, I want to know if you have O’Connell’s card.”

“Of course I do.”

I knew that I could count on Hilary for something. “Give it to me. Now.”

“Will you give it back?” she started to ask, but then she got a better look at the expression on my face and handed the card over without saying anything else.

I found a relatively quiet corner and dialed O’Connell’s number, swiping at the bits and pieces of tissue that were stuck to my lips. I may have been ambivalent about calling him to report my suspicions regarding Barbara Barnett, but I was pretty comfortable calling to tell him that I knew who his serial killer was. I decided in advance that I would leave out the part about the serial killer having kissed me.

My fairy godmother had returned to the cave where she seemed to be hiding out of late. It took three tries for my call to go through, and when it finally did O’Connell wasn’t there and whoever answered his phone refused to page him, which seemed irresponsible, at best. I left a message, stressing repeatedly the urgency of the matter.

That done, I returned to my friends’ table and handed the card back to Hilary. Then I deposited my frazzled self in the empty chair, gripped the edge of the table with my hands, and began beating my head against it at a slow but steady pace.

“Something wrong, Rachel?” asked Luisa dryly.

“Everything’s wrong,” I answered plaintively.

“Stop that,” said Emma, grabbing hold of the knot of hair at the back of my head. “You’ll end up doing serious damage.”

“Do you think anyone will be able to tell the difference?” asked Hilary.

“Rachel, why don’t you sit up straight and tell us what’s going on.” Jane had her matronly voice of reason on, the one that she usually reserved for recalcitrant students.

“Poor Baby Hallard,” I said.

“What do you mean?” Now Jane sounded offended.

“Eighteen-plus years of being lectured to by your matronly voice of reason.”

She laughed. “Just imagine how Sean feels. But seriously, Rach, what has you all worked up?”

“Where should I start?” I asked dejectedly.

“At the beginning,” said Emma. “And look, we got you a Diet Coke.” She waved the can before me, and I perked up.

“Wow,” said Hilary. “If only Pavlov could have seen Rachel and Diet Coke. He wouldn’t have needed to keep tormenting those poor dogs.”

Under the careful questioning of my friends, I recounted that morning’s adventures, starting with the takeover the Barnetts had launched and my suspicions about the attacks on Sara being a little too convenient.

“Let me get this straight,” said Luisa, ever the skeptic. “You think that Barbara Barnett tried to kill Sara? All so that she could help her son take over a not very big company when they already have plenty of money?”

“From everything you’ve said before Adam sounds like such a weenie,” said Hilary. “Are you sure he has it in him?”

“Adam’s just the puppet,” I said. “Barbara’s the puppet master.”

“I just can’t believe that she would be chatting you up about makeup and diet tips in the ladies’ room if she were behind the attacks on Sara,” added Jane.

“Oh my God. I am a complete idiot,” I blurted out.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Rachel. Everybody jumps to conclusions sometimes,” said Emma. “It’s perfectly understandable that your thoughts got a bit convoluted.”

“No, it’s not that at all. If anything, I just realized how unconvoluted my thoughts are.”

“We’re listening,” prompted Jane.

“Ephedra. Or some other sort of diet pill. I bet that’s what Barbara was taking in the ladies’ room this morning. And it’s the exact sort of thing Matthew was talking about last night. If you gave a big dose of that to someone you could kill her. Hell, a big dose put Sara into cardiac arrest. Barbara Barnett has a stash of ephedra, and she used it to try to kill Sara.”

Hilary snorted. Unfortunately, she’d been drinking orange juice at the same time, so some of it dribbled out of her nose. Jane grimaced and handed her a napkin. “You’re saying that Barbara Barnett tried to kill Sara with diet pills?”

“I don’t know. But maybe. I mean, she was at the hospital yesterday afternoon, too. And when we left she was saying that she’d left her gloves in Sara’s room. Maybe she sneaked back in and put something in Sara’s IV while she was asleep. It’s possible. Anyhow, the takeover and Barbara trying to kill Sara are only part of the problem. I haven’t even told you the worst part yet.”

“You mean the part about your boyfriend cheating on you?” asked Hilary.

“No, the other worst part. The part about Love Story guy being the prostitute killer.” I filled them in on my encounter with Jonathan Beasley and his hoisting bodies into the trunk of his car with a telltale Harvard scarf knotted around his neck, the same one he’d used to strangle various Boston area “lowlifes.”

This time Luisa snorted orange juice out her nose. “You’ve got to be kidding. You really think Jonathan Beasley-the Ryan O’Neal to your Ali MacGraw-is a serial killer?” I knew I should never have told her about the Ryan O’Neal/Ali MacGraw thing.

“Why not? I mean, Ted Bundy was supposed to be totally charming.”

“Rachel’s right,” said Hilary. “Ted Bundy was a hottie.”

“I can’t believe you just called Ted Bundy a ‘hottie,’” said Jane.

“I can’t believe you just used the word ‘hottie,’” said Luisa.

“I didn’t even get a chance to see him,” said Emma sadly.

“Ted Bundy?”

“No, you idiot. Love Story guy.”

“He’s very cute,” said Hilary.

“In a Ken doll sort of way,” added Luisa.

“But Rachel likes that sort of thing,” interjected Jane.

“Could you all shut up already?” My voice, which had been plaintive before, now sounded downright whiny. “I need your help, here. On any other day, I could handle it. But not when everything with Peter is going up in flames. Or down in flames. Whichever.”

Emma patted my hand solicitously and flagged the waitress for another Diet Coke.

“Which part is worse?” asked Hilary. “That Peter’s cheating on you or that your other love interest is a serial killer?”

“Is that a helpful comment, Hilary?” asked Luisa.

“You’ll feel better once you can tell the police everything,” Emma reassured me. “I mean, it’s one thing for you to have to worry about the takeover and whatever’s going on with Peter, but they should be dealing with all of the other stuff.”

How could I tell her that all of the other stuff was almost a welcome distraction from the takeover and whatever was going on with Peter?

“Oh, no,” said Jane.

“Oh, no what?” I asked.

“Don’t look now.” In unison, we all turned to look in the direction she’d told us not to look.

We were sitting near the base of an escalator leading down from the shops on the upper floors. So when I saw the woman on the escalator carrying the trademark blue Tiffany’s bag, laughing up at something her companion had said, it didn’t immediately register. After all, there was a Tiffany’s up there, among other stores.

Then I noticed that the woman holding the Tiffany’s bag looked familiar.

With a sinking feeling, I realized that not only did I know her, the man standing next to her, the one making her laugh, was someone I knew very well. In fact, we’d shared a bed the previous night.

It was Peter, with Abigail. And they looked as if their shopping expedition had been an unqualified success.