Divas (40 page)

He had never judged Evie for the decision she had made. But, looking at the evidence of her spending habits, he knew that he could never satisfy the desire she had for continual, lavish spending
on unnecessary frivolities. Better that they had broken up sooner rather than later, he told himself.

But the thought of Evie finding another rich sugar daddy made the bile rise in the back of his throat.

He shut the study door behind him and ran up the main staircase, pushing all thoughts of Evie from his mind, focusing on the mission he had to accomplish. It wasn’t hard to locate
Carin’s bedroom, which was in such a perfect state of polished tidiness that it might have been the most luxurious hotel room in the world, lying like a white sheet of snow, pristine, waiting
for its next occupant. The sleek Scandinavian furniture yielded only clothes, exquisitely folded in cedar lined drawers. It was like a shop display, not a home.

Trying various doors, Lawrence found the largest and most lavish bathroom he had ever seen in his life; a walk-in closet as large as the bathroom, with lights that clicked on the moment he
entered and a wall of shoe racks at the far end like a museum installation; and finally, thank God, a private office. Like the rest of Carin’s suite, the office had the same spotless white
carpet and built-in, pale wood Nordic furniture – even the swivel chair was pale pine, upholstered in white leather.

On the desk was a day planner, bound in snakeskin bleached to ivory. It contained detailed notations of all her appointments: hairdressers, manicurists, masseuses, spas, personal trainers,
dieticians crammed the daytime hours full. In the evenings were parties and dinners, an equally endless social round. But, scanning back a couple of weeks, Lawrence hit pay dirt, in a scrawled name
and address in a notes section. Who else could
Joe in Italy
be but Joe Scutellaro, the nurse who had looked after Ben Fitzgerald ever since his diagnosis with Type II diabetes, and the man
who had sworn falsely on oath, in front of the grand jury, that Lola Fitzgerald had injected her comatose father with enough insulin to kill him?

Quickly, Lawrence scrawled down Scutellaro’s address, closed the day planner and slid it back into place on the desk. As he left the office, he stopped for a second, turning his head. Ever
since he had entered Ben Fitzgerald’s office, he had the strangest sensation of being watched. But there was no one around, he was sure of it . . .

He looked up into the corner of Carin’s bedroom. There was a motion sensor screwed high up on the wall, glowing red, part of an elaborate and no doubt hugely expensive alarm system.
That must be it
, he thought.
And anyway, I’ve got to get going. They could be back from the funeral any time
.

Reaching the hallway, he stopped dead. The caterers were coming up from the kitchen. A whole stream of people was passing below him in the hall: the Mexican guys, carrying stacks of the small
gilt-framed chairs common to all upmarket party planning companies. In addition, the actual wait staff were arriving, handsome young white boys, part-time actors and models, hired mainly for their
looks. It was always the same setup: small dark Mexicans (or Guatemalans, or Salvadoreans) were hidden away behind the scenes, doing 90 per cent of the work, while the taller, whiter Americans
tended bar, carried drinks trays, flirted with the older, richer clientele, and made small fortunes in tips.

Lawrence waited in the upstairs hallway, watching the scene below, waiting for the right moment, as still as a statue from years of yoga training, not making a single movement that might draw a
glance upstairs. Panio nipped out of the drawing-room and into the hall, complaining loudly about the positioning of the bar, and then ducked down the kitchen stairs. Some glass broke in the
reception room; people rushed in to clear it up; and with Panio downstairs, that was as good a cue to Lawrence as any.

He walked down the staircase quickly but confidently, as if he belonged there, not giving any indication by an over-hasty pace that he might not have had perfectly legitimate business on the
upper floors of the town house. Weaving round some chair legs, he slipped past and out of the front door, checking instinctively in his pocket to make sure that he had his notebook. No one gave him
a second glance; they were much too busy racing against the clock to get everything set up before Carin returned from the funeral.

Heading back down 53rd Street, Lawrence pulled his phone out and texted Evie with the news.
Mission accomplished
, he tapped out, grinning despite himself.

He wondered if she’d managed to make her way into the funeral. It would be tough, but he wouldn’t put anything past Evie.

Evie felt the phone buzz in her pocket, two short buzzes that told her a message had come in. But she was too caught up in the drama before her to check it straight away.

Because the funeral party had arrived at the grave by now, and Carin Fitzgerald was throwing a huge scene. Towering over everyone else, her height accentuated by the black velvet fedora she was
wearing, her fuchsia-painted lips had set into a thin hard line the moment she had caught sight of Lola and Suzanne standing by the grave, waiting to see Ben laid to rest.

‘No!’ she had snapped at the minister when he opened his prayer book and tried to start the service. ‘Not while those –
people
– are still here! I want them
gone!’

‘Mrs Fitzgerald, ’ the minister protested, ‘this is a public place! If other mourners have gathered here, we have no right to remove them—’

But Carin talked right over him, pointing a black-gloved finger across the bulk of her husband’s coffin at his daughter and his ex-wife.

‘They were not invited to the service, ’ she said icily, ‘and they won’t be present at his burial either.’

The minister looked appalled. He started to murmur something which mainly featured the words ‘proper Christian attitude’, ‘turning the other cheek’, and ‘time of
uniquely shared grief’, but Carin rode roughshod over him.

‘
That
one, ’ she said with contempt, indicating Suzanne, ‘is nothing but his ex-wife, who he divorced years ago. His ex-wife and his ex-lawyer. Has-beens. And
she
’ – Carin swivelled to point fully at Lola – ‘
killed
the man who’s lying in that coffin. My husband. If anyone’s not welcome here, it’s
her.’

Evie watched, eyes wide, as the small crowd of mourners drew in their breat. Everyone knew, of course, who Lola and Suzanne were; but no one had expected Carin to go this far. It was, after all,
a funeral, and as the minister was desperately trying to observe to Carin, they were standing on consecrated ground.

‘It is for God to judge, not us, ’ Evie heard him say, before Carin overrode him ruthlessly with:

‘God? God won’t find her guilty! A jury will!’

‘How
dare
you!’ Suzanne said furiously, taking a couple of paces forward.

And Carin, never one to turn down a challenge, strode towards Suzanne, till the two women stood facing each other across the oversized grave waiting for the man they both had married.

‘How dare
I
? How dare
you
show your face here!’ Carin retorted.

The minister hadn’t been able to silence Carin, but, to Evie’s great surprise, Suzanne managed what he could not.

‘Look at that grave!’ she cried, pointing down to the gaping hole at her feet. ‘See how large it is? That’s what
you
did to him! Ben wasn’t a freak show when
I was with him! I took care of him! He knew he had to watch his weight and take exercise, and God knows he wasn’t happy about it, but as long as I was with him he never got
huge
. Now
– my God, he must have been
obese
! Look at that coffin! Aren’t you ashamed of what you’ve done?’

Suzanne’s fists were clenched, her eyes flashing with fury.

‘You turned him into a joke!’ she accused Carin. ‘Something you’d see at a county fair! Aren’t you ashamed of letting your husband degenerate like that, before your
eyes? No, of course you’re not! Because you did it deliberately – you must have fed him up like a prize pig! You knew he was greedy, and you fed his disease. You fed him up so much he
became diabetic, for God’s sake! What kind of wife stands by and does nothing when her husband gets into that state?’

Carin was gaping, her lipsticked mouth hanging open: she looked as amazed as if an animal she’d had every reason to assume was tame – a sheep, maybe, or a rabbit – had suddenly
reared up and gashed its claws into her face.

‘
You
killed him!’ Suzanne screamed at her. ‘
You!
You let him get so overweight that his heart couldn’t take it – you made him diabetic –
you
killed him! You took him away from me, and then you killed him!’

She crumpled, suddenly, her whole body folding up on itself. Suzanne didn’t even put out her hands to save herself. She was no longer in control of her own body. Grief had crumpled her
completely.

Lola screamed. The lawyer jumped forward. But it was the skinny white boy with the goatee, who didn’t look strong enough to Evie to carry his own minimal weight, let alone someone
else’s, who reached Suzanne in time. Just as she was toppling forward, the momentum of her fall carrying her over the gaping maw of her ex-husband’s grave, the kid grabbed her from
behind and dragged her back, her heels skidding over the grass.

Suzanne hung there in his arms, limp as a rag doll, but safe, at least. On solid ground. And the minister, not too cowed by Carin to avoid seizing this excellent opportunity, stepped up to the
head of the grave, gesturing to the pallbearers to take up their work of lowering Ben Fitzgerald’s outsize coffin, finally, into the Manhattan soil where he had wanted so badly to be buried
that he had paid a small fortune for the privilege.

‘Ashes to ashes, ’ intoned the minister, opening his prayer book. ‘Dust to dust . . .’

Tears prickled at Evie’s eyes as she watched Benny’s body lowered to its final resting place.

Lola’s mom was right,
she thought, lifting her eyes to the immobile figure of Carin Fitzgerald.
You
did
kill him. And you picked the wrong girl to mess with, bitch.
I’m going to make sure you pay for what you did.

Joe in Italy

Barbiano 45

San Vincenzo

51048 Roma

The couple in front of her were being summoned up to the check-in desk, and now a smartly dressed woman behind another desk, her pillbox hat at a jaunty angle, was beckoning her over.

‘Evie Lopez, Rome, business class, ’ the woman said efficiently, scanning the passport and tapping the name into the computer. She looked at the screen. ‘We’ve assigned
you a window seat, Ms Lopez, is that OK?’

‘Fine, thanks.’

‘Just carry-on luggage?’

Lola nodded, hefting up her Louis Vuitton shoulder bag so the check-in official could see it.

‘Travelling very light!’ the woman smiled. ‘Are you planning to do a lot of shopping while you’re there?’

‘Not really. It’s just a flying visit.’

‘Flying visit, very good . . . Well, you have an open return. Just call in when you’re ready to use it. Or simply turn up at the airport. The flight’s on time, boarding starts
in an hour twenty, Gate 35, I’ve marked it on your boarding pass.’

She smiled again.

‘Enjoy your flight with us, Ms Lopez.’

There was no way Lola could leave the country. The DA’s office had confiscated both her British and her American passports. And even if she had had access to a Van der Veer jet, you still
needed a passport, no way round it. Things were a lot stricter nowadays, post 9–11, than they used to be. Everyone had been so caught up in the excitement of Lawrence’s discovery that
they hadn’t factored in that crucial piece of information: it had taken George Goldman to remind them that Lola was officially under arrest, out on $5 million bail, and strictly forbidden
from leaving the country.

And then Evie, looking at Lola, had said:

‘
She
can’t go. But I can.’

Evie had never left the States; like 75 per cent of her compatriots, she didn’t have a passport. It had taken five agonising days, with George Goldman and Simon Poluck pulling every string
they could, to secure her an emergency passport. Simon had high-placed connections in the office of one of the New York senators, who had finally made the all-important call to expedite the
process. It had arrived by FedEx, brand new, shiny dark blue, covers stiff, and the photograph of Evie inside very serious, her hair pulled back, staring directly at the camera. Not exactly
flattering.

But it looked enough like Lola for her to run the risk of using it to travel to Italy.

Sliding the passport and the boarding pass into the outside pocket of the Louis Vuitton shoulder bag, she turned away from the desk, towards the big Departures sign. There was a small queue for
business class; she wondered whether it would be full or not, whether she’d have someone sitting beside her who wanted to talk. Business travellers with briefcases clipped to their carry-on
suitcases, going to meetings in Italy. A couple in casual lounging clothes, smiling at each other, holding hands; their big suitcases and happy smiles indicating that they were going on holiday.
And a woman at the back of the queue in a kaftan draped over her substantial bulk, bent forward over a trolley on which a single small piece of luggage was propped, wheezing, clearly only using the
trolley to take some of the weight off her trainer-shod feet.

Probably travelling business class because she won’t fit into an economy seat, poor thing,
she thought. And then, rather meanly:
I hope she isn’t sitting next to me
. .
.