Have Your Cake and Kill Him Too (15 page)

Nibbling on a cracker, I reached for the phone and dialed Delilah's number.

“Hey,” I said when she answered. “Long time no hear. How are you doing?”

“Nora, hey.” Delilah's voice was subdued. “I can't talk right now. I'm—the police are here.”

I dropped my cracker. “What can I do to help?”

“I'm okay,” she said, but sounded far from it.

“Do you have a lawyer with you?”

“I don't need one,” she said. “We're just talking.”

“If you have any doubts, call a lawyer,” I said. “Do you want me to come? I can hold your hand, if you like.”

“I can handle it,” she said. “But I gotta go. I'll call you later.”

She disconnected before I could say more.

Slowly, I hung up my phone. Maybe the cops were simply asking Delilah standard questions.

Or were the police hedging their bets?

I extracted another cracker and took a bite. It tasted like cardboard with sawdust added for flavor. I opened a bottle of water to wash it down.

Fortunately, it all stayed in my stomach. So, nibbling crackers and sipping water, I went through the heap of my mail, comfortably glad to have Mary Jude working steadily beside me.

I received dozens of invitations every day, but because we were still in the slow weeks of the social season, I stopped into the office only three times a week to sort the envelopes. In a month, my workload would double. Soon, invitations for spring events would come flooding in. To stay ahead of the game, I made phone calls and wrote e-mails like mad, glad to focus on work and block out everything else for a while.

I took my work seriously, and my party-hopping had a purpose. Hundreds of philanthropic groups relied on newspaper coverage to promote their causes and help raise funds. It was my job to show up and report on clothes, decor, food and people, but also how much money was raised. Patting donors on the back resulted in more donations later.

I felt I could do my part for good causes by attending as many functions as I could squeeze into my calendar. During the height of the social season, I sometimes made appearances at two or three events each night.

Across the room, someone dropped a coffee cup and cursed. The rest of us looked up from our desks. Will Wesley, the paper's political columnist, popped up from his chair to avoid getting his trousers wet. As always, he wore a stiff striped shirt, a crisp bow tie and red suspenders to keep his pants from falling off his fat-cat potbelly.

Muttering, Will grabbed a handful of tissues from the box on another desk and began to mop up the mess.

As everyone else went back to their work, I pulled a roll of paper towels from Mary Jude's stash and went over.

“Thanks,” Will said with uncustomary civility. As I dabbed coffee off the newspaper he had splayed open on his desk, he said, “I was reading Maureen Dowd and the cup slipped out of my hand.”

“Well, at least you weren't throwing the cup.” I was pretty sure Will didn't see eye to eye with Maureen.

“I haven't finished her column yet,” Will said darkly.

Although our politics clashed, Will suffered my presence after he discovered one of my ancestors had sat next to his at the Continental Congress in 1774. The rest of the
Intelligencer
staff remained beneath his contempt for their mongrel pedigrees and unenlightened views.

I picked up a stack of well-thumbed copies of
National Review
to keep it dry, but Will snatched it from my grasp. Not before I glimpsed a single copy of
Maxim
among the political digests.

I said, “I thought I might have seen you at the Lajeune party last week, Will. Aren't you friends with Jerome?”

“I have a standing Wednesday night dinner date with my mother.”

“Oh. You weren't the only one who couldn't make it. Boykin Fitch didn't show, either. Do you know Boy?”

“Of course I do. A very promising young man.”

I decided not to point out that Boy and Will were probably the same age. Will seemed determined to be an old fogey before his time. “Is it true?” I asked. “That Boy plans to run for Senate next year?”

Will busily rearranged his desk. “He hasn't made an official announcement yet, but I know he's fund-raising. Why? Are you a supporter?”

I hated to dash Will's hopes that I might have converted. “We're friends.”

“I see,” Will said frostily, straightening to meet my eye. “Then you won't be asking who he's slept with like the left-wing gossips in this town?”

“Of course not,” I replied, although that question was precisely the one I'd hoped to pose.

I heard my phone ringing, so I hurried back to my own desk.

“It's me!” Libby said when I picked up. “You're a journalist, right? So you know how to do research?”

“Well—”

“I just heard there's something called the Chocolate-Cake Diet! Where could I look that up?”

There was no sense trying to reason with her. I said, “Try Ask Jeeves.”

“Thanks!”

She hung up.

Shaking my head, I collected the paperwork I wanted to take home. Then I put on my coat to conceal my figure from anyone who might be as observant as Mary Jude, and I stuck my head into my editor's office.

In his ancient desk chair, Stan Rosenstatz was stirring a cup of coffee with the eraser end of a number two pencil.

“Stan?”

He waved me into his office, but I saw the momentary flick of dismay in his face. He wasn't as glad to see me as he had been in the past.

But he put on a good front, tapping the wet pencil on the rim of his cup. “You're not going to ask me for travel expenses, are you? Mary Jude wants to go to a Scandinavian-food festival in Wisconsin, and George says the automotive column won't recover if he can't get to Detroit to see the concept cars next month. Do these writers think I'm made of money?”

I had brought along the box of cupcakes and offered him his choice. “Need something to take your mind off your troubles?”

“Thanks, kiddo.” He accepted a cupcake and waved me into the wobbly chair in front of his desk. “What's on your mind?”

I sat down and decided to launch directly into the discussion I'd planned. “Stan, since Kitty's death, I know I haven't exactly attracted thousands of new readers with my version of the social page.”

He didn't argue, but gave me an owlish look. “You're not going to quit on me, are you, Nora?”

He might be relieved if I did. But I said, “You're always saying we need to appeal to younger readers, right?”

He swiped a finger of icing. “If we don't, we'll soon be out of business.”

“I've got some ideas to improve my column to make it appeal more to a younger audience.”

“Okay, let's have it.”

“First of all, I think it would be smart to send a photographer around to some of the high school proms.”

He licked his finger and began to shake his head. “Marcie, the assistant fashion writer. She does prom clothes.”

“I don't mean just the clothes. Proms are becoming something totally different than they used to be. My nephew's spring dance is a fund-raiser for disaster victims. And there's a high school in the city that's collecting used sporting goods for underserved children. It's a whole new movement to get kids thinking philanthropically, and I think it's a concept worth supporting. Some publicity would help them, and we'd get a feel-good story about young kids doing something worthwhile.”

“Uhmm.”

He hadn't said no, so I went on. “And how many college students live in our circulation area? They're always having parties to benefit good causes. I don't mean the beer blasts that make neighbors angry, but the charitable work college kids do.”

“What are you proposing?”

“Photos, mostly, a little copy. I won't need to go to the events. I'm plenty busy covering the social season. But if we could send a photographer to a couple of events every week, I could do interviews by phone. The pictures and captions could go in the Thursday edition, the same day the weekend concert schedule goes in. I often don't have enough material for that day, anyway. We could make it a big deal, Stan.”

The buzz around the
Intelligencer
offices was that the society page took up space that could be better used for sports coverage, which sold papers. I had been trying to figure more ways to keep my job, and I thought I'd finally come up with a good solution. But Stan still looked unimpressed.

“Here's the next part,” I went on, trying to stay enthusiastic. “I think I should start contributing to our online edition. Kids may not read newspapers yet, but they definitely surf the Internet. If I cover some of the school charity events—maybe even send a video camera—we could corner the market on events that young people really want to read about. Once we hook them online, we can reel them over to the print edition.”

“I don't have anything to do with our online stuff, you know.”

“But you could put in a good word. I think this is a great idea, Stan. I think we'd really attract young readers with this.”

He frowned at the cupcake without touching it, as if his mind was elsewhere. For a moment, I thought he was trying to find the words to let me down gently.

But he said, “How much space are we talking for the high school and college stuff?”

I took a breath. “Half a page once a week.”

“Quarter page to start.” He lifted his head to meet my eye. “In the Thursday edition. When can you get the first one ready?”

“You think it's a good idea?” I couldn't keep the surprise out of my voice.

“It's worth a try.”

“Great! I'll need a couple of weeks to lay the groundwork, make some calls, talk to some people.”

“Okay, go for it,” he said. “Meanwhile, I'll take the online editor to lunch and see what he thinks about you contributing to that, too.”

“Stan, you're terrific! Thanks so much! You won't regret it, I promise.” I leaped to my feet and bounded for the door.

“Nora?”

I paused in the doorway.

He leaned back in his chair and beckoned me closer. “Let's talk another minute.”

How had he figured it out? Was my pregnant stomach already bulging with a job-jeopardizing baby? I gripped the door-jamb for courage, sure I was headed for the unemployment line.

Then Stan said, “We got a call from a jeweler, said he was a friend of yours.”

“Jeweler?”

“Martin Jaworski. You know him?”

Philadelphia's “King of Bling” was an old family friend who had lavished lots of attention on my mother before she maxed out her credit cards. I stepped back into Stan's office. “Yes, of course I know Marty.”

“He's been a big advertiser in the
Intelligencer
for something like fifty years. Now he wants to make a change. And when a whale of an advertiser like Jaworski says he wants a change, even the publisher gets nervous.”

“What kind of change does he want?”

“For years, his ads have run in Local News alongside the carpet-cleaning company and some dentist who makes your teeth look like Farrah Fawcett's.”

“You're showing your age, Stan.”

He allowed a grin. “Yeah, well, Jaworski's phone call made everybody in the sales department age about twenty years. He wants to put his ads on your page, right beside the social column.”

“Really? Isn't Marty a sweetheart!”

Stan did not share my pleasure. “He said his customers all read your page, and that he had friends who felt the same way. He gave us the names of some other businesses to try—some upscale caterer and a furniture store who want to reach your readers. The sales guys are knocking each other over to get to the phones.”

“That sounds good. Isn't it good?”

“You seem surprised.”

Abruptly feeling as if I were standing on the carpet of the principal's office, I said, “I am.”

“That's good. Nora, we don't want our writers going after advertising. It's a conflict, you see?”

“I've never spoken with Marty about advertising.”

“I checked just to be sure,” Stan acknowledged, “and you haven't. But the editor over in Local News is giving me grief. Which I don't need from outside my own department.”

“Sorry, Stan.”

“Just don't go trading boldfaced type in your column for advertising, okay?”

“I have a feeling I should be insulted you're even suggesting such a thing.”

“Good. Grief from you, I can live with.” Stan smiled a little. “You're a good kid, Nora.”

Which of course made me feel guilty for not admitting I would be needing at least an afternoon off to deliver my child. Torn about giving up my secret on the spot, I said, “Thanks, Stan.”

“Okay, get back to work.” He picked up his cupcake. “I'm sure you've got places to go.”

I met Rawlins on the street fifteen minutes later. His expression was not that of a boy with a clear conscience.

“How was the pizza?” I asked, wondering if my nephew had a tryst with Clover while I was working.

“Not bad.” He handed me into the passenger seat with suspiciously good manners.

With my guilt radar at work, I gave him the address of my next stop. But Rawlins made conversation while he drove across town in the gathering darkness. He agreed to wait again while I made a quick stop at a party. By now, he seemed comfortable with the knowledge that he had two suitcases full of cash in the trunk of his car. I marveled at the adaptability of teenagers.