Killer Look (20 page)

“By whom? For what reason? Why?” The questions came out of my mouth faster than I could think.

“You keep quiet and sit in the corner,” Mike said. “My story to the commissioner, should he ask, is that you were just paying a sympathy call on your old backstroking buddy when we walked in the door.”

“I hear you.”

I took a chair in the far corner. Mike opened the door and signaled to Lily to come back into the room.

“It makes me so much more comfortable to have Alex in on our conversations,” Lily said. “You must know how it is, when it's your first experience with the police. I'm overwhelmed by everything that's happened this week.”

Mike had parked himself on a corner of the desk, opposite Lily, forcing her to look up at him. He liked being in control.

“I was just telling Alex that you have a suspicion about some kind of blackmail,” he said. “What brought that on?”

“I was right about the homicide theory,” Lily said. “Wasn't I?”

“Do you mind starting with what happened at the lawyer's office yesterday?” Mike asked. “We were interrupted before you finished. Work up to your idea about blackmail.”

“Like I said, I was just beginning to spend more time with my father in the last year. He had divorced his fifth wife—thank God—and we were trying for a reconciliation of some sort,” Lily said.

“How did you approach him?”

“I think I mentioned this to Alex the other day. My husband, David, thought it had a better chance coming from him, so he called my father to invite him to lunch. He did it the smart way,” Lily said. “David took photographs of our kids with him. I think it touched something deep inside my dad that there was actually another generation that could be part of his legacy.”

“He must have liked that,” Mike said. “Tell me about David.”

“We met at business school. Columbia. He's a partner at a private equity firm in Connecticut.”

“I suppose that means he makes money.”

Lily nodded. “He's been very successful. He knew my father would appreciate that he didn't come here with his hand out, expecting financial aid.”

“But you were looking for a job here,” Mike said.

Lily sat back as though Mike had slapped her. “I would have liked that, yes. I've got all the qualifications to make an impact on this business, Detective.”

“You and your husband, are you two solid?” Mike nipped at her again.

“I should hope so. What a mean question to ask,” Lily said. “Do I have to answer all this, Alex?”

“It would help them, Lily,” I said. “This is a really unusual situation, even for a homicide investigation. They need to know everything.”

“I'm going to ask you again, are you and David solid?”

There was something about her reaction to the question that kept Mike on her.

“We are now. Our older kids are nine and seven. We separated for a while five years ago. But we're really good. We've got a two-year-old.”

“The make-up kid,” Mike said.

Lily angled her head and forced a smile. “We named him Wolf. That seemed to please my father enormously.”

“I'll bet it did. Your brother has no children?”

“No, he doesn't.”

“Would you mind telling us how your father's estate was split?”

“In a word,” Lily said, “unfairly.”

“Where were we before Alex came in?” Mercer asked, trying to get Lily and Mike back on the same page.

“I was trying to explain what we've learned so far. First of all, there's the real estate,” she said. “A loft downtown and a house in the country. They're both worth a lot of money, but Dad's lawyer suggested that they're mortgaged to the hilt. I don't know why, really, but it's a hint of the fact that Dad's finances weren't quite what he wanted us—wanted the world, and the gossip columnists—to think.”

“Aren't there homes abroad too?” Mike asked.

“Several, but I believe they're owned by the corporation. So nothing coming to any of us from that.”

“I don't mean to be crass,” Mercer said, “but how much money is there in the estate?”

“The lawyer doesn't have any idea of the current values,” Lily said. “They'll start to marshal the assets now. According to the will, sixty percent of everything my father had goes to my brother, Reed.”

She had on her best poker face. That still left a large chunk for
her, I thought. I'm not sure why she would have expected more, since she and her father had not enjoyed a long, close relationship.

“Then,” she went on, “there were percentages for his favorite charities, of course, and smaller amounts for some of his longtime employees. He made sure to take good care of them. For me? Ten percent of his estate. That's for me personally, and the country house is in a real-estate trust for my children.”

“That's pretty damn good,” Mike said. “Ten percent, I mean.”

“It might seem that way to you,” Lily said. “It's not what he told me he was planning to do.”

“But he'd been estranged from you for most of your life,” Mike said.

“You'll forgive me if I'm not as pleased as you think I should be, Detective. I'm still his flesh and blood, and worked hard at getting back in his good graces.”

“How about Hal?”

“The business is a major asset of course,” Lily said, biting one of her fingernails. “That's split between Reed and my uncle Hal. So my father shut that door on me, too.”

“It sounds like there are some financial concerns about the health of WolfWear,” Mercer said. “Do you know anything about that?”

“Not enough, apparently.”

“Can you help us with that?”

“You'll have to talk to my husband. To David.”

“Why would he be the one to know?” Mike asked.

Lily hesitated, looking over to me before she answered. “My father trusted David. He was looking to him for an outside perspective on the company.”

“What's this about the possibility of a newer will?”

“Have you mentioned it to Alex?” Lily asked. “No offense, but she's a lawyer.”

I stood up and came closer to the desk. “What makes you think there's another will? That could change everything.”

Lily threw back her head and chewed on her lip. “Well, it would certainly create a shit storm down the hallway here. You never saw two grown men—my brother and my uncle—try to adopt anyone so quickly.”

“Tell me about it,” I said.

“You'll have to talk to David,” Lily said. “He's the one my father told.”

“The detectives will of course interview David. But every second counts in this investigation,” I said. “Give them the general strokes.”

Lily stared up at the ceiling for a full minute before speaking. “It was about two months ago, early in September. David got a call from my father, who asked him to stay in town for dinner to discuss a project with him.”

“Which one?” Mike asked.

“The project was next week's show at the Met. Not the Costume Institute, but Monday night's launch of the new collection.”

“The big one.”

“Exactly,” Lily said. “My father was thrilled about next week. That's one of the reasons I told Alex I was suspicious about his suicide.”

“What did your father tell David?” Mike said.

“I knew from the time I'd been spending with my dad that he was under all this pressure to sell the lion's share of the business to a Chinese entrepreneur.”

“George Kwan?”

“Yes. Kwan Enterprises,” Lily said. “He didn't let on to me how troubled he was about it. That he feared losing control altogether, so he was trying to put off finalizing anything till after next week.”

“Why did he suddenly pick this point in time to choose David as a confidant?” I asked.

“You'll meet David,” Lily said. “He's such a great guy, and my father was obviously trying to get out from under the competing forces of my brother, Reed, and my uncle Hal. He had come to trust David.”

“What did he want from your husband?” Mike said.

“My father wanted David to put together a consortium or a group to make a counteroffer to the Kwans. He figured that was the kind of thing a private equity firm could do,” Lily said. She sighed and then looked straight at Mike. “My father asked David to stake him the money. A lot of money.”

“How come you didn't tell me this when we met the other day?” I asked.

“Money wasn't the first thing on my mind, Alex. I'd just learned my father was dead,” Lily said. “And David didn't give me the full story until last night—after the medical examiner told us he had been killed. Murdered.”

Mike held up his hand toward my face to stop me from interrupting his questioning of Lily Savitsky.

“How much money did your father ask David for?”

She had started in biting another nail. “Two million dollars.”

“Sweet Jesus,” Mike said. “What the hell for?”

I knew why. Tiziana Bolt had told me that Kwan Enterprises would never underwrite a fashion show for that much money. I suspected that was true—certainly not without a signed deal with Wolf Savage. They wanted him to front the money himself.

“Because that's what it is going to cost to put on a show like this at the Temple of Dendur,” Lily said. “One million just to rent the space, another half a million for the gowns and the models. Then you start with the kickbacks.”

“Kickbacks?” Mike asked.

“David says that in this business, everyone alive gets a kickback for doing what they do, from the promoters to the caterers. It's the nature of the beast.”

“When did David become an expert in the fashion industry?”

Lily tried to conceal her sneer. “His firm has worked in this area before. They've done turnarounds on some of the smaller brands. Nothing as big as WolfWear, but all names you—well, maybe Alex—would recognize.”

“That lack of high-fashion experience didn't stop him from being long on advice, did it?” Mike asked.

“No, it didn't. Not when my father needed help.”

“Did David come up with the two million?”

“He wasn't planning on withdrawing it from his bank account, Detective. We're not in that league,” Lily said. “He raised it with his partners.”

I was beginning to see the light. “David was willing to raise the money because he wanted his company's fund to do exactly what Kwan Enterprises wanted to do. Buy the business up—but at a greater discount—and let your father keep his dignity. Then David and his partners would still find some third-world operation to do the supply-chain work to make cheaper clothes.”

Mike's hands were on his hips—a sure sign that he was annoyed—but he didn't stop me.

“I—I don't know exactly,” Lily said. “That's why I told you to talk to him.”

“I can see what was in it for your father,” I said. “Truly, I can. A more favorable offer with someone he had every reason to trust. But what else was in it for David?”

Lily was down to her hangnails now.

“Is that where the conversation about the new will came in?” Mercer asked. “Was that whole thing your husband's idea?”

“David only wanted what was best for me, best for our children.”

“Does he know whether your father ever had a new will drafted?” Mike asked. “Does he know the name of the lawyer?”

She shook her head, fighting back tears. “No. But my father promised David that he would get it done before—well, before next week.”

“And in exchange, David's firm coughed up the two million,” Mike said.

“Why did you come here today?” I asked. “What if Reed and Hal figure out that there was a quid pro quo for the big show to go on? They'll have every reason to turn on you.”

“I'd rather hide in plain sight, Alex.”

“They'll know every step you take,” I said.

“And I'll keep my eyes on them, too.”

“What's David up to today?” Mike asked. “Where's he?”

“Look, before you go making David seem like the bad guy,” she said, turning to Mike, “I didn't know about this Tanya Root woman. I didn't know I had a sister—well, a half-sister from one of my father's serial affairs—until yesterday. It's quite a shock.”

“But Tanya was disinherited by Wolf,” Mike said. “He specifically cut her out of the will. What does she have to do with any of this business between you and your father? Why are you pointing a finger at her?”

“Just suppose for a minute that Tanya was also trying to get my father to change his will. Not because she wanted to help him, not because she wanted to be involved in his life and his business—but just to get money out of him.”

“That assumes,” I said, “that they were still in touch with each other. That she knew—or found out—he was her father and that she had been in communication with him.”

“Then suppose she was the one who was blackmailing him, pressuring him to change his will?” she asked.

“We don't have to suppose anything, Lily,” Mike said, leaning
both his hands on the desk to get closer to her. “That ‘blackmail' word you're using—it's just a guess? Because if you've got the patience to wait this out, we'll have a subpoena for every phone call and email and text that ever went out from your father to any one of you in the last year. It'll get worse before it ever gets better.”

“You think I'm holding back something from you?” Lily asked. “This Tanya Root person is a complete mystery to David and me. Whether there's a new will that surfaces and proves to be valid makes no difference to me. My father had already included me in this will.”

“Really? The one you just finished telling us was unfair?” Mike said. “Can't have it both ways.”

Lily Savitsky snapped. She clenched her fists and pounded them on the desktop. “Are you satisfied, Detective Chapman? Can you tell that I'm scared?”