“That doesn’t mean anything,” Detective Canavan says. “I heard you’re eloping. Don’t give me that dopey look. I been in this business thirty years. Anyway, mazel tov.”

“I’m not eloping,” I say, feeling my face heating up.

“Sure you’re not,” Detective Canavan says. “Don’t forget to register somewhere. My wife’ll send you and Cartwright a nice Crock-Pot. You two.” He turns and gestures into the inner office. “Come on.”

Gavin and Brad come slinking out of the residence hall director’s office. They both have their heads sunk between their shoulders, looking like kids who’ve been caught shoplifting.

“What’s wrong with you guys?” I ask, relieved to have the detective’s attention off me.

“Apparently my powers of observation leave something to be desired,” Gavin says, shooting an indignant glance in Detective Canavan’s direction.

“Worst witness I ever had,” the detective agrees, glowering at Gavin in disapproval. “And then he tells me he wants to direct. Films, no less. Scorsese, he ain’t.”

“It was really crowded when I opened the desk this morning,” Gavin says to me. “People were pushing roses and boxes at me right and left. How am I supposed to remember who left what?”

“If it was the ice cream cake,” Brad chimes in, “I could tell you. That I remember, ’cause I really wanted a piece. Not that I’d have one, because all that sugar is really bad for your body.”

“I think it was a guy,” Gavin says.

“A guy,” Detective Canavan says. “Do you hear this kid? He thinks it was ‘a guy.’ A real Francis Ford Coppola he’s going to be when he graduates. Tell her what ‘the guy’ looked like.”

Gavin looks down at me uncomfortably.

“Um,” he says. “I don’t know. I think he was wearing a baseball cap. And a hoodie. I couldn’t really see because there was a big crowd. I just took everything they handed to me and put it on the table.”

Back in Lisa’s office, the police officer taking notes can’t stifle his laughter.

“Don’t call us,” Detective Canavan says to Gavin and Brad, making a pistol out of his index finger, then shooting. “We’ll call you.”

Dejected, Gavin and Brad slink from the office. When they’re gone, I say scoldingly, “You didn’t have to be so hard on them. We have the security footage from the lobby and the cameras in front of the building. Didn’t you get anything from those?”

Detective Canavan shakes his head. “Oh yes,” he says. “A grainy image of a large crowd of Tania Trace fans, one of whom was male and wearing a baseball cap and a hoodie. He was carrying a white plastic bag that appeared to contain a box. My guess is that it was a box of Pattycakes cupcakes. Highly observant, that lad of yours.”

My phone rings . . . my office phone this time. I see a number on the caller ID that I don’t recognize. I pick up and say, “Hello, Fischer Hall, this is Heather, how may I help you?”

“Oh, hi, Heather, it’s Lisa.” Lisa’s voice sounds strained. “Stan—Dr. Jessup—asked me to give you a heads-up. We’re still at the hospital.”

“Oh,” I say. “Great. How are things going?”

“Well, there’s good news and bad news,” Lisa says, still sounding upset, but as if she’s trying to hide it. “The good news is, the hospital has figured out what’s wrong. You were right, there was rat poison in those cupcakes.”

“Oh,” I say. I’m not sure how this is good news. “Okay.”

“Fortunately, neither Stephanie nor Simon ate enough of them to be affected.”

Oh. That’s how.

“The bad news,” Lisa goes on, “is that Jared Greenberg did. He passed away a little over an hour ago.”

Chapter 15

Pink Greyhound

2 ounces vodka
4 ounces freshly squeezed pink grapefruit juice
Ice
Mix vodka, juice, and ice. Shake thoroughly.
Optional garnish: rosemary sprig
All I want to do when I get home that night is make myself a stiff drink, strip off my clothes—which smell faintly of vomit, and on which I’ve found even more spots of Jared Greenberg’s blood—get into a hot bubble bath, and soak my troubles away.

Instead, I find myself squeezed into a dress that I hardly ever wear, a pair of Spanx, and a pair of too-tight high heels, heading uptown in the back of a black Town Car sent to fetch me by Cartwright Records Television.

It isn’t by choice.

“Please,” Cooper begs.

I notice the Town Car with the tinted windows parked in front of our brownstone as I’m returning from walking Lucy after work, but I don’t realize it has anything to do with me until Cooper calls to say that he’s at his parents’ penthouse with a near-catatonic Tania and that Detective Canavan has just left there, frustrated. Tania would barely even speak to him. Cooper wants me to come uptown to help him deal with her . . . and the rest of his family.

“You seem pretty optimistic about what my answer’s going to be,” I say. “You already sent a car.”

I hear Cooper making a slight hissing sound. I know he’s wincing.

“Sorry,” he says. “It wasn’t supposed to be there yet. Look, I know what you’ve been through—”

“Do you?” I ask. “When’s the last time you got thrown up on? Or bled on? Or been called fat by a bratty teenage girl?”

I know the last one shouldn’t bother me so much given that a man has lost his life—and it doesn’t bother me that much—but it hasn’t done much to enhance my mood.

“One of them called you fat?” Cooper sounds amused. “Did you tell her that your boyfriend thinks you’re perfect just the way you are and also that your boyfriend owns a gun and a permit to carry it in New York City?”

I don’t find this amusing.

“No. What I should have told her,” I say, “is that she isn’t going to get very far in life if she doesn’t learn not to insult people who don’t give her exactly what she wants.”

“Interesting,” Cooper says. “She reminds me of someone. Who could it be? Oh, right. My dad.”

I swallow. Grant Cartwright was so furious when his eldest son declined to enter the family music business that he cut Cooper off, refusing even to pay for college. Cooper wouldn’t back down, however, working round the clock in order to pay for school himself, so impressing his grandfather Arthur that he paid off Cooper’s tuition bills, then left him the brownstone when he died . . . which only further enraged Grant Cartwright.