“How is the D.C. charm offensive going?” she asked.
“It’s miserable. I feel as though I’m in a beauty pageant for lawyers, as I’m marched from office to office, delivering my carefully practiced, judicious responses with a smile. I have a thirty-minute break in my schedule and I’m tempted to run while no one’s looking. I can’t wait to get back to my regular life tomorrow.”
“So you’re coming home tonight?”
“The first shuttle in the morning.”
“Are you free tomorrow night?”
“I have no plans. Is this about Timmy’s recital? He mentioned it when I saw them last week at Madison Square Garden.”
“No, that’s Thursday.”
“The Knicks have an away game tomorrow or else I’d invite you all there. I know how much Leo and Timmy enjoy going.”
“Nope. No sports. No recitals. I’d like to take you to dinner, just the two of us—if you’re open to that.”
She could almost hear him smiling on the other end of the line, and she felt her heart swell.
“That sounds like the best invitation I’ve received in a long time, Laurie,” Alex said fervently.
50
When Laurie showed up at the studio the next morning, Grace greeted her with a whistle. “Well, look at you, Queen Moran. Are you thinking about joining Ryan in front of the camera today?”
Laurie knew that she was an attractive woman, but she wasn’t the type who went for heavy makeup or fussy hair. Today, however, she had put a little more effort into her morning routine than her usual wash-and-wear bob and single coat of mascara. She also knew that the bright green wrap dress was a perfect fit and made the flecks of color in her hazel eyes pop.
“Let’s just say I have plans after work,” Laurie said.
Grace pressed her palms together in a small clap. “Oh, is this who I think it might be? Rhymes with Malex Duckley?”
“He would hate that you called him that.”
“He loves me. Not as much as he loves you, but—”
“All right. I think that’s enough gossip for now. Don’t get ahead of your skis, Grace.”
“Me? On skis? No thank you. Snow and I do not get along. Thank goodness that gunk finally melted.”
“Where’s Jerry?” Laurie asked, peering into his empty office.
“He headed up to Greenwich already to make sure the equipment got all set up.” Today they were interviewing Anna Wakeling and her husband, Peter Browning, at the Wakeling family home in Greenwich, Connecticut.
All the better for me, Laurie thought. The sooner we finish, the sooner I can head back to the city for my dinner with Alex.
? ? ?
The driver finally came to a stop at the turn of the long U-shaped drive. Laurie and Ryan stepped out to look up at what could only be described as a mansion. The Wakeling home was a magnificent Georgian with meticulously groomed ivy creeping up the stone exterior. The estate’s gardens rivaled Versailles.
“Not too shabby,” Ryan whispered.
Anna Wakeling answered the door, but was distracted by something happening inside the house. “Please be careful with the floors in there.” She looked annoyed when she turned to greet Laurie. “Come in. When we agreed to this, I didn’t realize there’d be so many cameras. We should have just done this at the office.”
“Seeing where your mother lived will give viewers a better sense of her,” Laurie said. “The more viewers engage, the more likely it is we turn up new information about your mother’s murder.”
“And the better the ratings for your program,” she said cuttingly. “Sorry, I’m just being crabby. I get it. I’m a businesswoman, too.”
“Do you and Peter have any questions before we get started?” Ryan asked.
“Not a single one,” she said firmly. “Ask us anything you’d like, Mr. Nichols. My husband and I are open books.”
51
They filmed the interview in a brightly lit sitting room decorated in country French design. Peter and Anna sat side by side on a tufted love seat, holding hands. “This was my mother’s favorite room in the house,” Anna said wistfully. “She’d sit right here with a book for hours while my father worked in the den.”
Ryan used a light touch during most of the interview, allowing Anna and Peter to air their grievances against their mother’s younger suitor. They depicted him as uneducated, unsophisticated, and in a rush to marry their mother for money. Laurie had been worried that Ryan’s belief in Ivan’s innocence would skew his treatment of the show’s participants, but he came across as fair—even sympathetic to their concerns about the man.
“Peter, Ivan tells us that he and your mother-in-law had discussed a prenuptial agreement. Didn’t that quell some of your worries?”
“I was a legal advisor to Virginia in addition to being her son-in-law, so I really can’t disclose anything Virginia said to me.”
“But Ivan was not your client. Isn’t it true that he went specifically to you, as a trusted advisor to Virginia, to make clear that he was willing to sign anything that would reassure the family about his intentions?”
Anna interrupted. “It’s not just a matter of the prenup, which only applies in the event of a divorce. The whole point is that we were worried about him spending Mother’s money while they were actually married. She bought him a sports car when she barely knew him! It was unseemly. He’d have his hand in a far larger cookie jar as her husband.”
“So you think your mother was in fact planning to marry him,” Ryan said.
“No, she would never. And what difference does it make now anyway?”
“My understanding is that you think Ivan killed your mother because she discovered that he was stealing money from her and that she was going to report him to the authorities. If she was truly planning to marry Ivan, doesn’t that make it more believable that she actually gave him the seed money for his business?”
“I refuse to believe that she’d do something so heedless,” Anna snapped.
“Why do you say it was ‘heedless’? After all, Ivan’s business has thrived. It’s one of the most popular workout spots in Manhattan.”
“Well, she couldn’t have known that at the time.” Anna huffed.
“Or maybe she could, if she saw a side to Ivan that you and Peter did not. Don’t you think it’s possible she was confident in his abilities?” Anna and Peter did not respond, but the implication was clear. If Virginia had given that money to Ivan voluntarily, he had no motive to harm her. Ryan shifted direction. “Isn’t it true that your family was very concerned about your mother’s finances leading up to the night of the gala?”
“I don’t know if I’d say it rose to the level of very concerned, but, as I said, we thought she was being overly lavish with this man.”
“The very day before she died, in fact, you said, ‘Daddy’s the one who worked for this money. He would be destroyed if he could see the way you are spending it.’?” Ryan was reading from his notes. Both Anna and Penny had recounted the comment.