All Dressed in White Page 3

  As she walked her out of the office, Sandra had one last question. “Is there anything else I can tell you to help you decide to feature her case on the show?”

  “I don’t make these decisions on my own, but I promise I’ll get back to you one way or the other soon.”

  “I guess that’s all I can ask for,” Sandra said. She turned to Grace, who was sitting at her desk. “Thank you again for your kindness, Grace. I hope I’ll be seeing both of you again.”

  “It was my pleasure,” Grace said, her voice sympathetic.

  Once Sandra was gone, Jerry immediately joined them. “Why does that woman look so familiar? Is she an actress by chance?”

  Laurie shook her head. “No, I’ll explain later.”

  “Well, she was in there forever,” Jerry said. “Grace and I kept wondering whether we should interrupt. Our meeting with Brett is in just a few minutes, and we haven’t had a chance to run through our list of story ideas.”

  They had been planning to discuss their three top contenders one last time before Laurie had to pitch the concepts to Brett. She had started including Jerry in some of her planning meetings with Brett as he continued to take on increasing production responsibilities. She tended to focus on the news aspects of the program—the suspects, the witnesses, how to nail down their stories. Jerry’s talent was in envisioning scenes for the actual production—scouting locations, re-creating images from the crime, making the show as cinematographic as possible.

  “I didn’t expect to spend so much time with her either, but I think I’ve got a plan. Just follow my lead.”

  They started to walk quickly down the corridor to Brett Young’s corner office.

  7

  Brett’s new secretary, Dana Licameli, waved them directly past her station into the inner sanctum. “He’ll want an explanation,” she warned in a conspiratorial whisper.

  Laurie glanced at her watch. They were two minutes late. Oh boy, she thought.

  He spun in his chair to face them when they entered. As usual, his expression was filled with disapproval. His wife once was heard to remark that he woke up every day with a scowl on his face.

  “Sorry to be a little late, Brett. You’ll be pleased to know that I was talking to someone who may be great for the next special.”

  “People are either late or prompt. Saying you’re a little late is like saying you’re a little pregnant.” Turning from her, he said, “You’re looking especially dapper today, Jerry.”

  Laurie wanted to throw something at Brett, especially for what she recognized as a double-edged comment about Jerry. When Jerry first started working as an intern at the studios, he was a shy, awkward college student trying to hide his lanky frame with baggy clothes and slouching posture. Over the years, she had seen his confidence grow and his appearance change accordingly. Until very recently, he almost always wore turtlenecks and cardigan sweaters, even in warm weather. But since the first show of the Under Suspicion series had taken off, he was experimenting with different fashion choices. Today’s attire was a fitted plaid jacket, bow tie, and mustard-colored pants. Laurie thought he looked terrific.

  Jerry straightened his jacket proudly and took a seat. If he construed Brett’s remark as sarcasm, he wasn’t showing it.

  “I’m excited for our meeting,” Brett said. “My wife, she tells me I don’t give enough—what does she call it?—positive reinforcement to my colleagues. So, Laurie, Jerry, I want to make clear—I’m excited to hear your ideas for the next special.”

  A couple of years ago, Brett had been anything but excited when Laurie came back to work. She had taken time off when Greg was murdered. Then her first shows were flops, but that may have been because she was still grieving and distracted, or perhaps it was just tough luck. Either way, stars fall quickly in the land of television production, and Laurie knew that her days were numbered when she proposed the idea for Under Suspicion. Now that the show was a hit, she realized that she had been toying with the concept even before Greg died.

  “You know, Brett, we can’t guarantee that we’re going to solve every case.” So far, they were two for two. In both previous specials, the people involved in the cases had cooperated with the production and let their guards down when host Alex Buckley had questioned them. It wouldn’t always happen like that.

  Brett tapped his fingers on his desk, a signal that others should be quiet while he was thinking. As Grace irreverently put it, “He thinks with his fingers.” A handsome man with sculptured features and a full head of iron-gray hair, at age sixty-one he was biting to the point of cruelty and equally brilliant in his success as a renowned producer.

  “Well, as far as I’m concerned, what matters is that viewers think you might, and they want to be there when it happens. Tell me what you have for the next case.”

  Laurie thought of the notes she had prepared in her kitchen the previous night while Timmy played video games after dinner. Three cases. She suspected that the murdered medical professor would be Brett’s top choice. Because of a bitter divorce, both his wife and father-in-law were natural suspects. He’d begun seeing a woman who herself was recently divorced, so the new girlfriend’s husband was also on the list. Plus there was an academic colleague who accused him of stealing research. Not to mention a disgruntled student who had flunked his anatomy class. It was a perfect case for their show.

  Also on Laurie’s list was the case of a little boy who had been murdered in Oregon, whose stepmother was the leading suspect. It was a good case, but whenever Laurie started to think about the violence that had been inflicted against a nine-year-old boy, she thought of her own son, and would find herself looking at other possibilities.

  The third case on the list was the killing of two sisters thirty years earlier. Laurie found the case fascinating, but suspected that Brett would think a thirty-year delay would make the case too cold to capture viewers’ attention.

  Now all those notes remained on a legal pad in her briefcase.

  “I know I told you I had a few ideas, but one of them clearly stands out.” For her sake, and for Sandra’s, she hoped Brett would agree.

  8

  Walter Pierce stood in his office overlooking a production floor at Ladyform’s factory in Raleigh, North Carolina. Most CEOs would have opted by now for a fancy office on a high floor in a skyscraper, far removed from the everyday employees who worked in manufacturing. But Walter prided himself on running Ladyform as a traditional, family-owned business whose products were all designed and made in the United States. He was a large man, tall and burly, with a monk’s ring of hair around a jowled face.

  When his great-grandfather first started this company, women were still transitioning from corsets to brassieres, a change galvanized by the metal shortage in World War I. As he was proud to say, “The change reportedly saved more than fifty million pounds of metal, enough to build two battleships.”

  In the beginning Ladyform had one North Carolina factory manned by thirty workers. Now Ladyform maintained not only the original factory here, but also operations in Detroit, San Antonio, Milwaukee, Chicago, and Sacramento, not to mention the offices in New York.

  As he looked down at the busy scene below, he thought how Amanda had been the one who pushed for Ladyform to have a New York City presence. At the time she was still in college, but she was a straight-A student with savvy business sense. “Dad, we need to bring the brand into the future,” she had told him. “Women my age think of Ladyform as frumpy girdles that their mothers and grandmothers wear. We need women to see us as the company that helps them look and feel better in their own bodies.” She had so many ideas about rebranding—designing garments that were both fun and comfortable, modernizing the logo, and adding a line of sports clothing so that the brand represented, as she said, the female form instead of “the underwear people,” he thought sadly.

  Walter knew he would have rejected Amanda’s advice had it not been for Sandra. He had come home one night from work to find her waiting for hi
m at the kitchen table. He could tell from her stern expression that it was time for “a talk.” She insisted that he sit down across from her so she could tell him something.

  “Walter, you’re a wonderful husband and, in your own way, a loving father,” she had begun briskly. “And because of that, I don’t try to change you or tell you what to do. But you have pushed and pushed and pushed our children to share your passion for the family business.”

  “I’ve also insisted that all the children were free to do whatever they wanted,” he had answered heatedly. But even as he spoke the words, Walter felt a twinge at the thought of Ladyform ever going forward without a Pierce at the helm.

  “Good for you,” Sandra snapped. “But may I remind you that you’ve pushed so hard that our son wants nothing to do with it and has moved all the way to Seattle so he can do something all on his own at the other end of the country. On the other hand, Amanda and Charlotte have done everything you’ve asked. They do it because they love you and desperately want your approval. And let’s face it, Amanda’s the one who has really poured herself into the company. Her ideas are spot-on, Walter, and if you ignore them outright, you will absolutely crush her. I’m telling you, I won’t stand for it.”

  So without ever telling Amanda about her mother’s intervention, he had approved Amanda’s request to open and head a New York office handling the design, marketing, and sales divisions of the company, Walter remembered. Amanda and Charlotte worked there, and he stayed put at the main manufacturing facility in Raleigh.

  Then, thanks to Amanda, the company was more profitable than ever, and Ladyform was regularly touted in business magazines as an old-fashioned American company that had successfully “repositioned” itself for the twenty-first century. Amanda, Walter wondered to himself, do you know that you saved the company from going over the cliff?

  His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of his phone ringing. He took it from his pocket and recognized the incoming number as Sandra’s cell. It wasn’t the first time she’d happened to call when he was thinking about her. It had been nearly two years since she moved to Seattle, and still, he thought, they were connected.

  “Hello, Sandra. I was just thinking about you.”

  “Not in a bad way, I hope.”

  Their divorce had been finalized without too much contention. But despite a mutual promise to keep matters cordial, the process of having lawyers negotiate the end of a marriage that had lasted more than a third of a century had led to some tense moments.

  “Never,” he said, firmly. “I was crediting you with Ladyform’s success. We would never have had the New York offices if not for you.”

  “Well, that is a coincidence then, because I’m in New York now. I’m about to have lunch with Charlotte.”

  “You’re in New York?” Walter asked. “Just to see Charlotte?”

  The question caused a pang of guilt. He had made an extraordinarily difficult decision to choose between Amanda and Charlotte as his successor to head the company. Of course, Charlotte as the older sister had been bitter and hurt, and the fact that she got the job after Amanda disappeared still didn’t diminish her resentment.

  This past November Sandra had invited him to have Thanksgiving dinner with her, Charlotte, and Henry and his family in Seattle. He supposed it was unrealistic to expect Sandra to continue to see him regularly. The visit had left him wistful and sad.

  “No, not only to see her,” Sandra was saying. “I’m afraid I’ve done something that might upset you. Have you heard of the television show Under Suspicion?”

  What’s this about? Walter wondered, then listened as Sandra went on and on about the two-hour meeting she’d had with the show’s producer about Amanda’s disappearance.

  “I thought it was a long shot, but I think she may have actually listened.” Sandra’s voice was excited. “Please, Walter, don’t be angry. She said they only choose a case if the family members all approve. Walter, will you please consider it?”

  He winced. Did she really think that he wouldn’t turn over every stone if that would somehow solve Amanda’s disappearance? “Sandra, I’m not angry. And of course I’ll cooperate any way I can.”

  “Really? Walter, that’s wonderful. Thank you. One hundred times, thank you.”

  There was a smile in her voice.

  • • •

  A little more than five hundred miles north, in the Pierre Hotel in Manhattan, Sandra disconnected her cell phone and tucked it in her handbag. Her hand was shaking. She had been prepared for another argument with Walter, like the ones that had eventually led to the end of their marriage. How long are you going to keep up with this, Sandra? When are you going to face facts? We still have our lives and two other children. We owe it to Henry and Charlotte and our grandchildren to move on. You’ve become obsessed!

  But they hadn’t had any fights like that since Walter came home from work to find her in the bedroom, struggling to close a very full suitcase. Protesting, he had carried it down to the waiting car. As she got into it, she said, “I can’t deal with you any longer. Good-bye.” Sandra was relieved that today’s conversation hadn’t led to another confrontation. Still, as she walked down Sixth Avenue, something was bothering her.

  Walter had quickly gone along with being involved if Laurie Moran made Amanda’s disappearance the next case in the Under Suspicion series. But she knew that reliving it moment by moment as the investigation began would tear him apart.

  “I’m sorry, Walter,” she said aloud. “But if I get the chance to have Amanda’s disappearance examined, I’m going to go through with it, come hell or high water.”

  9

  In Brett Young’s office at Fisher Blake Studios, Laurie was making her strongest pitch to feature the Runaway Bride case in their next special.

  She began by laying the button that Sandra had given her on Brett’s desk. Normally, she would have brought eight-by-ten glossies, but today, she was working on the fly. “You might recognize her photograph. Her name is Amanda Pierce. Five years after her disappearance, her mother, Sandra, still wears these buttons.”

  Raising his eyebrows, Brett inched the button toward him for closer inspection, but said nothing.

  “New Yorkers Amanda Pierce and Jeff Hunter had plans for a luxurious destination wedding. The ceremony was planned for Saturday afternoon, to be followed by a lavish reception. The wedding would be fairly intimate—sixty of their closest friends and family. But the wedding never happened,” she continued. “On Friday morning before the Saturday afternoon wedding, the bride, Amanda Pierce, did not show up for breakfast. Her fiancé and maid of honor knocked on the door of her room. There was no answer. A security guard let them in. The bed had not been slept in. Her wedding dress was spread across it. The night before, the bridal party had had dinner together. That was the last time they saw Amanda.”

  Laurie could tell she had Brett’s attention now. “They started to worry. They checked the hotel gym, the beach, the restaurant, the lobby—everywhere they could think of to look for her. Jeff went to the front desk to ask if housekeeping had already made up Amanda’s room. The clerk checked, and just as he said, ‘no,’ Amanda’s parents arrived in the lobby. They had to hear from Jeff that their daughter was missing. She’s never been heard from again.” Brett snapped his fingers. “I knew her face looked familiar. This is that Runaway Bride thing, right? Didn’t she turn up in Vegas with some other guy?”

  Laurie vaguely recalled a similar story a few years back along those lines, but assured him that it wasn’t the Amanda Pierce case. “Amanda vanished without a trace. People don’t run away for over five years.”

  “Without a trace? As in, no body? No new clues at all? Doesn’t sound promising.”

  “It’s a cold case. That’s what we do, Brett.”

  “But this one is ice cold. We’re talking igloo at the North Pole. Let me guess: the person you were talking to before the meeting was the button-wearing mother? I ran into her in the elevator.” Be
fore she could answer, he said, “You’re a sucker for a sad story, Laurie. I can’t green-light a special just so you can give a platform to the sobbing family. We need clues. We need suspects. I’m sure you want to help this mother, but as I recall, the parents weren’t even there yet when the girl disappeared, right? And who are the people who have been living under suspicion since then?”

  Laurie explained Amanda’s decision to leave her trust fund to Jeff, even though they weren’t married yet.

  Jerry chimed in. “If you go online, there are thousands of people obsessed with this case. Almost everyone thinks the groom did it and it had something to do with the money. And the facts about the will aren’t even public. Not long after Amanda disappeared he had the nerve to hook up with her best friend. They’re married now, and I bet it won’t be long before they spend all the money together.”

  “Not that we’re biased or anything,” Laurie added jokingly.

  “Of course not,” Jerry said.

  The mention of money gave Laurie another idea. “The setting would be perfect, Brett. The Grand Victoria Hotel in Palm Beach. It was supposed to be a dream wedding. All travel, lodging, and entertainment paid for by the bride’s wealthy family.”

  Laurie was pleased when she finally saw Brett scribble some notes. She made out the word “resort,” followed by dollar signs. Just as she had predicted, Brett relished the idea of a glamorous setting and financially comfortable participants. Sometimes Laurie wondered if Brett would have preferred for her to have created Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous: Unsolved Murders.

  “But her body was never found,” Brett observed. “Up until now, for all we know, Amanda Pierce is happily enjoying a new life under a new name. I would have thought, Laurie, that your journalist ethics would leave you concerned about violating the woman’s privacy.”