I'll Walk Alone - Mary Higgins Clark [64]
Kevin had told her he surfed the channels during his workout.
“Kevin, did you by any chance catch the Today show when they were talking about Zan Moreland?” she asked eagerly.
I guess we’re friends again, he thought. I’m back to being on a first-name basis with her.
“Yes, I did,” he said.
Louise did not seem to notice his abrupt answer. “Everybody can see that unless those pictures were doctored, which I’d give ten years of my life to say that they’re not, the poor girl is deranged.”
“Louise, the ‘poor girl,’ as you describe Alexandra Moreland, is an extremely gifted interior designer and a very attractive human being. Could we withhold judgment and drop the subject?”
Kevin almost never played employer/employee with anyone in his office or on a job, but this time he did not try to hide his genuine anger.
When he was a child, at his mother’s insistence, he had taken piano lessons. It had become painfully obvious to all three — his mother, his teacher, and himself—that he had absolutely no talent as a musician, but that had not diminished his pleasure in playing. There was one song that he had learned to play very well, “The Minstrel Boy.”
Now a fragment of the words echoed through his head. “Tho’ allthe world betrays thee … One sword, at least, thy rights shall guard … One faithful harp shall praise thee!” Who did Zan Moreland have to praise or defend her? Kevin wondered.
Louise Kirk got the message. “Of course, Mr. Wilson,” she answered, her voice subdued.
“Louise, will you knock off the ‘Mr. Wilson’ stuff? We’re going to take a tour through this whole building. Bring your notebook. I’ve been seeing some sloppy work, and I have a number of people who are going to hear about it today.”
At ten o’clock, as Kevin, trailed by Louise, was pointing out uneven grouting in three of the shower stalls in apartments on the thirtieth floor, his business cell phone rang. Not wanting to be interrupted, he gave the phone to Louise to answer.
She listened, then said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Wilson is not available but I’ll give him your message.” She disconnected and handed him back the phone. “That was Bartley Longe,” she said. “He wants to invite you to have lunch with him today, or if that doesn’t work, to have dinner this evening or tomorrow night. What shall I tell him?”
“Tell him to forget it for now.” Longe’s probably gloating that he has the job, he thought, and then reluctantly concluded that maybe he did. The model apartments needed to be finished. The consortium that owned the building was already grumbling about the cost overruns and the inevitable delays in construction. They wanted the apartments decorated so that the sales department could take over. Certainly if Zan Moreland was arrested, she wouldn’t have any time to oversee the day-to-day progress. A decorator had to be on top of the job when any interior work was done.
At quarter of eleven, when he and Louise were finally back in his office, one of the workmen came in to see him. “Which apartment do you want us to stack the fabrics and all that other stuff in, sir?”
“What do you mean, where do I want to put what stuff?” Kevin asked.
The workman, a leathery-faced man in his sixties, seemed bewildered by the question.
“I mean all the stuff that decorator ordered for the model apartments. It’s starting to arrive.”
Louise answered for Kevin. “Tell whoever is delivering anything for those model apartments to take it right back to where it came from. Not one single order has been authorized by Mr. Wilson.”
Kevin did not believe what he heard himself saying. “Put any deliveries in the largest apartment.” He looked squarely at Louise. “We’ll sort this out,” he said, “but if we don’t accept whatever is coming, we’ll be part of the sensational stories about Zan Moreland. Those suppliers will go screaming to the media. I don’t want potential buyers to see this building in that kind of light.”
Not daring to show what she was thinking, Louise Kirk nodded. You’re attracted to that young lady,