One Fifth Avenue - Candace Bushnell [170]
“Oh, Billy,” Schiffer said again. She gently untied the loose knot around his neck and, separating the ties one from another, carefully hung them back up in Billy’s closet, where they belonged.
Then she went into the bathroom. Billy was fastidious and had done his best with the space, placing thick white towels folded carefully on a shelf above the toilet. But the fixtures themselves were cheap and probably forty years old. She’d always assumed that Billy had money, but apparently, he had not, living exactly as he had when he’d first come to New York. The thought of Billy’s secret penury added to her sadness. He was one of those New York types whom everyone knew but didn’t know much about. She opened the medicine cabinet and was shocked by the row of prescription pills. Prozac, Xanax, Ambien, Vicodin—she’d had no idea Billy was so unhappy and stressed. She should have spent more time with him, she thought bitterly, but Billy had been like a New York institution. She’d always thought he’d be around.
Working quickly, she poured the contents of the prescription bottles into the toilet. As in most prewar buildings, there was an incinerator chute in the kitchen, where Schiffer disposed of the empty bottles. Billy wouldn’t want people to think he’d tried to kill himself or that he was addicted to pills. Back in the bedroom, she spotted a crude wooden box on top of his bureau. It wasn’t Billy’s style, and curious, she opened it to find neat rows of what appeared to be costume jewelry folded in bubble wrap. Did Billy have a transvestite bent to his nature? If so, it was another aspect of his life that he wouldn’t have wanted people to know about. Searching through his closet, she found a shoe box and shopping bag from Valentino. She put the wooden box into the shoe box and into the bag. Then she called 911.
Two police officers arrived within minutes, followed by EMS workers, who ripped open Billy’s robe and tried to shock him back to life. Billy’s body jumped several inches off the bed, and unable to bear it, Schiffer went into the living room. Eventually, a detective in a navy blue suit arrived. “Detective Sabatini,” he said, holding out his hand.
“Schiffer Diamond,” she said.
“The actress,” he said, perking up.
“That’s right.”
“You found the body. Why?”
“Billy was a good friend. I hadn’t heard from him in a couple of days. I came by to see if he was okay. Obviously, he wasn’t.”
“Did you know he was under investigation?”
“Billy?” she said in disbelief. “For what?”
“Art theft,” the detective said.
“That’s impossible,” Schiffer said, folding her arms.
“It’s not only possible, but true. Did he have any enemies?”
“Everyone loved him.”
“Did he need money?”
“I don’t know anything about his financial affairs. Billy didn’t talk about it. He was very…discreet.”
“So he knew things about people?”
“He knew a lot of people.”
“Anyone who might want him dead? Like Sandy Brewer?”
“I don’t know who that is.”
“I thought you were good friends.”
“We were,” Schiffer said. “But I hadn’t seen Billy in years. Not until I moved back to New York nine months ago.”
“I’m going to need you to come to the station for questioning.”
“I need to call my publicist first,” she said firmly. The reality of Billy’s death hadn’t hit her yet, but this was going to be a mess. She and Billy would likely end up on the front page of The New York Post tomorrow.
Early the next morning, Paul Rice was trawling through the Internet when he came across the first item about Billy Litchfield’s death. He didn’t connect Billy to the Brewer scandal, so the news didn’t have a big impact. But then he saw several small pieces from The New York Times to The Boston Globe, stating that Billy Litchfield, fifty-four, a sometime journalist, art dealer, and society walker, had been discovered dead in his apartment the evening before. The coverage in the Daily News and the