The Craigslist Murders - Brenda Cullerton [49]
Flinging the Times and her new client’s “brand” identity file on the counter, Charlotte got up to get dressed. There was a new Kinko’s down on Trinity Place. She’d go and do some browsing.
28
After a brief breakfast talk with Anna, (who was leaving for Italy to stay with her sister for three weeks) Charlotte spent the rest of Monday morning catching up on invoices. Getting money out of Darryl was so deviously complicated, it was practically Byzantine. She was billing some hotel down in Uruguay for work she was doing on their apartment in New York. The hotel was a tax shelter. Darryl’s husband had tried to explain how the system worked. A lot of rich people were doing it, but Charlotte had no interest in understanding how the system worked or even if it was legal. She just wanted to be paid.
Last night at Kinko’s had been interesting. She’d found another potential candidate in Collectibles—a woman selling 12 sterling silver Tiffany place settings. Scrolling down to the posting, she’d clicked, and there it was. In red ink, next to the flagged warning about scams and fraud:
We are aware of the unconfirmed rumors, we repeat, unconfirmed rumors, about a tenuous connection between the Internet and recent homicides in New York City. We recommend that users in New York exercise the usual caution and common sense when dealing with unknown buyers and sellers. If you have any information that might pertain to the unfortunate, tragic events in New York, contact the Craigslist Abuse Team at abuse@Craigslist.org or call the NYPD at 1-800-TIP-LINE.
Twisting the emerald ring that Paul had given her in Venice (“Let’s go for the gold,” he’d said with a promising smile as they sipped Camparis on the terrace of the Gritti Palace), Charlotte’s own caution and common sense had led her to the decision to lay low. But there wasn’t any harm in just e-mailing the woman, was there?
29
On Monday afternoon, Charlotte speedwalked from home up to the Carlyle Hotel on Madison Avenue. Standing alone in the living room with its $85,000 a month view over Central Park, Charlotte glanced at Darryl’s new elliptical machine. It stood there like some gigantic metal insect, waiting to paralyze its prey. For Charlotte, the elliptical machine was to exercise what puggles were to dogs. Stupid, unnecessary, and phenomenally popular among those who were terminally bored and in constant search of novelty.
Longing to cover or remove the eyesore from the room, Charlotte realized that every minute, every hour, of Darryl’s life was scheduled. She lived like a soldier: the regimen, the discipline, the grueling workouts. But the only thing she was fighting for was her sanity. There was no pleasure in it. No passion. It was just another way of killing time.
Speaking of which … Darryl had called at six in the morning and asked her to return the photos to the gallery in Chelsea.
“Listen, I really am sorry,” she’d said while Charlotte stared, bleary eyed at her digital clock. “But some little brat came over for a playdate with the kids and tattletaled to his parents. The mommy called and said the nudity on our walls was ‘age inappropriate.’ ”
“No problem,” Charlotte had muttered, desperate to go back to sleep. “But what in God’s name are you doing up at six o’clock, Darryl?”
“Working out!” she replied huskily. My trainer’s leaving for L.A. and this was the only time he could squeeze me in.”
“Well, that’s just great, Darryl but I’m still sleeping,” Charlotte said as she began to burrow her head beneath the pillows.
“Charlotte, wait!” Darryl had hollered as Charlotte’s finger was poised on the End Call button. “I need to thank you for something else, too.”
“For what?”
“For the fact that my husband is actually sleeping with me again.”
“Sorry, Darryl. I …” Being forced to listen to the intimate down and dirty details of her clients’ private lives always made Charlotte squirm.
“It’s the bed, Charlotte. He loves the bed …”
“Ohhh! Right. Did the guys deliver it?”
“Last night. And I’m still sore!”
Charlotte laughed weakly.