Fatal Reaction

bought the apartment I was surprised to discover in him an orphan’s delight in all things domestic. While there is no doubt he enjoyed the idea of calling such an elegant residence his own, what he really seemed to relish was the prospect of—after a decade of sterile bachelor apartments—finally settling into a real home.
    But tonight was different. From the very first he seemed preoccupied, too distracted to participate in the discussions about plastering and the problem of what to do about the hideous wood-grain Formica paneling that had been installed by some previous criminal against architecture. As we talked he slipped away entirely. When I was sent to fetch him, I found him pacing the entrance hall, cell phone in hand, punching in Danny’s number for the fourteenth time that day only to be rewarded yet again by an endless ringing at the other end.
    “Maybe we should stop over at his apartment when we’re done here and make sure he’s all right,” I suggested.
    “He’s probably asleep,” replied Stephen. “I did tell him he could take the day off. I’d feel like an ass showing up on his doorstep just because Jim Cassidy has decided he wants to swing his dick around.”
    Stephen was right, of course. That was the worst part about people like Cassidy and Guttman. They generated artificial crises and it didn’t matter that their crises had no substance—they still managed to suck you in.
    Eventually Mimi turned to Stephen’s pet project—the exercise room that was planned as part of the master suite—and he was able to set his other concerns aside. After having spent the last half hour listening to Mother and Mimi debate where to hang the copper pots we did not own and would surely never use to prepare meals neither Stephen nor I would ever be home to eat, it was my turn to escape. I wandered down the hall to look at the small bedroom I planned on turning into my study. To my dismay, Mother came and found me almost immediately.
    “I know you like to pretend that it’s not, but how you live is very important,” she said in her gospel-according-to-Astrid-Millholland voice. “You may not be interested in entertaining any of your old friends, but I am sure Stephen would like to have a nice home in which to receive guests.”
    “I would like to have a nice home, too, Mother,” I assured her peevishly.
    “Well, you would never know it from how you live now,” she sniffed. “Honestly, I don’t see how you’re going to manage this renovation if you aren’t willing to take an interest in the details.”
    “We’ve hired Mimi to handle the details.”
    “Mimi is not the one who is going to be living here. Don’t you think you’ve taken this lawyer business far enough? Why don’t you just give it a rest for a while and concentrate on what’s really important in your life?”
    “Important to whom?” I inquired.
    From the end of the hall we could hear Stephen’s approaching baritone. “So you really think we’d have room for a steam room next to the gym if we moved that one wall?”
    “I wish you could see yourself,” Mother hissed, unable to resist getting in one last shot. “That stubborn look you get is so very unattractive. It’s a wonder Stephen puts up with it.”
    “I like being stubborn, Mother,” I replied coolly. “That’s why I became a lawyer.”
     

CHAPTER 3
     
    Stephen and I were already in bed when the police arrived. The doorman’s buzzer caught us in midembrace, and his announcement that there were two uniformed officers in the lobby asking to see Stephen left us searching frantically for our clothes and filled with silent alarm.
    We managed to be presentable by the time the elevator delivered the officers upstairs. His face ashen in alarm, Stephen opened the door to two middle-aged beat cops. One was white, the other black, but they both had guts that hung on them like saddlebags and strained against the black leather of their jackets.
    All business, Stephen quickly identified himself and ushered them inside. They seemed oblivious to the size of Stephen’s apartment and the view it commanded. I knew this was a bad sign. These men were professionals, they had a lot of years between them, and they still didn’t want to be here—they didn’t want to do what they had come to do.
    The words of the formal notification may have been memorized, but their sympathy seemed real. They regretted to inform us that Danny Wohl had been found dead in his apartment