Killer Heels by Sheryl J. Anderson Read Free Book Online Page B

issue at hand, but I haven’t discussed it with her yet. There are bigger fish to fry.
    So that’s why I was sitting in the back seat of the police car, trying not to watch Yvonne wail for the benefit of the detectives in the front seat, writing letters in my head. I was torn between the aforementioned desire to chuck her out the window and to tell Detective Lipscomb to stop at the first available corner so we could drop her off without actually injuring her. That was the more polite option, but it lacked the necessary emotional satisfaction element.
    To listen to her, you’d think Yvonne had lost the love of her life, rather than a colleague with whom she rarely socialized and frequently argued. Both Yvonne and Teddy were on the hothead end of the spectrum and they disagreed loudly and often, over everything from the magazine business to movie reviews. A couple of times, I thought Teddy was trying to get fired, but eventually I realized they both loved a good shouting match, so it really wasn’t a problem for the two of them. Even though it drove those of us who had to listen to it crazy.
    Sort of the way Yvonne was driving me bonkers now. “Oh. Poor. Helen.”
    “Yes, Yvonne,” I said automatically.
    “What will we say?!” Yvonne sobbed a little more and I literally bit my lip. We ? God help us. In my column, I’ve had to give people some pretty harsh news: He’s cheating on you, leave him; she’s lying to you, dump her; he’s in denial, run very, very fast. But there was nothing in my archives to prepare me for breaking the news of Teddy’s death to Helen. And there wasn’t even a very long ride to give me time to practice what I was going to say. But I was absolutely going to find a way to stop Yvonne from saying it first. And I had less than ten minutes in a speeding police car to figure out how.
    I have to admit, it was kind of cool having the detectives pick me up. I was standing on the sidewalk, gulping outside air, willing my Sigourney cheekbones into full being, when the car screeched up. Detective Lipscomb was driving a very clean but very plain Oldsmobile and he laid on the ocean liner–size horn and cut off two taxis and a BMW to pull to the curb. The other drivers started screaming and flipping him off, then Detective Lipscomb got out and flashed his shield at them. The taxi drivers stopped screaming and went away. The BMW guy kept screaming, but he drove away, too.
    Detective Edwards got out and opened the back passenger door for me. I could tell that everyone on the sidewalk was watching and I figured, the way the night had been going, that I’d trip and fall flat on my face three feet from the car. I was wearing unfamiliar shoes, after all, and slender heels at that. But I imagined les cheekbones buoying me aloft and I walked with what I hoped was grace and poise to the car. Detective Edwards stayed at the door so it was clear to all the onlookers that I wasn’t being arrested. I’m sure there was a lot of speculation going on as to what my story was and it was kind of cool to be the object of speculation, since I’m usually the speculator.
    I mean, don’t you see things in passing that make you wonder, “What’s that all about?” A couple quarreling in a restaurant, a man running down a crowded sidewalk, a woman weeping as she hails a cab—we see all these fragments of other people’s life stories as we pursue our own. And I often get sidetracked by those fragments and try to fill them in, imagine what led to that moment and what might happen next. Maybe it’s the journalist in me. Maybe it’s because it’s easier than attending to my own fragments.
    I got up to the car and looked Detective Edwards right in the dazzling blue eyes. “Thank you,” I said, trying to make it sound layered with many meanings.
    “No, thank you,” he replied with a wry smile as Yvonne popped her head out from the back seat.
    “Molly! Thank. God.” She held her arms out to me, but there was no