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CHAPTER 18
AS BREE HURRIED NORTH, she kept thinking that the shine seemed to have gone off Frances Duchaine’s name; the brand was no longer attracting flocks of customers eager to open their purses or wallets for anything that had the famous FD logo on it.
When had that happened? For years, all you heard about was the Duchaine brand getting bigger, broader, deeper.
Bree crossed West Fifty-Ninth and started up the sidewalk along East Drive toward the Lombard Lamp, making a mental note to get in touch with some of the financial analysts that covered Duchaine’s companies.
When Bree reached the meeting place, she noticed a short woman who appeared to be very pregnant leaning against the ornate lamp.
“My cousin Pablo, he raves about you, Chief Stone,” she said,reaching out to shake Bree’s hand. “He says Metro PD is lost without you.”
“Pablo has always flattered me, Detective Salazar.”
Salazar laughed. “Call me Rosella, and yes, Pablo is an expert at flattery. Shall we walk?”
“If you’re okay with it?”
“The doctors tell me I need to,” Salazar said, pitching a plastic water bottle into a trash can. “I’ve got gestational diabetes and they said a little exercise every day will help lower my numbers.”
“How far along are you?”
“Almost eight months,” the detective said, smiling. “It’s going to be a boy this time. I told the ob-gyn not to tell me if it was a boy or a girl, but I can feel it. A brother to my little Elaina. You got kids?”
“Three stepchildren who I love to pieces.”
“You’re married to Dr. Cross, right?”
Bree nodded as they walked into the park. “Last time I looked.”
“I heard him lecture when I took a class at Quantico a few years back.”
“He’s a talker.”
Salazar laughed. “He is. And it’s fascinating how his mind works.”
“There’s no one like him,” Bree said. “So, tell me what you think about Duchaine.”
Detective Salazar said, “You really don’t know who you’re working for, huh?”
“All I was told was that the client has very deep pockets and wants us to follow the trail wherever it goes.”
“To find out what?”
“I don’t know,” Bree admitted. “I’m just supposed to listento my instincts based on information I was given about Frances Duchaine.”
“What kind of info?”
Bree hesitated, then decided she needed an ally. “Some financials, some personal info, press clippings, and some information about a few run-ins with the law she’s squirmed out of, including a civil suit in North Carolina filed by three young wannabe models—two females, one male—that was dismissed and sealed.”
“Of course it was,” Salazar said. “That has Frances Duchaine written all over it.”
Over the next hour, they walked north through Central Park as Bree listened closely to the detective’s take on the fashion icon. Salazar said that she’d known of no complaints against Duchaine whatsoever until four years ago when a young woman who said her name was Molly contacted the vice squad, where Salazar was working at the time. Molly said she had been lured from North Carolina to New York by Duchaine’s representatives with promises that she would be considered for modeling jobs.
“Molly had to pay her own way up here and get a place to live,” Salazar said. “Duchaine’s people provided her with a photographer for headshots, and they paid to put her in mockups for possible advertising campaigns. Molly’s life went well for a minute.”
The detective said Molly was called in by Duchaine and another woman who worked for her, Paula Watkins. They told Molly that the market testing on her was lower than they’d expected and that she should get plastic surgery to fix some of her flaws so she could be considered for future campaigns.
“This sounds somewhat similar to the allegations in thedismissed lawsuit,” Bree said. “Keep going. What were they recommending?”
