Kiss the Girls and Make Them Cry(9)

“A fatal accident of this kind,” Lisa said. “To put it crassly, that’s a lucky break for whoever was trying to settle a lawsuit with her. Maybe too lucky?”

“That’s the same question I’ve asked myself. Of course it could be a coincidence, but on the other hand, it happened so quickly after Cathy Ryan sent me the email.”

“What’s your next step?”

“I need to get an okay from my new boss to go down to Aruba and do my own investigating.”

“Will the magazine pay your expenses?”

“I’ll find out later this week.”

Lisa smiled. “In my next life I want your job.”

“Enough about what I’m doing, what’s going on with you?”

“More of the same. Ambulance chasing.” Lisa filled her in on new cases that she had been assigned since Gina had last seen her. A client walking down Fifth Avenue had been hit in the head by a windblown piece of construction debris and sustained a mild concussion. “They’re paying a lot more for concussions nowadays after all the publicity from football players. That will be an easy one.” Another client was exiting the subway via a revolving door made of metal bars. “The door got stuck halfway. My client walked into it and broke his nose. He insists he was sober. But I wonder what he was doing until three o’clock in the morning if he wasn’t drinking.”

Lisa glanced over at the bar as she heard the sound of a drink being shaken. “So far, no ice on the floor,” she observed wryly.





9





At 6:50 the next morning, as Gina stretched and tried to keep her eyes open, her cell phone rang. The name on the screen was Andrew Ryan.

“I hope I’m not calling too early,” he said. “I’m about to board my flight back to Boston. I want to follow up on yesterday’s conversation.”

“I’m fine to talk now,” Gina said as she reached for the notebook she always kept on her night table. “Thanks for getting back to me so quickly.”

“Meg Williamson is one of the people from REL News that Cathy kept in touch with.”

“Meg Williamson,” she said as she jotted the information. “Any contact info on her?”

“No, I couldn’t find her on Cathy’s computer or cell phone. The name literally just jumped into my head while I was driving to the airport. When I get to Boston, I’ll call my mother and ask her to try to find it.”

“That’s great. Thanks so much. Any luck on remembering anybody else at REL News Cathy stayed in touch with?”

“Not yet, but I’ll talk to my mother. We’ll keep working on it.”

“Thank you again. If you have any more time, I have some questions I thought of after we spoke.”

“I’ve got about five minutes. Fire away.”

“When Cathy went to Aruba, was she alone or with friends?”

“She went alone.”

“Do you know if she was planning to meet anybody there?”

“Not that I know of. She said she just wanted a little R&R on her own.”

“Aruba’s pretty far to go for a few days of vacation. Any idea why she chose to go there?”

“None. She loved doing anything and everything near or in the water. Scuba diving, snorkeling, windsurfing.”

“You told me Cathy died in ‘an accident.’?”

“Yes, she had an accident while on a Jet Ski.”

“What happened?”

“The Aruba police called the day after the accident to tell my parents that the Jet Ski Cathy was riding had crashed into a boat in the harbor. She was thrown from the ski.”

“Did she drown or die from the impact of the crash?”

“It’s not clear which.”

“I hate to even ask the question. Did they do an autopsy?”

“No. We asked about that. When they told us it would take two to three weeks, we decided against it. I know she had massive head trauma. The collision almost certainly knocked her unconscious. Cathy had on a life jacket, but she was lying facedown in the water for several minutes before anyone got to her.”

“I’m sorry to ask this, but do you know if she had any alcohol in her system?”

“The police report said there was a strong odor of alcoholic beverage on her body.”

“As far as you know, did she have a drinking problem?”

“Absolutely not. She was a social drinker. One or two drinks at a gathering. Occasionally three. I never saw her drunk.”

Gina made a mental note to talk to a pathologist she had befriended to help her make sense of the police report.

“Was she riding alone or with a group?”

“It was a tour. There were three or four other skiers and a guide.”

“Do you know if the police interviewed the other people on the tour?”

“They said they did. The police report said they all admitted they had been drinking at lunch.”

Admitted, Gina thought to herself. They make it sound as if they were doing something criminal.

“Did the police speak to the outfit that provided the Jet Skis?”

“They did. Predictably, the proprietor claimed all of his Jet Skis were in excellent working order.”