Free Social Death: A Clyde Shaw Mystery by Tatiana Boncompagni

family. In a few hours, the American public is going to find out about Rachel’s involvement in this case, and starting from that very moment, the public will be forming opinions, opinions about Rachel’s guilt or innocence. Think about how this is going to affect your children. If their mother is branded a murderer, that’s probably going to have some kind of impact. It would be good if there was someone speaking up on Rachel’s behalf.”
    Rockwell cut me down with a series of curse words.
    “How about you take a few minutes to think about it?”
    “Not necessary. The answer is no. Not now, not in ten minutes, not tomorrow. I’m not interested.” And then he finally did hang up.
    Rockwell never called me back. No surprise there. But he did call Frank Uffizo, who in turn called Hiro Itzushi, our chief legal counsel, to threaten legal action if we uttered one word about Rachel in connection to the Kravis case. Itzushi went into a tailspin, insisting we pull the Rachel angle from Topical Tonight until the police confirmed her involvement in the case on the record. But cooler heads prevailed. Georgia made it known that cowering to Uffizo’s demands was not only ridiculous but also contrary to our mission as members of the press.
    Diskin gave us the green light, signing off on our copy at thirty minutes to air. By the end of the show, the emails and phone calls were pouring in by the hundreds. Exactly as I’d anticipated, the armchair detectives in our audience had latched on to Rachel’s wardrobe choice of purple fur. They tweeted. They blogged. They sent our ratings through the roof. Then came the news that People was writing a cover story on the case.
    In less than twenty-four hours, Olivia Kravis’s murder had become the biggest crime story of the year.

Monday

I woke up at six a.m. fully clothed and reeking of garlic.
    The phone was ringing. I croaked hello as the Caller ID registered. It was Olivia’s work line at the foundation. “Who is this?” I rasped, now fully awake, scrambling out of bed. There was a brief moment of silence before I heard a click. The caller had hung up. I dialed Olivia’s number, my fingers shaking, and listened as the line rang and rang. When the foundation’s answering service finally kicked in, the sound of Olivia’s voice rendered my adrenaline to tears faster than I would have thought possible. I got back in bed and sobbed into my pillow, then got up again, gulped down two Excedrin with a mouthful of lukewarm instant coffee. What I really needed was three hours more sleep and a week of therapy to get over the shock of losing my best friend. Neither was going to happen. I was due at work in an hour.
    Stumbling toward the bathroom, I made a pit stop at the linen closet for a fresh bath towel. By New York standards, my apartment was a respectable size. Everywhere else it would have been called a shoebox. It suited me just fine. At the entrance was a small foyer outfitted with a wood console, lamp, and a painted ceramic bowl I dumped all my mail and keys into every night when I got home. On the left was a kitchen, just big enough for a café-style table and a pair of iron chairs. The butcher-block countertop held the main attractions: the coffee maker, microwave, and a small wine fridge that I used to store bottles of mineral water. Beyond the kitchen was a den, decorated with an antique rug, a couch I’d bought on line, a flat-screen television mounted on the steamer trunk I’d taken with me to college, and a treadmill I’d used maybe twice. Then the bathroom—nothing exciting there—and my bedroom, where I kept my desk, computer, a queen-size bed, and a side table, on which stood a stack of non-crime-related books I aspired to read one day.
    After a quick shower, I brushed my teeth and got dressed before spending another few minutes trying to deflate the inner tubes under my eyes. It was a lost cause. I grabbed a pair of dark sunglasses and headed out the door.
    I was