Friends Like These(75)

He lifts his head off the table. “You do know I’ve got a show? You heard that part, right?” He checks his watch dramatically. “Back in the city, tomorrow. I’ve got to set up.”

“I thought it was tonight?”

“Tonight, tomorrow, I’ve still got to go.”

“Don’t you think it would be better to postpone the show— I mean, given that your agent is either missing or dead?”

“Dealer, former dealer,” he says, then smirks. “Ironic, with all the drugs, that he was my dealer, isn’t it?” He goes to lean back in his chair but winces again. “Anyway, even Keith would want the show to go on. And just to reiterate— if my show gets fucked because of this, I am going to sue the shit out of you, personally.”

“So you keep telling me.”

“Just want to be sure you’re aware how much my art is worth— how much you could be costing me, and so how much it’ll cost you.”

“And just so you’re aware: obstruction of justice is a crime.”

“Obstruction of justice. Bullshit.” Finch laughs. “How did I supposedly obstruct justice?”

“Well, it’s all the things you’ve been leaving out, then there’s also the gun you had up here. There’s no permit in your name in New York State.”

“What gun?” Finch raises his hands and smiles.

“We’ll find it, Mr. Hendrix. And I’m sure your prints will be on it. You also weren’t passed out in the train station for fourteen hours. We have a witness who saw you go into the hotel across the street. But what I’m most concerned about, at the moment, is how Crystal died.”

“Died?” His eyes widen. “What do you mean?”

“Apparently she’s dead, Mr. Hendrix,” I say. “You know anything about that? Maybe she was even with you in that hotel room when it happened.”

“I was working in that room, that’s all. I’m using it as a temporary art studio. My work is a combination of video, sculptures, and paintings re-created from memory,” he says, tone smooth and practiced now, like he’s being interviewed for a magazine profile. It’s extremely aggravating. “That’s why the hotel. I have to go right back and start, while the scenes are fresh in my mind. But I can’t get into too many details because there’s always a lot of anticipation around my next— ”

“Mr. Hendrix, I don’t give a shit about you or your art.” I rise. “I’m trying to find out what happened to Derrick Chism, Keith Lazard, and Crystal Finnegan. If you don’t have anything useful that you’d like to share— ”

“Okay, okay. Their friend from Vassar, Alice, killed herself. It’s why that whole group is so fucked up.”

“Yes, they mentioned their friend Alice. I don’t see how that’s relevant, Mr. Hendrix.”

“It’s why she killed herself that’s the thing.” He rubs a hand over his face, considering. “I can get into some details, but only if you promise not to tell anyone about my current proj— ”

“Mr. Hendrix!”

He holds up his hands. “Fine, fine. There’s a journal. This woman I was seeing, Rachel, she made this podcast about some other murder, and she included Alice’s suicide in one of the episodes. Seemed pretty unrelated to me, but I guess they both happened near the Hudson River. Anyway, the girl’s mom died, and her housekeeper was a fan of the podcast. She mailed the journal to Rachel and Rochelle and— ”

“Wait, Rachel and Rochelle?”

The River. The episode with the Vassar girl. She was Alice?

“Yeah, the two of them made the podcast. Rachel told me about the journal, and she mentioned a Keith and Vassar. I knew about Keith and Alice because he’d told me. So I asked to take a look at the journal. I knew as soon as I read it that I had my next project. Well, not right then. First, Keith screwed me over, and then Stephanie, well— let’s just say she let me down.”

“And so you plan a big art project about these people, and one of them just happens to end up dead?”

Hendrix shrugs. “I’m not saying it’s a coincidence. The project required that I press some of their buttons, raise the stakes. That’s why I came up here. I saw a text to Keith about Jonathan’s bachelor party a few weeks ago. Enough time to get the ball rolling. Some things I knew already, like about Derrick and his past, and that Stephanie had made some choices she regretted. From the journal I figured out that Maeve is some kind of klepto. Other things I just lucked into seeing firsthand, like those contractors. But there were things I set up beforehand— like sending along some anonymous emails. ‘I know what you did’— just to ratchet up the tension.” He sighs theatrically. “And so I stirred their sick little pot and then taped the blowback. It’s amazing, the footage. My project is about the costs of blind loyalty and the danger of always accepting people for better and so much worse. It’s about this group— because if there ever was a fucking example of the dark side of friendship— ”

“No one’s mentioned your little project. No one.”

“They don’t have a clue, not yet. They don’t know I taped everything. All you need to do is hit record on your phone and make your screen go dark. These days no one questions a phone in somebody’s hand all the time,” he says. “Listen, I might have called the whole thing off if any of them had stepped up and surprised me. But these people will never change.”