SONGBIRD (JAX DIAMOND MYSTERIES Book 1)

by Gail Meath

  Songbird @ 2021 by Gail Meath. All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electric or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems without written permission from the author except for the use of brief quotations in book reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Book Trailer: https://youtu.be/OcECJje7Crc

  Website: https://www.gailmeath.com

  A Dedication and Thank You to:

  Jim, my husband, has never read any of my books, yet he helped me with some very clever ideas when I was stumped.

  Ryan Murphy, our grandson, knows everything there is to know about the mechanics of cars, no matter the model, make, or how old they are. And I am going to especially need his help in the second book of the series.

  Bonnie DeMoss, Editor

  Cover Design by Sheri McGathy

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1 – Playwright

  2 – Jax Diamond

  3 – Laura Graystone

  4 – The Music Score

  5 – The Widow

  6 – The Funeral

  7 – A Case of Murder?

  8 – Yankees vs Red Sox

  9 – Elements of a Murder

  10 – Coney Island

  11 – Broadway Butterfly

  12 – The Notepad

  13 – Hemlock

  14 – Duke’s Club

  15 – The Suspects

  16 – The Piano Player

  17 – Roommates

  18 – The Missing Ring

  19 – The Lily Pond

  20 – The Arrest

  21 – Another Gardenia

  22 – Lunch

  23 – The Orphanage

  24 – Grand Central Terminal

  25 – Gone

  26 – Unhinged

  27 – Berries

  28 – Time’s Ticking

  29 – Duet

  Special Note to Readers

  Historical Romance Collection

  1

  Tuesday, May 29

  Sam tossed his fork back onto the plate. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, moved the brass desk lamp a few inches closer, and continued reading the final draft of his new musical.

  He had to admit that he’d written a brilliant play, superior to any production on Broadway thus far. He’d spent three months working on it, day and night. Ever since he heard her sing. At that moment his own creativity seemed to burst alive and the ideas kept flowing so quickly, he couldn’t stop writing until he finished the script. After editing it for the hundredth time, he knew this play would not only prove extremely profitable for the theater owner and the talented performer who had inspired him, but it would also boost his career to amazing heights. After all, no other composer had ever written an entire musical from start to finish, foregoing the lyricist and book writer.

  He looked at the telephone beside him. He wondered why his wife had made a rare appearance at the Ambassador this afternoon. She never ventured to the theater unless she was dressed to the nines for a night out on the town, usually without him. As he’d worked with the performers on stage, he caught a glimpse of her standing by the entranceway, but she quickly disappeared out the door.

  He should phone her, he supposed, but he wasn’t up to dealing with his personal problems tonight, not when he was so close to finishing this play. He’d already been paid a hefty advance from the owner of the Globe Theater. As soon as they discussed a production start date at their meeting tomorrow morning, he would face what awaited him at home.

  A fat drop of sweat dripped from his brow and splattered across the page in front of him. Then another. He cursed out loud, snatched the cloth napkin, and dragged it across his forehead. He’d forgotten to open the window, which was the first thing he habitually did when he came to this hellhole of an apartment. This tiny room was always hotter than blazes no matter the weather outside.

  He stood up to open the window, but the room took a quick spin around him, and he stumbled backward against the desk. With a puzzled frown, he snatched the arm of his chair and eased himself back into it. He took off his suit jacket and necktie and tossed them aside. He sat there for a moment, breathing slowly and deeply to clear his head. Within a few minutes, the dizziness subsided, so he went back to reading the script.

  But when he turned the page, he noticed his hand was trembling. He stared at his fingers and became almost mesmerized by them. A sharp prickly sensation spread through each one from tip to base before they went numb altogether as if he’d kept his hand in an awkward position too long, and it fell asleep. He lifted his arm, flapped his hand in the air, and wiggled his fingers around to get the blood flowing again. The numbness soon disappeared.

  With the same bewildered scowl, he looked up at the pendulum clock on the wall and squinted as the numbers appeared blurry. He removed his glasses and squeezed his eyes open and shut a few times. He’d been working too many hours. And the filthy ventilation and dim lighting in this room weren’t helping. But even with his glasses back in place, the typewritten words on the manuscript became fuzzy. Then, they seemed to be dancing across the page on their own, picking up speed the harder he tried to focus on them.

  He pushed his chair back in panic, wondering what the hell was happening to him, but he suddenly doubled over in agony as crushing bolts of pain shot through him from the pit of his stomach to his chest.

  Frightened out of his wits, he tried focusing on the telephone while struggling to lift himself upright. But his arms had gone numb and were useless. Using the strength of his legs and the chair behind him, he thrust himself forward and slammed down face-first onto the mahogany desk. The two-hundred-page manuscript burst into the air like confetti while the dinner plate crashed to the floor.

  As he lay there gasping for air, he gathered every ounce of strength he could muster, and what lucidity he had left, and slowly dragged his right arm up along the top of the desk to reach the telephone. Just as his fingertips touched the base, he heard the door creak open.

  His light eyes rolled upwards then grew wide and horrified. He tried calling for help, but only a sick gurgling noise emerged from his throat before the room went dark.

  2

  Jax Diamond

  Jax stepped out of his car, a burgundy jalopy he’d picked up for a couple of tens a few months ago. He leaned against it and folded his arms in front of him as he stared at the tenement house across the street, the second-floor window mid-way. Like all others, it remained dark and had been for hours. It was nearing three o’clock in the morning, and there wasn’t a soul on the streets, although he knew of a few gin joints down the road that were open another hour.

  “Stay put, Ace.” He pulled a leftover rib bone out of his overcoat pocket and tossed it into the front seat of his car. The hundred-pound black and tan shepherd laid down and happily gnawed on it.

  Jax made his way across the street. He tapped the front hood of the Fiat parked at the curb with his index finger and climbed up the few steps to the front door of the building. He glanced up beneath the brim of his brown fedora, then behind him before retrieving a pocketknife from his trousers. While holding the knife in one hand and the doorknob in the other, he carefully slipped the file into the latch and started jiggling both simultaneously. Within seconds he was able to push the latch bolt back, and he opened the door. He tucked his knife into his pocket and pulled out a small flas
hlight. After another glimpse around, he entered the building. He climbed the stairway to the second floor and made his way down the hall.

  When he stood in front of the center room, he took a deep breath and knocked softly. “Mister Sanders?” The man didn’t answer, so he turned the doorknob and the wooden door slowly swung open. After shining the light around the entire room, he saw the body sprawled lifelessly across the desk. He tipped his hat off his forehead and placed his hands on his hips beneath his overcoat.

  “Swell...”

  After another moment, he stepped inside and was caught not only by the sweltering temperature of the room but by the putrid stench of vomit and whatever else that stink was. He pulled out a beige handkerchief from his suit pocket, used it to close the door behind him, then quickly covered his mouth and nose for a few minutes until he could handle the smell. He turned the desk lamp on and got a good look at the body. And he cursed himself for waiting so long.

  He’d been trailing the man for a couple of weeks now. It had been three hours since the light went off in this room just before midnight, which usually meant Sanders was heading out. It was just plain stupid on his part for assuming the man had fallen asleep. Sanders never wavered from his strict routine.

  Jax went over to the window and took a quick look outside before pulling the striped curtain shut. When he turned around, he noticed the man’s necktie and suit jacket lying on the floor beside the wooden chair that had tipped over on its side. He picked up the jacket to check the pockets and noticed a flower neatly pinned to the left lapel. A white lily. He stared at it, deep in thought, then laid the jacket down on the floor.

  He continued scanning the rest of the room. Sanders had left the theater at exactly five o’clock. Habitually, he carried his black metal lunch pail with his dinner that had been delivered to him at the theater from a high-class joint on Fifty-Fifth Street. He drove four and a half miles and arrived at the apartment ten minutes later. But there wasn’t any sign of the man’s dinner, the paper containers his meal was packed in, silverware, or a thermos. Even his lunch pail was missing.

  Jax went back to the desk, lifted the phone receiver with his handkerchief, and dialed the number. “You’d better get over here, Murph. I’m at the flophouse on the corner of Essex and Canal Street on the Lower East Side. Second floor. There’s a dead body. Yes, he’s dead. No, I didn’t touch anything.” And he hung up.

  He knew Sergeant Tim Murphy and his eager police crew would be here in a flash. They always were after he called as though they were just sitting by the phone waiting until he stumbled upon something, knowing he would eventually. And while most of the cops didn’t like him, Murph did. They’ve been close pals the past five years and now, they were unofficial partners. Although Murph hated it when he made that reference, which he did as often as he could just to needle him.

  Jax opened the top drawer of the desk, but it merely held writing utensils, a couple of erasers, spools of typewriter ribbon, and wire clips. In the second drawer, he saw a small piece of scrap paper lying on top of a stack of folders with the name Louis Godfrey written on it along with a telephone number. He tucked it into his pocket and flipped through the folders, but he found nothing of interest in them. Underneath those, there was a thick envelope with a wad of Benjamins totaling a thousand bucks inside. He shoved the bills back into the envelope, placed it on top of the folders, and closed the drawer.

  He walked around to the front of the desk, moved his overcoat aside, and squatted to get a better look at the corpse. He cringed when he saw the greenish-brown spew around the man’s mouth. “What the heck happened, Sanders? I’ve been right across the street the whole night.”

  The man’s left arm hung limply over the side of the desk and his middle finger was bare. Yet, it still held the indentation and skin discoloration from a rather large ring. Jax searched the floor thinking it may have slid off, and he slowly ran his hand along the small space underneath the desk full length across. He touched something sharp and pulled it out. It was a broken piece of a ceramic plate a couple of inches wide imprinted with an eagle emblem. There wasn’t any residue on it, so he dropped it into another pocket.

  On the other side of the desk, he saw a wastebasket and carefully rummaged through it, but all he found were a few crumpled sheets of paper. He stuffed those into his overcoat pocket.

  The man’s death appeared routine, heart failure, or some other disgusting fatal condition since he’d obviously gotten physically ill. And there wasn’t any trace of blood or visible marks on him suggesting strangulation. But he wasn’t about to jump to any conclusions yet. Not when he knew Sam Sanders was married, lived in Upper Manhattan, and had paid for six months’ rent in advance for this crappy apartment.

  Three weeks ago, the man’s wife had called him, and they met for coffee. She told him that her husband claimed to be working late at the theater a few days a week. But the previous night when she tried to get ahold of him, she was told that he’d left the theater hours ago. She suspected he was having an affair, and she wanted Jax to trail him. So, for a sizeable fee, he agreed, and right off, he discovered Sam Sanders’ secret apartment.

  The trouble was, until last night no one except the other tenants, with or without friends, had entered or left the building. At least not during his frequent observations from his car parked across the street. He couldn’t find any evidence that Sanders was unfaithful to his wife. Even last night was questionable. He had gotten a good look at the beautiful young woman through his binoculars as she walked up the street, then waited outside until Sanders opened the door for her at five thirty-five. She didn’t stay long, barely twenty minutes, which he guessed might be plenty of time for some lovers.

  Yet, Sanders didn’t close the curtains after she entered his apartment, and this room was barely big enough to fit the man’s desk and chair, let alone provide anyone enjoyment. No fold-out bed, cot, blanket, or anything in the form of comfort.

  He shrugged his shoulders. But maybe that was just him.

  He heard two cars pull up outside and made his way back into the hall to wait for Tim and his crew. “Sorry about getting you up and out so early, Murph,” he greeted as Tim headed down the hallway with two other officers following along. “The man’s name is Sam Sanders. He’s a playwright for the Ambassador theater.”

  “After we have a look around, you and I need to chat.” Tim reached over and gave Jax’s necktie a tug to straighten it out. Then, he headed inside the room, but he stopped short, caught by the stench. He swore under his breath and cleared his throat a few times before continuing.

  Officer Collins followed along. “Don’t you ever sleep, Diamond?”

  “Someone needs to stay up and do your job, Stan.”

  He glared at Jax as he entered the apartment.

  “Where there’s trouble, Detective Diamond is never far away,” Officer Moriarty chortled.

  Jax cracked up laughing and slapped him on the back. “You slay me, Butch! I’ll have to jot that one down.”

  Butch scowled at him and joined the others.

  Jax waited in the hall, watching them from the doorway as they studied the body and inspected the room. Tim opened the desk drawers and found the envelope. He handed it to Stan and told him to turn it over to the desk clerk at the station. Finally, he reached down and picked up the jacket. Tim stood there quietly for a moment before pulling the chair upright and draping the jacket over the back of it.

  “Looks like the poor sap died from a heart attack,” Stan said.

  Tim shuffled him and Butch back into the hallway. “I’ll wait here for the coroner. Why don’t you both head back to the station? Don’t lose that money on your way over there, Stan,” he added with a snicker. Once they were out of earshot, he turned to Jax. “There had to be nearly a grand in his drawer.”

  “What do you make of that lily pinned to his jacket? Reminds me of the Broadway Butterfly murder case we had a couple of months ago.”

  Tim sighed irritab
ly. “She had a flower in her hair, which isn’t unusual for some women.”

  “Yeah, but it was a lily, just like the one on Sanders’ jacket. And that other case is still unsolved.”

  “Kitty Cooper was a victim of a robbery gone wrong, Jax. Sanders had a wad of dough in his drawer. Untouched. Besides, his death looks to be from natural causes. Now would be the perfect time to tell me why you’re here.”

  “As usual, I’m on an assignment, Murph. Sanders arrived here just after five o’clock, and I’ve been sitting in my car across the street the whole time. I didn’t see anything suspicious. Wish I could tell you more, but you know, client confidentiality and all.”

  “Yeah, I know. How’d you get in the building? The door downstairs was locked.”

  Jax didn’t miss a beat. “One of the other tenants got home just in time to let me in.”

  “Yeah, sure. What’s Sanders, about late thirties, early forties?”

  “Thirty-eight last February. He and his wife, Patricia, live at sixteen Bleecker Street in Manhattan. That’s his blue Fiat Torpedo parked out front. I wouldn’t mind taking that baby for a spin.”

  “Why does he have a separate apartment?”

  Jax remained silent.

  “Any kids?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well, that makes it a little easier when I inform his wife. I hate when kids are involved, having two of my own.”

  “Oh, that reminds me, Murph.” Jax reached into his back pocket. “Here are four tickets to the Yankees game against the Red Sox on Saturday afternoon. I’ve got one for myself, so tell little Petey and Lizzie that I’ll see them there.”

  “Three would have been enough. You know Carla hates baseball.”

  “Baloney. She loves baseball! I think she has a crush on Lou Gehrig.”

  Tim rolled his eyes and looked at the body inside the room again. “Not a pretty way to go, was it?”

  “Good evening, boys,” Joe Marsh, the coroner, said as he joined them. “Or rather, good morning. My assistants are carrying the stretcher up.”