The gravity of her words suddenly hit Jacob. Marco. Tony. Vince. Frank. Images of crime scenes flashed through his head. He’d seen the aftermath of every one. Not just a single homicide, but dozens of men - six, even eight at a time.
The blood drained from his face.
“You murdered them all, didn’t you?”
“Not all of them. Not yet.”
Jacob took a moment to let the words sink in. The woman opposite him was beautiful. Poised and polite. As unassuming and good-natured as can be. No one would ever guess that beneath the red lipstick and white pearls, was a killer.
“Vince, at Kitty’s -?” he began, a question in his eye.
“Had murdered seven men in the last week alone. He had to go.”
“You took them all out by yourself?”
“I learned from the best, remember?”
Jacob didn’t look amused. “You’re insane.”
“I am for not wearing a rain jacket that night. Could have caught my death of cold.”
“Or just death.”
“Yes, well. There’s always a price to pay and I think I paid most of mine before I started. I did break a nail though,” Betty said, with a twinkle in her eye, “And I ruined a perfectly good pair of patent pumps,” She nudged him playfully.
“You broke more than a nail!”
“Perhaps. Everything else deserved to be broken though.”
“Hang on, did you say patent pumps?” As if a light had switched on his memory, Jacob began to fish around in the inside pocket of his jacket. He pulled out something black and shiny. “Two high heels,” he said, passing them to her. “I found them at the crime scene. Just couldn’t figure out what to do with them. They weren’t really evidence, but they bugged me all the same. I just couldn’t put my finger on how they got there. I never expected Vince’s killer was, well, a woman.”
“No one ever does.”
“This is crazy, Susie. You have to stop. I can’t – I can’t condone this – vigilante mission or whatever it is. Let me take them in, whoever’s left. Especially Pinzolo.”
“You can’t. Donny keeps his hands clean, you said it yourself. He’s smart. He has allies way above your pay grade. If you sting him now, he’ll just shut down for a while and get himself out of trouble. You’ll never get him locked up for long. This situation needs a more – permanent – solution.”
“But you’ll get yourself killed!”
“Good!” Betty growled. “I’m not afraid of death, Jake. You know that. I’m only afraid of how many more lives he’ll destroy with his handshakes and dirty men and silver spoons! He has children involved now, lots of them. At the orphanage packing crates of bennies and fet and ammunition that he’s moving underground. Good Samaritan, indeed!”
“I’ll organize a raid -”
“And the leak in your department will tip him off. The orphanage will be clean before you switch on your sirens. No, this must be done exactly right. There are children's lives at stake now. Little boys that are terrified and in danger every day being used to sell drugs on street corners and then taking the rap for him if they get caught. Who’s going to believe a child against the word of one of this town’s most prominent business men? He’s pulling them into a life of crime they’ll never be able to escape from. No one will look out for a bunch of orphans, they’ve already been cast aside.” Betty jumped up in exasperation and began to pace the sitting room. “They’re completely alone, Jake – do you know how that feels? Well, I do! And I won’t stand for it. Never again!”
“Well, what am I meant to do?” Jacob asked, his frustration wearing thin. “Why lead me here if I can’t use any of this information? How am I meant to help?”
“Because you can help me. I need protection. Well, not me exactly, but this house. Just at certain times of the day – or night. An undercover car to keep a watch when I can’t be here.”
“Why?”
Betty hesitated, looking reluctant to explain. “Well, I had a visitor today. I’m not sure how he got my address, but I’m afraid I’ve quite run out of time. I’m organizing something special for Donny next week, something big. I’ll need your help for that. But in the meantime, I need an extra pair of eyes on this house.” Betty sat back down. “Can you spare anyone?”
Jacob considered, glad to have something at last, that he could do.
“I suppose, I can send Parker around. Say it’s an undercover assignment, not to ask questions. He’s a good officer and a good shot. And trustworthy.”
“Entirely off the record,” Betty nodded. “Because of the leak.”
“I’ll get him set up tonight. What are we dealing with, exactly?”
Betty took a deep breath. “Donny knows it’s me. And he knows where I live. He sent one of his trigger men around to spy on me today and I caught him at it.”
Now it was Jacob’s turn to jump up in anger. “Here? He knows where you live?!”
“Yes, and he witnessed my, shall we say, unusual skill set. At least the physical aspect of it. I don’t think Donny knows who I really am yet, just that I’m the thorn in his side he’s been looking for. I don’t have much time left to deal with him.”
“So why look after the house when you aren’t here? Why do you need Parker?”
Betty’s eyes were downcast. When she looked up, they were filled with urgency. The soft jazz of the wireless dissolved into something more recognizable and the sweet voice of Helen Forrest began a sentimental melody to compliment the orchestra.
“Because, I have something very precious here,” Betty said. “Something I need to keep safe.” A single tear slipped over her cheek.
Jacob sat down again beside her. He reached out, gently brushing away the tear with the back of his finger.
Words, not her own, nor his, wafted through the room on the songbird’s melody, and for a long moment they both sat silently together in the music, taking each other in, lost in bittersweet memories.
“I’m on fire again, beguiled again,
A lovesick, lost, little child again,
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered, am I.”
“Susie -” Jake began.
“No, not anymore, Jake. I can’t. Susie’s gone -”
“No, she isn’t. Don’t say that.” His brow creased in earnest and his eyes were suddenly on fire. “When they told me you’d been murdered, I didn’t want to believe it. You’re too strong to be taken like that.”
“Strong,” Betty repeated, ironically. “I am that.”
“That’s not what I meant. I mean strong,” he lifted his hand to touch her temple and Betty drew a sharp breath, “here”. His fingers lowered to find her heart and closed over it. “And here.”
He pulled his hand away, leaving Betty with the threat of more tears. She quickly wiped her eyes and looked at him.
“I can’t lose you again,” he said.
“I’m sorry, Jacob. But I’m not Susie any more. I had to let her go when I walked away from the fire. For my own protection at first, but now, more importantly, for theirs. I’m Betty now, Mrs. Betty Jones.”
“Mrs.?”
Betty smiled, pulling herself up proudly and sniffing. “That’s right.”
“Mommy?” came a small voice from the sitting room doorway. George Junior and Nancy were standing there, school satchels over their shoulders and lunch pails in their hands. They were watching Betty and Jacob with wide eyes.
“I lost track of time,” Betty muttered. Jacob heard the distinctive grunt of a school bus rattling away down the street.
Betty got to her feet and Jacob quickly followed, his own eyes wide with surprise. Betty gave him a bolstering look, then turned to the children with a wide smile.
“Darlings! Come in and meet my new friend. This is Sergeant Jacob Lawrence. He’s a very important police sergeant. Doesn’t he look fine in his lovely uniform?”
“Really?” the little boy exclaimed, “Wow! A real-life policeman? I’m George Junior, I’m a super-hero!” He hopp
ed confidently into the sitting room, beaming.
“A super-hero? Are you really?” Jacob asked. He shot a bemused look at Betty, unsure whether the child was actually playing, given his unique parentage. Betty smiled and shook her head, minutely.
“He’s not really a super-hero,” said the girl, who seemed twice his age. “He just thinks he is. Superhero’s aren’t really real.”
“Why, yes they are! Mommy said so!”
Betty stepped forward, placating her young son. “Of course they are, Georgie. Nancy don’t be unkind to your brother.” But George Junior had already lost interest.
“I like your police hat, Sergeant Lawrence,” he said, pointing to the hat left on the couch. “Can I wear it?”
“Well sure, why not?” said Jacob, bemused. “You’ll look splendid in it.” He picked up the hat and put it on Georgie’s head. It fell down over the boy’s eyes. George Junior giggled and Nancy joined him, taking her turn of wearing the oversized officers hat. Betty and Jacob laughed.
“They’re lovely children,” he said, quietly, watching them play.
“Thank you.”
Jacob caught her eye. “You’re happy, aren’t you.”
Betty held his gaze, earnestly. “Yes, I am.”
“I suppose that’s all I ever wanted,” he smiled, sadly.
The two of them sat down again, chatting with the children as they took turns playing cops and robbers with the hat. It was a minute before they realized, they weren’t alone. George stood in the doorway this time, briefcase in hand, with a confused smile on his face.
“Am I missing the party, jitterbug?”
Betty jumped up, quickly followed by Jacob, who looked embarrassed.
“Oh, George! Not at all, not at all!” Betty said, rushing over to him. “This is a new friend of mine, Sergeant Lawrence – Jake, I mean, Jacob – from the New York City Police Department.
“Police?” George repeated. “Well, I see your uniform there, officer. Golly, I hope there’s been no trouble!”
From behind George’s shoulder, Betty bit her lip and shook her head at Jacob with pleading eyes.
“No trouble at all,” Jacob said, offering his hand.
“Goodness, no, no trouble,” said Betty hurriedly. I just - I left my Avon bag at the drug store today by accident.” She laughed nervously. “My, was I bent! I thought I’d lost it altogether, but Sergeant Lawrence here was kind enough to return it to me.”
“Mighty good of you, officer,” George said. “She’s usually stuck to that Avon bag like peanut belly to jelly. I can’t imagine what she’d do without it.”
Jacob’s lips pulled into a tight smile. He cleared his throat. “It was really no trouble.” He turned to Betty. “Right. Yes, well. I’m glad that I could be of service, Mrs. – Jones. I mean, Betty.” He looked almost pained to say it. “If you need anything, please, call me, directly.” Betty shot him a grateful look.
“I will, of course.”
Jacob retrieved his hat from George Junior’s head and tipped it to Betty and George. Betty let him out the front door and Jacob crossed the road, sliding back into the driver’s seat of his car.
He drove away, but only got two streets before he had to pull over to the curb. The shock of seeing Susie after so many years, and the situation he now found himself in, left Jacob breathless. For more than half an hour, he sat, mulling over this new revelation and what it meant to him, to his work and to the murders he’d been investigating all over town.
Before today, the loss of his childhood sweetheart had fueled him like nothing else ever could have done. He’d thrown himself into his job, desperate to feel he could make some kind of difference in a world that had broken the day Susie died. That somehow, he could heal an unhealable wound. And perhaps, he had. His ambition had forced him to push boundaries and there were already countless criminals doing time by his hand. Perhaps, after all, his loss of her hadn’t been in vain. But it still hurt. His bones ached with it.
When the shell-shock finally eased, Jacob drove directly home, utterly exhausted, but with a single thought resounding in his head.
She’s alive.
Episode Eight
Guns and Glitterati
Betty quietly turned the silver key of her bedroom door, locking herself inside. The children were safe in slumber and George was comfortable with his newspaper and pipe by the sitting room fire. A set of headlights belonging to a nondescript car had pulled up then dimmed, not long after supper. Jacob had come good on his promise to position Officer Parker on undercover watch for the evening.
Betty had excused herself to draw a bath, which she fully intended to take, knowing George wouldn’t disturb her. But first, there was something she needed to do. Something that had been aching inside her, touching her very bones, since Jacob’s unexpected visit that afternoon.
She switched on the wireless by the window seat and Ella Fitzgerald’s soft voice perfumed the room.
“I’m making believe, just like I used to do,
That all of my dreams would come true –
I’m dancing alone, in the shadows of day,
Where your arms held my waist as I sway.”
Betty lifted her cognac crocodile-skin Avon Case from the floor. Its brass feet sank into her bed cover as she opened it. The bag itself was similar in size and carriage to a doctor’s bag, large enough to keep all her samples and catalogs as she completed her daily rounds of the neighborhood. One by one, each decorative jar, lotion and lipstick case was removed until her bedside table was covered in cosmetics. Scuff marks and patches of dust marked the glossy case and Betty shone the outside with a handkerchief as she hollowed the inside. Just the sight of her Avon case made Betty’s heart swell with pride. Every lipstick it held, every scent and pot of rouge was a treasure. With it, she could transform a wallflower into a beauty queen and a plain face to a princess. Her calling was her pride, and nothing represented it more soundly than the beloved cognac case she so often carried.
Of course, there were plenty of powders in her bag that brought her no pleasure at all. Half a dozen jars of heroin stood amongst her fare on the bedside table, disguised as bath salts. Betty easily knew which ones they were, though no one else could have guessed. She didn’t like to carry them, but for the time-being, it was a necessary evil. This particular lot had been a part of Vince’s haul, kept for the purpose of incriminating Donny’s goons should the need arise, which it so often did. It was always best to leave the authorities no question of what they were dealing with. A sprinkle of hell dust over a dead body would spell it out nicely.
Betty wiped the inside of her empty case, then ran her polished nail along the inside of the bottom. With a popping noise, the false base came loose. Betty removed it and pulled out a silver box from underneath. Her fingertips traced the shape of it as she sat on the bed, holding it in her lap. It was as familiar to her as her own face. Betty lifted the lid. Inside was an odd assortment of trinkets. A rough wooden clothes-peg. A silver hat pin. A faded playing card. A brass bell. A tarnished mirror. A tiny carved sparrow. None of the treasures in her box were expensive. None glittered or impressed. But they were heirlooms and each and every one had a story. They were more precious to Betty than a thousand diamonds.
Betty’s fingers found what she had been aching for. An engraved locket on a chain, rubbed dull with love. She pried it open. Two faded, monochromatic photographs stared back at her. One picture was of a little girl, with ribboned hair and shining eyes. She was only four years old and as bright as a brass button. Betty remembered the day the photograph had been taken. It was a rare Sunday that her father had been in an unusually genial mood. He’d taken Susie and her mother, Ethyl, to Coney Island on the train. She’d skipped along the wooden promenade between them, convinced their adventure was the first of many to come. The little girl had bathed in the sea and ridden the brand-new Wonder Wheel, squealing with delight at the thrill of seeing tiny people far below.
It was late afternoo
n and Ethyl had changed Susie out of her swimsuit while her father waited down by the beach.
“Quick darling, in here - can you keep a secret?” her mother had asked, looking behind as she pulled her into a photography booth. A man with a curly mustache had shuttered a portrait of Susie and then one of her mother as well, remarking how pretty they both were as his assistant took thirty cents. Within minutes, they were back on the street hurrying to meet her father, with the developed photos tucked discretely into her mother’s purse.
The picture of her mother showed an unremarkable oval face, framed with wavy hair escaping from a pinned hat and the ghost of a smile. It was all that remained of what the child had believed was a perfect day. As Betty looked at her mother’s photograph now, the tears in her own eyes reflected the sadness she had missed in her mother’s on that day nearly twenty-five years ago. At the time, she hadn’t noticed the anxious glances or the controlling squeeze of her father’s hand on her mother’s wrist as they walked. That night was the very first that Ethyl was taken to Donny’s warehouse and Susie had been left to sleep on her own.
Betty returned the locket to the silver box and picked up the brass spinning top. She carried it over to her dresser, thinking perhaps she should give it to Georgie to play with. With a quick flick of her wrist, it took flight, spinning across the polished wood. With it, memories spun into her mind like the flickering stills of a cinematographé set in motion.
“Why does it always fall off the edge right before it stops, do you think?” she’d asked Jacob, frowning as the spinning top dropped into a groove along the verandah.
“Dunno, maybe the floor is lopsided,” he’d said, as he’d caught it and flicked it anew.
By then, eight years had passed since Coney Island. Her mother had worn a locket, with the photograph inside, every day. That day though, was the last.
Avon Calling! Season One Page 22