Dial Me for Murder

by Amanda Matetsky

  So, I ask you, who was the most parental person at our table? (I’ll give you one guess.)

  “You can’t imagine how glad I am to hear that, Katy,” I said, stretching my free arm across the table and putting my hand on hers. “I love your father, and I love you, and I think our collective future is going to be great.”

  “Cool!” she said, giving me and Dan a cheerful nod, then gently removing her arm and hand from our grasp. She picked up her menu and scanned it. “I’m starving! I want a bacon, avocado, and tomato sandwich on cheese bread, and a hot fudge sundae for dessert.” Her bright blue eyes were twinkling in anticipation.

  I placed the same order (well, it sounded really good), and Dan ordered—yep!—a platter of steak and potatoes. And then we relaxed and proceeded to have a wonderful time—laughing, chatting, eating, telling jokes—enjoying each other’s company to the hilt. We could have posed for a Norman Rockwell illustration.

  After lunch we went to see the new movie Oklahoma!, starring Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones. It was a fabulous, wide-screen, Technicolor production, with gorgeous scenery and great Rodgers and Hammerstein music. Katy loved it. I probably would have loved it, too, if every time MacRae came on screen I hadn’t been reminded of the previous Friday night at the Copa, when Abby spotted him sitting with the other celebrities up in the mezzanine, and we were all waiting for a Mafia-connected murderer to come out and sing to us.

  WHEN THE MOVIE WAS OVER, DAN TOOK KATY back to the Upper East Side, where she lived with her mother, then went to the station house to tackle the pressing paperwork on the Hogarth and Corona cases. I took the subway home. I was sorry that I wouldn’t be spending the evening with Dan, but I was glad to have the free time to write up the final notes for my story. Since I was going back to work in the morning, I needed all the free time I could get.

  I had wanted to tell Dan that Crockett had called—that I hadn’t been fired and was still a staff writer at Daring Detective—but I couldn’t see discussing it in front of Katy. It would have disturbed the peace and spoiled our lovely afternoon. And I knew Dan didn’t want that to happen any more than I did. I would tell him tomorrow, I decided, after I felt out the scene at the office, and met with Harrington, and had a better idea of what I wanted to do.

  As soon as I got home, I changed my clothes and washed my face. Then I sat down at the typewriter and added all the details about Corona’s arrest, Jocelyn’s murder, and my own near demise to my story notes. When I was finished, the document numbered thirty-six pages. I was almost out of paper, and my typewriter ribbon had faded to gray. It had been a busy few days.

  Too tired and ill equipped to do any more writing, I went downstairs and called Sabrina. I wanted to see how she and Charlotte were doing. I also wanted to know if she’d heard any further talk about the murders, or received any phone calls or unannounced visits from reporters or police. She hadn’t. O’Connor and I were the only ones who’d contacted her about the crimes. She said that she and Charlotte were both thrilled that Melody’s and Candy’s killers had been caught, but were still shaken by Hogarth’s attempt to murder me, and very concerned about how the soon-to-erupt scandal would affect their own lives.

  I told Sabrina that Dan and I would do our best to keep her name out of the papers, but we couldn’t promise anything. She understood completely. Having already come to terms with the fact that Virginia and Jocelyn would be exposed as prostitutes, she knew her call girl enterprise was likely to be exposed as well. She had, therefore, called an emergency meeting with the rest of her girls to tell them that she was—for personal reasons—disbanding the agency. She gave each one a check for a thousand dollars and urged them to find legal occupations. Ethel Maguire (aka Brigitte) would have no trouble making the transition, she said, since she would be graduating from nursing school soon.

  In the event that she was arrested and sent to jail, Sabrina had arranged with the landlord for Charlotte to stay on in her apartment as maid and caretaker. And she had set aside enough money for Charlotte to pay both the rent and Virginia’s brother’s bills for up to a year. After that, she said, she’d be bankrupt.

  Sabrina was still hoping, however, that she wouldn’t be imprisoned for so long, and that she’d be able to set up and finance the new business she wanted to launch: the Stanhope Modeling Agency. Some of her girls would make wonderful models, she thought, and she’d already spoken to some of her wealthy clients about investing in her perfectly legitimate new enterprise. She didn’t know a whole lot about the modeling business yet, she laughingly admitted, but how much different from her previous profession could it be?

  I GOT TO THE OFFICE EARLY THE NEXT MORNING, and the place was a complete mess. The Coffeemaster had an inch-thick layer of muck on the bottom, and all the cups were dirty. The contents of the cream pitcher had curdled, and sugar was scattered all over the table and the floor. Lenny’s drawing table was heaped with so many unfinished layouts and boards, I figured he hadn’t been in to work since the day I sent him home sick, and my desk was piled halfway to the ceiling with unclipped newspapers, unopened mail, unsorted deliveries, unedited manuscripts, and uncorrected page proofs.

  Ugh. Maybe I didn’t want my job back after all.

  The first thing I did was check out the morning papers. The main headline on every front page of every edition was TONY CORONA ARRESTED FOR MURDER!, or words to the same effect. Virginia was named in some of the headlines and all of the stories, of course, but the reporters had—for obvious reasons— focused ninety-nine percent of their attention and copy on the accused killer rather than the murder victim. A world-famous singer and movie star would sell a hell of a lot more newspapers than a lowly secretary for an accounting firm (or even a high-priced hooker—a fact not mentioned in any of the articles).

  Each paper had a brief write-up about the death of a young Saks Fifth Avenue hat designer named Jocelyn Fritz, who drowned in the pool at the Barbizon Hotel for Women, but none of the accounts mentioned murder. It was also reported that Manhattan District Attorney Sam Hogarth had been admitted to the hospital late Saturday afternoon with severe head and foot injuries. He was in critical condition. The cause of his injuries had yet to be determined, but some newswriters suggested they might have been mob-inflicted, in retaliation for the DA’s courageous crusade against organized crime.

  So much for accurate journalism. If the full truth about Hogarth and Corona was ever going to be reported, I realized, the reporter would have to be me.

  I slapped all the papers closed and carried them into Mr. Crockett’s office. I wanted to put them out of my sight. As I was returning to the main workroom, Mr. Crockett came through the front door and gave me—wonder of wonders!—a hearty hello. He was clearly glad to see me. Knowing that now was the best time to talk to him—while he was weak from a debilitating caffeine deficiency—I walked right up to him and asked why Harrington had changed his mind about firing me, and why he wanted to see me in his office.

  “Harrington didn’t fire you,” he said. “Pomeroy did it without his knowledge.”

  “You mean Pomeroy lied?”

  “Right. Scummy thing to do. I wanted to fire him, but Harrington said no. Family reasons. And blood is thicker than whatever, so we’re stuck with the bastard.”

  Figures. “So why does Harrington want me to come to his office?

  “Don’t know. You gotta go see for yourself.” He hung up his hat and coat. “But make the coffee first, okay?”

  As I carried the Coffeemaster into the hall and headed for the ladies’ room to wash it, Lenny burst out of the stairwell, huffing and puffing like a marathon runner at the finish line. He was thinner and more red-faced than usual, but he’d made it up nine flights of stairs, so I knew he’d made a full recovery. I walked over, patted him on the back, and, while I was waiting for him to catch his breath, gave him a quick rundown of recent office events.

  He was shocked that I’d been fired, relieved that I’d been re-hired, and very upset that his ill
ness had caused me so much trouble. I told him not to worry about it—that I’d been glad to have the time off, and that our crabby bosses and lazy coworkers had been at such a loss without us, we’d probably be treated with kid gloves from now on. Or for a couple of hours at least.

  As if to prove my words, Mike and Mario stepped out of the elevator and walked toward us—faint but detectable smiles slipping across their faces. They were surprised to see me, but not sorry. You could tell by the way they each nodded and said, “Good morning, Paige,” without a single snicker, rude comment, or lousy joke about my name. They even gave Lenny a civil hello.

  OLIVER RICE HARRINGTON GAVE ME AN EQUALLY civil welcome when I arrived at his office later that morning.

  “Thank you for coming,” he said, ushering me inside and guiding me to the guest chair closest to his desk. He offered me a cigarette, lit it, then sat down and extended his “sincere” apologies for the “inappropriate” actions of his “headstrong” cousin Pomeroy, and for the “unseemly” way in which I was “terminated,” and for the “unpleasantness” of our last “visit,” for which he took full responsibility, asking me to forget it ever happened. (I knew I wouldn’t, but I said I would.)

  After that, he raked his fingers through his salt-and-pepper hair, adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses on his prominent nose, and got down to business.

  “I asked you here to discuss a matter of some importance to us both, Mrs. Turner,” he said, eyes fastened on mine. “I know that you’re working on a story about the murders of Virginia Pratt and Jocelyn Fritz, and I want to purchase exclusive rights to that story for my newspapers and magazines, Daring Detective included. And after your report has been featured in the selected Harrington News publications, I want you to turn the story into a full-length crime novel for Harrington House Books. I am, of course, prepared to pay a large sum for your efforts, with a twenty-five percent advance due the day you sign the contracts.”

  I was agog. I took a deep drag on my cigarette and exhaled slowly, through my nose, hoping the sting of the rising smoke would scare my eyeballs back into their sockets.

  “So what do you say, Mrs. Turner? Does my proposal interest you?”

  “Well, uh . . . sure,” I said, doing my best to act blasé. “But I can’t give you a commitment right now. I have to talk things over with my fiancé first.”

  “Ah, yes,” he said, “the indefatigable Detective Dan Street. You must consult with him, of course. And congratulations on your engagement.”

  Harrington was starting to spook me out. “How do you know so much about me?” I asked. “Are you having me tailed or something?”

  He chuckled and leaned back in his chair. “I run a successful news empire, Mrs. Turner. There isn’t much that escapes my notice.”

  I decided to test the validity of his statement. “Are you aware that District Attorney Sam Hogarth murdered Jocelyn Fritz?”

  “I’ve heard rumors to that effect.”

  “And that he also tried to murder me?”

  “Yes . . .”

  “And are you willing to publish all the dirty details about the DA’s many crimes—including the fact that he had a hot and heavy relationship with your favorite call girl?”

  A storm cloud fell over his face, but he remained calm and in control. “I was getting to that point, Mrs. Turner,” he said, “and these are my terms: I expect you to write the truth about Hogarth and Melody, but I want you to keep my name out of it.”

  “Oh, so that’s it,” I sneered. “You’re trying to buy me off. I should have known your offer was too good to be true. Tell me, Mr. Harrington,” I said, in the most scathing tone I could summon, “are there any other special clauses in your contract I should know about?”

  “Just one,” he said. “Somebody else I want you to protect.”

  “And who, pray tell, is that?”

  “Sabrina Stanhope.”

  SO THERE I SAT, IN A CUSHY LEATHER CHAIR IN the luxurious penthouse office of the most powerful media mogul in the country (maybe even the whole world), wondering what crazy quirk of fate had determined that said mogul should want to defend the same high-class madam that I had pledged to protect. (Well, it was a pretty bizarre situation, don’t you think?) It took me a good half hour to gather my wits, ask the right questions, extract the true answers, and get to the mind-boggling bottom of things.

  And here’s what it all boiled down to: Harrington had known Sabrina during her debutante days. He was twelve years her senior—too old for her, he knew—but that hadn’t stopped him from admiring her beauty and style. He took her out on a few dates, hoping she would find his maturity, keen mind, and vast wealth attractive, but she’d been more interested in the young, dark, and dangerous type. They remained friends for a while, but lost touch after he married and started his family.

  Harrington didn’t hear from Sabrina again until many years later, when she called to tell him about her new call girl enterprise. He’d been shocked to learn that she’d become a madam, but after she told him about her abusive husband, and the physical, emotional, and financial damage she’d suffered at his hands, he understood her motivation. And he approved of the “respectable” way she was running her business. And since he was a man with a healthy sexual appetite, a frigid wife, and a huge discretionary income, he soon signed on as a client.

  Shortly after that, Sabrina introduced him to Melody. And he became so enamored with the beautiful young call girl that he started phoning Sabrina two or three times a week to schedule appointments with her. And as a result of those regular phone conversations, Harrington and Sabrina became friends again. At first they just talked about old times, but then they began having intimate chats about their personal and business lives—sharing confidences, offering and asking for advice, listening to each other’s problems.

  “And now I feel like a brother to Sabrina,” Harrington concluded. “A very close and concerned older brother. And I don’t want to see her get hurt by the sex-and-murder scandal that’s about to rock the city. She doesn’t deserve it. She’s worked very hard to protect me and her other clients from the press and police, and I want to return the favor.”

  “But if you’re so close to Sabrina, why didn’t you call her after Melody was murdered?” I asked. “She was suffering a lot, and scared to death the killer might go after her other girls. She could have used some comforting and encouraging words from you, but you didn’t call even once!”

  “I was too devastated to speak with anybody,” Harrington said, his massive shoulders falling into a slump. “Melody’s death hit me really hard. I was so upset that I told my family I thought I was getting sick, and then I locked myself in my study for days, swilling bourbon, eating nothing, sleeping on the couch. It was a childish and cowardly thing to do, but I couldn’t help myself. I didn’t leave my study until late Friday morning, when I finally sobered up and dragged myself back to the office. That was the day you burst in and accused me of firing you.”

  “Right,” I said, looking down at my lap, suddenly feeling ashamed of my brash behavior. “I’m sorry I made such a fuss.”

  “Don’t be. You had a right to be angry and hurt. Pomeroy treated you very unfairly. He thought he was helping me, of course, but still . . . that’s no excuse.”

  “How was hurting me supposed to help you?”

  Harrington gave me a sad look. “I’m not proud of that part of the story, Mrs. Turner, but here’s what happened. Pomeroy came to my home last Wednesday morning to ask me for a loan, but found me drunk and sobbing in my study. I had learned about Melody’s murder on Tuesday—the day before the news hit the papers—so I was in the depths of depression. Pomeroy asked me what was wrong, and—too weak and stupid and inebriated to know what I was doing—I blubbered out a full confession.

  “And that,” he went on, “is why Pomeroy gave the Virginia Pratt assignment to Mike Davidson instead of you. He knew that you would conduct a thorough, relentless search for the truth, and he was afraid that you�
�d uncover my infidelities in the process. He had you fired for the same reason. He wanted to derail any thoughts you might have about investigating the story on your own in order to save me and my family—and, by extension, his family—from the ruination of a raging sex scandal. I didn’t know about any of this at the time, of course. I was too busy wallowing in pain and self-pity and booze. As soon as I found out about it, though, I told Crockett to give you your job back.”

  “Thanks a lot,” I said.

  If Harrington noticed my sarcastic tone, he didn’t let on. He just pushed his glasses higher on his nose, raised his bushy eyebrows, and said, “Now about that contract, Mrs. Turner. May I have my lawyers draw up a draft for your approval?”

  I sat quietly for a few seconds, giving the matter further thought, coming to the realization that I was already in accord with Harrington’s terms. He had had nothing to do with the murders of Virginia and Jocelyn, so I saw no earthly reason to expose his private affairs to the public. And as for his brotherly resolve to protect Sabrina . . . well, given the fact that I was determined to protect her myself, I certainly couldn’t find fault with that.

  “Okay,” I finally agreed. “Give me a buzz when it’s ready.”

  ABBY THREW A SURPRISE ENGAGEMENT PARTY for Dan and me that night. Well, it wasn’t exactly a surprise, since she called us both at work to tell us to be at her place at seven, and it wasn’t exactly a party, since Jimmy, Otto, Lenny, Dan, and I were her only guests. What it was, actually, was an engagement dinner—with an enormous turkey cooked by Abby, and about a thousand potato pancakes cooked by Lenny’s mother. (Lenny carried them across town in a suitcase.)

  Oh, yeah, there was some champagne, too. Quite a few bottles, as I recall.

  Abby had strung colorful Christmas lights all around her studio and decorated her kitchen table with a dark blue madras bedspread and a small vase of yellow mums. We dined by candlelight, listening to the hi-fi sounds of Thelonious Monk and the Modern Jazz Quartet. Everything was swell. With Otto curled up on my lap, and Dan’s arm resting on the back of my chair, and my best friends gathered so closely around me, I would have been content to sit at that table forever.