“I understand,” I said. “I hope you enjoy the party.”
I had started to walk away when he grabbed my elbow. “I meant it about buying you a drink, but not here. I know a nice little bar around the corner, quiet, and they make good drinks. The food’s not bad either.”
“Are you proposing to give me a lesson in how real murder investigations are conducted?”
He laughed. “As a matter of fact, I figured that maybe you could teach me a thing or two, like the way you solve crimes in your books. What do you say?”
I thought for a moment before replying. It was my intention to go back to the hotel, pick up reading a good novel where I’d left off, and get a good night’s sleep. But I’ve always been an easy mark given a chance to probe the mind of a law enforcement officer. Besides, I wasn’t sleepy yet, and the limited hors d’oeuvres hadn’t made up for a lack of dinner.
“That sounds nice,” I said. “Yes, I’d enjoy that very much.”
We were halfway to the stairs when Grady and Donna caught up with us.
“Come back to the apartment for a nightcap?” Donna asked.
“May I take a rain check?” I said. “Detective Kopecky and I are going out for something to eat.”
I read the glance between my nephew and his wife.
“And to talk shop,” Kopecky put in. “I got some cold cases I want to run by her.”
“See you tomorrow night, Aunt Jess?” Grady asked, a slight grin on his face.
“Of course,” I said. “You two enjoy the rest of your evening.”
“And you do the same,” were Grady’s parting words.
Chapter Five
The restaurant that Kopecky led me to was called Jill’s. It was everything that he’d said it was, quiet and sedate, with low lights and with guitar music coming through the speakers. Kopecky was obviously a regular; the bartender greeted him by name, indicated we were to take two stools at the end of the bar away from other patrons, and asked the detective if he wanted “his usual.”
“That’d be fine, Jake,” Kopecky said.
“A diet soda for me,” I said.
I expected that because we’d just recently met, conversation might be difficult, but Aaron, as he asked me to call him, turned out to be a talker. In a half hour I’d learned much about him, his childhood in Brooklyn, his two years at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, a stint in the army where he rose to the rank of sergeant, his decision to join the NYPD, starting out as a patrolman in some of the city’s toughest neighborhoods, and his eventual promotion to detective. He started to recall one of his most difficult cases for me, stopped, laughed, and said, “Here I go again, running off at the mouth. My wife always said that my mind’s on vacation but my mouth works overtime. That’s a song title, you know, by a piano player named Mose Allison. I have his album. I like jazz, but not too loud. You like jazz?”
His enthusiasm brought forth a smile from me. “Yes, I like jazz—but not too loud.”
We ordered calamari—“crisp, please”—and two bowls of lobster bisque that Kopecky claimed was the best in New York.
“You married?” he asked between bites and spoonfuls.
“I was. My husband, Frank, died a number of years ago.”
“I bet the guys swarm around you like bees to honey,” he said.
I shook my head.
“No boyfriend? A pretty lady like you?”
I thought of George Sutherland, my Scotland Yard inspector friend in London. I wouldn’t call him “my boyfriend”; we were a little too old for that. Romantic sparks had flown back and forth on occasion, but neither of us had taken our mutual admiration and warm feelings for each other to another level. But I was not about to talk to Aaron Kopecky about George.
“Do you have a girlfriend?” I asked, thinking I should.
“Me? Nah.”
His eyes might have misted, but I couldn’t be sure in the low light. After a period of silence he asked, “So, what’s your take on what happened today at the fashion show?”
“Is this what you meant when you said we’d be ‘talking shop’?”
“Yeah, maybe.”
I sighed. “My take on Rowena’s death? I really don’t have one, except that a lovely young woman’s life has ended prematurely. Why do you ask?”
“Oh, I don’t know. It’s just that I have a funny feeling about it.”
“Why?”
“Healthy young people like that model just don’t drop dead like that.”
“But you said this afternoon that you’d seen a few young people ‘keel over.’ I believe those were your words.”
“Yeah, I did, but I’ve been mulling it over. You were with her before the show. Did she look like she had a heart problem, you know, breathing heavy, funny color, blue fingernails, things like that?”
“No. She seemed perfectly healthy to me, but one of the models said Rowena got sick to her stomach before the show. She attributed it to nerves. It was Rowena’s first time modeling in a show.”
“See? That could mean something.”
I considered what he’d said before adding, “It could. But you don’t know yet that she didn’t die of a heart attack—nausea is one of its symptoms—or of some other natural cause. The autopsy will show if she had a heart defect. It’s not unheard of, even in young people. Are you suggesting—”
He cut me off with a hand on my arm and a smile. “That’s just me. You’re right. Probably some medical problem. I’m not suggesting anything. My wife always accused me of seeing bad stuff around every corner. She said that being a cop soured me on the human race; nothing but bad people out there.”
I started to reply but he added, “My wife, she was right, always was. She knew me like a book.” This trend of thought led to a lengthy description of his deceased wife. I found it charming that he needed to talk about her now that she was gone. His comments, while at times critical of her, were mostly positive. It was clear to me that he missed her very much.
At the same time, I found myself becoming weary.
I stifled a yawn. “I really should be going,” I said.
“Right. My wife always said I put people to sleep with all my talk and—”
“No, no,” I said. “It’s been a long, difficult day, and seeing that young woman simply drop dead in front of me took an emotional toll. I just need a good night’s sleep.”
He paid the bill and we walked outside.
“Do you see any taxis?” I asked.
“You don’t need a taxi,” he said. With that he led me around the corner to a battered Subaru with fading paint. “One of the perks of being a detective,” he said. “That shield in the window lets me park anywhere. Of course, you don’t keep a nice car in the city. Never pays. Someone is always going to come along and dent your fender. So if you don’t mind riding in my rust bucket, come on—I’ll drop you off.”
For the first time since I’d run into him at the party, I was vaguely uncomfortable. I really didn’t know him, and the thought of getting into his car gave me pause. But he was, after all, a detective, so I climbed into the passenger seat and he drove straight to my hotel. Before the hotel doorman emerged from the building, Kopecky jumped out, came around the car, and opened the door for me.
“Thank you for dinner,” I said, “and for the ride.”
“No sweat. My wife always said that a man should open the car door for a woman.”
“It’s a nice gesture,” I said.
“Nobody else does it anymore,” he said.
“Well,” I said, “I appreciated it very much. Good night.”
“My pleasure. Hey, I really enjoyed being with you. Hope I didn’t talk your ear off. I didn’t give you much of a chance to talk about you. We’ll have to do it again soon, huh?”
“That would be fine,” I said.
Once i
n my hotel room I thought about my evening with the detective. It had almost been like going out on a date.
A date?
I smiled as my mind filled with memories of the dates I’d gone on with my late husband, Frank, before we’d married, and of times spent with Scotland Yard inspector George Sutherland.
I got ready for bed and cracked open the novel where I’d left a bookmark, but my mind wandered, reliving the day’s activities. It had been exciting to be present at Sandy’s fashion show, and I hoped his designs would be successful in the market. But the day that had started out upbeat had turned tragic with the shocking death of Rowena Roth. When she sat in the makeup chair, I hadn’t noticed any telltale signs of illness. What could have caused such a sudden reversal in her well-being? That she didn’t seem to have any close friends was sad. You expect a young woman of that age to be surrounded by her peers. Babs had said she was “snarky” and had a chip on her shoulder. Perhaps competition for jobs kept models from making intimate connections with one another. I’d have to ask Babs—if I saw her again—if that was often the case.
By the time those thoughts had run their course, fatigue had overtaken any thought of reading, and I climbed into bed.
Yes, it had been quite a day, and I hoped that the following one would be free of intrigue and surprises.
But it was not to be.
Chapter Six
One look out the window the next morning told me that it was good that I’d brought a raincoat, rain hat, and umbrella with me from home. The rain was coming down hard, and a brisk wind splattered it against the panes.
I ordered room service—an English muffin, raspberry preserves, grapefruit juice, and coffee—and turned on the TV. It was unlikely that Rowena Roth’s death would be grist for an item on the news. She wasn’t a big-name model. Besides, people die every day in New York of natural causes and don’t rate news coverage. But at the tail end of a local news segment, the female anchor said, “New York’s Fashion Week was marred yesterday by the unexplained death of a model. More after these messages.”
The station cut away to a series of commercials and I hit the MUTE button.
I sat back on the couch and thought about Rowena’s collapse, which then led to a recollection of what Detective Kopecky had said at the bar at Jill’s, that he had a “funny feeling” about Rowena’s death. He’d quickly explained it away by saying that his wife used to blame his vocation, saying that being a policeman had caused him to see—how did he put it?—“bad stuff around every corner.” I suppose that’s an occupational hazard for all law enforcement officers who spend their days dealing with the less savory segment of the population. But Joseph Heller gave us something to think about in Catch 22 when he said, “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.” Even for a jaded cop, there is “bad stuff” around many a corner.
I put aside those contemplations when room service arrived. By the time the tray was set down and I’d signed the check and turned up the volume again, the television news program had moved on to the weather, which was forecast to improve later in the morning. I switched off the TV and enjoyed my muffin, paging through USA Today, which had been delivered with my breakfast. The national newspaper featured photographs and brief articles on the major designers in New York for the fashion event, but no mention of the less famous names, nor of the demise of a first-time model named Rowena.
Showered and dressed, in shoes I hoped could withstand puddles on the streets of New York, I went down to the lobby, where I picked up a copy of the day’s New York Post and settled in an easy chair to peruse it. Rowena’s death was summed up in a single line in the paper’s famed “Page Six” gossip section. I’d expected that the young reporter who’d spoken with me at the reception, Steven Crowell, would have written something more substantive, but he evidently hadn’t unearthed enough information to warrant an article.
I had a busy day ahead. Sandy had invited me to visit his studio in Manhattan’s Garment District that morning, and I’d made tentative plans to stop in to see Vaughan Buckley, my publisher at Buckley House, later that afternoon. I’d left lunch open in the event Sandy—or his mother, Maggie—wanted to extend our get-together, and had promised to meet with my agent, Matt Miller, at five. My nephew, Grady, and his wife, Donna, had invited me to dinner again, but I’d called to beg off, suggesting that we do it the next night. I needed some time for myself, something I increasingly crave as I get older.
The rain had stopped and the sun was trying to push through the clouds when my taxi driver, a pleasant sort, dropped me in front of Sandy’s building on West Thirty-fifth Street, between Eighth and Ninth avenues, a brick industrial structure that had probably been there since the nineteenth century. It was in the heart of the Garment District as evidenced by the flurry of activity that swirled around me—clothing racks lining the sidewalk, trucks double-parked, horns blowing, and attractive young women rushing down the street, probably models on their way to auditions and photo shoots. The energy was contagious, and I picked up my step as I entered the building and checked the long roster of tenants posted in the narrow lobby. Xandr Ebon Fashions was on the top floor.
The elevator might have been as old as the building itself, although I surmised that it had been added later. It creaked and stopped at each floor with a jolt before reaching the top. I stepped from it and was almost bowled over by a man pushing a clothing rack down the narrow hallway. “Sorry,” he muttered, and continued on his way. It was loud as I stood in the hall. Myriad voices competed with one another. Some yelled. Some laughed. It was chaotic.
I walked down the hall until reaching a sign in elegant script indicating I’d found the right place. The door to Sandy’s studio was open and I was about to step through it, but angry voices from inside stopped me.
“It’s not your job to tell me what’s wrong with my designs,” a man shouted.
“I worked in an atelier de flou for thirty years,” a woman retorted. “I tell you, it’s not draping properly.”
“It drapes on her the way it’s supposed to,” the man replied, louder this time. “Who’s the designer here?”
I recognized the man’s voice as belonging to Sandy. His was low-pitched but had a discernible nasal quality to it.
Another man said, “Knock it off, Xandr. I don’t have time for your temper tantrums!”
“If everybody would just leave me alone,” Sandy moaned.
I stepped out of the way as two women stomped out of the showroom. I recognized Addie, the dressmaker, in a white lab coat with a tape measure draped around her neck; she rushed past me down the hall. Right behind her was the model Dolores Marshall from the fashion show, who was also Babs’s roommate. Standing nearly six feet tall in a fur-collared parka, black tights, and lace-up boots, she was an imposing figure as she came to a halt upon seeing me.
“Hello,” I said. “I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Jessica Fletcher. I saw you at the fashion show.”
She cocked her head as she tried to place me.
“We got to say hello but only briefly while you were being fitted.”
“Yes, right,” she said in a well-modulated voice. “You’re the mystery writer. Xandr told me about you.”
“I’m so sorry about what happened to Rowena.” As I said it, I remembered what Babs Sipos had said about Rowena making a racist remark to Dolores.
“Yes, it was a shame,” Dolores said, not sounding especially bereft.
“Do you mind if I ask you a question?”
She looked at me quizzically. “Try me.”
“Do you know if Rowena was suffering from any medical ailment?”
“Only if being a spoiled brat is a medical ailment. Otherwise I have absolutely no idea. Why would you think I would?”
“I just thought that when models get together they might talk about such things.”
“Rowena an
d I never talked about anything—pleasant,” she replied.
“Oh,” I said, “I’m sorry to hear it.”
“You can try one of the other models. There might be someone who could stand her. Anything else?”
“Actually, I’m here to see Xandr Ebon,” I said, “but I did want to tell you that you looked beautiful in the show.”
She tilted her head. “Thanks. Sorry if I was rude. As you can see, I’m just leaving. I stopped by to return my dress. He’s in there.” She indicated where she meant with a flip of her head, sending her thick mane of inky black hair into motion. She stepped past me and headed for the elevator. “He’s a little edgy. Must be post-runway blues,” she said. “He should be happy. His name’s in the Post this morning.” She disappeared behind a clothing rack.
“Yes, but—” I started to say. It was only because Rowena had died.
I drew a breath and entered Sandy’s studio. I didn’t know what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t a bare space with exposed pipes and peeling paint. The tall windows were grimy with soot. Panels of fluorescent bulbs hung from long stems affixed to the ceiling. It wasn’t a big room but was made smaller by a large table along one wall flanked by racks of clothing, one of which held gowns I recognized from the show. Several people in white coats milled around. In the center of the studio was a small circular stage set in front of a threefold mirror. An apparatus to make chalk marks on fabric stood to the side. I skirted one of the clothing racks and peered into an office, where I saw Sandy talking with the man who’d been pointed out to me at the reception as his Los Angeles financial backer.
“She promised to come tomorrow,” I heard him say before he caught sight of me.
“Hello?” I called, waving, not sure that I should be intruding.
Sandy turned. “Jessica,” he said. “What a pleasant surprise.”
“You invited me to come this morning. I think I’m on time.”
“I did? My mind is a sieve today. Too much going on. Of course I did. Come in, come in. This is Jordan Verne. Did you meet last night?”
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