A Fashionable Murder

by Valerie Wolzien

  “I guess I will,” Josie agreed, standing up.

  “Sorry I couldn’t help you more.”

  “Actually, you helped a lot,” Josie said, leaving the office and heading back across the lobby to the elevator.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  JOSIE HAD A lot to think about during the short elevator ride up to Sam’s floor. What Harold either didn’t know or had chosen not to tell her was that all these residents who were so actively remodeling had possibly—probably—given a key to someone who was working on their place. So there were two reasons for Pamela Peel to have been given a key to this apartment: love, her relationship with Sam; and money, the decorating job she had taken on.

  The door opened on Sam’s floor and Sam himself was standing there.

  “Josie! I woke up and you were gone! Are you okay? How’s your head?”

  “I’m fine, Sam. I just went downstairs to . . . to see what the snow looked like.”

  “Snow looks different here than everyplace else?”

  “Sort of.” Josie wandered over to the window and peered out, putting her hands in her pockets and jingling Sam’s keys.

  “I talked with Betty on the phone and she said . . .” Josie had an inspiration. “She said it was gorgeous out and did I want to join her for a walk in Central Park. She said she and Jon do it all the time in snowy weather.”

  Sam smiled. “That’s a good idea. If you’re feeling up to it, why don’t we both go?”

  “That is a good idea, but . . . I have to go to the bathroom first. I’ll be right back.” Josie hurried toward her goal, stopping in the bedroom only long enough to grab the portable phone off the bedside table. She locked the bathroom door behind her and dialed. If only Carol was in . . .

  She was! Without bothering to explain why, she told Carol exactly what she needed her to do and hung up, returning to the living room with a big smile on her face. “Ready?”

  “Sure, just let me get my boots and coat. Damn,” he added when the phone rang.

  Josie reached out to pick up the receiver.

  “Don’t answer that, hon. Let’s have a nice quiet walk in the park together. Who knows who might be on the other end of the line.”

  “But . . . but it might be Tyler! He might have a problem. I have to answer it.” Josie picked up the receiver before he could protest further. “Hello? It’s for you, Sam. Your mother. She says it’s important,” she added.

  Sam sighed and reached for the phone, putting his hand over the receiver so the caller couldn’t hear him. “I’ll try to make it short.”

  Josie sincerely hoped he didn’t manage to keep that particular promise, and she moved toward the doorway, picking up her still wet boots and damp coat. She sat down on the hard, black metal bench Pamela had provided, and prepared to reenter the storm.

  She was not at all surprised when Sam put his hand back over the receiver and told her that he couldn’t go out right now. She just kept struggling to put her foot into the soggy boot. “Josie, you’re not going to go without me, are you? You might get lost.”

  “I only have to walk three blocks to the west. We’re going to meet at the corner on Fifth.” For a moment, she was distracted by the pleasure she felt at saying this. She was speaking just like a New Yorker! “They’ve probably already left home. If I don’t hurry, they’ll freeze to death. You know Betty won’t let Jon leave that corner until I arrive. She worries about me in the city almost as much as you do!”

  Sam sighed. “Okay. I guess I have to do this. Under any other circumstances . . .”

  “Don’t worry. I understand,” Josie assured him. “And I won’t be long. Betty said just a short walk.”

  “Do you have my key? You’ll need it to get back in.”

  “Yes. I’m fine. I’ll just walk in the park for a bit with Betty and Jon then come right back here. And I’ll stop at the deli on the corner and pick up something to eat,” she added.

  “It may not be open,” Sam warned her.

  “I’ll find something. This is the city that never sleeps, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “I’ll be fine, Sam. Really!” Without allowing him more time to protest, she left the apartment.

  Harold was busy with an elderly lady whose Pomeranian apparently needed to go out to visit the closest tree. Josie smiled and waved as she passed, heading out the front door and into the stinging cold. Once outside, she headed away from Central Park and right into the blinding snow. Fortunately she wasn’t going far. Two blocks to the right, turn left and one and a half blocks more. She put her head down and walked, determined to make it to Pamela Peel’s apartment in record time despite the weather. She didn’t know how long Carol could keep Sam on the phone and she didn’t want him to start to worry.

  Some of the streets had been plowed and she had to climb over drifts of snow to cross at corners. Other streets had drifts down the middle. Unlike an hour or so earlier, there were people outside to have fun. A couple of cross-country skiers had taken over a lane on Park Avenue and were sliding along together, scarves flying out behind them. Families were walking and laughing, the children as thrilled as children always are by the opportunity to make snowballs and smash them into the backs of their parents.

  Josie paused for a moment in front of the apartment building Carol had indicated just the other day. Would anyone notice that she didn’t belong here? And what would happen if someone did? Well, she would just have to take her chances. She took a deep breath of the cold air and walked through the large entryway.

  And discovered herself in an enchanting little park. The apartment building had been built around a center courtyard. There were large trees, shrubs, benches, and a frozen waterfall, all illuminated by thousands of tiny white lights. Children were building an igloo in a space that seemed to have been reserved for parking at other times. A uniformed guard stood by, watching three young men clear paths between the five doorways into the building. Josie smiled, waved her key chain in the air, and headed for the closest door. It wasn’t locked and she found herself alone in a small foyer. To her right and to her left, glassed-in walkways had been built so residents could move around the interior of their common yard without actually going outside. Pots of blooming azaleas scented the warm, moist air. Josie spied a large copper rectangle dotted with a few dozen buttons; she hurried toward it. It was part of an old-fashioned intercom system. Josie read it through quickly. Pamela Peel had lived in apartment 5S—#3. She hurried toward the elevator.

  Pamela Peel’s apartment was easy to find and, Josie was relieved to discover, she had guessed right about the last key on the ring. It opened the door of 5S—#3. Once inside, Josie glanced at the walls, found the light switch, but waited until the door was firmly closed behind her to turn on the lights. With a flick of the wrist, she lit up Pamela Peel’s home. Mindful of the neighbors below, she slipped off her boots and moved on tiptoe, careful to make as little noise as possible.

  This was the place she had seen in the magazine article. Only the brief glimpse she had spied in the pages had given no clue to the extent of what was here.

  The apartment had been described as eclectic—a combination of all the things she loved, Pamela had said in the article. Her loves were incredibly indiscriminate. There were very modern pieces right next to what looked like antiques. A collection of Scandinavian glass was displayed on an ornate brass baker’s rack. Handmade quilts hung on the wall beside another hideous abstract, which looked a lot like the one Pamela Peel had painted for Sam—only this one bore the name of an artist so famous even Josie recognized his name. There were three couches—two upholstered in matching chintz, the other covered with leather. There were six chairs and more occasional tables than most people would ever have an occasion to use.

  There was a full dining room, an eat-in kitchen, a large bedroom done up almost entirely in lace and silk—Josie just glanced in and then left, trying not to imagine Sam doing anything in such surroundings—a white-tiled bathroom with
yet another étagère filled with apothecary jars and white china dogs, a small kitchen that was so filled with decorator touches, it was impossible to imagine anyone turning on the stove for fear of starting a damaging inferno. Behind this Josie found another room, which she assumed was the maid’s room. If there was a maid present, she was hiding beneath boxes and boxes of lamps, pillows, fabric swatches, and the like. Josie stood there in the open doorway and wondered just what, if anything, she had found here.

  Discouraged, she wandered back down the hallway to the living room, smacking into an inlaid desk, too large for the small space it occupied. She started to walk around it and then had second thoughts. She’d had no compunctions about looking around Pamela Peel’s apartment. Why stop here? Why not look in her desk? Josie started pulling out drawers and searching through them. After a few minutes, she decided that what she was looking for was probably at Henderson and Peel’s office. She walked around one more time, discouraged and a bit depressed. Fascinating as it was to look into Pamela Peel’s private life, she seemed to be getting nowhere. She had learned a lot in the last few days and her appearance had improved dramatically, but she couldn’t prove that Sam hadn’t killed Pamela Peel.

  Disheartened, she decided it was time to go back to Sam’s place. She put on her boots and coat and left the apartment, carefully locking the door behind her. She got on the elevator without paying too much attention to the man who was already there.

  “Sam?!”

  “Yes, Josie?”

  It was obvious that only one of them was surprised. “Ah . . . ,” Josie began.

  “You’ve been in Pamela’s apartment, haven’t you?”

  “Yes. I thought I might learn something there that would help you . . . keep you from being arrested for her murder.”

  “And did you?”

  “No.”

  “Too bad.”

  “Do you think the police—”

  “I don’t know what the police are thinking. I didn’t realize what you were thinking, to be honest. I’ve been so worried about Mother.”

  “Why? What’s wrong?”

  Sam looked down at her and frowned. “Listen, I don’t know what might be open in this storm, but let’s see if we can get some dinner. It’s time we talked.”

  They left the building arm in arm, as much to keep from falling as for moral support. “There used to be a deli around the corner. I think the family that owned it also owned the building. They might have stayed open.”

  The deli was closed, but next door, a small sushi place’s lights were still on. Sam knocked on the door and two smiling young Japanese women waved them in.

  “Sushi?” Sam asked.

  “And soup. Good soup!” One of the women pointed to a blackboard where the menu had been written out.

  “Two miso soup, two tekka rolls, two salmon skin rolls, and two yellowtail with scallion,” Sam ordered, raising his eyebrows for Josie’s approval.

  “And tea,” she added. “Hot tea.”

  The women hurried off and Josie and Sam sat down at a small table as far away from the window as they could get.

  “Why are you worried about your mother? What’s wrong with her?” Josie asked, getting to the point immediately.

  “I’ve been afraid from the very beginning that the police will think she killed Pamela. All the evidence points to her.”

  “Why?”

  “She was at my apartment the day Pamela was killed. She doesn’t know that I know though, so don’t tell her.”

  Josie was shocked. “You saw her there?”

  “I saw her coming out.”

  “Where were you?”

  “Returning from the storage area . . . you use the tradesmen’s elevator to get there. I was just coming into the hallway and she was leaving my apartment. She headed toward the elevator and didn’t see me.”

  “And you didn’t call out to her?”

  “I was busy and . . . well, you know how Mother can be. I didn’t want to be held up.”

  Two little cups of steaming green tea were placed before them and Sam cupped his hands around his before continuing. “Remember you showered before we left for the theater?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Well, while you were in the shower, I went down to the storage locker in the basement. When I came up, Mother was leaving my apartment.”

  “She was inside while I was in the shower?”

  “Yes, and, I’m afraid Pamela could have been in there too. That might have been when Pamela was killed.”

  “But, Sam, why do you think that? She could have been killed while we were having brunch with Betty and Jon. Or while we were at the theater in the evening.”

  “Then why hasn’t Mother admitted that she was in my place that day? Why would she be keeping that fact a secret?”

  “But Sam . . .” Josie didn’t know what to say so she snapped her mouth shut. Maybe it was true. Maybe Carol had killed Pamela. Maybe Carol had been working so hard to prevent Sam from being arrested because she knew he hadn’t killed Pamela because she had done it. Josie thought for a moment. “Didn’t Harold see her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he tell the police?”

  “No. They didn’t ask. He didn’t tell. If they ask, though . . .”

  Josie nodded. “Of course. He couldn’t lie to the police.”

  Sam smiled for the first time since sitting down. “I don’t know about couldn’t, but I told him that he shouldn’t. He’s crazy about Mom, so he’ll protect her as long as he can. But I don’t know how long that will be. I didn’t tell Jon about all this, but he’s like you. He’s afraid the police are beginning to get anxious to find a suspect. If only New York magazine hadn’t put Pamela on their cover. She was always well known in her professional world and a small, wealthy segment of the population of the Upper East Side, but that story made her famous. And the police can’t ignore the murder of a famous person. Makes the media ask too many questions.”

  “Sam, I have a question.”

  “What?”

  “What did the desk that used to be in your living room look like?”

  TWENTY-NINE

  LATER, WHEN JOSIE was explaining what had happened to Tyler, she realized that running into the desk in Pamela Peel’s apartment had been a turning point. She had been looking in the wrong places and, more important, at the wrong things. In fact, everyone’s attention had been directed in the wrong place. Instead of running all over the city, she should have centered most of her attention on Sam’s apartment.

  Josie and Sam hadn’t had to return to Pamela’s apartment for them to be pretty sure that the desk which had occupied the place of honor in his apartment before Pamela Peel had decorated it had become an annoyance in her hallway.

  “It’s not like Pamela to have furniture blocking what she called ‘the flow.’ I would imagine that it wasn’t supposed to stay there for very long. She always had so much stuff in her apartment and she was always rearranging it,” Sam said, dipping his spoon in the steaming miso soup. “And, of course, it wasn’t there when I was . . . well, was there.”

  “It may have been in storage,” Josie said. She wanted to check out a few things before she told Sam, or anyone, what she thought had been going on. She sipped her soup. It was warm and delicious, but she had more questions. Some she wanted to ask, some she had to ask.

  “Why did you ever get involved with Pamela Peel?” Josie asked.

  “Well, she was smart, beautiful, well educated . . .”

  “From the way you talk about your life in the city, it’s always seemed to me that you could say that about almost every woman you dated.”

  “That’s true. There are a lot of wonderful, single career women in New York City. A whole lot.”

  Their waitress placed a beautiful tray of sushi in the middle of the table and they stopped speaking for a moment to admire it.

  “So what was different about her? Why did that relationship last longer? Why was it more serious
than the others? Were you in love with her?” Josie asked the fourth question and held her breath, waiting for his answer.

  “I’ve been asking myself that same thing for the past few days,” Sam admitted slowly. “And I think I’ve come up with the answer. Inertia.”

  “In . . . What do you mean?”

  “I mean that Pamela came after me and I stood still—for a long time. And then, of course, after a few years I started moving. And I moved right out of the city.”

  “Are you telling me you didn’t love her?”

  “Josie, to tell you the truth—and I am ashamed to admit this—I didn’t even like her.”

  “Are you saying that to make me feel better?”

  “I’m saying it because it is true. Sad and true. Pamela Peel loved two things: money and fame. I was involved in a big case at the time, lots of publicity and notoriety. She came after me because of what I had. And I was exhausted, tired of the round of getting to know a new woman every few months, all those first dates with the same questions and so many times the same answers. I didn’t run after her; all I had to do was stand still and let her catch me. And I did. And then we became a couple. We argued a lot, but I didn’t have the sense to see that it was because we were completely incompatible. I didn’t realize that until she decorated my apartment. It was so not for me. The first night I spent there, I woke up to go to the bathroom and was suddenly struck by what a depressing place it was. I knew I had to get out. And thinking about that forced me to reevaluate my life, and eventually led me to retire and move to the island.”

  “So, if you hadn’t been involved with Pamela Peel, you might never have changed your life,” Josie said, deciding she would ask him about this money he had had another time.

  “And if I hadn’t changed my life, I might never have met you,” Sam added, taking the thought to its logical conclusion.