But she must have fallen asleep, because the doorbell dragged her back from someplace dark and troubled. The clock on her night table read 2:25.
This was unexpected, and in her business surprises were bad. But that didn’t mean she could ignore the bell. She got out of bed in the oversized T-shirt that she wore for sleeping and went to the front door. The view through the spy hole was the last thing she expected to see. She opened the inner door and unlocked the screen.
“Marcia. What the hell?”
The way the other woman looked, no one was going to pay her for doing anything but going away. Her hair was snarled, and she wore no makeup. Her jeans and sweatshirt looked as if she had slept in them on a river bank.
“Get in here.”
There was no choice. Hooker solidarity kicked in when the cops were involved. Diana pushed the screen door open for Marcia, who obeyed silently.
“You know the cops are looking for you?”
“I don’t have any place else to go.”
“You knew where I live.”
Diana never liked it when that happened.
“Rodney showed me once on the way to a date.”
Diana knew that Rodney was one of Trudy’s drivers.
“He can forget it. I’m never going to work for Trudy.”
“I wish I never had.”
“Too late for that now.”
“I didn’t kill him.”
“The Baker? Who did?”
“If I knew that, maybe I wouldn’t have to run.”
“The cops must be looking for your car.”
“I don’t even have one.”
Diana thought about that.
“Okay, the best I can do is give you some cash and put you on a bus in Paterson. Maybe the cops won’t expect you to get that far.”
“I’m desperate. I have no idea what’s going on.”
“We’ll have to think about it. While we’re driving.”
Diana went to her bedroom. Her jeans from earlier in the day were draped over the chair next to her bed, and her sneakers sat on the floor. She dressed and swept her keys and wallet off the bureau.
She heard the screen door bang.
What the hell? Was Marcia running for it?
“Diana!” Marcia screamed.
That answered that. The scream came from inside the house.
Diana ran to the foyer and stopped. She needed an instant to sort things out. A man and a woman were doing a wild, spinning dance. The woman was Marcia. The man was a stranger who had his left arm around Marcia’s throat in a choke hold.
But it was the other arm Marcia was desperately gripping with both hands, and Diana could see why. The right hand held a knife.
Diana darted forward, planning to throw a couple of kidney punches, but the man must have heard her. He wrenched his right wrist from Marcia’s grasp and swiped behind him several times with the knife. Diana retreated. The man went back to trying to cut Marcia’s throat, but Marcia managed to grab his wrist again.
Diana used the moment. She pulled the coat closet open and grabbed a wire hanger from the rod. She straightened the hanger out with a yank and closed in again on the man with the knife. Diana hacked at him with the hook, once, twice, three times.
In the kitchen the phone began to ring. Diana felt a lunatic urge to say, “Hang on a sec and let me get that.”
It was the kind of thing her mind did under extreme stress.
The man gasped and slashed at Diana again with the knife, but the length of the hanger extended her reach a crucial foot. Diana hacked again, and the hook caught on the man’s face. Diana pulled. The man screamed and dropped the knife. He held his face with both hands.
Diana threw the hanger aside and went back to her first idea. She stepped close enough to hammer the man’s right kidney area several times with her fists. It wasn’t enough.
Marcia was holding her own throat and gasping for breath. Before Diana could scream at her to do something, Marcia figured it out herself. She dropped her hands and launched a perfect groin kick. The man fell to the floor and curled in a ball. With her foot Diana swept the knife down the hall toward the kitchen. She stood and waited for her breathing to slow.
“You okay?” she asked Marcia, when she could speak.
Marcia inspected her palms and showed Diana.
“I’m bleeding.”
Her voice quivered.
“Stop that,” said Diana.
But that was unfair. Marcia had done well. If she wanted to fall apart now, she was entitled. Diana inspected the other woman, who had a couple of gashes on her hands that probably came from grabbing for the knife. More blood was smeared on her face, but her throat looked uninjured. That was the important thing.
“Who the hell is this?”
“No clue,” said Marcia.
Diana looked and thought she knew. The man had a shaved head and a physique that went beyond lean, as if every ounce of fat had been cooked away. His sleeveless undershirt revealed tattoos up both arms.
“The ex-con,” said Diana.
Marcia gave her a blank look, and Diana remembered that she had probably never seen anyone but the Baker himself.
“Go to the kitchen and call 911,” said Diana. “I’ll watch him.”
“The cops are after me.”
“They won’t be now.”
First to arrive were two local uniformed officers, both young men. They undoubtedly knew her résumé, but she couldn’t complain about their professional courtesy. They handcuffed Marcia and the man, but let Diana stand against the wall, out of the way. They did keep a careful eye on her.
Next came a Driscoll detective named Rostow. She knew him, and he had never liked her. She could live with that.
“We’ll wait for Detective Breitwieser,” was the only thing he said to her.
The uniforms took Marcia and the man out of the house. Everything stopped for about a half-hour. Then she heard Breitwieser’s voice outside as he conferred with the uniformed officers.
That was fast. Had he been his way to see her when he got Rostow’s call?
Breitwieser came straight to her. “From what they tell me, the guy might lose that eye.”
“I made my point,” she said.
“You did.”
“What did he have against the Baker?”
“It was the Baker’s son who started it. Seems he complained about his father being tight with money, and Tattoo Man heard that as a solicitation to murder. It took Sonny Boy a while to decide whether he was more afraid of him or us, but he copped to everything.”
“That was you on the phone,” she said.
“I was going to tell you two things.”
“Okay.”
“Number one, look out for ex-cons. The breakfast alibi was phony. The other guys were afraid of him, too.”
“I guess he was panicking. He needed to pin everything on Marcia, but that meant making her disappear for good.”
“And he caught up with Marcia here. Lucky you.”
“What was the other thing?”
“An I.R.S. investigator came to me about the Baker investigation. Seems they were making a case against Trudy Gernsheimer, but it falls apart without him available to testify.”
“And she lucks out again.”
“So,” said Breitwieser, “we were both right and both wrong, on who…and why. Split the difference?”
“Sounds fair.”
The Cinderella Caper
By Herschel Cozine
Nathaniel P. Osgood III says: I’m a private investigator. I’m not your run of the mill P.I. who sits in a car with a cold cup of coffee while spying on straying spouses. I have the interesting, sometimes impossible task of solving cases involving nursery rhyme and fairy tale characters. Who killed Cock Robin? What really happened to Bo Peep’s sheep? Where is the little man who wasn’t there? Does it really matter, you may ask. Well, it beats a cold cup of coffee, and in this topsy-turvy town I am fortunate to have a job at all.
So, pull up a chair and let’s get acquainted.
I’m sure that most everyone has heard about Cinderella. We have read how she was merely a char girl, mistreated by her wicked stepmother and three stepsisters. We know how she charmed the prince and eventually became his wife. Poppycock!
Before you pass me off as some crank who has no romance in his soul, let me give you a few facts.
My name is Osgood—Nathaniel P. Osgood III to be precise. I’m a private investigator, and I had the privilege, if that is the word, of working on the Cinderella case. I know what kind of a person she is. I know how she passed herself off as a poor mistreated waif while she gallivanted around the countryside preying on princes and unsuspecting nobility.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s begin, as they say, at the beginning.
“The Cinderella Caper” first came to my attention on a Monday morning late in the spring. A Royal Ball had been held the night before at the palace of old King Gordon, (now deceased), and his lovely wife, Madlyn, (ditto). Not being one to read the society pages, I wasn’t aware of the fuss that had ensued at the ball. No one I knew had been invited to the bash, and I had no particular interest in the affair myself.
I was sitting behind my desk drinking a cup of coffee and fighting off the effects of a hard weekend when the door to my office opened. A man dressed in a frilly lace shirt, green knickers and buckle shoes stepped in and bowed from the waist. Not being tutored in the ways of the upper crust, I could only stare at the spectacle he presented and wonder what masquerade party he had come from. Before I could say anything, the man spoke.
“You are a private detective?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said, nodding to the sign on the door, which said exactly that. “What can I do for you?”
“I am a page in the court of King Gordon and his lovely wife, Madlyn,” the man said. “His Majesty would like to engage your services.”
“The king wants to hire me?” I asked incredulously.
The page nodded as only a page can nod.
“Why?”
“I am not at liberty to say,” the page said. “But His Royal Majesty is most eager to see you. He would be grateful if you would come with me at this time.” He bowed again. It was a trait that I discovered was common among pages, and one I came to dislike intensely. Almost as an afterthought, he said, “King Gordon will pay you handsomely for your time.”
Not being one to keep royalty waiting, especially the type of royalty who is willing to pay me handsomely, I took my coat from the rack and threw it over my shoulders. With a bow of my own, I stepped back and gestured to the page.
“After you.”
We rode to the castle in a carriage drawn by a team of six horses, only one of which was white, thus putting to rest another myth. I suppose it is a matter of economics, but a little disappointing.
The bridge over the moat lowered slowly, and we clattered across, coming to a stop in front of a huge oak door. The footman hopped to the ground and opened the carriage door. The page stepped out and I followed. I looked up at the massive structure with its high walls, multicolored windows and turrets. So this is where the taxpayers’ dollars go, I thought with an envious sigh.
The giant doors were opened by two soldiers clad in breastplates and holding spears. We went through a series of corridors, finally stopping at another set of doors, almost as large as the ones at the gate. The page pulled at a cord off to one side and I could hear a bell chime from the other side of the doors.
Slowly the doors opened to reveal a large windowed room with two thrones at the far end. A man and a woman sat on the thrones looking as though they would rather be somewhere else.
The page approached the throne, removed his hat and bowed deeply. “Your Majesty,” he said to the king. “May I present Detective Osgood.” He turned to me, swept his arm in a courtly gesture, and withdrew.
The king nodded his regal head and beckoned for me to step forward. I did so, ending with an awkward bow.
“At your service, Your Majesty,” I said.
“Let’s dispense with the formalities and get down to business,” he said. Nodding to his wife, he continued. “Maddie and I have a problem here that requires the skills of a good private eye.”
I started to bow, thought better of it, and waited for him to go on.
“Last night, as you may know, we had a ball. All of the single girls in the kingdom were invited.” He jerked a thumb toward a door behind him. “It was a party for Junior, our only child. Heaven knows he’ll never find a girl by himself. And this party…” He slapped his hand on his knee and snorted. “But that’s not important.”
Queen Madlyn leaned forward. “What my husband is trying to tell you is that our son has fallen in love with one of the girls who attended last night. A lovely young lady.”
“Bah!” the king snorted. “She’s a phony. That’s why you’re here, Oswald.”
“Osgood,” I corrected. “You say she’s a phony. Why?”
King Gordon waved an impatient hand. “Why? I’ll tell you why,” he roared. “This young lady appears from out of nowhere in a coach that would make ours look like a hay wagon. She’s dressed to kill in clothes that not even Maddie and I, with all of our royal wealth, can afford. She gives some cockamamie story about a fairy godmother giving her these duds. Giving, mind you.” He made a face and grunted loudly. “She dances with Junior all evening. Then, at the stroke of midnight she races out of here mumbling something about her coach turning into a pumpkin.” The king sat back and groaned. “I find it all a bit too much to swallow.”
Madlyn tapped her husband on the knee with her fan. “Oh, Gordie,” she chided. “You are such a skeptic. The poor dear lost her slipper in the process. Such a beautiful shoe. Made of glass. It must have cost a fortune.”
King Gordon exploded with an oath. “That’s nothing compared to what we lost! Half of the royal silverware is missing. Junior can’t find his diamond ring. And what about your tiara?” He turned to me. “Find this woman and you find half of the castle, I assure you.”
“Can you give me a description of her?” I asked.
“I’ll do better than that,” he said. He reached into the folds of his robe and extracted a piece of paper. “The royal artist sketched her as she danced last night,” he said, handing me the paper.
I unfolded it and studied the sketch. The girl was a vision. She had wide innocent eyes, a full mouth parted in a slight smile, and a pert nose that had a hint of freckles. With upswept hair topped with a diamond crown, the young lady was the epitome of grace and femininity.
“Very nice,” I said. “May I have this?”
“Keep it,” the king replied. “I don’t care if I ever see it again.”
“I would like to speak with Jun…the prince, if I may,” I said.
King Gordon sat back and laughed without humor. “The little twit is out scouring the kingdom with that stupid slipper, trying it on every girl he sees. When he finds the girl it fits, he will have found his ‘true love’, or so he thinks.”
I laughed. “There must be hundreds of girls with the same size foot in the kingdom. Wouldn’t he recognize the young lady? Surely he must have seen her face?”
King Gordon tapped his head with his forefinger. “I’m afraid Junior’s piano doesn’t have all its keys. But at least it keeps him out of the castle.” He sat back and sighed. “I want you to find this woman and bring her here. I will deal with her directly.”
I nodded. The king pulled a cord by his side and the page appeared, bowing and scraping. Sensing that the audience was over, I bowed and retreated to the door.
Trying to find a potential princess in the circles I knew was much like trying to find the proverbial needle in the haystack. However, in this instance I got lucky.
I had been hitting the bars and nightspots in the area for almost a week, flashing her picture and asking if anyone had ever seen her. No dice. I was about to give up, figuring she was an out of town girl, when
I showed it to a hotel clerk on the edge of the kingdom. He recognized her immediately.
“Yeah,” he said, eyeing me suspiciously. “I know her.” He glared at the picture, then at me.
“What’s her name?” I asked.
“Don’t know for sure. I only know the name she put on the register.” He fumbled through the files on his desk and took out a card. He slid it across the counter to me.
“What I do know is that she skipped out on her hotel bill.”
I grunted sympathetically and picked up the card. It was filled out in a feminine hand. The name that appeared on the top was, “Ella, Cinder”. Obviously a phony, and I was willing to bet the address was phony as well. I shoved the card back at the clerk. “Can you tell me anything about her? Was she traveling alone? Luggage?”
“She was alone as far as I know. A couple of pieces of luggage.” He opened the drawer of the desk and pulled out a business card. “I found this in her room after she skipped out. Don’t know if it means anything.” He handed me the card.
It was from a carriage rental service in the kingdom down the road. I thanked the clerk, slipped him a five for his troubles, and left.
The Neverland Carriage Rental Agency was an unimposing structure that sat back off the road in a grove of trees. But the array of carriages was impressive. There appeared to be a carriage to fit every budget—big ones, small ones, ornate gilded coaches; even a one-horse open sleigh for more informal events.
I approached the counter and introduced myself to the man behind it. Pulling Cinderella’s picture from my pocket, I handed it to him.
“Ever seen this woman before?”
He studied it for a minute, then nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “I remember this one. A real looker. Dressed to the teeth. She rented our Sunday Special, complete with footman and driver. Paid for it in cash. In advance.”
“When?” I asked.
“A week ago Sunday,” the man said. “Wanted the coach for the evening, but said she’d return it shortly after midnight. She did, too.” He scratched his head.
“Something funny about her, though.”
“What?” I said.
“Well, she said she needed a driver who knew his way around the area. She was afraid she might be followed and wanted someone who could lose anybody who tried. So I gave the job to Fred. He’s my oldest and best driver. Knows the kingdom like the back of his hand.”
The Untreed Detectives Page 14