by Noreen Wald
I nodded. Modesty, for once, remained speechless too. Keith Morrison stood, walked to the bar cart, poured himself and us more champagne and continued. “Glory’s a great gal. If Sunday had grown up in Brooklyn, I think she’d have been a lot like Glory. There’s never been a romance or sex of any sort between me and Glory. That smart little lady has become my protégé as well as a potential business partner. But I really can’t discuss the details—the deal’s still under very confidential negotiations.”
Maybe Modesty was right about the Flagg-Morrison arrangement. She smirked at me.
But Morrison just smiled. “Indeed, I’ve never cheated on my wife. If you knew my Sabrina, you’d understand. Which brings us to your third question, Jake.”
I smiled back, nodding encouragingly.
Keith Morrison now glowed. Right through his pancake makeup. “I’m now a card-carrying member of the Pledged-For-Lifers.” His eyes were bright, his voice full of passion. “God wants husbands to remain faithful to their wives. That’s why I’ve become committed to the movement, to my Sabrina, and to help other men live up to their marriage vows. Isaac is a fine man. And if we can iron out a few things, there could be a book deal. His childhood memoirs about growing up with that son of Satan, Dick Peter, might make for an even more teary read than Frank McCourt’s. But I may have a more tragic plot for Isaac.”
I smiled. “Well, well. A little profit making for you and Isaac mixed in there with your old-time religion?”
“Now, Jake, you know the Bible tells us that what you reap is what you sow.”
“I guess I never read your interpretation into those words.” I sipped my drink. “Okay, three down. Barry DeWitt to go.”
“Simple answer there, Jake. Did you know that Barry and I were both scheduled to present eulogies this morning? Never an easy performance to prepare for, under any circumstances, but especially difficult when the deceased was so hated by all the mourners. Killer or not, I didn’t want Barry stealing my theme or my thunder. Glory, who has such marvelous stage presence, suggested that we’d better have a chat with Barry. She’d been having her own troubles with that manic Mila Macovich trying to hog the processional. Dick Peter’s widow has always demanded center stage. Anyway, our visit to Manhattan was in the nature of a run through...who’d say what. A dress rehearsal, if you would. But while Barry and I were agreeing who’d say what, Mila arrived. She canceled Barry’s eulogy. Cousin Isaac would deliver instead.”
Unfortunately, all of Keith Morrison’s answers made some perverse kind of sense. My Halloween trick had proved to be no treat. Modesty and I headed home.
Thirty-Three
We grabbed a taxi. Ordinarily, this would have been impossible on a rainy holiday afternoon, but another small group of fairy princesses and wicked witches were hopping out of a Gypsy cab—where except on Fifth Avenue do kids go trick-or-treating in taxis?—and we got lucky.
I checked my messages. Ben had left one. The Waltons said Jennifer had called before the funeral, saying she had to talk to Isaac about Michael. She sounded crazed, so they’d agreed to meet her later. Feeling antsy, I said to Modesty, “Let’s make a quick visit to the bookstore. I want to see how Mom and Gypsy Rose are holding up.”
“Your promises are as empty as my agent’s,” Modesty sneered. “You told Dennis Kim you’d go straight home. And now you’ve made me a part of your bald-faced lies.”
As bizarrely as Modesty behaved, her standards have always been far higher than mine. “Come on, Modesty. Mom and Gypsy Rose may need help. A Halloween Happening doesn’t just happen, you know. Maybe Too-Tall Tom or Jane will be there with some new information; they may have heard something from Jennifer. Where the devil could she be?” My words worked as I’d expected and I directed the driver to stop at the bookstore.
Dennis Kim’s Rolls Royce was double-parked on the northeast corner of Madison and 93rd Street. Damn. Could he be at his father’s fruit stand? Of course that would indicate that he’d actually walked an entire block. I thought he had an appointment this afternoon with Robert Stern, who was now officially removed from the homicide department’s suspects list. Maybe Dennis had popped into the bookstore to celebrate his client’s clean slate with a cup of cappuccino and a tea leaves reading. If so, would Stern be with him?
The store bustled with busy people spending money as if they were afraid that all New Age literature might be remaindered this very day. As if that would ever be the way the fortune cookie crumbled. Once again Aaron Rubin manned the cash register. And Christian Holmes kept the lines, which stretched in two snaky circles round and round the store, calm so that Aaron could collect.
Every table in the tearoom was packed with those who were not grabbing Caroline Myss and Deepak Chopra off the shelves. These folks were devouring volumes of orange cupcakes topped with candy witches, goblins, and ghosts. Then washing all that gook down with apple cider. The two part-time sorceresses had been added to the wait staff.
Modesty and I did a quick walkabout. We almost tripped over Gypsy Rose, who sat in the lotus position in front of the floor-to-ceiling window that faced 93rd Street. Dressed as a Viking, complete with a wig of blonde braids and a homed headdress, she appeared to be in a trance. I was afraid she’d be trampled.
“For God’s sake, Gypsy Rose, this is neither the time nor the place to meditate.” I bent down and shook her shoulder.
She opened her eyes. “Jake? You’re here. I just received a message for you.”
“Long-distance from the grave?” Modesty asked.
“Now you know better than that, Modesty,” Gypsy Rose said. “Spirits don’t live in their shrouds. Life after death goes on in the world beyond the grave.” She stood, then stared at me. “This message came directly from Zelda. I’d been rearranging the pumpkin heads. Jake, I’ve been having second thoughts about them. Anyway, unexpectedly and unbidden, Zelda arrived. She’d run into Glory Flagg’s spirit guide and invited her to the séance. There’s been a lot of peer pressure for Dick Peter’s guide to show up too. But what really knocked me out was Zelda’s message for you.”
“What?” I asked.
Gypsy Rose took my hand. “Zelda said, ‘Tell Jake to take another ride on the merry-go-round.’ Then she vanished and you appeared.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Modesty asked.
I shivered. “I don’t know,” I said. But I was afraid that I did.
Modesty stayed to help Gypsy Rose grapple with the pumpkin heads while I went to find my mother.
Too-Tall Tom stood on a small stepladder, attaching a sign atop an orange velvet-curtained booth. It read: ‘Take A Fire Walk With Mrs. O’Leary. $35. Cash Only. No Refunds.” He waved his hammer. “Hi, Jake.”
“Have you seen or heard anything from Jennifer?” I asked.
“No.” Too-Tall Tom inserted a nail into the garish fabric. “But Jane’s still out searching down leads. I called everyone I could think of but didn’t come up with a single clue.”
“Well, thanks. I’ll talk to you when you come down to earth. Do you know where my mother is?”
“When I last saw her, she was over there in aisle three.” Too-Tall Tom used his hammer to gesture to the right. “Between Joan Mazza’s Dreaming Your Real Self and Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul.”
I pushed my way through the throngs of shoppers and discovered my mother mediating a battle over the strategic placement of two competing booths. Neither the East Indian alternative healer nor the Sioux shaman wanted to take the higher ground, which was located in an alcove above the fray. Not when this maddening crowd was so freely spending money on the floor.
The healer’s heated position reflected his desire to present his video, “Alternative Angles for the Sexually Challenged,” in the best possible light. The shaman felt just as strongly about his own medicine show.
The dispute had disintegrated into an impen
ding disaster, with the shaman—a big attraction—threatening to return to his reservation if he couldn’t have the television screen moved. Mom wasn’t able to out-shout them and offer a compromise. As I was about to come to my mother’s aid, Gypsy Rose and Modesty, charging like the cavalry, arrived to rescue her.
While Gypsy Rose, who could shout loud enough to be heard in Chicago, reminded the combatants just whose territory they were fighting over, I had one of the sorceresses bring Mom and me cafe au lait and croissants. Then we retreated to Gypsy Rose’s third-floor den.
My mother looked tired. She ran her fingers through her short ash-blonde hair and sighed. “Jake, as a girl, I always preferred the Beverly Gray series to the Nancy Drew drivel. If you’d only agreed with my literary assessment, maybe you’d be a reporter now, instead of always being in the middle of murder.”
“Mom, it seems to me that Beverly got into as much, if not more, hot water than Nancy.” I sipped my cafe au lait. “So drink your coffee, eat your croissant, and quit worrying. This murder case is almost closed.”
“I hope so. I want my daughter back. And where’s Ben these days? I know he’s working hard, but is there something wrong? Have you two had a fight?”
“More of a disagreement. It’s over now. He’ll be here tonight.”
“Does Ben know whodunit?” my mother asked.
“By tonight we’ll all know, Mom.” I sounded far more confident then I felt.
Modesty banged on the door and came in. “Jake, Dennis Kim just stormed in here and yelled at me. He says I broke a solemn promise. You go right downstairs and tell him you’re totally responsible for your own bad behavior.”
“What’s wrong, Modesty?” my mother asked. “Why is Dennis all upset? Oh, God, is Jake in danger?”
If I had a Delft dagger handy, I might have killed Modesty. “It’s about those damned pumpkins, Mom. You know, the really ugly ones that Mr. Kim sent Gypsy Rose. I’d better go down and see what I can do to save their faces.”
When Dennis calmed down, I asked, “Have you heard anything about Jennifer?”
“No. Is she missing? I’ve been at Robert Stern’s all afternoon. I’ve just walked back over from Fifth. There were no spots, so I had to park outside Gypsy Rose’s.”
“That’s really tough, Dennis,” I said. “Imagine having to trek less than two blocks. Why, you must be weary.” Modesty had delivered me to Dennis and disappeared. I watched her chatting with Christian Holmes. Any atheist in a storm. The crowd had thinned out. Gypsy Rose would be closing the bookstore from five ’til eight in order to complete the arrangements for tonight.
“Don’t be such a nasty toad. You owe me one, Jake. Stern’s coming to your séance.”
“Really? That’s great,” I said, still looking across the room. Jane had joined Modesty and Christian, waving her hands and talking a mile a millisecond. Then the three of them descended on me.
“Jake, I spoke to Jennifer’s Aunt Mabel,” Jane said. “She gave me Jen’s attorney’s name. Of course, he told me nothing. But Mabel dished the dirt. Jennifer filed for divorce this morning. The grounds are adultery. And she named Mila Macovich as correspondent!”
Thirty-Four
I poured Modesty and myself two Devil Mountain Ales, kicked off my only pair of high heels, stripped off my mourning clothes, changed into rag bags, and crashed into the Eames chair. My mood matched the miserable weather. The short walk from the bookstore to our co-op had left me chilled and damp. Worse, the light drizzle had spotted the bottom of my basic black, lightweight wool Donna Karan dress and frizzed my hair. And, all too soon, I’d have to change again into Too-Tall Tom’s recycled witch’s wear.
During our walk from Gypsy Rose’s, Modesty pointed out that the tiny tots who’d been trick-or-treating earlier in the day had disappeared. Ghosts, fairy princesses, and angels had been replaced by the Spice Girls and Elvis. Carnegie Hill had become a Halloween playground for shivering pre-teens traveling in packs. I’d hardly noticed. Zelda’s message from the world beyond haunted me. Ugly thoughts that had come uninvited into my mind had settled in like horrific houseguests who didn’t know when to leave. My body may have been moving along down Madison Avenue, but my mind had remained riveted on that Manhattan merry-go-round. A conundrum of clues continued to whirl with the horses, but Jennifer Moran’s pink pony currently carried no rider.
“So what’s with Jennifer?” Modesty spoke my thought. “Do you think…er, well, that the ditz is in real danger, Jake?”
“That’s the first item in a messy lineup that keeps racing through my head. And the one that worries me the most.” I took a long swig of my beer.
“Want to talk about them? The troublesome items, I mean.”
I did. Suddenly, I felt grateful that the bizarre but totally loyal Modesty was sitting here with me, sharing a beer and ready to listen. “Okay, how about a long shot? Did Jennifer pull this vanishing act to run away from her marriage, or from the murderer, or to avoid Ben Rubin’s questions? Could she possibly be our serial killer?” I asked, realizing my vague notion that Jen had murdered three people in order to frame her cheating husband seemed pretty lame.
Modesty shook her head. “Never. She once told me that before she married Michael, if she saw a cockroach in her apartment, she’d call down to the concierge and have him send up the porter to kill it. Then Jennifer would tip the guy two bucks. I told her at two dollars a roach in New York City, she’d soon be broke.” Modesty twisted her beads. “After they were married, Michael became her exterminator. Jen’s no killer.”
“So why do you think she’s running?”
“Fear? She could know whodunit. And, maybe—dumb as Jen can be—the killer knows that she knows. Which, of course, would make her a loser in the most dangerous game in Manhattan—Jennifer might be facing her own Final Jeopardy.”
“Jesus. I just wish we’d hear from her.”
“Meanwhile, let’s look at the odds,” Modesty said. “Who’s your favorite contender for killer?”
“It looks like a dead heat. Isaac Walton and, thanks to all you ghostwriters and most of his fellow suspects touting him, the so-easy-to-hate Barry DeWitt. I’d say it’s Isaac by a nose. Then there’s a clue I can’t quite grasp; it keeps nagging me. Somehow, I believe our dark horse could be Michael Moran.”
“I like the ladies,” Modesty said. “And one about-to-be-put-out-to-pasture stallion. I’d been convinced that Morrison couldn’t have done it, but now my gut tells me that he and Glory could be co-killers. No matter what bologna he spreads, something’s going on between Keith Morrison and Glory Flagg. And power is a great aphrodisiac. Their private business dealings may include a motive for murder. I never thought stabbing someone in the back would be Glory’s style. I always thought of her as a shooter. But after our visit to Morrison’s, I’m not so sure. Glory and Keith are neck and neck. And Mila Macovich’s another front-runner. All that money—not to mention freedom—just waiting for her in the widow’s circle.”
“Well, the séance is at midnight.” I looked at my watch. “Less than seven hours away. Let’s hope the dead can come up with an answer. I’m still full of questions.”
“Like what?”
“Like why did Keith Morrison paint such a placid picture of his relationship with Isaac Walton when Michael Moran said they’d had a major screaming match at Madison Square Garden over Glory Flagg’s honor and some filthy lucre? Like why Morrison didn’t tell Joe Cassidy that he had Dennis Kim as an alibi through the night and early morning that Allison Carr had been stabbed? Like why has Barry DeWitt—the man with the most blatant motive and Dick’s heir apparent as the man most Americans love to hate—become so entwined with both Mila and Keith Morrison? Like why Glory wanted me to hand Peter’s files over to her? She claimed they held the key to the killer, but could that really be why she wanted them? I don’t think so. Like why did Jennif
er refuse to talk to the police right after Dick’s murder? Like did Dick Peter know about Michael and Mila’s affair? Like what time did Isaac Walton leave Dick’s office? Sally Lou could be lying. And, most importantly, like who else was present at Manhattan on the night of Dick Peter’s death? If Allison Carr and Barbara Ferris were murdered because they knew too much, what had they witnessed?”
“Jesus, Jake.” There was an edge of sadness in Modesty’s anger. “The killer could be any of the above.”
“Like you’re so right.”
My private line rang. I dashed into my bedroom to answer it. “Jake O’Hara.”
“I’m leaving for Europe.” Jennifer. And she was difficult to understand between the phone’s static and her tears. “Don’t ask where and don’t tell anyone.”
“Are you okay? God, where have you been?”
“I need to give you something before I go.”
“Jennifer, Modesty and I will come and bring you back to my apartment. Where are you now?”
“Jake, listen to me,” she sobbed. “Stop asking questions. I’m telling you this is a matter of your life or death. Go to that little Italian bakery on Christopher Street. You know, the one near Too-Tall Tom’s place. The owner, Signora Giatto, is holding a package for you. Tell her that Jennifer sent you.”
“But where...”
“There’s no time for buts. Go. Leave now!” She hung up. Modesty stood in the doorway, arms crossed, one hand clutching her beads, as I pulled a sweater over my sweats and searched under the bed for my sneakers. She reminded me of Sister Mary Thomas, my eighth-grade teacher. Only more formidable.
“Just where do you think you’re going?”