Murder Can Ruin Your Looks

by Selma Eichler

  ‘‘I need your help, Aunt Dez.’’

  MURDER CAN RUIN YOUR LOOKS

  73

  ‘‘Sure. What’s up?’’

  ‘‘I can’t decide what to wear tonight. I’ve narrowed it down to the blue wool or my black ribbed turtleneck with the black leather skirt.’’

  ‘‘Gee, I don’t know. You look good in both.’’

  ‘‘You’re a big help.’’

  I made up my mind. ‘‘The blue, I think; it’s a great color for you.’’

  ‘‘I was kind of leaning that way myself. Thanks.’’

  Ellen showed up at seven-fifteen that night—in the black

  leather outfit. But that was okay. She looked really cute. Will Fitzgerald was at my door at seven-thirty, right on schedule. He was carrying a large bouquet of flowers which, I have to admit, really impressed me. But the minute I introduced him to Ellen, I could see from his expression that they would not be heading for the altar.

  Now, as I said, Ellen looked very cute. But then, Ellen is cute: tall (from where I stand, five-six is tall) and boyishly slim, with large dark eyes, silky brown hair, and a lovely smile. I think she resembles Audrey Hepburn. Maybe not a lot, but a little, anyway. Besides, all Will had said was that he was interested in meeting a nice girl; he didn’t list any physical requirements.

  At that moment, though, I was pretty positive that Will’s idea of ‘‘nice’’ was 38-24-36.

  I served the hors d’oeuvres—a wonderful baked clam dish and these tiny mushroom tarts for which just about everyone requests the recipe. Then I left it to Ellen to see to the drinks while I went to check on dinner. From the kitchen, I could hear Ellen trying to make conversation and Will responding in monosyllables.

  I basted the rib roast, gritting my teeth. I’d decided on prime ribs because I knew Will was a meat eater—he was always scarfing down hamburgers at his desk. With the meat, we’d be having Yorkshire pudding with horseradish sauce, a potato and cheese casserole, and a large salad with a tasty vinaigrette dressing. A really nice menu, I thought. Too nice for Will Fitzgerald.

  When I returned to the living room, Will was devoting himself entirely to the hors d’oeuvres, and Ellen was sitting there with this tiny, pathetic smile plastered on her face, bravely trying to cover her feelings of rejection. Things got even worse at dinner when Will made an at

  74

  Selma Eichler

  tempt at humor. ‘‘You should have another helping of pota

  toes,’’ he told Ellen. ‘‘The way you are now, if a man jumped your bones, that’s what he’d get: bones.’’ (Did I say humor?) His accompanying laugh was almost as offen

  sive as the remark.

  Ellen turned crimson. Oh, God, I thought, how can she ever forgive me for Will. How can I ever forgive me for Will?

  Did I want to tell that bastard off! But that would have made things even worse for Ellen than they already were. So I restrained myself with what, let me assure you, was a superhuman effort.

  The meal seemed interminable. The one break we had was that there was no need to even attempt polite conversa

  tion. Will, you see, was interested only in the food, shovel

  ing down almost mind-boggling quantities.

  Finally, the end was in sight.

  My delightful dinner guest was just finishing his second helping of cold lemon souffle´—which is my most special dessert and which I was sincerely hoping he would choke on (and there’s no way I’d have rendered the Heimlich maneuver, either). Ellen was on her third cup of coffee. And I was seriously contemplating pouring a fourth for myself. Suddenly there was this loud beep, which, in a room so heavy with silence, sounded more like a siren. Ellen spilled her coffee, and I, steel-nerved soul that I am, damned near suffered a coronary.

  ‘‘My beeper!’’ Will exclaimed, removing same from his pants pocket. ‘‘Do you mind if I use your phone?’’ he asked politely.

  I directed him to the one in the bedroom, more to get him out of my sight for a few minutes than to afford him any privacy. But he insisted on making the call from the living room.

  ‘‘What’s up?’’ he said into the receiver. This was followed about two minutes later by a disbelieving ‘‘You’re kid

  ding!’’ and then, in rapid succession, by a shouted ‘‘Of course not!’’ a strangled ‘‘Christ!’’ and an authoritative

  ‘‘Call the cops!’’ He concluded with a brusque ‘‘I’ll be right home,’’ slamming down the phone.

  Now, somewhere between the ‘‘You’re kidding!’’ and the

  ‘‘I’ll be right home,’’ it dawned on me that this crisis of Fitzgerald’s was a little something he’d cooked up in ad

  MURDER CAN RUIN YOUR LOOKS

  75

  vance. You know, to use as an escape hatch if it should turn out he wanted one. I sneaked a look at Ellen, and I could tell that, unfortunately, she’d caught on, too.

  ‘‘That was my next-door neighbor,’’ Fitzgerald was say

  ing. ‘‘Apparently someone’s broken into my apartment. Jules—my neighbor—heard a lot of noise coming from the place, and he knew I wasn’t home. He wanted to check and see if I had someone staying there before he called the police.’’ It wasn’t a bad performance, really. He was even managing to sound a little breathless, almost like he was hyperventilating. A pretty nice touch.

  Without commenting, I quickly got him his coat.

  ‘‘As much as I’d like to stay,’’ he told us as he hurriedly put it on, ‘‘I’m afraid I don’t have any choice.’’ A rueful smile flitted across his troubled, lying face.

  I glanced anxiously over at Ellen again, hoping she’d be able to control her tears until that S.O.B. got the hell out of the apartment. I needn’t have worried. My niece rose to the occasion magnificently, handling her humiliation in a manner that I’d have sworn was not even in her nature. (But, as I said before, with Ellen, you just never know.) Jumping up from the table, she rushed over to Will and held out her hand. As soon as he took it, she looked di

  rectly into his eyes. ‘‘I just thought I should tell you,’’ she said, sounding cool and sophisticated and totally sincere,

  ‘‘how interesting it was to meet you. I hope you won’t be offended, though, if I ask a favor of you.’’

  ‘‘No, no, of course not,’’ a thoroughly confused Will Fitz

  gerald assured her.

  ‘‘I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t attempt to pursue this relationship. I know it’s very shallow of me, but I really do prefer taller men.’’

  Chapter 9

  Miraculously, Ellen managed to contain herself until Will was not only out of the apartment but probably in the ele

  vator on his way downstairs. Then came the deluge.

  ‘‘He c-certainly was anxious to g-get away from me,’’ she gulped between sobs. ‘‘And what does a lawyer need with a b-b-beeper, anyway?’’

  ‘‘It’s for dire emergencies like tonight,’’ I said tartly.

  ‘‘And I bet they come up all the time.’’ Then I hugged her awkwardly and added ‘‘The guy’s a pig’’ before running into the bathroom for what was left of the tissues. For the next fifteen minutes, I was busy telling Ellen what scum Will was and how attractive she was. ‘‘Any man whose measure of a woman is her bustline has got to be the world’s foremost jerk,’’ I summed up.

  Ellen’s comment was drowned out by her snuffles, so I went with an all-purpose response. ‘‘Okay. Maybe you’re not a forty-D. But then,’’ I reminded her, ‘‘neither is Au

  drey Hepburn.’’

  I think that made her feel better. Anyway, she pulled herself together a short time later and, at my insistence, spent the night on my sofa.

  I went to bed as soon as I got Ellen settled, but it took me a long time to fall asleep. I was too busy making plans. I was going to hire myself a hit man. Of course, I’d have to find out first where to get one and then make a few inquiries about the going rate. Wait a minut
e. . . . On sec

  ond thought, I’d have Fitzgerald’s kneecaps broken instead. (Would I still need a hit man for that, I wondered, or were kneecaps a specialty field?) But that idea eventually went by the boards, too, in favor of a scheme in which I person

  ally did the slime in. The last thing I remember before dropping off was this mental picture of me behind the wheel of a sleek, black car, smiling gleefully as I ran Fitz

  MURDER CAN RUIN YOUR LOOKS

  77

  gerald down and then slowly backed up over his lifeless body.

  I woke up at seven, and the little scenarios I’d conjured up at midnight seemed a lot more improbable and a little less appealing in the light of day. (Although, to be honest, the idea of one broken kneecap still held a very strong attraction for me.) Anyway, after a large breakfast, which a much improved—even if far from cheerful—Ellen insisted

  on preparing, I headed for the office.

  Jackie, my secretary, was on the phone when I walked in. ‘‘This is for you,’’ she said, putting the call on hold, ‘‘a Dr. Gail Schoenfeld.’’

  Dr. Schoenfeld, it turned out, was one of the emergency room doctors who had tended to the twins the night they were shot. But, as Carmen had predicted, she had nothing to add to what ridiculously little I already knew. I devoted most of that morning to making phone calls, which is something I’m very unfond of (an unfortunate aversion for a P.I.). But I didn’t have much choice if I wanted to make contact with the outside world.

  First, I tried the Hyatt. Again, Eric Foster was out. This time, though, I figured I’d better leave word. It was awk

  ward going through the operator, so I limited the message to saying that I was a private investigator working for Peter Winters and that it was urgent Mr. Foster call me back as soon as he could. ‘‘You’ll see that he gets this?’’ I asked the operator harmlessly—if unnecessarily.

  ‘‘Yes, of course,’’ she retorted in a tone that made it clear that what she was really saying was: ‘‘What do you think I’m here for, stupid?’’

  After that, it was time to take a crack at the other two friends on Peter’s list. I got out the telephone directory and found phone numbers—or, at least, probable numbers—for both of them.

  The name I’d written down directly below Lydia Brod

  sky’s was Charlotte Bromley. There was a C. Bromley on West 20th Street, and Peter had told me Charlotte lived downtown somewhere.

  The answering machine let me know I’d come to the right place.

  ‘‘Hello, this is Charlotte,’’ a breathy, little-girl voice in

  formed me. ‘‘I’m taking a well-deserved vacation, but I’ll

  78

  Selma Eichler

  be home on March sixteenth. Please leave a message, and I promise I’ll return your call when I get back. And don’t forget to wait for the beep.’’

  The hell with the beep! March sixteenth? That was a month away! ‘‘Damn!’’ I grumbled, clicking off. Dialing Claire Josephs, who lived in the twins’ building, I was primed for another conversation with a machine. It took a couple of seconds for it to register that there was a real live person on the other end of the line.

  The woman sounded totally frazzled. And who could

  blame her? A baby was shrieking in the background, and the sound was so piercing that, even as removed from it as I was, it jangled every nerve in my body.

  When I asked about meeting with her, Josephs informed

  me that her son was suffering from a slight ear infection. The pediatrician who had seen him first thing that morning assured her it was nothing serious, but try telling Greggie that, she said. Then, apparently inspired by having some

  one— anyone—over age three to talk to, she rattled on about how she was quite used to Greggie’s doing more than his fair share of squalling—he was colicky right from the start—but these last two days, he was really driving her over the edge. She did want to get together with me, though, she put in quickly. ‘‘Why don’t you come over later in the week?’’ she suggested. Then she added almost prayerfully, ‘‘I’m sure he’ll be better by that time.’’

  ‘‘Whenever you say,’’ I told her.

  ‘‘How’s Thursday?’’

  Thursday was good.

  ‘‘Could you be here in the afternoon? Around two?’’ She

  was practically yelling now in an attempt to be heard over the screeches, which seemed to get louder by the second.

  ‘‘That’s when the baby has his nap,’’ she shouted at top volume, ‘‘so it’s the best time to come.’’

  I hurriedly agreed, only too anxious to get out of earshot of little whatever-his-name-was.

  I left both my phone numbers in case there was any change in plans, and we hung up. For a couple of minutes, I did absolutely nothing but luxuriate in the comparative quiet of my moderately noisy surroundings.

  It was about quarter of eleven, when I was on my way to the water fountain, that I came face-to-face with Will Fitzgerald.

  MURDER CAN RUIN YOUR LOOKS

  79

  He spoke in the most sincere voice imaginable. ‘‘Hi, De

  siree. I was just coming in to see you. That dinner last night was absolutely terrific—one of the best I’ve ever had. I’m only sorry I had to run out like that. I found a real mess when I got home, too.’’

  I gazed at him stone-faced as he went on. ‘‘Those guys sure cleaned me out. They got away with my TV, the new six-hundred-buck stereo system I bought when I moved to New York, and the Omega watch my grandfather gave me when I graduated from law school. And God knows what else they boosted that I’m not even aware of yet!’’

  I suppressed the urge to tell him to drop dead; that would hardly have been ladylike.

  ‘‘Immolate yourself, huh, Will?’’ I suggested instead be

  fore turning my back and walking briskly away.

  Right before noon, I heard from the other emergency room doctor. He was very nice but as uninformative as his colleague had been. ‘‘We were terribly busy that night,’’ he said regretfully. ‘‘Besides, those women spent hardly any time in emergency; we had to rush them right into O.R.’’

  Well, it was what I’d expected, wasn’t it? Nevertheless, the morning had left me so thoroughly drained that I de

  cided to treat myself to pizza for lunch. But when I was sitting there at the counter at Little Angie’s, nibbling away at the absolutely thinnest, crispiest crust in the city, the back end of Lydia Brodsky suddenly flashed before my eyes.

  And I limited myself to two slices.

  Chapter 10

  I got home a little after six, and the red light on my answer

  ing machine was flashing.

  The first message was from Kirsten Anderssen. ‘‘Carmen

  Velez asked me to call you,’’ she said. ‘‘I’m the other E.R. nurse who took care of those twins you wanted to know about. But I couldn’t possibly tell you what they were wear

  ing.’’ Then she went into all these details about how fren

  zied things were in emergency that night, prattling on and on until the machine, mercifully, cut her off in midword. The second message was from Eric Foster. ‘‘I’m on my way to a business dinner with an associate just now,’’ he said, sounding veddy British. ‘‘I’ll ring you when I get back to my hotel if it isn’t too late. Otherwise, you’ll hear from me in the morning.’’

  Peter was next. ‘‘Everything’s status quo at this end,’’ he reported. ‘‘I’m calling because I spoke to Maureen the other day, and she made me promise not to forget to send you her love. But, well, I forgot.’’

  I was shaking my head in exasperation and grinning at the same time. That was so Peter.

  I ate very well that evening on the leftovers from Sun

  day’s disastrous little get-together—or whatever you want to call it. Then I turned on the television. I soon found out that my tolerance level for Monday evening’s sitcoms was practically at ground zero t
hat night, and I kept on playing with the remote until I succeeded in getting myself nuts. I finally shut off the set, went to the bookshelf, and took down an Agatha Christie. Sad Cypress. That was one I’d only read twice—three times, tops—so it would be practi

  cally like a new experience for me.

  At ten, I dragged myself away from Hercule to call Ellen. But she beat me to it. The phone rang just as I was about to lift the receiver.

  MURDER CAN RUIN YOUR LOOKS

  81

  I wanted to ask if she was okay, but if she was, the question might remind her that she had reason not to be. So I clamped a lid on myself and went to something innocu

  ous. ‘‘When did you get in?’’

  ‘‘About a half hour ago. And I put your care package to

  good use. I had a big slice or roast beef, some Yorkshire pudding, and a huge portion of the potato casserole, and I polished off the lemon souffle´. I made such a pig of myself that I am now ready to barf.’’

  ‘‘Gee, Ellen, thanks so much for sharing that with me.’’

  We both laughed (although Ellen doesn’t really laugh; she giggles), and I decided that she certainly seemed to have recovered from her lovely evening at Aunt Dez’s.

  ‘‘How’s the case coming?’’ she asked.

  ‘‘Damned if I know,’’ I grumbled.

  I hadn’t exactly made any monumental inroads in the investigation so far, and I was beginning to feel a little discouraged. (Patience may be a virtue, but it’s never been one of mine.) So it didn’t bother me to hear Ellen—who is president and sole member of my fan club—swear that I would definitely solve the case and that I was the only one who’d be able to do it because I was so much more clever and resourceful than the police or anyone. (I men

  tioned how exceptionally wise Ellen is in some ways, didn’t I?)

  Anyway, our conversation boosted my confidence a little,

  and I went back to my mystery, certain I could even keep pace with the indomitable Poirot. Especially the second time around.

  When I walked into the office in the morning, there was a message waiting on my desk. It was from Eric Foster, and he’d provided a number where he could be reached. I didn’t waste any time in returning the call.