by Brenda Joyce
She sighed in abject relief.
When she heard something.
Instinct caused Francesca to turn off the light and crouch down beside the doorway to the dining alcove. She had not closed the dining room door, and she could just glimpse the hall beyond.
She heard something again. God damn it, but it was the front door, she was certain of it, being carefully closed.
Francesca ducked completely behind the kitchen doorway, now perspiring madly. Joel had left about five minutes ago. Maybe, maybe, he could run from here to Bragg’s in five minutes. But there was just no way that he was already returning, alone or with Bragg, and anyway, they would have to knock.
She trembled and heard a floorboard creak.
Someone had entered the house. Someone was in the hall. Someone who was not announcing himself—someone who had a key.
She heard more soft footsteps.
Francesca went blank. But she had to know who the intruder was. She thought he had walked past the dining room doorway, but she wasn’t sure. Keeping on all fours now, she peered around the kitchen doorway and into the dining room.
Just in time to glimpse a man’s silhouette as he walked past while in the hall.
Francesca ducked back. She heard the man halt. And there was a very soft, barely audible expletive, followed by absolute silence.
She imagined he had seen the body and that was what had stopped him in his tracks and caused him to curse. Was he staring at it now?
Suddenly she heard brisk footsteps returning. Francesca did not dare peer around the corner again, as much as she wanted to. She held her breath, afraid he might feel her presence, afraid he might change course and discover her hiding in the other room.
The front door opened and closed.
Francesca jumped up and ran into the dining room and shoved aside the draperies to peer onto the street, her pulse racing wildly. A very nice gig was pulling away from the curb, a single man its occupant—the driver. He was too far away for her to make out any features.
Francesca stared. Who in blazes had just walked into Georgette de Labouche’s house in order to stare at her dead lover? Who would do such a thing, then turn around without a word and leave?
What in tarnation was going on?
Francesca quickly returned to the scene, less shaken now and very perplexed. Why hadn’t the intruder cried out for help? Why hadn’t he called for Georgette? Had he expected to see Paul dead upon the floor? Or was he just very good at hiding his surprise?
She glanced first at the dead man, then at the clock on the mantel. It was fifteen minutes past the hour; if Bragg had been at home, he should arrive here at any moment. Francesca inhaled hard.
She stared at the corpse. Of course, she should not touch anything, but now that the moment of danger had passed, her senses were returning to her. She hadn’t asked Georgette where he lived. Had his whole life really been his wife, his children, his game of golf, and his club, and his mistress? Clearly he had had enemies. These were all very important, if not crucial, questions.
Francesca knew she should leave the body undisturbed. She slowly approached it.
Well, what the hell. This was her first case and she was determined to solve it—alone. She gingerly reached out and flipped the man’s jacket farther open. There was a bulge in his trouser pocket. A billfold. That would tell her something.
She reached for it, but unless she stepped into the drying blood on the floor, she could not quite reach. Bragg was very sharp, and he did not miss a thing—she did not want him to remark blood on her patent boots. She strained to reach the man’s pocket. It was no easy task to maintain her balance and keep the toes of her ankle boots out of the blood. Francesca tugged on the material of the trousers and finally slipped two fingers inside them. She was sweating, and her body felt as stiff as a board. She felt the hard leather edge of his billfold beneath two of her fingertips.
She felt triumphant, and she strained to get a better grip, tugging the billfold out of the trousers. The moment it slid free, she smiled, only to watch it fall from her two fingers into the blood.
“Damn it.”
Francesca stiffened, surprised at how loud her own words sounded in the presence of the dead man. She swallowed hard and took the wallet, stood, looked around, saw nothing with which to wipe off the blood, and sighed. She opened it.
He was carrying quite a bit of cash, which she ignored. There were several calling cards in the wallet. The first one read:
Mr. Paul Randall
89 East 57th Street
New York City
Francesca wanted to take the card, but she filed the information away instead. And then she looked past all of his personal cards and she gasped. The last card read:
Calder Hart, President
Hart Industries & Shipping Co.
No. 1 Bridge Street
New York City
And scrawled in pen on the card was another address, which Francesca could not quite make out. It was either 973 or 978 Fifth Avenue.
Francesca stared at Calder Hart’s card, as if that might bring meaning to the fact that she had found it in the dead man’s wallet. Of course, this meant nothing, other than that Paul Randall had met Calder Hart at least once.
Did they have business dealings? Were they friends?
Francesca heard the front door open and slam and she heard multiple pairs of footsteps coming down the hall.
Without debate, she tucked Calder Hart’s card into her bodice beneath her suit jacket and then she quickly redeposited Paul Randall’s wallet in the pocket of his trousers where she had found it, all the while praying that she was not obstructing a criminal investigation. Bragg had once threatened her with such charges. Then she stepped away from the body, breathlessly, and when she faced the door Bragg was barreling through it.
He saw her, he saw the body, and he stopped in his tracks. His face was a comical arrangement of anger and resignation.
Actually, it wasn’t comical at all, Francesca decided nervously.
“There’s the bloke,” Joel said cheerfully, ducking past Bragg and coming to stand between Francesca and the dead man. He pointed at the corpse. “Colder than friggin’ ice.” He grinned.
Peter, Bragg’s huge, towering personal servant, stood behind him, looking more like a bodyguard than a valet. He was six-foot-six and had to be 240 pounds, all of it muscle. But then, Francesca had come to the conclusion that he was quite the jack-of-all-trades.
Their gazes locked.
“I can explain,” Francesca said quickly.
Bragg’s jaw tightened. His face was hard now, dangerously so. “This shall be good,” he finally said. “Of that I have no doubt.”
FOUR
She could not seem to tear her gaze away from his.
“I am waiting, Francesca,” he said softly, and somehow his tone with its bare drawl was dangerous. “I am waiting for a plausible explanation. How did you happen to be here, in this house, with this corpse?” His brilliant gaze finally left her and moved over Paul Randall. “A newly murdered corpse, from the look of it.”
“It is all rather simple, and very plausible, too!” she cried, aware of the parlor being impossibly warm. She wished to fan herself. His calm demeanor felt threatening.
As if he had not heard her, he turned. “Find me a roundsman, call headquarters, and I would like at least one detective on the scene—now. And Kennedy can wait in the hall,” he spoke to Peter in a slightly sharper tone, and the big man nodded and left, with a reluctant Joel in tow.
Francesca backed up discreetly as Bragg spoke. He was angry, quite obviously, and she was no fool—she knew his anger had less to do with being roused out of bed to solve a murder than with finding her there with the victim. It was like waiting for a tornado to strike and all the while watching it coming.
Was he concerned for her—or merely irritated?
He gave her a very dark look and approached the victim, squatting down beside him and clearly looking
at the head wound. “I am waiting, Francesca,” he said, not looking up.
“Very well!” Somehow she threw her hands up in the air. “As I was leaving the Garden a woman pressed a card with a note into my hand, quite desperately, begging me for help. I was with my parents and I could not read the note until I returned home. Her name is Georgette de Labouche, and she lives here. She did not say what she wanted, but the note was quite clear—she begged me to come here immediately, tonight.”
Bragg had easily retrieved Randall’s wallet from his trousers and now stood, glancing through it. “So you stole out of your parents’ house at the midnight hour to meet a stranger, merely because she gave you a note asking you to do so?” He stared at the white calling cards in his hand. His expression briefly changed, but Francesca could not fathom the light that flitted through his topaz eyes.
“She sounded desperate, Bragg,” Francesca said nervously. “How could I deny her?”
He faced her. “Very easily, actually. Did it not occur to you that this could be a trick of some sort, or a trap? And where is Miss de Labouche?”
“She is upstairs, and yes, of course I considered the unsavory possibility—as remote as it seemed—that this might be a trap.”
“Did you touch anything, Francesca?” Bragg asked, turning over the wallet.
She prayed he would not notice the bloodstains. “No.” And she felt her cheeks heating.
“There is blood on your shoes. There is blood on the wallet,” he said, remaining calm. But his gaze was piercing.
She grimaced, uncertain of what to say, what to do. She did not like lying, but she did not like being put on the carpet this way, either.
He waited, his patience vast.
“Yes!” she cried. “Of course I peeked into his wallet!” Should she tell him she had taken Calder Hart’s card from it? But it was her very best lead!
“It is a crime to interfere with a criminal investigation,” he said less softly.
“I know, and I am so sorry, but after the intruder I could not seem to help myself!”
“The intruder?” Bragg asked sharply.
Francesca nodded eagerly. “Bragg, shortly after Joel left, someone entered the house. A man. I did not get a good look at him, as I was hiding in the kitchen after going there to make sure any back doors were locked. But he clearly went up the hall, saw the body, said not a word, except for a single curse, and he left. Just like that.” She was breathless, having spoken far too rapidly.
“Christ,” Bragg said. He slapped the wallet down onto the low table before the couch and paced to her, confronting her. “What if that was the killer? Jesus, Francesca, why do you have to put yourself directly in the face of danger, time after time? Will you ever learn?”
She knew she was wide-eyed. His proximity was doing two things to her: it was increasing her anxiety and increasing her tension. “But you do not care,” she heard herself say, and then she wished, fervently, that she could take the words back.
“What?” He stared. “Of course I care. You are my friend and the last thing I wish to do is attend your funeral!” His last sentence ratcheted up in volume until the final words were almost shouted. “I leave you at an orgiastic spectacle—which is bad enough. And then what do you do? You wind up in a stranger’s home with a fresh corpse! One day, you will drive some poor man insane with his fear for you!”
Francesca kept recalling now how he had broken their engagement for the morrow. She lifted both brows. “Well, at least you can be assured that that poor man will not be yourself.”
He blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“Nothing,” she mumbled, turning away.
But he gripped her arm. “No, I want to know what that comment meant. And I want to know this instant.”
She faced him. “Commissioner, you are manhandling me.”
He dropped his hand. “I am sorry. But I had assumed you would return to a normal life, now that the Burton abduction has been solved.” He shook his head. “I can see that I have assumed wrongly.”
She said softly, “You should know me better than that, Bragg.”
He stared.
Then she said, “You can be irksome, too.”
His eyes widened. “I can be irksome?”
“Yes.”
“And how is that?” He folded his arms across his broad chest.
“Well, when one plans one’s entire day over an event and then, quite summarily, that event is canceled, why, that is rather irksome, wouldn’t you agree?” Her tone was sugary, her smile sweet.
His hands found his hips. “I see. I see now what your temper is about. You are upset because I cannot take you driving tomorrow. It is a matter of your female disposition.” He started to smile.
“I have made other plans. And there is no such thing as a female disposition.”
“The library?” he suggested. “To study? For your self-exams?”
He was wisely ignoring the subject of female dispositions. Now she flushed. Only Connie and Evan knew that she secretly attended college, and once, when Bragg had almost caught her, she had told him she liked to test herself on the subjects she studied by herself. “I have other callers,” she said, a lie.
“Francesca, enough. I am sorry you do not understand the pressure I am under in my position as commissioner of police. I promise that one day we will have our outing.” He glanced at her a final time and turned back to the corpse. His shoulders seemed rigid now.
One day they would have their outing? Francesca was disbelieving. Had she so misunderstood his intentions? It did not sound as if he had any interest in her at all; it did not sound as if he intended to court her, not now, not tomorrow, not ever.
I must not be disappointed, she managed, turning away. I have a case to solve, an important case, my first, and it is murder.
“What did you take from the wallet, Francesca?” Bragg asked, somewhat wearily, now moving about the room, his gaze going everywhere.
“Nothing,” she lied. She shoved her disappointment aside. Of course, she would have to tell him about Calder Hart’s card, but maybe Hart would provide a clue and she would solve the case—first, without Bragg’s help. And never mind that she had somewhat fancifully imagined the two of them solving this case together.
“What happened when you arrived at the house?” Bragg asked, looking underneath seat cushions and pillows now.
Francesca walked away from him and the corpse and sat down in a far chair. “What are you looking for?” She could not help being curious.
“Often the killer leaves evidence behind, and often in a homicide that evidence is the weapon that was used to murder the victim.” He walked over to a table filled with photographs and bric-a-brac. “I shall not be surprised if we recover the murder weapon within half a city block of this house.”
Francesca filed away that interesting piece of information.
“Please tell me what happened when you arrived?” Bragg said, now looking in corners of the room and behind the single window’s draperies, which pooled on the floor.
“Miss de Labouche was quite distraught when I arrived,” Francesca said, wishing she could help him look for the gun. “She was unhappy that I had brought Joel,” she added.
He faced her, hands on his hips. “And how did our little ‘kid’ appear on the scene?”
“I do think he has mended his ways, Bragg,” Francesca said, in reference to Bragg labeling Joel a “kid,” which meant a child cutpurse.
He snorted. “So he just showed up here?”
“I sought him out. I was afraid to wander about the city alone.”
He smiled at her. It was an “I told you so” smile.
“The moment I arrived she showed me the body—then asked me to help her hide it,” Francesca said with wide and innocent-looking eyes, well aware of the reaction her dramatic statement would cause.
“What?” he exclaimed. “Jesus! And she is upstairs?” He started for the door.
“She did not do it,
Bragg.” Francesca stood up. “She is— was—Randall’s mistress and she is afraid you will think she did it, which is why she was desperate to hide the body.”
“And you believe her? Francesca, you are too naive.”
“She was in the bath when she heard a shot ring out! With sex toys, I might add.”
That stopped him in his tracks. He looked at her and she looked back.
Francesca said, breathlessly, “I am merely repeating exactly what she told me.”
“I see.” He seemed somewhat flushed. Then, “Do you have any idea what you are talking about?”
She shook her head. “No. But she assured me the toys were not rubber ducks.”
He stared. And his stare was direct.
Francesca thought about the bathtub upstairs and the toys that might still be in it, devices that would give extra pleasure to their owner. She swallowed hard. “Do you know what she is talking about?” she heard herself ask.
“Yes. It is time to talk to Miss de Labouche.” He stalked out of the parlor.
She ran after him. “The murder occurred around seven o’clock this evening,” Francesca added to his broad shoulders.
He regarded her at the bottom of the stairwell. “So you have already interviewed the suspect?”
“I consider her a witness,” Francesca retorted.
“You are not a policeman,” Bragg said firmly. “And what you consider is neither here nor there. I mean it, Francesca,” he warned. “This case is not your affair.”
How many times would he hurt her feelings in one evening? she wondered. “I helped you solve the Burton Abduction,” she said, not as firmly. “You admitted so yourself.”
“Yes, you did. And for that I am forever grateful. But, and I do mean but, Francesca, you will not help me solve the Randall Killing; you will not.” His eyes blazed. “Not even if I have to keep you under lock and key in your home.”
She folded her arms across her breasts and did not rebut him.