How to Murder a Millionaire

by Nancy Martin

  “She could have brought it herself.”

  “I think she’s snowed with last minute wedding junk.”

  Libby’s husband Ralph was the father of the groom for the big Treese-Kintswell wedding, and although Libby wasn’t a primary player in the festivities, she had some responsibilities, I was sure. Entertaining the bride’s prestigious family at the rehearsal dinner was a daunting proposition. The Treese family had expensive tastes and a strict sense of social protocol.

  I knew it wasn’t the wedding that kept Libby away, though. Still, Emma was kind to pretend our sisterly spat was nothing out of the ordinary. I asked, “Is the wedding going to come off without a hitch?”

  Emma shrugged again and climbed back into the truck. “You couldn’t pay me to get involved in that ordeal. It’s like they’re trying to outdo the Windsors.”

  “Does Libby have a dress yet?”

  Emma slammed the truck door and leaned out the open window. “I don’t think so. That’s only one cause for meltdown. She’s got several.”

  It was Emma’s way of telling me to lay off Libby. Although I couldn’t risk saying so to Emma, I’d have loved going dress shopping with Libby. If our relationship had been on firmer ground these days, I could have swept her off to New York for a spree at Barney’s. Retail therapy.

  Emma paused before starting the truck. “You going to Rory’s funeral?”

  “Yes.”

  “Need a lift?”

  I smiled. “Thanks, Em. Maybe Libby wants to go with us, too.”

  “•I’ll take care of it.” She started the truck and tore off in a spray of gravel.

  I went into the house and found the light on my answering machine blinking like crazy.

  “Nora, this is Stan Rosenstatz,” came my editor’s agitated voice. “Boy, I need you to call me back ASAP. Kitty says she’s too upset to go to the Pendergast funeral, and we definitely need your kind of coverage. You know, who’s there and what they’re wearing. Call me, okay?”

  I couldn’t imagine what might keep Kitty from attending the funeral of the century as far as the Intelligencer was concerned. My radar switched on before I dialed Rosenstatz back. He was away from his desk, so I left a voice mail saying I intended to go to the funeral anyway.

  Then the lightbulb went off in my head.

  “And I wonder if you could do my a favor, Stan?” I asked. “Since last night’s party was sponsored by the Intelligencer, somebody must have the guest list. Can you get me a copy? If you could e-mail it to me, I’d appreciate it.”

  The second message on my answering machine was from my friend Lexie Paine in her best belting-to-the-balcony voice. “Oh, Nora, call me, call me as soon as you can, darling. You must be a wreck—a wreck! Let’s go to Peace for a full day—my treat. What you need is a lime pedicure and that Lakota herbal wrap.”

  A day at Lexie’s favorite spa always sounded delicious.

  A blur of voices came next. Mostly friends and former friends—Todd’s crowd—who wanted to know everything I’d seen at Rory’s house and what were the police saying and did I hear that Sam Mascione was a suspect and could I stop in for cocktails tonight before going out?

  No, I didn’t want to stop in for cocktails. No doubt everyone thought I had an inside track for police gossip. Right now I was the ideal person to provide just enough floor show to make a party memorable.

  Then Jill Mascione said, “Nora, the police were here at Main Events all day asking about every move we all made. Dad is spitting nails because they thought Sam did it until Sam admitted he was necking with Julie somewhere. That girl is married and ought to know better. You must have just missed interrupting them, lucky you. Anyway, how are you? Did that baby detective call you yet? Call me about lunch.”

  The next voice was that of Michael Abruzzo. He didn’t identify himself, but allowed a long silence of tape to run before he spoke. The sound of his growling baritone made my insides go squiggly. For a man who was supposed to be a menace to society, he sounded surprisingly ... sexy.

  He said only, “Just calling to make sure you’re okay.”

  And he hung up.

  I looked at the answering machine and said, “You’re kidding.”

  I played the message again. No, he wasn’t kidding. One sentence fragment.

  I tapped my fingers on the kitchen counter.

  At last I played the final message, and Detective Bloom’s voice filled my kitchen, sounding friendly and even coaxing.

  “Miss Blackbird, it’s Detective Ben Bloom. I’m hoping you’ll call when you get this message. I have a few ideas I’d like to run past you.”

  With care, he gave his office number, his home phone and his cell number. I wrote down all of them and decided to dial the cell phone first.

  He picked up at once. “Bloom.”

  “Hi,” I said. “It’s Nora Blackbird.”

  “Oh, hi,” he said and cleared his throat. “Yeah, hi, how are you?”

  “Good. What about you?”

  “Not bad. I’m glad you called.”

  Over the telephone line, I could hear phones ringing and people talking. He paused, and I wondered if he was working up the courage to invite me to the malt shop.

  I asked, “How’s your investigation going?”

  “Slow, but sure. Going through a lot of information, setting up timetables. It’s a high profile case, national attention. Everybody’s being careful.”

  I had left the house that morning without turning on the news. “National attention?”

  “CNN is set up in the parking lot.”

  “I’m sure Rory’s death is a big story. He was a world-class philanthropist.”

  “Yeah, we’ve got guys going through his financial records. He was pretty generous from what I understand. Meantime,” he went on, “I’m stuck with the timetable. We’re trying to place everyone in the house at the time of the murder. Almost a hundred people. I was hoping to go over a couple of things with you.”

  “I’m happy to help. Rory must have been killed between the time Peach left him and when I went upstairs, right?” I tried to assume he had eliminated Peach as a suspect. “That was only a matter of ten minutes or so.”

  Bloom didn’t agree. “Well, he was certainly killed sometime between seven-forty-seven, when two employees of the caterer spoke with him, and eight-thirty-five when you came downstairs and the paramedics were phoned. About fifty minutes.”

  “Can’t someone pinpoint the time of death more accurately than that?” I said uneasily. “By his body temperature or something?”

  “We can’t be that precise.”

  “So you haven’t ruled out Peach,” I said.

  “We haven’t ruled out anybody. Not since we found out about the elevator. Did you see anyone use it?”

  I’d completely forgotten about Rory’s seldom-used elevator. It was located in another wing of the house near the billiards room, and would have allowed someone to go upstairs without being seen by party guests or catering staff.

  “I hadn’t remembered it. No, I wasn’t near the elevator. Hardly anyone ever uses it, as far I as know.”

  “The housekeeper says they use it to move furniture and cleaning equipment, so it’s still functioning. Someone could have used it in the fifty-minute window.”

  “That someone would have to know about the elevator,” I guessed. “It’s located in an inconvenient place—almost hidden, actually. Rory liked the exercise of using the stairs. It had to have been a person who knew the house really well.”

  “Yep. Mrs. Treese said so, too.”

  “Are there any fingerprints in the elevator?”

  “Lots. We’re looking for matches now.”

  “And on the painting? The van Gogh?”

  “One of yours. Quite a few of Pendergast’s. And,” he said, “Mrs. Treese.”

  I remembered the police taking my fingerprints the night of the murder. Funny how details had slipped away while I was so upset. They were just now resurfacing. Why
would Peach kill Rory for a painting when she had full access to his house? “I’m sure Peach was in that room a lot. I’m still certain she’s not your murderer. Was anything missing elsewhere in the house?”

  “Nothing that was hanging on walls. Pendergast’s housekeeper checked and walked us through the displayed paintings. Of course, our art guy is working on that angle.”

  A brilliant idea occurred to me. “Maybe somebody substituted a forgery!”

  “Well ... that’s doubtful,” Bloom said, as if humoring an avid television fan. “Why bother going upstairs to kill Pendergast if it’s easier to steal a painting downstairs and walk off with it?”

  I decided to keep my imaginative speculations under wraps in the future. But I wanted to hear more. “How exactly did Rory die?” I asked, switching gears. “Was he suffocated?”

  “Like we first thought, he was overpowered and smothered with the pillow.”

  “Is there any DNA evidence? Something left behind by the murderer?”

  Bloom didn’t answer for a moment, and I heard paper rustling. Finally, he said, “What the hell, I’m breaking all the rules, but what else is new? We’re checking his clothing and the pillow.”

  “And the Viagra?” I asked. “Was it in his bloodstream?”

  Bloom hesitated again. “The label was partially torn off the bottle, so we’re checking with pharmacies. Let me ask the questions, okay? We’re not going to solve this case unless somebody goes out on a limb, so screw the timetable for a minute. Maybe you know who Pendergast was intimate with. We hear he’d been seeing the Treese woman for years. Were they sleeping together?”

  Automatically, I said, “I haven’t the faintest idea.”

  “Anyone else in the picture? Another lover?”

  “I can’t imagine there was anyone, no.”

  “No younger women?”

  “That seems very unlikely.”

  “Did Pendergast go looking for partners? Come on strong with you, maybe?”

  “My God, no!”

  “The Viagra obviously had a purpose. We thought maybe he was seeing somebody younger and, you know, trying to keep up.”

  The idea seemed fantastic to me. But Bloom was certainly correct in assuming Rory hadn’t acquired the Viagra for any purpose but the one for which it was intended.

  “I don’t know the answers to your questions. Did Rory’s secretary get back in town?” I asked. “Surely he has the best grasp of Rory’s private life.”

  “He arrives today. But he warned us that Rory kept his private business to himself. So I’m back to hoping you thought of something else. Or remembered something that’s been going on in Pendergast’s life lately.”

  “We were friends, but I was hardly his confidante,” I said. “I really don’t know what else I can tell you.”

  “Maybe you could ask around a little?” he said, sounding a little too innocent to be unscripted. “Talk to some of the people in his social circle? Find out what he’d been up to? There’s some kind of code of silence among you people, and we’re having a hard time making headway.”

  You people. Well, if gathering gossip meant Peach was in the clear, I was willing to stoop pretty low. I said, “I’m going out tonight, as a matter of fact. Rory’s bound to be the primary topic of conversation.”

  “It’d be great if you could pick up some information for us,” said Bloom. “I mean, if you happen to hear something we might find useful. Where are you headed?”

  “To a couple of parties in the city.”

  “You going with anyone?”

  I tried to decide from his tone what exactly he was asking. “No,” I said. “I’m working.”

  “Oh.” More slowly, he said, “When you went off last night with Abruzzo, I wondered, that’s all.”

  “My driver works for him,” I explained. “And he had to go home—the driver, that is, because I stayed so late. So Mr. Abruzzo relieved him. It wasn’t anything more than that.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Bloom. “You know who he is, right? I mean, maybe he’s not in the family business, if you know what I mean—not that we can prove, anyway. But he sure knows where the bodies are buried.”

  “Really,” I said, “we’re barely acquainted.”

  “I just wondered.” He didn’t sound convinced. “What time did he arrive at Pendergast’s last night?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Was it before Pendergast died?”

  “He came to pick me up. That’s all I know.”

  “Do you know if he had a relationship with Pendergast?”

  A sharp pang began to twinge at my conscience. “Why don’t you ask him?”

  “He’s on my list,” Bloom said.

  “Well, good,” I said.

  Bloom said, “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but considering—well, I just think you ought to know that Pendergast’s phone has Caller ID. And the last number that came in ...”

  “Yes?”

  “Was Abruzzo’s.”

  I felt my lungs empty. It was a struggle to summon speech. “The threatening phone call.”

  “Bingo.”

  Half a minute might have ticked by. The detective let me digest the information. It stunned me.

  So did the fact that Bloom was telling me what should have been classified information. I didn’t peg Bloom for an incompetent cop. He’d informed me for a reason. He wanted me to see what I could learn from Michael Abruzzo.

  “Well,” I said, still absorbing the shock and unwilling to respond to the unspoken request, “I should be getting dressed right now.”

  “I’m sure you’ll look great,” said Bloom, almost automatically. Which sealed it for me. His whole friendly routine was just that—a routine. He said, “I’ll be in touch, though, okay?”

  “Anytime.”

  “Okay.” He lingered another moment. “Uhm, thanks.”

  “Sure.”

  I hung up. He was using me, all right. I wouldn’t have minded if he hadn’t been so obvious. Did he think I was a dolt?

  I dialed the number Eloise Tackett had given me for Jonathan Longnecker, Rory’s former art agent. It was a cell phone, and the automated recording that picked up told me he was unavailable. I decided against leaving a voice mail and disconnected.

  With the handset still to my ear, I considered calling Abruzzo. He had threatened Rory Pendergast perhaps within minutes of Rory’s death. What was that about?

  I chickened out and hung up the phone without dialing.

  Promptly at five-thirty, Reed Shakespeare arrived at my door. I had dressed carefully in another one of Grandmama’s couture dresses, this one lemon yellow with a wide obi-style belt in a slightly more vivid hue. It had a stand-up collar, no sleeves and a low back. Elegant, simple. Chanel. I carried a beaded bag I’d also dug out of a trunk that must have come from one of Grandmama’s Caribbean tours.

  Reed took one look at the ensemble and blanched. “You don’t like it?” I asked, turning so he could get the complete view.

  He shrugged and opened the rear door of the town car, looking off into the distance. “Not for me to say.”

  The hell with him. Maybe I was a fashion throwback to Jackie Kennedy, but I wasn’t comfortable in the belly button flash of teenybopper fashion or the hard-edged sex of the stiletto feminists. I felt pretty and that’s what counted when going off to a party.

  I got into the car. While he drove into the city, I started writing the pieces I needed to turn in at the newspaper that evening. Stan and Kitty would review my work in the wee hours of Sunday morning and choose what would be published on The Back Page. Kitty’s pieces would be our lead stories, of course. She attended the A-list events. My pieces would fill in here and there, since I covered the less exciting side of the social scene. Photographs of beautiful people attending important parties usually balanced out the space.

  Tonight, I knew, Kitty was scheduled to attend an event at the Ritz-Carlton. Hundreds of the city’s most moneyed and influential people were pay
ing a thousand dollars a ticket to enjoy cocktails, dinner and entertainment while rubbing elbows with an aged movie star who would make an after-dinner speech about his long movie career. His speech would be full of anecdotes about other actors, directors and celebrities, giving the appreciative dinner crowd an impression they were tight with half of Hollywood. Afterwards there would be dancing and opportunities for the locals to have their picture taken with the movie star. After paying the actor and the hotel, the sponsoring organization donated the rest of the ticket money to a local school for the arts. A good cause and fun for many people, but it would have been Dullsville for me. I knew Kitty would lap it up, though, and her column would include an interview with the movie star.

  I didn’t mind being sent across town to a warehouse where a Philadelphia law firm was throwing a party to kick off a weekend of wheelchair racing. They’d taken up the cause after one of their partners had been injured in a car accident and ended up a paraplegic.

  “I don’t do wheelchairs,” Kitty had told me.

  Fine. I did.

  The party was a humdinger, and I knew it as soon as I got out of the car. New Orleans zydeco blasted me, and I decided no music was more danceable than zydeco. Reed held the car door open, but goggled at five extremely beautiful girls in hot dresses dancing in front of the warehouse doorway. One girl in cornrows spun a wheelie that flipped her skirt up over a lovely pair of knees. She caught Reed’s eye with an enticing laugh.

  “Better give me an hour,” I told Reed. “Want me to get your hand stamped so you can hang around?”

  “No,” he said, although he shot a longing glance at the dancers. “I’ve got studying to do.”

  “Okay, but the good times are gonna roll without you, Reed.”

  I slithered my way through the mob, unconsciously bobbing to the music and happily wishing Kitty a good time with the senior citizen movie star. This party was definitely more my style. A local microbrewery had partnered with the law firm, and free beer flowed from kegs set up strategically around the warehouse. I could smell spicy food in the air and saw guests eating red beans and rice from paper plates. The crowd was mostly young and definitely stunning—all dressed with sass and panache appropriate for a hot good time. At least one of the Philadelphia 76ers stood head and shoulders above the other guests, graciously signing autographs.