Slay Belles
Page 3
“There’s been a misunderstanding, and if I was part of it, I need to make things right.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Spike stopped lapping up the spilled Slim-Fast and began scrambling around underfoot, dragging his hindquarters and panting with excitement. He tracked chocolate paw prints all over Popo’s floor.
I picked up Spike and held him away from my clothing. He dripped with Slim-Fast. “First let me clean up the dog in the lavatory. Then we’ll have a discussion.”
Silently, Darwin pointed.
I ducked into the bathroom at the back of the small salon and plunked Spike in the sink. At once he sensed what was coming and tried to climb out, but I was too quick for him. Pinning the dog in place, I carefully scooped warm water over his rough coat to avoid soaking his casts.
“You are a menace,” I told him.
At last I turned off the water and held Spike down with one hand as I stretched to yank a handful of paper towels from the dispenser.
Which was when the lights went out.
“What in the world . . . ?”
Silence. The lavatory had no window, so the darkness was complete. Spike gave a nervous yap.
“Quiet,” I told him, and blindly tried to dry him off with the towels. Over my shoulder, I called, “Darwin?”
I heard someone jiggle the locked doorknob.
“Darwin? What’s going on?”
No response. I put Spike on the floor and felt my way to the door. I grabbed the knob and twisted to disengage the lock, but when I tried to pull the door inward, it didn’t budge. “Darwin!” I called. “I’m locked in here!”
Still no answer. And no lights. Panting and whining with excitement, Spike hobbled around my feet in the small bathroom.
The bathroom lock was on the inside of the door, I reasoned. So why couldn’t I let myself out? It was as if the door had been dead-bolted from the outside.
In total darkness, I rapped my knuckles on the door. Then I pounded. I shouted. I kicked the door as loudly as I could. To accompany me, Spike barked and finally began to howl.
But Darwin didn’t come to open the door.
Nobody did.
“That little bastard locked us in here for the night,” I said to Spike.
The puppy sat down on my foot and whined.
After five minutes of fuming, I finally got an idea. I went to the door and felt around the edges to locate the hinges. “Aha.”
Groping in my handbag for something to use as a tool, I poked myself with a metal nail file. I pulled it out and tested its strength. It was flimsy, but it would have to get the job done. Cautiously, I wedged the nail file up into the hinge and pushed. I felt the bolt give way, but only slightly. Getting the door off the hinges was going to be a tedious process.
When the first hinge was disassembled and the second bolt nearly wiggled out, the lights suddenly came on again. I checked my watch. Nearly forty-five minutes had passed, and I’d broken three fingernails. The palms of my hands were going to be bruised. I ran cold water into the sink to soak them for a minute, then went back to inching the hinge apart.
I let out a cry of relief when the second bolt fell out and hit the tile floor with a musical ding. Wrestling the door out of position was harder than I imagined. It didn’t just fall into my arms. I had to shove and wiggle and heave to inch the heavy door out of place.
At last, the weight of it fell sideways. A rush of cool air entered the lavatory. I looked out and realized that someone had tied one length of a rope around the doorknob and fastened the other end to a sturdy coatrack on the opposite wall.
“Darwin, you little fink!” I said to the empty salon.
No sign of the weasel.
I gathered up the contents of my bag and shoved it back where it belonged. Then I stepped over the rope and picked up Spike. “Let’s get out of here.”
Just as eager to leave as I was, Spike let himself be dumped into my bag. I pushed out of the salon and into the darkened department store.
It was eerie, deserted and quiet. The usual rumble of escalators, heating system, and muffled music had been silenced. I didn’t see a single person. Even the reindeer in Santa’s Wonderland were still. I headed for the escalator.
At the edge of the luxury bedding department stood the display bed I’d noticed earlier. But something was different this time.
I stopped still at the foot of the bed. “Popo?”
The sprawled body of Popo Prentiss lay in the bedclothes, the sheets wildly twisted around her. Popo didn’t move. Her eyes were half-open and unfocused. One of her hands lay upturned and flaccid. The other still gripped her plastic water bottle, now empty and dented. I realized I was standing in a splashed puddle of water.
“No,” I said, already feeling the floor begin to tilt around me.
I didn’t need to touch her to know she was dead. Her stillness was complete. I could see that a plump needlepoint pillow with a Ralph Lauren tag had been abandoned beside her head. A thin line of foamy drool ran from the corner of her mouth. The blond spikes of her hair were damp. She had tried to fight off her killer with the water bottle.
“No,” I said again. I backed away from the bed and bumped into a display shelf. A rack of brilliant yellow towels cascaded around me, and I cried out. I pushed away and rushed for the escalator. I stumbled on the top step, then caught my balance on the railing and clattered downward. I must have shouted, but the panic was deafening.
From below, a rush of darkness swirled up to me. Not an electrical blackout this time, but a different kind of darkness. I had to find help before I passed out.
At the bottom of the escalator, a figure in a uniform appeared. I made out a bald head and a name tag that swam before my eyes. He reached for me, but I couldn’t see his face, only the Haymaker’s logo embroidered on his shirt. A security guard.
“Call the police.” I gasped. “Popo’s been murdered.”
Chapter 3
My best friend, Lexie Paine, greeted me at the front door of her home. “Sweetie, where have you been? I was ready to send a Saint Bernard to go search for you.”
“Sorry I’m late.” I stepped inside and reached for the edge of a table to support myself.
Lexie lived in a converted Victorian-style boathouse along the famous Boathouse Row on the Schuylkill River, a picturesque curve of storybook houses that were maintained by various boating clubs. With her powerful connections and bottomless personal bank account, my friend had managed to score one of the abandoned boathouses and had renovated the second floor into luxurious living quarters.
Behind her, I could hear the buzz and hum of party guests along with soft jazz and the scent of expensive flowers from Neppo.
Summoning some self-control, I said, “You, on the other hand, look stunning. Which rapper did you have to mug to get that necklace?”
Slim and sinewy from beating up bulls and bears on Wall Street, Lexie wore a smoky black cashmere ensemble and double strand of serious bling. She toyed with one of the diamonds at her throat. “I had a good week in the Asia markets. You won’t believe how desperate American manufacturers are to get themselves into pathetic Chinese villages so they can exploit the workers and make billions. I could spend every day playing matchmaker if I didn’t get bored with all the upstanding, two-faced executives from Omaha.”
“Nobody would ever mistake you for two-faced, Lex. You tell it like it is.”
Lexie closed the door and gave me a hug. “Sorry about the rant. Now, sweetie, what’s happened? You look white as Christmas snow. My God, you’re shaking!”
“Careful,” I said. “I don’t want to spoil your party.”
My friend popped her eyes wide and held me away from herself to get a better look at my face. “What’s happened? You didn’t discover another dead body, did you?”
“As a matter of fact—”
She cursed prayerfully. “You’re kidding! Who was it? Anybody I know?”
“Popo Prentiss.”
“And you were locked in the loo while it happened?” Lexie put her arm across my shoulders for comfort. “My God, Nora, it could have been you!”
“I doubt it,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve had a couple of hours to think about it. If you were a random killer, would you commit your crime in the middle of a department store shortly after closing? With all those security cameras going?”
“You think someone deliberately murdered Popo? Hell, what am I saying? Of course she was deliberately murdered. Half the people in this town despise her!”
“And the other half suck up to her so she’ll get the dresses they want for the Christmas galas.” I gave a hiccough and realized I was fighting back tears.
Lexie tightened her arm around me. “You’ve had a terrible shock. I’m so sorry, sweetie.”
“I’m okay. The police came right away. They were very nice to me.”
Her expression reflected genuine concern. “Did you faint?”
I blanched. “Yes. Dammit, I wish I could get over that tendency. It makes me feel like such an idiot.”
“You’re just empathic. But there’s nothing to worry about now. Surely the police are looking at videotapes this minute. There must be security cameras all over that store. The killer will be caught in no time.”
“That’s the thing. Somebody tampered with the security system.” I told her about the power outage. “All the cameras went off-line.”
“You mean someone from inside the store shut off the electricity?”
“Not just electricity, but the backup generator for the security systems, too. Someone really knew what they were doing.”
Lexie blew a sigh and shook her head. “This is certainly going to be more bad news for Haymaker’s.”
“More bad news?”
Lexie smiled wryly at my question. “You listen to all the wrong gossip, sweetie. Haymaker’s is performing poorly. It’s the dreaded third-generation syndrome.”
“The what?”
“Alan Rutledge is the third generation to own the store. His granddaddy started by selling pencils on the street and built Haymaker’s from nothing. Then Alan’s father joined the biz and made it into a regional chain. The two of them worked like dogs to build Haymaker’s, but they never showed Alan how to get his hands dirty. Now he’s on his own, and he doesn’t know how to mind the store. He’d rather go see a musical. It’s a classic business story. The third generation bungles the family store.”
“Haymaker’s is going out of business?”
“No, but the vultures are circling. I’ve heard a couple of big retailers are looking to buy out Haymaker’s.”
“Maybe that’s a good thing,” I said. “Alan will be free to enjoy what he really loves.”
Lexie nodded. “He’s a closet song-and-dance man. I heard a wild rumor he got engaged to Cindie Rae Smith. That can’t be true, can it?”
“It can, and is. I saw Cindie Rae at the store tonight. She was acting as if she owned the place already. I think she’s the closest Alan could get to a leading lady.”
Lexie leaned closer. “Did you get a good look at her? I mean, is she as . . . enhanced as everyone says?”
“Put her in the warm sunshine and she’d melt like a Hershey bar.”
“Ugh. I hear her Web site is beyond revolting, too. What is Alan thinking?”
“We both know what he’s thinking.”
Lexie shuddered. “Everybody knows I’d rather make money than love. I have no sex drive whatsoever. It’s so messy, for one thing, and all those dreadful emotions that make people do crazy things like— Oh, sorry, sweetie. I didn’t mean you.”
“No offense taken.”
Lexie wagged her head. “But Alan. . . . What a waste of a solid family fortune.”
I took a deep, steadying breath and let it out slowly. “I can’t believe Popo is dead.”
“Me neither. She may have been universally hated, but she was indispensable to a lot of my friends.”
Just a few minutes with Lexie had made me feel better. But I didn’t want to spoil her party. “Look, I should go. I’m sorry to bring bad tidings. I should have waited until morning to call you. But I thought I’d better stop by to apologize for not picking up your package in case it was something you needed tonight.”
“Oh, forget about that! Heavens, you shouldn’t have bothered. It was only a little evening bag I planned to use next weekend.”
“A little evening bag?”
“Right. Popo called and said it would match a dress I’m wearing to a charity ball on Saturday. A Lettitia McGraw handbag.”
I couldn’t help myself. I laughed.
She cocked her head. “What’s the story?”
“It’s a very popular bag tonight, that’s all. Look, I’d better run along. You have a lovely party to host, and I—”
“Don’t beg off,” she commanded, getting to her feet and extending her hand to help me up. “You have to stick around. If nothing else, you could use a stiff drink, I’m sure. And everybody wants to see you.”
Although I simply wanted to go home to my own bed, I could hardly walk out without saying a few hellos. I picked up my bag with the sleeping puppy inside and shouldered it. “All right. Tell me who’s here.”
“The usual suspects.” Lexie linked her arm with mine to pull me into her home. “That nutty writer, what’s-her-name, with the book about cloning babies or something. And the new curator for the museum.”
“Belinda, the one with the red glasses?”
“Yes. It’s a good blend, although I accidentally invited too many politicians. It seems everybody’s running for mayor except that handsome John Fitch, who’s also here. You’ve met him before, right? I think he has a shot at the Senate. Plus a handful of my best friends for sex appeal.”
“And there must be one of your billionaire clients or two in the mix.”
She grinned. “Of course.”
“Are you raising money for the museum?”
“Always. Tonight I’m targeting Vince Scuddy. Do you know him? He owns a truckload of cable television stock, so he can afford to spend most of his time playing street hockey with underserved kids in South Philly.”
“Sounds like a mensch.”
“Who needs something cultural to balance his résumé, and then I suppose he’ll run for mayor, too.”
We arrived in her living room, which was packed with guests. For a woman of her income and a family history at least as old as my own, Lexie lived in remarkably small quarters. Her boathouse was sparsely and inexpensively furnished, but hung with spectacular art from the collection her mother had inherited and Lexie’s own investment pieces. The president of the art museum board, she had the combination of serious scholarship, instinctive good taste, and the gargantuan disposable income needed to possess paintings and sculpture that were the envy of many longtime collectors.
“You moved your Warhol out of the bedroom.” I observed the pop-art portrait that dominated the living room wall.
“I moved a Vermeer oil study over my bed instead, which is ever so much more restful.”
Two friends approached and gave me air kisses, and someone offered to get me a drink. I tried to make conversation, but I felt as if my body were floating on the ceiling as the party whirled around me. I tried to fake being sociable. The mental image of Popo Prentiss’s body kept popping into my head. Even handsome John Fitch couldn’t distract me with his usual intelligent charm.
Soon one of the hired waiters came over and murmured into Lexie’s ear. She nodded, then leaned close to me and said quietly, “Why don’t you take a few minutes in the kitchen? I understand there’s someone waiting for you there.”
I gave her a grateful squeeze and
excused myself from John. With a smile that was more relieved than festive, I slipped through the crowd until I reached the swinging door to Lexie’s kitchen.
There, the catering staff was quietly preparing more canapés, washing up glassware, and efficiently keeping bottles opened and trays filled. I recognized my childhood friend Jill Mascione as she whipped a tray of caviar blintzes out of the oven. I had met her long ago at the parties my parents threw and her parents catered. We had played marbles under the bunted tables while the adults drank champagne above us. Now she ran her family’s business, and I saw her often at social events.
Jill caught my eye and grinned, too busy to do more. Then she shot a pointed glance across the room, and I followed her gaze.
The door to Lexie’s small wine cellar stood open. It was more of a closet than a cellar, of course—just a few square feet of floor space with a small table surrounded by racks of wine bottles. A shaft of kitchen light knifed into the room, illuminating the figure inside.
A man with hulking shoulders ate from a bowl of pasta, both elbows on the table, half in shadow. The kitchen staff respected his presence by tiptoeing about their chores and sending uneasy glances in his direction. He frowned at Lexie’s wine labels as he twirled his fork, the rough planes of his face set in the glower of a man with a mean hangover.
I went to the door and leaned in. “I see you’re out of jail.”
He looked up at me and the hangover expression disappeared. He smiled. His eyes were the same intense blue as an acetylene torch, but reflected more heat. “Hey.”
“You’re making everybody nervous.”
“I haven’t even threatened to break any kneecaps yet.”
“I guess you just look like a man who could hurt a few people before dessert.”
“There’s dessert?”
I kissed his mouth. “What are you doing here?”
Michael “the Mick” Abruzzo, son of the infamous New Jersey mob boss “Big Frankie” Abruzzo, had given up his life of crime for love. So he claimed. Tonight he looked like an unreformed wise guy in faded jeans and a black sweater loose enough to conceal a weapon. He’d slung his leather jacket over the chair back. His blunt, Roman nose had been daunting even before it was broken, and the dent in his chin was courtesy of a long-ago prison-yard brawl. These days I failed to see what was so frightening about his face, but I was in the minority.