“Go ahead, open it!” Terry said, pushing the round, red-white-and-blue cereal box toward me. “See for yourself what’s inside.”
I was so curious I wanted to seize the carton, yank off the top, and dump the contents out on the table. But I didn’t want to make a mess. Or a scene. And I didn’t want the nosy old girl sitting next to us to see what was in the box. I mean, what if it was something really gruesome—a mutilated ear, or a severed toe, or something horrible like that? (I had just written a story about a recent murder case in which a plucked eyeball had provided the major clue, so I wasn’t being overly imaginative.)
Carefully pulling the container in close to my chest, I propped my elbows on either side and hunched my shoulders over the top, creating a darker, more private space. Then I sank my head low over the carton and slowly, gingerly, removed the saucer-shaped lid.
The dusty smell of oatmeal was distinct. And there, sitting on top of at least three inches of grain, was a crumpled mass of white tissue paper which, I discovered as soon as I touched it, contained something hard and beady and prickly, something that moved when I poked it with my forefinger. Overcome with curiosity, I stuck all of my fingers into the cardboard cylinder and pried a wide opening in the tissue paper, exposing the contents of the crumpled package.
I was bedazzled. Even in the confined space and murky shadows of my lowered head and hunched shoulders, the mound of diamonds sparkled, sending a thousand tiny but brilliant shafts of light into my astonished, disbelieving eyes.
“Are these real?” I gasped. “Or are they rhinestones?”
“They’re real,” Terry said. “I had them appraised before I showed them to the police. There’s a necklace, a pin, a pair of earrings, and two bracelets. Altogether, they’re worth about thirty thousand dollars.”
“Wow.” I wanted to take the diamonds out of the oatmeal carton and examine them more closely, but I didn’t dare. I thought the snoopy old lady sitting next to us might see them and swoon, her heavily rouged face landing smack in the middle of her mac and cheese casserole.
“There’s no way on earth Judy could have bought that jewelry herself,” Terry said, in a calmer, more serious tone. “So it was either given to her by somebody who’s very rich, or it was stolen.”
“Could she have stolen it herself?”
“No! Absolutely not. Judy would never steal anything. She was a bit on the wild side, but she was no thief. She could, however, have been talked into hiding stolen goods for somebody else—if that somebody was a man, and if she fancied herself to be in love with him. Judy would do anything for the man she loved, even if she’d only just met him, and loved him for just a few hours. That’s just the way she was. Every time she fell for a guy—which was way too often, if you ask me—she gave herself to him completely.”
“Was she in love at the time of the murder?”
“Not according to Mrs. Londergan, the older woman—a widow—who lives across the hall. She told us—me and Detective Sweeny—that she and Judy had developed a very close relationship, a mother/daughter kind of thing. She said my sister often confided in her, and she claimed Judy definitely wasn’t involved with anybody at the time of her death. She was, as Mrs. Londergan put it, “between boyfriends.”
“That implies a new boyfriend was on the horizon.”
“With my sister, a new boyfriend was always on the horizon.”
“Did Judy ever have any rich boyfriends?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Mrs. Londergan know?”
Terry shook his head and shrugged. “I never asked her. Before I found the jewelry I had no reason to ask her, and after I found it I had no time to ask her. I didn’t discover the diamonds until late yesterday afternoon, remember, and after that I was so busy getting them appraised, and taking them to the police, and trying to convince Detective Sweeny they proved that Judy was murdered—and then, when he didn’t believe me, trying to contact you—that I never had a chance to speak to Mrs. Londergan again.”
“I’m surprised Sweeny didn’t confiscate the diamonds.”
“He did.”
“What?!!!”
“He said he was going to catalog them and keep them as possible evidence, but I knew by the way he was acting he’d just stick them away in a locker somewhere, never use them to try to solve the case. So when he left his office to get the proper forms to fill out, I grabbed the oatmeal container off his desk, stuffed it back in the shoebox, snuck down the hall, and scrammed.”
“Pretty nervy,” I said, smiling. “I thought you said you were a coward.”
Terry smiled back. “Only when I’m being shot at.”
I found his motive noble and his conduct commendable, but I knew the police wouldn’t see it that way. “Does Sweeny know where you live?” I asked him.
“Of course. He questioned me extensively the first time we met.”
“Then he’ll come after you, you know. He probably won’t sleep a wink till he gets the diamonds back. He may even arrest you—for theft, or tampering with evidence, or some such charge.”
“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.”
I peered down into the oatmeal box and took a long, lingering look at the tangled heap of glittering gems. Then I scrunched the surrounding tissue paper back together, put the top back on the cereal box, tapped it down tight, and slid the closed container across the table to Terry.
“Better put these someplace safe,” I said. “Someplace safer than a shoebox.”
“No!” he cried, pushing the oatmeal carton back in my direction. “I brought them for you. I want you to keep them.”
“Are you nuts?!!!” I gulped, beginning to believe that he really was. “I can’t possibly do that! Those diamonds don’t belong to you. They’re not yours to give away.”
“I don’t mean that you should keep them forever,” Terry quickly interjected. “I just want you to keep them till the case is solved. They’re the only real clue we have. You’ll need them to catch Judy’s murderer.”
I’d been afraid he was going to say something like that—something about me chasing down Judy’s killer. And I guess I’d known from the moment he told me about the murder that that was what he wanted me to do. But I also knew that I was a writer—not a detective—and even though I had, by some incredible, unimaginable fluke, managed to flush out the psycho who had murdered Babs Comstock (and who then almost murdered me!), that didn’t mean I’d ever in a hundred million years be able to uncover (much less catch!) the monster who killed Terry’s sister. And even if I did catch him, what was I supposed to do with him? Pronounce him guilty and lock him up for life in my broom closet?
“Hold it right there!” I said, sticking my hand up like a stop sign. “You’re the one named Catcher, not me! And maybe you haven’t noticed, Mr. Catcher, but I’m a journalist, not a cop. I don’t solve crimes, I just write stories about them.”
“Yes, but you do it so well. And you do it here in Manhattan, so you know how the city’s criminal justice system works. And Bob said you’re a very tenacious investigator. The word he used was ‘relentless.’ He said that once you start searching for something—a lost key, a lost soul, even a hopelessly lost cause—you never give up. You stick to the bitter end. And that’s what I need—someone who believes that my sister was deliberately murdered and who will stop at nothing to prove it.”
“Yikes!” I cried, suddenly catching a glimpse of the big chrome-rimmed clock on the wall. “It’s two-fifteen! I’ve got to get back to the office immediately.” I shoved my arms into my coat sleeves, grabbed my purse and gloves, and bounced to my feet like a startled kangaroo. “I’m not kidding, Terry. I have to go right now. I could lose my job for staying out so long.”
Terry looked at his watch. “Good God! I didn’t realize it was so late! I’ve got to go, too, or I’ll miss my bus.” He shoved the oatmeal container back into the shoebox and slapped his hat on his head. Then he jumped up from his chair, picked up his gloves and the
shoebox, and followed close behind me as I lurched away from the table and hurried through the still-crowded restaurant to the exit.
“But what about my sister?” he begged, bounding ahead to open the door for me. “Will you at least try to dig up some new evidence—something that will convince the police to get back to work on the case?”
We stepped out onto the icy sidewalk. The air was so cold it was hard to breathe; the snow so thick it was hard to see. “I’ll do my best,” I promised, benumbed and blinded by the bright white storm. Then I took Terry’s arm and held on for dear life as he escorted me up the block toward my o ffice.
Chapter 4
DUCKING OUR HEADS AGAINST THE DRIVING snow, Terry and I helped each other stay on our feet as we skidded up the slippery sidewalk and across the slushy street to the tall, sand-colored brick building I worked in. It wasn’t until we had pushed our way into the warm, steamy lobby, and I got a whiff of the burnt hamburger smell wafting from the adjoining coffee shop, that I realized we’d never had any lunch.
I was so hungry I wanted to dart into the coffee shop and grab a sandwich to take upstairs, but I didn’t dare take the time. If Pomeroy got back to the office before I did, I’d be in big trouble. And if he saw me eating lunch at my desk during working hours—or, as he liked to put it, “working-class hours”—he’d blow his top.
“So you’re definitely going to help me, right?” Terry said, anxiously tugging me over to a secluded corner of the lobby, beyond the bank of partitioned telephones and directories, behind the huge, tinsel-draped Christmas tree. “You’ll find out everything you can about Judy’s murder?” His azure eyes were gleaming with expectation.
“Against my better judgment, yes,” I said. “But don’t expect any miracles. I’m just a woman who writes about crime. I’m no Sherlock Holmes. And I’m no Miss Marple either!”
“Who?”
“Never mind,” I said, heart sinking at the thought of the danger and disappointments that no doubt lay ahead. “It’s just that I don’t want you to get your hopes up too high. I could fail in the end, you know. To tell the truth, I don’t even know where to start.”
“Here!” Terry said, shoving the Thom McAn shoebox into my hands. “Start with this. Maybe you can trace the diamonds to a certain jeweler, and then find out who bought them, or stole them. And there’s some other stuff in this box, too—a couple of photographs, the address of the building where my sister lived, Mrs. Londergan’s apartment number and phone number, the names and address of Judy’s former roommates.”
“Did Judy have a personal calendar or an address book?”
“Yes, but the police took them into evidence before I got here. I never even got a look them. All I can give you is the stuff in this shoebox—things that should be of help.”
Suddenly, my nerves went haywire. And a flood of adrenaline shot through my veins. “But what about you?!!” I said (okay, shrieked). “You’d be the most help of all! Why do you have to go back to Pittsburgh today? Why can’t you stay here for a while—at least give me a chance to talk to you some more about Judy and learn everything I can about her life, and,” I added sadly, “her death. I can’t do this all by myself, Terry. I need you. Please don’t go!” In case you haven’t noticed, I wasn’t quite ready to be left to my own devices.
“I’ve already given you the most important information,” Terry insisted. “And we can always talk to each other on the phone. And besides,” he added, “you don’t have to work on this alone. Get the other agents at the magazine to help you. This could be a major story, and it’s a Daring Detective exclusive! They’ll be chomping at the bit to get in on the investigation.”
Other agents at the magazine? Boy, did he have the wrong idea! (Along, I should add, with the rest of the detective magazine-reading public.)
“You don’t understand,” I told him. “There are no agents at Daring Detective. Just writers and artists and editors. And there aren’t any big investigations going on either. Practically all the stories we publish are nothing but clip jobs. They’re written in-house and rehashed from assorted newspaper and magazine articles that are already in print.” I wasn’t exaggerating, either. To the best of my knowledge, the only exclusive, firsthand story Daring Detective had ever published had been the one about the Babs Comstock murder. My story.
“But you’ve got a police consultant on staff!” Terry argued. “A real homicide detective. What’s his name? . . . Street! Detective Dan Street. There’s a picture of him and a write-up about his career in every issue. Can’t you get him to help you?”
Terry looked so hopeful I didn’t have the heart to tell him the truth: that the DD police consultant job was just a sham; that Dan Street didn’t actually work for the magazine, but was merely paid a small retainer for the use of his name and photo just to make the magazine look official; that even if he wanted to (which he most definitely wouldn’t!), the parameters of Dan’s real job—as a highly respected NYPD homicide detective in the Midtown South Precinct—would never allow him to join forces with a fledgling crime journalist (like me) to reopen a murder investigation that had already been shut down by a detective in another district.
And that wasn’t all. There was another truth I wasn’t in the mood to divulge, a rather awkward and personally disturbing (okay, embarrassing) truth: that in spite of the fact that he was my dearly beloved boyfriend, and had been for the past seven months, Dan would rather lock me up in jail than see me get entangled in another unsolved murder case.
“Street’s a pretty busy man,” I said, waffling, finding myself unwilling to destroy all of Terry’s naïve expectations so early in the game, “and this case isn’t in his precinct. But I’ll tell him about it, see if he can help me out.”
“Good,” Terry said, satisfied. He lifted his brown fedora, swiped his gloved hand over his silvery hair, then repositioned the hat lower on his forehead. “Look, I hate to leave you like this. I wish I could stay. But now I really have to go home.”
“But what about Detective Sweeny? He’ll find you if you go home!” Okay, I admit it. I was trying to scare him into staying.
The prospect of being arrested didn’t seem to disturb Terry at all. “Maybe he will, or maybe he won’t come looking, but I can’t worry about that now,” he said, eyes narrowing with resolve. “I have to go home. I can’t stay in Judy’s apartment anymore, and I’ve run out of money. But the main cause is my father. He’s having a really hard time over Judy’s death, and I’ve been away for the past three weeks. I simply can’t leave him alone over Christmas.”
“Oh,” I said, unable to challenge Terry’s reasoning. Nobody, but nobody, should have to be alone over the holidays. Three years ago—right after Bob was killed—I’d suffered through a solo Christmas, and I wouldn’t wish the same on my worst enemy. Not even Brandon Pomeroy.
“Actually, I have to go right now,” Terry said, checking his watch, then giving me an apologetic smile. “My bags are in a locker at the station and my bus leaves in one hour. With all this snow, it’ll take me at least that long to get across town to the terminal.”
“But it’s not safe to travel in this weather!” I whined, still trying—in spite of my own urgent need to get back to the office—to delay Terry’s departure. “I’ll bet the buses aren’t even running!”
“That’s a chance I’ll have to take.”
The fat lady was singing loud and clear. “Okay,” I said, heaving a huge, deflating sigh, “but promise you’ll call me when you get home? There’s so much more I need to know.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll call you. I have your home number and your office number in my wallet. And you have mine. It’s in the shoebox.”
“It’s better to call me at home.”
“No problem. I’ll call you tomorrow night.”
“Okay,” I said, forcing myself to stand up tall and straight, putting on a big show of self-confidence. I was a towering Eleanor Roosevelt on the outside, but a teetering Mamie Eisenhower within.
As curious as I was about the case, as committed as I was to helping my late husband’s good friend, as determined as I was to find out everything I could about Judy Catcher’s horrible, untimely death, I still couldn’t help thinking what an idiot I’d been to let myself get so involved.
Terry leaned over and gave me a quick hug. “Thanks for everything, Paige,” he said, pulling back and resting his forearms on my shoulders. “You’re the best. Bob was a very lucky man.” He stared into my eyes for one brief but meaningful second, then spun himself around, strode across the marble floor, pushed his way through the revolving glass door, and vanished in a frosty flurry.
I was left standing there like a statue, holding a shoebox full of contraband diamonds in my hands, feeling as lost and lonely as Snow White in the forest—before all the birds and bunnies came out of the woods to comfort her. Where are my birds and bunnies? I wondered, though I knew from past experience they’d be hiding out like bandits till the heat blew over.
LENNY WAS STANDING UP FRONT, NEAR THE entrance, when I walked (okay, lunged) into the office. “Where the hell have you been?” he said, keeping his voice down to a scratchy whisper. “Do you know what time it is? You are so, so lucky Pomeroy’s not back. I was afraid you wouldn’t make it in time.”
“I was afraid of that, too,” I said, setting the shoebox down on the nearest table, tearing off my hat and coat, and hooking them both on the tree. I took a peek at Pomeroy’s empty chair and grinned. “I guess the gods and goddesses of good fortune haven’t totally abandoned me yet.”
Lenny looked at the box on the table and muttered, astonished, “You went shoe shopping? In the middle of a snowstorm, you went shoe shopping? You risked your steady job plus your entire freelance writing career to go shopping for shoes?”
His voice had climbed a little too high on the audio meter. Both Mike and Mario looked up from their work and began watching our little drama as if it were a mesmerizing segment of the “I’ve Got a Secret” game show. A Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Production.
Murder is a Girl's Best Friend Page 4