Murder is a Girl's Best Friend

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Murder is a Girl's Best Friend Page 9

by Amanda Matetsky


  “Yes, I heard what you were saying,” Vicki whimpered. “Your aunt feels like she’s lost her only daughter. How horrible for her! Please tell her how sorry I am.” She looked as though she might start crying again.

  “But that’s not all my aunt feels,” I went on, staring deep into Vicki’s big green eyes and using my most serious tone. “She feels certain that Judy’s murder was premeditated—that she was killed by somebody she knew.”

  Vicki’s eyeballs virtually sprang out of their sockets. “But the paper said she was shot during a . . .”

  “ . . . burglary,” I said, finishing her sentence for her. “That’s what the police decided—and that’s the story they’re sticking to. But Aunt Elsie doesn’t agree with them at all. She’s convinced that Judy’s murder was committed intentionally. ”

  “Oh, my God!” Vicki cried. “How could that be? Who would want to kill Judy?”

  “I was hoping you might have some ideas on that subject. Aunt Elsie and I are trying to dig up some new leads, looking for something—anything—to persuade the police to reopen the case.”

  “But I don’t know anything about it!” she screeched. “I can’t even believe it’s true!”

  “Yes, but there’s a good chance it is true,” I said. “And since Judy always told you everything, you probably know more about it than you think. For instance, have you ever seen this picture before?” I slipped the snapshot out from under my checkbook and handed it to Vicki. “Do you know the name of the man in the photo?”

  Vicki gaped at the picture for a second or two, then handed it back to me. “Yes, I do!” she proudly announced. “That’s Jimmy. Jimmy Burgerham, or Hamburger, or—oh, I can’t remember his last name! He was Judy’s boyfriend for a while. The dog’s name is Otto. He’s a miniature dachshund and Jimmy takes him everywhere. He brought Otto up here once, hidden in a shopping bag, just to get a laugh out of Judy. She adored that dog.”

  “More than she adored Jimmy?”

  “No! She was crazy about Jimmy, too . . . Hey, what’re you driving at? If you think Jimmy killed Judy, you’ve got another think coming. He really liked her, and it really tore him up when she stopped seeing him. He told me so himself.”

  “She stopped seeing him?” This didn’t sound like the Judy Catcher I had come to know and love.

  “Yeah, but it wasn’t because she didn’t dig him anymore. It was because he had so many other girlfriends besides her. One or two would have been okay, but Jimmy is addicted to women—especially new women—and Judy just couldn’t stand being crazy jealous all the time. Jimmy never had enough time for her. She broke up with him to keep herself from breaking down.”

  “Do you have Jimmy’s address or phone number? I’d like to talk to him.”

  “He lives down in the Village somewhere, but I don’t know which street. I don’t have his phone number either. You could probably find him at the Village Vanguard, though. That really cool jazz place down on Seventh Avenue? Judy said he goes there almost every night and sits at the bar sipping beer, flirting with the chicks, just waiting for the chance to get up on stage and read his poetry.”

  “He writes poems?”

  “Yeah. He’s pretty good, too. At least that’s what Judy said. I wouldn’t know. I read mysteries, not poetry.”

  A girl after my own heart.

  “Aunt Elsie said Judy was involved with another man right before her death,” I said. “An older man named Gregory Smith. Do you know anything about him?”

  “Oh, sure. He was the greatest love of Judy’s life! She said he was her lord and savior. But what he was, really, was her substitute father—she always called him Daddy-o. Or sometimes just plain Daddy. He was . . . oh, no! Here comes my supervisor again! Please put that picture away before she sees it. If she catches on we’ve been having a personal conversation, she’ll demote me to Accessories, and it’s pure hell to work down there during the holidays.” She folded a flap of tissue paper over Abby’s present and put the top on the box. “That’ll be seven eighty-five, plus twenty-four cents tax, for a total of eight dollars and nine cents,” she said in a booming voice. “Please make the check payable to Macy’s.” She gave me a big salesgirl smile and handed me a ballpoint pen.

  I stuffed the photo back inside my purse and made out the check. “Thank you so much for your help,” I bellowed. “My friend is going to love this gift.” Then I lowered my voice and murmured, “I need to ask you some more questions, Vicki. What time do you get off work? Can we meet somewhere to talk?”

  “Okay,” she whispered. “But I don’t get off till nine.”

  I flipped a coin in my brain. Heads, I would stay to meet Vicki. Tails, I’d go home to meet Dan. It came up tails. Like I said, sometimes I’m lucky.

  “Sorry, Vicki, I can’t wait till then. I have a previous engagement. But maybe you’ll give me your phone number, so I can call you later?”

  “Uh, yeah, I guess that would be all right,” she said, looking kind of confused. “It’s Gramercy 4-2244.” She wrote the number down on the back of my sales slip. “But make sure you call me before eleven or my mother will have a conniption.”

  “Before eleven,” I said, nodding agreement. I gathered up all my stuff and put on my gloves. “Thanks again for your help.”

  Giving Vicki a quick but significant salute, I turned and sprinted for the elevator. The perky carolers had launched into yet another Yuletide favorite, and I wanted to get out of there—fast. Instead of chestnuts roasting on an open fire, I was hot to have Jack Frost (okay, Dan Street) take a nip at my nose.

  Chapter 9

  DID YOU EVER HAVE THE FEELING THAT your life has a life all its own; that the most momentous occurrences of your pitiful earthly existence actually have very little—if anything—to do with you? Well, that’s the way it was for me that night, at thirty minutes after eight, on December 21, 1954, when I lugged my cold and hungry body up the stairs to the landing outside my apartment and started fumbling through my keys, looking for the one that would allow me to open my thoroughly inviting—but securely locked—front door.

  All I wanted to do was go inside, check to see that the diamonds were still there, cram a few crackers in my mouth, guzzle a cup of hot cocoa, smoke a cigarette or two, fix my makeup, spritz on some Shalimar, and relax for a minute before Dan arrived. Not so much to ask for, right?

  I’d have done better to ask for the moon.

  Before I could even fit my key in the lock, Abby’s door banged open and she swooped like a vampire into the hall, the wide sleeves of her white painter’s smock flapping like the wings of an albino bat. “Where the holy hell have you been?” she shrieked, grabbing hold of my shoulder and pulling me around to face her. “You’re so late the Mai Tais are all gone! Now I’ll have to fix you a plain old rum and Coke!” Her bright red lips were pouting, her dark brown eyes were blazing, and her long black hair was loose and swirling around her head like a storm cloud.

  I was unnerved by her troubled demeanor. “What’s the matter, Abby? There’s no reason for you to be so upset. It’s too cold for Mai Tais anyway. This is hot toddy weather.”

  “That’s not the point!” she screeched, stamping one fuzzy pink slipper-clad foot on the bare wood floor of the landing. “The point is why are you so late? Where the hell have you been? We’ve both been going meshugge. We were worried about you!”

  “We?” I said. “Who is we? Did Dan get here already, or is Tony the baker still here from last night, charming your pants off with his trick snake?”

  “Hardeeharhar,” Abby said, relaxing her shoulders a bit, but refusing to smile. “You’re wrong on both counts. And I wouldn’t be making jokes if I were you. There’s nothing funny about murder.”

  Now I was as upset as she was. “What murder are you talking about? And who are you talking about? Do you have somebody in your apartment? And, if so, who the hell is it?” I was too exhausted (okay, exasperated) to keep playing her little guessing game.

  “Come see for y
ourself,” she said, turning aside and bowing low, gesturing with one sweeping, outflung arm for me to enter her mysterious domain.

  I gave Abby a snotty look, then took a deep breath and stepped inside. I didn’t know what to expect, but I can truthfully say (and you should trust me on this), that if I’d walked in to find Vice President Richard Nixon himself lolling on Abby’s little red loveseat in a complete state of undress, it wouldn’t have surprised me in the least.

  It wasn’t Richard Nixon, though. It was Terry Catcher, and I was shocked right down to my snowboots.

  He wasn’t undressed, I’m happy to report, but he was lolling (well, sleeping, I guess I should say), on his back, on the love seat, with his lower legs hanging over the armrest like two large salamis strung from a delicatessen ceiling. One arm was folded over his chest, and the other was dangling over the edge of the tiny couch, fingertips grazing the floor.

  I tiptoed up to the couch and leaned over him. “Terry?” I whispered. “Are you okay? What are you doing here?”

  His only response was a snort and a whistle. He was sleeping so soundly even the A-bomb wouldn’t have budged him.

  “He doesn’t look so worried to me,” I said to Abby, resuming a normal speaking tone and walking back over to where she was standing, not bothering to tiptoe. “If you ask me, he looks drunk.”

  “Well, he is now!” she said, still pouting. “But that’s just because you were so late getting home. He was worried out of his gourd about you, and he said if anything happened to you it would be his fault.” Abby flounced into the kitchen area, plopped down at her tiny dining table and lit up a Philip Morris.

  I sat down and lit up, too, trying to collect myself. “So what’s going on?” I stammered. “How long has he been here? Did he tell you about his sister?”

  “Sure did. Told me the whole sickening saga. But what I want to know is why you didn’t tell me about it,” she whined, looking more petulant by the moment. “When did you start keeping secrets from me?”

  So that’s what she was so upset about. “I wasn’t keeping anything from you, silly,” I insisted. “I was dying to tell you everything! I wanted to talk to you about the murder last night, but you had company, if you recall, and it was obvious that the three of you wanted to be alone.”

  “The three of us?” She gawked at me as if my ears were blowing bubbles.

  “You, Tony, and the snake,” I said (and if you think it was easy for me to sit there so calmly and crack another stupid snake joke when I was literally jumping out of my skin with curiosity and concern about Terry, then you’ve got—as Vicki Lee Bumstead would say—another think coming).

  Finally, Abby laughed and hopped down off her high horse. “Okay, you’re forgiven,” she said. “But you’d better clue me in on every single thing that happens from now on, or I’ll cut off your cocktail allowance.” Abby liked to play detective, too.

  “I will,” I promised, “but right now I’m the one who needs to be clued-in. So put your answer hat on. What on earth is Terry Catcher doing here?!!!” I was trying to keep my voice down to a reasonable pitch, but I’m not so sure I succeeded. “How did he get here? When did he get here? And why is he flopped out in a coma on your love seat? He should have been back home in Pittsburgh by now! His bus left at three-thirty yesterday afternoon!”

  “Are you sure about that?” Abby teased, dark eyes twinkling. She loved to play games when she was holding all the cards—which, when she was playing with little old simple-minded me, was pretty much all the time.

  “Arrrgh!” I growled. It was all I could do not to scream and start pulling my hair out by the handful. “Please, Abby!” I begged. “Can’t you just give it to me straight? I’m having a nervous breakdown here!”

  “Oh, all right!” she said, sighing loudly. “Don’t get your tushy in a twist. You’re such a prissy killjoy!” She took a deep drag on her cigarette, then blew the smoke out in a forceful gush. “Okay, here’s the scoop: I went uptown to deliver my new painting to Lusty Male Adventures today, and when I got back, around three this afternoon, your friend Terry—who, by the way, I much prefer to call Whitey—was standing right next to the door to our building, leaning his back against the wall and looking as lost and tired and scruffy as a stray dog.

  “At first I was wary of him,” Abby continued, “but then, when I got close enough to see how well-built and handsome he was, I figured he must have come to see me—that the agency had probably sent him over. So I walked right up to him and introduced myself, and asked him if he was looking for modeling work. You can imagine my surprise when he said no, he was looking for you.”

  Abby stuck out her chin, gave me an accusatory look, took another puff on her cigarette, then went on with her story. “When I told him you wouldn’t be home till six or six-thirty, he said that was okay, he’d wait. Well, I couldn’t see leaving such a gorgeous, intriguing, and obviously lonely man like Whitey standing all by himself out on the street, in the freezing cold and snow, for three whole hours! So I did what any thoughtful, compassionate, red-blooded American girl would do under the circumstances—I invited him up for a drink.

  “Which reminds me,” Abby quickly interjected, “do you want a rum and Coke?”

  “Yes, please,” I said, too weak (okay, wicked) to resist. “But keep talking while you’re pouring. Dan’s due here i n . . .” I looked at my watch . . . “twenty minutes, and if he sees Terry, and finds out about his sister, and discovers that I’m working on another sensational murder story, he’ll have me locked up for life in the Women’s House of Detention.”

  “Well, at least you’ll be close by,” Abby said, moving over to the kitchen counter to mix our drinks. “The girlie slammer’s just a few blocks away on Greenwich Avenue. It won’t be too much trouble to visit you.”

  I would have laughed, or at least smiled, but I was too anxious to be amused. “Go on with your story,” I pleaded, puffing furiously on my cigarette. “Terry came upstairs with you, and then what happened?”

  “Well, we got to talking, of course, and we got real friendly, and then—after we’d had a few drinks, and after I told him that you and I were so close we were practically sisters—he came clean and gave me the whole lowdown. He told me that he was an Army buddy of Bob’s, and that his sister Judy had been murdered, and that you had promised to help him find the killer.”

  “Did he tell you about the diamonds?”

  “Of course! He said he gave them to you to help in your search for the killer. What did you do with them, by the way? Hide ’em in your apartment somewhere? Are they pretty? Can I see them?” If she’d had a tail, it would have been wagging out of control.

  “Later,” I said, in the strictest tone I could muster. I knew if I showed Abby the jewelry, she’d want to try it on. And once she had it on, it would be difficult (probably impossible ) to get her to take it off. Call me a killjoy if you want to, but the last thing in the world I needed was for my new boyfriend, Dan Street, to catch even one tiny little glimpse of my best girlfriend, Abby Moskowitz, standing decked out like a Christmas tree in a twinkly tangle of illicit diamonds that had just been pirated from the 10th Precinct police station . . . right out from under Detective Hugo Sweeny’s nose.

  “But why is Terry still here?” I asked, changing the subject as quickly as I could. “Why isn’t he in Pittsburgh?”

  “He said he’d been trying to get home for Christmas, but his bus was canceled because of the storm, so he had to spend the night at the station.” Abby finished her pouring and stirring and brought our drinks over to the table.

  “But what about . . . ?”

  “Stop interrupting me, Paige! I’m trying to tell it straight, like you told me to do, and I need to concentrate!” She sat down and retrieved the cigarette she’d left burning in the ashtray. “Now then, where was I?” she said, taking her own sweet time, blowing a slow succession of perfect smoke rings. “Oh, yes, now I remember . . . Whitey spent last night at the station . . . and then this
morning, when they announced that no buses would be leaving today, either—and when he realized he didn’t have a dime left in his pocket to buy a donut, or a cup of coffee, or even a ride on the subway—he picked up his duffel bag and started walking downtown to your apartment, not having anywhere else to go, not knowing anything else to do. The poor man shlepped over forty blocks—through the wind and the snow and the ice—to get here. And he got very, very cold. And very, very tired. So now he’s sleeping like a baby on my couch, you dig? End of story. Final curtain. Thunderous burst of applause.”

  “Sleeping like a baby?” I said, poking a hole in her tidy but conspicuously incomplete summary. “Since when do babies get drunk?”

  “What can I say?” Abby simpered, batting her thick black lashes and curling her lips in a mischievous smile. “The man’s a sucker for Mai Tais.”

  AS SOON AS I FINISHED MY DRINK (OKAY, I’m a sucker for them all), I made Abby promise to take care of Terry—i.e., sober him up if possible, give him something to eat, and keep him out of sight until Dan had come and gone. Then she made me promise that, as soon as Dan had, indeed, departed, I would hurry back over to her place and reveal every scrap of information I’d picked up about the murder so far (which, admittedly, was next to nothing, but in the interest of securing Abby’s complete cooperation, I didn’t tell her that). Then I gathered up all my stuff, darted across the landing to my own apartment, and let myself in.

  The first thing I did was check on the diamonds. (They were fine—sleeping like drunken babies on the oatmeal mattress in their round Quaker bed.) The next thing I did was start dashing around like a beheaded chicken, dropping my purse and parcel on a kitchen chair, shedding my coat, beret, and boots, madly running upstairs to put on fresh makeup and a pair of stiletto pumps, then stumbling back downstairs again to straighten my stocking seams, fluff out my hair, fire up a cigarette, plug in the lights of my tiny Christmas tree, and turn on the radio. Quickly bypassing all the merry holiday music, I tuned in one of the top pop stations.

 

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