Murder is a Girl's Best Friend

by Amanda Matetsky

  Patti Page was singing “Steam Heat,” and the lyrics expressed my mental temperature to a T. I draped myself languidly (okay, leadenly) over the daybed in my living room, pretending with every ounce of strength I had left that I was a damsel in zero distress—a lovestruck lady in waiting with nothing but romance (and certainly no thoughts of murder) on my mind.

  By the time Dan arrived, I almost believed it myself.

  Chapter 10

  HE WAS RIGHT ON TIME. (OKAY, SIX MINUTES after nine, but who’s counting?) I buzzed him in, opened my front door, and watched him bound up the stairs in three strides—like a man with a burning purpose. I only hoped that purpose was me.

  “Well, if it isn’t Sergeant Street,” I said, leaning seductively against the back of the open door, doing my best Kim Novak. “What a pleasure it is to see you.”

  Well, it must have been a pleasure for him to see me, too, because the next thing I knew he was standing up close to me, brushing his cold nose across my cheek, and covering my mouth with a kiss so deep and warm it sent a jolt of electricity down to my toes. My cool, blonde Kim Novak act took a swan dive down the stairwell. Instead of a curvy tower of restrained desire, I was a wobbly wet mass of mush. I’m not kidding. My head was swirling, my spine was melting, and my knees were threatening to ooze right out from under me.

  Luckily, Dan pulled away and went inside my apartment before I dissolved into a puddle on the landing. “It’s good to see you too, Paige,” he said, taking off his hat and coat and putting them down on the kitchen chair closest to the door. If he had any idea that he’d just reduced me to a breathless, quivering pulp, he was gentleman enough to keep it to himself.

  Always the vigilant detective, Dan walked straight over to the back door of my apartment (the windowed wooden door that led from my kitchen to a metal balcony, and to a flight of metal steps stretching down to the small ground-level courtyard), then he flipped on the outdoor light and peered outside. Satisfied that no murderers or rapists were lurking in the snowdrifts below, he raked his fingers through his dark brown hair and straightened his dark blue tie. Then, cocking his lips in a crooked smile, he turned his tall, gorgeous, broad-shouldered self toward me and said, without the slightest trace of irony, “I’ve really missed you, kid.”

  Considering the fact that we’d seen each other just two nights ago, when Dan took me out to dinner and the movies, I was delighted by his candid—and seemingly earnest—comment. So what if he called me kid? He was within his rights. Dan was thirty-seven years old, and I was quite a bit younger (nine years to be exact, but again, who’s counting?).

  “I missed you, too,” I said, stepping (okay, staggering) into my apartment and closing the door behind me. It felt good to be able to tell Dan the truth about something, because I knew I was going to have to start lying to him soon. If he discovered what I’d been up to during the last two days and nights, he’d go berserk and read me the riot act—and he wouldn’t stop ranting till I dropped the story. So I racked my brain for a way to keep him from asking too many questions.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” I asked, quickly wrapping myself in the comfortable cloak of the polite and happy hostess. “Coffee, tea, hot chocolate, Dr. Pepper . . . ?” Jeez! Why didn’t I buy a bottle of wine on the way home? Because I couldn’t afford it, that’s why!

  “Black coffee would be good,” he said. “I’ve got a job to do tonight, and I have to stay sharp.”

  “What? You’re working tonight?” The deceitful part of me was relieved, but the mushy part was crushed with disappointment. “I thought we’d have some time together.”

  “So did I, Paige, but it’s not going to work out that way. A wealthy Broadway producer—a known homosexual—was stabbed to death in a dressing room at the Majestic theater this afternoon, and we don’t have any witnesses or even a single good lead. So, since I was coming down to the Village anyway, I told the lieutenant I’d hit the bird circuit, ask a few questions, see what I can find out.”

  “The bird circuit?”

  “The round of homosexual bars, where all the queers—even rich Broadway producers—hang out.”

  I smiled. “You’d better be extra careful then. With your looks, you’ll get more propositions than expositions.”

  Dan laughed and shook his head. “I don’t have to worry about that. If any of the birdies get too friendly, I’ll just flash my badge. They’ll straighten up and fly right.”

  “How can you be so sure?” I said, stepping over to the stove to make the coffee. “I think you’d better take me with you as a bodyguard.”

  “Thanks for the offer,” he said, chuckling, pulling an empty chair out from the kitchen table and sitting down, “but I’ll go it alone this time. You’d stick out like a sore thumb in a sea of pinkies—and sore thumbs can be the kiss of death in most homicide investigations.” He took a pack of Luckies and a book of matches out of his shirt pocket and lit up.

  I turned to face him squarely, sulking, with my arms bent at the elbows and my hands propped on my hips. “Sore thumb? Kiss of death? Have you got any other nice names you’d like to call me?” I was just teasing, of course—trying to prolong the silly quality of our conversation. If he made any serious inquiries about my day, I didn’t know what I’d say.

  “How do you feel about Fifi?” Dan replied, lounging back in his chair, stretching his muscular legs out in front of him, taking a deep drag on his cigarette and looking at me in such a way that I felt weak in the knees again. “For some strange reason, I’ve just been struck with a powerful urge to call you Fifi.” His pitch black eyes were crackling with wit and humor.

  I was so attracted to Dan at that moment I wanted to pounce on his lap and lick his face. His wonderful, sturdy, noble, scraggly face. I almost did it, too! (It seemed like a perfect way to limit the conversation and be honest at the same time.) But, when it came right down to it, I didn’t have the nerve. I was afraid Dan would think me too forward. I mean, a real lady—or even an ersatz one like me—just doesn’t do that sort of thing.

  “Fine,” I said, taking our coffees over to the table and sitting down next to Dan. “You call me Fifi and I’ll call you Francis. With a name like that, you’ll make a big splash on the bird circuit.”

  We grinned at each other for several seconds. (We would do that often, Dan and I—just sit there eye-to-eye, smiling like a couple of half-wits. I believed it was because we were both still shocked and elated that we’d found each other, but—since we had never discussed it, had never even attempted to put our true feelings into words—I can only speak for myself on that subject. I mean, I thought all that staring and smiling meant Dan really liked me—but, as mothers of googly-eyed, grinning newborns are quick to suggest, it could have just been gas.)

  When Doris Day came on the radio and started singing, “Once I had a secret love . . .” Dan and I both turned a bit bashful. The words of the hit song hit a little too close to home (for me, anyway). We stopped gazing into each other’s eyes and started drinking our coffee.

  “What was the guy’s name?” I asked, jumping to take the lead in our dialogue.

  “What guy?” Dan said.

  “The Broadway producer—the man who was killed today. ”

  “Lloyd Bradbury,” he said, “ever hear of him?”

  The name struck a distant bell. “Yes, I think so. I’ve probably seen his name in Dorothy Kilgallen’s column—“The Voice of Broadway,” in The Journal American. Maybe in Winchell’s column, too. What shows has he produced?”

  Dan gave me a suspicious look over the rim of his coffee cup. “Why do you want to know?”

  “No reason,” I said, hoping my sly and shifty expression would imply otherwise. “I’m just curious, that’s all.” (When you’ve got something really important to hide, it is, in my experience, a good ploy to pretend you’re hiding something else.)

  “Forget about it, Paige!” Dan sputtered, sitting straighter in his chair and exhaling a jet stream of Lucky fumes. “You
’re getting nothing more out of me. If you want to write a story about this murder, you’ll have to get your information from the morning paper.”

  Though Dan willingly (sometimes eagerly) told me about the new homicide cases he was working on, he was always very careful to relate just the barest of facts, to give me the same thimbleful of information he knew would soon be released to the press. And whenever I showed too much curiosity about one of his cases, he closed up like a clam. He did it partly for my protection, as I explained before, and partly for his own. Dan was dedicated to his job, and he liked to play by the rules, and as a sworn detective of the NYPD homicide squad, he wasn’t allowed to reveal any consequential details about any ongoing murder investigations to the public—and especially not to a budding crime journalist (and snoopy Agatha Christie wannabe) like me.

  “Well, you don’t have to get so snippy about it,” I said, suddenly feeling rebuffed (in spite of the fact that I’d intentionally brought the whole thing on myself). “I was just trying to show some interest in your work.” I was doing my haughtiest Maureen O’Hara now, which meant I probably looked—and sounded—a lot more like Howdy Doody. I’m not too good at haughty.

  Dan gave me a stern and piercing stare, then tilted his head back and drained his coffee cup. “Contrary to what you may have read in Ladies’ Home Journal,” he said, banging his empty cup down on the table, “I don’t need you to be interested in my work.” He crushed his cigarette in the ashtray, and rose to his feet. “What I need is for you to stop being so phony—stop pretending that you’re just being polite and sociable when what you’re really doing is pumping me for information in case you decide to write a story. It’s obnoxious and insulting,” he said, grabbing his overcoat off the chair and violently shoving first one arm, then the other, into their sleeves. “Just shows me what a patsy you must think I am.” He put on his hat and anchored it at an angry angle. Then he started for the door.

  “Wait!” I screeched, jumping out of my chair and dashing over to block his exit. “What are you doing? Are you mad at me? I didn’t mean to upset you! Please don’t leave this way!” I was behaving like a hysterical child, but I couldn’t help myself. All my acting (okay, lying) skills had been sucked right down the drain, and the only thing left was the real me. The frantic, raving, pitiful, pleading me. It’s a wonder I didn’t throw myself to the floor and wrap my arms in a hammerlock hold around his legs.

  “I’m going to work now,” Dan said, brushing past me to open the door. “We’ll discuss this at another time.”

  The tight knot of panic in my chest loosened to a ragged tangle. At least there’d be another time. “I’m really sorry, Dan,” I said. “I never meant to—”

  “Later, Paige,” he said. Then he lunged through the door and scrambled down the stairs.

  UNDER NORMAL CIRCUMSTANCES, I WOULD have closed the door and started bawling like a baby, wretched that Dan had mistaken my self-protective play-acting as an insult to his character, and ashamed of myself for even attempting to pull the wool over his honest, in sightful eyes. But the circumstances were far from normal, and I didn’t have time to wallow in remorse and self-pity. I had work to do, too! I had to hurry next door to confer with Terry and Abby about the murder, and I had to make a call to Vicki Lee Bumstead—before eleven—to see if I could dig up any new clues.

  Since it was only ten o’clock (and since I was dying for another rum and Coke), I decided to go to Abby’s first.

  “Is he conscious?” I asked as soon as she opened the door.

  “Not by a long shot,” she said, motioning me inside. “I did my best to wake him up, get him to drink some coffee, but he never even opened his eyes. For a minute I thought he was dead, but then I realized corpses don’t snore.”

  I walked over to the love seat and looked down at Terry’s senseless form. He was still lying on his back, with his legs hanging over the armrest. His lids were closed, his mouth was open, and his bright white hair gleamed against the crimson seat cushion like a cumulus cloud in a blood-red sky. I put my hand on one of his shoulders and gave it a vigorous shake. No response, so I did it again. Still nothing.

  “See what I mean?” Abby said. “The man has the reflexes of a rock. You could hose him down with ice water and he still wouldn’t move. We just have to let him sleep it off, you dig?”

  “I guess you’re right,” I said. “Do you mind?”

  “Mind what?”

  “If he stays here overnight.”

  “Are you kidding?” she said, with a devilish smirk. “I’m hoping he’ll stay much longer than that! In case you haven’t noticed, your friend Mr. Catcher is a major dreamboat. Totally transcendental! I want him to stick around for a while, do some modeling for me.”

  I knew what she meant by that. And, believe me, it wasn’t just modeling she had in mind. And I had the feeling Abby’s departure-delaying tactics would be far more effective than my own—that Terry would be staying in town for a few more days at least, bus or no bus, snow or no snow. I was glad for myself, but sorry for Terry’s father. I hoped the poor man could find somebody else to spend Christmas with.

  “I need a drink,” I said, moving into the kitchen area and sitting down at the table. “Do you have any rum left?”

  “No, but I’ve got some Scotch. Want a whiskey sour?”

  “Just Scotch and water, thanks. Lots of rocks.”

  Smiling from ear to ear, Abby danced over to the refrigerator and took a tray of ice out of the freezer. Next to painting and sex, bartending was her favorite occupation. She gave the lever on the aluminum tray a lusty yank, then loaded two glasses with the loosened cubes.

  “So, what have you found out about Whitey’s sister’s murder?” she probed, pouring the Scotch, adding the water, and happily jumping into the swing of her fourth favorite occupation: poking around in my life and spurring me on to hazardous new heights of professional (not to mention emotional) intrigue. “Do you know who did it yet?”

  I groaned out loud. As much as I loved my friend Abby and depended on her interest and support, I did not like being subjected to her often hasty and unreasonable expectations. “No, I don’t know who did it yet,” I said sarcastically, “do you?”

  “Well, no, but I’ve got a few ideas.”

  That figured.

  “Pray tell,” I said, lighting a cigarette and exhaling loudly. “But make it snappy, please. I’ve got an important phone call to make.”

  “Well, here’s the way I see it,” Abby said, breathlessly toting our drinks over to the table and flopping down in a flutter. Her stupendously beautiful face was glowing with the thrill of the chase. “Whoever murdered Judy was after the diamonds!”

  I don’t know about you, but I found this to be a somewhat less than brilliant deduction.

  “Of course the killer was after the diamonds!” I sputtered, disappointed in her simple theory. “That goes without saying! The question we need to answer is, who was after the diamonds? Was it Judy’s closest confidante and short-of-cash, bingo-playing next-door neighbor, or the penniless, dog-loving poet she threw over because he had too many other girlfriends, or the well-to-do, married older man who was paying the rent on her apartment and may have bought her all the jewelry in the first place? Was it Judy’s greedy, oversexed, violently spurned landlord, or the devious, down-and-out ex-roommate whose hair she ripped out by the roots? Or did Judy have a brand new boyfriend—a man who may, for all we know, have participated in some big diamond heist, and then coerced his malleable new girlfriend to hide his take in her apartment, and then shot her in the heart when she got scared and wanted to turn the loot over to the police?”

  (Okay, okay! So I was stretching things a bit now, but I only did it to make a point—a salient and, I believe, legitimate point: that I was the one who had been doing all the homework here, and if anybody deserved to get a good grade on this test, it was me.)

  “It was the well-to-do, married older man who bought her the jewelry in the first place,�
�� Abby declared, unimpressed, totally ignoring my sarcasm and bid for distinction. “The richer they are, the deeper the killer instinct, you dig? I bet his wife found out about his pretty young plaything, and about all the pretty trinkets he’d bought for her, and I bet she threatened to haul him into divorce court and sue his playful pinstriped pants off—unless he ditched his little dolly and got all the diamonds back.”

  “That could be true,” I said, so eager to talk to somebody about Judy’s murder that I stopped competing with Abby and teamed up with her instead, “but I don’t think he would have had to kill her to get the jewelry back. From everything I’ve learned about Judy so far, all he would have had to do was ask her for it. Judy wasn’t looking for diamonds, she was just looking for love.”

  “Some girls get the two mixed up,” Abby said, raking her fingers through her wild black hair and tying it back in a ponytail with her red chiffon neckerchief. “Who is this rich guy anyway? Do you know his name?”

  “I know his fake name,” I told her. “It’s Gregory Smith.”

  “How did you get that name, and how do you know it’s fake?”

  “I went to Judy’s apartment building on my lunch hour today, and I had a little chat with her manly-but-motherly next-door neighbor, Elsie Londergan. Elsie told me about Judy’s sugar daddy and gave me his alias. I think she just assumed it’s a phony name because of the Smith.”

  “Does Whitey know who this rooster is?”

  “I don’t think so, but I can’t say for sure. I haven’t had a chance to ask him yet. He’s been a little—how shall I put it?—under the weather.” The sarcasm slithered back into my tone with a stubborn will of its own.

  Abby still paid it no mind. “Are there a lot of G. Smiths in the phone book?”