A Crazy Little Thing Called Death

by Nancy Martin

  “I’m sorry, Jacqueline.” My heart went out to her. “Why don’t we get together for lunch someday soon?”

  Before she could answer, we were jostled by the rambunctious crowd, then separated entirely.

  In a matter of minutes, I came upon Crewe’s mother—an unlikely guest at such a party.

  Karen Dearborne’s thin face was strained as she stood clutching her Chanel quilted handbag in front of her functional blue suit. Her hair—thinning, but still a determined shade of blond—was contained by the same black ribbon headband she’d worn for years. A double string of pearls did a good job of camouflaging the wrinkles around her throat. Best known for being afraid of catching germs, Karen also wore her trademark pair of old-fashioned white kid gloves.

  “Hello, Karen.”

  “Nora,” she said. “How nice to see you.”

  Her tone said otherwise, but I smiled. “And you, Karen. I had dinner with Crewe Sunday evening.”

  “Did you?”

  I could have mentioned that her son had come to my house to plot a criminal conspiracy, but instead we made meaningless small talk about Crewe and his eating habits and his devotion to exercise, all the while trying to ignore the bacchanal around us.

  At last I decided to seize the bull by the horns before we were separated. “Karen,” I said, “I’m very concerned about the Devine family. I don’t know if you’ve heard today’s news.”

  She stiffened. “I try to ignore the news. I’m sorry to say so, Nora, because I know you’re related to those people. But I never liked them. Penny especially. She was a very crude woman.”

  “The police are starting to dig into whether or not Penny had any children. I wonder if you—”

  Karen paled. “I have nothing to say in the matter. It has nothing to do with us anymore. Topper was adamant about that.”

  She rushed away from me, but collided with a busboy’s tray full of dirty dishes and glassware. A plate overturned and slid off the tray, ricocheting off her skirt before hitting the floor near her shoe. Gooey bits of deviled egg smeared her clothing.

  Instinctively, I pulled out my handkerchief to help clean up the mess, but Karen took one look at my crumpled, tear-soaked hankie and recoiled as if it contained plague spores.

  “Sorry,” I said, and reached for a handful of cocktail napkins from the bar. I handed them to her. “Karen, was Topper the father of Penny’s child?”

  Karen glared at me. “How do you know that?”

  “I don’t, but there are tests that prove whose DNA is whose. Eventually, someone’s going to figure it out.”

  Alabaster pale, she bent to clean the worst of the egg from her skirt. “Why does anybody need to know? It’s been a secret all these years, and Topper paid every dime that woman asked for! He financed that boy’s life from the very beginning and never asked to see him once.”

  “Never—? Karen, who are you talking about?”

  Crewe’s mother gave up cleaning herself and threw the dirty napkins on the bar. “That woman never wanted him around, and when she found a home for him, Topper paid. He paid until the boy was twenty-one, which was more than fair.”

  “Who? What boy?”

  “How should I know? Penny gave the child away! To servants, she said. To people she trusted. And she sent Topper’s money to them so they could raise him properly. I have no idea who the child is.”

  But I knew. Suddenly I understood Kell Huckabee had been Penny’s illegitimate child. Not Crewe, but Kell, who had grown up as the child of employees at Eagle Glen. Crewe’s altercation had been with his own half brother.

  Karen was no longer shaken, but angry now. She glared at me. “I don’t know what kind of person you’ve become, Nora, but you’re nothing like your grandmother. She was a great lady, and I’m sure she’d be embarrassed about how you’ve turned out. You’ve utterly ruined your family’s good reputation by consorting with that—that shady character.”

  Karen walked away, dodging contact with other women as she headed for the door.

  I decided I’d seen and heard enough, too. I gave Karen a head start, then followed her out into the street.

  “Where to next?” Reed asked, clearly relieved to see I wasn’t bawling.

  Although I wanted nothing more than a trip home, I gave him directions to one of the city’s most elegant hotels. I stared out the window at the stores and restaurants we passed along Walnut Street, and wondered if I’d ever walk into my old haunts again without people whispering. Was my reputation dying at that very moment?

  Reed dropped me at the hotel and promised he’d be waiting nearby when I was ready for him to pick me up again. With his cell phone number memorized by now, I went into the hotel.

  The charity dinner was one of those swishy affairs for “fogies and farts,” my father used to call the aristocratic crowd—with long gowns for the women and evening clothes optional for gentlemen. Old jewelry that probably spent most of its time in vaults sparkled on elderly throats and arthritic wrists and fingers. I looked around and decided that if the guests donated as much money as their ancestors had spent on diamonds, the charity could probably quintuple its annual budget.

  The cocktail hour was well under way, with solemn waiters in uniform carrying drinks and extravagant nibbles on Lucite trays. A pianist, hidden on a balcony above us, played lively Gershwin, barely audible over the hum of cultured voices. Small knots of guests strolled around, meeting and greeting.

  I took a deep breath and plunged in.

  “Nora.” A slim, silver-haired matron in a stunning voluminous skirt suitable for a presentation at the Court of St. James’s looked startled to see me. “What a surprise.”

  “Hello, Carol.” I had already taken my notepad from my bag. “The party looks wonderful. I know you’re on the committee. Can you tell me about the decorations? For my column?”

  Carol Hamilton, chairwoman extraordinaire, and a tastemaker in the city’s most conservative circles, held a slender glass of champagne before her and allowed five ticks of her watch to go by before she managed to find a proper response. “Yes, of course, dear. Why don’t I send you into the dining room to have an early look for yourself? Peaches and Petals did the flowers. They’re still doing final touches. I’m sure they’ll have all the details.”

  Carol was the mother of one of my good school friends, and I’d spent many an adolescent night under her roof, even traveling to their Bermuda home a few times for holidays. I had been made to feel like one of the family, especially during the years when my parents misbehaved.

  But now Carol looked through me to an oncoming guest, clearly asking me to step aside and make way for someone she preferred to be seen talking to. I realized that the murder of Torchy Pescara had already hit the five o’clock newscast. The whole city probably knew that Michael was the prime suspect in a gangland killing.

  My face warm, I slipped into the hotel ballroom in search of the florist.

  Forty tables had been decorated with swoops of pink linen and centerpieces that were six feet tall—great poufs of pink and yellow flowers exploding from the tops of tall glass vases balanced at the base by thick pads of moss dotted with elaborately painted eggs and butterflies. It was spring in full bloom, with huge clouds of white chiffon suspended from the ceiling. Around the perimeter of the room, six waterfalls sent streams of water cascading over artfully arranged umbrellas. The effect was astonishingly beautiful.

  Instead of the genius florist, I found the banquet captain, Joe Carmello, who managed all the big benefit dinners at the hotel and often provided insider information to use in the newspaper. He was a barrel of a man, hardworking and always calm even during the maelstrom of an extravagant event.

  But Joe’s expression slackened when he caught sight of me. “Miss Blackbird! I was hoping to catch you before the dinner service starts.”

  He had been calling me Nora for six months, but now we were back to formal names.

  He drew a folded piece of paper from his jacket pocke
t—the notes he made for himself before every event. He lifted his bifocals from the chain around his neck and consulted the paper with a frown. “We’ve had the usual last-minute rush of cancellations and additions to the guest list. The committee was forced to change the seating arrangements. You don’t mind, do you? I’ve found a spot for you at Table Twenty.”

  The dreaded Table Twenty. Hidden in an alcove, it was better known as Social Siberia—the place to hide guests known for getting drunk, who embarrassed their friends with lewd talk or who just plain didn’t belong.

  “Thank you, Joe,” I said with all my composure. “But I’m afraid I’m going to upset your applecart again. I can’t stay. I’m just here to get a few quotes, and then I must dash.”

  Joe’s honest face could not hide his relief. “I’m sorry to hear that. We’re serving a delicious veal with pesto-stuffed mushrooms this evening. But I’m sure you’re busy.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I—Joe, wait a minute. This is an odd question, but can you tell me where the hotel buys its veal?”

  Accustomed to all kinds of bizarre inquires about the hotel, the service, the food, the wine, Joe didn’t bat an eye. He said, “Of course. We acquire our meats from high-end sources, usually organic farms. Our lamb, for instance, is flown in from Virginia. The veal comes from a gentleman in upstate New York—very high quality. I’ll e-mail you the information.”

  “Thank you. Have you always used the upstate New York farmer? I mean, have you ever considered a local source? Kell Huckabee, for instance?”

  Joe frowned. A man who prided himself on keeping all important details in his head, he nodded. “I remember that name. Did he approach me once? Yes, I believe so, last summer. He wanted the hotel to try his product, but he could not provide the quantity we require. We serve a great deal of veal at our special events. He was just getting started and didn’t have enough supply.”

  I did not ask more. Instead, I thanked Joe, excused myself and headed back to the cocktail party. There, an Intelligencer photographer—a petite woman named Jeanie, who often met me at society parties—was already taking pictures of the well dressed. As I consulted with her, I noticed the crowd edging away from us. Unusual, because normally partygoers wanted to have their photos taken for the newspaper.

  It was me they were avoiding, however, not Jeanie.

  She said, “I’ve already taken a dozen shots of dresses. What else do you want?”

  “Some members of the committee. See that woman in silver?” I pointed out Carol, who had studiously avoided catching my eye.

  “Sure.” Jeanie glanced up at me, curious that I didn’t lead the way. “Want me to approach her?”

  “That would be nice,” I said.

  I stood back, making murmured suggestions to Jeanie, who followed my directions to organize some important donors to pose for pictures. I knew charities relied on such advertising to encourage more people to give to their cause, so I forced myself to choose wisely among the many guests who mingled nearby.

  When we’d snapped several more photographs, Jeanie said she had another stop to make before the evening was over. I decided I’d seen enough, too, and we went out to the street together. We waved good night and I paused to root in my bag for my cell phone.

  Three taxis pulled up in front of the hotel in quick succession, and Lexie Paine got out of the second one, alone.

  She wore a slim midnight blue dress with a diamond choker. A white wrap trimmed in rabbit fur slipped down one bare shoulder. She was clearly on her way to the charity dinner. But she saw me and headed straight over. Her face was stricken with sympathy.

  “Sweetie!” She grabbed me hard in a hug. “I just saw the news. Are you okay?”

  “No,” I said, teetering on the edge of control.

  “Oh, honey, I feel so terrible for you! Is Michael—? Has he been arrested? The news report said he’s the prime suspect in that ghastly shooting this morning. You must be devastated.”

  “This morning Michael was discharged from the hospital. He couldn’t possibly have killed anyone.”

  I gave her the short version of what I knew about the murder of Torchy Pescara there on the sidewalk under the hotel marquee. Lexie listened closely, making sympathetic noises as I outlined what had happened with Michael since I’d seen her.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I said miserably. “I’m exhausted and upset and—and—the thing is, Lex, I don’t want to go home.” It was wrong, I knew, but I didn’t want to hear Michael’s explanation of the killing.

  Lexie understood. “Oh, sweetie. Let’s go to my place.” She put her arm around my shoulder. “Let me whisk you away. I wanted to skip this stupid dinner anyway.”

  I tried to rub the tension from my forehead. “I know Michael’s innocent. I do. But—oh, Lex! Sometimes I think we’re so different—and I—I can’t understand why his life has to be the way he’s made it.”

  My friend pulled me to the curb. “Let’s get a cab. We can be at my house in a few minutes. Then you can have a good cry.”

  “We don’t need a cab. Reed is right around the corner. I’ll call him.”

  I opened my cell phone and found the small screen blinking. I had turned off the ring tone while I was at the party, and someone had tried to reach me. “Oh, damn, I’ve got messages. Six.”

  “Who from?”

  I clicked through the screens to check. “Four from home. Two from Libby.”

  “Do you think there’s some kind of emergency?”

  No. Michael had tried to call me from the house, I guessed. To explain, perhaps, or to ask me to come home so we could talk rationally about the murder of Torchy Pescara. And heaven only knew what Libby wanted to talk about. Maybe she’d found a deal on marijuana nosegays for the wedding.

  My thumb froze on the keypad of the phone.

  “Don’t return the calls,” Lexie said, seeing my hesitation. “Not if you don’t want to hear what they have to say.”

  I stowed the cell phone in my handbag again, and we walked around the corner. A whole line of limousines and chauffeur-driven cars stretched for the next three blocks—illegally parked, but nobody seemed to care. Most of the drivers were standing on the corner talking together beneath a streetlamp. We walked a block before we found Reed sitting behind the wheel of the town car, diligently reading a book by the light of a small flashlight.

  He jumped, startled, and dropped his book when I tapped on the window. He scrambled out of the car.

  “Reed, this is my friend Lexie Paine.”

  “Hello, Reed.” Lexie surprised Reed by shaking his hand.

  “We’d like to go to Lexie’s house. On—”

  “I know where it is,” he said, regaining his usual testiness. He helped us into the backseat.

  When we pulled into the street and made a right turn into the flow of traffic, Lexie said, “Do you want to talk? Or should I divert you? Take your mind off your troubles?”

  I leaned my head back against the seat to avoid the glare of oncoming headlights. I felt enormously tired, but I was glad for a diversion. “Divert away, please.”

  On the dark seat between us, she dropped a beaded evening bag in the shape of a dolphin. “I did some checking. This is all off the record, of course. I’m in violation of a terrifying number of regulations by telling you any of this, but I know you’ll use it only for your own reasons. And you’ll have to find a secondary way of confirming the information.” Lexie glanced at the back of Reed’s head, the universal sign that he should close his ears. “My firm manages some investments for a certain pharmaceutical baron.”

  Potty Devine, I thought, and I straightened.

  She nodded at my unspoken comprehension. “I discovered he’d been withdrawing large sums of money from his accounts over the last two years.”

  “How large?”

  “More than his living expenses should be. But not enough to purchase any significant stock or real estate. Usually, there’s something to show for cashing in investments like
that. In this case, however, the money simply disappeared. I’ve seen the same pattern before, remember? Last year when another of my clients was being blackmailed.”

  I nodded. “I remember. Exactly how much money are we talking?”

  “Escalating amounts. Starting with five thousand, then ten, finally twenty-five thousand dollars. As time goes on, I’ve noticed the average blackmailer gets greedier. Last autumn, he withdrew nearly fifty grand.”

  I wondered whether the amounts were similar to the payments Crewe Dearborne had made to Kell Huckabee.

  “But get this,” Lexie went on. “There must have been a glitch. My pharmaceutical gentleman redeposited that fifty thousand just a couple of days later.”

  “In October or November?”

  “Yes, November. How did you know?”

  Potty claimed he’d fired Kell Huckabee in November, I thought. Which meant Kell could have blackmailed Potty earlier in the fall.

  Had Kell blackmailed Potty as well as Crewe? Had Potty redeposited the money because he knew Kell wasn’t around to accept his blackmail payment? Because he knew Kell was already dead?

  “This is significant,” Lexie said, watching me connect the dots. “Isn’t it?”

  “It’s possible that the blackmailer died between the time your client withdrew the money and put it back again.”

  “Good Lord.” Lexie drew her wrap closer around her shoulders. “You don’t think the silly old man could have actually murdered somebody?”

  “If he was being pressured by a blackmailer, yes.”

  “Tell me, why would anyone blackmail my pharmaceutical gentleman? I thought it must have been one of his girlfriends. But his love life isn’t a secret he wants to keep, is it? In fact, the old fool is damn proud of his sex life.”

  “A man by the name of Kell Huckabee was an employee at the estate for many years. In addition to the work he did for the family, it seems he made a few extra bucks selling MaxiMan in gay nightclubs.”

  Lexie raised one brow. “Where did he get his supply?”

  “He had to get it from an insider. A very inside insider. If I had to guess, I’d say his source was your pharmaceutical gentleman. Who is still very free with his samples, I must say.”