by Nancy Martin
“Yeah,” he said, scratching his head and squinting at my shirt to make sense of what it said. “Of course. What time is it? The preview ran long last night, and then we had notes.”
“Notes?”
Bridget pushed past Fred and strode into the house. “Notes are when the director tells everybody what they did wrong.” She spun on her heel and tilted up into Fred’s sleepy face. “Isn’t that right, handsome?”
He woke up fast. “Uh, right.”
“How did everybody do? Boom Boom was a big blue bust, wasn’t she?”
Uneasily, Fred said, “There’s room for improvement. But that’s what rehearsals are for.”
“Hm.” Bridget tapped her toe while giving Fred a long once-over. “You got any Twizzlers around the house, Fred?”
“Twizzlers? The candy? Uh, no.”
“There’s nothing like a Twizzler first thing in the morning. Except for one thing.”
She grabbed Fred by the ascot and began pulling him in the direction of the cast’s wing of the house. Obviously, Bridget knew her way around the Tuttle mansion. Fred followed her like a gangly wolfhound on a short leash.
I said to their disappearing backs, “Maybe I’ll go look in on Boom Boom.”
Bridget waved over her shoulder and kept going. I went up the staircase and found Boom Boom’s room. I knocked, didn’t hear a response, but decided to enter anyway.
The bedroom was empty. Boom Boom wasn’t in the bathroom, either. I went to the window and peered down onto the terrace. There, on a lounge chair, Boom Boom lay sunning herself. At least, I assumed it was Boom Boom. I recognized her turban. She was completely wrapped in a bathrobe with a towel on her head, covering her face. A tall glass containing some amber-colored beverage stood on the table beside her. Boom Boom didn’t move. She was probably exhausted after a night of ruining my grandmother’s good name. I considered grabbing the nearest lamp and throwing it down at her.
But I refrained. Instead, I snooped through the collection of prescription bottles on her bedside table. There were so many—all with names of medications I didn’t recognize—that surely anyone would have a hard time keeping them straight. I wondered how easily anyone living in the house could come into this room and steal a few pills without Boom Boom missing them.
Very easily.
I perched on the edge of the chair at the makeup mirror and pondered. Why had the nurse died? If someone laced her cake with a medication—who might have had a motive to do it? To shut her up, maybe? Or to punish her for killing Jenny? Had the nurse been part of a plan to kill Jenny? And had she died for it?
I heard raised voices from downstairs and went out onto the landing. I peered over the banister and saw Poppy Fontanna. She was wearing a set of striped pajamas that matched those Fred had had on. Poppy had tied a kerchief around her head, and it made her look like Rosie the Riveter in the old propaganda poster. She held a skillet in two hands like a tennis racquet.
“I step out of the bedroom to make him some pancakes, and this is what happens? You stay away from Fred, you crazy maniac!” she cried in her baby voice. “Get out and don’t come back!”
In high heels, Bridget stood almost a foot taller than Poppy. “If you had what it takes to keep your man, he wouldn’t come after me.”
“He wasn’t looking for you! He was minding his own business!” Poppy was panting with exertion. “Now, go away!”
“You’re just scared I can beat you out of your role,” Bridget taunted.
“I am not, you—you amateur!” Poppy lunged forward and managed to swat Bridget across her backside with the skillet. “I’m not letting anybody grab that role away from me—not you, not anybody! I’m done playing second banana!”
I headed downstairs to intervene. “Ladies, please!”
“You again,” Poppy snapped at me. “Back to do more damage with your poison pen? I read the review in this morning’s paper. Thanks for nothing.”
“I didn’t write anything for this morning’s paper.”
“Oh, no? Then who butchered Bluebird before we even got the show on its feet? Wait till Boom Boom reads the review. She’ll have you fired.”
I pointed at the French doors. “She’s out on the terrace. Let’s go see what she has to say.”
Everyone trooped out through the French doors. I followed as quickly as I could manage. By the time I got outside, Poppy had ripped the towel and the bathrobe off Boom Boom. Except Boom Boom wasn’t there. What I had assumed was the old woman’s sleeping body turned out to be a carefully constructed human form fashioned out of throw pillows.
“Where’s Boom Boom?” Poppy shrieked with all the drama of a star in the spotlight.
“She’s probably having breakfast,” Fred said, putting his arm around Poppy to calm her.
“Or she’s upstairs sleeping,” Bridget supplied. “Jeez, calm down.”
“Boom Boom’s not upstairs,” I reported. “But she can’t have gone far. Not in the shape she’s in. When was the last time anyone saw her?”
Fred said, “Last night, taking a curtain call. Except the audience had already left the theater. She’s so blind she was bowing and throwing kisses to empty seats while the rest of us tried to figure out how to escape out the back without getting rotten fruit thrown at us.”
Bridget grinned. “The show was a bomb, huh? I coulda told you that.”
I said, “Did Boom Boom come home with the rest of you?”
“I wish she had,” Poppy said bitterly. “We could have tossed the old blue broad over a bridge in the dark and been rid of her for good.”
“So . . . where is she?” Bridget asked.
“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” Poppy snapped, jutting her chin.
Bridget gave me a stink eye. “I have a bad feeling about this, babycakes.”
I had a bad feeling, too. And not just because of Poppy’s overheated acting.
We went out the front door just ahead of the cast-iron pan Poppy threw after us. It clanged on the sidewalk and bounced down the steps with a sound like church bells. Bridget jumped behind the wheel without opening the car door. I barely made it to the convertible by the time Bridget was revving the engine.
She floored the accelerator, and we shot down the driveway. I got my seat belt fastened just as we hit the road and took off like a bullet.
Bridget turned to me, blue gaze delighted. “How about that Fontanna girl? She’s a piece of work, huh? I like her!”
“Eyes on the road, please!”
Bridget obeyed and slowed to the speed limit. “She’s got a killer instinct, doesn’t she? My money’s on her for murdering Jenny. Who else could get mad enough to kill somebody?”
“She’s certainly mad right now.”
“Want to hear what I learned from Fred about the mystery investor? Yesterday Boom Boom announced that he died! She claimed he choked on a chicken bone and died.”
“So Boom Boom really made him up. There is no mystery investor.”
“Boom Boom had everybody snowed.”
“She pretended to have a big investor so they could lure others into putting their money into the show. Question is, was it just Boom Boom’s plan? Or were they all in on the fraud? And,” I said, “maybe they were all in on the murders, too.”
“Jeez,” said Bridget, delighted. “You’ve got quite a criminal mind, haven’t you?”
On the way home, Bridget sang show tunes at the top of her lungs.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
She dropped me at Blackbird Farm and resisted all my efforts to get her to stay for breakfast. Or to call the police and turn herself in. She seemed completely unaffected by the idea of Michael languishing in jail while she avoided an interrogation.
“Why won’t she answer a few simple questions?” Libby demanded. “In my experience, talking to the police can sometimes be very ple
asant.”
I couldn’t contain my exasperation. “I can only guess she must have something to hide.”
I noticed Libby was packing a selection of my magazines into her handbag while Max whimpered from the safety of the high chair. Noah was on the floor, trying his darnedest to pull himself to an upright position and climb up to Max to torment him. He had a raptorlike gleam in his eyes.
To Libby, I said, “Can’t you stay for lunch?”
Libby shook her head. “I think Max has had enough tension for one day. I’m taking him home before Noah gives him some kind of inferiority complex. You should try some socialization techniques with that boy, Nora. Before he needs a serious psychological intervention for his aggression.”
I thought Noah looked quite happy. He gave me a big grin while making a grab for Max’s dangling foot. Max shrieked with panic.
“Besides,” Libby said, “I need time to process a few wedding ideas. You know, to formulate a creative plan. You want your wedding to be memorable, right? Well, I’m the girl for that job!”
“Libby, we’re hoping for a quiet wedding, just family and—”
“Nonsense! You’ll regret a quiet wedding—take it from me. My second wedding was a complete disappointment. I have always been sorry I decided against the jugglers.”
I needed time to formulate a better argument if I was going to win this battle. Or I could count on Libby getting distracted by something else. She had the attention span of a hummingbird. There was no telling where she might decide to devote her considerable energies. I plucked up Noah, and we walked outside, where Lucy had occupied herself by climbing a tree to keep a lookout for pirates. Libby coaxed her down and herded both children to her minivan. I waved good-bye.
I bent down and picked up a green pepper from the garden. Noah threw it after Max.
Noah and I had lunch, and I put him down for a nap. While he crooned to himself in the crib, I took a phone call from Armand Cannoli.
“Sorry, Nora,” he said. “The police are keeping Mick a little longer. I’m working on his release, but they can hold him for twenty-four hours without charges.”
“That means he won’t be released until tonight?” I checked my watch and tried not to panic. I needed to get to work in a few hours.
“Looks that way,” Cannoli said. “Unless you know the whereabouts of his mother?”
“She was just here. But she took off. I don’t know where she was headed.”
“Next time you see her, call 911, okay?”
We signed off, and I sat for a moment, trying to stay calm and to think of whom I could ask to babysit Noah while I went to work.
I got on the phone and quickly understood why so many of my women friends went into hysterical rants when talking about the difficulties of finding child care. I scrolled through my address book and made call after call. Libby was busy. Rawlins had taken his girlfriend on a picnic and could not be raised. Assorted neighborhood friends either didn’t answer or had good excuses. As the clock ticked, I found myself feeling more and more desperate. With Michael in jail, I was in big trouble. I realized we were definitely going to need in-house help when the babies arrived.
As a last resort, I called Emma and caught her eating lunch after a long morning of working with Cookie.
She crunched salad in my ear. “In jail, huh?”
“Michael has not been arrested. He’s just being held for questioning.”
“Either way, that’s what he gets for being mean to his brother.”
“Neither one of them was exactly big on brotherly kindness.”
“Whatever. I’m not babysitting.”
“Emma, I’m desperate.”
“I’ll pick you up and take you to work, but that’s all I’m doing.”
“What do I do with Noah?”
“Take him with you. Or call in sick. Lots of people do when their sitters cancel.”
“Not anybody who works for Gus Hardwicke.”
She arrived early at Blackbird Farm, and she checked on her ponies while I struggled to put Noah’s car seat into her pickup truck. A hand-me-down stroller went into the back of the truck, and I stowed a diaper bag loaded down with all the things I hoped would help me survive any child-related catastrophe. I had thrown on a stretchy maternity dress and ballet flats—purely functional clothes. I added a large garden-party hat—complete with ribbons and a big poof of feathers on one side. Noah was fascinated by the hat.
On the drive into Philadelphia, Emma and I soon reached the conclusion that we could not discuss the Abruzzo brothers without fighting. Noah played with his toes and sang to himself.
“He’s a cute kid,” Emma said. “But I’m not going to take care of him.”
“You looked after Libby’s twins when they were his age.”
“And look how that turned out. Do you know they’re working on a cadaver this summer? They’ve even given it a name—Kanye. They have a cadaver for a friend!”
“Someday, think how good that’s going to look on a medical school application.”
“Or a court order.” Emma shook her head firmly. “I don’t have a good influence on kids.”
“You underestimate yourself.”
“I’ll wait until he can walk and talk. And order from the kids’ menu.”
“That’s almost exactly what Bridget O’Halloran said.”
Emma asked me to describe Michael’s mother, and I told her what I had observed about her—including her penchant for leopard print, her mercurial temper and her habit of pushing people’s buttons just to watch their reaction. But also her sense of humor and her tenacity.
“She’s a handful,” I said when I had listed all her good and bad points.
“Is she a hooker?” Emma asked, as blunt as ever. “Frank says she’s a call girl. At her age, that’s pretty impressive.”
It took me a while to decide how to answer the question. “She sees a lot of men. And she has expensive taste in cars and clothes and jewelry that somebody indulges. But that doesn’t mean she’s a call girl. Does it?”
My little sister shrugged. “How come you didn’t ask her to babysit?”
“Because I’m not crazy,” I said at once. “There’s no way she’s going to ever look after our children. You should have seen the way she punched Michael the other day.”
“I hear he’s pretty good with a punch when it’s called for, too. That doesn’t make him a bad dad.”
“She’s not babysitter material. Trust me on that.”
Emma pulled up in front of the Fu Manchu restaurant, and I climbed out of the truck. My abandonment sent Noah into a weeping fit. With his cries ringing in my ears, I left my hat on the passenger seat and trundled up the narrow stairs to Krissie Wong’s apartment. She had my dresses ready, and I paid her quickly.
I said, “Would you like me to take Jenny Tuttle’s dresses, too?”
“Oh, I should have told you,” Krissie replied. “I ended up sending them with the Bluebird of Happiness costumes. That little lady took them—Poppy was her name. She was much nicer this time. She even brought me a loaf of banana bread. She said she baked it herself.”
“She did?” Last I’d heard, Poppy was saying Fred was the baker. Now she was baking for Krissie? Which was the truth? Thinking the cake might be laced with diet pills, I said, “Just to be on the safe side, maybe you shouldn’t eat that bread.”
“You think I’m crazy?” Krissie asked with a grin. “I never eat anything clients bring to me. I live over a restaurant, remember? I’m real fussy when it comes to sanitation.”
I returned to the truck and gave Noah his binky to calm him down. At the Pendergast Building, Emma helped me get the stroller out and opened up. Noah seemed mildly interested in her, but he was happy to be in my arms as we waved good-bye and headed inside. He wanted nothing to do with the stroller, so I held him. W
ith a struggle, I dragged the stroller and my dresses and the baby through the security checkpoints. Both guards made a fuss over Noah. He was a big hit with the other passengers in the elevator, too.
When we arrived in the newsroom, Gus looked up from the desk where he was conferring with one of the crime reporters.
“No,” he said as soon as his stormy gaze fell on Noah. “No kids, not ever. This isn’t a nursery school, it’s a place of business.”
Left-handed, Noah pulled out his binky and threw it at Gus. It hit Gus’s tie and left a splotch of drool on the silk.
“This wouldn’t happen,” I said while Gus glared at his tie, “if we had an on-site day-care center.” I hung up my dresses on the edge of the partition between the City desk and the Lifestyle cubicles.
“We have no money for a day-care center. Now, get that troll out of here.”
Mary Jude hotfooted it over to us from her desk. “Ooh, a baby! Nora, he’s beautiful! Can I hold him?”
“Give it to her,” Gus said. “And meet me in my office.” He turned on his heel and walked away.
Noah’s face puckered when I handed him over to Mary Jude, but she was ready with an apple slice. He grabbed it, intrigued. “I was just having my snack,” she said to me. “We’ll share. What’s his name? Whose baby is he?”
I took off my hat and left it on my desk. “His name is Noah. And—well, he’s the baby my sister gave up last winter.”
“So why is he with you?”
“Good question,” I said.
Gus barked my name from his office door, so I left Noah in Mary Jude’s arms and obeyed his summons.
He closed the door, still holding out his tie and glowering at the spot on it. “Have you considered the job offer I extended to you?”
“I’m still considering it.”
“You discussed it with your thug?”
“Michael and I talked, yes. He thinks you have another motive besides my career advancement.”
Gus dropped his tie back into place and smoothed it. “I hear he’s in jail.”
I should have known Gus would have his ear to the ground where Michael was concerned. He had staffers who listened to police scanners all the time. Half the Intelligencer’s crime stories came directly from the radio.