Murder, She Reported

by Peg Cochran

  Elizabeth tentatively picked hers up and nibbled on the end.

  “This is delicious,” she said as she took a larger bite.

  The pastry was crunchy and sweet, the cream filling cool and delicious.

  Marino threw back his head and laughed. “I knew you would like it.”

  By the time they finished their pastries and coffee and Elizabeth was back on the street, with bright sunlight forcing her to squint as her eyes became adjusted to the light. She felt as if she’d been on a sensory journey the likes of which she hadn’t even known existed.

  And it wasn’t just the food, she realized as Marino hailed a taxi and tucked her inside. It was Marino himself—the way he attacked life, both the good parts and the bad parts—with gusto. Elizabeth knew she would never forget the experience.

  She also knew that it was unlikely there would ever be a next time.

  * * *

  —

  Kaminsky was in the newsroom when Elizabeth got back. He had his feet on his desk and was hidden behind that day’s edition of the Daily Trumpet. Occasional puffs of smoke rose above the top edge of the newspaper.

  Elizabeth had barely sat down when she heard Kaminsky call her name. She got up and walked over to him.

  “So you had lunch with Detective Marino. Learn anything interesting?”

  She’d learned lots of interesting things, Elizabeth thought—what sharp cheese and salami taste like, how to eat spaghetti, what a cannoli is, the fact that Marino was even more attractive than she originally thought.

  “Don’t worry. I covered for you with Estelle and the boss. Said you were out taking pictures for a story.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it.” Kaminsky laid the paper, which was folded back to the Sports section, down on his desk and stabbed his index finger at a large black-and-white photograph that took up a quarter of the page.

  “There’s our girl Gloria,” he said, turning his head and exhaling a cloud of smoke.

  Elizabeth peered over his shoulder. Gloria was standing with a glossy brown horse that had a ribbon affixed to its bridle.

  “It looks as if the DeWitts’ horse won something.”

  “Yeah,” Kaminsky said. “The four-forty-five at Aqueduct. It paid two to one.”

  “I didn’t know you were a racing fan.”

  Kaminsky shrugged and swung his legs down off his desk. “I don’t mind placing a bet now and then.” He peered at the photograph again. “The trainer looks happy.” He tapped the young man standing in the background of the photograph.

  Elizabeth took a closer look. “That’s Teddy O’Doyle.”

  “I didn’t know you were a racing fan,” Kaminsky said with a smirk.

  “Funny. Very funny.” Elizabeth smacked him on the arm.

  “Now, that’s interesting. Does she fancy herself to be in love, do you think? Or was she thumbing her nose at her stepmother? Because I don’t imagine that would have sat well with Mrs. DeWitt.”

  “Maybe both?” Elizabeth said.

  “Killing two birds with one stone.” Kaminsky folded the paper back up. “What if this Teddy took it the wrong way? Here he thinks he’s got the heiress to the DeWitt fortune falling in love with him.” Kaminsky rocked his chair back on two legs and spread his hands out in front of him. “He can see the whole picture—marriage, an easy life as the husband of a rich woman. Fancy cars, boats, horses. It would be quite a comedown to discover little Miss Gloria was only playing with him.” He let the chair fall back into place. “Or, worse—maybe the evil stepmother burst his bubble and made it clear that this rosy future would never be his, so there was only one thing for him to do….”

  “Kill her.”

  * * *

  —

  The fatigue Elizabeth felt earlier, which had dissipated during the excitement of investigating the death of the prostitute and lunch with Marino, returned in full force as Elizabeth sat at her typewriter typing up Estelle’s column. She didn’t dare allow her eyes to close—if Estelle caught her dozing off again, she’d be fired for sure.

  The door to Estelle’s office squeaked open. A feeling of dread settled over Elizabeth as she waited for Estelle to approach her desk.

  Estelle wrinkled her nose. Elizabeth thought it made her look like a rabbit—a very cross one.

  “What is that atrocious smell?” Estelle said, sniffing the air.

  Elizabeth, her nose filled with the scent of Estelle’s liberal application of Tabu, could smell nothing out of the ordinary.

  “It smells like food,” Estelle said, her head tilted and her hand on her chin. “It smells like garlic,” she announced as triumphantly as a quiz show host announcing the winner. “Have you been eating garlic?” She fixed Elizabeth with a penetrating stare.

  Elizabeth opened her mouth, but little more than a squeak came out.

  “Surely you know that Emily Post considers it terribly gauche to eat garlic when one is going to be around other people?”

  Elizabeth had no idea what to say so she kept her mouth shut and tried her best to look contrite.

  Estelle flounced away and Elizabeth breathed a sigh of relief. Did she really smell that dreadful? The food at Angelo’s had been so delicious, and she didn’t regret eating it one bit.

  The telephone rang and she heard Kaminsky answer it. She didn’t pay much attention to the conversation—it was unlikely she would be rescued from her dreary task twice in one day.

  “Biz, grab your hat and let’s go.”

  Elizabeth turned around. Kaminsky was already donning his own hat and coat and had his hand on the door to the newsroom.

  She jumped up, grabbed her camera, purse, coat and hat and followed Kaminsky to the elevator.

  “What is it this time?” Elizabeth asked, as she situated her hat on top of her dark curls.

  Elizabeth always felt a combination of excitement and fear when Kaminsky announced they were off to a story. Would she be able to handle what she was about to see?

  “A fire. A big one, apparently. The police are already wondering if it started naturally or if it was arson.”

  Elizabeth felt a thrill. She’d never seen a big fire before—just a small conflagration the time some boys set fire to a trash can for kicks. Mr. Polsky had come running out of his butcher shop with a bucket of water and put it out. Still, there had been something exciting, as well as frightening, about the flames leaping into the air and the black smoke creating a noxious cloud.

  “A building’s on fire down on Houston street,” Kaminsky said as he pushed open the door to the sidewalk. “We’d better grab a taxi. I want pictures of the fire in action—flames licking up the sides of the building and smoke billowing from the windows—not blackened and smoldering wet embers.”

  Dusk was falling and the streetlights had come on. The sidewalks were filled with workers hurrying toward subways and bus stops on their way home after a long workday. The taxi stopped at a red light and the door of a tavern opposite opened, spilling light across the sidewalk and filling the air with the sound of raised voices and clinking glasses.

  As the taxi got closer to Houston Street, the odor of smoke became apparent. Soon the air was thick with it and Elizabeth began to cough. She noticed Kaminsky pulling his scarf up over his nose and mouth and she did the same.

  Soon the taxi plunged into air that was black with billowing clouds of smoke, and even though they were still several blocks away, they heard the unmistakable roar of the fire.

  A bright red fire truck with F.D.N.Y. in gold letters on the side was pulled up to a fire hydrant as others raced toward the fire, their horns blaring. A policeman stood in the middle of the road stopping traffic and directing the cars to turn onto Bleecker Street.

  The taxi driver stopped and swiveled around in his seat. “It looks like you’ll have to get out her
e. They aren’t letting us get any closer.”

  Kaminsky dug in his pocket, pulled out a few coins and handed them to the driver.

  “Let’s go,” he said to Elizabeth.

  As soon as they got out of the cab, Elizabeth began to cough again. The air was thick, and ash floated on the wind like confetti. The roar of the fire was even more intense now.

  The street was lined with run-down tenements, with an abandoned factory at the end whose blackened windows made Elizabeth think of missing teeth. The sidewalk was broken and uneven with determined weeds pushing their way up through the cracks.

  Half of one of the tenements was already on fire with flames licking along the perimeter and inching toward the other half. The front door was open, and they could see a hallway papered in faded red cabbage roses.

  Soot billowed out from the building, and the firefighters’ faces were covered with it, making them look like old-time performers in blackface. Despite the hoses trained on the burning building and the stream of water hitting the fire, the other side of the building was beginning to catch as well.

  “There’s the fire chief,” Kaminsky said, pointing to a man pacing up and down the line of firefighters shouting directions. “I’m going to see if I can get a word with him. You get us some good pictures, okay?”

  “Sure,” Elizabeth said as she unbuckled her camera case and got out her camera.

  Flames continued to shoot up, illuminating the dark night sky. Elizabeth hoped she could capture the impact of the scene in a mere photograph: the heat emanating from the fire—she could feel it where she was standing across the street—the nearly deafening popping and hissing of the flames, the chaos of people rushing back and forth dragging heavy hoses and other equipment.

  Kaminsky trotted back over to Elizabeth. “It’s something, isn’t it? The power of fire. It’s almost majestic in its fury. ‘Some say the world will end in fire. Some say in ice.’ ”

  Elizabeth stared at Kaminsky.

  He shrugged as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his cigarettes. He shook one out. “Robert Frost.” Kaminsky lit a match and bent his head over it.

  “You never fail to surprise me, Kaminsky.”

  “I like to keep ’em guessing,” Kaminsky said, blowing a puff of smoke into the already smoke-laden air. The last tendrils caught on the wind and blew away.

  “People are still in there!” one of the firemen yelled, his hands cupped around his mouth.

  Suddenly men began to trickle out of the building, their hands over their faces, doubled over from coughing. They were in their shirtsleeves, except for one man who was shirtless, his arms crossed over his bare chest as if for warmth.

  “Those poor men,” Elizabeth said.

  “I’m going in!“one of the other firemen yelled as he plunged through the open door, an ax slung over his shoulder.

  Elizabeth grabbed her camera and brought it to her eye, swiveling this way and that in order to get the best shot. One of the men that had come out of the building pointed and shouted an obscenity at her. The other men all looked up and, noticing Elizabeth’s camera, quickly covered their faces.

  Kaminsky grabbed Elizabeth’s arm. “Get the shot if you can. This is going to make the front page. It looks like this unfortunate fire has disturbed the nightly goings-on of a peg house.”

  Elizabeth lowered her camera and looked at Kaminsky with a blank expression.

  “A peg house?”

  “A male brothel.”

  Elizabeth tried but failed to control her sudden sharp intake of breath.

  By now other reporters and photographers had arrived and flashbulbs were going off repeatedly while the firemen yelled irritably at them to stay back.

  There was another shout, and the fireman who had run into the building came out again, supporting a man by his arm. The man was coughing furiously and appeared to be fighting for breath. He stumbled to the curb, bent over, his hands on his knees. Bits of gray ash had settled on his dark hair and his white shirt was soiled with black soot.

  The man suddenly looked up and straight at Elizabeth. She saw the shock of recognition on his face, which surely mirrored her own.

  He hesitated for a moment, then took off at a run, pushing his way through the crowd and disappearing down the darkened alley between two of the buildings.

  Chapter 19

  Kaminsky whistled. “Did you see who that was?” He pointed toward the alley where the man had been swallowed up in its darkness.

  “Yes. It was Gloria DeWitt’s father.”

  “Fancy seeing Edward DeWitt coming out of a peg house.”

  “Do you think—”

  “I don’t think he was in there asking directions, do you? He wasn’t wearing a coat, so obviously he’d been planning on staying awhile.”

  “But he’s—”

  “Married? Sure. But that doesn’t mean a thing. You may not have noticed, but homosexuality isn’t exactly considered acceptable. Especially for a man like DeWitt who was born with the expectation that he’d get married someday and produce a suitable heir.” Kaminsky glanced at Elizabeth. “Don’t look so shocked. It happens more than you’d think.”

  “It never occurred to me, that’s all.” Elizabeth was thinking. “I wonder if Frances knew.”

  “Who knows? Frances seemed like the practical sort. She was after the good life when she married DeWitt. I don’t think romance entered into it.”

  There was a loud crash, and they both turned back to the burning building. The roof had caved in. The firemen had been able to subdue the worst of the blaze, although flames still flared up here and there in the wreckage.

  “Why don’t you get another picture of the building?” Kaminsky said.

  Elizabeth pulled out her camera and snapped several more photographs. She noticed the fire chief walking in their direction as she finished.

  He approached Kaminsky and nodded. “We found the remnants of a pile of oily rags in one of the back rooms on the first floor. That may be what started the fire.”

  “So you don’t suspect arson, then?”

  “We don’t know yet. We won’t be able to do a complete investigation until the rest of the fire is out and we’re sure the building isn’t going to completely collapse.”

  One of his men called to him, and the fire chief excused himself and walked away.

  There was a loud rumbling and the burning building shifted slightly.

  “Lucky everyone got out when they did,” Kaminsky said to Elizabeth. “Especially DeWitt. Imagine the headlines if it was revealed that he had perished in a peg house fire.”

  * * *

  —

  Elizabeth stood in the darkroom and looked at the photographs drying on the carousel. She’d caught some good shots of the fire at the peg house, but she realized not even her best shot could capture the horror of the real thing: the flames leaping ever higher, the soot-filled air, the very noise of the fire—the roar and the menacing hiss and the popping like firecrackers going off.

  Kaminsky was busy pounding out the story on his typewriter for the morning edition, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth and a cup of coffee at his elbow.

  He looked up when Elizabeth walked in with the photographs. They spread them out on Sullivan’s empty desk, which would have made him furious had he known.

  Kaminsky stabbed a nicotine-stained finger at one of them. “Let’s see if we can get this one on the front page. I’ll talk to the boss.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t get one of DeWitt slinking out of the burning building.”

  Kaminsky slapped her on the back. “Now you’re thinking like a real newspaperman, Biz. But given DeWitt’s friends in high places, I’m pretty sure Dawson—he owns the Daily Trumpet—would put the kibosh on that. He already raked me over the coals for putting DeWitt’s daught
er on the front page. I don’t imagine this would go over any better.”

  Elizabeth yawned and quickly covered her mouth.

  “You look bushed. Why don’t you go home?”

  “I think I will. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Elizabeth was about to grab her coat when her telephone rang. She dashed back to her desk to answer it. She hoped it wasn’t bad news about her sister. Ever since the doctor had diagnosed Rose with pneumonia, Elizabeth had been fearful that Rose would end up in the hospital.

  She grabbed the telephone on the fifth ring.

  “Hello?”

  “Elizabeth? It’s Gloria.”

  “Hello, Gloria,” Elizabeth said, stifling another yawn.

  “A group of people from our crowd are getting together at the St. Regis for a drink. Why don’t you join us?”

  Elizabeth ran a hand along the back of her neck. “I’d love to Gloria, but my sister is sick, and I really should be at home.”

  “Darling, please. I’ve been completely wretched to you, and I want to make it up to you. Just the other day Sally Taylor was saying some terribly unkind things about you, and I felt absolutely dreadful knowing it was all my fault.”

  “I don’t know.” Elizabeth wrapped the telephone cord around her finger.

  “Don’t be mad at me, darling, please. I couldn’t bear it. Just one tiny little drink to show you forgive me.”

  “I suppose—”

  “That’s wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. Phillips will be there, and I know he’s dying to see you. He said you do nothing but work these days.”

  That was true, Elizabeth thought. She’d turned down another dinner date with Phillips because she’d been too tired.

  “It will do you good to get out,” Gloria said. “You can’t bury your head in the sand forever, you know.”

  She hadn’t thought that was what she was doing, but Elizabeth realized it might seem that way to others.