Murder on a Hot Tin Roof

by Matetsky, Amanda

  I rolled my eyes at her inane question. “Jeez, Abby! Just think about it for a second. If somebody telephoned Gray the day after he was murdered, then it’s a pretty safe bet that person wasn’t the murderer, wouldn’t you say? Why would anybody call him up if they knew that he was dead?”

  “To plant a false clue,” she said. “To make himself look innocent.”

  “Oh,” I said, embarrassed by my own shortsightedness. Abby had a good point. Why hadn’t I thought of it?

  “So what did you find out?” Abby asked, not rubbing it in. Either she was letting me off the hook, or she hadn’t noticed my impatient tone. (Considering the fact that Abby really loves to one-up me, I figured it was the latter.) “Solid or liquid,” she said, “every clue is worth something.”

  Taking her words under advisement, I told Abby about the various names and numbers I’d gleaned from Rhonda’s list, reporting on every aspect of my study. Then I sat back in my chair, lit up one of Abby’s Pall Malls, and related all the details of my phone conversation with Binky.

  “Ve-ry interesting,” Abby said, when I’d finished my summary. “Binky-Winky sounds kind of stinky. Maybe he murdered Gray himself. ”

  “Could be,” I said, remembering how Binky’s tone and vocabulary had turned angry when we were discussing Gray’s rave review. “I’ll have a better idea after I meet him on Tuesday.”

  “I’ll go with you!” she said, getting excited. “I’m a really good judge of character, you know. And I’d love to take a stroll around the Actors Studio, get an up-close and personal look at James Dean. I think he’s in town now. And he’s my fave new screen boy. He’s so hot it hurts!”

  I didn’t say a word. I had no intention of taking Abby with me, but I didn’t tell her that. I knew she’d have a complete fit. Then she’d dig in her heels and torment me until I surrendered and let her come—a consequence I simply could not allow to happen. Abby’s presence at my meeting with Binky would rattle my concentration, play havoc with my cover, and lead Binky to question my “true” motives for contacting him (i.e., wreck the whole darn operation!). Better to keep my mouth shut, keep the peace, and wait until Tuesday to crush Abby’s hopes of meeting her fave new screen boy.

  I glanced at the clock on Abby’s kitchen wall. It was nine thirty-five. “Holy moley, would you look at the time?!” I cried. “I’ve got to run home and change my clothes. If Flannagan saw me in this outfit” (a pair of short shorts and one of Bob’s old army T-shirts), “he’d arrest me for sure.”

  “Then you’d better scurry, Murray,” Abby said. “From what I’ve heard, It ain’t too cool in the cooler.”

  THE SIXTH PRECINCT STATION WAS JUST a few blocks away on West 10th Street. Abby and I walked there as fast as we could—which wasn’t very fast since the heat, humidity, and our dangerously high heels slowed us down to a stroll. I bought a newspaper on the way over, but didn’t take the time to look for any articles about the murder. We were late enough as it was. Entering the busy station through the streetlevel double glass doors, we headed straight for the main desk to our right, stilettos clicking across the scuffed brown linoleum.

  A tall, well-built young man with an exceptionally long, narrow face was standing like a sentry behind the counterlike partition. He was wearing the standard summer uniform (same as the winter but with short sleeves)—no jacket or hat. A badge was pinned to his shirt, and a gun was holstered on his hip. As Abby and I approached the desk, he snatched a white handkerchief out of his pocket and quickly mopped the sweat off his handsome, shoebox-shaped mug. “Hello, ladies,” he said, stuffing the handkerchief back in his pocket. “How can I help you?”

  “We’re here to see Detective Flannagan,” I said. “We had a ten o’clock appointment but, as you can see, we’re a few minutes late.”

  “Then I’ll have to take you into custody,” he teased.

  “I can think of worse punishment,” Abby said, batting her lashes so hard and fast I felt a breeze.

  Oh, brother! She was flirting with him. She was flaunting her so-called charms all over the place. You’d have thought our horrific reason for being at the station (or, at the very least, her randy reunion with Jimmy last night) would have stifled her seductive ways—but noooo. There she stood, one hand propped suggestively on her jutting hip, making eyes at a horse-faced policeman as if she were a filly in heat and he were the last stallion on earth.

  Luckily, I found my voice before they galloped off to the nearest stable together.

  “Detective Flannagan is expecting us, sir,” I said, with a loud sniff of annoyance. “And we don’t want to be any later than we already are. Can you let him know we’re here, or direct us to his office, please?” I was doing a swell immitation of Susan Hayward in a righteous huff, but I felt like Milton Berle in a prom dress (i.e., more likely to attract ridicule than respect).

  “Oh, uh . . . sure,” the young officer said, reluctantly turning his attention from Abby to me. “I’ll just give them a call upstairs. They’ll send somebody down to get you.”

  “Can’t you show us the way yourself?” Abby said, batting her damn lashes again. “That would give us a little more time together.”

  His rectangular face turned as pink as a primrose. “Oh, no, ma’am,” he said. “I couldn’t do that. I’m not allowed to leave my post. But hang on for a second, I’ll get you another guide right away.”

  While he was dialing and then talking on the intercom, I gave Abby my sternest look. “Cut it out!” I whispered. “We’re here to help the cops find a killer, for God’s sake! Your search for a new lover can wait!”

  “That’s not fair!” she hissed. “I’m looking for a new model, not a lover!”

  “Same difference,” I said.

  “IT’S SEVENTEEN MINUTES AFTER TEN,” Flannagan said, looking at his watch, shooting me a nasty scowl, then standing up behind his desk. His jacket was draped on the back of his chair, his sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, his collar was unbuttoned, and his tie was loose and lopsided. “It’s about time you showed up,” he growled. “I was beginning to think I’d have to send somebody to your place to get you.”

  “Please forgive us, Detective Flannagan,” I said. “We got off to a bit of a late start this morning.”

  “Yeah, well, your ‘bit of a late start’ has thrown my whole damn schedule off track,” he griped, looking at his watch again. “I have to be somewhere else at eleven, so we don’t have much time.”

  “Oh, what a shame!” Abby cried, putting on a big sarcastic show of contrition. “I could just kill myself for taking so long to eat that extra bagel.”

  Her jeering tone was making me squirm. Would Flannagan realize that she was mocking him? Would he get mad and give us an even harder time than originally planned? I tried to think of something soothing to say—something that would calm the choppy sea between the surly detective and my irascible best friend—but finally decided it would be safer to just leave things alone.

  “Let’s get started,” Flannagan said, showing no more anger (or awareness) than usual. He gestured toward the two old wooden chairs positioned in front of his old wooden desk and muttered, “Sit down.”

  We did as we were told. (I don’t know about Abby, but I was glad to get off my feet.)

  Flannagan sat back down behind his desk and began shuffling some papers around. While he was getting organized, I took the opportunity to look around his office—or, rather, the large bullpen in which his work area was situated.

  Flannagan’s desk was one of seven in the drab, greenish-gray room, one side of which was lined with windows so dirty they barely let in any light. The desks all faced the door and were aligned along the outside wall like cars in a parking lot. A row of tall, beat-up file cabinets stood against the wall opposite the windows, narrowing the aisle running down the center of the office to a width of about four feet. (A rhino might have made it through, but never an elephant.) Except for Flannagan and the rhino-size man sitting at the first desk in the front, ther
e were no other homicide detectives in sight (unless you want to count me, which you probably don’t).

  Flannagan slapped the papers down on his desk and lit up a Camel. His boyish, clean-shaven face was scrunched up in an ugly frown. “Okay, first things first,” he said. “Give me the names of your doctors.”

  “What?!” we cried, in unison.

  “The names of your doctors,” he repeated.

  “Why?!” we harmonized.

  “Because I told you to,” he said, sticking out his jaw and crossing his arms over his chest. He not only looked like a little boy, but he was acting like one, too. He was the bully of the playground—the one who would push you off the seesaw and steal your lunch money.

  “But may I ask why you want our doctors’ names?” I said, jumping to take the lead in the conversation before Abby could cause a scene. (One glance at her rigid posture and clenched fists, and I knew she was about to blow her stack.) “It seems such an odd request, if you don’t mind me saying so, sir. I’m sure I’m a complete dunce, but I can’t help wondering what our doctors have to do with the murder of Gray Gordon.”

  Sometimes it pays to be polite. My courteous and feminine (okay, totally self-deprecating) demeanor had a pacifying effect on Flannagan’s mood. His ugly frown faded, then he uncrossed his arms and removed them from his chest. Retrieving his lit cigarette from the ashtray and taking a long, slow drag, he cocked his head in my direction and tweaked his lips into something resembling a smile.

  “I really don’t have to explain myself or my methods to you, Mrs. Turner,” he said, “but since you asked so nicely . . .” He paused for another puff on his cigarette. “I want your doctors’ names so I can contact them to verify your blood types.”

  Oh, so that’s it! I said to myself. They did find more than one blood type at the crime scene. Guess they won’t be needing my bag of bloodstained clothes after all . . . which was a good thing, I realized, since I’d forgotten to bring the bloody stuff with me!

  “After seeing the excessive carnage at the scene,” Flannagan went on, proudly launching an account of his own outstanding powers of detection, “I had a hunch the victim put up a big fight before he died. Which meant the murderer could have been wounded, too. We took blood samples from several different places in the apartment—including the bathroom, where we think the killer took a shower and changed into clean clothes before he fled—and then we rushed the samples to the lab for overnight testing.

  “Sure enough,” he continued, “the tests turned up two distinct blood groups: type A and type O. Mr. Gordon, we’ve learned, was type O, so we believe the killer was type A. Therefore, if you two ladies can each swear that you’re not type A, and if your doctors will verify your statements, then we can let you both off the hook.”

  That’s when Abby’s stack finally blew. “Off the hook?!!!” she sputtered, turning red in the face. “We never should have been on the hook in the first place! Your suspicions are so absurd they’re stupid. Can’t you flatfoots tell the difference between a couple of horrified dames in distress and a savage, cold-blooded killer?”

  Flannagan’s baby-soft face turned even redder than Abby’s. “The way I see it, sweetheart,” he said, glaring at her through squinted eyes, “you are as cold-blooded as they come.”

  Now they were both acting like children.

  And I had to be the babysitter.

  “I think I’m type O,” I said, leaping to steer the rocky situation to shore, “but I don’t know for sure. And I don’t have a regular doctor you can talk to, either. I was a patient at Saint Vincent’s Hospital a few months back, though, so maybe you could check with them. I had to have a transfusion, so they must have noted my blood type in their records.” I left out the part about why I’d needed the transfusion. Revealing that I’d been shot would have just made Flannagan more suspicious of me.

  Flannagan gave me a nod, mashed his cigarette in the ashtray, and made a few marks on his memo pad. Then he raised his eyes and aimed them at Abby. “And what about you, Miss Moskowitz?” he said, pronouncing her name as if each syllable tasted worse than the first. “Do you want to cooperate with the investigation or continue to be a prime suspect in the murder of Gray Gordon?”

  She didn’t say anything (for once). She just tapped her foot on the floor and rolled her eyes at the ceiling.

  Flannagan looked at his watch and vaulted to his feet. “Okay, that’s enough!” he blustered, buttoning his collar and straightening his tie. “I’ve had it up to here with your crap. I’m leaving for another appointment, so you have to decide now. Off the hook, or on, sweetheart? It’s your call.”

  “I’m AB,” Abby said, smirking, enjoying herself to the hilt. “Rh-positive. If you don’t believe me, you can ask my uncle, Dr. Seymour Katz. He’s really hip to hemoglobin.”

  Chapter 13

  AS WE WERE HEADING ACROSS THE lobby toward the police station exit, Abby pulled me to a stop in the middle of the floor. “Hold on a second, Paige,” she said. “I want to talk to that cute officer at the front desk again. I just got a cover assignment from True Police magazine, so I really do need a new model, you dig? And he would be perfect for the job. I want to see if I can get him to pose for me in uniform.”

  “Oh, sure,” I said. “And after that, you can see how long it takes you to get him out of uniform.”

  I thought my snippy remark would make her angry, but it didn’t. She gave me a cunning wink and replied, “Just one of the perks of my occupation.”

  “Yeah, well, you don’t need me to help you plan your perking. Go ahead, Ab. Talk to Officer Longface as long as you want. I’m going home.”

  “Okay,” she chirped, obviously glad to be getting rid of me. “See you later, gator.”

  I was glad to get rid of her, too. Trying to conduct a serious murder investigation with Abby in tow was like standing under a palm tree during a thunderstorm, waiting for the coconuts to break off and fall on your head.

  It was calmer and quieter outside than in. The streets and sidewalks were practically deserted. It was late Sunday morning on a holiday weekend, and much too hot to be out on the move. I turned right at the corner and began the two-block trek to Seventh Avenue, wondering if I could make it that far without a camel and a canteen.

  I did. And when I found myself at the corner of Seventh and Christopher—at the wide-open entrance to Stewart’s Cafeteria—I staggered inside to get a glass of iced tea. And to read my morning paper. And to see if Blackie and Blondie were there. And to check out the clientele and the chicken run for suspicious-looking characters.

  Blackie was there, but Blondie wasn’t. I wished it were the other way around. (Blondie had been the talkative one, if you recall, and Blackie’s lips had been sealed tighter than a pharaoh’s tomb.) I nodded to the ebony-haired busboy (there certainly wasn’t any point in questioning him again!), bought an enormous glass of iced tea at the counter, and then carried it toward the bleachers—the chairs and tables near the row of windows that looked out on the now-vacant sidewalk where, according to Abby, the chickens usually liked to strut.

  There were three customers sitting in that area of the cafeteria. All of them were male. Two were together at the table nearest the door, chowing down on bacon and eggs (sunny-side-up, if you must know). The third man was sitting sideways at the very last table in the back, nibbling on a piece of toast and staring out the window in a trance. I couldn’t see his face full-on, but one peep at his pudgy, pug-nosed profile, and his thick, slicked-back blond hair, and I knew who he was.

  “Well, if it isn’t Mr. Sinclair!” I said, approaching Willy’s table with a big smile on my face. (And it wasn’t a fake smile, either. For some reason I didn’t fully understand, I was genuinely glad to see the strange, funny-looking fellow.) “Remember me?” I asked. “I met you yesterday at the . . . uh . . . at the . . .” I didn’t know how to finish that sentence. At the bloodbath? At the slashing? At the scene of your neighbor’s hideous murder? Nothing seemed acceptable.
I finally gave up and asked, “May I join you?”

  Willy had turned his head toward me, but he was still in a trance. His enormous blue eyes were looking straight through me, and his mind was someplace else entirely. He took a tiny bite of his toast and chewed it vigorously, but he seemed totally unaware of his actions. Setting my tea down on his table, and my newspaper and purse down on an extra chair, I took the seat directly across from him and leaned my face so close to his I could have counted all his freckles.

  “Hello, Willy?” I said, peering smack into his distant eyes. “Are you okay?”

  The nearness of my voice (not to mention my nose) must have jarred his sleeping senses, because he came to in a start and focused on the first thing that came into his sight—my looming kisser.

  “Eeeeeek!” he shrieked, looking shocked and horrified—as if he’d just seen a ghost. (I guess my makeup had worn off.) “What are you doing? Get away from me! Shoo!”