A Crazy Little Thing Called Death (12 page)

“It’s an engagement ring from my—from the man I’m going to marry.”

Dilly coughed discreetly. “Shall we sit, Nora? I was telling Kaiser about you just a few minutes ago.”

“I can’t imagine why.”

“Kaiser worked with Penny Devine,” Dilly said. “We were speculating about whether or not she’s actually dead.”

We sat down and the waiter appeared to take my order, which Dilly managed to convey merely by circling their two Bloody Marys with his forefinger and winking. It gave me time to slip the Fendi from my shoulders and settle into my chair.

Kaiser sat back and crossed one leg grandly over the other. His trouser cuff lifted to reveal black, low-cut boots with three-inch heels. He was wearing a four-button suit of silver wool with a black turtleneck underneath, perhaps to hide the jowls that had begun to appear beneath his renowned square jaw. He had very dark brows and a mane of iron gray hair worn swept away from his face and surely sprayed to keep it in place. His skin glowed as if from a recent peel.

He braced one elbow on the arm of his chair and held a swizzle stick between his first two fingers as if it were a cigarette. Tilting his chin up, he said, “Penny was the bird. Always flitting from one thing to the next, but never happy. Never satisfied.”

Dilly sent me a look to communicate that we must be patient with Kaiser’s grandiose poetry. “We heard you found the—er—remains.”

“Yes.”

“It must have been awful,” Dilly said coolly. “But now that you’ve had time to reflect, do you think the—I mean—was it Penny?”

“I can’t be sure.” The police had not asked me to keep any secrets, so I said, “But there was a wristwatch. Studded with small diamonds. Something Penny would have liked, I’m sure.”

“Well, then.” Dilly shook his head. “This is very sad news. I’m sorry she’s gone.”

“You knew her, didn’t you, Dilly?”

Vaguely, he said, “We were friends once, many years ago, that’s all.”

“I knew her.” Kaiser sighed grandly. “The discerning customer. The perfectionist with her wardrobe. And with her weight never the same from one season to the next, preparing her order was the trial for everyone.”

“You must have created many garments for her,” I said. “She always looked so beautiful.”

He waved off the suggestion. “I made the few things for Penny, but not all her clothes. Because of her eating, I could not keep up with the demand. Sometimes she would be thin—sometimes she had the ass of a washer-woman. Many of us sewed for Penny Devine.”

“Her collection must be astonishing,” Dilly murmured.

Carefully, I said, “It’s hard to imagine that someone like Penny could have had enemies.”

“Then you haven’t much imagination, my dear,” Dilly said.

“She was evil,” Kaiser agreed.

“Well, all right, she was nothing like her brother and sister. But who could hate her enough to kill her?”

Kaiser said, “From time to time, I contemplated strangling her myself. I despised the woman. I hate the ungrateful. She was worse than the rock-and-roll singer with the pointy breasts.”

“Was Penny so disliked in Hollywood, too?”

Kaiser waved off the seriousness of my question. “She was despised on at least three continents.”

My drink arrived along with a plate of toast points and foie gras surrounded by an artful display of caviar. Kaiser dug into the caviar with fury.

Dilly raised an eyebrow at me.

I said, “But she must have been murdered here. By someone in Philadelphia. Unless someone from Beverly Hills brought her arm here in a suitcase.”

“I have the alibi,” Kaiser said at once.

“I wasn’t suggesting—”

“Of course you weren’t,” Dilly intervened. “You’re simply wondering who could have committed such a heinous crime.”

Kaiser made a rude noise with his mouth full. “Or service to humanity.”

“Uhm,” I said, “Penny may have been unlikable, but that’s not necessarily a motive for murder. Since she spent so little time here, I’ve been wondering who she could have had relationships with in Philadelphia.”

“Old friends?” Dilly suggested. “Or rather, old enemies?”

“I’d like to know about her past, that’s all.”

He smiled. “So you came to me because I’m so damnably old. Yes, Penny and I did grow up in the same era, same social circle. In fact, I may have been one of the few people who actually liked her. She was unpleasant from time to time, but hardly anyone understood the pressures she was under. Staying thin was very difficult for her, for example, but necessary to remain employed.”

“Did she keep in contact with Potty and Vivian after she became successful in Hollywood?”

“Who wants to keep in contact with the viper?” Kaiser muttered.

Dilly hid a smile. “Actually, there’s hardly anyone I can think of who stayed in touch. Well, maybe your grandmother, Nora, but how long has she been dead? Penny burned a lot of bridges when she left.”

“Is it true Penny had an illegitimate child?”

Dilly’s face froze. “Why would you say such a thing?”

“Emma overheard it once—probably my mother gossiping on the phone. Is it true? Penny had a baby? Or was it just a rumor?”

“Where there is the smoke,” Kaiser said solemnly, “there might be the conflagration.”

Dilly wrestled with his conscience for a moment.

“Dilly, I don’t want to pry. If you’re uncomfortable, I apologize—”

“No, no.” He toyed with the skewer of olives from his Bloody Mary. “It was many, many years ago. Perhaps forty years now. She confided in me that she was—well, expecting.”

Kaiser shook his head. “It is very inconsiderate, the having of babies. If my ladies get with the pregnant, I tell them not to return to me until their children are in school five years. It’s just too hard on my nerves to do so many fittings.”

Kaiser reached for the plate before us and helped himself to a generous swab of foie gras. “Can you imagine the kind of mother she might have been? Better the child spent no time with such the parent.”

“When did you say this happened, Dilly?”

“Forty years, at least.”

Kaiser said, “And who was the insane person who slept with her? Who was the father?”

We heard a small commotion across the room, and Babe Mallick got up from her table at the urging of people around her. The large woman majestically made her way to the piano. Applause erupted from the patrons, and Babe bowed her head and feigned a falsely modest smile. Then she consulted with Winston in a businesslike fashion, and he obediently trilled a few chords on the piano. Babe launched into an operatic version of “What Is This Thing Called Love?” A few notes wavered.

Kaiser leaned across the table to Dilly. “When I get too old to do my work well, tell me to stop. I hate making such the fool of myself.”

We listened to the performance for a while, all of us stirring our drinks. Kaiser might have pondered the eventual decline of his career, but I found myself thinking about Penny Devine’s love life. It was a little like imagining how Tasmanian devils mated. I wondered how I could find out the identity of her lovers in her younger days.

Babe concluded her song, then launched into a show tune from
Rent
. Dilly rolled his eyes. The five Ada daughters began poking one another and giggling even louder than before.

Which, thankfully, caused Babe to frown and decline to perform anything else. She sailed back to her table to more applause. Winston mopped his brow with his handkerchief and went to join his partner for a Bellini.

“What about Vivian?” I asked. “Did she know about Penny’s love life?”

“Perhaps, but I doubt it. They despised each other, as far as I could see.”

“I can’t imagine Vivian despising anyone.”

“It must have been hard having a sister so well-known, so lovely, so talented. And you know, their mother took Penny to California and never came back to her other two children. Any sibling would resent such abandonment.”

Still I couldn’t envision Vivian being anything but a kindly old lady who loved animals. “What about Penny’s friends?”

“She hardly had any. She had teachers and coaches. I remember she spent hours every day learning to tap-dance in the dining room at Eagle Glen. It had a marble floor, you see. She worked very hard, especially with her mother so determined that she learn to perform. But friends? None that I recall.”

“Except you.”

Dilly smiled slightly. “Except me, I suppose. But, of course, we lost track of each other eventually.”

We were interrupted as two ladies I didn’t know approached the table to beg an introduction to Kaiser Waldman. Rising to his feet, Dilly did the honors, and Kaiser stood and responded coolly, but graciously, to the gushing.

It was clear that the rest of the people in the dining room had simply been waiting for Kaiser to begin receiving his adoring public, so I murmured my thanks to Dilly and picked up my handbag.

“What’s your interest in this, Nora?” Dilly asked as Kaiser spoke with his fans. “Why so worried about Penny Devine’s death?”

“I don’t know. I can’t explain it.”

He smiled gently. “Well, perhaps it would be best for you to let the police take over.”

I smiled, too. “I will. Thank you for talking with me.”

“I hope we might have a different conversation soon. We were going to discuss your career, weren’t we?”

“I’d like that. I could use a mentor.” I told him about receiving an envelope of money from someone asking for preferential treatment in my column. Without mentioning Potty’s name, I told him I planned to return the money immediately.

Dilly shook his head. “It happens. Even now, people try to bribe me for my good opinion. You’re right to return the money as soon as possible.”

I gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks, Dilly. It’s nice to know you’re in my corner.”

We promised to have lunch together soon, just the two of us, and I left the restaurant. Despite my agreement to forget about the investigation, my mind was still full of Penny Devine. Although she’d been famous and successful, her life sounded very empty. How sad that she had left her only friend behind forty years ago.

Perhaps the news that she’d borne an illegitimate child made her more real to me. What had become of it?

On the street, the rain had stopped, and a brilliant April sunshine glinted off the wet pavement and the tightly parked cars. Chestnut Hill looked beautiful, as always, with its genteel old homes flying patriotic flags and sporting window boxes filled with spring pansies. I paused and put my hand up to shield my eyes so I could see where Reed had parked the car.

I hesitated for only an instant. A man in running shorts jogged past, which might have distracted me for just a heartbeat.

Then suddenly someone jostled me from behind. I hadn’t seen him or heard him coming. Instinctively, I started to turn, then grabbed my handbag closer to my body.

But that wasn’t what he was after. A second person—someone bigger and rougher—collided with me, and together they sandwiched my body between them. I caught a glimpse of the second man’s face. I didn’t know him, but I recognized the intent in his expression and was hit by a lightning bolt of fear.

Without thinking, I jabbed my elbow into the nearest stomach, but the blow wasn’t hard enough to dislodge me from either man. Besides, they were already propelling me toward the curb, toward a car. I knew they were too strong to fight off, so I twisted and doubled over fast, and they lost their momentum. The three of us stumbled.

I shouted. One of them grabbed me around the waist and tried to jam his hand over my mouth. In that instant, I felt the solid object stuck into his belt. A gun. I bit him and lashed out a kick that connected with his knee.

One of them said, “Goddammit.”

The other growled, “Get the door open.”

I wasn’t getting into a car with them. I wasn’t. As he tried to get a grip around me, I dropped my handbag, cocked my right hand into a position I’d practiced so often in self-defense class that it came automatically. I jabbed the first man under his nose as hard as I could. His head snapped back, and his clasp loosened.

I must have yelled as soon as the attack began, because suddenly the jogger was back. He leaped and grabbed one of the men from behind, locking his arm around his throat. They grunted together and struggled.

Then Reed arrived, swinging a long plastic ice scraper. He clonked the second man over the head with it. The ice scraper broke on impact, and my attacker backed off, clutching his bleeding nose.

He snapped, “The hell with it!” and he ran for the driver’s door of the waiting car.

The first man twisted and punched the jogger in the stomach. My rescuer let out a curse on a gasp of air and dropped to his knees.

Then both attackers clambered into their car and pulled out. Tires squealed. A horn blared. We heard a crash and a tinkle of broken glass, but the car didn’t stop. It peeled out and barreled up the street.

On foot, Reed followed the car for half a dozen paces, trying to read the license plate.

The street tilted under me, and my legs felt like seaweed. I had lost one shoe somehow. But I caught my breath and staggered over to the jogger. I put my hand on his shoulder. “Are you all right? Thank you so much! I don’t know how I would—Crewe!”