All That Glitters (20 page)

I wanted desperately to tell Laura about my deadline, but the opportunity didn't present itself until we climbed into the Chevrolet. We followed the ambulance to Community Hospital.

Laura's voice trembled with frustration. “Todd and James think you killed Eric.”

“I have bad news.” I stopped at a traffic light.

“Bad news? Darling, I'm not sure how much more I can take. Whatever the news is, please sugarcoat it.”

I didn't know an easy way to soften the blow, but I tried to ease into it. “You know how well I work under pressure when facing a writing deadline?”

“You turn into a grumpy beast, the kind who climbs the Empire State Building with Faye Wray.”

“I have less than thirty hours to solve Eric's murder.”

Laura smacked the leather seat with both hands. “That's sugarcoating it?”

By reliving my conversation with Louella in front of Todd's house, I explained how the deadline came about.

I glanced up and the light was green. The driver behind me blasted his horn then swerved around me and shook his fist.

Laura shouted to the driver and pointed to me. “Can you believe this guy?”

“What choice did I have?” I drove through the intersection. “I had to buy some time.”

“You told her you're going to solve the murder before nine tomorrow night!”

“There's more.”

“More.” She twisted her hands in her lap. “Prohibition can't end too soon.”

I explained how Norman tried to tell me something he hadn't shared with the cops.

A flicker of hope crossed her face. “He's certain you didn't kill Eric because he knows who did. Oh, Jake, you have to talk to him. Perhaps Todd will get you in the hospital room to talk to Norman if—”

“What if the information Norman wants to share is about Todd?”

Laura sucked in a gasp of air. “You're right. Though the thought of Todd killing his brother seems crazy to me, you can't risk saying anything to him.” Her voice quivered. “What's your plan?”

“Solve the case before nine tomorrow night.”

“How are you going to do that?”

A seed of an idea showed itself as we reached the hospital. “I'm working on it.”

Laura and I found the others in a room across from a nurses' station by two double doors marked Emergency Care. Todd, Roland, James, and Christine, and a half-dozen others I didn't recognize, sat in the crowded waiting room. Most sat silently staring into the distance. A woman sniffled into a handkerchief beside a mother comforting her crying toddler.

I had little patience for spending time in a hospital waiting room with my fate ticking away. I held out hope Norman would survive and I could talk to him about the secret he almost shared.

Laura and I found two empty chairs and waited with the others for word on the old man's condition. I tried to ignore a large clock on the wall above the entrance to the room.

Todd paced, occasionally wiping sweat from his brow like a concerned son. Minutes later, he stopped beside us. For a moment, he looked like he was going to pass out. I rose and offered up my seat.

“Thanks.” He dropped into the chair and held his head in both hands. “I just buried my brother, and now I might lose my father.”

Laura patted his back and offered words of encouragement while I took up the pacing. After a minute, I was wiping sweat from my brow. I should be talking to witnesses or revisiting the crime scene, anything that might point me toward the killer. How could I solve the murder in one day? What was I going to do, bring them all together and sweat them out until one confessed?

When Todd went to talk to James, the butler, I took the chair beside Laura. I glanced at the clock and let out a moan.

She nudged me with her elbow. “Stop making it so obvious you don't want to be here.”

She was right, of course. I pulled a pen from my pocket. “Do you have any blank paper?”

She searched through her purse and shook her head. She helped me scan magazines for blank pages before we both gave up.

At the children's table, a little redheaded kid, maybe six, colored images in a circus book. I crossed the room and grabbed a discarded coloring book about pirates. I flipped through the pages and found the inside of the back cover blank. I ripped off the page.

The little boy's eyes widened. “Mommy!” He ran to his mother and wrapped both arms around her neck.

The livid woman wrapped a comforting arm around her son.

“Sorry.” I returned to my chair and wrote the names of the suspects from the party and added Leo and Slick Ray Gambino.

The homicide test of motive, means, and opportunity fit nearly a dozen people. For the next two hours, Laura and I whispered about each person on the list, looking up every time someone entered the waiting room.

Who slept with Eric the night he was killed? Who paid Leo ten grand? Were the deposits in the bankbook payments for a hit on Eric, or some other job?

As the late afternoon sun dipped toward the horizon, Laura took my pen and wrote
26 hours
at the top of the page.

I nodded.

She whispered. “Where did you stash Leo's wallet?”

I patted my suit coat pocket.

“Are you crazy?” She practically shouted. Half the room looked our way, so she lowered her voice. “You can't just carry around something that might prove your innocence.”

Right again. I couldn't walk around with a hit man's wallet like it was a pack of cigarettes. By now, Leo had no doubt discovered his missing wallet and would come looking for it.

I removed the bankbook and slipped it in my trouser pocket. I had to find a secure location. “Do you have any tape?”

She searched through her purse again. “I have a Rexall Band-Aid and a few sticks of gum.”

“The gum might work.” I unwrapped the gum, stuck two pieces in my mouth, and began to chew. I handed her two, and she did the same.

We'd barely begun when a silver-haired doctor in his forties came through the double doors of the Emergency Care unit. We jumped to our feet and stood beside the others, trying to hide the fact we were chewing gum.

The doctor stepped into the waiting room and stared admiringly at Laura's black dress before telling everyone Norman hadn't suffered a heart attack. He suggested the anxiety of the funeral and stress of running a studio caused him to faint. Norman needed rest more than anything. They administered a sedative so he could sleep the next few hours.

While the doctor patiently answered questions about Norman, I studied his white coat. Nothing. A supply cart sat next to a nurses' station. A pretty nurse glanced up from a chart she was writing in.

The doctor took a final glance at Laura and suggested everyone go home, but, of course, no one did. He disappeared behind the two swinging doors to Emergency Care.

Laura and I stayed while Todd and the rest returned to their chairs, celebrating the good news about Norman's condition. “I have to talk to Norman when the sedatives wear off.”

“We need to find out what room he's in. That nurse giving you the eye might share the information.”

“What about the doctor who admired the shape of your bottom?”

“He did?”

The doctor came through the two doors and headed down the corridor. Laura challenged me. “I bet I can get the information before you.”

For the first time since we arrived at the hospital, I managed a smile. I glanced at the pretty nurse writing notes in a chart. “You're on.”

I hurried to the nurses' station and stood beside the supply cart. A box of tissues sat behind the nurse. “Excuse me.”

“Yes?”

I pointed back toward Laura who was chatting with the doctor outside a patient room. “My cousin's really upset. She's gone through a couple of my handkerchiefs already. Could I have a tissue?”

She turned in her chair and reached for a tissue.

With her back to me, I snatched a role of tape and stuffed it in my trouser pocket. When she handed me several tissues, I stuck them beside Leo's wallet. “Thanks.”

“Anything else I can do?” she added, with a flirtatious lilt to her voice.

I leaned closer to her, over the counter. “Could I find out the room number of Norman Carville?”

She thumbed toward the double doors. “He's in Emergency Care. Are you family?”

“He's like a father to me. Norman took me in when I was just a boy after my mother ran off with…I'm sorry. You're just doing your job.”

She glanced around and wrote a room number on a scrap of paper.

I took the paper and winked. “Nurses truly are angels without wings.”

I turned. Laura approached from down the corridor where the doctor watched her walk away from him.

When we arrived outside the waiting room, we both spoke at the same time. “Room E10.”

We returned to our chairs. “You can get rid of the gum.” I showed her the tape.

Before I could offer her a tissue, she spit the gum in a trash can three feet away. You can take a girl out of Queens, but you can't take Queens out of the girl.

No one seemed to be watching, so I ripped off a six-inch strip of tape.

“You're not going to stash it here.”

“What better place? It's not like they ever clean this room. I need you to distract Todd, Christine, and Roland.”

“How do I do that?”

“Really? You're an actress. You'll think of something.”

Laura crossed the room, wiping tears from her eyes. Even Todd consoled her.

With my back to Laura and the rest, I carefully placed two strips of tape over the bankbook. I glanced up. No one was watching, except for the kid who had me pegged as a coloring-book vandal.

At a corner table littered with outdated periodicals, I knocked a January issue of LIFE magazine with Roosevelt on the cover to the floor. I bent to pick up the magazine. After a quick glance around the room, I pressed the bankbook against the bottom of the table. I smoothed the edges of the tape then rose.

With the bankbook secure, I stood beside Laura and held her hand. “We should be going.”

We both wished Todd the best and said our good-byes to the others, who appeared surprised we were leaving already. On the way out, I handed Leo's wallet to the nurse and told her I found it in the waiting room.

In the elevator, I let out a deep breath. “Let's come back early tomorrow before we pick up Mildred.”

Laura gritted her teeth. “Mildred…”

At the hotel, I stopped at the front desk and arranged for a five a.m. wake-up call so we'd have plenty of time to get to the hospital and get Norman to talk before we picked up Mildred at the airport.

We ordered a late meal in the hotel dining room, but I mostly pushed the food around on the plate. When we did get to our room, I wasn't sure I'd be able to sleep. I closed my eyes, but the faces of Eric's possible killers kept me awake.

Laura cleared her throat. “Are you awake?”

“No.”

She smacked my arm. “This is nothing to joke about.”

She sniffled, so I wrapped an arm around her. “I know you're concerned, sweetheart, but don't worry.”

“I'd bet my
Midnight Wedding
salary Leo shot Eric.”

“Why would Leo use Eric's gun?”

“To make it appear like suicide, of course.”

My gut told me that using the victim's piece and slipping a so-called suicide note in Eric's typewriter wasn't the work of a Chicago hit man. How did he know Eric kept a typewriter or had a gun in his bedroom? How many people at the party knew that?

If Leo pulled the trigger, he must've had help.

For a moment, we lay in silence. Laura's body relaxed.

When she spoke, her voice was a soft whisper on the edge of sleep. “Tell me everything's going to work out.”

I kissed the top of her head. “Everything's going to be fine.” All I had to do was believe it.

My predicament seemed less dire in the morning. Norman's secret might be enough to get Louella to hold off on her column and possibly point Annabelle and Gus in a different direction. After a hot shower, I was ready to face the next sixteen hours.

At the door, Laura smoothed her snug white cotton dress, took a deep breath, and appeared to brace herself. “I hope Norman's well enough to talk.”

We walked to the elevator and waited.

The elevator door opened. A sullen Leo De Palma stepped out and blocked our way. As the door closed, he unbuttoned his suit coat and revealed a holstered pistol. “We can talk better in your room.”

I stood between the hit man and Laura. “We have plans.”

Leo drew his pistol but kept the gun inside his jacket.

I slipped a reassuring arm around Laura and led her toward our room. Inside, I turned around and faced Leo's .45.

Like the pro he was, he held the gun steady and spoke in a controlled tone. “I want my wallet back.”

Laura and I glanced at each other like we didn't know what he was talking about. “Maybe it fell out when you drove the Chevrolet to the hotel the other day,” I suggested. “I'll go check under the front seat.”

“I already did.” He stepped closer, the gun barrel inches from my face. “You either have my wallet on you, or it's here someplace.”

Laura remained calm. “Why do you think we have your wallet?”

He spat out a reply. “Hand it over…now!”

“I don't have your damn wallet.” I held up my hands.

“Slowly.” He gestured with the .45.

I unbuttoned my suit coat jacket and raised the button side of my coat, showing my wallet. I handed it over. He took a quick glance inside then tossed it on the desk. I turned my trouser pockets inside out.

Laura handed her purse to Leo.

He peered inside and handed it back. He gave her the once-over, as if he was about to frisk her.