Blackbird 10 - A Little Night Murder (7 page)

I didn’t want to gossip or admit that I had snooped among the bottles on Jenny Tuttle’s dressing table. And I was unwilling to spread rumors that could turn ugly, so I said, just as ambiguously as before, “She looked slimmer.”

Shaking her head, Chandler Ann said, “She was desperate to lose weight. But my dad’s natural methods weren’t fast enough for her. He rarely prescribed medication, for example, which is what she kept asking for. She really wanted to be thin for this summer, so she left our clinic. I presume she went somewhere else to get the medications she wanted.”

I said, “I saw a lot of energy drink cans around the house, too.”

“No!” Aghast, Chandler Ann clapped one set of fingertips to her mouth. “Those are so dangerous! Especially for someone in Jenny’s state of health.”

“Her mother mentioned she had a heart condition.”

“She should have avoided all caffeinated beverages.” Chandler Ann reached out to touch my arm. “You look really upset about this, Nora.”

“It was a shock seeing Jenny,” I admitted. “I find myself thinking how sad it was that she never really had a life of her own.”

Chandler Ann nodded. “Yes, after Toodles died, her mother was really Jenny’s focus. She didn’t have a job or a boyfriend, let alone children. That’s why I was pleasantly surprised to see her at the clinic. She was finally doing something for herself. Getting healthy. She hinted that she had something big coming up soon, too.”

“Something big?”

“I don’t know what. She only blushed and laughed me off when I asked. But I got the impression she wanted to look nice for whatever was on her horizon. She even asked me if I used a stylist to help me shop for clothes.”

“Maybe she meant the opening night of the new Toodles Tuttle musical.”

“There’s a new musical? My parents love those Toodles shows!”

“I understand they found an unproduced musical Toodles wrote before he died.”

“No wonder Jenny wanted to look good. Too bad her self-improvement efforts contributed to her death.”

Hearing my friend say it, I was shocked. “Do you think that’s true?”

She lifted her shoulders. “I can’t say for sure, of course. But caffeine drinks and diet pills? Plus some of the crazy supplements people buy on the Internet? That’s a lethal combination. How did her mother handle her death?”

“Her behavior seemed . . . inappropriate this afternoon.”

“She’s nuts,” Chandler Ann diagnosed. “At least, that’s the impression I got from Jenny.”

I thought about my relationship with my own mother. It was surprisingly distant, perhaps, by the standards of people from outside our socioeconomic group. She had always been a hands-off parent who sent us to boarding schools at a young age and left our day-to-day care to our grandparents’ housekeeper. I remembered her more as an exasperating sort of in-family party planner, but not a source of any real support. If I felt the need for actual guidance, I had always turned to my grandmother. By no means would I describe my mother as “nuts.” Eccentric, maybe, but not crazy.

Before we could further explore the topic of mothers and daughters, a baseball player arrived at our table to offer fresh drinks. Chandler slanted a flirtatious glance up at him and asked what position he played best. He took the question seriously before figuring out she wasn’t asking about baseball.

“Nice try,” I said when he eased himself away.

She sighed. “He’s probably ten years younger than I am. I’ll be thirty-five soon, and I’m still single. You are probably right to start a family before you walk down an aisle with that—I mean— Sorry, Nora.” Unable to stop herself, she let her gaze slip to the diamond on my left hand—a ring too big to ignore. “Are you married to your scary guy or not?”

“He’s not scary,” I said. “He’s protective.”

She took my hand and tipped the ring toward the sunlight to see the facets sparkle. “He sure has lavish taste in jewelry. It might be nice to have somebody looking after me—especially if he likes diamonds. These days, most of the guys who invite me for drinks end up staring at their cell phones the whole time. I hate thinking I’m less interesting than Angry Birds or text messages from their bosses.”

“Michael spends a lot of time on his cell phone, too.”

“Oh.” She looked disappointed. “He ignores you, huh?”

“No,” I said truthfully. “He doesn’t ignore much of anything.”

“So—are you planning to tie the knot with him? Have a big wedding in Vegas, maybe? Or not?” Chandler Ann looked over my shoulder into the crowded party behind me. “Because that hunk you came in with is kinda yummy.”

“That’s my boss,” I said. “My editor.”

She perked up. “The Australian guy? I’ve heard about him. I saw those pictures of him bicycling in Paraguay. I bet he likes women more than his cell phone.” She continued to admire Gus from afar. “Is he single?”

“Very.”

She heard my tone and laughed. “I get it. He’s a tomcat?”

“What a nice, old-fashioned expression,” I said with a smile. “Go get him, tiger.”

We promised to touch base soon, and Chandler Ann told me to take care of myself. I sent my best wishes to the rest of her family. I went to say my good-byes to our host and hostess and met them in the kitchen just as their computer-whiz son made his appearance. He was a tall, lanky boy with frizzy hair and a wrinkled T-shirt. Disinterested in the activity around him, he elbowed his way past one of the baseball players, yawning as if he’d just rolled out of bed. I caught a whiff of him. He hadn’t bathed in a while.

He snapped, “Mom, I need a smoothie.”

“Right this minute, Jakey?”

He sighed impatiently. “Well, yeah. I’m starving!”

His mother lost her smile and rushed to the refrigerator to gather ingredients while his father said jovially, “Where’s your new girlfriend, Jake?”

“If you must know, she’s putting her clothes back on.”

The father did a double take that I probably wasn’t supposed to
see. A moment later, a very tall young lady arrived in a minidress so short it almost showed whether or not she was wearing panties. Barefoot, she dangled a pair of high-heeled sandals from one finger. I recognized her as an up-and-coming local model. She draped her skinny arm around the boy’s shoulders and nibbled his neck while he waited for his mother to make his smoothie. His expression didn’t change as the girl’s lips traced a path to his earlobe.

Sixteen, as rich as a prince, and already going to bed with models.

To make Gus happy, I should have snapped their photo, but I couldn’t. I didn’t have the tabloid killer instinct. Time to go. Halfway out the door, though, I encountered Brenda Monroe, a local television newsreader.

“Nora, great to see you! You look great! We should have lunch.” Brenda spoke rapid-fire and was constantly in motion. She reached into her shoulder bag with one hand while gripping my wrist with the other. “Listen, if you happen to see Lexie Paine, how about giving her my card? I’d love, love, love to talk to her. We’re all wondering what her next move will be. I’m sure she has a plan to make scads of money. Maybe we could all have lunch together? Just us girls. Here. Tell Lexie to keep me in mind.”

Two seconds later, she was gone like a gust of wind. Somewhat dazed by the encounter, I put Brenda’s card into my handbag. Every reporter in town was hungry for an interview with Lexie, and I shouldn’t get caught looking like a deer in the headlights when they asked me about her.

In the fading sunshine, Gus was waiting for me, leaning on a parked car and yelling into his phone. He terminated the call when he caught sight of me. “You’re holding out on me again.”

“Now what?”

“I hear a famous person died this afternoon. And you were on the scene.”

“She wasn’t famous,” I said, automatically going into protection mode. “Her father was famous.”

“Toodles Tuttle’s daughter, right? The composer fellow who wrote that sappy stage tripe.”

“His shows are not sappy. They’re charming.”

Gus said a rude word. Then, “How did she die?”

“Don’t get your hopes up. There’s no seedy celebrity story to print in the paper.”

“The police must disagree. They assigned her case to the Homicide squad.”

For a split second, I didn’t respond. Of course, Jenny’s death had been caused by a heart attack. But I had seen the faces of her mother and the nurse. I had heard the strange pitch in the voices of the dancers who’d been on the scene when I arrived. And from the way Ox Oxenfeld had run out of the house—well, it all added up to something I wasn’t quite ready to accept. But Gus’s information brought all the impressions together in my head. I knew there was something fishy about Jenny Tuttle’s slip from the surly bonds of earth.

Gus’s gaze sharpened. He gripped my arm so suddenly that I bit back a startled cry. He said, “It
was
a murder, wasn’t it? And you were right there when it happened.”

“I wasn’t there when it happened. I arrived much later. I don’t know anything.”

He gave me a frustrated shake. “Dammit, Nora, didn’t you understand what I said this afternoon? The
Intelligencer
is going under unless I can bring things back from the brink of disaster. That was supposed to be a call to arms. I want a story from you, young lady—not a do-gooder piece about cheating charities. It’s time you earned your keep. Either you write about your friend Lexie Paine or you write about this Tuttle woman.”

“I won’t write about Lexie.”

“Then you’re choosing the Tuttle murder? Excellent. A dead body is even better than Paine hiding from the clients she screwed.” His editor’s brain was already humming. “To get the public interested, we can start with a piece about her father. We’ll build the big picture from there. I’ll put together a standard obit for her. See what you can dig up about him to add. Not the usual happy crap. Something juicy. Call me later.”

B
efore I had time to protest, we parted ways at the corner. Gus strode back toward the office, presumably hot to write something contemptible about Jenny Tuttle’s untimely death. The thought made me feel genuinely ill.

I walked half a block before I realized my cell phone was ringing. Out of breath, I stopped and sat on a shady park bench to answer the call.

“Hey,” Michael said in my ear. “It’s me. How are you?”

“It’s been a weird day.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” he said. “Sorry I couldn’t drive you to work. I talked to the state cops for more than an hour. They’re suspicious about the way the Tuttle lady died.”

“They aren’t the only ones. Gus Hardwicke is back. He needs a hot story for the dog days of summer, and if it’s not Jenny Tuttle’s death, he wants a juicy article about Lexie.”

“Oh, hell. You’re not going to do that, are you?”

“Of course not. He put an especially unpleasant dog on the hunt for Lexie, though.”

“Well, maybe Hardwicke will be diverted by the Tuttle story. It just heated up. The cops say a sixtysomething woman dying of a heart attack wasn’t all that unusual. But she was famous, and she had money, plus a lot of different prescriptions were sitting around in plain sight—some of them written to her mother—so they ordered an autopsy. With a tox screen. The good news for us is that they interviewed all those dancers hanging around the house, who said we arrived after she was dead, so we’re in the clear. But Homicide is starting to dig. And guess who they want to talk to first?”

“Who?”

“Bridget.”

My heart lurched. “Your mother? Why?”

“It seems today wasn’t the first time she tried to get an audition for this Tuttle show. She’s been communicating with the Tuttle family for weeks. Not exactly cordially.”

“Oh, Michael.”

“Yeah. And now she’s done one of her disappearing acts. All I need right now is my mother getting press coverage in a murder case. Pretty soon the papers will dig up some of the old pictures of her.”

“What kind of pictures?”

“You don’t want to know.”

Before I could stop myself, I said, “Gus says he’s seen new photos of you. With petty drug dealers.”

I must have caught him off guard, because he said, “Who took the pictures?”

“Does that matter?”

“Yeah, it does.” Then he said, “Hardwicke’s hoping I’ll go to jail so he can carry you off on his surfboard.”

“Don’t change the subject, please,” I said. “Can you tell me what’s going on?”

Michael hesitated. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll explain tonight. I’ll pick you up at nine, as planned.”

“Okay. Good luck finding your mother.”

“Thanks. See if you can figure out who might have wanted the dead lady gone, okay? It might keep Bridget out of jail.”

I knew he was joking, but I said, “I’ll see what I can do.”

He told me he loved me, and we ended the call.

I sat for a moment, gathering my thoughts. In my mind’s eye, the image of Jenny Tuttle collapsed on her bedroom floor floated up again. Maybe it was my impending motherhood, but I found myself thinking of Jenny and her mother. Had their relationship been as fraught with conflict as I had guessed? My curiosity was piqued.

Then I remembered the photograph. I don’t know why it had slipped my mind until that moment. Maybe I had been too surprised by Boom Boom’s blue skin. A small photo of a boy had fallen from the pocket of Jenny’s bathrobe. Who was the child? And why had Jenny kept his picture so close?

Suddenly my baby gave me a kick, and I smiled. Already, my daughter was reminding me that there were more important things to think about. I gave her a rub and felt her wriggle under my touch. I smiled. Soon I’d be holding her, feeding her, dressing her in the soft pink onesies that seemed to come every day in the mail from generous friends. I could hardly wait for my maternity leave and the long, happy weeks of getting to know our child.

I walked through shady Rittenhouse Square, where a threesome of small children was trying out new roller skates under the watchful eyes of indulgent parents who chatted while holding cups of iced coffee. Along with the early evening crowd of city dwellers strolling out to dinner in the local restaurants, I went a few more streets into the city’s cultural district. The theaters were already lit
up for the evening performances. Neon lights flashed to entice audiences, and large posters shouted the names of coming productions. I wondered how many times Toodles Tuttle had seen his name in such lights.

A grandfatherly passerby with a briefcase spotted me trundling toward one of the theater doors, and he lunged forward to open it for me. “You look beautiful,” he said jauntily.

He gave my tummy a rub as if summoning a genie from a bottle.

One of the strangest parts about being pregnant was how public my body had become. Complete strangers felt they could make personal remarks and touch me, which was very disconcerting.

If being touched by strangers was weird, it was not as dreadful as the labor and delivery horror stories so many women felt the need to share with me. If I heard about one more long, agonizing tale full of pushing and screaming and doctors suddenly deciding to perform cesarean sections in the nick of time, I might decide not to go through with it all.

But a second later, I was in the cool, air-conditioned lobby of the city’s great performance space. A creatively dressed crowd milled around a bar that had been set up to serve a few elite donors who were being honored for their support of the current show running in the theater.

“Nora!”

I headed for the committee chair, who had invited me, and she gave me a hug while gushing over my size. She was a wealthy, middle-aged theater lover who gave various charities profits from her family’s patio furniture fortune.

Eventually I sidetracked her baby discussion and got the lowdown on the party while snapping a few photos for my weekly print column. Wealthy contributors might be altruistic in spirit, but it never hurt to give them good publicity in the newspaper. Attention in the media not only drew public interest in good deeds but also
increased charitable giving in general. For me, this tenet was the mission of my column, and I was careful to single out the people who gave the most hours or money. First-time donors also responded well to a little stroking. I could do my part to see future donations rise. Even if Gus was taking the
Intelligencer
down a deplorable path, I was determined to keep my own standards high for as long as possible.

But the online readers didn’t care about rich old people—my father called them the Nearly Deads—who gave money to good causes, so I skipped sending photos to my online editor. I’d save the pictures for the print edition.

Work accomplished, I went around the edges of the crowd, looking for a certain someone who might have been invited to this party—someone I thought might be able to tell me more about the Tuttles.

At last I sniffed him out. Nico Legarde and Herman Jones had carried their drinks to the balcony, where they could spy on the party from above and probably gossip. They were both dressed in very stylish skinny summer suits—oozing sophisticated nonchalance and handsome enough for a magazine shoot for men’s cologne.

“If it isn’t Nora Blackbird.” Nico smiled with his usual wry gentility. Which, I suppose, is another way of saying he was one of those people who mistook sarcasm for wit. He looked like urbane European royalty once removed—which he was. He made the most of his genetic haughtiness by raising his eloquent brows. “What made you think we’d love the silver salad tongs you sent for our wedding?”

“They’re elegant, which I adore,” Herman answered for me in his Georgia drawl. He towered over Nico, and he propped his elbow on the other man’s shoulder in a gesture of jaunty
possessiveness. “And you love anything expensive—even better if it has a pedigree.”

“In your own ways, I knew the two of you would appreciate the tongs,” I said. “They came from my grandmother’s collection. She bought them from the Duchess of Windsor’s estate.”

Nico’s little bud mouth popped open in surprise. “Get out of town! Well, now, Herm, you were right to find a proper place to display them.”

“It drives Nico nuts that I’m still such an Atlanta boy,” Herman confided in his deep, sonorous voice. “I’d like every square inch of our apartment to be decorated to the hilt.”

“Do you also display your collection of Super Bowl rings?” I teased.

“Two does not make a collection,” he corrected, with a twinkle in his dark eyes. “Will you pay a call? Come for lunch?”

“Perfect. I’m starving all the time. In fact—”

Herman caught my longing glance and his southern manners kicked in instantly. “Sit down, and I’ll go get you some canapés. Another drink? What are you having? Tonic and lime?”

“Thank you, Herman.”

To Nico, Herman said sternly, “Don’t ask her any uncomfortable questions. She’s a lady.”

As the former wide receiver eased off to find me food and drink, catty Nico wasted no time asking me a very uncomfortable question. “So, Nora, what do you know about Lexie Paine? Did she survive prison? And what’s she up to now? Has she moved to Borneo to bilk unsuspecting natives for another fortune?”

I bit back a snappy retort and said, “As far as I know, she isn’t allowed to leave the country.”

Nico gave me a sideways frown. “You’re disappointingly discreet.”

“Yep.”

“Well then, how are things going between the beauty and the beast?”

I sat down in the nearest chair. “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

“You and your Mafia Prince, of course.” Nico remained standing and pulled out his slender cigarette case. “I suppose you have nothing to say about him, either. Never mind. I approve, you know. My father used to say the Blackbird girls always chose the wrong men, but a woman as otherwise polite as you needs forbidden love in her life. If you didn’t have a scoundrel in your bed, you’d have to do something else extraordinary. It gives you a necessary dash of piquancy.” He squeezed my arm, probably intending to take the sting from his words.

For someone who made his living in the cutthroat business of running posh nightclubs in New York and London as well as Philadelphia, he only occasionally let his softer side show, and I should be thankful for the squeeze. But I never really liked hearing editorial comments about my private life.

I said, “Nico, I need some gossip.”

He laughed, chose a cigarette and closed the case. “Not so discreet after all, are you? Well, you’ve come to the right man. But only if it’s off the record.”

I could use his information as deep background and not mention his name in print. “It is. I must ask you to keep it to yourself, too. It’s about Jenny Tuttle. I think your parents knew her father.”

Nico’s powerful father had owned a big theater in the city, and Nico had loved the stage since he was a small boy—which was why he donated to theatrical causes now that he could afford to be philanthropic. I was betting he might have some info about the Tuttle family.

Nico sat down with me on the bench. “They did know Toodles. So did I. In fact, he helped me get started in the club world. He
even played in my first establishment. If not for him, I might be running a string of seedy strip clubs instead of attracting celebrities with live music and thousand-dollar bottles of vodka.”

“I doubt it would be strip clubs.”

He allowed a small smile as he put the cigarette between his lips. He didn’t light it. “As for Jenny—I met her a few times. We weren’t exactly close, but I knew her.”

“You heard she died today?”

Nico removed the cigarette and held it in his fingers, his usual dispassionate demeanor fading. “It was on the five o’clock news before we came here. I heard the word
homicide
. What happened?”

I told Nico what I knew about Jenny’s death, and he shook his head.

“What a shame. It’s hard to imagine anyone would want to kill her. Jenny was remarkably unremarkable, don’t you think?”

“That’s unkind.”

“But honest. If you met her at a party, you’d send her to the piano as soon as possible, right? She was comfortable playing background music. It was the metaphor of her life, wasn’t it? She had some talent, but not like her father. Toodles was the life of every party he ever attended.”

“You knew Toodles well?”

Nico surprised me with a wink. “In every sense of the word. He was one of my first.”

“Nico! Are you suggesting Toodles was . . . ?”

“Bisexual? Yes. And quite energetic. He chased skirts and trousers with equal zest. He practically used chorus girls like his own private harem. I told you, he was the life of the party. Don’t tell Herman.”

I was pretty sure Herman knew all about Nico’s previous dalliances. I said, “Did you know the Tuttles are working on a new musical? An old one Toodles left behind?”

Nico gave a gentlemanly snort. “If Boom Boom or Jenny found any decent music or lyrics in that mausoleum, I’ll eat my sombrero. What’s the show called?”

“
Bluebird of Happiness
.”

He laughed. “That proves it. Toodles would never have stooped that low.”

“Wait,” I said. “You don’t believe Toodles left an unproduced show?”

“Nora, not only was Toodles a marvelous composer and a delightful raconteur, plus an adventurous spirit in his personal relationships, but he was an astute businessman, too. He advised me extensively in business, so I should know. A genuine Tuttle musical? I’m sure he’d have left it safely in the hands of experienced theater people—not his nut of a wife.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“His final show—
The Flatfoot and the Floozy
? Not his best material. If he had old work lying around, he’d have produced it then, instead of that stinker.”

“If he didn’t write this new show, where did it come from?”

Nico’s brows gathered. “Is it any good?”

“I’ve only heard rehearsals. Despite all those years of symphony subscriptions and Todd dragging me to jazz performances, I’m still not very discerning when it comes to popular music.”

“Todd’s idea of jazz was—well, never mind.” Nico had the good grace not to speak ill of the dead. “Who’s directing? Sometimes it’s a ghostwriter.”