Dial Me for Murder (3 page)

Several alarms went off in my brain at once. And my head was jangling with questions. Since the victim was found nude, tied up, and gagged, I took for granted she had been raped. But if she had been, why had all her clothes been left with the body? And why had she been dolled up in a fancy cocktail dress on a Monday night? Monday was usually the quietest, least dressy night of the week. Had Virginia gone to a private party before she was murdered, I wondered, or had she been on her way to a formal function?

And what about the mink jacket and diamond jewelry? How many single young secretaries could afford such luxurious accessories? (I knew I couldn’t!) And why hadn’t the killer snatched those expensive items to sell or pawn? Was he so well off he didn’t need the extra cash?

Most puzzling of all was the fact that Virginia’s purse and identification had been stashed in her bedsheet shroud with her asphyxiated body. What could have been the motive for this unusual act? Most killers, I knew, tried to hide the identity of their victims. They figured the longer it took the cops to identify the corpse, the colder their own trail would become. And they were right! So what was the deal with
this
murderer? Was he stealthy or stupid? Had he simply acted in haste, or did he
want
the police to identify Virginia immediately?

(You see how my mind works? Questions, questions, questions. I’m so curious, sometimes I can barely breathe. Give me a puzzle to solve, and I won’t sleep until the answer is clear . . . or at least a little less murky.)

I didn’t scan the rest of the
Tribune
for further murder reports. Why bother? I was already hooked on the Virginia Pratt homicide and determined to grab that story assignment for myself. Dying to cut out the article for my personal story file, I grabbed a pair of scissors from my drawer. But then I came to my senses and put them away. Mr. Crockett would be arriving at the office any minute now. He’d want to read the morning news while he was having his coffee, and he’d blow his top if I didn’t bring him the papers while they were still intact (i.e., before I’d performed my daily duty of clipping out all the crime reports). I reluctantly slapped the paper closed, shoved it to one side of my desk, and started flipping through the
Daily Mirror,
looking for another article about the Pratt murder.

I found it immediately, up front on page 2. Either the
Mirror
editors placed more importance on the brutal murder of a young secretary than they did on the accidental death of James Dean, or they were more eager to appeal to their readers’ prurient interests. Judging from the headline of their piece—BLONDE BOMBSHELL FOUND NAKED, BOUND, AND DEAD UNDER HEAP OF LEAVES—I suspected it was the latter.

The
Mirror
article dished out most of the same details that had appeared in the
Tribune,
along with several tantalizing additions. Virginia Pratt, the tabloid noted, had been a beautiful, well-built champagne blonde, an aspiring folksinger, a resident of Peter Cooper Village on the Lower East Side, and a secretary at the 23rd Street accounting offices of Gilbert, Mosher, Pechter & Slom.

I was committing these new facts to memory when the office entry bell jingled and Harvey Crockett walked in.

“Good morning, Mr. Crockett,” I said, cocking my head to one side and drawing my words out in a long, dry line. “How’s tricks?” If I had to be subservient and submissive (as all female office workers are—at all times—required to be), I could at least do it with a flip, droll Eve Arden attitude.

“Hummph!” Mr. Crockett replied, squinching his bushy white brows and trudging over to the coat tree. He hung up his hat and coat, then headed down the center aisle of the main workroom toward his private office in the back. As he passed my desk he gave me a quick nod and a snort. “Coffee ready?”

“Yes, sir!” I croaked, resisting the urge to salute.

“Then bring me some,” he growled, maneuvering his wide body down the narrow aisle. “And the papers, too,” he said over his shoulder, as if I hadn’t heard those very same words every morning of every single day I’d worked at
Daring Detective.
Did he really think I wouldn’t remember? Or was he still refusing to admit to himself that a woman—any woman—might actually have a brain?

I rolled my eyes at the ceiling, rose to my full height (five feet seven without heels, five feet ten with), and sadly scooped up the newspapers. My search for more information about the Virginia Pratt murder would have to be put on hold. I knew better than to mention my interest in the story to Mr. Crockett. He would just tell Brandon Pomeroy about it, and then Pomeroy would make it a point to give the assignment to Mike Davidson— just for the pleasure of watching me squirm.

Doing my best Lauren Bacall (i.e., acting as cool and indifferent as possible), I carried all four morning editions into Crockett’s office and plunked them down on his desk. Then I went back into the workroom to fetch his coffee. (God forbid he should ever have to get his own!)

“Here you go, Mr. Crockett,” I said, returning to his office, walking around the front of his desk, and setting his coffee down next to his phone and ashtray—right where he liked it. The
Daily News
was open in front of him. (Having once been a staff reporter for the
News
, Crockett always read that paper first.) I leaned over the desk, tucked my shoulder-length brown hair behind my ears, stared down at the spread of newsprint, and madly scanned the upside-down headlines. Luckily, there was no story about the murder on either page, or I might have snatched the paper right out from under Mr. Crockett’s nose. (As hard as I try to contain myself, I can get a little carried away sometimes.)

“Will that be all, Mr. Crockett?” I asked, stalling, hovering, hoping he would turn the page so I could check out the next batch of headlines.

“Yeah,” he said, “except for lunch. Make a reservation for two at the Quill for twelve thirty. I gotta take the distributor out for a steak.” He didn’t look up from the
News
, but he didn’t turn the page, either.

“Yes, sir,” I said, giving up and walking back to my desk. Further stalling or snooping was pointless. I’d just have to keep my curiosity under control until Crockett finished the morning papers and gave them to me to clip—hopefully before Brandon Pomeroy came in.

As I sat down and reached for a galley to proofread, Lenny Zimmerman made his usual wheezing, gasping, red-faced entrance. (Lenny is deathly afraid of elevators and always climbs the full nine flights of stairs to the office.) Actually, he was more red-faced and wheezy than usual. Rivulets of sweat were trickling down his florid cheeks, and he was panting so hard his glasses were all steamed up.

Knowing it would take a full minute or two for my friend to recover from his arduous climb, I corrected all the typos in the first few paragraphs of the article I was reading. Then, as soon as Lenny’s breathing returned to normal, I grinned and gave him a hearty “Good morning.”

“Morning,” he mumbled, still standing just inside the door. He removed his black-rimmed glasses, wiped the lenses with his muffler, then returned the spectacles to their off-kilter perch on his large, distinctive nose. “God, Paige!” he said, aiming his bloodshot eyes at me. “It’s as hot as a steam bath in here. Do you have the radiator turned up too high?” His feet were firmly planted on the floor, but the rest of his thin body was swaying like a willow in the wind.

“Nope. I set the knob in its usual position. But you know what, Lenny? I think
you’re
turned up too high. Your face is still flaming. Do you feel all right?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess so,” he said, slowly stumbling across the room and looping his hat, muffler, and jacket on the coat tree. “I’m just a little tired, that’s all.”

“Late night?”

“Hardly. My mother thought I looked sickly and made me go to bed at nine o’clock.”

I smiled. Lenny was twenty-three years old but still lived at home with his parents. He probably wouldn’t move out until the day of his wedding—if that day ever came. His mother was a tad possessive . . . and a really good cook.

“Hey, wait a minute!” I said, as Lenny walked up to my desk and turned to head for his drawing table in the rear. “Your mother was right. You
do
look kind of sickly. Stand still for a second.” I jumped to my feet and put my palm on his forehead. “Gosh, Lenny! You’re burning up. You should have gone to the hospital instead of coming to the office!” I was exaggerating, but not by much.

“You’re worse than my mother,” Lenny said. “She just wanted me to stay home.”

“You should have listened to her.”

“I couldn’t,” he said. “The cover paste-up and all the boards have to be finished and sent to the printer today. If I didn’t come in, Pomeroy would have me arrested and sent straight to the electric chair.”

“That would be funny if it weren’t true.”

“Tell me about it.” He looked so feverish I thought he might faint.

“What can I do for you, Len?” I asked. “Do you want a cup of coffee?”

“God, no. That would make me throw up.”

“A glass of water? Some aspirin?”

“Nothing, Paige. I just want to go sit down.”

Giving me a sad excuse for a smile, Lenny turned away and slunk down the aisle to the deepest recesses of the workroom. As he passed the open door to Mr. Crockett’s office, he muttered a quick hello, then sat down at his drawing table. Propping his elbows on the table and resting his head in his hands, he let out a moan that could have been heard in Hoboken. Poor Lenny. He was sick as a dog, with a major deadline looming—like the blade of a guillotine—over him. He knew he had a long, hard, harrowing day ahead.

I was in for a harrowing day myself, but—unlike Lenny—I didn’t know it yet.

Chapter 2

MIKE AND MARIO ARRIVED TWO MINUTES LATER. I don’t know how they do it. They live on opposite sides of town, but they always get to work at the same time and burst into the office together. I think it’s some kind of conspiracy.

“
Buon giorno
!” Mario bellowed, removing his hat and coat and hanging them on the coat tree. He straightened his tie, drew a comb from his breast pocket, and swiped it through both sides of his slick, black (and ridiculously juvenile) ducktail. Then, the minute his hands were free, he scooted over to my desk and put them on me. “How are you feeling today, Paige?” he said, standing behind my chair and squeezing my shoulders.

“Since you’re the one doing the feeling,” I said, “why don’t you tell me?” I tried to shrug him off, but he just laughed and kept on squeezing—pressing the fleshy parts of my upper arms as if testing them for ripeness.

“Well, you feel pretty good so far,” Mario sniggered, “but I think I need to do some more research.”

“Cut it out!” I sputtered, vaulting out of my chair and around the side of my desk before his stubby fingers could find something else to fondle. “I’m not a piece of fruit!”

“No, but I bet you’re a good piece of . . . pie,” he murmured, substituting one three-letter word for the one he really wanted to say. He gave me a lecherous grin to make sure I got his meaning.

Oh, brother!
I muttered to myself.
Is this joker ever going to grow up?

Mike waltzed over to join in the fun. “Now you’ve done it, pal,” he said to Mario. “You’ve turned one too many of Paige Turner’s pages. If you’re not careful, she’s gonna close the book on you.” Snickering at his own vapid wordplay, Mike skimmed one hand over the roof of his straw-colored flattop, lit up a Lucky Strikes, and sat down at his desk—the one right next to mine. “Bring me some java, doll,” he said, blowing smoke in my direction. “I need a jump start.”

“Yeah, me, too,” Mario chimed in, reluctantly ditching the groping game and propelling his short, stocky body toward his desk in the rear of the workroom. “And make it snappy, will ya? It’s deadline day.”

There was a time when Mike and Mario wouldn’t have let me off so easy. They would have teased and taunted me till the cows came home (or until Mr. Crockett poked his head out of his office and told them to pipe down). But that was before I’d proved myself as a writer . . . before I’d increased
DD
’s circulation by a third . . . before I’d earned the respect of the magazine’s profit-loving (but by no means profit-
sharing
) owner, Oliver Rice Harrington . . . before Mike and Mario had lost the power to have me fired.

Everything was different now that I was a bona fide staff writer. Well, not
everything.
I still had to kowtow to my male “superiors” (i.e., suffer fools gladly), and I still had to serve the damn coffee.

 
IT WAS 9:55 AM WHEN THE APOCALYPTIC PHONE call came in. I had just finished my morning coffee chores, checked up on Lenny (who was near death, but working like a slave on the next issue’s paste-ups), retrieved the
Daily News
and the
New York Times
from Mr. Crockett, and sat down at my desk to casually (okay, frantically) search for more articles about the murder of Virginia Pratt.

So when the phone rang, I was more than a little upset. I wasn’t in the mood for any more interruptions.

“
Daring Detective,
” I snapped into the receiver. “Can I help you?” What I really meant was
Please leave me alone! Can’t you tell I’m busy?!

“I’d like to speak with Paige Turner, please.” The voice was smooth, composed, and female. I was certain I’d never heard it before.

“May I tell her who’s calling?” I asked. (In my line of work it pays to be cautious.)

“Yes, of course,” the woman said. “My name is Sabrina Stanhope. This is a personal call.”

I nabbed a cigarette out of the pack sitting on my desk, lit it, and inhaled deeply. “Mrs. Turner isn’t here right now,” I said, exhaling slowly. “May I take a message?” I really hate having to be the
DD
receptionist—except when I like it.