Dial Me for Murder (4 page)

There was a long pause, and then a curt reply. “But you just said you wanted to tell her who was calling. How could you do that if she isn’t there?”

“I’m sorry, but Mrs. Turner just stepped out of the office. If you’ll leave your name and number and the reason for your call, I’ll make sure she calls you back.” (I like to think I’m a member of the smart cookie club myself.)

There was another long pause. “I already gave you my name. It’s Sabrina Stanhope.”

“And your phone number is . . . ?”

“Never mind. I’ll call Mrs. Turner back at a more convenient time. When is she expected to return?” She sounded anxious now—as though my whereabouts really mattered to her.

“Well, I’m not sure, but I’ll—”

“Look, if you’ll just tell me when Mrs. Turner is expected, I’ll call her back at the appropriate—”

“Okay, okay!” I surrendered, mentally throwing both hands in the air. (My curiosity always gets the best of me. Every single time.) “This is Paige Turner,” I confessed—so breathless I was bug-eyed. “How can I help you?”

“
You’re
Paige Turner?” I could almost hear her smiling.

“Yes,” I said, with a defensive sniff.

“Are you quite sure?” At first I thought she had an English accent, but then I decided she was just putting on a high-class act.

“As sure as I am that you’re Sabrina Stanhope,” I said, puffing on my ciggie, ear suctioned to the receiver.

She laughed (rather nervously, I thought) and tossed me a flip “Touché.”

“Okay, now that we think we know each other’s names,” I said, “what’s next on the agenda? Are you going to tell me why you’re calling, or do we have to engage in a round of Twenty Questions?” I was playing it as tough and cool as I could— trying to make my white flag colorful.

“I called to invite you to lunch today, Mrs. Turner.” Her tone was challenging and apprehensive at the same time. The flag she was waving was red.

“Lunch?!” That was the last thing I expected her to say. I was thoroughly discombobulated, and—to make my composure even more difficult to maintain—I was hungry.

“Yes,” she politely replied. “I’d like you to join me for lunch at twelve thirty this afternoon, at my place on Gramercy Park. There’s a very important matter I need to discuss with you.”

The last time a woman needed to discuss an important matter with me, I almost got killed for my trouble. “You’ll have to do better than that,” I said, crushing my cigarette in the ashtray. “For me to give up my feast at Horn and Hardart and come all the way down to Gramercy Park to eat, you’ll have to tell me what you’re serving.”

She laughed again, but instead of nervous, she sounded relieved. “Poached salmon,” she said, “with onion soup, asparagus vinaigrette, and a freshly baked baguette.”

“Anything for dessert?”

“Chocolate mousse.”

My mouth was watering so much that my next words sailed out on the tide. “Sounds good,” I said, with a slurp that I dearly hoped was silent. “But I’m still not satisfied. You left something off the menu.”

“What do you mean?”

“The topic of the conversation. I want to know what the ‘very important matter’ is.”

She heaved a loud sigh. “That’s impossible. The subject is too sensitive and complicated to discuss over the phone.”

“Then can you at least give me a clue? I’ve got a lot of work on my plate today, and I can’t leave the office without good reason.”

“Oh, all right!” she said, annoyed. “It has to do with the death of a friend of mine. You may have read about it in the paper this morning. Her name was Virginia Pratt.”

I almost swallowed my tongue. I was so stunned—so close to speechlessness—I barely managed to ask for Sabrina Stanhope’s address and confirm that I’d be there at twelve thirty sharp.

 
I SPENT THE REST OF THE MORNING CLIPPING the newspapers, reading and rereading all four articles about Virginia Pratt (no photos or new information in the
News
or the
Times
), making Mr. Crockett’s restaurant reservation, filing stock shots, approving invoices, correcting all the grammatical mistakes in Mike’s latest story, and begging the hands of the office clock to move faster. I was itching to make my lunch hour getaway before Brandon Pomeroy came in . . . which was not an impossible dream, you should know. Pomeroy often shunned the office until later in the day, after his own lunch (his customary repast of olives, peanuts, and at least three very dry martinis) had been consumed.

But my booze-loving boss must not have been very thirsty that morning. He strolled into the office at eleven forty-five—a good fifteen minutes before my lunch hour was due to begin— and he was stone-cold sober.

My heart was sinking, but I managed to keep my sprightly tone afloat. “Good morning, Mr. Pomeroy,” I chirped, watching him remove his gray felt fedora and custom-tailored overcoat and carefully arrange them on the coat tree.

“Good morning,” he replied, but you could tell he didn’t mean it. Not the “good” part, anyway. There was a deep black frown on his pale, funereal face. “Are there any messages for me?”

“No, sir,” I said, wondering why he thought there would be. Pomeroy rarely received any calls at the office because (a) he was hardly ever there, and (b) he was so impersonal—and did so little actual work—that he seldom dealt directly with any of the magazine’s contributors or suppliers.

“Expecting an important phone call, sir?” I asked, thinking that might be the reason he came to work so early (and letting my naturally snoopy self come out to play).

“That’s none of your concern, Mrs. Turner,” he said, still scowling. “You’re required to write down every message I receive, whether I’m expecting it or not.” Holding his spine erect and his snotty nose in the air, Pomeroy strode deeper into the workroom and sat down at his desk. He took one of his precious Dunhill pipes out of the top drawer and filled it with Cuban tobacco (“the finest money can buy,” he liked to boast), then leaned back in his cushy leather chair.

“Bring me some coffee,” he said. “Black.”

I was shocked out of my seamed silk stockings. Pomeroy never (and I do mean
never
) drank the office coffee. He had declared it to be substandard (I believe the actual word he used was “putrid”), and he’d sworn a public oath that the distasteful stuff would never pass his lips. That didn’t bother me one bit, I admit—the less coffee consumed, the less I had to make and serve. Besides, I had always suspected that Pomeroy’s aversion had nothing to do with taste, and everything to do with caffeine (which diminishes the intoxicating effects of gin, don’t ya know).

“Black coffee coming up, sir,” I said, rising to get him a cup and wondering what had brought about the dramatic change in Pomeroy’s behavior.
Is he sick?
I questioned myself.
Is he nursing a bad hangover? Has his doctor told him to stay off the sauce? Or does he have some special reason for wanting to stay alert?

I knew he hadn’t renounced his martinis and rushed to the office just because of the art department’s deadline. That wasn’t his style. Pomeroy was strictly a get-soused-now, crack-the-whip-at-the-last-minute kind of guy. Besides, he hadn’t even said hello to Mario or Lenny, much less gone back to their desks to check on their progress.

Something else, I sensed, was afoot. Something unusual, or downright weird, or maybe even sinister. For a moment I wondered if he had skipped his so-called lunch just so he could come in early and force me to skip mine! (That sounds a little paranoid, I know, but I wouldn’t have put it past him.)

“Here you are, sir,” I said, setting the coffee on his desk and lingering there for a second, studying his sullen face for clues. He was well-groomed as always—cheeks and chin clean shaven, mustache perfectly trimmed, brown hair neatly styled and combed—but the dark circles under his eyes were almost as blue as bruises.

“What are you staring at?” Pomeroy asked, shooting me a menacing glare.

“Oh, uh, er—”

“Don’t just stand there,” he barked. “Bring me the new crime clips. Now.”

To avoid any further discord, I stepped over to my desk, picked up the labeled and dated manila folder containing the articles I’d cut from the morning newspapers (including those about the Virginia Pratt murder), and handed the file over to Pomeroy.

“That will be all, Mrs. Turner,” he snorted. “You may take your lunch hour now.”

“Excuse me?” I stammered, struck nearly speechless for the second time that day. In all the three years and nine months I’d worked at
Daring Detective,
Pomeroy had never once deliberately given me leave to go out for lunch. In fact, if he happened to be in the office at noon—the official beginning of my lunch hour—he generally found a way to delay my departure, thereby shaving a few minutes off my allotted time.

“What did you say, Mr. Pomeroy?” I asked again, thinking my ears must be playing tricks on me.

“I said take your lunch hour now!” he growled, glancing up at the clock and chewing on the tip of his pipe stem.

“Yes, sir,” I said, secretly rejoicing over my prompt dismissal, but still shocked to the core to receive it. I snatched my purse off my desk, plucked my camel’s hair jacket and red wool beret off the coat tree, and hurriedly let myself out into the hall, before he could change his mind.

What the hell is going on?
I wondered, making a wobbly, high-heeled dash for the elevator.
What on earth is Pomeroy up to? Why does he look so worn-out and worried? And why was he so eager to get rid of me?

I couldn’t answer any of those questions, of course, and by the time the elevator arrived, I’d stopped trying. Pomeroy’s shady schemes and mysterious problems had faded—like a weak radio signal—from my mind. All I cared about now was Virginia Pratt and Sabrina Stanhope; they had taken complete control of my thoughts.

And before my lunch hour was over, they’d be controlling my actions, too.

Chapter 3

AT NOON, THE SIDEWALKS OF MANHATTAN ARE like rows of cages in a zoo—full of hungry animals darting this way and that, scrambling toward their appointed feeding stations, hoping to get a good place at their favorite trough. I exited my building at 43rd and Third and merged with the herd, hurrying past the Automat (one of my favorite troughs), crossing under the recently closed Third Avenue el, and forging my way to the IRT subway station at 42nd and Lex.

Once seated and lurching southward on the downtown local, I slipped my feet halfway out of my shoes (my new red suede pumps were killing me!) and removed my white cotton gloves (I didn’t want to get them dirty). Then I began studying the advertisements on the placards overhead, hoping the goofy pictures and silly slogans would take my mind off murder and have a soothing effect on my rattled nerves.

No such luck. The ad for Blatz beer—featuring Liberace in white tie and tails, wearing a piano keyboard smile, lifting his frosty glass up to the heavens and proclaiming Blatz to be the finest beer in his hometown of Milwaukee—just made me violently thirsty. And the even more absurd ad showing a baby boy in a party hat, with a
very
happy look on his face, saying (in a cartoon balloon) to his smiling, smoking mother, “Gee, Mommy, you sure enjoy your Marlboro!” just made me desperate for a cigarette (naturally, I was all out). And the ad for the new Decorator Refrigerator by International Harvester, picturing a red plaid refrigerator designed to match a set of red plaid kitchen curtains, just made me groan out loud. (I’ve never had the slightest desire to own a plaid refrigerator, and I can promise you I never will.)

Especially annoying was the message posted by the Pan-American Coffee Bureau, urging subway riders to “Think better! Give yourself a Coffee-break!” The ad showed Edward R. Murrow and several other men from CBS-TV’s
See It Now
staff, sitting amid the studio spotlights, cameras, and video control boards, enjoying the coffee that had just been served to them by a pretty brunette.
Jeezmaneez!
I grouched to myself.
Is there a man alive who knows how to pour coffee into a cup?

As the train was pulling into the 23rd Street station, I forced my feet back into my shoes and hobbled over to the exit, holding on to a dangling leather strap until the doors snapped open. I was the first one to leave the train, and the first one to climb the steps into the sunlight. Steeling myself for the painful two-block walk to Gramercy Park, I pulled on my gloves, straightened my beret (or, rather, set it at what I hoped was a confident, jaunty angle), and hurried onward.

I soon reached Gramercy Park North and turned left, marching—like a tightly wound tin soldier—toward the Gramercy Park East address Sabrina Stanhope had given me. I was so mobilized and so driven (and so fixated on the hideous murder of Virginia Pratt) that I barely noticed the bright blue sky, or the colorful leaves on the trees and grounds of the private gated park, or the crisp, clean autumn air that was filling my lungs and lending a spring to my step (in spite of my torturous stilettos).

Finally, as I turned the corner onto Gramercy Park East, walked down the block to number 36, and gazed up at Sabrina Stanhope’s building, I became more aware of—and thoroughly surprised by—the physical details of my surroundings.

Where the heck was I? England? France? Italy during the Renaissance? What was this crazy, mixed-up, churchy white stone structure rising twelve stories above me? A palace built for Louis XIV or some medieval Teutonic king? Where did all those finials and shields and cherubs and gargoyles come from? And why, pray tell, were those two helmeted, silver metal knights (statues in shining armor, for god’s sake!) standing guard at the entrance? Were they welcoming me in, or warning me to stay out?

I’d never seen such an edifice in all my life. And I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to again. As I climbed the white stone steps to the wide, ornate entryway, I felt a deep sense of dread. And as the short, skinny uniformed doorman ushered me in, asked me who I had come to see, and then led me across the gleaming veined marble lobby to the elevator, I felt as though I were walking into an elegant but oh-so-deadly trap. My high-heeled footsteps echoed loudly, mimicking the beat of the opening theme of
Dragnet
. . .