Murder is a Girl's Best Friend (28 page)

I didn’t know what to say or do to calm him down. But Abby did. “Come on now, baby,” she cooed, slowly rising from her chair and then planting her gorgeous self in his path. She was using the voice of a mother, but the body language of a harem girl. “Don’t get your sweet keester in a kink. Paige is just fine, you dig? A few shin bumps and knee scratches never hurt anybody. She’ll be fit as a philharmonic fiddle in no time.”

Blocked from continuing his stomping rampage, Terry slumped toward Abby and gave her a look of pure anguish. “How can you say that? She was almost
killed
.”

This was my cue. “But I
wasn’t!
” I said, in what I hoped was a composed and stalwart tone. “And that’s the main thing, Terry.
Almost
doesn’t count.”

“Oh, yes it does!” he insisted, aiming his anguished eyes at me. “Whoever tried to kill you is sure to try it again. What if they
almost
fail?”

He had me there. And instead of feeling stalwart, I suddenly felt as weak as the runt in a litter of kittens.

Seeing that my determination was melting away, that I was on the verge of a moral collapse, Abby threw up her hands and hollered, “Stop it! Both of you! Stop sniveling and face the facts. It’s too late for Paige to pull out now. The murderer knows who she is and where she lives—probably even where she works—and there’s not a goddamn thing we can do about that.” She walked back to the table, sat down, and gave me a piercing stare. “Oh, you could change your name and quit your job and move to South America,” she said, “but is that what you want to do?”

“No!” I declared, surprised by my own vehemence. Some stalwartness must have snuck back into my spine when I wasn’t looking.

“Good,” Abby said, “because even that wouldn’t guarantee your safety. The killer still wants the diamonds, don’t forget, and I have a feeling he’d follow you to the ends of the earth to get them.”

Finally, the light bulb lit. “That’s it!” I cried, electrified. “That’s why Lenny’s lunchbox was stolen!”

My friends were gaping at me again. “What the hell’re you talking about now?” Terry grumbled. His endurance was wearing a little thin. He returned to his chair at the table and tossed down the rest of his drink.

I explained who Lenny was, and why I had bought him a lunchpail for Christmas, and how I’d been carrying the wrapped gift to work that morning in a shopping bag. “Why didn’t I think of it before?” I stammered. “The devil who pushed me onto the subway tracks must have thought the diamonds were stashed in the jewelry box-sized package in my shopping bag!”

“Now you’re talkin’!” Abby crowed. “That would explain everything. I couldn’t figure it before, but now I can.”

“What do you mean?” Terry asked, exasperated. “What the hell couldn’t you figure?” He was looking a lot like Ricky does when he’s unwittingly caught up in one of Lucy and Ethel’s outrageous schemes.

“I couldn’t understand why the murderer would try to kill Paige
now,
” Abby said to Terry, “
before
he’d gotten his hands on the diamonds. See, as far as any of our prime suspects could possibly know, you and Paige are the only two people who might have knowledge of the jewelry’s actual whereabouts. And since nobody has any idea where
you
are, Whitey, Paige is the murderer’s only hope of finding the diamonds right now. So why would he try to kill her before he knew where the trinkets were? That would be plain crazy—unless, that is, he had reason to believe that the diamonds were concealed in the gift-wrapped container buried in the shopping bag he so greedily snatched from Paige’s unwary hand just seconds before he pushed her in front of a train.”

Grinning like a cream-fed Cheshire, Abby leaned back in her chair and lit up a cigarette. “Whew!” she said, exhaling loudly. “That was a mouthful.”

“But it makes perfect sense!” I said, excited by Abby’s new slant on the situation. “And the fact that the diamonds were
not
in Lenny’s lunchbox,” I added, heaving an inner swoosh of relief, “is a kind of protection for me. Could be I’m not in so much danger anymore.”

“Right!” Abby agreed.

“Wrong!” Terry argued, giving me an intensely paternal, admonishing look. “The killer will still be following you around, Paige, looking for a way to trap you and make you tell him where the diamonds are. And
then
he’ll kill you.”

Parade canceled due to rain.

“Well, at least I’ll have some advance notice,” I said, looking for a rainbow, however small. “That should boost my odds of survival.” I couldn’t believe I was sitting there at Abby’s round oak dining table, calmly discussing my own death as if it were the next course on the menu.

“Oh, don’t be such a
shlemiel!
” Abby heckled. “Why settle for a puny, almost nonexistent advantage when you can beat the odds altogether? Whitey and I will help you. If we pool our resources we can bust this case wide open!” She reminded me of Ethel Merman belting out the title song of her new movie,
There’s No Business Like Show Business.
“And when you think about it,” Abby added, curving her blood red lips in a sweetly sardonic smile, “there’s really only one teensy little thing we have to do.”

“What’s that?” I asked, though I knew too darn well what her answer was going to be.

“Catch the killer before he catches you.”

 

 

ABBY MADE ANOTHER BATCH OF BOURBON smashes and Terry ran across the street to get a pizza pie, which we devoured the minute he got back—while it was still hot enough to burn our tongues off. And as soon as we finished the pizza, we consumed the leftover cake and cookies I’d brought from the office. Then, sucking on cigarettes and slurping our smashes, we put our three heads together and got down to business.

We needed a plan of attack, we decided, so we reviewed what we knew about Judy’s life up to the murder, the details of the murder itself, and everything we’d found out since. We made a list of the people we still hadn’t talked to, and the ones we felt we should talk to again. We made some very calm and careful decisions about when and where and how the new round of interviews should be conducted, and then we fought like cats and dogs over who should interrogate whom.

Abby and I thought Terry should stay out of sight, not let his whereabouts be known to anybody—the police
or
the murderer. We figured that would force the killer to focus all his attention on me—which would not only keep me on my toes, but would allow us to anticipate (maybe even
control
) his impending actions more easily.

Well, Terry had a flying fit when he heard
that
idea. There was “no way on earth” he was going to “hide out” in Abby’s apartment—like a “gutless soldier cowering in a foxhole”—while I risked life and limb to find the “bastard” who had killed his sister. If anything, he wanted to make
himself
the target—reveal himself to the murderer (and even to the police, if need be), in the hope that “all the goddamn future catastrophes in this case” would happen to him instead of me.

I appreciated Terry’s solicitude. Actually, I was quite moved he was being so protective. But I still didn’t like the idea of him prancing around out in the open, calling attention to himself, maybe getting himself arrested by the tenacious (when he wanted to be!) Detective Hugo Sweeny. If Terry got thrown in jail, it would screw up our entire investigation. Not only would he be useless to us behind bars, but then we’d have to turn the diamonds over to the police—thereby losing our prime lure, not to mention my only form of life insurance.

And then Dan would find out about the case. And learn the details of my secret but total involvement. And then all hell would break loose. And I feared Dan’s final retributions as much as I did the murderer’s. (Okay, okay! So that’s a slight exaggeration. I’d rather have lost my lover than my life . . . I guess.)

After lots of arguing and analyzing and compromising (and another round of drinks), we finally agreed on a plan for the following day: Terry would make a surprise appearance at his sister’s old apartment on East 19th Street and question her former roommates—especially the one who had lost a handful of hair due to flirting with Judy’s then boyfriend, who may or may not have been Jimmy Birmingham; Abby would go with me to pay a call on the same Mr. Birmingham, at the East 8th Street address we found listed next to his name in the phone book. I had originally intended to drop in on Jimmy and Otto by myself, but Terry and Abby quickly nixed that idea. They thought it would be too dangerous—and after closer consideration, so did I.

As for the Smythe’s Christmas Eve party, we decided we’d all three go together. I would pass myself off as a new Farnsworth Fiduciary client, Terry would pose as my husband, and Abby would play the part of an out-of-town cousin who was staying with us for the holidays. I wasn’t worried about bringing an additional guest since Smythe had said his wife would never notice an extra face in the crowd. And I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that when girl-happy Gregory got a good look at Abby, she’d be welcomed with open arms (and puckered lips).

I was glad my friends would be going to the party with me. I figured I’d feel a lot safer with a “husband” by my side. And I knew Abby would be the perfect decoy to keep
Mr.
Smythe occupied (and thoroughly distracted) while I focused my investigative attentions on
Mrs.
Smythe. Augusta, after all, had been the one who originally purchased the diamonds, so they had rightfully belonged to
her
. Did that mean Gregory had
stolen
the jewelry from his wife to give to his girlfriend? Did Augusta know that her precious antique diamonds had been removed from the family vault and deposited in the Chelsea apartment of her husband’s new mistress—a nineteen-year-old blonde lingerie salesgirl named Judy Catcher?

I hoped to get the answers to these and a few other questions at the party. And now that Terry and Abby would be there to help me, I thought I had a chance. It felt really great to be part of a bona fide team instead of having to wing it so much on my own. But, team or no team, I was still a third wheel. And Abby and Terry were making eyes at each other again! So—as soon as we decided on a new hiding place for the diamonds (wrapped in tinfoil and buried deep in a canister of sugar in Abby’s overstocked pantry)—I knew it was time for me to vamoose.

I gathered up my coat, beret, gloves, and the Tiffany bag with Dan’s present in it, and said goodnight. Then I stepped across the landing to my own apartment. I wasn’t at all eager to be alone, but I
was
looking forward to a warm knee-and-shin-soaking bath, fresh applications of Mer curochrome and Unguentine, a change into something more comfortable, and a phone call—or, preferably—a surprise visit from Dan.

I was in for a surprise, all right, but it wouldn’t be delivered by Dan.

Chapter 22

EVEN BEFORE I TURNED ON THE LIGHT I knew something was wrong. I could
feel
it. And what I felt was
cold
. The temperature in my apartment had dropped to about thirty degrees. I knew it couldn’t be a problem with the steam since Abby’s place had been perfectly warm, and our Siamese twin radiator systems always functioned—or didn’t—in tandem. Heart slamming against the walls of my chest and beating loudly on my eardrums, I dropped all the stuff in my arms to the floor, sucked in a blast of frigid air, and flipped on the light.

At first glance, everything looked normal. Each piece of furniture was in its proper place; my typewriter was sitting right where I’d left it on the kitchen table; my rented floor-model Sylvania was standing upright near the couch/door/ daybed; all my books and record albums were neatly arranged on the living room shelves. At second glance, however, my eyes found the chilling source of the trouble. The back door to my apartment—the door that led from my kitchen to the balcony, and to the metal stairway leading down to the small rear courtyard—was standing wide open. One of the panes in the door—the one closest to the lock and the knob—was missing, and the linoleum just inside the door was littered with shattered glass.

Someone had broken into my apartment! Terrified that the intruder might still be there, hiding in the coat closet or lying in wait for me upstairs, I stood frozen in the middle of my kitchen, holding my breath, trying not to make a sound, straining my ears to the breaking point, listening for unusual creaks and squeaks—or somebody
else’s
breathing. So much adrenaline was rushing through my veins I felt volcanic.

After several moments of stone cold quiet, I couldn’t take it anymore. I threw open the coat closet and peered inside. Nothing. Zilch. Nobody. I darted over to the back door, flipped on the outside light, stuck my head through the door, and raked my eyes down the steps and around the snow-clogged courtyard. Nobody there either. There was a ragged path of deep footprints in the snow, though, giving further proof that somebody
had
been there. And since half of those footprints were pointed
down
the steps and
away
from my apartment, I figured the intruder had already made his retreat—across the courtyard and out through the rear gate.