MURDER ON A DESIGNER DIET (12 page)

Chapter 25

  

Penelope walked through the streets of Tribeca, only vaguely noticing the people passing by her on the street. The sounds of traffic and conversation flowed around her, and she felt like a salmon swimming upstream against a current of anonymous strangers, just another soul in the crowd. She stuffed her hands into her jeans pockets, her purse bouncing lightly on her hip.

She shivered in the chilly morning air, deciding to stop in the next store she saw where she could buy a jacket or a sweatshirt. Penelope noticed a few people taking quick glances at the splint on her arm or at her poorly camouflaged bruises, but most people just looked away, unwilling to think about or get involved in problems not their own.

Penelope stopped in a clothing shop a few minutes later and bought a gray fleece jacket with a hood and I
❤
NY embroidered on the chest in pink. She pulled it on and headed into the diner next door for some breakfast. After slipping into a small booth in the back and ordering some eggs and coffee, she pulled her phone from her purse and scrolled through her recent calls to find the one from Gary on the production team.

“Yeah?” he answered, irritation in his voice.

“Gary? This is Penelope from catering.”

“What do you need?”

“I've been in an accident and I'm injured. I wanted to let you know I might not be able make it through the whole night. But my team will be there, and they're more than capable of handling everything you'll need.”

Gary laughed. “No, no, no. The contract says we get five chefs every filming day. Unless you have someone to replace you, we'll let you guys go and call in the next catering company down on the bid sheet to take over the job.”

Penelope sat stunned. “You'd fire us because I've been in an accident and can't use my hand? You're running a small set. Four chefs are more than enough to serve dinner for fifty people.”

“Whatever. If you can't fulfil the contract, we'll call someone who can.”

Penelope thought about what he was saying, then about her crew. She knew Francis was putting the last bit of money together for a down payment on a new condo, and one of the others was saving up for an engagement ring. She didn't have another job lined up for them at the moment, and didn't want to cause them any financial worries.

“Fine. We'll all be there for the whole night,” Penelope said, rolling her eyes. She didn't look up when the waitress set her coffee mug down in front of her.

“Call time is five.” And he hung up on her once again.

“I really hate this shoot,” Penelope muttered. Her head ached dully behind her eyes and her wrist twinged in the splint. She'd decided against taking another pain pill this morning, wanting to remain sharp with her thoughts clear. With everything going on, she had a brief impulse to take two and crawl back under the covers to sleep until she could see Joey again. But she would only feel worse when she woke up, and she would've lost a whole day on top of it.

After breakfast she was restless, unsure of how to spend the afternoon before going to work. She decided to walk for a while, clear her head and go over everything that happened step by step again in her mind. Without really realizing it, she had walked back toward Max's neighborhood, and decided to head to his building, in the off chance she might run into Hannah.

  

On her way to Max's apartment, Penelope decided to stop at the corner of her accident. She could see both the restaurant where she'd had lunch and the entrance to Max's building. She took a seat on a bench at the edge of the park and watched the traffic light change several times. Crowds of pedestrians gathered and waited, then flowed across the wide avenue with the light. She thought about how normal it all seemed, just an average street corner in Manhattan, nothing remarkable about it at all. Except for her, because it was the exact spot where someone almost took her life. Whether it was on purpose or a random act carried out by a stranger, the result was the same. Penelope had conflicting feelings of sorrow and anger, mixed with helplessness and sadness that someone could be so careless with another person's life.

She saw a young couple being buzzed in through Max's front door. She didn't recognize them from the TV show, but she also wasn't totally up on who all the stars were. Pushing herself carefully up from the bench, she moved to the crosswalk. She stood back from the curb, hanging on tightly to her purse and making sure no one was right behind her. The crosswalk light gave her the go-ahead, and she hurried across to Max's building. She pressed the buzzer and looked up at the camera in the corner.

“Can I help you?” the voice asked.

“Hi, it's Penelope Sutherland, Max's friend. Can I come in?”

The door buzzed and she pulled it open, careful not to let it bounce off her injured wrist. Jimmy had stepped out from behind the reception desk to meet her in the lobby. He gave her a concerned onceover, ending with the splint on her wrist.

“Miss Sutherland,” Jimmy said. “Nice to see you again.”

“Thanks.”

“Max isn't here,” Jimmy said, hesitation in his voice. “I don't know if you've heard, but—”

“Yes, I know he's been arrested.”

Jimmy pulled his suit jacket down and crossed his arms in front of him, holding one wrist in the opposite hand. “What happened to you, if you don't mind me asking?”

“Someone pushed me in front of a cab yesterday at the intersection just outside.”

“That was you? We heard all the commotion, but I didn't realize...are you okay?”

“It could have been much worse. I was lucky.”

Jimmy gave her a sympathetic nod. “Some luck. This city is nuts sometimes.”

Penelope took a breath. “Jimmy, can I look at your surveillance footage from Tuesday of last week? Angel next door thinks he was in the bookstore that day with a woman. If I can prove it was someone else who…” Penelope trailed off when she realized he was already shaking his head.

“I'm sorry, Miss Sutherland, but I can't do that. I really like Max. He's one of the nice ones, never any trouble. I want to help, but I could lose my job.” Jimmy paused and took another look at the bruises on Penelope's face. “Tell you what. I have a break coming up. Why don't you go next door and wait for me in the café? I'll take a look and let you know if I see anything on the tape.” He looked over his shoulder at the reception desk. “I'll send the other guy upstairs for something and see what I can find.”

“I really appreciate this, Jimmy. Thank you,” Penelope said, walking backwards towards the door.

Chapter 26

  

Read It and Weep was crowded for a Monday morning, with most of the café tables taken up by people typing on laptops or scribbling in journals, feeding off the free Wi-Fi and jazzy world music flowing from the overhead speakers. Penelope walked through the main section of the store, glancing at various tables stacked with books. Some featured new releases and some had a theme. A table near the front window had a sign on it that read, “If you like Agatha Christie, you'll love these.” A nice selection of traditional mysteries was displayed below it. She saw a table dedicated to Poe, one to Stephen King, and a larger one with young adult titles.

Penelope went to the café and squinted at the chalkboard menu suspended from the ceiling. All the coffee drinks were organic, a few of them made from beans she hadn't even heard of. “Can I get a pumpkin latte?” she asked, picking something familiar as she placed her order with the interestingly pierced and heavily tattooed barista behind the counter.

The girl smiled sweetly. “I'll bring it out to you.”

“Thank you,” Penelope said, thankful for the opportunity to rest. She felt stronger than the day before, but she was still functioning at about half her normal energy level. She took a seat at the most remote table she could find.

“Hello again,” Angel said as she approached Penelope's table. She had a stack of magazines in the crook of her arm she had picked up from empty café tables nearby.

“Oh, hi,” Penelope said. She tucked her splinted arm under the table in a feeble attempt to conceal it.

“What happened?” Angel said when she got closer.

Penelope gave up and pulled her arm out from beneath the little round table. “I got hit by a cab right out there.” She pointed at the street corner.

“Wow, I heard about that. I'm so sorry that happened.”

Penelope smiled, offering a thank you to the barista who dropped off her latte.

Angel called to the girl as she walked away. “Would you bring my friend a chocolate croissant please?”

Penelope began to refuse, waving her away.

“I insist. They're really good today, and you could use one.” Angel set the stack of magazines on a neighboring table and pulled her leather miniskirt down over her fuzzy pink tights.

“Actually, a chocolate croissant sounds wonderful,” Penelope said.

The girl returned quickly with two of the pastries on a chipped blue plate. Angel took the seat in the opposite chair and nudged it towards Penelope. “Go ahead.”

Penelope took a bite of croissant. The flaky crust and deep dark chocolate melted in her mouth, instantly soothing her.

“What brings you back to the scene of the crime?” Angel asked. When Penelope rolled her eyes, placing the back of her hand over her full mouth and shaking her head, she said, “Sorry, too soon?”

Penelope swallowed, laughing despite herself. “I wanted to see where I almost got taken out by a crazy person outside your store.”

“Now we have to figure out who done it.” They silently chewed together for a minute.

“Actually, I'm trying to figure out if I can trace Max's steps before the other night. Before everything happened.”

“You're losing me. Before what happened?”

Penelope looked at her. “Max has been arrested for murdering someone he knew, but I'm sure he didn't do it.”

Angel looked surprised for a second, then nodded and took another bite of croissant. “What makes you so sure he didn't do it?”

Penelope paused and thought for a moment, then said, “I know him, and I can't imagine he would kill anyone.”

“Okay. But how well do we know anyone? Don't you think there are countless people who've said the same thing about someone who actually did commit murder? I'm sure no one thinks a close friend of theirs could do the worst thing imaginable.”

“I suppose you're right,” Penelope said, deflating. “But I feel certain about this.”

Angel finished off her croissant. “Maybe you're right and he didn't kill this person. But you're only talking about your feelings. Do you have any way to prove what you're saying is the truth?”

“Miss Sutherland?” Jimmy walked from the café entrance to their table. He seemed so out of place in his suit, surrounded by all the hipsters.

“Hi, Jimmy,” Angel said, standing up and giving him a hug.

“You two know each other?” Penelope asked.

“Jimmy's one of my best customers,” Angel said. “You want the usual?”

“Absolutely,” Jimmy said. After she stepped away, he took her seat. “Security work, especially in a small residential building like that, allows for a lot of downtime. They don't mind if I read behind the desk.”

Penelope lowered her voice. “Did you see anything on the video from last Tuesday?”

“As a matter of fact, I did.” Jimmy pulled his phone from his jacket pocket and swiped it to life, scrolling through a couple of pictures before turning it around for Penelope to see. Jimmy had taken photos of the monitor in the security room. The first picture was of Max walking through the lobby of his building, holding hands with a blond woman. She had her head turned away from the camera. Penelope thought she knew who it was already, and when she swiped to the next picture her suspicions were confirmed.

“Thanks so much for showing this to me,” Penelope said.

Angel walked back over with a ceramic mug of steaming coffee and placed it on the table in front of Jimmy. “Here you go, my friend.” She patted him on the shoulder and glanced at the phone in Penelope's hand.

“Angel, was this the woman you saw with Max last Tuesday?” Penelope asked, turning the phone around for her to see.

Angel bent at the waist and squinted at the screen. She pulled her glasses up from her chest and perched them on her nose, widening her eyes again. “Yep, that's her.”

“Wait a second.” Penelope pulled her own phone from her purse and did a quick search. “Are you sure it wasn't her?” She showed Angel the screen with a picture of Hannah's face.

Angel took both phones, holding them in each of her hands. She studied the pictures, then raised Jimmy's phone up in the air. “This is the woman I saw with him in the store.”

“You said they were making out back there?” Penelope asked, glancing towards the poetry section.

Jimmy took a sip of his coffee. Angel handed him back his phone and he began scrolling through his photos again.

“Well, maybe not making out. Not with tongues or whatever. They were hugging, and she was laughing. It was definitely a private moment that I interrupted. Then she bought him the book, and they left.” Angel handed Penelope back her phone.

Jimmy's phone rang. He stood up from the table, excusing himself. Angel sat back down opposite Penelope.

“Max and Sienna...I can't believe it. Why wouldn't they have said anything to anyone?” Penelope said, mostly to herself.

“Well, you said it yourself—Max has a girlfriend. I take it she's not the handsy one from the poetry section?”

“No, it's not her,” Penelope said. “But I also don't know if Max's girlfriend is really his girlfriend. Sometimes it seems like they're just putting on an act for their reality show.”

“I love how they're called reality shows when they're the farthest thing from reality you can get,” Angel said, shaking her head. “If his costar isn't really his girlfriend, why try to hide whatever he's doing with this other woman?”

Penelope thought about Max's show, and the fact that it provided him with a steady paycheck and a place to live. “Maybe it's part of the show that he has to maintain this relationship. If that's true, I guess he'd have to keep up appearances off set too.”

“And people ask me why I don't watch TV or read those trashy magazines we sell out of every week. Give me a good ghost story anthology any day,” Angel said, dabbing a few croissant crumbs from the plate with her finger.

Jimmy came back to the table. “That was work. I have to get back.”

“Me too,” Angel said, noticing a line of people at the front register. “See you later, Jimmy.” She hurried to the front of the store to help her clerks.

Once Angel was out of earshot, Jimmy perched on the edge of the chair and his face became serious. “That was my boss on the phone. We're supposed to keep Max out of the building. The show's production company is reviewing his contract, something about a morals clause.”

“Morals? That's rich,” Penelope said.

Jimmy grimaced. “I think they're going to wait and see what happens with the murder charge, so they're not throwing him out just yet. But the company wants to protect itself against any lawsuits from the other actors or issues they might run into by having an accused murderer living in the building.”

“Great,” Penelope said. “Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse.”