Authors: Amanda Matetsky

Murder on a Hot Tin Roof (12 page)

BOOK: Murder on a Hot Tin Roof

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“Oh, we will!” I assured her, as she sashayed out the door and disappeared down the hall to the right. “And thanks for the autographs!” I called out, even though I knew she wasn’t listening. (I can be—and often am—polite to the puking point. Abby swears I’m related to Emily Post.)

Abby erupted as soon as Rhonda was gone. “What a bitch!” she spluttered, looking as if the top of her head would blow off. (Considering the pressure that had surely been building up in her stubborn, short-tempered skull, such an event wouldn’t have surprised me in the least.) “I never met such a sniveling, pretentious, big-mouthed broad in my life! She’s a tattletale and a tramp. And I bet she’s a murderer, too. She probably killed Gray for taking too long for lunch!”

“Shhhhhh!” I cautioned, holding a silencing finger up to my lips and tiptoeing over to the cot where Rhonda had tossed the pad and the pen. Glad she hadn’t taken the message pad with her to the phone, I promptly snatched up the tablet full of scribbles, hid it under my purse, and scrambled for the door. Abby scrambled right along with me and—fleeing down the hall to the left like Bonnie and Clyde (or, more precisely, Lucy and Ethel)—we made a clean getaway.

Chapter 10

MOST OF THE SCRIBBLED NOTES IN THE pad really
were
phone messages for Gray—a fact Abby and I determined as soon as we were seated on the subway headed home. Somebody named Bradley had called to say “Bravo!,” a fellow named Lloyd had phoned to say goodbye since he knew Gray would never talk to a “nobody” like him again, and somebody calling herself Aunt Doobie had left her room number at the Mayflower Hotel.

There were other messages as well—some of them congratulatory, most with first names only, just one with a phone number. No days or dates were noted, and there seemed to be no order to the listings, so—unless a message was congratulatory—I couldn’t determine if the call had been made last Thursday night or this afternoon. As far as I could tell, Cupcake hadn’t called on either day. I flipped the pad closed and tucked it under my purse, saving my careful clue-hunting inspection for later, when I could concentrate.

“Are you going to give the notebook to Flannagan in the morning?” Abby asked.

“I don’t know yet,” I said. “Depends on how well he behaves. If he’s a good dog, I’ll give him the bone.”

“Ha!” she yelped. “Then you might as well bury it in the back yard. That man will always behave like a bastard.”

I laughed. “You’re probably right. He might even arrest me for stealing, or tampering with evidence. I’d better leave the pad at home.”

We got off the train at West 4th Street and climbed the steps to the street. The steamy heat engulfed me and I suddenly felt very weak. I hadn’t eaten much all day and—though I still wasn’t the least bit hungry—I knew I needed fuel.

“Want to grab a bite at the White Horse, Ab?” I asked, naming the popular tavern on Hudson Street that was famous for its cheap beer, lousy hamburgers, and literary clientele. They didn’t have air-conditioning, I knew, but very few places in the Village did.

“No way, Doris Day!” she said, shaking her head so violently her ponytail was twitching from one side of her back to the other, like a real horse’s tail swishing off flies. “I’m still full from lunch, babe. I’m just gonna mosey on over to the park, get a purple snow cone, see if Jimmy is there. Wanna come?”

“No, thanks. I’m too hot. And my head is too crazy for poetry or folk music. I think I’ll just go home, have a sandwich, catch some TV, and wait for Dan to call.”

The minute Dan’s name flitted out of my mouth, my heart started doing the hula. And my clammy forehead broke out in another sweat. I wanted to talk to Dan. The only thing in the whole wide world I wanted to do at that moment was talk to Dan.

I pulled Abby to a stop on the sidewalk and sputtered, “He’ll call me tonight, don’t you think? He probably tried to last night, but I was at the theater all evening, and after that my phone was off the hook. And he couldn’t get hold of me today since I haven’t been home. So he must be going nuts by now, wondering where I am and what I’ve been doing. Right? He’s going to call me tonight for sure, don’t you think?” (To say that I was eager to hear from my daring detective would be like calling the cruel heat wave cozy.)

“Be cool, fool,” Abby said, smiling. “If there’s one thing I know in this
focockta
mixed-up world, it’s that a man likes a challenge. So it’s great that you’re playing hard-to-get. The harder you are to reach, the harder he’ll try to get there. You dig my meaning?”

I understood what Abby was saying, but I couldn’t accept her prognosis. She had never played hard-to-get in her whole darn hard-and-fast life, so what the heck did she know about it? And besides, I wasn’t playing games with Dan! I had gone to the theater at Abby’s insistence, and I had taken my phone off the hook to avoid a call from her, not him. And I had been out all day discovering a dead body and investigating a murder, for God’s sake, not toying with my boyfriend’s peace of mind. (Although now that I think of it, I guess that’s exactly what I
was
doing. I mean, if Dan had known what I’d actually been up to, his peace of mind would have been pretty much shot.)

“Take it from me, Paige,” Abby added. “When you chase after a man, you’re just keeping him from catching you.”

“And that’s why you’re going to the park to look for Jimmy?” I teased. “To make yourself uncatchable?”

“Oh, shut up!” she said, giggling, nudging me with her elbow. Then she gave me a little bye-bye wave and quipped, “Catch you later, alligator. Tell Dan I said hi!” Before I could reply, she made an abrupt left turn and galloped across Sixth Avenue, her ponytail flapping wildly down her back.

I BOUGHT A LOAF OF ITALIAN BREAD AT Zito’s bakery, a few slices of salami and cheese at Faicco’s deli, and a green pepper at Angelo’s fruit and vegetable store before I went home. (That’s one advantage of living on Bleecker between Sixth and Seventh—anything you could possibly want to eat is right downstairs.) It was hot as hell in my apartment, but after I opened the back door and turned on the electric fan in the living room, it was almost suffer-able.

Switching on the radio and searching the dial for some cool music, I finally settled on Sarah Vaughn. She was singing “Whatever Lola Wants,” and—since Lola always got whatever she wanted—I wondered how hard it would be to change my first name.
Lola Turner
, I thought.
Has a nice ring to it. A tad too close to Lana’s label, but at least it’s not a stupid pun!

I took a bottle of Orange Crush out of the ice box, rolled its cold surface across my forehead, then pried off the metal cap using the handle of my kitchen drawer as an opener. Setting the soda pop down on the table, I removed the salami and cheese from the bag and slapped the slices on a plate. Then I grabbed a sharp knife from the kitchen drawer and—doing my best not to think of it as a murder weapon—used it to slash off a few pieces of bread and green pepper.

Dinner was served.

By the time I finished eating, the Four Aces were singing “Love Is a Many Splendored Thing,” and I was bawling like a baby.

(Well, I’d had a pretty hard day, you know! And I hadn’t spoken to Dan in over thirty-six hours. And I was so hot and tired and depressed I wanted to die. And poor Gray Gordon
was
dead, lying gashed to ribbons in the city morgue, and I had to go to the police station in the morning to explain to a hotheaded homicide dick why Abby and I had tracked blood and fingerprints all over the crime scene, making a god-awful mess of the evidence. . . . And to make matters worse, even if Dan did call me tonight, I couldn’t tell him what was happening because it would not only ruin the rest of his weekend with his daughter, but he’d get so mad at me for getting involved in another dangerous murder case, that . . . oh, why am I pestering you with all these whiney details? I’m sure you get the picture.)

I was still blubbering at the kitchen table, feeling sorry for myself and listening to the Penguins sing “Earth Angel,” when the phone rang. I sprang out of my chair, leapt into the living room, and—wiping my eyes and nose on the paper napkin clutched in my hand—yanked the receiver up to my ear.

“Hellooooh,” I said, trying to purr like Kim Novak, but surely creaking like Jerry Lewis with a head cold.

“Hi, babe,” Dan said. “What’s the matter? You sound awful. Do you have a cold?” (See, I told you!)

“No, I’m just a little stuffed up,” I said. “I think it’s from the heat and humidity.”

“Or maybe you’ve just been crying because you miss me so much,” he teased. (If I haven’t said it before, then let me say it now: Dan is a
really
good detective.)

“I haven’t been crying,” I lied, “but I
do
miss you. Like crazy, if you want to know the truth.”

“I miss you, too, baby,” he said, and the way his deep, delicious voice rolled around in my ear made my whole body vibrate. “I called you several times yesterday and today, and all I got was a busy signal or no answer. Has your phone been out of order?”

And thus another perfect cover story landed in my lap.

“It sure has!” I said, hating having to lie to Dan (again), but feeling certain it was for the best. “It’s so hot a bunch of cables melted, or some gaskets blew up, or something drastic like that. Workers from the telephone company have been hanging around this block for two days now, trying to fix the problem. It looks as though they’ve succeeded now, since you were able to get a connection, but who knows how long the service will last? A couple of phone company trucks are still parked outside.” (I figured I’d better lay the groundwork for future communication failures. Dan would be out of town for two more days, and god only knew where I was going be!)

“How’s your trip going so far?” I asked, hurrying to change the subject. “Are you and Katy having a good time?”

“Katy’s having the time of her life.” Dan’s voice was crackling with enthusiasm and good humor. “My folks have taken her clamming and fishing and to the whale museum. Turns out she’s fascinated with marine life.”

“And what about you? Didn’t you go on these outings, too?”

“Oh, I tagged along, but I’m not very seaworthy. I’m a city boy, don’t you know. I like to hook worms, but only the human variety.”

I smiled. Dan was a man after my own heart (my body and soul, too, I hoped). “What’s on your agenda for tomorrow?” I asked. “Are you celebrating in any special way?”

“We’re going to the beach in the morning and to Captain Billy’s Mermaid Cove for lunch. Then we’re taking a glass-bottom boat ride in the afternoon. After dinner, it’s back to the beach to watch the fireworks. I’ll probably duck for cover every time a Roman candle explodes.”

I laughed. It was hard to imagine Dan sitting in shorts on the sand. Would I even recognize him without his trench coat, fedora, and shoulder holster?

“What are you doing tomorrow?” he asked. “Got any hot holiday plans? I bet Abby’s taking you to some wild bohemian bash where reefers instead of firecrackers will be the cause of all the smoke.”

He was trying to sound cool and cocky, but I detected a distinct note of discomfort in Dan’s voice. He was feeling insecure about me. I was certain of it. (As a woman who’s spent her whole life flailing in a giant vat of insecurity, I know what I’m talking about!) I was glad that Dan was concerned about me (it sure beat indifference), but I didn’t have the slightest desire to make him squirm. He’d be doing enough of
that
, I knew, when he found out what was really going on.

“I don’t have any plans at all,” I assured him. “All I’ll be doing is trying to stay cool. I’ll probably make a pitcher of lemonade and take it up to the roof after it gets dark. Maybe I’ll be able to see the fireworks from there.”

“Lemonade?” he said, chuckling softly.

“With a hint of vodka,” I conceded. “And a box of animal crackers instead of firecrackers.”

Dan chuckled again, but then turned serious. “I miss you so much, Paige,” he said. “I wish you were here with us. I think you and Katy would really hit it off.”

Now he thinks of it?! Now that he and his daughter are a million miles away baking clams on the coast of Maine while I’m baking alive in Manhattan, knee-deep in blood and murder?!
Dan’s timing, I felt, could have been a bit better.

Still, now was a whole lot better than never. I stifled my exasperation and focused on the heartfelt emotion I’d heard simmering in Dan’s voice when he said he missed me. “I wish I were there with you and Katy, too,” I said, simmering with emotions of my own. “And I know Katy and I will get along very well whenever we finally do meet. We have a lot in common already,” I added. “We are, for instance, both nuts about you.”

Dan let out a satisfied snort. “That’s just what I needed to hear, babe. Now I can go clean the smelly fish heads off the deck of Dad’s boat with a song in my heart.”

I giggled. “Which song will it be?”

“‘The Ballad of Davy Crockett,’ I think. Old Dave must’ve dispensed with a lot of fish heads in his day.”

“Have fun,” I said, grinning like a lovestruck fool. “Will you call me tomorrow?”

“It’s a date,” he promised. “First thing in the morning.”

BOOK: Murder on a Hot Tin Roof

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