Murder on a Hot Tin Roof (20 page)

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Authors: Amanda Matetsky

BOOK: Murder on a Hot Tin Roof
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“I didn’t really lie to you!” I protested. “You jumped to the conclusion that my phone was out of order yourself, and I just let you believe it.”
“But why? Why didn’t you simply tell me that you weren’t going to be home? Then I wouldn’t have had to keep calling and calling and wondering if you were okay. I wouldn’t have been worried at all.”
“That’s what you say now, but when we spoke on Saturday night, I had the impression that you were vexed about not being able to get in touch with me, and more than a little concerned about how I was going to be spending the rest of the holiday.” (I didn’t actually use the word “jealous.” Why threaten his pride and arouse his masculine ego? I had enough hard feelings to deal with already!)
I must have hit a nerve, because for a second Dan looked as though he would accept my explanation. He softened his eyes, relaxed his scowl, and took a deep swig of ice water, clearly giving more thought to the matter. But then his scowl came back, and his eyes narrowed into slits, and he twisted his luscious mouth in a knowing (i.e., nasty) smirk.
“Nice try, Paige,” he said, “but your cover-up won’t work. You’ve been lying through your teeth all along. You told me two phone company trucks were sitting outside your apartment. You made references to melted cables and blown-out gaskets. You said phone company workers had been hanging around your block for two days. If those weren’t lies, then what do you call them? Misinterpretations?” There was enough sarcasm in his voice to sink a ship.
“I . . . uh . . . well, I was just trying to—”
“Stop it!” he shouted, pounding his fist on the table again. “I don’t have the energy to listen to any more of your crap. You must think I’m a total moron, the way you keep telling me one cock-and-bull story after another. But I’ve got news for you, Paige. I’m
not
a moron. I’m a trained, experienced, and well-connected NYPD detective. It took me all of two minutes to contact the phone company and find out that no repair work was being done in your area—and that your own phone was in perfect working order.”
“Yes, but I—”
“So now it’s official,” he barreled on, ignoring my attempts to explain. He looked tireder and sadder than I’d ever seen him look before. “You’re a liar and a fake. And nothing you can say or do will change those facts—or the way I feel.”
“Oh, no, Dan! Please don’t say that! Please let me tell you—”
“No, that’s enough.” He scraped his chair away from the table, rose to his feet, stuffed his pack of cigarettes in his pocket, and turned toward the door. “If you have any more song and dance acts you’d like to perform, I’d thank you to wait until I’m gone.”
“You’re leaving?” I whimpered, in shock.
“As fast as I can,” he said, walking over to the door and pulling it open.
“No! Wait! Please don’t go! Just give me one more chance. I swear I’ll tell you the truth about everything!”
“It’s too late, Paige,” he said, withering my soul with his weary goodbye glance. “I don’t care anymore.”
Chapter 18
DAN HAD WALKED OUT ON ME BEFORE. Several times. And always for the same reason: My willingness to lie to him while I was working on a dangerous murder story. I’d spent untold hours wracking my brain and crying my heart out, trying to find a solution to this pressing problem, but it was no use. There
was
no solution. Dan was never going to accept my dogged pursuit of the facts at the expense of my own safety, so I was always going to have to dodge the truth to keep him happy (unless I quit my job and gave up my lifelong career goals—which I definitely did not want to do).
But no matter how many battles and breakups we’d suffered as a result of this predicament, something had always drawn Dan and me back together in the past. Our mutual physical attraction had proved unshakable, and our more emotional attachments—i.e., our sincere affection and grudging respect for each other—had compelled us to stay connected. And even though Dan hated, hated,
hated
to be lied to (you can blame his lying, unfaithful ex-wife for that near-phobic obsession), I had always had the feeling that—way down deep in his secret heart—he understood my basic motives and would eventually forgive me.
But I didn’t feel that way this time.
This time was different.
Two seconds after Dan stormed out, I ran to the window and snapped open the shade, praying with all my might that when Dan reached the street he would look up and wave at me the way he usually did (when he wasn’t mad at me, I mean). But that didn’t happen, of course. The instant Dan stepped through the door of my building to the sidewalk, he made a sharp right turn and walked briskly away toward Jones Street, where he often parked his car. His eyes were glued to the cement.
And mine were gushing with tears.
Oh, Lord! What’s happening?
I sobbed to myself.
Is this the way it’s going to end? Has Dan left me for good this time? Will I ever see him again?
I was bereft. I felt more desolate and alone than I’d ever felt in my life (except for the hideous blur of time following my notification of Bob’s death in Korea). I curled myself up in a ball on the couch, hugged my knees in close to my chest, and, wailing like an inconsolable baby, replayed the last few moments of Dan’s dramatic exit scene over and over in my mind.
He had seemed far more sad than angry, I recalled, hugging my knees tighter and wailing even louder. Rather than looking as if he wanted to kill me, he had looked as though he’d just lost his best friend. That was not a good sign. And what had he said when I begged him to stay and hear my confession? “It’s too late,” he’d insisted. “I don’t care anymore.”
Dear God. Don’t let it be true. Please don’t let Dan stop caring about me . . .
Bam! Bam! Bam! Someone was banging on my door.
My heart did a somersault in my chest. Was it Dan? Had he come back?
“Let me in, Paige!” Abby shouted. “What’s that horrible howling noise? It sounds like you’re skinning a cat in there!”
“Go away!” I hollered, mewling and puling and gasping for air. “I want to be alone.”
“No go, Garbo! You’d better open the door right now, or I’ll break it down. Either way, I’m coming in!”
Knowing Abby was fully capable of demolishing my door (it wouldn’t surprise me if she kept an axe in her broom closet), I pried myself up off the couch, staggered across the floor, and—wiping my tears on my sweaty forearm—opened it myself.
“
Oy vey
!” Abby yelped when she saw me. “You look awful! Are you sick or something?” She breezed into my apartment and gave me a head-to-toe onceover. “Yuck! There’s a glob of snot the size of New Jersey hanging out of your nose!”
Great. A broken heart and a giant booger. Now my life’s complete.
“That’s the least of my problems,” I said, slogging over to the kitchen counter and blowing my nose on a paper napkin. As I was throwing the napkin in the trash under the sink, the coffee pot caught my attention. Steam was shooting out of the spout and the loosened lid was rattling and snapping like a pair of novelty store dentures. How long had the pot been perking? I had no idea.
I turned off the stove and squinted through my swollen eyelids at Abby. “Want some coffee?”
“Sure,” she said, looking fresh, clean and ravishing as usual. Her shiny black hair was loose and streaming down her back like a waterfall. Her white peasant blouse and bright red capris looked as if they’d just been washed and ironed. There wasn’t a drop of perspiration on her perfectly made-up face—or anywhere else on her person, for that matter.
(Just par for the course, you should know. Abby usually looks like a Walt Disney princess, while I often resemble a scarecrow . . . or a dead monkey).
While I was pouring the coffee, Abby popped into the living room and turned the fan to face the kitchen table. Then she walked over to the table, positioned a chair in the center of the airflow, and sat down.
“So what’s the matter now?” she asked. “Tell me all your troubles, Bubbles.”
I carried our coffee over to the table and sat down across from Abby. “I don’t even know where to begin,” I said, choking back a rising tide of tears. “So much has happened since I last spoke to you.”
“You mean since you left the Vanguard last night?”
“Since five minutes before I left.”
“But that was just eight hours ago.” She spooned some sugar into her cup. “How much could have happened since then?”
“Plenty,” I grumbled, disgusted with myself and revolted by my entire lifestyle. I was reluctant to tell Abby about what had happened with Dan (I didn’t want to start crying again), so I lit up an L&M and began recounting the details of my most recent misfortunes from the beginning.
“Before I left you last night,” I told her, speaking in a voice so dead it was dirgeful, “I went over to talk to the bartenders. I wanted to find out if they knew anything about Rhonda Blake or the man she was with. So I asked them both a few questions and—”
“
Feh!
” Abby erupted, spraying coffee out of her mouth and all over the tabletop. “This stuff is foul! It’s as thick as house paint and it tastes like dirt!”
“Oh . . . I guess I cooked it too long.”
“Uh, yeah! I’d say you did. When did you put it on the stove? Last summer?”
“Ha ha,” I said, not laughing, just pronouncing the words.
“It’s like acid,” she needled. “I wonder if it damaged the spoon.” She picked said utensil up off the table, held it up close to her nose, and—doing a swell imitation of Jerry Lewis at his crazy, cross-eyed best—examined it from every angle.
I knew what Abby was doing. She was trying to make me smile. She was trying to tease me out of my mournful mental state and nudge me back to the land of the living. But it wasn’t working. I didn’t
want
to be alive.
I took a drag on my cigarette and exhaled slowly. “Ha ha,” I said again, as mirthlessly as before.
“Oh, come on, Paige!” Abby said, slapping the spoon down on the table and throwing her hands in the air. Her patience was fading fast. “Snap out of it! Whatever it is, it can’t be
that
bad.”
“Oh, yeah?” I retorted, summoning enough energy to plant myself firmly on the defensive. “First listen to everything that’s happened to me since I last saw you, and
then
you can decide how bad it is.”
A JILLION CIGARETTES AND FOUR CUPS of coffee later (yes, we both drank the filthy stuff anyway), I concluded the tale of my latest pitfalls and perils.
“That’s really
bad
!” Abby admitted, referring to the whole disturbing picture, but mostly to my disturbing conflict with Dan. (As you no doubt know by now, Abby believes man trouble is the worst kind of trouble any woman can have.) “Why the hell didn’t you just tell Dan the truth?” she ranted. “Then he wouldn’t have broken up with you! Then he could help us look for the murderer, and protect you from Baldy and Blackie at the same time.”
“But it never would have worked out that way,” I sadly replied. “Don’t you see? Instead of helping us look for the killer, Dan would’ve ordered us to drop our investigation altogether. He would have insisted that we leave the whole case—and poor Willy Sinclair’s entire future—in Detective Flannagan’s homophobic hands. And I could not, in good conscience, allow that to happen. I would never, ever forgive myself if Willy went to jail—or got the death sentence!—for a murder I know he didn’t commit.”
“What makes you so sure he’s innocent?” Abby inquired. “His blood type is guilty as sin.”
“Right. And that may be all Flannagan needs to convict him. But lots of people have type A blood, you know. And they’re probably all more homicidal than Willy. Willy wouldn’t hurt a fly—or even a flea. He’s a nervous little mama’s boy. I’ll bet the closest he ever came to cutting a man was during his girlish youth, when he was cutting out paper dolls. Take my word for it, Ab. Willy’s frilly and he’s silly—but he’s not a murderer.”
“You may be right,” Abby conceded. “I wouldn’t peg him as a killer, either. But we’ve been over all of this before, you dig, and
you’re
the one always warning me not to jump to conclusions. You always say there has to be solid proof. And right now the only proof we have is the blood type.”

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