Now or Never (37 page)

“There’s about a million calls—we just can’t keep up with them. The list is on your desk.” Beth was already on the phone again.

Mal went to her office, dropped her bag onto a chair, then ran her eyes down the long list of calls, thankful that she didn’t have to answer them all herself. There were a lot of important names on the list: celebrities, movie stars, rock stars, important people in business and industry. They all had kids, and they all felt the pain and the pressure to do something to help.

She walked to the window and looked down at the surging traffic and the hurrying pedestrians. Somewhere out there, in this city or in Boston or Chicago or wherever he came from, this monster was waiting to strike again. She shivered.

Switching her mind determinedly away, she called the airline and got a seat on the two o’clock, then called Harry at the precinct to tell him. She had expected to leave a message, and when he answered, the surprise made her smile.

“You slacking, detective?” She slid down in her chair and put her feet on the desk, swiveling gently from side to side.

He chuckled. “It’s you again, Malone.”

“You expecting someone else maybe?”

“Only about a thousand others—thanks to you. This place is like one big answering service. They’ve put on extra lines, extra staff, but they’re still jammed.”

“Anybody who sounds like him yet?”

“Not so far as we can tell. But there’s still time.” He hoped he was right—he’d been kind of betting on this one happening. “Are you calling to say you’ve changed your mind, Malone?” he demanded, but she could tell he was smiling.

“You’re not shaking me off that easily, Harry Jordan. I’m on the two o’clock.”

“Then I won’t be able to pick you up. I’m sorry, Mal, but the chief and the mayor have called a press conference. I’m due there right about the time your flight gets in.” He sighed. “I warned you it would be hell this weekend.”

“No, it won’t. I’ll just get a taxi.”

“I’ll order a limo—charge it to me.”

She laughed. “Playing the starlet again, huh?”

“No. Just playing safe. I don’t want anyone I don’t know personally picking you up.”

She was startled. “What do you mean?”

Harry didn’t want to scare her, but she had to understand she had put herself on the line. They were dealing with a brutal killer, and he might target her for revenge. “You’re on his turf, Mal. This is his city, the place where he operates. You need to take care of yourself—that’s all I’m saying. Or at least, let me take care of you.”

She said, shaken, “I think I’d like that better.”

He grinned. “Aw, come on, is this the Malone I know and love? Malone, the toughie, the rottweiler who sinks her teeth in and doesn’t let go? The independent cuss who always has to have the last word?”

“I have to have the last word! What about you?”

“I thought it was you.”

“Well, I thought it was you.”

He sighed exaggeratedly. “There you go again, having the last word.”

She laughed. “I’ll see you later, you oaf.”

“You can bet on it. And Mal? Take care.”

Her face and those of the victims were all over the front pages in the newsstands at La Guardia and at Logan in Boston. She ducked her head to avoid the TV news cameras, there to greet a politician. They couldn’t believe their luck in catching the woman of the moment.

“What are you doing in Boston, Mal?” they called. “Are there any new developments? Are you here to help catch him?”

“It’s a private visit,” she replied, hurrying past. But she was pleased that Harry finally had the kind of public awareness he needed.

The car was waiting for her. It filtered slowly through the busy Friday afternoon traffic and eventually dropped her off at the beautiful house on Louisburg Square.

She stood outside for a minute, admiring the sloping streets, the gardens in the center of the square, and the perfection of Bulfinch’s lovely bow-windowed nineteenth-century
architecture. Then she climbed the shallow front steps and let herself into Harry’s house.

Squeeze was lying in the center of the spacious hall. She could have sworn his eyes lit up, he was so pleased to see her. He ran to her, his tail wagging, making little whining greeting noises.

She bent to hug him, patting his soft: thick silver fur. “Hi, Squeeze, good boy. Ohh, are you good,” she murmured affectionately.

The dog followed her to the kitchen, where she put her basket of goodies on the counter.

She stared around with a pleased little smile at being in Harry’s home. The kitchen was immaculate—she guessed he hadn’t set foot in it all week.

She gave Squeeze his new chew toy, then opened the refrigerator. She laughed at the contents: an ancient box of half-eaten pizza, an out-of-sell-by-date carton of low-fat milk (so he did care after all, despite Ruby’s ham and eggs); leftover Chinese takeout; and half a dozen bottles of club soda. Plus two bottles of his favorite champagne. It was exactly what she would have expected.

She threw out the moldy food, then restocked it with the good things she had brought from New York.

Squeeze followed her again as she poked around in Harry’s bedroom. She peeked at the book on his night table—an unopened copy of the latest Elmore Leonard. She smiled at the idea of the detective reading crime fiction. Harry probably didn’t get much time for bedtime reading, she guessed. He didn’t even get much time for sleep—she’d bet he was out the moment his head hit the pillow. She tested the bed. As she had suspected, it was hard.

She unpacked her bag, put her few things next to his on the shelves in the closet, and hung her black leather pants and tweed skirt alongside his collection of ancient 501’s
and his two pairs of pants. She checked: the labels were Armani and Gap.

In the bathroom she made space on the old marble washstand for her lotions and creams and put her toothbrush in a matching mug to his.

It was like playing house, she thought, satisfied. Harry and Mal, a duo, a pair, a team.

The telephone rang, and Squeeze rushed past her, barking at it. She picked it up.

“He always barks like that,” Harry said. “I believe he thinks he’s answering it. Sometimes I wish he could.”

She laughed. “Hi, detective. I have a confession to make. I’ve been investigating the investigator. I peeked into the your refrigerator, your closet, and your bathroom.”

“Then I have no secrets left?”

“None.”

“Since you’re still there, I guess I must have passed some kind of test.”

“All of them. With flying colors.” She hugged the receiver to her cheek as though she were holding him. “Where are you?”

“At city hall, wishing I were anywhere else. Are you going to be all right there alone?”

“Of course I’ll be all right. Besides, I have Squeeze. He’s no substitute for the real thing, but he’s still adorable.”

“Like you, Malone. By the way, I called Miffy. She’s going to invite you to tea.”

“Your mother
is inviting me to tea? Detective, this is sounding serious.”

He laughed. “Careful, Malone. Besides, Miffy is rarely serious. Look, I have to go. I’ll see you as soon as I can escape from here. I’m not sure when, though. Uh-oh, I’m being paged. I’ll call again, Mary Mallory Malone.”

She hung up the phone, and it rang again immediately.

“There you are, dear girl,” Miffy said. Mal could just imagine her beaming smile, as though she were talking to a person standing next to her and not into the phone.

“Harry told me you were coming for the weekend and that you would be all alone, and I said to myself, well then Miffy, you simply have to have Mallory over for tea.”

There was a pause while Miffy drew breath and checked her old Carder Tank watch. “Goodness, is that the time already? My dear, it’s closer to drink time, don’t you think? I’ll tell you what—we can have both. Why don’t you pop right over now? I’m just around the corner you know, on Mount Vernon Street.”

She gave Mal the address, then said, “I’m so looking forward to seeing you again.”

“Me too,” Mal said. She laughed as she realized those were the only words she had been able to get in, except for hello. As she applied fresh lipstick, she thought there would be no problem filling in the gaps in conversation with Miffy Jordan.

Somehow her jeans and loafers did not seem quite the right apparel for tea on Beacon Hill. She changed quickly into a short pleated tweed skirt and beige suede pumps. She brushed her hair, sprayed on a little Nocturnes, and called to Squeeze.

With the dog on the leash, she strolled out of the square, across Charles Street, and along Mount Vernon, enjoying the walk. The whole historic area was filled with charming leafy streets and ivy-covered buildings. Antique shops lured her, and cafes and coffeehouses sent out tempting signals, and she promised herself that tomorrow she would explore properly.

M
IFFY JORDAN’S OLD
G
REEK
R
EVIVAL-STYLE HOUSE
was built of faded-red brick, with a white-pillared portico, long windows with black-louvered shutters, and pretty wrought-iron balconies. It was set back from the street behind a formal garden, a lawn as smooth and green as a billiard table, and a short iron fence. It looked as though it had stood on that spot forever, a part of American history as well as the family history of the Jordans.

Squeeze turned in at the gate without having to be told, and Mal guessed he came here often with Harry. “Home away from home, Squeeze, huh?” she said, walking to the portico and ringing the bell.

Miffy flung open the door so quickly, she must have been standing behind it.

“My dear Mallory.” Miffy gave her that beaming smile. “How lovely to see you.” She kissed her heartily on either cheek, then handed her a Kleenex.

Miffy was wearing a blue silk shirt, a pleated gray-blue skirt, and flat Ferragamo pumps. Mal felt glad she had changed, though she suspected that, anyway, Miffy was not the sort of woman who would have given a damn.

Two matching beige pugs with black muzzles came bounding toward her, their round eyes bulging with delight at the sight of Squeeze. They wuffed and leaped and cavorted round him, but Squeeze sat on his haunches,
looking like visiting royalty, occasionally deigning to give them a glance.

“Will you just look at those silly creatures,” Miffy exclaimed, exasperated. “You’d think they’d have learned by now that Squeeze doesn’t consort with miniature dogs—they are beneath his notice. But they still grovel, just dying for attention.” She laughed. “I know just how they feel sometimes.”

She swept Mal through the elegant hall and up the graceful curving staircase to what she called “my own little sitting room.”

“It’s cozier than the grand one downstairs,” she explained, showing Mal into a lovely second-floor room with tall windows and the graceful iron balconies Mal had seen from the outside.

The room was done in shades of Miffy’s favorite yellow, with creamy-yellow-sponged walls and elaborate cornices picked out in white, like frosting on a cake. Deep-gold taffeta curtains puddled in rich folds on the floor. The soft green needlepoint carpet was scattered with tiny flowers, and the brocade sofas and chairs were upholstered in teal and green. The antiques were breathtaking, extremely valuable, and perfectly kept. The elaborate frame of the blurred old mirror hanging over the marble mantel had been carved in England in the seventeenth century, and the paintings on the walls were all portraits of women dating back more than a hundred years.

Miffy waved her to a chair. A tea tray was set with a silver pot and pretty flowered Limoges cups, as well as an array of little tartlets and pastries. A second tray, with glasses and ice in a crystal bucket, waited on the graceful eighteenth-century rosewood sideboard.

“Now, Mallory, tea or gin?” Miffy looked at her expectantly.

Mal chose tea with lemon. Squeeze sat next to her, a
snuffling little pug pressed affectionately on each side of him.

“Like bookends, aren’t they?” Miffy said, shaking her head in amusement.

Mal looked interestedly at the portraits lining the walls. And Miffy looked interestedly at her. She thought Mal was quite lovely, and after seeing her program, she was sure that Jack Jordan was right: Harry would be crazy to let her go. Mal had put her heart into her work, and it could not have been easy to do such a program, to have to know the terrible details of the murders and to have kept the dignity of the families intact, as well as that of the victims. But Harry had warned her not to speak of it, so she would try not to.

“Those are all portraits of Peascott women,” she told Mal. “This is a Peascott house, you know, not a Jordan one, like Harry’s on Louisburg Square. My great-great-grandmother was actually born in the bedroom I occupy now, though everyone after that had the good sense to find more hygienic surroundings to give birth in.

“The portrait by Tissot, on your left, is of my great-grandmother, Hannah Letitia Peascott, painted on her honeymoon visit to Paris. They did the grand tour, you know, she and my great-grandfather Peascott. She was so very pretty, don’t you think?
And
she lived to be a hundred and two years old. Good genes, the Peascotts,” she added approvingly.

“Now this one here is of my grandmother, Felicia Alice Peascott. It’s a Sargent, of course. Poor woman, she went down with the
Titanic
. She was traveling alone, somewhat mysteriously. It was never talked about, but the rumor is that she had run off with a friend of the family who was also on board, also traveling mysteriously alone. So romantic, don’t you think?

“And this John Ward portrait is of my own dear mother, looking very Duchess-of-Windsor, only of course
much more attractive and less sticklike. And with loads more charm. They said Marietta Peascott was the most charming woman you could wish to meet.”

Miffy sighed regretfully. “She died too young, you know, when I was just a girl. A hunting accident. She insisted on riding to the hounds. The foolish woman never would admit that she just wasn’t good on horseback. My father said that for her, pride really came before the fall. But we loved her then, and I love her still.”