A Brew to a Kill (42 page)

I felt for her. “I hope you have insurance.”

“Plenty. But according to Dom’s mother, bad luck comes in threes, so I should be waiting for one last shoe to drop.”

“No way,” Dom said. “Tomorrow’s got to be better, right?

Despite her harrowing story, Gwen laughed through its telling. “So now you know why I’m here,” she concluded. “To drown my sorrows in Ambrosia… and raw oysters. They have a lovely selection from the Pacific Northwest.”

“Are you both foodies?”

“I love to eat,” Gwen said, “but Dom’s the cook. He really did grow up on one grandmother’s biscotti and another’s moon cakes—and learned to make both.” She touched her fiancé’s arm. “I actually fell for him back in college over a dish of his Chitalian Lo Mein. We parted ways for grad school, med for me, law for him—and I stupidly married the wrong guy. But I found my right guy again.”

“That’s very romantic—but you stumped me on Chitalian Lo Mein. What in the world is that?”

“It’s just lo mein made with Italian spaghetti,” Dom said. “But it has to start with my Chinglish marinade.”

“Tell her your secret,” Gwen insisted.

“Well, you have to understand, my Chinese grandmother makes a great marinade with Shaoxing cooking wine. But it’s not so easy to get Shaoxing outside of New York or LA, so I figured out a pretty good substitute: white rice vinegar and grape juice.”

“He should have been a chemist,” Gwen quipped.

“I should have been a
chef
,” Dom countered.

Dom’s Chinese cooking reference made me realize: “You two weren’t at the Dragon Boat exhibition. That was a pretty major photo-op for the mayoral candidates.”

Gwen squeezed Don’s hand. “I’m afraid it was my fault he wasn’t there. I had a Smile Train fund-raising event that night, and Dom didn’t want to disappoint me…”

The Smile Train was such a worthy charity. I spoke to them a little more and discovered Gwen donated her plastic surgery skills to the cause.

I recalled what Dante had said about these two. He called them a “power couple,” and that might be true. But it seemed to me they were using their powers for good, and I found myself
sincerely hoping Dom would fight hard in the election and become our next mayor.

Suddenly, I noticed Gwen tensing. Her animated good cheer stopped, her face frozen into an unreadable mask. I quickly learned the reason. Helen Bailey-Burke had entered the tent.

Helen was alone tonight, pressing the flesh with members of the city hall staff. Dom tactfully shifted position, trying to shield Gwen from Helen.

“I hope that woman doesn’t come near me,” I murmured.

Gwen heard me. “Is she suing you, too?”

Suing me, too?
“Helen is suing you? Why?”

Dom cleared his throat.

“Oh, sorry…” Gwen shook her head, embarrassed. Her face had finally relaxed. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

But she did say something, and I recalled that terrible slap Helen had given her at our Red Hook truck-painting party. I needed to question Gwen privately. She clearly wanted to let off steam, and if I could get her away from Dominic, I was sure she would spill something useful.

A call on Dr. Fischer’s smart phone interrupted us. Gwen stepped away to talk and returned a minute later looking very distressed.

“Dom’s mother was right. Bad things do come in threes,” she said.

“What’s the problem?” Dom asked.

“I just got a call from the lab. There’s been some kind of fire. My research may have been damaged. I have to go.”

“I’ll drive you,” Dom offered.

“That’s silly. You’re due to make a toast soon. I’ll catch a cab on Central Park West.”

After another hug from Gwen, she hurried out of the tent. Concerned, Dom watched her go.

“I’d better get to work.” He shared a smile. “A little more hand-shaking couldn’t hurt…”

The mention of a hand reminded me of Dante, and ten
minutes later, I was heading back out to the Muffin Muse to lend him mine.

The sound of muted music and laughter carried on the evening breeze. But as I emerged from the tent, the tranquility of the evening was shattered by the roar of a speeding car—and not Max’s GTO.

West Drive ran through the entire western edge of Central Park, and right past Sheep’s Meadow and the white wedding tent. The four-lane road was closed to traffic on weekends, and cars had also been banned from the roadway during the wedding.

But somehow a car had gotten onto that road. It raced along at twice the legal speed until it hopped the sidewalk and struck one of the guests from the wedding party. The victim, a woman in a formal gown, was tossed by the impact.

As the car disappeared around the bend, the victim sprawled on the pavement. Amid a chorus of screams and shouts, I raced to the poor woman’s side—and recognized her immediately.

Helen Bailey-Burke was gasping out her last breaths. She was also conscious and aware that her life was slipping away.

“It was Fischer, I saw her,” Helen gasped, foamy blood bubbling on her lips. “She aimed for me. I couldn’t get away. It was Fischer who did this to me. Gwen Fischer…”

Helen’s rasping voice faded after that. She was too weak to talk. An elderly man in evening clothes knelt beside her and performed CPR. The concerned crowd gathered around them.

Finally Helen closed her eyes and slipped away. A shocked, shroud-like silence descended over all of us, until the only sound we heard was the mournful wail of the approaching ambulance.

D
ANTE
loaded a final stack of folding chairs onto the Muffin Muse and paused for a big gulp of coconut water.

“Everything’s loaded,” he said, rubbing the sweat from his neck.

“Sorry you had to do that alone. I sent Franco to talk to the investigating officer, but I thought he would have been back by now.”

My gaze shifted to the cluster of police cruisers and uniformed officers still working the crime scene on West Drive. Twilight had turned to night, and flashing emergency lights strobed the trees.

“I hope Franco is helping the cops find the real killer,” Dante replied. “There’s no way Gwen Fischer ran Helen down. The police are wrong.”

“But I heard Helen’s accusation with my own ears, and others heard it, too. Her dying testimony will be tough to refute.”

Dante shook his head. “I still don’t buy it.”

“You know Helen was harassing Gwen, with a lawsuit and with physical violence? Those are strong motives for murder.”

“But Gwen is a Smile Train fund-raiser, boss!” Dante cried. “I’ve talked to her a million times. She and Dom are two of the nicest people I’ve ever known.”

“Look, I don’t believe Gwen is guilty, either, Dante. I was just following the policemen’s logic.”

The misery etched on Dante’s face was mirrored on my own. Without Helen Bailey-Burke as a suspect, Buckman and I were back to zero. We thought she was the culprit, and her motive was her daughter Meredith’s death by malpractice.

Buckman and I were wrong about Helen, but I was still convinced Meredith’s death was the key to everything, despite what happened tonight.

“Here’s Franco,” Dante said, and we both rushed him.

“Have the cops figured out their mistake and released Gwen?” Dante asked.

Franco frowned. “Sorry, kid. The detective in charge is convinced Gwen Fischer is the killer, and he can prove it.”

“Helen’s accusation?”

“That, and a whole lot more,” Franco replied. “The detective knows the killer slipped around the police barricade at Seventy-Seventh Street about ten minutes before the murder, because there’s an eyewitness.”

“Who?”

“A uniformed officer from Traffic IDed the car and the driver, which he described as a female redhead wearing a scarf and sunglasses. The woman flashed a VIP wedding pin, so the dumb-ass waved her through without even talking to her.”

“Did they find the car?” I asked.

“It was abandoned on Central Park South, near the Pond. Detectives are going through it now.”

“Great! Maybe they’ll find fingerprints that will exonerate Gwen.”

“Sorry, Coffee Lady. It’s her car. A 2011 Volvo 360, registered to Dr. Gwen Fischer.”

Dante cursed. “Poor Dom must be going nuts.”

“This
has
to be a frame-up,” I said. “Gwen told me her car was stolen earlier in the day.”

“She told the detective that, too. He’s actually using her stolen-car story to build a case for premeditated murder.”

“Oh, no…”

“When they scooped her up, Gwen couldn’t account for her movements,” Franco continued. “She told the detective she’d gotten a call about a fire at her lab, and left the park to hail a cab.”

“That’s right, and I was standing beside her when that call came in!”

“Only there was no fire. Maybe Gwen got pranked; they can probably trace that call if it’s real. But the detective is so convinced Gwen is lying that he’s not going to look too hard for evidence that clears her.”

“We need to help her.”

“I hate to burst your balloon, but the case looked open and shut to me,” Franco said. “It was the doctor. In the park. With a car.”

Burst your balloon… that’s it!

“The balloons!” I cried. “The custom-made balloons! There’s your
Clue
.”

Franco leaned into Dante ear. “She’s lost it.”

“Don’t you see? Josh made the balloons. And Josh was good friends with Meredith Burke, though he didn’t much care for her mother, Helen.”

Dante snorted. “You got that right. Josh sued Helen last year. The case is still moving through the courts.”

“Sued? For what?”

“He and Meredith worked on a comic together. She wrote, he drew. It was Meredith’s autobiography, real emo stuff. After Meredith died, Josh wanted the comic to be published, but the artwork was in Helen’s possession and she refused to give it back.”

“I still don’t see the connection to balloons,” Franco said.

“You saw the balloons Josh created for this wedding,” I told him. “They looked just like the bride and groom, right? Well, what if Josh could make masks, too—”

“Josh does make masks,” Dante interrupted. “He made a
dozen masks that looked just like the mayor for the guy’s birthday party. The Rockettes performed a dance number wearing them. Josh said the show was kind of creepy.”

“Josh was there? At Gracie Mansion?”

Dante nodded. “Judge Fowler was on the guest list. Josh sat with his family.”

“His father is a
judge
? But I thought Josh was some kind of working-class kid from Five Points.”

“No way,” Dante replied. “Josh lives on the East Side. He went to the same private school that Meredith attended. He’s got a Vacheron watch that probably cost more than Gwen’s Volvo.”

“Let’s get back to the masks,” I said. “How are they made? Where are they molded?”

Dante shrugged. “At Five Points. All Josh needs are a couple of photographs and he can make a mask of anyone. He has 3D computer graphics software and a digital sculpting program that pretty much does the work. Josh has a molding machine, too. He’s like a one-man factory.”

My mind raced. Josh cared for his friend Meredith, maybe too much. He blamed Helen and the plastic surgeon for her death—maybe he blamed everyone involved, including Meredith’s nurse, Lilly Beth.

Josh probably resented Gwen Fischer because she was once married to the man who killed his friend, so why not frame her? And that’s why he stole the glass from the Gracie Mansion dinner. It was probably Gwen’s glass, with her fingerprints all over it. He was hoping to frame Gwen for Lilly Beth and the surgeon, but he preserved the glass improperly and the prints got smudged.