Blackbird 10 - A Little Night Murder (20 page)

“Because I told the truth?”

“You know as well as I do that this charitable stuff is big business.”

“All the more reason donors should know when their money is going to a good cause—or is being diverted into other pockets.”

“Yeah, I guess, but . . . hey, girl, don’t cut into my business.”

I turned away from the mirror. “I knew I wasn’t going to make everybody happy with that article. But it’s important information, Delilah. I felt I had to do it.”

“I suppose so,” my friend said without much enthusiasm. She went back to toying with our phones and changed the subject. “How are you feeling?”

“Great.” I went back to fluffing my hair but made a mental note to bring up the subject again with Delilah when we’d have more time to explore the ramifications of my article on her business life. She worked with all charities—good and bad. Maybe I could help her choose wisely. Or maybe she had insider information that I needed to know, too. But she didn’t want to talk seriously right now, so I said, “I slept through the first trimester, but now I’m going strong.”

“Worried about delivery?”

“Not really. I’ve been taking yoga and getting some exercise. Most women seem to get through labor just fine. You did, right?”

“Keesa was no problem,” Delilah said, “but I was a sweet young thing back then. You’ll do great, though. And there’s always the drugs. Trust me. Take whatever they offer, honey.”

“It’s what happens afterward that has me thinking.”

Delilah looked up from our cell phones. “It’s a little late to start wondering if you can handle being a mom.”

I smiled ruefully. “After wanting a family for so long, I realize now I should have thought through the details more carefully.”

She laughed with me. “Yeah, been there, done that! I couldn’t wait to have Keesa, and then . . .”

“Then?”

“To be honest? I couldn’t wait to get back to work. Don’t get me wrong. I love being a mom. I love my daughter. But . . . for me, spending your whole day with a baby is just . . . boring. Don’t quote me. I can hear the mommy screams now. I should spend every waking minute with my kid! But not everybody’s the same. Spending months with a baby—that’s the right choice for some, but it can drive other women bat-crap crazy. I’m just not the kind of mother who can stay home and make organic cheese sandwiches with cookie cutters and teach my kid to read and recycle. Screw that. I want to be out in the world! And knowing how to fill my needs makes me a better mother for Keesa.”

“I’m not sure which kind of mother I am.”

“You’ll learn on the job, just like everyone else. I spend most of my time making parties for other people, and Keesa’s a happy soul. And smart! Not to mention a lot more well adjusted than I ever was. Look at you and your sisters. Mama and Daddy Blackbird were never around much, but you’re okay—better than most.”

“Thanks,” I said, knowing my parents were infamous in many circles. I feared they had stiffed Delilah for her fee on the last party they threw before skipping town.

“What about your Prince of Darkness? How’s he doing with all this?”

“He’s fine,” I said with a smile. I got to the point of our private meeting. “In fact . . . we’re getting married on Friday.”

With a cry, Delilah jumped up and hugged me again.
“Congrats, honey! I’m really happy for you. Your prince can scare the daylights out of people, but he was real nice to me at your birthday party. Can I throw you a reception?”

“Thank you, but no. We can’t afford a party.”

“There’s a lot of that going around. With the Paine Investment Group problem, a lot of formerly loaded people are scrambling to pay the rent on their penthouses. But let me worry about what’s affordable. I’ve got more than a few favors to collect in this town.”

“Thank you, really, but no. Michael is still shy about my friends.”

She snorted. “It’s time he got over that. Nothing would make me happier than to throw you a party, Nora. Would I have all this work without you? All this glamour?” She spread her arms wide to indicate the cluttered warehouse office. “I owe all of my success to you!”

“You made your reputation all by yourself. Really, let’s not have a party. We’d love to have you at the judge’s chamber, though.” I gave her the lowdown on the quiet wedding we had planned and added, “Just don’t tell Libby, okay? Not until the last minute.”

Delilah laughed. “You afraid your big sis is going to make everybody do the chicken dance?”

“I can handle the chicken dance. But she has more imagination than that—which scares me.”

Delilah must have assumed I was kidding, because she laughed.

We went out to the party in time to see the parade of food that waiters brought out from the makeshift kitchen set up in a tent out back. The guests oohed and aahed as the flaming trays filled the room with light. Sparklers spouted bright cascades of color.

The live music began. The crowd shrieked with excitement and surged toward a stage that had been erected at the far end of the warehouse. Glaring lights came up. A once-very-famous rock band had been hired at substantial cost, I guessed. It took money to make
money, I reminded myself—but this seemed over the top. I hoped someone on the committee had a relationship with the band and had scored a reduced price on the entertainment.

The live musicians revved up the crowd with their old hits. The balding lead singer strutted across the stage with his microphone, sending female guests of all ages into a frenzy of nostalgia. It was impossible not to dance along to the throbbing music. Baby Girl felt happy inside me.

Delilah had gone overboard with the sparkle. Strings of tiny lights dangled from the warehouse rafters. Huge ice sculptures glittered on tables covered with diaphanous fabrics. Guests carried glow sticks, and overhead a theatrical lighting system cast spinning disks of light across the crowd. A smoke machine billowed clouds of mist into the air. I counted up all the amenities and began to wonder how much money this new charity had spent to throw their party. And how much of what they hoped to raise actually went to buying winter coats and job interview clothes.

The crowd was mostly young, mostly very rich, with a sprinkling of fashion students in the mix. Their wild hair, lavish tattoos and unflattering clothes made them easily recognizable. I saw a lot of familiar faces among the nonstudents and chatted with many old friends. I wasn’t the best-dressed person in attendance, but I was relieved to see I could still hold my own among the well-heeled.

After taking some pictures of the most au courant outfits, I went to the buffet table, where nobody was eating. Fashion people rarely did. But just in case, I was assured by a waiter, everything was gluten-free, organic, free-range, locally sourced, humanely slaughtered or grass fed. No peanuts, no soy and certainly no bacon. Amused, I nibbled a few carrots and accepted a glass of blended juices while talking with other guests.

My friend Chandler Ann appeared, dressed to the nines in a Tony Ward slip dress. She was with a couple of girlfriends in equally
drop-dead party duds. Susan Shain wore a new Dior tank-top sundress, and Trish Connors was in an elaborately embellished Zac Posen frock. Shouting over the band, we exchanged compliments and harmless gossip about some of the clothes worn by other guests.

Chandler Ann took me aside when her friends went for more drinks. As soon as we were alone, she leaned close to make herself heard over the music. “Nora, I’ve been thinking a lot about Jenny Tuttle this week.”

“Me, too,” I confessed.

“Funny thing. I remembered something Jenny said just before she quit coming to my dad’s clinic. Something about a woman who had threatened her. Do you think I should tell the police?”

“Yes, of course.” Reluctantly, I reached for my cell phone. Even if my friend was about to implicate my future mother-in-law in a murder, it was the right thing to do. “I can give you the phone number of one of the state troopers on the case.”

“Thanks. It may be nothing. But I remember Jenny coming for an appointment one day, and she was very upset. She said somebody she worked with was going to beat her up if she didn’t give her a better role in a play.”

“Who was it?” I asked before I could stop myself.

Chandler Ann frowned and said, “It was a funny name. Like a puppy or a flower. Daisy or Tulip or—”

“Poppy?”

“That’s it! Anyway, Jenny seemed genuinely frightened. Like maybe this Poppy person could definitely do some harm. I don’t want to be Chicken Little—claiming the sky is falling when it’s really nothing—but—”

“It’s something, not nothing. I think you should call the police.” I quickly texted Ricci’s phone number to Chandler Ann’s phone. “It could be really important.”

She continued to look doubtful. “I don’t want to look foolish.”

“You won’t,” I assured her.

Had I been alone with a murderer this morning? Had Poppy been the one to give Jenny too many medications? The music changed, and the band’s lead singer shouted into his microphone that it was time for the fashion portion of the evening to begin. A few key people slipped backstage, and other guests began to find seats in the very limited number of chairs that were set up around the runway. Chandler Ann and I left the front-row seats for the guests, who fought their way into them; instead we snagged seats in the second row.

Next to me sat the middle-aged mother and sister of one of the young designers. Their excitement was contagious.

The lights flickered and dimmed. The tipsy committee chair came out into the spotlight to give a too-long introduction. She giggled and thanked her friends and giggled some more until finally the director of the new charity came to the microphone and lightly ended her ramble. He eased her off the runway to applause and whistles.

More recorded music blasted, and the show began. Skinny models sashayed along the runway, wearing one outlandish outfit after another. Heels were higher than it seemed humanly possible to walk on. I could see the bones of some great clothes—summer dresses, some fashion-forward separates, and a few really great gowns—but they were nearly obscured by the styling. Gigantic hats and chunky jewelry almost overshadowed the clothes. But that was the point of a fashion show—to entertain and show off. Later, the business of selling clothes that people might actually wear would take place in quiet offices around the city.

The crowd reacted to the spectacle with roars of cheering and rounds of applause. The family beside me jumped to their feet and clapped when their relative’s designs went by. I cheered, too. They were all so happy.

But I found myself looking more carefully around at the people who had paid to come out for a good cause. I wondered if it had been altruism that brought them to the warehouse on a hot night. No, I was pretty sure they were here for the good times. And maybe to show off, to flaunt. Which was the way things worked in my world. Countless charities benefited from parties like this one. Some of them depended on a single big fund-raiser a year, so a good party meant the difference between continuing their good works or fading into the sunset.

This party felt . . . less about philanthropy, however, and more about excess. I had planned on featuring it prominently in my column because I knew the photos would be good. But now I had second thoughts about featuring an organization that was still so new. And one that had perhaps miscalculated in the balance between socializing and fund-raising. I couldn’t help noticing that the managing director of the charity stood off to one side by himself, watching the show with a stiff smile on his face. I wondered if he knew he’d made a mistake and was already trying to figure out how to refocus his fun-loving board of directors and their tipsy chairperson.

Maybe parties that supported local food banks and regional cancer centers weren’t as newspaper-friendly as fashion bashes, but at least donors could be sure their contributions went exactly where they intended their money to go. And maybe the ten best and ten worst charities list had made me a few enemies, but it was solid information worthy of newspaper inches. I just had to find a way to slip that information between the scandalous articles.

My phone vibrated, and I took a look at the screen.

Lexie.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to hear her, so I let the call go to voice mail. But my concern for my friend soon got the best of me. When the lights signaled a break between designers, I said good-bye to
Chandler Ann and found Delilah for a good-night hug. She was too harried to talk, but she promised to see me on Friday.

“It’s going to be a beautiful wedding,” she shouted over the party noise. “I can feel it!”

On the way home on the train, I listened to Lexie’s message.

“Sweetie,” she said briskly, “I’ve been discovered. I have to pack my bags and go on the lam. Please don’t be offended, but I’m going to keep my whereabouts a secret for a while. I’ll call when I can.”

I felt a stab of guilt. Had I somehow led Hostetler to Lexie’s doorstep? It certainly sounded as if my best friend didn’t trust me anymore.

I
took Sunday off from events, as usual, but wrote up pieces to go into the Monday and Tuesday print editions of the paper. After that, I exchanged e-mails with my online classmates to complete a journalism assignment. I felt good about my contribution. Maybe I wasn’t a rookie anymore. I spent the rest of the day with Noah. Michael went to Mass and to tend to some business he clearly didn’t want to talk about. I tried calling Libby but got no answer. Again.

I left another message. “Libby, I’m truly sorry about what I said about you and Ox Oxenfeld. You’re right. I shouldn’t judge. And I’m sorry that I don’t have the housekeeper’s cheesecake recipe, either. Try Pinterest.”

She didn’t call me back. Nor did Lexie. I tried not to worry.

Around noon, Emma called, sounding as if she were phoning from a wind tunnel, so I assumed she was outdoors somewhere. She said, “Did I leave my extra pair of boots at your place?”

“Give me a hint,” I said. “Where should I look? In a closet? The basement? The attic?”

“If I’d left them in the attic, they’d be mouse food. Check the bedroom I usually use.”

I had Noah on my hip as I carried the phone upstairs to look. “How’s Cookie?”

“I jumped him this morning, and he’s Superman. You should see him! If he doesn’t pull my arms out of their sockets, he’s the man of my dreams.” Emma sounded very pleased.

I opened the bedroom door and discovered that Bridget had left the room a mess—the bed unmade and a half-empty wine bottle on the nightstand with a drinking glass. She had rooted through the closet and obviously had tried on Emma’s riding boots. They were on the floor, askew.

“I found your boots,” I said.

“You don’t sound happy about it.”

“Michael’s mother spent a night here. This room looks like a tornado hit it.”

“Tch-tch,” Emma said. “I bet she didn’t leave a hostess gift, either. Do you have your smelling salts?”

“She’s not going to be your mother-in-law,” I replied tartly.

“Surrender, Dorothy!” Emma sang a bar of the Wicked Witch of the West music and laughed. Then, “The cops called me to talk about what we saw at the Tuttle folly. They said they’d be in touch with you later.”

“Are they any closer to discovering what happened?”

“I can’t tell. They figured out what those bottles were, though. Not a collection of old glass, but containers of colloidal silver.”

“I did some Googling, and colloidal silver sounded like the most likely possibility to turn Boom Boom blue. She must have taken it as a supplement.”

“But Jenny obviously didn’t,” Emma said. “Yet the bottles were in Jenny’s studio.”

“Jenny was the one who encouraged her mother to take supplements.”

“So she poisoned her mother? I mean, it has to take a lot of silver to turn somebody into a Sesame Street character. That must have put a damper on their relationship. Was turning blue enough to make Boom Boom want to kill her daughter?”

“Maybe so. What I don’t understand is why the nurse was killed.”

“Let the cops take care of it,” Emma advised. “They seemed all excited about having a murder case to work on. It’s more thrills than the usual teenager crap. I’ll stop for my boots tomorrow, if I can.”

We ended our call. Noah grabbed the phone from me, and I let him carry it back downstairs. To him, I said, “Your mother loves her new horse. I think that’s a good sign.”

I was relieved that the Sunday edition of the
Intelligencer
didn’t have a front-page article about Lexie. When Monday’s edition showed up without any mention of my friend, I started to think the long silence from Gus was suspicious. What was he working on? There were no penis stories, either, and even Jenny Tuttle’s toxicology results didn’t trigger more than a few inches of the front page.

On Monday afternoon while Noah napped, my friend Mary Jude telephoned from the office. “Nora, did I wake you?”

“No, of course not,” I said, although I’d been considering taking a quick snooze before it was time to go to the preview of
Bluebird of Happiness
. “What’s up, MJ?”

“I hate to ask,” she said, “but I have to take Trevor to the emergency room. He needs a breathing treatment, and going to the hospital is the fastest way to get him some relief.” She sounded unbelievably calm for a mother with a sick child. “But I’m supposed to be here two more hours to man the phones. We’re still getting crazy calls about that photograph Mr. Hardwicke ran. Anyway, he
says I can go home if I can find somebody to answer calls. I thought if you were coming in for an event tonight—”

“Sure. I can cover for you in an hour or so. Tell Gus I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Already, I was heading for my closet.

“Thanks, Nora. You’re a lifesaver.”

We hung up, and I took a superfast shower. I finished my hair and makeup just as Noah let out a preliminary squall. I stepped into the dress I planned to wear to tonight’s preview. It was a short, strapless sheath of diaphanous blue chiffon, cut on the bias. From his resort-wear collection, it was Dior at the height of his genius. The décolletage would distract from the tight fit. Maybe it was a little overkill for a theater event, but two nights of lovemaking with Michael had made me think I should be making more of my bustline while I had it.

I went in to retrieve Noah from his crib. He was standing up and bawling full bore, but with one look at my flaunted bosom, his tears stopped rolling.

I said, “I know I look like Libby. Victoria’s Secret will be calling me soon.”

Noah put his hands on my breasts and gave a wavering sigh of appreciation.

“You’re starting early,” I said, removing his hands. I picked him up and changed his diaper.

I let Noah play with his pink bunny on the bed while I called Michael’s cell phone. He said he was on his way.

In fifteen minutes, I stepped into my shoes and grabbed a light sweater for the office and a lime green embroidered silk pashmina that would work later for the theater preview. We went downstairs and were out the back door just as Michael pulled up in the bulletproof black Escalade. Our new car.

He came around the hood of the vehicle and stopped short at the sight of my low neckline. “What are you wearing?”

I stopped, too. “Is it too much?”

“It’s a lot,” he said on a laugh.

“Should I go change?”

“Nope.” He came closer and dropped a smiling kiss on my mouth. “Noah seems to like it.”

The baby was mashing his face into my bare cleavage and giggling. He left a puddle of drool behind. I handed him over for Michael to put in his car seat while I mopped myself up.

I convinced Michael to drop me at the train station again instead of driving me all the way into the city, so within the hour I was walking off the hot sidewalk and into the cool Pendergast Building.

On his phone, Skip Malone looked up from the Sports desk as I passed by. He nearly dropped his receiver. I waved.

Phones were ringing all over the newsroom, and the remaining reporters were busy taking calls. I set my bag down on Mary Jude’s empty desk. She had left me an apple with a Post-it note stuck to it. Her hasty scrawl read
Thank you!

The newsroom was chilly from the air-conditioning—a welcome relief after the humid walk from the station. I dug my sweater out of my bag and tugged it on. It didn’t cover up my exposed cleavage, but it provided a little warmth. I took a bite of the apple and munched it.

A second later, Gus barged off the elevator. He strode straight across the room to the City desk, where he began to chew out one of the reporters there. When the reporter began a sniveling defense of himself, Gus looked up and met my gaze across the room. He did a double take and scowled.

Okay, so maybe I should have changed my outfit.

The phone on Mary Jude’s desk rang, so I sat down, swallowed my mouthful of apple and picked up.

“
Philadelphia Intelligencer.
Nora Blackbird speaking.”

“Uh, yeah,” said a male voice. “Has anybody claimed the million dollars yet?”

“Million dollars? I don’t know anything about that, sir.”

“The morning dudes on the radio? They said you were giving away a million bucks to the kid in the picture.”

“I think the radio dudes were misinformed, sir. The
Intelligencer
is not giving away money.”

“Huh,” he said. “I was just wondering, because that picture in the paper last week? It kinda looks like me when I was in school.”

I sat up hastily. I remembered the group of similar photos I’d seen in Jenny Tuttle’s desk. I grabbed a pencil and slipped open a notebook. “Can I have your name, sir?”

“I don’t think so,” he said with an edge of derision. “Not unless there’s money involved.”

“There’s really not any— Look,” I said, “I know this sounds weird, but could you just tell me one thing? Are you adopted?”

A long silence greeted that question. Finally, my caller said, “Yeah. So what?”

“We’re putting together a story,” I began, making it up as I went. “If you could answer a few—”

“I don’t want to be in any story,” he said and hung up.

I put my pencil down. Thinking, I took another bite of apple. What did all the photos of children mean? Ox and Poppy had declared that even one illegitimate baby was impossible, but I couldn’t think of another possibility. Who were all the children in Jenny’s desk drawer?

Tremaine Jefferson came up on the elevator and headed over to me. On Mary Jude’s computer, he showed me the clips he had prepared from the group I’d sent him from the fashion party. We shared a laugh over some of the clothes and batted around some ideas for short videos that could be used later in the week. I made
another suggestion—adding some still photos of well-dressed ladies from the Pelvic Health party, which he took in good humor.

When we finished, I said, “Tremaine, I’ve been invited to a preview of a new musical tonight. I was hoping you might come along and do some filming
.”

“You mean, it’s a show? We can’t film performances, Nora. Copyright issues.”

“It’s not a performance. At least, not yet. It’s a work in progress. They want publicity to attract investors. It might be awful,” I cautioned. “But we might get some fun footage. Think of it as a fishing trip. If it turns out badly, I’ll buy you lunch someday soon.”

He had come to trust me, so he agreed the excursion might be worth his time and promised to meet me downstairs in an hour. He went off to tweak his work.

Two minutes later, the phone rang again. Hoping it was another interesting call, I picked up right away. “
Philadelphia Intelligencer.
Nora Blackbird speaking.”

“Hi,” said a brisk female voice. “May I speak with Gus, please?”

I realized the hour had grown so late that Gus’s assistant was no longer answering his phone. “Will you hold just a minute? He stepped away from his desk.” I waved at Gus to get his attention. He pointedly ignored me
.

The voice on the line sharpened. “Hang on. Did you say Nora Blackbird?”

“Yes, that’s me.”

“Well, hello!” Her tone turned friendly. “It’s nice to know you actually exist. I’m Megan. Gus’s sister.”

It hit me that her accent, which I hadn’t quite processed, was Australian. Her voice was low and throaty with a bubble of laughter in it.

She went on with enthusiasm. “Am I the first to welcome you into the fold?”

I almost choked on my apple. “Uh . . . ?”

She had a friendly chuckle. “Gus is a devilish good secret keeper. I was the one who wingled it out of him, did he say?”

“N-no,” I said, still confused. “He didn’t mention it.”

“I don’t have to tell you what a charmer he can be when he turns on the electricity, but what a bloody closemouthed bastard when he chooses. And a bludger in the romance department! So the news took us all by surprise. And then I saw your photograph! And you’re expecting! Congratulations. I’ve been reading your column online. It’s quite good, actually. I can see how he’d find you appealing. How did you reel him in?”

Something was very wrong, but all I could feel was my blood pressure spiking. “Well,” I began.

“Dad was overjoyed, of course. Hearing about you put him over the moon. The rest of us were fair gob-smacked—seems we hardly know our Gus after all!” She barely drew a breath but kept on talking. “I’m sorry you couldn’t make the trip with him to this outback, but in your condition, I understand completely. I don’t suppose you might be a bit shy of us, too, maybe?”

“Not at all,” I said. “But—”

“You’ll be sure to come for Christmas. Dad does it up right—all the trimmings. His birthday is just a few days later, so he’s always very festive.”

She kept talking about Christmas, but I had stopped listening. I stood up from the desk and didn’t care what anybody thought. I snapped my fingers at Gus. With annoyance, he looked up from his discussion—prepared to lambast me, I’m sure—but I sent him a poisonous glare that got his attention. I pointed at the phone as if to say
Important call
. He ambled in my direction.

I cut across Megan’s rambling gush about lavish holiday meals and said into the phone, “Oh, here he is, Megan. Gus just got in. Hang on, will you?”

I hugged the receiver to my chest as Gus arrived in front of me. I snapped, “It’s your sister. She seems to be under the impression that you and I are expected next Christmas. Is there something you haven’t told me, Mr. Hardwicke?”

To my astonishment, Gus turned bright pink. And although he opened his mouth, no words came out.

I handed over the phone. He took it automatically, in a daze.

“Er, Meegs?” he said into the phone. “Let me call you back in five? No, five, I promise. I
promise
.”

He put the phone down and said composedly to me, “In my office. Please.”

It was the
please
that shook me. I followed him across the newsroom and into his sanctum.

He closed the door behind me, still very pink. “This is going to be difficult enough, but did you have to wear that particular dress to the office?”

“It’s a Dior. Are you capable of finding something wrong with it?”