Blackbird 10 - A Little Night Murder (22 page)

From the top of the crooked staircase, a wraithlike figure appeared. For a second, I assumed it was a ghost. But a light hit her, and I realized she was Boom Boom Tuttle in a flapper-style gown and a blond fright wig. Her face had been slathered with white makeup to diminish her blue coloring, but it hadn’t quite worked. Her knees looked knobbier than ever, and her dancing shoes had heels too high for her to manage. Arching eyebrows had been
painted on, and she wore false eyelashes along with rouge and matching lipstick. She swayed unsteadily, then clutched the banister to remain on her feet.

“Good evening,” she said in a warbling voice that barely carried as far as the mezzanine. “Welcome to a newly discovered musical by the late, great Toodles Tuttle, my dear husband and the undisputed king of Broadway theater!”

A few murmurs around the auditorium hinted that the royal title she proposed might have been disputed just a little.

“I hope you brought your checkbooks,” Boom Boom continued, “because we’re still looking for a few smart investors. Tonight we’re going to perform highlights from the show, just to give you a taste of what this production really could be. Sit back and enjoy!”

Fred Fusby cleared his throat meaningfully.

“Oh, yeah,” Boom Boom added. “We’re also remembering my daughter, Jenny. She was kinda helpful before she kicked the bucket. Now—on with the show!”

With that, Fred began banging on the piano and Boom Boom descended the rickety staircase. The audience held its breath as she teetered on her high heels. Two graceful male dancers leaped from the wings and rushed to assist her. By the time she had unsteadily reached the stage, more dancers came out and began to move around her. I settled back and tried to enjoy what I was watching. The choreography and music were lively and pleasant.

Then Boom Boom began to sing.

I couldn’t understand a word.

But the action that played out on the stage began to make sense. Men in tuxedos danced or took turns passing trays of champagne glasses. Ladies in flapper dresses tap-danced and blew little plastic horns. It was supposed to be a New Year’s Eve party, I realized. Boom Boom continued to sing inaudibly, and then two male
dancers picked her up and spun her around. She did a hip wiggle and mimed embracing them. Her lascivious expression was ludicrous for a woman of her years.

Then Poppy Fontanna spun into view, grabbing a man in a white dinner jacket and pulling him away from his dance partner. The man was the recently hired choreographer, who had clearly been engaged at the last minute to perform in the preview. The rest of the cast faded back as the two of them tangoed, looking like a surefooted romantic couple. I had to admit, they were great. He dipped her. She kicked up one leg and pulled a funny face at the audience. Then Poppy danced offstage, and the man in the white dinner jacket came down to the front and sang. All he needed to make his life perfect was a new lady in his arms. His clear tenor was a welcome change from Boom Boom’s shaky voice. He made a longing gesture in Poppy’s direction before his previous partner came downstage to claim him.

Fending her off, he sang about his family history. How they had come on the
Mayflower
and how a young George Washington had left a foundling on their doorstep in a Paul Revere soup tureen. How Betsy Ross sewed their curtains. It didn’t make a lot of sense, but I gathered he was proud of his family heritage.

From the front row, Nico Legarde glanced back at me. In the dark, I could not read his expression.

More great dancing. More upbeat music. Then Boom Boom took center stage and sang, but nobody could hear her. She was trying hard to be a sexy grande dame, I decided. A broad interpretation of a great lady gone to seed. Somebody gave her a champagne bottle, and she popped the cork, which soared across the stage and hit Fred Fusby squarely on the top of his bald head.

The audience laughed. Beside me, Tremaine snorted. The man in the white dinner jacket rushed onstage again, looking very
handsome in the spotlight, and he valiantly tried to regain the audience’s attention. He began to sing about love and bluebirds.

Suddenly it all made sense. The champagne cork, the man in the white dinner jacket, the tango, the magnificent house that had seen better days, the proud family heritage. I found myself boiling to my feet.

“Nora?” Tremaine asked. “You okay? What’s wrong?”

“Bluebirds!” I pointed at the stage, not caring who heard me. “This show isn’t about Bluebirds! It’s about
Black
birds!”

“What?”

I could barely sputter out the words. “They’re doing a show about my family!”

“Huh?”

I rarely lost my cool. I never made scenes. I couldn’t stand melodrama. But suddenly I was a raving pregnant lunatic, shouting like a fishwife and shoving my way past Tremaine. “Stop filming! Turn off that camera!”

Tremaine stared at me as if I had grown an extra head. “Nora, have you gone crazy?”

“They’re making fun of my parents! And Boom Boom is supposed to be—she’s pretending to be Grandmama Blackbird—the loveliest, most kind, gracious lady who ever walked the earth, and
she’s
making her out to be a horrible old— Let me go! I’m going to punch her in the nose!”

The whole audience turned around to watch me. The action onstage never stopped, but I couldn’t hear anything except my own hysterical voice. The next thing I knew, Tremaine collared me as I tried to lunge past him, heading for the stage. He dragged me, kicking and shouting like a demented fury, up the aisle of the theater. I was vaguely aware of the audience watching my ranting exit. But I only wanted to run up onstage and knock Boom Boom down on her bony blue butt, once and for all.

Outside, Tremaine handed me off into a pair of strong arms, and in another minute, I was on the sidewalk, beating Gus Hardwicke on the chest.

He was laughing as he held me out of reach by my shoulders. “Keep this up, and somebody’s going to call a cop.”

“Do it!” I cried. “I want her arrested! I want all of them arrested! They can’t do that to my family! To my grandmother! She was an elegant, lovely person who practiced
civility
, and they’re pretending she was some kind of—some kind of
strumpet
!”

“A strumpet?” Gus burst into fresh laughter. “Who uses a word like
strumpet
?”

“And look what they’re doing to my father! They’re implying he was in love with someone other than my mother! See how he danced with the other woman? They’re— It’s obvious that Jenny Tuttle had a crush on him, and she—she made him into some kind of romantic hero. I won’t let them do it, Gus! I swear I won’t. Let go of me! I’m going back in there and—”

“You’re not doing anything,” he said reasonably as he restrained me, “except calm down. If you don’t, you’ll drop that baby right here on the street and Abruzzo really will have me executed. There you go. Breathe.”

I sucked in a deep breath only because I had run out of air. When my head stopped spinning, I hauled off and clobbered Gus again just because he was within range.

He took the blow without wincing. “Feel better?”

I realized he still had a firm grip on my shoulders. I summoned my most commanding voice. “Turn me loose.”

He eyed me sideways. “Are you going back inside to cause mayhem?”

“No,” I said sulkily.

He set me back on my heels but positioned himself between me and the lobby doors in case I decided to make a break for it.

Tremaine came outside again, looking unnerved. He gave me my handbag. I accepted it with a very formal thank-you, and he returned to the theater with only one wary glance over his shoulder that said he feared I might turn into a screaming harpy all over again.

Gus said, “Better now?”

I tried to inhale another cleansing breath. “I’m still very angry.”

“Let’s get you out of here.”

He hailed a taxi and settled me into the backseat. Gus stayed on his side of the seat, took out his phone and checked it. I looked at my phone, too, more to have a moment to regain my composure than to read messages. Sometime during the show, Michael had called, but I hadn’t heard his ring. I read the text message.

Sorry—I hve thing 2 do. Take train home? 1 of my guys will pck u up @ station. Rwlns & grlfrnd here 2 bbysit. Roast chkn in oven.

Gus hadn’t looked up from his phone. “Anything wrong?”

“Besides my family being subjected to libelous horror?”

Gus pocketed his phone. “Maybe because my family has been hit with more mud than Pompeii, it didn’t seem that horrible to me. I came in late and certainly couldn’t hear what that old lady was singing, but the show wasn’t bad—as that kind of twaddle goes.”

“Did you recognize Blackbird Farm?”

“The ruin of a house you live in? Not at first, but now that you mention it, I remember the place looking rather like the bulldozers should be called.”

“That’s my
home
you’re talking about!” I put my face in my hands and moaned. “And my
grandmother
! Honestly, Gus, she was a refined lady. A cultured person who would rather be shot out of a cannon than be portrayed as some kind of crude, tasteless—”

“She sounds familiar,” Gus said. “The refined lady part, that is.” When I didn’t respond, he added, “That’s a compliment, you know. You’re a throwback to a more gracious era.”

I subsided into the seat. “For the first time in my life, I’m glad she’s gone. I loved her, and I always wanted to be like her. She’d be appalled by this.”

Gus reached over and took my hand. When I tried to pull away, he held on firmly. “Who’s going to know the difference, Nora? I saw nothing that anyone would recognize as your family.”

“We only saw the first fifteen minutes! Who knows what comes next?”

“Back up,” he said, “What did you mean about Jenny Tuttle having a crush on your father?”

“Wasn’t it obvious? He was the romantic lead! He left his wife to dance with Poppy!”

Light dawned on his face. “Crikey!”

“What?”

“Isn’t it obvious? Your father was the father of Jenny Tuttle’s child.”

I
f I were a trout, my mouth could not have fallen open so promptly. “He was not!”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure!”

“Your father never had any affairs?”

I swallowed the answer to that question. Yes, my father had affairs, and yes, I knew he’d fathered at least one sibling who had not been raised with my sisters and me. My half-brother Tierney had showed up last summer. We weren’t exactly close, but at least we acknowledged our bond. And our father’s tendencies.

Firmly, I said, “David Kaminsky is not my brother. I’m absolutely certain he’s not my father’s son.”

“Then whose son is he?”

“I don’t know. Whatever Jenny felt about my father was purely wishful thinking on her part. And then she wrote about it!”

“You realize what you’re saying, right?”

“What do you mean?”

“She wrote about it? Either you’re not thinking straight,” Gus chided, “or you’re saying Jenny composed the show, not her father.”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” I said. “There’s no way Toodles could have written that story about my family. It’s all from Jenny’s point of view. Toodles never thought two moments about my father, but clearly Jenny was mad about him. And she disliked my mother—so she’s making her out to be a fool in the show. And she must have truly hated my grandmother!”

“So why is the family pretending Toodles wrote the show?”

“Because with his name on it, the show would be a Broadway blockbuster no matter how good or bad it genuinely is. But if Jenny was the composer, there’s no name recognition. It would be just another risky theatrical investment with lousy roles for the cast, who are all hoping for a vehicle to stardom.” I said, “And it’s all the motive for several people to kill Jenny.”

“Are you serious?”

“Look, Jenny was preparing herself for the opening night. She relentlessly rehearsed the cast herself. She was losing weight, finding the right dress—which is the way any woman would want to present herself to the public, if she expected to be in the spotlight for the first time in her life. She was going to claim her work, and everybody in the cast knew she was going to do it. They had to stop her.”

The cab pulled up to the Pendergast Building, and Gus helped me out of the backseat. He paid the driver while I stood unsteadily on the sidewalk. Suddenly, my anger was like sand that had drained out of an hourglass. When the last grain slipped out, I felt very weary. I desperately wanted to go home and eat roast chicken and then maybe a bowl of chocolate-chunk ice cream before burying my face in my pillow.

I sensed Gus watching me as he tucked his wallet back into his
hip pocket. He said, “You look like a jumbuck just knocked you over.”

“I am sure whatever a jumbuck is, it’s no honor to be knocked over by one.” I summoned my strength. “Did you call your sister back?”

“Her line was busy. Come on.” He reached for my arm. “I’ll take you home.”

I avoided his touch. “There’s no need for that. I’ll take the train.”

“I didn’t mean your home. My apartment is only a couple of blocks from here.”

“How convenient for you,” I said. “But irrelevant to me.”

He rearranged a lock of my hair. “We’ll have a drink. Talk about the secret life of Jenny Tuttle. Not only did she have a love child with a player yet to be named, but she mooned over your papa and dared to outdo her famous father by writing a musical of her own. We’ll bang out the story tonight, and it will be in print in the morning.”

I shook my head firmly. “No, Gus.”

“Which part don’t you like? The love child? The musical? Or your papa?”

“The part about your apartment.”

Lexie had said Gus was my work spouse—someone who could be my career partner, my supporter, one who kept me on the right track, encouraged me to be more than I thought I could. Just now, though, it felt a lot more dangerous than that. We faced each other with more truth in our faces than ever before.

“Nora,” he said.

A horn tooted from the street, and we both looked around. Me with relief. Gus with annoyance.

A red pickup truck pulled to the curb, windows rolled down. My sister Emma called, “Hey, Sis! Are you hitchhiking again?
Haven’t I warned you about the trouble you could get into with that?”

She burst out of the truck and came around the hood with her most confident, long-legged walk—a cigarette in one hand and her hair standing up in all directions. Evening had just fallen, and the headlights lit up her body like a searchlight. She was wearing boots and skintight riding breeches with a ragged T-shirt that looked as if she’d barely survived a zombie attack.

I thought I heard Gus make a noise in his throat.

“Well, well,” she said to him, strolling closer. “You must be Crocodile Dundee. Where’s your kangaroo?”

“Em,” I said. “This is Gus Hardwicke. He’s my boss, so behave yourself. Gus, this is my sister, Emma Blackbird.”

I had dreaded the moment when these two met face-to-face. I couldn’t keep them apart forever, but I’d held out hope for as long as possible. I fully expected thunder and lightning to come crashing out of the sky in some kind of cosmic sign of Shakespearean calamity, because my little sister was a force of nature where men were concerned. And Gus was almost her match.

Emma blew cigarette smoke and grinned with evil intent.

“Bugger me,” Gus said, obviously impressed. “Hard to think you two swam out of the same gene pool.”

Emma put her cigarette on her lip and shook his hand hard. “Nora’s had more time to grow up and dry off. Me, I’m still in the primordial soup. How about you?”

“I’ll take a plunge into just about anything.”

She eyed his suit. “You look like you’re selling fried chicken in that getup. No, I suppose with you it’s shrimp on the barbie. You ever decide to see how the other half lives, Dundee, we’ll do a little pub crawl, you and me.”

I said, “If I get a vote, I think that’s a very bad idea. Are you here to pick me up, Em?”

“Yeah,” she said, still giving Gus a long study. “By now Mick’s waiting at home after a long day of burying bodies in the Pine Barrens. Let’s go.”

I turned to Gus. “Thank you. For preventing me from making a bigger fool of myself tonight at the theater. I was ready to storm the stage.”

“You’re welcome,” he said stiffly. “Storm avoided.”

“Good night.”

“It could have been better.”

Emma blew another long, slow stream of blue smoke at Gus. “Don’t kiss any koala bears.”

He had no answer for that. He put his hands in his trouser pockets and watched in wonder as we climbed into my sister’s truck.

Emma tooted her horn and roared away from the curb, heading for home. I collapsed into the seat and rested my head against the hard cushion. My heart was beating like a drum. “I can’t remember ever being so happy to see you in my whole life. What brought you here at this precise moment, may I ask?”

“Mick called me, said you hadn’t called him back, so he asked me to run down here to pick you up. I figured I’d check the Pendergast Building first.” She threw her cigarette out the window. “I saw the way the Aussie was staring. He’s got the hots for you!”

“He does not. Well, he does a little.”

“You weren’t exactly looking innocent either in that getup.”

“This getup is a vintage Dior!”

“It makes you look like a pregnant pole dancer.”

“Oh, for the love of—”

“It’s not your usual style,” she insisted. “And he noticed, too. What does Mick think of him? Have they met?”

“They hate each other.”

Emma laughed delightedly. “I wouldn’t want to be a guy on
Mick’s bad side. Dundee could wake up some morning with his own severed dick in his hand.”

“Don’t be crude,” I said.

She smothered her laughter into amused snorts. “You’re such a goody-goody, Sis. You’re always on your best behavior, and you always do the right thing. Except you have one major character flaw.”

“Just one?”

“You like bad boys. You’re in love with Mick, but you like Crocodile Dundee, too. Because he’s a bad boy.”

With a snap, I turned on the radio. The blaring music prevented further conversation until we were out of the city and headed into Bucks County. Emma sang along with the oldies, occasionally sending me amused glances. I thought about scoundrels adding piquancy and cursed to myself.

I didn’t like bad boys. I loved Michael, yes, and perhaps his reputation wasn’t as sterling as most men’s. And Gus? Well, I . . . appreciated him. He could be pushy and annoying, but I enjoyed sparring with him. I felt nothing sexual for him, and I certainly didn’t feel as if we shared values or life pursuits. I liked him and wanted to be his friend and certainly his coworker. But that was the sum total of so-called bad boys in my life.

Well, perhaps Todd had been no angel, either. And my college boyfriends were less Rhodes scholars and more the kind of men who broke into the field house late at night to liberate sporting equipment.

Oh, who was I kidding? I was drawn to the wrong men, and I couldn’t explain it. I was a Blackbird female, and that’s how we were. Nature worked in mysterious, infuriating ways, and my life was a testament to the perversity of the universe. I had made my choice, and to anyone keeping score, Michael was perhaps the baddest of the bad.

Finally I turned off the music. “You like bad boys, too.”

She seemed delighted. “Guilty as charged.”

“Are you going to tell me who it is? The man you’re dating now?”

“I don’t have to,” she replied. “I’m going to pick him up in New Hope before I take you home. You’re gonna meet him in person.”

“Do I get a hint now?”

“Nope. What’s going on with Libby? Is she making cheesecake for the old guy? What happened to the bug man? I thought he was getting rid of her termites and bringing her dinner. Playing with the kids. Making himself indispensable before making the final assault on Libby’s virtue. Have you talked to him? Given him some pointers, maybe?”

“Why would I talk to Perry?”

“Because you’re the only one sane enough to hold this family together. You should have a chat with the exterminator before Libby pushes Mr. AARP off into the sunset in his wheelchair.”

“I have no intention of discussing anything personal with Perry Delbert. I barely know the man.”

“Do you want Libby wasting the best years of her life with a coot who probably needs a penile implant?”

“Sex isn’t everything in a relationship. And I thought you were on the other side of this argument! You said she should be thinking about her financial well-being.”

“I was kidding. Libby needs a guy who’ll light her fire, not just pay the electric bill, just like you and me. I asked around about Oxenfeld, by the way. He’s rich and smart, but a social dud. She’d be bored with him in two weeks.”

“What else did you learn about Ox?”

“What d’you mean?”

“I think he’s mixed up in Jenny Tuttle’s death.”

Emma’s foot faltered on the accelerator. “You mean, like maybe he killed her?”

“Maybe.”

“Hey, I only heard that he was a smart producer. He doesn’t lose his own money but makes a bundle using other people’s cash to finance big shows. And he’s never had a loser. That’s a big accomplishment in show business. But are you thinking Libby might be in danger?”

“Em, I haven’t heard from Libby since Saturday. Do you think she might—”

“Relax. I talked to her this afternoon. She’s not being held hostage by a pudgy producer. She’s just mad at you. And trying to score the world’s best cheesecake recipe.”

“Is she super mad at me?”

“Hey, if she’s not talking to you, at least she’s not planning your wedding, right? No, I think she’s more annoyed that you’re right about Oxenfeld not being her knight in shining armor. Just to spite you, she’s still dating him. Which is loony tunes, but that’s Libby for you. Talk to Perry, Sis.”

When Emma chose to be insightful, she was often right on the money. I sank back down into the seat and groaned. “Why me?”

In New Hope, Emma took a dark side street and pulled up next to a fire hydrant on the corner by a disreputable tavern. She left the engine running and, whistling cheerfully, went inside to find her date. I waited in silence, mulling over murder and wondering what catastrophe was coming next.

It was a big one.

The door of the bar burst open, sending a shaft of toxic green light out into the street. And the man who came strolling out with Emma on his arm threw back his head and laughed with her. He was handsome, with dark, curly hair, broad shoulders and a wicked grin.

And he was none other than Little Frankie Abruzzo.

I barely held back a scream as Michael’s brother opened the passenger door, leaned in and gave me a cocky hello.

He said, “Last time I saw you, weren’t you naked?”

If Emma had chosen an international terrorist to shack up with, I don’t think she could have made a worse choice in boyfriends. Little Frankie climbed into the passenger seat, crowding me up against my sister and giving my knee a friendly fondle. He breathed beer in my face and leered down the front of my dress. “What’s your name again?”

“She’s Nora,” Emma answered for me. “And she spooks easily, so take your hand off her leg, hotshot.”

He laughed and threw his arm across the back of the seat behind me. With his finger, he toyed with my earlobe. I slapped his hand away, making him chortle.

We rode like that all the way to Blackbird Farm—the two of them laughing their heads off and me preventing Little Frankie’s roving hands from undressing me. I desperately hoped Michael was already home and safely in bed, where he’d never need to know his brother was back in our lives.