Blackbird 10 - A Little Night Murder (5 page)

“I know.” But it felt unnatural to me. I remembered Jenny as she had been years ago, her eyes shining with gratitude for my father’s kindness. She had been a real person to me, not a stranger. And her death was not something I could shake off in an hour or two.

Briskly, Lexie said, “Thanks for coming today, sweetie. You’re good medicine for me. And for keeping me out of the public eye—you’re wonderful. For the rest of the day, think about your baby and—the future.” She smiled, careful not to mention next week’s wedding in front of Libby. “See you again tomorrow? The weather’s supposed to be perfect for dipping our toes in the pool.”

“You know I love to dip with you.” I gave her a good-bye hug.

Libby picked up my swimming bag and led the way to her minivan. “Lexie says there were plenty of spiritual opportunities in prison, but they all required sitting on folding chairs, which sounds awful. I mean, why risk hemorrhoids, even for metaphysical nirvana? Give me a therapist’s office with a comfy couch any day. If nothing else, you get a nice nap. That door handle is broken,” she said when I reached to let myself into the vehicle. “I’ll have to open it for you from inside.”

When we were both in the van, I said, “What’s wrong with this door handle?”

“I left the van parked on a side street in New Hope, and somebody tried to break it off with a crow bar. Imagine! In broad daylight! That town just isn’t safe anymore.”

“Really?” Our little village had always seemed perfectly secure to me. The only crime I had ever witnessed was when one of my mother’s friends broke the fashion rule of wearing white to a wedding.

“Rawlins says there’s suddenly more crime in the neighborhood. It’s a good thing That Man of Yours is staying at your house. You must feel safe there now that we’re having a crime wave.”

“I do.” Especially after Michael had gone overboard and spent some money on a security system. We had also argued about getting some large dogs to protect the property. So far, I was winning that battle. We had enough animals to look after already. But hearing Libby’s report of increased crime in our area, I appreciated Michael’s concern.

Libby said, “I hope Lexie’s safe where she is, all by herself.”

“She has Samir. And she’s not afraid to call 911 in an emergency.” A thought struck me. “Libby, you haven’t forgotten we need to keep Lexie’s location a secret.”

“I haven’t breathed a word!”

“Thank you. If the press finds her, they’ll eat her alive.”

“She would be a big story,” Libby agreed. “I love attention as much as the next person, but not the kind where the press makes you sound horrible. Although, technically, Nora, aren’t you the press?”

“Well . . . yes.”

“Is it some kind of career no-no that you’re keeping her whereabouts a secret?”

Although I had been taking an online journalism course lately, I was still enough of an amateur not to know for sure. “Let’s hope not.”

Within minutes Libby and I were speeding down I-95 toward Philadelphia. Libby’s phone erupted into the song “Call Me Maybe,” and she answered.

“Oh, thanks,” she said to her caller. “But I won’t be needing any more energy drinks, after all. Bye!” When she hung up, she said, “Poor Jenny. All that work to lose weight, and where did it get her? She’s still fat, but now she’s dead, too. It’s a cautionary tale, isn’t it? I guess I’m lucky I’m just voluptuous, not in a coffin.”

I sighed. “Do you remember Jenny, Lib? She came to Blackbird Farm with her father for a New Year’s Eve party.”

“Well, I remember her father. What a charmer! He came to several parties. But Jenny? She’s hazy in my memory.”

“She played the piano,” I said. Which explained why Libby hadn’t noticed her. At the parties our parents threw, Libby usually thrust her way into the center of the action—sitting on the piano with her chin propped fetchingly in her hands while someone sang to her. Or dancing in front of the crowd. Anything to put herself on display. On the other hand, Jenny rarely did anything to draw attention to herself.

Libby said, “It’s too bad she died. She had a heart attack?”

“Looks that way. She was taking diet pills.”

Libby said, “And drinking all that energy stuff? What a bad combination.”

“Especially if she had a weak heart.”

“Some people will do anything to get thin,” Libby said. “This just goes to show that diets can be deadly.”

While Libby chattered, I thought of Ox Oxenfeld’s reaction when he heard the news that someone had died. Which reminded me of seeing him with Bridget, and then I made the mental leap to my sister spending time in the company of the shoeless Broadway producer.

I turned to Libby. “Tell me more about Ox Oxenfeld. All that crab salad and champagne—are you dating him?”

“Dating?” Libby asked vaguely. “What’s a date? I have five children, Nora. I can’t date. I’m lucky I can break away just for an hour to get an emergency pedicure. Where would I be without Rawlins to babysit Lucy and Max while I try out the errand-running business? I just wish he wasn’t also making a list of the expensive things he wants me to buy for him before he goes off to college in a few weeks. And the twins got themselves summer internships at the medical examiner’s office, which I thought would be fine—you know, doing some office filing, maybe—but of course they talked their way into a lab, which means I have to pay for the disposable suits they wear to wheel bodies around. Those suits cost such a pretty penny, too. Honestly, why can’t they talk their way into a nice job bagging groceries or making coffee? Today they’re learning how to scrape DNA from under the fingernails of a cadaver. I suppose I’ll have to pay for that somehow, too.”

I recognized the signs. She was steering me away from the subject of a potential new boyfriend by throwing conversational bombs in my path. I couldn’t help being distracted. “Lib, the twins are only fourteen. Do you think it’s wise for them to be scraping cadavers?”

“How can I stop them? The twins got away from me a long time ago.” Libby rolled down her window long enough to tousle her hair and freshen up the air in the minivan. Or maybe to give herself
time to concoct a story I might swallow. At last she said, “I’m feeling a little overwhelmed these days. Seeing you so happy with That Man of Yours, and your baby coming, too—well, I can’t help feeling a little down.”

“I’m sorry that you’re feeling low,” I said with all sincerity.

“I’m not trying to make you feel guilty,” she replied at once. “I’m being honest, that’s all. Here you are, happy with a new man in your life and children coming, not to mention a glamorous job where you see beautiful, sophisticated people every night, while the only break in the monotony of my life seems to be an exterminator who can’t get rid of my carpenter ants. He brought burritos again last night after the children refused to eat the low-calorie asparagus soup I spent hours making. They acted like he was Zorro, coming to rescue them from the food police—me!”

Suspicions aroused, I asked, “Did the exterminator stay after dinner?”

“I did not invite him to stay,” she reported. “He’s perfectly happy watching television with the children, but where I’m concerned, Perry Delbert lacks a certain . . . spark.”

“The last guy with spark was that fireman who set fire to your bedroom curtains with a scented candle, remember? It was a lucky thing he didn’t burn the house down.” Catching myself, I said more kindly, “I’ve seen the way Perry looks at you, Lib. He has plenty of spark.”

“Well, I wish he’d be a little more demonstrative! Honestly, I have to drag more than two syllables out of him.”

“Surely he says something?”

“He says he likes my size! He says he likes a woman he can hold on to! Now, what kind of compliment is that? So when Oxy pays me genuine compliments and offers to rub my feet—”

“He rubs your feet?” I asked. “I thought you were just delivering champagne!”

“Don’t judge,” Libby snapped. “I work hard for my family. I deserve something nice once in a while. At the end of an excruciating day running silly errands for people who have more money than anybody should, an occasional foot rub is a small reward. I bet That Man of Yours rubs more than your feet.”

“Libby—”

“I’m jealous! There, I said it. I’m in a rut at the moment—a very expensive rut—and you’re deliriously happy, aren’t you?”

“Well, yes. We’re overjoyed about our daughter coming. And we’re delighted to be adopting the baby that Rawlins and Zephyr Starr are giving to us—”

“Oh, let’s not talk about that!” Libby interrupted, even more irritably. “That’s the worst!”

“The worst?”

“For me, it’s awful! I’ll start crying if we discuss my becoming a g-g-grandmother.” With heat, she burst out, “I just can’t face it, Nora! You might be happy about that baby, but she is part of my current state of mind.”

Maybe a big part. I realized I’d been so wrapped up in keeping Lexie out of the limelight that I had missed all the signs. Libby’s eldest son, Rawlins, a good kid with a sensible head on his shoulders most of the time, had made a mistake in judgment last winter during his senior year in high school. He ended up fathering a child with a woman who—there is no other way to say it—deliberately seduced him to get herself pregnant, and then went to prison for murder. Rather than try to raise the baby himself, Rawlins had asked Michael and me to adopt the child, and we had accepted with enthusiasm. The baby was going to be born within a week of my own due date, which was a little daunting, but also exciting.

But for Libby, the coming baby meant she was going to bear the disheartening label of
grandmother
.

“I’m too young to be a gr-r-r—I can’t even say it! I’m not even forty yet! It’s not fair!”

“All right,” I soothed. “We don’t have to talk about the other baby.”

“We have to
talk
about her,” Libby cried, exasperation boiling over. “We can’t ignore her for the rest of her life! I just don’t want to hear the G-word anymore, okay?”

“Okay,” I said before Libby could burst into a storm of tears. “From now on, she’ll be your niece—how about that? Nobody needs to be reminded that she’s your—well, that she’s a child that Rawlins brought into the world. She’ll be my daughter. Your niece.”

“Niece.” Libby gradually brightened. “That’s very much nicer. Thank you, Nora.”

“And we’re delighted to adopt her, Libby. Your life will come together soon, too, I’m sure. With Rawlins going to college, and Max starting nursery school, Lucy growing up, and the twins going to high school—”

“It’s probably best if we ignore the twins. There’s no telling what trouble they can get into in high school.” She snuffled up her tears. “High school means girls and access to dangerous substances in the chemistry lab. I can’t bring myself to think about what they could blow up.”

“Then think about yourself for an afternoon,” I said. “A little shopping might be just what you need. There’s a new lingerie shop on Walnut Street. I think you’d really love it.”

She sighed. “You’re so insightful sometimes, Nora. Yes, it’s time for me to stop wallowing and take charge—get my life back on the right spiritual trajectory. I’ve got a new career and maybe a new man on my horizon. I know! I should study up on Broadway musicals! I think I have a tape of
Camelot
somewhere. And
West Side
Story
. Remember those cute summer dresses they wore in the movie? If I had enough cash, I’d update my whole summer wardrobe.”

The thought of my sister rechanneling her annoyance with the exterminator and devoting all of her suppressed sexual energy to Mr. Oxenfeld gave me a stab of pity for the poor fellow. And if Bridget O’Halloran had decided to target him, too, he might be in mortal danger.

“Maybe you shouldn’t go overboard with the new man, Libby. Why don’t you let nature take its course gradually?”

“To hell with that,” she said. “At his age, he might die, and I’d have to start all over again with someone else. That’s just poor time management. No, I think I’d better get cracking where Ox Oxenfeld is concerned. Strike while the iron is hot! Off to the lingerie store! Would you like to come along? It would get your mind off Jenny Tuttle.”

“No, thanks. I have work to do. Have fun without me.”

“I wonder what Ox’s favorite color is?” Newly energized, Libby sent the minivan swooping off an exit ramp, and we arrived in Philadelphia.

T
he good news was that if my batty sister was focusing her considerable energies on Ox Oxenfeld, at least she wouldn’t be planning my wedding.

Libby dropped me in front of the Pendergast Building, and I was soon through security and zooming up the elevator to the offices of the
Philadelphia Intelligencer
, the rag that still paid my salary.

As soon as I stepped off the elevator, I knew Gus Hardwicke was back with a vengeance.

Although most of my colleagues usually headed home around four in the afternoon, the whole newsroom was still buzzing with busy reporters. Either we had big breaking news—perhaps a celebrity had been arrested for indecent exposure—or our editor had thrown a tantrum and every writer on the staff was trying to prove his or her value by staying late. All heads were bent, faces turned to computer screens, fingers busy on keyboards—hot in the pursuit of a lurid story for tomorrow’s edition. I heard the clatter of keystrokes and the low hum of reporters intent on saving their jobs.

I bumped my desk with my belly but caught an avalanche of envelopes before they cascaded to the floor. I didn’t stop in the office every day to check my mail, so invitations to social events sometimes piled up. It was often more efficient for me to arrive at events directly from home, and I wrote my stories in the back of a car that whisked me from place to place. I communicated often with the features editor by phone and e-mail—a system that worked well for us.

Sometime during the last couple of days, someone had sent me a vase of flowers along with an invitation to a summer gala. The yellow roses were drooping just a little. I scooped up the vase and cradled it in my arm, intending to walk it directly to the ladies’ room for a drink.

But a loud voice boomed across the newsroom like the crack of a bullwhip. “I’m so glad you could finally join us, Miss Blackbird!”

I spun around, arms full of invitations and flowers. The whole newsroom looked up from their tasks, too, as if everyone had been anticipating this moment when our temperamental boss finally laid eyes on me, the late arriver.

Gus Hardwicke stood at the open door of his office, his freckled arms crossed on his chest, wiry dark brows thunderous as he glared with barely controlled rage. He was tall and athletic, wearing an open-necked dress shirt and linen trousers, bristling with Australian brio and the temper of a managing editor ready to prove he hadn’t missed a step during his vacation. His narrowed gaze involuntarily left my face, though, and slid lower to land on my distended body.

I saw Gus’s green eyes widen. His shock morphed into revulsion before he pulled himself together. “Come into my office, please. We have things to discuss.”

I left the invitations at my desk. Walking across the floor felt like a trek across the Sahara as all my fellow employees either sent
sympathetic looks my way or made little effort to hide smirks. I guessed they had already a formed a pool to bet on whether I was going to be fired.

Determined not to be intimidated, I breezed into the editor’s office and presented him with the vase of flowers. “Welcome home, Mr. Hardwicke,” I said in a clear voice that I hoped carried out to the newsroom. “I trust your vacation was restful despite all the globe-trotting. You look a little sunburned. Did you get in any spearfishing? And how was the biking in Paraguay?”

He slammed the door, and we were alone in his office. “The only living creature I felt like spearing was my father. Fortunately, he has bodyguards.” He dropped the vase of flowers directly into the trash can beside his desk, then swung around to give me another appalled stare. “Good God, Nora, what the bloody hell happened to you?”

I lifted my arms to better show off my enormous figure. “Do I need to explain the facts of life?”

“I’m well acquainted, thank you. Maybe you need to learn how to avoid this unfortunate outcome. I reckon you’re big as a boomer.”

I knew Gus Hardwicke was more bark than Aussie bite. So I said with good humor, “We’ve been over this, Gus. I’m deliriously happy about this baby, and I’m allowed six weeks of maternity leave.”

“I thought that wasn’t happening until the end of summer.”

“We Blackbird women get big early.”

“Spare me the gory details. Crikey, I’ve seen kangaroos carrying two half-grown joeys, and they’re not nearly your size.”

“Some people actually say pregnancy agrees with me.”

“Don’t expect me to lie. You look appalling.”

“Is this how you treat the ladies Down Under? If so, I can understand why you were thrown out of the country.”

“I left voluntarily. More or less.”

“I was beginning to wonder if you had decided to fight your way back into your father’s good graces and stay in Australia. Or won’t he have you?”

“Actually, he’s trying to buy some media outlets here in the states. Or hadn’t you heard?”

I had heard indeed, but I didn’t feel I could press Gus about his media mogul father, who owned at least four television networks and half the newspapers around the globe. Making a move into the U.S., he was bidding to buy a cable company, a handful of tabloids and a radio station or two—all of them owned by a triumvirate of old dragons here in Philadelphia.

But he had encountered a setback with the fire-breathing sellers, so the rumor mill said, and he was regrouping before staging another assault. Like everyone else, I wondered what the senior Hardwicke’s next move might be—a full-scale attack or a more wily strategy. I knew the dragons slightly—they had been protégés of my grandfather Blackbird—very patriotic, ring-wing fossils. I guessed they resented someone from another country making a bid for their assets, which they seemed to think were as American as the Liberty Bell and should remain so. But, of course, money talks, even to dragons. And Gus’s father had a lot of money.

Gus didn’t wait for me to answer his question.

He said, “My current goal is keeping this sinking ship afloat a little longer. While I was away, the bludgers around here started slacking off again. This newspaper is actually on the brink of disaster. I have to fight to earn back every quid I made here all over again, or we’re out of business. I need news. Got anything good?”

“You mean more sordid stories about male body parts?”

He laughed. “In the States, dongers do seem to sell newspapers. It’s a great country, isn’t it?”

Gus leaned against his desk, the only stick of furniture in the
office. It was my observation that he preferred to work on his feet, pacing and shouting, rather than sitting in a comfortable desk chair like a normal human being. Which meant there was never anywhere for me to sit. The walls were decorated only by large sheets of blank newsprint, where he scrawled his ideas for the next day’s edition. Each night he ripped down the previous day’s work and hammered up fresh paper to begin anew.

He folded his arms over his considerable chest again and said, “We will now have a natter about your dubious contribution to journalistic excellence while I was away.”

“You were reading my work while on vacation?”

“
On holiday
doesn’t mean
brain-dead
. I read your piece about the ten worst charities.”

“It was the ten best, actually. I added the ten worst because—”

“The worst are what kicked up reader interest. Which I like. As for the rest of your work, all I can say is there was certainly a lot of it.”

“Everybody checks news on their electronic devices so often nowadays that I thought we should frequently post something to keep readers interested.”

“News about the blithering social scene? Or what frock somebody’s empty-headed secretary wears to a ladies’ luncheon?” Scorn dripped from his words. “You call that news?”

“I call it content. Content that readers want to see. Yes, updates from Washington are more important, but what a stylish office worker wears to a fund-raising lunch is what keeps people coming back. Our online advertising is up eighteen percent,” I said, pleased to have pried the number from the ogre who ran the advertising department. “I don’t think that’s only because the public wants to read about exhibitionists. My frequent social posts keep readers coming back, but they make advertisers take notice, too.”

He did not argue with me. “I hear you were the one who insisted Tremaine post my video clips in the online edition.”

“I did not insist. I suggested. The results were phenomenal. Readers loved everything. Who knew Paraguay was so scenic?”

“I sent those videos to Tremaine because he’s a bike enthusiast himself. I intended them to be seen only by him. I did not give permission—”

“Our page views were better than ever,” I said. “Maybe it was those shots of you in tight shorts, but I truly believe our readers are interested in what the rest of the world looks like. Your video clips were a perfect example of how we could expand our view of the world. I wish you’d sent more.”

“Are you free for dinner? I can show you all my sightseeing photos.” His temper was definitely cooling, because a gleam of naughtiness began to shine in his green eyes.

Gus had made a serious bid for my affections when he first came to Philadelphia. I thought I had successfully diverted his efforts, and now here he was playing his game again.

I maintained my composure. “Despite the graciousness of that invitation, I must decline. I have several events to attend this evening. In fact, if you’re finished with me now, I should get moving.”

He gave me a wry look. “Are you off to lift a coldie with your Pommy friends?”

“Cocktails at an apartment around the corner. It’s a party to raise money for leukemia research. Some of the Phillies will be volunteer waiters.”

Gus grabbed a white linen jacket off a peg by the door and swung into it. He opened the door and held it for me. “I’ve been cooped up here all day listening to your lazy colleagues whinge about their work. Let’s go. I could use a drink, and I don’t care what local cricket player gives it to me.”

Reporters surreptitiously watched us walk to the elevator. Gus punched the button, and we took the plunge together.

He said, “How’s your jailbird friend? Lexie Paine, the murderer? You know where she’s hiding out, I suppose? First on my list of things I want now that I’m back on the job is an article about her.”

“You won’t get it from me.”

“Have you seen her?”

“Not lately,” I said, thinking
not in the last hour.

“Do you know where she is?”

“Why do you need to know?”

“Because like half the city I want the confessed murderess to explain why she’s out of jail several years early.”

“She confessed to manslaughter, not murder.”

“In this pistol-packing country, doesn’t that simply mean she cut some kind of shady deal? That’s what she does, right? Shady deals? And what is she up to now? More unscrupulous plans to get even richer?”

“She was a respected investment adviser before things went . . . a little crazy. She never cut deals. And she’s not unscrupulous.”

“You’re such a lamb, Nora. You always assume the people around you are just as innocent. Your friend is corrupt,” Gus said flatly. “How did she acquire her home, for example? It’s in some kind of historic location, correct? And the rest of the buildings have been owned by boating clubs for—what?—centuries? So she pulled strings to get it. And what about bilking her clients of their life savings? She’s a notorious public personality now. And you—the blue blood who knows everybody important—are the perfect reporter to get all the nasty details of the story.”

“She did not bilk her clients. Her partner did.”

“And she killed him for it.”

“It was manslaughter, not—” I caught myself and said more calmly, “I am not going to write about my friend.”

“I assumed as much. So I assigned Hostetler to start mucking about.”

Hostetler was a particularly unpleasant weasel who shoveled up the worst sort of mud that Gus liked to print. Plus he stole other people’s food from the staff refrigerator, which ranked Hostetler very low in my book—especially now that I seemed to be hungry all the time.

I said, “Has Hostetler run out of penises?”

Delighted, Gus gave a rollicking laugh. “Anywhere in the world there’s a woman with a hatchet, Hostetler can get her on the phone for a quote. It makes me uneasy about his childhood, but I gave him a raise anyway.” As we stepped off the elevator, he said, “I hear your thug is back to his life of crime.”

Exasperated, I burst out, “How long have you been back in Philadelphia? Twelve hours? And already you want to make up tales about Michael?”

Gus put one finger to his lips to indicate we should not let ourselves be overheard by the lobby security guards. As we crossed the lobby, he lowered his voice. “It doesn’t take long to hear the buzz about the Abruzzo family. I’ve even seen the photos. He’s hanging around with petty drug dealers now? Care to make a statement to the press? An insider’s view of current mob activity?”

I kept my voice down, too. “Michael doesn’t deal drugs. Never has, never will.”

“And the rest of the family?”

I remembered Michael saying some of his pots had boiled over, but I said, “His father and his brothers are serving sentences for some misdeeds, and that’s all I know.”

“Nora—or shall I call you Pollyanna for all your pretending to know nothing?—let me explain. Abruzzo père, Big Frankie, is in
jail, so your thug has been promoted. Except instead of making a fortune in illegal gambling, he’s breaking up the old gang. Putting longtime employees out into the street, poor dears, ending the rackets, the numbers, the whole enchilada, as you Yanks say.”

“Is that so?”

“That’s what I hear,” Gus said blithely. “Except it’s not going smoothly.”

No, it wasn’t. I knew quite well that Michael was trying to dismantle his father’s crime domain. It seemed a wise course of action now that we had a family on the way. But his cousins were angry. They didn’t want the flow of easy money from sports betting and the car-theft ring to end. So Michael had been maneuvering a lot of pieces around the chessboard, working things he didn’t want me to know about.