Murder Can Ruin Your Looks

YOUR LOOKS

by

Selma Eichler

I
WAS
STARING
INTO
THE

FACE
OF
THE
LAST
PERSON
ON

EARTH
I
WANTED
TO
SEE.

‘‘I have a gun in my pocket,’’ the killer in

formed me in a low, even voice. ‘‘And I want

you to stand here quietly; don’t even move a

muscle. If you do exactly what I tell you, you’ll

be fine.’’

Yeah
right!
I
am
in
a
whole
lot
of
trouble,
I thought, even as I dutifully obeyed the instruc

tions. The perp was right beside me now, jam

ming something into my ribs. I didn’t have to

look down to know the gun was no longer in

anybody’s pocket. My own thirty-two, of

course, was exactly where it would do me no

good at all. In my bedroom, at the bottom of

a drawer. . . .

CAN RUIN

by

Selma Eichler

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Books USA Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane,

London W8 5TZ, England

Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood,

Victoria, Australia

Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue,

Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2

Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182–190 Wairau Road,

Auckland 10, New Zealand

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:

Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England

First published by Signet, an imprint of Dutton Signet, a division of Penguin Books USA Inc.

ISBN: 1-4362-7897-x

Copyright © Selma Eichler, 1995

All rights reserved

REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publi

cation may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copy

right owner and the above publisher of this book. PUBLISHER’S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. For Lloyd Eichler,

known to his friends and relatives

(of which I am both) as Puck—

my husband, sounding board, dictionary,

thesaurus, ground-floor-level editor,

and constant source of ideas,

encouragement, and love.

My special thanks to David Gruber of Lehman, Lehman & Gruber, who supplied the legal information so necessary to the development of the story line for this book. He showed remarkable patience in providing pertinent sets of laws and regulations every time (and there were quite a few of them) I had a change of heart—and plot.

Invaluable assistance in the medical area came from Mar

tin Turkish, M.D., who answered the thousand and one questions I put to him on death, comas, and other cheerful matters. Extremely helpful, too, were Michael W. Grzelak, D.M.D., who traced the course of my bullets for me; Dr. Joseph O’Connell of Personal Diagnostics, who presented the facts and cleared up my misconceptions on AIDS; and June Smith, Assistant Director of Emergency Services at St. Vincent’s Hospital, who spared the time to educate me on hospital procedure.

I am also grateful to my agent, Luna Carne-Ross, for guiding and prodding me throughout the process and whose

critiques were always on target (well, 99% of the time, anyway)—even when they weren’t what I wanted to hear. My thanks, too, to my editor, Danielle Perez, for pointing the way for me to correct my mistakes, clarify my ambigu

ities, and hone and polish what was left.

And I can’t overlook my friends Rudy Valentini, who helped me shop for my Mac, and Joe Todaro, who taught me how to use it. Without their kind services, I’d probably still be in the manuscript stage. And then there’s Julian Scott, who so willingly pitched in to assist me in my fact finding.

Finally, there are two other very dear friends who con

tributed to this book who are no longer here: Bea Langer

man, ACSW, who—whenever I asked a question outside her field of expertise—always said, ‘‘I don’t know, but I’ll
Acknowledgments

7

find out and get back to you soon.’’ And no matter how busy she was, Bea always did. And Joan Seidman, who served as a prototype for Desiree and whose wit, humor, and warm-heartedness I attempted to impart to my heroine. Without Bea and Joan, it’s quite possible there wouldn’t have been any Desiree or any book, for that matter. I miss them both.

No more grisly murders. No more desperate killers. No more life-threatening encounters. I’d had a taste of the heavy stuff, thank you. And I’d made myself a promise: There was no way I’d take on any case likely to cause me any injury more serious than a paper cut. Not ever again. . . .

Up until a year and a half ago, being a private investiga

tor was—for me, anyway—a really benign way to earn a living. I always managed to pay the rent and some pretty sizable food bills, thanks to a small but fairly steady share of New York’s unfaithful wives, philandering husbands, and phony insurance claims—along with some missing animals here and there.

Okay. Maybe they weren’t the kind of cases you could really sink your teeth into. But they weren’t the kind of cases that were likely to land you in the morgue, either. Then my niece Ellen got me involved in this double ho

micide that almost evolved into a triple—with my own amply proportioned five-foot-two inch frame coming
that
close
to occupying a third slab in the city morgue. (And I’d prefer that slab to revealing how really ample these proportions of mine are.) Anyway, while I eventually solved the murders, even now I get crazy just thinking about that whole fiasco. Which is why I swore off the kind of cases that could in any way endanger either my physical or mental well-being.

And while I admit that my one and only murder case turned me into a coward, the truth is, I hadn’t been all that brave to begin with.

Chapter 1

I suppose I have a nurturing thing when it comes to men. It’s the only way I can explain being totally unsusceptible to the good-looking ones and having this penchant, instead, for the little skinny guys. You know, the ones who look truly
needy
. I guess my maternal bent stems, at least in part, from the fact that Ed and I never had any children—

Ed being my late husband, Ed Shapiro, who was also a P.I. Anyway, when it came to the man who walked into my office that Wednesday afternoon, I was prepared to make an exception.

He was over six feet tall and well built, with dark hair, light eyes, and the most beautiful cleft chin. He was, in fact, good-looking enough for me to consider losing thirty—

maybe even forty—pounds for. But when he drew closer, I noticed, with just a tinge of relief, that the sacrifice would not be necessary after all. This guy was definitely not a candidate for romance. His eyes—I could see now they were blue—were red-rimmed and dead-looking, and there was a bleak expression on that handsome face. Besides, he was a couple of years younger than I am. (All right. More than a couple.)

‘‘I’m sorry I didn’t make an appointment,’’ he apologized in the sort of hushed tone most people reserve for church or, at the very least, the public library.

‘‘That’s okay,’’ I said, motioning for him to take the seat alongside my desk. ‘‘There’s no line outside my door today.’’

‘‘The thing is, I just found out about a half hour ago that you were a private detective here in New York, and I didn’t want to waste any time in coming to see you.’’

‘‘Do I
know
you?’’

‘‘You
did
. I’m Peter Winters.’’

10

Selma
Eichler

It took a moment for that to register. ‘‘Peter Winters . . .’’

Came the dawn. ‘‘
Little
Petey
Winters?’’

My visitor managed something close to a smile. ‘‘Guilty.’’

‘‘My God!’’ I could hardly believe it.

I jumped up and rushed over to him, and we hugged for a minute. ‘‘I wouldn’t have recognized you in a million years,’’ I said.

‘‘I would never have recognized you, either. You’re a redhead now.’’ Then, apparently concerned that I might be offended by this reminder of the humble roots of my most striking attribute, he added hastily, ‘‘Looks good on you.’’

What a nice, sensitive person Petey’d become, I decided,

as I self-consciously patted my gloriously hennaed hair. I hadn’t always been so kindly disposed to him though. . . . Little Petey Winters and I had grown up next door to each other in Ohio—with me, I confess, doing the growing up a long time before Petey did. Nevertheless, because his sister Maureen and I, born just three days apart, were prac

tically joined at the hip since kindergarten, I saw a lot of him back then. Actually, a lot more than I wanted to. I can’t even count the number of days and nights I kept Maureen company when she had to baby-sit her little brother; it was really as if he were my little brother, too. I guess that’s why I often resented him like hell just for
being
. (As you can gather, this nurturing nature of mine did not have its beginnings in the teen years.)

But, anyway, Petey abruptly stopped being much of a factor in my life at the beginning of my senior year in high school. Because that’s when Maureen formed an even stronger attachment than the one she had to me. His name

was Roy Lindstrom. And right after graduation, he and Maureen got married and moved to California.

At first there were letters and snapshots and, of course, an exchange of birthday and Christmas cards. But gradually it all stopped.

As for me, I went on to college and, from there, to New York—and a career, marriage, and eventual widowhood. But right now, for a minute or two, I was in Ashtabula, Ohio, again with my very best friend.

I could picture with absolute clarity (although probably not complete accuracy) the long, straight brown hair; the tall, angular frame; and the tiny dimples hovering at the

MURDER
CAN
RUIN
YOUR
LOOKS

11

corners of those Kewpie doll lips. But what I remembered best about Maureen were her wide, deep-set blue eyes. They were the same color and shape as the blue eyes that were filled with so much anguish right now.

‘‘How
is
Maureen?’’ I asked.

‘‘She’s doing okay. She moved back to Ashtabula about six years ago, you know. These days, she’s got five kids—

three of them still at home—and an ex she can’t even find. But Maureen’s a strong lady. She opened her own travel agency last fall, and it seems to be going pretty well. She’s the one who suggested I get in touch with you.’’

‘‘I didn’t think she even knew my married name or that I was living in New York.’’

‘‘She said an old friend from Ashtabula, Amy somebodyor-other, had heard where you were and what you were doing and that you were Desiree Shapiro now.’’ He didn’t smile when he said the name; didn’t even look like he was
suppressing
a smile. So I knew that Petey Winters (I’d have to stop thinking of him as Petey) had a whole lot on his mind. That was verified a second or two later.

‘‘I need your help, Desiree,’’ he said, leaning toward me.