Murder Can Ruin Your Looks (4 page)

Ellen giggled for a second, then stopped abruptly. ‘‘I’m sorry. Really,’’ she said, chastened. ‘‘I guess I’m overly sen

sitive sometimes. Tell me, what’s he like?’’

‘‘Well, this was the first time we actually talked—I mean, besides our usual ‘good mornings’ and ‘good nights’—but he’s very personable. And Elliot Gilbert was telling me last week how bright he is. And he’s really nice-looking, too. Not very tall, but taller than you—five-nine or -ten, I’d say—with curly brown hair, a good build, and a dynamite smile.’’ It was time to close the sale. ‘‘Look, what have you got to lose? I thought maybe the two of you could come over for dinner Sunday night. I don’t think Will has much money; besides, I figured if it didn’t click, you could excuse yourself right after the meal and cut out.’’

She agreed that the dinner was a pretty good idea. ‘‘You

know how nervous I get when I don’t know someone, so your being there should make it a little easier. But I hate to see you go to any bother.’’

Now, I love to cook—as Ellen is very well aware. (She’s eaten at my place often enough, for heaven’s sake.) But,

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at any rate, I assured her I’d be happy to do it, and she thanked me and said great and that she’d come.

Then I told her about my new case.

‘‘Oh, my God!’’ she exclaimed. ‘‘I read about that in the papers. It was just awful! They were really beautiful, too, weren’t they? And even younger than I am!’’ She mulled the whole thing over for a moment, then said excitedly,

‘‘You know this case could make you famous, don’t you, Aunt Dez?’’ Those last words were barely out of her mouth when she gave me another ‘‘Oh, my God.’’ But this time it came out in a whisper.

‘‘What’s the matter?’’

‘‘You could get yourself killed; don’t you realize that?

You said you’d never accept another murder case as long as you lived. And you had a good reason for saying it, too. Don’t you remember what happened the last time?’’

I explained that a condition of my taking the case was that my involvement would be limited. ‘‘My client just wants to know whether his fianceé is dead or alive. He doesn’t even
care
who the perpetrator is—or at least that’s how he feels now. Anyhow, I made it clear that once I find out what happened to his fianceé, my job’s over.’’

Ellen was not the least bit mollified. ‘‘I don’t see how that’s possible—restricting your investigation like that.’’

‘‘I think
I
know better what’s possible,’’ I retorted in this withering tone I usually reserve for people in the supermar

ket who try to get on the ten-item express line with twenty items. I can only blame my reaction on an unwillingness to admit—particularly to myself—that Ellen was right. And, of course, I felt like a real bitch a second later. Ellen spoke before I had a chance to say how sorry I was.

‘‘Well, I
still
don’t like it,’’ she grumbled. ‘‘Just be very, very careful. Promise me.’’

I promised her.

She got the last word, though. ‘‘And by the way, you’re a fine one to talk about Maalox; you should have
you
for an aunt.’’

When we hung up, I was shaking my head and smiling to myself. Ellen’s twenty-eight, but there are times I could swear they screwed up on her birth certificate. She’s usually so naive and open, so basically
young,
that it’s hard to believe she’s been around that long. And in New York, too. But then, at other times she’ll come up with something

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remarkably perceptive or intuitive, putting her finger on a truth I hadn’t considered. Or, as in this instance, hadn’t wanted to.

Later that night, right before I drifted off to sleep, I thought about Ellen and Will Fitzgerald. He really
did
seem nice. I fervently hoped it would work out between them. Poor Ellen was due. Her last relationship had been with a guy who turned out to be raw sewage.

I began building a few castles in the air. Wouldn’t it be something if this turned out to be
it
for her. I was even wondering if they’d be able to find a priest and a rabbi willing to perform a joint ceremony. (I don’t know if I mentioned it, but Ellen is actually Ed’s niece. She’s Jewish, while—with a name like Will Fitzgerald—it was fairly safe to assume that the prospective bridegroom was not.) It didn’t matter, though; the deliriously happy couple could always be married by a judge or a justice of the peace or somebody.

Suddenly my mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton batting. What would my sister-in-law, Margot, Ellen’s mother, have to say about all this? She’d kill me, that’s what she’d do, for finding her only daughter an Irish Catho

lic fiance´.

Worse yet, she might not invite me to the wedding. Chapter 4

First thing in the morning, I called the homicide detective Peter had mentioned as being in charge of the case. It happens that Tim Fielding and I have a kind of special relationship. He and my husband, Ed, had been pretty tight when they were on the force together years ago—before Ed left and became a P.I. Before Ed and I even met, in fact. And, quite apart from their friendship (which for the longest time I was completely unaware of), I got to know Tim myself, crossing paths with him on any number of oc

casions during my investigations. He wasn’t working homi

cide back then, of course. And in my younger, smarter days, I wasn’t, either.

Fielding sounded pleased to hear from me. Until I told him why I wanted to talk to him.

‘‘That’s the only thing this lousy case was missing,’’ he groused. ‘‘You.’’

Now, you have to understand something about Tim

Fielding. He’s one of the nicest, most good-natured people you’d ever want to meet. From my point of view, if there was one lucky thing about this tragedy it was the fact that it had taken place in Fielding’s precinct. But you’d never be able to tell all this by listening to us rag each other. Which is something we do a lot of. I think it’s because, for some dumb reason, we’re determined to make sure our feelings for one another—which, I assure you, are as pla

tonic as they can get—don’t show. I guess it’s become al

most a game with us by now.

It was my turn with the needle. ‘‘It’ll be nice working with
you
again, too,’’ I told him. ‘‘You have
such
a gra

cious manner.’’

‘‘What’s this ‘working with you’ crap? Since when did
you
become a member of the force? And in case you for

got, I already have a partner, thank you.’’

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Fortunately, I hadn’t eaten much of a breakfast. Even so

much as thinking about Walter Corcoran turned my stom

ach. As Fielding very well knew. ‘‘I realize that,’’ I retorted sweetly, ‘‘and you sound like he’s been giving you some sensitivity training lately.’’

We spent another minute or two on more inane banter before I got around to asking Fielding to meet with me. He gave me a little bit of a hard time, which figured. And then he gave in. As I knew he would.

He suggested a twelve-thirty lunch at this coffee shop not far from the precinct.

I was almost a block away from the place when I spotted

Tim going in. Even from the back, you couldn’t miss that short, muscular, fireplug body of his, the close-cropped salt and pepper hair. And nobody else has a walk like that. Actually,
walk
is probably a misnomer. It’s more like a strut.

‘‘I thought you were through with homicides,’’ he said when we were seated, making it sound like a challenge.

‘‘I am. I’m looking into something else entirely. Let’s eat first; then I’ll explain.’’

‘‘You better start explaining as soon as we give the order. I have to be back in an hour.’’

So right after the waiter took our sandwich orders, I told Fielding about Peter and Ashtabula, making it very clear that my only interest was in helping my client establish whether his fianceé was dead or alive.

‘‘That’s all you’re interested in, huh?’’

‘‘Honestly, Tim, it’s what I was hired for, and it’s the only thing on my mind. Don’t you believe me?’’

‘‘I believe
you
believe it; let’s put it that way. Or, I should say, that you’d
like
to believe it. But you’re not even as smart as
I
thought you were if you really think it’s possi

ble to separate things out like that.’’
Swell.
Just
what
I
needed
to
hear.
Again
. ‘‘But we’ll leave that discussion for another time,’’ he went on. ‘‘So just what is it you want from me? You want to know how it went down, right?’’

‘‘Right.’’

‘‘Let’s see,’’ he ruminated, screwing up his face as he combed his memory for the details. ‘‘One of the twins, Mary Ann—I’ll tell you later how we know it was her—

was found on the living room floor, a few feet from the

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sofa. There was no sign of a struggle, nothing to indicate forcible entry. So we have to assume she was acquainted with the perp. Anyway, the other sister . . . what was her name?’’

‘‘Meredith.’’

‘‘Yeah, Meredith. She was shot at the end of this long entry foyer, right where you turn the corner into the living room. The doorman’s pretty sure the first sister to come home that night—that would be Mary Ann—got in around seven-thirty, maybe a few minutes before. He told us she came in at the same time as one of the other tenants; he remembers because the two of ’em were joking around to

gether. We checked with the man—a Mr. Milano—and he verified the doorman’s information. He says he walked into his apartment at exactly seven-thirty. Says he was aware of the time because he was so disappointed at not being able to catch even the last few minutes of
Jeopardy!

‘‘Milano knew it was Mary Ann he’d been talking to?’’

‘‘As a matter of fact, he didn’t. It was a casual conversa

tion. But that’s okay. I told you;
we
know it was.’’

‘‘What about Meredith? When did she get home?’’

‘‘We can’t pin that down as closely. Doorman
thinks
the second sister got in around an hour later. But he admits that’s just a guess. And we haven’t been able to find anyone else who can nail down the time for us. But it’s very un

likely Meredith came home before eight, at the earliest. We can be reasonably certain of that from the facts we already have.’’

‘‘Which are?’’

‘‘Hold your horses, will you? I’m getting there. Now, the way we piece it together, the perp was in the living room with Mary Ann. Could be they even sat around and talked for a while. Maybe waiting for Meredith.’’

‘‘Then you think Meredith was actually the intended victim?’’

‘‘That’s certainly one possibility. Did you know Mary Ann was supposed to be going out to dinner straight from work that night?’’

‘‘Peter told me.’’ Just then, our sandwiches arrived. The minute the waiter walked away, I said, ‘‘You know, it also could have happened the other way around. I mean, who’s to say the killer knew about Mary Ann’s dinner plans?

Maybe
she
was the target. And then Meredith walked in

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right after the shooting and, thanks to her lousy timing, got
her
face practically blown off, too.’’

‘‘Sure. It
could
have gone down like that,’’ Fielding con

ceded. ‘‘The only trouble is, by ten of eight at the outside, the perp was already in the apartment.’’ I opened my mouth, but Fielding anticipated me. ‘‘And don’t ask me how we know that. I’ll—’’

This time,
I
anticipated
him
. ‘‘I’ll explain later, so hold your horses,’’ I cut in, mimicking his tone.

He touched his hand to his forehead and presented me with a mock salute before going on. ‘‘The point is, if Mary Ann
was
the target, why not make the hit and get the hell out of there? Why hang around until Meredith came home?

Unless
she
was the intended victim or unless it was sup

posed to be a doubleheader all along. Right?’’

He didn’t expect an answer. And he didn’t get one. I started to ask about something else. ‘‘Say, what do you—’’

‘‘Why don’t you cool it for a couple of minutes and start eating? Your sandwich is getting cold.’’

‘‘It’s tuna fish, Tim,’’ I reminded him, picking up the sandwich anyway.