Murder is a Girl's Best Friend (34 page)

While the four of them were shaking hands and making small talk, I kept my eyes trained on Augusta Smythe. She was a tall, thin woman in her late fifties (I guessed) with a dainty smile, a perfect manicure, and a heavily hairsprayed hairdo. Her floor-length navy blue satin gown was sleeveless, but she kept her thin arms covered with a long, wide, matching navy blue satin shawl. Instead of diamonds she was wearing pearls. Though she seemed quite composed standing there, welcoming Terry and Abby—I mean Bathsheba—to her party, I could see that she’d been shaken by the sight of my (okay,
her
) necklace.

“You have a beautiful home, Mrs. Smythe,” I said, taking my first look around the luxurious, crowded room we’d just entered. It was the size of a football field, but the many paintings on the pale yellow walls, the huge Oriental carpets on the polished teak floor, and the colorful multitude of chatting, smoking, laughing guests gave it a warm, intimate glow. “Can I persuade you to give me a quick tour later, after the rest of your company has arrived?” (Translation:
Can I get you off in a corner somewhere and ask you a bunch of rude questions?
)

“Of course, dear,” she said, staring at the necklace again.

“I’ll be happy to show you around in a little while. But first you must go inside and have some hors d’oeuvres and champagne.” She gestured toward midfield.

I waited for Terry and Abby to finish their handshakes and small talk, then led them deep into the party crowd. I figured it was the best place for us to huddle without attracting undue attention (or suspicion). Surrounded by well-groomed men in tuxedos and transcendent women trimmed in fur, feathers, and jewels, we each grabbed a glass of champagne from a wandering waiter’s tray and stood drinking together in a tight little circle. The jazz ensemble in the far corner of the room was playing an absurdly perky version of “O Holy Night.”

“Wow!” Abby said, keeping her voice down to a loud whisper. “This is atomic! We just passed right by a Cézanne. And there’s a van Gogh on that wall over there! I think it’s from his Arles period.”

I didn’t have time for an art lesson. “How did you make out with Smythe?” I asked her, anxious to make the most of our Christmas Eve vigil.

“Fine. I’m meeting him in his private study in twenty minutes. He wants to show me his piggies.”

“His what?!” Terry sputtered.

“His piggy banks,” Abby said, taking a swig of champagne, then giggling through her nose. “The man collects piggy banks. Isn’t that a scream?”

“It’s a howl,” Terry said, looking disgusted. “But I don’t think you should be alone with this screwball. It isn’t safe. What if he’s the killer?”

“Well, that’s what we’re trying to find out, Whitey! And I’ll learn a lot more if I can spend some time alone with him. We discussed all this before. Don’t get cold feet on me now!”

“Okay, okay!” he grumbled. “But I’m going to be standing right outside the whole time, listening for trouble. If Smythe bothers you in any way, just give a shout. I’ll bust in and break the swine’s neck. And his piggy banks, too.”

“Thanks, baby,” Abby said, fluttering her lashes and brushing her fingertips down his cheek. “It’s so good to have a brave boyfriend.”

Had Terry ever confessed to Abby that he’d been a coward in combat? If so, it was a cinch she didn’t swallow it. She looked as though she wanted to swallow
him
up instead.

“Break it up, kids,” I said. “I’ve got news.”

“What is it?” Abby yelped, snapping her head in my direction. “What happened?”

“Augusta noticed the necklace,” I told them. “She kept staring at it the whole time I was talking to her, and she looked like she was going to explode.” I threw my head back and sucked my champagne glass dry.

As I straightened my spine and started looking around for a place to set the empty glass, I saw her. A strawberry blonde in a slinky pink dress with a tiny upturned nose and big hazel eyes that were gazing straight at me—or, rather, my neck.

“Of course Augusta noticed the necklace!” Abby blurted. “It belonged to her for twenty years! She’d have to be blind as a bat, or totally demented, not to recognize it.”

“Shhhh! Keep your voice down!” I whispered. “And don’t look now, but there’s a young woman standing a few feet behind you who seems to have noticed the necklace, too. I wonder who she is. She keeps staring at me and . . . Oops! Here she comes! Be quiet! Don’t say anything!” I nervously raised my glass back up to my lips and took a sip of nothing.

The young woman waltzed right over to us and wriggled into our little circle. “Hello,” she purred, patting a strawberry blonde wave over one eye and puffing on her cigarette (or, rather, the long slim ivory holder in which her burning weed was rooted). “I don’t believe we’ve met. And I thought I knew everybody at this dreary old party! I’m Lillian Smythe, the wayward daughter of the house. And who, may I ask, are you?” Her words were aimed at all three of us, but her eyes were aimed at the necklace.

“I’m Paige Turner,” I said, offering my hand for a languid shake. I hated to give her my real name, but I didn’t have any choice. I’d given it to her father the day before, and there was some small chance he might remember it. “And this is my husband, Terry,” I added, quickly transferring her hand from mine to his, hoping the flurry of activity coupled with Terry’s startling good looks would keep her from paying attention.

No such luck.

“Paige Turner?!” she whooped. “You
can’t
be serious! That’s an utter riot!” She was talking and laughing so loud people were turning to look at us. Her laughter wasn’t real, though. It was the fake and showy kind—the kind that’s based on taut nerves instead of true amusement. “So, tell me, Paige Turner,” she said, stopping her laughter on a dime and tucking the tip of her ivory cigarette holder into the corner of her livid pink smirk. “How does a girl get a wacko name like yours? Were you born with it, or did you make it up yourself?”

“I married it,” I said, as if it were any business of hers. Miss Lillian Smythe was starting to bug me big-time.

Abby didn’t like her much either. “My name’s Bathsheba Lark,” she told her, conspicuously
not
extending her hand. “Are you going to laugh your silly head off about that, too?”

Jolted by Abby’s impertinence, Lillian turned and gave her a snotty look. Then she took a step back, sucked on the end of her cigarette holder, and gave her a very slow and
studied
look. “Bathsheba?” she said, wrinkling her tiny upturned nose as if she were standing downwind from a fetid sewage facility. “Isn’t that a
Jewish
name?”

At that moment I fully understood how a fairly well-adjusted, nonviolent person like myself might be moved to commit murder.
Kaboom!
I bellowed to myself, blasting Miss Lillian Smythe off the face of the earth with my imaginary A-bomb.

Terry wasn’t content with a fantasy killing. He preferred the verbal variety. “You’re a stupid, narrow-minded cow, Miss Smythe,” he said in a most polite and gentlemanly manner. “You’re not fit to shine Bathsheba’s shoes.” With that, he stepped into the middle of our little circle, turned his back on Lillian, put one arm around Abby’s waist and the other around mine, and escorted us toward the opposite side of the room, where the full-sized built-in bar was located.

“God!” I said to Abby, after Terry had parked us a few feet from the bar and gone to get our drinks. “What a ferocious little snot she is! But Terry really gave it to her, didn’t he? I’m so glad he did.”

“He’s my hero,” she said, lips trembling. “You’d think I’d be used to the anti-Semitic crap by now, but I’m not. I guess I’ll never get used to it.” She took a cigarette out of her purse and lit up. “Still, it wasn’t very smart of Whitey to mouth off at her the way he did.”

“Smart? No. Cool? Yes!”

“But now she won’t talk to you anymore . . . You won’t be able to ask her any sneaky questions, or find out what she knows about the diamonds.”

“Oh, she’ll be talking to me, all right!” I said. “She’s
dying
to know how I got this necklace. She’ll be coming to ask me about it. I predict she’ll be crawling all over me, apologizing her bigoted little head off and acting like my best friend, as soon as you and Terry take off for Smythe’s study. ”

Abby laughed. “You’re probably right. And speaking of Smythe’s study,” she said, looking at the watch she was carrying in her purse, “I’m supposed to be there right now. Where’s Whitey?”

“You rang?” Terry said, suddenly appearing at our side with the brandy Alexanders we had asked for.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Oh, there you are!” Abby sputtered, smashing her cigarette in a nearby ashtray. She took a big slug of her drink, linked her arm through Terry’s, and began to tow him in the direction of the hallway. “C’mon, baby, let’s go!” she urged. “Mustn’t keep the big shot piggy banker waiting!”

Chapter 27

PART OF MY PREDICTION CAME TRUE. LILLIAN Smythe came marching through the crowd and over to me before I’d taken the third sip of my brandy Alexander. She wasn’t the least bit apologetic, though. And she was acting a whole lot more like my real worst enemy than my fake best friend.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve coming to this party tonight,” she said, blasting the words out of her mouth like shrapnel. “Get out! You’re not welcome here.” People were turning to look at us again.

“What do you mean?!” I said, in shock, working to hold onto my composure. “I was
invited,
you know. Your father
asked
me to come.”

“Oh, I’m sure he did! That’s just the kind of thoughtless, selfish, brainless thing he would do. But he had no
right
to invite you here. And you had no right to come.

I was confused. Was she mad about the necklace, or just angry that I had come to the party? “I don’t understand,” I said. “Your father’s the host. Why can’t he invite anybody he wants?”

“He can,” she said. “Anybody but
you
.” Her hazel eyes were burning with hatred.

“But I’m a
client
of his,” I persisted, determined to get to the bottom of this mystery. “Why can’t he invite me?”

She was near the end of her rope. Her contorted face was turning blue and she was having trouble breathing. One more word from me, and I thought she might crumble. So, in the interest of science (i.e., just to see what would happen), I delivered
several
more words. “I have as much right to be here as anybody else,” I said, squaring my shoulders and stretching my spine to its ultimate height. In my long, heavy, sashless green dress, I felt (and, no doubt,
looked
) as turgid and plant-like as The Thing.

She didn’t crumble. She didn’t even wobble. “You filthy whore!” she screeched. “How dare you come into our home, wearing that necklace and prancing around like the goddamn Queen of England! Have you no shame? You aren’t the first tramp my father’s had an affair with, or pilfered my mother’s jewels for, and you won’t be the last. You
are
the oldest, though,” she added, with a perverse gleam in her eye. “Daddy usually buys himself much newer toys.”

So
that
was it. She thought her father had stolen her mother’s necklace and given it to me in return for sexual favors. And she thought I was now rubbing both the affair
and
the necklace in her mother’s face! Under those circumstances, I didn’t blame Lillian for being mad at me. And if she hadn’t been such a prejudiced, nasty, snotnosed shrew, I would have felt quite sorry for her. And very,
very
sorry that I’d worn the diamonds to the party.

As it was, though, I just felt tired. Tired and disgusted with the whole blam case. Was I ever going to unravel any clear-cut clues? Would I ever stop running in circles and dashing into blind alleys? Would I ever, ever, ever find out who killed Judy Catcher?

And what should I do right now? Should I tell Lillian the truth and give the necklace back to Augusta? Or should I stick to my guns and stay saddled on the lie I rode in on?

It didn’t take me long to decide. I had to keep lying. It was all too possible that Lillian had had something to do with the murder. She must have been just as mad at Judy then as she was at me right now. And she must have been busting to get her mother’s diamonds back. Maybe she had found out where Judy lived and tried to kill two birds with one stone.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, standing even taller than I had before (which wasn’t easy, since all I wanted to do was curl up in a ball on the closest Chip pendale sofa and go to sleep). “I never even
met
your father until yesterday, and this necklace was
not
pilfered. It was willed to me by my dear Aunt Rosemary, who just happened to be one of the sweetest, most generous angels who ever walked the earth. I only wear these diamonds to honor her memory.” (Okay, okay! So I was laying it on a little thick—but desperate times call for double helpings.)