Murder is a Girl's Best Friend (38 page)

Oh, yeah? Well, that’s better than actually
being
a ghost—which might become my fate if I stay here any longer . . .

“Just one cup of tea,” she insisted. “That’ll fix you up.”

“Thanks, Elsie,” I said, through clenched teeth, “but I really have to go home now and put my turkey in the oven. It’s Christmas Day!”

Put my turkey in the oven?
I screeched to myself.
What a nitwit thing to say! I couldn’t have come up with a sillier excuse if my life depended on it! (Which—
I thought at the time
—could very well be the case!)

If Elsie noticed my frantic flight into absurdity, she didn’t let on. She had taken off on a frantic flight of her own. “But you haven’t told me what’s going on!” she shrieked, jutting her chiseled John Wayne chin in my direction. “What the hell made you go to the realty office so early this morning? Did you know something was going to happen? Do you know who killed Roscoe?” She narrowed her big blue eyes into slits so thin they were knifelike.

“I don’t know who killed him for sure,” I blurted, “but I have a hunch it was Lillian Smythe.” I gave Elsie this tid bit just to throw her off the track. If she caught on that I was beginning to suspect
her
(Elsie, that is), my goose could be cooked long before my turkey.

Elsie pulled in her chin and wrinkled her brow in confusion. “Huh?” she said, looking like Elmer Fudd after yet another baffling skirmish with Bugs Bunny. “Lillian who?”

“I can’t explain it all right now!” I sputtered, forging my way back through the sitting room and the kitchen with Elsie hot on my heels. “It’s a long, complicated story, and I don’t have time!” I opened the door and stepped out into the hall. “But don’t worry, Elsie, I’ll phone you later and tell you all about it.” Forcing my lips to form a big bogus smile, I waved bye-bye and made a mad dash for the stairway. “Merry Christmas!” I called out as I began my descent.

If Elsie wished me a happy holiday in return, I didn’t hear it. She must have been whispering.

Chapter 30

ON THE WAY HOME IN THE SUBWAY I MADE a firm decision. I would tell Dan everything about the Judy Catcher homicide today, as soon as he arrived at my apartment. I would tell him how Terry and Abby and I had launched a murder investigation of our own, and I would give him the lowdown on everything that had happened before and since. Dan would be really angry with me, and it would ruin our first Christmas together—maybe even make it our
last
Christmas together—but I couldn’t keep up the charade any longer. Somebody had tried to kill me, and somebody had succeeded in killing Roscoe, and the time had come to bring the police in on the case.

(Okay, okay! You’re absolutely right! I should have told Dan long ago—
before
I was almost obliterated by the uptown express, and before poor Roscoe was eliminated. And, looking back, I’m really, really sorry I didn’t. But hindsight is always clearer than foresight—especially
my
foresight—and since Sweeny had already dropped the case, I truly thought Terry and Abby and I were doing the right thing. But that’s a lousy excuse, I know—even lousier than my stupid turkey-in-the-oven routine. Because any way you look at it, I was a selfish fool and a raving idiot to let my pursuit of the story—and my burning desire to keep it secret from Dan—get in the way of a full-fledged professional search for the killer.)

Filled with contrition and new determination, I got off the train at Sheridan Square, made a beeline down to Bleecker, and hurried home.

It was starting to get light outside, but no lights were on in Abby’s apartment, so I knew the lovebirds weren’t up and chirping yet. As soon as I let myself into the building, though, and climbed the stairs to the landing between our apartments, I started banging on Abby’s door instead of unlocking mine. I didn’t care if they were awake yet or not. I needed a team conference, and I needed it
now
.

It took forever, but I kept right on banging and shouting, until Abby finally made her way downstairs and yanked the door open. “What?!” she screeched. “What the hell’s going on?!” Her eyes were puffy with sleep, her tangled hair was tumbling over both shoulders, and all she was wearing was Uncle Morty’s tuxedo shirt, which barely covered her bare bottom—a fact I didn’t notice until she spun away from me and padded barefoot to the kitchen counter. “What are you yelling about? What the hell time is it?” She pulled the top off the coffee pot, slammed it down on the counter, and started filling the pot with water.

“Six-fifteen,” I said, looking at the clock on her kitchen wall.

“In the fucking morning?!”

“Yep,” I said, “but it feels like noon to me. I’ve been up for hours.”

Abby whipped her head around and gave me a doubtful look. Then, as she took in the fact that I was, indeed, up, and fully dressed—even wearing my coat, beret, and snowboots—her look turned to sheer surprise. “You went
out?
In the middle of the night? You weren’t supposed to leave this apartment! Did anything happen? Where have you been?” She was screeching again.

“I’ve been uptown,” I said, “and a
lot
has happened. But I really can’t bear to explain the whole thing twice. So do me a favor, will you? Go upstairs, wake up Terry, and then bring him down here for a council. And put some clothes on while you’re up there! I’ll finish making the coffee.”

I must have been acting much more authoritative than usual, because Abby didn’t give me any of her usual back talk. She just set the coffee pot down on the counter, pulled her wild hair back off her shoulders, scooted over to the foot of the stairs, and hauled her bare bottom to the top.

 

 

“SO THAT’S THE WHOLE STORY,” I SAID, winding up my detailed summary of the early morning’s untimely events. Abby and Terry were each on their third cup of coffee, I had just finished my first. “I feel certain there was a strong connection between Roscoe Swift and Lillian Smythe,” I added, “but I’m not sure what it was. Maybe it had something to do with Judy’s murder and the diamonds, or maybe it didn’t. Whatever the case, they must have had a very emotional and volatile relationship for him to yell at her the way he did.”

“Yeah, and that’s why she killed him!” Abby hissed, gesturing wildly with her hands. “I’ve got the whole deal figured out! First Lillian convinced Roscoe to kill Judy and get her mother’s diamonds back for her. She probably promised him one of the bracelets for his trouble. But when Roscoe couldn’t find the jewelry—either in Judy’s apartment, or in Lenny’s lunchbox, or in
your
apartment, Paige—he demanded that Lillian pay him anyway. And so the little Nazi slut killed
him
—to keep him from hounding her, and to make sure he would never, ever, ever be able to tell anybody what really happened!”

Terry looked at Abby and let out a dramatic groan. “You know what I think, Ab? I think jumping to conclusions has become your favorite sport.”

“So what?” Abby snapped. “Somebody’s got to jump at
something
around here! Where’s your goddamn
chutzpah,
Whitey? The way you and Paige keep pussyfooting around, saying that we don’t have enough hard evidence, we’re never going to come to any conclusions at all!”

Oh, dear. Were they working up to having their first lovers’ spat? I certainly hoped not. I didn’t have time for this!

“Well, I
have
jumped to a conclusion now,” I exclaimed, dropping my fist like a gavel on the tabletop. “And I’m sorry to disagree with you, Abby, but I really don’t think Lillian is the killer. I’m beginning to think it’s Elsie.”

“For cripesakes, why?!” Abby blustered. “Just because of that stupid wrapping paper?”

“Well, yes, but . . .”

“That
dreck
doesn’t prove diddly!” she broke in, hands flapping in the air like agitated birds. “That Santa Claus paper’s all over town! Woolworth’s sells it by the mile. Elsie was probably using it to wrap her own presents . . . or maybe she got a gift that was wrapped in the same gaudy stuff!”

“Abby’s right,” Terry said, giving me a patronizing look. “The gift-wrapping in Elsie’s wastebasket is
not
conclusive. It could have been there by pure coincidence.”

“And besides,” Abby interjected, “Elsie didn’t have near as clear a motive as Lillian!” She was still intent on casting the prejudiced Miss Smythe in the role of the killer. “Lillian hated Judy for sleeping with her father, and she wanted to get her mother’s jewelry back. What could Elsie’s motive have been?”

I couldn’t believe she was asking that question. “I feel safe in declaring,” I said with a sniff, “that the motive for Judy’s murder was the diamonds—no matter
who
the murderer turns out to be. Maybe Elsie wanted to
become
rich as much as Lillian wanted to
stay
rich.”

“Oh, well, okay!” Abby said, throwing her hands up in exasperation. “But then how does Roscoe Swift enter the picture? You can’t possibly believe that Elsie killed him, too!”

“Well, yes, I do,” I said.

“You’re walking on the weird side now,” Terry said, raising one of his thick black eyebrows and shaking his head in doubt.

“What’s weird is the fact that Elsie was fully dressed when I got to her apartment,” I insisted. “And her bed was made up too. And it was five-thirty in the morning! I would swear she’d been up for hours—or at least long enough to slip around the corner and kill Roscoe.”

Abby let out a heavy sigh. “But why would she want to do that?”

“There could be a million reasons!” I sputtered, growing tired of explaining the obvious. “Maybe Roscoe knew that she killed Judy and was blackmailing her. Or maybe Elsie just suspected that he knew. Or maybe they had been in cahoots from the very beginning and were starting to distrust each other. ”

“Or maybe Judy and Roscoe were killed by two different people,” Terry said, getting caught up in the guessing game.

“I kicked that idea around, too,” I said, “but finally dismissed it. I believe Judy and Roscoe were killed by the same person . . . or at least by the same gun.”

“What makes you say that?” Terry asked.

“The shootings seem to follow a pattern,” I said. “Both Judy and Roscoe were shot at close range, and they both were shot twice. Judy, we know, was killed with a .22 handgun, and—though I’m no firearms expert—I’d say Roscoe was, too. Both of the holes in his body were kind of small, and that’s a fact about .22 caliber bullets—right, Terry? They’re smaller than the others?”

“Right,” Terry said, nodding.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” I said. “The guys at work call a .22 a ‘girlie gun.’ And
that’s
what leads me to believe both murders were committed by the same murderer—the size of the bullets and the number of bullets fired. Once the police complete their ballistics analysis, of course, they’ll know for sure.”

“
Providing,
” Abby said, with a very skeptical look on her face, “they ever compare the bullets that killed Roscoe with the bullets that killed Judy. And from where I sit, that looks like a distinct impossibility.”

“Don’t worry,” I declared, letting my fist drop (okay,
pound
) on the tabletop again. “I’m going to make
sure
those bullets are compared.”

Abby perked up and gave me a big wide smile. “
Now
you’re talking! It’s time to take action! So what’s the plan, Fran?”

“Dan’s coming over this afternoon to spend Christmas with me, and I’m going to tell him everything. The whole truth and nothing but. And once Dan knows how Sweeny bungled the investigation, you can bet he’ll do something about it!”

“Dan? Dan who?” Terry wanted to know.

“Homicide Detective Dan Street,” I told him. “
Daring Detective
’s esteemed police consultant, and my esteemed new boyfriend.”

Terry looked puzzled. “You mean . . .”

“That’s right,” I quickly broke in. “I have a new boyfriend. I still love Bob—and I always will—but now I’m in love with Dan Street, too.” I paused, watching to see how Terry would react to this information. Would he perceive my new romance as a betrayal of Bob?

A myriad of emotions flitted across Terry’s face—surprise, embarrassment, tension, distress. But not a hint of anger or disapproval. Mostly he just looked confused. “So you never told Detective Street about Judy’s murder like you said you would?”

“Uh, no. I’m ashamed to admit I didn’t. I knew he would never butt into another detective’s case, and I also knew, from previous experience, that he would forbid
me
to get involved.”

Terry’s penetrating gaze turned doubtful. “So what makes you think he’ll butt into the case now?”

“So much has happened, he’ll
have
to intervene,” I said. “First I was pushed onto the subway tracks, then my apartment was broken into, and now Judy’s landlord has been murdered. Dan’s no fool. He’ll see immediately that these events are connected and that Judy’s murder case has to be reopened. And he won’t be the least bit protective of Sweeny anymore. He’ll cause a huge interdepartmental stink at headquarters if he has to.