Murder on a Hot Tin Roof (25 page)

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Authors: Amanda Matetsky

BOOK: Murder on a Hot Tin Roof
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“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Flannagan scoffed. “I’ve heard it all before. You left the bar because you had too much to drink and you needed to get some air. But you might as well ditch that pack of lies right now. We know what really happened. We’ve known it all along.” The gloating smile on his face was so annoying I wanted to wipe it off with my fist. (When you think you
look
manly, you kind of
feel
manly, too.)
Luckily for both of us, I took the passive (i.e., feminine) route instead. “I’m sorry, Detective Flannagan,” I cajoled. “I haven’t been totally honest with you. I’m so scared and confused I don’t know what I’m saying. But look, I have an idea. Why don’t you tell me what
you
know, and then I’ll tell you what
I
know. That way, we can compare notes and work out the truth together.” I smiled sweetly at him and fluttered my lashes, hoping I could get him to go first.
To my great astonishment, he did. (Sometimes you really
can
catch more flies with honey.)
“We learned by telephone at approximately ten thirty-five tonight,” he began, speaking in a lofty, official tone, “that a woman had been attacked at the corner of West and Barrow. The caller reported seeing a dark-haired man in dark clothing hit the victim on the back of the head—with a brick, or a rock, or a hunk of cement—and then run away on West toward Christopher. About halfway up the block, the assailant jumped into the back seat of a black Lincoln limousine, and the car took off for parts unknown.”
Black limousine? Baldy. Dark hair and dark clothing? Aunt Doobie. Or maybe Blackie. Cripes! It could have been anybody! Does Baldy have a wig?
“We arrived on the scene within minutes,” Flannagan went on, “and found you lying on the ground in the dark, unconscious and unprotected. There were no onlookers or eyewitnesses—even the man who called us was gone. You regained consciousness almost immediately, though, claiming to feel fine and showing no signs of serious injury. There was a big rock lying nearby which may or may not have been the assault weapon. We’re taking it into the lab for testing.”
Flannagan wiped his sweaty face with his handkerchief and opened the top button ot his shirt. “That’s my story,” he said. “Now you tell me yours.”
I knew it was time to come clean. So I did (well, clean
er
, anyway). I admitted that I was working on the Gray Gordon story, and that I was trying to find the killer (for a variety of reasons, truth and justice being among them), and that I had withheld that information from the police in order to save myself—and Willy—from further scrutiny and admonishment.
“But now I realize that was the wrong thing to do,” I said, in total honesty, “and I’m ready to tell you everything I know.”
With just a couple of itty bitty details left out.
I took an L&M out of the pack in my breast pocket, lit it with a match (Flannagan never extended his lighter), and started puffing and talking.
Confessing that Abby and I had begun looking for clues to the killer’s identity the same day we discovered the body, I gave Flannagan a full account of our expedition to Stewart’s Cafeteria, my brief talk with Blondie and Blackie, our infiltration of the Morosco Theatre, and our chance meeting with Rhonda Blake. Then I told him about the list of phone messages Rhonda had written down for Gray.
I didn’t tell him that I had stolen the message pad, of course (if he charged me with evidence tampering, I’d be in trouble too sticky to sidestep), but I did tell him almost everything I could remember about the list, including Aunt Doobie’s room number at the Mayflower Hotel, and the four messages from Randy. The only call I didn’t mention was the one from Binky. I was afraid if I gave Flannagan Binky’s name and number, he (Flannagan) would screw up my possible meeting with him (Binky) tomorrow, and then the names of Gray’s friends—or, most importantly, his enemies—at the Actors Studio would be lost to me forever.
When he had finished taking notes about Gray’s telephone messages, I told Flannagan about my trip to the Mayflower to see Aunt Doobie, giving him a full description of the man who was registered in room 96 as John Smith. Then, continuing to relate the events in the order in which they occurred, I told him about seeing Rhonda Blake and Baldy at the Vanguard, reporting that Baldy had asked the bartender a bunch of questions about me, then departed with Rhonda in a black limousine.
I didn’t describe my crazy, terrified flight home from the Vanguard that night (it was too embarrassing for words), but I did divulge the shock and alarm I’d felt when I saw Blackie lurking in the doorway of the laundromat across the street. And then, after that, I gave Flannagan a full account of my excursion with Willy to the Keller Hotel, where I had spotted Aunt Doobie—or John Smith, or whoever—and chased him out to the street.
“But by the time I got outside,” I recounted, “the man had disappeared. I ran over to the waterfront to look for him, but so many screaming people were dashing around and so many fireworks were exploding, I couldn’t continue the search. I retreated to a secluded spot under the highway and hid behind a support beam, hoping he would reappear. That’s when I got hit.”
“And you never saw who did it?” Flannagan probed.
“Nope, but I’d bet my last banana it was Aunt Doobie. He has dark hair and he was wearing dark clothing, just like your caller said. And he was definitely in the vicnity.” I flicked my burnt-out cigarette stub through the open car window. “But it could have been Blackie, too, I guess. He wears black and has dark hair, and he may have been following me. Or maybe it was Baldy. He has no hair at all, but he has a black limousine. And he could have a wig . . . Oh, god! I don’t know who the hell it was! I only know who it wasn’t. And you can take my word on this, Detective Flannagan, it
wasn’t
Willy!”
Flannagan chuckled. “I know that,” he said. “I made that accusation just to get your reaction. Mr. Sinclair is a raving queer, and it’s likely he murdered Gray Gordon, but he didn’t attack you. He doesn’t come anywhere close to fitting the caller’s description. He probably doesn’t even know the whole thing happened.”
Now it was my turn to get suspicious. Why was Flannagan so darn sure on this particular point? Why had he adopted, without question, an unverified account given to him by an anonymous caller? Smelled kind of fishy to me.
“You can’t be certain of that,” I declared, sneering and smirking, giving him what I hoped was a taste of his own cocky medicine. “How do you know Willy didn’t knock me out and then call the station himself and give you a phony description of a phony attacker?” I crossed my arms over my chest, leaned against the car door, and shot him a look that said,
harrumph!
Flannagan wasn’t chuckling anymore.
Now he was laughing out loud.
“If you really think Mr. Sinclair would do something like that, Mrs. Turner,” he said between guffaws, “and if it’ll make you feel any better, I’ll gladly reconsider my position. As far as I’m concerned, that creepy little queer is capable of anything.”
X@#%*!!
Do I have to tell you how utterly imbecilic I felt at that moment? Not only had I planted a warped idea in Flannagan’s already warped mind, but I had, in the process, cast aspersions on the very person I was trying to protect! I was the world’s worst detective. I was a worthless piece of ca-ca. I was a danger to myself and everyone around me. I should be writing about makeup, macaroni, and mops—not murder.
Still, something was really bothering me about the anonymous caller—or, rather, Flannagan’s swift acceptance of his supposedly eyewitness tale. Shouldn’t the details have been examined more closely? Shouldn’t the informant’s story have been verified by at least one other witness before becoming a matter of police record?
My head was hurting more than ever.
“Do you think I could go home now, Detective Flannagan?” I asked. “I’ve told you everything I know, and I’m really beat. No pun intended.”
“Of course, Mrs. Turner,” he said, with a mocking smile. (At least he had stopped laughing.) “We’re finished here. One of my officers will drive you.”
“Thanks,” I said. “But before I go can I ask you one big favor?”
“What’s that?”
“If you happen to see or talk to Detective Dan Street, would you please not say anything about what happened here tonight, or tell him about my previous participation in this case? That’s all over now, and I really don’t want him to worry about me.” (Translation: stop loving me.)
“Ha!” Flannagan snorted. “For a nosy know-it-all, you sure don’t know your boyfriend very well. Street’s the smartest, most determined dick in the whole damn department. Nobody can keep a secret from him—least of all you.”
Chapter 23
I GOT HOME SHORTLY AFTER MIDNIGHT and went straight to bed. Abby and Jimmy and Otto weren’t back yet—but even if they’d been there, beckoning me next door for company, comfort, conversation, and a nightcap, I would have declined. I didn’t want to talk to anybody. Not even Dan. And to make sure I wouldn’t have to, I took my phone off the hook before lugging myself and the electric fan upstairs.
I don’t remember what happened after that. I know I must’ve set the fan on the dresser, plugged it in and turned it on, and then stripped off my clothes and flopped down on the bed naked, because that was the way I found things in the morning. The fan was blowing a hot wind over my bare skin, and my clothes were lying in a jumble on the bedroom floor.
My head felt like a volleyball full of sand, but it didn’t hurt so much anymore. The bump wasn’t as swollen as before, and I was able to pull myself up to a sitting position on the side of the bed without feeling the least bit dizzy. When I took a look at the clock on my bedside table, however, my senses went into a cyclone spin. It was a quarter to nine! I was so late for work it was sinful.
Jumping to my feet and tearing into the bathroom, I took a fast shower, dried myself off, and got dressed in a frenzy— which will explain how I wound up wearing a shocking pink blouse with a red plaid skirt and a pair of green platformed sandals. My stocking seams were twisted every which way, and I applied my makeup in such haste that my poor face looked like an abstract portrait by Picasso.
After my mad dash to the subway, my two connecting train rides (first uptown, then across), and my hot, sweaty scramble to my office building at 43rd and Third, I was a complete wreck. Flying past the lobby coffee shop where I usually bought my morning muffin, I darted into the first open elevator I came to and took it to the ninth floor.
As I exited the elevator and stumbled down the hall to the
Daring Detective
office, I tried to pull myself together—i.e., straighten my clothes, smooth down my hair, act cool. But it was hopeless. (Well, it’s
hard
to act cool when you look like a character in a Looney Tunes cartoon.) In an effort to silence the office entry bell and slip inside unnoticed, I opened the door as slowly and quietly as I possibly could and tried to squeeze through it sideways.
My efforts were so fruitless they were foolish. The entry bell jangled as loudly as it always did, and before I was even halfway through the door, all three of my male coworkers—Mario, Mike, and Lenny—were staring up at me from their desks in the large communal workroom, watching me try to sneak inside.
“Look who’s here!” Mario crowed, making sure that his voice was loud enough to be heard by our boss, Harvey Crockett (whose private office door was, as usual, standing wide open). “It’s our own little page-turner, Paige Turner! And she’s only an hour and forty-five minutes late! Guess we’re lucky she showed up at all.” Mario Caruso, the art director of the magazine, was a short, dark, thickset (and thick-headed) man in his early thirties who liked to cause trouble. Especially for me.
“Good morning, all,” I said, squaring my shoulders, tossing my head, and stepping all the way into the office. I was trying to appear self-possessed, aloof, and indifferent to Mario’s taunting remarks, but I felt as cool and composed as the melting mannequins in the big fire scene in the 3-D thriller,
House of Wax
.
“Hey, what’s the matter with you?” Mike asked me. “You look awful.” Mike Davidson was
DD
’s tall, wiry assistant editor and head staff writer (I was the tail). Mike was a lousy writer, but—thanks to the sexist policies of our woman-hating editorial director, Brandon Pomery—his bylines outnumbered mine twenty to one. “Who picked out your clothes this morning?” Mike jeered, skimming his palm over the shelf of his sand-colored flattop. “Rin Tin Tin?”
Now, do you think that wisecrack was even the weeniest bit funny? Neither did I. I thought it was as lame and sloppy as the pitifully dull stories Mike cranked out for
Daring Detective
. Mario, on the other hand, must have found Mike’s quip to be the funniest darn thing he ever heard in his life, because he was laughing so hard I thought he was going to spit up. His fat, swarthy face turned as pink as my blouse, and his spasms of hilarity were so violent his greasy ducktail was coming unglued.
But my dear friend Lenny Zimmerman, the lowly art assistant whose desk was situated in the farthest depths of the common workroom, wasn’t laughing at all. He was peering at me through his crooked, black-rimmed, bottle-thick glasses, with a look of intense concern on his pale, narrow face. He knew that something was wrong—that something bad had happened to me. Ever since the day he’d saved my life (which was over a year ago, when I was working on my very first murder story), Lenny had been able to read me like a book.

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