Murder: The Musical (A Smith and Wetzon Mystery, #5) (35 page)

“Are you sure? I just tried her and the line was busy. We’re supposed to have lunch.”

“I don’t know. Maybe she changed her plans, ... Miss—”

“Ms. Wetzon.”

“Isabella, you behave now. If you’ll take her up with you, Miss Wetzon, I’ll go on and do my marketing. I’ll just go in with you and tell them it’s okay.”

The guard near the door was a short, swarthy fire hydrant, in a dark green uniform. His hair was slicked back and shiny.

“This lady’s okay, you hear? She’s going up to Ms. Orkin’s,” the housekeeper told him.

The little dog licked Wetzon’s face and wriggled. Wetzon set her down on the floor of the elevator and tried to capture her leash as the car rose, but when the elevator door opened, Izz escaped. She didn’t go far. She came to a sudden stop at the door to Susan’s apartment; her ears flattened.

“Susan?” Wetzon rang the bell tentatively. Izz had her nose up against the door, whining. She rang again. No sound came from the apartment. Izz began to scratch frantically at the door. Wetzon rang the doorbell once more. She could hear it ringing in the apartment.

She stepped back and looked at Izz. The dog collar. What had Susan said?
The dog collar has a little inside pocket for my house key.
Wetzon stooped and undid the little dog’s collar. There was the pocket. And there was the key. She slipped it into the lock and opened the door.

With a low growl, Izz sprang into the apartment. Wetzon followed, stepping into a black pit and right off the edge of the world.

Something wet and slimy touched her, clawed at her. She tried to push it away but couldn’t move. It dug its wet nose into her neck. Wetzon groaned and rolled over. She was wrapped up like a mummy. In a patchwork quilt. Where was she?

She wriggled and managed to free an arm. Izz pounced on it, licking. She remembered now. Someone must have thrown the quilt over her, and she had fallen and passed out. Nope. A small pang on the right side of her forehead gave the lie to that scenario.

She was suddenly conscious that she was lying on a bed of nails. The dog began to tug at the quilt, growling, as if trying to free her. “Oh, Izz. Stop.” She tried to get out of the tangle, but her hands weren’t helping her because she couldn’t stop them from shaking.

Her eyes burned. Pizza breath was searing her lashes. With a great effort, she sat up. The little dog crawled into her lap, cowering.

“Suntze ti!
” A light went on, blinding her. “Miss? Miss? Are you all right?”

She peered up at him from under the quilt. “Who are you?”

“Sto mu gromova!”
He stepped back and something crunched underfoot. “I’m the super here. Tony Novakovich.” He was a tall man with a slight stoop and spoke in Balkan-accented English, except for his exclamations, which were in a totally foreign language.
“Suntze ti!
What goes on here?”

Wetzon looked around. Broken china, crockery, books, clothing lay everywhere. Everything in sight trashed. “What—?”

“In my building! But do not worry. The police are coming.”

“Oh, God,” Wetzon groaned.

“The guy downstairs called them already. He said it sounded like someone was being killed up here.”

“Yeah, me.” But she was very much alive. She touched her head gingerly. A bump was rising on her forehead. “Where’s Susan? Ms. Orkin?” Near the door was what was left of a Louis Vuitton suitcase, sliced open, its contents scattered on the floor. So Susan
was
planning to come to Boston.

But where was she now? The sour taste of dread rose in Wetzon’s throat. She plucked at the blanket, set the quivering dog on the floor amid the shards of china, the detritus of a life, and stood. The floor tilted. She grabbed the super’s corduroy-clad arm to steady herself. Izz began circling the refuse on the floor, whining. “I’m worried about Susan, Mr. Nova—”

“Do Djavola!
I do not know how they get in,” Novakovich was saying, his hands in constant motion. “This is a secure building.”

“Maybe Susan let them in.” She released his arm and stood without tipping.

“I do not think so, Miss. She is a pretty smart lady. Now, the other one—rest her soul—Miss Crosby—she has—had—some strange friends.”

Where was Susan? Wetzon shed the quilt and began to pick her way around, careful to nudge objects aside with the side of her boot and not step on them. Had whoever had done this found what he was looking for? God, was this what Susan had been so terrified of?

She could hear Novakovich talking on the intercom, telling the security guard to send up the cops when they got there.

The living room was even worse than the foyer. Sofa cushions were sliced through; tiny feathers floated on the air and spilled over the coffee table and rugs. The piano had been brutalized. Izz stayed close to her ankles, sniffing. Cassettes and CDs, some in, some out of their jackets, lay crushed on the floor near what was left of an expensive sound system. Dull ashy light bled through vertical blinds.

A wide hall led to the bedroom wing. All along the hall photographs clung precariously to the walls as if a tornado had blown through. Several had crashed to the floor, their glass shattered. Wetzon picked one up. An unsmiling Michael Bennett wearing a black T-shirt under a dinner jacket and a radiant Dilla Crosby, her boobs spilling out of her low-cut gold lame sheath.

Wetzon set the photo on the floor against the wall. Every day a little death, she thought.

The master bedroom was a garden room, or had been. A forest of plants were upended in their dirt on the cream carpet. The mattress was on the floor, sliced up like the sofa in the living room. No bed cover. It had been used to smother Wetzon. Closets yawned, their contents tossed. An eerie silence pervaded the room except for the panting dog and the
drip, drip, drip
of a faucet.

“Susan?” Wetzon stood listening.

Izz scampered into the bathroom and Wetzon followed. A wet towel lay crumpled on the checkerboard tiled floor amid bottles of makeup, jars of face cream, cold medications and aspirin. The open medicine cabinet’s mirror was a spiderweb of splinters. She held her breath and pulled back the shower curtain, half-expecting to see Susan lying there, hacked by Norman Bates. But the tub was empty. The clear plastic liner was wet and one of the faucets was dripping. She ran her fingers lightly along the white tile. Wet. Had Susan been in the shower when she heard a burglar?

How had he gotten in? Wetzon went back down the hall and checked the second bedroom. It was set up as an office. Drawers were thrown open and shelves were emptied. Papers and books were strewn about. More dirt on the dark wood floor. An abundant grape ivy lay stunned, its roots exposed.

And in the center of the room was an old Shaker rocker; propped up on its seat, like a nasty joke, was the skull of the steer that had hung in the foyer. A painted pine cradle lay seemingly undisturbed near the desk.

She met Novakovich in the hall coming out of the master bedroom. “What a mess. The cops are on their way. What am I gonna say to my board?” Wetzon followed him into the foyer and watched him open the door. “No sign of Mrs. Orkin?”

“No.” Fear curled round in her breast, tightening. “Something terrible has happened to her.”

The super shook his head. “She went out of town. She told me she was going.”

“Maybe, but I don’t think so. Her suitcase is over there.” Izz rubbed against her leg, tail between legs, ears flattened. “What about the kitchen? Did you look?”

“Yeah. It is as bad as everywhere else—”

“Isn’t there a service door in the kitchen?” Wetzon was already through the kitchen door. More trashing here. The little dog whined and ran to the service door. “This door—did you open it?”

“Do Djavola!
Excuse me, Miss. I keep telling them keep it locked. They never listen.”

Izz thrust her nose in the tiny space between the door and the jam and pushed, whining, growing more and more agitated. Novakovich kneed the door open, careful not to touch anything. But Wetzon remembered he’d already touched the front door and the intercom.

A gleaming black garbage can stood right outside the door, its cover a foot away. Newspapers and magazines were stacked separately on the floor. New York was deep into recycling.

Wetzon stepped out on a battleship-painted landing right behind Izz, who had started trembling and whining again at the edge of the stairs. She looked down.

“Bozhe moy! Bozhe moy!” Novakovich wailed.

A lime green towel streamed like bunting over three of the stairs.

And on the landing below Susan lay on her back, naked, smiling up at them through a curtain of blood.

“I’m a hayseedy my hair is seaweed, and my ears are made of leather and ... ”
A child’s voice drifted up from somewhere below.

Novakovich crossed himself.
“Bozhe moy! Bozhe moy!”

Wetzon crept down the stairs, hugging the side wall. Spots of white plaster flaked through chipped gray paint. Susan looked so tiny, like a child. A gory-headed child. Maybe ... there’d just been the flicker of movement in her hair. Dear God! A fat black waterbug crawled out from under Susan’s blood-matted hair. Wetzon’s scream caught in her throat.

Her foot touched the lime green towel, and she bent to pick it up. It was damp.

“And your ears are made of leather and they flop in rainy weather ...”
a woman’s voice sang.

The throaty, rich chuckle of the child rose and surrounded Wetzon, floated up past her. Then,
“Again, mommy again!”

Wetzon shook the towel out and covered Susan’s body. There was no doubt she was dead.

A frightened shriek came from above. “Mercy, Lord! Mercy!”

Startled, Wetzon looked up. Rhoda. She had forgotten about Susan’s housekeeper.

Novakovich, equally unsettled, muttered again,
“Do Djavola!”

Wetzon ran up the stairs, but Novakovich had successfully blocked Rhoda from the landing. “There’s been a terrible accident,” he said gruffly guiding her back into the kitchen.

Resisting, Rhoda demanded, “Where’s Miss Susan?”

“Susan must have surprised a burglar. She fell down the stairs.” Putting her arm around the woman, Wetzon guided her away from the service door.

“Lord, Lord,” Rhoda cried.

Novakovich muttered, “I gotta get the cops.” He crossed himself again.

“I thought you said the guy downstairs had called them.”

“Yeah, but he called about a fight. This is different.”

“Mercy, mercy.” Dazed, Rhoda was looking around at the mess, still clutching the plastic D’Agostino grocery bag in one hand and a worn black leather purse in the other. “I have to go to her. She’s a good girl. She doesn’t deserve no more trouble.” She tried to press past Wetzon to the service door.

“Rhoda, please. Mr. Novakovich is going to take care of everything.”

“But Miss Susan—” The old woman’s eyes were cloudy. Cataracts? Wetzon hadn’t noticed it earlier.

“Susan is dead, Rhoda.”

“Lord, rest her soul,” Rhoda whimpered. Wetzon put her arm around the bony shoulders and walked her back to the front door.

“What a thing to happen in my building, with my men on strike.” Novakovich motioned to them. “Come with me. You cannot stay here.”

“But my groceries. I have to put them away,” Rhoda protested.

Novakovich shook his head. “We gotta to leave everything exactly like we found it, like I see on the TV; otherwise we could mess up evidence.”

He had touched things. She had covered Susan with the towel, Wetzon thought, bewildered. The evidence was already messed up.

“Sweet Jesus, take her home,” Rhoda muttered. Tears crept down her cheeks, pausing in each ridged wrinkle and working their way downward.

“Don’t say nothing about it if someone gets on the elevator. I do not want my people to panic. We have good security here normally—but you know these temporary guards, they do not have relations with people in the building so what do they care—” Novakovich was talking to the air. Neither Wetzon nor Rhoda was listening.

The elevator stopped on five and a tall, dark-haired woman in a ranch mink got on. She was carrying a Brunschweig and Fils shopping bag crammed with fabric swatches and samples. And she picked up on Rhoda’s tears at once, but Wetzon wagered she wouldn’t ask, not in front of a stranger. Upper-class New Yorkers made a fetish of not showing their curiosity, but Wetzon could feel it radiating from the woman.

“Mrs. Engelbrecht.”

“Tony?” That’s all she said, and when Tony didn’t respond, the dark-haired woman just nodded. In the lobby she picked up a bundle of mail and left the building.

Wetzon got Rhoda seated on the sofa in the back of the lobby, away from the line of traffic to and from the elevator. The housekeeper was still clutching her grocery bag and her purse. “We can’t leave her alone up there,” Rhoda said. “Someone’s got to sit with her.”

“No. It’s all right.” Wetzon patted her hand. “There’s nothing we can do for her now.” She was thinking that some evil energy had been let loose, that what had been unleashed by Dilla’s murder had gone on to infect everyone. Was it something that Dilla had incited? Well, of course it had to be. Damn! The pieces would start fitting together like a picture puzzle and then one piece wouldn’t fit. Something ...

Tony was talking on the phone somewhere out of sight. He reappeared. “I better tell them not to open their back doors.” He disappeared again.

“Izz!” Rhoda jumped to her feet. “Where’s that little dog?”

Wetzon hit her forehead. Godalmighty, she was losing it. They’d left Izz upstairs. Where had she disappeared to?
Please
, Wetzon thought,
not near Susan. Please make her not be near Susan.
“You stay here. I’ll go up and get her. I think I know where she is.” In her mind’s eye she saw Izz sitting next to Susan’s body. A Maltese honor guard.

Riding up in the elevator she felt an unspeakable anguish. She saw moviola images from years gone by: a young Susan Cohen hunched over the table, one leg double-crossed over the other, calling out, “Fourth for bridge,” as Wetzon came back to the dorm from a class. Susan and Wetzon sitting on the grass on the ag farm, studying, but not ... Wetzon confiding problems with a boyfriend whose name she no longer remembered, and Susan saying, “They’re not worth it. We really don’t need them to be happy.” Had Susan been trying to tell her she was gay and had Wetzon been too thick —too naive—to pick up on it?