Murder: The Musical (A Smith and Wetzon Mystery, #5) (36 page)

She had not taken Susan’s terror seriously. Perhaps the killer was not a burglar, but Susan’s stalker. Perhaps it had something to do with Dilla’s murder.

Wetzon shivered. Why hadn’t he—or she—killed Wetzon, then?

Novakovich had left the door to Susan’s apartment ajar, and Wetzon slipped through. The very ferocity of the trashing frightened her. Almost as if it were ... intentional. Wasn’t that the word Silvestri had used? No. He had said
personal.
What had the killer been looking for? And had he—or she —found it?

She called, “Izz?”

The apartment was deathly quiet. It gathered her into its cocoon of turmoil. On the street below a horn sounded, far away, and then a siren. Wetzon closed her eyes. Her lips were dry and chapped.
Talk to me. Tell me what happened.
Blue Canton, pieces of it, were underfoot. They crunched when she walked on them like the gravel driveway leading to her childhood home.

“Izz?” She walked through the kitchen onto the back landing, past the open garbage can. Did one ever get used to the smell of death? She would have to ask Silvestri.

Susan was a small bulge under a lime green towel, and Izz was not there.

Wetzon came back into the apartment and walked down the hall past the study, to the bedroom. No Izz. Where could she be? The study. Had she seen a slight movement when she’d passed?

If Susan had worked there, Izz would have stayed with her. “Izz!”

The old painted pine cradle was rocking, a hair’s-breadth, making hardly any sound on the wooden floor. No human hand in sight.

Wetzon eased forward. The cradle rocked.

The licorice eyes were dull with fear. They admonished her. “Izz. Come on out of there. Come on, baby.” Wetzon got down on her knees. The little dog bared her teeth. Wetzon opened her palm and held it out to the dog. Izz sniffed cautiously, then licked Wetzon’s palm.

Wetzon lifted her from the cradle. Papers were strewn over the floor, pieces of poetry, lyrics maybe. A desk diary. Tucking the dog under one arm, she flipped through the pages of the diary, looking for the past two weeks. She saw her name in Susan’s clear, almost childish hand. And each day, other names. Turning over one more page, she saw that day’s date. She saw her name and one other. She closed the date book and buried it under the other papers.

The other name in Susan’s diary was Smitty.

Two uniformed cops got off the elevator with Novakovich. Izz, in Wetzon’s arms, bared her teeth and trembled.

“This way. I’ll show you. This way. I made sure nobody touched anything. I know what to do.” Novakovich was flushed, swollen with the importance of his new role, and the rank odor of nervous sweat formed a shield around him. Who wanted to get too close? He led them through the kitchen to the back service door.

“Jeeze, what a mess.” This came from the second cop, a tall Hispanic, with the inverted triangle build of an Olympic swimmer. His badge said
Colon.
“You sure nobody touched anything?” He looked at Wetzon.

“N-n-no, n-n-no, I s-saw to it. Don’t worry.” Novakovich was so nervous, he was stammering.

“I put a towel over her,” Wetzon said. Now she had the attention of both cops. “It was lying on the steps as if she’d dropped it, the towel, I mean.” She thought: I’m amazingly calm.

“Who are you?” Colon demanded. He had his little pad in his hand.

“I’m Leslie Wetzon, a friend of Susan’s. Susan Orkin. We had a lunch appointment, and when she didn’t show, I came over—”

The other cop, whose tag said
Better
; was black and square jawed. A pencil-thin mustache clung to his upper lip. He had short legs and a stocky upper body, like a weight lifter. He was gay. Wetzon sensed it rather than saw it. He made a note in his little black book and asked her to spell her name.
Good, better, best,
danced through her mind.

“You shouldn’t have touched anything,” Colon said.

“I t-told her not to,” Novakovich said. “D-Didn’t I tell you that?”

“I know, but she was naked and I—well—I just couldn’t leave her lying there like that.”

“But you didn’t move anything?”

“No. That’s all I did. I didn’t even touch her. I didn’t even see if she was still alive. I knew she was dead.”

“We’d better get someone out here,” Colon said.

“Let’s have a look first, Norman.” Better nudged the back door open with his foot, and Colon and Novakovich followed him.

Wetzon stayed where she was. She’d seen enough. Izz whimpered and licked her hand with a dry tongue, and Wetzon hugged her, burying her face in the soft fur, as Susan had a scant week earlier.

Novakovich pushed past her and stood leaning, panting, his palms on the wall near the elevator, head down. His face was the color of paper, hands grimy, the nails uneven, one grossly discolored. The crusty scab of a half-healed cut ran jagged across the back of his left hand. Sweat beaded the nape of his bent neck.

“All right.” Colon’s manner was brisk. “Let’s get down to the lobby. I want a statement from both of you. Mr. Nova—”

“Novakovich.” He raised his head and wiped the sweat on his face with his forearm.

“Please see that no one in the building goes out on that landing,” Colon told him. “We’re going to block it off now.”

“How’m I gonna do that?” The smell of him was corrupting, especially in the closed elevator. “I got a strike going on.”

“Use your intercom. No one will be allowed in or out of this building unless you can identify them.”

A small pain, like a bruise, began to throb behind Wetzon’s ear, joining the throb from the bump on her forehead. “Are you from the Nineteenth?” she asked.

“Yes,” Better said.

“Please tell Ed O’Melvany—”

“You know O’Melvany?”

Wetzon nodded. She was breathing through her mouth so she wouldn’t have to smell Novakovich’s fear.

In the lobby, Colon looked around, then led them to where Rhoda was sitting on the sofa, her head bowed, mumbling. She held a small black Bible to her breast. The uniformed security guard watched their procession, openly curious.

“Ma’am, would you kindly—”

“She’s Susan’s housekeeper, Rhoda. I don’t know her last name,” Wetzon said. “I guess you’ll want to talk to her.”

Colon looked carefully at Rhoda. “Yes. Was she in the apartment when it happened?”

“No. I met her on the street. She’d picked up Izz—Susan’s dog—” Wetzon said, nodding to the dog in her arms, “—at the vet’s and gave her to me to bring up to Susan while she did the marketing.”

Colon turned his back while he and Better had a brief conference. Better took out his radio from his back pocket. He was already talking into it as he walked up the steps to the street, and an EMS siren made its presence known with its urgent
waaa-waaa-waaa-waaa.

“And Mr. N—” Colon didn’t even attempt it this time. “I want everyone who comes in identified. No deliveries till the detectives get here.”

“Everybody must sign in anyway—because of the strike.”

“Good. I think we’d better have a look at the sign-ins for the last two days.”

“The mountain,” Rhoda muttered.

Better came through carrying a couple of sawhorse barricades and a roll of yellow crime-scene tape, walking straight to the elevator. Two EMS attendants followed him.

Novakovich wrung his hands. “
Do Djavola!
What if there’s a fire? The fire department will fine me because the back stairs are blocked.” He was standing in the middle of the lobby howling.

Funny what you zero in on, Wetzon thought, feeling oddly detached.

“Do you hear me, Lord?” Rhoda said.

“Mr. Novakovich,” Wetzon called, “let the police handle it and it’ll be over faster.” She seemed to know just the right thing to say.

“Thank you, Ms.—” Colon gave her a tiny, careful smile.

“Wetzon.”

“I’d like to get a short statement from you, er, Rhoda, if you’ll come with me.

Rhoda cringed, fear in her eyes. “Be with me, Lord.”

“It’s okay, Rhoda,” Wetzon assured her. “You’ll be wanting to go home. This will get you there faster.” There. She’d done it again.

“I just want to ask you a few questions and the detectives will be here any minute. Then we’ll send you home in a car.”

Colon helped the frightened woman up and took her, still hanging on to her purse and her bag of groceries with one hand and her Bible with the other, to what Wetzon figured must be the mail or package room. They were probably going to use it for the command post as soon as the detectives arrived. Novakovich was standing near the guard talking to a woman in a mink-lined raincoat over sweats, with twins in a double stroller, their eyes round with excitement over the blue uniforms of New York’s Finest. One was trying to wriggle out of his seat belt and had almost done it.

“An accident, Mrs. Murphy. You do not have to worry. It is not on your side of the building.” The super shuffled through the papers on the marble- topped table and pulled two sheets. “Start a new sign-in,” he told the guard, then walked Mrs. Murphy to the elevator, continuing to assure her that everything was fine in such a nervous, almost frantic manner that Mrs. Murphy’s face had taken on an uneasy expression. Or maybe it was just his pungent odor. She made a distinct effort to get between him and her twins to block out his agitation. “Kevin, stay right where you are,” she admonished the child, who had at last managed to climb out of the stroller.

It was only when Colon came out of the mail room and approached Novakovich that the super paused and drew back. Mrs. Murphy gave the stroller a brisk push onto the elevator and followed. The door closed. Colon began to talk to the super, gesturing with his notebook.

In Wetzon’s arms Izz finally heaved a sigh and stopped trembling. Susan had written Smitty’s name in her date book. Did that mean he’d been here? She didn’t know what to make of it. Mark—as Smitty—had become as devious as Smith, in his own way. Had he murdered Susan? Had he clobbered her—Wetzon—his friend? Was he capable of murder?

Sure, we all are. Would he have done it? Wetzon couldn’t bring herself to think so.

She had not torn the page from the date book and she could have. Tamper with evidence? She couldn’t do it. Not so fast, Wetzon, she chided herself. Hadn’t she tampered with evidence by returning Carlos’s watch, which Walt
said
he’d found in Sam’s hand. What if Walt had killed Sam and planted the watch? No. Then there would be no reason to smuggle it to her. He would have left it there to be found. And the watch had blood on it.

What Walt had done was wrong. And she had compounded that wrong because she wanted to protect Carlos. But it was a bad decision and she knew it. She had too much respect for law enforcement. With Susan’s date book, she’d managed to obfuscate, make it a little harder to find. But they would find it. She was merely buying time.

Colon had finished with the super and was coming back to Wetzon when two more uniformed cops came in the front door, then behind them, detectives. No O’Melvany. Izz began trembling again. Wetzon stood and took a few steps across the marble floor. O’Melvany wasn’t there. Panic began to flutter in her breast.

“What’s going on?” one of the uniforms asked.

“Don’t you know? We’ve got a DCDS,” Colon said. “A Susan Orkin. What are you guys here for?”

“Christ,” the other said. “We’ve got a page of complaints from her, about her. Last night she calls us after midnight to get some crazy woman out of her apartment, and this morning her downstairs neighbor calls and says it sounded like someone was being killed up there.”

“Not you again.” Eddie O’Melvany looked grim. “I couldn’t believe it when Better called it in.” Izz bared her teeth when O’Melvany reached out and patted her head. He had arrived on the scene only minutes after the others.

Wetzon put her hand over her eyes, bit her lower lip, but couldn’t keep the tears from coming. “I’m sorry,” she said. It was maddening,
maddening
not to be able to control her emotions.

In the continuing moviola of her mind, quicksilver pictures spun by, things she hadn’t remembered. Susan running down George Street, the cuffs of her flannel PJs hanging from under her jeans, late for an eight o’clock class in English Comp. Susan admonishing her for not picketing Rutgers administration to protest some long-forgotten infringement of free speech.

“I’m sorry.” More tears. Izz sat up and licked Wetzon’s chin, sopping up the tears.

O’Melvany handed her a linen handkerchief and waited for her to dry her eyes and blow her nose. He took a roll of tropical Life Savers from his pocket, popped one in his mouth, then held the roll out to her. When she shook her head, he put it back in his pocket. “This your dog?”

“No. Susan’s.”

“I’m going up to have a look. When I get back, you can fill me in.”

“Okay.” She dried her eyes again. His handkerchief was real linen and had his initials on one corner, white on white. Her mascara had come off all over it.

He started for the elevator, where a technician carrying a load of camera paraphernalia slung over his shoulder was waiting, then stopped, turned back to her. “I left a message downtown for Silvestri.”

If Wetzon were a witch, O’Melvany would have been promptly reduced to ashes, Sonya or not. This would only increase Silvestri’s macho sense that he was always bailing her out of trouble when she could damn well bail herself out—if everybody would just leave her alone.

What the hell was she going to do about Mark? And who was the woman Susan had called the police to throw out? The police would know that.

A parade of Crime Scene Unit detectives and technicians began filing in, mixing with the curious tenants who were hanging around. Novakovich was huddled with one whose demeanor told Wetzon that in spite of the runner’s garb, he was probably the president of the co-op board and most likely a lawyer. New York was rancid with lawyers, and they clustered with their like on co-op boards all over the city.

Izz jumped off Wetzon’s lap and began making little circles. Uh-oh, what had she done with the leash? Too late. Izz was squatting, and the muted colors of the patterned carpet beneath her were slowly darkening.