Murder: The Musical (A Smith and Wetzon Mystery, #5) (37 page)

Rhoda appeared again, escorted by a uniformed cop, no longer carrying the groceries, just her Bible and her purse. Her face was gray. Izz came to life and danced around the old woman. “You, girl,” Rhoda said, pointing a knobby finger at the dog, who shot up and licked it, “you behave yourself now.” Her teary eyes met Wetzon’s. “God rest their souls, they spoiled her. Imagine putting all that love on an animal when there are so many children—” She shrugged. “I got me a ride home.” She nodded to the uniform.

“What about Izz?”

“Oh, you’ll have to take her, Miss. They don’t let dogs in my project.”

Izz was looking up at them, tilting her head from one to the other, as if she knew they were talking about her.

“I don’t even have any dog food. I wasn’t going home ...” Oh, shit, Wetzon thought.

“She eats the dried stuff. There’s a big bag upstairs. Ask them officers to give it to you.”

Izz made a half-hearted attempt to follow Rhoda, stopped, looked back at Wetzon. She seemed to decide that Wetzon was the more perfect patsy.

The lobby was suddenly full of people. Cops. Tenants. Guns. All closing in on her.

Wetzon couldn’t breathe. She tore off her beret and stuffed it in her pocket. Her heart pounded with an urgency that scared her. Air. She had to get air. She picked up Izz and threaded her way out to the street. No one stopped her. A uniform was stationed in front of the building, impassively watching the crowd of onlookers that had gathered. Subdued strikers with their placards were exchanging information with some of the people watching the activity.

Two blue-and-whites, their colored lights rolling, were among the cars double-parked, and there were a lot of those because Saturday was still an alternate-side parking day. Dispatchers’ disembodied voices crackled over police radios.

“I’m a hayseed, my hair is seaweed, and my ears are made of leather and they flop in rainy
 ...”She was lined up with four other freshman, each with a giant-size name tag hanging from her neck. They were being ordered to sing.
“I’m a hayseed, my hair is seaweed
 ...”

The girl next to her hissed,
“This is so stupid.”
Her name tag said Susan Cohen.

“Sing,”
the sophomore commanded. Susan Cohen and Leslie Wetzon grinned at each other and shrugged, and they sang,
“I’m a hayseed, my hair is seaweed, and my ears are made of leather and they
 ...”

Wetzon stood on the sidewalk, gulping big chunks of moist air into her lungs. Izz began to squirm, and Wetzon set her down in the gutter between a white Acura and a black BMW. Her knees trembled violently. She sat down on the edge of the sidewalk, huddled in the narrow space between the two cars, shivering, pulling her fur coat around her. Near her boots a condom nestled next to a penny—head up for good luck—and a child’s grimy white sock. Izz tried to climb into her lap, but Wetzon was hugging her knees.

If she made herself small enough, maybe she wouldn’t die.

Somewhere in the logical half of her brain, Wetzon knew she was having a panic attack, but it was a downhill roller coaster ride. She couldn’t stop it.

Get out of here,
a voice urged.
Run! Run for your life!

She caught Izz up in her arms and stood, balancing herself for the moment against the Acura, then walked out into the street away from Susan’s building.

When she got to Fifth Avenue, she began to run.

Wetzon came out of Central Park near the Museum of Natural History with no memory of how she’d gotten there. Central Park West was being repaved and only a single lane was open either way. She knew impatient drivers waiting their turn for the single lane had to be leaning on their horns, but her heart was pounding in her ears, blocking everything else out.

A voice screeched at her, “Whatsamatter, you deaf?”

She stopped. An old woman in a brown stormcoat that had seen better days said, “You better leash your dog, lady, or he’s going to get run over.”

Dog? She looked down and there was Izz trotting along beside her. They crossed Central Park West together, Wetzon wheezing badly, unable to get air, intent for the Beresford.

Alton was back. Alton wouldn’t let her die.

“Good afternoon, Miss.” A doorman she didn’t recognize was on the door, but he must have recognized her because he added, “Mr. Pinkus got in a couple of hours ago.”

Alton was waiting for her, saying her name, standing in his open door in blue jeans and a soft white buttoned-down shirt. She fell into his arms with a certainty that he would take care of everything. “Leslie, what is it?” Concern softened his voice as he stroked her hair and kissed her forehead.

“Oh, God—Can’t breathe.” She propelled herself out of his arms, panicked. He had a fire going in the fireplace. She dropped to her knees, gasping. “I’m going to die ... Oh, God.” Her head sank to the carpet.

Alton lifted her, put his arm around her shoulders. “Breathe into this—” He held a paper bag to her lips. Izz whimpered.

She pushed the bag away. “Can’t, can’t—”

“Leslie, listen to me. You are not going to die. You’re hyperventilating. Breathe into the bag. It will help, I promise you.”

Don’t fight it
, she told herself, obeying. Her asthmatic wheezing began to subside. She felt the tension draining from her body and she leaned back into him, intensely aware of his cleanshaven cheek, the fragrance of his aftershave, his damp hair. And his desire.

The fire snapped and stuttered. She had stopped shivering and her coat lay on the floor near them. Izz had made herself cozy on it.

Alton was sitting on the floor holding her, his back against a club chair. “I guess you really missed me.”

She touched his face. “It’s been a bad week.”

“Do you want to tell me about it?” He caught her hand and held it.

“I wouldn’t even know where to start....”

“Start with your friend here.” He nodded at Izz. Izz’s shiny black nose twitched.

“That’s Izz. She belongs—
belonged
—to my friend Susan Orkin.”

“Gary’s ex-wife?”

“God, Alton, do you know everybody in the world?”

“Probably.” He grinned down at her.

He was such a lovely man. She looked around the elegant room. For months now, she’d spent almost every weekend here, but it wasn’t her. It was Alton. Older. Reserved. Well-balanced. And settled. None of which she was. Could she live here? She didn’t think so. She would always feel like a guest. “Oh, Alton, I don’t know.”

“What don’t you know?” He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her.

The ringing woke them. Izz jumped up, dancing around, barking. They were curled up against each other on the floor under a soft woolen throw.

“Don’t answer it,” Wetzon murmured.

“It’s not the phone. It’s the intercom,” he said, kissing her ear. He got up and went into the kitchen. “Yes?” He had the lean tight buns and the legs of a runner.

She closed her eyes. She wasn’t going to die. At least not yet. “Tell whoever it is to go away,” she said.

“Come back in half an hour.” Alton snapped off the intercom.

Wetzon sat up. “Tell
who
to come back?” He was putting on his jeans, zipping his fly. “Alton!”

“Your friend Silvestri.”

“Why didn’t you tell him to go away?” She didn’t even try to keep the wail out of her voice.

“He says you left the scene of a crime—”

The fire had subsided to embers. Wetzon shivered. “Alton, I’m sorry—”

“You’d better tell me what’s going on.” He sat down on the sofa, picked his shirt up from the floor and put it on.

Wetzon wrapped herself in the throw and sat down next to him. “A week ago Susan Orkin’s lover, Dilla Crosby, was beaten to death just before the gypsy runthrough. She was the production stage manager on
Hotshot
, Carlos’s show.”

“What does this murder have to do with you?”

“I was there.”

“Of course, you were.” He took her hands in both of his, warming them. His eyes told her he loved her. She had never felt so secure.

“It wasn’t just me. A group of us found her. I knew Susan at college, but I didn’t know she was Susan Orkin until she called me. She told me she was afraid someone would kill her, too.”

“And you said you’d help her.”

“Oh, Alton, I was just going to keep my eyes and ears open in Boston. That’s all. She was so frightened, but she wouldn’t ask the police for help.”

“So you agreed.”

“Yes. Then Susan thought she could flush out the murderer by sending anonymous letters to the media saying that I was investigating the murder and that I had uncovered new information.”

“I’m not liking what I’m hearing. How much more is there?”

“Sam Meidner was murdered in Boston yesterday.”

“I saw the papers. I didn’t know it had anything to do with you. Is there anything else?”

She nodded. There was a lump in her throat she couldn’t seem to swallow. “Susan is dead. She fell down her service stairs trying to get away from a burglar. I found her. That’s why I have Izz. I was scared and I ran away.”

He put his arms around her, and she buried her face in his shirt, knowing that what was left of her makeup would smudge off on him. “I’ll never let anything happen to you,” Alton said. “Ever. You’re very precious to me.”

Izz sat up, ears alert. The doorbell rang. She leapt off the sofa, barking, and ran to the door.

“Dammit. It’s not a half hour yet, is it?”

He shook his head, stood. Wetzon began to gather up her clothing scattered on the floor, when suddenly Alton swooped down on her, picked her up, and carried her into the bedroom. He set her on the bed. “Get dressed. I’ll hold him off.”

The doorbell rang again. Izz’s barking grew shrill.

The silk paisley robe she’d given Alton for Christmas lay on the bed. She dropped the throw and put on Alton’s robe. A suitcase was open on the bench at the foot of the bed, partially unpacked. Alton dug around in it looking for something, found it, and slipped it into the pocket of the robe, giving her hipbone a brief fondle.

“What’s this?” Her hand found the pocket.

The doorbell rang again with an impatience that could only be Silvestri.

“Souvenir of Caracas.” He left her, heading for the front door.

It was a tiny red silk purse with an envelope flap held by a snap. She opened the snap. A zipper closure, which she unzipped.

Silvestri’s voice froze her. It rose over Alton’s. Izz continued to bark. Wetzon reached into the little purse and pulled out a ring. Three flashy emeralds set deep in a yellow gold band. She slipped it on her ring finger and held it up.

But she wasn’t really seeing it. She was seeing the other ring, the one with the big yellow diamond that Edna Terrace was wearing in Boston. The one that was strikingly similar to Dilla’s missing ring. How could she have been so stupid? The ring was the MacGuffin.

Silvestri was leaning against the arched doorway between Alton’s foyer and living room, glowering. The little dog was sniffing his Nikes and wagging her tail. The more he glowered, the more she wagged. Alton was building up the fire. His feet were bare.

So were Wetzon’s. Alton’s robe came to her ankles. She had washed the smeared makeup from her face and combed her hair. The ring remained on her finger.

Izz saw her first, ran to her, jumped at her with happy little leaps.

Straightening, Alton replaced the poker, his eyes on her face. “Shall I leave you two alone?”

“Yes,” Silvestri said.

“No.” Wetzon sat on the sofa, and Izz jumped on her lap. “This is strictly business. It is, isn’t it, Silvestri?”

She felt he wanted to strangle her, could almost feel his hands on her throat. She didn’t like the mixture of power and joy that suffused her.
Would the real Leslie Wetzon stand up?
What had become of her? She’d been replaced by this mean, manipulating bitch. Oh yes, one who had never had a real relationship with anyone. How could she ever condemn Smith?

“Leslie?” Alton was looking at her.

“It’s okay, Alton. You can leave us. But only if you stop scowling at me, Silvestri, and sit down.”

Alton made a point of touching her, her cheek, the top of her head, before he left the room. Like,
this is mine, Silvestri. Keep off the grass.

Silvestri sank into one of the club chairs, and Izz promptly deserted Wetzon for him. She’d adopted him, it seemed, and he looked nonplussed with the small dog in his lap.

“I know I shouldn’t have left,” she said, watching him try to escape Izz’s wet kisses. “She’s fallen for you, Silvestri.” For a brief moment she saw in his eyes a terrible loneliness that shook her. Her eyes dropped to the ring.
What am I doing?

“So that’s how it is,” he said.

“Yes.” She thought:
Tell me you love me, Silvestri. Put up a fight for me. Tell me we can be together forever and I’ll take the ring off.

But he said, after a long pause, “Fair enough.” He was massaging the back of the dog’s ears and Izz was limp with love. “Fair enough,” he repeated. “You left a crime scene.”

“I had an anxiety attack. O’Melvany talked to me. I had to get out of there.”

Silvestri took his notepad from his inside pocket and adjusted his shoulder holster. “Why don’t you give me everything from the time you left for Boston till you found Susan Orkin’s body.” His manner was formal, his tone cold-to-neutral. She’d lost him.

She gave Silvestri a succinct account of her activity, leaving out Carlos’s watch at Sam’s murder scene and Mark’s peculiar behavior. Neither did she mention Susan’s date book. They would find it soon enough.

“This is what I know. Dilla may have been leaving Susan for Audrey Cassidy.”

“Who’s that?”

“The columnist. Audrey has a movie-and-theatre gossip column in the
Spectator.
I don’t think Mort Hornberg killed Dilla because it looked like the same kind of M.O. and the murderer must have mistaken Sam for Mort.”

“Maybe Hornberg wanted to get rid of Meidner, too.”