Murder: The Musical (A Smith and Wetzon Mystery, #5) (4 page)

“They want you, Miss Mazola, darling.” Carlos tittered. They locked eyes and fell on each other again in a fit of laughter.

“Get a grip, son,” she gasped, using her friend Laura Lee Day’s favorite phrase.

The detective was looking at them curiously. “Miss Wesson?”

Wetzon giggled. “Sorry. Oh God. I’m sorry. Nerves.”

Carlos turned his back on her. His shoulders shook. She couldn’t look at him. Rather, she focused on the detective: stolidly built, broad-assed, short brown hair, prominent nose, pale skin devoid of makeup. She wore loose fitting brown gabardine pants and an open, down jacket in an electric shade of blue.

“Detective Bernstein would like to start with you, Miss Wesson.”

“That’s Wetzon.” Wetzon spelled it out, “W-e-t-z-o-n,” and another giggle burbled up in her throat. Carlos was howling now, leaning over the stage manager’s desk, which was really just a small table with a drawer, set in the wings under a computer. On the desk were a large black pocketbook, an umbrella, and a battered Burberry.

“I’m Detective Renee Gross,” the woman said. “If you’ll come with me, please.” She spoke in the clipped speech of the New York streets, and she clearly found nothing amusing in Wetzon’s amusement. In fact, she looked disgusted. Her expression brought Wetzon up short.

“Carlos, doll, I’ll talk to you later.”

“How about dinner?” He’d gotten control again, but tears spotted his face.

“Can’t. I’m having dinner with Smith.”

“Well! If you’d rather dine with the Barracuda—”

“Oh, please. You’re an impossible creature.” Carlos loathed her partner Xenia Smith and the feeling was mutual. They were constantly taking jabs at one another through Wetzon. “But adorable.” She planted a kiss on his cheek, then followed Detective Gross across the stage.

Sam was straddling the piano bench, head tilted, talking to Aline and JoJo. He caught Wetzon’s hand when she went by. “Oh, beauteous Leslie, that we should meet again like this. Later?” He kissed her palm.

“Sure, Sam.” He’d fallen right back into the corny routine he’d tried on her years back. And what was more, he knew it.

She did not see the woman who had arrived on stage with Mort earlier, but Mort, who was immersed in conversation with Gerry Schoenfeld, gave her thumbs-up and a broad wink, as if they were in some sort of conspiracy together. She felt Schoenfeld’s eyes following her, and she wondered what Mort would tell the theatre owner.

When Wetzon and Detective Gross descended the side stairs, Wetzon saw that the six dancers were gone. And except for a couple of cops, the orchestra section of the theatre was now empty. Still no sign of Phil. What could have happened to him? A light flashed from above, then another.

Someone called a question; shadow voices answered. The members of the Crime Scene Unit of the NYPD were still at work.

She followed Gross up the aisle into the rear of the orchestra, beyond the seats. A uniformed cop stood at the closed door to the house manager’s office that Schoenfeld had appropriated for the inquiry. He had a little red metal apple pinned to the collar of his coat. Light seeped from under the door to the box office, the next room over.

Gross knocked, then opened the door and stuck her head in. “Ready for us?” A waft of caustic cigarette fumes drifted out.

“You first, Gross.”

Shrugging somewhat apologetically, the detective slipped into the room and shut the door, leaving Wetzon in the lurch. She could hear the rumble of Bernstein’s and Gross’s voices through the closed door. The uniformed cop ignored her. She wandered a few feet to the lighted box office. This door, too, was closed, but the catch had sprung.

Inside, a woman said, “This has nothing to do with us.”

“But I should tell them—” The voice that answered was Phil’s.

“No! I’m—”

“Come on in,” Gross said in a loud voice.

Wetzon turned and headed for the house manager’s office. Behind her she heard the door open and close. Looking back, she caught a glimpse of Phil emerging from the box office.

Bernstein hung up the phone and waved her in. “Grab a seat.”

Bernstein was ensconced behind a desk that looked as if it had been through the Peloponesian Wars. Its Leatherette top was stained and scarred; ancient gouges marked its varnished oak exterior. Bernstein had a cardboard cup and a notebook in front of him. The room was cold and airless.

Wetzon sat in a straight-back chair. The leather padding was worn thin, dry and cracked, patched with black electrical tape. On the floor was a carpet so thin, pieces had worn away, and disintegrating backing surfaced in large areas, like mold. Someone had set up a coffee urn on a table, with a stack of cardboard cups, a container of milk, and a paper plate of sugar and Sweet’n Low envelopes. Coffee dripped from the spout into a cup,
plop, plop, plop.

Unnecessarily, Gross announced, “Detective Morgan Bernstein, Ms. Wesson.”

Bernstein seemed almost affable. He shunted his coffee to the side, shook a cigarette from a pack of Marlboros and lit it. His bushy mustache was new, at least she hadn’t remembered a mustache. “Coffee, Miss Wesson?”

“No, thank you. And my name is Wetzon.”

“That’s what I said, didn’t I? Sit down, Gross. You’re making me nervous.”

Detective Gross pulled another dilapidated chair around to the side of the desk so that she faced Wetzon. Her face was impassive. She took a pad and a pen from the pocket of her coat.

“What happened to Irma?” At least Wetzon thought that had been the name of Bernstein’s partner three years before, when she’d first encountered him.

Bernstein took a long pull on his cigarette and squinted at her, then let out a puffy stream of smoke. He’d taken off his hat; his blue crocheted yarmulke was pinned to his curly hair with a bobby pin. He needed a haircut, and he looked as if he’d put on some weight. In fact, he was downright beefy.

“Detective Ignacio is downtown with the Homicide Bureau. I train them good.” He smirked at Gross. “Isn’t that right, Gross?”

Gross nodded solemnly, but Wetzon saw an eyebrow rise ever so slightly. Her eyes met Wetzon’s for a fraction of a second, then Gross looked down at her pad.

“I just talked to your boyfriend.” Bernstein grinned at her. His blue eyes were ice under bushy brows.

“I’m sorry?” Was he talking to her, or Detective Gross? No, he was talking to her. He meant Silvestri. “Oh,” she said, noncommittally.
Shit,
she finished silently.

“Yeah. I told him you were in trouble again.” He leered at her.

“Why the hell did you do that?” Her anger drove her to her feet. She and Silvestri had split up eight months ago. They had agreed to take time out.

“Sit down, Miss Wesson. I didn’t want him getting in my face when he found out.”

She didn’t want Silvestri in her face either, charging in here on his white horse to save her from the dragon.

Damnation!
She was seething, and her body temperature went through the ceiling. She broke out in a sweat. Silvestri would think she was incapable of taking care of herself. That was one of the things they had fought about.
Leave off, Wetzon,
she told herself.
What do you care what Silvestri thinks?
She suddenly felt queasy and light-headed. She’d missed lunch. She sank back into the chair.

“He thanked me nicely for letting him know,” Bernstein continued. He seemed to be trying to fathom her reaction.

She thought: That’s it? That’s all he said? She said firmly, “I am not a suspect here.”

“You’re not?” Bernstein inhaled smoke and breathed it out with elaborate aplomb. He was all dragon. “How do you figure that?”

“I was not alone last night. Or this morning—”

Bernstein cocked his head at her and scratched under his yarmulke. “So?” His eyes were mocking.

“So, Dilla was murdered last night.”

“How can you be so sure?” He stabbed out the cigarette against the Leatherette of the desk, scattering ash and adding a new scar to the multitude already there.

“She wasn’t?” What was he getting at? “When then? The theatre was locked up tight when we got here.”

“What time was that?”

“About eleven-thirty.”

Bernstein nodded. He was savoring her indignation. “Yeah. But she was still warm when we got here.”

“Tell me everything,” Smith commanded. “And I mean
everything.”
Her hazel eyes were alive with curiosity and a kind of joy. The weirdest things turned her on.

Coco Pazzo on a Sunday night. Actually, it was only six-thirty, but Wetzon could have sworn she’d just spent two weeks locked in a cold, filthy nightmare. She sighed. “Oh, Smith, give me a break. I’ve been over and over it with that awful detective—”

“Dilla Crosby was in a layout last month in
Mirabella.
She was up-and-coming—”

“Not anymore.” It came out flip, flipper than she’d meant it.

“Oh, for pitysakes, jokes. All you do is joke, Wetzon. You never share.”

“We’re sharing right now.” What they were sharing was a Tuscan anti-pasto of grilled vegetables and linguine with sea food, family style, which was the way Coco Pazzo served dinner on informal Sunday nights. The restaurant was so in that reservations had to be made weeks ahead. All the right people dined there. But aside from all that, the food was delicious, and the setting, which had once been the Volney Hotel’s dining room, was serene cream color walls, simple white tablecloths, and murals of bottles and carafes.

Smith rolled her eyes heavenward as if dealing with Wetzon were a great burden. She fluffed her dark curls. Her fingernails were an immaculate deep rose. “You are the most difficult person, and you’re getting worse as you get older.”

“Thanks a heap. You’re a pal. You wouldn’t exactly win an award for amiability yourself.” Wetzon studied her partner. The woman was beautiful. Smooth olive skin, high cheekbones, and almond-shaped eyes. And permanently thin to boot, which Smith maintained without so much as lifting her little finger to exercise. And tall. What more could anyone want? But Smith was never satisfied—at least not for very long. She was narcissistic. She changed lovers the way she changed her wardrobe, and she approached life as if it were a grand seduction. Seduce, and control.

That Wetzon should know enough after all these years not to be hurt was understood, but it didn’t always work that way.

Smith took a sip of her red wine, and replenished the dark green olive oil from a beaker onto the small flat plate, then dipped her wedge of focaccia into the oil. “Why are you acting so whipped?” She took a dainty bite and practically purred. “This is
wonderful.”

Wetzon looked down at her plate and moved the roasted red peppers closer to the eggplant, and the eggplant closer to the zucchini. “You know, Smith, sometimes I think of us as an old married couple. We came together in a whirlwind romance and have practically nothing in common. And now that the dew is off the rose, our different ways of looking at life are a source of conflict.” She looked across the table and was astonished to see Smith’s eyes swimming in tears. “Oh, dear, now don’t do that.”

“What do you mean, don’t do that? You have hurt me terribly. Are you trying to tell me you want to dissolve our partnership?”

Wetzon was dismayed. How had she gotten into this? “No! My God, no! We’re good together, aren’t we?”

“I always thought so.” Smith blotted the tears away with a tissue and sniffed. “And you’re my best friend, sweetie pie. I love you.” She reached across the table for Wetzon’s hand.

Wetzon felt like a shit. “Me, too. I was just talking off the top of my head.” She let Smith take her hand.

“But you’re so careless about my feelings....”

“Okay. Enough. I didn’t mean it. What do you want to know about Dilla?” There she was back in Smith’s clutches again. How had it happened?

“Why would anyone want to bash her head in?” Smith was savoring the picture her words conjured up. Ordinary murder didn’t thrill her, but a glamorous, publicity-filled celebrity murder was quite another thing.

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen Dilla in years. She was a gypsy with Carlos and me, but she was ambitious. And greedy. She never did anything unless there was a payoff. Money and/or power. I mean, relationships and stuff. Men were always showering her with jewelry, clothes, and furs. God, I remember she paraded around with a gorgeous Blackglama mink coat while we were auditioning for
Chorus Line.
She flaunted it. You knew she always had some sex-for-money thing going on ... ” Yikes, she thought, I’m describing Smith.

Fingering the pave diamond clip on the gold mesh chain that Richard Hartmann, Smith’s current lover, had given her for her fortieth birthday, Smith said, “I really
hate
women like that.” She turned to get the waiter’s attention.

Wetzon smirked. She couldn’t help it.

Smith was frowning when she turned back. “Still, why would anyone kill her?”

“The only things Dilla was attracted to were money and power. She cozied up with a lot of people, and she had a nasty habit of collecting things about them.”

“Things?”

“Information. You know, gossip. Stuff people wouldn’t want to get out.”

“Oh, then she was a blackmailer.” The waiter arrived at their table. Smith announced: “We’re finished.”

Wetzon shook her head. “I wouldn’t go that far.” To the waiter she said, “No, wait. I’ll take our leftovers home.” While the waiter removed the plates, Wetzon added, “But Dilla managed to build herself a whole other career rather quickly as a stage manager and associate producer. She knew people who would give her money.”

“We’ll have some biscotti,” Smith told the waiter. “And two double espressos.”

“Make one of them decaf, please,” Wetzon interjected.

“Maybe she was just a smart businesswoman, sugar.”

“I’m sure she was.” Wetzon grinned at her. Smith had finally realized she and Dilla had something in common.

“What do you want with those scraps?”Smith pointed to the foil package of leftovers the waiter deposited on the table.

“Tomorrow night’s dinner.”