Tender Death (32 page)
Authors: Annette Meyers
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Women's Fiction, #Contemporary Women, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Thrillers & Suspense, #Crime, #Financial, #Contemporary Fiction, #Crime Fiction
“O
H MY
G
OD
,” Wetzon breathed, hand over mouth. She straightened, knees quivering, and sat down hard on the side chair. Arleen had killed herself. She must have realized that she couldn’t get away. How horrible. Wetzon covered her face with her hands. She’d had enough of killing. But where did this leave Smith? If Arleen was dead, who would save Smith?
Leon, of course. Leon had to have handled the arrangements for Smith. He could testify for Smith, explain she didn’t know.
She forced herself to look at Arleen’s face. The pallor seemed altered somewhat. In death, her eyelids twitched. Wetzon shuddered. It was over. She would find a phone and call Silvestri, or O’Melvany, or 911 ...
“Wezz—” Someone spoke faintly and very close to her.
Wetzon shot out of the chair. The sound had come from Arleen’s body.
“Wezz—” It came again. Arleen’s lips trembled. The body didn’t move. “Help me ...”
Wetzon knelt, forgetting the gun. “Arleen? It’s all right. I’m going to call an ambulance.”
“No.” Arleen’s eyes were black slashes, half-open, staring. Wetzon bent closer. The mixture of blood and Giorgio perfume gagged her. “Go away ... murder ...” Her lips opened again and a pink blood bubble oozed out. She was dead.
What did she mean, “murder”? Wetzon got to her feet. What had Arleen been trying to say? That Arleen had been murdered like her brother? Was the murderer still here? Ice, like a serpent, began to crawl up her spine.
“Hello, Wetzon.”
Wetzon spun around. Leon Ostrow, wearing a crisp clean Burberry, was standing a few feet from her near the door to the bedroom.
“Leon! Fantastic. How did you get in without my seeing you?”
“You were rather involved, my dear. After Xenia reached me, I came right over to talk to Arleen. I saw you enter the building and just followed.” He had both hands in his raincoat pockets. He walked across the room and stood next to Wetzon, looking down at Arleen’s body. He prodded it with the toe of his gleaming black wing tip shoes. The body rolled over. “Well, now she’s really dead.” He sounded almost pleased. He had to be thinking about Smith, too.
Wetzon took his arm at the elbow. “What are you doing, Leon? Shouldn’t we call an ambulance, the police?”
“Of course, my dear.” He shook her off; her hand fell to her side, brushing against the wet fur of her coat. “And we will. We will. After all, I am an officer of the court.” Leon smiled. He walked over to the desk and opened the side drawers, one at a time, removing papers, rifling through them. He was taking his time.
Wetzon was bewildered. He was behaving so strangely. “What are you doing, Leon? Come on—” She stopped. Leon’s raincoat was crisp ... his shoes were shiny ... nothing was wet. “Leon—” She began slowly thinking. Tender Care had used a lawyer for referrals, Peepsie Cunningham had had a lawyer ... No, it couldn’t be.
“Ah, Wetzon my dear.” Leon’s eyes blinked at her from behind his glasses. He straightened. “I’m really sorry about this.” He sighed and came around the desk. “I’ve always been quite fond of you personally.”
She drew back from him cautiously. Perhaps she was missing something. “Leon—I don’t believe this—not you.”
“Stay where you are, Wetzon.” He took a small gun from his coat pocket and looked at it. “You know what they say, after the first it gets easier. I made a spectacular debut with the newsman.”
“Newsman? You mean Teddy Lanzman? No, I don’t believe it.”
“He called my office after Tormenkov talked to him. He left me little alternative.”
“Why? Leon, just tell me why?” She’d had a shock, but her mind was working with precision. She was standing between him and the door. Maybe she could make a run for it. If she could keep him talking, she would buy time for herself.
“Suffice it to say, my dear Wetzon, I had certain monetary obligations, trading losses. Trust funds I had borrowed money from which had to be replaced. When Arleen came to me with her idea, it seemed so simple.” He stood over Arleen’s body now; Wetzon stepped backward. Leon pushed his glasses back up the narrow bridge of his nose with his forefinger and cocked his gun at her. “I have no qualms about shooting you now. Your problem has always been, Wetzon, you don’t know when to keep your nose out of what doesn’t concern you.” He looked at Arleen again. “I’d rather it was with Arleen’s gun, but if I have to, I’ll do it with mine.”
“But old people, Leon. How could you?”
“We do what we must.”
She spoke through clenched teeth. “Please, Leon. Think this through. Killing me is ridiculous. Don’t you know the police are looking for her, and probably you, too?”
“Now, Wetzon, it’s you who are being ridiculous. How would they be looking for me?”
“Because you didn’t kill Teddy. You killed an FBI agent who was sitting at his desk.”
Leon’s head snapped back. His thin face took on a tinge of green.
“Ahhh. So I have nothing whatever to lose then.”
“What about Smith? I thought you loved Smith.”
“Smith ... yes.” He seemed to be thinking, calculating. “Well, you and I both know that Xenia, bless her heart, will take care of herself. I would have been on my way to Brazil already, Wetzon, if that bitch hadn’t gotten so greedy.” He looked down at Arleen. “It was always one last transaction with her. She was going to meet me at the airport with the rest of the money, she said. She thought she could out-think me, take a later plane, to Morocco.” He spoke deliberately, logically, as if he were arguing a case. “No one out-thinks me.” He knelt and reached for the gun in Arleen’s hand.
My God,
Wetzon thought
. He was going to shoot her with Arleen’s gun.
She took a few rapid steps backward.
They would say Arleen killed her.
Her sudden movement stopped Leon. He whipped his gun around in her direction. There was a tiny, muffled explosion. Leon stood up and stared at her. Somehow, he’d lost his glasses. He had a surprised, almost comical, look on his face. He pointed the gun at her. Wetzon dropped to the floor. The gun wobbled in his hand.
A third eye opened, ruby-red, between his eyebrows, and Leon pitched forward over Arleen’s body.
“FBI!” T
HE DOOR
burst open behind Wetzon. “Stay where you are!” a woman’s voice shouted. Wetzon huddled on the floor, out of the line of fire, and stared at the empty space where Leon had stood.
Line of fire? What would they be shooting at? Oh my God!
“Don’t shoot!” Wetzon cried. “They’re all dead.”
Everyone is dead.
As through the bottom of a Coke bottle, she saw Judy Blue slip around the open door, back hugging the frame, Mets cap on her head, jeans showing lumps and bumps of belly and thigh, navy windbreaker above them. Both hands held her gun. She thought,
Oh yes, Judy Blue, why not, of course.
There wasn’t even the smallest sensation of surprise. She sank against the wall.
Behind Judy Blue were two men. One long-haired and scruffy, in gray sweatpants and a New York Rangers sweatshirt, walkie-talkie in hand. The other in a trench coat, slick and clean-cut as one imagined an FBI agent to be.
“Hand over your gun.” Waving the other two past her into the room, Judy Blue stood over Wetzon, gun pointing.
Wetzon craned her neck and watched Judy Blue’s round black face and Mets cap come into sharp focus. “Are you crazy?” Wetzon said. Her voice to her own ear was ragged. “I don’t have a gun.”
“Get up.” Judy Blue watched as Wetzon struggled to her feet, trying not to step on her coat.
“They’re both dead,” the man in the Rangers sweatshirt said. “Grossman’s gun is still warm.” He spoke into the walkie-talkie. “Get an ambulance.”
Judy Blue nodded. “Take off your coat,” she said to Wetzon.
“This is stupid,” Wetzon muttered, but she took off her coat and placed it on the arm of the sofa. “I was trying to stop Arleen Grossman from leaving the country, but she was lying on the floor like that when I got here. I thought she was dead, but she wasn’t. Leon must have been in the bedroom all along.” Sweat trickled down her sides under the sweater. “Oh shit, Judy Blue. I am not a murderer. That much you should know.”
“I don’t know anything. You led us on one dandy chase these last weeks.” Judy Blue wedged her gun into the area behind her thick waist, under her open jacket. “Cover her.” The trench coat held his gun on Wetzon while Judy Blue frisked her expertly.
“See, I told you.”
“I always err on the side of caution.”
“No one else here,” the Rangers sweatshirt said, coming out of the bedroom. He spoke into the walkie-talkie again. “All clear here—come on in.”
Moments later, Wetzon heard pounding footsteps up the marble stairs, down the hall. Three more men. And Silvestri—grim-faced, dark-rimmed eyes, a flash of something—
it couldn’t be joy,
she thought— when he saw her.
Judy Blue shrugged. “For chrissakes, Silvestri, I thought this was supposed to be our turf. Whassamatter,” she drawled, “don’t you trust us?” A smile flicked quickly across her chunky face and was gone. She left them, disappearing into the antiques and agents, out of Wetzon’s view.
Wetzon felt herself slumping against the wall behind her. “Don’t yell at me, please.”
“I’m not going to yell.” Silvestri put his arms around her. His jacket was wet. “At least not now. I’m so fucking glad to see you alive. You could have been killed.” He held her tighter.
“I thought you weren’t going to yell—”
“You don’t listen—and I’m not yelling.”
“If you two lovebirds are finished,” Judy Blue interrupted, “we’d like to put this place through a sieve and get some questions answered.”
Silvestri removed his arms from Wetzon. “Don’t go away.” He and Judy Blue stepped out of Wetzon’s hearing. She leaned against the wall and watched two FBI men dusting for prints. Everyone was talking loudly. Wetzon turned her attention back to Silvestri, who was making emphatic arm motions. Judy Blue kept shaking her head. Finally, Judy Blue threw up her hands. “Okay, okay,” she said. “But two hours is all you get. It’s your ass, Silvestri.”
“Come on, Les.” Silvestri took Wetzon’s arm. “This your coat?” He picked up her coat and helped her into it. He was distracted. “Let’s get out of here.”
“What did she mean, two hours?” Wetzon asked. He was almost dragging her along. The hallway was blocked by an FBI man and some of the tenants in the building were clustered around the elevator at the end of the hallway, whispering.
“Go back to your apartments, please. This is official government business.” An older man in a business suit under the ubiquitous trench coat was hustling the tenants onto the elevator.
Silvestri rushed her down the stairs, past a man with a medical bag going up. Outside, a siren wailed.
“I’ve got you a reprieve for two hours to see Hazel, then you have to be downtown.”
“What for? I don’t know anything else.” She stopped on the steps. It was hard to tell the FBI from the city detectives. “Silvestri, did you know it was Leon?”
“We knew he was the lawyer, but we didn’t know he was your lawyer.”
“Oh God, what about Smith? This is so awful. Who’s going to break the news to her? She’ll fall apart when she hears about Leon.”
Silvestri raised an eyebrow at her. “I think she’ll be able to handle it, Les. Right now she’s not my priority. We’ll see her downtown later.”
An ambulance pulled up and double-parked, lights flashing.
“Who is your priority?”
Silvestri didn’t answer. He ran out into the street and flagged down a cab. “Come on, Les,” he called to her, holding the door open.
“Tell me—” she insisted, coming to him.
Silvestri pushed her into the cab and climbed in after her. “It’s not good. She’s not responding—”
W
HITE PILLOWCASE, WHITE
sheets, nurses in white uniforms, coming in and out of the white room. Doors closing, opening, closing. White light. Hazel’s white face, lined, dear. The IV dripping into her frail arm, the machine monsters, beeping and slurping. Tubes in her nose. The room of the dying.
Wetzon took Hazel’s thin hand in hers and pressed it gently. “Hazel ...” Silvestri brought a chair and she sat down near the bed. He stood behind her, close.
Hazel’s eyelids fluttered and opened. Their normal sharp blue looked faded, somehow. “Leslie dear,” she murmured. Her hand squeezed Wetzon’s.
Wetzon’s eyes filled. She had a huge lump in her throat. “Hazel— hold on, please. Don’t let go.” She choked.
“Leslie ...” Hazel’s eyes rose over Wetzon’s head to Silvestri. She smiled slightly, sighed, and closed them as if it were an effort to keep them open. “I like your young man,” she said. She seemed to slip away, and the sound of her breathing grew ragged.
“Hazel—” Wetzon said urgently. “You can’t do this. You have to finish telling the story of the Peepsies.”
A faint noise like a small rumble rose from Hazel’s chest and pushed through her parted lips. A weak giggle. “Peepsie ... Peepsie ... Peepsie ...” she whispered. Her eyelids twitched several times, but didn’t open. “We were in chapel.” She spoke so faintly that Wetzon had to put her head next to Hazel’s to hear. “Dr. Pennybaker was talking about the Israelites in the desert ...” Hazel smiled, and the wrinkles in her face and the bedclothes blended, became part of the smile. “He said the Israelites called up to God, ‘Peepsie, peepsie, peepsie ...’” Her voice was thin and high. Another giggle rumbled slowly up her body, shaking her. Hazel squeezed Wetzon’s fingers hard, then released them.
The machine made a straight humming noise.
“No!” Wetzon cried. “Hazel! No! You can’t die.” She stood and touched Hazel’s white face.
“Please step outside,” a nurse said. Wetzon hadn’t even seen her come in. A small, dark-skinned man in a white coat pushed the door open, followed by another nurse.
Silvestri pulled Wetzon away from the bed. Tears ran unheeded down her cheeks. Her nose dribbled.
“Outside, please,” someone said again.
In the corridor outside Hazel’s room, sniffling, she tried to wipe her face with the sides of her hands. Where was her carryall? “I need a Kleenex,” she mumbled.
Silvestri, his face solemn, held her carryall out to her. For the first time she noticed he had Hazel’s black purse over his arm.
Wetzon smiled at him, tasting salty tears. “You look silly with your purse.”
He looked down at the purse, rolled it off his arm, and handed it to her.
She sat down on a blue plastic chair which was attached to others in a row and dropped the bags on the seat next to her. Leaning forward, elbows on knees, she hid her face in her hands. Deep, devastating sorrow gripped her.
Silvestri crouched in front of her and took her hands away from her face. She looked down, away, not willing to share her grief.
He held her face in his hands. “Why do you act as if you’re alone? You are not alone, Les. Do you hear me? You are not alone. Les?”
Slowly, her eyes rose to meet his. She touched his face, leaned her head against his chin. His beard was rough. “I hear you,” she said.
The Smith and Wetzon Mysteries
The Big Killing
Tender Death
The Deadliest Option
Murder: The Musical
Blood on the Street
These Bones Were Made for Dancin'
The Groaning Board
Hedging
The Olivia Brown Mysteries
Free Love
Murder Me Now
Repentances
and writing with Martin Meyers as Maan Meyers
The Dutchman
The Kingsbridge Plot
The High Constable
The Dutchman's Dilemma
The House on Mulberry Street
The Lucifer Contract
The Organ Grinder
