When Snooky Lanson came on the screen and started singing a heavy rendition of Tennessee Ernie Ford’s smash hit, “Sixteen Tons,” I couldn’t take it anymore. I had too much weight on my shoulders already. Standing up from the couch and turning off my rented Sylvania, I unplugged my electric fan and lugged it into the kitchen. Then I retrieved my glass from the living room, refilled it with ice and water, closed and locked the back door, turned off all the downstairs lights, and trudged—glass grasped in one hand, fan gripped in the other—up the stairs to my oven of a bedroom.
The night would be unbearable, I knew.
What I didn’t know was: The worst nights were yet to come.
Chapter 12
I HAD BREAKFAST NEXT DOOR THE FOLLOWING morning. (My bountiful neighbor is as quick to serve up a bagel as she is to shake up a cocktail.) Jimmy was sleeping upstairs, but Abby was fully awake and “properly” dressed for our command appearance at the police station. In her prim white Ship ’n Shore blouse, navy blue pencil skirt, and navy-and-white spectator pumps, she looked almost innocent.
The key word here is
almost
, because one peek at the satisfied smile on her sensual Ava Gardner face and you knew she had to be guilty of something. And it wasn’t hard to fathom what that something was.
“I guess you had a good time with Jimmy last night,” I said, trying to keep the judgmental (okay, jealous) tone out of my voice. “You look like the cat that ate the canary.”
“That’s one way to put it,” she said, grinning like an idiot, pouring us each a glass of iced coffee. “And how did your evening go? Did Dan call?”
Now it was my turn to smile. “Yep.” I stirred some cream and sugar into my glass and took a sip. “He called me last night and this morning, too. He said he misses me a lot.”
“Did he tell you he loves you?”
“No, but he sounded like he does. He said he really wishes I were there with him. He thinks Katy and I would be getting along great.”
“Yeah? Well, too bad he didn’t think of that before,” Abby said, with a derisive snort. “The temperature’s fifteen degrees lower in Maine, you dig? You could be having a really cool time right now. Ocean breezes, moonlight swims, half-naked bodies on the beach.”
“Yeah,” I said, sighing. “There must be plenty of
those
lying around . . . and I bet none of them are dead.”
I wished I hadn’t said that. Now Gray Gordon’s eviscerated corpse was lying on the table between us, calling a halt to our cheerful banter, wrenching our thoughts from romance to murder.
“Did you go over Gray’s phone messages last night?” Abby asked.
“Yes, of course I did. Several times.”
“Find any clues?”
“A few,” I said, “but nothing really solid. I wish Rhonda had dated the messages, or at least put them down in the order she received them. Then I might have learned something important. But the list is just a mish-mash. It’s as messy and disorganized as Rhonda’s dressing table at the theater.”
“Do the dates really matter that much?”
“Of course they do!” I said, surprised by Abby’s naiveté. “If I had the dates, I’d know which calls came in before Gray was killed, and which ones came in after.”
“But what difference does that make?”
I rolled my eyes at her inane question. “Jeez, Abby! Just think about it for a second. If somebody telephoned Gray the day
after
he was murdered, then it’s a pretty safe bet that person
wasn’t
the murderer, wouldn’t you say? Why would anybody call him up if they knew that he was dead?”
“To plant a false clue,” she said. “To make himself look innocent.”
“Oh,” I said, embarrassed by my own shortsightedness. Abby had a good point. Why hadn’t
I
thought of it?
“So what
did
you find out?” Abby asked, not rubbing it in. Either she was letting me off the hook, or she hadn’t noticed my impatient tone. (Considering the fact that Abby really loves to one-up me, I figured it was the latter.) “Solid or liquid,” she said, “every clue is worth something.”
Taking her words under advisement, I told Abby about the various names and numbers I’d gleaned from Rhonda’s list, reporting on every aspect of my study. Then I sat back in my chair, lit up one of Abby’s Pall Malls, and related all the details of my phone conversation with Binky.
“Ve-ry interesting,” Abby said, when I’d finished my summary. “Binky-Winky sounds kind of stinky. Maybe he murdered Gray himself. ”
“Could be,” I said, remembering how Binky’s tone and vocabulary had turned angry when we were discussing Gray’s rave review. “I’ll have a better idea after I meet him on Tuesday.”
“I’ll go with you!” she said, getting excited. “I’m a really good judge of character, you know. And I’d love to take a stroll around the Actors Studio, get an up-close and personal look at James Dean. I think he’s in town now. And he’s my fave new screen boy. He’s so hot it hurts!”
I didn’t say a word. I had no intention of taking Abby with me, but I didn’t tell her that. I knew she’d have a complete fit. Then she’d dig in her heels and torment me until I surrendered and let her come—a consequence I simply could not allow to happen. Abby’s presence at my meeting with Binky would rattle my concentration, play havoc with my cover, and lead Binky to question my “true” motives for contacting him (i.e., wreck the whole darn operation!). Better to keep my mouth shut, keep the peace, and wait until Tuesday to crush Abby’s hopes of meeting her fave new screen boy.
I glanced at the clock on Abby’s kitchen wall. It was nine thirty-five. “Holy moley, would you look at the time?!” I cried. “I’ve got to run home and change my clothes. If Flannagan saw me in this outfit” (a pair of short shorts and one of Bob’s old army T-shirts), “he’d arrest me for sure.”
“Then you’d better scurry, Murray,” Abby said. “From what I’ve heard, It ain’t too cool in the cooler.”
THE SIXTH PRECINCT STATION WAS JUST a few blocks away on West 10th Street. Abby and I walked there as fast as we could—which wasn’t very fast since the heat, humidity, and our dangerously high heels slowed us down to a stroll. I bought a newspaper on the way over, but didn’t take the time to look for any articles about the murder. We were late enough as it was. Entering the busy station through the streetlevel double glass doors, we headed straight for the main desk to our right, stilettos clicking across the scuffed brown linoleum.
A tall, well-built young man with an exceptionally long, narrow face was standing like a sentry behind the counterlike partition. He was wearing the standard summer uniform (same as the winter but with short sleeves)—no jacket or hat. A badge was pinned to his shirt, and a gun was holstered on his hip. As Abby and I approached the desk, he snatched a white handkerchief out of his pocket and quickly mopped the sweat off his handsome, shoebox-shaped mug. “Hello, ladies,” he said, stuffing the handkerchief back in his pocket. “How can I help you?”
“We’re here to see Detective Flannagan,” I said. “We had a ten o’clock appointment but, as you can see, we’re a few minutes late.”
“Then I’ll have to take you into custody,” he teased.
“I can think of worse punishment,” Abby said, batting her lashes so hard and fast I felt a breeze.
Oh, brother!
She was flirting with him. She was flaunting her so-called charms all over the place. You’d have thought our horrific reason for being at the station (or, at the very least, her randy reunion with Jimmy last night) would have stifled her seductive ways—but noooo. There she stood, one hand propped suggestively on her jutting hip, making eyes at a horse-faced policeman as if she were a filly in heat and he were the last stallion on earth.
Luckily, I found my voice before they galloped off to the nearest stable together.
“Detective Flannagan is expecting us, sir,” I said, with a loud sniff of annoyance. “And we don’t want to be any later than we already are. Can you let him know we’re here, or direct us to his office, please?” I was doing a swell immitation of Susan Hayward in a righteous huff, but I felt like Milton Berle in a prom dress (i.e., more likely to attract ridicule than respect).
“Oh, uh . . . sure,” the young officer said, reluctantly turning his attention from Abby to me. “I’ll just give them a call upstairs. They’ll send somebody down to get you.”
“Can’t you show us the way yourself?” Abby said, batting her damn lashes again. “That would give us a little more time together.”
His rectangular face turned as pink as a primrose. “Oh, no, ma’am,” he said. “I couldn’t do that. I’m not allowed to leave my post. But hang on for a second, I’ll get you another guide right away.”
While he was dialing and then talking on the intercom, I gave Abby my sternest look. “Cut it out!” I whispered. “We’re here to help the cops find a killer, for God’s sake! Your search for a new lover can wait!”
“That’s not fair!” she hissed. “I’m looking for a new model, not a lover!”
“Same difference,” I said.
“IT’S SEVENTEEN MINUTES AFTER TEN,” Flannagan said, looking at his watch, shooting me a nasty scowl, then standing up behind his desk. His jacket was draped on the back of his chair, his sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, his collar was unbuttoned, and his tie was loose and lopsided. “It’s about time you showed up,” he growled. “I was beginning to think I’d have to send somebody to your place to get you.”
“Please forgive us, Detective Flannagan,” I said. “We got off to a bit of a late start this morning.”
“Yeah, well, your ‘bit of a late start’ has thrown my whole damn schedule off track,” he griped, looking at his watch again. “I have to be somewhere else at eleven, so we don’t have much time.”
“Oh, what a shame!” Abby cried, putting on a big sarcastic show of contrition. “I could just kill myself for taking so long to eat that extra bagel.”
Her jeering tone was making me squirm. Would Flannagan realize that she was mocking him? Would he get mad and give us an even harder time than originally planned? I tried to think of something soothing to say—something that would calm the choppy sea between the surly detective and my irascible best friend—but finally decided it would be safer to just leave things alone.
“Let’s get started,” Flannagan said, showing no more anger (or awareness) than usual. He gestured toward the two old wooden chairs positioned in front of his old wooden desk and muttered, “Sit down.”
We did as we were told. (I don’t know about Abby, but I was glad to get off my feet.)
Flannagan sat back down behind his desk and began shuffling some papers around. While he was getting organized, I took the opportunity to look around his office—or, rather, the large bullpen in which his work area was situated.
Flannagan’s desk was one of seven in the drab, greenish-gray room, one side of which was lined with windows so dirty they barely let in any light. The desks all faced the door and were aligned along the outside wall like cars in a parking lot. A row of tall, beat-up file cabinets stood against the wall opposite the windows, narrowing the aisle running down the center of the office to a width of about four feet. (A rhino might have made it through, but never an elephant.) Except for Flannagan and the rhino-size man sitting at the first desk in the front, there were no other homicide detectives in sight (unless you want to count
me
, which you probably don’t).
Flannagan slapped the papers down on his desk and lit up a Camel. His boyish, clean-shaven face was scrunched up in an ugly frown. “Okay, first things first,” he said. “Give me the names of your doctors.”
“What?!” we cried, in unison.
“The names of your doctors,” he repeated.
“Why?!” we harmonized.
“Because I told you to,” he said, sticking out his jaw and crossing his arms over his chest. He not only looked like a little boy, but he was acting like one, too. He was the bully of the playground—the one who would push you off the seesaw and steal your lunch money.
“But may I ask
why
you want our doctors’ names?” I said, jumping to take the lead in the conversation before Abby could cause a scene. (One glance at her rigid posture and clenched fists, and I knew she was about to blow her stack.) “It seems such an odd request, if you don’t mind me saying so, sir. I’m sure I’m a complete dunce, but I can’t help wondering what our doctors have to do with the murder of Gray Gordon.”
Sometimes it pays to be polite. My courteous and feminine (okay, totally self-deprecating) demeanor had a pacifying effect on Flannagan’s mood. His ugly frown faded, then he uncrossed his arms and removed them from his chest. Retrieving his lit cigarette from the ashtray and taking a long, slow drag, he cocked his head in my direction and tweaked his lips into something resembling a smile.
“I really don’t have to explain myself or my methods to you, Mrs. Turner,” he said, “but since you asked so nicely . . .” He paused for another puff on his cigarette. “I want your doctors’ names so I can contact them to verify your blood types.”
Oh, so that’s it!
I said to myself.
They did find more than one blood type at the crime scene. Guess they won’t be needing my bag of bloodstained clothes after all . . .
which was a good thing, I realized, since I’d forgotten to bring the bloody stuff with me!