Dial Me for Murder

Chapter 34

THANKS TO THE PROTECTIVE (AND SURPRISINGLY polite) public policy of the NYPD, Officer Murphy drove me home. It was eight o’clock Saturday morning. The sky was bright, the traffic was light, and the Italian merchants of Bleecker Street had begun opening the doors to their food shops, eager to rake in their weekend windfalls. When I got out of the squad car and headed into my building, the aroma of fresh-baked bread wafting from Zito’s bakery made my mouth water. Normally, I would have rushed to buy a loaf while it was still warm, but today I was too tired. I had barely enough energy to climb the stairs to my apartment and let myself in.

The second I stepped through the door, however, and caught sight of the large, manly figure lounging in my living room, my energy returned with a vengeance. It was Dan! And he was all in one piece! One great big, gallant, gorgeous, glorious piece. Sitting on the couch in his shirtsleeves, with his long, strong legs stretched out in front of him, he was casually smoking a cigarette and reading Sabrina’s lavender list.

“Thank God you’re here!” I cried, ripping off my jacket and beret and tossing them, with my purse, on a kitchen chair. “I’ve been so worried about you!” I bounded into the living room, leapt over Dan’s outstretched legs, and plopped down on the couch beside him. “How long have you been here?” My tail was wagging out of control, but I managed to stop myself from licking his face.

“Long enough to read this list and all your notes about the Pratt murder,” he said, sitting up straight and putting the stack of pages on the telephone table. “I see you’ve been a very busy girl.” He took a drag on his Camel and gave me a crooked smile. I couldn’t tell if it was hostile or friendly.

“Are you still mad at me?” I asked, sucking in a deep breath and holding it.

“I haven’t decided yet.”

I let out a tortured sigh. “When do you think you’ll reach your verdict?”

“When you stop deceiving me and tell me everything you know.”

“I’ve wanted to do that all along, Dan. I swear!”

“Then why didn’t you?” he snapped, aiming his jet black gaze right between my eyes.

“Because I gave Sabrina my word!” I croaked. “She said if the police found out that Virginia was a prostitute, they wouldn’t even try to catch her killer. She said they’d close up her whole operation, and arrest her and all her girls, and then Charlotte and Melody’s twin brother would be… Oh, what’s the use?” I cried, nerves tied up in knots. “You don’t know who or what I’m talking about. And the story’s so long and crazy and complicated you can’t possibly understand.” My hands were flapping around like birds, and I was on the verge of tears.

Dan loosened his tie, opened his shirt collar, and rolled up his sleeves. “You underestimate me, Paige, he said. “You always have. And this time it’s particularly insulting. I understand a lot more than you think I do. And I did even before I read your notes.”

“Really?” I said, perking up and paying attention, busting to learn how much he knew, and how and when he’d come to know it. “I’m glad to hear that, Dan. I really am! It’ll make it so much easier for us to talk about the case together. Look, I have a good idea. Why don’t you tell me everything you know, and I’ll fill in the blanks?”

Dan laughed out loud. “Nice carrot, Paige, but I’m not hungry. It’s time for you to do the talking.” (Was it my imagination, or had he suddenly slipped into a good mood?)

“But I don’t know where to begin,” I whined, trying to get my thoughts together. (I swear to God I wasn’t stalling. There was so much to explain, and I was so tired and discombobulated, I really didn’t know where to begin.)

“Well, for starters you can tell me where you were all night,” Dan growled, turning angry again. (That was the shortest good mood in history.) “I brought you home from the Copa around twelve, and you promised to stay here-with the doors locked- until I got in touch with you. That was eight goddamn hours ago. Why the hell didn’t you stay put, and where the hell have you been?”

“First of all, I did stay home for a long time, just like you told me to. I wrote up my notes and I made a few phone calls and I-”

“Who did you speak to?”

“A woman named Sabrina Stanhope,” I said. “She’s in my notes. She runs an elite call girl service and she’s the one who-”

“I know all about her,” Dan cut in. “Who else did you call?”

“Ethel Maguire, otherwise known as Brigitte. She’s one of Sabrina’s girls, and-”

“Anybody else?” he asked, too impatient to let me finish a sentence.

“You,” I said. “I called you at home and at the station, but you were nowhere to be found, so-”

“Is that it? Nobody else?”

“I tried to call Jocelyn a few times, but she didn’t answer. That’s why I-”

“Jocelyn Fritz?” he asked. “The one who goes by the name of Candy?”

“That’s right,” I said. “She was at the Copa last night, and she told me that she’d been seeing two of Sabrina’s major clients-Tony Corona and Sam Hogarth-without Sabrina’s knowledge. She said they were both devils in disguise, and she was certain one of them had killed Virginia.”

“Go on,” Dan urged.

“So when she didn’t answer her phone at three in the morning, I got worried about her. And that’s when I left the apartment and grabbed a cab to the Barbizon Hotel for Women, where she lived.”

“Lived?” Dan said. “Past tense?” Years of tricky interrogations had made him a good listener.

“Right,” I said, with a sorrowful sigh. “When I got there, I found her drowned in the hotel swimming pool. It was horrible, Dan… not a pretty sight.” Fighting back the memory of Jocelyn’s poor deluged face, I steadied my shuddering shoulders, took a deep breath, and went on. “She was killed shortly before I found her. I know this because the hotel desk clerk said she came home around three, and I got there at a few minutes to four.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, and that’s where I’ve been for the last four hours,” I hastened to add. “At the Barbizon Hotel discovering the body of another murdered call girl, and then sitting like a lump in the lobby, where I was detained for questioning by Detective Sergeant Dominick Mudd of the 19th Precinct.”

“The one with the X on his face?”

“No, it was a Z. I guess Y was busy.”

Dan cracked a little smile, but quickly turned it back into a scowl. “What questions did Mudd ask, and how did you answer them? I hope you didn’t tell him the truth.”

I almost dropped my teeth. Dan had never wanted me to be dishonest before, and now here he was hoping I’d kept the truth hidden-from the police, no less! I considered making a joke about it, but decided not to run the risk of upsetting him further.

“Don’t worry,” I soothed. “I didn’t say anything that would interfere with our investigation.” (Notice how I slipped the word our in there?) “I told him Jocelyn was a good friend of mine- that I’d rushed uptown to see her in the middle of the night because I had a big fight with my boyfriend and needed somebody to talk to.”

“Good,” he said, with a nod of approval.

“Good for you, maybe,” I said, “but not so good for me. Now I’m the prime suspect in Jocelyn’s murder. Mudd thinks she was fooling around with my boyfriend and I killed her out of jealousy. I have to go in for further questioning, and he told me not to leave town.”

“What a mess,” Dan said, slumping forward and shaking his head. “This case gets more complicated with every second. I’m beginning to wonder if we’ll ever get all the facts untangled.”

“Of course we will!” I exclaimed, happily repeating the word we. “If we put our heads together, we’ll solve this puzzle in no time. The clues are surfacing fast now, Dan. In fact, I found a really important piece of evidence at the Barbizon pool! I’ve been aching to tell you about it ever since I came in. It’s one hundred percent conclusive, and it proves that Jocelyn was killed by Tony Corona!”

Dan sat up straight and shot me a disbelieving look. “That’s impossible,” he said, shaking his head again.

“No, it’s true!” I yelped, jumping up off the couch and retrieving my purse from the kitchen. “Look at this!” Returning to the living room, I took the gold St. Christopher medal out of my bag and wiggled it, like a fishing lure, in front of Dan’s nose. “I found it on the bottom of the pool, just a few feet away from the corpse. It belongs to Tony Corona. I saw it around his neck at the Copa, and if that’s not enough to convince you, his name is engraved on the back!” I was so proud of myself, I thought I would pop.

Dan took the medal out of my hand and looked it over carefully. “Did you dive into the water to get this?”

“Uh, yes…” I said, surprised by his question-not to mention his tepid reaction to my outstanding skills of detection.

“That explains it, then,” he said.

“Explains what?”

“Why you look so clammy and smell of chlorine.”

Aaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrgh!

“Is that all you have to say?” I screeched. “That I look bad and smell funny? Jesus, Dan! The least you could do is admit that I’m a good swimmer! And a darn good detective. And would it kill you to acknowledge the fact that I have-quickly, bravely, and single-handedly-nailed Jocelyn’s murderer?”

“That’s just it, Paige. You haven’t.”

“Haven’t what?”

“Nailed Jocelyn’s murderer.”

“What are you talking about? You’ve got the proof right there in your hand! We’ve got him dead to rights, Dan. Tony Corona killed Jocelyn Fritz, and that’s all there is to it!”

“He didn’t do it, Paige.” Dan’s tone was stern, but his gaze was sympathetic.

“Have you lost your mind? That medal puts Corona smack-dab at the scene of the crime. It’s enough to convict him!”

Dan squared his shoulders and said, “ Corona was nowhere near the Barbizon at the time Jocelyn was killed.”

“That can’t be true!” I cried, the wind whooshing out of my sails. “How do you know that? Are you sure?”

“Positive,” he said, “because at the time of Jocelyn’s death, Tony Corona was with me, at the Midtown North station, being booked for the murder of Virginia Pratt.”