Dial Me for Murder

Chapter 39

THE JIG WAS UP. I HAD TWO CHOICES. I COULD strip down and try to lure Hogarth into raping me instead of killing me. Or I could shriek like a banshee, fly off the couch in a fury, kick him in the groin, and then hurl myself through the living room window-hopefully before he plugged me full of holes. In my freaked-out, stressed-out, burned-out condition, however, neither option was viable. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even breathe. All I could do was squeeze my eyes shut and pray for a miracle… or, at the very least, a speedy death.

Since my eyes were closed so tightly, I didn’t see what happened next. And since the sounds I heard were so odd and unexpected, they didn’t quite penetrate my addled consciousness. I was braced for the silenced thwack of a bullet hitting flesh and bone (my flesh and bone), but what I heard was something entirely different. It was a crazy scraping, skritch-scratching sound that took off from the rear of the kitchen, charged into the living room, and then changed into a ferocious growl.

My eyes flew open and searched for the source of the growl, which I located on the floor at Hogarth’s feet. But when I caught my first glimpse of the savage, long-nosed, short-haired growler, I thought I was dreaming again.

It was Otto! Jimmy’s brave and beloved little dachshund, Otto! The dog had dashed through the open kitchen door, scrambled into the living room, and seized one of Hogarth’s pants cuffs in his teeth. And now-judging from his fierce and tenacious gnashing, snarling, gnawing, and twisting-Otto was determined to keep his jaws clenched on that cuff forever. Hogarth was kicking and cursing and trying to shake the little dog loose, but his frantic efforts were having no effect at all. Otto was relentless.

And Hogarth was so distracted, he was no longer pointing the gun at me!

I felt a sweet spurt of relief-but it didn’t last more than a split second. Before I could gasp or even blink, Hogarth spun around, straightened his arm down toward the floor, and aimed the gun at Otto.

“Nooooooo!” I wailed, jumping off the couch and lunging forward, hoping to knock Hogarth off balance and make him miss his mark. But before I could reach him, the gun went off. And a horrible, gut-wrenching howl pierced the air. And a series of pitiful whimpers filled my ears. And my legs buckled, and my soul crumbled, and I fell to the floor in a heartbroken heap. And then I just lay there, coiled in the fetal position, sobbing uncontrollably and praying that Hogarth would kill me immediately-spare me the agony of seeing my poor little canine savior suffer and die.

Only half of my prayer was answered. Fortunately, it was the latter half. As I was lying there waiting to meet my maker, a cold, wet nose nuzzled my neck! And a warm, wet tongue licked my face! And before I knew what was happening, Otto was snuggling up next to me on the floor, curling his completely intact little sausage-shaped body into the curve of my stomach and snuffling contentedly.

It took me a few seconds to realize that the horrible howls and whimpers of pain had come from Hogarth, not Otto (thank God). But it wasn’t until I sat up and looked around, and saw all the blood in the middle of the rug, that I understood the cause of his tortured cries. Hogarth had-most effectively and deservedly (and, for me, quite conveniently)-shot himself in the foot!

I would have laughed out loud at the crazy, felicitous justice of it all, but I didn’t dare. Hogarth was still standing strong (on one leg, to be sure, but with the gun still gripped in his steady hand, one leg was one too many). Braced against the bookcase for balance and holding his mangled, bloodied foot up off the floor, the homicidal DA had stopped whimpering. Now he was actually grinning again. Eyes gleaming and teeth flashing, he raised his arm out straight, pointed the silenced pistol at my face, and said, “Bye-bye, Paige Turner. It’s been a pleasure doing business with-”

Hogarth never finished his sentence or fired the gun. He got his skull cracked open instead-by a very handsome, bearded beatnik poet (and dog owner) swinging a two-ton cast-iron skillet dripping with bacon grease. One solid whomp and Hogarth went down, crashing to the floor like a huge duffel bag full of dirt. His gun skidded under the couch and his face landed squarely in a puddle of blood flecked with bits of bone and shoe leather. He wasn’t grinning anymore.

Jimmy dropped the skillet on the floor and hurried over to Otto and me. “Are you all right?” he croaked, sinking into a squat, scooping Otto up in the crook of one arm and hugging him close to his chest. He flung his other arm around my shoulders and gave me a wild-eyed look. “What happened? Who is that creep? Did he hurt you?” He kept shifting his eyes back and forth from Otto to me, making certain we were both unharmed.

I was about to assure Jimmy that I was okay when Abby plowed through the back door and stomped into the kitchen. “Hey, Birmingham!” she squawked, spotting the top of his head above the telephone table and marching across the linoleum. “What the hell happened to you? You were out in the courtyard for ages! How long does it take for a dog to poop? And why are you-?”

The bloody scene on the living room floor stunned Abby into silence. She stopped dead in her tracks and took it all in, a look of sheer horror deforming her beautiful face. Then, when she saw that Jimmy and Otto and I were all okay-clinging to each other in a shaky huddle on the edge of the rug-she let out a yelp and leapt forward, arms spread wide enough to embrace all three of us at once.

But as her leading foot came down to the floor, it landed in a splotch of bacon grease and slipped right out from under her. She came flying toward us like an awkward angel-or, more precisely, a giant albino bat on the wing. She fell smack in the middle of our huddle and floundered around for a couple of seconds, but quickly sprang up-giggling and unhurt-into a kneeling position. Then she wrapped her wings around us, pulled us into a tight, cozy circle, and released a joyful sigh. And then Otto (who shall now and forevermore be known as Otto the Wonder Wienie Dog) poked his little head up through the center of the circle and licked all of our faces until they were shiny with slobber.

I was in Heaven-and by some incredible miracle (okay, several incredible miracles), I didn’t have to die to get there.

HOGARTH WASN’T DEAD EITHER, BUT HE WAS pretty close to it. He never regained consciousness while we were waiting for the police and the medics to arrive. Then, when they came and saw who he was and the terrible shape he was in, he was whisked away on a stretcher and rushed to the nearest hospital in a scream of sirens.

I wasn’t sorry to see him go.

I was sorry, however, to see Detective Sergeant Nick Flannagan of the Sixth Precinct come strutting into my apartment, brandishing his ego along with his badge. Abby and I had had dealings with Detective Flannagan a few months before, when he was trying to pin a gruesome murder on a perfectly innocent gay friend of ours, and my feelings about the man were not favorable.

He didn’t like me, either.

I had wanted to get in touch with Dan before calling the local station (the last thing in the world we needed was yet another homicide detective from yet another police precinct getting involved in this crazy, mixed-up case!). But Hogarth needed immediate medical attention, and I had to call for an ambulance right away-which meant I also had to report the name of the injured party, and the fact that he had been hurt during an attempted murder. Hence, the unwelcome appearance of Detective Nick Flannagan.

“Good evening, Mrs. Turner,” he said, swaggering over to me, screwing his boyish, clean-shaven face into a nasty smirk. “We meet again. Tell me, have you developed a homicide habit, or do you just get a kick out of stirring up trouble?”

“Neither,” I said. “I’m a justice junkie. I like to see real criminals punished for their actual crimes.”

“Oh, yeah?” he scoffed. “And your idea of a real criminal is the Manhattan district attorney?” The expression on his face made it clear he thought I should be strapped in a straitjacket straightaway.

“You bet your sweet badge!” I seethed. “Sam Hogarth murdered an assistant hat designer and high-priced call girl named Jocelyn Fritz this morning, and he tried to murder me this afternoon. And if Otto the Wonder Wienie Dog hadn’t foiled his attempt, and if the poet laureate of Greenwich Village, Jimmy Birmingham, hadn’t brained him with an iron skillet, our illustrious district attorney would be out on the streets tonight, lurking in the shadows, aiming to put a bullet-or two, or three-in my fiancé Detective Dan Street’s back!”

To say that I was upset would be like calling Daffy Duck a tad touchy.

Flannagan didn’t believe me, of course. I could see the wheels turning in his narrow little mind as he stared daggers at Jimmy, jumping to the warped conclusion that the bearded bohemian was to blame. (Flannagan was, I knew from experience, intolerant of all nonconformists.) Looking for a way to substantiate his biased belief, he sat Jimmy, Abby, and me (and Otto, who was sticking to me like glue) down at the kitchen table and grilled us for hours.

Okay, it was probably for just forty minutes or so. But the interrogation would have lasted much longer if Dan hadn’t heard the district attorney’s name and my Bleecker Street address broadcast over the police radio and sped down to the Village in a panic to see if I was all right.

“Paige!” he hollered, running up the stairs. “Paige!” he cried, bursting through my front door like a tiger through a ring of fire. “Are you-?” Dan came up short when he saw Flannagan standing near the door, positioned like a prison guard between the ME’s evidence-gathering team in the living room and my team of saviors and supporters at the kitchen table. But when his eyes landed on me and he saw that I was alive and uninjured, he bounded across the floor, grabbed me up in his arms, lifted me out of my chair, and hugged me so hard all the air was expelled from my lungs in one thunderous whoosh.

Having slid off my lap when Dan hoisted me to my feet, Otto hit the floor barking. And when he saw the way Dan was squeezing me, he started growling again. And then, when Dan pulled my head back and clamped his mouth down over mine, Otto clamped his teeth onto Dan’s pants cuff and-snarling and gnashing just as doggedly as he had before-gave a rousing reenactment of the scene in which he saved my life.

I was elated. I laughed and clapped so hard they probably heard me in the Hamptons. Otto’s encore performance was, I thought, a fitting denouement to the drama of the last four days, and I was doggone glad to see the final curtain fall.