Murder Is A Girl’s Best Friend

Chapter 5

THE TRIP HOME WASN’T SO SMOOTH. Though I made the entire journey by subway and didn’t have to deal with the snow until I emerged at Sheridan Square, I still had to deal with the ragged, hairy, smelly creature who boarded the crowded train at 14th Street and decided the best way to keep himself warm was to snuggle up real close to me. If the creature had been a dog, instead of a man, I could have handled it-but of course I wasn’t that lucky. My stop was next though, and I got off the train in a hurry, leaving the shaggy beast to search for another source of body heat.

It was already dark outside, but the sky and the streets were twinkling, the former with stars, the latter with Christmas lights. Bright shiny bulbs were strung everywhere-across store windows, around lampposts, over the doorways of apartment buildings and the awnings of restaurants-casting their red, green, gold, and blue reflections on every glistening, snow-covered surface. It was still very cold, but the snowfall had slowed considerably. The flakes were floating lightly now, like scattered tufts of goose-down from a slightly torn pillowslip.

It was a beautiful scene, but I was much too distracted to do more than give it a quick, appreciative glance. I hurried down Seventh Avenue to Bleecker Street, slipping and scrunching with every step, gripping the shoebox under my arm as if it were a football and I were a crazed quarterback scrambling for the goal line. I couldn’t wait to get home, hide the diamonds in a safe place, and then go next door to talk to Abby. I needed to talk to Abby.

Abby Moscowitz, I should tell you, was the best friend I’d ever had in all the world. At the time, we’d known each other only one and a half short years, but I felt as though we’d spent our whole lives together; that we were twin sisters and had shared the same womb.

Not that we were anything alike.

At least not in the looks department. Abby was tall and buxom and bohemian-looking, with long black hair that hung, when loose, below her waist. Her deep brown eyes were huge and heavily lashed, her nose and cheekbones were proudly prominent, and her wide, smiley lips were as plump as throw cushions. I was tall and thin and normal-looking, with wavy brown hair that fell to my shoulders, and facial features that had, to the best of my knowledge, never caused a traffic jam. I’d been told that I was beautiful on occasion, but I wasn’t stupid enough to believe it.

Abby really was beautiful, though, and everybody knew it, Abby included.

When it came to likes and dislikes, personal beliefs and ideas, Abby and I agreed on some things, but certainly not all. We both liked jazz, cigarettes, whiskey sours (okay, any kind of cocktail), tight sweaters, and Halo shampoo-and we both wished Adlai had been elected president instead of Ike-but whenever the subject of sex came up, we had a parting of the ways: Abby believed in free love and would go to bed with any young man who struck her fancy (and her fancy was very easy to strike), while I was determined to sleep alone-as our current social conventions so cruelly commanded-until the day I got married again (or until the night Dan and I became so wildly overcome with drink and desire that I simply couldn’t help myself-whichever came first).

Turning left on Bleecker, I forged through the snow and up one and a half blocks to the tiny, three-story brick building I lived in. There were just two apartments in the whole building-Abby’s and mine-and both sat atop small street-level storefronts. Abby’s little duplex was perched above Angelo’s Fruit and Vegetable Market, while mine was mounted on top of Luigi’s Fish Store. I guess I don’t have to tell you which apartment smelled better.

I took out my keys, opened the door between the two storefronts, and tore up to the top of the dark, narrow stairwell leading to the living quarters. Abby’s place was on the left, mine was on the right. Panting as hard and fast as DiMaggio must have done after dashing across home plate (or getting to third base with Marilyn), I stood on the tiny landing between the two apartments, madly jiggling the keys on my overloaded chain, searching for the one that would open the gate to my safe haven.

But before I could find it, Abby’s door flew wide open.

“Boom chicky boom!” she said, stepping into the portal and leaning her left shoulder against the jamb. She was wearing her tight black capris and her color-streaked white painter’s smock. Her long, pitch-black hair was pulled back from her glowing face and wound into a braid the length and breadth of an elephant’s trunk. “It’s about time you got home,” she said. “I was getting ready to send out a pack of Saint Bernards-with little casks of booze on their collars, of course-to look for you. It is, after all, the cocktail hour.” To prove it, she raised the pale pink drink in her right hand to lip level and took a noisy sip. “I’m making pink ladies tonight,” she said. “Can you dig it?”

My anxiety melted away and my cold feet turned toasty. This was the kind of effect Abby usually had on me-and most other people, too. She was as warm and welcoming as a potbellied stove. “You heard my prayers,” I said, deciding to go straight into Abby’s apartment-shoebox and all-and worry about hiding the diamonds later. Why get in a dither about thirty thousand dollars’ worth of secret (possibly stolen) jewelry, when you can sit yourself down, light up an L &M filter tip, and have a pink lady?

The minute I stepped inside, however, I wanted to turn around and go home. The lights were low, the smoke was thick, and the hi-fi was playing Miles Davis at a deep, vibrating volume. A short, dark, beefy young man-dressed in nothing but a purple loincloth and sitting cross-legged on the living room floor-was thrumming his fingers on a set of bongo drums and giving me the kind of look that said, “If you come in here and wreck this wild thing I’ve got going with this unbelievably hot, groovy babe, I’ll have to kill you.”

I didn’t feel so welcome anymore.

“Oops!” I yelped, “I’m intruding.”

“Oh, don’t mind him!” Abby chirped, hopping over to her round oak kitchen table to pour me a drink. “That’s just Tony Figaro, from the bakery down the street. He’s been posing for me today. I got a new cover assignment from Lusty Male Adventures. ”

In case you haven’t already guessed, Abby was an artist. Not your average flower-vase-and-fruit-bowl kind of artist, but the kind who painted bold, dramatic pictures of bold, dramatic people in exotic (okay, erotic) scenes and situations. In other words, she was a commercial artist. A freelance magazine illustrator, to be exact.

And that’s how we happened to meet-the day Abby came up to the Daring Detective office to show Mario some samples of her work. She was sitting in the guest chair near my desk, waiting for Mario to see her, and we struck up a conversation. I mentioned that I was looking for a new, cheap place to live, and she told me the “pad” next door to hers was available. I went to see the apartment right after work and rented it that very same evening.

Mario’s reaction to Abby had also been immediate. He was so knocked out by her artistic flair (okay, figure) that he gave her three full-page illustration assignments on the spot. As Abby was fond of saying, “If the skills don’t get ’em, then the sweater will.”

Carrying a cocktail in each hand, Abby sauntered over to where I was standing, next to the little red loveseat that separated the kitchen area from the living area (actually the painting area, since Abby had always used the living room as her studio). “When the Lusty Male art director called me this morning,” she said, “and begged me to do a rush illustration of a brawny, bare-chested snake charmer, I immediately thought of Tony. I knew he would look cool in the costume.”

(Translation: She wanted to see him without any clothes on. Abby was the only person I knew who could call a purple diaper a costume, and still keep a straight face.)

“And he does, doesn’t he?” she added. “Look cool, I mean. The bongos are a stand-in for the snake basket. I’ll paint a turban on his head eventually, but I didn’t see any reason to make him actually wear one. Sitting cross-legged on the floor for three hours is enough punishment for one day, wouldn’t you say?”

“Uh… yes,” I said, feeling very uncomfortable. I wasn’t used to standing in front of a near-naked man and talking about him as if he weren’t there. (And trying, but failing, to keep my eyes off his bulging loincloth.)

“You know, I never even called the model agency this time,” Abby blithely continued. “I figured why hire a high-priced professional yo-yo when I can get the world’s hippest, sexiest baker to pose for free? Right, Tony?” Smiling from ear to ear, she gave me a knowing wink, then handed me my drink.

“Right!” Tony proudly replied, straightening his spine and expanding his brawny bare chest to the limit. Then, beating his fingers lightly over the bongos, he gazed deep into my eyes and sent me another mental message. This one said, “Whoever you are, please leave now. If you go home and leave us alone, I’m gonna get laid. I know it! I can feel it! Please don’t spoil it for me!”

I gazed at Abby for a second or two, wondering if she wanted me to stay or go, trying to gauge if she was feeling amorous or not. But I quickly realized what a silly waste of time that was. Abby was always feeling amorous. And as much as I wanted to tell her about everything that had happened to me that day, I did not want to tell the whole story-or even one itsy bitsy little part of it-to Tony Figaro.

“Cheers!” I said, throwing my head back and downing my frothy pink drink in two gulps. Licking the foam off my lips, I set the empty cocktail glass down on the kitchen table and began backing toward the still-open door. I was glad I hadn’t removed my coat. “Gotta go now, kids,” I warbled, backing all the way out into the hall. “Brought some work home from the office.” I gave the shoebox under my arm a meaningful little pat, waved a brisk bye-bye, then pushed the door closed, leaving Abby alone with Tony to rehearse his new snake-charming techniques.

BURSTING INTO MY OWN APARTMENT, I flipped on the lights, locked the door behind me, and set the shoebox down on my yellow formica kitchen table. I was eager to go through all the stuff in the box-to look at the diamonds again and find a good hiding place for everything-but I was in way too much physical discomfort to even consider it. My feet were cold and wet, my shoulders were drooping from the weight of my heavy coat, my head was spinning from the chug-a-lugged pink lady, and the starving animal in my stomach was growling louder than the MGM lion.

I had to feed it-fast.

Kicking off my soggy boots and tossing my hat and coat on the chair nearest the door, I darted into the kitchen half of my narrow living area and skimmed my stocking feet over the black-and-white-checked linoleum to the refrigerator. I opened the rounded door and peered inside. I was looking for a nice roast chicken, some cornbread stuffing with mushroom gravy, a crispy spinach and bacon salad, and a bottle of white wine. What I found was a wedge of cheddar cheese and a bottle of Dr. Pepper.

I took both items out of the refrigerator and put them on the kitchen table. A box of saltine crackers and a can of Campbell ’s chicken noodle completed the menu. It was a feast fit for a Bowery bum, but I relished every salty, slurpy mouthful. And when I had finished eating, I felt like myself again. My usual frantic, screwball self.

Lighting a cigarette and taking a deep drag, I shoved the empty soup bowl to one side. Then I pulled the Thom McAn shoebox into the center of the table, under the beam of yellowish light from the kitchen table lamp, and nervously lifted the lid. The oatmeal box was still there, thank God (or Christ, or Zeus, or Buddha, or Vishnu, or Allah, or Whoever might have been in charge at that particular moment) -and so were the diamonds. I took them out of their tissue paper package and spread them out on the table. There were two bracelets, a pair of earrings, a pin, and a necklace-just as Terry had said.

They were pretty, I guess, in a blinking, twinkly sort of way, but I had never understood why everybody always made such a big fuss about diamonds-or why these useless bits of glassy stone were worth so darn much money. You couldn’t eat them, or drink them, or talk to them, or make love with them. They couldn’t make you laugh, or keep your feet warm, or teach you a foreign language. All they could do was just sit there and sparkle. And if you turned out the light, they couldn’t even do that!

You could wear them, of course, but-unlike every other living woman in the entire Western Hemisphere -I had never had the slightest desire to adorn myself with expensive gems. I had a feeling they would be uncomfortable (in many more ways than one), and I knew for a fact they wouldn’t go with the rest of my wardrobe. I can honestly say that if I had been the one who owned this jewelry-this mass of crystalline carbon sitting here on the table in front of me-I probably never would have worn it at all. I probably would have balled it up in a wad of tissue paper and stashed it away in an oatmeal box.

Madly scooping the diamonds up in both hands, I tucked them back into their tissue nest and squashed the paper package back inside the Quaker carton. Great hiding place, Judy! I said to myself, and to my new spiritual protégé. You were probably murdered because of these diamonds, but at least you kept your killer from finding them and profiting from your death. And by hiding the diamonds so well, you may have provided a traceable clue to your killer’s identity. Clever girl.

Stubbing my cigarette in the ashtray, I put the top back on the cereal box and whisked the closed container across the room to the cabinet above my kitchen sink. Sliding my small stock of Campbell ’s soups to one side, I made room for the container in the back of the cabinet, next to an unopened jar of peanut butter. As I was putting the carton on the shelf, my stomach growled again, and for a moment I actually considered making myself a bowl of oatmeal. (Can you believe that? I’m such a dope sometimes.) Luckily, I came to my sleuth-based senses before I ate the evidence.

Stomach still gurgling, I scooted back to the kitchen table to look through the other stuff in the shoebox. Everything Terry had said would be there was there: Terry’s home phone number and address, Judy’s address, Mrs. Londergan’s apartment number and phone number, the names and address of Judy’s former roommates.

The two photographs were there as well, and I snatched them both up for a closer look. The first was a grinning close-up-a wallet-sized headshot of a slightly pudgy blonde, with short bangs and a long ponytail, and a pair of dimples deep as canyons. She was wearing a dark sweater over a white-collared dickey.

I recognized the uniform-it was a high school yearbook photo. Judy Catcher’s, I presumed. She looked so young, and so sweet, and so vulnerable that I wanted to pat her dimpled cheeks and tell her everything was going to be all right-even though it clearly wasn’t.

The other picture was a candid snapshot, a slightly blurry black-and-white image of two people cavorting on the sidewalk in front of a Walgreen’s drugstore. One of the people was Judy. She was older and thinner now, wearing a plaid sheath skirt, a black sweater, black nylons, black flats, and her short blonde hair was styled like Marilyn’s (Monroe or the former Mrs. DiMaggio, take your pick). One hand was propped on her hip and her head was thrown back in laughter-such outright laughter you could almost hear it.

Judy’s other hand was stretched out in front of her, gracefully, like a dancer’s, and was resting on the shoulder of the other person in the picture-a tall, thin, dark-haired young man dressed all in black and sporting a neatly trimmed mustache and a Vandyke beard. He was looking directly into the camera, glowering like a comic book villain, and cradling one of those long skinny little weenie dogs-a pointy-faced dachshund-in the crook of his arm.

I gazed at the two photos for an eternity (okay, five or ten minutes), smoking another cigarette and peering deep into those gray paper faces (even the dog’s), searching for psychic clues, trying to pull the truth-like a rabbit-out of my perfectly empty hat. But I finally abandoned that balmy endeavor. Who did I think I was, anyway? The Great Houdini? The Great Goof was more like it.

How had I ever let Terry talk me into this mess? What part of my feeble brain had allowed me to think-even for a second-that I could crack another murder case? Was I a mindless, thrill-seeking adventuress or just a mad glutton for punishment? And now that I’d given my promise-my truly honest and heartfelt promise to help-how was I going to keep my big fat commitment to Terry a big fat secret from Dan?

Head spinning, and heart reeling with the fear of my own inadequacy, I couldn’t bear to think about the murder anymore. I stuffed the names, addresses, phone numbers, and photos back in the shoebox, and put the shoebox on the top shelf of my coat closet. I hung up my coat, propped my snowboots on the floor near the radiator, washed the dishes, and cleaned out the ashtray (I may not be a mental magician, but at least I’m tidy!). Then I heaved a dramatic, self-pitying sigh and directed my stocking feet toward the squeaky narrow staircase leading to my creaky narrow bed.