Hundred Dollar Baby

32

I sat in the front room of the mansion with April and her working girls. There were other people to talk with: the two women who worked in the office, the woman who tended bar, the woman who cooked, the woman who did the housekeeping. But April was adamant at keeping the two kinds of staff separate. So I talked with the professional staff first.

It was a good-looking group. Their makeup was understated. Their daytime wardrobe tended toward skirts and sweaters. Some of them were wearing penny loafers. I felt like it was 1957 and I was running a Tupperware party.

I explained how Ollie DeMars had been killed, and reminded them who Ollie was.

"The Homicide commander," I said, "cop named Martin Quirk, knows that a full-scale investigation will have to include you and could be a source of great embarrassment and serious hardship to all of you."

They all looked tense.

"He's willing to work around you for the moment. Let me do the investigating here."

They all looked a little less tense. Several of them were drinking coffee from mugs, holding the mugs in both hands.

"Don't be confused," I said. "This will not be a whitewash. If I uncover something germane, I will tell Quirk about it."

They tensed up a little more.

"Cops tell me he died around midnight on Monday night," I said. "Who's got an alibi?"

Everyone stared at me.

A cute blonde woman with a blue headband said, "You think one of us might have killed somebody?"

"Just trying to eliminate anyone with an alibi," I said.

"So if I got one, does it mean I'm out of this."

"Means we don't think you did it," I said. "Doesn't mean you don't know anything."

"You wouldn't suspect us if we were a bunch of schoolteachers," the blonde said.

"What's your name?" I said.

"Darleen."

"I won't suspect you if you have an alibi, Darleen," I said. "Do you?"

She nodded.

"Tell me," I said.

"I can't," she said.

"Because?"

"I was with my husband. We went to a parents' meeting at the school, and my husband drove the babysitter home. Monday night midnight we were in bed together watching Charlie Rose."

"I see your problem," I said.

"We don't have any street sluts here," April said. "Most of my girls have a home life. It's one of the reasons I hired them."

"And if this life gets dragged into that life," I said, "it will cause a lot of people a lot of pain they don't deserve."

April nodded.

"Unless they killed Ollie DeMars," I said.

"None of my girls killed anyone."

I nodded.

"And if they were with a client, the same kind of problem exists."

"We don't have confidentiality," April said, "we are out of business."

The women sat around the room watchfully. I looked at them, one at a time.

"Anybody with an alibi they can tell me?" I said.

No one said anything.

"Hot dog!" I said. Everyone was quiet. "Okay," I said after a while. "We'll put that aside for the moment. We may visit it later, but right now let's just talk a little."

"About what?" another woman said. She had on a white shirt and a red plaid skirt and wore her dark hair in a Dorothy Hamill wedge.

"Everything, anything. What is your name?"

"Amy."

"Tell me about yourself. You married?"

"Yes."

"Kids."

"Yes."

"Where do you live?"

"Suburbs."

"And how'd you get into this business."

"You serious?" Amy said.

"Sure. I might as well get to know you."

I just wanted them talking. People liked nothing as much as talking about themselves. And Susan often reminded me that there was no way to know what might pop up in the course of talking about other things.

"You are serious," Amy said.

I nodded.

"You want to know how a married suburban mother ends up in a whorehouse."

I nodded.

She looked at the other women. They looked at her. She looked at April. April shrugged. She looked around at the other women again.

"Give him an earful," Darleen said. "He might learn something."

Two of the women giggled.

Amy nodded.

"I tell him then you tell him?" she said to Darleen.

"You're on," she said.