Blackbird 10 - A Little Night Murder (19 page)

I thought of all the photographs of children in the desk in Jenny’s private studio. “Poppy, are you absolutely sure Jenny never had a child? Or more?”

“Sure I’m sure. I mean, Toodles was an old hound dog, and Boom Boom wasn’t an angel in her day, but Jenny? No fooling around for her. And look at you. It’s really hard to hide being pregnant. Trust me, we would have known.”

Poppy opened her portfolio and spread out a series of photographs on the table. “Now, see? Here I am playing Miss Betty Brown in
The Flatfoot and the Floozy
. It got lousy reviews, but I think that’s because Toodles wasn’t nice to the press. See this one? I had to use a trapeze in that show.”

I stared at the pictures without seeing anything. If Jenny wasn’t David Kaminsky’s mother, what was their relationship?

And who were all the other children in the photographs Jenny kept?

“Well?” Poppy finally asked. “How about it?”

I blinked. “How about what?”

“Featuring me in the newspaper, of course.”

“That’s not really up to me. My editor makes all the decisions.”

Steamed, Poppy began stacking up her pictures again. “Well, you could have told me
that
ten minutes ago! It would have saved us both a lot of time!”

“Poppy—”

“And why all these questions? The police are bad enough, but why should I have to put up with you grilling me, too?”

“I wasn’t—”

“What?” she demanded. “Do you think
I
killed Jenny? I’ll have you know, when I was in
Little Shop of Horrors
in high school, the cast nominated me for Miss Congeniality! In a cast that small, that’s a real accomplishment. Besides, none of this matters.” She shoved the photos into her bag. “The cops told us there’s a murderer living right next door.”

“A—?”

“Yeah, in the house beside Boom Boom’s. Some rich lady got out of prison, and she moved into the neighborhood. So of course she killed Jenny. It’s going to be all over the front page tomorrow.”

My heart gave a horrible thunk. I grabbed my cell phone. “Gus,”
I muttered as I savagely punched in Lexie’s number, “you better not do what I think you’re doing.”

Poppy finished stuffing all of her items back into her bag. “This whole trip has clearly been a waste of my valuable time.” She grabbed the slab of frozen banana bread off my counter and swept out of the kitchen. Over her shoulder, she said, “I can see I misjudged your reporting skills, Miss Blackbird. It’s obvious you don’t really want to write about good theater. If you change your mind, you know where to find me.”

Poppy went out through the living room, and the front door banged shut so hard the chandelier over my head swayed.

Samir answered Lexie’s phone.

“Samir,” I said, almost hyperventilating. “Did Lexie let a man into the house? Is he a reporter? You have to stop her before she says anything.”

“The police are here now,” her houseman said, voice low. “A reporter came first, then the police.”

“Samir, you have to find a way to get rid of the reporter—”

“They’re questioning Miss Lexie about a murder,” Samir interrupted. “I think I should call her lawyer.”

“Yes, yes,” I said, trying to keep my wits. “She shouldn’t say anything without her lawyer. She had nothing to do with Jenny Tuttle’s death, but they’re going to make things awful for her.” The police interview would be unpleasant, but the havoc Gus could wreak with headlines made me shudder.

“I’ve got to go,” Samir said.

I dialed Gus next. “Don’t you dare,” I said while his phone rang in my ear. “Don’t smear my friend, you bastard, or I’ll strangle you with my bare hands.”

“Tut-tut,” said a voice behind me.

I spun around to see Bridget standing in my kitchen, dressed to
kill and wearing enough makeup to audition for a drag revue. I hung up before my call to Gus went through. I could cope with only one egomaniac at a time. I said, “I’m not really in the mood, Bridget.”

“Me neither,” she said, dropping her handbag on my kitchen table. “Man, this place of yours is a dump. There’s no air-conditioning! I once had a boyfriend who spent half his time in the sauna. A Swedish guy, used to own a big international furniture company. He’d be right at home, sweating here.”

“A police officer is waiting outside,” I said. “Probably looking for you.”

“I saw him from upstairs.” She stalked over to the window and peered out. “Where’s my car?”

“Michael hid it in the barn.”

“Smart guy, my boy, isn’t he?”

“I’m not so sure aiding and abetting anyone is a good idea for him right now. He’s still on probation, you know.”

She laughed. “He’s protecting his mommy. Can I get to the barn without being seen?”

“If you don’t mind crawling through the pig pen. But even if you can reach your car, you can’t drive out any other way except past the police.”

“Then I have time for breakfast.” She turned around and grinned at me. “I once had a boyfriend who was a famous French chef. The breakfasts he made could give a girl an orgasm.”

Hardly in the mood to provide her with a food-induced sexual experience, I simply pointed at the coffee maker. She found a cup on the shelf and poured for herself. Sipping it, she went back to watching out the window. “What did the Poppet have to say?”

“You mean Poppy? We talked about Jenny Tuttle giving up a baby, as a matter of fact. But you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?”

“Judgmental, much?” she asked. “You sure have a lot of opinions for a girl with a leaky roof.”

“I have a hard time imagining how you could have given up your son, that’s all. Especially to the Abruzzo family.”

“He turned out pretty good with them.”

“You call nine years in prison ‘pretty good,’ but I call it a waste of his—”

“Oh, come off it. Maybe those nine years helped him calm down, grow up, figure out how to be a man.”

“You couldn’t have helped him do that?”

She laughed again, a harsh sound. Strolling around the kitchen, she made note of various items—the antique silver serving dish on display on a shelf, Michael’s wine rack on the counter, the set of German kitchen knives that had come to me as a wedding present from a wealthy cousin. She picked up an etched glass jam jar with its matching delicate silver spoon inside, but set it down with a snort.

“Babycakes, maybe I didn’t raise him, but you can thank me for teaching Mick a few things. Opening doors,
please
and
thank you
? I bet he still carries a clean handkerchief, right? I picked up stuff like that from my boyfriends and taught him all of it. I sent him books in jail, too. Lots of books. He finally had time to read, so I spent a fortune on books. So he’s smart. And he knows how to treat a lady like a lady, am I right?”

“But—”

“Otherwise, Mick is the self-taught type. Most kids are. Your kids turn out to be who they are even if you’re not a paragon of motherhood.” Bridget’s gaze had a cold glitter. “And you, a morally superior know-it-all girl with money and family and friends—you’d better walk a few miles in my Payless platforms before you shoot your mouth off.”

“You could have kept him,” I said quietly.

“You think he’d have turned out better if I raised him? Think again.”

There was a bitter tone to her voice that surprised me. Until that moment, I had pegged her for a supremely confident woman who took no prisoners. Now, though, she suddenly looked her years. And as if she had a few regrets despite her tough talk.

I said, “He could use your help now. The police think you had something to do with Jenny Tuttle’s death.”

“I didn’t,” she snapped.

“I believe you,” I replied just as curtly. “But the police are pressuring Michael.”

“You want me to take the pressure off? By turning myself in?”

“By providing some information,” I corrected. “Maybe you know something. Something that might implicate someone else.”

“Someone like who?”

“Well . . . Ox Oxenfeld, for one.”

She frowned. “What does he have to do with Jenny?”

“Maybe he didn’t have anything to do with Jenny, but he certainly knows about financing the show. There’s something strange going on with the money.”

Half to herself, she said, “Big Frankie always said to follow the money.”

“Yes, well, Boom Boom says she has a big investor—someone whose name she won’t mention. Maybe you can find out from Ox who that person is.”

“What would that accomplish?”

I held back an impatient sigh. “It would get the police thinking about someone other than you. They’d start widening their investigation.”

She walked away from me. I held my tongue, letting her think.

Back at the window, she said, “Cop’s leaving.” She turned
around long enough to set down her coffee cup and grab her handbag. “I’m outta here. Thanks for the bed.”

“Bridget—”

“No need to apologize for this dump,” she cut me off. “I’ve stayed in worse places. I once had a boyfriend who lived in a tent on the beach. He was a great kisser. After a while, though, sand in your privates cancels out kissing. I’ll let you know if I learn anything from Ox. It’s time I checked back with him, anyway. He’s probably ready to ditch your nutty sister for a real woman.”

Libby and Bridget going head-to-head over a man was like the heavyweight championship fight. Somebody could sell tickets and make a fortune.

I
ran upstairs and pulled on my jeans—zipping them only as high as I could manage—and another of Libby’s T-shirts, this one bright green with black polka dots. On the front it read
I
DELIVER
. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and moaned. I looked dangerously like a watermelon. While I struggled with my shoes, I tried calling Gus again. No answer.

I arrived downstairs just as Michael came in the back door with Noah, who had a big smooch of Bridget’s red lipstick on his cheek. Michael was unable to stop himself from laughing at my shirt.

“It’s awful,” I agreed, taking the baby from his arms. “But tonight I’ll wear Givenchy. Did Bridget get away without being arrested?”

“She waited until Ricci was out of sight; then she practically took the corner on two wheels.” Michael poured himself another half cup of coffee. “I couldn’t stop her.”

“Me neither.” I sat a squirming Noah down on the edge of the sink and clamped him tight while using a kitchen towel to swipe the lipstick from his cheek. “Did Ricci tell you about Lexie?”

“Yeah. She’s being questioned, that’s all.” He tried to distract Noah from his impromptu bath by waggling his pink bunny in front of the squirming child. To me, Michael said, “Don’t get worried about Lexie. She’s got Cannoli on her side. And we both know she had nothing to do with the Tuttle murder. The cops will see that, too.”

Noah gave a squawk, and I eased up on cleaning him. I slung him onto my hip. “What else did Ricci have to say?”

Michael gave Noah a big good-bye kiss on his forehead. “The tox screen came back on Jenny Tuttle. She died of an overdose of the drug her mother was taking to speed up her heart, combined with the energy drink and the diet pills. Today they’re going to autopsy the Higginbotham lady to see if the same cocktail killed her, too. But here’s the interesting part. They’re going to test the cake that was on the floor. One of the scene investigators noticed bits of something colorful in the cake. Like, maybe the stuff capsules are made out of.”

“Somebody mashed up pills and put them into the cake Higginbotham ate?”

“Something like that.”

Fred,
I thought. He was known to be a baker. Poppy had said he made the banana bread.

To Michael, I said, “Anything else?”

“Yeah.” Michael gave me a good-bye kiss, too. “Ricci says the kid I socked last night is doing fine. Has a broken jaw and lost a couple of teeth, but he’s sitting up and bitching about the liquid diet.”

A broken jaw sounded horrible. And broken teeth? He had once been somebody’s precious son, and now he had broken teeth?

Michael watched me absorb his news. He ruffled my hair. “Don’t waste your feelings on a punk like that one. He’ll serve some time on the weapons charge but be out sooner than anybody
wants. Then I’ll have to deal with him all over again.” He reached for his keys.

“You missed Mass,” I said, noting the time.

“Yeah. There’s always tomorrow. Sorry, I have to run. A software guy’s coming to show me some stuff for Gas N Grub. I’ll be back midafternoon to take you downtown. You okay with the kid?”

“Of course.”

He was in a rush, but he paused. “How about if you just relax with Noah? Not drive yourself nuts about all this murder stuff?”

“Sounds good to me.”

He kissed me good-bye more thoroughly then. Afterward, Noah reached up to touch my mouth.

I said, “Do you think he’s never seen his parents kiss?”

With a grunt of disgust for the Jones family dynamic, Michael withheld further comment and was gone.

Noah and I snuggled in the Adirondack chair, and both of us promptly fell asleep in the warm sun—me snoring while he dozed on my chest. I woke up when the phone rang again. I carried Noah inside to answer it and just missed the call. On the caller ID, I noted the number of the
Intelligencer
’s video manager, so I called him back.

Tremaine Jefferson and I brainstormed about what video to put into the paper’s Sunday online edition. He thanked me for my input, and I asked if Gus was around. Tremaine didn’t know, so we hung up. I typed up a quick social piece for Tremaine, then responded to some invitations. I was starting to get notices of events that would happen when I’d be on maternity leave, but I didn’t feel I could decline some of them—especially the big gala fund-raiser for the children’s hospital, which was not to be missed. I’d have to keep my hand in a little.

After a few more e-mails, I didn’t need to check my watch to know it was long past lunchtime. Baby Girl was kicking me, famished.

I made a large sandwich for myself and a healthier lunch for Noah. We finished with strawberries, and Noah ended up with pink cheeks and chortling over his messy hands.

I puttered for a while, doing laundry and tidying up the kitchen. I tried calling Libby again, but she didn’t pick up. Despite Michael’s admonition to put murder out of my mind, I was soon thinking about Jenny Tuttle again. About who would have wanted her dead. The possibilities didn’t make me happy
.

Fred Fusby, the music director. He was the only person who seemed to prefer Jenny alive, but . . . I wondered if he had anything to do with the photos of children Jenny kept close by. But he was a baker and maybe he had something to do with Higgie’s death.

Poppy Fontanna wanted to play the starring role, but Jenny had objected. Would hot-tempered Poppy have murdered Jenny to get a part?

Boom Boom Tuttle would have preferred the guaranteed success of a Toodles Tuttle show, not one created by a Broadway newcomer like Jenny. Might she have killed her own daughter to maintain the ruse that
Bluebird of Happiness
was her husband’s final creative effort? Or maybe she was furious with Jenny for encouraging her to take whatever food supplements had turned her blue?

And what about Ox Oxenfeld? I wondered if he expected Boom Boom to die. The way he had rushed toward the bedroom when he heard the news that it was Jenny who had been found dead was suspicious to me. Had he killed her? To keep up the ruse that
Bluebird of
Happiness
was another of Toodles Tuttle’s musical masterpieces?

Actually, all of them wanted to pretend the new musical was composed by Toodles. Which one of them was crazy enough to kill Jenny to ensure the financial success of the show?

Then, of course, there was Bridget O’Halloran, who had sent threatening letters. Her heartless pursuit of a starring role in the
face of a tragedy hinted at her lack of human kindness. Did she also have the capacity to kill for what she wanted? Did she have a violent tendency?

I tried to put my roiling mind to rest by cutting some hydrangeas and arranging them in a vase for the kitchen table. I wanted to make a gracious home for Michael, and I had also made an inner commitment to contemplating at least one beautiful thing every day. Fresh flowers fit the bill in both cases.

After that, I walked Noah down the lane and across the front pasture to the meadow. There, I had invited various neighbors to plant a community garden. In the evenings, I often saw the young couple from next door tending to their vegetable patch. Another gentleman from up the road had planted rows of sweet corn, and the tassels were already as tall as I. I hoped he might share a little of his harvest when the corn came in. Someone else was growing pumpkins. A zucchini crop was already out of control, too, with the vines curling up over the fence and escaping into the adjacent unmown field. All that growing food looked beautiful indeed.

Noah pointed out a groundhog, assuming, I’m sure, it was a bunny—his favorite animal. The groundhog raised his head, and I shouted to shoo him away from the garden. He scuttled into the bushes, triggering a weeping fit from Noah, so I carried the baby back to the house.

When we got home, I found a package left on the back porch by the postman. It turned out to be a box full of children’s books sent to me by a Blackbird cousin whose children had outgrown them. Fourteen books with wonderful characters—Babar, Toad, Madeline, and more. I took them upstairs and read one to Noah when I put him down for his afternoon nap.

In my own bedroom, I picked up the phone and found a voice mail from Libby.

Her voice was cool. “I got your message, but I’m not ready to
forgive you yet. I haven’t learned anything else from Ox, by the way. He’s a perfect lambkin, if you ask me. Hardly capable of murder. Do you have a copy of the recipe for that really good cheesecake Grandmama’s last housekeeper used to make?”

Ox was capable of managing the cutthroat world of Broadway theater, so maybe he wasn’t a perfect lambkin. I decided not to call Libby back yet. Instead, I crawled into my own bed to rest. I was sure I wouldn’t fall asleep again, but I clonked off and woke up two hours later when Michael returned. He took care of the baby and ate a fast sandwich while I went into my closet.

Tonight I had hoped to wear a black vintage Givenchy slip dress that had belonged to a weight-battling movie star. It had been far too big for me a few months ago, but when I slipped it over my head and gave myself a critical stare, I was relieved to see it looked pretty darn good. The shoulders tied with lengths of black grosgrain ribbon, which I could adjust so that the empire-style waistline sat just above Baby Girl. The rest of the dress was a simple, loose-fitting sheath with a black lace overlay—a very Audrey Hepburn look, except for my baby bump. I was almost surprised to see how well it worked. But when does Givenchy not work?

I pulled my hair up to stay cool and kept Bridget in mind when I did my makeup a little more lavishly than usual. From the back of my closet, I dug out a pair of high Jimmy Choos.

Downstairs, Michael—an aficionado of black lace—came up behind me as I fixed my earrings in the hall mirror, and he brushed a kiss on the back my neck. “What’s the occasion?”

“A very fashion-savvy crowd.”

He met my gaze in the mirror and smiled. “You’re gonna knock ’em dead.”

Within the hour, I was on the train, headed for Philadelphia in plenty of time to reach my event of the evening. From the station, I walked across town—taking my time in my high heels. Even as
dusk approached, the summer heat made the streets feel like a giant sweat lodge. All the tourist pedestrians around Franklin Square were dressed in shorts and T-shirts or light summer dresses, looking wilted. The music from the carousel blared, but when I got closer to the warehouse the Fashion Co-op had rented for the evening, I could hear thumping rock music two blocks away. The tourists thinned out, and I followed a steady stream of fashionistas heading toward the refurbished building.

Just as I reached the warehouse entrance, a clap of thunder rolled over the city, and a torrent of rain began to pound the sidewalk. The people around me groaned, but I was pleased to see the rain. The storm would cool things off. And I wouldn’t have to water my garden with a hose. I ducked under the temporary party awning and slipped indoors.

One of the party cochairs was an old friend—Karen Shastri, five months pregnant with her first child. We compared bellies, and she gushed that she could hardly wait to quit her job and become a full-time mom.

“I just know it’s going to be a wonderful experience!” She had a starry-eyed smile about motherhood. She introduced me to her husband, a well-known beer distributor in Philadelphia. He had provided all the beverages for the party—not just the beer, but fine wines and liquor, too: a sizable donation.

They were too busy to talk with me for long, so I roamed around until I found exactly whom I had hoped to see tonight—Delilah Fairweather, the best party planner in the city and my longtime good friend.

Delilah caught sight of me and squealed. She hung up on her cell phone caller without a good-bye and grabbed my belly between her long, elegant hands. She bent and gave Baby Girl big kisses, laughing, then kissed me, too. “Nora, you look fab! And what a great dress!”

“You look like a million,” I told her. She had worn a very short
cocktail dress in a dark African print that seemed to turn her skin to silk. “Delilah, I got my hair a little wet in the rain. Come with me somewhere to fix it?”

“My private lair,” she said with a wink, sensing I wanted a private chat. “This way.”

We skirted a runway that had been set up down the middle of the warehouse, with a long white carpet rolled out down the middle. From there, Delilah took me behind the scenes, where the tumult of backstage was in full swing. We dodged past the makeup tables, where models were having their faces painted on. Hairdressers plied blow-dryers, flatirons, brushes, spray and lots of gushing praise. We scurried through the dressing area, where one college-age designer after another was putting finishing touches on their designs while the models all jabbered to one another. Everyone seemed to shout at a fever pitch. If not for the ear-splitting party music, the guests would surely have heard the bedlam of last-minute preparations.

Delilah unlocked a door to a warehouse office where she had established a base of operations. We could hear the music vibrate through the walls.

“It’s my biggest event of the summer,” Delilah said while I fixed my hair in a cracked mirror hanging on one wall. She sat on a desk, crossed her legs and swung one elegant Louboutin. “You know most of the details—they’re giving awards to up-and-coming fashion designers, but it’s also a fund-raiser for that group that distributes first-day-of-school clothes to kids and job interview outfits to women who need them. Good stuff. It’s a new group, and they wanted to partner with the Fashion Co-op to get more buzz going. Where’s your phone? I’ll give you all the important facts.”

I pointed, and she grabbed my phone out of my bag. As she synced our phones, she said, “Good thing this new charity isn’t on your hit list. They needed a great event to get started.”

“Wait—my hit list?”

“A lot of people have been talking about that article you wrote. The ten best charities? Except it’s the ten worst that should have been the headline.” She shot me a sideways glance that I caught in the mirror. “Some people are pissed off, Nora.”