MURDER ON A DESIGNER DIET (4 page)

Chapter 6

  

The buzzing inside Penelope's head kept getting louder as she tried to find the restrooms at the end of the dark hallway inside Xapa. This time there were multiple doors on either side, and the hallway was endless, falling off into blackness beyond where she could see. She knew Joey was behind one of the doors, but she couldn't remember how to find him. She stopped at one on the right and pushed. It swung open and she fell forward into the room, the earth dropping away below her feet. She fell through the floor, which had somehow turned to liquid, into a hidden room below. Her parents were waiting for her at their old dining room table, and sitting across from them were Joey's parents. They were all still young and pretending to eat invisible food from empty plates.

Penelope sat straight up in bed in the hotel room. She cleared her throat and looked around, raising a hand to her forehead to fend off the hammer that had started pounding there. An ice bucket holding an empty champagne bottle sweated on the table next to two half-filled flutes. Looking through the gap in the curtains she could tell it was still dark outside. Joey was lying next to her on his stomach, snoring quietly.

Penelope stumbled out of bed towards the ornately carved wall unit and mini refrigerator. She drank most of a bottle of water, swaying on her feet, her long t-shirt brushing her legs just above the knees.

She heard the buzzing sound again from her dream, but this time recognized it as her phone ringing. She retrieved her phone from one of the club chairs and glanced at the screen. She saw she had a missed call from Max and a three-minute voicemail, time-stamped at three fifteen in the morning.

“What the heck, Max?” Penelope whispered. She tapped the screen to listen to the voicemail, pulling aside the heavy curtain to glance down at the street, the asphalt slick with rain. A single yellow cab bounced slowly down the avenue, its for-hire lamp blurred by the raindrops on the hotel window.

Penelope closed her eyes and shook her head as she realized Max must have called her accidentally. The voicemail was just background noises and thumping sounds, like the phone was in his pocket. “I can't believe Max butt-dialed me at three in the morning,” Penelope murmured. She turned her attention back to the voicemail when she heard a woman with a British accent talking and laughing in the background, then what sounded like a door slamming. Penelope rolled her eyes and thought about Hannah, Max's cute little girlfriend from his reality show. She had already decided what Hannah did with Christian, or with Max, or with both of them, was none of her business. The dating world had changed dramatically in the short amount of time since Penelope had been their age. Maybe everyone really did date in groups now. She glanced at Joey sleeping soundly on the bed, the white bedsheets twisted around his calves.

A man's voice suddenly cursed loudly, cutting through the fog in Penelope's brain. She almost dropped the phone but recovered quickly and pressed it tightly to her ear, listening intently to the sounds of a struggle on the other end. She heard someone shout, “You can't do this!” and then more tussling on the other end of the line. Another man shouted, “Shut up or I'll kill you!” and then the message cut off. Penelope pulled the phone away from her ear. She stared at the screen, silent and glowing in the dark. She looked again at Joey, her heart thudding in her chest. She played the message again, shifting her weight from foot to foot and listening more closely to the background noises in the beginning of the message. She couldn't make out what they were talking about. She could only clearly hear them when they were shouting.

She sat down on the club chair near the window and licked her lips, her finger hovering over the call back button. If Max was in some kind of trouble, she definitely wanted to help him. But she didn't want to get involved in a lovers' quarrel or get in the middle of whatever he had going on with Hannah and Christian.

Penelope decided to call and make sure Max was okay. She dialed and gingerly held the phone to her ear, counting the rings. She was about to hang up when someone answered, fumbling with the phone and then dropping it on the other end.

“Hello?” Penelope said. “Max? Are you okay?”

She could hear someone pick up the phone.

“Max! Are you there?” Penelope said, raising her voice. Joey mumbled something in his sleep and rolled onto his side.

“Penelope,” Max mumbled into the phone. “Help.”

“What's going on? Where are you?”

“He might be dead,” Max slurred thickly. “Shot.”

“Who's dead? Max!” Penelope shouted.

Joey sat up in bed, his expression a mix of alarm and confusion. “Penny, what's going on?” He reached over and switched on the bedside lamp. Penelope raised her hand to quiet him while she tried to hear what Max was saying.

“Christian and Hannah…” Max trailed off, his voice growing heavy and deep, like he was falling asleep.

“Max, where are you?” Penelope said again, her voice loud and calm.

“Christian's, at the agency.” Penelope could barely make out what he was saying. She heard footsteps approaching on the other end of the line and then the sound of glass cracking, then dead air.

“Max!” Penelope shouted to no one. She hit redial but her call went straight to voicemail.

Joey pulled the sheets aside and went to her, hugging his arm around her shoulders. “Calm down and tell me everything.”

Chapter 7

  

“He said he was at Christian's,” Penelope said. She stared at her phone, willing it to give her more information. “Over the agency. I have no idea what that means.”

Joey hugged her again and kissed the top of her head. “What else did you hear?”

“I don't know. I think he called me by mistake, and then I heard an argument on my voicemail.” Penelope played the message for Joey, putting her phone on speaker. “I called him back, and when he picked up he sounded scared. He was whispering like maybe he was hiding. And then he said someone was dead. I think someone walked over and smashed his phone after that.”

“We're going to figure out what happened,” Joey soothed. “Who is this Christian? The guy from the club?”

“Yes, the one with the cross tattoo. We talked to him at the bar before we left.”

“Okay, we just have to figure out where he lives.”

“I don't know his last name,” Penelope said. She glanced at the time on the screen of her phone. Only ten minutes had passed. “It's the middle of the night, but maybe I should call Arlena.”

“She's not going to know the guy's name. There's no point in upsetting her before we have more information. Hannah or Sienna would know,” Joey said.

“I think Hannah was with them,” Penelope said. “Maybe Max was talking about Christian's modeling agency. If Sienna hired him through there she'd know which one he's with.”

“Good call,” Joey said. He looked around the room, then got up to retrieve his pants from the floor. “Call Xapa. Bars in the city are open 'til four. Maybe Sienna is still there.”

She looked up the number for Xapa on her phone. “It's ringing,” she said to Joey. She looked again into the night sky through the falling raindrops. It was coming down faster now and a distant streak of lightning smudged the purple sky.

“Xapa,” a male voice answered after several rings. His voice was muffled and loud music pounded in the background.

“Hi. Is Sienna Wentworth still there? The fashion designer? We were at her show earlier.”

“I don't know,” the man said. “I think they packed up their stuff and left a while ago.” He yelled indistinctly to someone away from the phone. “Hang on a second.”

Penelope eased herself down, perching on the edge of the chair, and watched Joey go into the bathroom. He turned on the light and squinted into the mirror.

Penelope listened to the music over the phone, pressing the phone tightly to her ear. After a few minutes the man came back on the line. “Most everyone is gone, but I found one of the models from the show. You want to talk to him?”

“Yes, please,” Penelope said. She heard the phone fumbling between hands and muffled voices.

“Hello?” a man's quiet voice said.

“Hi, I'm Penelope Sutherland, a friend of Sienna's. Do you know where she is?”

“No, she left a while ago. I don't know where they went.”

“Maybe you know one of the other models, the one who came out at the end, with the tattoos? His name is Christian.” Penelope watched Joey pull a clean t-shirt from his overnight bag.

“Christian.” He said the name in a Spanish-sounding accent. “Yeah, I know him. He left a long time ago too.” His words slurred together, most likely from a long night drinking at Xapa.

“Do know where he lives?” Penelope asked.

“He lives in Chelsea above his modeling agency, off of Seventh Avenue,” he said. Penelope could hear ice clinking in his glass on the other end of the phone.

“Do you know which agency he's with?” Penelope asked.

“I don't know. Something that starts with an M. Said he has lots of parties. Told the other guys from the show to come over whenever they wanted, he has party favors and pretty girls. And boys. I thought that was weird, like, who invites random strangers over to their house?” The man put his hand over the receiver. Penelope heard him shout to someone over the loud club music.

“Can you remember anything else about the building? I need to find it,” Penelope asked, clenching her fist in her lap.

“He said it's an older building close to the avenue, not very tall. He acted like we should all have heard of this agency, but I never have. Honestly, I wasn't really paying attention. I walked away while they were all still talking about it.”

Penelope thanked him for his help and hung up. “It might be a modeling agency that starts with the letter M in Chelsea near Seventh.”

“That narrows it down. There can't be too many that fit that description,” Joey said.

“Right.” Penelope Googled modeling agencies in Chelsea and sighed in relief. “Oh good, there's only a page or two of listings.”

“Find the ones that start with M and map them.”

Penelope scrolled through the results on her screen. “I hope the guy on the phone got the first letter right or we'll never find it. Do you think we should we call the police?”

“Yes,” Joey said. “But we should try and find out what happened first, so we know what to tell them.”

Penelope nodded and glanced back at her phone. “Here's one. Models Unlimited International, MUI. It's on 20th near Seventh Avenue.”

“Call the number, see if anyone picks up,” Joey said. He sat down in the other lounge chair and drank the rest of Penelope's water.

Penelope dialed the main number listed for MUI and after a few rings got the company voicemail, putting the phone on speaker for Joey to hear.

“It was worth a try,” Joey said. “I was thinking if it was a privately run agency then maybe it was someone's house. Are you sure about what you heard on the phone when you called Max back? It's late and they must have been partying for hours if they were headed to other clubs. Maybe they're just goofing around.”

Penelope paused for a moment, remembering the fear in Max's voice. “He sounded scared. I've never heard him like that. I just get the feeling that something terrible has happened.” She looked at Joey with uncertainty.

“Okay, get dressed and let's go to Chelsea,” Joey said.

Chapter 8

  

The cab sped north on the West Side Highway, rain tapping on the roof and windows fogging against the damp air. Penelope had thrown on a t-shirt and jeans, and a pair of running shoes Joey had packed in his overnight bag for her before rushing out of their hotel room.

“Arlena must have her phone off. It just goes to voicemail.” Penelope ended another unsuccessful call. “I hope she gets my messages.”

They didn't have an umbrella or anything else to protect them from the rain, so they'd be soaked the moment they stepped outside. Doubt began to nip at the edges of Penelope's mind and she glanced at Joey, who was staring past the Plexiglas divider and out through the windshield. She hoped her concern for Max was justified and she hadn't pulled them out of their luxury hotel suite into the chilly rain for no reason.

The driver pulled up at the corner and Joey slid his credit card through the fare machine. They stepped out onto Seventh Avenue and looked around, squinting through the raindrops.

“Here, let's go,” Joey said, ushering her toward 20
th
Street. “Look for the address you found.”

Penelope tucked her hair behind her ear, already wet from the rain as they hurried along the street, huddling close to each other.

“There it is.” Penelope pointed to a small brownstone a few doors down from a shuttered bodega. MUI was printed in gold letters on the glass of the wooden double doors. Penelope bounded up the stoop and looked at the buzzers on the call box. The first three were unlabeled but the fourth had a sticker next to it with an intricate drawing of a cross.

“This is definitely the place,” Penelope said, pointing at the drawing that resembled the tattoos on Christian's chest. She reached out to ring the bell and Joey grabbed her wrist.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “Let me take a look first.” He went back down the steps and squinted at the windows above the stoop while Penelope shivered under the narrow awning over the front door. Joey walked around to the side of the building and glanced through an iron gate that led to a patio area sandwiched between the agency and the neighboring brownstone. After a few minutes Joey returned to the stoop.

“The lights are on up on the top floor apartment, but I didn't see anyone moving around. Go ahead and ring the bell.”

Penelope pressed the top buzzer and waited. The intercom clicked twice, but no one answered and the door didn't open. She pressed the buzzer again and looked at Joey.

“Let's go around the side,” Joey said. “There's another entrance off the patio…could be the apartment entrance.” Penelope was grateful the rain had let up some, but her clothes were still soaked through, her t-shirt sticking to her back.

Joey swung open the gate and it glided easily toward them with a quiet groan of metal on metal. He pulled a thin flashlight from his pants pocket and shined it into the courtyard and up the back of the building. There were unlit twinkly lights strung over the patio and a couple of wrought-iron tables and matching chairs scattered around. Two wooden storm doors that led down to the basement of the brownstone were padlocked, and next to them was a small concrete stoop leading up to the side door. There was a set of buzzers on the wall next to the door, but Penelope knew right away she wouldn't be using them. One of the four glass panes of the window was broken and the door was ajar.

“Oh no,” Penelope said when Joey pointed his flashlight down at the steps. There were red smears on the glass and a trail of blood drops leading down the stairs into the courtyard.

“Stand back,” Joey said in a forceful yet calm tone. He reached around to the small of his back and pulled a gun from his waistband.

“You have your gun with you?” Penelope whispered, still shocked by the sight of the blood. She was afraid to move from where she was standing for fear of stepping in any of it.

“It's my off-duty weapon. It's always with me,” Joey said, keeping his voice low. “Do me a favor, call 911. Hopefully whatever happened here is over,” he nodded at the blood drops heading away from the building, disappearing on the rainy pavement of the patio, “but we can't know that for sure. We don't need to be walking in on anything upstairs without backup.” He jogged down the steps and trained his flashlight on the ground, darting the beam around as he followed the blood trail out to the sidewalk. He paused for a moment, then walked out of sight, heading left.

Penelope pulled her phone from her jeans pocket and dialed 911. She willed her hands to stop shaking, both from the cold and from the fear she suddenly felt, realizing she was alone on the stoop.

“911, what's your emergency?”

“Yes, I'm calling to report—”

Just then the door banged open and knocked her halfway down the stoop, her phone flying from her hand. It landed on the pavement and skidded all the way to the wall of the neighboring building. She felt someone shove her from behind as she tried to regain her footing on the steps, and she was flying through the air. She instinctively put her arms up to shield her face as she fell, landing awkwardly against one of the tables then bouncing off of it and onto her back underneath it. Dazed, she looked at the door and saw it bouncing on its hinges, and then towards the street where she saw a man running away from her, a duffle bag bouncing off his hip, red running shoes flashing quickly into the darkness.

“Stop! Police!” She heard Joey shouting from the sidewalk. Penelope caught a glimpse of both of them running to the right toward the avenue. And then she heard a gunshot.

Penelope pulled herself into a ball under the table, closing her eyes and covering her head with her forearms. Her eyes popped open when she heard a police siren, more shouting from the street, and screeching tires.

“I'm on the job,” Joey said, his arms raised in the air as he walked back towards the brownstone. Two patrol officers jumped from their vehicle, weapons drawn and pointed at him.

“What's the color of the day?” one of the officers yelled, asking Joey to confirm the daily safe word for officers out of uniform in the city.

“I'm not New York, I don't know. I'm Jersey Homicide, Detective Joseph Baglioni.”

Penelope pulled herself up with the help of the patio table and stood shakily next to it.

“Let me see your hands,” the female police officer demanded. Penelope raised her hands slowly in the air.

“You have to help us. I think my friend is hurt upstairs,” Penelope said.

The officer nearest Joey made his way to him, spun him around, frisked him, and seized his gun. Over his protests, the officer sat Joey in the back of the patrol car, his hands cuffed behind him. The female officer walked through the gate and approached Penelope, her gun drawn.

“You have blood on you,” she said, eyeing Penelope up and down.

“Did you see him? Did you see the man with the duffle bag? He had on jeans, I think, and red running shoes. He pushed past me and took off. He came from up there,” Penelope said, pointing to the roof of the brownstone with one raised hand.

“Okay, calm down,” the officer said, holstering her weapon. “I'm going to search you now, okay? Do you have anything sharp in your pockets, any needles?”

Penelope shook her head no.

“What's your name? You have ID?” She turned Penelope around to face the table and began patting her down from behind.

“I'm Penelope Sutherland. And I don't. My ID is back at the hotel. I just have my phone,” Penelope said, glancing into the darkness at where she thought her phone had landed. She finally saw the edge of it at the base of the building, lying upside down in a puddle.

“What are you doing here tonight? A little breaking and entering?” the officer asked, turning Penelope around and patting down her front.

Penelope glanced at the patrol car and saw Joey staring at her through the window in the backseat. The rain started falling again, bouncing off the black plastic rim of the officer's cap.

Penelope shook her head, recovering from the shock of her fall. She took a deep breath. “Please, Officer…” she glanced at the woman's nameplate over her badge, “Gomez. I think my friend might be hurt upstairs. That's why we're here. My boyfriend,” she nodded towards the patrol car, “is a police officer. I got a call from my friend earlier. We were here trying to track him down, to make sure he's okay.”

Officer Gomez nodded and turned Penelope around towards the building. “We'll see about that.”

Penelope looked up at the windows on the fourth floor. She heard the sound of Velcro ripping and the metal clink of handcuffs. Her stomach dropped and her heart started pounding in her chest.

“You guys been doing a little drinking tonight, huh? Thought you'd come around here, quiet neighborhood, and what? Do a little shopping?”

Penelope shook her head, still staring at the windows. “No. I swear, we just came to see about my friend. Can you please see if he's okay?”

“I think you decided to break the window on this house,” Officer Gomez said. “And then your man over there takes a shot at someone out on the street? What, did he rip you off or something? You're going to have to do better than this cock and bull story. We get a lot of druggies around here, looking to rip people off. Don't lie to me.”

A streak of lightning lit the sky over them and thunder rumbled in the distance. A fresh wave of rain began falling, splashing up from the pavement. Penelope heard Officer Gomez un-cinch the handcuffs and felt her grab her right wrist.

Penelope jerked her hand free, her wet skin slipping through the officer's grasp. Without thinking she bolted up the stoop, pulled open the door, and ran as fast as she could up the wooden staircase inside.

“Hey! Stop!” Officer Gomez yelled behind her. Penelope heard the door bang open again and her heavy boots on the stairs behind her.

Penelope's wet sneakers slipped on the wooden steps and her hand skidded on the railing as she rounded the first three landings. She didn't dare look behind her to see how close Officer Gomez was to her. When she got to the top, she saw that the door to the apartment was open. It was black with a cross etched onto it in chalky white paint. Beyond the door she could see the room was brightly lit and appeared to have been ransacked. Tables were overturned and couch cushions had been sliced through. Penelope pushed the door open all the way and stepped inside. She breathed heavily, her wet hair dripping in ringlets onto the floor around her shoes. Five seconds later, Officer Gomez was next to her. They both stood rigidly in the entryway, staring in silence, trying to catch their breath.

There was a large pool of blood right inside the door that at least one set of shoes had walked through.

“Backup and a bus needed ASAP near the corner of 20
th
and Seventh, last location patrol three-seven-zero responded to…”

Officer Gomez's voice faded away as Penelope took in the scene in front of her. Blood trailed from the door back into the main room of the loft toward the kitchen. She traced it with her eye and saw that it ended near a man's legs, splayed on the floor, his pants soaked red.

“Oh my God,” Penelope said, her knees turning to rubber. She began a shaky walk into the apartment but was stopped abruptly when Officer Gomez grabbed her by the forearm.

“Not a chance,” she said harshly. “You're under arrest.”