Black Orchid Blues (21 page)

Blackie ignored them all. He half-knelt by the small figure lying in the middle of the road, his face expressionless. I stood next to him.

“Is it her?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I answered, “it’s her.”

Sheila lay on her right side. Her face and chest were bloodied, her legs splayed. One arm was thrown back and bent at an impossible angle. Her skirt was caught up around her hips, her stockings ripped and dirtied. She looked exposed and vulnerable. I reached out to draw her skirt down, but Blackie stopped me with a hand on my wrist.

“Not yet. Not till the M.E.’s done and the photos are taken.” He observed me curiously. “What’s the matter with you? You’re not acting like yourself.”

“Please. It’s not necessary to take pictures of her like this.”

After a moment, he relented.

I arranged the skirt to restore modesty. “She deserved better.” I meant that she deserved better help than I’d given her, but he took it otherwise.

“Yup. Looks like she was a sweet kid.” Blackie let his gaze roam among the crowd. “Olmo, oh Olmo, where are you now, you crazy son of a bitch?”

The left side of her face was swollen and bruised. Someone had worked her over, then pushed her out of a moving car and kept on driving. But that wasn’t what killed her. It was being kissed in the head by a .38.

“He put the gun right up against her skin,” Blackie said.

The star-shaped hole in her forehead looked like a third eye, the skin around it puffed and blackened.

“Why’d he kill her?” I asked. “He had his money.”

“Did he?”

Blackie extended his hand and a uniform who had been standing nearby passed him a bag. It was the satchel Sheila had taken from the hotel.

“He threw it out with the body.” Blackie yanked the bag open.

I looked inside and saw bundles of money. “I don’t understand.”

He took out a bundle and rifled through it. The first layer was a genuine twenty all right, but the rest was newspaper.

“Oh no!”

“Bernard signed her death warrant when he did that. Did you know he was going to do something that stupid?”

I shook my head.

Blackie cursed under his breath. “Un-effin’-believable. Just how selfish can one man be?”

I thought of Phyllis Bernard and how she’d bewailed the loss of all their money. Was she that good an actress, or had she really not known what her husband was up to?

Blackie was also still thinking of the Bernards. “I’ve got to tell them,” he said. “You can go back to your newsroom for the time being, but I’m trusting you to keep mum about the fake dough.”

Seemed like the deeper I got into this story, the less I could write about it. “Sure. Fine.”

Even though I agreed to do as he asked, something about my tone must have set him off.

“Just answer me this: what were you thinking, not saying anything about the cigar box and going up to that hotel by yourself?”

“I was thinking about doing my job.”

“You’re not a cop. You’re a reporter.”

“And a damn good one. If—”

“It never would’ve come to this if you’d been straight with me.”

“I gave them my word.”

“Well, you had no business giving it. They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And you just proved it.”

I shut up. He was right. If I’d followed the rules and gotten backup, then Sheila wouldn’t have been able to sneak out of that hotel. Someone would’ve been there to grab her, or follow her and the guy who did her in.

Blackie was grim. “Olmo’s going to be calling the Bernards, and when he does I want you to stay out of it.”

“Do you honestly expect the Bernards to tell you if he contacts them?”

“Yes, I do.” He grimaced. “All right, maybe not. I hope they do. I hope with all my black Irish heart they’ve learned their lesson. But I doubt it.” He paused. “You do know I’m going to have to call you in for another talk, don’t you?”

“Why? You know everything now.”

“Do I?”

I felt a flutter of unease. “What are you after?”

“The truth.” His eyes met mine. “I need to know everything you’ve done and said since yesterday morning.”

“Sounds like you’re asking for an alibi.”

“I can’t help what it sounds like.”

“You don’t think I had anything to do with this, do you?”

He sighed. “All I can say is that you should be prepared to make a formal statement.”

First jail, now this. If I hadn’t known Blackie better, I would’ve said he was out to get me. But I did know him, and I knew this wasn’t his style. I stepped closer and lowered my voice. “What’s going on here? Cause this seems like more than flack from the brass.”

“There’s been an accusation.”

“About what?”

“About this.” He motioned toward Sheila. “That maybe you’re in on it.”

“What?”

“You heard me.” He squinted and ruffled his hair. “You’ve got to admit, it does look suspicious.”

“How?”

“Think about it.”

“Think about what?”

He inched closer. “At every step, you were there. When the Black Orchid got nabbed, you were there. When the cigar box was delivered, you were there. And now, with this girl … you were there.”

“They left that box on my doorstep. And she called me.”

“That’s what you say.”

For a moment, we held each other’s gaze.

“Who put the poison in your coffee?” I asked.

“Who do you think?”

Only one name came to mind. “Bernard. He’s the one. He stepped outside when you came to the door.”

“I want to believe you, but …”

“You know me. Do you actually think that I’d be involved in something like this?”

“I’ve got to ask—and you’d better come up with good answers.”

I took a step back. “Do I need to bring a lawyer?”

“That’s up to you.”

All right. So we were back to playing tough. What was it about this case? It had us all at each other’s throats. First Sam giving my stories to Selena; then Blackie throwing me in jail—and now accusing me of collusion with murderers and thieves. It made me feel ugly inside. It took an effort not to be bitter.

“You need me to come right now?”

“No, I have to finish up here first. In the meantime, you can go back to your newsroom, write your story, and stay away from the Bernards.”

“Lanie! You-hoo! Oh, Lanie!”

The voice cut over the rest, a grating female voice that I knew all too well. I turned to see Selena Troy. She was standing on the southwest corner of the intersection. The cops were holding her back with the other reporters. She was jumping up and down, waving her steno pad and calling out to me.

I turned back to Blackie. “We done here?”

“For now. Just remember to stop by and see me later.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Today. In an hour.”

Message received. I took one last long hard look at Sheila. I wanted to remember. I wanted to burn this image into my brain. This was the price of well-meant but misplaced compassion. It was a lesson I would never forget. Then I went over to Selena, told her, “The answer is no.”

“What d’you mean, no? I haven’t asked you anything yet.”

“You want me to tell them to let you through. The answer’s no.”

“But they let you in.”

“So?”

She was fuming now. “If you don’t make them let me through, I’ll tell Sam.”

She couldn’t be that stupid. I almost felt sorry for her. Almost. “Selena, this may come as a shock to you, but I can’t
make
a New York homicide dick do anything. As for telling Sam, go ahead. Tell him you don’t know how to work a crime scene. Tell him you don’t know how to deal with cops. You’d be doing me a favor.”

“Why, you b—”

I turned and walked away. I should have thanked her: she’d given me the one and only bit of levity I was to have that day.

C
HAPTER
32

I
headed west, toward the newsroom. It was only a block away, but it was a long block, almost the distance of two regular city blocks. I would need the stroll to get my thoughts together, to get my feelings in line.

I felt sick inside, sick with fury. Sheila shouldn’t have died that way. I was angry at myself for not having kept closer tabs on her, angry at her for being so damned naïve, angry at the dirty rat who’d killed her.

If only I’d stayed in the room with her. Or talked to Sam … or talked to Blackie. If only …

A car honked loudly. It was Selena, driving past. She slowed down just long enough to give me an ugly grin, then hit the gas. She sure was in a rush to get back to the newsroom. Of course, it was Wednesday. Maybe she just wanted to make that evening’s deadline. But if it was all about beating me, then she needn’t have bothered.

I mulled over my predicament. If I walked into the newsroom, then I’d have to talk to Sam, talk to the newspaper’s attorney. Getting backup from a mouthpiece, that was probably the smartest thing to do. Why didn’t I feel good about it? Because I knew these guys. They wouldn’t be out to defend me. Their first interest would be in defending the paper, and if that meant feeding me to the lions, then that’s what they’d do.

From what Blackie told me, it would be a matter of
he said, I said
. Maybe not even that. To me, it was obvious that I had nothing to do with this caper, but to others … I didn’t have proof that the box was left at my doorstep. I didn’t have proof that Sheila called me. I didn’t even have the letter that prompted her call.

Everything that had led me to suspect that the kidnapping was a fake could lead others to conclude that I was in on it. That maybe I’d even helped come up with the idea so I’d have a big story to cover.

The more I thought about it, the less I liked it. It was the perfect frame, and I’d walked right into it. Dr. Bernard had always resented my involvement. He’d seen his chance to get rid of me and taken it.

Across the street was the police station. I eyed it and turned up my coat collar, my decision made. I would talk to Blackie, with or without the company lawyer. In the meantime, I would keep my mind on the story. I resumed walking.

Olmo would contact the Bernards, and when he did, they would keep quiet. Blackie was dreaming if he thought otherwise. I reached the corner and paused for a car to pass. Sheila’s murder would shake them up, but it wouldn’t send them to the police. If anything, it would make them more determined than ever to handle this on their own.

As I stepped off the curb, a car pulled in front of me. A smoky window rolled down and a gruff voice said, “Get in.”

I froze. Then I realized that it wasn’t a gun sticking out of the window, just a hand in a black glove. “Who are you? What do you want?”

I leaned down and saw the face.

“Stax?” I was stunned to see him, especially half a block away from a police station.

He opened the passenger door for me to enter. I took a step back. I was cold and frightened. But I was angry too. So angry I couldn’t think straight. How did I know that Olmo wasn’t working for Stax? I’d simply taken his word, hadn’t I? Common sense said I should run, that I should run and call for help. Instead, I asked, “Did you kill Sheila?”

“Get. In.”

My rational side told me to scream.
You’re only a few feet from the police station. Scream.
But I couldn’t move. “If you had anything to do with … I believed you. I kept my word—”

“Get in!”
Stax hissed between gritted teeth.

I didn’t move.

“I’ve found Olmo,” he finally said.

“Olmo?”

He nodded and that did it. I glanced over my shoulder at the police station and down the street to the news office. I imagined Blackie grilling me for something I hadn’t done, and Selena typing her version of my story.
I don’t think so
. I climbed into the car, slammed the door shut, and sat back as the car shot away.

C
HAPTER
33

U
p Eighth Avenue. Across 137th Street, 138th. The blocks streaked by. My heart pounded.

Stax stared straight ahead. “We’ve found the hideout.”

“Where is it?”

“You’ll see soon enough.”

“Fine. How did you know where to find me? Have you been watching me?”

He shrugged. “Watching you, watching them.”

“The Bernards?”

He nodded, but his gaze stayed on the road.

“How long have you been watching them?” I asked. “Since the kidnapping?”

“Much longer than that.”

“Why?”

“I make it a point to know people—and their families—before I lend them money.” He shrugged, as though he was just conducting business as usual.

I didn’t buy it. “So you’ve known Queenie’s real identity all along?”

“Why should I answer that?”

“You don’t have to. But don’t expect me to believe that you were just trying to protect your investment. You were looking for something to use as blackmail.”

He gave me a thin smile. “If you ever think about turning to a life of crime, let me know.”

“What did you find out?”

He lit himself a cigarette, offered me one. I declined.

“About the Bernards,” I said.

He took a long drag. “All right, I can tell you this: they’re not straight shooters.”

“I could have told you that.”

“Well, then, you know everything.”

“No, it means you didn’t get anything.”

Silence prevailed. Streets zipped past. I digested nothing of the receding landscape. I was trying to puzzle out Stax’s sentences. I was thinking about Sheila and the terror of what she must’ve gone through. And I was wondering where Stax Murphy was taking me to. We reached 147th, then 148th. There the driver turned a hard right and drove two-thirds of the way down the block, past rows of brownstones.

“What’s here?” I asked.

“I own some property. Olmo has a key.”

The car pulled into an empty parking space. Stax and his men got out. I made to exit as well, but Stax stopped me.

“Stay here with my driver.”

“But—”

“Don’t make me repeat myself.”

He closed the door, shutting me inside. He and his men went up to an attractive three-story brownstone. It appeared to be clean and well-kept, with wrought-iron fencing and several stained glass windows.