Death Wears a Beauty Mask and Other Stories (6 page)

Janice opened her mouth to scream but no sound came. She tried to move but could not. She raised her hand to hide the nightmarish sight. But when she touched her forehead she vibrated to the soreness there and knew this was no dream. She felt Mike's arms go around her, but tore herself away from him. She began to scream, a shrill tearing sound as she stumbled across the room, threw herself down in front of the chair and reached up her arms to embrace her dead sister. The still warm body crumpled against her shoulder. As she screamed Alexandra's name, she was barely aware of Mike's strong hands grasping her fingers, forcing them open and half carrying, half dragging her out of the room.

“I'm so sorry, honey. You shouldn't touch the body. We have to call the police.”

•  •  •

Hubert Twaddle, age fifty-two, a big man, stout without being fat, with a shining dome rimmed by mostly salt-and-pepper hair, was the head detective in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office.

He knew that his name, Hubert Twaddle, made the people he met for the first time try to conceal an involuntary smile. They didn't know that Twaddle was a familiar name in Scotland. Twaddle chuckled to himself as he recalled voting for Hubert Humphrey solely on the basis of their shared first name.

People didn't realize that by their inclination to smile, they were also psychologically relaxing. Hubert Twaddle found that fact enormously helpful when he was questioning a family member, friend, associate or enemy of a murder victim.

They had been called back to the office earlier that evening to interview a witness in a homicide case. Moments after they had finished, a call had come from the local precinct of West 74th Street at 11:30
P.M.
Famed Alexandra Saunders, the beautiful fashion model, had been found murdered in her apartment.

Hubert Twaddle did not waste words. “I will be there directly,” he said and hung up the phone. “Ben,” he called to the younger detective, his partner, who always accompanied him on his cases.

Bennington Lyons sprang up from his chair. His desk was next to Twaddle's. He looked even younger than his twenty-nine years. He had bright red hair, a cherubic face and a gym-toned body. Already a legend in the department, he had been promoted to Detective second grade after having been shot and nearly killed when, in his patrol car, he'd come upon two longtime felons breaking into Tiffany's, the famed jewelry store on Fifth Avenue.

A bullet to his shoulder, another to his leg, lying on the sidewalk,
he had returned fire, wounding both suspects, preventing their escape. Few besides Twaddle knew that Ben was the heir to the Lyons oil refineries and had been brought up on Park Avenue, gone to Harvard and gotten his master's at John Jay College.

To avoid the limelight he now lived in a rental apartment in Queens, happily pursuing his career in the police department.

Twaddle was sure that one day Bennington Lyons would be police commissioner.

When they arrived at Alexandra's apartment, they found that the medical examiner's van was already parked and a crowd was gathering outside the building. The doorman, his voice shaken, directed them to Alexandra's pied-à-terre. There, a policeman was outside, guarding the door.

When he saw Twaddle and Lyons he stood aside to let them in. Twaddle stepped forward, his eyes narrowed as they registered the crime scene. At least six policemen were in the room. Even so, it was eerily quiet. A police photographer was snapping pictures. The medical examiner, Milton Helpern, was bending over the figure of a woman leaning to one side in the large club chair.

Even Twaddle, as he came closer, was startled out of his usual calm when he saw that the victim's face was covered by a chalklike mask.

It was obvious that the knotted cord around the victim's neck was the cause of death.

“The lock on the door to the terrace was jimmied. My guess is the victim was sitting in this chair and may not have even heard the perpetrator come in behind her until it was too late. There is no sign of a struggle,” Helpern said.

“When?” Twaddle asked.

“Not more than three hours ago. Maybe less.”

“Who found her?”

“Her sister and the sister's husband. The sister went into shock.
They're in the guest bedroom. There's a doctor who lives in the building. He came up and gave the sister a sedative. The victim was supposed to have met them at the airport. I got that from the sister's husband.”

Briefly he recounted what Mike had told him, including the fact that a cab driver claimed he had driven the victim home.

Ben voiced the thought that was on Twaddle's mind. “Then someone either followed her or was waiting for her.”

Twaddle's eyes went from one end of the room to the other. Nothing seemed to be out of place. Under different circumstances he would have admired the tastefully furnished room, but now he was only looking for any sign of a struggle.

There was none.

The layout of the apartment was easy to perceive. The double glass doors led to the terrace where the killer must have waited for Alexandra. To the right he could see a small dining room and knew that the kitchen would be connected to it.

The hallway off the living room obviously led to the bedrooms. With Ben behind him, he headed there. They passed the master suite, then farther down the hallway, knocked on the closed door of the guest bedroom.

Mike, red-eyed from lack of sleep, opened it. For the second time in a few minutes Twaddle was startled out of his usual impenetrable calm. The slender young woman, blonde hair spilling on the pillow, her eyes closed, was wearing exactly the same dress as the victim. She appeared to be asleep.

In the next few minutes, with step-by-step clarity, Mike told Twaddle the events of the day, starting with Alexandra not meeting them, the answering service giving them the name of the three associates who had been frantically calling her, and the cab driver who claimed he had driven her home.

Finally Twaddle asked Mike how long he and his wife had been planning to stay in New York.

“We were to stay here with Alexandra for the next week,” Mike said quietly.

“Are there any other relatives?” Twaddle asked.

“My family—by that I mean my parents, two brothers and two sisters in Brentwood, California. Janice's only relative was her sister.”

“In that case, we will need you to stay here for at least a week. There will necessarily be an autopsy and we will need to question your wife in depth to learn anything her sister might have said to her that would have meaning to us.”

Twaddle paused, then added, “The body will be moved in the next few minutes. My team will be finished processing the scene in about an hour. Do you plan to stay in the apartment tonight?”

“I hadn't thought about it,” Mike said. “Our luggage is here.” Unconsciously he blinked and rubbed his eyes. “We have just been in an automobile accident. It will be easier for my wife if we stay here.”

“Mr. Broad, I won't trouble you anymore tonight. You are obviously very tired.”

He turned and, Ben behind him, left the room. As he had expected, the body was in the process of being removed.

•  •  •

Ben had been making notes, as Twaddle, in a gentle voice continued to zero in on the sequence of events as dictated by Michael Broad.

Ben was a faithful follower of the
New York Post
, which not only had an excellent business section but also kept him
au courant
of the news on current celebrities, some of whom his playboy cousin knew intimately, though Ben avoided personal publicity like the plague.

The minute he heard the name Alexandra Saunders, he remembered
that about five years ago, his cousin had dated her briefly and had a serious crush on her, but she had given him the brush-off.

Ben remembered he had thought that she was one smart lady.

•  •  •

Emma Cooper arrived at the apartment, her face already settled in lines of grief. She realized she had inadvertently reached into her pocketbook for her key.

“I'm the housekeeper,” she told the patrolman at the door. “They sent for me.”

Bracing herself, she was about to go in when she had to step aside. A gurney with a body bag on it was being rolled out of the apartment.

Her mind filled with visions of beautiful Alexandra and the three years she had worked for her. It had started when Alexandra bought this apartment.

Alexandra had been twenty-five then and had just signed her first major modeling contract, to be the spokesperson for a perfume company. Her old agent had retired and she had gone with the Wilson Agency. That Wilson fellow had been around all the time, meeting here with the decorator, telling Alexandra that he'd make the final decision on the décor—that she had no experience with choosing furniture and wall covering and carpeting.

Alexandra had clearly been in awe of him. But after he left, she had asked the decorator to stay. “Tell me where you think he's wrong,” she had asked him.

“I think that you would want some antique accessories but a comfortable couch and chairs.”

“You're absolutely right,” Alexandra had said.

Emma knew that day that, mingled with her insecurity, Alexandra could be bossed around only to a certain point. Was that what had happened here?

Why am I thinking that? she asked herself. Unable to resist the temptation, she touched her hand to the body bag, ignoring the disapproving expressions of the cops pushing the gurney.

The living room seemed filled with policemen. But it was the man who stepped forward to greet her who commanded her immediate attention.

There was a sympathetic expression on his face and a gentleness in his tone when he said, “I am so sorry about this, Mrs. Cooper. Why don't you step into the dining room with me? We can sit and talk without interruption. I am Detective Hubert Twaddle.”

My God, what an awful name, Emma thought, forcing back an inadvertent smile. Beyond her shock and grief she steeled herself to be questioned about Alexandra.

Before Twaddle's hand under her arm guided her into the dining room, she absorbed the reality of that fine powder over Alexandra's favorite chair and the fact that the door to the terrace was open.

“I got a call saying that she was dead,” Emma said, her voice a whisper, still unbelieving. “I saw her body being wheeled out just now.”

“I know,” Twaddle replied as he pulled out a chair for her at the dining room table.

“Somebody killed her, right?”

“Mrs. Cooper, wasn't that your first question when you were called to inform you about Miss Saunders's death?”

Emma realized that someone else was entering the room, a boyish-looking younger man with red hair. He was carrying a glass of water and placed it in front of her.

To her satisfaction, he was carrying a coaster to put under the glass. Nothing bothered her more than when a slob of a guest set a glass down on this table and the ones in the living room. They ought to know better, she thought, when they're putting stuff down on a valuable antique table.

Why was she thinking that? she wondered. Oh, Miss Alexandra . . .

“Let me introduce Detective Ben Lyons,” Twaddle was saying. “If you don't mind, he will be taking notes of our conversation.”

Emma nodded. “Okay.”

The questioning began.

Emma did not know that everything she said was being compared with what she had told Janice and Michael.

“When were you expecting Miss Saunders to be home?” Twaddle watched closely as a momentary look of irritation crossed Emma Cooper's face.

“Last Monday. Now, I know these—shoots, they call them—can take a couple of days or a week. Usually it's quiet when she gets back from a big job. She was supposed to get back Monday night. But this time the phone never stopped ringing on Tuesday. Everybody who was on the plane with her was looking for her.”

“Weren't you afraid that something might have happened to her?”

“Only yesterday I started to worry. It wouldn't be the first time Miss Alexandra skipped town after she finished a hard job.”

“You used the word ‘hard,' ” Twaddle said.

“Yes, I did.” Emma's voice became steely. “That Grant Wilson is a mean one. Alexandra's his top model but she didn't want to do that Beauty Mask job. She hated to put that stuff on her face. She said it felt like putting on one of those masks they used to make impressions of dead people's faces.”

“She said that?” Twaddle asked calmly.

“Yes. I could see why she might want to get out of town, but at first I thought it was rude not to call me. It made it real tough for me what with the painter coming and making me say yes to the color. But when she was a no-show to meet her sister, I thought that don't sound right.”

“Did you know that she left the airport without her luggage?”

“No one told me that! Why would she do something like that?” Emma demanded.

“From what her sister was told by Mr. Ambrose, he had run up to check his office. Miss Saunders was to wait in the terminal for a few minutes. When he returned, he found the porter with both his luggage and hers. She had tipped the porter generously to wait with it.”

“That don't make sense,” Emma said flatly. “She must have had a good reason to just run away like that.”

Hubert Twaddle nodded. “Mrs. Cooper, you are a very observant woman and you obviously dislike Grant Wilson. Tell me more about him.”

“Bad tempered. A bully.”

“If this is true, why would Miss Saunders have continued to work for him?”

“I think it's 'cause he has the biggest modeling agency and gets his people the best jobs.”

“How well do you know Larry Thompson?”

“Oh, he's her favorite photographer. He's a hard one to figure out. He kind of sits back and takes everything in, if you know what I mean. I know he had a hard time for a while. He and his wife split up. Then she got sick and they got back together. She died last year. But if you ask me, he's another one who is sweet on Miss Alexandra. But then they all are.”