Dial Me for Murder (5 page)

The elevator boy was wearing a maroon suit with gold buttons and gold braid. With his round, freckled face and twinkly eyes, he reminded me of Huckleberry Finn (or Mickey Rooney, take your pick).

“Eighth floor,” the doorman said to him, quickly motioning both me and the young operator inside the modern, wood-paneled elevator. “Our guest is joining Miss Stanhope for lunch.”

“Yes, sir!” the elevator boy replied, all but clicking his heels in compliance. He pulled the door shut, eased the big brass dial to the right, and—giving me a toothy grin and a playful wink— took me on a slow, smooth, sure ascent to the point of no return.

 
A TALL, BEAUTIFUL, DISTINGUISHED-LOOKING Negro woman in a trim navy dress and a white organza apron answered the door to Sabrina Stanhope’s apartment.

“My name is Paige Turner,” I told her. “I’m here to see—”

“Yes, I know, miss,” she said, pulling the door wide and stepping to one side. “Won’t you come in? Miss Stanhope is waiting for you in the library. I’ll take your jacket if I may, and then show you the way.” Her ink-black hair was swept back in a stylish French twist, and her lipstick was the color of ripe strawberries. The top of her head was at least two inches higher than mine, and she wasn’t wearing heels, so I guessed her to be about six feet tall. Her age, I estimated, was around twenty-five.

“Thank you,” I said, allowing her to help me out of my jacket. I removed my beret and gloves and handed them over to her as well. While she was putting my stuff in a nearby closet, I hastily combed my fingers through my unruly hair, twisted my black wool pencil skirt into position (kick pleat in the back, not halfway around to the side, as it had been), and adjusted the hem and the sleeves of my gray angora sweater. I thought I should at least
try
to look tidy.

The maid backed out of the closet, closed the door, and then gave me a strawberry smile. “Come with me, please,” she said, beckoning, gliding across the green-and-gold-tiled foyer floor like a swan. (Pardon the cliché, but the woman’s long neck and fluid movements were so utterly swanlike I couldn’t help making the comparison.)

I followed her down a short hall and up to a partially closed hand-carved wood door. She tapped on the door twice and waited for an answer. When a muted response wafted out from the other side, the maid opened the door a bit wider and announced my arrival.

“Mrs. Turner is here, mum,” she said, sounding like a British parlor maid instead of the African princess I was convinced she must be.

“Please bring her in,” Sabrina Stanhope replied, in the same cool, composed voice I remembered from our phone conversation. I peered through the opening, hoping to get a glimpse of my hostess before she saw me, but all I could see was a wide swath of Oriental carpet and a backdrop of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.

The maid opened the door all the way and gestured for me to enter the room. Feeling like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole into Wonderland, I took a deep breath, stepped over the threshold, and ventured inside.

The woman rising from behind the large ebony desk on the far side of the room was an attractive, fortyish, slim-figured blonde of average height. She was wearing a belted, scoop-necked, full-skirted black dress and a double string of pearls. As she edged around the desk and crossed the carpet to greet me, I saw that she walked with a slight limp.

“Mrs. Turner,” she said, flashing her perfect teeth in a frosty Grace Kelly smile. “It was nice of you to come.”

“It was nice of you to invite me,” I said, although I wasn’t sure it was.

“Won’t you sit down?” she asked, leading me to a cream-colored leather couch with orange accent pillows. “I thought we’d have a little talk here in the library before lunch. Will you join me in having a cocktail?” she added. “A whiskey sour? A vodka gimlet? Or a glass of sherry, perhaps?”

(I never, ever drink at lunch, you should know. None of my noonday haunts—the lobby coffee shop, or Horn & Hardart’s, or Chock Full o’ Nuts—serves alcohol. But there’s another thing I also never, ever do: turn down a free cocktail.)

“A whiskey sour would be great!” I exclaimed, trying—but failing—to keep the excitement out of my voice. Then, feeling embarrassed by my girlish show of enthusiasm, I sat down on the couch, crossed one leg over the other, and made a decided effort to act like Veronica instead of Betty. “This is a very unusual building,” I said, with a haughty air. “Have you lived here long, Miss—or should I say Mrs.—Stanhope?” (I was fishing for facts, you understand. Both the doorman and the maid had called her “Miss,” but considering the woman’s age, good looks, and obvious wealth, I felt I needed more information on that score.)

“Please call me Sabrina,” she snapped, providing no clues to her marital status or length of residency. She gave me another chilly smile, then turned her attention to the maid. “Bring us two whiskey sours, please, Charlotte. We’ll have lunch in the dining room in twenty minutes.”

Charlotte?
I croaked to myself.
That’s a strange name for an African princess. Pretty weird for a Negro maid, too.
I was jumping to conclusions, I knew, but I’d have bet my life savings that the beautiful, dark-skinned domestic was using an alias. (When your savings account totals twenty-eight dollars, you can afford to risk it.)

Charlotte smiled, nodded to her employer, and made a graceful exit.

Sabrina watched Charlotte leave with the kind of gaze a teacher trains on her favorite student. Then she sat down in one of the black leather club chairs facing the couch and focused her gaze on me.

“Thank you for coming, Mrs. Turner. I appreciate your—”

“Please call me Paige,” I cut in, figuring one first name deserved another.

“Yes, let’s dispense with the formalities, shall we?” she said. “That’ll make things so much easier.”

Things? What things?
I was burning to ask about Virginia Pratt, but I clenched my teeth and zipped my lips. Sabrina was the type who liked to be in control; her stiff demeanor and decisive tone made that quite clear. So, in the interest of not ruffling her very fine feathers, I decided to wait until she brought the subject up herself.

I didn’t have to wait long.

“I know you’re wondering why I invited you here today,” she said, leaning slightly forward in her chair, “so I’ll come straight to the point. I want you to do some undercover work for me. I want you to conduct a secret, aggressive, in-depth probe into the murder of Virginia Pratt.”

“Holy smoke!” I blurted out. (Bye-bye, Veronica—welcome back, Betty.) I was truly astonished by her request. Was this a crazy coincidence, or what? Was Sabrina actually asking me to investigate the very crime I was already determined to explore?

Yep.

“Virginia was one of my closest, most intimate colleagues,” Sabrina went on. “Her death has left me both desolate and, for reasons I will clarify later, quite desperate. It’s
extremely
important to me that the vicious brute who killed her be apprehended and imprisoned immediately. And you, my dear Paige, are the only one I can trust to make that happen.”

“Me?!” I sputtered. “Why me?” Those were the only three words I managed to get out. I wanted to ask why she didn’t go to the police, but I couldn’t utter another syllable. (It’s hard to talk when your tongue is dangling out of your gaping mouth.)

“I read about you in the papers a couple of months ago,” Sabrina explained, “after you tracked down the killer of a young Broadway actor. They said you were a relentless investigator and the only female crime reporter in the city. And that’s exactly what I need—a tireless, tenacious sleuth who’s also a
woman
. No man will ever sympathize with my concerns. Only a woman can understand the nature of my relationship with Virginia and the special problems it—” She stopped herself mid-sentence and gave me an anxious look. “Are you feeling all right, Paige?” she asked. “You seem upset. I suppose you’re startled by my proposition. Here, have a cigarette,” she said, opening the lid of a small silver box on the glass-topped coffee table between us. “It’ll settle your nerves.”

I gave her a grateful nod and snatched a cigarette out of the box, then quickly lit it with the large silver table lighter. After a couple of deep, tranquilizing drags, I found my tongue. “Okay, so I’m a woman,” I said, “but why is that so important? And what are the ‘special problems’ you feel no man could understand?”

“I will explain everything in a moment,” she said, “but it’s a rather delicate situation. May I rely on your discretion?”

“Of course,” I said, without thinking. “Discretion is my middle name. If there’s one thing I know, it’s how to keep a—”

I clammed up when Charlotte reentered the library with our drinks. Who knew how much
she
knew about Virginia Pratt? Or how much Sabrina wanted her to know? I sat in silence as Charlotte set our whiskey sours on the table in front of us and informed Sabrina that lunch was ready to be served.

“Have the asparagus spears been properly chilled?” Sabrina asked her.

“Yes, mum,” she said.

“And the dressing for the salmon has been prepared?”

“Yes, it has.”

“The soup is hot and the bread is quite warm?”

“Oh, yes, mum.”

Sabrina tilted her head back, slowly raised her soft gray eyes, and gave her towering maid an approving smile. “Thank you, Charlotte,” she said. “Mrs. Turner and I have an important matter to discuss. We’ll be in as soon as we’ve finished our cocktails.”

Apparently she hadn’t noticed that I’d finished mine already.

Chapter 4

HAVE YOU EVER HAD THE SENSATION THAT you’ve been plucked off the Earth and plunked down on another planet? That you’re twirling around on a foreign globe in an entirely different galaxy? Then you know how I felt that Wednesday afternoon as I sat on the cream-colored couch in Sabrina Stanhope’s luxurious library, listening to a tale so aberrant and unexpected it was almost beyond my comprehension. My head was swimming and my stomach was churning (and it had nothing to do with the chugalugged cocktail—I swear!).

Sabrina was sitting calmly in her black leather chair, smoking a cigarette, sipping her whiskey sour, and revealing the shocking truth about her private life and her personal affiliation with Virginia Pratt as if there were nothing the least bit unusual about either. She had been talking for just a few minutes, but I’d experienced so many different emotions during her brief monologue, it felt more like a month to me. And in spite of Sabrina’s ordinary tone, and the casual, offhand way she concluded her confession, I still found her disclosure astounding, practically impossible to accept.

“I don’t believe it!” I said to her. “You’re making the whole thing up!”

“I promise you I’m not,” she insisted, thin lips curling in an enigmatic smile. “My situation is exactly as I have described it.”

“But how can that be?” I blustered. “You’re not the type to get involved in anything sordid or disreputable! You’re refined and sophisticated. You live in a posh apartment overlooking Gramercy Park. You have elegant clothes and jewelry, and a devoted maid. Jeez! You even have a library!” I sounded more Bettylike than ever.

Sabrina smiled again. “It’s really very simple, Paige, but since you’re so skeptical and confused, I’ll spell it out for you one more time. Please listen carefully. I don’t want to have to go over this again.” She paused for a moment, cleared her throat, then gave me a curt, matter-of-fact, but nonetheless mind-boggling summation.

“I was born into a wealthy and prestigious family,” she said, “raised by governesses and educated in Switzerland. I used to be a fashionable, celebrated socialite—a true lady of leisure— but my circumstances have changed. Now I have to earn my own living. Now I own and operate my own business—a very professional, very
successful
escort service. I am, in fact, what you would call a ‘madam,’ and I manage an exclusive salon of the smartest, loveliest, highest-priced call girls in the city. Virginia Pratt was one of my girls—the most desirable and high-priced of them all.”

“But the newspapers said she was a secretary!” I protested. “For a 23rd Street accounting firm!”

“And so she was. But only during the day. At night she was a luminous temptress who was wined, dined, and adored by some of the richest, most powerful men in Manhattan.”

“Men
you
procured for her, I suppose.” It was a statement, not a question, pronounced with a hint of sarcasm. The truth was finally sinking in.

“Yes, of course,” Sabrina agreed, straightening her shoulders and brushing a wave of ash-blonde hair off her forehead. “My upper-crust background is finally being put to good use. During my debutante days I became friends with many wealthy young men who were on their way to becoming important. Now they
are
important, and even wealthier than before, and some are clients as well as friends. They’re very eager to enjoy—and more than happy to pay for—the company of the beautiful, exciting, accommodating young women I provide.”

“Do your clients ever give your . . . er, girls expensive gifts?” I was thinking about the mink jacket, satin dress, diamond jewelry, and lacy lingerie found wrapped in the bedsheet with Virginia’s body.

“Some do and some don’t. And sometimes it depends on the girl. Virginia, for instance, received many such offerings.”

I gave Sabrina a steady, penetrating look. “Was Virginia on an arranged date with one of your rich, important friends the night she was killed?”

She sighed and nodded sadly. “Yes she was, and I’m anxious to talk to you about that. But let’s go into the dining room now, shall we? We can continue our conversation over lunch.”

 
MINUTES LATER WE WERE SEATED AT ONE END of the long mahogany table in Sabrina’s formal dining room, savoring our freshly baked bread and French onion soup, and having a genteel dialogue about prostitution and murder.