Fleeced: A Regan Reilly Mystery (17 page)

When Clara’s alarm went off, she groaned. It’s my own damn fault, she thought, that I have to get up early on a Saturday. I got carried away when I called in to that show, and I certainly got more than carried away when I volunteered to work for free. She turned off the alarm and just lay there for a few minutes. I sure wish I had one of Maldwin’s butler students here to bring me a cup of coffee. That would make getting out of bed so much easier.

Well, I don’t think I’m going to have a butler in this lifetime, Clara reflected as she dragged herself out from under the warm comforter. The best I have to hope for is being reincarnated as a Rockefeller. She went into the kitchen and turned on the coffeemaker, then headed for the shower. The warm spray felt good on her back and arms that spent so many hours scrubbing other people’s dirt.

Wrapped in her robe, she hurried back into the kitchen and poured that first cup of coffee she always drank while getting dressed. I’m dillydallying too much, she realized. I won’t have time for a second cup today. I said I’d get there early.

Twenty minutes later, she left the apartment in a pair of stretch pants, an oversized sweater, and her big winter coat. She always changed into her maid’s uniform at the club.

March 13th and it feels like spring is months away, she thought as she pulled on her gloves. It was another gray, chilly, lifeless day. As usual, she walked the six blocks to the subway station. The streets were empty because it was early on a Saturday. When she got to the station, she walked to the newsstand and gasped when she saw the blaring headlines of the
New York World:

CRIME SPREE AFFECTS SETTLERS’ CLUB

CLUB PRESIDENT’S GIRLFRIEND STEALS FOOD

FROM DEAD MEMBER

Clara pulled a paper from the top of the pile and started devouring the story.

“Lady, you want to pay for that;” the vendor asked her.

Clara grabbed a couple of quarters from her purse without taking her eyes off the page and dropped them on the counter. One of them bounced into the candy section, but Clara didn’t even notice.

“Thanks a lot, lady.”

“Oh, you’re welcome,” Clara mouthed as she walked away, shaking her head. And they were worried about me calling the crime show. I have half a mind to go home and go back to bed.

The subway that would take her to Gramercy Park was heading down the track. What the heck, I’ll be a sport and help poor Thomas, she thought as the train stopped. She spent the entire trip into Manhattan shaking her head and going over every word of the article.

The maid’s room was cozy all right. So cozy that when you opened the door, it slammed into the couch. But Regan didn’t mind. By the time she retired for the second time that night it was four o’clock. Talk about musical beds, she thought as she pulled the covers over her and turned to face the wall.

Sleep didn’t come as quickly as it had in Nat’s guest room. And when it did, it was in fits and starts, accompanied by strange dreams that she could barely remember. It was only when light started coming through the window that she finally fell into a deeper sleep.

At ten after nine her cell phone rang. Regan opened her eyes and looked around, momentarily confused. Then, like a boomerang, the memories of the last twenty-four hours all came back to her. She reached for her phone on the nightstand next to the bed. The Caller ID showed her parents’ number.

“Hi,” she answered and realized she sounded pretty tired.

“Regan, are you all right?” Nora asked with concern.

“Yes. I’m just not fully awake.”

“So you haven’t seen the paper yet?”

“No, but now it’s safe to say I’m wide awake. How bad is it?”

“Pretty bad.”

“What page?”

“The front page.” Nora read the headline.

“That’ll make Thomas’s day.”

“The article makes it sound like all hell is breaking loose at the Settlers’ Club.”

“It is, Mom.” Regan admitted, knowing she had to tell her mother what happened.

“What do you mean?”

“Last night, when I was sleeping, Nat Pemrod’s apartment was broken into.”

“Regan, oh my God! Are you all right?”

“Yes.” Regan gave Nora a full explanation of the nocturnal excitement, concluding, “I slept in the maid’s room in the apartment across the hall.”

“The apartment with all those butlers and singles parties?”

“How’d you guess?”

“It’s in the article.” Nora relayed the conversation to Luke, who was next to her.

Regan sighed and rubbed her eyes. “I can’t wait to read it. I’m surprised Thomas hasn’t come running up here already this morning. Wait till that reporter gets her hands on the crime blotter with the latest incident. By the way, she made it seem like you were her buddy.”

“She’s covering the crime convention, but I think she found what’s going on at the Settlers’ Club more interesting. Listen to this:

“‘While Nora Regan Reilly is uptown running a crime convention for writers of fiction, daughter Regan is investigating the real thing in toney Gramercy Park. And boy does she have her hands full.’”

Regan sat up. “That I do.”

Nora continued. “‘When the senior Reilly was asked about her daughter’s whereabouts, she said Regan was working on a case in New York but refused to get specific…”

“So much for classified information.”

“Why must they refer to me as the ‘senior’ Reilly? I hate that.”

“At least she didn’t call me junior.”

“Yes she did.”

“Why don’t I just get the paper and read it myself? Listen, Mom, do you think you could round up some of your cronies from the convention and drop by the party tonight? We’re trying to make this gathering as interesting as possible. Divert the attention from what’s gone on, although with everything in the news now, that seems unlikely. We’ve got a lot of damage control to take care of.”

“What time does the party start?”

“Seven.”

“That’d work. Our cocktail hour is from five-thirty to six-thirty, and then people are on their own until the final sessions and brunch tomorrow. I’ll see who wants to come down. Before you hang up, your father wants to talk to you.”

“Okay.”

“Hi, honey,” Luke said. “Be careful, would you?”

Luke and Regan both chuckled. It was a family joke. Once after she had slipped and fallen in the snow, Nora had leaned over Regan, who was sprawled on the sidewalk, and said, “Be careful.”

“Too late, Mom,” Regan had replied.

“Anyway,” Luke continued, “yesterday I mentioned what you were doing to Austin. He reminded me we had heard last year about this girl who inherited money from her elderly neighbor in Hoboken and then started a dating service.”

“Yes?” Regan said, her investigative antennae roused.

“This woman left her a lot of money.”

“Yes, I know.”

“It turns out she didn’t make too many friends after the woman died. She even stiffed the Connolly brothers, who had handled the funeral, when they held a charity drive. They said she was cheap and couldn’t get out of town fast enough.”

“Being cheap isn’t a crime,” Regan said, “though maybe it should be.”

“True. But it made them wonder whether there was any undue influence with the neighbor…”

And here I am in her apartment. Could Lydia have anything to do with any part of what had happened? “Maybe I should call them,” Regan said. “Do you have their number?”

“Yes,” Luke said and read it to Regan. “For what it’s worth.”

“Nothing would surprise me,” Regan said. “I’ll see you tonight.”

“Be careful. Really.”

Regan smiled. “Right, Dad.” When she hung up, she pulled on her robe and stepped out into the kitchen. Maldwin was just getting out the coffee cups.

“I’m sorry I didn’t bring coffee to you, but I think we all slept in a bit today. It’s just ready now.”

“That’s okay,” Regan said. “I’m going to go back across the hall and take a shower. My things are all there.”

“Take a cup with you.”

“Thanks. Is Lydia up yet?”

“No. I will wake her momentarily. Her pedicurist is coming in to do her nails at ten o’clock.”

I wish I had someone coming to rub my feet, Regan thought. “Tell her thanks for me and I’ll talk to her later.”

Maldwin poured a cup of perfectly brewed coffee. “Milk and sugar?”

“Just some milk. I tell you, Maldwin, maybe you should start a butler school where I live in California.”

Maldwin dropped the pitcher on the counter. “Excuse me,” he said nervously.

“What’s the matter? Don’t you like California?” Regan teased.

“Too much sunshine,” he said, pouring another cup and placing it on Lydia’s tray.

What’s he so worried about? Regan wondered as she walked across the hall, unlocked the padlock with the key the police had given her, and stepped back into what she now thought of as the abyss.

Dolly and Bah-Bah looked like two forlorn and forgotten figures in the corner of Jacques Harlow’s loft. Movie equipment was all over the place. Up in his bed, which you had to climb a ladder to get to, Jacques was snoring like a jackhammer. They had filmed very late the previous night. The cast and crew were due back at noon.

Gray light filtered its way through the large, dirty windows, and the clock on the stove read 9:59.

The strident honk of the buzzer, indicating a visitor downstairs on the sidewalk, cut through the air. Several long honks later it finally penetrated Jacques’s consciousness and woke him up. He jumped out of bed and pressed the intercom.

“What?” he growled.

“Good news, boss.” It was one of his assistants, a squirmy little guy named Stewie, who had ambitions of Hollywood greatness.

“It better be good news. You woke me up.”

“Buzz me in.”

Jacques leaned on the button, specially installed next to his bed, and then descended the ladder. He walked over to the door and opened it just as Stewie was coming up the steps, bags with coffee and bagels in one hand, the newspaper in the other.

“Extra, extra, read all about it,” Stewie sang as he walked through the door and handed the
New York World
to Jacques.

“Read all about what?”

“The Settlers’ Club’s problems. A side article talks about our flick and how the club was used as a location.”

“My
flick.”

“Whatever.” Stewie put the bags on the coffee table.

Jacques read for a minute, then threw the paper down. “Since when are you the producer?”

“I told her I was in production.”

Jacques rolled his eyes and lifted the paper up again. “Ah, here I am!

“‘The unpredictable and innovative director Jacques Harlow has his actors improvise their way through the story. It has been reported that two stuffed sheep belonging to the deceased club member, Nat Pemrod, became a part of the plot and were taken out of the club to be used at the next location.

“‘Thomas Pilsner, president of the club, whose girlfriend retrieved food from the apartment of Ben Carney, another deceased member, was upset that the sheep were taken without his permission. Perhaps his girlfriend would like to make leg of lamb of them.’”

“Here’s your coffee.”

Jacques took a sip. “It’s a good thing we took those sheep from the club. Otherwise we might not have rated a mention in the story.”

“It’s a good thing I found the club,” Stewie said as he strutted around the loft. When he passed Dolly and Bah-Bah, he gave Bah-Bah a thump on the head. He didn’t notice that one of Bah-Bah’s eyes fell out and rolled away somewhere underneath the heater. “Boss, something tells me we should get through the shooting today and head up to that party tonight. Something tells me that’s going to be where the action is. We could get more publicity.” He paused. “Why are you staring off into space like that?”

“Something tells me we should do whatever we can to hang on to those sheep. They can be our logo for the company. It’ll be called Two Sheep Productions.”

“Should we try and buy them?”

“I think so.”

“What if they don’t want to sell them?”

Jacques looked at him harshly. “We’ll make them an offer they can’t refuse.”