Murder is a Girl's Best Friend (17 page)

“Just teasing, Otto,” I quickly added, leaning over to pat the dog’s tiny head and fondle his warm, silky ears. “I’m sure you never had a flea in your life.” To prove the sincerity of my contrived (and, hopefully,
conciliatory
) words, I began rubbing the underside of Otto’s narrow chin and staring, like a lover, into his small, round, worshipful eyes.

Mission accomplished. Otto was in seventh heaven, and so—it would seem—was Jimmy Birmingham.

“He really likes you,” Jimmy said, lowering his deep voice to an intimate croon, writhing in his chair like a python, slithering so close to me I could feel his hot breath on my cheek. “And Otto’s the best judge of females I’ve ever known. He picks all the best tomatoes for me.”

Oh, brother! Does this line work on most women? Did it work on Judy?
I wanted to believe that Terry’s little sister had seen through Jimmy’s come-on in an instant, that she had toyed with his affections as much as he had no doubt toyed with hers, but—hard as I tried—I couldn’t bring myself to embrace that theory. Judy had been young and hungry, and all alone in the world. And from everything Elsie Londergan and Vicki Lee Bumstead had told me, I knew she had probably soaked up Otto’s—I mean Jimmy’s—atten tions like a sponge, and begged her desperate little heart out for more.

“So Otto picks your girlfriends
and
your vegetables,” I said, shifting my gaze from Otto’s face to Jimmy’s. “He’s a hound of many talents. Does he write your poetry for you, too?”

(Look, I
know
that was another really stupid response. I should have been flirting with the suspect, flattering him, trying to gain his confidence and coax some information out of him, instead of casting aspersions on his literary skills. But I couldn’t help myself. Really! I was so crazed and exhausted—and still struggling so hard to suppress my inner giggle fit over Jimmy’s silly poem—that I didn’t know what I was doing, or saying, anymore.)

Jimmy was enraged. A fire blazed up in his dark brown eyes and I thought, for a moment, he was going to hit me. But—as I sat there frozen like a dumbstruck deer, trying to decide whether to duck right or duck left—his taut muscles suddenly relaxed and his facial expression underwent a dramatic transformation. And you probably won’t believe this (since I couldn’t believe it myself), but Jimmy’s entire stance toward me flipped, in the space of a single heartbeat, from flaming anger to—of all things!—burning attraction.

“You’re a mischievous little minx, aren’t you?” he said, putting Otto down on his lap and scooting his chair even closer to mine. “I’ve got your number now, sweetheart. You’re a doll with an attitude, and you like to cause trouble, and I go crazy for women like that.” To prove it, he fastened his left hand on my thigh, clamped his right hand around the back of my neck, yanked my face forward, and planted a deep, ferocious kiss on my astonished, gaping mouth.

I would have kicked him in the crotch if Otto hadn’t been sitting there. I would have clawed his face to ribbons if it hadn’t been protected by his beard. I would have pushed him backward and socked him in the nose if he hadn’t been so much stronger than I was. And if I’d had a knife in my hand, I would have (okay, surely
wouldn’t
have, but at least
could
have) stabbed him in the stomach.

But I didn’t have a knife, or a gun, or any other deadly weapons in my possession. The only instruments of destruction I had at my disposal were my teeth, and I decided—without a second’s hesitation—to use them.

“Owwwww!!!!!” Jimmy wailed, shoving me away with one hand and nursing his bleeding lower lip with the other. “You bit me!!! It hurts like hell!!! What did you
do
that for?!!!”

“I did it for Judy Catcher,” I said.

I was as shocked by my answer as Jimmy was. Though I had meant to bring up Judy’s name and try to get Jimmy to talk about her, I hadn’t planned on doing it in such a sudden, brutal,
indiscriminate
way. But now the cat was out of the bag and running down the street like a rabid lion on the loose, and I had no choice but to chase after it.

“Judy was a very good friend of mine,” I added, as if that would explain everything.

“So what if she was?!!!” he cried, eyes big as half-dollars. “That doesn’t give you the right to
bite
me!” Blood was trickling from the cut on his lip and seeping down into his beard. Otto rose up on his hindquarters and began to paw at Jimmy’s chest, whimpering.

“You had no right to kiss me either,” I growled.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah! So maybe I shouldn’t have done that,” Jimmy admitted, gingerly dabbing at his lip with a paper napkin. “But I still don’t see what Judy Catcher has to do with the goddamn price of eggs.”

“It’s simple,” I said. “You hurt my good friend, so I felt like hurting you.”

Jimmy sat back in his chair and gave me a long, steady, piercing stare. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. I never hurt Judy.” He was getting angry again. “Whatever she told you about me, it wasn’t true.”

“Judy never said anything bad about you. And now that she’s dead she’ll never be able to.” I paused to let the implication of my words sink in. “But that doesn’t change anything, really, because I didn’t need any tips from Judy. I figured it all out for myself.”

“Figured
what
out?”

“That you were probably the one who killed her.”

(No, I wasn’t going off half-cocked again. I had decided, during the course of the last few minutes, that I might find out more about Jimmy—and, likewise, his relationship with Judy—if I simply pulled out all the stops and hit him between the eyes with an outright accusation. The man obviously responded to rude and unexpected pronouncements! And besides, it was getting really, really late. And I was really, really tired. I didn’t have the time, or the energy—okay, the
sense!
—to conduct a slow and cunning interrogation. Or play any more guessing games.)

“What did you say?” Jimmy snarled, narrowing his eyes and clenching his jaw so tight his Vandyke twitched. He didn’t look like Tony Curtis anymore. Now he looked like Bela Lugosi. With a bloody beard.

I took a deep breath, said a quick prayer, and repeated my allegation.

And that’s when Jimmy gave me the shock of my life.

Scooping Otto up in his arms again, Jimmy clutched the little dog in close to his heart, dropped his chin to his chest, hunched his shoulders, and began to cry! I’m not talking about your standard case of the weepies, either. I’m talking about great big heaving sobs and blubbers. I’m talking deep, guttural moans of woe. I’m talking yelps, and skreaks, and caterwauls, and the kind of howls caused by a full moon.

And that was just for starters. After three or four interminable seconds of this astonishing clamor, Otto started howling, too.

I didn’t know what to do. Every face in the place was turned in my direction, and all eyes were blaming me for causing the disturbance. I had reduced their brilliant and beloved poet to tears! I had brought pain and suffering to their most cherished canine! What kind of woman
was
I? And what the hell was I
doing
here, anyway? Why wasn’t I at home in my bed—where I was
supposed
to be—like every other decent God-fearing female who doesn’t have a date?

I couldn’t stand up to the condemning stares and silent questions. And I couldn’t stop Jimmy’s crying, either. All my apologies went unheeded, and—though I pleaded with the weeping poet to calm himself and his little dog down—they both kept right on yowling.

As you can imagine, I was dying to know
why
Jimmy was crying his big brown eyes out. Was he stricken with grief—truly lamenting the loss of his former lover and friend—or was he wallowing in remorse and self-hatred, bemoaning his own brutal role in Judy’s death? Had he flown into a jealous rage over Judy’s affair with Gregory Smythe and killed the only girl he’d ever loved? Or had he knocked Judy off to get his hands on the diamonds—which he had never been able to find (which may have been the
real
cause of all this blatant boohooing)?

These and many other questions were burning a hole in my frontal lobe, but I knew I couldn’t get the answers now—not while Jimmy was in the throes of a nervous breakdown. Not while I was so tired and confused I couldn’t tell the difference between a mourner and a murderer. I’d have to talk to Mr. Birmingham later—at another time—when he and Otto were in a better mood. When scores of people weren’t staring at me in anger, preparing to rush my table and eject me from the premises for causing their adored club mascots such vociferous anguish.

Offering Jimmy and Otto one last apology (which, as far as I could tell, went unheeded by them both), I plunked fifteen cents down on the table (a dime for the untouched coffee, a nickel for the tip), and shoved my arms into the sleeves of my coat. Then I grabbed my purse and gloves, plopped my hat on my head, jumped to my feet, propelled myself to the door, and made a hasty (okay,
hell-bent
) departure.

Chapter 13

AS SOON AS I HIT THE SIDEWALK I TOOK off running. Well,
skating
was more like it, since the pavement was so slippery and treacherous in places, but whatever you call it, I was moving as fast as I could. I wanted to put some distance between myself and the Village Vanguard before the oh-so-cool and cerebral jazz and poetry lovers formed a bloodthirsty mob and came charging after me.

And I was desperate to get back home—to be warm and safe behind the locked doors of my apartment, one full floor above the dirty snowbanks and icy sidewalks, hidden away from all cold-blooded killers.

I was the only pedestrian on the street, which
really
gave me the creeps. I mean, a New York City-dweller such as myself is practically
never, ever, ever
on a Manhattan avenue all alone. It was so dark—and so
quiet
. Except for the sporadic whoosh of a passing car or taxicab, all I could hear were the echoing sounds of my snowboots scraping the sidewalk, and the rumbling thunder of my own ragged breath.

Right after I crossed Charles Street, however, I started hearing something else. Something that sounded like footsteps (and I don’t mean my own). The sounds were coming from pretty far behind me—at least a block away—and every time I stopped to listen, the sounds stopped, too. I kept turning around to see if anybody was there, but nobody was. Nobody that I could
see,
anyway. I tried to ignore the faint but persistent noises and continue my homeward trek with a stout heart, but it was no use. I felt that someone was following me—no, I
knew
that someone was following me—and I flew into a panic only Alfred Hitchcock would understand.

And then something wild—something kind of
supernatur a l
—happened. A dreadful force invaded my lower limbs, and they became hot as fire, and they began to spin around in my hip sockets like the spokes of fast-turning wheels—like the whirling legs of that crazy bird in the
Road Runner
cartoons. (Well, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration, but it’s exactly the way I
felt
!) I streaked down Seventh Avenue so fast I must have been invisible. I whipped around the corner onto Bleecker like a racecar without any brakes. I unlocked the door to my building and zoomed up the stairs in a blinding flash. And then I opened my apartment and fell inside, without—miracle of all miracles!—Abby hearing me and making one of her dramatic appearances.

Best of all, I had left the wily coyote who was following me in the dust. (At least I
thought
I had.)

After locking my front door and closing the living room window shades—and checking to see that the diamonds were still nestled in their Quaker bed (they were)—I shed all my outerwear and left it in a pile in the kitchen. Then I dragged my pitiful body up the stairs to
m y
bedroom. Every ounce of my superhuman strength had flown. I was a puppet without any strings. All I wanted to do was get out of my clothes, wash the gooky eye makeup off my face, bundle my tired bones in one of Bob’s old Army T-shirts, and burrow between the covers.

I might have accomplished this goal, too, if the shade of my bedroom window hadn’t been left open. Then I wouldn’t have had to walk across the room to close it, and I wouldn’t have looked out the window while I was pulling the shade down, and I wouldn’t have seen the suspicious figure lurking in the doorway of the laundromat directly across the street. And I certainly wouldn’t have leapt to one side of the window like an enormous, demented frog, or flattened myself against the wall like a pancake, or pried a tiny little peephole between the shade and the window frame, and stood peering down through that peephole at the man lurking in the laundromat doorway, until he emerged into the dim glow of a nearby streetlamp and began walking toward Sixth Avenue.

And then I never would have seen that the man had a beard, or that he carried a little dog wrapped in a plaid wool muffler in the crook of his arm. And I wouldn’t have come to the frightening realization that—even though I had successfully kept my
name
a secret from him—Jimmy Birmingham now knew exactly where I lived.