The Bright Silver Star (30 page)

“You work out of New York?”

“Bay Ridge.”

“What’s your address?”

He gave it to her, peering up at Des now with eyes that were heavy lidded and immensely hostile. “Why so many questions?”

“Behave, Frankie,” Abby ordered him. “She’s just doing her job. You need to leave us alone now, okay? Go take a walk or something. And have the car ready for me downstairs at two sharp.”

He got up very deliberately, turned off the TV, and started for the door.

“Oh, hey, cookie?” Abby called after him. “Take my cutout, will you?”

Grimacing with disdain, Frankie carried the cardboard Abby out of the room under his arm, shutting the door softly behind him.

“Can I get you anything from the minibar, Trooper?” Abby asked her. “Water, juice?”

“I’m all set, thanks.”

Abby sat on the sofa and kicked off her little pumps, one stocking leg folded under her, a box of Cocoa Pebbles kids’ cereal cradled in her lap. She reached inside for a handful and munched on it. “Want some? What am I saying? Of course you don’t. Pebbles are my own thing,” she explained merrily. “Can’t help myself. Now what can I do for you?”

Des took off her hat and sat in an armchair across the coffee table from her. “You can tell me where you’ve been the past couple of nights.”

“Sure, I can do that,” Abby said easily, chomping on her cereal. “Only let me ask you something first—why do you want to know this?”

“Because we’re trying to ascertain the whereabouts of anyone and everyone who was involved with Tito Molina.”

“Oh, sure, I get it,” she said, nodding her head of hair. “You found out that I had a little, a-a
thing
with Tito. Did Chrissie tell you? No, wait, it was your boyfriend, wasn’t it? It was Mitch.”

Des didn’t bother to answer her.

“It’s okay, Crissie’s told me all about Mitch and you. And now that I’ve met you both I must say you are the last two people in the world I’d guess would
ever
end up in the feathers together. I mean, talk about an odd couple. You’re black, he’s Jewish. He’s a critic, you’re a cop. You’re skinny, he’s . . . not.” Abby wagged a manicured finger at Des, her big blue eyes gleaming. “You know, you two would make a terrific pair of fish.”

Des let out a laugh. “I’ll make sure to pass that one along to him.”

“No, no, I’m serious. I’ve been wanting to get more racial for some
time. The inner city kids need role models. And you’re so tall and gorgeous and self-assured. Seriously, I am adoring this. May I use you?”

“I can’t imagine anything more flattering—just as long as you don’t name me something like Hallie Butts.”

“Cookie, I am
stealing
that!” Abby squealed with delight. “You are so lucky, you know that? Mitch is one you’ll never, ever have to worry about. Trust me, I personally road tested him.”

“Road tested him?”

“I came on to him like gangbusters yesterday,” she confided, girl to girl. “Did everything but dive under the table and go for his zipper with my teeth. See, when I’m tour I can get a little, you know, horny. But I could not generate so much as a mild whiff of interest out of him. That one is a keeper, believe me.”

“Oh, I believe you,” Des said, wondering what America’s parents would think if they found out that their kids’ favorite author was a little bit nutty and a whole lot slutty. “So about your activities these past couple of nights . . .”

“Okay, sure.” Abby folded her little hands in her lap and took a deep breath, collecting herself. “I got home to New York from my tour the day Tito died. I was on the six p.m. flight from Los Angeles.” She gave Des the name of the airline and what time it had left L.A.

“Was Frankie with you?”

“He sure was. I can’t travel alone anymore. Too many kids want to talk to me and touch me. Puh-leeze . . .” Abby shivered, fanning herself with fluttering fingers. “A limo met us at the airport to bring me home. Frankie helped me shlep all of my stuff upstairs—I had to take a ton of clothes.”

“Where do you live?”

She gave Des her address on Riverside Drive. It was a doorman building on the corner of West Ninety-first Street.

“What time did you get settled in?”

“Maybe eight.”

“Did Frankie stick around?”

“No, he took the limo on home.”

“And how did you spend your evening?”

Abby got up suddenly and padded over to the window in her stocking feet, silent as a kitten on the plush carpet. “I realize this is going to sound terrible, but I can’t lie to you because I happen to be the soul of honesty—except for when I’m not. You do believe me, don’t you?”

“I really couldn’t say. So far, you’ve told me jack.”

“You’re absolutely right,” Abby admitted, letting out a nervous laugh. “The truth is, I was in Dorset. I-I’ve been in Dorset a lot lately.”

Des leaned forward in her chair, watching Abby closely. “Doing what?”

Abby went over to the minibar and pulled out a small bottle of Perrier and opened it. “Sitting parked outside of Jeffrey’s condo in my car,” she replied, taking a dainty sip.

“What are you, stalking him?”

“God, no. I’m not parked out there with an Uzi or anything. Just a box of Cocoa Pebbles and a pair of b-binoculars.” She paused, reddening. “Okay, maybe I’d better explain myself.”

“Maybe you’d better.”

“I just. . . I wanted to see for myself who he’s sleeping with. I need to know. And I am so humiliated to admit this out loud to you that I could just about crawl under that sofa. I mean, how pathetic am I? But it’s the truth. I’ve been sitting in my damned car every night, watching that little weasel entertain one gorgeous woman after another and crying my poor baby blues out.”

“Have you been in direct contact with him?” Des asked, shoving her horn-rimmed glasses up her nose.

Abby returned to the sofa and sat back down. “Define direct contact.”

“Well, does he know you’ve been watching him?”

“God,
he’d better not. I would just die if he found out.”

“You haven’t spoken to him?”

“Of course not. Why would I?”

“Because you still love him, that’s why.”

“I do
not
still love him,” Abby said angrily.

“Tie that bull outside, as my good friend Bella Tillis likes to say. A girl does not sit in her car all night with a pair of binoculars unless she feels the love.”

“Okay, so maybe I feel it a little,” Abby admitted reluctantly. “That’s really beside the point.”

“And the point is? . . .”

“That I’m telling you the truth. Check with my garage on Broadway and Ninety-second. They’ll tell you what time I took my car out and when I brought it back. It’s a black Mercedes station wagon. I’ve practically been living in it since I got back. Night after night I sit there—until dawn, when I drive back. What a rotten drive that is, too.”

“Have you been making it alone?”

“Of course. Who else would sit there with me all night like some nut?”

“Frankie would.”

“I am not involved with Frankie. We
were,
very briefly. But not anymore. I’ve been alone. Just little me.”

Which meant that Abby Kaminsky had no one to vouch for her, Des reflected. No one who could say she hadn’t pushed Tito Molina off that cliff. True, she was a tiny thing. But the element of surprise can add a good deal of muscle. And that granite ledge was plenty slick. Only, what about Donna Durslag? Why would Abby want to see
her
dead?

“You do believe me, don’t you?” Abby asked, watching her uncertainly.

“I don’t disbelieve you,” Des responded. “How about you tell me what you saw while you were parked out there?”

“Sure, okay, I can do that. I saw, let’s see, I saw Esme Crockett show up there the first night.”

“This is the night Tito died?”

“Correct. She got there at around midnight. I could see her and
Jeffrey sucking face through the kitchen window—until he turned the lights out and they did God knows what unspeakable things to each other in the dark. She left at about four in the morning.”

Which backed up what Esme and Jeff had said. “And the next night?”

“Her mother showed up at around eleven.”

“Did Martine stay the night?”

“She was there less than ten minutes,” Abby said gleefully. “Tossed a major hissy fit on the front porch. She even threw a flower pot at Jeffrey.”

“She’d found out he was two-timing her with Esme,” Des ventured.

“You got that right, cookie. And what a mouth that bitch has on her. She’s standing out there screaming at the top of her lungs about how she’s going to make a bow tie out of his balls. Unbelievable! Then she took off in a huff.”

“And what did you see last night?”

“Last night I was here in Boston,” Abby said hastily. “But . . . why are you asking?”

“Because someone else got murdered last night, that’s why.”

“Really, who?”

“Donna Durslag.”

“Oh, sure. She owned The Works with her husband.”

“You knew her?”

“By name. Jeffrey rents his space from them.”

“So you’re saying you
weren’t
watching his condo last night, am I right?”

“That’s right,” Abby said, lowering her eyes.

“Don’t disrespect me, girl. If you took your town car out of the hotel parking garage last night, I’ll know. If you rented a different car, I’ll know. If you so much as walked out that lobby door, I’ll know. I have the means. I have the skills. I have the—”

“Okay, okay, no need to get all huffy on me.”

“I do
not
get huffy.”

“I
was
at Jeffrey’s last night,” Abby conceded. “I was staked out just like the other two nights—from eleven till about four. I took the town car.”

“Why lie to me about it?”

“Because I’m embarrassed,” she wailed plaintively. “Wouldn’t you be embarrassed? I mean, God, this
is so
humiliating.”

“Who visited Jeffrey last night?”

“No one, I swear.”

“Did he go out?”

Abby shook her head. “He was there by himself all night.”

“Did you think about knocking on his door?”

“Not a chance.”

“Why not, was Frankie with you?”

“Look, I’d rather not involve Frankie in this, okay?”

“That’s not an answer.”

There was a tapping at the suite door now.

Abby let her breath out, clearly relieved by the interruption. “Would you mind getting that, cookie?”

Des got up and went to the door and opened it.

A frail young man with a concave chest and a two-day stubble of beard stood out in the hallway clutching a pair of battered metal carrying cases. “I’m here for Abby,” he announced.

“Come in, Gregory!” Abby called to him as she bustled over toward the desk. “I’m afraid I’ll have to cut this off now, Trooper. Gregory has to do my mouth.”

“That’s fine,” Des said. “I got what I came for. Where will you be tonight?”

Abby frowned at her. “Right here in Boston, why?”

“Just checking. You’re a happening little girl. Liable to turn up anywhere.”

“Well, I’ll be here. That’s the truth. And I always tell the truth.”

“Except for when you don’t,” Des said, smiling at her. “Right, I heard that.”

One of the doormen down in the lobby gave Des directions to the
East Coast Grill. Her cruiser was double-parked out front. She got in and called Yolie on her cell phone to tell her what she didn’t want to hear—that Abby Kaminsky backed up Esme and Jeff’s story.

“Did you believe her?” Yolie asked, sounding thoroughly dejected.

“Yolie, I honestly don’t know. She’s rich, wiggy, in love. Anything’s possible. What have you got?”

“So far, not a damned thing. None of the guests at the Yankee Doodle saw our boy come or go. And, Lordy, were they not happy to be questioned. Kimberly Fiore backs up her boyfriend, Rich Graybill. He got home from his late shift at The Works by midnight. Word, we are
nowhere,”
she grumbled at Des.

“Hey, we’ll lick this, Yolie. You keep that chin up for me, okay?”

“Girl, I am
all
about that,” Yolie vowed before she hung up.

Des started up her cruiser and glanced in her rearview mirror, spotting big Frankie. He was seated at the wheel of the black town car parked behind her in the hotel’s loading area, glowering at her with as much menace as he could muster. Definitely a yard face. The man had done time. She was positive.

As she pulled away, Des ran a check on him on her digital radio. She got her answer before she’d made it across the Charles into Cambridge on the Massachusetts Avenue Bridge. Frank Ramistella had wriggled his way out of two assault charges when he was in his late teens, then served three years of New York state time for armed robbery. As far as the law knew, he had been clean for the past six years.

All well and good, Des reflected as he steered her way toward Central Square. The man was still hired muscle. And he was way into Abby. He’d do what that little blond asked him to, even if it meant pushing Tito Molina off a cliff. But that still begged the question about Donna. What possible reason could Abby have for wanting Donna dead?

This question Des could not answer.

And it troubled her big-time. Actually, this whole case did. Because the more she learned the more confused she got. In truth, she wasn’t getting any closer to figuring this one out at all.

In truth, her damned fool head was reeling.

C
HAPTER 13

“U
M, OKAY, TELL ME
again why we’re sitting here like this?”

“Because I have a feeling, that’s why,” Mitch explained to her for the umpteenth time.

“You have a feeling,” Des repeated from next to him in the darkness. She was still in uniform, her collar opened, sleeves turned back.

“I do. I have a definite, undeniable feeling.”

“Oh, it’s undeniable, all right.”

They were sitting in his pickup a hundred yards up Turkey Neck Road from Dodge and Martine Crockett’s driveway, their bellies full of barbecue. Carriage lanterns framed the driveway entrance, bathing it in a dim, golden glow. Across the darkened meadow, lights were on inside the house. It was just past eleven. Warm, sticky air had moved in from the south as the afternoon had given way to evening, bringing low clouds and fog with it. Now it was humid and still and the cicadas were whirring. In the distance, Mitch could hear the foghorn on the Old Saybrook Lighthouse.