Holiday Buzz

by Cleo Coyle

  That’s when I spotted Moirin Fagan on the park’s path. She was in the process of opening a new pack of Lucky Strikes. As M came closer, she was so busy struggling to light the first cigarette in the brisk wind that she didn’t notice me. And I was in such a hurry that I didn’t call out to her.

  We passed without speaking.

  Six

  “MY camera’s digital clock is the reason I knew what time I last saw Moirin,” I told the detectives. “It was exactly eight thirty when the battery warning light came on, and I headed inside.”

  “But she could have been out here quite a long time before her murder,” Endicott sniffed.

  “There’s a way to deduce that, too.” I met Lori’s eyes.

  She nodded. “The cigarette.”

  “It’s worth a try,” I said, and Lori called out to the CSU team.

  “Did anyone find a cigarette butt on or near the carousel?”

  “I bagged one up,” said a member of the team.

  “What brand is it?” I asked. “The name is usually printed next to the filter.”

  The technician fumbled through the evidence case and located the bagged butt. “It’s a Lucky Strike.”

  “That’s her brand,” I confirmed. “If the lab finds her saliva on it, then it’s clearly hers. And if you time how long a Lucky Strike burns down, then you should come close to the exact time of death.”

  “Unless she’s a chain-smoker, Ms. Cosi. That could very well have been her third cigarette.”

  “Check her pockets. The new pack should be in there. I saw her open it. If that’s the only cigarette missing, then you know she only smoked one.”

  “So you didn’t see Moirin after that?” Lori asked.

  “No, I didn’t even realize Moirin had gone missing until someone asked after her more than an hour later.”

  Lori looked up from her notes. “Who asked after her?”

  “I didn’t get the woman’s name. She was a nanny. The same one I’d bumped into outside the ice rink. She said Moirin promised to box up some cookies for her, so I’m not sure that fact is even relevant.”

  “Did you try to find Moirin after you realized she was gone?” Lori asked.

  “No. I didn’t . . .” And I still feel awful about that. “I thought she cut out on Janelle, that her boyfriend showed and she ditched working the rest of the event to go off with him.”

  “Enough, please,” Endicott cried at the end of my account. “Ms. Cosi, thank you for your extensive statement. Now, Detective Soles, while we await the arrival of a medical examiner, I would like to dictate my initial impressions of the crime scene. Are you listening?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  With a tape measure in hand, Endicott loomed over Moirin’s corpse.

  “The victim was struck from behind. It appears she received multiple blows from a blunt instrument. There is a significant amount of cranial bone and brain matter mingled with an arterial blood splatter that measures . . .”

  For several minutes Detective Endicott measured blood splashes and speculated on the angle of the fatal blow. His graphic testimony became almost too much to bear, but still, I listened, hoping to hear something meaningful in the man’s “initial impressions.”

  “Robbery does not appear to be the motive,” Endicott continued. “The victim’s purse contains a small amount of cash, a credit card, a MetroCard, a driver’s license, and a portable phone—”

  “The phone should help you,” I cut in. “Moirin’s boyfriend Dave calls her regularly, and sometimes she calls him. I’m sure you’ll find his phone number in her permanent directory.”

  “The victim is also wearing a necklace with a sterling silver chain,” Endicott continued. “The necklace contains a silver charm in the shape of the letter E—”

  “It’s not an E,” I called. “It’s a three.”

  “My good woman, I know the difference between an E and a three!”

  “Untwist the necklace.”

  Endicott fell silent a moment and frowned. “So it is,” he amended. “Do you know of any significance to this number?”

  “I asked M about it once; she told me it represented the Holy Trinity.”

  Lori exchanged a look with me. “She’s Irish Catholic.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why not just wear a cross?”

  “I assumed she had her reasons. But it does seem odd, doesn’t it?”

  Endicott brushed aside our discussion. “The fact that these items were not stolen and a piece of valuable jewelry is still around her neck strongly suggests that robbery was not a motive.” He circled the corpse. “The victim’s clothes were not disturbed, so this was not a sexual assault, although it certainly could have begun as one and taken an ugly turn when the victim resisted.”

  Endicott paused. “It appears from the blood splatter pattern that when she was struck, the victim fell onto her stomach. Meanwhile, the bleed patterns indicate that the killer actually turned the victim onto her back, perhaps to make sure she was dead—”

  “Or to retrieve something the victim was holding?” Lori suggested.

  Endicott waved a dismissive hand. “What’s important is that these injuries are consistent with a blow from a blunt object, which fits the modus operandi in the last attack.”

  “Last attack?” I said. “You mean there’ve been others like this?”

  Lori frowned, uneasy with my question. “There have been several attacks against women recently, but this is the first fatality.”

  “Well, do you have any suspects in the other attacks?” I asked, alarmed.

  “Not yet.” She then gave her head a single sharp shake that seemed to say: I can’t get into that with you. Not now.

  Meanwhile, Detective Endicott went down to his hands and knees. “The weapon was very heavy,” he said, examining Moirin’s head, “and I’m frankly puzzled by the shape and dimension of the wounds. The damage is extreme enough to have been inflicted by a sledgehammer, or even a baseball bat.”

  “But someone walking around with a sledgehammer or bat would certainly get noticed,” Lori pointed out.

  “Unless it was wrapped as a gift!” Endicott pronounced, rising.

  Lori exhaled with extreme patience. “Who would go to the trouble of gift wrapping a murder weapon? And they’d have to rewrap it after they used it, unless the weapon got left behind, and I don’t see any sledgehammers here.”

  “What if the killer used something they found in the park?” I chimed in.

  Endicott snorted. “Like what, Ms. Cosi? A lawn chair?”

  “No, a paving stone.”

  Lori nodded. “Go on, Clare.”

  “Well, I was just thinking . . . Before I found Moirin’s body, I stumbled over a loose stone near the entrance to the carousel. It’s possible the killer saw that the stone was loose, too, and decided to use it as the murder weapon. It’s pretty smart, actually. The killer would be able to put the stone back down in the path, hiding the weapon from immediate discovery, and still walk away without holding incriminating evidence.”

  “Find that stone,” Endicott ordered, “so we can eliminate it from consideration!”

  The technicians began milling around, eyes to the pavement. But they weren’t having much luck finding it because they didn’t know where to look. I did.

  “Here it is.” I showed them.

  Lori dropped to her knees on the cold, wet ground and bathed the rock in the beam of a tiny flashlight. “Clare’s right. There’s blood here.”

  Three plastic-coated technicians quickly muscled me aside and surrounded Detective Soles. Endicott, alone on the carousel, sniffed dubiously.

  “Are you sure it’s blood and not spilled soda pop?”

  “It’s blood, sir,” one CSU technician confirmed.

  With gloved hands, the tech lifted the stone from its slot. Lori passed the flashlight beam across the dripping bottom. “I can see brain matter and hair, too.”

  Using plastic tweezers, a second CSU man p
ulled strands off the rock and bagged them. The other technician placed the paving stone inside a huge evidence bag, marked it, and sealed it.

  “It appears we have recovered the murder weapon,” Endicott declared.

  A technician brought the bagged hairs to Endicott and the two examined them.

  “The victim is a brunette, but these hairs are orange,” Endicott observed.

  Lori turned to me. “Do you remember any guests at the party with this color hair?”

  “I do.”

  “Male or female?”

  “Female. I remember when she stopped by our drinking station. It was close to nine o’clock, about thirty minutes after I came in from watching Franco ice-skate with Mike’s kids . . .”

  Seven

  “SO, how’s the weather outside?” Tuck asked Madame, who popped back in for another espresso.

  “Still delightful,” she assured him. “Cold, yes, but no sign of snow . . .”

  “Well, I’ll tell you what is frightful,” Tucker whispered after she departed. “Some of the nips and tucks on these celebrities.”

  Tucker proceeded to regale Esther, Nancy, and me with quiet observations about the night’s high-profile guests.

  “Far be it from me to pooh-pooh having a little work done. But there’s something called moderation. I mean, come now, ladies, stretch that skin any tighter and your eyes might just pop out!”

  “I don’t think it’s that bad,” Nancy said.

  “And what’s with all the spray tans this year? I mean, it’s December in New York, Gidget. Paint that skin in Boca, not Manhattan!”

  Esther nodded. “It does feel a tad like a science fiction convention. Either that or human airbrushing has created a race of carrot people.”

  “Like who?” Nancy challenged.

  “Exhibit A . . .” Tuck took Nancy’s face in his hands and turned it toward an ice blond giant in a five-thousand-dollar suit. “Bad-boy hockey player Ross Puckett. Take note of the bodacious little thing on his arm. That’s Piper Penny, the lead singer in Dollahs and Sense, a hot band on the downtown club scene. Notice her tangerine hair? Granted, it’s her trademark look, but it’s not a color that occurs in nature. The same thing goes for a skin tone that’s the same hue as the organic citrus they peddle at Whole Foods.”

  Nancy wrinkled her nose. “She does look kind of . . . unnatural.”

  “Unnatural!” Tuck cried. “Girl, I know monochrome is in, but that’s just pushing it. If that shapely little singer is Ross Puckett’s flavor of the month, then the flavah is definitely orange sherbet.”

  “Ross is so cute . . .” Nancy sighed. “What does he see in her?”

  “He’s a hockey player,” Esther said flatly. “The question should be what does she see in him?”

  “For starters, he’s filthy rich,” Tuck noted. “An obscenely large bank account can make even the most vulgar of men suddenly attractive. And Puckett is one of the few hockey players who still has his own teeth—presumably, though they could be implants.”

  “I saw Puckett flirting with our Moirin a little while ago,” Nancy said with a shake of her jingle bell hat. “I nearly butted in and introduced myself.”

  “Hasn’t your libido gotten you into enough trouble?” Esther asked. “Or have you forgotten that incident with the aphrodisiac coffee?”

  Nancy pouted. “You two don’t understand because you both have boyfriends. New York is lonely without a steady guy. If I knew Ross Puckett liked Day-Glo skin, I would have spray painted myself before I put on the apron!”

  “Who’d want to look like her?” Esther said. “Puckett’s latest squeeze has skin the shade of a sweet potato, obvious false eyelashes, and fright wig hair. Which actually makes me feel oddly nostalgic because she reminds me of a favorite childhood toy.”

  Nancy’s head bobbed excitedly. “Malibu Barbie, right? She was my favorite, too!”

  “Noooo!” Esther slapped her forehead. “Barbie is a sexist caricature that bears no relationship to reality! I was referring to Mrs. Potato Head!”

  “She may have a sweet potato head but check out those toned arms,” Tuck said. “I’ll bet she can throw a hockey puck across the Hudson.”

  “Piper Penny is a singer,” Nancy said. “What does her throwing ability have to do with anything?”

  “I have it on good authority that Puckett’s pretty Penny threw a service tray at a Village waiter last night,” Tuck replied. “Only a very big tip kept that story out of the tabloids.”

  “I’d ask how you got that one,” I said. “But I think I already know.”

  Tucker shot me a smile. “The bistro’s owner comes in every morning for doppio espressos. He told me on the QT that the tray soared like a Frisbee across a college quad.”

  Nancy blinked in slight fear. “Oh man. We better keep the demitasse saucers away from her!”

  “Hey, look, over there! It’s Tommy Bain!” Tuck gushed. “When I was in grade school, he was the Euro-rocker who put the heroin in heroin chic.”

  Esther snorted. “The way he’s twitching now, I don’t think he can handle the sugar in those cookies, let alone hard drugs.”

  Suddenly Tuck’s eyes went wide. “Look, look! I can’t believe who’s on their way over here. My two all-time favorite housewives, Big D and Little D!”

  My assistant manager was beside himself at the approach of two busty women, one petite, the other Amazonian. Both wore skintight animal print dresses, and both were laden with enough gold and diamonds to put the Three Wise Men to shame.

  Tuck greeted the pair as if they were old friends, and the women responded in kind.

  “Boss, I want you to meet the stars of TV’s True Housewives of Long Island, Danni Rayburn and Delores Deluca, better known as the Double Ds.” Suddenly Tuck blinked. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring up your . . . ah, you know . . .”

  “Our breast augmentations?” the tall one (Big Danni) said with a laugh. “I’m not embarrassed. I always say ‘If you bought it, flaunt it, baby.’”

  “They’re pretty obvious. Otherwise, what’s the point?” agreed Little Delores.

  I extended my hand, but the women were both so used to air-kissing like the other celebrities that they’d forgotten how to shake. Little Delores Deluca blinked, and Big Danni Rayburn just looked down at me. (This was a statement of fact, not a rush to judgment. Danni really was big—well over six feet high in her fetish heels, while I was barely five four in my sensible loafers.)

  The look-alike blondes had lush figures, flawless makeup, and perfect teeth, but the resemblance ended there. Little Delores appeared reserved, almost bored, while Big Danni’s eyes were hungry, expectant, as if she were waiting for me to gush.

  “Didn’t your show get cancelled?” Nancy innocently blurted.

  “Hiatus!” Tuck cried in horror. “The Reality Channel has put the show on hiatus. Right, girls?”

  “That’s right,” Big Danni said with a confident smile. “The producer told us there’s still a window to revive the show. But we’re open to new offers, aren’t we, Delores?”

  Little Delores nodded, her wide eyes framed by mascara-heavy lashes. “Fame’s a bitch, but we are bitches, too. We’ll claw our way back if we have to.”

  Tuck nodded sympathetically. “Being a producer myself, I know how fast the wind can shift. It’s no different on Broadway.”

  “Oh!” Big Danni turned up the wattage on her smile. “You’re a Broadway producer?”

  “Off-Broadway,” Tuck replied.

  “Yeah, like way off,” Esther snarked.

  Tuck waved his hand. “Pay no attention to that Goth beneath the Grinch Peruvian Beanie. I do two or three revues a year. Right now I’m producing a Christmas drama.”

  “That’s very interesting,” said Big Danni. Her focus narrowed on Tuck like a peckish predator on a hot lunch. “You know, I can dance, and you heard me sing on TV’s True Housewives. Don’t you think I could star in one of your revues?”

  “Actually . . .�
�� Tuck said. “You’re already playing a symbolic role in my upcoming cabaret show. After I finish my holiday gig, I’m mounting a musical tribute to True Housewives. I was going to cast two female impersonators, but if you and Little Delores want to join the production, I’m sure I can reimagine the idea.”

  Big Danni rested her slim hand on Tuck’s arm. “I hope you do! What do you say, Delores?”

  Little Delores shrugged. “I suppose it’s worth a listen.”

  Tuck beamed. “From the creative standpoint, I’d love to know. Are you two really close friends?”

  Big Danni hugged her little pal. “The closest.”

  “Aw, that’s so refreshing,” Tuck said. “I mean, it’s nice to know your reality show was somewhat real. Do your kids still have playdates together like they did on TV?”

  “Our kids are ice-skating with their nannies right now.” Big Danni proudly gestured to the rink. Then she struck a pose, and I almost had to duck to avoid being boob smacked. ”. . . although we haven’t done a pizza night for months. I’m trying to slim down.”

  “Good idea,” Tuck said with a thumbs-up, “especially for the dance numbers. What do you think of a boozy poolside torch song followed by a pizza playdate kick line?”

  “Sounds amazing!”

  “Here’s my card,” Tuck said, handing one to each woman. “The address to the Village Blend is on the back. Come by the coffeehouse. We’ll tip some lattes and talk more showbiz.”

  “See you there,” Danni promised, brushing Tuck’s face with her manicured fingers. Then Big Danni and her little pal Delores moved on.

  “I can’t believe how flirty Danni was with you, Tuck,” Nancy said.

  Esther rolled her eyes. “Talk about barking up the wrong tree. Why would you want to do a cabaret show about those has-beens, anyway?”

  “Has-been is better than never-was,” Tuck replied. “FYI, Andy Warhol was wrong when he said you only get fifteen minutes of fame. When the spotlight goes out in one place, it goes on somewhere else. I can make those two girls stars again, at least on the Village scene.”