Wicked, Loving Murder

by Jane Haddam

  “The issue just came in today,” Jack Brookfield squeaked. “I can get it for you by Friday.”

  “Shit,” the man said. “By Friday we’ll all be on our way to Leavenworth.”

  I recognize a filibuster dead end when I hear one. Jack and his angry friend had come to that point in their argument when all they could, or wanted, to do was repeat the positions they’d established in louder and louder voices. I could eavesdrop all day without learning any more than I already knew.

  I rapped loudly on the door. Inside, the voices stopped. There was a sound of furniture sliding against carpet.

  “Yes?” Jack Brookfield said.

  “It’s Pay McKenna,” I said. “I left my coat in your office.”

  More furniture moving. Jack Brookfield opened the door and peered out at me, squinting.

  “Miss McKenna?”

  “I left my coat in your office,” I repeated. “When I was here this morning. Also my gloves and about six scarves. I don’t mean to interrupt you, but if I could come in and get them?”

  “Oh,” Jack Brookfield said. Then, “Of course, of course. You’re not interrupting anything. Mr. Dunne and I were just finishing.”

  He stepped back to let me inside. The stranger, a Wall Street type in a gray pin-striped three-piece and a white shirt with a starched collar, stood when he saw me.

  “This is Miss Patience Campbell McKenna,” Jack said. “She’s here to work on the romance section.”

  Mr. Dunne had never heard of the romance section. He nodded politely.

  “This is Thomas Dunne,” Jack Brookfield said.

  “Waycroft, Hammer and Dunne,” Mr. Dunne said. He took out a small leather case, extracted a card, and handed it to me. He was a young man, in his early thirties. I decided he must be the son, if not the grandson, of the Dunne in the title. Waycroft, Hammer and Dunne was one of the older, and theoretically more conservative, brokerage firms. Nobody made partner over there until he or she was at least forty-five.

  Mr. Dunne’s card had WAYCROFT, HAMMER AND DUNNE: SECURITIES BROKERS engraved at the center. Mr. Dunne had written his name and extension number in green ink in the lower right-hand corner.

  “Are you in the market?” he asked me. This was half politeness and half an assessment of the cost of my sweater. Mr. Dunne had a very good eye for sweaters.

  “I’m in coats,” I told him gravely. “If you gentlemen will just excuse me, I’ll get mine from this pile and rush off.”

  “No hurry,” Jack Brookfield said. “No hurry at all.”

  “I’m in a hurry,” I said. I was, too. It didn’t take Mr. Dunne’s indignant scowl to convince me I wanted out of that office fast. I grabbed my coat from the pile on the radiator and sorted hurriedly through scarves, then through gloves. The glove situation was nearly impossible. My gloves were black. So were Jack Brookfield’s—all fifteen pairs of them. I settled on some that looked likely and stuffed them into the pockets of my coat.

  “Well,” I said. “I’ll just be going.”

  “No hurry,” Jack said.

  “Nice to have met you,” I said to Mr. Dunne.

  “Emma Willard,” Mr. Dunne said.

  “Right,” I said.

  “Vassar?”

  “Greyson.”

  “Dear Lord,” Mr. Dunne said. “Keep the card”

  “I will,” I said. Then I escaped into the hall.

  It wasn’t much of an escape. I turned the corner into the first corridor just as Felicity Aldershot reached her office door and dropped my bag just as she stopped fiddling with her keys. She looked up, saw me, and waved.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” she said. “I was going to come looking for you.”

  She was doing sweetness and light, and doing it very well. It made me suspicious.

  “I wanted to be sure you knew about the party tonight,” she said. She walked toward me, smiling broadly. She reached me at almost the same moment Mr. Dunne decided to raise his voice again.

  “Five years, Jack,” Thomas Dunne shouted. “This has been going on for five whole years.”

  “I know how long it’s been going on,” Jack shouted back.

  Felicity frowned in the direction of Jack’s office. Then she shrugged, turned away, and took my arm.

  “It’s a belated Saint Valentine’s Day,” she said, leading me away like an expert prison guard escorting an addled prisoner to her cell. “We had it all planned for the fourteenth, but everything was so up in the air on the fourteenth. So we’re going to have it tonight.”

  “Tonight?”

  I had a hard time imagining the scene of two murders as a setting for a party. It gave Felicity Aldershot no trouble at all. She stopped at the door to her office. I looked inside and thought I was hallucinating. The place was crammed with boxes, huge rectangular boxes piled one on top of the other and squeezed side by side. The conversational grouping had been pushed into a corner. The bar had been folded into the wall. There was hardly room to move.

  “Spot check,” Felicity laughed. “Every month we go through at least one box from each of the countries we sell Writing magazine, just to make sure everything’s all right, you see. You could find Writing in any one of seventeen languages in this room.”

  “There have to be more than seventeen boxes,” I said.

  “Of course there are. But every country doesn’t have its own language.”

  The box just inside the door was stamped with Greek letters I couldn’t read. “I have a friend who speaks Greek,” I told Felicity Aldershot. “He might get a kick out of one of those.”

  I wondered if I were imagining the sudden stiffness in Felicity’s body, the swift hostility in her eyes. It came and went before I had adequate time to think about it. When she spoke again she was deliberately, mockingly gracious.

  “Let me get you a Greek one from the closet,” she said. “We ship some of those to Astoria and the Greek section of Chicago, you know. There’s a substantial Greek-speaking population in the United States.”

  She hurried away to her closet, moving as quickly as the boxes would allow. As soon as she disappeared, I took a Greek edition from the box at my side and stuffed it in my bag. It was pure shoplifting, an activity I didn’t approve of and had never before engaged in. I could neither explain it nor correct it. Once I’d got it out of the box and into my bag, there wasn’t enough time to get it out of my bag and back into the box without Felicity seeing me. What had I been thinking of? Spiting her? Or had I been reverting to a childish need not to do as I was told?

  Felicity came back with another Greek edition in her hand and handed it to me.

  “Try not to forget the party,” she said. “From four to six in reception. We’d like to get a picture of you for our staff section.”

  I had an overwhelming desire to get out of Felicity’s office and never come back. Felicity was still being sweetness and light. The guiltier I felt, the more genuine she seemed.

  I said, “Yes, yes, of course,” and started edging toward the door, holding the second Greek edition in my hand.

  “Our readers feel so much more included when they see a picture,” Felicity said.

  I said something like, “Of course they do,” and made it into the corridor.

  She finally realized something was wrong. She frowned at me the way she’d frowned in the direction of Jack’s door.

  “Are you all right?” she asked me. “You look a little under the weather.”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “I’m meeting a friend for lunch.”

  “What’s wrong with your hands?” she asked. “They’re all black.”

  I shoved my hands into my pockets.

  “I’m fine,” I repeated. “I’m going to be late.”

  Then I made a break for the elevators.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  I THOUGHT ABOUT IT all the way out to Brooklyn in the cab. I am a conventionally honest person. I do not think about morality. I do not think about what keeps me moral. I assume I am honest.
I assume dishonest people are odd, or sick, or evil. Catching myself in an act of theft, however small, was unnerving. Catching myself stealing for no good reason at all was making me a little punch-drunk.

  I didn’t notice the weather (threatening snow) or the cab driver (threatening violence for being hauled out to Brooklyn). I kept going around and around that first Greek edition of Writing magazine. Prick a WASP and you get not just an ascetic, but an ethical nitpicker. I nitpicked all the way out to Park Slope. A couple of times I reached into my bag for the edition. I always stopped myself. I didn’t want to touch the thing.

  The cab driver pulled to a stop in the middle of a block of well-tended, elegant brownstones.

  “Nice neighborhood,” he said. “You gonna sit there all day or you gonna get out?”

  “I’m getting out.” I dug into my pockets, found a five and two ones, and gave them to him. He gave one of the ones back.

  “That’s a two-dollar tip,” he said. “You don’t want to give me a two-dollar tip. I wasn’t that nice to you.”

  He was right. I took the dollar back, stuffed it into my coat, and ran to the sidewalk. The wind was even worse in Brooklyn than it had been in Manhattan. It got under my hair, making my ears stiff. Janet Grasky lived at 197 Park Street, Apartment 4D. The driver had stopped right in front of it. I started climbing the long, pretentiously majestic steps to the front door.

  The buzzers were on the mailboxes in the vestibule. I pressed the one for 4D (Grasky/Heindon) and got an answering buzz in return. There was no intercom. As far as Janet knew, I could be a mugger. As far as I knew, the buzzer-answerer was Heindon (whoever that was). I started up the stairs—no elevator, of course, elegant brownstones never have elevators—and berated myself for not calling first. What was I going to tell Heindon if I saw her? Or, God forbid, him?

  I needn’t have worried. Janet was waiting for me at the top of the stairs, dressed in a long flannel nightgown and a battered flannel housecoat that came to her knees.

  “You,” she said when she saw me. “What are you doing here?”

  It was a legitimate question. “There was something I wanted to ask you,” I said, panting from the climb.

  “You came all the way from Manhattan because there was something you wanted to ask me? Why didn’t you phone?”

  “I was in the neighborhood.” It was the only lie I could think of I hadn’t phoned because it hadn’t occurred to me. It should have occurred to me.

  “Come in out of the hall,” Janet said. “Mrs. Danowitz’s probably got her eye to the door. Mrs. Danowitz always has her eye to the door.”

  I decided she meant the crack in the door. I followed her into a narrow entranceway, then through into a large, rambling living room. Apartments are bigger in Brooklyn than they are in Manhattan. They also tend to get more light. Janet’s living room had four windows overlooking the street. Through them I could see the start of a new snowfall.

  “If they want me to come back,” Janet said, “you can tell them they can shove it. I mean, I’ve had it. Truly.”

  I took a seat on a chair that was two orange crates with cushions nailed to the bottoms and an Indian bedspread to cover.

  “As far as I know, they don’t want you back,” I said, “but I wouldn’t know if they did want you back.”

  “They wouldn’t know if they wanted me back,” Janet said. “They don’t know what they want from one day to the other. You want coffee?”

  “Coffee,” I said. “Um—”

  “I’ve got herb tea,” Janet said, “but it’s Susan’s. Susan is such a cheap—never mind. Roommates. Know what my ambition in life is? To make enough money so I don’t have to have roommates.”

  “You could get married,” I said.

  “Forget it,” Janet said. “Another roommate. If you go by my brothers, a roommate who won’t pick up after himself. You sure you don’t want coffee?”

  “No,” I said. “That’s all right. I wanted to ask you about something, about—do you remember the day Michael Brookfield was murdered?”

  She looked at me as if I were some kind of lunatic: “You’re kidding,” she said. “I mean, you have to be kidding. Why wouldn’t I remember it? It made me a celebrity, for God’s sake. First time I’ve ever gotten any recognition in this neighborhood. I took it down to the Marvellette and got a CPA with it.”

  “The Marvellette?”

  “Singles bar. I’m always going to singles bars. They don’t work but they may be worth it. My mother wants me to join the Sodality at church but that won’t be worth it.”

  “I thought you didn’t want to get married.”

  “I don’t,” Janet said.

  I said, “Oh,” and looked around for an ashtray. I found one. It was filled with Marlboro butts and the plastic ends of Tiparillos, but it would suit. It also answered a very important question. There was no unposted No Smoking sign in this apartment.

  I lit a cigarette and threw the match in the tray, being careful the flame was out before the spent match struck plastic.

  “It was what happened before Michael Brookfield’s murder I wanted to ask you about,” I said. “Or maybe after, but first before. You remember taking Ivy Samuels Tree in about quarter to four?”

  “Taking her in?”

  “To Michael Brookfield’s office.”

  Janet gave the matter grave and deliberate thought. “She’s the one in the newspapers,” she said finally. “The black woman. The one looks like she belongs on the cover of Vogue.” She looked at me. “You look like you belong on the cover of Vogue,” she said. “Except maybe for the face.”

  “Right,” I said. “Do you remember taking her in to see Michael Brookfield?”

  “Nope,” Janet said. “I buzzed Miss Brookfield for you, that I remember. Then that Felicity Aldershot person—God, she’s a bitch, she was a bitch even before they made her head of the whole thing—anyway, Sweet Felicity wanted typewriter ribbons. Can you believe it? A whole office full of typewriter ribbons, they’re not good enough for her. The office typewriter ribbons are silk. She wants nylon. Nylon doesn’t smudge.” Janet shrugged. “She tells me to go out, I go out. I was gone about an hour.”

  “Right,” I said. I was sitting upright, very alert and eager. She was giving me all the answers I wanted. “If you weren’t the one who showed her in, then it must have been Felicity Aldershot—”

  “Could have been Miss Brookfield,” Janet said.

  “No, it couldn’t,” I said. “I was with Alida Brookfield. It had to be Felicity Aldershot. Which means she had to be the one who told the police Ivy was there. Which means—” I stopped. I don’t know what I thought I’d been doing, but it had just come apart in my hand. I took a deep breath and decided I needed more than another cigarette. I needed a drink.

  “I thought you were going to tell me what it meant,” Janet said.

  I sighed. “It just occurred to me it didn’t mean anything,” I said. “For some reason or the other I had this idea it was the key. That whoever took Ivy in and told the police and then didn’t tell anyone else in the office—no one knew about it, and you know what that place is like—”

  “A sieve,” Janet said virtuously.

  “It just felt funny,” I said. “That no one said anything, I mean. But it doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Let me get you that coffee,” Janet said. “You look like you need something.”

  “Just one more thing,” I said, stopping her as she was about to walk out to the kitchen. “Did you type letters?”

  “At Writing Enterprises? Yeah, sometimes.”

  “Did you type the letter Michael Brookfield sent to Ivy Samuels Tree?”

  “No,” Janet said. “But don’t get your hopes up. They typed their own letters a lot. And Sweet Felicity Aldershot typed some when she had time. She was always doing other people’s work for them. She was always letting us know what a saint it made her, too. I mean, I don’t mind help when I need it, but I at least like to ask for it. I mean,
she’d come up and tell you she’d done something for you you hadn’t even asked her to do, and then she’d want you to be grateful for it. Have that coffee now. You look miserable.”

  “I am miserable,” I said. As she headed for the kitchen, I had another thought, for once one mostly unconnected with the Brookfield murders. “Janet? What are you going to do now that you’re not working at Writing Enterprises?”

  Janet shrugged. “Look for a job. At least I will in a little while. I need a couple of weeks to calm down.”

  “I’ve got a friend named Joan Liddell. She runs a publishing business, a small one. They do romantic suspense. She’s probably looking for people who can type.”

  “Yeah?” Janet was interested. “I’d like to get into a typing pool. You can go someplace from a typing pool. Everybody thinks receptionists are dumb.”

  “I’ve got her card in here somewhere,” I said. The second Greek edition was folded in half and sticking out over the top of my bag. I threw it on the floor. Then I started rummaging in the debris, looking for my card case. I started taking handfuls of things and throwing them on the floor. The first Greek edition, the one I’d picked up from the box, came out with a pile of bills I hadn’t got around to paying.

  “You’ve got loose money in here,” Janet said. “You shouldn’t keep loose money in a bag without a top. You’ll lose it.”

  “What loose money?” I looked up from my search. Like most forays into my bag, it was proving fruitless.

  Janet held two one dollar bills in the air. “They fell out of this magazine,” she said, holding the unfolded first Greek edition in the air. “I mean, I know we’re all in a hurry sometimes, but money’s money.” She shook the magazine for emphasis.