Murder Can Ruin Your Looks

by Selma Eichler

  ney. Well, one of them. But that was when Meredith and Mary Ann were little kids, for God’s sake! Meredith sounded as British as . . . as the Queen!’’ He paused for a couple of seconds to give me a chance to let the idiocy of his co-worker sink in.

  ‘‘Well, thanks to that pea-brain,’’ he continued, ‘‘Mere

  dith didn’t get the part. But I wound up asking her out to dinner. I don’t usually do that—date the talent, I mean. But there was something about her.’’

  They went out a couple of other times after that first evening, Peter informed me, but, while he genuinely liked Meredith, it wasn’t long before he concluded that the chem

  istry just wasn’t there. Then she invited him to the opening of this new play she was in. By that time, he had pretty much made up his mind not to call her again. But she

  MURDER CAN RUIN YOUR LOOKS

  15

  caught him off guard. And besides, he didn’t want to hurt her feelings. So he went.

  And that’s how he met Mary Ann.

  ‘‘I was just sitting there in the theater, waiting for the curtain to go up,’’ Peter said softly, a little smile flitting across his lips for a moment as he played back the scene he’d stored in his memory. ‘‘All of a sudden the woman in front of me turned sideways, sort of in a three-quarter pro

  file. I’ve gotta tell you, I was floored. She looked exactly—

  and I mean exactly—like the woman I was expecting to see onstage. Or at least I thought she did at the time. I really couldn’t get over it.’’

  ‘‘You didn’t know Meredith had a twin sister?’’

  ‘‘All I knew was that Meredith had a sister and that they were very close; she mentioned it to me when we were out

  together. But she never said it was a twin sister.

  ‘‘Anyway, during intermission, Mary Ann and I started talking. Mostly about how lousy the show was—it closed a couple of days later—and about how Meredith was making

  the most of what was a pretty small part. She—Mary Ann—

  was genuinely agonizing about her sister’s being in such a turkey. I was impressed right away by what a compassion

  ate person she was.

  ‘‘Then, later, when the show was over, the three of us went out for something to eat. We couldn’t have been in that restaurant for even an hour. But it was long enough for me to realize that Mary Ann had all the qualities that had initially attracted me to Meredith—plus so many more.’’

  ‘‘Like?’’

  ‘‘Well, she was softer than Meredith—and don’t ask me to explain what I mean by that; I can’t.’’

  ‘‘Less ambitious?’’ I suggested.

  ‘‘I guess that’s part of it, but only part of it,’’ Peter re

  plied. He thought for a moment. ‘‘I really can’t put my finger on it,’’ he finished lamely.

  ‘‘I shouldn’t have interrupted. Go on.’’

  ‘‘Mary Ann laughed more, too,’’ he said, his voice taking on a dreamy quality and his eyes seeming to focus on some

  thing far away. ‘‘And she was a terrific listener. And we found out we had a lot in common. We both love westerns

  and stand-up comedy and spy novels and country music. We both enjoy spending Sundays at museums. And we’re

  16

  Selma Eichler

  both crazy about the beach. And neither of us can stand Madonna or Andrew Dice Clay. Silly things like that,’’ he acknowledged, smiling shyly. ‘‘But that night we thought we’d made the greatest discovery in the world. You know, by the time we left the restaurant, I was convinced Mary Ann and Meredith didn’t even look that much alike.’’

  ‘‘That’s love, I guess.’’

  Peter actually broke into a broad grin. ‘‘Of course, they did look alike. Very much alike. But after a while it was easy to spot the differences, too. Mary Ann’s features aren’t as perfect as Meredith’s; she even has this little bump on her nose. And their expressions aren’t the same. Mary Ann looks softer. Uh-oh,’’ he put in almost apologetically,

  ‘‘there goes that word again.’’

  ‘‘The two of you got serious right away?’’

  ‘‘ Right away. We knew immediately this was it. For both of us. The next day I called Mary Ann at her shop. I don’t think Meredith minded; I’m sure she wasn’t romantically interested in me, either. But whether it was an honorable thing for me to do or not didn’t even cross my mind. And it wouldn’t have mattered if it did. I was completely gone.’’

  ‘‘How soon did you plan on being married?’’

  ‘‘Well, we hadn’t set a date, but neither of us saw any point in waiting very long. We were officially engaged a few weeks ago, although I didn’t get around to giving her a ring. Or, I guess I should say, Mary Ann didn’t get around to picking one out. I kept after her to go shopping with me—I wanted her to choose something she really liked—

  but every time we made arrangements to meet at the jewel

  er’s, she’d get busy in the shop or something and we had to cancel. I hoped she’d at least have the ring for her birth

  day on February first, but that came and went, too. And now some bastard’s shot her; maybe even killed her.’’ Peter covered his face with his hands then, and when he took them away a few seconds later, his eyes were moist. But he seemed in control. ‘‘Would you like to see the face that scum destroyed?’’ he asked evenly, reaching into his pants pocket and producing a worn brown leather wallet. Then he carefully removed a photograph from the wallet and placed it on the table in front of me.

  I picked it up. It was a snapshot of Peter hand-in-hand with a tall, willowy blonde about twenty-five years old. She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt and a New York Yankees

  MURDER CAN RUIN YOUR LOOKS

  17

  baseball cap. And, if the photograph was telling the truth, she was really extremely pretty.

  ‘‘That was at the Central Park Zoo.’’

  ‘‘She’s lovely.’’

  ‘‘You should see her now! She—the woman in the hospi

  tal, and I’m praying it’s Mary Ann—had to have her jaw wired together. And her whole head is covered with ban

  dages. She looks like some Egyptian mummy, for chris

  sakes!’’ Then Peter’s voice became so low I had to strain to hear him. ‘‘That bastard! That . . .’’ He pressed his lips together and kept the rest of the thought to himself. We sat quietly for a moment, and Peter’s eyes began to fill up. Brushing a tear from the corner, he swallowed hard.

  ‘‘The thing is,’’ he said wretchedly, ‘‘May Ann wasn’t even supposed to be home that night. She was supposed to go out to dinner with a friend of hers, only the friend canceled at the last minute.’’ He paused, and when he spoke again, it was to say just one word. ‘‘God,’’ he whispered. That ‘‘God’’ held more grief and pain and despair than I’ve ever heard packed into a single word before. In spite of my very sensible resolution about emotional involvement, I felt my own eyes beginning to well up, too.

  Suddenly Peter broke the mood. ‘‘You might want to see

  this,’’ he said in a normal tone as he extracted a second photograph from his wallet and handed it to me. ‘‘Mary Ann and Meredith.’’

  I examined the head shot closely. The sisters were re

  markably alike.

  ‘‘Mary Ann’s on the left,’’ he informed me, anticipating my question.

  ‘‘Do you know if the police have checked out the twins’

  dental records?’’ I asked, returning the photos to him.

  ‘‘That should tell us something.’’

  Peter shook his head. ‘‘The detective in charge of the case, this Sergeant Fielding, asked me if I knew the name of their dentist, but I don’t know if they even saw a dentist after they came to New York. In fact, I kind of doubt it. Mary Ann said one time that she really should get a checkup, and she wanted to know who I went to. I gave her his name, but she neve
r brought it up again.’’

  ‘‘Maybe she did go and just forgot to mention it,’’ I of

  fered hopefully.

  ‘‘Uh-uh. I told the police about it, and they checked with

  18

  Selma Eichler

  Dr. Fischel—that’s my dentist. But he told Fielding she wasn’t his patient. I guess she never got around to calling him.’’

  ‘‘There’s always their London dentist. Is there someone in the family who could give us his name?’’

  ‘‘I’m afraid not. Both parents were killed in an automo

  bile accident a few years ago, so there’s just the one brother. He’s in town right now, in fact. On a business trip. We talked on the phone last night about this dentist thing—

  he said the police had asked him about it—but he has no idea who they went to over there.’’

  ‘‘Are there any other relatives? An aunt, maybe? Or an uncle?’’

  ‘‘I don’t think so. Not that I know of.’’

  At this point, I made up my mind to get to the question that had been running around in my head almost from the moment Peter first began telling me about the crime back in my office. It’s the kind of thing I’m very uncomfortable talking about, and I could feel myself blushing all the way from my chin to my henna-red hair. ‘‘Listen, when you were, um . . . together—you and Mary Ann, I mean—did you notice anything, anything at all, on her . . . on her body? A mole? A birthmark? Anything that might help with the identification?’’

  It was Peter’s turn to blush. ‘‘Mary Ann’s very shy. We always made love in the dark.’’

  Leave it to a client of mine to wind up with maybe the only girl in New York who had a problem with taking her clothes off!

  I quickly changed the subject. For both our sakes. ‘‘What do the police suspect? Do they think it might have been a burglary?’’

  ‘‘They seem pretty sure it wasn’t. They said there was no sign of a break-in.’’

  ‘‘You told me before that you didn’t know of anyone who might have wanted to harm them; but the sad fact is, someone did harm those two girls.’’ (Now, I realize that some women might not be too pleased with me right at this moment. But I can’t help it; I consider any member of the female sex who’s under thirty a girl.) ‘‘Think hard,’’ I instructed. ‘‘Is there anyone who might have had a grudge against either of them? Somebody who caused some trou

  MURDER CAN RUIN YOUR LOOKS

  19

  ble in the past? Or who had been a problem to one of them—or to both of them, for that matter?’’

  ‘‘Well, I don’t know if you’d call it a problem. . . .’’

  ‘‘What?’’

  ‘‘Meredith and her brother were on the outs. But that goes back years. It was something to do with her marriage. I don’t think her brother approved of the guy.’’

  ‘‘Mary Ann and the brother got along okay?’’

  ‘‘Mary Ann’s a very family-oriented person. She was al

  ways hoping Meredith and Eric would bury the hatchet. I imagine one of the reasons it was so important to her was that her parents were both gone.’’

  ‘‘You said Mary Ann had a shop of some kind. Any business disagreements you know of?’’

  ‘‘None. Not that she mentioned to me, anyway. And I think she would have if there’d been something.’’

  ‘‘And Meredith?’’ I prodded. ‘‘Acting can be a pretty cutthroat profession.’’

  ‘‘There were some bad feelings at first. Mary Ann talked about it once; it just kind of came up in conversation. But I didn’t get the impression it was really serious.’’

  ‘‘What did Mary Ann tell you?’’

  ‘‘She said that some actress in Meredith’s show resented her. She—this actress—had been promised the part that Meredith got. So the other woman—I can’t remember her name—had to settle for a minor role in the show.’’

  ‘‘You don’t happen to know the name of the show, do you?’’

  ‘‘Sure. It’s called Love and Stuff. It’s rehearsing at the Berkeley over in the West Village.’’

  ‘‘And Mary Ann never talked about anyone resenting her?’’

  Peter shook his head. ‘‘Everyone liked . . . likes Mary Ann. She’s just so thoughtful, so easy to get along with.’’

  Nobody could be that perfect. ‘‘She never had a disagree

  ment with anyone?’’

  ‘‘Well . . .’’

  I pounced. ‘‘Who?’’ I demanded. (You’d be surprised at how often I feel vindicated for being a pain in the ass.)

  ‘‘This ex-fianceóf hers. But they broke off right after she came to New York. I can’t see him waiting all this time.’’

  And then Peter went on to explain.

  Mary Ann, he said, had been engaged to a man from

  20

  Selma Eichler

  New Jersey—Hillside, Peter thought it was. The man’s name was Roger somebody-or-other, and he was in real estate or maybe it was insurance. ‘‘That’s about all I can tell you about him,’’ Peter said, embarrassed. ‘‘I’m afraid I’m pretty terrible at names,’’ he added unnecessarily.

  ‘‘And I don’t know all that much about the relationship, either. I do know they met at Harrods—the department store. Mary Ann was working there, and this Roger was in London on vacation. I guess he was pretty well off, because he extended his vacation to be with her, and after that he flew back and forth a lot.’’

  ‘‘When was all this?’’

  ‘‘I think they started going together about six or eight months before Mary Ann moved to New York, which is where the family was from originally.’’

  ‘‘Meredith came here at the same time as her sister?’’

  Peter nodded. ‘‘When Mary Ann first started making the

  arrangements, Meredith’s husband was still alive, although he was already pretty sick. Mary Ann felt really guilty about leaving her like that, but Meredith insisted. Mary Ann was engaged by then, see, so she pretty much had to make the move.’’ If Peter felt any jealousy about his fian

  ceé’s previous involvement with another man, you couldn’t tell by his voice. He was relating the information calmly and impersonally, as though it had all happened in another lifetime. And I suppose, in a way, it had.

  ‘‘But then Meredith’s husband died,’’ he continued.

  ‘‘Right before Mary Ann was scheduled to leave. So Mere

  dith got it all together in a hurry and came with her.’’

  ‘‘Okay, so Mary Ann comes to this country intending to marry Roger, but . . . ?’’

  ‘‘But almost as soon as she got here, she found out the guy had had two previous wives he never considered worth mentioning.’’

  ‘‘So she broke it off.’’

  ‘‘So she broke it off,’’ Peter echoed.

  ‘‘I don’t suppose the breakup was very amicable.’’

  ‘‘No. I have a pretty good idea this Roger got a little nasty, although Mary Ann never said much about it. I guess the only reason she brought the whole thing up at all was because she thought she should. But I could see she wasn’t anxious to go into detail, so I didn’t pursue it.’’ Peter

  MURDER CAN RUIN YOUR LOOKS

  21

  glanced at his watch then, so quickly that I could tell he didn’t mean for me to notice.

  ‘‘Do you have an appointment somewhere else?’’

  ‘‘It’s not that. It’s just that I’m anxious to get back to the hospital. But if there’s anything else you need to know . . .’’

  ‘‘No, you get going.’’ I was pretty much questioned out. Besides, the place was beginning to fill up, so any minute now we could expect the manager to start giving us the fish-eye. ‘‘I’ll talk to you soon,’’ I promised.

  Looking back, I realize something that at the time I wasn’t ready to acknowledge: The questions I put to Peter that day were at least as much about uncovering the killer as the
y were about discovering the identities of the victims. Chapter 3

  I waited until after nine that night to call my niece Ellen. (Ellen’s an assistant buyer at Macy’s and she works until eight-thirty some nights, but I can never remember which ones.)

  The phone rang six times before she picked up, and when

  she did, she was breathing hard. ‘‘Hello?’’ she said, making it sound like a question.

  ‘‘What’s the matter? Did you just get in?’’

  ‘‘Aunt Dez?’’ she asked, still trying to catch her breath.

  ‘‘I heard the phone just as I was putting my key in the lock. I was sure whoever it was would hang up before I could get to it.’’

  ‘‘I was ready to. Listen, I’d like to talk to you about something; it’s kind of important. Do you want to call me back after you’ve had a chance to take off your coat? Or, if you want to grab a bite first, call me when you’re through.’’

  ‘‘No, no. I can get out of my coat while we talk, and I ate earlier. What’s up?’’ I was trying to decide how to put things, so this was followed by a worrisome pause. Worri

  some for Ellen, that is, who happens to be the world’s champion worrywart. ‘‘There’s something wrong, isn’t there?’’ she demanded. God only knows what she was be

  ginning to conjure up.

  ‘‘Everything’s fine, Ellen, really,’’ I assured her hurriedly.

  ‘‘I just want to tell you about this very attractive man I—’’

  It was as far as I got. ‘‘Ohhh, Aunt Dez!’’ she shrieked.

  ‘‘You met someone!’’ Her voice was so piercing I had to hold the receiver away from my ear. Ellen is nothing if not enthusiastic. When she can’t find anything to stew about, that is.

  ‘‘Well, there is someone. But not for me. For you. He’s a young lawyer who started at the office about three weeks ago.’’

  MURDER CAN RUIN YOUR LOOKS

  23

  I guess I should explain. By ‘‘the office,’’ I was referring to the law offices of Gilbert and Sullivan (that’s right, Gil

  bert and Sullivan), where I rent space. And Elliot Gilbert and Pat Sullivan not only make it possible for me to con

  duct my business in a decent section of the city, but these two very sweet guys also throw work my way whenever they can. Plus, under my arrangement with them, I am able to avail myself of the services of the best secretary in Manhattan. But back to Ellen . . .