B004183M70 EBOK

by Rosemary Stevens

  "They were boxing after midnight?"

  "The kid goes to high school, then works as a waiter. Doesn't get off work until eleven thirty or later. Granford's broke, needs the money. Before you ask, I verified with Granford's bank that the guy is living on nothing. Miss Wexford probably helped support him. Now that we've cleared him, he'll probably go back to Omaha."

  "Thanks, anyway," I replied, despair washing over me.

  "Got any new leads for me?" Finelli asked.

  "No, but I think Pierre is the killer," I said, and hung up.

  I sat staring into space. I needed to call Darlene and tell her I wouldn't need her to go on a Jeff Granford mission. I'd get the energy to do it in a minute.

  "Bebe?"

  Debbie Ann stood next to my desk with a paper Dixie cup full of what looked like white wedding cookies. "Those are like the ones my mother makes at Christmas," I said.

  She smiled. "They're small. I brought you half a dozen, so you can nibble on them throughout the afternoon. If you want to talk, I have some time."

  I accepted the cup and dug for a cookie. "Thanks for the offer, Debbie Ann. I may go home early today." Anything to get away from that crushing look of disapproval on Bradley's face.

  "That's sensible. It.can't be pleasant working for a murderer. I'll never understand why you've stayed this long. At least his replacement has finally arrived."

  I popped the cookie into my mouth so I wouldn't have to answer. The powdered sugar melted on my tongue, and the cookies were yummy. "These are delicious, Debbie Ann," I said.

  "I'll be on my set if you want any milk to go with them," she said, and went to the elevator.

  I popped another cookie in my mouth and dialed home.

  "Hello."

  "Darlene, it's me. More news."

  "Uh-oh, I don't like the sound of your voice."

  "Finelli's cleared Granford. We don't need to pay the boxer a visit."

  "Damn Finelli!"

  "It's not his fault Granford is innocent. There's also more bad news."

  "What? Speak up, it sounds like you're eating something."

  I swallowed my second cookie. "Sorry. Bradley saw the Saint Thomas photos and flipped. In a bad way. He was disgusted with me, Darlene."

  "What exactly did he say?"

  "I can't talk about it now," I said. "I'll tell you later. I'm so tired and down, I want to come home and crawl under the covers. Drew's going to be here all afternoon. I don't think I can take it."

  "Get that girl from the typing pool to cover for you and leave. You'll only get more upset as the day goes on, and when the time comes for Bradley to go—"

  I rubbed my left temple. "Gosh, I hadn't even thought of that moment. Dear God. Bradley's shut his door. I've got to finish some work, then let Danielle have her lunch. Maybe after that I'll come home."

  "Good. Honey, I'm going to head over to Stu's house. You call me if there's anything you need, okay?"

  "Yes. Thanks, Darlene."

  I dialed Danielle and asked her to cover for me after she'd had lunch. She said she would, but that it might not be until two, because they were swamped in the typing pool.

  Throughout the morning, Bradley's door stayed shut.

  Around one, Drew swooped in like a vulture. "Hey, baby. Ready to start work for your new boss?"

  "Temporary boss," I replied, and popped another cookie into my mouth.

  "I'll win you over, baby. Soon you'll be eating cookies out of my hand," he promised, entering Bradley's office and closing the door behind him.

  I felt queasy just looking at him.

  In fact, by the time Danielle finally arrived to relieve me at close to two thirty, I felt dizzy from nerves, exhaustion, and lack of sleep.

  I grabbed my purse, my cup of cookies, and took the elevator to the lobby. I had no idea when I'd see Bradley again. Days? Months?

  I rode the subway home, trying not to cry. The noise of the train sounded loud in my ears, and the masses of people began to blur together. I wished I could shake the dizziness. Plus, now I could take only shallow breaths. I needed sleep.

  As I entered my apartment, it was all I could do to close and lock the door. With difficulty I changed into a short, sleeveless cotton nightgown, leaving my suit lying across my bed.

  About to leave the room, I spotted Bradley's scarf on the Banana chair. I grabbed it and held the soft wool close to my face. I opened a window in the living room and lay down on the sectional, out of breath. I tried to sleep, but instead developed a terrible headache.

  I looked at the big conch shell on the coffee table next to where I'd dropped my purse and the rest of Debbie Ann's cookies. As pretty as the shell was, I decided to give it away. It only held memories of that trip to Saint Thomas, and the mistake I'd made. Bradley was right: I should never have posed for Pierre. I had been so darned concerned about not disappointing Bradley, I'd ending up doing just that.

  My stomach rolled. I needed to take some aspirin for my headache. I pushed myself off the sectional and stood. The room tilted. By holding on to the sectional, then grasping the door frame to the kitchen, I managed to reach the aspirin on the counter. My heart beat hard in my chest. I thought about calling Darlene, but I didn't want to interrupt her time with Stu over something that would pass with sleep.

  The phone rang.

  Bradley!

  "Hello," I said, surprised that my voice sounded like I'd been running.

  "Bebe, dear, this is Debbie Ann. I heard you left the office. I've been worried about you. My show ended moments ago, and I called you first thing. Are you all right?"

  I leaned against the wall for support, closing my eyes in an attempt to stop the dizziness. "I have a terrible headache, I'm dizzy, and I feel a little nauseous. I'm going to take some aspirin."

  "Heavens, sounds like a flu coming on. Is your roommate helping you?"

  "No, she's not here," I mumbled. "I think it's the strain ... Suzie's death ... Mr. Williams ... Pierre ... I need sleep."

  "Give me your address, Bebe, I'm coming over. I don't like the way you sound," Debbie Ann commanded.

  "I'll be fine," I said, and gasped for breath. "Need aspirin and sleep." I slid down and sat on the floor.

  "Listen to me, Bebe. You're a young girl without a mother nearby to take care of you. Of course I don't have to come over, but I want to. I have a strong pain reliever, and I am no stranger to illness. You might have to see a doctor, and mine would make a house call if I asked him."

  "Okay," I said and gave her my address. "Buzz me when you get here."

  "I'll be right there."

  I took shallow breaths after talking to her. Was it the flu, or was I having a nervous breakdown? I couldn't even return the receiver to its cradle. Instead I left it on the kitchen floor and crawled over to the door. With effort I lifted myself enough to unlock it, and then sat down underneath the intercom to wait for Debbie Ann.

  When the buzzer sounded, I pressed the button for the downstairs door to open, then crawled over to the sectional. I didn't want Debbie Ann to see me on the floor. She might do something rash like call an ambulance.

  I had just lain down, clutching Bradley's scarf, when Debbie Ann came in, still in TV makeup, her lips very red, wearing a striped shirtwaist dress. I moved my legs to make room for her, and she sat down near my hips.

  "You don't look at all well, Bebe."

  "Think I need a doctor?" I got out, finding it harder to breathe.

  "If only you'd eaten all the cookies I laced with cyanide it would all be over. I wouldn't have had to risk coming over here. But no one will remember an ordinary woman like me."

  My head swam. "Huh?"

  Debbie Ann's red lips curved. "You'd be in heaven now, following a rather unpleasant death, I admit. I despise rodents and always keep rodenticide." She laughed. "You are a rodent, are you not, Bebe? Toying with things weaker than yourself."

  She pulled something thin, sharp, and shiny from her black pocketbook and held it over me. "If only
I knew exactly where to place this, you wouldn't have to suffer. It's just as well. Messy stabbings happen frequently in New York."

  "Why?" I couldn't understand. Debbie Ann was going to kill me? Poison. The cookies were poisoned.

  Her face turned into a mask of rage. "You filthy girls and my Petey. None of you are good enough for him. Do you think I don't know what you've put him through, Bebe? He fancies himself in love with you and you've played with him, hurt him. After last night, I begged him not to see you anymore, but Petey wouldn't listen, said he'd win your love."

  "Petey?"

  "Pierre, you fool, my son. We changed his name when we moved from West Virginia. He always cries on his mother's shoulder, and I take care of him, all to his good. I knew you'd have to die when he told me how much he loved you, but that you'd turned on him and tried to make him say he'd killed that hussy Suzie. He's forgiven you already and is determined to make you his."

  Piddlin'. A Southern phrase Pierre had used at dinner last night. That's what had bothered me. And the photograph in Pierre's bedroom of a family with the mountains in the background. "Pierre's parents . . . dead," I got out, forcing back nausea.

  "I saw the talent in Petey, the greatness. I knew he'd be our ticket out of poverty if we moved to New York and Petey made a name for himself. His father thought I was crazy. I killed him first, making it look like a suicide, so Petey wouldn't be angry. Then Petey and I were free. Now we're both successful, and I won't let any woman hurt him or interfere with his greatness."

  Through the dizziness, the headache, the nausea, I began to comprehend. Terror gripped me.

  "Petey ... a good photographer," I said, breathlessly. I had to be strong. I had to save myself.

  "He's the best," Debbie Ann snarled. She relaxed her arms for a moment, lowering the thin blade. "We contrived that story about his being French. So much more high-class than West Virginia. The orphan angle coaxed people into feeling sorry for him. He honed his craft from them, until we were ready to take New York."

  "You did," I said, buying time like they always did on TV.

  She laughed. "Both of us did. But where I was able to avoid the pitfalls of the chains of marriage, Petey was an idiot when it came to models. At first there was nothing serious, nothing for me to worry about. But as he got older, Petey started having long affairs that only hurt him and distracted him from his work. I tried to tell him, but he wouldn't listen to me."

  "Kiki?"

  She gave me a withering stare. "You know even more than I thought. No girl who took cocaine was good enough for my son! She was out of her mind with the drug, so surprised to learn Pierre really had a mother, so willing to show me her pretty flowers, so easy to push off the building."

  I tried not to reveal my horror. "Lola."

  Debbie Ann tsked. "She was no threat. Drunken whore. Petey and I talk about everything—well, almost everything."

  Pierre didn't know his mother had killed! Suddenly, through my dizziness, my pounding head, came one word: "Suzie."

  Debbie Ann's features contorted. "That lying, whoring bitch! Petey and I fought constantly about her. I hoped Williams would take Suzie away from Petey, but their affair had the opposite effect on him."

  "How?"

  "Suzie had my boy under her control. Her control! Petey bought her a ring, intending to marry that trash. I kept a constant watch on her, waiting, waiting for the right opportunity. When I saw Suzie and Williams go into her apartment building, I followed dressed as a cleaning woman. When Williams left, I knocked on the door. Suzie opened it, naked. I could have strangled her with my bare hands, but instead I saw the scarf. The one the newspaper said Williams gave her. Petey believes Williams strangled Suzie."

  She broke off and tilted her head at me. "I'm glad you've kept me talking, Bebe. You've served me well." She placed the knife back in her purse.

  Relief swept me. She wasn't going to kill me.

  "You're in love with Williams. I know, because ever since you came to Ryan, there's been gossip about the two of you."

  Her hand darted out and she snatched Bradley's scarf from me. She twisted the blue wool until it was tightly wound. "Two women strangled with scarves from Williams. How utterly perfect."

  "Scarf. Not. Bradley's."

  She laughed. "Your Bradley will get the electric chair for double murder. My Petey will never come under suspicion. We'll go on, mother and son. I'll help Petey get over his grief."

  At those words, a current of adrenaline shot through me.

  I reached out for the conch shell on the coffee table, grabbing it just as she wrapped the scarf around my neck.

  With all my might, I let the heavy shell come crashing down on her head.

  Stunned, she slumped over on top of me. I gripped the shell, but Debbie Ann's weight crushed the breath from me.

  The front door swung open.

  "Bebe!" Bradley yelled.

  "Gun. Darlene. Underwear." The room went black, then came into focus again.

  Debbie Ann regained consciousness. She pulled the knife back out of her purse.

  "Drop it, Debbie Ann, or I'll put a bullet through your back," Bradley commanded.

  "You're the one who's going to die!" she screamed at him, her head turned away from me.

  I brought the shell down again. This time when it made contact it shattered.

  She fell to the floor.

  Bradley rushed over. "Darlene had these in her drawer too," he said, holding out some handcuffs. He snapped them on Debbie Ann's wrists.

  Then he gathered me up into his arms. Carrying me into the kitchen, he bent down, holding me close, and picked up the phone. "Hang on, sweetheart; you're going to be fine."

  "Sorry. Photos. Forgive me," I said, and once again the blackness rushed toward me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Two days later, Friday, the doctor let me out of the hospital. I'd had to have my stomach pumped, and all sorts of nasty injections, but I was completely healthy again. The doctor said I hadn't had a lethal amount of poison in my system, but if I had eaten all of Debbie Ann's cookies, things might have gone a different way.

  I didn't remember Bradley calling the ambulance or much about my first night at the hospital. One of the nurses told me later that he stayed until four in the morning, when the doctor finally declared I was out of the woods.

  Bradley called me Thursday afternoon and asked if he could visit, but I told him I'd rather wait to see him when I was home again. Actually, I didn't want him to see me without makeup in an ugly hospital gown. That could leave a lasting impression on a man. Darlene, who'd been with me most of the time, agreed.

  Instead, Bradley sent me a dozen pink roses with a card that read, %quotMeet me at Tiffany's at noon on Saturday."

  At first, visions of us picking out my engagement ring flashed in my head. Then I realized Bradley would never propose marriage that way. Darlene had said, "He's probably going to return Suzie's bracelet and buy you something."

  Also on Thursday, Detective Finelli visited.

  "Landed yourself in the hospital this time, Miss Bennett," he said gruffly, dropping a box of chocolates on my tray. "Those aren't poisoned."

  "You're so kind, Detective. Tell me everything."

  "While you were dying, Pickering called Williams and instructed him to hurry to my office. Williams rushed in and the two of them met with me. Pickering had done a background check on Pierre Benoit per your boss's request. Williams hadn't seen it yet."

  "Pickering found out Pierre is a phony?"

  "Yeah, his name is Peter Benson, and another of his girlfriends, Kiki, died under questionable circumstances. Her death was ruled a suicide, but we're reopening the case."

  "Debbie Ann told me she pushed Kiki off the roof of Peter's building."

  Finelli pulled out his notepad and wrote. "Williams flipped out, saying that you had gone home sick. Took the two of us to calm him down. Pickering went on to say that Peter's mother is actually Debbie Ann Allard, aka Debbie Ann
Benson. Her husband, Chuck Benson, shot himself back in the fifties. At that point, with Williams breathing down my neck, I called the Charleston, West Virginia, police. A detective there said they had suspected Chuck Benson may not have been the one to pull the trigger, but without proof they couldn't hold Debbie Ann in the state."

  "Debbie Ann told me she killed her husband."

  Finelli jotted down more notes. "Williams and I took a patrol car, lights flashing, and sped to find Mrs. Benson at Ryan, but she was gone. Your boss was like a wild man, Miss Bennett. He told me he intended to go to the photographer's studio immediately, yelling that either Peter or Debbie Ann was the killer and that you could be in danger. Your boyfriend looked like he would have a stroke at any minute."

  "He's not my boyfriend," I murmured, imagining Bradley acting like "a wild man" over me.

  "So you say. I went with him for Benson's protection. When confronted about his background, Benson first tried to deny it, but Williams had the papers from Pickering."

  "What did Pierre—I mean Peter—say then?"

  "First he cursed Williams for invading his privacy and demanded to know why he wasn't in police custody for Suzie Wexford's murder. Then, under pressure, Benson admitted he and his mother had contrived the story of his being from France, but insisted they'd done no harm. Benson said they came to New York so he could make a name for himself and that his mother was the only woman in the world he trusted. He asked us not to reveal their little deception."

  "So Peter had no idea his mother had murdered anyone?"

  "Not a clue."

  "I hope you didn't tell him his mother murdered his father."

  Finelli shook his head. "No. I didn't know she had at that point. I only knew that the West Virginia police suspected her."

  "Good."

  "Instead, I grilled him about Kiki's and Suzie's deaths, telling him he was the connection between the two women, both of whom were now dead. He furiously denied killing anyone. Williams pointed out that Benson had lied about his identity, and that now he was lying about killing Suzie. The two men almost came to blows. That's when I called for backup. Officers arrived at the scene and took Benson to jail."