A Little Night Murder

by Nancy Martin

  Michael took his time going around the SUV. When he got behind the wheel, he had his anger under control.

  I said, “We need to put Noah in the car seat.”

  “Give him a few more minutes to calm down. We’ll just sit.”

  “Look, he’s getting a tooth. Two teeth, see?”

  “Hey, yeah. How about that?”

  We both looked at the two bottom teeth that had pushed through since the last time we’d seen him. No wonder he’d been crying.

  Noah put his hands out to Michael again.

  I bundled the baby over to him. Noah heaved a wavering sigh and snuggled close. He put his fist into his mouth and blinked up at Michael.

  We sat for a time, just listening to the baby breathe.

  I should have been happy. I loved Noah. I loved taking care of him. With us, he was a happy child with a glint of humor in his expressive eyes. And when I held him in my arms, it felt as if I was also taking care of Emma, something she’d never permit.

  As we sat together in the darkness, however, a cold dread oozed up from deep inside me.

  I knew what was going to happen.

  One of these days when it came time for us to hand over Noah to Hart and Penny, Michael wasn’t going to give him up.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  In the morning, Libby telephoned.

  “I just dropped the twins off to watch an autopsy of a man who died a month ago. They were more excited than when we went to Disney World. Do you think they need counseling?”

  “Couldn’t hurt,” I said, washing breakfast dishes. “Libby, have you spoken with Ox Oxenfeld since Jenny Tuttle was murdered?”

  A pregnant pause. “I haven’t seen him, if that’s what you mean. But we did have a . . . conversation.”

  My suspicions were aroused. “What kind of conversation?”

  “Let me ask you something instead. What exactly constitutes phone sex?”

  “Libby!”

  “We talked,” she said. “We kept our clothes on. At least, I did. Whether or not he—”

  “Never mind.” I pulled a clean dish towel from its drawer and began to dry the Beatrix Potter dish that had been handed down in my family for generations. Noah liked the bunny pictured on it, so I’d pulled it out of the butler’s pantry for his cereal. “I was just wondering if Ox might have said something about Jenny.”

  “Like what? Do you think they were having an affair?” Her voice was sharp.

  I very much doubted their relationship was anything sexual. I said, “I’m curious, that’s all.”

  “Hm. Would you like me to pose some discreet questions? I should probably call him today, anyway. I could ask him for business advice. I’m still considering the Budget Bunny franchise. Let me go change my shoes first. I’ll call you if I learn anything interesting.”

  Why she needed to change her shoes—well, I didn’t want to hazard a guess. Libby hung up before I had a chance to ask if she’d heard from Emma lately.

  With a few minutes alone, I fired off some photos to the online editor for posting later. I was just starting to research blue people when Michael came down holding Noah.

  He said, “Changing diapers is a lot like changing tires in the pit at an Indy race. Getting the job done fast is a matter of having all the supplies in the right place.”

  I laughed and shut off the computer. On his way to work at Gas N Grub, Michael drove Noah and me over to Lexie’s house to soak in the pool.

  “Noah slept for twelve hours,” I told Lexie after we had splashed in the water and had our lunch. “And he ate like a champion this morning. He’s happy with us. We’re happy with him.”

  “That’s sweet, Nora. But . . . ?”

  We had tucked Noah into a beautiful white wicker bassinette Lexie had said was a gift for Baby Girl from her mother. Today it was the perfect place for Noah to snooze in the shade by the pool. Yards of eyelet lace fluttered in the breeze while he drowsily played with one of the many stuffed toys we kept for him at Blackbird Farm. The pink bunny with the googly eyes was his favorite.

  I leaned back in my lounge chair in the shade. “Michael is trying to teach him to walk already. He thinks Penny keeps Noah cooped up in a cage all the time.”

  “He’s kidding, right?’

  “For the most part, yes. I shouldn’t tell you this,” I said to my friend, “but last winter, just after Noah was born, we had a feeling that Penny tried—that she was giving him something to make him sleep so she didn’t have to cope with him.”

  “You mean a drug?” Lexie sat up straight in the sunshine and whipped off her sunglasses. “Nora!”

  “We can’t prove it. And judging by the scene at their house last night, she’s certainly not doping him anymore. But Michael is suspicious of everything she does. He is almost pathological about safety now that our own baby is coming, but it spills over into feeling protective about Noah, too. I told you about the deluxe security system he had installed on the farm?”

  She put her dark glasses back on again. “I don’t blame him. A women’s prison is bad enough. But he has seen things and known people who must make him fear the worst for— Never mind.” She suppressed a shudder, and I knew she was shaking off her own prison experience. “The two of you should have adopted this little boy in the first place, sweetie.”

  “We’re not legally married yet, and Michael is a convicted felon. Adoption laws in Pennsylvania have loosened considerably, but it’s still complicated. The only reason we have permission to adopt Rawlins’s baby is that Rawlins and the mother of his child have relinquished their parental rights and made it clear the child is related to me and I should be his mother. But what judge would have approved our adoption of Hart’s son, if Hart objected? The bottom line is that Hart is Noah’s father.”

  “Not if he cares more about his office than his offspring,” Lexie said. “How does Emma feel about this?”

  “She has abdicated any responsibility.”

  “That’s Emma,” Lexie agreed. “Ignore the problem, or drink it away.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m almost afraid she’d never come back if Michael and I had her child. She doesn’t want to see him. But now I’m also worried Michael won’t give Noah back to Hart. And although I don’t disagree with him, we can’t just decide Noah is ours. There are laws.”

  “Your groom is accustomed to breaking laws.”

  “I know,” I said on a sigh.

  Lexie gave me a consoling pat. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Nothing’s happened yet.”

  Lexie’s houseman came outside and set a tray on the small table between our chairs. A dish of strawberries, a bowl of whipped cream, a plate of scones—all decorated with folded yellow napkins and some daisies in a slender vase. He refilled our glasses of iced tea without being asked.

  “Thank you, sweetie,” Lexie said to him. “How’s your book coming this morning?”

  “I baked instead,” Samir said curtly. Because I had worn another one of Libby’s crazy shirts—this one read I GROW PEOPLE. WHAT’S YOUR SUPERPOWER?—Samir carefully avoided looking at me. He gathered up our wet towels and took them into the house. When he was out of earshot, Lexie cast a despairing glance at the scones and whispered, “Carbs. I’m so sick of carbohydrates after prison. Biscuits, white bread, pancakes—it all makes me flash back to being stuck behind bars. I don’t have the heart to tell Samir that I feed all his baked treats to the birds.”

  “Michael feels the same way about scrambled eggs.”

  “So he said.” She popped a strawberry into her mouth. “Your groom has been a good listener for me, Nora. Thank you for sharing him.”

  Part of me felt a little jealous that Lexie could talk about her emotional prison experience with Michael but not with me. Perhaps his input on her jail time was more insightful than mine, but it still bothered me just a little. I wante
d to help.

  I also wanted some reassurance that they weren’t concocting something illegal during their clandestine meetings. I took the bull by the horns and asked, “How is your project going? The one you and Michael are working on together?”

  “It’s going,” she said, smiling.

  Another stop sign. I tried to ask again, but across the lawn at the Tuttle house, someone began plunking on a piano. Nobody sang, but the piano banged.

  “Hardly Mozart’s Requiem,” Lexie said dryly.

  On the table between us lay the day’s edition of the Philadelphia Intelligencer with the blaring headline BROADWAY HEIRESS DEAD. Below that was a fuzzy version of the photo I had seen sliding out of Jenny’s pocket as she lay on her bedroom floor. The face of the nameless boy smiled shyly up from the newspaper alongside a smaller headline: HELP IDENTIFY MURDERED WOMAN’S OBSESSION.

  Lexie and I had already lamented the objectionable word obsession. Nobody knew who the boy was, let alone his connection to Jenny Tuttle. I guessed every con artist worth his salt would be telephoning the Intelligencer now. And I could only imagine Jenny’s reaction, if she were still alive.

  Again, my protective nature was stirred. I wanted to save Jenny’s reputation before it was slung through the media mud. But I needed to learn more about the circumstances of her death before I knew how to head off the worst of the publicity.

  “I have an idea,” I said to Lexie. “Why don’t I take the scones over to Boom Boom Tuttle?”

  Lexie was not fooled. She eyed me from behind her sunglasses. “What’s your ulterior motive?”

  “It’s simply a kind gesture,” I protested. “I should pay a condolence call.”

  “And?” she pressed.

  “My editor,” I admitted, “seems to think it would be a good career move for me to investigate Jenny’s life.”

  Lexie was easily diverted by career talk. “I like hearing that he’s interested in your future, sweetie. Last I heard, he was trying to pinch your bottom by the water cooler.”

  “We have reached détente where that kind of behavior is concerned. Instead, he’s trying to make me more ambitious.”

  “That could be a good thing, Nora. Don’t be offended. He’s trying to help you along. You could use a mentor. Or maybe a work spouse.”

  “A what?”

  “A work spouse is different from your real spouse. You might have a husband or wife at home, but at the office you need a trusted ally, too. Somebody who has your back, who can act as your confidant. A person you can count on as completely as your husband. A work spouse, see? Just don’t get the two confused. That’s when trouble starts.”

  “I can imagine.” But I shook my head. “I’m gradually learning to do my job, but I’m not sure I can handle being the kind of reporter Gus wants me to be.”

  “He’s a bit of a loose cannon,” Lexie conceded, “and the Intelligencer isn’t exactly the New York Times. In fact, I’m a little surprised he’s merely editing a tabloid here in Philadelphia when there’s a whole Hardwicke empire to run.”

  “I have a feeling he’s doing more here than working on the Intelligencer. His family is trying to buy a bunch of media companies in the Philadelphia area.”

  Lexie sat up with the keen interest of a woman being denied the delicious daily excitement of her office. “I wondered. Television, cable, newspapers—it’s all going to be one consolidated media in the end, and the Hardwickes have the money to buy a lot of it. Is he the local negotiator for his father? The embedded family representative?”

  “I don’t know for sure. He may be the black sheep of the family, but it makes sense that he’s here for more than running a tabloid.”

  “You could learn a lot from him, you know.”

  I groaned. “I don’t have the stomach for defamation. I want to protect Jenny Tuttle, for example, not drag her name through the mud.”

  “That’s one of your best qualities, sweetie. But you also have a healthy sense of curiosity, and that’s a good thing in a journalist. In this case, I must admit I’m curious about the circumstances of Jenny’s death, too.” Lexie gave the neighboring house a contemplative stare. “For one thing, Boom Boom didn’t seem terribly distressed that her own daughter is gone.”

  “Maybe by now reality has set in, and Boom Boom is grieving for Jenny. Maybe I should go over now—to be a good neighbor.”

  My friend grinned. “And if we have time to ask some innocent questions, what’s the harm?”

  “We? Lex, there might be reporters at the Tuttle house.”

  Lexie swung her slim legs over the side of her chair. “You’re not leaving me out of the action. I’ll ask Samir to bring his manuscript out here so he can watch over Noah while we go next door for a few minutes. Honestly, I can’t take being trapped in paradise much longer. Can you make that plate look like a gift?”

  I was already pulling a satin ribbon from the heap of wrapping that had encased the bassinette. I tied the ribbon around the plate and stuck a couple of daisies through the bow.

  Meanwhile Lexie pulled a black sundress over her head. Then she gave me a doubtful smile. “Maybe you should slip that shirt inside out?”

  Anything was better than being seen in public in my superpower T-shirt. “Good idea.”

  Within a couple of minutes, Lexie and I rang the bell at the front door of the Tuttle house.

  From out back, we could hear the thunder of tap-dancing feet and someone’s strident voice shouting out numbers.

  We rang again and knocked louder. In another minute Fred Fusby opened the door and stood there, towering over us. By the look of his face, he’d been crying for hours. His eyes were swollen and red. Or maybe somebody had slugged him.

  “Mr. Fusby, I’m Nora Blackbird, and this is Lexie Paine. We were here yesterday afternoon . . . during the crisis. Is there—are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” He looked embarrassed. “We thought you might be more people from that awful newspaper story. Or the police again. We haven’t had a half hour of uninterrupted rehearsal all day.”

  “I’m sorry things are so difficult.”

  “A tabloid ran a photograph this morning and implied the person had something to do with Jenny.” He mustered some outrage. “Half a dozen crazy people have come knocking at the door, hoping they’ve inherited millions.”

  “How terrible,” I managed to say.

  Lexie stepped inside without being invited, and I followed. Through the French doors at the back of the foyer, we could see ten or twelve dancers wearing top hats and sweating as they pounded their feet and twirled in unison on the patio. They were the same people who had wept around the piano, but now they danced their hearts out. An excitable, limber man shouted at them as if they were a herd of animals. He was dressed in a tight shirt, loose trousers and saddle shoes. His top hat lay squished on the patio as if he’d stomped on it in a rage.

  “The choreographer finally showed up,” Fred said, sounding doleful.

  I had the distinct feeling that we’d fallen through a rabbit hole and ended up on the set of a sophisticated but madcap showbiz movie. Any minute, Gene Kelly was going to slide down the banister and land at the feet of a winsome young lady with stardust in her eyes. They’d fall instantly in love and tap-dance across the marble floor and out into the sunshine.

  “Nora and I don’t want to interrupt,” Lexie said, “but we brought some food. Perhaps not enough for everyone, but—”

  At the sight of Lexie’s proffered plate, Fred teared up all over again. “Jenny used to love scones.”

  “Then take them,” Lexie said. “Enjoy them.”

  I was glad to see someone genuinely sorry Jenny was gone. I said, “We’d also like to pay our respects to Mrs. Tuttle. If she’s not indisposed, may we see her?”

  Fred had been in the act of accepting the plate with weepy pleasure, but at the ment
ion of Boom Boom, his demeanor cooled. “She’s upstairs. Follow me.”

  “You all seem so hard at work at rehearsing,” I said as Fred led us up the stairs. “No time off to mourn?”

  “Some of us are more affected by Jenny’s death than others,” he said with another sad sniff. “But if the show is going to open on schedule, we have to keep working. The choreographer and I are doing what we can to move forward, but we’re in limbo at the moment.”

  “In limbo because of Jenny’s death?” I asked.

  “No.” As he neared the bedroom doors, he dropped his voice. “According to some, Jenny’s death is just a pothole on the road to a Tony Award. Problem is, we’re still waiting for the rest of the money to come in. We can’t hire more people without the big cash.”

  “The big cash?”

  “From the backers. A show like this is astronomically expensive to produce. Not all the money is lined up yet.”

  “I thought Ox Oxenfeld was the producer.”

  “He’s the managing producer.” Fred led us along the upstairs hallway. “That means he does a lot of work but doesn’t fork over much cash. Boom Boom says we have big money coming from a very important financial backer, but he hasn’t sent the check.”

  “Who is the big backer?” Lexie asked.

  Fred put his hand on one of the bedroom doorknobs but didn’t turn it yet. He looked at Lexie and said with great dignity, “I’m told that’s none of my business.”

  Before we had time to sympathize or ask more questions, he opened the door and waved us into the inner sanctum. The large, dim room was dominated by a gigantic canopied bed upon which Boom Boom Tuttle was laid out like an Egyptian mummy, complete with bandages over her eyes and perfumed smoke wafting in the air. The smoke did not obscure the color of Boom Boom’s skin—still very clearly blue.

  Without moving from her prone position or out from under the strips of material on her face, Boom Boom snarled in a raspy voice, “Who the hell is there? What are you doing? I’m having my treatment!”