A Little Night Murder

by Nancy Martin

  Poppy shrieked with rage, steam almost bursting from her ears.

  Lexie and I were halfway down the staircase, hoping to break up a girl fight before it started. On the bottom step, Lexie shoved me out of the fray and made a leap to grab Poppy just as she launched herself at Bridget with her claws bared.

  Bridget took advantage of Lexie’s inadvertent help by taking a roundhouse slap at Poppy’s face.

  At that moment, who should come through the open door but Michael. He grasped the situation instantly and lunged to stop his mother.

  As if in slow motion, I saw Bridget swing her hand at Poppy just as Michael seized her other arm. Bridget couldn’t stop her forward motion, however, and the blow came around and connected hard with Michael’s face. His head snapped back, but he also had the self-control to pull his mother close and subdue her before she could inflict any more violence.

  In the following heartbeat of silence, I picked up Poppy’s wig from the floor and handed it to her.

  Poppy snatched her trademark blond hair from me, her face a mask of fury. “I’m calling the police!”

  She jammed the wig sideways on her head, stalked around us and disappeared up the stairs.

  “Jeez, Bridget,” Michael said as he released his mother, “you can’t go around hitting people. You’re going to get yourself arrested.”

  “I didn’t hit her. I accidentally hit you.” Huffy, she straightened her zebra blouse. “And you’re not going to press charges.”

  “Give me a minute to think about that,” Michael said.

  I said, “Let’s get out of here before the police show up again.”

  When we got back to Lexie’s house, Michael and Bridget retreated to the far end of Lexie’s patio for a private discussion. As I relieved Samir of babysitting, my cell phone rang. I sat down on one of the lounge chairs and answered. I plugged one ear to block out Bridget’s strident voice.

  “Where are you?” Gus demanded. “We needed you here four hours ago!”

  “It’s Friday. I don’t go into the office on Fridays because I have so many evening events.”

  “Don’t you know that putting in time at your desk will get you ahead in your career?”

  “You ran the photograph,” I said, already guessing the cause of his temper, “and now all hell has broken loose.”

  “I never took you for an I-told-you-so kind of person. But yes, our phones have been ringing off the hook. I’ve declared all hands on deck until the calls slow down.”

  “All your callers are claiming to be Tuttle heirs and demand their rightful inheritance?”

  “The stories have small variations, but they all want money, yes. Don’t gloat. I’ll admit I was unprepared for the number of phone calls from avaricious opportunists. One money-grubber in particular says he won’t speak with anybody but you.”

  “Who is he? What does he want?”

  “He wants to talk to you!” Gus roared. “So call him!”

  “Do you have a number where I can reach him?”

  Gus reeled off the phone number, and I scrambled to jot it down on my pad. I said, “Have you reversed it? Tried to find out who this number is registered to?”

  “I’m a journalist,” Gus snapped. “Of course I tracked down the bloke. His name is David James Kaminsky. He’s a twenty-eight-year-old schoolteacher in rural Delaware. He owes fifty thousand dollars in student loans and four thousand dollars on a used Volvo. No speeding tickets, no arrests. No guns registered to him. As a side business, he makes zithers.”

  I thought I’d heard wrong. “Zithers?”

  “Which he sells at something called a Ren Faire.” Gus spelled that part for me. “In other words, he’s an average American nut-job, so he’s probably safe. Call him.”

  Gus slammed down his phone.

  I punched in the phone number for David Kaminsky and got a voice-mail system. I said, “This is Nora Blackbird, returning your call to the Intelligencer.” I gave him my phone number and disconnected.

  From his bassinette, Noah gave a sigh and then a squawk, so I picked him up. “Don’t become a reporter, okay? Think about becoming a minister. Or a librarian. Something quiet.”

  He jammed both fists in his grinning mouth and gurgled. But raised voices caught his attention, and he turned around in my arms to watch Michael and his mother renew their disagreement. Before it escalated any further, I gathered Noah closer and took him inside to change his diaper and warm him some milk.

  In the breakfast room, Lexie and Samir stood at the window, watching from a safe distance while Michael and his mother hashed out their differences.

  “She hit him again,” Lexie reported.

  Samir added, “She ought to be doing that lady wrestling show on TV. You know, the one where they tear each other’s clothes off and try to beat each other’s heads against the floor?”

  Lexie and I exchanged concerned glances. Maybe her self-imposed house arrest was having a deleterious effect on Samir, too.

  At that moment, Bridget stormed off toward the Tuttle house, where she’d left her car. Michael paced around the pool for a few minutes before he came inside. His left eye was puffing up already. Lexie handed him an ice pack. Noah stopped swinging his bare foot to give Michael a long, puzzled stare.

  To all of us, Michael said, “Sorry. She gets a little out of control sometimes.”

  “It must have been interesting,” Lexie said, “growing up with her.”

  “I didn’t grow up with her.” He applied the ice pack to his eye.

  When I knew my voice would sound normal, I said, “I have to go in to work early. It seems the switchboard at the paper is swamped with phone calls, so I’m needed. Can you drive me to the train?”

  “I’ll drive you into the city,” Michael said.

  “No, Noah shouldn’t spend all his waking hours in a car seat.” I handed the baby into Michael’s arm and the sippy cup, too. “Take him home. Play with him. I’m perfectly happy riding the train.” I turned to go upstairs but hesitated. “Michael, did Bridget tell you she knew Jenny Tuttle? They met at a crab shack where Bridget sings on Friday nights.”

  “No, she didn’t tell me.” He gave up on the ice pack and held the sippy cup for Noah. His expression was uneasy. “How long have they known each other?”

  “Maybe you could ask Bridget?”

  “Before the police do,” he agreed.

  I went upstairs to change out of Libby’s superpower T-shirt and into one of my grandmother’s flirty A-line go-go dresses from back in the day when she partied with Ali MacGraw. Grandmama had bought a few choice couture pieces for the years after having her own children when she hadn’t quite regained her figure. This one was a pink and tangerine Pucci print, off one shoulder. I had barely enough room for my baby bump in the front, which gave me a butt-hugging figure in the back. I hoped the perky geometric print and my bare shoulder might distract attention from the faults of the dress. I borrowed a squirt of Lexie’s lotion to bring out a shine on my shoulder, touched up my lipstick and gave my hair a jolt of hairspray to create some spikes out of the bun at the crown of my head—another distraction from my size.

  Back downstairs, I thanked Lexie for her hospitality, and Michael and I took the baby outside, where Michael had parked another gigantic vehicle—this one a monster painted with desert camouflage and with HUMMER printed on its hood.

  “Michael, this one is literally a tank! I can’t reach to put Noah in his car seat!”

  “I’ll help,” Michael said, but even he had trouble getting Noah buckled in. He finally managed to settle the baby, then hoisted me up into the passenger seat, saying, “It’s not a tank. It’s a soft skin—no armor. It might be a little inconvenient to get in and out of, but this one is really safe.”

  “Safe can’t be our only criterion,” I said when he had climbed behind the wheel and fired up the
noisy engine. “What’s wrong with a nice minivan? With cup holders and good gas mileage and a backup camera so we don’t bump into anybody at a Little League game?”

  “I can’t be seen driving a minivan!”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I run the Abruzzo family!”

  “I thought you were shutting down the Abruzzo family. Now suddenly you’re Tony Soprano again?”

  “That’s not what I— For the benefit of the local punks, I’m now the top of my family tree. They’re supposed to be afraid of me, not laughing about what I drive.”

  “Why do they have to be afraid of you?”

  “Because that’s the way intimidation works.”

  “Intimidation?” I cried. “Michael, what are you doing? Have you hurt somebody?”

  “Do you really have to ask me that? Look, I can’t go around driving something silly. I’m a mob boss, not working at a Verizon store at the mall!”

  We had both raised our voices. Before I could answer, Noah gave a whimper from the backseat. I turned around to look at him, and his lower lip was quivering. Huge tears trembled in his eyes. His parents argued in front of him, and now we were doing the same thing. Pretty soon shouting was going to be a normal part of his life.

  I collected myself. With a reassuring smile, I stretched around and gave the baby his pink bunny to play with.

  “There must be a happy medium when it comes to cars,” I said, endeavoring to erase any trace of the annoyance from my tone when I turned around again. “We should have something that doesn’t straddle two time zones.”

  “Okay, I’ll keep looking.” Michael sent a chastened glance in the mirror at Noah.

  “And we’re going to have to figure out a different way of disagreeing.”

  “Yeah, I know. Sorry, but yelling is still my default option. I’ll work on it.”

  “It’s not just you,” I said. “I’ll work on it, too.”

  We had reached the bottom of the lane that connected Lexie’s driveway with the route up to the Tuttle house. I craned around to see if Ox Oxenfeld’s Bentley had reappeared in front of the house. It hadn’t. And Bridget O’Halloran’s white convertible was gone.

  As Michael turned the Hummer toward the train station, I said, “How determined is your mother to get a role in the Tuttle show?”

  “Not any role. The lead role. She’s obsessed.”

  “Obsessed enough to threaten Jenny?”

  “As far as I can tell, it’s Boom Boom she’s fixated on. If Boom Boom was dead, I’d be figuring a way to get Bridget to a country with favorable extradition laws.”

  I decided against immediately telling Michael about the letter I’d found in Jenny’s nightstand. “Boom Boom does seem a much more likely target. A lot of people want her out of the picture.”

  Intrigued, Michael said, “Like who?”

  “Poppy Fontanna, for one. She wants to play the lead in the show, too. At the moment she’s settling for the understudy, but I think she’s only biding her time. Poppy has a temper and isn’t afraid to throw a punch. And remember how Ox Oxenfeld reacted when he heard that Jenny was dead? He turned white and ran out of the room.”

  “Not just because he wanted to get away from my mother?”

  “That’s possible, too,” I said amicably. “But I thought he was genuinely worried about what Jenny’s death meant to the future of the musical.”

  “I got the same vibe,” Michael said. “What about the piano man? Fred.”

  “He’s the only one who seems genuinely upset about Jenny’s death. That’s sad, isn’t it? She didn’t leave much of an impression behind.”

  “Did she leave money?”

  “She must have inherited quite a bit from her father. Why?”

  Michael shrugged. “Usually when somebody gets killed, there’s money at stake. A hothead gets greedy and grabs an ax or a knife or a gun. But when somebody dies of drugs or something slow, the killer isn’t usually a mook passing by, hoping to score some petty cash. It’s somebody close—somebody in the house who wants something more than loose change. Cops always look at heirs or a husband or boyfriend or whatever. Did she have a boyfriend?”

  I tried not to think about how Michael came to believe such truths about murder. “I don’t think she had a boyfriend.”

  “Too bad. Nothing makes a person homicidal like love gone wrong.”

  “Personal experience?” I asked, thinking of Bridget’s remark about Michael’s romantic past.

  He smiled. “No indictments. What about the kid in the photo? Where did he come from? He didn’t just pop out of thin air. If he’s Jenny’s son, who’s his dad? Jenny had at least a one-night stand with somebody.”

  Last evening, I had told Michael about Gus’s plan to run the photograph in the Intelligencer. “We don’t know if he’s Jenny’s son. But I’ll find out about the boy in the picture soon. One of the many people who called the newspaper with some kind of information or question about the photograph is a man who wants to talk to me. He wouldn’t talk to Gus. So this should be interesting.”

  This new development wiped the smile off Michael’s face. “Why you? Do you know him?”

  “I don’t recognize his name.”

  “Well, don’t meet him late at night on any street corners. Take Hardwicke with you. Maybe he’ll get himself mugged.”

  “I’ll be careful.” I stewed for another moment. The scenery passed in a blur as I mentally sped through everything I had seen and heard. I had been collecting a lot of information and even more impressions, but one question seemed impossible to answer. “Why would anyone kill someone as sweet as Jenny?”

  “That’s your department,” Michael said. “You’re the one who knows these people.”

  Behind us, Noah crooned to himself. He was happy again.

  I said, “Noah seems perfectly content when we talk about homicide.”

  “What do you expect? He’s a Blackbird.”

  “That’s not very— Wait—stop!” I twisted my head around to look out the window. “Is that Emma?”

  We were passing one of the many beautiful horse farms in Bucks County. A cluster of barns stood beside two large outdoor rings studded with daunting hurdles built out of colorful barrels and white rails. The rolling pasture glowed green with lush grass, and a handful of beautiful horses cantered across it, their riders dressed in exercise gear, complete with helmets. At the back of the group, a gray horse rollicked along with a familiar figure in the saddle.

  Michael pulled over, and I clambered out of the Hummer, almost turning my ankle as I landed in the soft gravel on the roadside. I shouted Emma’s name and waved both hands over my head to get her attention.

  The gray horse wheeled around, and Emma pointed him in my direction. Another moment later, they arrived at the split-rail fence—the horse snorting and sweating, Emma controlling him seemingly without effort.

  “Hey, Sis!” She pulled off her helmet and grinned at me. “Looks like you’re having a baby!”

  I hadn’t seen my mischievous little sister in almost two months, but she looked the same as always—stunningly beautiful despite her dusty clothes and riding boots. If anything, her body looked more fit than ever. She had put on a few pounds—all of it muscle. Her skintight T-shirt was wet with sweat under her breasts and arms.

  Her horse stuck his nose over the top rail of the fence to me, breathing in gusts. He was a lanky gray with dark stockings and dapples on his haunches. His dark eyes were full of intelligence as he snuffled my hand, but he shifted his weight and swished his tail to show he wasn’t entirely a gentleman.

  I pushed his curious muzzle away and looked up at my sister. “You look good, too. And it seems you have a job.”

  She kicked one boot out of its stirrup and hitched her leg up over the pommel of her saddle. She sat as comfortably as if in a rocking c
hair, not on a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of restless, world-class equine athlete. The breeze ruffled her short auburn hair. “The weather’s too hot and sticky for me in Florida. I got back a few days ago.”

  “And you didn’t feel like phoning me until last night?”

  “I’ve been busy.” Her smile was easy as she rubbed her horse’s neck. “What do you think of him? Handsome, right?”

  It was hard to stay annoyed with Emma when she was feeling positive. “Very pretty. What’s his name?”

  “In the barn, we call him Cookie. I forget his registered name, but it’s something in German. He’s one of Paddy’s new purchases, just out of quarantine from Europe. I’m stretching his legs this afternoon. His assigned rider got a better offer, so Paddy asked if I’d like to try. Get him fit, train with him. In a couple of days we’ll see if he can jump the way his advance publicity claims.”

  “You mean you might ride him in competition? Em, that’s great!” I was delighted to hear someone might trust her enough to let her ride in important shows again.

  “Yeah, we’ll see.” She gave his neck a rub, and the horse mouthed his bit and shook his head.

  “Won’t Mr. Twinkles be jealous?” I asked, thinking of her chestnut gelding. The horse stayed at Blackbird Farm with me, where he ate his head off and supposedly strengthened his sore tendons.

  “Twinkles still needs to heal a little. So I’ll ride Cookie until I can get my own horse back in top shape. And to earn a few extra bucks, I thought I’d run a quick two-week pony class for kids next month before school starts. Does that work for you? Can I use the farm?”

  “Sure. The pony classes are fun.”

  “I’ll start working with Twinkles then, too.”

  The Grand Prix circuit was where Emma wanted to be, and she had purchased Mr. Twinkles herself to compete. But his health problems had delayed her plans. From time to time, Emma’s career ambitions got sidetracked by her drinking, too, so I was glad—if a little surprised—to see her literally back in the saddle. Maybe this new horse would take her to the kind of competitions she dreamed of.