A Little Night Murder

by Nancy Martin

  “It’s what happens afterward that has me thinking.”

  Delilah looked up from our cell phones. “It’s a little late to start wondering if you can handle being a mom.”

  I smiled ruefully. “After wanting a family for so long, I realize now I should have thought through the details more carefully.”

  She laughed with me. “Yeah, been there, done that! I couldn’t wait to have Keesa, and then . . .”

  “Then?”

  “To be honest? I couldn’t wait to get back to work. Don’t get me wrong. I love being a mom. I love my daughter. But . . . for me, spending your whole day with a baby is just . . . boring. Don’t quote me. I can hear the mommy screams now. I should spend every waking minute with my kid! But not everybody’s the same. Spending months with a baby—that’s the right choice for some, but it can drive other women bat-crap crazy. I’m just not the kind of mother who can stay home and make organic cheese sandwiches with cookie cutters and teach my kid to read and recycle. Screw that. I want to be out in the world! And knowing how to fill my needs makes me a better mother for Keesa.”

  “I’m not sure which kind of mother I am.”

  “You’ll learn on the job, just like everyone else. I spend most of my time making parties for other people, and Keesa’s a happy soul. And smart! Not to mention a lot more well adjusted than I ever was. Look at you and your sisters. Mama and Daddy Blackbird were never around much, but you’re okay—better than most.”

  “Thanks,” I said, knowing my parents were infamous in many circles. I feared they had stiffed Delilah for her fee on the last party they threw before skipping town.

  “What about your Prince of Darkness? How’s he doing with all this?”

  “He’s fine,” I said with a smile. I got to the point of our private meeting. “In fact . . . we’re getting married on Friday.”

  With a cry, Delilah jumped up and hugged me again. “Congrats, honey! I’m really happy for you. Your prince can scare the daylights out of people, but he was real nice to me at your birthday party. Can I throw you a reception?”

  “Thank you, but no. We can’t afford a party.”

  “There’s a lot of that going around. With the Paine Investment Group problem, a lot of formerly loaded people are scrambling to pay the rent on their penthouses. But let me worry about what’s affordable. I’ve got more than a few favors to collect in this town.”

  “Thank you, really, but no. Michael is still shy about my friends.”

  She snorted. “It’s time he got over that. Nothing would make me happier than to throw you a party, Nora. Would I have all this work without you? All this glamour?” She spread her arms wide to indicate the cluttered warehouse office. “I owe all of my success to you!”

  “You made your reputation all by yourself. Really, let’s not have a party. We’d love to have you at the judge’s chamber, though.” I gave her the lowdown on the quiet wedding we had planned and added, “Just don’t tell Libby, okay? Not until the last minute.”

  Delilah laughed. “You afraid your big sis is going to make everybody do the chicken dance?”

  “I can handle the chicken dance. But she has more imagination than that—which scares me.”

  Delilah must have assumed I was kidding, because she laughed.

  We went out to the party in time to see the parade of food that waiters brought out from the makeshift kitchen set up in a tent out back. The guests oohed and aahed as the flaming trays filled the room with light. Sparklers spouted bright cascades of color.

  The live music began. The crowd shrieked with excitement and surged toward a stage that had been erected at the far end of the warehouse. Glaring lights came up. A once-very-famous rock band had been hired at substantial cost, I guessed. It took money to make money, I reminded myself—but this seemed over the top. I hoped someone on the committee had a relationship with the band and had scored a reduced price on the entertainment.

  The live musicians revved up the crowd with their old hits. The balding lead singer strutted across the stage with his microphone, sending female guests of all ages into a frenzy of nostalgia. It was impossible not to dance along to the throbbing music. Baby Girl felt happy inside me.

  Delilah had gone overboard with the sparkle. Strings of tiny lights dangled from the warehouse rafters. Huge ice sculptures glittered on tables covered with diaphanous fabrics. Guests carried glow sticks, and overhead a theatrical lighting system cast spinning disks of light across the crowd. A smoke machine billowed clouds of mist into the air. I counted up all the amenities and began to wonder how much money this new charity had spent to throw their party. And how much of what they hoped to raise actually went to buying winter coats and job interview clothes.

  The crowd was mostly young, mostly very rich, with a sprinkling of fashion students in the mix. Their wild hair, lavish tattoos and unflattering clothes made them easily recognizable. I saw a lot of familiar faces among the nonstudents and chatted with many old friends. I wasn’t the best-dressed person in attendance, but I was relieved to see I could still hold my own among the well-heeled.

  After taking some pictures of the most au courant outfits, I went to the buffet table, where nobody was eating. Fashion people rarely did. But just in case, I was assured by a waiter, everything was gluten-free, organic, free-range, locally sourced, humanely slaughtered or grass fed. No peanuts, no soy and certainly no bacon. Amused, I nibbled a few carrots and accepted a glass of blended juices while talking with other guests.

  My friend Chandler Ann appeared, dressed to the nines in a Tony Ward slip dress. She was with a couple of girlfriends in equally drop-dead party duds. Susan Shain wore a new Dior tank-top sundress, and Trish Connors was in an elaborately embellished Zac Posen frock. Shouting over the band, we exchanged compliments and harmless gossip about some of the clothes worn by other guests.

  Chandler Ann took me aside when her friends went for more drinks. As soon as we were alone, she leaned close to make herself heard over the music. “Nora, I’ve been thinking a lot about Jenny Tuttle this week.”

  “Me, too,” I confessed.

  “Funny thing. I remembered something Jenny said just before she quit coming to my dad’s clinic. Something about a woman who had threatened her. Do you think I should tell the police?”

  “Yes, of course.” Reluctantly, I reached for my cell phone. Even if my friend was about to implicate my future mother-in-law in a murder, it was the right thing to do. “I can give you the phone number of one of the state troopers on the case.”

  “Thanks. It may be nothing. But I remember Jenny coming for an appointment one day, and she was very upset. She said somebody she worked with was going to beat her up if she didn’t give her a better role in a play.”

  “Who was it?” I asked before I could stop myself.

  Chandler Ann frowned and said, “It was a funny name. Like a puppy or a flower. Daisy or Tulip or—”

  “Poppy?”

  “That’s it! Anyway, Jenny seemed genuinely frightened. Like maybe this Poppy person could definitely do some harm. I don’t want to be Chicken Little—claiming the sky is falling when it’s really nothing—but—”

  “It’s something, not nothing. I think you should call the police.” I quickly texted Ricci’s phone number to Chandler Ann’s phone. “It could be really important.”

  She continued to look doubtful. “I don’t want to look foolish.”

  “You won’t,” I assured her.

  Had I been alone with a murderer this morning? Had Poppy been the one to give Jenny too many medications? The music changed, and the band’s lead singer shouted into his microphone that it was time for the fashion portion of the evening to begin. A few key people slipped backstage, and other guests began to find seats in the very limited number of chairs that were set up around the runway. Chandler Ann and I left the front-row seats for the guests, who fough
t their way into them; instead we snagged seats in the second row.

  Next to me sat the middle-aged mother and sister of one of the young designers. Their excitement was contagious.

  The lights flickered and dimmed. The tipsy committee chair came out into the spotlight to give a too-long introduction. She giggled and thanked her friends and giggled some more until finally the director of the new charity came to the microphone and lightly ended her ramble. He eased her off the runway to applause and whistles.

  More recorded music blasted, and the show began. Skinny models sashayed along the runway, wearing one outlandish outfit after another. Heels were higher than it seemed humanly possible to walk on. I could see the bones of some great clothes—summer dresses, some fashion-forward separates, and a few really great gowns—but they were nearly obscured by the styling. Gigantic hats and chunky jewelry almost overshadowed the clothes. But that was the point of a fashion show—to entertain and show off. Later, the business of selling clothes that people might actually wear would take place in quiet offices around the city.

  The crowd reacted to the spectacle with roars of cheering and rounds of applause. The family beside me jumped to their feet and clapped when their relative’s designs went by. I cheered, too. They were all so happy.

  But I found myself looking more carefully around at the people who had paid to come out for a good cause. I wondered if it had been altruism that brought them to the warehouse on a hot night. No, I was pretty sure they were here for the good times. And maybe to show off, to flaunt. Which was the way things worked in my world. Countless charities benefited from parties like this one. Some of them depended on a single big fund-raiser a year, so a good party meant the difference between continuing their good works or fading into the sunset.

  This party felt . . . less about philanthropy, however, and more about excess. I had planned on featuring it prominently in my column because I knew the photos would be good. But now I had second thoughts about featuring an organization that was still so new. And one that had perhaps miscalculated in the balance between socializing and fund-raising. I couldn’t help noticing that the managing director of the charity stood off to one side by himself, watching the show with a stiff smile on his face. I wondered if he knew he’d made a mistake and was already trying to figure out how to refocus his fun-loving board of directors and their tipsy chairperson.

  Maybe parties that supported local food banks and regional cancer centers weren’t as newspaper-friendly as fashion bashes, but at least donors could be sure their contributions went exactly where they intended their money to go. And maybe the ten best and ten worst charities list had made me a few enemies, but it was solid information worthy of newspaper inches. I just had to find a way to slip that information between the scandalous articles.

  My phone vibrated, and I took a look at the screen.

  Lexie.

  I knew I wouldn’t be able to hear her, so I let the call go to voice mail. But my concern for my friend soon got the best of me. When the lights signaled a break between designers, I said good-bye to Chandler Ann and found Delilah for a good-night hug. She was too harried to talk, but she promised to see me on Friday.

  “It’s going to be a beautiful wedding,” she shouted over the party noise. “I can feel it!”

  On the way home on the train, I listened to Lexie’s message.

  “Sweetie,” she said briskly, “I’ve been discovered. I have to pack my bags and go on the lam. Please don’t be offended, but I’m going to keep my whereabouts a secret for a while. I’ll call when I can.”

  I felt a stab of guilt. Had I somehow led Hostetler to Lexie’s doorstep? It certainly sounded as if my best friend didn’t trust me anymore.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  I took Sunday off from events, as usual, but wrote up pieces to go into the Monday and Tuesday print editions of the paper. After that, I exchanged e-mails with my online classmates to complete a journalism assignment. I felt good about my contribution. Maybe I wasn’t a rookie anymore. I spent the rest of the day with Noah. Michael went to Mass and to tend to some business he clearly didn’t want to talk about. I tried calling Libby but got no answer. Again.

  I left another message. “Libby, I’m truly sorry about what I said about you and Ox Oxenfeld. You’re right. I shouldn’t judge. And I’m sorry that I don’t have the housekeeper’s cheesecake recipe, either. Try Pinterest.”

  She didn’t call me back. Nor did Lexie. I tried not to worry.

  Around noon, Emma called, sounding as if she were phoning from a wind tunnel, so I assumed she was outdoors somewhere. She said, “Did I leave my extra pair of boots at your place?”

  “Give me a hint,” I said. “Where should I look? In a closet? The basement? The attic?”

  “If I’d left them in the attic, they’d be mouse food. Check the bedroom I usually use.”

  I had Noah on my hip as I carried the phone upstairs to look. “How’s Cookie?”

  “I jumped him this morning, and he’s Superman. You should see him! If he doesn’t pull my arms out of their sockets, he’s the man of my dreams.” Emma sounded very pleased.

  I opened the bedroom door and discovered that Bridget had left the room a mess—the bed unmade and a half-empty wine bottle on the nightstand with a drinking glass. She had rooted through the closet and obviously had tried on Emma’s riding boots. They were on the floor, askew.

  “I found your boots,” I said.

  “You don’t sound happy about it.”

  “Michael’s mother spent a night here. This room looks like a tornado hit it.”

  “Tch-tch,” Emma said. “I bet she didn’t leave a hostess gift, either. Do you have your smelling salts?”

  “She’s not going to be your mother-in-law,” I replied tartly.

  “Surrender, Dorothy!” Emma sang a bar of the Wicked Witch of the West music and laughed. Then, “The cops called me to talk about what we saw at the Tuttle folly. They said they’d be in touch with you later.”

  “Are they any closer to discovering what happened?”

  “I can’t tell. They figured out what those bottles were, though. Not a collection of old glass, but containers of colloidal silver.”

  “I did some Googling, and colloidal silver sounded like the most likely possibility to turn Boom Boom blue. She must have taken it as a supplement.”

  “But Jenny obviously didn’t,” Emma said. “Yet the bottles were in Jenny’s studio.”

  “Jenny was the one who encouraged her mother to take supplements.”

  “So she poisoned her mother? I mean, it has to take a lot of silver to turn somebody into a Sesame Street character. That must have put a damper on their relationship. Was turning blue enough to make Boom Boom want to kill her daughter?”

  “Maybe so. What I don’t understand is why the nurse was killed.”

  “Let the cops take care of it,” Emma advised. “They seemed all excited about having a murder case to work on. It’s more thrills than the usual teenager crap. I’ll stop for my boots tomorrow, if I can.”

  We ended our call. Noah grabbed the phone from me, and I let him carry it back downstairs. To him, I said, “Your mother loves her new horse. I think that’s a good sign.”

  I was relieved that the Sunday edition of the Intelligencer didn’t have a front-page article about Lexie. When Monday’s edition showed up without any mention of my friend, I started to think the long silence from Gus was suspicious. What was he working on? There were no penis stories, either, and even Jenny Tuttle’s toxicology results didn’t trigger more than a few inches of the front page.

  On Monday afternoon while Noah napped, my friend Mary Jude telephoned from the office. “Nora, did I wake you?”

  “No, of course not,” I said, although I’d been considering taking a quick snooze before it was time to go to the preview of Bluebird of Happiness. “What’s up,
MJ?”

  “I hate to ask,” she said, “but I have to take Trevor to the emergency room. He needs a breathing treatment, and going to the hospital is the fastest way to get him some relief.” She sounded unbelievably calm for a mother with a sick child. “But I’m supposed to be here two more hours to man the phones. We’re still getting crazy calls about that photograph Mr. Hardwicke ran. Anyway, he says I can go home if I can find somebody to answer calls. I thought if you were coming in for an event tonight—”

  “Sure. I can cover for you in an hour or so. Tell Gus I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Already, I was heading for my closet.

  “Thanks, Nora. You’re a lifesaver.”

  We hung up, and I took a superfast shower. I finished my hair and makeup just as Noah let out a preliminary squall. I stepped into the dress I planned to wear to tonight’s preview. It was a short, strapless sheath of diaphanous blue chiffon, cut on the bias. From his resort-wear collection, it was Dior at the height of his genius. The décolletage would distract from the tight fit. Maybe it was a little overkill for a theater event, but two nights of lovemaking with Michael had made me think I should be making more of my bustline while I had it.

  I went in to retrieve Noah from his crib. He was standing up and bawling full bore, but with one look at my flaunted bosom, his tears stopped rolling.

  I said, “I know I look like Libby. Victoria’s Secret will be calling me soon.”

  Noah put his hands on my breasts and gave a wavering sigh of appreciation.

  “You’re starting early,” I said, removing his hands. I picked him up and changed his diaper.

  I let Noah play with his pink bunny on the bed while I called Michael’s cell phone. He said he was on his way.

  In fifteen minutes, I stepped into my shoes and grabbed a light sweater for the office and a lime green embroidered silk pashmina that would work later for the theater preview. We went downstairs and were out the back door just as Michael pulled up in the bulletproof black Escalade. Our new car.