The Scent of Murder

by Barbara Block

  She was lying. I don’t know how I knew it, but I did. I wondered why she was, as I stood up. I snuck a look at her as she walked me to the door. It occurred to me that for someone whose husband and child were both missing, she seemed remarkably composed. Or maybe she was just good at hiding her feelings. I wondered which it was, as I walked back to the cab.

  Tim was starting to close up by the time I returned to the store.

  “Did you go and see the girl’s mother?” he asked.

  “Yes?”

  “And?” He abandoned doing cool.

  “She didn’t say much, except that she didn’t want the ferret back.” I pulled Mr. Bones out of my backpack and scratched him under the chin.

  “What about Murphy?”

  “She claims she never heard of him.”

  “Do you believe her?”

  I shook my head. “No. No I don’t.” I thought about the way Gerri Richmond’s face had blanked out when I’d mentioned his name. “She knew him all right. The question is how?” I didn’t spell it out, but then I didn’t have to. Tim knew I was wondering if Gerri Richmond and Murphy had gone to bed together. God only knows, he’d gone to bed with everyone else: a fact everybody but me had evidently known about. I still don’t know which bothers me more: my willful blindness or his conduct.

  “Even if he had, that still doesn’t explain the girl’s coming in,” Tim pointed out.

  “No. You’re right. It doesn’t.”

  Tim nodded towards the ferret. “What are you going to do with him?”

  “Keep him. Hopefully Amy will come back for him soon.”

  “And if she doesn’t?”

  “I’ll worry about it then.” And I told Tim I’d finish locking up. He left a few minutes later.

  I fed Mr. Bones and played with him for awhile, then I put him back in his aquarium and went home. It was almost ten when I pulled into my driveway. By now I was exhausted. I gave Zsa Zsa the shortest walk I could get away with and went inside my house. James came running out to greet me—which was odd—because I could have sworn he hadn’t been in the house when I left. But then, maybe he had been and I just hadn’t noticed. It had been that kind of week. I checked the machine to see if George had called. He hadn’t.

  Oh well, I thought, as I went into the living room and poured myself a double shot of Scotch. There wasn’t any reason he should have—but still, it would have been nice if he had. We had a funny relationship, George Samson and I. I contemplated it, while I went back in the kitchen and opened a can of cat food for James. George had been Murphy’s best friend. Then, when Murphy had died, we’d become friends—sort of. The “sort of” had become more so, and then we’d ended up sleeping together. Which we were still doing. Which I liked. The sex was good. It was the relationship part I was having trouble with, but then that was the part I always had trouble with. Maybe, I decided, as I sipped my Scotch, we just shouldn’t talk at all. Maybe we should just screw. I stretched, finished my drink, and went upstairs. It was time to take a bath and go to bed. Tomorrow was time enough to figure out what, if anything, I was going to do about Amy and her ferret.

  But as I went up the stairs, I began to get increasingly nervous. It was dark on the landing and it shouldn’t have been, because I kept the light on. I told myself the bulb had probably blown. Nevertheless, I found myself reaching for the box cutter I carried in my pocket. I had it out and the blade opened by the time I reached my bedroom. That light was off, too. The problem was: I couldn’t remember whether I’d left it on or off. My heart was pounding as I tried to decide whether or not I was being paranoid. After all, the front door was locked when I came in. I’d used my key to open it. And nothing had been messed up downstairs. No. Things were okay. I was just getting twitchy in my old age.

  I was reaching for the switch when I heard: “You sure as hell took long enough getting up the stairs.”

  By the time my heartbeat had returned to normal, my eyes had adjusted to the dark. George was sitting up in my bed, wearing a grin and a bed sheet. I felt like killing him.

  “You son of a bitch,” I hissed.

  “I told you, you should get a security system in here.” George had picked up his knowledge of breaking and entering during the seven years he’d worked as a cop. He patted the empty space next to him. “Why don’t you put that box cutter away and come on over here?”

  “What if I come over and keep the blade out?”

  “We can do that too, if you want.”

  Chapter 4

  I must have dozed off. When I woke up, George was standing by the bed staring out the window. “I may have to go down to New York tomorrow or the next day,” he told me, when I asked him if anything was wrong.

  “Family stuff?”

  “What else?”

  I sighed. About once every three months, George would get a phone call and head off for the city. When he came back, he’d be in a bad mood for days.

  I leaned on my elbow. “Who’s in trouble this time?”

  “One of my cousins.”

  “The one who drives a taxi?”

  “No. The one who owns a funeral home.”

  “What happened?”

  “The asshole was running a bookie service out of it.”

  “So what do they want you to do?”

  “Fix things up,” he growled.

  “Why do you keep going down there? It just makes you crary.”

  “Because it’s my family,” he snapped. “I have to go.”

  And that, I knew, was going to be the end of the conversation. I got up and led him back to bed. I was rubbing his back when the phone rang.

  George reached under the bed for it. “It’s for you,” he said, and handed me the receiver.

  “Who is it?” I mouthed.

  He shrugged. “Some girl.”

  The some girl turned out to be Amy. “You have to come here right away,” she cried. She sounded far away. I had to strain to understand what she was saying.

  “Why? Where are you?”

  “Just come down. Please.”

  “What happened?”

  “I’m at Lincoln Square,” Amy cried. Her voice rose. “Building 213. Apartment 2F. It’s the first one to the left of the stairs.” Then she hung up. Boy, this was turning out to be a good night.

  “What was that all about?” George asked, as he replaced the receiver.

  “Good question.” And I explained about Amy.

  George made a fist and rubbed the edge of it across his lips. “Amy, huh?”

  “That’s what I just said.”

  “What’s her last name?”

  “Richmond. Why? Do you know her?”

  He grunted. “What’s her mother’s name?”

  “Gerri. Why?”

  “Just curious.”

  But I didn’t buy that. George was never “just curious.” I studied his face, but it was difficult to read his expression in the dark. “Why don’t you just tell me what’s going on?”

  He carefully made a pleat in the blanket. “Why should anything be going on?”

  “Don’t do this.”

  “What?”

  “Play games.”

  He shifted his position. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Look at me,” I commanded.

  He snorted. “What is this? Police interrogation technique 209?”

  “Funny, man.” I took his face in my hands and turned it towards me. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  George remained silent.

  “This is something bad, isn’t it?” For some reason my heart was hammering in my chest.

  “That depends on your perspective.”

  “How about from mine?”

  He adjusted the pillow before replying. “You’re not going to like it.”

  “I want to hear,” I insisted.

  “All right.” As I looked at George, it occurred to me that he was wearing the same expression of detached pity the policeman wore who’d told me Murphy was dead. “But
don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He took a deep breath. I realized I was holding mine. “Amy is Murphy’s daughter.”

  Suddenly the room felt very cold.

  “I’m sorry,” George said, putting his arm around me. “I really am.”

  I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. All I could think of was how I’d wanted a baby and how Murphy had always said no. The time wasn’t right. He wasn’t settled enough. The business wasn’t doing well. One excuse after another.

  “Are you all right?” George asked.

  “I’m fine,” I lied. I rubbed my arms. They were covered with goose bumps.

  George looked at the blinds in the window for what seemed like a long time. I spent it watching the changing geography of his shoulder muscles and thinking about how Murphy had banged his finger with the hammer when he’d put the blinds up.

  “Tell me,” I finally said.

  “What?”

  “Everything.”

  “There isn’t that much to tell.” George stroked my arm. I stiffened and moved away.

  Zsa Zsa jumped on the bed. I pulled her into my lap and buried my face in her neck. The smell of her fur calmed me. She turned and licked a strand of my hair.

  “You should have told me,” I said, after a minute had gone by.

  George bit his lip. “For Christ sake, Robin, he was my friend, you weren’t. It wasn’t my business.”

  “And afterward ...”

  “And afterward, there didn’t seem much point. I never thought ...”

  “I’d find out?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Well I have.”

  “Look, I was trying to do the right thing.”

  “You didn’t.”

  George tightened his left hand into a fist and released it. “I admit I made a mistake. I’m sorry.”

  “Not as sorry as I am.”

  He bit the inside of his cheek. “I guess I can understand how you feel.”

  A surge of anger ran through me. “Can you?” I spat. “Can you really?”

  “If it’ll make you feel any better, Murphy didn’t plan it. It just happened.”

  “It? It?” I could hear my voice rising. I felt feverish.

  “Calm down.”

  “How could you lie to me like this?”

  George raised his hands. “Don’t put this off on me,” he snapped.

  “Then who the hell should I put it off on?”

  “You. Murphy.”

  I swallowed. George was right. The anger inside me vanished as suddenly as it had come, leaving a hollow place behind.

  “Look ... I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Let’s just drop the subject.”

  “No. I want you to tell me what happened.”

  “Fine.”

  I could hear the branches of the blue spruce brushing against the bedroom window, as I stroked Zsa Zsa’s back. George pulled the covers up and leaned back against the headboard. His voice was as cold and impersonal as an accountant’s reciting a column of figures, when he started talking.

  “It’s not real complicated. Murphy told me he picked Gerri Richmond up in the park one day over by the boathouse. They went to her apartment. It wasn’t anything that special. They got it on maybe a dozen times at the most. Then they stopped seeing each other. No big deal. Murphy forgot about her. But a couple of months later, Richmond called up and told him she was pregnant. ‘But not to worry,’ she said. ‘I’m marrying someone else. Someone older. Someone rich.’ She’d just called to let him know. I think it hit Murphy really hard.”

  I shook my head. I’d gotten pregnant early on in our relationship. Murphy had offered to marry me. But I’d been young. I hadn’t wanted the responsibility. I’d opted for a quick trip to Puerto Rico, instead. I don’t think he’d ever forgiven me. Funny, but given the kind of guy he was, you wouldn’t think it would have bothered him as much as it did.

  “Are you okay?” George asked. “You have an odd expression on your face.”

  “I’m fine,” I told him. “Go on.”

  “Murphy said he made it a point to stay in touch. Gerri was nice about it. She let him play friend of the family and take the kid out from time to time. When Gerri and her husband moved up to Syracuse, Murphy did too.”

  I’d always wanted to go back to Manhattan after we’d gotten up here, but Murphy never had. Now I knew why. I was tearing at my cuticle with my front teeth, when something occurred to me. “How’d he know Gerri Richmond was telling the truth about the baby being his kid?”

  George shrugged. “Why would she lie? It wasn’t as if she were asking him for anything.”

  “True.” And I closed my eyes and conjured up Amy. I had to concede there was some similarity to Murphy in the lower half of her face—especially around the jawline and the mouth. That’s probably why I’d thought she’d looked familiar when she walked in the store. But mostly the girl looked like her mother. “Does Amy know?”

  “No. As far as she’s concerned, Dennis is her real father. Like I said, Murphy was just a family friend.”

  “Cute.”

  George covered my hand with his. I moved my hand away. I didn’t want to be touched. “Robin, he really did want to tell you. He just didn’t know how.”

  Maybe he had. Maybe he hadn’t. I’d never really know. It didn’t really matter, anyway. It was one of those questions—like, is there a God—that you can debate endlessly. The truth is, Murphy and I had lived together in a private world of half-truths. I thought it was all right, but it wasn’t. There were penalties to be paid, and I was still paying them.

  Suddenly I wanted a drink very, very badly. George watched me get out of bed. He didn’t say anything when I put on a shirt and walked into the hallway. Zsa Zsa followed me, as I padded downstairs. I went into the kitchen, poured myself a double shot of Scotch from the bottle sitting on the counter, and gulped it down. The liquor burnt my throat and warmed my veins. I poured myself a third shot and lifted the glass.

  “To the man who continues to make my life miserable, even though he’s dead, and to myself for allowing him to do it to me.” Zsa Zsa wagged her tail while I drank it down. Then I gave her a dog biscuit and headed back upstairs to my bedroom. George was still sitting up in bed. His arms were crossed over his chest.

  “Do you want to talk some more?” he asked, when I came in.

  “No. I can’t think of a thing I want to say.” I picked my jeans off the rug.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Getting dressed.” And I put them on and began looking for my socks. They were stuffed in my boots.

  George’s eyes narrowed. He leaned forward slightly. The streetlight coming in through the blinds highlighted the planes on his face. He looked as if he were carved out of ebony. “I can see that. Do you mind telling me where you’re going?”

  “To Lincoln Square. Hopefully Amy will still be there.” I glanced at the clock on the nightstand. Only twenty minutes had passed since her phone call. I was surprised. It felt as if an hour had gone by. At least.

  George smoothed down a crease in the blanket. “I was wondering what you were going to do about that?”

  I rammed my left foot into my boot and laced it up with vicious little tugs. “What can I do?”

  “I’ll go, if you want me to,” George offered. It was, I knew, his way of doing penance, but I didn’t want to let him.

  “No. I will.”

  He looked at me sadly. “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. Just lock up when you leave.” I was halfway out the door when I turned. “Good luck with your cousin.”

  He managed a thin smile. “Thanks.”

  I walked down the stairs, got my jacket, and left. A cold front must have moved into the area since I’d been inside, because the temperature had dropped at least ten degrees, if not more. The air smelled of damp and spice and rot. As I cut across the lawn, I kicked at the pile of leaves that I’d raked up a couple of weeks
ago and never gotten around to bagging. Too bad I wasn’t doing that to Gerri Richmond, I thought, as I watched the leaves scatter. No wonder she had looked at me the way she had when she’d opened the door. I wondered what she thought when she saw me standing there. She must have been shocked. Good. But as I got in the cab, my thoughts turned to her daughter.

  I had a feeling Amy was up to her neck in something really bad and, lucky me, I was going to get to find out what it was. I put the key in the ignition and turned. The cab wheezed twice and started. Aside from an occasional pedestrian walking along with their collar turned up, no one was out. No surprise there. Except in the summer, when people hang out, most folks are home by ten o’clock at the latest. Even the dope dealers rubbing their arms and stamping their feet in front of the pay phone by Fat Boy’s Bar and Grill looked as if they would have preferred to be sitting in front of the TV. But then, the entrepreneurial life never is easy. God knows, I should know, I decided, as I turned the corner onto Fayette. The streets were empty, and I drove through the city rapidly. It took me about ten minutes to get to Lincoln Square.

  It was a new development, one the mayor and the Common Council were touting as an example of the revitalization of Syracuse. And it was true that, from the outside, the condos and town houses looked nicely designed, the grounds were tastefully landscaped with evergreens and maples and laurel hedges. But whenever I drove by it, the place appeared deserted. That was probably because it was located in the middle of nowhere, on the way to nothing, in what had once been an industrial park, before Syracuse started losing their factories to the South.

  I made a left at the sign that said, “Lincoln Square. The Best of The Best” and followed the road to the first parking lot. It was half-empty. The developers must be losing a bundle, I thought, as I looked around. But then, they probably weren’t worried. They’d just do what they usually did: refinance their debt, leaving the taxpayers to foot the bill. And the people that ran this city wondered why everyone was moving out. By now I had a clear view of the buildings from where I was standing. Amy was nowhere in sight. Hopefully, she was waiting inside the lobby of 213. I started towards it. The sign on the building made identification easy. Everything was quiet as I walked down the path. The only noise I heard was the hum of the streetlights. The branches of the maples and the evergreens dipped and swayed in the wind.