MURDER CAN SINGE YOUR OLD FLAME
A DESIREE SHAPIRO MYSTERY
By Selma Eichler
A SIGNET BOOK
Penguin Group
Copyright © 1999 Selma Eichler. All rights reserved.
ISBN: 0-451-19218-4
Chapter One
It was a familiar voice—and one I'd hoped never to hear again. "Please, Dez, don't hang up," it pleaded.
I promptly slammed down the receiver, astonished at how quickly my mouth had gone bone-dry on me.
It took less than a minute for the phone to ring again. I let my answering machine handle things this time.
"I need to talk to you. Please. Just listen for a little while, okay?" For a moment I stood there mesmerized, staring at the machine. "I don't blame you for not wanting to speak to me—honestly, I don't. I behaved like a pig. Believe me, I'd never have gotten up the nerve to call you if the situation wasn't ... well, critical. Pat says she told you what's happened. To my wife, I mean. It was really—" A half sob now, a second or two of silence, and then the voice went on.
"But what I'm calling about, Dez, is that I could be in trouble. Terrible trouble. I know I don't deserve it, but I was hoping that maybe I could convince you to help. It's ... "
I reached over and, teeth clenched, turned off the machine. And then, my legs steadier than I'd have imagined possible, I shut off the lights and left the room.
Five minutes later I was soaking in the tub, up to my chin in fragrant, soothing bubbles.
"Well," I announced silently to myself, "you certainly showed him."
Chapter Two
As soon as I got to the office the following morning, I dialed my friend Pat Martucci.
"I heard from Bruce last night," I informed her tersely.
"Yes, I know. He said he was going to call you." And before I could respond: "He's pretty desperate, Dez. He thinks the police may suspect him of murdering Cheryl."
"That would be nice."
There was a long pause before Pat said softly, "I can't really blame you for taking that attitude. But Bruce isn't a murderer. A louse, maybe." And then she amended hastily, "No. A louse, definitely. But not a murderer."
"You can't be sure of that."
"He really cared for Cheryl. I'm sure of that. And so is Burton," she added, referring to her live-in love, who also happened to be both Bruce Simon's cousin and close buddy.
"And Burton wouldn't be at all prejudiced, would he?" I put to her snidely.
"Maybe he is. But I'm certainly not. I think Bruce deserved to be ... well ... stoned for that stuff he pulled on you."
Stoned? Why not castrated? But I refrained from posing the question aloud.
"You can't really think Bruce is capable of killing someone, though, can you?" Pat demanded.
Actually, who could say what that man was capable of! In the months I'd dated him, Bruce had lied to me, insulted me, and humiliated me. And that was his more benign behavior. What finally provided the jolt I seemed to require in order to get my brain in gear again was his neglecting to apprise me of the fact that he had a fiancée back in Chicago. Must have slipped his mind, huh? I know it's mean-spirited of me, but my one consolation in all of this was that he hadn't been playing fair with her, either—this same Cheryl Pat was insisting he'd been so crazy about.
Still, it was hard to picture Bruce pushing his new wife—or anyone else—in front of a train. But then, it's usually hard to imagine someone you know committing a horrendous act like that.
"Well, do you?" Pat was saying.
"Do I what?"
"Do you really think Bruce is capable of murder?"
"If being a P.I. has taught me anything, it's never to make that kind of a judgment."
"So I, uh, gather you've decided not to help him."
"Listen, Pat, I'm not the only private investigator in the world. I'm sure Bruce can get someone else to look into Cheryl's death. As a matter of fact, he never had a very high opinion of my investigative skills, anyway. In his mind, all I was capable of was dogging straying husbands." (Which, in truth, was at one time the high end of my business. But that was long before Bruce Simon made his unfortunate entrance into my life.) "He'd be much better off finding someone he can put his faith in."
"But he has faith in you," Pat protested. "Lots of it." And now she waited for a response that didn't come. "Maybe you're right, though," she said at last. "Maybe Bruce should get someone else." Then giving me absolution: "And no one can say you don't have every reason to feel the way you do, either."
I didn't get any work done at the office that day. (Not that I had all that much to do.) I was too busy trying to justify myself to myself.
What did he expect, really, after the way he'd treated me—that I'd drop everything just because he was in some kind of trouble?
The man had chutzpah; I'd give him that. But this was something I'd discovered a long time ago. Less than five minutes after I met him, actually.
It wasn't that I wanted to see him get hung with a crime he didn't commit, you understand. (Although being a true Scorpio, for a while there the idea wasn't exactly repellent to me.) But the thing is, wouldn't it make more sense for Bruce to hire someone who wasn't going to be bogged down by all these ill feelings toward him? Of course it would.
I spent almost an hour driving myself crazy and succeeded in working my way up to a five-star headache, which two Extra Strength Tylenols did little to alleviate. I absolutely refused to let Bruce affect my appetite, however. So at a little past noon, after rejecting the idea of venturing out into this August scorcher—a record breaker, the weatherman had warned that morning—I had a sandwich at my desk. A ham and brie with honey-mustard dressing. And I thoroughly enjoyed it, too.
Just as I was consuming the last mouthful, I received a visit from Elliot Gilbert, one of the principals of Gilbert and Sullivan, the law firm that rents me my office (or, more accurately, cubbyhole) space. He wanted to know if I'd finished my report on this insurance case I had been handling for him—a very simple task, by the way, and the sole demand on my time at present. I was forced to admit that I still hadn't completed it and, moreover, that I was thinking of cutting out early today. "I have a headache I can't seem to shake. Would it be okay if you got the report first thing in the morning?"
I was assured that the morning would be fine. But Elliot—one of the nicest, most obliging people you could ever meet—would have had a problem saying no even if we were dealing with something he needed for court in five minutes.
"Are you sure it's all right?"
This response, too, was predictable. "Absolutely. You just take care of yourself."
Anyway, at around two I grabbed my attaché case—inside of which Elliot's insurance file now lay in wait for me—and vacating my office, prepared myself to explain the reason for my early departure to Jackie. And let me tell you about Jackie....
This woman—whose services I can only afford because of my arrangement with the Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan—is probably the best secretary in New York. The trouble is, however, that she could also qualify as the most impossible secretary in New York—thanks to a very strict work ethic, a tough-love approach to bringing up her employers, and a genuine and often smothering concern for our well-being. (And I won't even mention that her oversensitive nature has, on occasion, driven me right up the wall.)
"What's the matter? Aren't you feeling well?" she demanded upon hearing of my intention.
"I'm okay. A headache, that's all." Actually, my head was much better by now. The truth is, wrestling with this Bruce thing had left me terribly antsy, and I was just anxious to get out of there.
"That's why you're going home early?" Jackie's tone bordered on the incredulous. "Take a couple of Tylenols."
"I did. But evidently this isn't that kind of headache."
"What kind of headache is it, then?"
At that point the telephone rang, and Jackie was forced to cut the interrogation short.
Ignoring the "Wait" she mouthed, I beat it out the door.
Not more than five minutes after walking into my apartment, I put up the coffee (which turned out to be so excruciatingly bitter it didn't live up to even my usual rock-bottom standards). Then, convincing myself that I might as well try to get it out of my hair, I sat down with Elliot's file. Somehow I managed to concentrate, wrapping up the remainder of the work fairly quickly.
And now I took some grapes from the refrigerator, switched on the TV, plopped down on the sofa, and prepared to watch a couple of deliciously lascivious talk shows.
After I was about three minutes into the first program, my jaw dropped almost to my chest, where it remained for most of the show.
Are those people for real, do you think? There they sit, revealing the most intimate details of their lives to millions of people—and for reasons that make no sense at all. One woman said she was appearing on TV like this because she was pregnant with her husband's brother's child and wanted the audience's advice on whether to tell her husband the baby wasn't his. I mean, didn't it occur to this ditz that her on-air confession had taken that decision out of her hands?
Anyway, I was all caught up in the histrionics of an angstridden eighteen-year-old girl who admitted to carrying on with her fifty-plus stepfather while her poor mother lay in a coma—when the phone rang. It wasn't easy to tear myself away from Cindy and her newborn conscience, but I answered it.
"It's me again," Bruce Simon said timidly. "Just hear me out for a couple of minutes. Please."
"Go ahead." It's possible that close to an hour's worth of talk show had weakened my brain.
"I tried to reach you at your office before," he explained. "But they told me you'd already left. You're not sick, are you?"
"No, I'm fine. And I'm listening. So say what you have to say."
"Yes. All right. Thanks," Bruce responded hurriedly. "You know that my wife was hit by a train last Thursday."
"Yes, I do know. And I'm truly sorry for your loss, but—"
"Thank you. What I wanted to tell you is that I think the police suspect Cheryl may have been murdered. And it's very likely she was. But they also think I might have been the one to push her off the platform. Why would I, though? I loved ... that is, Cheryl and I were ... the thing is, we—"
Apparently, he was attempting to soft-pedal his affection for his wife in the event I might find it upsetting—all this concern for my feelings a first for Bruce. I broke in to spare him any further discomfort. "It's okay. I'm not the least bit disturbed to hear that you loved your wife."
"Oh, I didn't mean— What I'm trying to make clear is that there was no reason for me to want Cheryl dead. I swear there wasn't. You do believe me, don't you?"
"I don't know if I do or not. But, for the moment, anyway, I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt."
"Will you investigate her death for me, then?"
"Why me, Bruce? I'm hardly your advocate. In fact, if you want the truth, I'm afraid that I have very little use for you. Why not bring in someone who's at least neutral, who doesn't already recognize you for the snake you are?"
Now, if you think that I was being unnecessarily harsh with this man in view of the tragedy he was coping with, I can only tell you that in deference to this tragedy, I actually swallowed most of what was on my tongue.
Bruce had to have had some reaction to my words, but he was apparently able to suppress it. "I'd like you to look into this because you're smart, Dez," he answered, his tone even. "And I know you to be a fair person. I'm certain that you won't let what went on between us—the crap I pulled—affect your doing your job."
Well, he'd never complimented either my intelligence or my ethics before. Another measure of his desperation.
"Look, let me give you the names of a couple of colleagues of mine. Also smart. And also fair. They'd—"
"No, please. I have a very strong feeling—a sense, you might call it—that you're the only one who can help me."
Naturally, I protested, maintaining that he was being foolish. After which Bruce protested my protest, insisting I was his sole hope. Well, the windup was that I finally agreed to look into Cheryl Simon's death. Sucker that I am.
But then I suppose I'd known that I would—on some level, at any rate—from the very beginning.