Kiss of Death Page 3

  I saw two men in overalls working out there. One was unfurling a huge roll of chicken wire, while the other was packing thick layers of dirt against the brick wall that enclosed the garden.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  Bobby looked past me and nodded, a pleased expression on his face. “I’m having a wall of clay put up. Macaws eat clay—it’s important for their digestive systems. When it’s finished, a chicken wire roof will go up over the garden. I’ll have an outside aviary, so all the birdies who want to fly around outdoors will have a safe place to do it.”

  Bobby gestured for me to sit at the breakfast table next to the window. I noticed it had already been set for two. The napkins were cloth, not paper. I was pretty sure that Bobby’s cloth napkins were due to a woman’s influence.

  Bobby extracted a mixing bowl—one of a matched set—and a new-looking omelet pan from a cabinet beneath the counter.

  “So,” I teased, “you’ve just been toying with me. Tell me about your lady. Is this serious?”

  Bobby’s cheeks turned pink with embarrassment, but he was grinning as he took eggs and milk and cheese out of the refrigerator.

  “Could be. Maybe,” he said. “Her name’s Gail, and she’s a Broadway dancer—she’s in that new revival of Chorus Line. When she’s not working, she loves to cook. Even makes her own pasta.”

  “Where did you meet her?”

  Bobby’s grin widened. “In the basement laundry room—her apartment’s on the fourth floor. She’s something special.”

  “And she has very good taste in men,” I said with affection.

  Bobby’s color deepened. Pretending to ignore me, he moved his kitchen footstool into place in front of the stove, stepped up, and focused on making our lunch.

  The cheese omelets were excellent. “My compliments to your teacher,” I said.

  “I want you to meet her, Morgan. Maybe you and Chet—or you and somebody—and Gail and I can go out together some night, when her show’s dark.”

  “I’d like that,” I said sincerely.

  When we finished eating and were washing the dishes, I asked, “Have you heard of a bar called ‘Sauce for the Goose’?”

  “I’ve been there. It’s a neighborhood pub on West Fourth.”

  “An actor who used to be on our show tends bar there. I need to take a look at him, and maybe talk to him about coming back.”

  “I’ll go with you,” he said, putting the last dried plate in his china cabinet.

  “Do you have time? I know you’re on another case.”

  “I’ve got a couple of hours, until a report I’m waiting for comes in,” he said.

  SAUCE FOR THE Goose was less than half a mile from Bobby’s house, a pleasant stroll on this beautiful spring day. Although of short stature, Bobby had a vigorous stride; I didn’t have to shorten my own to accommodate him.

  Within a few minutes we’d reached a two-story brick building that had dark green canvas awnings shading front windows made of beveled glass. The words SAUCE FOR THE GOOSE were written in white script on the green canopy above the entrance.

  Bobby opened the door and stepped back for me to precede him.

  Inside the bar it was pleasantly cool and dim. Coming from the afternoon brightness, my eyes needed a few seconds to adjust to the sudden reduction of light.

  The building’s walls and windows were thick enough to muffle most of the street noises. I was so accustomed to New York’s routine din—the soundtrack of the city—that now I only noticed it in its absence.

  Two elderly men and a middle-aged woman sat drinking at three separate tables, seemingly lost in their separate thoughts. At the far end of the bar two men in their thirties sat together, drinking and watching a baseball game on the TV set suspended from the ceiling. I knew what Bobby and I were doing here, but I wondered about the other customers. What kind of lives did they have outside Sauce for the Goose?

  We took stools at the opposite end of bar from the ball game.

  No bartender was visible. Indicating the swinging door behind the bar, between long rows of shelves that held bottles and glasses, Bobby said, “He must be in the back. Want me to go look?”

  “No. He’s bound to come out sometime.”

  An impish glint twinkled in Bobby’s eyes. “Unless he’s lying back there in a pool of blood and a bullet hole in his head, in which case you’ll be right in the middle of another murder investigation. That’ll make your devoted homicide detective go ballistic—no pun intended.”

  “Matt Phoenix is not my homicide detective. We’re not going out together any longer.”

  To close the door on that subject, I turned away from Bobby to examine my surroundings. A sign on the north wall read GREAT GEESE OF THE WORLD. Below it, the surface was plastered with photographs: Mother Goose, Grey Goose Vodka, Goose Island Beer Company, The Goose Girl (with a framed copy of the Edna St. Vincent Millay poem called “The Goose-Girl” beside her), the young Anthony Edwards in his role of Tom Cruise’s best friend, “Goose” in Top Gun.

  Next to Edwards was a picture of the plane I recognized as a Howard Hughes invention: the Spruce Goose. He’d intended it to be a great American asset in World War II because it was designed to carry 750 fighting troops in full gear, and a couple of Sherman tanks. Unfortunately, construction on the immense wooden flying boat wasn’t completed until several years after the war was over.

  Below the plane were photos of beautiful actresses of the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s—the “flock” of women who were rumored to have been more than friends to Hughes.

  The door behind the bar swung open, and a man in a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a bar towel slung over his shoulder came through it.

  He had a bushy beard and was a good ten years older than the picture of Jay Garwood on the Love of My Life chart at the office, but his straight nose with its high bridge was similar to that of the man I was here to see. When he came toward us, and stood beneath one of the recessed lights behind the bar, I saw a crescent-shaped scar just above his right eyebrow. I’d seen the same scar in our picture of Jay Garwood.

  Garwood greeted Bobby with a nod of recognition. “Hey, Bud.” His gaze went from my face to my chest, and stayed there. With an insolent sneer, he said, “Another beautiful broad. You little guys must do something special in the sack.”

  “Cut that kind of talk,” Bobby snapped. “This lady’s my friend.”

  Garwood leaned on the bar and said smoothly, “Just kidding. I didn’t mean to offend.”

  “You want to go?” Bobby asked me.

  “Not yet.”

  “Bad joke. I had a rough night, but that’s no excuse—I was out of line.” Garwood sounded sincere and extended his hand. Bobby was gracious and took it. They shook and Garwood turned to me. “I apologize.”

  I nodded. “Accepted. Let’s forget it.”

  “What’ll you have?” Garwood asked us.

  “A diet anything,” I said.

  “Make it two.”

  Garwood set tall glasses on the bar in front of us and poured two soft drinks from a large plastic bottle. Into one glass he put a plastic spear with a cherry and a piece of pineapple on it. He handed me that glass, gave Bobby plain soda, and began to polish a tray full of glasses.

  Even though I was sure of the answer, I asked, “Are you Jay Garwood?”

  He stopped polishing. “Who wants to know?”

  “I’m Morgan Tyler. I work on Love of My Life.”

  Garwood’s lips curled in a sneer. “What do you play on that piece of crap? A nun who can’t keep her vows? An oversexed neurosurgeon? Or maybe a lawyer-by-day, hooker-by-night?”

  “You’re digging your grave with your big mouth,” Bobby warned.

  I shook my head at Bobby. “It’s all right.” To Garwood, I said, “I’m the head writer and co-executive producer. I came down here to meet you, and perhaps discuss your coming back to the show. But if you think the show is so bad—”

  Garwood did a l
ightning-quick change. “That was just another stupid joke. Love was a great show! Still is.”

  “You don’t watch,” I said, “or you would have known I’m not on it.”

  Garwood made another instant course correction. Now playing aw-shucks embarrassed, he stared down at his hands and said softly, “You’re right. I don’t turn it on. After I was let go, it just hurt too much to see everybody else working.” He looked up and gave me soulful. “I couldn’t get any other acting jobs. Casting directors all said I was too identified with Evan Duran. After a while, I couldn’t get any auditions at all. Prime-time shows didn’t want me because I’d been branded with the scarlet letter S—soaps. And movies—forget it! When I couldn’t keep up the payments on the house in Great Neck, my wife called me a loser. She took our little girl and divorced me.”

  “Things have changed in ten years,” I said. “Actors on Daytime get a lot more respect now.”

  “Did you mean it, about wanting me back?”

  “Yes. Come to the studio tomorrow morning and we’ll talk specifics.”

  A happy smile lighted his face. Fingering his beard, he said, “I’ll shave, and have my hair styled.”

  “No! Keep the beard. I have an idea about you getting shaved—on the show.” Mentally, I was picturing having a female character shave him, in a scene that could be both poignant and sensual.

  The ringing of a cell phone interrupted my thoughts. Automatically, Bobby patted his jacket pocket and Jay Garwood reached for the phone clipped to his belt.

  “It’s my phone,” I said, fishing it out of my shoulder bag. A glance at the faceplate identified the caller as Nancy Cummings.

  “Morgan, I really need to talk to you.” I heard anguish in her voice. “Something’s happened.”

  Chapter 5

  MY CAB TURNED off Central Park West and slowed to a stop in front of One West Seventy-second Street, the Dakota. Much of the movie Rosemary’s Baby was filmed in this late nineteenth-century Gothic apartment building. It’s also the setting for Jack Finney’s popular time-travel novel, Time and Again. To some who pass by, this address is a curiosity, or a Manhattan landmark, but to me it’s home.

  Nancy Cummings, tall and elegant in a navy blue linen summer suit, with shoulder-length hair the color of champagne, waited for me in front of the stone archway entrance. She was listening intently to Ralph, the Dakota’s day security man, who stood in front of his phone booth-size shelter. Ralph spotted me and hurried over to open the taxi’s rear door.

  “Hi, Mrs. Tyler. Your friend’s here.”

  “Thanks, Ralph.” I greeted Nancy, surveyed her fashion-magazine-cover outfit, and said, “You’re the only person who can wear linen without it getting wrinkled. Don’t you ever sit down?”

  Ignoring my lighthearted remark, Nancy squeezed my hand and whispered urgently, “Arnold lied to me!”

  “What? What happened?”

  “Shhhh. I’ll tell you when we get upstairs.” With her perfect posture and controlled movements, she appeared calm, but I heard the tension in her voice.

  We started for the entrance into the courtyard when Ralph called, “You want me to get your mail, Mrs. Tyler?”

  I paused in midstride. “Did a messenger bring a package from my office?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Then leave the mail; I’ll come down for it later.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ll keep an eye out for your messenger.” With a salute, Ralph retreated to his post.

  Nancy and I hurried past the courtyard’s big round fountain with its profusion of sculpted calla lilies, to the entrance to my wing of the building. Inside, our heels clicked on the marble floor that led to the ornately carved staircase.

  My co-op is on the third floor. I always take the stairs, but Nancy usually prefers the luxury of the vintage wood-paneled elevator. Today she was too impatient for that, and followed me so closely I had to accelerate my pace.

  The moment I unlocked my front door, I heard the welcome sound of soft little paws running down the hallway toward us. I dropped to my knees just as my green-eyed, all-black cat made a graceful leap into my arms and started to purr.

  I rubbed the top of his silky head. “Hello, Magic. I’m home early.”

  Nancy leaned over to give him a few affectionate strokes. “Hi, little sweetie.” She straightened up, said, “Let’s make some coffee while I get my head together,” and headed for the kitchen.

  While Mr. Coffee did its brewing thing and Nancy set mugs and accessories on the table, I changed Magic’s water and opened a fresh can of Natural Balance salmon for him. “What was Ralph telling you that was so absorbing?”

  “He was explaining how he handicaps horses for betting at the racetrack.”

  It was the last answer I expected. “How in the world did that subject come up?”

  Nancy gestured to her satchel handbag. A magazine called Young Rider was sticking out of it.

  “Oh, Ralph must have thought you were interested in horses,” I said, adding with a smile, “instead of in a young rider’s father.”

  In reply, Nancy yanked the magazine out of her bag, and threw it into the kitchen trashcan. The sound startled Magic, who looked up from his dish in alarm.

  Nancy was immediately contrite. Reaching out to give him a gentle rub under his chin, she said softly, “Oh, Magic, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you. Forgive me?”

  He went back to eating with his usual healthy appetite.

  “I don’t know what’s the matter with me,” Nancy said. “I haven’t thrown anything in anger since I was ten.”

  I filled the two mugs with coffee and joined her at the kitchen table. “Are you ready to tell me what happened?” She nodded. “Is this about Didi?” I asked, referring to the twelve-year-old daughter of the divorced criminal lawyer Nancy loved, the girl who was a champion rider.

  Nancy uncharacteristically loaded her mug of black coffee with three spoons of sugar. “Do you have any of Penny’s carrot cake left?”

  I shook my head. “I had it for breakfast.”

  “Just as well. I’m mad enough to kill—I don’t want to get fat, too.”

  Two swallows of sweet coffee later, I heard the story. “Arnold called me this morning and said he’d come down with a cold and he was going to stay home in bed today to knock it out. He said he’d call me tonight. I was worried about him because his housekeeper’s off visiting her daughter this week, so at one o’clock I picked up a big jar of his favorite chicken matzo ball soup and went to his apartment. But Arnold wasn’t sick—and he wasn’t alone.”

  My heart constricted with fear for Nancy. Arnold Rose was the first man with whom she had ever been completely in love.

  “Veronica was there,” Nancy said. She pronounced the name as though it tasted like poison on her tongue.

  “Who?”

  “His ex-wife, Didi’s mother. Didi was there, too,” Nancy added. “I wouldn’t have minded Didi—but she and her mother were moving in with Arnold!”

  “With Arnold? But you said they were moving back to New York this month, and he was finding them an apartment somewhere.”

  “Somewhere turned out to be in Arnold’s building. He never told me that.” Nancy’s voice was full of pain, and anger. “Then today I discover that they’re actually going to be living with him. At least until their apartment is ready—and it’s on the floor below!”

  Tears glistened in Nancy’s eyes. I reached for her hand and held it comfortingly.

  “When I showed up unexpectedly, he looked guiltier than one of his criminal clients. Morgan—he wasn’t that nervous when we were waiting for the jury to come back in a murder one case!”

  “Arnold is in love with you,” I said. “If Didi and her mother are staying with him for a couple of days—even if they’re going to be living in the same building, that’s probably so he can see Didi a lot. You said yourself that you wanted him to be close to his daughter. I’m sure this arrangement is just a matter of convenience, f
or Didi’s sake.”

  “If it’s so innocent, why did he lie to me?”

  “Because even men as smart as Arnold can be stupid about women. What’s the wicked witch from Boston like?”

  “She’s one of those petite, porcelain-doll types.” Nancy’s tone was biting. “Shorter than Arnold, which means she can wear high heels with him while I can’t. She was all superficial charm, but she treated me like office help! When Arnold introduced us, she looked for a moment as though she’d never heard my name, then she pretended to remember it and said in a sticky-sweet voice, ‘Oh, yes—Nancy. You’re Arnold’s secretary, or do you call yourselves assistants now?’”

  “Ouch! What did you say to that?”

  “Nothing—for once in my life, I was nonplussed. Arnold told her I was an attorney—and his friend. He actually used the word ‘friend’! She made a big show of apologizing for what she called her ‘natural mistake’ because I’d come to the apartment with chicken soup. I swear, Morgan, I wanted to hit her over the head with the jar!”

  “Veronica and Arnold are divorced,” I reminded Nancy.

  “Some divorced couples get back together,” Nancy said. “I never asked Arnold why they broke up, or who left who. It didn’t seem important.”

  The phone connected to the Dakota’s reception desk rang. I got up and crossed to the instrument mounted on the wall.

  It was Chet Thompson. “Honey, I’m downstairs.” I heard urgency in his voice. “May I come up?”

  Now what? “Of course.”

  “A messenger just delivered a package for you. Want me to bring it?”

  “Yes, please.” Replacing the receiver, I told Nancy I was worried. “Chet’s here, but he never just drops by without calling first.”

  “This must be your day for friends in crisis,” she said ruefully. “He’s gorgeous, but not a pretty boy. He’s accomplished, rich, and straight, and he’s tall enough so I could wear high heels with him. I’m surprised some woman hasn’t snatched him up already.”

  “Maybe because he doesn’t stay in one place long enough.”

  The front bell rang. “My Lord,” Nancy said, “he must have taken the steps three at a time.”