4 Decoupage Can Be Deadly (32 page)

Tino turned, and for a split second our eyes met before I spun around and raced back up the stairs.

TWENTY-SIX

Sylvia Gruenwald killed both Philomena and Norma Gene? And Tino disposed of the bodies for her? For money? I processed this information as I raced through the Madison Square Garden concourse. In heels never meant for anything besides walking, I quickly dodged around various sized crowds, unsure whether or not Tino followed close behind me. Even though I risked turning an ankle, I didn’t dare slow my pace. After exiting the stairwell, I had turned left. A fifty-fifty chance meant Tino may have turned in the opposite direction, but Lady Luck and I rarely traveled in the same circles.

Rather than running blindly, I needed to figure out my next move. I spotted a ladies’ room up ahead and pushed my way through the line at the door, ignoring the snarky comments.

“Sorry. Just need a sink,” I said by way of apology. Once inside, I took a few deep breaths and waited for my heart to stop pounding, but abject fear kept it at a rapid beat.

From the very beginning various signs had pointed to Tino, but all the evidence was circumstantial and easily explained away. At least Tino hadn’t killed Philomena and Norma Gene, but he was responsible for a cover-up, and that could send him to prison for an extremely long time. If he caught up with me, what would he do to keep me from spilling his secret?

Did Gruenwald know about Tino’s involvement in Philomena’s death? Was that why he wanted Tino keeping an eye on me? To protect his wife by steering me in a different direction if I began to snoop? That had been one of my early theories.

But why would Sylvia have Tino dump Philomena’s body at Trimedia? To implicate her husband in the murder? Did she decide not to settle for half his wealth when she could have it all while he rotted in prison? Or had she planned to kill Philomena all along and the divorce was merely a ploy to fend off suspicion? Gruenwald himself had suggested that as a possible police theory.

 
I pulled out my cell to place a call to Detective Batswin, but I couldn’t get a signal. “Damn!”

“I can never get cell service in this place,” said a woman standing next to me. “You need to head over to one of the exits.”

“Thanks.”

Before leaving the ladies’ room, I cupped a few handfuls of sink water into my mouth. All that running had increased my thirst by parching my throat. I yearned for a large bottle of ice water but didn’t dare stop to buy one.

Stepping out of the ladies’ room, I scanned the crowd. No Tino. No Sylvia. I made my way toward the nearest exit sign. My best course of action, I decided, would be to head back to Penn Station and hop on a train. I’d call Batswin once the train pulled out of the station.

I ran as fast as I could toward Penn Station, still fearful of looking over my shoulder. No one paid attention to me. Everyone always runs to catch trains and subways in New York.

Once inside the station concourse, I thought about stopping one of the transit police but quickly dismissed the idea. What if the cop brushed off my concerns? Didn’t believe me? I’d be safer on a train heading back to New Jersey. I checked the departures board. Any NJ Transit train would do. They all stopped in Newark where I needed to switch to the Raritan Valley Line to continue home. Seeing that a train was currently boarding at Gate Three, I hurried down the steps.

Seconds later I leaped up into a train car and collapsed onto the first available seat. I lowered my head onto my trembling knees and forced air into my lungs while trying to convince my corned beef special on rye to remain in my stomach. I had my doubts the sandwich would cooperate. A sheen of perspiration covered my clammy flesh, and my body tingled but not in a good way. The last thing I needed was to toss my cookies on the train.

Someone dropped into the seat beside me as the train lurched and began to pull out of the station. After a few additional deep breaths, both the nausea and the tingle began to recede. I slowly lifted my head, glanced to my right and found myself staring at Tino’s profile. I gasped. So much for my grand plan. I was trapped.

He placed a hand on my arm and spoke softly. “Relax, Mrs. P. I just want to talk.”

I glanced around. Only a few other passengers shared the train car with us, and all wore ear buds. Even if I screamed, chances were no one would hear me. “I know what you did,” I said.

“Yeah, I figured you heard.”

“I’ve called the police. They know you’re after me.” Tino had no way of knowing I hadn’t called Batswin yet.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said.

“Under the circumstances, you’ll forgive me if I don’t believe you.”

“You can trust me.”

“Really? And why is that?”

He tilted his head and grinned. “Because I like you?”

“Said the spider to the fly.”

“The cops already know I’m with you. They can hear us. I’m wearing a wire.”

“Prove it.”

He unbuttoned several buttons on his shirt and spread the front placket apart to expose a wire taped to his abs. “I turned myself in and cut a deal with the prosecutor.”

“To incriminate Sylvia Gruenwald?”

“She killed Philomena and Norma Gene.”

“You helped her get away with it. For money. What made you change your mind?”

Tino sighed. “Money never had anything to do with it.”

I raised an eyebrow. “That’s not what she said.”

“She paid me, but I didn’t keep the money. I handed it over to the cops.”

“What made you get involved?”

“Philomena came to Sylvia’s apartment and threatened her. Sylvia has a violent temper, worse than Philomena’s. When Philomena got in her face, Sylvia grabbed a vase off the table and smashed it over Philomena’s head, knocking her out.”

“Tickets!” The conductor entered the opposite end of the car and began walking toward us, collecting tickets as he approached. Tino clammed up. I pulled out my ticket. He pulled out his wallet.

“Where to?” the conductor asked Tino when he arrived at our seats.

“Newark.”

“Ten bucks. There’s a five dollar surcharge for not buying your ticket at the station.”

Tino whipped out a ten dollar bill and handed it to him just as my phone rang. I flipped it open, looked at the display, and groaned. Cloris! “Hi,” I said.

“Where the hell are you?”

“On a train heading to Newark.”

“What? Are you all right?”

“Yes, but it’s a long story, and I haven’t heard all of it yet. I’ll call you later.”

“I guess I’m not getting my Coke?”

“Not today. I owe you.”

“I’ll hold your coat ransom until you deliver.”

My coat?
I glanced down at my lap. I was so overheated from running that I didn’t realize I’d left my coat on my seat in the arena. Then again, I’d only left my seat to buy sodas. Why would I have taken my coat?

I hung up from Cloris after promising again to call her as soon as possible. Once the conductor exited the car, I picked up the conversation where Tino and I had left off. “Philomena sustained more than a head injury. I saw the body.”

“Sylvia panicked, and like I said, she’s got a temper. She grabbed one of Mr. G’s golf clubs from the closet and...well, you saw the results. When she realized what she’d done, she called me.”

“Why would you cover up such a crime for her?”

“She’s my mother.”

I stared at Tino. “Your mother?”

“She got pregnant as a teenager. Her folks sent her away to some place for unwed mothers and put the baby up for adoption. She said she’d been searching for me her entire adult life. A few years ago, she finally tracked me down.”

“Does Mr. Gruenwald know?”

Tino shook his head. “She was afraid to tell him. I had just ended my last tour of duty and was looking for a job. She got Mr. G. to hire me by telling him I was the son of a former housekeeper who’d worked for her parents.”

I suppose I could understand that Tino acted out of some misguided sense of familial loyalty, but the puzzle was still shy too many key pieces. “Why dump Philomena’s body at Trimedia?”

Tino grimaced. “Stupid, wasn’t it? I tried to talk her out of that, but she insisted. The whole woman scorned thing. She wanted to make Mr. G. suffer for taking up with that skank.”

“If you dumped the body in the river or a landfill, he’d never know what really happened to Philomena.”

“Exactly.”

“But what about Norma Gene?”

“Poor Norma Gene.” Tino shook his head. “I don’t know if she somehow figured out that Sylvia killed Philomena or not. Maybe she just wanted to talk to Sylvia. Either way, she never should have confronted her. Sylvia snapped.”

“And you transported Norma Gene’s body down to Philadelphia to make it look like a member of Philomena’s old gang killed her?”

“I rolled her up in a rug and slipped out the service entrance of the condo.”

“That’s why you were so tired the other day.”

Tino nodded.

It also explained the Vajazzling crystals imbedded in the sole of Tino’s shoe and the one I discovered in the trunk of the Lincoln. Norma Gene must have had a Vajazzle.

“Afterwards,” he continued, “Sylvia started talking about getting rid of Mr. G., too. Making it look like a suicide. She couldn’t forgive him for cheating on her.”

“Yet she broke up his first marriage.”

This time Tino raised an eyebrow. “No shit?”

“You didn’t know?”

“No one ever mentioned a first Mrs. G. Those two fought like they’d been married forever.”

“Twenty years.” Tino’s view of marriage spoke volumes and made me wonder about his life with his adoptive parents. “You do realize Mr. Gruenwald is old enough to be Sylvia’s father? And Philomena’s grandfather?”

Tino shrugged. “Some men like younger women.”

I’d had enough of delving into Gruenwald’s sex life. “Getting back to the staged suicide?”

“Right. Anyway, Sylvia planned it all out. She’d force him to write a suicide note, showing remorse for the killings, and I’d stage his death to look like he hanged himself.”

“What made her think you’d go along with such a diabolical plan?”

“She thought because I killed for my country in Iraq and Afghanistan, I’d have no problem killing for her.”

“But you were a Marine. You killed to protect us from terrorists.”

“Exactly. And believe me, even then it’s not easy to look someone in the eye and pull the trigger.” He shifted to face me more completely. “Don’t get me wrong. I’d do it again in a split second, but you never get over taking a life. You live with it for the rest of your life. No way was I killing for Sylvia. Even if she was my mother.”

“She was using you, Tino. A loving mother would never ask her son to kill for her.”

“I know.”

“And that’s when you went to the police?”

“Yeah. I admitted my part in disposing of both bodies. I was willing to take whatever punishment the D.A. doled out, but they offered me a deal. Get Sylvia on tape, and they wouldn’t press charges against me.”

“What about me, Tino? Where do I fit into all this?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why did Mr. Gruenwald offer to pay me to find Philomena’s killer?”

“I don’t know why, but he genuinely believed the killer was someone working at Trimedia. He knew the cops considered him and Sylvia prime suspects. Since he hadn’t killed Philomena, and he couldn’t conceive of Sylvia killing her, he needed someone on his side to figure out what really happened.”

“He isn’t going to like the truth.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Do you also realize he’s responsible for everything that happened?”

Tino knit his brows together. “How do you figure that?”

“All actions have consequences. Gruenwald set the first domino in motion by cheating on Sylvia. When that first domino toppled, it created a chain reaction.”

“Cheating isn’t a crime.”

“No, but he’ll have to live the rest of his life knowing his libido ultimately resulted in two murders and his wife’s incarceration. Philomena and Norma Gene are dead because Gruenwald couldn’t keep his fly zipped.”

“He can’t be held accountable for Sylvia’s actions.”

“Unfortunately, the law probably agrees with you, but what about his other actions?”

“Besides taking up with Philomena? Like what?”

“He manipulated
Bear Essentials
out of existence in order to give Philomena the magazine she wanted. How many people are out of work and about to lose their homes, thanks to Alfred Gruenwald?”

“I see what you mean.”

“Good, because even if he can’t be charged with any crime, he at least deserves to lose his job.”

I’d worked myself into a rage, probably because the adrenaline surging through my body over the last half hour needed some outlet of escape. I leaned my head back against the seat, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath as the train slowed to pull into Newark Penn Station.