Jezebel (12 page)

“
While
you’re out, could you
pick
up a jar of Sioux Bee honey from the grocers?”

Celeste reached for the
wooden door knob. “I’ll put it on my list.”

“
Oh and pick up a
couple of Schmids. I’m too young to be an aunt.”

Celeste turned around at the
door. Her cousin was lighting up a Camel. The first of many
cigarettes she’d have over the course of the day. “It’s
only one date, Trudy.”

“
True. But the way you
panted after him, I know you and you’ve tried your utmost to
live up to your father’s nickname.”

Bristling, Celeste opened
her mouth but Trudy beat her to the punch, “No need to explain,
honey. I’m not judging you one whit. You enjoy the company of
the opposite sex and I just want you to protect yourself.”

“
I
always have.” In spite of her many dalliances, Celeste had
never used the services of a back alley doctor.

“
Good,” Trudy
nodded. “Now make tracks. Mama needs her beauty sleep.”

Long after Celeste shut the
door behind her, Trudy’s words stayed with her. She might
practice protection to prevent disease and unwanted pregnancies, but
she was woefully unprepared if Shane Brennan tried to steal her
heart.

* * *

The solicitor didn’t
get the memo that there was a depression going on. Celeste noted the
half a dozen leather armchairs lining the dark paneled walls and a
large receptionist desk made of the finest walnut sitting opposite
the lobby door.

Even his secretary was
impeccably dressed in a navy belted dress adorned with a crisp white
collar and cuffs. Instead of wearing her hair in loose waves to her
shoulders, à la the current fashion, a neat chignon completed
her polished look.

“
Mr. Percy, your
two-thirty appointment is here.” The solicitor’s
secretary smiled, while hanging up the receiver. “You can go on
in, he’s expecting you.”

Upon entering his office,
Mr. Early Percy stood up from behind his desk and motioned for her to
take a seat. Attired in a three-piece, navy pinstripe suit he looked
as immaculate as his office.

“
Sit, sit,”
Percy insisted. “We have plenty to discuss.”

“
We do?” Celeste
asked somewhat surprised as she sat in one of the leather arm chairs
he’d indicated. In all honesty, she’d simply come out of
common courtesy, not expecting to inherit a dime from her father’s
estate.

Mr. Percy regarded her over
a pair of oval reading glasses. “You look surprised.”

“
If you knew the
nature of the relationship I had with my father, you wouldn’t
have wasted a business card.”

The attorney reached over
and picked up a leather-bound portfolio. “Well, he’s made
up for it in the afterlife. Before you leave my office you might have
a different opinion of your father.”

And I
have a bridge overlooking the East River I want to sell you!
It would take more than a few tokens to completely whitewash a
decades–long estrangement.

“
Were the preparations
for your father’s funeral satisfactory?”

“
It
was lovely.” Celeste looked down at her hands. In truth, her
father’s funeral had been a blur. She’d made sure of it
by getting just drunk enough to sit through it without any
assistance, but too sloshed to remember the details.

“
Good.
I followed your father’s direction to the letter. As I will
with the reading of his will.”

Although she knew she had
nothing to look forward to, Celeste felt on edge. This could be some
king of bad joke, her father’s last hoorah to get back at her
for defying him.

“
As you know, your
father’s estate entails a brownstone located in Forte Green, a
mixed-commercial building and a four-family walk up in
Bedford-Stuyvesant.”

Percy slid two sets of keys
across the desk. One a small ring containing two keys, the other a
large one filled with too many to count. “Go on take them,”
he coaxed.

Celeste eyed them as if they
were vipers. “Why?”

“
You’re
now the proprietress of all three properties. Although I will say
that there is an interested party whom inquired about the building
just yesterday.” Percy shuffled through the papers. “Hmm

I’ve
somehow misplaced his calling card. If you’re interested, I can
forward you his information.”

“
I would appreciate
that,” Celeste murmured overwhelmed by her sudden change in
fortunes. Far from poor, she’d socked away a tidy nest egg,
but she never owned property. Never wanted to since it required a
level of commitment. “And if you can find a buyer for the
tenement, I’ll be over the moon.”

Smiling,
Mr. Percy steepled his fingers. “Not very business minded, I
see.”

Celeste shook her head.
“More of a free spirit.”

“
Your father warned
me.” Imagining the dreadful, wayward–daughter stories her
father burned his solicitor’s ear with, Celeste inexperienced a
wave of unease. “He said you might not want anything to do
with your inheritance, but considering your father left you very
little in the form of cash and the insurance policy has become
forfeit due to your father’s suicide I was hoping you might be
more amenable.”

Interest piqued, Celeste sat
forward. Mr. Percy didn’t seem to notice because he fell into a
dull diatribe about the depression, dust bowls out west and how her
father’s charitable deeds drained most of his liquid assets.

Most if not all of it
practically fell on deaf ears.

“
Mr. Percy,”
Celeste broke in, “did you say my father’s death was a
suicide?”

Seemingly
startled by her question, Mr. Percy’s eyes widened. “No
one told you?”

* * *

An hour later and armed with
a one-page police report provided by her father’s solicitor,
Celeste walked into the eight-eighth precinct. Housed in a Romanesque
revival hunkered on the corner of Casson and Dekalb Avenues, the
station resembled the red brick mansions dotting the historic Clinton
Hill district.

Celeste
remained rooted to the spot. Like brown and white liqueur, she and
police officers didn’t mix.

“
May I help you?”
Although the officer asked, Celeste guessed it was only out of sheer
habit than actual altruism since he barely looked up from his evening
newspaper.

Celeste glanced down at the
police report. “I’d like to speak with Detective Charles
Dwyer, please?”

With a drawn out sigh, the
officer picked up a phone receiver. “I’ll see if he’s
free.” As he dialed, he finally glanced up. “May I tell
him who’s callin’?” he asked, his gaze slowly
raking over her.

Refusing to meet her
father’s attorney looking like a poor relation, she’d
taken extra care with her appearance. Dressed in all beige from a
cloche hat that covered her finger waves to a knit biased cut day
dress, silk stockings and Mary Janes, she’d tried her best to
look like a society woman. Depending on the company, that could be a
good or bad thing like now it seemed to be the latter.

Still, Celeste held her
ground under the detective’s perusal as she gave him her name.

“
Hey
Charlie, there’s a Miss Celeste Newsome, here to see ya.”
The copper’s gaze swept over her again. This time Celeste
smiled. As her grandmother would say, you caught more bees with sugar
than vinegar.

“
You can go on up,”
he said, hanging up the phone. “Third floor, turn right at the
top of the landing, you can’t miss it.”

Celeste blew out a steadying
breath as she turned toward the stairs. One just never knew when it
came to the cops. According to popular public opinion, half of the
force was on the take and in collusion with the mob or Tammany Hall.

Upon reaching the third
landing, she followed the officer’s directions and found
herself standing outside a large room filled with dozens of desks and
more plain-clothes cops than one could shake a leg at. Just as she
summoned the courage to breach the entrance, a detective near the
entrance whistled at her.

“
Hey, lady, you gotta
take a number first,” he said nodding at the wall directly in
front of him.

Dressed in red shirt sleeves
and a charcoal vest, he looked a lot like the officer in Kalamazoo
who’d processed her fingerprints after she’d been picked
up for disorderly conduct.

Celeste
glanced around for a ticket dispenser, but didn’t find one
except for a half-filled water cooler and a corkboard containing a
map of Brooklyn.

“
Detective Bristol’s
pulling your leg, Miss.”

A cop sitting adjacent to
Bristol stood up. “Detective Morrissey,” he offered along
with his hand for a handshake, “how can I help you?”

Thankful for his timely
assistance, Celeste clasped his hand. “I’m here to see
Detective Charles Dwyer.”

As if someone had switched
off the lights, the detective’s smile faded. “You’re
in luck,” he paused to glance over his shoulder. “Dwyer
just came in. If you want I can walk you over.”

“
I’d appreciate
that,” Celeste gushed and then stepping in line as he led the
way. Any more wise guys like Bristol and she’d be here all
day. And there was no way she was going to miss her date.

“
Hey Dwyer, this young
lady’s here to see you.” Detective Morrissey pulled out a
chair for her.

“
Tell
me something I don’t know,” Dwyer said, barely looking up
from several stacks of paper littering his desk. Narrow shouldered
and petite the other detective was a direct foil to Morrissey’s
tall lankiness. “Green buzzed her through about five minutes
ago.”

To Celeste’s surprise,
Morrissey perched himself on the edge of Dwyer’s desk.

“
Don’t
you
have a half-a-dozen cases to crack?”

“
Hmm, oh yeah! Sorry,
Charlie.” Morrissey slapped his thigh as he stood up. “Not
every day we get such a good-looking lady up here. It’s a nice
break from all you mullet heads.”

“
Yeah,
yeah now go back to twiddling your thumbs.” Dwyer waited for
his colleague to move out of earshot, before he gave her his full
attention. “The name’s Newsome, right?”

“
Celeste Newsome,”
she clarified, enunciating every syllable as if hearing every vowel
would jog the detective’s memory.

Obviously,
she’d hoped for the moon because not even a flicker of
recognition affected his body language or his impassive expression.
Somewhat deflated, Celeste sat back. She tried rationalizing the
detective’s inability to connect her name to one of his most
recent victims to a heavy caseload. Still, the excuse didn’t
temper a wave of inexplicable sadness.

“
Why’d you wanna
see me?” Dwyer asked, yanking her out of the past.

“
You handled my
father’s case.” Celeste placed the police report on his
the desk. “I wanted to ask you a couple questions regarding how
my father died.”

Detective Dwyer leaned back
with his hands clasped on his black suspenders running the length of
his torso. “What’s to know?” he asked. “We
found your father with a gunshot wound to the head and a revolver in
his hands. End of story.”

Celeste
blinked back tears. There was absolutely no way her father would take
his own life. He considered it a moral sin. She ought to know, he
drilled all of the commandments into her before she reached puberty.

“
That’s not
possible. My father was a God-fearing man. He would never take his
own life.”

Eyes narrowed, Dwyer righted
himself. “If I had a dime for every ‘God-fearing person’
who ended themselves during the onset of the Depression, I’d be
rich as J.D. Rockafella.”

“
My father isn’t…I
mean my father wasn’t like most people,” Celeste
insisted. “You see—”

Dwyer
slammed his arm down on the desk, fist upright. “No, you see
here. Your father committed suicide.” His thumb shot out from
his enclosed fist. “For starter, there was no forced entry.”
His index and middle fingers followed. “Your father didn’t
have any enemies…he was cash poor.” His ringer shadowed
the other three. “And we only found his fingerprints on the
gun.”

Despite being slammed with
the cold hard facts, Celeste wasn’t ready to give up. Even if
she had to revisit her horrible childhood, the detective needed to
know he’d erred in his investigation.

Celeste leaned forward, a
steady stream of questions she’d prepared earlier on her lips.
But she was forestalled when Dwyer picked up the police report and
shoved it toward her.

“
If there isn’t
anything else,” he said rather matter-of-fact, “I gotta
write up reports for a dozen other cases before I find my tail in a
sling.”