“Do you think the police might have done this?” I asked, knowing full well that they hadn’t. The police are almost always careful not to disturb a scene containing potential evidence.
“Doubt it. Probably was the other one.”
“What other one?”
“The young lady was here before you. Told me she was Betsy’s sister and came by to get some things. From what I could see, she had red hair, just like Betsy’s, but I didn’t believe her. Looks like I was right.”
“How did she get in?”
“Had the key.”
“Could you give me a description of what this young lady looked like?”
“Couldn’t see much, what with those big sunglasses she was wearing. I thought she was a teenager at first. That’s how she was dressed.”
“Pink hooded sweatshirt?” I asked.
She nodded. “That’s the one.”
I shook my head. “She was leaving the building as I arrived. I thought something was funny about her, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.”
“There was something funny about her all right. She was a thief, that’s what she was.” She cocked her head and squinted at me, and I had the feeling that she was trying to remember what I looked like so she could report it to the police in the event I was a thief, too.
I smiled. “Betsy and I worked together,” I said. “We didn’t know each other well, but I was part of the production on the location where she was killed.”
She hobbled past me into Betsy’s apartment. “Can’t imagine why someone would do something like this.” She used her cane to make an arc in the air. She sniffed. “I gave her this,” she said, using her cane to flip over a large floral pillow that had probably been on Betsy’s couch. Scattered on the floor beneath it were several books. One of them was a photo album with some of the pictures sticking out from between the pages. I picked it up along with the book underneath it.
The photos that had slid out of the album were pictures of Betsy leaning on a rail overlooking the ocean, obviously on a ship, on a cruise. I pushed them back into place. She looked younger, her red curls a nimbus floating about her face and catching the sunlight. She smiled warmly at the camera. Whoever had taken that photo must have found another passenger to take their picture together, because the next page showed Betsy with her arms around a man whose hair was longer than hers. She didn’t mind being touched then, I thought, remembering how she’d avoided shaking hands. Betsy was smiling up into the man’s face. It was hard to see what he looked like from his profile, but in another picture, his smile was directed at the camera. It was Kevin Prendergast, the head of Mindbenders.
“Do you know him?” I asked Betsy’s neighbor.
“Let me see,” she said, putting a hand on the book and squinting at the page. “Can’t tell. It’s too small. Come with me.”
We returned to her apartment. I followed her into a living room decorated by someone who had a love affair with chintz. Flowered fabrics covered every piece of furniture, with more flowers on the carpet, drapes, and throw pillows piled on the sofa. Even several picture frames had been upholstered in the same design. The old woman hooked her cane over the back of a chair as she passed it and limped to a desk in the corner of the room.
“Let me see it again,” she said, switching on the desk lamp and taking a silver magnifying glass from a tray.
I laid the photo album on the desk and stepped back. She leaned over the page, placing the glass an inch from the photo, and tipped her head from side to side. “Used to be her boyfriend,” she said, tapping the picture with the handle of the magnifying glass. “He threw her over for some blonde. Don’t they all? But she couldn’t get rid of him altogether. Still sees him at work. Or did, anyway. She said he was going to be sorry. His new girlfriend would dump him once she got what she wanted. A gold digger, I say.”
“Has she gone out with anyone since? Someone else you might have met?”
“Nosy one, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I replied, smiling.
“Well, I know the type. Some people have called me the same. Guess Betsy won’t mind now. Come have a seat.” She waved at the sofa. “You want some coffee? I make it good, strong and hot. I’m Clara, by the way. It’s actually ‘Clara Belle,’ but I dropped the ‘Belle’ when that puppet show was on the TV.”
“Howdy Doody?”
I said.
“That’s the one. Didn’t want the same name as the clown.”
“I don’t blame you, Clara. I’m Jessica.”
“Have a seat, Jessica. You seem like a nice lady, not a thief. That’s good, because I already called the police.”
“You did?”
“Yup. Can’t have just anyone barging in here like they belong. Besides, that girl lied to me. I don’t like liars.”
“It sounds like the police are here,” I said, becoming conscious of the sound of heavy footsteps rushing up the stairs.
“Took ’em long enough. You could die several times over in New York before the police arrive. ’Course, they never listen to me. We’ll talk to them provided they knock on the door and ask nice; then we’ll have our coffee.” She winked at me. “What’s that you got there, Jessica?”
I looked at the other book I’d brought in with Betsy’s photo album. “Looks like a high school yearbook,” I said. “I didn’t mean to take it.”
“No harm done. You might as well keep it. Betsy won’t be needing it anymore.”
I laughed. “I do enjoy looking through old yearbooks. We change so much.”
“Get old, you mean.”
“Yes. That’s what I mean. I will hang on to it for a day or two, but I’ll see that it’s returned.”
“Suit yourself.”
There was a loud knock. Clara took her cane from the chair where she’d left it and went to the door. I accompanied her.
“You let me handle this,” she said.
Two uniformed officers were in the hall, one tall and thin, the other large, red-faced, and breathing heavily.
“You the lady called the cops?” the first one asked.
The panting officer eyed Clara’s cane. “How the heck . . . do you . . . get . . . up those stairs?” he said.
“I don’t leave the apartment when they’re fixing the elevator,” Clara said. “Mike, the super, lets me know ahead of time when it’s going to be serviced.” She shifted her gaze to his partner. “Yes, Officer, I was the one who called.”
“Is this the thief you reported?” he asked, indicating me.
“No. This is my friend Jessica. We were just about to have a cup of coffee. Would you like one?”
The policemen exchanged glances. I could see they thought they had a kook on their hands. I remained silent.
“You reported a theft in progress, ma’am. Could you give us a little more detail?”
She pointed her cane at Betsy’s door. “I reported a
thief
in progress,” she said. “She made a muddle out of Betsy’s apartment.”
The first officer turned, pushed open Betsy’s door, took in the disorder, and remarked, “My daughter’s room looks a lot like that. She have a fight with her boyfriend or something?”
“Betsy’s dead,” Clara said. “Some crook came here pretending to be her sister and did all that.”
“How did she get in?”
“She had the key.”
“Are you sure . . . she wasn’t really . . . Betsy’s sister?” the portly policeman asked. He cocked his head to see around his partner’s shoulder.
“Betsy didn’t have a sister, at least not that I know of,” Clara said.
“Is it possible she had a sister you didn’t know of ?” he asked, taking a deep breath.
“We were neighbors a long time. I never saw anyone before claiming to be her sister.”
“And how old was this neighbor of yours? The one who passed away?”
I could see he thought that Betsy was Clara’s contemporary.
“Somewhere in her thirties, I guess.”
“Yeah, well,” the tall one said, pulling Betsy’s door closed, “we’ll let the super know.”
“May I?” I asked.
“Sure, go ahead,” Clara said. “They’re not listening to me.”
“Gentlemen,” I said. “Betsy Archibald, who used to live here, was murdered yesterday, and today someone claiming to be her sister ransacked her apartment. You may want to talk to the detectives who were here last night.”
“Who were they?” the heavy policeman asked.
I looked at Clara.
“Never got their names.”
“Okay, ladies, we’ll make out a report.” He looked at his partner, who shrugged. “We’ll ask around the station house for the detectives who were investigating your friend’s death. Okay? You go have your coffee. If they want to talk with you, we’ll tell them where to find you.”
We heard them descend the stairs, muttering to each other.
“You did the right thing,” I told Clara, “calling the police. You never can be too careful.”
“My thought exactly,” she said. She shook her head. “What’d I tell you, Jessica? They didn’t care a hoot about what I said. I bet they never listened to their mothers either. Let’s have that coffee.”
Chapter Seventeen
K
evin Prendergast lived in a sleek high-rise on lower Fifth Avenue. The doorman used the house phone to announce me and, after a long pause, directed me to the bank of three elevators with instructions to press PENTHOUSE B.
Kevin was standing in the doorway of his apartment when the elevator opened. His face was unshaven, his hair unbound, his feet were bare, and his button-down shirt was half-unbuttoned. “To what do I owe the honor of this unannounced visit?” he asked.
“I’m sorry to barge in on you, Kevin,” I said. “I was just at Betsy’s apartment, and I had a few questions.”
“How did you get in there?”
“The door was open.”
“Come on. That doesn’t ring true. Did you bribe Mike?”
“I never actually met the superintendent, but I did wonder who else may have had the key to Betsy’s apartment.”
“And you thought it would be me.”
“That thought did cross my mind. May I come in?”
He said no more but held the door open, sweeping his arm back in an overly dramatic gesture.
The apartment had a wall of windows with a jaw-dropping view of the city looking north, the spires of the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building both silhouetted against the late-afternoon sky, together with other skyscrapers. Perhaps in deference to the tendency of New York City windowsills to collect soot, the custom-length sofa beneath the expanse of glass was a charcoal gray. Small decorative pillows in natural linen faced with silk-screened brown branches were placed at even intervals leaning against the back cushions. A mohair throw lay folded on one end of the sofa, its bright spring green color a surprise in the neutral surroundings.
In front of the sofa was a coffee table made of a long slab of thick glass set atop two chunks of burled wood. Newspapers were strewn on the table. Several sheets had fallen to the floor. One paper was opened to the story of Betsy’s murder.
I glanced around at the modern open kitchen that overlooked the great room. To one side was an elegant table surrounded by low-backed, cream-colored, upholstered swivel chairs on a beige and pale blue Oriental rug, the rug defining the dining room in the open space. A long mirror on the wall next to the dining area reflected the windows and the breathtaking view. On the other side of the kitchen was an open spiral staircase leading to another floor.
“You’re looking for . . . ?” Kevin said.
“I was just admiring the room.”
“You came up here to talk about decorating?”
“No. I came to offer my condolences. Is Anne home? Anne Tripper?”
“I know who you meant. You’re sure you’re not moonlighting for one of those rags?” he asked, pointing at the newspapers.
“I assure you I’m not,” I said.
“Anne had an errand to run. I expect her back in a little while. Have a seat.”
I chose to sit on a brown leather bench opposite the sofa. All the furniture in the room was low, allowing an unimpeded panorama of the spectacular cityscape from anywhere you sat or stood. I dragged my eyes from the view.
“Has the press been calling you?” I asked.
“Calling me, e-mailing me, dropping in on me, lying in wait for me. I stopped at the office this morning to talk to the staff and I had to leave to escape the reporters. We’re going to have to get better security. If I hadn’t had a car waiting, they would have chased me to the taxi stand.” He sat on the sofa and picked up the stray pages of newspaper, folded them, and dropped them into a pile.
“The press can be very persistent,” I said.
“You’re lucky they never got wind of your nephew or you’d be hounded as well. I heard he was found. That was one piece of good news at least. Even so, I told Howerstein never to have that grip work on one of my productions again. How is your nephew?”
“Frank is my grandnephew,” I said. “He’s a little chastened by the experience, but I doubt it will dampen his natural good spirits for long. We told him about Betsy. He was very sorry to hear it. As we are, too, of course.”
“Well, it had nothing to do with him, I’m sure.”
“I’m happy to hear you say that,” I said. “I don’t think it had anything to do with him either. But I wondered if you had any ideas who it
did
have to do with.”
He shrugged. “I have no idea. Why would anyone want to kill anyone? I don’t know. Unless they were unbalanced. I guess that’s a given.”
“What’s a given?” I asked.
He gave me a funny look. “That a killer is unbalanced,” he said. “You don’t see normal people going around killing other people.”
“Sometimes emotions overwhelm even the most normal-seeming of people,” I said. “But on the whole, I think you’re probably right. Most of us can control the urge to kill even if we have a valid reason for our rage. I imagine you knew her better than most, so I thought I’d ask you who might have had a reason to kill her.”
He was quiet for a long time, his eyes focused on an image in his mind. “She had a foul temper, as you saw. She was too much of a perfectionist. Stubborn as a mule. But a complete professional with a fabulous, creative way of seeing the world. She was a big factor in our success. I have to give her credit. She came from this little town in northern Ontario, from the back of nowhere. They don’t even have cable TV. Yet she had big-city sophistication, and this quirky mind. She always knew the best way to get a message out, had perfect pitch when it came to hearing what people want. She could charm the pants off you when she wanted to.” He shook his head. “I don’t know what we’ll do without her.”