The bell rang again, but I ignored it. I was
not
in the mood to see anybody. And I was definitely in no condition to be
seen.
I was curious to know who was out there, of course (curiosity is my constant companion), but I didn’t have the energy, or the equilibrium (or, I’m ashamed to admit, the
chutzpah
), to go peek through the window and find out. If it was Blackie or the bald man, I reasoned (okay, rationalized), I might have a heart attack and die. And that wouldn’t do me any good.
The doorbell rang again . . . and again . . . and again.
Aaaargh!
Whoever was out there wasn’t giving up. I stuck my fingers in my ears, trying to block out the persistent piercing sounds, but it wasn’t any use. The bell just kept on ringing and ringing till it drove me clear out of my mind. I threw my hands in the air, leapt to my feet, sprang over to the door, and—without a single precautionary peek through the front window—buzzed the unknown caller in.
Yikes!
I shrieked to myself, as soon as I realized what I’d done.
Why did I do that? How could I be so stupid?
And when I put my ear to the door and heard the slow, heavy, Frankenstein footsteps ascending the stairs to my apartment, I almost wet my pants.
God help me! I’m a goner! A strong man could bust down this door in an instant!
Madly searching for a way to protect myself, I scrambled into the kitchen and—using every ounce of strength in every cell of my 5-foot 7-inch, 119-pound body—pulled the refrigerator away from the wall. (That’s right. The refrigerator! Shows you what a blast of adrenaline can do.) Then—thinking I’d make like Superman again and shove my Frigidaire across the room and park it in front of the door—I yanked the plug out of the wall, anchored my shoulder, hands, and forearms against the back of the appliance, and pushed with all my might.
The damn thing budged about an inch, but that was all. My adrenaline was all used up. (But you saw that coming, didn’t you? Hell, anybody with half a brain would have seen that coming! I, on the other hand, was utterly bewildered by my profound power failure—which will no doubt confirm your suspicions about the state
my
half a brain was in.)
I was standing in the kitchen like a dolt, struggling to catch my breath and wondering what to do next, when the mysterious intruder started wrenching my doorknob in a frenzy and pounding hard, really hard, on the door.
I didn’t answer this time. (I usually try not to make the same mistake twice in one morning.) Overcome with exhaustion and dismay, I collapsed against the refrigerator and slid down to a squat on the floor. I didn’t know what else to do. The fat lady was singing at the top of her lungs. The end was near. I might as well give up and “go gentle into that good night.” (Dylan Thomas, in case you’re wondering, with just a couple of words left out.)
The pounding on my door grew even louder. “Open up, Paige!” a gruff male voice shouted. “I know you’re in there.”
First I melted in joyous relief, then I stiffened in stark apprehension.
It was Dan, and he didn’t sound friendly.
Chapter 17
HAVE YOU EVER HAD TO FACE THE MAN you love with gobs of mascara smeared all over your cheeks, a hairstyle that resembles a bathmat, a damp, wrinkled, all-black costume fit for a witch (or a crow), and a great big suitcase full of secrets? Then you know how I felt as I scraped myself up off the floor, steadied myself against the refrigerator for a second or two, and then wobbled over to open the door. (
Aghast
,
appalled
, and
ashamed
are the first words that come to mind, starting with the A’s.)
I flipped the latch, released the deadbolt, slipped off the chain, and slowly cracked the door open. “Hi,” I said, gazing down at my feet as if they were the eighth wonder of the world. “What are you doing here? I thought you weren’t coming back until tomorrow.”
Dan pushed the door wide and lunged inside. His anger was so intense I could taste it. “Don’t give me that crap,” he said. “You know why I’m here.”
“No I don’t!” I cried, telling the god’s honest truth (for once). I raised my eyes and met his irate glare head-on. “What’s the matter?” I begged. “What are you so upset about? Has something bad happened? Oh, my god! Where’s Katy?”
“She’s still in Maine with my folks,” he said, quickly relieving my mind on that score, but letting my other questions dangle.
“So what’s going on?” I spluttered. “Are you okay? Why are you so mad? Please tell me what’s wrong!!!” I was teetering on the edge of another emotional breakdown.
Dan grabbed me by the shoulders, pulled me close, and peered deep into my eyes for a moment, obviously trying to judge the credibility of my frantic and concerned response. (I couldn’t blame him for that. Dan was a trained and efficient homicide dick; it was his duty to be suspicious. And, then, there was always the little matter of my less-than-stellar track record in the honesty department . . . )
Finally satisfied that I wasn’t putting on an act, Dan squeezed my shoulders, gave them a shake and growled, “Okay, so maybe you
don’t
know why I’m here.” Then, in a very sarcastic tone, he added, “But since you’re such a cunning, clever, and
daring
little detective, I’m sure you can figure it out.”
His voice was still angry, and his fingers were still digging into the flesh of my upper arms, but as he stood there staring at me, the expression on his gorgeous, stubbled, well-tanned face underwent a conspicuous change. Instead of fierce and furious, he now looked kind of quizzical and . . . well, amused.
“What is it?” I snapped, unnerved by his sudden shift in mood. “What are you smiling about?”
“Your face is all black,” he said, “and your hair’s kind of frizzy. Have you joined a minstrel troupe?”
“Very funny,” I said, resisting the urge to run and hide in the coat closet. I was embarrassed about my appearance, but really glad it had given Dan a chuckle. (Call me a boob, but I’d rather be laughed at than yelled at.)
“Hey, what’s your refrigerator doing in the middle of the room?” Dan let go of my shoulders and walked over to the wayward appliance, brow wrinkled in a Mr. Fixit frown. “Is it broken? How long has it been unplugged?”
“Oh, er, just for a little while,” I stammered, feeling even more embarrassed than before. “And, no, it’s not broken. I’ve been thinking of redecorating the kitchen, and I wanted to see what it would look like on a different wall.” (Well, what was I
supposed
to say? That I was trying to shove it in front of the door so a deranged slasher couldn’t burst in and kill me?)
Dan shot me a sneer of disbelief, stuck the plug back in the socket, and—with barely an oof or a grunt—wriggled the Frigidaire back into place. Then he took a tray of ice out of the freezer, cranked the cubes loose, and stacked a bunch of them in a glass. “Okay, out with it, Paige,” he said, filling the glass with water and carrying it over to the kitchen table. “No more lies and deception.” He yanked a chair away from the table and sat down. “I want a full confession and I want it
now
.”
My head started spinning again. How was I going to deal with this one? Dan had obviously learned something about me since I’d last spoken to him—something that upset him so much he’d cut his vacation a day short, left his daughter with his parents in Maine, and driven all night to get to my apartment. But what exactly had he learned, and how had he learned it? How could I make (okay, make up) a good confession when I had no idea what I had to confess to?
(I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I should have made a clean breast of everything right there and then—told Dan all about Gray’s murder and my subsequent involvement in it. And, looking back, I can see the wisdom of that view. But hindsight is better than foresight—well,
my
foresight, anyway—and at this particular point in time all I could think about was how I was going to get to the heart of the murder without losing Dan’s heart in the process.)
“Lies?! Deception?! Confession?!” I squawked, putting on a big show of righteous indignation (which is hard to do when you look like a cross between Al Jolson and the Creature from the Black Lagoon). “I don’t know what you’re talking about! What crime am I being accused of now?” (The best defense is a good offense, they say—or is it the other way around?)
“Quit stalling, Paige.” Dan pulled a pack of Luckies out of his shirt pocket and fired one up. “It took me nine straight hours to drive here from Portland. I’m too tired to play games. Just tell me the goddamn truth.”
“Can I wash my face first?” I stalled, walking over to the kitchen sink and turning on the water. “Then I’ll tell you anything you want to know. Promise.”
He released a loud groan of exhaustion. “Yeah, okay. And make a pot of coffee while you’re at it. I’m really beat.” Setting his burning cigarette in the ashtray, he leaned back in his chair and stretched his long, strong legs out in front of him. Then he crossed one burly arm over the other and closed his bloodshot eyes.
I scrubbed my face clean and filled the coffeepot with water. Then, spooning Chase & Sanborn into the filtered metal basket, I snuck a long, hard look at Dan while his lids were shut. Maybe his unguarded facial expression and body language would clue me in to the secret workings of his mind . . .
Nope. I couldn’t see that far inside. All I could see was the outside: . . . the sexy jut of his hips . . . the unusually casual and sporty way he was dressed (khaki shorts, blue and white seersucker shirt opened halfway down the chest) . . . the way his disheveled dark brown hair was flopping down over his forehead.
Mmmmm.
My temperature soared a good ten degrees. I had to open the back door and let in some air. I was so overheated (okay, turned-on), I came this close to throwing myself at Dan’s feet (okay, on his lap) and begging for mercy.
But I put the coffeepot on the stove instead. And turned the burner on. And then—combing my fingers through my hair, straightening my clothes, and doing my best imitation of Jane Russell, or Lauren Bacall, or Lana Turner, or any other screen goddess you can name (besides Debbie Reynolds, I mean)—I sidled over to the table and sat down in the chair closest to Dan’s.
“Are you hungry, honey?” I simpered. “I’ve got some bread and cheese. Or I could run down to the bakery and get you a Danish.” (I don’t always act so slavish and subservient—except at work, that is—but I felt the circumstances called for it now.)
Dan arched an eyebrow, opened one eye and aimed it, as if through a gunsight, at me. “No!” he grumbled, piercing me to the core with his Cyclops stare. “I don’t want any food. And I don’t want you to feed me any more of your flap, either.” He sat up straight, rubbed his tired face in his hands, and then glared at me again (with both eyes this time). “All I want is the truth,” he said, taking one last drag on his nearly burnt-out Lucky and angrily crushing it in the ashtray. “Is that too goddamn much to ask? I want you to tell me where you were—and what you were doing—all day yesterday and last night.”
Oh, so that’s it!
I whooped to myself.
Maybe Dan really was just crazy worried about me! Maybe the fact that he couldn’t reach me on the phone sent him into such an insecure and jealous spin that he jumped in his car and drove here in a possessive rage. Maybe he’s just as nuts about me as I am about him!
And maybe he doesn’t know anything about the murder after all . . .
“I was with Abby all day and night,” I told him. “We had breakfast at her apartment yesterday morning (true), and we messed around the Village for a while (true—if you can call our mission to the Sixth Precinct police station ‘messing around,’ which, in the meddlesome sense of the phrase, it kind of was), and then, in the afternoon, we went to the Waverly to see
Dial M For Murder
(total lie, except for the title of the movie and the name of the theater where it was, in truth, playing). We had pizza for dinner at Abby’s apartment (true), and after that we went to watch her boyfriend Jimmy perform his inspiring Independence Day poem at the Vanguard (also true, except for the ‘inspiring’ part).”
A lot more Trues than Falses, wouldn’t you say?
I took a deep breath, proudly stuck out my chin and asked, “Anything else you want to know?” I almost added the word “buster,” but thought better of it.
“Yeah,” he said, not missing a beat. “Why did you tell me your phone was out of order when it wasn’t?”
Uh oh! How did he find out about that?
There was no point in contradicting him. (Unlike
some
people I know, Dan’s a confirmed straight shooter. He wouldn’t make such a bold, accusatory inquiry unless he knew it was legit.) I was stuck. I had to come clean (sort of).
“You probably won’t understand,” I mumbled, “but I let you believe my phone was out of order because I knew I was going to be out of the apartment a lot—missing most, if not all, of your calls—and I didn’t want you to worry about me.” I was aware of how lame that would sound to him, but it was the only excuse I could think of on such short notice. And besides, every single word of it was true. (It was all the words I left out that would have caused a problem.)
“You bet I don’t understand!” Dan said, dropping his fist down hard on the tabletop. “Whatever made you think that a goddamn lie was going to keep me from worrying?”