A Cat in the Wings: (InterMix) Page 3

  “Swede,” Tony broke in, interrupting my harangue, “it’s all, as they say, blood under the bridge. I’m just reporting what I heard. What else am I good for these days?”

  “You seem to be doing well enough seducing those young things.”

  “They do go for me, it’s true. I guess it’s my European soul—I’m right out of the Renaissance, you know. That, and my obvious desperation.”

  I had been holding Bushy, reassuring him after his brief imprisonment by Tony, who now stood up and took the cat gently from my arms and placed him on the floor.

  “Why’d you do that?”

  “I don’t think I trust that guy.”

  “Who, Bushy? He’s the best friend I ever had,” I said. “You know me, Tony: Love me, love my cat.”

  “Okay.”

  He gave me a rather long kiss which I didn’t interrupt. Bushy growled.

  “Listen,” said Tony confidentially, the brandy obviously beginning to work on him. “I think we have to use the Henry Wyatt test to judge that cat’s character.”

  “Henry who?”

  “Sir Henry Wyatt,” he said, “was thrown into a dungeon by Richard the Third for his Lancastrian sympathies. You remember the War of the Roses, don’t you?”

  “Tony, what does this have to do with Bushy?”

  “Well, dungeons in those days were no joke. And the only reason old Sir Henry survived was because of a small, sad-looking cat, who kept bringing him pigeons to eat. Now I ask you, Swede”—he looked down at Bushy—“would this beast do that for you? Could he pull it off?”

  I didn’t know how to answer that one. It was too bizarre a hypothetical. All I said was, “No more brandy, Tony.”

  “Good point,” he agreed. “No more brandy. Let’s do something else, Swede.”

  It was only the sudden ringing of the phone that threw Basillio off his game. Startled, he released me, and I picked it up before the second ring.

  On the other end of the line was Lucia Maury. Her voice told me she was caught somewhere between paralysis and hysteria.

  Her words came out in spastic bursts. “Alice! The police are here—here in my apartment. Oh, Alice!” she wailed. “They think I . . . killed . . . Dobrynin.”

  “Tell me what happened, Lucia. Try to stay calm.”

  But she couldn’t. I could barely make out her words. She was screeching something about a search warrant. “Help me!” was all I could understand unequivocally.

  “I’m on the way, Lucia—all right? I’ll be there in ten minutes—all right?”

  The phone went dead. I looked around for Tony, who was on all fours, dangling a toy mouse in front of a wary Bushy.

  “Tony, I’ve got to go. Stay here if you want. I’ll tell you about it later. Play with the cats!”

  I grabbed my bag and my parka and slammed the door behind me. Halfway down the stairs I realized I’d forgotten my gloves. I didn’t go back.

  Chapter 5

  Lucia lived in a massive old apartment building on Fifty-seventh Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues. And a rare building it was, featuring sprawling apartments, immaculately kept lobby and corridors, flawless building services, ancient uniformed doormen—in other words, all the longed-for and welcomed civilities. And it was rent-stabilized! I, along with millions of others, would cheerfully have killed for one of those apartments.

  The apartment door was ajar when I arrived. As soon as I stepped inside I was struck by the bustle of activity. Uniformed and plainclothes officers were rustling back and forth. But a rigid and wide-eyed Lucia sat silently in the center of the living room on a plain wooden chair.

  I walked quickly toward her.

  “Who are you?” A male voice stopped me in my tracks.

  The questioner was a cherubic-looking redhaired man, wearing a bright reindeer-patterned sweater buttoned up the front.

  “I’m Alice Nestleton,” I replied evenly. “Lucia’s friend.”

  “Attorney?” he asked politely.

  I shook my head. Then I knelt down beside Lucia, who still hadn’t spoken. I looked up at the detective. “Why are you doing this to her?”

  I could tell that something official had just clicked in his head. He opened one of the buttons of his sweater.

  “You’re the woman Miss Maury brought out onto the balcony that night.”

  “Yes.”

  I repeated the question he had ignored: Why was he here searching Lucia’s home?

  “We obtained warrants to search both her apartment and her office at Lincoln Center,” he said. “For three reasons. One: We haven’t been able to verify Miss Maury’s account of her movements in the theater before she arrived at your box. Two: She was at the scene of the murder only seconds after it occurred. And three: She had an acrimonious affair with the deceased.”

  I stood up, suddenly furious at the man. “‘Acrimonious,’ indeed!” I mocked him. “This is ridiculous, Detective.”

  After cracking a tiny smile, Wilson excused himself and went into one of the thick-walled bedrooms.

  While I stood over poor Lucia, who was still too stunned to talk, I found myself, insanely, noticing yet again just how lovely the high-beamed apartment was. There were two big bedrooms, two bathrooms, an enormous kitchen, a dining alcove, this spectacular living room, and the labyrinthine hallway.

  The rustling from the other rooms brought my thoughts back to Lucia’s predicament. I heard muffled voices, papers being riffled, drawers opening and closing. My eye fell on a lush, fresh-cut bouquet of carnations, which stood in a crystal vase on the low antique table in front of the quilted sofa. I wondered if the police had “searched” that yet? Had they pulled out the flowers and stuck their hands into the water? The thought was absurd—and at the same time sad.

  Then I walked over to the dining table, took a chair, and carried it back into the living room, where I placed it beside Lucia’s and sat down.

  She was still in her robe, a chocolate velour one with matching slippers. There was something equally silly and poignant about the little pompoms on the tops of her shoes.

  “Can I get you something, Lucia? Shall I make a cup of tea?”

  She shook her head slowly from side to side. Her powerful dancer’s neck tensed. I knew she was close to tears.

  “You know what, Alice?” she said quietly, the tears coming now.

  “What, dear?”

  “I wish Splat were here. I miss him so much.”

  “I know,” I said. “He was a delightful cat.” I wasn’t just humoring her. Her great, friendly Maine coon had indeed been a wonderful cat. His beautiful coat was the color of blue smoke—deep and rich and memorable.

  The search party seemed to be getting impatient. We heard a closet door slam. Lucia winced. I reached for her hand and held it tightly.

  “You didn’t see me dance Raymonda, did you?” she asked.

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Well, I was a guest artist with the San Francisco Ballet that season. And the critic said I was wonderful—that I was ‘graceful but not posturing.’ He said my dancing ‘revealed rather than obscured.’ He said, ‘The key to Miss Maury’s sensitivity is . . . is . . . um . . .”

  Lucia stopped the reminiscing abruptly and turned to stare hard at me. “What is happening here, Alice?” she shouted.

  Her speech patterns had begun to sound very peculiar. The tones no longer seemed to coincide with the contents. It was as if she were moving further and further away from normalcy, from reason.

  “It will be over soon,” I said, hoping that was enough of an answer.

  The telephone rang then. Twice. Three times. The noise seemed to register with Lucia, but she made no move to answer. Instead she said huffily, “I want them to go!”

  “I’ll get that for yo
u,” I offered, and went over to pick up the extension.

  A voice on the other end barked: “Get me Wilson!”

  Wilson?

  “You have the wrong number,” I said. But at the same moment I looked up to see the detective approaching me. Oh, my, that is his name, isn’t it? I handed over the receiver and went back to join Lucia.

  Detective Wilson listened in silence for about thirty seconds, nodding every once in a while. Then he hung up.

  He came toward us purposefully, his colorful sweater now scrunched up a bit to reveal the beginnings of a classic male potbelly.

  “Miss Maury, a gun has been found. Taped beneath the desk in your office. It’s a .25-caliber weapon, the same kind used to kill Dobrynin.”

  We all waited. I looked at Wilson, he at Lucia, she at me.

  “Detective,” I began, trying to make my voice sharp and authoritative. He shushed me right away.

  “Do you have anything to tell me, Miss Maury?” He was focused solely on Lucia. I thought I heard a little whine escape from her throat.

  “Please get dressed,” Wilson instructed her. “Miss Maury, I’m placing you under arrest on suspicion of murder. I’m required by law to inform you that you have the right to remain silent, you have the right . . .”

  I felt a tremendous rush of pity for Lucia at that moment, felt as frightened and helpless as I knew she felt. I hated having to listen to this stranger “Mirandizing” my old friend—it was just too much to bear. So, like an idiot, I covered my ears with my hands.

  Chapter 6

  It was dark when I got home. I felt as if I hadn’t seen my own apartment in days.

  There were only a few pebbles left in the cats’ dry food bowl, so I rushed to open their favorite smelly entrée. But all in all, the beasts were not at all happy about eating a midnight supper. Finally they quieted down, forgave me.

  I sat down heavily on the sofa. Well, Lucia was in jail. As crazy as that sounded, it was true. Her attorney was still at the station house.

  Then I remembered my visitor from what seemed like last week: Tony. I spotted the message on a ripped-out piece of note paper he’d taped to the front door. I went over to retrieve it.

  Swede: The only thing you’re too old for is celibacy. And too beautiful. Staying at the Pickwick Arms. Wish they were yours.

  Basillio

  I knew of that hotel. It was a reasonably priced one on East Fifty-first that catered for the most part to South American tourists.

  Holding the note, I sat back on the sofa. Bushy leaped up beside me. We both watched Pancho fly around my legs twice and disappear into the kitchen.

  The events of the day had unhinged me. How could all this be happening? Prim and proper Lucia in jail, accused of murder. A gun found taped under her desk at work—taped there, something out of a gritty policier. I knew that she hadn’t done anything wrong, but it was just as disturbing to think that someone might be trying to frame her for the murder.

  After a few minutes I took an appraising look around the apartment. There was a little picking up to be done; I should sort the laundry and do a dozen other little domestic chores, but I couldn’t focus on them now. On one of the chairs, in a light green binder, was a script I’d tossed there the other day and then promptly put out of my mind. My agent had described it as a black comedy, written, he said, by a woman in New Hampshire who was willing to put her own money into the production.

  I drifted over to the chair and distractedly picked the thing up. The title was The Bitches of Endor. I leafed through it halfheartedly. A three-woman cast. All three are inmates at a posh mental hospital called “Endor.” One is bulemic. One paranoid. And the third, a catatonic who makes bizarrely choreographed gestures and lurches.

  Ah, yes. The stuff of raucous hilarity. The typical Nestleton vehicle. Was it something I wanted to do? I didn’t know. All I could do was just stare at the words, just pass the time—it was like mental knitting. My head was somewhere else—at the ballet, in Lucia’s apartment, at the precinct house, where old iron bars threw shadows across Lucia’s lovely face. The vowels on the page seemed grotesquely familiar. They seemed to remind me of the hole in Peter Dobrynin’s forehead.

  I don’t know how long I would have sat turning the pages of that script if the telephone hadn’t sounded. It was very late for anyone to be calling me. I hoped it wouldn’t be horrible news.

  The caller was Frank Brodsky, Lucia’s attorney. I asked how she was faring.

  “She’ll be all right,” he assured me. “We’ll have her out on bail by morning.”

  Then he requested that I come to his office tomorrow, saying that the Maury family would very much appreciate my help. Of course, I agreed immediately.

  Frank Brodsky’s office was in a beautiful whitestone building in the east eighties, half a block off Central Park. I rang the bell, was buzzed in, and saw the elderly white-haired man standing at the top of a circular staircase.

  “This way, Miss Nestleton.”

  Up I climbed. Finally we were face-to-face, shaking hands. He was much shorter than I, but still presented an imposing picture. He was meticulously dressed in a charcoal pin-striped suit and moiré silk tie with a ruby stickpin. High above us, the sun streamed in through skylights.

  Mr. Brodsky ushered me past his secretary and into an exquisite room that served as a study. On the walls were breathtaking Hudson River School paintings—paradisiacal glades and ravines and gorges. Even with my complete lack of expertise, I could tell they were the genuine article. It reminded me of the tea party I’d once attended in the garden of a wealthy widow’s townhouse; I knew in an instant that the sculpture near the nasturtiums was a real Rodin—you just know.

  We sat down at a brilliantly high-polished table. On it were china cups and saucers and a silver coffee server filled with heady French roast. Brodsky poured for both of us, also offering me a basket of miniature rolls and marmalade. I was a little hungry, but felt I ought to decline. Wealth, power—what, stuffiness?—can have that effect on a person.

  “This whole . . . situation is just terrible for Lucia,” he began. “You and I know the charges are false. Absurd, Miss Nestleton. And we know how greatly our friend is suffering. But the fact is, if, after the ballistics tests are performed, the weapon that killed Mr. Dobrynin is proved to be the same one found in Lucia’s office . . . Well, I’m afraid the grand jury will surely indict.”

  He sipped his coffee. “As you know, Miss Nestleton, the Maurys are quite well off.”

  I nodded, a little embarrassed for some reason.

  “The family has empowered me with absolute discretion in defending Lucia. We need an investigator who can devote complete attention to this . . . situation. Now, I’ve heard that you have some experience in matters such as these.”

  “Yes.”

  “And I’ve heard also that, while you are a brilliantly accomplished actress, you have difficulty obtaining parts that are . . . ah . . . on your level. So that you have started a practice of . . . of . . . caring for other people’s animals, their cats, specifically.”

  I laughed at his convoluted, patronizing, but ultimately kind way of telling me that he knew I was perpetually broke.

  “I am so sorry,” he said, his face wreathed with concern. “Have I offended you?”

  “Not at all, Mr. Brodsky.”

  “Good. Well. Will you accept the assignment?”

  “Of course.”

  “That’s just fine. Lucia will be much relieved.”

  “Tell me, Mr. Brodsky. What, exactly, are my instructions?”

  He folded his hands in front of his face, thumbs touching, as if to convey his pensiveness. That moth-eaten gesture would have invited a torrent of invective from any good director.

  “You know, Miss Nestleton, I am now semi-retired. Most of the wo
rk I do these days involves trusts and estates. But I did have my share of excitement in the criminal area as a younger attorney. Believe it or not, I once defended Meyer Lansky in a tax-evasion case.” He sat up a little straighter. “Mr. Lansky was acquitted, I might add. But I am rambling. What I meant to say is that when I used investigators on a case, I found that specific instructions to them were counterproductive. That is, it was best to give the investigator free reign to explore the case. I assume that a trusted investigator is both professional and wise, and will penetrate to the heart of the matter.”

  “Heart?”

  “Yes, the heart of the matter: Who murdered Peter Dobrynin? That is what you must find out. It is ultimately the best defense against a murder indictment of Lucia Maury.”

  He pulled open a drawer then and removed a slip of paper. He used one finger to push it across to me. I stared at the check, drawn on a Delaware bank and signed in an illegible hand. It had been made out to me—in the amount of five thousand dollars.

  I was speechless for a moment. In an elaborate one-second fantasy I found the killer, paid all my debts, moved into Lucia’s building, endowed a small theater troupe, and zipped into Bendel’s to demand that the saleslady find and sell me that incredible two-hundred-and-forty-dollar straw hat with the linen flowers I’d salivated over last summer. I’d expected a token payment, perhaps. But surely everyone knew I would have wanted to help Lucia even if no money whatsoever had been involved, even if she had had less in the bank than I.

  Mr. Brodsky obviously had faith in my professionalism, and I thanked him for it.

  “Will you try one of these?” He motioned once more to the rolls in the wicker basket. “They’re from our favorite bakery. Really excellent.”

  I looked at the rolls and the pot of marmalade.