High Heels And Holidays Part 18

"Oh, left-tenant, everything happens, sooner or later, if we're only patient. Ah, and it has happened now," he said, pushing open the door. "Mr. West, are you in there? New York City police department, Mr. West. Don't be alarmed."

"Will you freaking cut that out?" Wendell complained, pushing past Saint Just and into the apartment. "Jonathan West! Police! Show yourself!"

"As subtle as a red brick to the brain box," Saint Just said, shaking his head as he followed after the lieutenant, only to be brought up short directly behind him as the air inside the apartment all but slammed into his nostrils. Reaching into his pocket after using his elbow to nudge shut the door behind them, he withdrew his handkerchief and put it to his nose. "Left-tenant?"

"Over there," Wendell said, pointing to what at first glance appeared to be a large gray lump on the carpet. He had already taken out his revolver and held it straight out in front of him with both hands as he visually swept the large room. "And he's pretty ripe. Don't touch anything, I've got to call this in."

"I wouldn't dream of it," Saint Just said as he measured the apartment with his eyes. "He lived rather simply, didn't he? Is this what is called a studio apartment?"

Wendell slipped his cell phone back into his pocket but kept the revolver unholstered. "Yeah, that's what it's called. Everything in one room, except the bathroom, which I have to check out now. Stay here. And don't-"

"Touch anything. Yes, left-tenant, I believe I understand crime-scene protocol. However, we could do with a little light, couldn't we?"

"Better than tripping over evidence, I suppose, and I've got to check that bathroom. All right, a light," Wendell said, pulling on thin latex gloves he'd gotten out of his pocket and reaching past Saint Just to turn on the overhead light. "d.a.m.n, another body."

"Four-legged, happily," Saint Just said, also seeing the open shoe box on a low table in front of a rather flamboyantly carved lime green on green satin couch. "I suppose, as you would say, Maggie's and my theory is back in the game?"

"Yeah, it sure looks that way. Where's Maggie?"

"Safely ensconced in her condo with Socks on guard duty downstairs, thankfully," Saint Just told him, keeping his sword cane balanced lightly in his right hand, although he believed there was no one hiding in Jonathan West's bathroom. At least no one with a working sense of smell.

While Wendell went off to do his pull open the door, point the pistol, check out the area routine on the bathroom and closets, Saint Just did his own visual inspection of the apartment from where he stood. It was all rather pathetic, actually. The furnishings were extraordinarily good, if showing signs of wear, as if West had purchased them years earlier with a much larger living s.p.a.ce in mind, so that the pieces were out of scale for this smaller room.

What was it called? The polite term? Oh yes, downsizing. Mr. Jonathan West had downsized, most probably because finances had forced such an economy on him. A sad man, living in a sad little apartment, living a sad little life. It was Francis Oakes's life all over again-merely with a better address and more comfortable furniture.

Saint Just was happy that Maggie had chosen not to come with him. Not only did he not wish her to see yet another dead body, but a room such as this would only reinforce her belief that wealth and fame could be fleeting, affirm her lack of confidence in herself and her abilities-not to mention how much tighter she would begin to squeeze every penny.

With Wendell once more back in the main living area, his weapon now holstered, Saint Just approached the body with him. "That's quite a copious amount of blood around the body, isn't it? And arterial spray, I believe is the term," he added, pointing his cane in the direction of the bizarre stripes of dried blood on the nearest wall.

"That's what happens when somebody slices open his wrists. Hey, stay back over next to the-oh, never mind. I don't know if it's the blood smell or the decomp, but I've got to open a window."

Saint Just was more than happy to shift his gaze from Jonathan West's bloated, eyes-open body and move away from that body-and the flies that appeared to be feasting on it and the blood that had soaked into the carpet. The sound of those flies, the buzzing, was most unnerving, not that Saint Just would allow himself to react in any way.

He stepped carefully to the coffee table, where the rat, similarly decomposing, could be seen inside the shoe box, although he could not see any evidence of the poem that had been included in with Maggie's rat, and the others.

"I don't see a poem," he told Wendell, who had opened not one, but two windows, allowing some much needed cool, fresh air into the apartment.

"And I suppose you want me to look for it?"

"The thought had occurred, yes," Saint Just said, refolding his handkerchief and replacing it in his pocket. "Ah, wait, I think that could be it-I see a corner of rather stained paper sticking out from beneath the animal's body. Strange. West never read the note? It's as if he merely opened the box, then abandoned it here on the table. One would think if one were to commit suicide out of fright after receiving a threat, one would first have had to read that threat. Although," he continued, thinking out loud, "West could have lifted the rat out of the box, read the poem, and then replaced the-no, n.o.body would do anything like that. I know I most certainly wouldn't."

"You enjoy talking to yourself, Blakely? And we both know this wasn't a suicide. The rats are just a prop the killer understands and we don't. Not when we've already got one body that looked like a suicide," Wendell said as he stepped carefully around the room. He opened the cabinet under the sink with his gloved hand. "Wow, look at this. Good old Jonathan liked his Jim Beam, didn't he?"

Not understanding the reference, Saint Just approached the small kitchen area that at least boasted a breakfast bar to somewhat separate it from the living area, and looked into the plastic trash bin. "Oh," he said, seeing the empty bottles. "Mr. West enjoyed his liquor. Open that cabinet, if you will, left-tenant."

"More bottles, about ten of them," Wendell said, closing the cabinet door once more and opening another. "More bottles. That's some serious drinking he had going on. All right, no more of this, okay? The crime-scene guys will be here any minute now, and I want to make some notes."

"Certainly, left-tenant," Saint Just said, his attention now on the length of counter that was crowded with several small kitchen appliances. Saint Just had quite an appreciation for small kitchen appliances, an interest he would rather not dissect as to exactly why he liked them so much.

The appliances put him in mind of something that appeared to be missing from the room. A computer. Surely a writer, even one who had, as Bernie had told them, not written in years, would have a computer. A writer would sell his couch, his television machine, his soul, before he would sell his computer. There was a rather lovely kidney-shaped cherrywood desk in the room, positioned in front of the bank of three tall windows. But no computer. In fact, the desktop was completely clear save for a photograph of-well, goodness. Bernice Toland-James certainly was a popular lady, with a romantic past probably best left unexamined.

Still, no computer? Odd. Very odd.

As was one of those small kitchen appliances behind him, now that he thought about the thing. Careful to keep his hands locked behind his back, Saint Just turned back to the long counter to lean over and peer at the out-of-place appliance, noting the cobwebs that had been woven just inside its openings, which were odd in themselves, for Jonathan West may have been reduced to the Manhattan idea of genteel poverty-and most anyone's idea of devoted tipster-but he seemed to have taken great care in keeping his surroundings neat and clean.

But this appliance wasn't even plugged into the outlet. It was just there, complete with cobwebs, one appliance out of many-while all the others were plugged into a plainly visible six-outlet power cord.

And then he saw it-something where it should not be. He then glanced over his shoulder at Wendell, who was busily writing in his spiral notepad-most probably detailing how he had found the door to West's apartment slightly ajar and had entered only because he'd believed he'd had reason to suspect imminent danger to the occupant.

With the man fairly well occupied with his inventive fiction, Saint Just began speaking out loud, because he needed a bit of noise, didn't he? The sort of noise the lieutenant would dismiss as inane background chatter as he continued to scribble on his notepad. It wasn't the best of plans, but he was laboring under the knowledge that they would soon not be alone in the apartment, and really didn't have time to formulate a better one.

"Quite a devotee of small kitchen appliances, wasn't he, Wendell? Perhaps the late Mr. West was an Internet shopper? This Foreman grill is very much like mine, only a smaller size-the two-hamburger, chicken breast, or chop size, I'd say. An interesting can opener-I believe it also might serve as a knife sharpener, which is quite handy. Microwave, toaster oven-ah, and that's a rotisserie turkey cooker, unless I miss my guess. Food processor, a very simple toaster. Now, I cannot help but wonder, why would a man with limited s.p.a.ce feel the need for both a toaster oven and a toaster? The toast from toaster ovens is far superior to that of simple toasters, don't you think? I do. Do you suppose one of them is broken? Maybe this one?"

As he said the last words, holding his handkerchief to cover his fingers, Saint Just nudged the control lever on the toaster, at which time the mechanical workings inside were released to spring upward with a short, metal-on-metal grating sound.

"Hey, what was that? d.a.m.n it, Blakely, I told you not to touch anything!"

"My most profound apologies, left-tenant. I have such an insatiable curiosity about kitchen appliances. It's a failing, I know," Saint Just said, the computer disk that had been inside one of the toaster slots already neatly secured in his sports coat pocket. He left the kitchen area and then suggested that it might be best for the good lieutenant if he was not on the premises with him when the crime-scene investigators arrived.

"You're right. I'm getting a little tired of explaining you, to tell you the truth-especially if any of the network news-hounds picked up anything on a scanner and show up. The department doesn't need another exclusive Holly Spivak-Alexander Blakely television circus," Wendell said, flipping his notebook closed. "Besides, I don't want Maggie to be alone, even if it's you I'm sending to her. Who else should we be watching? I left Bernie's list back at the homicide table."

Saint Just mentally ran down the list, picking and choosing. "There's Bruce McCrae. J.P. is babysitting him, I believe is the term. Maggie, of course. And Felicity Boothe Simmons. The rest have all either fled the metropolitan area or are, alas, recently deceased."

"Felicity Boothe Simmons? Oh, G.o.d, not that s.p.a.ce cadet. She'll demand protection. Loudly. Count on it."

"A problem easily solved," Saint Just said helpfully. "I'm sure Maggie would be more than willing to open her home to Miss Simmons for the duration. You do plan on solving these murders sooner rather than later, don't you, left-tenant, I would most sincerely hope? I said Maggie would be willing to house Miss Simmons. I am not saying that she will be particularly overjoyed to do so. Therefore, it goes without saying that we will look forward to frequent updates from you."

"I'll be sure to keep you in the loop," Wendell said with what actually looked to be a bit of a sneer. He moved to stab his hand through his s.h.a.ggy hair, but then stopped as he noticed he was still wearing the latex gloves. "Go away now, Blakely. Just go away. You've got to have something else to do besides driving me nuts."

Saint Just thought of the computer disk in his pocket. "As a matter of fact, I do. I most certainly do. But may I first say how very gratifying it is to be working with you again, left-tenant."

"Yeah. It's freaking terrific. We're a h.e.l.l of a team. Go!"

Chapter Eighteen.

As they rode the elevator to the thirty-seventh floor of Felicity Boothe Simmons's building, Maggie leaned against the wall of the car, still trying to come to grips with the idea that Jonathan West was dead. Murdered.

"Poor guy," she said, sighing. "His last book? It was named to, I think, four different worst books of the year, most disappointing books of the year-that sort of thing-lists. You know, media critics' polite way of saying loser. I can't imagine what that feels like-to see your book on a list like that. I just know I don't ever want to know how it feels."

"And you won't, my dear," Alex a.s.sured her. "I won't allow it."

"You won't allow it? G.o.d, Alex, I should start following you around with a pen and notepad. I mean, that was a funny line-not. Now, quick, tell me again why I had to come here with you. I'd almost figured out which iPod I'm going to order for Sterling. All I have to do now is compare prices."

"You know why you're here. You're a woman, Maggie. Felicity is a woman. I think she'll handle the news better, coming from you."

"Me? Me who can't stand Faith-that me? You're such a c.o.c.keyed optimist, Alex."

"Yes, thank you. Now isn't this odd. Gates lives on the third floor, West resided on the sixth, and here is Felicity, on the thirty-seventh. In New York, it would appear that the higher up you live, the more affluent the building."

"And I'm on the ninth floor. I remember. Hey, did you get a look at that foyer downstairs? It's furnished better than my condo." As the elevator slid soundlessly to a halt and the doors opened, she added, "And no wisecracks. My condo is furnished just fine, thank you."

"You have a three-foot-high pink plastic flamingo in the corner of your bedroom."

"Yeah? So? Kirk gave it to me last year as some kind of joke, I guess. I may have gotten rid of him, but I sort of like the flamingo. Does it bother you? That Kirk gave it to me, I mean?"

Alex used his cane to hold open the elevator doors until Maggie belatedly realized she hadn't moved, and stepped out onto the plush carpeting. "No, my dear. It offends me aesthetically. Ah, this is Felicity's door. I neglected to ask. Does she live alone?"

"I'll just pretend you meant that as a serious question. Get real, Alex, who'd live with her?" Maggie looked at the door. d.a.m.n. Felicity's building foyer was better than hers. This door was better than hers. Higher, wider-and there were two of them; actual double doors, sort of carved, sort of antiqued. "She's got Christmas wreaths hanging on her doors?" she said. "Okay, they look good. I could do that, you know. A nice live wreath, with pinecones, a pretty red ribbon. Then I could post a twenty-four-hour guard so that somebody doesn't rip me off. Of course, if I wired it just right-"

"Maggie, dear heart, would you care to ring the bell?"

"-maybe with a live grenade," she told him, completing the thought as she shot him a dirty look, because he knew what she knew-that she was only delaying the inevitable. "Her a.s.sistant told me she'd be home by one. I told you that. I could have just phoned her and told her about Francis and Jonathan. I still don't see why we had to-oh, all right, all right, I'm ringing. Look, see me ringing the bell." She frowned. "I don't have a bell. Why does she have a bell? The concierge already called her. Why don't I have a concierge? Why do I have Paul the putz?"

"Maggie, h.e.l.lo! Oh, and Alex, too. I could barely believe it when Pierre called up to say I had company. Come in, come in-I've been just dying to show you my new place. I only moved in a month ago, you know. No, of course you don't. I didn't get my housewarming present yet, did I? Naughty, naughty."

Maggie glared at Alex, who had the decency to shrug his shoulders in an apologetic way before she followed Felicity b.o.o.bs Simmons into the large, marble-tiled foyer with at least a fifteen-foot ceiling and a crystal chandelier that could have played the stunt double in Phantom of the Opera. A huge round table sat in the middle of the foyer, a two-foot-high vase on top of it, loaded with a fresh flower arrangement that had to stand another three feet high. "Wow, Faith, this is really ... something."

The foyer opened into an enormous living room, salon, saloon-whatever it was, it was freaking big, and decked out in gold and white and-good G.o.d-pink, and in the style of Louis XIV or XVI, or one of those Louis. Heavy silk draperies slathered all over twenty-foot-high windows, puddling on plush white carpeted floors. A white fake Christmas tree decorated all in pink and silver that nearly reached that ceiling was backed by the wide, curving marble staircase that led to an exposed balcony and the second floor of the unit (she had a second floor!). The tree was lit with a million small fairy lights. Revolving. It probably even snowed on itself.

"Check around, Alex," Maggie said as Faith made herself comfortable on a white-on-white silk brocade couch that could probably comfortably seat thirty-two people. "She may have stashed Marie Antoinette here somewhere."

"Maggie? Are you just going to stand there? You've seen fine furnishings before, surely?"

"You can take the snark out of Brooklyn Heights, but you can't take the snark out of the woman, or something like that. You know what I mean," Maggie said to Alex out of the corner of her mouth as she smiled at Faith, then spread her arms as if to encompa.s.s the entire room. "Why do I feel this sudden hunger for cotton candy?"

Felicity's tinkling laugh affected Maggie like knuckles on a cheese grater-meaning the sound wasn't so bad, but it was still d.a.m.n painful. "I'll take that as a compliment, Maggie. It is delicious here, isn't it?"

"Oh, yeah. Delicious. Who's that over the fireplace?" Maggie asked, gawking at the life-size painting. "The guy leering over the nursing-mother redhead."

"Derek Whitehead, of course, modeling for my latest cover. I don't know the female model's name-they're so interchangeable, aren't they. That's the original art. I have all my covers in oils-the rest are back there, in my suite of offices; I'll show them to you later. I plan to always have the current cover above the fireplace. So you like it? Oh, I know you're positively salivating, aren't you! I won't tell you what I paid for the place, but if you thought five million you'd be thinking much too small. But what do I labor so hard for, if not to allow myself a few creature comforts?"

"A warm bath and fuzzy slippers are creature comforts, Faith. Chicken noodle soup and bread and b.u.t.ter with sugar on it are creature comforts. Just call this place what it is, okay? You, showing off."

"Yes, I am, aren't I?" Faith said, giggling again. "I can afford to."

"Three weeks, wasn't it?"

Maggie's allusion to the staying power of Felicity's latest hardback on the NYT finally took the smile from the woman's face.

"You were mean, Maggie. Suggesting that Bernie has found someone to replace me. Oh, yes, I knew what you were doing. You know, you may have saved my life at the last We Are Romance convention, and I'm grateful, but there is a limit to what I should be forced to endure from you. I was never anything but a loyal friend."

"Yeah, sure you were. Right up until the minute you forgot to invite me to your c.o.c.ktail party at WAR because you wanted it limited only to your fellow NYT authors. The year before that conference, Faith, you and I roomed together and shared doggie bags we'd brought back from the Toland Books dinner, because we were so short of cash. Remember those days, Faith?"

Felicity waved away the question as she smiled over at Alex, who had been admiring a bust of some Greek G.o.ddess and doing the typical man thing of ignoring two women who were obviously indulging in a distasteful cat-fight. "I'm dying to hear your opinion of my new home, Alex. You English have such exemplary taste."

"It's quite you, Felicity," Alex said, and Maggie bit back a giggle of her own, because she knew a dig when she heard one-which Felicity did not.

"Oh, thank you, Alex," Felicity trilled. "Ah, and here comes Trixie, my a.s.sistant. Honestly, I don't know how I'd exist without her. You understand, don't you, Maggie? I mean, how does one possibly answer all one's fan mail without an a.s.sistant? All those requests for bookmarks, autographed photographs. Oh, and Trixie arranges my speaking schedule, of course-just a million things I couldn't possibly have time for if I wanted to continue writing my books, pleasing my fans. Trixie, come here, dear. I want to introduce you to my good friends and you can then get them whatever they want to drink." She eyed Maggie up and down. "Diet soda, Maggie?"

Fun was fun, and all of that, but it was time to shut Faith up, d.a.m.n it. "Francis Oakes is dead and so is Jonathan West and they both got dead rats in the mail and threatening poems and we've figured out that somebody is after all the authors who contributed to No Secret Anymore-some weird serial killer with his own reasons that n.o.body understands because we were figuring someone was out to avenge Jonathan, not kill him-so we know you got a dead rat, too, and your life could be in danger and ... well, and Alex here figured you should know and take precautions."

Felicity's carefully painted mouth had dropped open somewhere around some weird serial killer. "What are you talking about? That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, Maggie Kelly, and you just said it to frighten me. Shame on you!"

"I did not!"

"Oh yes you did. I know you, Maggie. You're mean. And to say that I received a dead rat in the mail? That's ludicrous. You might get one, I can see that. But my fans would never do such a thing. None of my readers would ever send me a dead rat."

"No, only your friends," Maggie said with a grin.

"That's it, Maggie, mock me. But I know my fans. They love me. They send me afghans they've knitted for me. They send me homemade cookies, needlepoint bookmarks-Fruit of the Month!"

Maggie snapped her fingers as she turned to point a finger at Alex. "That's it. I can get Tate a year's worth of Fruit of the Month Club stuff. Smother him in grapefruit. Barrage him with Bartlett pears. Drive him crazy with boxes of ... of k.u.mquats."

"Maggie, dear, your mind is wandering," Alex pointed out as he polished his quizzing gla.s.s with a fine linen square of cloth.

"Oh yeah, right," she said, turning back to Felicity once more. "You had to have gotten a dead rat, Faith, everybody else did. Okay, not Kimberly D'Amico, but she lives in Missouri and we think they ran out of postage-"

"Or rats," Alex supplied helpfully, holding up his quizzing gla.s.s now as he examined a bit of jade in the form of a b.u.t.terfly.

"Right, or rats. Something. But everyone else got dead rats and poems. Everyone who lives in this area got a dead rat, and now two of those people are dead. Murdered. You got one, Faith, so don't lie and say you didn't and try to blow our theory."

"The h.e.l.l with your theory. I did not get a dead rat, Maggie Kelly."

"You did so."

"Did not!

"Did too!"

"Did not!"

"Did-"

"Ladies, ladies, please. Miss-Trixie, is it? Pardon me for saying so, but you seem a bit uncomfortable. Is there by any chance something you'd like to say?"

Maggie turned her attention to the rather mousy young woman who was one of those people who seemed capable of becoming invisible. "Yeah, she doesn't open her own mail, does she? Trixie? Did Faith get a rat?"

"Uh. Um. Ms. Felicity? I'm afraid you did, ma'am. One day last week, I really don't remember the exact day. It was disgusting, ma'am, and I threw it down the chute the moment I saw what it was. If there was a poem, I didn't see it. I only saw the rat. I ... I'm sorry."

When Felicity just sat there on her lovely white brocade couch, both manicured hands to her silicone-enhanced b.r.e.a.s.t.s, her BOTOX-plumped lips moving soundlessly, Maggie looked at Alex and asked, "Okay, now what?"

"In a moment, Maggie. There are those who were not born with your admirable resilience," Alex said, walking unerringly to a large armoire that, when he opened the upper doors, revealed a mirrored bar. He poured both Felicity and the a.s.sistant gla.s.ses of wine and pressed them into their hands before asking of Trixie: "What do you remember of the package, my dear? Most, I'm afraid, have been destroyed, and although we doubt the perpertrator was kind enough to include a return address, I would like to hear just what you remember about what you saw. Do you think you can do that?"