Amanda Matetsky - Murder on a Hot Tin Roof

Silence fell on the room like a bomb. Binky stopped grunting. Abby stopped wheezing. I stopped whimpering. Staring, openmouthed, at the person who was standing behind me, Binky released me from his crushing hold, let the knife fall to the floor, and raised his hands in the air without a word (or grunt) of protest.

I spun around on my heels and gazed at the man who had materialized-as if by magic-just in time to save my life. The dark-haired man with the gun in his hand. The tall, lean man dressed head to toe in dark clothing. The sly, sneaky, illusive man whose identity I had been unable to confirm until now. It was Blackie.

IT WASN’T UNTIL BLACKIE PULLED A pair of handcuffs out of his back pocket and slapped them on Binky’s wrists that I began to realize what was going on. Blackie was friend, not foe. Protector, not stalker. Cop, not killer. And any doubts I may have had on this score were quickly eliminated when, just a few seconds later, four uniformed policemen rushed into the small apartment, crowding the narrow living room beyond capacity.

“Step over here, please, Mrs. Turner,” Blackie said, maneuvering me toward the bedroom doorway, out of the way of the other cops who, in spite of the strict space limitations, immediately launched into their prescribed police routine. One officer began patting Binky down, one started searching the apartment, one got to work bagging and labeling the knife, and one escorted Abby to the rear corner of the room for safe-keeping. (Abby was feeling just fine, you should know. I could tell by the way she was flirting with her handsome young caretaker.)

“That was a close call,” Blackie said, tucking his gun in his belt and scowling at me. “Are you okay? You aren’t hurt, are you?”

“No, I’m okay,” I said, even though I wasn’t. My nerves were jangling, my teeth were rattling, and my knees were shaking out of control. In the interest of appearing cool, however, I chose to withhold that information. “Thanks for saving my life,” I said instead.

“Glad to be of service,” he replied, still scowling but extending his hand for a shake. “I’m Detective John Dash. NYPD. You may have seen me around. I’ve been following you for the past four days.”

“Yes, I believe I did catch a glimpse of you here and there.”

His frown deepened. “Guess I got a little careless.”

“I thought you were the killer,” I confessed, “looking for a good opportunity to kill me.”

“Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to scare you. I was just doing my job.”

“Speaking of jobs,” I said, “what happened to your busboy position at Stewart’s Cafeteria? Did you quit or get fired?”

He smiled. (At least I think that little upward twitch of his lips was a smile.) “I was on assignment at Stewart’s,” he explained, “working undercover. I was put there to spy on the Village homos-find out everything I could about the chicken run.”

Ugh. I wished I hadn’t asked.

“But after you got involved in the Gordon murder,” he went on, “they took me off busboy duty and sent me to spy on you.”

“Why? Did they actually think

I was the killer?”

“Can’t answer that,” he said, scraping his fingers through his wavy hair and giving me a tired look. “And I’m supposed to be asking the questions here, not you. So, whaddaya say you quit grilling me and start telling me what went on here today? Keep it short and sweet. Detective Flannagan will get all the details later.”

I gave him a quick rundown of the afternoon’s events, then led him into the bedroom where Gray’s shirt and boots were scattered on the floor. Blackie-oops, I mean Detective Dash-picked up the boots, wrapped them up in the shirt, and then gave them to one of the other cops to bag. “Okay, that’s it,” he said, taking the gun out of his belt and sticking it into the slim holster hidden under the leg of his long black pants. “Let’s round up the horses and head for the stable.”

THERE WERE TWO SQUAD CARS PARKED at the curb. Binky was ushered outside and deposited in one of them, accompanied by the three officers who had attended to him inside. Sullen, silent, and still in handcuffs, he sat with his shoulders hunched and his head hanging low until the car pulled out and sped away, disappearing in the shadows beneath the doomed elevated train track.

Barnabas Kapinsky had taken his final bow. There were no bravos; no standing ovation.

After an argument between Abby and Blackie about Fabrizio’s bicycle (she wanted to ride it back to the Village, he wanted her to ride in the car and come back for the bike later), Abby and I were chauffeured to the Sixth Precinct station, with Fabrizio’s Schwinn Jaguar Deluxe strapped to the trunk of the car. It was a fast trip and a quiet one. Even Abby didn’t feel much like talking.

Once we were taken upstairs to Homicide, however, and seated in the hard wooden chairs across the desk from Flannagan, we both had plenty to say.

“I

told you Willy Sinclair wasn’t the murderer,” I said to Flannagan the second Blackie finished briefing him on the afternoon’s events. I lit up an L &M and spewed the smoke out in an extra loud whoosh. “If you had listened to me, you could have saved us all a lot of trouble.”

“Yeah!” Abby said. “A

whole lot of trouble. We nearly had our throats slashed, you know!”

Flannagan glared at us and let out a gruff

harrumph. “You can’t blame that on me. If you had kept your snotty little noses out of the case to begin with, none of this ever would have happened.”

“Right!” I cried. “And instead of having the

real murderer in police custody, you’d have poor Willy behind bars-set to go on trial and maybe even receive the death sentence-for a murder he didn’t commit!” (I don’t often break society’s strict gender rules and speak so boldly to men in authority-no matter how stupid they happen to be. But in this case, I simply couldn’t help myself. I was mad.)

Flannagan’s boyish, clean-shaven face turned an unusual shade of purple. “How dare you speak to me that way!” he spluttered, banging his fist down on top of the desk. “I’m the homicide detective in charge of this case, and you’re just a two-bit pencil-pusher for a smutty crime magazine! You think you know everything about the way I’ve handled this investigation, and you don’t have a clue.”

“Oh, really?” I said, with a sniff. “Then perhaps you’d better

tell me how you’ve handled it, Detective. A two-bit crime reporter can’t afford to be clueless.” (Okay, maybe my tone was a tad sarcastic, but not totally. I swear! I was truly curious to hear what Flannagan would have to say for himself-and I wanted to collect all the dirty details for my smutty story.)

But I was losing him and Abby knew it. “Oh, yes, Detective Flannagan, please tell!” she warbled, batting her lashes like crazy, striving to soothe his disgruntled male ego with an ooze of feminine charm.

It worked. Flannagan’s face turned from purple to pink. He smirked, loosened his tie, leaned way back in his chair and put his feet up on his desk, filthy shoe soles facing me. “In the first place, Mrs. Turner,” he said, “I never even came close to arresting Willard Sinclair for the murder. We didn’t have enough proof for that. A matching blood type is strong, persuasive evidence, but it isn’t conclusive. So, however low your opinion of the NYPD may be, your precious faggot friend wasn’t in danger of going to prison or receiving an unjust death penalty. That’s not the way we do things around here.”

“Oh, no? Then why were you constantly harassing and abusing Willy-calling him a queer and a pervert and a psychopath, and insisting that he was the one who killed Gray? Is that just the way you get your kicks?” I took one last drag on my cigarette and angrily crushed it in the ashtray.