Amanda Matetsky - Dial Me for Murder

Dan stood up and stepped into the middle of the room, blocking me in my tracks. He grabbed hold of my shoulders and squeezed them hard. “Listen to me very carefully,” he said, staring into my eyes like an ultrastrict father (or husband). “There is nothing you can do. Nothing whatsoever. Do you hear what I’m saying? You are through with this investigation as of now! You’re going to lock yourself in this apartment and stay here until I come back.”

“But when will that be?” I whimpered.

“I don’t know. First, I’m going to the commissioner’s office, to get him to pull Mudd off the case and put me on. At least that way you won’t have to go in for questioning Monday morning. Then I’ll go over to the Barbizon, talk to Jocelyn’s neighbors, check out her apartment and the pool. Since Hogarth gave Melody expensive presents, maybe he gave some to Jocelyn, too. Maybe I’ll get lucky and find something traceable.”

“I saw a mink coat in the changing room at the pool. It was lying on a bench with the rest of her clothes.”

“Mudd probably took that into evidence last night. I’ll look into it.”

I groaned, twisted my shoulders out of Dan’s grasp, and started pacing again. “God, Dan! I can’t just sit here like a chunk of cheese! I’ll go out of my mind. I’ve got to do something! Isn’t there some way I can help?”

“The best way you can help is by staying home and staying safe,” he insisted, rolling his sleeves down, buttoning his collar, and tightening his tie. He walked into the living room, took his leather shoulder holster off the back of the chair, and buckled it on. “You can call Sabrina,” he said, throwing me a bone. “Tell her about Corona ’s arrest and Jocelyn’s murder; see if she’s heard anything.” He put on his suit jacket and anchored his hat at a sexy angle on his head.

I was too tired and muddle-headed to protest. “Okay,” I said, heaving a loud sigh of defeat. “Be careful… and don’t forget your coat.” I opened the closet and took out his trench coat. Then I walked over to the door and held the garment open while Dan shoved his arms into the sleeves.

Adjusting the coat around his shoulders and turning to face me, he said, “Hey, babe, I could get used to this-you slaving over breakfast and then sending me off to work like a good little wife.” He gave me a big wink to make sure I knew he was kidding.

“The engagement’s off,” I bluffed. “Find yourself another cook and coat-check girl. I’ve got better things to do with my-”

I was going to say time, but he didn’t give me enough time. He threw his arms around me, pulled me tight to his chest, and gave me a kiss so deep and long and hard I knew I’d feel its effects forever.

WHEN DAN LEFT, HE TOOK ALL MY ENERGY with him. I was completely spent-so worn-out it was an effort to move. (Well, I’d had a pretty tough day and night, you know! And I hadn’t slept in over twenty-eight hours.) I managed to clear the dirty dishes off the table and stack them in the sink, but I didn’t have the strength to wash them. I wanted to pour the bacon grease from the cast-iron skillet into the empty coffee can, but I couldn’t even lift the damn thing off the stove.

Thinking a few lungfuls of fresh air would clear my head and jump-start my engine, I opened the kitchen door, stepped onto the rusty balcony overlooking the weed-choked rear courtyard, and inhaled deeply. Big mistake. The putrid smell wafting up from the fish store under my apartment made me gag. I staggered back into the kitchen and slammed the door, hoping to keep the odor from seeping inside. Then I turned and headed, like a zombie, up the stairs to my bedroom, praying I would make it to the mattress before I passed out.

Halfway up the stairs I remembered Sabrina. I needed to call her. I needed to give her the good news about Corona… and the horrible news about Jocelyn. I needed to know if she’d heard anything from Hogarth or Harrington or any cops or detectives working the two murders. Forcing my weary legs to wobble back down the stairs and stumble into the living room, I collapsed on the couch and picked up the phone.

I was in the process of dialing Sabrina’s private number when my consciousness turned into a cloud and drifted away. The phone fell out of my hand, and my head fell onto a pillow, and every cell in my dead-tired body fell asleep.

DAN AND I WERE HONEYMOONING IN HAWAII. The sand was hot, the surf was warm, and we were making love on a deserted beach just like Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr in that sizzling seaside sex scene in From Here to Eternity . Only we weren’t wearing bathing suits. And we weren’t trying to curb our passion because now we were married and it was full steam ahead. So we were locked in a torrid embrace at the water’s edge, exulting in each other’s naked flesh, rolling around in the sun and the sand as waves of ecstasy crashed over us, and… well, you get the picture. We were having a pretty swell time.

So swell, in fact, that I was aware of nothing else in the whole wide, wonderful world but the sunny, surging pleasure of it all. I didn’t realize that Bleecker Street was teeming with loud, laughing, late Saturday afternoon shoppers, or that Luigi was having a big sale on littleneck clams and trout, or that Faicco’s deli had finally received its long-awaited shipment of Sicilian salami. I didn’t know that every machine in the Laundromat across the street was in use, or that rowdy NYU students were lining up at John’s Pizzeria for their first meal of the day.

And I had no idea that someone wearing a black knit cap and a brown leather jacket had sneaked through the courtyard behind my building, climbed the metal stairs to my balcony, entered my apartment through the back door, and crept-gun in hand-into the living room, where I was sleeping. It wasn’t until the intruder jabbed me in the ribs and ordered me to wake up that I opened my eyes and saw that I wasn’t in Hawaii anymore-and that the man hovering over me wasn’t Dan.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Turner,” the man said, standing next to the couch and staring down at my supine body with a hideous grin on his face. He was aiming a small handgun with a big silencer at the center of my chest. “Have a nice nap?”

I didn’t recognize him at first. With the tight black cap pulled down past his cheeks and over his eyebrows, and his features twisted in an ugly smirk, he looked like an evil, earless version of Batman. But when he yanked off the cap and threw it on the floor-thereby revealing his thick crop of wavy silver-gray hair-I came to the sudden but not shocking realization that the grinning gunman was Sam Hogarth.

I’ll never know how I did it, but I managed to keep my panic-stricken scream to myself. “And a good afternoon to you, Mister District Attorney,” I said, fighting to keep my tone light, struggling to hide the fact that my insides were convulsing in terror. (I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of watching me squirm.) Rising up on my elbows, I forced myself to smile and said, “To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?” I hoped my lips weren’t trembling.

“You think you’re pretty cool, don’t you?” he snorted, blue eyes blazing. “You think you’re God’s gift to Manhattan -a fearless female crime reporter with the DA’s balls on a fucking string. Ha! I bet you don’t feel so fearless now! And I doubt if you’ll look so cool when I put a bullet between your breasts.”

He was getting turned on. I could see it in his greedy eyes and in the way he was standing (legs apart, pelvis thrust forward). Remembering what Jocelyn had said about Hogarth- that he was a closet rapist; that he liked to rip off her clothes and take her against her will-I grew doubly alarmed. Was he planning to rape me as well as murder me?