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.
Chapter 38
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?
“I don’t understand,” I said, slowly, carefully, cagily (and, I’m surprised to say, successfully) inching myself up to a sitting position. “What’s going on here? How did you get into my apartment?” I hugged my arms to my waist and slumped forward, hoping to make my breasts a less interesting and accessible target.
“I’m the DA, honey,” he crowed. “This city belongs to me. I can open any door I want.” He took a ring of master keys out of his pocket and proudly jangled them in front of my face. “I didn’t need a key today, though, since you were kind enough to leave your back door open.”
Great. I must have forgotten to lock the door after going onto the balcony for a breath of fishy air. I was the biggest idiot who ever walked the earth. If Hogarth didn’t shoot me soon, I was going to grab his gun and do it myself.
“Okay, that explains how you got in,” I said, “but it doesn’t explain why you wanted to get in. So will you please tell me why you’re here and why you’re pointing that ugly gun at me?”
“Don’t play games with me, doll,” he said. “You know exactly why I’m here.”
“No, I don’t!” I cried, sensing that the time for acting cool was over. I dropped my daring detective routine and let my scaredy-cat emotions out of their cage. “I really don’t know what’s going on! Please tell me what’s wrong,” I begged. “What have I done? If you’re going to kill me, couldn’t you at least do me the favor of explaining why?” If I could get him to start talking, I reasoned, maybe he wouldn’t start shooting.
Hogarth’s grin grew even wider. “So the notorious Paige Turner isn’t as smart or brave as people think she is,” he said, gloating, grunting, glaring at me in triumph. He stepped away from the couch, and lowered the gun to his side. “You want to know why you’re going to die, pussy? Then I’ll tell you. It’s because you’re a devious, conniving slut, that’s why! You wormed your way into my office under false pretenses, and you asked a lot of disrespectful questions, and you wouldn’t stop prying into matters that didn’t concern you. I had your number from the start. Then, when Candy admitted she told you about our secret sex arrangement, and that you would back her up if she decided to go to the papers with the story, I knew both of you had to die.”
“But I never said I would talk to the press! When did Candy tell you that?”
“At approximately three fifteen this morning,” he said, still grinning. “Right before I drowned her.”
“You drowned her?” I sputtered, acting as astonished and confused as Lucy always does when she’s caught with her bloomers down. “I thought Tony Corona killed her! I found his St. Christopher medal at the scene and I-”