4 Four Play (6 page)

“She told me to go away, Miss Jessie. She told me to never come back.”

The child looked truly pained, but all I could do was suggest patience. “Let Captain Rye catch the killer,” I suggested. “Then maybe Rita will let up.”

“But what if she doesn’t? Lizzie and me.” He hesitated. “We need to see each other more than just at school.” His gaze met mine, and it dawned on me that Frankie Smythe was in love. Call me a sentimental fool, but I could not keep the smile off my face.

Frankie smiled, too. “You’ll do it, won’t you? You’ll talk to her?”

“I hardly know the woman, Frankie.”

“But she likes you.”

“Excuse me?”

“Lizzie says so.”

“You just told me you’re forbidden to see Lizzie.”

“Texting.” He held up his phone. “Come on, Miss Jessie. Can’t you tell Ms. Sistina I’m a good kid?”

“But I have no car,” I said. “The police have it.”

“I have the Jeep. I can drive you!”

Now there was a concept even more terrifying than facing Rita Sistina.

“What about the demonstration?” I waved behind us, indicating Sullivan Street. “I don’t want to face Jimmy and Alistair in person.”

“I’ll protect you!” Frankie slapped his chest, and what could I do but praise my young friend for his valiant courage?

He shrugged modestly. “Ms. Sistina will listen to you, Miss Jessie. You’re old!” He saw the look on my face and corrected himself. “Older,” he said. “People listen to you. You can tell Ms. Sistina how you’ve known me my whole life, and how we’ve been friends forever, and how smart I am, and how much you trust me, and—”

“If I say yes, will you shut up?”

“Yes!” Frankie held up an open palm and waited until I thought to high-five him.

He stood up, and I do believe he expected to drive me over to the Sistina household right then and there.

I quickly disabused him of the notion. “First of all, I’m not dressed for such an encounter.” I pointed to my cut-offs.

“So get dressed.” He sat back down. “I’ll wait.”

“Frankie! I can’t just barge in on the woman. I’ll call her first. We’ll set up a mutually convenient time and then get together for a nice cordial chat.”

He looked puzzled. “I don’t think Lizzie’s mother has ever been cordial.”

***

Apparently I was not to be trusted. Notwithstanding our sixteen years of friendship, Frankie insisted I make the call in his presence. He fetched my phone from the kitchen, tapped in Rita’s number, and jammed the instrument into my hands.

Rita answered on the first ring. “I was just looking you up,” she said.

“You were?”

“We need to talk. My daughter’s career is in crisis, and I need your help.”

I skipped a beat. Then I agreed a meeting was just the thing and asked when would be convenient.

“Today. Immediately. Now! Why are you stalling?”

Perhaps because I wasn’t quite up to facing Rita on such short notice?

“I can’t meet you today,” I lied. “I don’t have a car.”

“Because your brute of a boyfriend confiscated it!” she said.

Meanwhile Frankie pounded on his chest and mouthed, “Jeep. Jeep.”

I stood my ground and suggested the following day. “Perhaps around five?” I said, and Frankie nodded enthusiastically to that alternative also. Indeed, we had already decided that Monday after his baseball practice would work well.

“This can’t wait,” Rita said. “I’ll come to you.”

“What!?”

“We have a crisis on our hands! Don’t you know what crisis means!?”

Much to my chagrin, I heard the jingling of car keys.

“And if you think that ridiculous demonstration is going to stop me, you don’t know Rita Sistina!”

I let out a silent scream as Rita informed me Channel 15 had broadcast a midday news bulletin about Alistair’s book-banning campaign. “It’s what prompted me to get in touch with you,” she said.

I heard a car door slam shut, and the line went dead.

“What did she say?” Frankie asked me.

“She’s on her way over.”

“Here!?” he shouted. “Now!?” he screamed.“Thanks a million!” he said over his shoulder and flew out the door.

So much for valiant courage.

***

The intercom buzzer had never sounded quite so agitated.

“Get me out of here!” Rita shouted when I answered.

I buzzed her in, and Snowflake found her safety spot on top of the fridge.

“Coward,” I said, but the cat did have a point. Soon Rita Sistina was knocking, incessantly and impatiently, on our door.

“Lunatics!” she offered by way of greeting.

“Jimmy and Alistair?” I asked.

“Who else?” she said as she marched her feet toward my couch. “I had half a mind to stay down there and tell those ignorant maniacs exactly what I think of them!”

“Won’t you have a seat?” I suggested rather belatedly.

“What’s this?” she asked, and before I could stop her, Rita Sistina had
Sensual and Scintillating
firmly in hand. “
A Sex Scene Sourcebook
,” she read out loud and started rifling through the pages. “Boy, could I use this.”

“A book on sex scenes?”

She glanced up and waited.

“Ah, yes.” I nodded knowingly and asked if I could get her anything.

“Coffee.” Her nose was back in the book. “Black.”

Ever the gracious hostess, I poured the last cup from the pot and set it before her. “Frankie likes coffee, too,” I said as I took an easy chair.

Rita ignored me and continued reading. Clearly she and Frankie also shared an interest in
S and S
, but I thought it best not to mention that.

Eventually she tore herself away from her studies. “Now then,” she said. “Let’s talk about Elizabeth.”

“Yes, let’s,” I said, all pleasant-like. “Let’s discuss her relationship with Frankie.”

“Frankie!?” she shrieked. “Relationship!?”

“Correct,” I said calmly and proceeded to offer this, that, and the other complimentary assessment of Frankie Smythe’s character. I concluded with a basic, “He’s a good kid.”

“He’s not right for Elizabeth,” Rita said. “And they’re way too young.”

I conceded that they were young. “But their feelings are real, Rita. You should give Frankie a chance.”

“No.”

“Keeping them apart will only draw them closer together. The Romeo and Juliet Syndrome happens all the time in my books.”

“The what?”

“Remember what happened when the Montagues and Capulets tried to keep Romeo and Juliet apart.”

Rita gasped. “They both died!”

I waved a hand. “No, that’s not what I meant. I meant they got married.”

“Married!?” she screeched. “I swear, I will take that kid and cut off his—”

“Nooo!” I waved both hands that time and waited for Rita to calm down. “Okay, so let’s forget about Romeo and Juliet,” I said. “Instead, let’s think about the phrase ‘forbidden fruit.’” I pointed to the stack of
Sensual and Scintillating
. “Maxine Carlisle devotes a whole chapter to that topic.”

Rita stared at the books. “I’m adding fuel to their fire,” she said eventually. She looked up and actually asked me what she should do.

“Let it be,” I suggested. “Maybe they really are meant for each other.”

“Over my cold dead body! Now then! Let’s get to the real issue.”

I sighed dramatically. “And what, pray tell, might that be?”

“The crisis! The emergency! Elizabeth’s career! Haven’t you been listening?”

Testimony to how much I care about Frankie Smythe, I chose not to throw this woman out of my home, and instead asked what I could do to alleviate the “crisis.”

“Solve the murder!”

“Excuse me?”

“You know perfectly well your boyfriend is out to destroy my daughter’s future. He plans on accusing Elizabeth!”

“Excuse me?”

She jerked a thumb toward my windows. “And isn’t it convenient Jimmy Beak is right outside? I have a good mind to march down there right this minute and expose the truth. I know police brutality when I see it!”

Rita glared with all her might. But trust me, I’m an expert at that maneuver also.

“You should write fiction,” I told her. “Your imagination is even more outrageous than mine.”

She huffed and puffed.

“As you well-know, Lizzie has suffered zero police brutality.”

“Elizabeth.”

“Zero,” I repeated. “You should be grateful to Wilson. He’s keeping Lizzie’s name out of the news.”

“Elizabeth.”

“One assumes you, too, would like to keep Lizzie off of Jimmy Beak’s radar?”

“Elizabeth,” Rita mumbled. She shifted uncomfortably and looked over my shoulder. “What’s your cat’s name?” she said, and I knew I had made my point.

I asked why she expected me of all people to solve the murder. And she dove into a long-winded rigmarole about how she wouldn’t rest easy about Elizabeth’s future until the murder was solved.

“I pay attention to what goes on in this town,” she said. “You’re an excellent detective. You’ve helped that brute—”

“Rita!”

“You’ve helped Captain Rye solve several cases, and you have a stake in this one. It was your car.” She again gestured to my windows. “Chances are, when we stop hearing about your car and your license plate, we’ll stop hearing from that fool Pritt.”

“Which brings up another point,” I said. “I can’t go sleuthing. My car has been confiscated.”

“By that brute!”

“Rita!”

She took a deep breath and tried again. “Rent a car,” she said. “Borrow one. Have the Smythe kid drive you around for all I care. But solve this murder. Please!”

A thought occurred to me, and I sat forward. “Let’s make a deal,” I said. “I’ll work on the murder, and you’ll allow your daughter and Frankie to keep dating each other, or whatever. Deal?”

Rita frowned at the stack of sex manuals. “It’s the whatever I’m worried about.”

Chapter 8

The good news? Thanks to our rooftop garden, Snowflake and I weren’t cooped up inside all afternoon. Invisible to the street below, we could putter around to our hearts’ content. Snowflake chased a few dead leaves. I tended to my flowers.

The bad news? Although the protestors couldn’t see us, we could definitely hear them. “Ban bad books!” they chanted as I deadheaded the marigolds.

I moved on to the petunias as a new slogan wafted up from below. “Smut, smut, smut! Queen of Smut!” It sounded like they were clamoring for, not against, the Queen of Smut, but perhaps I misunderstood.

I unwound the hose and had started watering when I heard the unmistakable voice of Jimmy Beak drowning out everyone else. “Jessie Hewwwitt?” he sang. “Come out, come out, wherever you are. Where are youuu?”

“Watering the roses,” I sang to my flowers as the demonstrators again changed their tune.

“Come out to play, Add-a-lay.” They, too, were singing.

“The Beatles, they are not,” I told Snowflake, but she still jumped onto the railing at the edge to get a better look.

“They’ll see you,” I warned. But even so, we were four stories overhead, and the door into our building was locked and secure. Feeling all safe and smug, I turned off the water and walked over to join my cat.

The circus below looked about the same as earlier. But Jimmy had replaced his microphone with a bullhorn, presumably to get the attention of yours truly. This worked of course, and Jimmy was positively beside himself when he saw me. He screamed, pointed, and jumped, and I waved a few fingertips at the camera far, far below.

“Get down here!” he bullhorned up at me. “The public has a right to know what you have to say for yourself! The public demands answers!”

He waved at the crowd, but from where I stood no one looked all that demanding. Except for the actual demonstrators, that is. They jerked their posters up and down and revved up their “Come out to play” theme song.

I changed the fluttering of fingertips to the royal wave.

Alistair handed his poster to a neighboring idiot, stepped out of the circle, and made a gesture to indicate silence.

“Quiet!” Jimmy screamed into the bullhorn. “Mr. Pritt has something to say! Quiet! Quie—”

He shut up when Alistair began wrestling him for the bullhorn. But Jimmy was not about to relinquish control.

“Get me another one!” he bullhorned to the Channel 15 van, and someone tossed out another instrument.

It hit the cameraman in the head and bounced into Alistair’s hands.

Alistair was ready. “I know why Jessie Hewitt won’t come down to face us!” he bellowed into his bullhorn.

“Why!?” Jimmy asked. “Why!?”

“Because she’s ashamed!” Alistair directed his bullhorn upwards. “Ashaaamed,” he repeated.

“Borderline pornographer, borderline pornographer,” the placard-bearing group chanted helpfully.

“It’s just like a pornographer,” Alistair continued.

“What’s just like a pornographer?” Jimmy asked.

“To go into hiding the minute someone questions the waywardness of her wicked ways.”

I reached over to pet Snowflake. “Nice alliteration,” I said.

“But usually!” Alistair again. “Usually she flaunts her wicked ways!”

“How!? How!?” Jimmy again.

“In her books, of course! And think about her car.”

“You mean her Add-a-lay license plate?” Jimmy asked, and I began to wonder if they had rehearsed the whole dialogue.

“I mean murder!” Alistair said, and Jimmy abruptly dropped his bullhorn.

He grabbed at Alistair’s, but Alistair is a big guy, and Jimmy is skinnier than Frankie Smythe.

“Maybe this wasn’t rehearsed,” I told Snowflake.

“Murder on the Queen of Smut’s car!” Alistair managed before Jimmy finally confiscated the bullhorn. He seemed startled, but Jimmy leaned in and whispered something, and they both glanced up at me.

I smiled sweetly and again offered the royal wave.

***

“You need champagne.” Candy answered her door, a bottle of Korbel in hand.

“You need Oreos.” Karen held up an unopened package of cookies.

“You need to play,” Puddles the poodle may as well have said. He dropped his “Baby” at my feet and insisted I find the squeaky spot.

“I need to get out.” I squeaked Baby and tossed him over Candy’s shoulder. “Except for the roof, I haven’t left the building all day.”