The Deadliest Option (28 page)

“If I’d sat still, we wouldn’t have heard Neil tell Ellie about what could be a policy meeting on the salaries, and we wouldn’t have heard Hoffritz threaten her—
ouch.
That hurt.”

“Give me that.” Smith wrapped the wound loosely with the bandage.

“It’s going to slip off.”

“I’m not going to make it too tight because it’ll stop your circulation. Just sit still.” She rolled adhesive tape expertly on the top and bottom of the bandage and dumped everything back willy-nilly into the first-aid kit.

“Here, I’ll do that,” Wetzon said, taking the kit and putting the cap back on the tube, rolling up the gauze.

Smith washed her hands in the sink and dried them on another clean towel. “I’m starving,” she announced.

“So am I.” Wetzon did a waist bend and picked up the bloodstained remnant of her skirt from the floor. Regretfully, she dropped it into a plastic-lined garbage pail under the sink.

“Well, let’s get out of here then. Ellie’s obviously gone out to that meeting.” Smith chuckled. “Or maybe she went out with dear Johnny Hoffritz.”

“Laugh,” Wetzon said, “but dear Johnny Hoffritz—all of them, in fact, have sold us out. I wonder what Ellie has on him. Do you suppose he killed Goldie and Ash?”

“Oh, Lord,” Smith sighed. “If they wanted to put brokers on salary, and Goldie was against it, it was very convenient for him to die. How’s your wound?”

“Actually ...” Wetzon flexed her leg. “It’s okay. You did a good job—Mom.” She flexed again and winced. Pink stained the bandage.

“Why do you sound surprised?” Smith was pouring coffee into the two waiting cups. “Don’t yap about caffeine, please. A little stimulation will do you good, sweetie, perk you up.”

They drank the hot coffee slowly, both lost in their own thoughts.

“There goes my theory about Goldie being killed by accident,” Wetzon said.

“Oh, Hoffritz wouldn’t be such a fool.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“Hmmmm, well, they were pushing Goldie out—”

“What if he threatened to go public with their plans before they could get everything in place?”

“I don’t know, sweetie. It’s very confusing.”

“I was certain that Carlton Ash was getting money for keeping something quiet. Now I don’t know.”

“How do you want to handle it?” Smith put her empty cup on the saucer.

“What?”

“The announcement, of course—if that’s what it is—about salaries.”

“I think we should not send them any more brokers, collect what they owe us and start raiding
them
with a vengeance. The really entrepreneurial brokers will want to leave.” Wetzon took the cups and saucers to the sink, rinsed them, and stacked them in the dishwasher.

“I’m inclined to agree with you. What do you think the meeting at Neil’s is about?”

Wetzon shook her head. “Don’t know. Maybe the brokers are strategizing, too.”

“How about organizing?” Smith walked into the living room, leaving all the kitchen drawers and cabinets yawning. “I have to pee.”

Wetzon picked up the first-aid kit, closed the drawers and cabinets and followed her. “Where did you find this?” She held up the kit.

“In the sink cabinet in the second bathroom. I’m going to use Ellie’s.” Smith ran up the stairs and disappeared.

Wetzon followed her slowly, one step at a time. Her wound had stiffened and felt numb. From the top of the stairs she looked back down at the living room. There was something empty and forlorn about it. She shuddered, dreary thoughts.

She found the light switch on the right-hand wall in the guest bedroom and turned on the light. Two lamps on either side of the bed came on.

The first-aid kit went back under the sink in the bathroom, then she washed her hands and face, dried herself with a guest towel. In the medicine cabinet, she found a bottle of moisturizer and rubbed it into her face and hands.
We are certainly making ourselves at home in Ellie’s house,
she thought with a spasm of guilt, as she wandered into the guest bedroom. It was a pretty place. Girlish, almost. The one-eyed teddy bear stared knowingly at her.

“Smith?” Smith didn’t respond, but Wetzon heard the toilet flush and the water running.

The window had white ruffled curtains with tie-backs, over closed pink slat blinds. Several books rested on the bedside table, next to a photograph in a silver frame. Guest room or not, this had a personality. You could almost feel it. David Kim? No, certainly not. This was a feminine presence.

She went into Ellie’s austere bedroom and knocked on the closed dressing room door. “Smith! Come on!”

“I’ll be right out.”

She ambled back into the pretty bedroom. The windows must look out over the garden. New Yorkers would kill for a garden. She wondered how Ellie had fixed it up. Every garden in Manhattan was a tiny, unique pocket of a place. It was probably too dark now to see it.

Wetzon opened the pink blinds and looked down. Moonlight drizzled through the dark fuzz of the hot June night. Glazed light came from surrounding apartment windows. She could make out a high fence, a tree, a glimmer of water—perhaps a Lilliputian fish pond—bushes, yard furniture. A striped umbrella attached to a white metal table was open, shading moonbeams.

Positioned near the tree was a cushioned chaise, its back to the windows. Someone had left a towel or piece of clothing on it. She stared down, thinking, choked, backed up into Smith, whom she hadn’t heard come into the room.

“Excuse
me
,” Smith said.

“Smith—” Wetzon pulled the side cord of the blinds and opened them up and away from the windows.

“What are you doing?”

“Smith, look down there. What do you see?”

Smith glanced down at the garden. “A garden. A big one. This building must be worth a fortune.”

“Smith,” Wetzon nudged her. “Look at that chaise. What do you see?”

“What do you mean ... oh, dear God!” She grabbed Wetzon.

Wetzon broke away from her, forgetting about her knee, and made for the stairs.

“W
AIT
!” S
MITH’S CRY
flew over Wetzon’s head as she plunged down the stairs.

All she could think was,
Ellie
... Ellie had been lying out there on the chaise for at least the last two hours, or longer—sick, hurt, perhaps. Wetzon fumbled with the cords, all thumbs, trying to find the right one for the floor-to-ceiling draperies that covered the rear wall of the living room. She finally pulled the proper cord, and the draperies slid open to the left, revealing a door and a large double window. The garden seemed etched in the cold light of the full moon. From here, she couldn’t see the figure on the chaise.

Smith’s icy fingers touched Wetzon’s bare arm. “I don’t think we should go out there. She’s probably just sleeping off her drunk.”

“You don’t have to come with me.” Wetzon threw open the door leading to the garden and stepped out onto a flagstone deck, narrowly missing a high-heeled sandal, which lay on its side.

Aloft somewhere a plane rumbled sluggishly in its descent toward Kennedy. The air was bloated, hot and moist, hung over with the sweet smell of roses coming from large rambling bushes growing along the western fence. And something else. Whiskey and urine. City street odors, not the odors from a private garden.

The path separated, one route leading to the umbrella’d table she’d seen from upstairs; she followed the other to the small fishpond, the tree, and the chaise.

Marbleized by the moonlight, Ellie’s left hand seemed poised over an uncapped bottle of Jack Daniel’s that lay on the ground.

“Just look at her,” Smith said, coming up beside Wetzon. “What did I tell you?”

Ellie was sprawled on her back in a partially buttoned pink terry robe, head tilted forward over her breast, hair covering her face. Her right hand rested on her waist, not quite holding a rose. The bottom of the robe was askew, barely shielding lacy panties and her legs. One foot was bare; the other wore the mate of the high-heeled sandal.

“Ellie?” Wetzon leaned over her. Clammy sweat formed on her brow and upper lip, ran down her underarms.

“She’s wet herself,” Smith said. “This is disgusting. I’m going back inside. I suggest you leave her to sleep it off and come with me for dinner.” She turned away, starting back.

Wetzon placed her hand on Ellie’s forehead and raised her head to the back of the cushion. Ellie’s head sagged to the side oddly, as if her neck had no vertebrae. Gently, Wetzon brushed the tangled mass of hair away from Ellie’s face. “Oh, God!” Wetzon jumped back, arms flailing, smacked into the trunk of the tree, and held on.

The moonlight shimmered down like a follow spot, highlighting Ellie’s face. Her eyes were open, bulging and staring. Wetzon’s knees buckled; the earth swayed. “Smith!” The stench of urine was overpowering.

Smith, who had just reached the door to the living room, came running back. “What is it?”

Wetzon pointed at the chaise. Ellie’s jaw was slack, hanging open, tongue out, her face distorted and bloated. Pinpoint hemorrhages were dark cobwebs across her eyes, tongue, and cheeks. On her neck and throat were dark bruise marks.

“Is she dead?” Smith’s face was ashen in the cold light.

“I think so.” Wetzon felt the bitter taste of coffee in her throat. She rubbed her neck as if she were the one with the bruise marks.

“I’m going to be sick,” Smith said in a faint voice. She pressed her hand to her mouth, but she didn’t move away.

“We’ve got to call 911. I think she’s been strangled,” Wetzon said. Her head was spinning, but she, too, couldn’t move.

“You’re turning green,” Smith said. “The Browns will let us in—come on.”

“No.” Wetzon shook her head. “You go. I’ll stay here ... just in case.”
Just in case what?
she asked herself. She tore herself away from the tree. “I’ll lock up after you.”

“Who could have done it?” Smith whispered, fumbling with the door. They stepped inside. “Close it, close it.” She motioned to Wetzon. Wetzon closed the door but didn’t draw the draperies, then followed Smith to the front door. “I’ll be right back,” Smith said. “Just don’t go out there.”

“Tell 911 to get a message to Silvestri at Midtown North.”

“Midtown North.” Smith nodded woodenly. Her eyes were glazed.

Wetzon locked up after Smith left. Then she slung the strap of her bag over her shoulder, took a deep breath, and went out to the garden again. The moonlight cast elongated shadows from the surrounding brownstones and the highrises to the south at Lincoln Towers, a cinematographic effect, as if Fritz Lang were directing.

Somewhere nearby a car alarm went off, its relentless whine cutting through the quiet. People were inside hiding in air-conditioned rooms, barricaded against the heat of the streets and their fellow man. No one inside could possibly hear the alarm over the drone of air-conditioners. It seemed so fruitless. Tears ran down Wetzon’s cheeks. Poor Ellie. She hardly seemed the kind of person who would let a stranger into her home, but she’d been drinking and possibly forgot to lock up, which was something one didn’t dare to do in New York anymore.

Or it could have been someone she knew. Wetzon stopped at the fishpond. An empty tin floated on the surface, along with—she counted—seven dead goldfish of varying sizes and colors. Had someone attacked Ellie while she was feeding the fish, making her drop the whole container of food into the pond?

She knew better than to touch anything at a murder scene. On a blank page, which she pulled from her Filofax, she wrote
fishpond—fish food,
then,
answering machine messages.
She would mention those to Silvestri.

Steeling herself, she looked more closely at Ellie. It was horrible. And worse, there was something surreal about the scene, almost as if it had been artfully created. Ellie lay there like a composition, with a rose in one hand. But on closer scrutiny, although her hand was indeed clenched, she wasn’t really holding the rose. Someone had placed it there; someone had posed her on the chaise, having strangled her elsewhere. The fish pond, perhaps.
Come on, Wetzon,
she thought.
You have nothing to base that one on except gut instinct.

Wetzon touched the terry cloth robe at Ellie’s shoulder. It was damp, damper than it should have been for a hot summer night. She shuddered and pressed her lips together tightly, ran back to the living room, slammed the door shut and leaned against it, panting. She would never get used to death as long as she lived ... Hysterical laughter burbled up from her diaphragm. She sank to the floor.

The doorbell rang. Twice. Three times. Emphatically. Pounding.

Wetzon scrambled to her feet and let Smith in.

“They weren’t home,” Smith complained. “I had to call from the street.” Smith looked a bit ragged. “I can’t believe I’m involved in something like this.” A trickle of pleasure colored this last comment. “I’m happy to see you stayed inside.”

“What did you tell them?”

“I said someone’s been murdered and to get a message to the Italian prince.”

“You didn’t!” Wetzon stared at Smith, outraged, then she laughed. “You’re terrible.”

“You’re not the only one with a sense of humor, you know.” Smith took Wetzon’s shoulders in her hands and gave her a little shake. “I didn’t say it, but I wanted to.” She considered Wetzon. “You look ghastly. We can both use another cup of coffee.”

Wetzon’s head throbbed. Her face felt stiff where the salt of her tears had dried, and a gnawing pain, half nausea, half hunger, clawed at her stomach.

Smith pulled a bag of pretzels from the pantry, tore the bag open and held it out to Wetzon. “Ellie’s beyond minding,” she said, reaching into a cabinet and taking down two coffee mugs.

They sat at the kitchen table like zombies, spent.

“How long do you think they’ll be?” Wetzon asked, catching the drip of the coffee down the side of the mug with her finger before it hit the table. She licked her finger.

“You know this City as well as I do.”

They both heard the sound at the same moment, their heads snapping up, eyes meeting, widening. Wetzon set her mug down gently, put her finger to her lips, and rose. The sound came again.