Deadly Debut Read online

  I took a deep breath, pulled out my lock-pick kit, and tried to fake the pose of a passerby interested in the cars. Meanwhile, my fingers maneuvered the pick into the padlock that secured the gate.

  As I worked, a bus wheezed up and some people climbed off. I could hear them talking, and I felt my busy hands grow clammy and a pulse start ticking in my throat.

  The rush of the bus’s departure muffled the clicks I was listening for, so I turned around casually, leaning against the fence to hide the lock from anybody who might wonder what I’d been doing there.

  A man headed in my direction.

  “Hey,” he shouted. My throat tightened in alarm, and I slipped the pick into my pocket.

  He sped up. In a minute he stood next to me. He was an older guy, dressed in dark pants and a tailored jacket that looked like part of a uniform.

  “Been standing here long?” he said.

  “No,” I gulped. “Not really.”

  “Notice the number on the bus that just left?”

  The tightness in my throat dissolved. “No,” I said. “Sorry.”

  “Which one are you waiting for?”

  “Umm . . . none of them. I was on my way to get a burger when I stopped to look at the cars.”

  “In the market for a car?”

  “Not really.” I looked at my watch. “Better get going.” I took a few steps.

  “You’re on foot?” he said. “Do you live around here?”

  “No . . . I mean yes.” The light turned green and I sprinted for the corner.

  From the vantage point of McDonald’s, I watched until another bus lumbered up and the chatty guy vanished.

  Five minutes later, I was back at the fence, hearing the satisfying click that told me I’d edged the last pin into position. I twisted the pick and the padlock sprang open with a louder click.

  Then I headed for the back of the lot. If I wanted to hide a car, even if I was hiding it by putting it in a lot full of cars, I’d put it where it wasn’t visible from the street.

  Tucked into a shopping bag, I’d brought the cast of the tire tracks from the dump site. I’d Googled one of those websites that lets you attach tire makers to tread patterns, and I knew I was looking for a set of Goodyear Wranglers.

  A row of cars, mostly Japanese, were lined up against the stretch of chain link fence that divided Island Pre-Owned from a lot covered with scrubby, brown grass. Even back here the lights were bright. In fact, when I looked toward the street, the floodlights made me feel like I was onstage. So I crouched down and crept from car to car like a frog, knees bent and hands braced against the asphalt.

  Lots of cars had Goodyear Wranglers, and I checked each set, looking for a pattern that matched the cast: the result of the tread the tire started out with and its subsequent adventures.

  Half an hour later, my calves ached from the strain of my constant crouch, and my fingers throbbed from the cold and the roughness of the asphalt. A chilly wind had sprung up.

  I’d worked my way through the cars behind the office and was now at the other side of the lot, trying to stay low enough that the cars between me and the street shielded me from sight.

  I was checking the back left tire of a Toyota SUV when I noticed something that made my heart beat double-time. The steady zigzag of the tread was interrupted by gravel wedged into the rubber grooves.

  I rocked back into a sitting position, stretched my cramped legs, and pulled out the cast. In effect, I had used the prints at the dump site as a mold to make a replica of the tire that created them. The cast I now studied in the beam of my flashlight featured zigzag grooves interrupted by lumps, as if something had wedged in the treads of the tire that had made the original print.

  Something like gravel.

  Something like the gravel in the parking lot of the Parisian Beauty Academy.

  I’d found the car I was looking for, but I wasn’t done yet. I set to work on the tailgate lock.

  It was a tough one, and my hands were so cold and scraped that I could hardly feel them. To make matters worse, since the Toyota was backed up against the chain link fence that marked off the side of the lot, there was no way I could do what I had to do and not be visible from Hylan Boulevard.

  My ear was so close to the lock that my icy fingers fluttered against my cheek as I worked. I listened for the clicks that would tell me the lock was ready to open. My eyes were closed in concentration. When I heard the final click, I opened them.

  Out on Hylan Boulevard, a cop car slowed.

  I dropped to the ground and willed myself to become invisible. I waited what seemed a very long time, but was in reality probably about two minutes. No car doors, no voices, no footsteps, so I raised my head and looked toward Hylan. A stream of headlights flowed by as the cop car inched along the curb.

  I watched as he glided past. When I couldn’t see him anymore, I rose to my knees and gave the pick a final twist. The tailgate popped up. I picked up my flashlight and leaned into the back of the SUV.

  It was lined with a dark, furry material that had seen better days. The nap was worn off in spots, matted down in others. I shone the flashlight on one of the matted spots. Since the furry stuff was dark, I couldn’t tell whether what had matted it had also stained it. Not wanting to confuse things by leaving a sample of my own DNA, I resisted the urge to spit on a tissue and rub the spot to see what came off.

  Instead I scraped at it with the tip of the lock pick till some powdery bits came loose, then I covered my fingers with a tissue and pinched the bits up. When I added a bit of saliva, I came up with a blotch that looked like a bloodstain.

  As I tucked the tissue away, I heard voices.

  “False alarm the other night,” one of them said. “I thought you had a break-in, but it was only your sister and her friend. They said they were picking up papers for your dad.”

  The tailgate was still open. I lowered it as quietly as possible, but I couldn’t risk the noise latching it would make. Then I crawled under the car, inching forward on my elbows, the smell of dirt and motor oil in my nostrils.

  The other man spoke. It was Frank Ferrara. “Thanks, officer,” he was saying. “I appreciate you keeping an eye on the place.”

  “All in a night’s work.” The cop laughed.

  “Back here by the fence, you said?”

  “Messing around with this Toyota.”

  I could see their feet, standing near the driver’s-side door. My chest was pressed against the asphalt and my heart beat so hard, I was sure they must feel it through the soles of their shoes.

  Their feet now moved toward the back of the car.

  “The tailgate’s unlatched,” the cop said. I heard a squeak, and the car shuddered as the tailgate popped up.

  “Anything in there?” Frank asked.

  “Lemme grab my flash.”

  A circle of light appeared near the cop’s feet. It vanished for a minute—I guess he was checking inside the car—then began to dance around the back tire. It danced along the side of the car, checked the front tire, and then it was shining in my face.

  “Somebody’s under here,” the cop said. I heard a click as a holster unsnapped and a swish as a gun was unholstered. “Come on out,” he said. He sounded bored, like he’d said the same thing a million times.

  “I have to back out,” I said. “That’s how I got in.” My heart pounded even harder now.

  “Make it quick.”

  A few minutes later, I’d pulled myself to my feet and was inspecting the condition of my hands, trying to brush off the bits of asphalt that hadn’t worked their way into my skin.

  The cop still held the gun on me. He was a bulky guy with a red face and little close-set eyes. Frank Ferrara stared at me and frowned like a guy who’d just discovered somebody put something over on him.

  “What are you up to?” he asked.

  At the same instant, the cop said, “Got an explanation?”

  I took a deep breath. “Actually, I do.” With shaking hands,
I handed him my PI license.

  He looked at it skeptically, stared back and forth from the picture to me. Finally he grunted and shoved his gun back into his holster, but he didn’t snap the holster closed. “What are you doing here?”

  “This car was used to drop Linda Nelson’s body at that Richmond Terrace dump. There’s dried blood in the back.”

  He started to say something but didn’t get a chance to finish because Frank Ferrara snatched the cop’s gun.

  I pushed my jacket aside and pulled out the five-shot snubby that Joe Dogherty had left me in his will. Frank’s eyes went wide and his jaw dropped, and the cop grabbed the muzzle of the gun Frank was holding. He twisted it toward the ground then delivered a karate chop to Frank’s wrist. In a few seconds the cop had his gun back and Frank was wearing handcuffs.

  “He and his sister killed Linda,” I said. “With a little help from his sister’s boyfriend.”

  “Not sure I can see why they’d do that,” the cop said, panting a little.

  “Linda was engaged to their father,” I told him. “They didn’t want her to inherit his money. Dianne got mud on her purple stilettos while they were dumping the body, so she dumped those, too. Then she sent her boyfriend to retrieve them.”

  “Tony’s not old,” the cop said. “He could hang on for twenty-five more years or longer.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But his brother died of a heart attack last year, and Tony’s only a couple years younger. Dianne was already planning what she was going to do with her share of the inheritance.”

  THE new arrests in the Linda Nelson case weren’t the only sensational news in the next morning’s Staten Island Advance. The main headline read, “New York Pols in Gay Sex Scandal.”

  The article described lavish orgies at taxpayer expense, complete with kinky musical entertainment in an Upper East Side penthouse.

  “This guy,” Eric said, pointing to the photo that accompanied the article. “My daughter— Suzie—works for him. It’s all out in the open now, but before . . .? If I told the cops where I was Saturday night, it woulda gotten in the tabloids . . . some headline like ‘Drag Queen Alibi,’ and lots of other stuff, too, like who threw the party and who else was there. What would’ve happened to Suzie’s career if her boss got outed on the front page of the Daily News all because of her dad?”

  NONE OF THE ABOVE

  Deirdre Verne

  “SO who took it?” Donna plunked herself down on her diva chair and popped open a can of soda. A speck of carbonation shot out and landed on the red velvet upholstery.

  “Shit, I keep doing that.” A well-manicured fingernail quickly scooped up the splotch. I know Donna loves her new chaise. It’s one of those Hollywood-style divan couches most often used by starlets with the vapors. I watched Donna stretch out her five foot two frame, toss off her stiletto heels, and rest her soda can on her ample bosom. Ten red toes gleamed back at me. I might have to spoil the fantasy and tell Donna there is no attractive way to get on and off the vapor couch. Especially if you’re packing an extra ten pounds into a pair of skin-tight black leggings.

  Donna took a slurp and motioned for me to sit down.

  “Kick back, Prof, and gimme some scoop.”

  I settled into the non-coordinating black leather recliner and curled my legs under me, then glanced around the room and took in Donna’s décor. Imagine if Maurice Villency and Victoria’s Secret had a one-night stand and spawned a line of furnishings destined for a Poconos honeymoon suite. Yes, I know. It hurts to think about.

  I looked away from the leopard print ottoman and focused my attention back to Donna.

  “I have no idea who took it.”

  “I’m telling you, it was Horse Girl.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Okay, how about Miguel the Mower?”

  “No.”

  “Fine, then it was Hot Paolo Pizza Boy.”

  “Donna, drop the stereotypes. It’s getting offensive.”

  “You started it, missy.”

  She had a point there.

  The suspects in question were my students—good kids representing the wide demographic make-up of Westchester County, New York. My classroom was a mix of the traditional landscape—Italian and Jewish families who had migrated north from the Bronx; wealthy, landed families from northern Katonah; and a smattering of African-American kids from neighborhoods in and around our biggest city, White Plains. Add to that a huge influx of Hispanic families climbing their way up through quasi-industrial areas like Port Chester and a sprinkle of Asian families, who all but owned smaller villages like Hartsdale. Then throw people like Donna into the mix, and you got a boatload of Brooklyn from just over the bridge.

  I wasn’t stereotyping. I was being efficient. Each semester, I had more than a hundred students across four courses. It took me two months to get their names down, so colorful descriptions filled the gap. Donna added the flourishes.

  “How ’bout that hot Italian kid you were telling me about?” Donna had asked earlier.

  “I never said he was hot. I just said he was Italian and his parents owned a pizza place on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx. And his name is Anthony.”

  “Right, him—Hot Paolo Pizza Boy. Tell me again what he looks like.”

  Could I help it if her monikers stuck?

  I chose to forgo a full body description of Hot Paolo and opted for the issue at hand. A stolen test. As I explained to Donna, I had passed out thirty-two sequentially numbered test booklets and thirty-two answer sheets. At the end of the test, I’d had thirty-one test booklets and thirty-two answer sheets. Someone had walked out with the test. Of course, as Donna had so logically pointed out, I could have asked the students to put their names on everything, but I didn’t. Hey, I’m new at this teaching thing.

  Two years ago, I left my high-paying job as an advertising exec in Manhattan for the greener pastures of Mommyhood. Nine months into a seemingly endless pile of laundry, I realized my brain had shrunk. The opportunity for adult conversation was limited. My globe-trotting husband averaged more miles in a month than Phileas Fogg had logged in a hundred and eighty days. I was deliriously happy caring for my newborn son, Randy, but I couldn’t spell my own name— Zoe Johnstone. Or rather now, Professor Zoe Johnstone. An esteemed, full-time member of the Business Department at Hudson College located thirty minutes north of the city, in Westchester County. Ta daa!

  The magical balancing act had begun. Half a day exercising my brain and the other half exercising my heart. Donna was the key to the act. My babysitter, my best friend, and now my sister in crime.

  I took a quick peek at my watch—three p.m. If I let Donna suck me into a few hours of super-sleuthing, I wouldn’t get a chance to squeeze in some grading tonight. I started to rise from the recliner and beg off, but was quickly sideswiped by the immutable force of an investigative Donna.

  “Come on, sweetie. Pop a squat, and let’s figure out which one of your co-eds swiped the test.” She grabbed the baby monitor and held it to her ear. “The kids are asleep, so we’ve got a good hour to pin the crime on Horse Girl. I got my eye on her.” Donna jabbed a threatening nail tip at me.

  In the world outside of Donna’s head, Horse Girl responded to the name Naomi Stone. Tall, rich, beautiful, and unbelievably spoiled, Naomi hailed from Bedford Estates, a never-ending hamlet of horse trails and gated homes. From the minute I’d handed Naomi the syllabus, I could tell the line had been drawn. In her eyes, I was the help. Naomi had pushed her hand toward me and politely asked me to email her the syllabus. The strange thing is I actually considered it. The request was made with an air of authority and detachment that only comes with inherited wealth. I put her copy of the syllabus on my desk, turned my back, and said no. Gotcha Horse Girl! Later Donna put me in my place.

  “That’s it? All you said was No? What, are you nuts?” Donna was enraged at my benign reaction. “You gotta set that girl straight. You remind the Bedford beauty that it’s a privilege to sit in your cl
assroom. That’s right, dammit. A privilege. She works for you this semester and not the other way around. Got it?”

  I had to admit, Donna was pretty good when you got her going. I considered her offer to stay and nail Horse Girl’s head to the wall. I mentally reworked my afternoon schedule and ignored the fact that Donna had put the kids down for a nap at three p.m. Randy would be up until at least ten p.m. tonight, ruining any chance for me to grade papers. Truth be told, I was no match for Donna. She had me every time. Including the day we met.

  WHEN I’d landed the teaching job, I’d realized I needed someone to watch Randy for about twenty hours a week. I decided to do my course prep work at home and spend as few hours out of the house as possible. Initially, I had no idea how the nanny thing worked, but I quickly learned that twenty hours a week did not constitute a job.

  Turns out, suburban Westchester nannies are looking for big-time money and big-time hours. I interviewed a stream of Jamaican, Hispanic, and Eastern European candidates asking at least six hundred dollars a week. In exchange, the winning nanny would show up at seven a.m. and stay twelve straight hours. My child would be fed, bathed, walked, and read to. My house would be clean, my laundry folded and meals prepared. Randy could even learn Spanish or Polish, or at the least adopt a Caribbean accent. Imagine that. I could hire someone to live my life and do it better than me. I’d opted for Donna.

  “Here’s the deal.” Donna had leaned forward, grabbed both my hands, and delivered an impassioned speech. “I don’t need the money, and I don’t like babysitting. I got two kids of my own. Why would I want Randy, too? The sad thing is, I’ve been bored out of my mind since we moved up here from Long Island. I hate this McMansion my husband bought, and I hate my neighbors. Not that they’d dare to lower themselves and say hello to me.”

  Donna had glared through her Palladian front window and motioned her head across the street. “I swear my loser neighbor has a supersonic garage door opener. He opens the door a half mile away, zips in, and shuts it just to avoid conversation. What I need is someone to talk to once in a while and maybe a playmate for my kids. So, what do you say? You and me. Three kids between us. The college is a stone’s throw away from my house. You drop Randy off on your way, chat me up, and pick him up in the afternoon.”