Murder Can Ruin Your Looks Read online

  MURDER

  CAN RUIN

  YOUR LOOKS

  by

  Selma Eichler

  I WAS STARING INTO THE

  FACE OF THE LAST PERSON ON

  EARTH I WANTED TO SEE.

  ‘‘I have a gun in my pocket,’’ the killer in

  formed me in a low, even voice. ‘‘And I want

  you to stand here quietly; don’t even move a

  muscle. If you do exactly what I tell you, you’ll

  be fine.’’

  Yeah right! I am in a whole lot of trouble, I thought, even as I dutifully obeyed the instruc

  tions. The perp was right beside me now, jam

  ming something into my ribs. I didn’t have to

  look down to know the gun was no longer in

  anybody’s pocket. My own thirty-two, of

  course, was exactly where it would do me no

  good at all. In my bedroom, at the bottom of

  a drawer. . . .

  MURDER

  CAN RUIN

  YOUR LOOKS

  by

  Selma Eichler

  SIGNET

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books USA Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane,

  London W8 5TZ, England

  Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood,

  Victoria, Australia

  Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue,

  Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2

  Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182–190 Wairau Road,

  Auckland 10, New Zealand

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:

  Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England

  First published by Signet, an imprint of Dutton Signet, a division of Penguin Books USA Inc.

  ISBN: 1-4362-7897-x

  Copyright © Selma Eichler, 1995

  All rights reserved

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publi

  cation may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copy

  right owner and the above publisher of this book. PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. For Lloyd Eichler,

  known to his friends and relatives

  (of which I am both) as Puck—

  my husband, sounding board, dictionary,

  thesaurus, ground-floor-level editor,

  and constant source of ideas,

  encouragement, and love.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My special thanks to David Gruber of Lehman, Lehman & Gruber, who supplied the legal information so necessary to the development of the story line for this book. He showed remarkable patience in providing pertinent sets of laws and regulations every time (and there were quite a few of them) I had a change of heart—and plot.

  Invaluable assistance in the medical area came from Mar

  tin Turkish, M.D., who answered the thousand and one questions I put to him on death, comas, and other cheerful matters. Extremely helpful, too, were Michael W. Grzelak, D.M.D., who traced the course of my bullets for me; Dr. Joseph O’Connell of Personal Diagnostics, who presented the facts and cleared up my misconceptions on AIDS; and June Smith, Assistant Director of Emergency Services at St. Vincent’s Hospital, who spared the time to educate me on hospital procedure.

  I am also grateful to my agent, Luna Carne-Ross, for guiding and prodding me throughout the process and whose

  critiques were always on target (well, 99% of the time, anyway)—even when they weren’t what I wanted to hear. My thanks, too, to my editor, Danielle Perez, for pointing the way for me to correct my mistakes, clarify my ambigu

  ities, and hone and polish what was left.

  And I can’t overlook my friends Rudy Valentini, who helped me shop for my Mac, and Joe Todaro, who taught me how to use it. Without their kind services, I’d probably still be in the manuscript stage. And then there’s Julian Scott, who so willingly pitched in to assist me in my fact finding.

  Finally, there are two other very dear friends who con

  tributed to this book who are no longer here: Bea Langer

  man, ACSW, who—whenever I asked a question outside her field of expertise—always said, ‘‘I don’t know, but I’ll Acknowledgments

  7

  find out and get back to you soon.’’ And no matter how busy she was, Bea always did. And Joan Seidman, who served as a prototype for Desiree and whose wit, humor, and warm-heartedness I attempted to impart to my heroine. Without Bea and Joan, it’s quite possible there wouldn’t have been any Desiree or any book, for that matter. I miss them both.

  No more grisly murders. No more desperate killers. No more life-threatening encounters. I’d had a taste of the heavy stuff, thank you. And I’d made myself a promise: There was no way I’d take on any case likely to cause me any injury more serious than a paper cut. Not ever again. . . .

  Up until a year and a half ago, being a private investiga

  tor was—for me, anyway—a really benign way to earn a living. I always managed to pay the rent and some pretty sizable food bills, thanks to a small but fairly steady share of New York’s unfaithful wives, philandering husbands, and phony insurance claims—along with some missing animals here and there.

  Okay. Maybe they weren’t the kind of cases you could really sink your teeth into. But they weren’t the kind of cases that were likely to land you in the morgue, either. Then my niece Ellen got me involved in this double ho

  micide that almost evolved into a triple—with my own amply proportioned five-foot-two inch frame coming that close to occupying a third slab in the city morgue. (And I’d prefer that slab to revealing how really ample these proportions of mine are.) Anyway, while I eventually solved the murders, even now I get crazy just thinking about that whole fiasco. Which is why I swore off the kind of cases that could in any way endanger either my physical or mental well-being.

  And while I admit that my one and only murder case turned me into a coward, the truth is, I hadn’t been all that brave to begin with.

  Chapter 1

  I suppose I have a nurturing thing when it comes to men. It’s the only way I can explain being totally unsusceptible to the good-looking ones and having this penchant, instead, for the little skinny guys. You know, the ones who look truly needy. I guess my maternal bent stems, at least in part, from the fact that Ed and I never had any children—

  Ed being my late husband, Ed Shapiro, who was also a P.I. Anyway, when it came to the man who walked into my office that Wednesday afternoon, I was prepared to make an exception.

  He was over six feet tall and well built, with dark hair, light eyes, and the most beautiful cleft chin. He was, in fact, good-looking enough for me to consider losing thirty—

  maybe even forty—pounds for. But when he drew closer, I noticed, with just a tinge of relief, that the sacrifice would not be necessary after all. This guy was definitely not a candidate for romance. His eyes—I could see now they were blue—were red-rimmed and dead-looking, and there was a bleak expression on that handsome face. Besides, he was a couple of years younger than I am. (All right. More than a couple.)

  ‘‘I’m sorry I didn’t make an appointment,’’ he apologized in the sort of hushe
d tone most people reserve for church or, at the very least, the public library.

  ‘‘That’s okay,’’ I said, motioning for him to take the seat alongside my desk. ‘‘There’s no line outside my door today.’’

  ‘‘The thing is, I just found out about a half hour ago that you were a private detective here in New York, and I didn’t want to waste any time in coming to see you.’’

  ‘‘Do I know you?’’

  ‘‘You did. I’m Peter Winters.’’

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  Selma Eichler

  It took a moment for that to register. ‘‘Peter Winters . . .’’

  Came the dawn. ‘‘ Little Petey Winters?’’

  My visitor managed something close to a smile. ‘‘Guilty.’’

  ‘‘My God!’’ I could hardly believe it.

  I jumped up and rushed over to him, and we hugged for a minute. ‘‘I wouldn’t have recognized you in a million years,’’ I said.

  ‘‘I would never have recognized you, either. You’re a redhead now.’’ Then, apparently concerned that I might be offended by this reminder of the humble roots of my most striking attribute, he added hastily, ‘‘Looks good on you.’’

  What a nice, sensitive person Petey’d become, I decided,

  as I self-consciously patted my gloriously hennaed hair. I hadn’t always been so kindly disposed to him though. . . . Little Petey Winters and I had grown up next door to each other in Ohio—with me, I confess, doing the growing up a long time before Petey did. Nevertheless, because his sister Maureen and I, born just three days apart, were prac

  tically joined at the hip since kindergarten, I saw a lot of him back then. Actually, a lot more than I wanted to. I can’t even count the number of days and nights I kept Maureen company when she had to baby-sit her little brother; it was really as if he were my little brother, too. I guess that’s why I often resented him like hell just for being. (As you can gather, this nurturing nature of mine did not have its beginnings in the teen years.)

  But, anyway, Petey abruptly stopped being much of a factor in my life at the beginning of my senior year in high school. Because that’s when Maureen formed an even stronger attachment than the one she had to me. His name

  was Roy Lindstrom. And right after graduation, he and Maureen got married and moved to California.

  At first there were letters and snapshots and, of course, an exchange of birthday and Christmas cards. But gradually it all stopped.

  As for me, I went on to college and, from there, to New York—and a career, marriage, and eventual widowhood. But right now, for a minute or two, I was in Ashtabula, Ohio, again with my very best friend.

  I could picture with absolute clarity (although probably not complete accuracy) the long, straight brown hair; the tall, angular frame; and the tiny dimples hovering at the

  MURDER CAN RUIN YOUR LOOKS

  11

  corners of those Kewpie doll lips. But what I remembered best about Maureen were her wide, deep-set blue eyes. They were the same color and shape as the blue eyes that were filled with so much anguish right now.

  ‘‘How is Maureen?’’ I asked.

  ‘‘She’s doing okay. She moved back to Ashtabula about six years ago, you know. These days, she’s got five kids—

  three of them still at home—and an ex she can’t even find. But Maureen’s a strong lady. She opened her own travel agency last fall, and it seems to be going pretty well. She’s the one who suggested I get in touch with you.’’

  ‘‘I didn’t think she even knew my married name or that I was living in New York.’’

  ‘‘She said an old friend from Ashtabula, Amy somebodyor-other, had heard where you were and what you were doing and that you were Desiree Shapiro now.’’ He didn’t smile when he said the name; didn’t even look like he was suppressing a smile. So I knew that Petey Winters (I’d have to stop thinking of him as Petey) had a whole lot on his mind. That was verified a second or two later.

  ‘‘I need your help, Desiree,’’ he said, leaning toward me.

  ‘‘ Really need it.’’

  ‘‘What’s wrong?’’

  ‘‘The woman I was engaged to marry may have been murdered.’’

  ‘‘ May have been?’’

  ‘‘Well, no one’s sure if she’s the one who’s dead or the one who’s in the hospital damned near dead. And I have to know.’’ Then slowly, haltingly, he began to tell me this horrifying story.

  It seems that two days earlier his fianceé and her twin sister had been shot in their Chelsea apartment. And now one was in the morgue, and the other lay in a coma in St. Catherine’s Hospital. ‘‘And nobody can tell which is which,’’ Peter said, his voice cracking. ‘‘Because whoever did this shot them in the face. Both of them.’’

  ‘‘God! I’m so sorry,’’ I murmured. I rummaged around in my suddenly vacant head for some comforting words and

  came up empty. So I just told the truth. ‘‘I wish I knew what to say to you,’’ I admitted weakly.

  ‘‘I know; it’s okay.’’

  ‘‘Do you have any idea who might have wanted to

  harm them?’’

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  Selma Eichler

  ‘‘None.’’ It came out in a whisper.

  ‘‘Let me put you in touch with an investigator who—’’

  ‘‘But I was hoping you’d take the case.’’

  ‘‘I can’t, Peter. I don’t take murder cases.’’

  His voice, no doubt bolstered by desperation, was sud

  denly stronger. ‘‘You don’t understand. Finding out who committed this . . . this . . . finding out who did it is the last thing on my mind right now. All I’m interested in is whether Mary Ann is dead or alive.’’

  ‘‘Why not wait just a little while? Let’s hope the woman in the hospital regains consciousness soon.’’

  ‘‘They—the doctors—have no idea when that will be. Or

  even if it will be. Please, Desiree.’’

  I shuddered at the thought of getting embroiled in an

  other murder investigation. But here was Peter, who was once almost like family to me and who was now in one of the most terrible situations I could imagine. I just couldn’t bring myself to turn him down. (It also didn’t hurt that those gorgeous blue eyes were looking at me so pleadingly.) So, in the end, I agreed to handle the investigation. After first warning myself I’d have to keep some emotional dis

  tance from the proceedings and then stipulating to Peter that my sole purpose would be to establish the identities of the victims. ‘‘I won’t take it any further than that,’’ I said firmly.

  ‘‘That’s all I’m interested in,’’ my new client assured me. Chapter 2

  It was a little after five, and I was full of questions—and very little else. (I’d had a really tiny lunch, and that was hours ago.) I took a good look at Peter. His cheeks were definitely hollow; there was no question about that. I was willing to bet he hadn’t had a proper meal since the trag

  edy. Or at least what I’d consider proper. (Which has noth

  ing whatever to do with a nutritionist’s definition of the word. Or the dictionary’s, either, for that matter.) Very reluctantly, Peter agreed to join me for an early supper at this new deli which had just opened two blocks from my office and which I’d been promising myself to try. Now, from the time my late Jewish New York husband introduced me to delicatessen food when we first started going out, I’ve been addicted to the stuff. In fact, after all these years, I consider myself to be something of an author

  ity on the subject. So I was disappointed when, as soon as we sat down, Peter let me know that all he could manage was a little cup of mushroom and barley soup.

  Could I allow him to deny himself this ambrosia?

  It took work, but I finally coaxed him into following up the soup with a sandwich. We both ordered the pastrami—

  overstuffed portions and very tasty, but a little too fatty as far as I was concerned. Along wi
th it, we had cole slaw, french fries, sour tomatoes, and a generous portion of kishka—good, but not nearly as good as the Second Ave

  nue Deli’s. All in all, though, the meal wasn’t half bad, and when the waiter came to remove our plates, Peter’s looked like it had just walked out of the dishwasher.

  ‘‘I guess I was hungry, after all,’’ he admitted sheepishly. It was time to get down to business. And since the restau

  rant wasn’t too crowded, it seemed as good a place as any.

  ‘‘Tell me about the twins,’’ I said. And, over coffee and three or four refills, Peter obliged.

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  Selma Eichler

  Mary Ann and Meredith Foster, he told me, had moved to this country from London about six months ago, soon after Meredith’s husband died. ‘‘Meredith still uses her maiden name because she’s an actress and her husband had

  this long Italian name,’’ Peter explained. ‘‘It began with a C, I think. Or maybe it was an R.’’

  They were only here a short while, he went on, when Mary Ann—his fianceé—opened a gift shop in the East Village. Meredith, meanwhile, began getting some work in little theater and off-Broadway productions. Most of them way off Broadway. But her future looked promising. In fact, in December she got a terrific break: She landed the second lead in a new off-Broadway comedy/drama that, ac

  cording to Meredith, was with a really professional com

  pany. The play was in rehearsal now.

  I asked Peter how he and Mary Ann had met.

  ‘‘Through Meredith, actually. I don’t know if I men

  tioned it, but I’m a casting director—I work for an advertis

  ing agency down in Soho. Anyway, one afternoon just a couple of weeks after she arrived in New York, Meredith came in to try out for this radio commercial we were cast

  ing. We needed a woman with a British accent, but the account guy decided Meredith’s sounded phony.’’ Peter shook his head in disgust. ‘‘Can you believe it?’’ he de

  manded of no one in particular. Then, to me: ‘‘I guess it’s because she mentioned she was American by birth; her fa

  ther relocated the family when he took this job with the London office of Merrill Lynch or maybe it was Smith Bar