That was all I needed to hear. “Okay, I’ll tell you,” I said, “even though you’ll think I’m nuts. I’m convinced-way beyond the shadow of a doubt-that Jocelyn Fritz was killed by District Attorney Sam Hogarth.”
He didn’t laugh, but he didn’t applaud my sleuthing genius, either. He just raised one eyebrow and said, “Twenty minutes ago you would have sent Tony Corona to the electric chair for the same crime.”
“I know that, Dan!” I croaked, getting snippy again. “But this time is different! This time I’m right!” I banged my fist on the tabletop for emphasis. (Okay, so your baby brother does the same thing when he’s cranky-but does that make me a petulant child? Don’t answer that!)
“Simmer down, babe,” Dan said, leaning forward and looking me straight in the eye. “You don’t have to be so defensive. I didn’t say you were wrong about Hogarth. In fact, I’m sort of inclined to agree with you.”
“What?” If the man yanked one more squirming bunny out of his hat, I’d faint dead away on the spot. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“I’m not kidding you or laughing at you,” Dan soothed. “As much as I hate to admit it, the district attorney does seem to be a likely suspect. I’m not at all sure that he’s guilty, but I would like to know why you are.”
I felt as though I’d just been crowned Miss Manhattan: rhinestone tiara, velvet cape, armful of roses, and all. Eager to walk down the runway and share my brilliant deductions with Dan and the rest of my worshipful fans, I held my head high, took a deep breath, and declared, “It’s because of Corona ’s St. Christopher medal!”
“Come again?” Dan said. I had surprised him for a change.
“The medal!” I exclaimed, trying, but failing, to curb my excitement. “Hogarth swiped it from Corona ’s dressing room at the Copa, and then planted it in the Barbizon pool after he drowned Jocelyn. I’m certain of it!”
“What makes you say that? Don’t you think you’re-”
“Jumping to conclusions? No way, Doris Day! Hogarth wanted Jocelyn dead, and he wanted the murder pinned on Corona, so he decided to kill both birds with one stone.”
Dan was skeptical but intrigued. “Why did he want Jocelyn dead?”
“Because she threatened him, that’s why! She told me all about it in the ladies’ lounge last night. She said she spoke to Hogarth at the bar, and when she brought up the subject of Melody’s murder, he smirked and pretended not to know who she was talking about. And this made Jocelyn hopping mad. Melody had been her best friend, and she couldn’t let Hogarth’s smirking denial go unchallenged. She lost her head and threatened to expose him.”
“And this all happened at the Copa last night?”
“Right.”
“I didn’t know Hogarth was there. I didn’t see him at the bar.”
“By the time you came in, he was up in the mezzanine, having dinner with his wife.”
“How do you know he went to Corona ’s dressing room?”
“When Abby and I were there, Corona asked Little Pete if Hogarth was waiting in the hall to see him. Little Pete told him the DA was having dinner upstairs and would come down to see him later.”
Dan’s face was flaming, and his eyes were shooting sparks across the table. I thought he was furious that Hogarth had been chummy with Corona. I thought he was going to start ranting about strange bedfellows, and shared hookers, and power-mad politicians and mobsters, and the deceitfulness of our degenerate DA, and the vile corruption in our city’s criminal justice system-but he didn’t. All he said was, “What the hell were you and Abby doing in Corona ’s dressing room?”
Uh-oh. Dan wasn’t going to like this part of the movie.
“Well, um, er,” I stammered, looking for a way to bypass the sexual aspects of the dressing room scene. (The last thing I needed at that point was to make Dan jealous.) I quickly realized, however, that it would be impossible to avoid the sex angle without lying, so I gave up and took the next best way out:
I put the blame on Abby.
“The whole thing was Abby’s idea!” I blustered. (Well, it was the truth, you know!) “She thought the easiest and fastest way for us to observe and question Corona in person would be to masquerade as call girls. So we spoke to Sabrina, told her our plan, and asked her to arrange it. Sabrina then called Corona, told him two new girls had just joined her agency, gave him first choice of the fresh recruits, and offered to send us to the Copa for his inspection. Corona took the bait and invited us to dinner and the eight o’clock show, and to his dressing room afterward.
“And it was darn lucky for you that we went!” I barreled on, talking as fast as I could, not giving Dan a chance to express his disapproval. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have heard Corona tell Little Pete to get rid of you! I wouldn’t have heard him say that he wanted you ‘put down,’ and that he wanted your head on a platter, and that he was going to talk to Costello about it that very night! And I wouldn’t have raced like the wind out of that dressing room to find you at the bar and warn you that your life was in immediate danger!”
Dan’s jealous scowl melted into something soft and kind of swoony. It wasn’t a smile, exactly; it was more like an honest, open, goofy look of love. “I’m sorry, Paige,” he said. “I should have thanked you for that before. You did a very brave and daring thing, and I’m lucky to have such a clever, quick-thinking girlfriend.”
My heart did a double cartwheel. “You’re pretty fast on your feet yourself, babe,” I replied. “Pretending to arrest me was downright inspired.”
Dan grinned and gave me a sexy wink. “So you liked that, did you?”
“It was very exciting,” I admitted.
Chuckling and rolling his sleeves up another notch, he shoved his chair back from the table and stood up. “Then I think I’ll arrest you again,” he said. “Right now.”
The next thing I knew, he scooped me up in his arms and carried me over to the couch. And the next thing I knew after that, he grabbed a fistful of my clammy hair, pulled my head away from his shoulder, and lowered his hot, luscious, demanding mouth onto mine. Then he pressed me all the way down into the seat cushion and climbed on top of me, burying the length of my body in his writhing warmth, covering my face and neck with ravenous kisses, breathing hotly in my ear, driving me out of my mind, making me cry out for more…
What can I say? I was dying for it. Who gave a flying fig about marriage? I wanted Dan to make love to me, and I wanted it now. This very instant. Diaphragm or no diaphragm. “Take me, baby!” I begged. “I want you so much I can’t stand it. Please take me now!”
(A word to all sex-crazed girlfriends: Be careful what you beg for. If you get it, you might feel screwed. If you don’t get it, you’ll feel like a dope.)
Dan pushed himself away from me, swung around to a sitting position, rubbed his face in his hands, and dropped his chin to his chest. He was panting like a racehorse.
“I’m sorry, Paige,” he groaned, chest heaving. “I can’t go through with it.”
“What’s wrong?” I gasped. (I was panting a bit myself.) “Is it the chlorine? I’ll run upstairs and take a shower if you-”
“No! It’s nothing like that!”
“Then what is it? I don’t turn you on anymore?” I sat up and hugged my knees to my chest. “Maybe I should put the blonde wig back on.” I was kidding, but just barely.
Dan smiled and put his arm around my shoulders. “You turn me on as much as ever, Paige,” he said, holding me tight. “Even more, if you want to know the truth.”
“Under the circumstances, I find that a weensy bit hard to believe.” I wasn’t kidding at all now. I was dead serious and teetering on the verge of a king-size crying jag.