“Did she know if Smith was his real name?”
“I didn’t get a chance to question her about it. She gave me her phone number, though, and said she would talk to me tonight if I called before eleven.”
“Oy, gevalt!” Abby cried. “Then what’re you waiting for?!!!” She glowered at me and threw her hands up in exasperation. “In case you haven’t heard, Moses already came down from the mountain. And if you take a look out the window, you’ll see that Hell has frozen over, too!”
See how pushy she could be?
“It’s only ten thirty-five,” I muttered, annoyed. “I was going to call as soon as I finished my drink.”
“Bottoms up!” she said, encouraging me-by example-to gulp down the rest of my highball. “Time waits for no woman… so you’d be a damn fool to wait for it.”
Chapter 11
I WENT BACK TO MY OWN APARTMENT TO make the call. The sales slip with the phone number was in my purse, and besides, I wanted to talk to Vicki in private, without Abby sticking her cheek up next to mine and mashing her ear against the receiver, trying to tune in Vicki’s words the very moment they came through the wire.
I dialed and the phone rang twice. Then a woman’s voice, much higher and shriller than Vicki’s, answered, “Hello, who’s there?”
“This is Phoebe Starr,” I said, “and I’m calling to speak to Vicki… Vicki Lee Bumstead. Do I have the right number?”
“Vicki!” the woman screeched, blasting my eardrum to smithereens, then dropping the phone down-hard-on a table, or the floor, or some other solid surface. “You got a call! Hurry up! It’s almost your bedtime!”
A few seconds passed, then I heard footsteps racing toward the phone. “Hello?” Vicki said, huffing as though she’d just run down to the deli and back. “Phoebe?”
“Yes!” I said, surprised that she knew it was me (or, rather, the “me” I was pretending to be) without her mother telling her.
“Thank God!” she exclaimed, her gravelly voice giving the words she spoke a rich and smoky intensity. “I was praying you would call.”
“You were? Why? What’s happening?” This sounded serious.
“I was thinking about everything you said-about Judy being killed on purpose by somebody who knew her-and I started wondering if you were right. And that started me wondering who could have done it-who could have actually pulled the trigger-and why that person wanted Judy dead. And you know what I think?”
“What?!” I squawked (and I’m sure the timbre of my voice was every bit as shrill as Vicki’s mother’s). “What do you think?”
“I think somebody killed her to get the diamonds.”
Big sigh. So Vicki knew about the diamonds, too… “What? What diamonds?” I said, playing dumb, waiting to see how she would explain the jewelry connection to me.
“Oh, come on, Phoebe! You know!” she insisted. “The diamond necklace and bracelets and earrings and stuff that Judy’s daddy-o gave her. Your aunt must have told you about it! I know for a fact that Judy told her.”
I wondered if Elsie would have mentioned the jewelry to me today if I hadn’t had to leave her apartment so suddenly. Then I wondered how many other people knew about Judy’s valuable rock collection.
“You’re right,” I said. “Aunt Elsie did tell me about the diamonds. I was just surprised that you knew about them, too.” God forgive me for being such a barefaced bamboo zler.
“I don’t know what you were so surprised about. I told you that Judy always told me everything!” She was getting impatient with me now. Was it because she thought I was being too slow and secretive, or because it was getting too close to her bedtime?
Deciding for both our sakes to hurry things along, I took a deep breath and posed the all-important question. “Did Judy tell you whether or not Smith was her daddy-o’s real name?”
“She didn’t have to tell me,” Vicki said. “I knew it was a fake. Judy knew it, too. She wasn’t stupid, you know.”
“Did she ever tell you what his real name was?” I took another deep breath and held it, praying for a definitive answer.
“She didn’t have to tell me that, either,” Vicki declared. “I knew the man long before she did. See, I started working in the lingerie department about six months before Judy, and he was a regular customer of mine. He bought a lot of sexy undergarments from me, and he charged everything to his account, which was credited under the name of Gregory Smythe, not Smith.”
Hallelujah! It wasn’t wrapped in pretty paper with a bow, but it was still a fabulous Christmas gift. Bursting with excitement, I grabbed the telephone directory out of the drawer of the living room table and opened it to the S’s.
“So, is that where he and Judy met? At Macy’s?” I asked, greedily pumping for more information and madly flipping through the pages of the phone book at the same time.
“Yep! It was Judy’s third day on the job, I remember, and Mr. Smythe came up to buy a black lace bra for his girlfriend. At least I thought it was for a girlfriend, since most men don’t usually buy stuff like that for their wives. Anyway, while I was back in the stockroom looking for the right style and size, Mr. Smythe and Judy got to talking-and flirting, she told me later-and I guess he took a real tumble for her, because by the time I came back with the brassiere he wanted, he’d already asked her to go out on a date with him that very same night.”
“Did she accept?” I asked, running my finger down the short column of Smythes, disappointed to find no listing under G. or Gregory.
“Sure did,” Vicki said, “and who could blame her? Her boyfriend Jimmy-the one I told you about before, the poet with the dog?-well, he was giving her a real bad time at that point, spending all his nights at the Vanguard and all his mornings with other girls, and Judy was desperate for a little attention and affection.”
“Which, I presume, Mr. Smythe was more than happy to provide.” My voice was sounding a tad sarcastic again.
Vicki giggled. “He sure was! He took her out that night-and every night after that-for about two weeks. And then-abracadabra!-he gave her a diamond bracelet, and he told her he loved her, and he talked her into becoming his mistress, and he set her up in her very own apartment, and I guess he ditched his other girlfriend, too-the one he had been buying all the slinky underwear for-because he never came back to the lingerie department after that. And I never laid eyes on him again. He was doing all his shopping at Tiffany’s instead of Macy’s.”
Did I detect a note of jealousy in Vicki’s husky alto?
“What does Smythe look like?” I asked her. “Aunt Elsie said he’s pretty old.”
“I would guess he’s in his fifties, but I can’t say for sure. He’s so handsome and debonair, you really can’t tell. He’s got sparkly blue eyes and thick, wavy gray hair, and he looks and dresses like a movie star. Like Cesar Romero.”
“Do you know where he lives, or what he does for a living?”
“No idea. He never talked about his personal life to me or Judy. Judy knew he was married, and that he was rich, but he never told her anything else about his work or his family. She didn’t even know if he had any kids or not. She never asked him any questions about his private life, either, because she didn’t want to bother him or make him uncomfortable. She said she didn’t care if he worshipped his wife and had thirty-six children-she loved him anyway.”