What it all boiled down to was this: Christopher Dubin and Gray Gordon had been lovers for five months. They’d conducted their forbidden affair in hotel rooms so that Dubin-a successful theatrical lawyer and respected family man-would never be seen in Gray’s company. Because of his fear of being branded a homosexual, Dubin never would have been caught dead at the gay party at the Keller Hotel if: 1) his wife and kids hadn’t gone to spend the holiday weekend with her parents in Canada; 2) his beloved gay boyfriend hadn’t been brutally murdered; 3) his good friend and gay business associate Randolph Godfrey Winston hadn’t persuaded him to meet him at the party for a healing regimen of booze, fireworks, and forgetfulness.
And he never would have bashed me on the head if I hadn’t called him Aunt Doobie.
But once that name escaped my lips, Dubin knew that I had recognized him from our first meeting at the Mayflower-when, if you recall, I had also mentioned the name of Gray Gordon. And since the party at the Keller bar was for gays only, Dubin also knew that I now had ample proof that he was a homosexual. As a result, he went nuts and ran out of the bar, looking to get as far away from me as possible, hoping I’d never learn his real name and expose his secret life, which would destroy his public one.
When Dubin realized that I had followed him out of the bar and over toward the river, however, and that I was standing watch under the West Side Highway-right between him and the limo in which his friend Randy had just arrived-his uncontrollable panic took over. He picked up a rock, snuck up behind me, and knocked me cold. Then he fled the scene in the black limousine.
Toodleloo. Bye bye. Over and out.
“What about Baldy?” I asked, when Flannagan finally stopped talking. “Did you find out anything more about him?”
“Besides his real name, you mean?”
Duh. “Yes,” I replied, “and besides his profession, too. I already know that he’s the producer of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. What I don’t know is why he was pumping the bartenders at the Village Vanguard for information about me. Did you ask him anything about that?”
“Uh, yeah, I did,” Flannagan said, suddenly looking kind of vague, rubbing his pallid, baby-smooth chin with his nicotine-stained fingers. “He said something about seeing you and Miss Moskowitz backstage the night of Gray Gordon’s debut, and again the next day, after the matinee. And then, he said, when he saw you
again at the Vanguard the very next night, he started wondering who you were and why you kept showing up everywhere he went. So he tipped the bartenders and asked them a few questions about you on his way out. That’s all there was to it.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” I exclaimed, utterly amazed (and also a bit amused) that a situation I’d thought so sinister could turn out to be so ordinary.
Abby, on the other hand, didn’t even raise an eyebrow. She shrugged her shoulders, gave me an indulgent smile, and said, for the third time that day, “You always make such a
tsimmis.”
Chapter 37
HAVE YOU EVER HAD THE FEELING THAT you were two people instead of one? That one of you was a smart, strong, insightful champion of truth and justice, while the other one was a perfect fool? Well, that was the way I felt that afternoon in Flannagan’s office. Like a pair of mismatched twins. Or a monster with two heads. I was brave and decisive one minute, dopey and delusional the next. I was Wonder Woman and Lucy Ricardo combined. I was Brenda Starr with a brain tumor.
“What led you to believe that Barnabas Kapinsky was the murderer?” Flannagan barked, finally getting around to asking for my side of the story. He was glaring at me through squinted eyes, as if I were still under suspicion.
“The long sleeves,” I said, “and his buttoned-up collar and cuffs.”
“What?!” Flannagan squeezed his eyelids even tighter, peering at me through slits so narrow I was surprised he could see at all. “Long sleeves? Collar and cuffs? I think you’d better explain yourself, Mrs. Turner. And make it fast.”
“Well, yesterday was the first time I saw Binky,” I began, “and it was so hot that-”
“Binky?” Flannagan croaked. “Who the hell is Binky?”
“Barnabas Kapinsky,” I said. “His nickname is Binky.”
Flannagan’s accusing glare grew even more intense. “You called the murderer by his nickname? I didn’t know the two of you were so close.”
“No!” I cried. “That’s not the way it was! I only called him Binky because-”
It was at that moment-as I was just beginning to explain my theories and actions to Flannagan-that Dan walked into the office. He sauntered down the aisle between the desks and the file cabinets, shook hands with Detectives Flannagan and Dash, gave Abby a smile and me a curt nod, and then positioned himself-arms crossed, legs slightly apart-near the side of my chair.
“Don’t let me disturb you,” he said, to nobody in particular. “Please go on with what you were doing.”
Oh, sure. How could I go on with my explanation when all of my words were stuck in a huge lump in my throat? I couldn’t breathe, much less talk. My body temperature and blood pressure were shooting through the roof. My emotions were having seizures in every chamber of my broken heart.
“Yes, go on, Mrs. Turner,” Flannagan said, with a smirk. “I believe you were telling us why you called the killer Binky.”
I tried to say something clever and enlightening, but the only word that came out was, “Ack!”
“Leave her alone already!” Abby snapped, leaping to my defense like a rabid Jewish mother. “Can’t you see she’s upset? She hasn’t slept in over thirty hours! And she’s had a really hard day, you dig? And she caught your murderer for you, didn’t she? What else do you want? You should be treating her like a queen-and I
don’t mean a homosexual!”
I smiled. That Abby. You gotta love her.
“I advise you not to speak to me in that manner!” Flannagan seethed. His boyish face was changing colors again. “I’m the head of this department and I-”
“Miss Moskowitz is right,” Dan interrupted. His voice was soft, but his tone of authority was coming through loud and clear. “What Mrs. Turner needs right now is a cup of coffee and some peace and quiet, which will improve both her frame of mind and her recollection of events. Therefore, since I have a special interest in this case, I think it best if I show her into a private room and continue taking her statement myself.” He leaned down, put his hands on my shoulders, and gently coaxed me to my feet.
Flannagan rose to his feet, too. “But I don’t… well, I… do you really think-”
“Yes, I do,” Dan cut in again. He put one arm around my back and began escorting me down the aisle toward the door. “We’ll be in the interrogation room across the hall,” he said, glancing back over his shoulder. “Please bring us some coffee.”
I LOVED BEING ALONE WITH DAN; I HATED being alone with Dan. (I
told you I was two people.) One of me was so turned on by his intense black gaze, disheveled hair, and determined jawline that I wanted to throw myself in his arms and attach my mouth to his for all eternity (or at least until next week). The other me was still so haunted (okay, incredibly hurt) by the way he’d kissed that redhead in Sardi’s last night that I couldn’t stand the thought of putting my lips where hers had been. Not now. Not ever.
Averting my eyes from Dan’s gorgeous face and enticing mouth, I sat back in my chair at the table in the middle of the small interrogation room, crossed my legs, took a sip of my coffee, and hurriedly fired up a cigarette. (I knew if I waited Dan would offer me a light, and I wanted to avoid that painfully intimate gesture.) Staring at me from his chair on the other side of the table, Dan lit up, too.
“Are you ready to tell me the truth?” he asked, in a voice as rich and dark as chocolate. “There’s no reason for you to keep any secrets now.”