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“Hell, no.”
“Did you tell Annabelle?”
“I let her know that it had a ridiculous premise, but of course I said I could fix it. She really didn’t want to hear anything else.”
Pam shook her head and took a sip of water. “That’s why I’m getting out. Craig Murray seems like a nice guy but he’s going to run the company into the ground and take a whole lot of reputations with him. Mine won’t be one of them.”
“Craig is a very nice man,” I agreed.
“I don’t think he killed her,” Pam said quietly.
Keith had said the same thing but I pretended the thought had never occurred to me. “Craig? A killer? Why would you say something like that?”
“Oh, come on, Jackie. He is probably suspect number one on the police blotter. The husband always is. He stands to inherit a great deal of money.”
I swallowed a piece of salmon. “True, but I’ve been watching Columbo for years and there must be motive, means, and opportunity. Craig didn’t have the opportunity. Keith has learned that he and Dora spent the night at his sister’s house. He took Dora to preschool on the morning of the murder and when I stopped by, he still had not come home.”
Pam drummed her fingers on the table. “I watch Columbo, too, and there was this one case where the husband left a building and then went around to a back alley and shimmied up a drainpipe to get back in the house. He murdered his wife and then went back down the pipe to a local bar where dozens of people could see him and furnish an alibi.”
“Pam, I doubt that there is an alley or drainpipe in the back of The Dakota.”
She was really into it now. “Don’t be so sure that Craig couldn’t reenter the building unseen. Suppose he bribed a maintenance worker to open a side door or something?”
“Then he’d have to kill the maintenance worker or he’d always have to worry about the guy double-crossing him.”
Pam thought that over for a moment. “Maybe the worker was in the country illegally. He could be back in Santo Domingo or wherever by now.”
Her theory made sense but I didn’t want the game to stop. “Let’s forget Craig for a minute. How about an angry neighbor? After I leave, he slips up to Annabelle’s place, does the dirty deed, and takes the elevator back up or down to his own apartment. That’s why he isn’t seen on the lobby videotape. The sister goes up, finds the body, and runs screaming down to the lobby.”
“How did the sister get into the apartment?”
I shrugged. “She must have a key.”
“Okay, what is the neighbor so angry about?”
“Maybe he wrote a book, Annabelle read it, and refused to publish it.”
This sent Pam into gales of laughter. “Isn’t it awful when you let people know that you work in publishing? I’ve had pages thrust at me by my lawyer, dry cleaner, and even the woman who does my nails.”
“I stopped telling folks what I do for a living a long time ago.”
We talked shop after that for a while and then paid the check. On the way back to the office, I made a mental note to put Alyssa and Pam together.
The rest of my day was spent in splendid anticipation.
Victor had chosen a fine, upscale Chinese restaurant called A Dish of Salt, which was a few blocks away, and as we walked along chatting pleasantly, I marveled at how quickly my dreary existence had been transformed. After weeks of dread, sadness, and panic, I was now moving closer to my dream of true love in the arms of Victor Bell.
“Where do you live?” I asked curiously.
“In Park Slope. I’m a native Brooklynite.”
He went on to tell me that he was an only child, raised by a single parent. His mother was a nurse who now lived in San Francisco with her second husband in a house that was much too big for the two of them. “It’s psychological,” he said. “We always lived in such small apartments that now she’s gone overboard.”
Well! Paul and I had built our friendship on the fact that we were the only two members of the Black Pack who did not come from upper middle-class homes. All the rest of them were the children of professional parents who attended private schools, were able to afford music and dance lessons, braces for unruly teeth, and household help for cooking and cleaning. Paul’s youth had been even more deprived than mine. We always listened in jealous amazement at Black Pack meetings when some of the others talked about their young lives, which seemed straight out of the Cosby show.
Now, it seemed that Victor might have more in common with Paul and me than he did with the others.
“Money was tight in my house, too.” I offered him the opening shyly.
