Come Hell or Highball by Maia Chance Page B

Street love nest, I went straight to the telephone and asked the operator to connect me with the Hare’s Hollow police department. When I was put through, first the secretary and then Inspector Digton scoffed at my request for Sadie Street’s home address.
    â€œNow, why would I give that to you ?” Inspector Digton made a donkeylike guffaw.
    I pulled the earpiece away. When I put it back to my ear, Digton was still hee-hawing.
    â€œThanks anyway,” I said, and rang off.
    Next, I had the operator connect me to the Pantheon Pictures studio in Flushing, Queens. It was Sunday, so I crossed my fingers that I’d get an answer.
    â€œYeah?” a woman barked down the line.
    â€œWould you please give me Sadie Street’s address?”
    â€œYou gotta be kidding me, lady.”
    â€œWait! Don’t hang up. I need to speak to her. It’s urgent.”
    â€œDo you wanna know how many calls I’ve gotten for her, and for Luciano and Zucker, from you pests today? Holy cow! I got better things to do.” She cut the connection.
    You pests, she’d said. She’d probably meant reporters.
    Motion picture stars and murder. What a sensation. That gave me an idea.
    I asked the operator to put me through to the offices of the New York Evening Observer .
    â€œHello, Duffy,” Ida Shanks said when I got her on the line. She was a hard worker to be there on a Sunday, I’d grant her that. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your call? Don’t tell me you plan to give me an exclusive on your full confession of murder.”
    â€œReally, Miss Shanks,” I said. “We’ve known each other since we were five years old. You know very well I wouldn’t murder anybody.”
    â€œDear me—doth the matron protest too much? And I do seem to recall a violent incident during which you pushed me from the seesaw and pulled my pigtails.”
    â€œThat wasn’t me! I’ve told you. That was Pansy Fennig. Anyway, I thought you might know Sadie Street’s address. That’s right up your alley, isn’t it?”
    Ida cackled. “Now, why would I do you any favors?”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œI haven’t got her address.”
    â€œWhy do I think you’re lying?”
    â€œThink whatever you want, Duffy dear.” Ida hung up.

 
    12
    At four o’clock that afternoon, I dressed in my most matronly suit, a silk blouse, Ferragamos, and pearls, and made good on my promise to visit my mother. I took a taxi uptown and alighted at 993 Park Avenue. This was a ritzy brick apartment building with Italianate embellishments of creamy stone. It was fewer than ten years old, but it was already established as a Very Good Address.
    I said hello to the uniformed doorman and took the elevator to the twelfth floor.
    Father (with Mother’s militant counsel) had wrung Wall Street dry like a rag mop, so they’d been able to purchase the apartment next door to their first one, knock out some walls, and make quite a swanky spread of it. I rang the doorbell—gold leaf and rococo—and the butler cracked the door. He was a rangy, dark-skinned fellow with gray hair, flawless livery, and a condescending manner that I was pretty sure Mother had drilled into him.
    â€œGood afternoon, Mrs. Woodby,” he said. “Your mother has been expecting you.”
    â€œHello, Chauncey.”
    Chauncey wasn’t his real name, of course. His real name was Fred, but Mother had decided that Chauncey sounded more butleresque.
    He led me toward Mother’s sitting room.
    The entry foyer had black-and-white marble floors, ornate moldings, and a ponderous chandelier calculated to bring on a migraine. I was used to those things, as well as the authentic Louis XIV furniture that looked fake. New to me, however, were the huge wooden crates everywhere. It looked as though a circus train had disgorged its contents into the apartment.
    Chauncey acted like