Murder is a Girl's Best Friend

Murder is a Girl's Best Friend by Amanda Matetsky Page B

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Authors: Amanda Matetsky
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okay?” I said to the grieving salesgirl. “I’m so sorry I upset you. Do you think we could go someplace private for a minute or two?”
    “I can’t leave my station. My supervisor would kill me.” She took a handkerchief out of her skirt pocket and dabbed her eyes dry. “Come,” she said, picking up her sales book and Abby’s present and glancing nervously in all directions, “let’s go around the corner to the other side of the counter. It won’t be so crowded back there.”
    She was right. The area around the corner—the girdle section—was practically deserted. I guess girdles haven’t yet made the stretch from secret stomach-cinchers to public stocking-stuffers.
    “We can talk here,” the girl said, “but I’ll have to pretend that I’m showing you some merchandise in case my supervisor comes around.”
    “Fine,” I said. “Show me anything you want.” To enhance my image as a serious shopper, I put my purse down on the counter and took out my checkbook. Then, when the girl bent over to get a stack of girdles out of the stock drawer, I unzipped the side pocket of my purse and took out the picture of Judy—the one that was taken in front of Walgreen’s, with the bearded weirdo and the weenie dog. I slipped the photo under my checkbook just as the salesgirl’s fluffy red head and despondent freckled face popped up above the counter again.
    After she put her armful of girdles down on top of the display case, I reached over and touched her hand. “My name’s Phoebe Starr,” I told her, resurrecting the trusty pseudonym I’d used throughout the Comstock case. “What’s yours?”
    “Vicki,” she said. “Vicki Lee Bumstead.” I smiled but I didn’t say a word. Far be it from me to point out the whimsy of other people’s funny names. Besides, Vicki’s name wasn’t funny in and of itself like mine. Only her surname was comical, and only because Dagwood (or, more precisely, the cartoonist Chic Young) had made it that way.
    “I’m really sorry I made you cry, Vicki,” I said. “Were you a friend of Judy’s, too?”
    “Yes,” she said, leaning against the counter and nodding so vigorously I thought she might shake something loose. “Judy was my best friend. The best friend I ever had. We worked here together, five days and two nights a week, for over a year. I miss her so much I can’t stand it.” She hugged her arms in close to her chest as though protecting herself from the cold. I felt so sorry for the girl I wanted to hug her myself.
    “I know exactly how you feel,” I exclaimed. (You probably think I was lying, but I wasn’t.) “She was gone so suddenly, and so violently, it’s . . . well, it’s just so hard to accept . . . and impossible to understand.” I fought to keep myself from falling into my own deep well of loss and misery.
    Vicki pulled herself together, too. “Phoebe Starr . . . Phoebe Starr . . . Phoebe Starr,” she suddenly repeated, cocking her head and narrowing her eyes, looking at me as if seeing me for the very first time. “Were you and Judy very close?” A visible seed of suspicion had taken root in the loamy depths of her mind. ”I’m only asking because Judy never mentioned your name to me—not even once. And it’s kind of funny that she never told me about you, because she always told me everything.”
    “Well, to tell you the truth, Judy and I weren’t that close,” I blurted, trying to sidestep Vicki’s abrupt scrutiny. “It was my Aunt Elsie she was really close with. They lived right across the hall from each other.” For a person who truly hates to lie, I sure am good at it.
    “Elsie Londergan is your aunt?” Vicki’s eyes were softening now, returning to their normally bulbous and luminous state. “Judy talked about her all the time. She loved her so much! She said Elsie was the mother she had always wished for.”
    “My aunt feels the same way—as though she’s lost her only daughter.”
    “Uh-oh!” Vicki said,

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