Murder, She Uncovered

  Murder, She Uncovered is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  An Alibi Ebook Original

  Copyright © 2019 by Peg Cochran

  Excerpt from Murder, She Encountered by Peg Cochran copyright © 2019 by Peg Cochran

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Alibi, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  ALIBI is a registered trademark and the ALIBI colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Ebook ISBN 9780525479727

  Cover design: Marietta Anastassatos

  Cover art: Niloufer Wadia

  randomhousebooks.com

  v5.4

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  By Peg Cochran

  About the Author

  Excerpt from Murder, She Encountered

  Chapter 1

  SEPTEMBER 21, 1938

  Elizabeth Adams grabbed the handle of the door to Madame Louise’s dress shop on East Sixty-Fourth Street and pulled. The wind, which had been increasing in intensity all afternoon, nearly yanked it from her grasp.

  She stumbled into the shop and grabbed for her hat. It had almost been whisked away by a sudden gust.

  “It’s positively frightful out there,” she said, shaking out her umbrella as the salesgirl, Irene Nowack, approached.

  “You do look as if you’ve been caught in a tornado,” Irene said.

  Elizabeth and Irene had been friends since both were hospitalized with polio years before. Elizabeth had escaped nearly unscathed with a faint limp that only became more pronounced when she was tired, but Irene had been left permanently disabled and had to use crutches and wear heavy metal braces on her legs as a result.

  Elizabeth took off her hat and shook it, sending droplets of water spraying into the air. She brushed off the shoulders of her coat and fluffed her dark hair with her hands.

  “Your new hat is ready,” Irene said with a smile. “I think you’ll like it.”

  Elizabeth pulled out the dainty gilt chair and sat down at the vanity where she stared into the gold-framed mirror perched on top. Goodness, her hair was a mess. She pulled a comb from her purse and ran it through her thick waves.

  Irene had disappeared into the back of the shop. She emerged with a hatbox swinging by a braided gold cord from the crook of her arm. She placed it on the vanity.

  Elizabeth held her breath as Irene removed the top. She peered into the box where a brand-new hat was nestled on a bed of tissue paper.

  Irene lifted the creation out reverently. She frowned at it.

  “It’s rather severe, I’m afraid, but you said—”

  “That I wanted something serious.” Elizabeth’s eyes lit up at the sight of the black felt slouch hat with the red ribbon around the crown and a black-and-red feather sticking up as straight as a soldier.

  “I could change the feather for a silk flower if you’d like.”

  Irene bit her lip as Elizabeth placed the hat on her head adjusting it until the angle was just so.

  “No, it’s perfect the way it is,” Elizabeth said. She turned to Irene. “I think it’s quite befitting a newly promoted crime photographer for the Daily Trumpet, don’t you think?”

  Irene raised her thin, arched brows. “No more gal Friday duties then?”

  Elizabeth shook her head and the feather in the brim swayed with the movement.

  “One of the other photographers retired last week—the one who resented my presence in the newsroom—so the editor decided to give me a chance.”

  “You’ve already been taking pictures for the paper,” Irene said.

  “True. But I was still fetching coffee and typing up the society editor’s daily column as well,” Elizabeth said, wrinkling her nose. “Besides, now they’ll have to pay me more money.”

  The thought made her feel a bit guilty. She hardly needed the money—not like Irene who was alone in the world and coping totally on her own. Elizabeth was still living in her family’s Madison Avenue apartment with the luxury of plentiful meals cooked by Mrs. Murphy and no need to worry about the rent or finding money to pay the electric company.

  “Are you sure you don’t want a flower on the hat instead of the feather?” Irene said. She plucked at the pleats of her skirt.

  “I love it the way it is.” Elizabeth removed the hat and handed it to Irene.

  “If you’re sure then…” Irene took the hat and carefully placed it back in the box.

  Elizabeth pulled her wallet from her handbag and handed Irene three dollar bills. The hat was quite dear, but it was one of a kind—Irene had made it especially for her. Besides, she felt entitled to celebrate her promotion at least a little.

  Elizabeth put on her old hat, which was still damp from the rain, and gave Irene a quick hug. She was about to leave when the lights in the shop suddenly went out.

  Irene giggled. “Maybe Mrs. Gabor forgot to pay the electric bill,” she said, referring to the owner of the shop.

  Elizabeth walked over to the window and peered out. “It can’t be. The streetlights are out as well.” She looked up and down the street. “All the lights are out everywhere.” She turned to Irene. “Something must have gone wrong at the power plant.”

  * * *

  —

  By the time Elizabeth left the dress shop, the wind had increased in intensity again and she wasn’t even halfway down the block before it turned her umbrella inside out. She clung to it for dear life, half-afraid she would suddenly find herself airborne. Finally she was able to wrestle the umbrella right side up, but one of the spokes was now broken and two were bent out of shape. She was tempted to throw it into the nearest trash bin, but even half an umbrella was better than none at all.

  Rain was pelting the sidewalk with such ferocity that the drops bounced off the pavement on impact. A torrent of water rushed down the gutter and swirled in an eddy around a drain that had been blocked by a sheet of newspaper. Elizabeth glanced down at it—the headline in large black letters was still visible—PRIME MINISTER NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN TO MEET WITH HITLER.

  Elizabeth shivered. She was terrified that the United States would get involved in the war in Europe despite Roosevelt’s promise to stay neutral. Her younger brother James was in college—old enough to be called up if the country went to war.

  Lights were out up and down the street, Elizabeth noticed. Shops were dark, streetlights were unlit and she occasionally caught the narrow beam of a flashlight through a window. With the heavy cloud cover and pel
ting rain, it felt more like six o’clock than three o’clock in the afternoon. The morning had been fine but the bad weather had moved in as swiftly as a freight train, and with every bit as much ferocity.

  Elizabeth had one hand on her umbrella and the other on her hat, her new hat in its hatbox dangling from her elbow, but despite that, the wind yanked her hat from her head and sent it flying into the gutter where it landed in an oil-slicked puddle.

  She was glad she hadn’t chosen to wear her new one. She would have been devastated. She retrieved the brown felt fedora and looked at it in dismay. It was very nearly ruined. She stuffed it into her purse and continued to battle her way east to Lexington Avenue.

  The Lexington Avenue bus chugged to a stop in front of Elizabeth, sending up a spray of water. She didn’t bother to jump away—she was nearly wet through already. She collapsed her twisted and useless umbrella and stepped on board. She handed her fare to the driver and elbowed her way as politely as possible through the crowd. The bus was stuffy and the smell of wet fabric hung in the air.

  Wind buffeted the bus as it made its way down Lexington Avenue with rain beating at the windows and running down them in torrents. Elizabeth could hardly see out—she hoped she wouldn’t miss her stop—not that she could get any wetter than she already was.

  All the stoplights were dark and traffic was in a tangle at every intersection with horns blaring in angry bleats as cars attempted to bully their way forward.

  Elizabeth reached over the head of the woman seated in front of her and rubbed a spot on the window clear of fog with the sleeve of her coat. She peered at the street sign as the bus lumbered past it. Her stop was next.

  They rolled to a stop at Forty-Fourth Street, and Elizabeth maneuvered her way to the back door of the bus. She stepped off and looked down at her shoes in dismay. She’d landed nearly ankle-deep in a puddle that was spreading in ever-widening rings toward the opposite side of the street.

  The force of the wind nearly took her breath away and she gasped in surprise. She was glad she didn’t have to walk more than a few blocks. She couldn’t remember there ever having been a storm as strong as this one. There’d been no warning from the weatherman on WOR that morning either, or she would have put her plastic rain boots over her new brown serge, open-toed pumps.

  Elizabeth was thoroughly relieved to reach the shelter of the Daily Trumpet building. Water dripped from the hem of her coat and her shoes made a squelching sound as she walked across the marble floor of the lobby toward the elevator.

  The light over the elevator flashed and the doors whisked open.

  “Take a look at you,” the elevator operator said as Elizabeth stepped on. “It must be raining cats and dogs out there.” He pulled the door closed and the elevator began its ascent.

  “It is,” Elizabeth said while rummaging in her handbag for a handkerchief to wipe her face.

  Ralph Kaminsky, a veteran crime reporter for the Daily Trumpet who was as crusty as a piece of week-old bread, was sitting at his desk, his chair tipped back on its rear two legs, nursing cold coffee from a chipped white mug. He turned around when the door to the newsroom shut behind Elizabeth.

  “If you don’t look like a drowned rat,” he said, plunking down his mug.

  “I feel like one,” Elizabeth said dryly, pulling off her gloves and staring at the damp leather in dismay.

  “They’re saying it’s a hurricane,” Kaminsky said, letting his chair drop back into place with a thud. “The storm hit the south shore of Long Island around two-thirty this afternoon with no warning.” Kaminsky picked up his mug, frowned at it and put it back down again. “O’Connor’s out on the Island chasing down a story. A guy dropped dead at some spaghetti joint out there and since Frank Costello was seen eating a plate of meatballs at a nearby table, he’s convinced Costello must have had something to do with it. He’s claiming he’s going to scoop all the papers.” Kaminsky snorted. “I wish him luck.”

  He pulled a battered pack of Camels from his jacket pocket and shook one out.

  “O’Connor said the storm was bad—he said something about making for higher ground. Then the phone went dead. I never much cared for the fellow, but still. He’s got a wife and kids at home.”

  “Higher ground?” Elizabeth stopped with her raincoat halfway unbuttoned. “It can’t be that bad, can it?”

  Kaminsky scrubbed a hand across his forehead. “I don’t know. But I’m afraid it might be.”

  The door to the newsroom banged open again and Becker, another reporter, walked in, carrying the faint scent of cigar smoke with him. Water dripped from the brim of his fedora and his raincoat was soaked with water.

  He yanked off his hat and threw it on his desk.

  “The East River’s overflowed three blocks inland and flooded the Consolidated Edison plant at 133rd Street. There’s no power above Fifty-Ninth Street and the IND Eighth Avenue’s knocked out.”

  He unbuttoned his raincoat and without bothering to take it off, sat down at his desk and began banging out a story on his typewriter.

  No sooner had Becker sat down than the door burst open again and Mildred, one of the switchboard operators, stuck her head into the newsroom. Her platinum-blond hair was styled half-up and half-down with tight curls brushing her slim shoulders.

  “Bridges and tunnels are all closed,” she said, cracking her gum and leaning into the newsroom. “Someone just called it in. And the Staten Island Ferry is stuck in the terminal. Looks like nobody’s going nowhere tonight. Guess I’ll have to stay over at my boyfriend’s place.” She gave a cheeky grin.

  Elizabeth and Kaminsky exchanged a glance.

  “It’s bad, I guess,” Elizabeth said.

  “Yes. It sure sounds like it.”

  The telephone on Kaminsky’s desk rang and he grabbed for the receiver. He listened, grunted a few times and then slammed down the receiver.

  “Good thing you’re already wet,” he said, looking at Elizabeth. “The editor got wind of the fact that the water’s rising fast in New York Harbor and there’s a storm surge of eight and a half feet at the Battery. He wants pictures and a story.”

  Chapter 2

  ONE WEEK LATER

  The road was littered with debris. Elizabeth imagined that it looked the way the surface of the moon would look. Once lovely houses were reduced to piles of sticks and boards, and some homes were gone altogether—washed out to sea by the storm surge.

  Elizabeth and Kaminsky were on their way to Westhampton on Long Island—assuming they’d be able to get through—for a story on a body that had been found in a family’s summer home behind the Westhampton Country Club. Its location had saved the house—while there was water damage on the first floor and all the shutters on the east side of the house had been stripped off, it was still standing.

  The inside of the car smelled unpleasantly of cigarette smoke, onions and egg salad—Kaminsky’s daily lunch. Elizabeth rolled the window down a bit farther and took a deep breath of the fresh air rolling in.

  “Why is the editor so keen for a story on finding this one body?” she said as they maneuvered around the front door of someone’s house, which had landed smack in the middle of the road. “They’ve found over six hundred bodies already.” She shivered. “What makes this one any different?”

  Kaminsky rolled down his window and flipped the butt of his spent cigarette out.

  “According to the police chief, she—it’s a young woman—wasn’t drowned in the flood from the hurricane. She wasn’t even conked on the head by falling debris like they first thought. When they turned her over, they found a tidy stab wound in her back.”

  Elizabeth quickly stifled her impulse to gasp. Kaminsky would never let her hear the end of it if she did. He often forgot—or chose to forget—that she wasn’t as seasoned as he was.

  “Who is she?”

  “Som
eone who worked for the Post family most likely. She was found in their house in one of the third-floor bedrooms. The Posts are back in New York City—they only summer in Westhampton.”

  “Stop,” Elizabeth cried, pointing to a house where a yacht, driven by the winds and the roiling water, had crashed through the front door. She grabbed her camera and jumped out of the car as soon as it rolled to a stop.

  “Would you look at that?” Kaminsky stared at the house, his eyebrows raised. Finally he pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, lit one, took a puff then let out a stream of smoke. “Becker said they’re calling the storm the ‘Long Island Express.’ ” He pulled a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and blew his nose loudly. “It sure as heck came through like a freight train.”

  Elizabeth clicked a few photographs then put her camera back in its case. She was almost too shocked to speak. Devastation was everywhere they looked. She couldn’t begin to imagine the horror of having been caught in a storm like this, where the winds had sent waves from the ocean crashing as far as a mile inland.

  “The numbers have started to come in,” Kaminsky said as he eased the car back onto the road. “Over seven hundred people dead up and down the coast and forty-five hundred homes and cottages destroyed. Not to mention thousands of cars and boats lost to the storm.” He shook his head. “It’s going to take years to rebuild.”

  They turned onto Oneck Road and soon came to a stop in front of a large white house, and although Elizabeth was used to wealth—her family owned an apartment on Madison Avenue and she’d made her debut at the Waldorf-Astoria—she was still taken aback by the size of what the Posts would no doubt call their summer cottage.

  They got out of the car and stood in the driveway. Shingles had been ripped from the roof and all the windows were gone. Two large oak trees were down on the front lawn, the trunk of one crisscrossing the trunk of the other.