Nice Girls Finish Last Read Free Page A

amid clutter. Okay, clutter is another understatement. Left to my own devices, my apartment looks like the scene of a thorough Gestapo ransacking, or perhaps a small soccer riot.
    Tidy as my apartment was, it did look like a bookstore’s self-help section had exploded inside it, as I had plastered uplifting, inspirational sayings all over the place. Cut from books, magazines, articles, or comic strips, or handwritten, they were everywhere. My refrigerator exhorted me to THINK POSITIVE . On a lampshade was the message CHOOSE HAPPINESS ! My toothbrush cup preached KEEP THE FAITH , while above my telephone was this from Confucius: TO GO BEYOND
    Rather than have to explain this to unexpected company, I took a few of these more conspicuous bromides down.
    A half hour later, Detective Mack Ferber knocked on my door. I was glad I’d preened, because he was good-looking, in a slightly goofy and very appealing way, a bit jowly with droopy brown eyes and curly brown hair. Unfortunately, he was also a lot younger than me. He looked at least fifteen years younger, but I realized he couldn’t possibly be that young and be a full detective.
    â€œGet you something to drink?” I asked, trying not to sound too Anne Bancroft. “A soft drink, I mean. I know you’re on duty.”
    â€œNo thank you. I’m sorry to have to tell you this way…,” he began, then stopped.
    Ferber apparently wasn’t very good at breaking bad news to people yet. Probably hadn’t been in Homicide long. He sat down on my old blue armchair, perching himself on the edge of the cushion. I shoved a hatbox off the faux-leopard love seat across from him and sat down.
    â€œMind if I tape this?” I said, pulling out my microcassette recorder. I always think it’s a good idea to have a record of encounters with authority figures.
    â€œNo … I guess not.”
    â€œSo what happened to the guy? Is he dead?”
    â€œYes,” he said.
    â€œI figured, because you’ve been talking about him in the past tense. Gee, that’s too bad. God. What happened?”
    â€œHe was murdered, in his office, some time between seven p.m., when he made a call to reserve a table at Brasserie Bleu for ten, and ten-thirty p.m. when the body was discovered by a cleaning person.”
    â€œWow.”
    â€œYou were the last appointment in his book last night. Did you keep that appointment?”
    â€œNo. That appointment was canceled,” I said, and before he could ask for my alibi, I presented him with the minute-by-minute accounting of my whereabouts that evening, just to get it out of the way.
    â€œWho canceled the appointment?” he asked.
    â€œHe did. Or his office. I got a message canceling it.”
    â€œThat’s interesting. It seems the night nurse got a call that took her away from the office on a false emergency, and your security people were called away on a false alarm elsewhere in your building. Someone wanted to get Kanengiser alone.”
    â€œPremeditated,” I said, nodding. “How was he killed?”
    â€œShot in the heart.”
    â€œPoor slob. Damn shame. Seemed like a nice guy too. Did you get the guy who did it? Or the woman who did it?”
    â€œNot yet,” he said, looking at me strangely. “You’re very calm about this.”
    Now it was my turn to sigh. “Well, I used to be a crime and justice reporter, a few years ago, and … I dunno. I’m hard to surprise.”
    Ferber looked at me and smiled. He was starting to grow on me a little, so I crossed my legs, bounced my foot slightly, and reminded myself of my new rule about not dating younger men.
    â€œDid you know him well?” Ferber asked.
    â€œNo. I’d seen him once about six weeks earlier for maybe ten minutes when my boss beeped me. This was the rescheduled appointment,” I said. “Any idea why he was killed?”
    â€œNot sure. It was made to look like a robbery.