The Monet Murders

pause before he’d ask, “What can I do for you, Mrs. D?” I loved those little pauses.

I picked up the desk phone and glanced outside. The Fifth Avenue street lamps had surged on, lifting the alley’s gloom a bit. Without warning, a bolt of lightning split the sky. Another wild flash, closer this time. The gentle rain turned vicious and pounded against the glass. The storm was getting nasty. After making the call, I’d head for home.

I’d punched in the first three digits of the NPD number when, with an explosive crash, something heavy struck the window. At the impact, the glass shattered, sending lethal shards spinning throughout the shop.

I screamed. For a split second, a lightning bolt like a streak of fire illuminated the alley, turning night into noon and revealing the rain-soaked figure of a man. Merle Skimp in the flesh.

Chapter Twelve

A hunk of concrete as big as my head had landed on the shop floor. So much for Daddy being Mr. Nice Guy. Heart pounding, I looked out through the gaping hole. The alley was empty. But I had seen Merle. I was sure of it.

Even in the half light, glass fragments sparkled on the desk top. I fumbled around for my shoes. No telling where the other fragments had landed. They could cut my feet to ribbons. As my toes searched for the shoes, I felt something dripping along my left arm. The sleeve of my green striped shirt was slashed. A shard must have hit me; that was blood leaking onto the desk. My fingers trembled but managed to punch in the NPD number.

A no-nonsense male voice answered. “Naples Police.”

“My shop’s been vandalized,” I said.

“You’re calling from 555-8880?”

“That’s correct.”

“Your name?”

I told the official voice what he needed to know and sat still until the blue cruiser lights came flashing down the alley. The blood had soaked my sleeve to the wrist. I needed a tourniquet but somehow I couldn’t think of what to use to staunch the flow. When I got up to open the door and snap on the lights, my head spun, but I clung to the entrance doorjamb. A part of my mind acknowledged that the rain had stopped. A good thing, with that big hole in the front window. I sniffed the air. It smelled fresh and clean, newly washed.

The biggest cop in the world came striding toward me. Officer Batano. Two weeks ago, he’d been the first responder at the Alexanders’. “You’re injured, ma’am?”

“My arm.”

He gave it a visual scan. “Why don’t you come in and sit down? We’ll call an ambulance.”

“No, that’s not necessary, but I will sit.”

He helped me to the desk chair. “That arm needs attention.”

I sat down heavily, an old woman suddenly. His female partner, a petite brunette, followed him into the shop.

“This here’s Officer Hughes,” Batano said. “Call for an ambulance,” he told her in the same breath. “She’s losing blood.”

As Officer Hughes worked her cell phone, Batano went behind the counter that held the cash register and packaging supplies. He tore off a length of moire ribbon, doubled it, came back and tied it around my arm above the gash. “You all right?”

“I think so.” I really wasn’t sure. I glanced around at my wounded shop. As if sprinkled with ice, it glittered in the light from the overheads.

Batano peered at my face. “You’re the woman who found the murder vic on Gordon Drive? Right?”

I nodded.

“And now this?” He pulled his cell phone out of its case. “The lieutenant’ll want to know what happened here.”

To my relief, he asked for Rossi. I brushed the glass fragments off the desk and laid my head on the top.

“Hang in there, Mrs. Dunne. Help’s on the way.” That was the last I heard before I tuned out the world.

* * *

I woke in the ER with an IV drip flowing into my right arm and Rossi hovering beside it looking distraught. A sight better than a tropical sunrise, it made me smile.

“Mrs. D, what am I going to do with you?” he asked.

I could have told him, but the effort was more than I could muster. “They drugged me,” I murmured.

The curtains surrounding my cubicle parted. A tired-looking nurse in hospital greens stepped up to my bed, nodded at Rossi and checked the IV. “We’ll be wheeling you into the OR in a few minutes, Mrs. Dunne. We’re going to take good care of that arm.”

“Is the plastic surgeon here?” Rossi asked her.

Whoa! “What plastic surgeon?” I asked.

“The one I requested,” Rossi said.

“He’s scrubbing now, Lieutenant,” the nurse told him.

I raised my head off the pillow just enough to peer at my arm. It was so swathed in bandages, I couldn’t see a thing. But at least the throbbing had stopped.

“Mrs. Dunne lives alone. I want her kept overnight.”

Listen to that Rossi, I thought before I drifted away. He sounds like a husband.

* * *

Well, as it turned out, the underlying muscle tissue in my arm had been damaged, and I’d needed over fifty stitches, from wrist to elbow. Batano’s tourniquet had saved me from bleeding to death, and Rossi’s plastic surgeon had saved the function and, not incidentally, the appearance of my arm.

“How’re you feeling?” Rossi asked when he arrived in my throw-up-green hospital room the next morning. His stubbled chin and heavy eyes told me he hadn’t had much sleep.

“Weren’t you wearing that same shirt last night?” I asked him. “I think I remember that beach scene.”

He glanced down at one of the stars in his Hawaiian collection, Waikiki and Diamond Head repeated every ten inches. He rubbed a hand across his chin. “Didn’t have time to change.”

Lifting my injured left arm with my right hand, I moved it to my lap like the dead weight it was and turned in the bed to face him. “Thank you, Lieutenant, for being with me last night. I appreciate your concern more than I can say. But will you answer a question?”

Wariness flooded his hawk eyes. “Yeah…”

“When you insisted on the plastic surgeon, why did the ER staff carry out that order without asking me?”

“You were in no condition to answer.”

I evil-eyed him. “Rossi. Come clean.”

He cleared his throat. “I signed a form guaranteeing payment for his services.”

I rolled back, flat out on the bed. He thought that much of me? For the first time since all this happened, tears leaked out of my eyes.

“Hey, stop that,” Rossi ordered. “You’ve lost enough fluids. I’d have done the same for my sister.”

“You have a sister?”

He shifted from one foot to the other. “Well, no.”

I let the tears flow. They felt good running down my face, dripping off my chin. “I have excellent health insurance. It was Jack’s from BU. Whatever the costs, they should be covered.” I mopped my face with the sleeve of my jonny. “Thanks for saving my arm, Rossi. I love you for it.”

At my words, his face flushed a deep magenta. What a sight. If I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t have believed