Blood on the Street (A Smith and Wetzon Mystery, #4)

crossed her legs, then uncrossed them, and leaned against her coat. No wonder it looked like that.
    “Has something new come up?”
    “Why would you ask?” Peiser fished around in her raincoat pocket and took out a small notebook.
    “Because the two of you seemed wired, and you told me that’s why you were canceling our previous—Oh, hell, let’s stop fencing. I don’t know anything about Brian’s murder. He had my card. Right, Ferrante? That’s how you got to me.” She poured the coffee into three mugs. “It’ll have to be black. There isn’t any milk. Where’s Detective Martens tonight?”
    Ferrante ignored her question. He nodded at Peiser, and Peiser said, “According to your partner, Ms. Xenia Smith, you met the Boyds and the Gordons socially through Rona Middleton.”
    “Socially?” Wetzon smiled. Smith certainly had a way with words. “I don’t really think it was social. Although we had a drink with Penny Ann Boyd, Barbara Gordon, and Rona the Sunday after Brian died, it was to introduce us to Barbara and Penny Ann. Rona set it up. They wanted us to help them find Tabitha, who’d run away— and not for the first time.”
    “Christalmighty,” Ferrante swore under his breath.
    “What made them think you’d be able to do that?” Peiser frowned at Ferrante and lifted the mug to her lips.
    “Frankly, I don’t know.” Wetzon joined them at the table. “They seemed to think Tabitha was staying with someone who’d worked with Brian, perhaps his manager, Tony Maglia.” She stopped and said, almost to herself, “Wait a minute. Wouldn’t Rona have known Tabitha was with Maglia if she was having an affair with him?” Then to Peiser she said, “The affair, do you know about it?”
    Peiser nodded. “Go on.” She was making notes in her pad, and Wetzon recognized the graceful loops of Gregg-style shorthand. In her mind’s eye she saw Peiser as a secretary-drone working her way through law school, and was drawn to her.
    “Well, they wanted us to see if we could ask some discreet questions.”
    Ferrante shot up, knocking the chair on its back. His face turned beet red. “We ought to haul you in as an accessory—”
    Peiser raised the palm of her hand. “You said ‘they.’ Who?”
    Ferrante righted the chair, but he was fuming. He sat down again, noisily.
    “Rona, Penny Ann, and Barbara Gordon. I suppose the husband, Dr. Jerry Gordon, too, although he wasn’t there the first time. It was all subterfuge. I found out later that Dr. Jerry—he’s some sort of therapist—just got us involved to keep Penny Ann from going to the police. Penny Ann was afraid Tabitha had killed Brian, because she was supposed to be meeting him in the Conservatory Garden that morning.”
    “Withholding evidence,” Ferrante growled.
    “Listen, Ferrante, you didn’t ask me about Tabitha and Brian, and at the time I wouldn’t have known anyway.” He was making her angry. He always made her angry.
    “How do you know that Tabitha was meeting Brian Middleton at the Conservatory Garden?” Peiser asked.
    Wetzon sighed. With Tabitha dead, there was no point in keeping the diary. “It was in Tabitha’s diary. Wait a minute and I’ll get it for you.” She walked into the bedroom and took it from the table next to her bed and brought it back, handing it to Peiser, who pushed it to Ferrante. “You’ll notice there are pages missing from the back.”
    A vein pulsed in Ferrante’s forehead. “How’d you get this?” He pulled a plastic bag out of his inside pocket and, using his handkerchief, slipped the diary inside and sealed it.
    “I think that’s a waste of time,” Wetzon said.
    Ferrante shook the bag at her. “I suppose you’re going to tell us that a lot of people have handled this?”
    Wetzon sighed and reached for her mug. “Penny Ann gave it to us, then someone lifted it from my bag before I had a chance to read it—you, for example—and then mailed it back to me sans those end pages. Actually, Penny Ann seemed more interested in finding some missing papers dealing with the arbitration in her lawsuit against Brian and Bliss Norderman than she was in finding her daughter.” That was it, wasn’t it? Penny knew where Tabitha was. Penny wanted those papers. But why was Rona covering for Penny, and what was in it for the Gordons?
    “This is the first we hear about missing papers. What else are you keeping from us, lady?”
    “Ferrante, would you get the hell out of my face? I don’t