Chapter 9

BACK IN THE living room after dinner, I had two cups of coffee, but it was obvious to Matt and Penny that I was beginning to fade.

“I better take you home,” he said.

“Oh, no, I’ll get a cab—”

“Not by yourself at this time of night.”

It’s only eleven.

I thought that, but I didn’t say it.

I said good night to Penny, and told her how much I had enjoyed the evening.

“It was great meeting you,” she said. “Let’s do this again.”

“I’d like that,” I said, meaning it.

Outside it was a perfect mid-October night, cool enough to snuggle inside a sweater, but pleasant enough to enjoy walking. By silent mutual consent, Detective Phoenix and I ignored the cruising cabs and started walking west, toward the park.

“Penny’s fun,” I said. “And a fantastic cook.”

“I’m glad you like her.”

How could I not like her?

He had tossed the conversational ball into my side of the court. I took a whack. “I like her so much I want to think—I mean, is there any possibility at all that . . . her husband might have survived?”

“No.” He said it with authority, and for some reason that irritated me.

“I suppose you used your police contacts to find out—”

“I was just a rookie in uniform, but I did what I could. Penny and Patrick loved each other very much.”

“Did you see the body?” I asked.

“The plane exploded over the ocean. Recovery wasn’t possible.”

“Are you sure he really got on the plane?”

“Penny saw him off.”

“I never wrote one of those back-from-the-dead plots,” I said. “Our show has a lot of romance and mystery, but I’ve stayed away from that story line. It’s been done too often.”

We reached Fifth Avenue, turned south, and walked along the low wall that borders Central Park on the East Side of Manhattan. There was something musical about the sounds of New York traffic in the crisp night air. “Penny worries me,” he said. “This fantasy of hers gives her comfort, but it’s keeping her from moving on with her life.”

Moving on with your life is highly overrated, Detective.

We walked for a while in silence, enjoying the exercise, and the night, and the nippy air on our faces. When we reached Fifty-Ninth Street and Central Park South, we turned the corner and headed toward Central Park West. As we continued along the southern border of the park, he yanked me out of my private thoughts.

“Why don’t you ask me what you want to know?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yes, you do. Writers lie for a living, but you don’t have to lie to me.”

I was silent; I didn’t want to tell him what worried me.

“You wonder how a cop can own an East Side town house,” he guessed.

There it was. “Yes, I do.”

“And you’re thinking the worst.”

“Yes, I am.”

“I thought so; I’ve had that reaction before.”

Before? How many women has he brought home to Aunt Penny?

“Well, you’re wrong,” he said. “I’m not dirty, and I’m certainly not rich.” He smiled at me. Ruefully. I realized that seldom have I seen a genuinely rueful smile.

“Actually, I’m almost house poor,” he said. “Keeping the place up is like feeding a herd of elephants. I grew up in that house. Granddad made a lot of money by inventing something that everybody uses. When he died, he left all his money to charities, but he left the house to me.”

“What did he invent?”

“I’m not going to tell you,” he said. “You have to guess.”

“Air conditioning?”

He shook his head. “That was a man named Carrier.”

“Cardboard.”

“Negative.”

“Toilet paper?”

“Nope. Give up?”

“Absolutely not. I’ll figure this out,” I said.

“I bet you won’t.”

“For how much?”

“I don’t gamble for money,” he said. He thought for a moment and then suggested, “How about this, the loser buys the winner the pizza of his choice.”

“Of her choice. It’s a bet,” I said.

Twenty minutes and five wrong guesses later we arrived at my building. It was nearly midnight and Seventy-Second Street was quiet. There wasn’t even much traffic on Central Park West. With the quick, sharp eyes of a good cop, Matt checked to make sure no one was lurking in the nearby shadows, and that Frank, the Dakota’s night security man, was at his post at the entrance to the courtyard. Then he turned his attention to me.

“I’ll call you,” he said.

“I’d like that.”

There were a few moments of silence while we just looked at each other. His dark eyes were making me a little nervous, but in an exciting way.

“You have pretty hair,” he said finally. “Marmalade . . .”

“Marmalade?”

“Your hair is the color of marmalade.”

“Good night, Detective—Matt.”

“Good night.”

He didn’t try to touch me, but he watched until I was safely inside the building.

Upstairs, I went right to the kitchen to see if I still had the jar of marmalade that came in the basket of goodies one of the show’s sponsors sent to me last Christmas. Yes, there it was. Like tins of fruitcake, jars of marmalade might spend years unopened. I took it off the shelf and held it up to the light. Not a bad match; it was the same general blonde-red color of my hair. The man was observant. I wondered what else he had observed? I wondered just what he meant by “I’ll call you.” Was he really going to call me? Or was that just “man-speak”?

I wrote a scene last summer in which a mother translates what her daughter’s boyfriend said by explaining to the girl the difference between “man speak” and English. I fell asleep trying to figure out what it was Matt’s grandfather had invented. “Something that everybody uses . . .”