“He’s my hero,” she said, lips trembling. “You’d think I’d be used to the anti-Semitic crap by now, but I’m not. I guess I’ll never get used to it.” She took a cigarette out of her purse and lit up. “Still, it wasn’t very smart of Whitey to mouth off at her the way he did.”

“Smart? No. Cool? Yes!”

“But now she won’t talk to you anymore… You won’t be able to ask her any sneaky questions, or find out what she knows about the diamonds.”

“Oh, she’ll be talking to me, all right!” I said. “She’s dying to know how I got this necklace. She’ll be coming to ask me about it. I predict she’ll be crawling all over me, apologizing her bigoted little head off and acting like my best friend, as soon as you and Terry take off for Smythe’s study. ”

Abby laughed. “You’re probably right. And speaking of Smythe’s study,” she said, looking at the watch she was carrying in her purse, “I’m supposed to be there right now. Where’s Whitey?”

“You rang?” Terry said, suddenly appearing at our side with the brandy Alexanders we had asked for.

“Oh, there you are!” Abby sputtered, smashing her cigarette in a nearby ashtray. She took a big slug of her drink, linked her arm through Terry’s, and began to tow him in the direction of the hallway. “C’mon, baby, let’s go!” she urged. “Mustn’t keep the big shot piggy banker waiting!”

Chapter 27

PART OF MY PREDICTION CAME TRUE. LILLIAN Smythe came marching through the crowd and over to me before I’d taken the third sip of my brandy Alexander. She wasn’t the least bit apologetic, though. And she was acting a whole lot more like my real worst enemy than my fake best friend.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve coming to this party tonight,” she said, blasting the words out of her mouth like shrapnel. “Get out! You’re not welcome here.” People were turning to look at us again.

“What do you mean?!” I said, in shock, working to hold onto my composure. “I was invited, you know. Your father asked me to come.”

“Oh, I’m sure he did! That’s just the kind of thoughtless, selfish, brainless thing he would do. But he had no right to invite you here. And you had no right to come.

I was confused. Was she mad about the necklace, or just angry that I had come to the party? “I don’t understand,” I said. “Your father’s the host. Why can’t he invite anybody he wants?”

“He can,” she said. “Anybody but you.” Her hazel eyes were burning with hatred.

“But I’m a client of his,” I persisted, determined to get to the bottom of this mystery. “Why can’t he invite me?”

She was near the end of her rope. Her contorted face was turning blue and she was having trouble breathing. One more word from me, and I thought she might crumble. So, in the interest of science (i.e., just to see what would happen), I delivered several more words. “I have as much right to be here as anybody else,” I said, squaring my shoulders and stretching my spine to its ultimate height. In my long, heavy, sashless green dress, I felt (and, no doubt, looked) as turgid and plant-like as The Thing.

She didn’t crumble. She didn’t even wobble. “You filthy whore!” she screeched. “How dare you come into our home, wearing that necklace and prancing around like the goddamn Queen of England! Have you no shame? You aren’t the first tramp my father’s had an affair with, or pilfered my mother’s jewels for, and you won’t be the last. You are the oldest, though,” she added, with a perverse gleam in her eye. “Daddy usually buys himself much newer toys.”

So that was it. She thought her father had stolen her mother’s necklace and given it to me in return for sexual favors. And she thought I was now rubbing both the affair and the necklace in her mother’s face! Under those circumstances, I didn’t blame Lillian for being mad at me. And if she hadn’t been such a prejudiced, nasty, snotnosed shrew, I would have felt quite sorry for her. And very, very sorry that I’d worn the diamonds to the party.

As it was, though, I just felt tired. Tired and disgusted with the whole blam case. Was I ever going to unravel any clear-cut clues? Would I ever stop running in circles and dashing into blind alleys? Would I ever, ever, ever find out who killed Judy Catcher?

And what should I do right now? Should I tell Lillian the truth and give the necklace back to Augusta? Or should I stick to my guns and stay saddled on the lie I rode in on?

It didn’t take me long to decide. I had to keep lying. It was all too possible that Lillian had had something to do with the murder. She must have been just as mad at Judy then as she was at me right now. And she must have been busting to get her mother’s diamonds back. Maybe she had found out where Judy lived and tried to kill two birds with one stone.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, standing even taller than I had before (which wasn’t easy, since all I wanted to do was curl up in a ball on the closest Chip pendale sofa and go to sleep). “I never even met your father until yesterday, and this necklace was not pilfered. It was willed to me by my dear Aunt Rosemary, who just happened to be one of the sweetest, most generous angels who ever walked the earth. I only wear these diamonds to honor her memory.” (Okay, okay! So I was laying it on a little thick-but desperate times call for double helpings.)

Lillian narrowed her eyes and swept a clump of salmon-pink hair off her face. “You’re lying through your teeth, Paige Turner. I know who you really are. And if you don’t round up your nasty little friends and get out of here right now, I’m going to call the cops and have you thrown out!”

I had no reason to doubt what she was saying. And I had no desire to spend the rest of the night explaining things to (okay, hiding things from) the police. I guzzled down the rest of my brandy Alexander and started looking for my nasty little friends.

HEADING FOR THE DOORWAY THROUGH WHICH Abby and Terry had disappeared, I bypassed a long, narrow dining table topped with the most beautiful and tempting array of food I’d ever seen in my life. Caviar, smoked salmon, chilled oysters, baked clams, sliced beef with horseradish sauce, shrimp cocktail, lobster thermi dor, asparagus vinaigrette, deviled eggs, stuffed tomatoes and mushrooms-oh, god, was I hungry! I didn’t stop to eat anything, though, for fear Lillian would cause another scene-or call the cops to do it for her.

Exiting the living room, I turned left and started walking down the mile-long Oriental carpet that stretched-unbroken-from one end of the long, wide hall to the other. A dozen or so people were milling about in the hall, smoking cigarettes, looking for the restrooms, admiring the paintings on the wall. Straining my eyes down to the far end of the corridor, I finally spotted Terry. He was leaning against the wall, his left shoulder planted three inches from a closed door, with both hands in his pockets and one ear cocked, like a small radio receiver, toward the hinged spine of the door.

I was just about to wave to him and hurry down to the end of the hall where he was standing, when I saw Augusta Smythe coming out of a different door and gliding, swan-like, up the corridor toward me. Now realizing that the sight of me and my necklace would probably cause the poor woman a good deal of pain, and wanting to save us both from such an ordeal, I quickly turned my back on her approaching figure and veered over to gaze at one of the pictures on the wall.

“It’s a Seurat,” she said, gliding up behind me, the skirt of her long satin dress swooshing against the carpet. “A portrait of Madeline Knoblock, the artist’s mistress. Do you like it?”

Oh, great! There were at least six other paintings on that particular expanse of wall, and I had to stop and stare at the mistress? You really can’t take me anywhere.