Murder on a Hot Tin Roof Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Epilogue

  Praise for

  HOW TO MARRY A MURDERER

  “The author has successfully evoked the spirit of the people and the times of the 1950s and New York. The characters are delightful, especially Paige who is hardworking, energetic, clever, and funny.”

  — Myshelf.com

  “A rich and satisfying story.”

  —The Romance Reader’s Connection

  “This book grabbed me and held me right to the end.”

  —Roundtable Reviews

  Praise for

  MURDER IS A GIRL’S

  BEST FRIEND

  “December 1954 in Manhattan is a trip down memory lane and Amanda Matetsky captures the ambience of the era to perfection. The heroine’s friend Abby makes a perfect crime-solving partner and some of their adventures are funny. Readers will thoroughly enjoy Murder Is a Girl’s Best Friend because of Paige, Abby, and 1950s New York.”

  —Midwest Book Reviews

  “This book is a great example of fun fiction that uses much of the style of film noir . . . Paige is a clever, interesting heroine who’s well-balanced by her Bohemian artist neighbor, Abby. This is an excellent book to read in any venue because it immediately transports the reader to New York in 1954.”

  —The Best Reviews

  Praise for

  MURDERERS PREFER BLONDES

  “A beautifully realized evocation of time and place; 1950s

  New York City comes alive for those of us who were there

  and even those who weren’t. Amanda Matetsky has created

  a very funny and interesting female protagonist, Paige

  Turner, and put her in the repressed and male-dominated

  year of 1954, which works like a charm. This is more than

  a murder mystery; this is great writing by a fresh talent.”

  —Nelson DeMille, author of Night Fall

  “Prepare to be utterly charmed by the irrepressible Paige

  Turner, and take an enchanting trip back in time to New

  York City, circa 1954 . . . A thoroughly fun read.”

  —Dorothy Cannell, author of The Importance of Being Ernestine

  “Amanda Matetsky has created a wonderfully sassy character in the unfortunately named Paige Turner. In her 1950s world where gals are peachy and cigarettes dangle from the lips of every private dick, a busty platinum blonde finds herself at the wrong end of a rope and Paige is on the case of a swell whodunit, sweetheart. Delightfully nostalgic and gripping. Irresistible.”

  —Sarah Strohmeyer, author of Bubbles All the Way

  “A great idea well-executed—funny, fast, and suspenseful.”

  —Max Allan Collins, author of Road to Perdition

  “Murderers Prefer Blondes is a gas; full of vivid characters and so sharp in its depiction of the fifties when you read it you’ll feel like you’re sipping champagne in the Copacabana.”

  —Betsy Thornton, author of Dead for the Winter

  “Paige Turner is the liveliest, most charming detective to emerge in crime fiction in a long time. She is the product of her time and place—New York in the fifties—with a little Betty Boop and a little Brenda Starr in her makeup, but she is also her own woman, funny, smart, energetic, brave, hard-working, and determined to get to the bottom of the mystery. She is irresistible, a force of nature.”

  —Ann Waldron, author of A Rare Murder in Princeton

  “Matetsky adeptly captures the atmosphere of the 1950s, and her characters—especially Paige and her friend Abby—are a delight. This journey back to a time that now seems innocent is refreshing.”

  —Romantic Times

  “A fun new mystery series . . . a real page-turner.”

  —BookBrowser

  “A fast-paced, smart debut with a feisty heroine that entertains and keeps readers eagerly turning Paiges.”

  —The Mystery Reader

  Paige Turner Mysteries by Amanda Matetsky

  MURDERERS PREFER BLONDES

  MURDER IS A GIRL’S BEST FRIEND

  HOW TO MARRY A MURDERER

  MURDER ON A HOT TIN ROOF

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  MURDER ON A HOT TIN ROOF

  A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / November 2006

  Copyright © 2006 by Amanda Matetsky.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-08794-7

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME

  Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street,
New York, New York 10014.

  The name BERKLEY PRIME CRIME and the BERKLEY PRIME CRIME design are trademarks

  belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  For Harry, Sylvia, Matthew, Molly, Rae, Joel, Ira,

  Liza, Tim, Tara, Kate, Mary Lou, and Dick—

  my favorite cast of characters

  Acknowledgments

  I am, as always, most grateful to family and friends—especially Harry Matetsky1, Molly Murrah, Liza, Tim, Tara and Kate Clancy, Ira Matetsky, Matthew Greitzer, Rae and Joel Frank, Sylvia Cohen, Mary Lou and Dick Clancy, Susan Frank, Ann Waldron, Nelson DeMille, Dianne Francis, Dorothy Newmark, Craig Hughes, Art Scott, Betsy Thornton, Santa and Tom De Haven, Nikki and Bert Miller, Herta Puleo, Esther Schoenhorn, Marte Cameron, Mirella Rongo, Al Faust, Cameron Joy, Sandra Thompson and Chris Sherman, Donna and Michael Steinhorn, Stephanie and Burt Klein, Mark Voger, Gayle Rawlings and Debbie Marshall, Judy Capriglione, Martha Cevasco, Judy Dini, Betty Fitzsimmons, Nancy Francese, Jane Gudapati, Carleen Kierce, April Margolin, Margaret Ray, Doris Schweitzer, Carol Smith, Roberta Waugh and her heavenly helpmate, Joseph.

  My good friends at Literacy Nassau are a source of much-needed encouragement, as are my fellow mystery writers and readers at Sisters in Crime-Central Jersey. And my co-agents, Annelise Robey and Meg Ruley of the Jane Rotrosen Agency, and my editor at Penguin Group (USA), Martha Bushko, are the most inspiring and indulgent supporters any writer could ask for. A million thanks to them and every one of my readers.

  Prologue

  DANGER IS A POWERFUL DRUG. IT MAKES your heart throb, your head buzz, your limbs quiver, and your skin crawl. It sends adrenaline shooting through your veins like a bolt of electricity. It can make you weak as a kitten, or stronger than Charles Atlas. It can fill you with terror, or cause you to feel so brave and defiant you’d gladly challenge Senator Joe McCarthy (and all the rest of his hateful red-baiting House Un-American Activities Committee vigilantes) to a duel.

  You have to be very careful, though. Danger is such a devious, potent, and seductive stimulant that once you develop a taste for it, you can easily become addicted.

  As I seem to be.

  I’m Paige Turner (more about the preposterous name later), and I’m the only female on the six-person staff of a sensational (okay, trashy) true-crime magazine called Daring Detective. Normally, my job wouldn’t be especially dangerous—except for the fact that, as an abnormally assertive woman, I’m always in danger of getting fired—but since I’m also the only female writer in the whole darn detective magazine industry, and since I’m always trying to prove myself to be as tough and capable as any man . . . well, let’s just say I have a tendency to put myself in a teensy bit too much peril.

  Like the time I was writing about the rape and murder of an unwed mother/call girl and nearly got raped and murdered myself. Then, last Christmas, when I was working on the story of a young Macy’s salesgirl who was killed over an oatmeal box full of diamonds, I got shot! And just a few months after that—after my leg and shoulder wounds had healed and I was running all over Manhattan investigating the so-called suicide of a famous TV star—I was almost thrown to my death over a mezzanine railing.

  Get the picture? Danger clings to me like a possessive lover. Or maybe, as I noted before, it’s the other way around. But whatever the case (i.e., whoever’s doing the clinging), one thing is inescapably true: Danger and I have a very intimate relationship.

  This drives my boyfriend, NYPD homicide detective Dan Street, right out of his cautious, crime-busting mind. Every time I begin working on another unsolved murder story, he pops his cork altogether. He starts stomping around like a storm trooper, smoking one Lucky Strike after another, getting all red in his glowering yet gorgeous face, and flatly forbidding me to get further involved. If Dan had his way, I’d quit my job, take up embroidery instead of writing, and never again set foot outside the confines of my tiny, roach-infested Greenwich Village apartment.

  It’s nice that Dan worries about me so much, I guess. I surely wouldn’t like it if he didn’t care. But as a twenty-nine-year-old Korean War widow who has to make her own way in the world . . . and who prides herself on her own pluck and ingenuity . . . and who has longed to be a crime and mystery writer since she was an innately curious (okay, insanely nosy) girl of fourteen—well, I’m forced to admit that I sometimes find Dan’s concern for my safety a bit bothersome (all right, annoying as hell). And, as much as I admire and respect Dan’s noble and steadfast authority—in both his personal and professional life—there are times when, if I want to get on with my own life, I simply have to ignore it. And go on about my business. (And, though it pains and shames me to admit it, tell Dan a few lies to cover my tracks.)

  I never had this problem with my late husband, Bob Turner. Not because Bob was more supportive and understanding than Dan, but because Bob and I weren’t together long enough for any such power struggle to arise. We had been married only one brief, blissful month when he was called overseas to help General Douglas MacArthur fight the enemy in North Korea. I saw my brave, beloved husband off at Grand Central Station, hugging and kissing him as if my life depended on it, and begging the Fates to bring him back home to me soon.

  Well, the filthy, fickle Fates must have been really ticked off at me about something, because I never saw him again.

  Bob was killed in action three years and seven months ago, on the first day of December, 1951. And I’ve been on my own ever since. Except for some breathtakingly bittersweet memories, a small government-issued insurance policy, a few khaki-colored U.S. Army T-shirts, and—natch!—the hindmost half of my embarrassingly comical name, Bob didn’t leave me anything when he died. So, I’ve had to support myself. Totally. Which isn’t easy when you’re a woman living alone (and striving to do a man’s job) in the dog-eat-dog world of Manhattan. Which is why I’ve become the hardest-working (not to mention most danger-prone!) crime writer ever to nab a piece of the Daring Detective payroll pie.

  Though most of my DD duties consist of making coffee and attending to all secretarial and clerical chores (the boring, servile stuff my chauvinistic boss, Brandon Pomeroy, calls “women’s work”), I have, on occasion—as mentioned above—probed into an unsolved homicide, identified the murderer, and then written an in-depth, first-person story so shocking, scandalous, and exclusive that our editor-in-chief, Harvey Crockett (the ex-newspaperman who’s in charge of the whole DD operation) has overruled Brandon Pomeroy’s objections and published my work in the magazine. And a couple of my DD stories have even been expanded (by me, of course) and somewhat fictionalized (for legal reasons) and then published as mystery novels in twenty-five-cent paperback form.

  If I were a man, I’d be making darn good money by now. I’d be living the life of Riley (or at least Mickey Spillane) in a snazzy bachelor pad uptown, wining and dining a slew of glamour girls at the Stork and the Copacabana. But nothing like that happens to you when you’re a woman. When you’re a single working gal like me, you get paid a fraction of what your male coworkers earn. You live in a dingy little duplex over a fish store on Bleecker Street, and you dine alone on Campbell’s soup and crackers at your secondhand yellow Formica kitchen table. You also risk your neck (as well as your hotly developing romance with the city’s most handsome homicide detective) to fight your way up the sexist professional ladder.

  My best friend and next door neighbor, Abby Moscowitz, is really proud of me for having the courage (she calls it the chutzpah) to stick to my girlhood goals. She says a woman has to have “balls” if she wants to make it in America’s biggest and hardest city. And, you can take it from me, Abby knows what she’s talking about. She’s a fabulous freelance magazine illustrator (the best I’ve ever seen!), yet the only way she managed to get any work in the field was by barging into publishing offices and threatening to camp out in the waiting room—cooking beans on a hot plate and washing her stockings out in the ladies’ lavatory—until someb
ody looked at her portfolio.

  And by using a male signature on all her work.

  And by flaunting her female curves in front of the male art directors who dole out the assignments. (Abby’s breasts, you should know, are as fully developed as her hypothetical balls.)

  But as bold and brash as Abby is, she never gets herself into even half as much trouble as I do. You’ll see what I mean if you read the shocking and terrifying true story I’m about to start writing (i.e., expanding into a dime store mystery novel) for you right now. You’ll see how Abby somehow rises—almost floats—above the most atrocious and hazardous of situations, while I flap around in the dirt like a beheaded chicken, blindly scratching my way toward disaster and flipping feathers all over the place.

  The story starts out innocently enough (don’t they all?), but soon degenerates into a steamy tale of forbidden love, uncontrollable passion, unthinkable desperation, and—you guessed it!—murder. And that’s where you’ll find me—right in the murderous middle of things as usual—working my twitchy little tail off to get to the truth, and endangering my own twitchy little life while I’m at it.