Nice Girls Finish Last Read Online Free Page A

falling in love was much of a bright side given the down side, one dead doctor.
    When I finally got back to bed, I lay there for a while, awake, thinking about Kanengiser. Whoever had killed him had planned it in advance, and had had the foresight to get the night nurse out of the office and cancel my appointment. So it was someone who had had access to his office and had seen the appointment book somehow, perhaps on a previous visit. Possibly a jealous husband or lover who had come by to pick up his wife or girlfriend at the office, but more likely a woman, a girlfriend and/or a patient of Dr. Kanengiser, I thought.
    Then I caught myself. It wasn’t any of my business—I barely knew the guy. The cops were on the job. Who did I think I was anyway, Bat Girl? The last thing I needed at the moment was to get mixed up in a messy murder. Sure, it had been fun to chew the fat on old homicides with a young cop. But those days were behind me now. I was a grown-up. In fact, I hadn’t looked through my murder scrapbooks in months, since I had decided that my interest in the subject might be unhealthy and abnormal.
    Curiosity, I remembered, always got me into trouble. It was curiosity that cost me my coveted interview with avant-garde undertaker Max Guffy, which killed my series, “Death in Modern America,” no pun intended. Well, it wasn’t just curiosity. Vodka was also involved. But it was mostly curiosity. The two, vodka and curiosity, were to be avoided, because, you see, my troublemaking days were over.

3
    I t was a sign of my deep state of denial, combined with temporary post-sleep amnesia, that when I woke up the next morning to the sight of the parchment Desiderata poster on the ceiling above my bed, I had forgotten about Kanengiser.
    â€œThe headlines at this hour: After years of decline, the murder rate is up in New York,” intoned the very serious voice of the announcer on 1010 WINS All-News Radio. “But air pollution levels are down, and the forecast says, rain all day.”
    â€œWell, there’s a mixed message for you,” I said to Louise Bryant. “My chances of being killed immediately and violently are up, my chances of being killed slowly by lung disease are down, and either way, it’s going to rain all day.”
    Louise didn’t even open her eyes. The cat responds to only two sounds, that of the can opener and that of my singing (any song, as long as the lyrics are her name sung over and over).
    It was raining all right. Through the water-smeared window, the street was a blur of gray people going to work, moving like blobs of mercury on glass, rushing past the guillotine on the sidewalk without even seeing it. What a great day to stay at home and be unconscious, I thought, but I couldn’t call in sick. A bad flu season had eaten up my sick days for the year by February. If I took another day, especially for mental health reasons, it would end up as another black mark on my permanent record.
    â€œDr. Herman Kanengiser, gynecologist and member of the District 27 community board, was found dead of a gunshot wound in his midtown office last night. Police say they have no suspects at the moment,” said the guy on WINS.
    Oh yeah, I thought. Dr. Kanengiser.
    I’d been feeling all right, but being reminded of the murder brought me down. I turned off the news—too depressing—and put on a tape of bouncy, pick-me-up tunes to fortify me as I showered, checked myself for signs of necrotic fascitis, and worked myself back into that excellent state of denial.
    Perhaps my bathroom mirror said it best when it sloganeered: AVOID UNPLEASANTNESS .
    There would, however, be no avoiding the Kanengiser murder. When I got to work, the whole place was buzzing with it. Normally, the murder of a nonfamous doctor would cause barely a ripple in the ANN newsroom. Oh, it might attract some prurient interest and inspire a few sick “dead gynecologist” jokes among