“I’ll tell you,” Manelli said, looking up from his notepad. “The CD contains a recording of a Zoning Commission hearing.”
Holly hoped her face did not betray her. Good, old Ira.
“A Zoning Commission meeting?” Ivy asked.
“Why don’t you get out the fruit we bought at the parade yesterday?” Holly said, sitting down at the table.
“Oh--okay.” Ivy walked over to the counter and started looking through the bags they brought back from Kate’s.
Manelli flipped through his notepad. ”Here it is. You told me that Denise Archer said Mrs. Hagel objected to Louie Brunetti’s request for a zoning variance in order to put in a swimming pool. Isn’t it something that two days later I get a recording of that Zoning hearing?
Feeling trapped, Holly said nothing. She sat quietly, looking down at her hands in her lap. Manelli continued, “Do you believe in coincidences, Ms. Donnelly? Because I don’t.”
After a few seconds, she inhaled deeply and asked, “Does Mr. Brunetti threaten Mrs. Hagel on that CD?”
Manelli didn’t answer.
“Look, three days ago, I didn’t even know who Louie Brunetti was,” Holly said. “Based on what Denise told me, he has a lot of enemies. Maybe one of them sent the CD’s. I sure didn’t.”
“But you know who did,” Manelli said.
“Detective,” Ivy cut in, returning to the table with a bowl of plums and nectarines, “since you spoke to us on Thursday, Holly and I have done exactly what you asked. Holly hasn’t even made a phone call. We went away for the weekend. We are trying very hard to stay uninvolved, and we only got re-involved because Elena called us. What else could we do after we got that message?”
“You could have ignored the call,” he answered.
Ivy stiffened, put down the fruit bowl and looked directly at Manelli. ”We will not interfere with police work, Detective Manelli, but neither will we abandon this young woman to be intimidated by people not worth one half of her. Why, Jonathan Grabnick is not worth one-tenth of her! And by the way, we learned something else when we went to Mrs. Hagel’s wake the night before we left.”
Holly lowered her head and groaned.
“No, Holly. He needs to know this, too. When Holly offered her condolences to Steven Hagel, he jumped all over her because he said his lawyer told him she was helping Leonelle Gomez. Now how did Stephen Hagel’s lawyer know that? The only ones who knew we had even talked to her were you and Jonathan Grabnick. And I’m sure you didn’t tell him. Grabnick is supposed to be defending Leonelle, so talking to the Hagels’ lawyer is unethical, which, of course, begs the question, why would Steven Hagel be talking to his lawyer about Leonelle Gomez in the first place?”
Holly stood up and turned to leave the room.
“Uh-uh,” Manelli said, pointing to the chair she had just vacated.
“I told you, you don’t need me. She’ll tell you everything. I’m tired and I need to take a shower.”
“I’m not finished with you. Have a seat, please.”
Holly rolled her eyes, blew air through pursed lips and sat back down.
“Anybody else talk to you at the wake?” Manelli asked Ivy.
“Yes. What was that woman’s name, Holly?” When Holly didn’t answer, she continued. “I don’t remember her name--Diane or Doris--an older woman, said she thought Mrs. Hagel’s grandson killed her. And then Denise Archer saw me in the ladies room and she thought I was Holly. She said if the grandson did it, it was the granddaughter that told him to, so I’d be investigating the family if I were you, Detective.”
Manelli looked up from the notepad he’d been writing in, smiled at Ivy and said, “Thank you, Ms. Donnelly. You’ve been most helpful. You call me if you think of anything else.” He turned to Holly and said, “Could you walk me to the gate, please?”
Holly rolled her eyes, got up and headed to the front door. She opened it and went outside without looking back to see if Manelli was behind her. At the gate she stared at his car.
“I know you were on the Zoning Commission for two years, and I know you know who sent that CD. Whether or not you asked them to send it, you’re the reason they did. I warned you before that you could endanger yourself. Now maybe you understand what I meant. Once you start mucking around in a murder investigation, you set things in motion that you don’t control. That’s why police conduct investigations. That’s why we carry the guns.”
Holly turned to Manelli. “Look, I took what you said seriously. That’s why we went away. We don’t want to be involved, but now we are, and I can’t unsay what I said before. All we want to do is be there as moral support for Elena and her mother. That’s all.”
Manelli stared at her, as if trying to decide whether or not she meant what she said. Holly felt he was burning a hole right through her.
“You would do well to follow your sister’s example.”
Holly hated this. He made her feel like a school girl. ”What’s that supposed to mean?”
“When I ask you something, tell me the truth--the whole truth.”
“You know the whole truth now that you’ve talked to Ivy.”
“Yeah, but I suspect you keep things from her, too. Seriously. If you hold back information related to this investigation again, I’m going to find and bring in your friend on the Zoning Board for questioning. It won’t take me long to identify which of those guys you talked to. That should splash some cold water on your network of ‘informants’.”
Manelli actually mimed quotation marks in the air when he said the word “informants”. He reached inside his jacket pocket and fished out a business card. Clasping her right wrist with his left hand, he placed the card in her hand, pressing his right thumb into her palm. Holly tried to pull her hand away, but he didn’t loosen his grip. ”Keep this handy. I think you’re going to need it.”
“No, I won’t,” Holly objected.
“We’ll see. I’m not sure why, but people seem compelled to tell you things. Call me if they do.” He released her hand and Holly felt unmoored.
Manelli opened the gate, stepped onto the sidewalk and out onto the street around to the passenger side of his car.
“Don’t count on any calls from me,” Holly said. ”I’m done talking to anyone about this case.”
“Then you can call me just to chat,” he said with a straight face. As he got in his car, he shot her one last look, and Holly could have sworn he winked at her.
32 STOPPING THE DONNELLYS
Could he believe her? Would she really stop talking to people about this murder? Would she call him if someone told her something related to the case? Those were the questions Nick Manelli asked himself as he drove off, leaving Holly standing at her front gate.
This case was starting to get to him. In spite of the evidence against Leonelle Gomez, his gut told him she didn’t kill Edna Hagel. When he’d gone to arrest her, he found a cheaply furnished, but spotless apartment. Leonelle was calm and respectful throughout the questioning, as if she had nothing to hide. When he told her he was there to arrest her, her daughter started screaming at the patrolman who approached her mother with handcuffs. Leonelle quieted her daughter with a simple, “Silencio.” He smiled remembering that she had reminded him of his own mother. One word from her was always enough.
Subsequent investigation of the Gomez apartment turned up no stolen jewelry and no hidden cash. Pictures of Leonelle Gomez and Mrs. Hagel’s jewelry circulated at all of the pawnshops in Pineland County also turned up nothing. If Leonelle Gomez had stolen the jewelry, what had she done with it? Her bank account had a grand total of $557 in it--the result of $25 and $35 deposits made over a period of two years. If she’d sold the jewelry, where was the money?
No, he didn’t believe Leonelle Gomez was guilty of theft or murder, but he didn’t want anyone else to know that--especially the killer. This Donnelly woman was complicating things. He had to stop her interference. The problem was that within just a few days, she had figured out the ke
y players in this investigation. If she worked for him, he would be ecstatic. But she wasn’t a policeman. Having to look out for a meddling civilian only made an already hard job even harder. Besides, he was genuinely worried that she was going to stumble onto something that would get her or her sister hurt. He feared she may have already done that.
Manelli had never met women like these two sisters. On the surface they seemed like a couple of ordinary middle-aged women, mainstays of their neighborhoods, volunteer types, interested in their homes and gardens, and cutting recipes out of magazines. They were all that, but they were also very smart and unexpectedly fearless. Holly was more assertive, but Ivy was more observant. Together they had the qualities of a good investigator, and that, for him, was the problem. They had the smarts and the moxie to ask the right questions of the right people, but they weren’t trained police officers and that was likely to put them in danger. Worst of all they were personally involved, committed to helping Leonelle and Elena Gomez. How was he going to stop them?
Suddenly Manelli remembered something. He pulled into a parking spot on Pineland Street and took out his notepad. What was it Ivy said about Steven Hagel? He flipped through his notes. There it was. Hagel knew the Donnellys were helping Leonelle Gomez. Ivy was right. If he and Grabnick were the only ones who knew the Donnellys were trying to help Mrs. Gomez, how did Hagel and his lawyer find out? It had to be Grabnick. What was a court-appointed lawyer doing talking about his client’s case with the victim’s family lawyer? Time to pay Grabnick a visit.
33 EXHAUSTED
Holly remained standing in front of the gate a few moments after Manelli drove off. She looked at his card. What just happened? Was he flirting with me? No way. He was mocking me!
Inside Ivy was waiting at the door. “Well?”
“Well what?”
“I saw him holding your hand, Holly.”
“You’re delusional. He wasn’t holding my hand. He gave me his business card and just wanted to make sure I didn’t throw it on the ground.”
“Okay, Cleo.”
“Cleo?”
“Yeah, Cleopatra, Queen of Da Nile. Say what you want. I saw him wink at you.”
Holly brushed past Ivy and went to the kitchen.
Ivy followed. “Okay, explain to me about the CD. Who sent it?”
Holly looked at Ivy, stuck out her tongue and waggled her head. ”I’m not telling you, Blabbermouth. What you don’t know, you can’t tell your new best friend. I thought you were going to tell him about our game of Clue and run upstairs and get your list of suspects. Maybe even give him Kate’s number so he could get her take on things as well.”
“C’mon. Tell me you honestly don’t think it’s better that he knows everything we know.”
“It doesn’t matter what I think now.” Holly grabbed the cracker box and the cheese board and went out to the patio. Ivy followed.
As she sliced some cheese, Holly said, “I am sure of one thing. That CD has to have Louie Brunetti threatening Mrs. Hagel on it. That’s why Grabnick freaked. He doesn’t want to go up against Brunetti.”
“Why not?” Ivy sat down across the table from Holly.
“Brunetti is brother-in-law to one of the city councilmen. Together they harass and make life miserable for anyone who messes with them.”
“How do you know that? You said Denise Archer told you, but she didn’t say any of that when she talked to us. And you told Manelli, you never heard of Brunetti before that.”
Holly pointed the cheese knife at Ivy. “Et tu, Brute? So now, you’re grilling me, too?”
“No, I’m just trying to understand.”
“I’m not telling you who told me, so just drop it.”
“Okay--okay.”
Neither said anything as Holly finished the crackers and wrapped up the remaining cheese.
“What do we do now?” Ivy asked.
“You tell me,” Holly replied.
“Should we go visit Leonelle? You know we only saw her once and maybe she’s had some time to think about things and remember some other details that could help.”
“She has to tell the police, not us.”
“Hey, where’s this coming from? What exactly did Manelli say to you?”
“He said he was going to find and haul in for questioning whoever sent that CD if we didn’t keep him informed of anything we hear.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh.”
“So what’s the problem? We just tell him everything.”
“I’m not convinced that telling him everything is a good thing.”
“But…”
“Look, I’m just too tired to argue with you. I don’t even want to think about this anymore.” Holly grabbed the empty cracker box and stood up. Ivy lifted the cheese board and they returned to the kitchen.
“Uh-oh,” Ivy said. “The message light is blinking.”
“Please let it just be a sales call hang up.” Holly hit the play message button.
“Holl-eee! It’s Teresa. I need to talk to you. I found out something that may interest you regarding that matter we discussed at lunch last week. Gimme a call.”
“This can’t be good.” Holly’s shoulders sagged.
“Are you going to call her?”
Holly straightened up. “No. No, I’m not. I’m going to put my personal needs first. I’m going upstairs and take a shower and a nap. This can wait. I’ll call her when I get up.”
“Okay,” Ivy shrugged. ”I’ll take Lucky for a walk.” She grabbed the leash and went back outside.
Holly’s shoulders ached and her neck felt as if it were in a vice. As she climbed the stairs, she struggled to keep her eyes open. In her room she took off her tee-shirt, then reached into her pockets to empty them before removing her shorts. In her right pocket, she felt Manelli’s card and the feeling of his thumb on her palm returned. Though she would never admit it to Kate or Ivy, she was powerfully attracted to this man. This was the first time since her break-up with Brian, that she’d felt even remotely attracted to anyone. Manelli infuriated her. She hated his telling her what to do, but at the same time, she was drawn to him because he was strong and sure of himself, unlike any of the men she’d been out on dates with over the last ten years. And, as Ivy said, he was quite a hunk. She couldn’t deny the combination was quite appealing.
She finished undressing and got in the shower. Really, what were the chances Manelli was interested in her? He must have a girlfriend. No man that attractive could be unattached. But he did wink at her. She wasn’t imagining that. Ivy saw it, too.
Holly got out of the shower, put on clean clothes and collapsed on the bed. She wondered if Kate and Ivy were right. No. Impossible. It was much more likely that he was just playing with her to keep her in line during this investigation. He probably got his kicks teasing middle-aged women, knowing the effect he was having on them. She was not going to be made a fool of again. A lump formed in her throat as she remembered that suffocating sensation she felt when she learned Brian had been cheating on her. She pulled back the covers and got in bed. As she drifted off to sleep she tried not to think of how her wrist felt in Manelli’s grasp.
35 MANELLI PAYS GRABNICK A VISIT
Manelli found a parking spot on Main Avenue near the office building that housed Grabnick’s office. He looked at his notes again. Holly said that Grabnick became “Mr. Congeniality” when he found out she had not sent the CD.
He had to admit Holly was right. Clearly Grabnick had no intention of following up on Brunetti’s threat against Mrs. Hagel or using it as part of Leonelle Gomez’s defense. Even a court-appointed lawyer, with no resources to privately investigate, would contact the police with this evidence for them to investigate. Why hadn’t Grabnick? There was only one way to find out.
Manelli put his notepad back in his pocket, got out of the car and walked to the side entrance of the building. The door stuck and he had to force it open. He climbed the shabby staircase and knocked on Grabnick’s
door. No answer. Manelli tried the door and found it open. A startled Jonathan Grabnick looked up.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
“Mr. Grabnick, I’m Detective Manelli with the Pineland Park Police Department.” Manelli flashed his badge. ”I’m investigating the Hagel murder case.”
“Yes, of course. I saw your name on the police report,” Grabnick said. ”Have a seat. What can I do for you, Detective?”
Manelli sat down and stretched back in his chair, staring at Grabnick, smiling as he imagined the scene in this office earlier when Holly, Ivy and Elena had visited. He didn’t respond to Grabnick immediately. Will he squirm?
Grabnick blinked almost instantly. He looked down at the papers on his desk, fidgeting in his seat. He checked his watch and said impatiently, “I’m rather busy this morning and quite pressed for time.”
Manelli pulled out his notepad, perused it for another second or two, looked up at Grabnick and asked, “Mr. Grabnick, did you receive something in the mail related to the Hagel case? Probably sent anonymously.”
“Something in the mail? Like what?” Grabnick asked, again looking down at the papers on his desk, not making eye contact.
Manelli disliked lawyers, and he especially disliked incompetent ones. “Like a CD recording of a Zoning Commission hearing.”
Now it was Grabnick’s turn to stall. He looked around his desk, and even reached over to his inbox as if he were really looking for the CD. ”No, Detective. I don’t recall receiving such a CD. Why would anyone send me a copy of a Zoning Commission hearing?”
“Because I received one,” Manelli answered, becoming stony-faced.
Grabnick pulled his chair in closer to his desk, straightened his tie, pushed his glasses up on his nose, and shuffled some papers on his desk. “I don’t understand why you think I would have received this CD, simply because you did.”
“Mine came with a note that said a copy was sent to you.” That was a lie, but Manelli never felt any guilt about lying to a liar. Ironically, he found it one of the most effective means of getting at the truth.
Second Bloom Page 14