Well, well. Apparently, Carlotta Mendez was as much of a whiz at making money as she was at making chocolate. This doesn’t look good for Howie. Not good at all. He had a double motive, means, and opportunity. No one’s going to buy a dog’s hearing over that.
A footfall at the bottom of the stairs brought Percy back to the here and now. Defter than seemingly her size would allow, she sprang up, snatched her hat from the desk, and dashed behind the partially opened door.
Chapter Eighteen
Through the crack, she watched the cop with whom she sometimes kept company or shared a case, pass by. She pushed the door open and stepped out from behind it.
“Hey, Hutchers. How they hanging?”
The man who matched Percy in height and dedication to his job, wheeled around with a startled look on his face. “Jeez Louise, you scared me half to death! What are you doing hiding behind the door?”
“I thought you might be Bogdanovitch. If so, I wanted to be ready. Not your nicest guy. What are you doing here? Don’t you have a job in midtown Manhattan?”
“Day off. Worked two weekends in a row. Even coppers get a break now and again. I called your office, spoke to your mother, and she told me you were here. I thought I’d run down just to make sure you didn’t get into any trouble.” He did a double-take at the open safe and the papers on the floor. “Looks like I’m a little late.”
She crossed a little closer and smiled. “I found it like that.”
“Did you, now?”
“Cross my heart.” She waved the pencil under his nose. “Of course, I pushed a few things around, had a little look-see.”
“And what did you see?”
“I saw the sea,” she half-sang, with a wink.
“Perce, this ain’t no time for Fred Astaire songs.” His voice was gruff. “You shouldn’t be fooling around with evidence. You sure you didn’t bust that safe open?”
“Hutchers! You do me wrong.” Percy feigned insult. “I would never bust open somebody’s safe. Not my style.”
“That’s true. You’re more likely to bust open somebody’s head.”
Percy shrugged. “I was about to call the cops --”
“Sure you were,” Hutchers interrupted.
“Eventually.”
She tossed her hat on top of the desk again. “I found the door unlocked, the lights on, and the safe wide-open, with not a sign of Bogdanovitch anywhere. Carlotta’s passport, her will, and a list of properties lying there for the reading. No lie. Hutchers, this doesn’t smell right.”
“Nothing ever smells right to you including me, but I like you, anyway.” He gave her a lopsided smile. “You going to call the cops, report a possible burglary?”
“Eventually,” they both said in unison.
“In that case, put your hat back on, I’ll take you to a late lunch --”
“It’s nearly three,” Percy interrupted.
“Early dinner then. And I’ll tell you what I know so far on this case. We can pretend we never been in here.”
“Sounds aces, but I’ve got some thinking to do.” She moved behind the desk and sat down, removing the bag of Pistachios from her pocket, tossing it on the desk. “Lock that door, take a load off, and have a Pistachio. Once I’m done thinking, we can hash this out.”
Hutchers let out a guffaw, returned to the door and closed it. After a moment’s thought, he threw the lock. Back at the desk, he took off his hat, and tossed it next to hers. He sat, putting crossed legs up on a corner of the desk to watch Percy think.
For a full fifteen-minutes they sat in silence. Percy sat. Hutchers watched. She came out of it, almost as if waking up. She turned to the man across from her with a smile.
“There’s a lot more to this case than meets the eye. First off, this was not your standard robbery. They left the passport, which is worth big bucks on the black market, and there’s a couple of other things that don’t jive, either. I haven’t figured them out yet, but at least I know what they are.”
Hutchers reached for a handful of Pistachios and broke one open with his thumbnail.
“When you get through straining your brain, we should call Brooklyn’s Finest. They’re not going to like being left out of this.”
“A little nervous about it, pal?”
Percy grinned at him. He took his feet off the desk and leaned forward, about to say something.
“Just kidding, Hutchers. Relax. I’ll call right now. By the time they get here, we can finish our little talk.”
She picked up the phone and dialed zero. “What’s the name of the guy in charge of this case, anyway?”
“Lieutenant Griffin.” Hutchers leaned back in the chair and returned his feet to the desktop. “Not the brightest bulb in the bunch, but thorough.”
“Good to know.”
After she gave the information to the precinct, and hung up the phone, she turned back to Hutchers.
“They’ll be here in less than ten minutes, so let’s talk fast. In the will on the floor, Carlotta leaves the formula for the chocolate and all her financial holdings to her next of kin. The chocolate business and this building goes to Howie Goldberg.”
Hutchers let out a soft whistle. “That don’t look so good for your friend.”
“No, it doesn’t and I got to fix this.”
“If you can’t, he’s going to fry in the chair for sure once the D.A. sees that will.”
“The way I figure it, whoever opened that safe was in a hurry. They rifled through the papers, dumped what they weren’t looking for, and took what they wanted. I think I know what that was.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. A formula for chocolate. She kept it in the safe. Bogdanovitch told me.”
“Who the hell would take a recipe for chocolate?”
“Almost anyone in the chocolate game, that’s who. Interesting how Carlotta set it up, too. She was one smart cookie; not fair but smart. She may have left the business to Howie, but she left the chocolate formula to her next of kin.”
“Meaning what?”
“One’s no good without the other on the surface of it, but it might have been a clever maneuver.”
“How so?”
“It keeps the real wealth in the family but gets an outsider to work his butt off for you, especially if the outsider has to lease or pay the family for the chocolate formula. There’s might even a clause in the will - one I didn’t get a chance to read -- about Howie not being able to sell the business without giving the Mendez family the right of first refusal. Speaking of family, she left everything else to her next of kin, and it’s quite a bagful.”
“According to Griffin, that would be the cousin in Chicago. But if you’re thinking he did it, unless he sprouted wings, it ain’t possible.” Hutchers dumped a handful of shells into a nearby ashtray. “His name is Paulo Mendez, and the gentleman in question was at his father-in-law’s birthday party last night until eleven-thirty. At least, that’s what his wife and fifteen other guests say.”
“Why, Hutchers, I’m impressed.”
“Don’t be. Griffin did it. I told you he was thorough. Dumb but thorough. Chicago checked it out and called Griffin back with the news. I had coffee with him a little while ago. He couldn’t talk enough about the case. Happy as a clam it’s his.”
“Do tell.”
“Here’s a news flash. Seems he also got a phone call from one of Goldberg’s neighbors. Said she and her dog heard Goldberg going down the stairs around three a.m. this morning.”
“Oh?”
“Said she had a visit from this nice lady detective, who jarred her memory about it.”
“No kidding.”
He gave her a knowing look. “Gee, I wonder who that might have been.”
“Yeah, there’s so many lady detectives, Hutchers.”
“It was the ‘nice’ that threw me.”
“I must be losing my touch if she thought I was nice. That sway Griffin or not?”
“Not really.” Hutchers scratch
ed his nose. “Griffin doesn’t think much of it. There’s a million ways Goldberg could have left and not been heard. He could have gone down the fire escape for one thing, done the deed, and returned the same way. He only lives on the second floor. But for my money, it convinces me of Goldberg’s innocence. That and the fact you say so.”
“Glad to hear it. I could use all the help I can get. Got anything else?”
“The coroner says Carlotta Mendez was probably strangled with the rope until she was unconscious and then tossed head first into the chocolate. That would account for the chocolate in her lungs.”
Percy thought for a moment. “A desecration of her body.”
“If that means they turned the heat up on the stove to cook her until she was dead, I would say yes.”
They locked eyes, her clear green ones searching his dark brown. “I don’t like crimes of passion or vendettas, Hutchers. Things get out of control.”
“And dangerous. Never forget that.”
“You bet. Anything else? Griffin should be here any minute.”
“They’re on the lookout for Bogdanovitch. Have been all morning. They’d like to land something on him. They owe him.”
“I figured that would happen. Long shadows.”
“You wouldn’t happen to know where he is.”
“Nope. Last time I saw him was around eight o’clock this morning. He’s got a girlfriend over on the east side who might know. But I’ll save that little tidbit for Griffin. You know, throw him a bone.”
Both heard the sound of multiple footsteps on the stairs.
“Sounds like a herd of elephants, so it must be the cops, Hutchers.” She reached for the bag of nuts and crammed what was left in her breast pocket. “Get your feet off the desk. We don’t want to look too comfortable here. And you’d better unlock the door.”
Chapter Nineteen
Hutchers opened the door to the office just as Lieutenant Griffin stepped up on the landing. When he saw the fellow officer he’d shared coffee with not an hour before, he froze in place.
“Ken Hutchers? What are you doing here?” Griffin moved forward and crossed the threshold.
“Just passing through. Not my party,” Hutchers said. He stepped aside to let the men enter. Griffin was followed in by two policemen in uniform.
“And who the hell are you?” Griffin scowled at Percy.
Percy rose slowly. “I’m the model citizen who called to tell you of the possible break-in.”
Lieutenant Griffin stomped across the room and glared at Percy. “That ain’t telling me who you are.”
“My name is Persephone Cole and --”
“I heard about you.”
Griffin’s tone was accusatory. He turned to face Hutchers, who was standing neutral in the corner, hat in his hand, arms at his side. The lieutenant pivoted back to Percy.
“You’re that gal dick. The one who’s too big for everything, including her britches.”
He spoke as he crossed to the desk and practically spat out the last two words. Unruffled, Percy gave him a big smile.
“Aw, now why do you want to go saying insulting stuff for? We can all be pals here. After all, I didn’t say anything about your taste in ties and I could say plenty.”
“I should arrest you for breaking and entering.” He leaned in threateningly.
Hutchers rolled his eyes. “Save it, Griffin. Scare tactics don’t work on her.”
“No, they don’t.” Percy stood tall and looked down at the slightly shorter man. “For the record, I got permission from the manager to be here. You know him, guy named Bogdanovitch.”
“Bogdanovitch! He a pal of yours? You know where that S.O.B. is? We got a couple of questions for him.”
“Not a clue and he’s no pal of mine.”
“That still don’t explain what you’re doing here.”
“I’m investigating the murder of Carlotta Mendez.”
“We got the man who did it. I think you broke into that safe.”
He turned and pointed in the direction of the safe. Percy shook her head, and sat down.
“Use your brain, Griffin, if you got one. If I did this, would I be calling you to come and arrest me? And Howard Goldberg didn’t kill her.”
“Oh, no?” His voice was challenging. “That’s not what the D.A. says.”
“Since when does anybody listen to the D.A., even a flatfoot? It would be a first.” Percy let out a chuckle.
“Isn’t he the one who issued a public apology for mishandling state funds?” Hutchers threw the comment in with a grin. “That’s what I read in the Times, anyway.”
“That would be the guy, Hutchers.” Percy grinned back.
“Never mind, you two.” Losing the argument, Lieutenant Griffin turned away and moved toward the safe. “What’s this on the floor?”
Percy looked in the direction. “Looks like papers to me.”
“You do that?”
“We’ve been all through that. I’m the model citizen --”
“Yeah, yeah.”
He waved a dismissive hand at Percy and crouched down. He turned to one of the policeman standing at the door.
“Go get a kit out of the squad car and check this place for fingerprints.”
The angular officer left at a clipped speed, nearly bumping into the door on his way out. Griffin watched him then looked at Percy.
“Mind if we have a set from you? Just to be sure.”
“Hers are already on file.” Hutchers interjected.
“Yeah, you got to do that in order to get a P.I. license.” Percy smiled in the squatting man’s direction.
Griffin grunted, took out a pen, and pushed the papers on the floor around. He went on.
“I don’t think you got any jurisdiction in Brooklyn. Your license is for Manhattan, isn’t it? Might have to run you in on general principles.”
Hutchers looked away and whistled to himself softly. Still smiling, Percy shook her head slowly.
“License is good for the five boroughs, Griffin. You should know that.” Percy stood, picked up her fedora, and plopped it on her head. “And as much as I love listening to you blow hot air, I got other things doing. See you around.”
She moved from behind the desk and started for the door, turning back midway.
“By the way, if you’re looking for Bogdanovitch, you might check out his girlfriend, Helena Wilson. He mentioned she lives on the east side of Manhattan. You inspect the nearby trash cans?”
The change in subject threw Griffin. He stood up, looked at her, and stuttered.
“Trash cans? What the hell for?”
“For a smock or something that’s covered with chocolate our killer might have been wearing. Something he threw away after he killed Carlotta Mendez.”
Griffin snickered and squatted down again. “No point in doing that. We got our man.”
“That’s what I thought.” Percy walked to the door, stopping by Hutchers, with a whispered question. “You coming?”
“Where we going?” He whispered back, one eyebrow arched.
They both stepped onto the landing and started down the stairs, side by side.
“I thought we’d look into some trash around here, say within a five-block radius.”
“Oh, gee.” Hutchers set his hat on his head, pulling down on the brim. “Just what I want to be doing on my day off, routing through Brooklyn’s garbage.”
Chapter Twenty
Dear Diary,
I need to be careful. That woman detective is snooping around. I didn’t count on her. I gave the cops what I want them to know, but I don’t want her finding out anything else.
Chapter Twenty-one
Percy tried the front door of her family’s apartment and sure enough, the door was unlocked. A huge sigh escaped her, one of frustration and fatigue. She shook her head and glanced at her watch. Five-fifteen. It felt like a much longer day.
She went to the gold-gilded telephone table in the foyer, the one she’d been tryin
g to unsuccessfully get rid of for years. Unfortunately, Mother treated it as if it were her fourth child. Making a disgruntled face, Percy dropped a brown paper bag on it and true to form, it wobbled ever so slightly at the disturbance.
“Hello? Anybody here?” She called out to a silent apartment. “And how many times have Pop and I said to keep the front door locked? Anybody can walk right in here.”
A split-second later, the swinging door to the kitchen at the end of the hall pushed open. Mother stood in the doorway with a big smile on her face.
Percy walked toward her. “I know that smile. You wear that when you have to tell me something you know I’m not going to like.”
Percy halted and faced her mother. She looked down at her mother’s slender five-foot seven-inch frame covered by another one of her meticulously made, hand-sewn dresses, this one in a small paisley print.
“Let’s have it.”
Mother gestured for Percy to follow her inside the kitchen, the door swinging closed behind them.
“Now I don’t want you to worry, Persephone, but --”
“Something’s happened to Oliver!”
“Oliver’s fine, dear, but there was a slight problem at school. He’s in his room doing homework and --”
Persephone swallowed hard with relief. “What happened?”
“I’m not completely sure, Persephone, but the school called earlier and said Oliver had gotten into a fight with an older boy right after school in the school yard.”
“Oliver? In a fight? He’s usually such an easy going kid. I’m surprised.”
“Well, I couldn’t get much out of him, even with offering him more marshmallowed cauliflowers. But I put some mercurochrome on his cheek. The cut isn’t too bad.”
“The cut?”
With a quick intake of breath, Percy wheeled around, and slammed at the kitchen door. It swung open wide and she hurried through. Once she arrived at the closed door of her son’s bedroom, though, she paused.
The Chocolate Kiss-Off Page 9