by C. R. Corwin
I reached the paper. Pushed my face against the red-hot glass door so Al Tosi, our rickety security guard, could see me. He buzzed me in. Called after me as I drooped past him toward the elevator. “Scorcher today, no?”
9
Friday, July 21
I spent the afternoon redoing Eric’s mark-up of Thursday’s paper, making sure he heard my cussing. Actually, he hadn’t done a bad job at all, but Morgue Mama does have a reputation to protect, doesn’t she? Anyway, just when I was gathering up my stuff to get the hell out of there, Bob Averill appeared in front of my desk eating a Snickers bar. The wrapper was pulled back like a banana skin. “Everything hunky-dory, Maddy?”
“As hunky-dory as it was yesterday, Bob.” It was the umpteenth time he’d pestered me about my progress that week. He always did so without mentioning Eddie French, or Violeta Bell, or anything else relating to the case. I suppose he figured just flapping around me like a bat was intimidation enough.
He tried again. “Doing anything interesting this weekend?”
“Hopefully not,” I said. I headed for the stairs.
He fell in alongside me. He’d finished the candy bar. Now he was licking the chocolate off the wrapper. “Suzie told me you signed up for a week’s vacation.”
He was about ready to implode with frustration and I was loving it. “Actually, I’m thinking of changing it to two weeks.”
“Two weeks?”
“I’ve got five coming.”
The great man crumbled. He put his hand on my shoulder to stop me. He dug his chin onto his chest. “Maddy, please,” he whimpered, “Jeannie Salapardi has been calling every night.”
I patted his hand. Removed it from my shoulder. “That must be terribly annoying,” I said. “Have a great weekend, Bob.”
I fled into the stairwell. Hurried down to the parking deck. I got into my car and got the hell out of there. I didn’t even take time to turn on the air conditioning.
My intention that afternoon was to go straight home to James, Alex Trebek, and the last fillet of that tilapia Ike had brought me in lieu of flowers or candy. Instead, I caught myself taking a left turn onto Hawthorne Avenue.
Hawthorne is very typical of the streets surrounding Meriwether Square. It’s paved with bumpy bricks. It’s lined with big oaks. There’s not a house on it built later than 1925. I pulled to the curb just shy of the dilapidated monstrosity that Eddie French called home. My intention was simply to see where he lived and how he lived. Before I found the courage to actually knock on his door on some future date. It’s a tactic I often employ. Years ago when I was pursuing the assistant librarian’s job at The Herald-Union, I circled the building like a buzzard for two hours before going inside to apply.
According to the research Eric gave me, the house was divided into four apartments. Two down and two up. Eddie had rented 2A for the past nine years. Dale’s story said the police found traces of blood on his porch. That meant Eddie’s apartment was atop an outside stairway. Unfortunately, I could see no such stairway from my car. No doubt it was at the back of the house. I got out of my car and crept up the driveway. I’d never heard such noisy gravel in my life.
I reached the back of the house. I snuggled against the siding and peeked around the corner. Most of the backyard had been turned into parking spaces for the tenants. Eddie’s cab was parked there. So was a rusty Hausenfelter bread truck. So was a shiny silver Volvo. It’s not unusual to see Volvos in Meriwether Square—there are oodles of them in fact—but it was a bit surprising to see one less than twenty years old.
“You need help?”
It was not exactly the voice of God. But it was a voice from above. From the small deck atop the wooden stairs that zigzagged up the side of the house. It belonged to Eddie French. I recognized his gray whiskers and his rumpled Woolybears ballcap. He was sitting sideways on the railing, flicking cigarette ashes into a coffee cup. I had no choice but to turn my scouting mission into a full-fledged visit. “Mr. French?”
His voice was sleepy. Nasal. “In the flesh, madam.”
Gabriella in her ignorance had said he talked like an old hippie. Actually, it was more of a fifties’ hipster voice, sculptured more by black coffee and nicotine than funny mushrooms and Pepsi-Cola. “I hope you don’t mind me dropping by,” I said, before realizing I hadn’t introduced myself yet. “I’m Maddy Sprowls, by the way.”
He’d heard of me. “Oh yes—the buttinsky responsible for my current conundrum.”
I advanced to the bottom of the stairway. “I am somewhat responsible,” I admitted.
He flicked a caterpillar of ashes into his cup. “And I am resoundedly irresponsible,” he said.
It took me a few seconds to translate his particular brand of English. Even then I wasn’t 100 percent sure of what he meant. I eased myself onto the first step. “For Violeta Bell’s murder, you mean?”
“Is there somebody else I didn’t kill?”
Had I actually planned on confronting Eddie that afternoon, I would have been prepared for his hostility. But I hadn’t, and I wasn’t. I found myself stammering like a little girl who’d just been caught drawing on the wall with her mother’s bright red lipstick. I moved up another step. “No, no. Of course not, no. And there are people who don’t think you killed Ms. Bell, either.”
He flipped his spent cigarette in my direction. “Including the diminutive apparition sneaking up my backstairs?”
Before I could answer, the screen door to his apartment banged open. A woman came out. She was fiftyish. Impeccably and expensively dressed in white slacks, a melon crepe tee and designer flip-flops. She, too, was wearing a baseball cap, a bright pink one. A perky blond ponytail stuck out the back. She just had to be the owner of the silver Volvo. “Are you Jeannie?” I asked.
She pressed her palms on the railing and leaned out. Even from down there I could see her jaw muscles tighten. “I’m Mrs. Salapardi,” she said. “Can I help you?”
Eddie filled her in before I could open my mouth. “That, sis, is Bob Averill’s ace in the hole.”
That changed everything. Suddenly Jeannie was smiling like Glinda the Good Witch, beckoning me to come up with both hands. “Maddy, I’ve been dying to meet you.” She said when I reached the top. “Just dying.”
“Bob told you about me, did he?”
Eddie remained perched on the railing. Jeannie warmly shook my hand with both of hers. “He sure did,” she cooed.
I could tell by the twitches at the tips of her phony baloney smile that he hadn’t mentioned how frumpily unimpressive I was. The only way to counter her correct impression of me—and hide the fact that after two weeks of snooping I hadn’t learned a damn thing that would prove her brother’s innocence—was to get right to business. “So Mr. French, is that old bread truck down there the vehicle you allegedly used to haul those antiques from Violeta Bell’s condominium?”
Eddie splayed his hand across his heart. He pushed an opened pack of Newports to the top of his shirt pocket. He bowed his head low and pulled out a cigarette with his lips. A very cool move. “So say the gendarmes.”
“You do own it, then?”
He struck a stick match on his fingernail and lit his cigarette. Filled his lungs with smoke. Suppressed a cough. “No one owns it that I know. It sort of belongs to the neighborhood. Anybody needs a short haul, there it is. Keys in the ashtray. Hopefully enough liquefied brontosaurus in the tank to get you there and back.”
Knowing Meriwether Square as I did, I knew he could very well be telling the truth. “What about the license plates?”
Smoke rolled out of his nostrils. “That is the metaphysical part of the mystery. New stickers appear every April like tulips through the cold, cold earth.”
I knew he could be telling the truth about that, too. “Exactly where did the police find that blood?”
Eddie pointed to a faint chalk circle on the floor of the deck, about a foot from the welcome mat. I kneeled next to it. Inside the circle was a dark bro
wn blotch. When I got my nose close enough, I could see the faint zigzag of tennis shoe treads. I looked over at Eddie’s feet. He was wearing a spotless pair of white Nikes.
Eddie clicked his toes together. “Brand f-ing new they are,” he said, in an exaggerated British accent. “The bobbies in their ‘aste confiscated all me bloody footwear, they did.”
“And was there actually blood on one of your shoes?” I asked.
“I’m sure you can find all kinds of stuff on anybody’s shoes,” Eddie said. “Life being the untidy juggernaut it is.”
“So, there was blood?”
“So sayeth the men in blue,” said Eddie. “But I sternly cautioned them not to jump to conclusions. That if indeed it proved to be blood, then there was a high probability that said blood did not dribble from the veins or arteries of a bipedal primate.”
I was pretty sure I was following him. “Not human?”
“Eddie’s got a cat,” Jeannie explained.
He corrected her. “It ain’t my cat. Sort of a neighborhood cat. I put out a can of tuna every once in a while. And the grateful beast rewards me with a variety of headless beasts. Rats. Mice. Moles. Rabbits. Right here at my door.”
I studied the stain again. “That’s animal blood, then?”
“I’d be surprised otherwise,” Eddie said.
“Why don’t we go inside and talk,” Jeannie said.
The living room in Eddie’s apartment was exactly what you’d expect. Hot. Stuffy. Darkened by cheap, half-pulled shades. There was a plaid sofa decorated with an Indian blanket. A rocking chair stacked with newspapers. A bookcase crammed full of paperbacks. A sisal rug long overdue for the city’s landfill.
Jeannie offered me the rocker. Eddie dutifully removed the newspapers. They sat on the sofa. He with his cigarette and coffee cup. She with her twitching smile. “Bob seems pretty confident you can find the murderer,” Jeannie said.
“For all I know the murderer is sitting across from me, polluting my lungs with second-hand smoke,” I said, rocking back and forth.
Jeannie was stunned. Her voice jumped two octaves. “I thought you were on board with Eddie’s innocence?”
Eddie was merely amused. The result, I suppose, of being interrogated by the police a time or two. “Chill, darlin’,” he said, patting his sister’s knee. “She’s good-cop-bad-copping me, that’s all. Playing both parts with aplomb.”
With no idea what I should say, or should not say, I blundered straight ahead. “Everybody knows about your gun phobia,” I said. “So there’s no need to get into that. And it’s pretty clear your alibi for the night of the murder isn’t worth a hill of beans. Otherwise you wouldn’t have been arrested.”
Jeannie immediately protested. “He was only arrested for the antiques.”
“Antiques from the condo of a dead woman,” I barked. “Your brother has got to take this thing seriously. We may be only a few days from a murder charge here.”
The guilt of blowing smoke in my face finally got to Eddie, apparently. He smashed his cigarette into the cup. He told me what presumably he’d told the police. “Those antiques were gifts. She gave them to me approximately two weeks before her unfortunate demise. Perhaps the reason no one saw me load them into that truck I don’t own is because it was late at night. The reason it was late at night is because the economic realities of my hardscrabble, law-abiding life force me to work from early morning to long after more affluent people are asleep. Hannawa ain’t exactly New York cab-driving-wise.” He sniffed the smoke wafting from his coffee cup. “The long and short of it is that I did not kill the lady and I did not steal her precious shit.”
I told him that I’d seen the police department’s list of the antiques they found in his apartment. “Why would she give you all those expensive things?”
“She knew how excruciatingly dire my financial situation was.”
“So she knew you’d sell them.”
“I imagine so.”
I studied his body language. I couldn’t tell if he was lying or having a nicotine fit. “Given your police record, it’s easy to believe that you might know how to sell those fireplaces and things if they were stolen,” I said. “But would you know who to sell them to if they weren’t?”
Jeannie did not like the question. “I’m sure my brother knows how to use the Yellow Pages.”
I apologized with an empathetic smile. Asked the big question. “So Eddie—if Violeta Bell knew you needed money, why didn’t she just give you money?”
Eddie scratched his hairy chin. “A proposition I have pondered myself. Endlessly without a suitable revelation.”
“Violeta Bell was a very successful antique dealer for many years,” I said. “How much money would you say she had?”
“I wouldn’t have the foggiest,” Eddie said.
“Would you be surprised if I said a million?”
“A million ain’t much in this hyper-inflationary time,” he said. “So, yes, I guess I would be surprised if there was only a one at the left end of those six zeros, and not a number with more curves and curls.”
My brain, thankfully, had adjusted to his convoluted hipster talk. I knew what he meant and went straight to the next question. “Would you be surprised if I told you she was almost broke?”
Eddie’s eyes bugged. “Hell’s bells! You shitting me?”
Jeannie’s reaction was less expressive. “That would explain the antiques instead of money, wouldn’t it?”
“Actually,” I said, “it makes me wonder why she would give your brother so many of her valuable antiques if those were the only assets she had?”
Neither Eddie nor his sister had an answer to that. At least one they wanted to share with me. While they sat like bumps on a log, I laid out the theory bubbling in my brain. “Violeta Bell was a mystery woman. In fact, the Violeta Bell people knew really didn’t exist. She created herself. For reasons that died with her. Apparently.” I told them about her fake driver’s license and passport and all her other fake or nonexistent papers. “She not only lived outside the law,” I said, “she was a big believer in cash.” I told them some of the things Eric Chen had found out about her. “She didn’t own the building where she had her antique shop. She lived in a swanky apartment in Greenlawn. When she closed her shop, she bought her unit at the Carmichael House for cash. That still left her with a lot of money in the bank. Now that’s all but gone.”
If Eddie or his sister knew any of this, they weren’t letting on. Eddie was gently drumming his fingernails on his smoldering cup. Clickety-click-click. Jeannie was studying her pedicure. I continued. “So for the last eight years, she had no money coming in and a lot going out. She also had a condo filled with valuable antiques. So unless she had a big Rubbermaid tub of cash hidden under her bed—and there’s no evidence she did—she’d be forced to sell some of those antiques from time to time. For cash. She was not one to share her good fortune with the government. Which means she’d have to find an equally stingy buyer. Or an unsuspecting one.”
Jeannie’s eyes shifted, from her pretty toes to Eddie’s anything but pretty face.
“Violeta’s condo was big,” I said. “But it wasn’t the Smithsonian. She’d have to replenish her supply. I’m sure she found a few treasures at those garage sales. The tag sales. The estate auctions—”
“She was always buying stuff,” Eddie offered. “More than the other three ladies put together. Tons of shit.”
I went on. “But would that be enough? The other Queens of Never Dull lived pretty high on the hog? I’ve got to wonder if she didn’t have another source or two.”
“None that I know of,” Eddie assured me.
I was coming to the heart of my theory. “We know that Violeta didn’t own a car. Let alone a delivery truck. If she were still dealing in antiques, she’d have to have some help. Somebody to deliver things and maybe pick things up. Somebody she could trust.”