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Death is a Bargain (A Kate Kennedy Mystery Book 3)

Page 10

by Noreen Wald


  “I always sit on the bride’s side.” Linda gestured left, and they slid into seats about ten rows back from the altar.

  Directly in front of them sat Jocko Cunningham, no longer among the missing. Indeed, this morning the clown was scrubbed up, smelling of cologne, and dressed in a dark suit and tie. He knelt, head bowed, apparently deep in prayer.

  Marlene tapped his shoulder. Jocko jumped, then jerked his head around. “Oh, it’s you, Ms. Friedman, you startled me.”

  More like she’d terrified him. Feeling that she had the advantage, she plunged. “We thought you were dead, Jocko. From the smoke. Or maybe murdered like Carl. Where were you? When I left the corridor yesterday, the firefighters were still searching for you and Freddie Ducksworth.”

  His pale face flushed. Beads of sweat broke out across his forehead. “Haven’t I just been thanking God for sparing me?” Jocko yanked a handkerchief out of his breast pocket—to Marlene’s surprise, it was both clean and ironed—and wiped his brow. “I helped get the elephants out, but I knew I couldn’t handle the tigers and went searching all over for their trainer. I finally located Jim, and together we got the tigers into their portable cages. The smoke was fierce. I remember wondering why there weren’t any flames. I could hardly breathe, so a sweeper and Jim wheeled the tigers over to the animal exit. I ran back into the elephants’ par looking for a cloth to cover my mouth and nose. Some bastard—oh—forgive my cursing in church—locked me in. A firefighter found me face down in the straw and rescued me.”

  “You were okay?” Marlene heard the doubt in her voice.

  “Well, of course, he was,” Linda snapped. “He’s here, isn’t he?”

  Jocko met Marlene’s gaze. “They wanted to take me to Broward County’s emergency room, Ms. Friedman, to be treated for smoke inhalation, but I refused to go.” Cold. Marlene had made an enemy.

  Organ music filled the church and a deep baritone voice sang, “Ave Maria.”

  Enemy or not, Marlene boldly spoke over the hymn’s words and music. “Did you see the man’s face? The one who locked you in the cage?”

  “No, Ms. Friedman, I didn’t.” Jocko shook his head, his jowls, an unfortunate Cunningham family trait, shaking. “At the time, I was busy vomiting into a rag.” He turned his back and returned to the knee rail.

  Marlene didn’t believe the clown’s story. But even if he’d lied about his heroics, someone had apparently locked him in the elephants’ cage. Who? And why?

  Across the aisle—on the groom’s side—a sobbing Olivia sat slumped against her mother, the latter rigid and aloof. Suzanna Jordan made Snow White’s wicked stepmother seem warm and fuzzy. The daughter struck Marlene as overly needy and probably clinically depressed, but the mother’s lack of response bordered on contempt.

  Had Freddie Ducksworth really been blackmailing Olivia? Had sad-sack Olivia killed Whitey? If she’d been in love—or even believed herself to be in love with the older man—and Whitey had rejected her, could such a timid soul have committed murder? Maybe. A crime of passion was one thing, but Carl Krieg’s death had been premeditated murder. It would have taken a cold-blooded killer to pull that off. A personality more like Suzanna’s than Olivia’s. Or a personality like Donna Viera’s. Or Sean Cunningham’s. Or Freddie Ducksworth’s. Or Linda Rutledge’s. Lots of overbearing people had worked the corridor, including the two dead men.

  The doll lady sighed as the priest sprinkled holy water while circling Whitey Ford’s picture, which stood on a small table along with a tall vase of white roses in front of the communion rail.

  No casket. No urn. No remains to be sprinkled. Ford’s body, now tagged evidence, was in the morgue, scheduled for an autopsy.

  Marlene put on her distance glasses and focused on Whitey’s photograph. Handsome man, with smiling, sexy eyes. According to this morning’s Sun-Sentinel, Whitey had donated his body to science, so there’d be no burial either.

  Sean Cunningham strode down the aisle and up to the pulpit to deliver the eulogy. When had he arrived?

  “Heaven has a new resident,” Sean began, in a sad, but stage-trained boom.

  “And hell awaits you!” Olivia screamed from her pew.

  Twenty-Two

  Kate crossed the threshold and a plastic pitcher filled with water came flying her way. She ducked. Donna had a powerful arm; the pitcher sailed over Kate’s head and landed in the hallway.

  “Damn. I thought you were that snake, Sean, slithering back in.”

  Kate picked up the pitcher, stepped into the tiny bathroom to grab a towel, then silently mopped up the water. An unsuspecting nurse could slip, fall, and land in the empty bed next to Donna.

  “So, okay, I’m sorry.” Kate would bet that the only thing Donna felt sorry about was having missed Sean’s skull.

  The broken leg—in a cast up to Donna’s hip and suspended from a sci-fi contraption—had to hurt like hell. Still, the pain etched on her face seemed to emanate from older, deeper wounds, and not the kind caused by physical injury.

  “How’s Billy?” The anger dissipated, if only for a moment. “Why didn’t you bring him?” Not even a thank-you for taking care of her little boy. How had this asocial creature taught her son such good manners? And to say his evening prayers?

  “He’s fine, Donna. He misses you.” Kate said. “I just wanted to be sure the hospital would allow a five-year-old to visit. If we get permission, I’ll bring him this afternoon.”

  “I might be under arrest by then.”

  “What?” Kate sank into a chair next to the bed, the smell of disinfectant stronger now, almost overwhelming. “Why?” Her heart couldn’t race any faster if one of her granddaughters was about to go to jail.

  “For the murder of Carl Krieg.” Donna’s irises looked as black as her pupils. With puffy lids and dark circles, she seemed to have aged ten years overnight. Her fingers fluttered across the frayed cotton binding on a white blanket, covering her good leg and upper body. “That Detective Carbone either found some—er—evidence or he listened to a bunch of dirty lies.” Fear filled her swollen eyes. “How could he believe such garbage?”

  Did you do it, Donna? Kate felt bold enough and curious enough to ask the question but couldn’t get the words out. Maybe she wasn’t prepared to hear the answer.

  “I didn’t you know.” Eerie. Had Kate been that transparent? “Why would I kill my uncle? This is South Florida, for God’s sake, not some drafty castle in Denmark.”

  The Hamlet allusion surprised Kate, but it shouldn’t have. The enigmatic Donna had proved to be a study in contrasts from the moment they’d met.

  “So Carl Krieg was your uncle?” Kate hoped her neutral tone masked her skepticism.

  “Yes, a great-uncle on my mother’s side. Carl was my grandmother’s brother.”

  Kate nodded, waiting. She sat very still, not wanting to distract Donna.

  “My grandmother, Greta, and her brother, Carl, grew up in Brazil. They’d moved there from Germany as children right after World War II.”

  So Kate’s Hitler’s Youth guess had been on target. “Lots of Germans settled in Rio in the late forties. My great-grandfather had been an SS officer, but Uncle Carl was okay. More than okay. He helped me out financially when I moved down here from New Bedford, and he really loved Billy.”

  Took his great-great-nephew out for pancakes, Kate thought.

  “Grandmother Greta married a Brazilian, and her only daughter married my father, Antonio Viera. A handsome devil. They migrated to the U.S. and settled in New Bedford. Mom died of breast cancer when I was twelve, and my father, a fisherman, died in a shipwreck a few weeks before my eighteenth birthday. I was bored, lonely, and tired of the cold weather, so I moved down here.” Donna stopped abruptly as if worn out.

  “Don’t talk,” Kate said, hoping Donna would continue. “No. Someone murdered my
Uncle Carl. I want to tell you about him. About me. When I arrived in Florida, I lived with him for a while. That’s how I met Whitey. And Whitey and Carl introduced me to Sean. And the next thing I knew, some old animal trainer—about to be put out to pasture by the Cunninghams—taught me the ropes, and before I turned twenty, I had an elephant act.”

  “Would you like a glass of water?” Kate asked.

  Donna ignored Kate’s offer and continued. “Until yesterday, except for my son, Carl Krieg was my only living relative in the entire United States. Now all I have is Billy.”

  Yesterday, she’d said something very similar—“there’s no one left”—as she begged Kate to care for Billy. Had that been a reference to Uncle Carl’s recent murder? Probably.

  Donna shifted her position, then grimaced. “Damn. I can’t even move an inch without my leg hurting like hell.” Tears glistened, hovered on her lashes, and fell in a steady stream down her cheeks.

  Kate handed her a box of tissues and, though tempted to reach out and touch Donna’s slim shoulder, remained in her chair, silently paraphrasing Milton: We also serve who only sit and wait.

  She didn’t have to wait long.

  “My uncle used to sit like a sentinel, drinking scotch and watching the passing parade of tenants and their guests going in and out of the building.” The young woman sighed. Resigned? Forlorn? “Carl was at his post Sunday evening. That skunk, Whitey, had a record number of visitors on the night he drew his fatal bath.”

  “Could Carl have told one of those visitors?” In her excitement Kate’s question just popped out. She hadn’t even realized she’d spoken aloud until Donna laughed.

  “One of them? Uncle Carl was a card-carrying drunk, Mrs. Kennedy. A drunk who’d show up at my house on a Friday night, drink like a demon, then pass out on my couch. And I’d have to sleep on a futon. He’d be all apologies the next morning and insist on treating Billy and me to a big breakfast.”

  Hell’s bells! Maybe Carl had cut up that negative and dropped the pieces in Donna’s wastebasket.

  “When he drank, he talked. Uncle Carl blabbed to every single one of them—all suspects—almost like he had a death wish.”

  “Who were they?”

  Donna tried to adjust her blanket. “God almighty, I can’t stand the pain. Ring for the nurse, Mrs. Kennedy.”

  “Can you give me the names?” Feeling guilty for pressuring the patient, Kate pressed the CALL button.

  “I gave their names to Detective Carbone. And I’m still his odds-on favorite.” Donna shook her head. “Look, the timeline’s hazy. Carl kept changing the order of arrivals and departures. I think one or two might have overlapped, but Whitey’s visitors were Sean, Linda, Olivia, and Suzanna.” Based on his threat to Suzanna, the now-missing Freddie Ducksworth had been at Carl’s apartment that night, snapping pictures through the front window. Had Freddie dropped by Whitey’s too?

  “And what about you, Donna, where were you on Sunday night?”

  The patient groaned. “Mrs. Kennedy, I don’t give a flying fig what you think about me. But even if you believe I’m a cold-blooded killer, you have to promise me you’ll take care of Billy.”

  For today? For a week? Forever? Kate stared at Billy’s mother.

  “Promise me!”

  “I promise,” Kate said, as Nick Carbone skidded though a small puddle she must have missed and landed on his knees at her feet.

  Twenty-Three

  Kate felt deliciously wicked. She’d left Nick Carbone in the emergency room at Broward General waiting to have his old “trick” knee X-rayed. With six far more seriously injured patients ahead of him, Carbone wouldn’t be arresting anyone for a while. Though to be fair, between yelps of pain—men can be such big babies—he explained that he’d only dropped by the hospital to ask Donna a few more questions. Well, those questions would just have to wait, wouldn’t they?

  The detective’s tumble had given Kate a head start. She had places to go and people to see if she wanted to prove Billy’s mother wasn’t a double murderer.

  She’d left Nick in midsentence, sputtering, “I’m warning you, Kate, don’t get…”

  Waving good-bye, she’d dashed out of the emergency room, not feeling the least bit sorry that Detective Carbone would be out of action, at least for a couple of hours. As soon as she hit the lobby, she called Jeff Stein at the Palmetto Beach Gazette and made a date with him for lunch at one o’clock.

  Maybe she’d accept Jeff’s freelance job offer and try her hand at a feature article. Certainly, they could discuss that. But her real mission was to see if Donna had ever called him about his animal-abuse article, and to find out what Jeff knew about Sean Cunningham’s and Whitey Ford’s past lives. Kate had a hunch they’d been intertwined.

  As she pulled into Ocean Vista’s parking lot, her gloating over Carbone and her suspicions about Cunningham came to an abrupt halt, replaced by a paradox: Donna’s overzealous prodding of an elephant, and Billy, so proud of his mother, gleefully recounting riding on one.

  Act as if, Kate. Prove Donna’s innocence for Billy’s sake. Now that challenge could be a real paradox. She stepped out of the car and into a warm breeze, laughing at herself.

  “Miss Costello and that child,” Miss Mitford managed to turn child into an obscenity, “have gone up to her apartment. She’d like you to join them there.”

  “Thanks.”

  Kate crossed the lobby and rang for the south elevator, wondering if she could take the child and Ballou on her appointed rounds and, if not, would Marlene be back in time to mind Billy and walk the Westie.

  Mary Frances lived in 730, a one-bedroom apartment with a southern exposure and a nice view of the ocean.

  The former nun had transformed her only bedroom into a dance studio, complete with a raised parquet floor, ballet bane, and sound system. Three of the walls were mirrored. The fourth was covered with clothes racks, filled with colorful costumes, baskets brimming with castanets, and open shoe boxes, lined up like soldiers, holding sexy high-heel pumps matching both the costumes and the castanets. Even more amazing, somehow Mary Frances had charmed the previous condo board into approving the changes.

  Kate rapped sharply. No answer. She tried the door, and it opened. A Latin beat emanated from the former bedroom, literally filling the wall-to-wall-dolls living room. She crossed the room, went down a small hall, its bookcases housing Mary Frances’s Henry the VIII and his wives collection, and peered into the dance studio.

  Billy, standing tall and straight and grinning from ear to ear, had one arm thrust forward, leading Mary Frances in what appeared to be a smooth, well-rehearsed tango.

  Feeling a bit jealous, Kate applauded their performance.

  “Hi, Mrs. K.” Billy danced over to her. “Can I go with Mary Frances to her tango lesson? Please! She wants to take me.” His blue eyes sparkled. A sparkle missing since his mother had been injured. A sparkle that the dancing ex-nun rather amazingly had restored.

  Well, Mary Frances’s tango lesson might solve Kate’s babysitting problem. Marlene could be stuck at Whitey’s memorial or, putting a more positive spin on her absence, be busy gathering information from the mourners after the service.

  Kate hugged Billy, then locked eyes with Mary Frances. “Are you sure?”

  “Sure?” Mary Frances removed the rose from her teeth. “You bet I’m sure. I’ve had more fun today teaching Billy to tango than I ever had during my thirty-year career as a nun.”

  With some unexpected time on her hands, but not wanting to get sand in her shoes, Kate took Ballou for a quick walk on A1A. The Westie turned north toward Neptune Boulevard, and she followed his lead.

  As he strutted ahead, Kate’s cell phone rang. Her granddaughter and namesake, Katharine. Drat. Not that she wasn’t thrilled to hear from her favorite person in the entire world—now that C
harlie had moved on—but she disliked chatting on the phone in public.

  She’d overheard far too many private, intimate, or even angry conversations between taxi drivers and their significant others, while a virtual prisoner in a cab’s backseat. Trapped, seat belt buckled, waiting for the plane to take off, she’d been forced to listen as total strangers across the aisle spilled out their guts or their sex lives. And, on the beach, teenagers shouted vulgar words and crude jokes into their cell phones, seemingly unaware that they were loud enough to be heard in Fort Lauderdale.

  “Hi, Katharine,” Kate said.

  “How you doing, Nana?”

  “Fine, I guess. Keeping busy.”

  With her red hair and freckles, and short, solid body, her younger granddaughter reminded Kate so much of Charlie. She had her grandfather’s spark too. Lauren, the Harvard pre-med student, was more like her mother’s family, the Lowell’s. Tall, rangy, blonde and, for Kate’s taste, a bit bland.

  Charlie had nicknamed their family the Boston Bores.

  “Well, get the guest room ready, Nana. I’m flying down Saturday morning. Just for the weekend. I’ll play hooky on Monday. All the discount airlines are having a price war. At forty-nine dollars each way, how could I resist?”

  “Er.”

  “Nana?” Kate heard the hurt in Katharine’s voice. “That would be grand, darling. Come on down!”

  She’d figure out the sleeping arrangements later. Maybe either Katharine or Billy could stay at Marlene’s.

  “Is your sister coming too?”

  “Hell no, Nana. Lauren’s in lust. Again. This time with a Nob Hill Brahmin. Daddy says he’s a stuffed shirt. Lauren says Daddy has no appreciation for the finer things in life. Mom says Daddy does so, he married her, didn’t he?” Kate laughed. Score one for Jennifer. She and Kevin, despite their very different backgrounds and very different careers—he a firefighter, she a stockbroker—were still madly in love after twenty-three years of marriage.

 

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