“Oh, thanks, Becka. Could you tell my Mother I’ll be out in a minute? I’ve just got one more phone call to make. Thanks.” The maid nodded and left.
On vacation. That figures. It’s August. All of France is on vacation and probably in Provence too. She took a long sip of her drink and felt immediately revitalized.
Well, that puts off visiting Paris until September, she thought. Just as well. She was still not asking the right questions and she needed to at least have that part down before she put a six hundred-dollar-flight-plus-hotel on her American Express card.
She picked up the phone again and dialed.
“Brownie? Hey, this is Maggie. Sorry I’ve been out of touch.”
“Maggie? Maggie who?”
“Very funny. I’m really sorry. I’ve been busy, you know, trying to figure out this thing with Elise.”
“Figure out what thing with Elise?”
Maggie took a sip of her drink. He wasn’t going to make this easy.
“Look, Brownie, I’m sorry I’ve been out of touch, so there you are. Now I’ve got a couple of questions I’m hoping you can help me with or you can continue to be a jerk and I won’t even blame you, okay?”
Brownie paused on the other line.
“Shoot,” he said.
“Thanks. First, do you remember seeing anything weird the night you came to my apartment for dinner when Elise was killed?”
“You mean other than all the cops and the people hanging about in the hallway?”
“Please, Brownie.”
“Well, I remember the cops were really kind and sweet to me.”
“Seriously?”
“I could have been the killer as far as they knew, right? But they never checked my pockets or anything. I could’ve had a knife on me, you know. In fact, I did have one.”
“What? A knife?”
“You know the one I always carry? The Swiss Army knife?”
“Well, you don’t need a coroner to tell you Elise wasn’t killed with a little ol’ Swiss Army pen knife.”
“Excuse me, Maggie, but they didn’t even check to see if I had a big, bloody butcher knife. Plus, I even picked up some crap coming into your apartment and they could care less, you know?”
“You picked something up in the hall?”
“Yeah, at first I thought it was garbage, but it was sort of shiny and then I thought it looked valuable so I picked it up.”
“What was it?”
“Who knows? I still don’t know. A kid’s toy, maybe? I thought I’d give it to Nicole.”
“You’ve still got it?”
“You can’t seriously think this is important?”
“It’s one more thing than I had fifteen minutes ago.”
“It’s a piece of junk, a kid’s toy—”
“We don’t have kids in the apartment. It’s a singles complex. When can I see this thing? What’s it look like?”
“It’s gold, looks kinda cheap...I don’t know, like a ring of some kind but not for your finger.”
“Can you drop it by my folks’ house?”
“Your flat off-limits now that your frog boyfriend’s taken up residence?”
“I just thought it’d be more convenient for you. Drop it off at my place if you want.”
“Forget it. Yeah, I’ll drop the thing off at your folks’ place. If you’re not there, I’ll give it to your Mom.”
“Thanks, Brownie.”
Maggie hung up and took a large swig of her drink, nearly draining it. She rattled the ice cubes against the crystal and stared, unseeing, at the large hunt print her dad had mounted over the desk. Very slowly, something seemed to be forming, gelling in her mind. Was it a picture of Elise’s killer?
Maggie finished the rest of her drink and stood up. Whatever it was, she had to trust that it would develop in time. Her eye fell on a small gilt-framed photograph nearly hidden on her father’s desk. It was a black and white snapshot of twelve-year old Maggie and ten-year old Elise and their dog “Little”, from another summer many years ago. Both girls were tan and smiling, their lithe arms intertwined around each other’s shoulders. Elise wore a jaunty sailor’s cap and behind them both was the boathouse and dock at the family’s lake house. Maggie carefully picked up the little picture taken so long ago. She had never seen it before. Her father’s happy girls. His two first mates. Her father had sold the lake house during Maggie’s senior year of high school. By then, she and Elise had long since tired of baiting hooks and playing first mate or reading in the boathouse during an afternoon rain.
Maggie replaced the picture and turned to leave the room, wondering how many times one can continue to lose the same person.
Chapter Thirteen
1
Laurent led the way down the darkened corridor of the basement of the Parthenon. Cobwebs hung in large wattles in the corners, dripping into his face as he and Maggie made their way down the hall. It was hard to believe that someone actually worked down here, actually packed a lunch and hummed himself off to work only to arrive at the creepy bowels of a hundred-year old building.
Maggie slipped her hand into Laurent’s and squeezed it.
“Allo?” Laurent called as they neared a doorway at the end of the hall, light spilling out onto the cement floor. “Allo? Monsieur?” They stopped in front of the door and peered inside.
“Mr. Danford?” Maggie called softly.
“With you folks in just a minute,” a voice said.
Laurent and Maggie looked at each other and then entered the small broom closet of an office. A metal desk was shoved up against one of the cement walls. A half-sized window hovered over it. From the outside of the building, the window would be eye level with one’s Reeboks, Maggie noted. Little had been done to make the office comfortable or attractive. No plants or pictures on the walls, no rugs across the cold and uneven concrete floor, not even a lamp with a shade to make the night watchman’s station less wretched.
“You’re the girl whose sister was killed last month?” The man finally extricated himself from behind his six-foot filing cabinet and maneuvered around two metal folding chairs to stand in front of Maggie and Laurent. He held out his hand.
Laurent shook it. The man withdrew his hand before Maggie could shake it too.
“Yes, that’s me,” Maggie said. “I was hoping you could—“
“Told the police everything. Didn’t see nothing. I’m on duty at night, you see. Didn’t happen at night, did it?”
He settled himself into a large swivel chair situated in front of the desk. He sort of resembled Barnie Fife with a touch of mange, Maggie thought. His balding head supported long wisps of hair, witnesses to a losing battle. His eyes were bloodshot and watery and Maggie found herself scanning the office for liquor bottles.
“No,” Maggie said, turning her eyes back on the skinny little man. “But maybe you’ve seen strange people around at night. You know, shady characters that might be involved?”
Mr. Danford scratched the back of his head with a long, crooked finger.
“Thought the cops said this was a spur of the moment kinda killing.”
“Monsieur, do you know if any peoples come here at night? Bad people?”
Maggie wondered what the old guy would think of this big bruiser with the French accent.
Danford finished scratching himself and looked up at Laurent.
“Sometimes I seen some weird characters around here. In the winter, mostly. Trying to get in to sleep it off for the night, you know? Someplace warm.”
“And in the summer?” Maggie asked impatiently.
“Well, summertime’s different. People want in for different reasons in the summertime. This here drug dealer the cops was asking me about? He comes by from time to time. I reckon he’s got a customer in the building somewheres, don’t you? Else why would he keep coming by?”
“What’s he look like?”
“Looks like crap, you want to know. Got this long nasty yellow hair, you know how they
wear it these days?” Maggie hadn’t a clue, but she nodded encouragingly. “And clothes all ripped to hell. Big holes in the knees of his trousers and his seat too, sometimes. Can’t be making much money as a drug dealer, that’s what I told Cissy. Cissy’s my wife.”
“I met her the other day,” Maggie said.
“That’s right. She said you come by. Ol’ Cissy makes sure I get my sleep. She won’t wake me if my own mother was to call, the last breaths of life a-squeezing outta her. My Cissy looks out for me.”
“That’s great. So, this drug dealer—“
“I done told the police all of this.”
“I know, Mr. Danford, but if you could just run over it one more time for me. Please.”
The old man shrugged and stretched back in his chair.
“Can’t take too long. Gotta make my rounds pretty soon.”
“Thank you for your time, Monsieur Danford.” Laurent nodded at the man but made no moved to leave.
“This drug dealer,” Maggie said. “Have you ever talked with him?”
“Told him to get his sorry ass outta the building once. That’s talking to him, ain’t it?”
“And he was okay about that? I mean, he left all right?”
“He left.”
“But he came back.”
“I told you, he’s got hisself a customer here. Must have.”
“But you don’t know who.”
“I got my suspicions. And no, it’s nobody I’m gonna tell you about.”
“Do you remember if he was around the night before my sister was killed?” That would have been the night I first brought her home, Maggie thought.
“He was. Shuffling up the goddamn hallway on the third floor. I knowed he was there ‘cause of the way he drags his feet, like he’s drunk or something.”
“And you just threw him out?”
“That’s right. About three a.m. No problem.”
“Okay.” Maggie looked at the man and then, helplessly, at Laurent. Again, she’d run out of questions and didn’t know how to process the answers she was getting to the questions she had asked.
Laurent indicated the doorway with his head and Maggie sighed. Might as well.
“Thank you for your help, Mr. Danford,” Maggie said stiffly. She touched Laurent’s arm and they trudged silently back upstairs to Maggie’s apartment. Laurent unlocked the door and Maggie threw herself down onto the living room couch.
She raised herself up on one arm and watched Laurent who had seated himself in the large tub chair opposite the couch, his long legs stretching out and filling up nearly the entire floor space of the little room.
“Well, I’d say we’re nowhere on this. I can’t buy the theory that this drug pusher is the killer. It’s too pat. I mean, what did he do? go around rapping on doors: ‘I say, is the lady of the house at home and would she be interested in some crack?’ I mean, isn’t it too much of a coincidence that he is a drug dealer and she was a drug addict?”
“You think the police have made up this theory?”
“I think they thought: dead junkie, on-premises drug dealer, let’s put them together and wrap this case up.”
“C’est possible. And your friend? Monsieur Alfie?”
“I’m not sure he’s tied into this at all. They had a little ruckus. Elise was strung out and testy, Alfie probably remembers it worse than it was.” Maggie shrugs. “I can’t see him killing anyone.”
“You do not know him very well,” Laurent reminded her. “Coffee?” He got up and headed toward the kitchen.
“No thanks, it’ll keep me awake.” Maggie pulled herself up to a sitting position and rested her feet on the light oak coffee table in front of the couch. “And he doesn’t strike me as being clever enough to do it and get away with it, you know? I mean, if Alfie killed her, wouldn’t there be all kinds of circumstantial evidence leading right to his door? The cops would’ve picked up on it, surely.”
Laurent poked his head around the corner.
“The police have not questioned the maman. They know nothing about his argument with Elise.”
“Boy, they really did a slack job, don’t you think? I mean, wrapped this sucker up and moved on.” She picked up a magazine and idly flipped through its pages. “I guess they’ve got this drug dealer in custody now but I doubt they get a confession.”
“Why not?” Laurent called from the kitchen. Maggie could hear the kettle begin to boil.
“How can he confess if he didn’t do it? And he’s not going to cop a plea to murder, for crying out loud. I mean, why would he?”
“Cop the plea...?”
“Never mind. Maybe I will have some coffee after all.”
He came into the room with a small tray holding a china creamer, matching sugar bowl and two steaming mugs. Maggie removed her feet from the coffee table and he set the tray down.
“Mmm-mm, thanks,” Maggie said reaching for a mug.
The phone.
“I am sure it is not for me,” Laurent said, shrugging.
Maggie reached over and picked up the receiver.
“Yes?” she said.
“Miss Newberry? This is Carole Wexford. Alfie’s mom? We talked a couple days ago?”
“Yes, Mrs. Wexford, I remember.” Maggie nudged Laurent’s leg with her foot. He nodded his head: yes, yes, I’m listening.
“I got one more thing to tell you that Alfie just told me but I got to have a promise from you that if I tell you, you won’t be asking Alfie all about it, hounding him, like. Do you promise?”
“What is it, Mrs. Wexford?” Maggie watched Laurent with large eyes.
“Not until you promise me you won’t come after Alfie asking him a bunch of questions. Now, he’s real upset ‘bout all this and he don’t want to talk to you again, d’ya hear?”
“Yes, all right,” Maggie said. “I promise to leave him alone. What did he tell you?”
“He told me he made another trip to your apartment building that afternoon—“
“You mean about the time my sister was—“
“I ain’t gonna say this twice, lady, so you better listen good the first time. He was deliverin’ groceries that afternoon and saw some guy hanging out near the door where he fought with your sister early that morning.”
Maggie licked her lips.
“Can he describe him?” she asked.
“He said he was dressed real nice. All slick and a jacket and all. He had reddish-brown, sorta curly hair, maybe balding, and he was a big guy. Maybe six-one. Wearing them sandals with socks that some people wear.”
“Do the police know this?”
“God, you don’t listen, do you? I told you, Alfie just told me. And if you ask him about it or go the cops, he’s gonna deny ever being there, understand?”
“All right, Mrs. Wexford, I understand. Is that all?”
“Yeah, but remember, stay away from my boy, d’ya hear? I don’t want to hear you been snooping around him.”
“I’ll leave him alone,” Maggie said.
The phone clicked dead in her hand as the woman hung up on her.
“What is it?” Laurent took a healthy sip of his too-hot coffee. “More clues?”
“God, I’ll say,” Maggie said quietly as she put the phone back in its cradle.
“Alfie’s mom just placed Gerard here at the time of the crime.”
2
Detective Jack Burton quietly closed the glass paneled door of the office of the Chief of Police. His ears were burning and a flush crept up his neck and spread across his face. He knew the open squad room was not oblivious to him, no matter how busily they seemed to go about their duties. He’d had his behind chewed and the world knew it.
The Chief was right. They’d been whacking themselves in the heads with hockey sticks over this one. Keystone Kops, southern-style. Their only suspect had an iron-clad and they had had to let him walk. Burton was to find the Newberry murderer within ninety-six hours or he was off the case.
Jack headed back
to his office, his head tucked in a protected crook of determination. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see cops looking up as he passed. He restrained himself from running the last twenty yards to his office, pulled open the door and forced himself to close it behind him without slamming it.
Dave Kazmaroff sat, smoking, on the corner of his desk, staring out the window onto Spring Street. He twisted around to greet Burton.
“Hey, man, what’s happening?” His smile faded and he eased himself off his cocky perch when he saw Burton’s face.
“You bastard,” Burton snarled, fists clenched at his side as he advanced toward Kazmaroff.
“Hey, man, what are you talking about?” The younger detective backed away, taking a drag off his cigarette until the filter glowed in his mouth.
“I’m talking about the shit you’ve been feeding the Chief, you scumbag.”
“Hey, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t said anything to the Chief.”
“Oh, no? Not even a casually dropped comment about how good cops need to learn to agree to disagree when it comes to developing a case? Huh? Ring a bell, asshole?”
“Look, all I said—“
“I know what you said, De-tective! I just got outta the Old Man’s office!” Spittle had formed on Burton’s bottom lip. He wanted to throw the yuppie bastard out the third story window. Maybe he’d land on the hood of his own Jeep Cherokee.
“Am I supposed to pretend I agree with every theory you’ve got? We happen to disagree on how this case is being—“
“I’m the senior officer on this case, or had you forgotten that?” Burton clenched his fists. “I’d like to smash your face in,” he said, moving away from the younger man. “Fact is, you’re as stupid as I’d always believed. Because just in case your plan was to take my place, let me clue you in.” Burton contorted his angry features into a sneer. A perverse part of him was enjoying himself and he could see that Kazmaroff was nervous. “The Chief said we’ve got four days. After that, our team is closed down and ‘B’ team takes over. Understand, smart boy? We both lose out. I go down, you go down.” Burton heaved himself into his swivel chair. “Nice work, jerk-off.”
Little Death by the Sea Page 17