V is for Vengeance

by Sue Grafton

  I said, “I appreciate your being so nice about this.”

  “I don’t want to protect the woman if what she did was against the law. I’ll admit I was a bit uneasy, which is why I kept an eye on her. I couldn’t put my finger on what was wrong, and when it came right down to it, I didn’t have anything concrete to report.”

  “Understood. You can’t call the police because someone’s drawing the blinds,” I said. “When your husband comes home, would you ask if he has anything to add?”

  “I’ll ask, but he won’t be much help. I was the one who dealt with Audrey. She was a nice woman, by the way. I thought her schedule was odd, but aside from that, I had no quarrel with her.”

  “My client’s in the same boat,” I said. “If you think of anything else, would you give me a call? My office number’s on my card and my home phone’s on the back.”

  “Of course. I hope you’ll let me know what you learn.”

  “I’ll do that, and thanks for your help.”

  I returned to my car and fired up the engine. I pulled out of the cul-de-sac and turned right on Edna Road. I kept an eye on the rearview mirror, and once I was out of sight of the house, I pulled onto to the berm and took the pack of index cards from my shoulder bag. I wrote down what I’d learned, which didn’t amount to much. Audrey Vance was a cipher and as such, she was getting on my nerves. When I finished making notes, I put the car in gear and returned to the 101, arriving in Santa Teresa at 1:05. While the trip felt like a waste of time, I didn’t write it off altogether. Sometimes coming up with nothing is a form of information in itself.

  I stopped by Marvin’s on my way through town, hoping he’d be home. He answered my knock with a paper napkin tucked under his chin. He removed the napkin and crumpled it in one hand. “This is a nice surprise. I didn’t expect to see you so soon.”

  “I’m interrupting your lunch.”

  “Not at all. Come on in.”

  “I wondered if you’d had a chance to scare up the old phone bills.”

  “I pulled the file. Have you had lunch?”

  “I’ll grab something on my way back to the office.”

  “You should have a bite to eat. I made a big pot of soup. Chicken noodle with lots of fresh vegetables thrown in. I vary the soup from week to week depending on what looks good at the farmer’s market. We can talk in the kitchen.”

  “A man of talent,” I remarked.

  “I’d reserve judgment if I were you.”

  I waited while he closed the front door, then followed him into the kitchen with its bright yellow breakfast nook. He turned the gas up under the six-quart stockpot and took a bowl from the cabinet. “Have a seat. You want something to drink?”

  “Tap water’s fine.”

  “I’ll take care of it. You sit and relax.”

  He put ice in a glass and filled it at the kitchen sink. He took out a paper napkin and a soup spoon, then ladled soup into a bowl, which he carried gingerly from the stove with a shy smile. He seemed happy to have company. In the center of the table he’d put a jumble of wildflowers in a jar, and I had the sudden sense of what a nurturing man he was. I felt badly about Audrey’s deceit. He deserved better.

  The soup was rich and dense. “This is wonderful,” I said.

  “Thanks. It’s a specialty of mine, just about the only one I have.”

  “Well, it’s a good one,” I said. “Do you bake?”

  “Biscuits, but that’s it.”

  “I’ll have to introduce you to my landlord, Henry. He’s William’s younger brother. I suspect the two of you would have lots to talk about.”

  When I’d eaten, Marvin insisted that I sit while he washed the dishes and set them in the rack.

  I filled him in on my visit to Audrey’s house in San Luis. “You could have made the trip yourself,” I said. “I know you were worried about the impact, but there were no surprises. The place was bare.”

  “Was it nice?”

  “Nice? No, it was a dump. Small wonder Audrey liked living with you.”

  “What about an address book? Any sign of it?”

  “There was nothing personal at all.”

  “That seems odd,” he said. “Hang on a minute and I’ll go get the phone bills.”

  He left the kitchen and returned moments later with a file folder that he placed on the table in front of me. “I hope you don’t mind but I went over them myself. This past month, she made two calls to Los Angeles; three to Corpus Christi, Texas; and one to Miami, Florida. Same thing in January and February. If there were other calls, they must have been in the 805 area code.”

  “Too bad.” I ran an eye down the list of numbers. Marvin had put a checkmark beside calls he ascribed to her. “Have you tried calling these?” I asked.

  “I thought I’d leave it to you. I’m not that good at thinking on my feet. I get rattled and no telling what I’d blurt out. You want to use my phone?”

  “Sure. As long as I’m here.”

  “Have at it,” he said, indicating the wall-mounted phone.

  I stood and reached for the handset, tucking it between my shoulder and my ear. I held the phone bill with my thumb close to the first mark he’d made. I punched in the number in the 213 area code. After three rings, I was treated to an ear-splitting screech, followed by a mechanical voice telling me the number was a disconnect: “If you feel you have received this recording in error, please hang up, check the number, and dial again.”

  “Disconnect,” I said.

  I tried the number again with the same result. The second Los Angeles number was also no longer in service. I dutifully tried a second time to be sure I was dialing correctly. Same dead end. “This is informative,” I said. I zeroed in on the Miami call and punched in those numbers. When the screeching began again, I held out the handset so Marvin could hear. The number in Corpus Christi rang twenty-two times by my count but no one answered. I hung up and sat down again, putting my chin in my hand.

  “So now what?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure. Let me think about it for a minute.”

  He shrugged. “The way I see it, we’ve got nothing.”

  “Shhh!”

  “Sorry.”

  Marvin returned to his seat. He was on the verge of saying something else, but I held up a hand like an auditory traffic cop. In my mind, I was running through index cards in rapid succession. We still had no address book and no appointment calendar. The numbers she’d called in the past few months were useless at this point. If I’d had access to Polk directories for Corpus Christi or Miami, I might have been able to backtrack from the phone numbers to the relevant street addresses. Checking those addresses, even if I had them, would have meant making the trip myself or hiring private investigators in Texas and Florida to cover the job for me. Both options were expensive and might not have netted us anything. If the phones had been shut down, the target locations had probably been shut down as well.

  This is what I knew: Audrey had reason to spend the night in San Luis Obispo on an average of twice a month. During her stays, she made use of a house in an isolated area where, with the exception of her neighbor, her privacy was guaranteed. What she did in that house entailed the use of a table big enough to seat ten, a pantry full of oversize canned goods, and skillets and saucepans sufficient to feed any number of visitors. Vivian Hewitt said she’d seen a van and a white panel truck pull into Audrey’s drive from time to time, but she’d never seen anyone going into Audrey’s house. This suggested that her visitors came and went by way of the back door, which wasn’t visible from her neighbor’s vantage point. Vivian had also told me that on nights when the lights were on late, Audrey made a point of closing her venetian blinds.

  I’d thought at first Audrey was the one busy covering her tracks. The problem was she’d been dead since Sunday, and I didn’t see how she could have done such a thorough job in the brief period between her arrest and her going off the bridge. This was Thursday and the house in San Luis had been str
ipped of personal items and all of the surfaces wiped down. When had she found the time? Vivian Hewitt claimed someone had been there Sunday or Monday night. Clearly, it wasn’t Audrey.

  I looked down at the phone bill. Of four phone numbers she’d called, three had been disconnected. Someone was sweeping up in the wake of her death, shutting down all the links, eradicating evidence. The only thing I’d spied with my little eye were the two snippets of clear plastic. I met Marvin’s gaze.

  He said, “What?”

  “I did find these.” I held up a finger, alerting him to my find while I slid a hand into my pocket and pulled out the two clear plastic stems. “What do these look like to you?”

  “The little doodads they use to secure price tags to clothes in department stores.”

  “Right. You know what I think was going on? Twice a month Audrey met with her crew and they sat around the table clipping tags out of all the garments they’d stolen. I don’t know what happened to the goods afterward or what happened to the crew, but once she died, someone got busy dismantling the operation.”

  “So now what?”

  “I think I started in the wrong place. There’s no point investigating Audrey. She’s gone. It’s the younger woman we need. I’m still mad at myself for not catching her license plate.”

  “Yeah, too bad you don’t have a time machine. You could whiz back to the parking garage and take another look.”

  I felt a small mental jolt. My mouth didn’t actually drop open, but that was the sensation I experienced. “Oh, wow. Thanks for saying that. I just came up with an idea.”

  14

  DANTE

  Late Thursday afternoon Dante finally caught up with his brother. When he left the office, Tomasso and Hubert were waiting in the parking garage, the limousine idling. As he emerged from the elevator, Cappi came around the corner, apparently on his way up. Dante saw him first and he was already in motion when Cappi realized what was coming down. He stumbled backward, arms flailing as he tried to put himself beyond Dante’s reach. He pivoted and he’d made it four steps when Dante tackled him from behind, both men going down with a grunt. Dante scrambled to right himself and grabbed Cappi by the front of the shirt. He hauled him to his feet in one move and jammed him against the wall. Both were breathing hard, Cappi trying to loosen Dante’s grip. Dante had fifty pounds on his younger brother and even with the age difference, he was in far better shape.

  Dante’s breath came hoarsely as he tightened his hold, twisting one hand over the other so Cappi’s shirt collar formed a ligature. He could hear a momentary singing in Cappi’s throat and then there wasn’t air enough for any sound at all. Dante had lost touch with his rage and, consequently, had lost touch with his power. The feeling was familiar, immediate, and all-encompassing. He poured all of his energy into his hands until Cappi’s eyes bulged, his face engorged and hot pink. Sweat seeped through his pores, and Dante was happy.

  His bodyguard, Hubert, had appeared at his shoulder. He’d stopped in his tracks, taking in the situation. He did a quick scan of the area to assure himself no pedestrians were close enough to see what was going on. If anyone noticed, one look at the three-hundred-pound bodyguard would have discouraged intervention. That was Hubert’s job, discouraging others from interfering with his boss no matter what he did.

  Dante knew if he’d chosen to go on until Cappi’s legs folded and he sank as dead weight, Hubert would have shrugged and had Tomasso get out of the limo so they could load the body in the trunk. Dante knew he would have done it without a word of reproof. The simple presence of the man restored his self-control. Dante loosened his stranglehold, giving Cappi access to air. He kept his face close to Cappi’s, even though the kid’s nose was running and his breath was tainted with fear. “Listen, you dumb fuck! Do you have any idea how much damage you’ve done?”

  Cappi grasped his brother’s wrist and pried his fingers away from his throat. Dante released him suddenly, shoving him hard against the wall. Cappi bent over and sucked in air, shaking his head. “She agreed to a deal. She was rolling over on us.”

  Dante leaned close. “You don’t pull shit like that, you asshole. Audrey wouldn’t turn on me. Never.”

  “Wrong. You’re wrong.” Cappi kept a hand on his throat, close to weeping. “They came down on her. They scared the shit out of her and she caved.”

  “Who did?”

  “Some cop. I don’t know his name. All I know is she broke down and agreed to tell ’em everything. She’d have done it right then only her boyfriend came through with the bail so they had to let her go. She’d set up a meeting with the DA first thing Monday.”

  “You’re full of shit. You don’t step in, you don’t take it on yourself. Nothing. Not anything. You get that?”

  “Pop backed me. I told him and he said do what needed to be done.”

  Dante hesitated. “What are you talking about? You told Pop?”

  “I did. Ask him. I got word and I went straight to him. He said take care of it. You weren’t here and someone had to shut the bitch down.”

  “Pop said?”

  “I swear. I wouldn’t have done it without him. What the hell were we supposed to do? She’d have ratted us out.”

  “You do anything like that again, I’ll kick you to death. Now keep away from me.” Dante pushed Cappi toward the elevator, kicking him hard in the ass as a fare-thee-well.

  In the limo, he leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes. The smack-down was pointless. Dante knew his brother would run straight to Pop and whine about mistreatment. What felt good in the moment would just come back and bite him in the butt. His only hope was to get to his father before Cappi did, a matter of who could tattle first. Absurd for a man his age. He put the incident out of his mind. He had other issues to worry about.

  He’d had lunch with his sister Talia that day and he’d broached the subject of Lola. “I’ve been thinking I’d ask her to marry me.”

  “Well, that’s a cheery prospect.”

  “I can do without the sarcasm. I’m telling you because you’re one of the few people I trust.”

  “Sorry. I thought you were joking.”

  “I’m not. We’ve been talking about it and it’s not such a bad idea.”

  “I don’t get it. It’s been eight years. Why marry her now?”

  “She wants a kid.”

  “She wants a child?”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  Talia laughed.

  Dante closed his eyes, shaking his head. “Don’t do this. Don’t turn this into a fight. Say what you want. That’s why I brought it up. Just don’t be a bitch about it.”

  “Fine. You’re right. Let me take a deep breath and we’ll start again. Nothing accusatory. I’ll ask questions, okay?”

  “Fine.”

  “How’s she going to handle a pregnancy?”

  “Like every other woman, I guess.”

  “Not like other women. She’s a head case. I don’t mean this as criticism. I’m stating a fact. She’s obsessed with her body and nutty about her weight. That’s why she smokes. To keep the pounds off.”

  “She says she’ll quit. She’s also cut back on alcohol. Glass of wine a day and that’s it.”

  “Because she’s worried about the calories, which is why she does drugs.”

  “She doesn’t do drugs. Would you listen to yourself? She’s dead set against drugs.”

  “Except for appetite suppressants. Have you looked at her lately? She’s skeletal. She has an eating disorder.”

  “She had an eating disorder, but that’s done. She saw Dr. Friedken for a year and she’s fine.”

  “He’s not ‘doctor’ anything. He’s not even a licensed clinical psychologist. He’s a psychic nutritionist. A quack.”

  “He helped her. She’s better. She eats like a normal person.”

  “And then goes in the bathroom and sticks a finger down her throat. Pregnant women get fat. It’s a fact of life. She’ll go off the deep end.
”

  “Not all pregnant women get fat. You didn’t.”

  “I gained forty pounds!” Talia reached out and gripped his hand. “Dante, you know I love you more than life itself, so please let me speak from the heart. Lola’s a narcissist. She’s moody and insecure. All she thinks about is herself. How could she possibly make room for a child?”

  They changed the subject at that point since neither of them trusted themselves to go on. The question she’d posed was a bothersome one that he was still pondering.

  He caught his father after dinner when he was sitting out on the verandah, smoking a cigar. Dante had always associated the smell of cigar smoke with Pop. There was a time when Lorenzo Senior had smoked in the house. He considered this his due. The living room drapes and the upholstered furniture had been saturated with smoke, the ceiling pale gold with nicotine, windows clouded with the residue. When Dante moved his father into the big house, he insisted Pop confine his smoking to one of the outdoor patios.

  The old man was eighty-three and far less imposing than he’d been in the days when Dante was routinely pounded to a pulp. The punches and kicks were meant to keep him in line, or so his father said. Now he couldn’t get over how small his father was, like a miniature adult, his cheeks lined and sunken, his nose and ears out of proportion to the size of his face. His hairline had receded in the shape of a heart, a V of gray in the middle of his forehead with a balding arc on either side.

  Dante sat down facing him. “You heard about Audrey?”

  “I hope you’re not here to complain.”

  “Matter of fact, I am. I can’t have Cappi pulling shit like that.”

  “Hey, bub. You were gone. He came to me with a problem. His solution made sense. He knew you’d never go for it. You’re too busy playing boss man and pissing on his shoes. Besides which you’re off on some mountain and no one could get hold of you.”

  “They have phone service in Canada. You could have called anytime.”

  “Says you. Someone had to step up to the plate.”

  “Pop, I’ve known Audrey years. She wouldn’t have turned on us. I can guarantee.”

  “That’s not what Cappi heard. Word on the grapevine, she was rolling over on us. I told him to take care of it.”