by Andrew Lanh
Passion, I thought, ai tinh. What kind of passion?
“One family here has a lot of money.”
“And the other none. They’re both halves of the same coin, as you know. One and the same. And so everyone thinks everything is off balance, out of kilter. But you know as well as I do, Rick, that the extremes of poor and rich are balanced, an awful balance.”
“An unhealthy balance.”
“Not unhealthy. Just what it is. Everything tries to find a balance that’s already there. It’s that people refuse to see it, this balance. So the money is a thing that some hunger for, others try to hold onto what they have, others want more and more of it. That’s all a game. Each of these people looks into a mirror and sees unhappiness.”
“But it can lead to murder.”
“Look beyond the money. What do you see?”
“A love of money.” I was a little too flippant.
“You’re right. But that doesn’t explain anything here, does it? Otherwise you’d have the answers. We already know that these people—rich and poor—love or crave or lack money. But that knowledge hasn’t helped you find the murderer.”
“So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that you’re looking at the wrong kind of love. Yes, there is a love of money, and it may have killed the beautiful Le sisters. Somebody was trying to guard some money. Maybe. But that love doesn’t tell the story.”
“What does?”
“Stop looking at the money. Start asking yourself what other kinds of love are there, love that has nothing to do with money. You identify that love, and you will know what happened to Mary and Molly.”
Chapter Thirty-one
Grandma’s words got me thinking, and I was up through the night, back and forth to the computer, to my note cards, to my diagrams. My mind raced: love love love. Snatches of popular tunes swirled in my head, an unwelcome hum. Love makes me do foolish things…love love love…love the one you’re with…tell me that you love me…love to love you, baby…baby love…Madness, all of it. I wanted to call Hank but it was four in the morning. Grandma, “Rick, stop thinking of money.”
But I couldn’t stop thinking about money. I couldn’t. I was bothered by Danny’s possible skimming a thousand here and there, most likely from AsiaAuto transactions. Was that the first crack in the golden bowl these people swam in?
Get away from the money, Grandma said. Impossible. But I did, drawing lists on a piece of paper. Two categories: Money-driven love versus other-driven love. The first list went on and on: Larry, Molly, Danny, even Jon, possibly Benny and Mary. And, at five in the morning, I only had one name in column B. Just one name. One name alone.
At nine o’clock in the morning I made phone calls. First I had to deal with the money side of the ledger. Pulling out an old day runner, I flipped the pages until I found the name I was looking for: Harry Jacobi, an erstwhile buddy of mine at Columbia, later an Assistant DA, and then a short-term commissioner of some sort in the Giuliani administration. We’d kept in touch, mainly less than more, over the years. After his messy divorce from a Broadway actress more famous for a TV commercial about some aloe vera cream than for her histrionics, he disappeared. But we always knew where the other was. I’m not sure why.
I caught him at home, where he now worked. He’d invested in dot-com properties, bailed out just in time, and was now free to do, as he said, “whatever the fuck I want to.” That sounded like him. We chatted for a while, and I told him about the case, and what I needed from him.
He got excited. “I’ve been so bored. I sit here counting money. This’ll give me lots to do. I’ll get back to you. Soon.” I thanked him.
Then I called Detective Ardolino, left a message, and he got right back to me. I told him a few of my suspicions, to which he made no comment other than his noncommittal but emphatic grunt—and I backed it up with what Grandma had said. I could almost hear his eyebrows rise on the other end. Here I was taking advice from an old Vietnamese woman, who had perhaps twenty words of serviceable English at her command, and now, based on that, I wanted his help.
“Think of it. Stop thinking about the money and think of love. Who in this cast of characters seems to be dealing purely out of love—vain, almost juvenile love maybe, but still love?”
“I don’t have an answer.”
I told him the name that had popped into my head as I composed my lists last night: “Kristen Torcelli.”
“The dingbat girl?”
“Everything she, Danny, and the others have said points to one thing—she has a wicked crush on Danny. I think she thinks she’s in love with him.”
“That ain’t love.”
“Well, it certainly comes close.”
I dunno…”
“And she had something to do with her mother getting lost at the mall.”
“How do you know?”
“I feel it.”
“Asian voodoo?”
I smiled. “Probably.”
He finally conceded I might have a point. But I wanted the two of us to sit down with Kristen, just her alone. Not with Hank, her relative. Not only with me, the friend of the family. But with the authority of a detective, the two of us, not bad cop-good cop to be sure, but enough of a presence to have a real conversation with her. And given her limited intelligence, such iconic authority might do the trick.
“What trick?” Detective Ardolino asked.
“Follow my lead.”
“I can’t have a private citizen in on my interrogations, even though you’re a PI. A little unorthodox. Got to clear this with superiors.”
“A conversation.”
“A conversation,” he echoed.
By noon Kristen was sitting in a small room at a Hartford police substation. When Ardolino asked if she wanted a lawyer, she blinked a bunch of times, then said, “Why? Am I being arrested?” No, she was told, just questioned. “I didn’t do anything. Okay?” Did she want to call her father at his dealership? “Oh, God, no. He’ll only yell or something. He can’t know I’m here.”
So she sat in the conference room, ill at ease but oddly happy, smiling her thanks for the diet Coke someone brought her. Dressed in shorts, sandals, and a pink lipstick that matched her nails and the necklace she wore, she looked ready to join friends at the beach. Which, in fact, she was.
“Is this gonna take long? I’m gonna be late.”
“Kristen,” I spoke into her smiling face, “we wanted to talk privately with you because we need to get some answers from you.”
“Sure. Go ahead.”
“Is it possible Danny killed your mother?” I threw the line out so fast she actually sputtered and spat out soda.
“Are you crazy?” She looked from me to Ardolino. “Is this a joke?”
“I’m just asking.”
Ardolino added, “Your mother didn’t like him.”
She got serious, and for a second I saw panic in her eyes. “Danny wouldn’t hurt a fly. Okay, Mom didn’t care for him…”
“Why?” I asked.
She got quiet, looked away. “It goes back a long way. I don’t know.”
“Back to prep school and Tommy and the drug arrest?”
She blurted out, “Yeah, that, too.”
“What else?” Ardolino asked.
“She didn’t like him.”
“You said that,” I stressed. “Why?”
She half-rose from her chair. She looked toward the door as though she wanted to flee. “I don’t know where you’re going with this murder crap. Danny is loving and sweet….”
“You love him, don’t you?” I rushed my words.
Tears started in the corners of her eyes. Makeup caked, got blotchy. She dabbed at her eyelids. “He loves me.”
“You’re a couple?”
“We sort of are.” She was smiling
.
“Sort of?” From Ardolino.
“Well, it’s a secret, so far. No one knows. Danny said we gotta keep it under wraps. For now.”
“Why?”
“Mom would have killed me. Even my Dad.”
“Your father loves Danny.”
“But he doesn’t want me to date him.”
“He’s told you that?”
“Years ago.” She sighed. “Well, you know, Danny used to be sort of a player. Liked to, you know, brag about girls. He used to brag about girls to Dad—to impress him. Well, Dad gave me a lecture about Danny and sex. That was years ago. I promised never never never to go out with him that way. You know. Danny, he said, was—he called him a cad. Said he’d only bring a girl misery and unhappiness. He’d use me, Dad said.”
“But back in school you did sleep with him?”
She blushed. “God no! Danny was too afraid of Daddy then. Daddy was paying for school.”
“But what happened?”
A smile, oddly beatific, flashed across her face. “You know, after a while it never was a thing to think about. You know. Then last year, Danny gave me a ride somewhere, and then I’m at his apartment in Hartford somewhere where he hangs out, I guess, and we made love.” She closed her eyes a second. “It feels funny talking about it.”
“Why?”
“It’s a secret. Danny said it’s our secret.”
“So you see him a lot?”
“Now and then. He’d like to take me to the movies and dinner, like a real date, but, you know, we can’t.”
“So you just put out for him?” Ardolino threw out bluntly.
“Put out?” She looked ready to cry.
“Yours is mainly a sexual relationship?” I softened my tone.
“No, we love each other. He’s the man I want to marry.”
“How are you gonna marry the dude,” Ardolino said, “if he can’t take you out in public? You’re forgetting your father.”
“Once Danny is solid at the bank and has tons of money, then we’ll tell Dad he wants to marry me. He’ll want to settle down.” She emphasized the words.
“He told you this?”
“Yes.”
“He loves you.”
“Yes.” But the second yes was tentative, a little uncertain. She looked around, confused. “He wouldn’t lie to me.”
I looked at Ardolino. He was shaking his head. I could read his mind: lowlife Danny using this sad girl.
“Wasn’t Danny afraid you’d get caught?”
She frowned. “My mother started to suspect, I think. She made remarks. Mom, you know, was afraid of him. She told me Danny has this mean streak. She said she’d seen it, but I never did. I didn’t believe her. Look at him—Harvard, model looks, killer body”—She stopped. “He loves me, that’s all.” She stated it as a fact.
“Did your mother say anything to your father?”
“I think she said something but Dad never listens. It was because she found a joint in my room.”
“From Danny?”
“Yeah, we smoked. He likes to smoke when we, you know, do it. Says it brings him—joy. He gets crazy, like. But I took the joint from him even though he told me never never never smoke without him. I took it from his case. I hid it. She went snooping. I don’t know why I took it.”
“But you’re not telling us something, Kristen. Because of that one joint, your mother searched your room, no? She found an envelope of…”
She held up her hand, her face flushed. “Oh God, you know that? Mom yelled at me. I made her promise not to tell Dad. I said it was a mistake. I was holding the stuff for someone. I begged her. Dad would kill me.”
“Did Jon know?”
“Know what?”
“That you had that stash?”
“I think Mom told him. She told him everything. He’d never say a word. Mom couldn’t stop crying.”
“She blamed Danny?”
She nodded.
Ardolino jumped in. “So tell me, Kristen, if Danny suspected your mom of causing trouble, maybe he killed her.”
She spoke through her teeth. “I told you. You don’t kill someone over this. A few joints—not crack or something.” A weak smile. “Danny warned me over and over not to do it, but…” She shrugged. “Tempting.”
“What happened the night your Aunt Mary got killed?” I asked.
“I can’t remember.” Her voice got belligerent. “I don’t know.”
“Your mother went out on an errand,” I reminded her. “She had a note. She went to the mall. She was supposed to pick you up somewhere. She got confused—or lost. She went to the wrong place. What’s that all about?”
Kristen fidgeted, bit her lower lip. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“You wrote that note, Kristen. Right?”
“I don’t think…”
“Why would you leave that note?”
“You left that note, right?” From Ardolino.
She nodded, sucked in her breath. “I guess so.”
“What did it say?” Ardolino asked.
“Well, I said a friend was dropping me off at West Farms Mall, and I didn’t have a ride home—my car was in the garage—and could she pick me up in front of Ruby Tuesday’s. I told her to call me. Let me know. She left a message on my cell phone and said she would.”
“You didn’t talk to her?”
“No, I let my machine pick up.”
“Why?”
She didn’t answer, just shrugged her shoulders. “I didn’t want to talk to her, I guess. I don’t know. I was busy, maybe.”
“But she didn’t meet you,” I said. “When she got home, she told Jon she must have missed you.”
“I got a ride home later and she went apeshit. Wasting her time and crap like that. I must have forgot that I wrote Ruby Tuesday’s. I don’t know. Then we learned that Mary was dead and she had other things to worry about. She left me alone.”
“So you’re saying it was a simple mistake?” Ardolino asked.
She nodded. “Mom got it all wrong, I guess.”
I’d had enough. “Kristen,” I demanded, “tell me the truth. You were never even near the mall. You were with Danny.”
“I…why…”
“We can ask him, you know,” Ardolino said.
“He’ll say no,” she said, a little smugly.
“We can find out, you know.”
She got flushed. “Why else would I leave that note? I needed a ride.” Her voice was tinny, scared.
“Answer me this, Kristen,” I went on. “Why did Danny call your Aunt Mary at her home the night she died?”
“Did he?”
“The phone records show he called Tommy’s apartment, the store, then Mary’s home. Tommy wasn’t there. He talked to Mary. They talked for ten minutes.”
She started scratching her elbows. She looked toward the door. “I don’t know.”
“What don’t you know?” Ardolino asked.
“Danny didn’t call her. He—I think he was with me—at the mall.”
“Then why did you need a ride?”
“He had to leave, I think. I…I…”
I leaned into her: “Isn’t it possible Danny called, not to talk to Tommy, but to reach Mary herself. To get her to leave and go into Hartford?”
“But why?”
“You tell me.”
“Danny couldn’t get Aunt Mary to do that. Why would she listen to him? My mom poisoned the way she looked at Danny…”
I leaned in closer. “That’s right, Kristen,” I said. “Mary would never leave her home to go there. That’s preposterous.”
“See…I…”
“But she might if you were the one making the call from Danny’s phone.”
She sat there, rigid.
Her face trembled, one hand searching for the other, then both hands touching her face. We waited. And waited.
I tapped her wrist. “Kristen, why would you tell Mary to go there of all places?”
“I love Danny.” She closed her eyes. “He loves me. They were trying to get between us. Mom and Mary. We love each other.” She started to cry. “But it has nothing to do with murder. That was an accident. We didn’t do that.”
“Tell us what happened. Why did you make that call?”
“Danny told me what to do. I left the note for Mom so she wouldn’t be home if Aunt Mary called. I knew Mary never called Mom on her cell phone. Danny said we had to teach them both a lesson.”
“What kind of lesson?”
“I’m not sure, but Mary was a troublemaker. She was talking to Mom about Danny on drugs, or something, and me on drugs, and it was all getting crazy. And sooner or later Dad would step in, and I wouldn’t be able to marry Danny.”
“What did you tell Mary?” Ardolino asked. “When you reached her.”
“I told her Mom called me and said she had an accident in Goodwin Square. Mary didn’t even know where that was, except that it was a bad neighborhood. Everybody sort of knows that. I told her Mom was going to Little Saigon and took the wrong turn because of the detour there, and now she was struck by someone. There were scary people around and she’d called the police who were slow in coming. So she called me. She couldn’t drive her car, I said, but my car was in the garage. Which it was. Nobody was around. Would she pick her up? She said to call my Dad, but I said I couldn’t reach him at work and besides he’d be pissed off that she was in that part of town. He’d blame the accident on her. I just went on and on until she asked for the address again. I had to tell her how to get there. Mom wanted company there. To help her…wait till the police and tow truck came and…and…you know…Mary said she’d pick up Mom, but she wasn’t happy. She said she was tired of being Mom’s servant.”
“But why get Mary to that corner?” Ardolino asked.
Kristen looked confused. “I don’t know. Danny said she was too nosy, asking too many questions about him and drugs. You know, Aunt Mary was a busybody. Danny said she wanted to talk to the police about it. Imagine, the police.”