Vivian’s mind was reeling with the revelations—they’d come so rapid-fire, one after the other. But when she finally looked at the blond whispering in Caputto’s ear, she sucked in her breath sharply, and all of his revelations went out of her mind. She’d met the woman only once, when they’d gone sailing on Freddy’s boat months before, but she could have sworn that the young woman sidling up to Vincent Caputto right now was Pauline Endicott, Uncle Freddy’s lately estranged wife. Vivian held her breath as the woman’s eyes slid over Charlie. Then she ducked her head before Pauline could see her face.
Caputto smirked at something Pauline said and put a palm familiarly on her hip.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I got a club to run,” he said. Then he stood up and swiftly left the room with Pauline, leaving Vivian and Charlie alone with the hulking bodyguard.
“Do you think—”
“Not here,” Charlie said in a low voice with a pointed glance at the bodyguard.
Charlie took her hand and pulled her from the chair. He led her wordlessly from the room, down the narrow set of stairs, and back to the boisterous main room of the club. Vivian watched as Caputto made his way across the crowded dance floor to the bar on the far side of the room. She didn’t know what to say, where to start. A man like that had known her father, she thought in disbelief. A man like that had known her father…and had called him Easy Artie. She shook her head. “Do you think it’s true?”
“Which part?”
“Any of it.”
Charlie nodded, the corners of his mouth turned down. “Moochie’s a hood, but he’s not a liar. And he’s not going to say another word—not if he wants to keep breathing. He may be close to straight now, but he’ll always be mixed up in something. I didn’t expect him to give us any real information, Viv. But at least you heard from the horse’s mouth, another horse’s mouth, about what your father was up to…”
No good, she thought. Vivian let a breath out slowly through her nose in an effort to calm her racing pulse.
Her eyes fell on the green velvet booth at the end of the bar—now empty. She knew something else then too. Of course her father had known that Vivian had been at the Green Mill that night when she’d been not quite seventeen. He’d known because Ted Newberry, the dapper, tuxedoed, soon-to-be-dead associate of Al Capone, had smiled at her and patted her arm and then gone off to place a telephone call. Newberry had told her father that he’d been introduced to his daughter out with a much older man—and three sheets to the wind on a school night. A gangster had known her father well enough to call him at home in the middle of the night to tell him to rein in his daughter. She remembered again how icily angry her father had been. How sure he’d been about what she’d been up to, even when she’d denied everything. Her palms were clammy.
“And what he said…at the end—that it was a good thing that my father went and had a heart attack?” Her voice faltered. She felt numb. Every bit of emotion had drained from her body.
Charlie put his hands on her shoulders and flexed his fingers. He crouched down to look directly into her eyes and opened his mouth to speak. But she shook her head and held up one hand to stop him. He didn’t need to answer. It was written all over his face—the verification of what Vivian already knew. Her father hadn’t had a heart attack eight years ago. He’d been murdered.
Chapter Twenty-Two
They drove in silence. Vivian looked out the window and watched her breath fog up the glass.
Murdered. Her father had been murdered. The idea swirled around and around in her mind, trying to find purchase. How could that be true? He’d had a heart attack. The doctor had said so. She’d been there when he died. No. That’s not right. She hadn’t been there when he’d died. She’d gone to meet that boy, and when she’d come back, Father was dead in his favorite chair by the radio. What exactly had happened after she’d left? Why hadn’t she stayed? She glanced over at Charlie. He hadn’t spoken on the ride either.
Her father had known too much, and someone had killed him for it. What had he known? And did that even matter anymore? And then there was Oskar. Caputto had known exactly who he was. He and her father were pals. And what about Pauline? What on earth was she doing at the Green Mill with someone like Vincent Caputto—and what did that mean about Uncle Freddy? Vivian had a sick feeling in her stomach. There were too many questions and no proof, only suspicion. All of this was too much.
Charlie turned onto her street, which was dark and quiet at this time of night.
“You know, Sister Bernadine speaks highly of you,” he said, breaking the silence.
Vivian glanced at Charlie before pretending to be absorbed in the twinkling lights of the Christmas displays outside the passenger-side window. She blinked and forced her mind to slow down, to switch gears. She knew that’s what Charlie had intended the question to do—to slow the swirling thoughts in her head.
“When did you speak to Sister Bernadine?”
“I dropped by the foundling home on Christmas Day,” he said. “I usually do. She said you were there last week handing out presents to the children. She said you even brought an authentic-looking Kris Kringle with you.” She could hear the smile in his voice, even if she wouldn’t turn to look at him.
“I… Yes…” She was suddenly tongue-tied and embarrassed that Charlie knew what she’d done. She wasn’t sure why, except that she’d meant it to be private. The foundling home seemed like such an intimate thing between them. After all, he’d confided in her about being left at that foundling home as a child. That confidence had opened her eyes to the plight of those poor children. Without Charlie, she wouldn’t have given more than a passing thought to those parentless children at Christmas. What’s more, he seemed to know that too.
“I never thought I’d see the day when Vivian Witchell did something nice without an agenda.” He steered the car to the curb in front of her house and put it in Park with a jerk and a rumbled screech of the engine.
Finally turning to face him, she said, “I do nice things all the time,” though her protest sounded feeble even to her ears.
“I’m teasing you, Viv,” he said, his face taking on a more somber expression. “I think it’s great. Those kids deserve all the happiness they can get.”
“Thank you, Charlie,” she said. “I think so too.” She glanced away, her throat closing off with pent-up emotion. Tears sprang to her eyes, and she balled her hands into fists on her lap.
“You okay?”
She gazed down at the floor and shook her head without looking at him. She took a deep breath and let everything out in her exhale. “This whole time I was hoping we’d find nothing, Charlie. All this time I was hoping I’d have to accept that lame story Uncle Freddy gave me about why my father had that cash. But now I know for sure. He was a crook. My father was a crook. All this time I’d believed he was a good man, a respectable man. And he wasn’t.” She hitched in her breath again sharply, refusing to cry.
“I’m sorry, Viv, but you did say you wanted to know one way or the other.” His voice was soft in the silence of the car.
“And I’m sorry I ever said that,” she said. “Because I don’t want to know any of it.” She sighed, closing her eyes. “They called him Easy Artie, for God’s sake. I didn’t know him at all… And somebody…and somebody…” Her voice cracked despite her resolve to put on a brave face, and she couldn’t continue. She couldn’t say what she knew was true—that somebody had killed him to keep him quiet. She looked at Charlie, narrowing her eyes, almost unable to see him through the welling tears. “You knew, didn’t you? You knew about my father this whole time. Easy Artie. All of it.”
“Ah…” His eyes strayed over her head, and he seemed to be searching for words that he couldn’t find. He gave up and glanced away from her. And she knew it was true. He paused for a moment and then continued without looking at her. “I didn’t know all of it, but I kn
ew who your father was. I’d even seen him at the racetrack once. Pop pointed him out with Capone—told me he was some big-shot attorney. But that was years ago. I’d forgotten all about it until I met you. And then it didn’t make much difference to me one way or the other—who your father was, I mean, or what he’d done.” He glanced at her, his brow furrowed. He cleared his throat. “So I knew who Arthur Witchell was all right, but then I realized a few days ago in the Tip Top Café that you didn’t know who your father was, not really. And I also knew it wasn’t up to me to tell you.”
“But if you’d told me, it would have saved us all this trouble…”
He shrugged and glanced away again. “You wouldn’t have believed me.”
She looked at him, at his strong profile backlit by the streetlamp outside. He was right. She wouldn’t have. She had wanted proof, hadn’t she? What would she have thought if he’d told her the truth that day in the Tip Top Café? She’d have fought it tooth and nail.
“But the problem was that I did know who he was and who he was involved with, and even though I couldn’t tell you, I could stop you from digging any further and getting yourself hurt.”
Vivian swallowed. He hadn’t wanted her to get hurt. That meant something. But he also hadn’t wanted her to stick around, had he?
“But, of course, that didn’t work. Because then you came to me to tell me the cash was missing. And that got me worried that more was at stake than your father’s memory. So I let you hire me.”
“Let me hire you?” She stared at him in incredulity. The corner of Charlie’s mouth twitched, and she realized it was a joke. She sat back in her seat again, biting down the smile that had sprung to her face.
“Then you found that ledger, and things got serious. So I brought Pop to tell you who your father was, hoping that would end your digging. But you didn’t believe him either,” Charlie said. He looked at her, a slight smile on his lips. “You’re a tough nut, Vivian Witchell.”
A tough nut or a fool?
“You do believe it now, don’t you?”
She looked out the window at her house, her father’s house. The house that his lies had built. She swallowed. There were needles in her throat, and she couldn’t answer.
“Viv?”
Vivian shook her head. A tear spilled over her lower lid, and she wiped it away with her balled fist. She sniffed, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw Charlie watching her with concern. “Why do I have this damned habit of bursting into tears around you?”
He smiled and handed her his handkerchief. “Maybe because you know I’m a sucker for a damsel in distress.”
Vivian snorted and jerked her head toward the passenger-side window.
“Look, Viv, I know this is upsetting. I know you admired your father.”
“I used to,” she said. She was surprised at the anger in her voice. She stared at the house, at her breath making icy tendrils on the glass. She hiccupped once, pathetically, and bowed her head. She was tired suddenly. So tired.
Then she felt Charlie’s large hand on the back of her neck, his warm fingers slipping under the fur collar of her coat. She inhaled sharply at his unexpected touch, but she didn’t move or turn her head to look at him. She was afraid that if she acknowledged it, he would pull away from her, and she didn’t know if she could ever recover if he pulled away from her now. His thumb started to trail lightly up and down the nape of her neck. Vivian closed her eyes and let her head drop back onto it. Neither of them spoke.
Vivian felt the gooseflesh break out on her arms. Then Charlie’s hand slid up the back of her head, and he cupped her head with his palm, turning her toward him and pulling her forward. He pressed her cheek into his shoulder as he enveloped her in his arms. Her arms slid around him, and she inhaled deeply with her eyes still closed, breathing in the comforting scent of Brylcreem and aftershave. The wool of his overcoat scratched her cheek, but it felt so good to be in his arms again, to feel protected. His fingers moved down to stroke her back as they embraced, and Vivian felt the shiver of anticipation travel up her spine even through the heavy wool coat. Finally, she lifted her head. When she opened her eyes, she found him gazing down at her. He trailed the tip of his index finger down the side of her face and cupped her chin with his fingers.
“I should’ve called you, Viv,” he said. His eyes traveled down to her mouth and back up—a slow, lazy circuit.
She let out a ragged breath.
“I thought you said what was past was past.”
He tilted her chin up with the tips of his fingers and leaned down halfway. Then he paused, his warm breath mingling with hers.
“I lied,” he whispered.
And then his lips were on hers. She responded automatically, her lips parting, tasting him. Reveling in him. Then his lips were on her neck, her cheeks, her nose, her eyelids. Her hands moved to his hair, sliding through the thick waves. They moved down to slide up and down over his chest. His hands were everywhere, roaming over the thick wool of her coat, then under it and down across the velvet of the dress drawn taut over her hip. His fingertips slid underneath to tease against the lacy edge of her garter, then continued up to brush the sensitive skin on the inside of her thigh.
Finally, he tore his lips from hers, and she opened her eyes slowly with a dreamy, ragged sigh. More. She wanted more. He leaned back against the driver’s-side door, and they looked at each other for a long moment in perfect silence. Her eyes flicked from his lips, stained red with her lipstick, to the windshield, and she noted that the insides of all of the car windows were now encased in looping curlicues of frost.
“I should go,” he said as she whispered, “Stay.”
His brow creased as he looked at her. Then before he could refuse, or worse, before he could say something about staying purely out of a sense of duty, sleeping on her sofa or some such nonsense to watch over her in her time of need, she wanted to make her intentions perfectly clear. She nodded toward the opaquely white windshield and smiled, her face the picture of innocence.
“I’m afraid you can’t drive anywhere like this, Detective. You’ll get into an accident.”
He glanced at the windows, then back to her. He smiled—the smile that turned her insides outside. Then he reached out to smooth a strand of hair behind her ear, his thumb trailing down her jaw to brush over her lips. “Mmm,” he said, his eyes again trained on her mouth. “And that’s some thick ice. I’m afraid it may not clear until morning.”
Vivian slid over on the bench seat and ran her gloved hand up his leg to rest lightly on the inside of his thigh.
“What a shame,” she said. Then she tilted her head up to his for another kiss.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Vivian stretched lazily and reached across Charlie’s sleeping form to register the time on the alarm clock. She was late. Incredibly late. It was almost ten o’clock, and she was supposed to be at the station by ten thirty for the first of several dress rehearsals for The Pimpernel today. She bolted from the bed with a mumbled curse, inadvertently dragging the tangled bedsheets with her.
“Hey,” Charlie said, his voice thick with sleep. “What’s the big idea?” He yanked the sheets back without opening his eyes. She stood at the side of the bed and looked at him for a long moment, seriously considering chucking stupid Percy Blakely and his alter ego the Scarlet Pimpernel to spend the day lounging blissfully in bed. But then sense prevailed. She couldn’t do that. An entire crew of people were depending on her. Graham was depending on her. She sighed. Graham.
She turned, spying one of Charlie’s socks flung haphazardly over the radiator. Lord, they’d been in a hurry last night. She smiled at the memory as Charlie’s arm snaked around her waist from behind. He pulled her back down to a seated position and planted an affectionate kiss on her naked shoulder.
“Good morning,” he said. She half turned to him and swatted at the hand that h
ad started to find its way up her midsection.
“I have to go,” she said. “I’m very, very late.” She started to rise, but Charlie tightened his grip around her waist, preventing her.
“Go?” He pulled her back onto the bed with surprisingly little effort. Before she could explain, he had pinned her hands above her head and straddled her hips with his knees. “You’re not going anywhere, Miss Witchell,” he said with a smirk. He leaned down and nuzzled deliciously into her neck, and Vivian closed her eyes with a sigh. No, she didn’t want to go anywhere, she thought. Then the guilt returned. The Pimpernel. An entire crew of people. Her reputation. Graham.
She struggled to free her hands, scowling. “Charlie,” she pleaded. “I have to go.”
He released her hands and rolled to the side with a grunt of disapproval.
She rushed to get dressed, struggling with her stockings. Charlie didn’t say anything, but she could feel him watching her and could sense his mildly amused disappointment. She brushed her hair furiously, trying her damnedest to get it to lie down. Finally, in desperation, she placed a clip on either side, drawing her hair back from her face. It still looked messy, but there was nothing to be done for it. She automatically reached for the enamel bird pin in the tray on the top of her jewelry box, and then drew her hand back.
She turned and found Charlie watching her, one arm lackadaisically placed behind his head. God help her, he looked wonderful: dark-blond hair tousled, cheeks unshaven. He smiled at her. “Should I wait here for you?” he asked, patting the bed beside him. She knew he would stay if she asked him to, and she was tempted. Boy, was she tempted.
She smiled. “I’m afraid it’s going to be a long day,” she said. “The Pimpernel is in terrible shape, and we’re live tomorrow night.”
“Can I offer you a ride to the station then?”
“No,” she said. Too quickly, she realized, and she covered the gaffe with a smile. She moved to the side of the bed, kicking something sticking out from under the frame. She absently picked up the Kewpie doll that had been knocked to the floor the night before and sat down next to Charlie on the side of the bed. “I mean, no reason for you to rush. Stay here. Take your time.” She smoothed the doll’s frilly dress back down and propped the doll up next to Charlie. “Here, Topsy will keep you company.”
Homicide for the Holidays Page 21