Shallow Graves

by Jeremiah Healy

  We entered the kitchen. Claudette Danucci was crying, trying to center what was left of the iolite necklace on one of the tiles in her countertop. She glanced at us with the good eye, then used a forearm to mop sweat and tears from her face as she raised a heavy skillet in that hand and smashed down again on the gems in the necklace, tiny shards skittering across the tiles, some of which were broken from earlier blows.

  We left her like that, hammering to dust the necklace that was the color of her dead daughter’s eyes.

  In the driveway outside the kitchen door, Zuppone told the two soldiers that Joseph Danucci just got word that his father had died of a heart attack. The soldiers, both of whom had seen me with the old man’s riddled body, exchanged looks and nodded and said they were sorry to hear it. Primo told them to stay with the Danuccis in case they needed anything that night. As we drove toward Boston, he put a tape into the slot on the dashboard and settled in to piano and violin.

  I waited ten miles before saying, “Thanks for backing me in there.”

  Zuppone kept his eyes on the road. A minute later he said, “I wasn’t backing you. I was looking out for them.”

  That was it. Just the music and the tires slapping the junctions in the pavement as we dodged potholes on the way toward the bright lights.

  When we got off the Expressway, Primo drove up Kneeland to where it becomes Stuart, then down Charles to Beacon. He stopped the Lincoln at the corner of Arlington, five blocks from my condominium building.

  “Okay you get out here?”

  I looked around but didn’t see anything or anybody except a couple walking some kind of hairless terrier down the ramp from the river. The dog looked like a rat on a rope.

  “I think I can find my way.”

  Zuppone spit his toothpick out the window and reached for a new one. “I’m gonna be busy next couple of days, taking care of things.”

  “Probably a good idea nobody sees us together anyway, given tonight.”

  Primo seemed to savor the fresh piece of wood in his mouth. “You gonna need any help with the insurance thing there?”

  “I maybe have an idea on that. Can I call you about it?”

  “Make it from a pay phone, huh?”

  “I will.”

  Zuppone said, “It was a good thing you didn’t punch back after Joey landed that left.”

  “He had a right to be upset. Besides, I didn’t want to press my luck.”

  “Luck.” The half-laugh. “Cuddy, after what I seen tonight, when it comes to luck, you must shit shamrocks.”

  Thirty

  THREE DAYS LATER, A taxi was taking us from New York’s Penn Station uptown. Our cabbie sat on those woven beads that are supposed to allow circulated air to keep you cooler in summer and warmer in winter. Cooler would be good, the temperature being in the high seventies.

  Around 45th Street, Primo Zuppone leaned forward. Through the Plexiglas he said to the driver, “Go a little farther north, okay? Drop us at Rockefeller Plaza.”

  “Whatever you say, mon.”

  We got out there, the flags of the nations slacking high above our heads as canned music wafted up from below.

  Zuppone said to me, “Come on. Take a look at this.”

  About a hundred people stood around in the heat looking down toward the ice surface. A young woman in leotards and a short skirt, graceful as a ballerina, was doing a figure skating drill. The woman was magic, and she knew it.

  Zuppone said, “One time I’m down here, I remember seeing this. Incredible, ain’t it, this time of year?”

  “We had the ice in Boston, kids’d be playing pick-up hockey on it.”

  Primo started to walk east toward Fifth Avenue. “Cuddy, you got to look for the art in life.”

  We passed a mime in a black scuba wet suit. He wore a Greek mask and was doing his routine to a boombox blaring the theme from The Exorcist.

  I said, “Art is everywhere.”

  We turned south onto Fifth catercorner from St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the two spires striving heavenward above three massive entrances. On the steps, tourists clicked their cameras, construction workers sunned themselves, and the homeless shook large soda cups containing salted change.

  Zuppone and I did a couple of blocks on Fifth. Past a slim Hispanic woman giving some Japanese schoolgirls directions. Past a Korean grocer helping an elderly couple pick out two nectarines. Past a brawny black man driving a delivery van with a pink stuffed animal tied to the grille.

  I found the address I wanted just where I remembered it, between forty-eighth and forty-seventh, in the jewelry district. On the first floors of the surrounding buildings, bunkers with porthole windows displayed all sorts of set gems against felt backgrounds. Despite the heat, grave men in black frock coats and matching hats moved quickly along the sidewalk, heavy sample cases clutched tightly in their hands. Behind them, graver men wore ill-fitting sports jackets, bulges over hips or under arms. The men in black were Orthodox diamond merchants with ringlets of sideburns and shaved necks, the others their bodyguards with short hair and no necks.

  Primo said, “I get tired of what I’m doing, looks like plenty of work down here.”

  We entered the lobby, the directory telling us Empire still had the whole building. Winningham, Bradley K., was listed on fourteen.

  The elevator opened onto a carefully cultivated reception area. Beautiful potted plants, probably professionally maintained, canopied over a beveled desk. The woman behind it held herself like a pre-Hippie Barnard graduate. She asked if she could help us.

  “Brad Winningham, please. I know it’s his first day back, but he said he wanted to see us as soon as possible.”

  Barnard let me finish. “Will Mr. Winningham know what this is regarding?”

  “Just tell him John Cuddy is here with an associate.”

  She looked at Primo, who smiled senilely.

  “Just a moment.” The receptionist lifted a receiver, tapped a button, and paraphrased my words to someone else.

  A minute later, another woman about the same age came down the hall. “I’m afraid Mr. Winningham’s schedule is full for the day.” She sounded like the voice I’d heard when I telephoned Winningham’s office the prior week. “Perhaps if you—”

  Zuppone said, “Thanks, we can find him,” and set off up the corridor she’d come down.

  The second woman said, “Wait! What are you doing?”

  I told her, “Believe me, this won’t take long,” and followed Primo as the women spoke urgently to each other behind us.

  When I caught up to Zuppone in a branching suite, he was standing outside a door with Winningham’s nameplate next to it.

  I said, “We have maybe three minutes before some kind of security gets here.”

  Primo knocked once and went in.

  Winningham looked up from behind a desk with neat stacks of opened mail on it and a couple of visitor’s chairs in front of it. My first impression of him was that not much had changed since I’d seen him last. But then, a nice tan can fool you. When he opened his mouth, I notice the bottom front teeth were a little cruddy, the lines around his mouth digging deeper into the cheeks and toward the ears. He still had a great preppy haircut, though, most of the strands more brown than gray.

  “What the—Cuddy?”

  “Your secretary gave us the impression you were flat out, so why don’t we just get to it.”

  Winningham stood up, shooting his cuffs even though he wasn’t wearing a suit jacket, trying to seize control. “John Francis Cuddy. The ‘John F. Danucci’ message. Hilarious.”

  Hilarious. Four syllables. Some things never change.

  Winningham turned to Zuppone. “And who might you be?”

  Primo moved forward comfortably, taking a chair and making a ritual out of fitting a toothpick into his mouth. “Let’s just say I’m a guy who don’t need no introduction.”

  Zuppone let that go around the room a bit before adding, “The Danucci family, they ain’t crazy about you
fucking around here, Bradley.”

  The tan faded, the flesh beneath it a tad doughy. “What … What do you … ?”

  I said, “We want to have a little talk with you, Brad. Without benefit of tape-recording or other memorialization.”

  At that point, Winningham’s secretary and two guys in rent-a-cop outfits and sidearms came into the room behind us.

  She said, “Mr. Winningham, these men just barged past me—”

  “I know, Louise.”

  “Do you want them removed?”

  It was still Louise who spoke. The guards, after a quick study of Primo and me, didn’t seem all that keen. Winningham looked like a man having trouble toting up the score.

  Zuppone said, “We could always talk later, Bradley.”

  Primo didn’t make any attempt to move, and there was no doubt that Winningham had a bad feeling about what “later” might mean.

  “No. Er, Louise, that will be all.”

  The rent-a-cops exhaled, but the secretary didn’t seem so sure. “Mr. Winning—”

  “No, really, Louise. It’s all right.”

  She showed her disapproval but left with the uniforms, closing the door behind her.

  Winningham tried a recovery. “Very well, Cuddy, why don’t you take a seat so we can—”

  Zuppone said, “Sit down, Bradley.”

  Winningham wiped his hands on his thighs and sat. I took the chair next to Primo.

  Zuppone said, “Cuddy?”

  I waited until Winningham looked over at me. “Brad, I think you really stepped in it this time.”

  “What—”

  I held up my hand. “You get a claim. You recognize the changed name. You think, ‘Hey, be jolly fun, Cuddy chasing his tail, thinking he was doing a favor for old Harry Mullen. Maybe Cuddy gets his tit in the wringer with a mob family.’ That would really—what did you call it, Brad? ‘Effectuate reparations’?”

  Primo said, “That what you called it, Bradley?”

  Winningham shook a little.

  “Well,” I said, “we have a problem, Brad. The family is less than amused by your sense of humor. They think the death of one of their children is kind of a sore subject for practical jokes.”

  Primo said, “Listen to the man, Bradley.”

  Every time Zuppone spoke, it took a few words of mine before Winningham could look from Primo back to me.

  “Brad, the time with that casualty claim, just before you edged me out of a job? That’s nothing compared to this. When that happened, I thought about maybe putting on a sandwich board and standing out on the sidewalk with a cowbell, letting the passing public know what you’d pulled. But then it was just between you and me, Brad. Now, the oil’s aboiling.”

  Zuppone said, “You ever see anything boiled in oil, Bradley?”

  Winningham’s Adam’s apple bobbed for the knot in his tie.

  Time to throw the lifesaver. “So, here’s what we’re going to do, Brad. Brad?”

  Winningham came back to me.

  “First, we’re going to sign off on the death claim on Mau Tim Dani. Paid in full after concluding investigation.”

  He said, “I can do that. Tomorrow, there’s—”

  Primo said, “Today, Bradley.”

  Winningham nodded.

  I said, “Second, we’re going to maintain Harry Mullen as Head of Claims Investigation/Boston for—”

  Winningham’s eyes bugged. “I can’t restore—”

  Zuppone said, “Bradley, Bradley. You interrupt, you might miss something important.”

  Winningham just stared at him.

  I said, “You’ve got the chips to do it, Brad. Over the course of a career, a man like you squirrels away a lot of chips. Haul them out and play them, Brad. See to it that everybody who matters agrees that closing the investigation office in Boston would be a real mistake. See to it that Harry is taken care of with the job he’s got for as long as he wants it.”

  “You don’t understand. There’s no way I—”

  Primo made a sizzling sound through his teeth. The sound of something being cooked.

  Winningham looked at him and then to me. Then he nodded again.

  I stood up. “That ought to do it, Brad. I’ll send my bill through Harry. See ya ’round the quad, huh?”

  Out on Fifth, Zuppone flicked the toothpick into the gutter at the curb. The traffic was flowing pretty smoothly, lots of taxis just cruising.

  I said, “Want to head back?”

  Primo reached into a pocket. “Little while now, I’m gonna be pretty hungry.”

  “There’ll be a cafe car on the train.”

  Zuppone made a face, then stuck a fresh toothpick in it. “Tell you what, I know a good restaurant.” He pointed downtown. “On Mott Street by Hester.”

  “Stay over, you mean?”

  “Yeah. We go to a hotel for the night, or we can crash with some friends of mine, we need to.”

  “I like the hotel better.”

  “Sure, sure.”

  “Primo?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What kind of restaurant is this?”

  The toothpick moved from one corner to the other. “What kind.”

  Zuppone turned from me with the half-laugh and raised his hand to hail a cab.

  Turn the page to continue reading from the John Cuddy Mysteries

  Prologue

  VIVIAN VANDEMEER STOOD WITH her palms flat on the railing of the cedar deck and let the late May breeze from the lake riffle the hairs on her arms. Buying a new wardrobe for a cruise or the Caribbean, she’d often wished that she had fewer of those hairs. However, Vivian had to admit that the touch of the wind on them was one of the most sensual experiences she’d ever had alone, and she’d worn only a short-sleeved safari shirt over her slacks and low heels tonight just to feel it. The breeze also had to be thanked for keeping the mosquitoes away. Vivian was always amazed that there were fewer mosquitoes at Steve and Sandy’s summer place in the wilds of Maine than on their patios ten miles outside Boston.

  As the wind chimes tinkled over an Aerosmith song behind her, Vivian looked up the lake toward the lights of the village. Steve had cut down all the trees in front of his property—which caused a stink with some people, she’d heard. But the lawn and the brook that ran down the slope—especially with those darling little footbridges—made a perfect foreground for one of the most striking views she’d ever seen. The lights winked out as the locals went to bed early, except for the night fishermen, whose small boats moved slowly across the moonlit water, their little green and red bulbs on chrome stalks—her husband, Hale, called them “running lights”—the only indication they were moving at all.

  A sound by Steve’s boathouse caught her attention. A scratchy, swishing sound, like some creature moving through the underbrush near the side of the property. Using one hand, Vivian shaded her eyes against the floodlights on the deck. She couldn’t see anything except the outline of the boathouse itself, holding the Jet Skis, the kayak, the canoe, the aircraft-engine runabout—that wasn’t Steve’s word for it, but you couldn’t keep track of the technical names for his toys. Tomorrow they’d put on those half-wetsuits for water-skiing that Hale had bought for all of them, then climb into the runabout with the word “FOURSOME” stenciled across its back.

  Foursome. That really did capture them. Steven and Sandra, Hale and Vivian. Only Steven Shea was “Steve” and Sandra Newberg “Sandy,” while Hale Vandemeer would always be just “Hale,” and nobody had ever called her “Viv” except her son, Nicky, to be disrespectful.

  Vivian shook her head. One of the problems with hitting your late thirties was dwelling on the mistakes you’d made as a parent. Better to dwell on a great weekend at the lake, starting, as always, with Steve having to hop into his new four-wheel-drive toy to bounce over the rutted camp road—why couldn’t they just call it a “cottage” road?—to the country store—which should have been the “general” store—for more wine and other things. When he got back, th
ey’d enjoy a late dinner, with more seventies’ rock from the CD player and a few—no, more than a few—laughs. Vivian smiled. Not a bad way to spend a couple of days at this stage of life, girl.

  Then, thanks to a gap in the music, Vivian heard a noise from inside the house, and the smile turned wistful. The noise was the throaty chuckle Hale used to make when they were first dating. A noise he’d make before—she always thought of it as “copping a cheap feel” but of course never referred to it that way. Now she didn’t hear that noise very often, except by overhearing it. When Hale was around Sandy.

  Funny. Through the years, Vivian would have bet the mortgage—and a whale of a mortgage it was, too—that, if anything, she herself would someday have an affair with Steve. He had a good body and a great smile and a—hard to abstract it, really, but it was like he was always leaning forward rather than leaning back. Instead, Vivian came to realize that good doctor Hale was now making some unscheduled house calls on Sandy, probably using the guest room queen-sized so Steve wouldn’t tumble to it. But Vivian had, and she marveled that her knowledge of the affair hadn’t destroyed either marriage or even wrecked the friendship. It … amused her, really. Like a soap opera was being filmed, and she was getting to watch it from the wings, objectively removed from what was supposedly being portrayed.

  Another sound from the underbrush, closer this time to the steps that led down from the deck to the lawn. Vivian went up on tiptoes, again shading her eyes with one hand. Like an Indian scouting the desert, she thought. Only in the desert you could see for miles, while here the brush covered everything. Steve said he couldn’t take that out, or the state environmental people would scream bloody murder at him.

  A third sound, and Vivian felt sure a bush trembled in her peripheral vision. She moved toward the corner of the deck, toward the sound. No need to be afraid; what wildlife she’d seen up here—chipmunks, raccoons, even a porcupine—had been more cute than scary, and anything really frightening—like a moose or, God forbid, a bear—couldn’t hide very well in three feet of ground cover. Vivian thought it might be that mink they’d seen one afternoon, just scavenging along the lakefront, although what in the world it’d be doing a hundred feet from where the dead fish would be she couldn’t—