All in One Piece

by Cecelia Tishy

  Pity… it was pity and horror that engulfed me back then. Pity for the young man who was kind to me and died so horribly.

  And now?

  Disgust. It surges from head to toe. Such potential, so smart and charming, Steven became crime’s own protégé. Schooled by the Voglers, a star pupil, he trumped Corsair crimes with Helping Hand. Self-employed? Yes, Steven became an entrepreneur—and an assassin of sorts. He killed financial futures.

  But Steven Damelin did not deserve the death penalty.

  Who is his executioner?

  I tug the sheet as the washing machine starts to hum and slosh. Pulling one corner around a down-filled back cushion, I feel a crackling. It’s probably a stiff tag, but nothing I’d noticed when Stark and Oliver moved the sofa. I pull the sheet and again feel the crackle, then knead the soft cushion because there’s something inside.

  A quick zip of the cushion cover, and I’m pulling an envelope from the down fill inside. It’s a big mailing envelope. I hold it under the dim basement bulb, then dash upstairs to the light of the front room.

  Clasp open, I reach inside and pull out photographs. They’re large black-and-white glossy photographs of Steven, who’s posing … yes, he’s modeling. These are modeling photos. A quick shuffle, and here’s the face of the Steven I met, pleasant and quick.

  But other Stevens too—sultry, pouting, scowling. He’s in leather, in suits, in bikinis. He wears crosses and a spiked dog collar and nothing else. His chest looks oiled.

  Here’s the stunner: an eight-by-ten glossy shot in a restaurant kitchen. Six chefs in white jackets and toques with knives surround Steven, who is lying naked on his stomach on a stainless table, surrounded by live lobsters. I count twenty-three. He winks at the camera, arms and hands out as “claws.” The chefs’ expressions are lascivious. The tableau is all camp comedy and sex.

  A calendar shot? A gay men’s magazine with New England themes? Maine lobsters? The claws are wedged shut. Nobody will really take a blade to the star crustacean.

  My scalp beats with my heart. So this is Steven’s modeling career. He wasn’t in Esquire or GQ, but yet these are professional shots. I turn the prints over. There’s no photographer or studio name. No ID at all.

  It’s another tantalizing dead end.

  Shuffling the photos, I pause again at the lobster shot with the six chefs, knife blades and claws. On the steel surface, Steven in the buff in prone position, head raised in a vampy wink.

  It’s the wink that stops me at this moment, the facial expression. Something about his cheekbones, or is it his hairline? I look closer, get out the magnifier, look again. And again. Something about the eyes.

  It takes minutes to sink in. I’ve sorted back through the other photos—Steven in dog collar, Steven in leopard bikini. Absolutely Steven. No question.

  The lobster shot, however, is… is not. The nude man lying with the lobsters is Andrew Vogler.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  It’s Wednesday afternoon. two hours till the 3:00 p.m. memorial service, and I don my black St. John knit from the Regina Baynes days and fasten a silver onyx brooch to the shoulder. The mail flutters, and I pick it up. Here’s a postcard. “The Beaches of Waikiki,” it says, showing white sand, blue waters, and surfers. It’s addressed to me. “Pacific is all good. Let’s sip Kona when I get back—next stop, Beirut.” It’s signed Knox and postmarked Hong Kong.

  I stick it on the fridge with a magnet. It’s about a fantasy life on another planet. It might as well be from Mars.

  Off to All Souls Church, I stop at a stationer’s for a guest book, “In Memory” stamped in fourteen-karat gold, billable to Corsair Financial.

  Soft light filters through the stained glass of the vaulted sanctuary. It’s 2:18 p.m., and Rev. Gail Welch meets me in a cream robe with a cowl collar and heavy cord belt, which is surely monastic chic. “The flowers are beautiful,” I say, gazing at vases of gladiolus clustered around the pulpit—and wishing for metal detectors at the entrance. Devaney has reported no arrest of an assailant and no gunshot wound victim treated in area hospitals, at least none that can be connected to my case.

  Glassware clinks. “Mimi’s Kitchen?” I ask.

  “Mimi’s supply corps. Reggie, we didn’t discuss this, but leftover food, All Souls has a program…”

  “Glad to hear it. It’s yours.”

  On the vestibule table, I arrange the boyhood photographs of Steven that Margaret Vogler lent me. What would she or Eleanor or Leonard think of Steven with mascara and eyeliner and a spiked dog collar? I open the guest book. Just days ago, of course, the book was one of my clever devices to gather names, possibly the killer’s among the signatures.

  This afternoon I will watch Drew Vogler like a hawk, but carefully so that his suspicion is not aroused, which is why no one has been informed about the lobster photo.

  I set out pens, arrange two bud vases of single roses, the Gina Baynes touch. And here come Andrew Vogler, Dani, and a woman introduced as Fay, her accompanist. Brother and sister pause at the memorial photos. Dani turns away, blinks and rubs her eyes—carefully because of her makeup. She’s in a mocha sheath and cream voile blouse.

  “I’m going to sing Schubert’s ‘Heidenröslein,’ which is a famous folk song from Goethe. And also one late song, which translates as ‘None but an Aching Heart Knows My Suffering.’”

  Gail takes her and Fay down front to the piano, and we hear warm-up exercises sung in a voice that I would call thin, though serviceable. I’m with Andrew at the table. He, too, rubs his eyes. The hands are healing, the skin a paler pink.

  A close look at his facial features confirms it: he’s the nude in the photo with the chefs.

  “We were twelve that summer,” he says, pointing to a picture of Steven on horseback. “See how Steve sits him, like a jockey.” He pats his breast pocket. “I wrote out my eulogy, but I’m no writer.”

  “If it’s from the heart—”

  “Oh, straight from the heart. I took a lot of time, a whole afternoon off. Sarita gave me a hand with edits.”

  Footsteps and a sharp tap-tap mean Margaret and Leonard Vogler. And that leprechaun cane.

  “Regina.”

  “Margaret, Leonard, good to see you.” She’s in smoke-gray chiffon with jet jewelry. His tie is black on black. Drew kisses her on the cheek.

  Trills ripple from the piano near the nave where Dani rehearses. “. . . weiss was ich leide…”

  “Ah, our Dani,” says proud-papa Vogler. Margaret asks me about the reception.

  “Everything’s set.” Aromas of herbs and butter are wafting. Tinkle of glassware.

  “Corsair is glad to sponsor… er, to host,” says Vogler. “My dear, let us take our seats. Drew, join us? Regina?”

  “Thanks, I’ll see you in a bit.”

  I’m the unofficial greeter by default and design. As people arrive, I welcome and guide them to the guest book. Most are strangers. The Corsair young men… I recognize their names from Drew’s list as they sign the book. Physically they’re either bench pressers or couch potatoes, but all seem to use the same wet-hair-look product and greet each other awkwardly. Bucket-shop buccaneers.

  Neighborhood people are here too, from Hyde Park to Barlow Square. There’s a tall, gaunt woman with tiny gourds on her hat, a young couple with their baby, and a pink-cheeked older man who might have come from a tramp across the moors. Plus a number of leather-jacketed men apparently from the Apollo Club scene despite the sour Matt Kitchel.

  Is there a Helping Hand victim here in the church—an older woman who kept faith in Steven? A true believer who couldn’t imagine that he’d cheat her of every last cent? How about the frail silver-haired figure in tweeds whose spidery handwriting says “Charlotte S. Vickery”? Or the plump woman in navy who writes “Rest in peace” under her name? By 3:52 p.m., there are about a hundred people here.

  Here comes Matt Kitchel himself. Surprise. He nods curtly but refuses to sign the book. Trudy arrives with some Mounds bar
s, and I point her to the reception hall.

  “Meez Reggie—”

  “Ari Tsakis.”

  “I come for my brother George too. The store open—people needs babies’ milk.”

  “Of course. Please put George’s name on the guest book too, and stay for the reception if you can.”

  It’s three minutes until three o’clock. Here are others I recognize. The receptionist Sarita with the espresso eyeliner. Then Eleanor Comber sweeps in in a long black skirt and boiled wool jacket. She’s with the trainer, Vicky, who smiles as Eleanor gives me a stony hello, signs the book with a flourish, and proceeds to sit several pews behind Leonard and Margaret Vogler. Vicky takes a pew by herself on the other side, a lone figure in khakis.

  Here comes a dark-haired woman in aqua blue with a big teenage boy in a Raiders jacket. “Buenos días, Carmine. Buenos días, Luis.”

  Carmine shakes my hand. Luis jams his fists into the jacket pockets and stares at the floor. The crowbar man? Steven’s killer? I can’t believe it.

  The bell strikes three. Gail suggests I sit close to the pulpit. Down a side aisle, I walk slowly, scanning faces.

  Here’s Maglia and Devaney in a back pew.

  “I am the resurrection and the life.” A hush falls. The distant tinkle of caterer’s glassware suddenly sounds jarring. Gail’s voice claims the space. “We gather… pay tribute in respect and in love…”

  She reads prayers from Old and New Testaments, the Koran, and Teachings of Buddha. I step to the pulpit microphone and briefly play my part: describing Steven’s friendship with Jo across generations, his kindness on the day we met.

  Newcomers catch my eye in the back pews—two women, Crystal and Doris Damelin. They sit together yet apart, Crystal staring and her mother—Steven’s mother, his mother—slumped.

  “Today’s timely tribute to Steven…”

  I also see—for godsake—Stark. What’s he doing here, looking stuffed into a sport coat, glowering. He’s no friend of Steven’s, so what’s the point? I swear, the man is nearly stalking me.

  “To this community…”

  There’s another figure too, bearded with bleach-blond-tipped short hair. Something about him, the carriage of his shoulders … something familiar about those shoulders.

  “This gathering of so many here today… a tribute to the many lives touched by Steven Damelin.”

  I sit down, angled sideways because, you see, I recognize those shoulders—Alex Ribideau’s. It’s Alex in a disguise. Is he here for Margaret Vogler’s sake?

  Drew approaches the pulpit and delivers a eulogy as if he’s a head of state. “To ride horseback in the dawn with my brother … in the equities marketplace… side by side in life’s pathways, generous to those ill clad and ill nourished. Amen.” Something rings familiar in those words, but everyone is moved. Some wipe tears at the finish.

  I turn quickly to see—yes, definitely Alex in that pew.

  Rev. Welch calls for anyone else who wishes to speak. Intense silence falls, then a stirring as someone comes down the aisle. Suppose it’s Alex… but no, it’s Luis Diaz, eyes downcast, lumbering. He stands before the altar, faces front, mumbles, “Why God?… Why take Steven, my best, the best in the world? My man.” Gail touches his shoulder, helps him back to his seat. His muffled sobs fill the church until she takes the pulpit. “The Lord God is righteous… justice and mercy.” Then on cue the piano, the thin soprano, “Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt, weiss was ich leide…” Gail offers a blessing, invites us to the fellowship of the reception, and it’s over.

  I race down the side aisle to tell Devaney and Maglia about Alex but get stuck behind the woman in the gourd hat. Alex is still in sight. I can see him—then I can’t. Some are leaving, most funneling into the reception area. I get to Maglia and Devaney and huddle to whisper about Alex’s disguise and point to the spot where he stood moments ago. Maglia bolts. Devaney beelines to the reception room.

  I go in too. No sign of Alex, though maybe he’s bunched with Matthew Kitchel and the inner circle of the Apollo Club, that Praetorian Guard. Most likely he’d make eye contact with Margaret Vogler. Maybe hiding in plain sight is the thrill.

  Mimi’s servers pour and smile in tuxedo shirts and bow ties. Groups form, the Corsair fraternity, the men of Apollo. I grab a glass of Rhône red and pivot to look for Alex. The peroxide hair is nowhere to be seen.

  “Well, Regina Cutter.”

  “Well, Matthew Kitchel.”

  “Looking for someone?” His tone combines malice and teasing.

  “I thought I saw someone—someone with a new beard and hairstyle. Short blond hair.”

  “It’s possible.”

  “I don’t see him now.”

  “People come and go, don’t they? Hard to keep track. Meanwhile, you can talk to the gumshoes.”

  “What gum—?” He cocks an eyebrow toward Maglia, who makes his way through the room while Devaney stations himself at the doorway. I scan the room again. No Alex. Doris Damelin is close-by, clutching a punch cup. “Mrs. Damelin, I’m sorry.”

  She looks away and down. “You done what you could.”

  Crystal holds a fistful of tiny tarts. “The strawberry ones are already gone,” she says. “Hoity-toity, but you need ten to get a real taste. Eating for two.” A tart goes in a gulp. She says, “The old man drove us down.”

  “He’s here?”

  “Drivin’ around somewhere. So when do I get this furniture? I been waitin’ for the big phone call.”

  “I’ll phone soon. I promise.”

  By the punch bowl, Leonard and Margaret stand with Eleanor Comber. Margaret’s cane grins. “Well done, Regina. In fact, lavish.”

  It’s a rebuke for my out-of-bounds food and beverage selection. Leonard smiles. Drew and Dani, I see, are head-to-head in a far corner. And there’s Stark, looking like the Secret Service. His coat sleeves are too short. I hope Ari Tsakis doesn’t see him. The Greek and the biker do not mix.

  I brush shoulders with Sarita. “Drew tells me you helped edit his fine eulogy.”

  “Edit?” Her smile is distant. “I majored in communication,” she says. “We studied a lot of speeches. Roosevelt is a great … um, inspiration.”

  No wonder Drew’s eulogy felt familiar. Ill fed, ill housed—they were spliced snippets from FDR. Stolen. I make my way to Vicky.

  “Oh, Regina, I worried about you, but Eleanor said you’re fine.”

  “I was sore, but I’m okay.”

  “We’ve made changes. Visitors don’t have to ride.”

  “Tell me, how is Diablo? Drew told me what happened the night Diablo was injured. I had no idea how much trouble Steven got himself into.”

  “Steven in trouble?”

  “When Drew had to come help him. With Diablo.”

  She blinks. “You have it backwards. Of course, since you don’t ride, you don’t know a whiplash when you see it. Diablo was whipped. Not by Steve. Steve would never…” She moves away.

  Drew, I see, is watching from the corner of his eye. I smile and wave, walk to the serving area, and take a salmon toast within earshot of Dani and Drew, still in their headlock.

  “Get over it, Dani.”

  “You get over it.”

  He leans down and says something I can’t hear. She turns bright red. I reach for a gooseberry tart. Brother and sister separate, Drew to his father, Dani to the mineral water. People are leaving. Lots of food is left, including Trudy’s coconut bars.

  I thank Gail Welch for the service as Dani Vogler comes my way, face flushed, eyes very bright. “Reggie, I haven’t even said a real hello.”

  “Dani, the music was lovely. I don’t know German, but we all felt the message.”

  “I thought Schubert would keep me safe.”

  “There’s no safety from mourning.”

  She looks across the hall where her parents and stepmother and brother stand together. “So,” she says, “by now you’ve talked to my mother and father and Margaret. And you talked to
my brother too. You have their side. But you haven’t got my side yet. So if you’re interested—”

  Anytime, I tell her.

  “If you’re free this evening—”

  Seize the day—the night. “After the reception, as it happens, I am free.”

  “Meet me at the boathouse. It’s my turn to lock up. Then we can go for a drink or something.” She folds her arms. “I’ll tell you this much now. My brother went to parties on the Shanghai too. And that eulogy about them being brothers—”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, they were more than brothers, Regina. Think about it. I’ll see you around sundown.”

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  I reach the Renfrew Rowing Club entrance just as a car pulls out of the boathouse driveway. My heart stops—it’s a midnight-blue Beemer convertible with Andrew Vogler at the wheel. He may have seen me. His tires squeal and spit gravel as he revs onto Storrow, heading upriver fast toward Newton in the left lane.

  My heels wobble in the gravel as I approach the doors. I should’ve changed shoes. Is Dani here? A white Renfrew van is parked at the side. Maybe she drove it to the memorial service. Or maybe her brother dropped her off moments ago.

  Suppose Drew comes back? He won’t find us because I’ll make sure we go for drinks right away. The huge barn-type doors are closed. I try one. It gives. “Dani?” I open it just enough to poke my head in. “Dani?” My head’s between the two doors. “Oh, Dani—Dani Vogler?”

  She’s not here yet. Maybe Drew came looking for her and left, which means he might return. The traffic rushes at my back side. Only a few feet of space and a low guardrail separate me from onrushing cars. I step inside.

  The last light through the dusty windows high in the rooftop gables barely shows outlines of the boats. The colors are fast fading to umber and grays. Against the wall, the oars stand at attention in their regimental row.

  It’s quiet in here, though not calm. The traffic outside is a muffled roar, and the air—for one thing, it’s cold but stuffy and still, as if the boathouse is biding its time, holding its breath. The floorboards are uneven. If the doors on the river side were open, there’d be fresh air and a burst of the western light of the setting sun.