Shallow Graves - Jeremiah Healy

by Jeremiah Healy

  "Tried to breathe for her, work the chest, you know."

  "Anything?"

  "No. I never done CPR outside that class, but she was gone. They say, sometimes you can bring them back, but I'm working on her, and I'm starting to see these bruises — more like little cuts around her neck — " Puriefoy stopped and shook his head. "Enough about that shit, okay?"

  "Did you hear anything else?"

  "No, man. Sinead was on the phone, screaming at whoever she got. Larry and I were working on Mau."

  I stopped and thought it through. Pretty consistent with Fagan's version, as far as she went.

  Puriefoy said, "Look, man, can I get back to work now?"

  "Yeah. Just one more question."

  "What?"

  "The guy who came to warn you off."

  "The cheech?"

  "He have a toothpick in his mouth?"

  Puriefoy didn't answer right away. "The fuck did you know that?"

  "Ethnic stereotype."

  -15-

  THE BERRY/RYDER ADVERTISING AGENCY WAS LOCATED ON LOWER Newbury Street. The bay window in the reception area provided a panorama of the Ritz Carlton Hotel and a pie slice of Public Garden. I was watching a giddy Hispanic couple walk hand-in-hand toward the Swan Pond when the stunning receptionist told me that Larry Shinkawa could see me now.

  I was guided by her to an office that just missed a view of the Garden. The furnishing was stark, a lot of chrome and white interspersed with black surfaces in lacquer or leather. A portable cassette player took up most of the windowsill. The desk consisted of a thick Plexiglas sheet laid over double filing cabinets, a snake lamp with a long neck clamped to one end of it.

  Shinkawa introduced himself by coming around the desk. He was about five seven in a tailored pin-striped shirt, flowered tie, and the slacks to an Armani suit. The hair was longish and combed sideways over the head, thick but graying in streaks. He had laughing eyes behind red-rimmed aviators and a pug nose over a yearbook smile. The smile was cranked up high, like he'd been eagerly anticipating my visit all morning.

  I said, "I appreciate your seeing me on such short notice, Mr. Shinkawa."

  "Call me Larry, please. Or Larry Shin, if you'll be here long enough."

  I must have looked at him oddly.

  "You see, Mr. Cuddy — "

  "John, please."

  "Thanks. You see, John, when I got here, there was already a guy named Larry — Larry Ryder, one of the founders of the agency. So people had to call me Larry Shinkawa, which got shortened over time to just Larry Shin. Sit, please."

  He returned to his desk. I took one of two chrome chairs with black leather slings as seat and back.

  Shinkawa said, "What's this about?"

  "I'm investigating Mau Tim Dani's death for an insurance company. Erica Lindqvist didn't tell you that?"

  The smile distorted for just a second, then broke into a wider grin. "Shouldn't try to fool you, huh? Sure, Erica called, said a private eye might be by to see me."

  In other words, trust me now because I'm finished lying. Shinkawa toned back down to a smile. "I thought I'd just play along."

  "Sort of take things as they come?"

  He acted like I found him engaging. "The only way. You ever hear of karoshi, John?"

  "No."

  "It's Japanese for 'dying from overwork.' A real problem in the old country. Guys in their forties, like me, dropping like flies. The ones who get enough money or corporate bennies to join a tennis club are in the worst shape. They got high blood pressure, stress enough to make the tennis court a minefield for their hearts. Me, I take things in stride, don't let life get me down."

  I cut in before hearing that he bent with the breeze. "It would help if you could tell me about Mau Tim as you knew her."

  "Professionally or personally?"

  "Start with professionally."

  "George — George Yulin — introduced us, I think. At one of their parties at the Cactus Club, a good way for a modeling agency to get its new girls seen by ad people. Well, I had this great concept for a furrier here. We're a small agency, John, so we can put together some of the strongest print ads around for clients that haven't got the bucks or the volume to benefit from television product. I pitched the campaign to the furrier. Most concepts get rejected by the client. This one said, 'Go for it.' "

  "What was the campaign?"

  "A series of young models, instead of the older, 'Martha, you've raised our children and you deserve a mink' types. Only these were going to be exotic girls, not cheerleaders, follow?"

  "And Mau Tim was exotic."

  "Oh, John, you have no idea. Honestly. One of the few girls who never took a bad photo. Every shot a piece of art. Anyway, I met her as we were executing that campaign. She was just breaking in, and I was able to give her career a boost."

  "And you started seeing her personally?"

  The smile wavered a little this time. "Yes."

  "How long did you see her?"

  "Six, eight months I guess. It wasn't the usual."

  "The usual?"

  "Yeah. In this business, John, you get all sorts of opportunities. You look like you're about my age?"

  "Probably."

  "Well, I'll tell you, the younger ones do keep you younger. But you get tired of them after a while. They don't have any depth."

  "But Mau Tim did."

  "Some." Shinkawa swayed back in his desk chair. "She was interested in the sixties, for example. Made me tell her all the expressions, like 'too much' and 'far out.' Remember?"

  "Most of them."

  "Well, she'd change them to suit herself. Like in bed, she'd say things like ‘too, too much' or 'far, far out.' Her way of showing that she understood me but could still personalize things for herself."

  "Adapting to a culture she never experienced."

  Shinkawa stopped for a second. "You know, that's a nice turn of phrase, John. Very nice. She was like that about my being Japanese-American, too."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, she was always asking me what it was like to grow up Asian in America. Maybe because she had a Vietnamese mother and I think an Italian — Italian-American, I mean — father."

  He thought. "You never met her family, then?"

  "No. No, but she was always asking about mine. Japanese customs and relationships. I wasn't born till forty-eight, but before World War II my parents lived in California. They were Nisei. Know what that means?"

  "Born in this country of parents from Japan?"

  Shinkawa gave me the "nice-turn-of-phrase" look. "Basically. My mom and dad met when they were being interned. You know about that, too?"

  "Not much."

  "Well, let me tell you a little then. Right after Pearl Harbor, the authorities started rounding us up. By the time they were finished, over a hundred thousand men, women, and children of Japanese descent were herded into ‘relocation' camps, John. Two thirds of us were American citizens, but that didn't matter. No charges, no trials, no convictions. Everybody just lost their jobs and property and got locked away in the desert. You remember all the uproar over that Judge Bork being nominated for the Supreme Court?"

  "Sure."

  "Well, they went after him because of his record on civil liberties, right? Let me tell you, when I was in college, I decided to do my senior thesis on the Nisei. In early 1942, one of the strongest voices calling for the internment testified before a Congressional committee that we Japanese immigrants and citizens had settled intentionally in strategic areas on the West Coast, that we were racially and psychologically tied to the Emperor, and that we were just awaiting the order from Tokyo to strike treacherously at the heart of the American defense industry. You know who that voice belonged to?"

  "No."

  "The then attorney general of the state of California. The honorable Earl Warren, future Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court"

  "You're kidding?"

  "Wish I were. I could never understand how that
didn't come out more when they were going after old Borkie."

  I wanted to get Shinkawa back on track. "So you told Mau Tim about your parents' situation back then?"

  "Oh, yeah. Yeah, that and all kinds of other things. The kid was a sponge for it, asking me if I'd ever been to Hawaii or any other areas where Asian-Americans were like a majority."

  "And?"

  "And I had to tell her, 'Mau, after the war, my folks moved to the Midwest. I was born and brought up in Madison, Wisconsin, you know? All of this stuff is just history to me.' "

  "She have any enemies you know of?"

  "Enemies?" Shinkawa lost his smile altogether for the first time. "Why ask me that?"

  "You were there that night."

  "At her apartment, you mean?"

  "Yes."

  "Sure, but she was killed by some burglar who probably needed money for drugs and panicked."

  "Even so, you mind going over things for me?"

  "No." Shinkawa revived part of the smile. "No, I suppose not."

  "The party was for her birthday?"

  "Right."

  "You know who was invited?"

  "Well, originally it was just going to be Mau, Sinead, Oz Puriefoy — you know who he is?"

  "Yes."

  "Okay. And Quinn Cotter."

  Sinead Fagan had mentioned him. "He's a model, too?"

  "Right. Pretty popular in the sports lines. You saw him, you'd know him. Here . . ." Shinkawa opened a file drawer and rummaged around. "This is his comp."

  Shinkawa handed me a black-and-white composite card of a tall, broad-shouldered blond in his twenties with a cleft chin, plastered hair, and vapid eyes listed as blue on the back. The photos showed him in a martial arts uniform with boards to split, swim trunks with surfboard to ride, and cross-training gear with ten-speed bike to pedal. He looked like the kind of guy who'd enjoy bungee jumping.

  I handed the card back to Shinkawa. "Why didn't Cotter come to the party?"

  "It's a little involved. I had an out-of-town meeting, so originally I wasn't going to be able to make the party. Then the meeting canceled, and Quinn bowed out of the party."

  "Why did he bow out?"

  "Because I was boffing the girl of his dreams, John."

  I stopped. "Cotter was interested in Mau Tim?"

  "And how. Tried to wangle a shoot with her through Erica, but his look and hers really clashed, you know?"

  Not in a way I could appreciate. "So Cotter saw you as a rival?"

  Shinkawa started a laugh that turned into a giggle. "No, he saw me as the guy she was more interested in. Mau thought Quinn was kind of a pea-brain, but I think that Sinead felt a little sorry for him."

  "Because of him losing out on Mau to you."

  "And also because another model got picked over him to work on a big running-clothes campaign we're doing this spring."

  "You have anything to do with that decision?"

  The big grin. "Everything. I think Quinn's kind of a pea-brain, too."

  "You know how I could reach him?"

  "Through the agency — wait, I might have . . ." Shinkawa went back to the drawer. "Here. This is the number and address Quinn gave me a couple of weeks ago."

  "When he thought he was still in the running for the running-clothes campaign."

  Just the smile.

  The address was on Fisher Hill in Brookline, reading like a single-family home, not an apartment or condo. "Pretty spiffy."

  "I think the guy house-sits. Good gig for a model."

  "Can we get back to that Friday?"

  "That . . . Oh, right. What else?"

  "You decided you were going to the party when?"

  "Maybe eleven that morning."

  "You call somebody?"

  "I left a message for Mau with Sinead. I guess that's how Quinn knew not to show."

  "Sinead calling him."

  "Yeah. But I don't really know that."

  I said, "You talk with Mau Tim at all that day?"

  "No. She'd usually be on a shoot for the morning into the afternoon."

  Yulin said otherwise. "You try to call her that day?"

  "No. I was seeing her that night."

  "When did you get to the apartment house in the South End?"

  "I stopped home to change after work, get casual because Sinead was talking about dancing afterward."

  "Where's home?"

  "Over on Commonwealth. I've got a condo between Dartmouth and Exeter."

  "Go ahead."

  "So I got to the building at seven-thirty, give or take a few minutes. I rang Mau's bell but didn't get any answer, so I figured she was already downstairs at Sinead's and tried there."

  "You didn't have a key to the front door of the building?"

  "No. Most of the time, Mau came over to my place."

  "Okay. What happened after you rang Sinead's bell?"

  "Oz — or Sinead — buzzed me in, and Mau wasn't there. Sinead was saying she just took a shower."

  "Where was Puriefoy?"

  "In the kitchen, opening some wine." Shinkawa looked off. "So, I guess it was Sinead who buzzed me in." He came back to me, smiling. "Hey, this is kind of cool, you know?"

  "What is?"

  "Reconstructing all this. Getting me to remember things."

  Christ. "Then what happened?"

  "Let's see. Oh, yeah. Then we talked about surprising Mau upstairs."

  "In her birthday suit."

  The laugh into giggle again. "Right, right. A nice turn of phrase then too, I thought. But Oz wasn't up for it, so while he did the wine and Sinead was playing with her stereo, I went upstairs."

  "Then what?"

  "Well, I knocked on Mau's door — No, no, I tried her door first, but it was locked."

  "Was it usually unlocked?"

  "No. No, usually she kept the bolt on but not the chain."

  "Not the chain?"

  "Uh-unh. She broke a nail on it twice and thought it was a pain."

  "You have a key to that door?"

  I stopped again. "Then how did you think you were going to surprise her?"

  Shinkawa shrugged. "Just thought I might. Party mood, you know? You don't always think things through."

  I said, "So then you knocked."

  "Right. I knocked and called out to her, but I didn't hear anything back."

  "Nothing at all?"

  "No. No stereo, no footsteps, nothing. Then I started yelling, and I guess I must have gotten a little scared for her."

  "Why?"

  "Why? She wasn't answering me, and Sinead said Mau had just been in the shower. I thought maybe she slipped and hit her head or something."

  "So you did what?"

  "I ran downstairs and got Oz and Sinead. The three of us went back up and broke down the door."

  "Was the chain on?"

  "Yeah. Yeah, that's why we had to break it down. Sinead had a key for Mau's door, but the chain was on from the inside and Oz and I had to break it down. Or off, I guess. The door was still on its hinges."

  Pretty consistent with Puriefoy's account. "Before you broke through, could you see or hear anything in the apartment through the chain space?"

  "I didn't hear anything, the stereo and TV were off. But . . ."

  Shinkawa finally showed something beyond cheeriness. "I could see like her head and a shoulder, on the floor by the futon. She had a big futon for her couch. When we broke in, we tried to save her, but it was . . . too late, I guess."

  "Once you were in the apartment, did you see or hear anything?"

  "Yeah. I was the first one to her, and I could hear the fire escape."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, you know how a fire escape kind of, I don't know, ‘clangs' when somebody's on it?"

  "Yes."

  "I thought I heard that, so I went into the bedroom and over to the window. But by the time I got there, the guy was gone."

  "Gone?"

  "Well, I looked down at the ground, and up and down
the alley, and I couldn't see anybody."

  "Do you remember seeing anything around the bottom of the fire escape?"

  "The bottom?"

  "Yes. Below where the last flight would come down."

  Shinkawa closed his eyes. "It was dark, but . . . No. No, I don't think so."

  "Maybe trash cans?"

  "No. Definitely not. I would have seen those."

  "Rake, broom?"

  "No. Why?"

  "Anything to pull down that last flight?"

  Shinkawa shook his head. "Man, the guy was going down already. Just his weight would carry that last flight to the ground."

  "Okay. You're at the window. Then what?"

  "Then I went back, and everybody was yelling at once around Mau, and she looked awful, John, her face all . . . contorted, discolored. So Sinead was calling for the EMTs, and I tried to help Oz work on Mau, but I could see it wasn't going to do any good. Then I noticed the jewelry."

  "The jewelry."

  "Yeah. This necklace, I think, or part of one. Under the couch, kind of by Oz's feet when he kneeled down by Mau."

  "But you didn't see Puriefoy do anything with it."

  "No. No, like I said, the thing was just under the futon a little by his shoes, which were just about up against it."

  "Anything else?"

  Shinkawa stopped and adjusted his horn-rims. "I don't think so. We just waited for the ambulance, which got there just before the police, who kind of pushed us downstairs, then brought us back up after they rushed Mau off."

  "You recovering all right yourself?"

  Shinkawa looked at me, like he didn't quite know how I'd intended the question. "I take things easy, John, remember? Besides, I figured Mau and I were about at the end of the line."

  "Why?"

  "She was going to New York."

  "To live?"

  "Yes. The party was both birthday and bon voyage."

  "Mau Tim told you that?"

  "Not in so many words, but I could tell she'd been making up her mind the last few weeks."

  "How?"

  "She was talking about neighborhoods in Manhattan, asking my advice on modeling agencies down there, did I know anybody in them."

  "And that didn't bother you?"

  "Hey, it doesn't matter which agency handles a girl. I can still have her in my campaigns."

  "Professional1y. How about personally?"

  "Mau was fun, John. A little deeper than most. But we weren't in love or anything. Life goes on, you know?"