Shallow Graves - Jeremiah Healy

by Jeremiah Healy

  Danucci tasted the new capuccino. "That makes a little sense, maybe." He set the cup down and watched me, then seemed to steel himself. "But you still think it's family."

  "I haven't seen or heard anything that leads me to believe that anybody other than Ooch knew Tina kept the second-floor key in her kitchen drawer. And the key was back there when I checked on it Friday."

  "So, you're saying the guy didn't take that key with him."

  "Or he put it back before I checked the drawer, which seems tough. If we eliminate Sinead Fagan, too, because of the close timing problem and plenty of other opportunities, we're left with family, I think."

  "What, because Ooch had his own key?"

  "I don't follow you."

  Danucci said, "What I mean is, everybody's got their own keys, Mr. Detective. I got mine, Joey's got his — Hey, Primo?"

  Zuppone came off his wall. "Yes, Mr. Danucci?"

  "You got a set of keys to the Falmouth property, right?"

  Zuppone didn't get angry this time. "Somewheres."

  Danucci came back to me. Vincent Dani, Esquire, he's the trustee or whatever the fuck you call it, he's got a set. We all got keys, but nobody's got no reason to kill Tina. Your theory's all fulla shit there."

  At that point, the door to the shop flew open and three teenagers came in, jostling and punching each other on the arms. All were male and black-haired, the sideburns cut half an inch above the ear, the rest moussed up and combed back. They each wore baggy athletic pants in different metallic colors and Air Jordan sneakers. They ordered three espressos as they yanked out chairs.

  Tommy Danucci cued Zuppone with his eyebrows. Zuppone moved toward them.

  "Hey-ey-ey, guys, how about you get lost for a while, huh? We got a little meeting going on."

  One of the kids smirked at Primo. Raising his right hand slowly, its back toward Zuppone, the kid sent his index, middle, and ring fingers northward. "Read between the lines, zit rack."

  If I hadn't been expecting it, I'm not sure I would have seen Primo's hand moving. It closed around the kid's three fingers, and I heard a snap. The bravado left the boy's face as he howled, standing up only to drop to his knees, the three fingers dangling loosely, like a glove when your fingers aren't in the sleeves. The other two kids took one look at Primo and took off, the third kid teetering up and through the door just before it closed behind his friends. The counterman seemed particularly engrossed in a saucer he was washing.

  Zuppone came back, huffing a little from excitement rather than exertion. "Sorry, Mr. Danucci."

  "An insult nobody could take, Primo." Then to me, "The old days, their families would of known me and told them to be respectful. Now .... " A disrnissive wave.

  I waited him out.

  Danucci cupped his hand around the new capuccino, but didn't lift it. "Like I was saying, your theory's all fulla shit. Besides, it all depends on the Jap, right?"

  "On Shinkawa's hearing the fire escape, yes."

  "So, maybe he's lying."

  "Why?"

  "The fuck do I know why? You're the detective, right?"

  "He'd only be lying if he did it, and that brings us back to the timing and choosing a bad opportunity given that he knew about the party downstairs."

  "Okay, okay. Let me tell you something else, so you'll know it. Maybe he's just mistaken, eh?"

  "About hearing the clanging?"

  "About it being that fire escape. There're — what, Primo, twenny buildings backing on that alley there?"

  "Easy twenty, Mr. Danucci."

  "So call it twenny, twenny-two, whatever. When the Jap goes to the window, he looks down, right?"

  "That's what he told me."

  "So, he looks down and maybe at the alley, too. He don't look around to the other buildings, see if somebody's on one or a pot falls over, am I right?"

  Danucci had a point. "And if Shinkawa is wrong about somebody being on the fire escape. . ."

  "Then it don't got to be family, which I don't see in the first place. Then the fucking crackhead did this to my Tina coulda heard the Jap at the door, then gone down the fire escape all the way to the bottom and run up the fucking alley while the Jap and everybody is coming up the stairs and busting down the door, right?"

  "Except for one thing."

  "What?"

  "How does our burglar get into the building in the first place without going past Sinead Fagan by the kitchen window or using a key on the front door to the building?"

  Danucci wiped his face with the palm of his hand. "That just means somebody we don't know about had a key to the front door. Somebody who didn't know about the party account of you and your timing thing. Find out who it was."

  Which led me back to George Yulin and Erica Lindqvist.

  "Slightly different question?"

  "Go ahead."

  "How come Primo went to scare Oz Puriefoy away from dating Tina?"

  Danucci's blood rose. "Dating her? The fucking monkey was living with her."

  "How did you find out they were together?"

  Danucci looked to Primo, but not so much to ask him to answer as just to make sure he could hear what the old man was about to say. "My daughter-in-law, she called me about it."

  "Your . . . ?"

  "Claudette, from down on the South Shore there. She got wind Tina was seeing a colored, and Claudette was worried Joey might do something to the guy, he found out. Besides, she — I don't know, from over in Vietnam there, she was scared stiff of them."

  "Fucking right to be," said Primo casually.

  "Your daughter-in-law wanted you to scare Puriefoy off."

  "Yeah. So I asked Primo, could he stop by, pay the guy a visit, let him know what's what."

  I looked at Primo, who just nodded.

  Danucci said, "What difference does it make, who Primo scared off?"

  "Except for Puriefoy and Sinead Fagan, I'm not sure anybody else knew your granddaughter was connected."

  The old man thought about that. "So, one of the others, he didn't know my Tina was my Tina, eh?"

  "Or her father's daughter. To everybody else, she's just a beautiful young model, but not otherwise dangerous."

  Danucci nodded. "It's a possibility. Anything else you need to know?"

  "Why didn't Primo scare off Larry Shinkawa, too?"

  Danucci stared at me. "Claudette, she never told me about the Jap. Besides, he's an Oriental, more her own kind. Probably Claudette, she knows about him, she don't have no problem with him."

  "And Joey?"

  "The fuck do I know? He married one, right?"

  * * *

  Danucci offered to have Primo drive me back to my condo, but I chose to walk instead. The two miles cleared my head a little as I thought things through.

  If Mau Tim was wearing the necklace to the party, or just admiring it while she waited for her hair to dry, it would explain how she had the marks from it on her throat without the "burglar" holding it in his hands. If somebody outside the family had a key to the front door of the building, and at least Yulin and Lindqvist had access to one at the agency, then somebody outside the family could have gotten in that way. If Larry Shinkawa was wrong about hearing somebody on the fire escape, then the killer could have gone down it after Shinkawa first knocked at Mau Tim's apartment door and while Fagan, Puriefoy, and Shinkawa were back at the door before they broke it down. Close timing, awfully close, but just possible.

  I decided to spend Monday checking those "ifs." But it wasn't Monday yet.

  * * *

  "Oh, John, he can't beg anymore."

  "I wasn't trying to get him to beg. The chicken just stuck to my fingers a little."

  Renfield was under Nancy's glass-topped coffee table. She and I were sitting cross-legged on the floor on either side of it, enjoying the tail end of a Thai take-out I'd brought back with me. While I was gone, Nancy had changed into a white cotton safari shirt and red tennis shorts. The cat was doing noticeably better in attitude, though he still mo
ved like a newborn foal. After I gave him another bit of white meat, Renfield tried to worm his way over my ankles. At first he purred and led with a paw the way he had the first night. Then he began to cry a little.

  From the other side of the table, Nancy watched him through the glass. "Renfield, what's gotten into you?"

  I said, "Beats me."

  When the cat wouldn't quit crying, I put down my utensils and lifted him gently onto my lap. "Paws off the table, right?"

  Renfield gave my hand a lick and purred loudly.

  Nancy dropped her fork. "I don't believe this."

  "Believe what?"

  "When I left him at the vet's, I would have bet he'd bite your arm off. And now . . . "

  I said, "I was around when he was hurting. He's just imprinted on me a little."

  "Imprinted."

  "That's what the vet said. It'l1 probably wear off." Renfield started licking my belt buckle.

  Nancy said, "Could this have anything to do with the cushions?"

  "What cushions?"

  She arched her head backward. "The seat cushions from the couch. They do come off, as you'll remember from the night he got hurt. After you left to get fresh clothes, I noticed they weren't arranged zipper-to-back the way I always have them."

  At the sound of the word "zipper," the cat shifted his attention southward.

  I said, "Renfield trashed the living room while I was asleep in your bed. I did my best to cover for him."

  The cat found the tab of my zipper, got one of his teeth through the little hole, and started to tug down on it. I said, "Renfield, you're embarrassing me."

  "He just doesn't have quite the right angle." Nancy slowly got up from her haunches. "Here, let me."

  -24-

  ON MONDAY MORNING, I DROVE NANCY TO WORK AND THEN STOPPED at the condo to shower and change. By ten o'clock I was walking through the doors of Berry/Ryder and asking the still-stunning receptionist for Larry Shinkawa.

  I watched her select an inside line on the switchboard, murmur something into it, and nod to herself. She stood and beckoned.

  "Larry Shin's in the conference room, but he told me to bring you by."

  I said, "Thank you" to the back of her head as she led me down a hall, knocked once on a closed door, and smiled as a good-bye.

  I heard, "Come on in."

  Behind the door were Shinkawa and two middle-aged Caucasian males. All three were hovering over a go-fish array of photos that nearly covered a conference table.

  Shinkawa lifted his horn-rims up and onto his hair, like sunglasses. "This one with the Scotch bottle, and this one with the noodles coming out of the carton." He looked at me with the yearbook smile. "John, good to see you." To the Caucasian males, he said, "Be right back, but maybe the one with just Mariel and the ice bucket, too."

  The two men nearly trampled each other saying, "Same here, Larry."

  Shinkawa came out and past me, speaking back over his shoulder. "Good to see you, John."

  Following him down the hall, I wondered if he realized he'd said the same thing to me twice.

  At his office, I took the black leather and chrome sling chair I'd used the last time, Shinkawa preferring its mate to going around behind his desk. He wore the slacks to a suit and another pin-striped shirt and expensive tie, but the collar button was undone and the sleeves turned up.

  The advertising man brought the glasses back down onto his nose. "What's up?"

  "I'm sorry to trouble you again."

  "Hey, no trouble. We're just working on a new campaign. Planning stages for targeting the A-A community."

  "The . . . ?"

  "The Asian-American community. They've been doing it for years on the West Coast. You commission some market studies to get an idea of what a Japanese-American or Chinese-American looks for in booze, cars, or clothes. Then you target some of your advertising to print media the given group reads. It's done all the time with your Blacks and Hispanics."

  "And now for Asian-Americans."

  The big smile. "There'll be ten million of us in this country by the year 2000."

  "How about Vietnamese-Americans?"

  Shinkawa realigned his horn-rims. "Does this have something to do with Mau Tim?"

  "I'm wondering whether she would have been used in this effort"

  "Oh. Oh, probably, but not because we'd be targeting Vietnamese consumers. They're not big enough/rich enough yet. But would I have found a place for Mau in the campaign? You bet I would. This or any other campaign except for whole milk or Girl Scout cookies. Now, what can I do for you?"

  "I've been out to the apartment house on Falmouth. I wonder if I could go over some of what you told me last time."

  "Sure."

  "You said that as you and Oz Puriefoy and Sinead Fagan came through the door of Mau Tim's apartment, you heard somebody on the fire escape?"

  "Right."

  "Did you actually hear a person on it?"

  A confused expression. "A person?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, no. I mean, I didn't hear a voice or anything like that. Just sort of a . . . clang, like I told you last time."

  I thought about the last, retractable flight. "Not a squealing or grinding, metal-on-metal sound?"

  "No. It was . . . Gee, 'clang' really does it, John. You know, like somebody walking across a grate in the sidewalk?"

  "So like somebody taking a step on the fire escape."

  "Yes. Yes, in fact it was still vibrating?

  I stopped. "What?"

  "When I got to the window in Mau's bedroom. I stuck my head out and put my hand on the bannister of the fire escape, like to steady myself? It was still vibrating a little."

  "The fire escape itself was still moving?"

  "Yeah. I even remember pulling my hand back from it, like it could maybe hurt me. Stupid, I know, but it was kind of scary up there. Like stumbling into a nightmare."

  "And you didn't see anybody in the yard by the garbage cans?"

  "No. No place really to hide down there either, John."

  "Right."

  "I mean, the guy must have been quick, to get all the way down the alley and around the corner before the escape stopped moving."

  I watched him. A hell of a story to commit yourself to if it weren't true.

  "John, you all right?"

  "Fine. You said you never met any of Mau Tim's family?"

  "No." The big smile again. "Maybe I'm not the type to bring home to Mom and Dad, huh?"

  "You knew her mother was Vietnamese?"

  "Yes, but like I told you before, Mau was more interested in my family life than she was in talking about her own."

  "Larry, her father was — is, Joseph Danucci."

  The confused expression, trying to place the reference. I said, "Her grandfather is Tommy Danucci."

  The mouth came open. "The gangster?"

  "The same."

  "No shit?"

  Like I'd just told him Tom Selleck wore a toupee.

  "No shit, Larry."

  "You've got to tell me, this is really on the level?"

  I couldn't understand his attitude. "It is."

  The laugh that turned into a giggle. "God-damn. I'll go to lunch for a month on this one."

  "Huh?"

  "The hook, John. The cachet of it. I was boffing a Mafia Princess. This is the best story I've heard in a year."

  I stood to go. "Just so the Danucci family doesn't hear it."

  The smile shrank only a little. "We really don't travel in the same circles."

  * * *

  I covered the live blocks to the Lindqvist/Yulin agency in ten minutes. As I pushed open the yellow, six-panel door to their reception area, George Yulin was just putting down the phone and standing to see who it was.

  "John?"

  "Right. That wasn't Larry Shinkawa by any chance?"

  Yulin looked at the receiver. "No. Why, are you trying to reach him?"

  "Just did. You have a couple of minutes?"

&nb
sp; The grizzled hair looked stylishly unkempt, the eyes remembering I could bring him money. "Certainly. Certainly, come into my office."

  The same hodgepodge of magazines and photos were spread around his desk and director's chairs. He cleaned one off for me, but this time sat on the edge of his desk.

  Yulin said, "Have you finished your investigation?"

  "Not quite. Still a few loose ends."

  An uneven grin. "I hope I'm not one of them?"

  Trying to mend our relationship after the scene at the house in Brookline. "When I was here the last time, you showed me a card with some phone numbers on it."

  "Right. Mau Tim's casting card."

  "The first number was her uncle's, you said."

  "Yes."

  "Do you remember if you were able to reach her there frequently?"

  Yulin clearly had no idea where I was going. "Well, it has been almost a year, I think, since she started with us, and of course, at the beginning, I wouldn't have been trying to call her that often."

  "You remember what times of day or night you did reach her there?"

  Yulin shrugged. "Probably late afternoon, when a shoot might come in on short notice and I needed somebody I knew was free. By the time Mau started to hit, she was at Oz Puriefoy's."

  "How do you know that?"

  Another shrug. "Just the sense of hearing his voice more often when I was trying to reach her."

  "More often than hearing her uncle's voice?"

  Yulin looked at me. "Yes, I suppose so."

  I took a chance. "Tell me, George, should your number have been on that card, too?"

  Yulin seemed to think about how to play it, then smiled, even winked. "Once upon a time."

  "Mind elaborating?"

  "Well, I'm not one to brag, mind you, but occasionally some of the younger ones — not the underage ones, no, never — but the newer models appreciate an . . . older hand at the tiller?"

  "You ever in Mau Tim's apartment?"

  A stiffening. "The one on . . . where she was killed, you mean?"

  "That's what I mean."

  "Why, no. I told you that before. It was — the times we saw each other, it was at my place."