Violet eyed me with the disapproval of a mother superior for an altar boy who had failed to memorize his catechisms.
“There was a time, early on, when I might have suggested we pool our resources and acquire the collection for the shop. But I knew you would balk at taking advantage of George’s list and photos in order to substantially improve our opportunity. It wouldn’t do for me to have a partner with burdensome scruples.”
“Thanks for the compliment.”
She wet a finger with her tongue, rubbed it around the rim of the glass until it made a vibrating sound. Two dark spots suddenly appeared below her eyes and her voice deepened eerily to a lower register.
“For all your intelligence, Michael, you’re still an amateur when it comes to the book trade. You’ve always come up short, thinking you know more than you do. Perhaps if you had been born with monetary means it would have made a difference, but we’ll never know. Despite my experience, you never seriously consulted me or even took me on buying trips. Do you realize what we could have done together?”
Violet stopped the finger-on-glass routine to push a wandering curl behind the nape of her neck. She looked as worn as her furniture.
“I was just a clerk to you,” she said. “If you want an answer as to why this happened, it simply comes down to that. You were running the bookstore into the ground, catering to bumpkins in the neighborhood who could care less for real treasures. For the sake of my own reputation, I had to take matters into my own hands.”
I’d never planned on using Violet Trenche for a future job reference, but using my management failings as a motive for murder seemed a trifle unfair.
“Did you actually believe you could assume ownership of Riverrun with me out of the way?”
“Of course not. After five years the business is no closer to a true antiquarian shop than when you started. Owning it was Weston’s fantasy and I humored him. My ambitions are far greater. Thanks to all this,” she said, pointing to the items in front of us, “I’ll be able to establish a store to rival the finest in Europe.”
She put her glass on the coffee table with the overly careful actions of a closet alcoholic. Her eyes fixed dreamily on the passport and the books as if contemplating her own pipe dream of peddling incunabula to Romanian princes and copper magnates from a select arcade on the Rue de Rivoli.
“Do you really think,” I said, interrupting her reverie, “that rare book dealers and collectors would have anything to do with you once word of how you acquired your fortune gets out?”
She gazed at me as if I hadn’t learned a thing.
“Don’t pretend to be so naïve, Michael. It doesn’t become you. Bibliophiles won’t care. As long as the provenance of the book is real, nothing else matters. Did Arthur Fitch let his conscience guide him when buying The Faerie Queene in its original vellum binding from David Rothstein after Kristallnacht? Of course not. He offered the equivalent of a one-way rail ticket to Switzerland for the book and sold it after the war for fifteen thousand dollars. Fitch understood how desperate Rothstein was to get his daughter out of Nazi Germany and paid accordingly.”
“I’ll take naiveté over that kind of opportunism any day.”
“Then you are a fool.”
“Maybe. But one thing I’m not, Violet, is past my prime. You’re too old for dreams.”
I regret saying it now. Because no matter how battered and lost—indeed, no matter how downright evil—no one deserves hearing they’ve nothing left but a luckless past, a miserable present, and a hopeless future.
In my defense, the words were spoken after she had pulled a snub-nosed revolver from behind one of the sofa’s pillows. It had a pink grip, but that didn’t fool me—the two-inch barrel had Smith & Wesson .38 Special written all over it. The five .38 caliber cartridges these beauties packed were enough to stop a three-hundred-pound PCP addict.
If it was what I thought, this hammerless lightweight “lady’s gun” didn’t have a safety catch. Just load the rounds and pull the trigger. Simple and extremely effective. I didn’t doubt Violet had a round in there for me and four more to spare. So much for Buford’s theory that this little ol’ book lady wouldn’t be packing heat—or know how to use it if she did.
“You know nothing.” She said it bitterly. “I alone built George’s fabulous collection. He respected me. He …”
She picked up her drink again and stared into it for a long time, maybe a full minute, before muttering something about love.
“And his wife? Did he respect her as well?”
“That tottering fool?” Her voice was two clicks past a slur. “Beatrice Land is insane, a nymphomaniac and God knows what else. George planned to marry me as soon as he could get rid of her. I suggested means other than divorce, but he would have none of it. The poor man was almost as naïve as you. After his construction company collapsed, our plan was to use his list and his library to finance our new life. He placed the packet and the photos in the storage box at Union Station and inserted the key in the back board of the Colette. But he suffered his heart attack and died before he could transfer them to me.”
Violet waited for me to say something, but she’d been waxing voluble in the grip of booze and I wasn’t about to interrupt a tipsy lady with a gun in her hand.
“Beatrice was incapable of comprehending their value, but she wouldn’t let me near anything that had been his. I waited years for the collection to become available, putting aside portions of my meager Riverrun salary to one day bid for them.
“When I learned that the sale was to be through that local yahoo, Herl Bender, I rejoiced and sent Richard Chezik over to buy it. He used his cell phone to keep me informed on the bidding, but even with Weston’s contribution I realized it was futile after my offer was topped. I had no idea there would be competition at such a sleazy auction. Let alone by you.”
“And Gareth Hughes, not to mention Martin Quist’s South African,” I added.
“Yes. Well, they didn’t count on Richard seeing Hughes lift the Colette, did they?”
“Cheaters never win and winners never cheat.”
“What on earth?”
“Don’t mind me, Vi, go on.”
“After Richard informed me of the theft, it was just a matter of setting the trap. I wanted to catch him alone and away from his apartment, so I had Weston place an anonymous call to Hughes telling him you had seen him steal the book and wanted to talk to him about it.”
“How did he know to tell Gareth I’d be at Fitzpatrick’s?”
“Weston had gone to the shop to collect your hurling stick when he found you still there moping about your daughter’s latest insult or some such thing. You told him where you were going; I assume to drink away your troubles. Isn’t that what you always do?”
No arguing with that, but I couldn’t help adding hypocrisy to Violet’s list of shortcomings.
“Weston followed him to Fitzpatrick’s and witnessed your battle with Hughes.” She looked faintly amused. “We didn’t expect that, but it certainly proved fortuitous. Instead of one or two witnesses to remember seeing you with him, half of Kansas City watched as you beat the daylights out of each other.”
She poured another drink and, seeing that it finished the bottle, became agitated. I needed to encourage her narrative if Buford Higgins was going to get a useful confession.
“So, the two of you waited for Gareth to stumble back to his apartment,” I said hurriedly. “When he got to that dark section of the creek near the bridge, you had Weston pounce while you stood lookout. But it took more than surprise and a good clubbing to put the big man down, didn’t it?”
“I didn’t intend for him to die,” she said with an ounce of actual remorse. “After all, I knew Hughes wasn’t going to the police over the loss of books that he had stolen himself that day. I confronted him as he walked home along the creek and demanded that he give me the Colette or I would go to the police. When Hughes threatened to strike me—he really was a most terrible man
—Weston emerged from a bush and clubbed him from behind. He didn’t have the book on him, but we took the key to his apartment. It was Weston’s idea to dump him in the water.”
“You found what you wanted in his apartment,” I said. “Did you steal the in our time from there as well?”
“Of course. I’d have been a fool not to. It lay next to the Colette on the kitchen table, begging to be nabbed.”
“But why pin the murder on me?”
“Someone had to have killed him, dear boy. And who better than you who despised the man?”
“That’s not true.”
“No? I suppose that will remain a matter of conjecture for the prosecutor, a jury and those ridiculous Riverrun Irregulars to debate.”
There it was. Buford couldn’t have asked for a better confession. The only problem was that Violet wasn’t in an interrogation room at police headquarters. More to the point, as tipsy as she was, she managed to keep the Smith & Wesson aimed at my heart.
She carefully placed her glass on the coffee table again and rose unsteadily from the sofa, her bathrobe opening just enough to expose a flaccid breast. With an obscene smile, she casually pulled the top of the robe together with one hand while waving the gun at me with the other.
“I always keep this thing hidden behind my pillow,” she said. “Iffy neighborhood, you know. I’ve never been able to get the landlord to put bars on the windows. Knowing what I know about you and what you seem to know about me, why did you think I’d let you in this time of night without it?”
She reached down for the drink, took a greedy pull, and when she had finished said, “I’d like you to stand now. And please don’t turn around. You’re supposed to be attacking me.”
My grandfather used to say it doesn’t do much good in tight situations to blubber, and I was pretty much used up for salty repartee. So I just said, “The hell with it! Finish the job.”
Although it sounds as if I was laughing in the face of death, the brave words weren’t meant for Violet, but for Buford Higgins, who I had assumed was lurking in the shadows, poised to drift noiselessly into the room to my rescue.
He did just that, although none too soon. The problem, as I later learned to my horror, was that the detective had first mistakenly climbed through the bedroom window of the neighbors’ house next door. A minor scuffle ensued with the startled husband and wife until Higgins was able to produce his badge and a rather weak explanation.
Once he had the correct address, he’d easily picked the lock of the back porch door and settled into the dining room about the time Violet started jabbering about respect and her love for George Land.
Higgins emerged from behind to wrap his left arm around her chest while grabbing her wrist with his right hand. Even then she managed to squeeze off a round that drilled a hole in the ceiling and, given its firepower, probably the shake-shingled roof as well.
“Get the damned gun!” Buford shouted as Violet kicked and screamed like Rosa Klebb in From Russia with Love.
I stepped over the table, careful not to bruise my shins, and while the lieutenant struggled with the hundred-and-fifty-pound virago, I pried, with all due consideration for her age and sex, each of her blue-veined fingers from the pretty pink stock. The gun dropped harmlessly on the carpet.
Violet called me names that would have made my old drill instructor blush, but after my session with Rolf Kramm I was getting used to the opinions of homicidal malcontents.
“Bevan,” Buford Higgins said after securing Violet in handcuffs, “look for something to cover this lady while I call for the posse. And for God’s sake, find her a decent pair of shoes.”
“Get your hands off me, you fat poltroon!”
“Now, hush and settle down, Mrs. Trenche. We don’t want to mess that pretty coiffure of yours, do we?”
By the time I emerged from the bedroom carrying a long cloth coat with a fake fur collar and a pair of Manolos, Violet had grown quiet, sequestered between a pair of U.S. marshals.
“Let’s go, ma’am,” Buford said while gently placing the coat over her shoulders. “I apologize for upsetting your evening.”
Without bending over, Violet slipped off her slippers and stepped into the stiletto heels as easily as a runway model. Then she departed on the arms of her guards, as regal as the Queen of Hearts and surely just as mad.
Chapter Twenty-four
The marshals took Violet away in an unmarked gray van. I left the Saab where I’d parked it on Rosewood Place and got in Higgins’s car. To my surprise, the detective drove past the Jackson County Jail and pulled up to the U.S. Courthouse at the other end of the downtown square.
After parking in the basement garage area designated for federal law enforcement officers, Higgins slipped a card key into the slot of a nondescript door. We entered a brightly lit chamber inhabited by a bullnecked man wearing a Hawaiian-style short-sleeved shirt. The name tag said “Joseph Pieklekiewicz.” A globe-and-anchor and the letters USMC were tattooed on his right forearm just above the prosthetic hand that matched his other one.
“Howdy, Gunny,” Higgins said as he handed over his weapon for safekeeping.
“Evenin’, Lieutenant. Agents Clark and Walsh are waiting for you upstairs.”
Despite his prosthetic hands, he handled the gun expertly, checking that the chamber was empty before putting it in a box with Higgins’s card.
“Have they booked Ms. Trenche yet?”
“No sir, they’re waiting for you. She’s with a matron on the eighth floor getting cleaned up.”
“Did hazmat finish cleaning the Preston place?”
“They’re still working on it, but they got Kramm’s body out without anyone noticing. He’s in cold storage at our airport facility. Your friend here created quite a mess.”
“What about Preston?”
“Sleeping at the K.U. Med Center. Knecht and Jennings have babysitting duty.”
“Any squawks from the locals?”
“Not a word, sir. Your boys don’t know what happened. Walsh handled the noise complaints from the neighbors.”
Pieklekiewicz reminded us to sign in, and then we climbed into an elevator barely large enough for the two of us.
Higgins punched the button for the ninth floor.
“Why are the Feds involved?” I wanted to know.
“Because the DA’s as bent as a tin horseshoe and half the county dances to his and the devil’s fiddle. Quist’s been pouring cash into Crowell’s personal and political bank accounts ever since his first campaign.”
“How long have you known about it?”
“A long time. Too long to not have done anything about it until now.”
Buford Higgins edged closer to me. I caught a whiff of cheap aftershave lotion.
“I mentioned my misgivings to Chief James last year. He listened for half a minute before reminding me that I was thirty-two months shy of qualifying for a full pension.”
The elevator door opened and he led me down a hallway bustling with federal marshals and FBI agents. Extremely fit and dressed in blue blazers and gray slacks, they looked identical, with each marshal sporting a mustache and a six-pointed star badge as if ready for duty at the O.K. Corral. I pondered how female members of the two agencies differed sartorially as Higgins ushered me into an overheated office containing a desk, a chair, and a couch scattered with magazines.
I shoved a Sports Illustrated out of the way and plopped down on the sofa. Higgins sat on the armrest opposite me and continued his tale.
“The situation was affecting morale big-time, but no one had the balls to step forward. Then came that series of missing coeds, when girls from nice families seemed to disappear into thin air. Although the newspapers were demanding action, District Attorney Crowell showed no sense of urgency.
“I’d gotten to know a federal agent based in this region during an arms qualification course at Quantico and he knew I was square. They’d had their own suspicions about Crowell’s ties to Quist. But they di
dn’t have enough evidence to risk taking on a senatorial candidate.”
“Until you offered to help,” I said. “So where does Josie Majansik fit in all this?”
“It was the fed’s idea to bring her from Ohio to work undercover. She’s the best they have for this kind of thing. They got the publisher of the Gumbo to give her cover as a freelance reporter. He was more than happy to help after Agent Daniels mentioned that the newspaper had some strange bookkeeping practices.”
“So much for journalist ethics.”
“Since when did publishers have ethics? Anyway, Quist and Crowell have maintained a cozy and profitable relationship over the years, but that association is beginning to wear thin now that the DA has national ambitions.”
“Exasperated, no doubt, by Quist’s getting cut off from the family largesse.”
“Yeah, the Feds think he’s down to his last million dollars.”
“And his only option is the blackmail game?”
“You got it. How well do you know Eddie Worth?”
“Enough to know he smokes Benson and Hedges and owns half of the Midwest. I hear he plays a good game of golf.”
“There’s more to our boy than that,” Higgins said, telling me what I already knew. “Edward Stuyvesant Worth IV is one of those Skull and Bones types who gets expelled from college for screwing the wife of the chancellor, then reforms to become governor or chairman of Goldman Sachs.”
“Any bad habits besides sex?”
“Not any more. He still enjoys wine and cigarettes, but not enough to spoil any rugs.”
“And Worth’s your bait to get Quist.”
“Yup. Majansik has played her part beautifully. It took a while, but Quist eventually trusted her to go after Worth and she used her charm to reel him in on her own. It wasn’t difficult to convince the young stallion to cooperate with us after learning he’d been targeted for blackmail.”
“Josie can be very persuasive,” I said.
The Dirty Book Murder Page 16