The Guilty: (P.I. Jack Marconi No. 3)

by Vincent Zandri

  I killed the engine and got out and took the long stone path that led me up the short flight of steps onto the portico landing. I thumbed the doorbell. It didn’t ring so much as gong. It took a moment or two for the door to open. When it did, I wasn’t greeted by the woman of the house, but instead by a small man. A middle-aged man dressed in worn dungarees, work boots, and a denim work shirt. His leathery skin was suntanned, if not sunbaked. He asked if he could help me in an accent I took to be Mexican. I told him who I was and that I wished to speak with Mrs. David if she were available. Pulling out my PI license from my back pocket, I showed it to him, for what it was worth. He examined the license for a second or two, and then he asked me to step inside.

  To say the setup was opulent would be putting it mildly. Black-and-white marble flooring, perhaps imported from Italy, provided the base for a large wraparound staircase that looked as though it had been designed for the Gone with the Wind movie set. Suspended directly overhead was a chandelier so large and crystal filled that I could only assume it had been imported, perhaps from Moscow or Venice. The walls of the foyer were painted white, and they supported several long, gold-framed mirrors. I took a step forward and, looking over my left shoulder into the living room, caught sight of a fireplace so big that a man could stand inside it. A tall man. Mounted to the cherry-paneled wall above the fireplace hung an oil paint portrait of the woman I took for Mrs. Robert David Sr.

  The image of a tall, white-gowned, blonde woman with a considerable bust proved mesmerizing, to say the least. Her hair was shoulder length and parted over her left eyebrow. But that wasn’t what captured most of my attention. Her striking blue eyes were responsible for that. They drew me in so hard I thought I might levitate off the floor and find myself floating toward the portrait as if in a dream.

  “Do you like my painting?” said a voice from above. A deep, sultry voice that didn’t break me from my spell, but instead added to it. Swallowing a breath, I raised my head and caught sight of Mrs. David in the flesh.

  “Must have taken ages,” I said, looking up. “And cost a bundle.”

  “Indeed,” she said from the top of the stairs.

  From where I stood down below, she appeared to be a tall woman. Unlike in the portrait, she wasn’t dressed in a gown, but instead wore a bright red tennis skirt, red-and-black sneakers, and a tighter-than-tight, acrylic black, sleeveless athletic top that showed off her second best attribute next to her blue eyes. She began the slow descent down the staircase, not as though she was greeting a most unwelcome private detective into her home-sweet-home, but instead as though she were meeting a prom date.

  She didn’t bounce down the stairs, but descended them like a runway model, one step at a time, one foot in front of the other, showing off almost the entire length of those long, personally trained legs. I did some quick calculations in my head. I knew that if she had a forty-one-year-old son, she had to be, at minimum, in her late fifties. Had I not known she was the mother of a young, middle-aged man, I would have pegged her as somewhere around thirty-five, max. Watching her descend the length of that wraparound staircase, I felt the air escape my lungs and my heart beat a paradiddle against my rib cage. Someone once sang a song, “I’m Always Falling in Love.” Such was the inherent risk of my profession.

  Finally, she got to the bottom of the staircase and approached me. I was entranced by her eyes. And pretty much everything else she owned, and she knew it. She held out her hand. I took it in mine. Unlike Harold Sanders’ handshake, hers was firm, warm, and inviting.

  “I’m Penny David,” she said. “My husband phoned to tell me you were coming. Lucky for you, my tennis lesson was just about over.” She smiled naughtily. “Of course, I haven’t had time for a shower. And now I’m a little . . . wet.”

  “Excuse me?” I said.

  She giggled, running both hands down her red skirt, smoothing out the wrinkles.

  “Oh, I can see how that sounds,” she said. “I’m a little wet with perspiration. I hope you don’t mind.”

  I swallowed, my mouth and throat desert sand dry.

  “No problem,” I said. “We’re all human animals, after all.”

  The little Mexican man entered back into the vestibule.

  “Iced tea is served on the patio, madam,” he said.

  She turned to him. “Thank you, Juan.” Then back to me. “Shall we?” she offered. “I’m positively parched.”

  “By all means, Mrs. David,” I said. “Please lead the way.”

  She turned and started walking, adding a little swing to her tight, red backside.

  Naturally, I was all too pleased to follow.

  16

  SHE BEGAN THE SLOW march through the foyer into the kitchen, where she stole a pair of white-rimmed Jackie O sunglasses off the counter. She slid the sunglasses on and made her way out a back glass-and-wood door that accessed a stone patio shaded by a large and intricate trellis of white wood slats, which were covered in vines. She pointed to one of two round metal tables that were further shaded by country club green umbrellas. The chosen table had a tray with a pitcher of iced tea already placed upon it, along with a couple of tall drinking glasses filled with ice plus one whole lemon and one lime. Set beside those was a large kitchen knife. Without a word, Penny grabbed hold of the knife and began to slice up lime and lemon wedges with all the speed of a Ginsu chef preparing a beef teriyaki for eight.

  Turning to me, she smiled.

  “I’m very good with a knife,” she said. “I was once a sous-chef for several restaurants in France and later at The Globe on Park Avenue in Manhattan. That’s where I met David Sr., during a tour my boss gave him of our kitchen.”

  I sat down while she took a seat directly across from me. Leaning forward, she rose up out of her seat just enough to lift the pitcher off the tray, her boobs nearly spilling out of her tight black top. She poured us each a glass of iced tea, then set the pitcher back down onto the silver tray.

  I took the glass in my right hand. It was cold and the wet condensation was already beginning to drip down the sides of the glass. I took a sip and felt the pleasantly cold liquid against the back of my dry throat.

  “Delicious,” I said, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.

  She drank and set her glass down. Gently.

  “Juan is an amazing tea and lemonade maker. An artist really. And the meals he creates are simply fabulous. He outdoes even me.” She puckered her lips and blew a kiss to no one in particular. I thought my heart would stop.

  “So tell me something, Mr. Marconi,” she said. “Do you carry a gun on your person?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said. “Comes with the job. I’m fully licensed, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  “Oh, I believe you. Entirely.”

  “How swell. I’d like to speak with you about your son. About Sarah Levy too.”

  “Is it long and hard?” she asked, taking another sip of the drink.

  My heart didn’t stop, but it skipped a beat or two.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Your gun,” she said. “Is it long and hard? Or one of those thick-but-short ones? What do they call them again?”

  “Snub-nosed revolvers.”

  “That’s it,” she said. “Snub-nosed revolvers.”

  “If you must know,” I said. “Mine’s long, hard, and thick.”

  She laughed again and tossed me a wink with her right eye.

  “Well, you asked,” I said.

  “That I did,” she said. “So what would you like to know about my stepson and his former fiancée?”

  “Stepson,” I said as if it were a question.

  She perked up and set her glass back down.

  “The first Mrs. David is most definitely dead.” She was quick to explain. Then she said, “You didn’t think for one teensy-weensy moment that I was old enough to have a son David Jr.’s age, did you, Mr. Marconi?”

  I’m not sure why, but I felt a wave of relief suddenly splash over m
y body.

  “Not for a moment. To be honest, I found myself a little confused when I first laid eyes on you.”

  “Are you trying to tell me I’m beautiful?”

  The throat went dry again. Something was telling me that the present Mrs. David Sr. wasn’t getting precisely what she needed from the hubby. Maybe his gun was short, thin, and soft.

  “How did the first Mrs. David die?” I inquired.

  She shrugged her shoulders.

  “From what my husband tells me, Joan fell off a ladder while working on these very same vines above our heads. Picking grapes in the fall. She made her own wine, the original Mrs. David, which I find rather interesting, if not honorable. Can you imagine that? Making your own wine from scratch?” She lifted her right hand so that she showed off her long, stiletto-like fingernails. “These days, manicures cost far too much for me to risk breakage by doing manual labor.”

  “No more sous-chefing?”

  “Take a look around you,” she said with a sweeping gesture of her right hand. “Would you?”

  I had to laugh.

  “No,” I said. “I guess I wouldn’t.”

  I drank some more tea and made a mental note of how the original Mrs. David entered the afterlife only a few feet away from where the present Mrs. David and I were enjoying some exceptionally good iced tea on a hot summer’s day.

  “Mrs. David,” I said.

  “Penny,” she interrupted.

  “Penny.” I smiled. “What’s your take on what happened between Robert Jr. and Sarah on February 18th?”

  She sat back in her chair and looked over her right shoulder as if staring at a bird that was nesting in one of the many oak trees that bordered the huge property.

  “I’m not sure what to think,” she said. But then she perked up again and pulled her Jackie Os off. “You want the truth, Mr. Marconi?”

  “Keeper.”

  “Keeper,” she said. “How very interesting.”

  “Nickname,” I said. “From prison.”

  I didn’t tell her from which side of the bars I was bestowed said nickname, and judging by her corner-of-the-mouth grin, she found the ambiguity rather interesting. Perhaps even titillating. Keeper, the tease.

  “Well, Keeper, I think they got all coked and boozed up. They fought, and she ended up falling down those front steps. That’s what I think. Not that it matters much.”

  “It does matter,” I said, silently wishing I’d brought along my tape recorder. Not that she would have agreed to my recording our conversation, and I didn’t want to take a chance on concealing it.

  “Why would they fight if they appeared to be so happy?”

  “David and my husband aren’t exactly alike,” she said. “In fact, you could say the apple most certainly did fall far from the tree.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning my husband is straighter than a board and just as stiff. Only not stiff in the way I would have preferred.”

  I wanted to tell her that I’d gathered that, but I decided against it. Instead I said, “David Jr. is a partier: a bon vivant and a playboy.”

  “All of that for sure,” she said. “He also has some . . . well, let’s call them hang-ups.”

  “Go on,” I said.

  She slid her Jackie Os back on as if what she was about to tell me were easier to say while donning a mask.

  “I’ll be frank with you, Keeper,” she said. “David is into some devilishly weird sex.”

  “And you would know that how?”

  “I’m his stepmother, after all. Not his real, biological mother.” She exhaled. Dramatically. “If you . . . get my . . . ummmm . . . drift.”

  Yes, I got her drift. All too loud and all too clear.

  “I see,” I said. “I can only assume that those moments when both of your respective ships have passed in the night have been entirely consensual?”

  “Sensual without the con,” she said. “In a very devilish way.”

  “Devilish?”

  “David likes it rough. He likes threesomes, foursomes, parties, girls, boys, whatever he can fuck and be fucked by. It’s like a hobby for him. The perfect hobby for a bartender whose daddy owns his own bar.”

  “Sarah Levy doesn’t seem the type.”

  “Indeed, she’s not. And I believe, therein, you have the source of their conflict. Perhaps even his motivation for doing what he just might have gotten away with.” Opening her mouth just slightly, seductively setting the pad of her manicured index finger upon her pouty bottom lip, she said, “Or perhaps . . . just perhaps, Keeper . . . I’m talking out my cute, tight little ass.”

  She might have been talking out that tight little ass for sure, but her words made sense to me, at least judging from the scene I encountered this morning.

  “Penny, is your husband aware of these little trysts you’ve shared with his son?”

  “Oh God, no,” she said finishing up her drink. “He’d have me drawn and quartered and hung up to dry on the plate glass wall of some downtown building he owns.”

  “You don’t know me. So why confide in me? If you were to testify in a court of law precisely what you just revealed, I believe the Davids would, at the very least, be found liable for Sarah’s head injuries. It would mean the end of your Shangri-La, so to speak. To be honest, while I was driving all the way over here from your husband’s office, I expected a door slammed in my face.”

  She smiled again. That’s when I heard her sneakers come off and felt something push up against the interior of my thigh. It kept moving until it gently pressed against my sex. That something was a bare foot to which was attached some very curious toes.

  “I’m a pretty good judge of people, Keeper,” she said. “And I’ve taken an immediate liking to you.”

  “My lucky day,” I said, downing the rest of my tea, feeling her never still, bare foot against my hardness.

  “Listen,” she said, “Juan is going into town and I’m alone all this beautifully torrid Tuesday afternoon. There’s a pool around the corner. It’s very, very secluded. Would you care for a skinny dip?”

  She reached down with both hands and pulled off her top, exposing her precious tanned C-cup titties. For a beat or two, I couldn’t even move. I’d been rendered paralyzed by her beauty. But then just as quickly, I knew that if I lost total control, I would get myself into more trouble than I could handle.

  I stood up.

  “I appreciate the offer,” I said. “But for now . . . over the course of this investigation . . . I have to play it straight.” Then I came around the table, took her in my arms, and laid a big wet one on her delicious lips. When we both came back up for air, she was still holding onto me, but I pushed her out of my arms.

  “I’ll let myself out,” I said, heading for the kitchen door.

  “Keeper!” she called out.

  I turned to see her beautiful half-naked, half-dressed in red, presence gazing back at me.

  “You’re right,” she said. “Your gun truly is long and hard.”

  “The David boys are lucky men,” I said, and then I left before I changed my mind about that swim.

  17

  ONCE INSIDE THE 4RUNNER, heart still pounding, I consulted with my smartphone app for a quick search on the name Mrs. Joan David. My search resulted in a short list of articles, most of them having been published by the Albany Times Union long before it was publishing blogs by the likes of the fictionalizing foodie, Ted Bolous. The headlines were all pretty much the same: “Albany Entrepreneur’s Wife Dead in Backyard Mishap,” “David Manslaughter Investigation a No Fault,” “Robert David Sr. off the Hook,” and “Joan David Falls from Ladder. Dead at 54.” There were a few others, but I’d already gotten the drift.

  I decided to get to the bottom of the situation by placing a call to Nick Miller’s cell phone so I could be sure to get him, even if I stood the chance of annoying him with yet another interruption. He answered after the second ring.

  “Joan David,” I said.
>
  “What about her?”

  “She’s dead.”

  “No kidding. How big is that rock you’ve been sleeping under?”

  “It might have helped if had you told me her husband was investigated as a possible perp in her death.”

  “She fell off a rickety old stepladder in the backyard while picking grapes. Some people thought it possible that she was pushed by someone. Namely, her husband. It was pretty well known that they fought like cats and dogs. But not only was that possibility never proven, Keeper, but Bob David Sr. had never proven himself a man with a temper capable of doing something like that. Plus he had a rock-fucking-solid alibi.”

  “What about the evil-tempered kid?”

  “Sure, he would be capable. Theoretically. But he was away taking cooking classes and working on his tan on the old man’s dime in the south of France. Rock-fucking-solid alibi number two.”

  For a quick second, I pictured Juan, the caretaker and superb iced tea maker, but then I thought better of it. The little, gentle, man just didn’t seem to fit the profile.

  “Listen, Keeper,” Miller went on, “I see where you’re going with this, and I can’t blame you. But don’t waste your time and mine driving a road that leads to nowheresville. Capisce?”

  I felt a little deflated at the notion of nowheresville, and I wasn’t sure why.

  “Roger that, chief,” I said. “It might be a little painful for you to have to reopen an investigation that just might, in the end, prove the APD made a major foul up mistake ten plus years ago that inevitably led to the fucked-upness of Sarah Levy’s head.”

  Heavy silence filled the phone like bad gas.

  “That all for now, Keeper, you asshole?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “Thank you for protecting and serving me.”

  “Fuck you,” he said before hanging up.

  18

  I STARTED THE 4RUNNER, pulled out onto the suburban road in the direction of the downtown. It didn’t take long for me to notice the black Lexus hatchback that was tailing me from behind. This isn’t like television or the movies when a car suddenly starts following you from maybe one hundred or more feet away and you’re immediately convinced that the driver isn’t just any schmuck who happens to be heading in the same direction you are. This guy made it obvious he was tailing me by practically ramming into the 4Runner’s tailgate. Maybe he wanted me to know he was following me or maybe he was simply crappy at his job. It’s also possible he was just an out-of-control tailgater and not someone intent on following me at all. Didn’t matter. The effect it had on me was the same.