Naked Cruelty (12 page)

By the time he reached the Busquash Mall, Carmine had girded his loins to hear the worst about Morty Jones, and could only be thankful that Mr. Henry—Hank—Murray hadn't called Silvestri. Not that he, Carmine, was prepared to shield Morty from official retribution; more that he wasn't as yet convinced that Morty was beyond redemption. “Drunken moron”—an interesting reading of Morty's character. If he was drinking on the job, it was more recently than when Carmine had seen him ten days ago. That had revolved around Ava's swearing that the kids weren't Morty's. He loved those kids, loved them far more than selfish, nympho Ava did. Why did she screw cops, and no one but cops? But if the poor guy's inebriated condition was obvious to civilians, it must be obvious to Corey. Who wasn't lifting a finger.

Amanda Warburton was shaken and in pain, but quite capable of speaking for herself. “I lost my head when I heard the glass breaking,” she said. “He'd busted my Björn Wiinblad bowl into pieces, and he had my Kosta Boda cat over his head, ready to do the same. Then he saw me, and threw it at me.”

Carmine stamped the floor with his foot: it was covered with a deep-pile black commercial quality carpet. “I'm surprised the object broke,” he said.

“It's concrete underneath, and while a short drop wouldn't harm it, it would have sufficient momentum if he pitched it from above his head, which is where he was holding the cat.”

“You know your glass, Miss Warburton.”

“Yes, it's been my life. But he knows it too, don't you think? No short drops.”

Hank Murray butted in. “That idiot Sergeant Jones kept insisting the culprits were from Taft High,” he said angrily. “None of us agreed with him, even the two patrolmen—now they were great guys. Better detectives too. When he wouldn't change his mind after the second attack, Miss Warburton and I lost all confidence in him. He stank of booze! So this time I wasn't going to let Mr. Jones near the place.”

“I'm taking the case myself, Mr. Murray,” Carmine said, his voice calm. “Any reason Sergeant Jones was so set on Taft kids?”

“Vandalism in the neighborhood, apparently, but Taft's neighborhood isn't anywhere near Busquash apart from its easterly situation,” said Hank.

“What about in this mall? Apart from the Glass Teddy Bear's vandalism and the robbery at the Third Holloman Bank, have you suffered any kind of crime wave, as the papers put it? Pick-pockets, bag snatchers, gang hazes?”

“You'd know if we had, Captain.”

Or should, thought Carmine grimly. “No, sir, I guess I need to phrase that better. I meant activities that weren't reported to the police. I presume, for instance, that you have a security company patrolling?”

“No,” said Hank, scowling. “Finally, after nearly three years and half a hundred requests to the owners, Shortland Security will start patrolling tomorrow, Monday, October 7. It took three vandalisms and a bank robbery to succeed, but at last I have.”

“I see. Why the surprise that the Vandal broke your bowl?”

“Because on his two earlier visits,” said Hank Murray before Amanda could answer, “the Vandal never so much as chipped one thing. That was the weirdest part.”

Two ambulance medics walked through the back door, and all hope of further conversation with Amanda Warburton ceased.

“I'll send two forensics technicians over first thing in the morning,” Carmine said as she was wheeled out, “but if by some miracle you're discharged from the hospital tonight, don't come in tomorrow. No one is to touch a thing, understood? Mr. Murray, I'll see you at ten tomorrow morning about the bank robbery.”

Carmine thought Hank heard, but it was debatable; he was busy assuring Amanda that he'd go to her apartment to feed her animals, and taking custody of her keys. Besotted.

Before he left at a little after one a.m., Carmine picked up Amanda's phone and dialed the number in his notebook. A sleepy voice answered. “Miss MacIntosh? Be at Paul Bachman's lab before eight tomorrow morning. At eight on the dot you will accompany him to the Busquash Mall and a shop called the Glass Teddy Bear, which has been a prey to vandals or a vandal. Paul will take care of the physical evidence, whereas you will take care of the detective's duties. I expect you to make full enquiries at the neighboring shops, and also ascertain, if you can, the number of vandals involved. Pay particular attention to a shop three doors up that's being fitted out to sell American Indian goods—there may be witnesses. Take a close look at the Glass Teddy Bear's goods—how up-market are its lines, for instance? You can report to me later on Monday.”

She couldn't not ask it: “Is this connected with the Dodo?”

“Absolutely not.”

There! You might have wangled yourself back to Holloman, Miss MacIntosh, but no way are you working the Dodo. In fact, I couldn't use you on the Dodo if you were a model trainee rather than a pain in the ass. The Dodo case is going nowhere.

***

Carmine's first task on Monday morning was to visit the County Services property registry, which necessitated a plod up and down several flights of stairs and the negotiation of several halls that made him feel as if he passed from one country to another, instead of from one municipal function to another.

Without evidence he couldn't look at Kurt von Fahlendorf's bank accounts, but there was one way he could check whether the Carew gossip was right about the German's wealth. How valuable was his property, and did he own it outright? Half expecting the deeds of 6 Curzon Close to be buried under X or Y Holdings, he found them openly listed: K. von Fahlendorf owned 6 Curzon Close free and clear. At one acre, it was a significant Carew property, especially given its extreme age. That antiquity made it costly to maintain, as every rotted board in its siding had to be replaced with a board of the same age and kind, and every roof shingle had to be hand split. A tiny cul-de-sac, Curzon Close, just six houses on it, and two were owned by Gentleman Walkers: Mason Novak owned 4 Curzon Close outright. Dapper Dave Feinman lived first house around the corner on Spruce Street. Coincidence?

“Ebenezer Curzon had owned and farmed fifty acres of Carew,” said the chief conveyancer to Carmine, delighted to have a captive audience. “It was sold off gradually, of course, all but the farmstead itself. That passed out of Curzon ownership in 1930, when the Depression was at its worst. It's had a number of owners since, and I'm sorry to see it in foreign hands.” Her spatulate fingers tapped the floor plans of 5 Curzon Close. “Now this one, I'm pleased to say, has recently gone to what sound like real Yankees. Robert and Gordon Warburton.”

Poised to plead an emergency—the chief conveyancer would talk all day—Carmine propped.

“Warburton? Robert and Gordon?”

“Yes. They bought 5 Curzon Close eight months ago.”

“Do they live in it, or was it an investment?”

“That, Captain, I do not know.” She leaned across the counter conspiratorially. “However, I can tell you that there was an awful fuss when they started to paint it.”

Hooked, he leaned forward too; their foreheads nearly touched, like caryatids doing without a lintel. “Fuss, Aggie? Cough it up, or it's back to dancing in the Rockettes for you.”

She giggled. “Would you believe, Carmine, that they began to paint it in black and white, board by board,” she tittered. “I had to drive out and see it. Like a zebra! Naturally the Council wouldn't permit it—we were inundated with protests. I mean, right next door to Busquash, where you can't even have a colored Christmas light showing outside? Carew is a part of Holloman City, so the ordinances can't go that far, but they can be interpreted as forbidding black-and-white-striped houses. The Warburtons were livid and tried to launch a lawsuit, but not even Isaac Lowenstein would buck the town ordinances. Well, can you
see
Judge Thwaites hearing it? In California, the Warburtons said, anything goes. In which case, was the consensus of opinion, go back to California.”

“Well, dog my cats!” said Carmine feebly. “I guess staid old New England would be a shock after California, huh, Aggie? What was I doing, that I didn't hear of it?”

“The race riots after Martin Luther King Junior?”

“Yeah, right.” He gave the chief conveyancer his most charming smile, and vanished as quickly as a pricked bubble.

He just had time on his way to Busquash Mall. Fortunate.

When the Fairlane pulled up outside 5 Curzon Close, Carmine tried to envision the lovely white clapboard house painted in black-and-white stripes. Why on earth would anyone want to do that? It stood in about half an acre of land, and bore evidence that at least one tenant of it was prepared to put in the hard work English-style flowerbeds demanded; they had been mulched for winter, and about next May would be a picture. No, real gardens didn't fit with zebra striped houses. The only touch of color the house now sported was a red-lacquered front door. Not paint, lacquer. Carmine ended in concluding that Robert and Gordon Warburton had been pulling a few tetchy New England legs. Jokesters and pranksters, not Philistines.

Out of the Fairlane, up the flagged path toward the red door; before he was halfway there the red door had opened to disgorge two men who shut it firmly behind them. Perhaps five paces apart, Carmine stopped and they stopped, each side examining the other.

What Carmine saw were two absolutely identical men about thirty years of age. They had the kind of streaky brown hair that suggests tow-headed toddlers; it was well barbered, thick, and wavy. The face they shared had regular features and an enquiring expression, with greenish, grape-like eyes contributing most of the enquiry. As they stood side by side on the path, Carmine could not put one a fraction taller, heavier or wider than the other, and their physiques were exactly alike: narrow shoulders, slim waists, no hips, though the feet were splayed like a ballet dancer's. They wore the same knitted shirts, casual trousers and loafer shoes, except that one twin was clad in black, and the other in white. Had they not worn different colors, it would have been impossible to tell them apart, and that was very strange in mature men: identicalness diminished with the years.

He pulled out his gold badge and introduced himself.

“I'm Robert Warburton,” said the black clad twin. “You'll always know us apart by the colors we wear. Robbie dark, Gordie light. We thought it had better be black and white today in case you've come about our black and white house that was.”

“So you already know I'm a policeman?”

“You have been pointed out to us, Captain.”

There was the faintest suggestion of femininity about them; Carmine found himself wondering if, had he not been known to be a cop, the slight suggestion might have been a downright scream.

“Are you related to Miss Amanda Warburton?” he asked bluntly.

They gave a stagey jump, perfectly synchronized. “Yes, we are,” said dark Robert, apparently the spokesman.

“She never mentioned you last night, though I would have thought she'd stand in need of relatives.”

“You saw her last night? Not a date, obviously. Actually she wouldn't have mentioned us.” He giggled. “She doesn't know we're living in Carew.”

“Any reason why, sir?”

Robert and Gordie shrugged in unison. “Not really, just the way families are, Captain. Amanda's our father's generation—our only aunt—even if there aren't many years between us. A pity, I feel. The three of us are the last of the Warburtons. One reason why we decided to have a house near Amanda.”

“And then not tell her.”

Both pairs of skinned gooseberry eyes opened wide, but neither twin answered.

“I'd appreciate your letting Miss Warburton know,” Carmine said. “Your aunt is the victim of a weird kind of persecution, gentlemen. Her glass shop has been vandalized three times in a week, and Miss Warburton was injured last night during the third attack. A motive is hard to find, hence my visit to you.”

“Ooo-aa!” Gordie squealed.

“You mean we're suspects?” Robbie asked sharply.

“Yes. Have you been in Holloman all week?”

“Well, yes,” dark Robert admitted.

“Are you gainfully employed, sirs?”

Both faces lit up identically. “Are we gainfully employed? Are the Marx Brothers a success? Are Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine sisters? We are movie stars!” Gordie announced.

“Glad to hear you can speak too, sir. May we go inside?”

“A Californian's home is his castle,” said Robert. “No, Captain, we stay out here.”

“What's inside? Dead bodies? Stuffed dodos?”

They understood the reference to dodos, but ignored it. “Whatever it might be is our business until you produce a legal warrant,” Robert said, chin out. Gordie's chin was out too. “I note that New Englanders are not a trusting bunch, so why did you think Californians would be?”

“It's Miss Warburton concerns me,” Carmine said, rather enjoying this interlude. “I hope you're planning to tell her you're here, like today or tomorrow?”

“Don't you want to hear about our career as movie stars?” Gordie asked, sounding injured.