Shallow Graves - Jeremiah Healy (31 page)

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 moved 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?"