Pastor Ellie in her belted robe was practicing throwing knives at the three targets, which had been staggered for close-range, medium-range, and long-range practice.
“Welcome, Ms. Park. I hope you won’t mind if we chat while I practice. I have a training session in an hour, and I wanted to get some time in on the range first. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you to stand behind me at all times.”
Eulalie stationed herself behind and slightly to the left of Pastor Ellie. She was fascinated by the collection of throwing knives the woman was choosing from. Some had a double-edged blade, and others a single-edge. Their handles were of different length and shape. Her fingers itched to pick one up and feel its weight and balance.
“Kind of a violent hobby for a woman of the cloth,” she commented.
Pastor Ellie indicated the straw targets. “Do those look like human beings to you, Ms. Park? They’re not even human shaped. This would only be a violent hobby if I aimed my knives at people.”
“You aimed one at me once.”
“True.” Pastor Ellie hid a smile. “I missed.”
“You didn’t miss – I got out of the way. If I hadn’t moved, I would now be dead.”
“But I knew you were going to move. I wasn’t trying to kill you. I merely forced you to out yourself as someone with unusual abilities. Someone like me.”
She turned and sent three knives winging into the medium-range target. Her grouping was good but not excellent. She shook her head as she went to retrieve the knives.
“Not great. I always get nervous when I’m being watched.”
“How do you feel about knives in general?”
“What do you mean? I find carving knives useful for turkey, and butter knives useful for butter. What are you getting at?”
“How about a hand-held dagger for close-up work? Is that something you’ve ever used?”
Pastor Ellie paused with her hand poised to throw. She lowered the knife. “No, I have not. What is this about, Ms. Park?”
“Where were you yesterday morning between seven and seven-thirty?”
“At home eating breakfast. Or possibly in the shower. I can’t be sure. This is about the stabbing yesterday, isn’t it? The father of the girl who disappeared was knifed outside his home. And naturally you think that the person with the throwing knives must have been responsible. What was my motive, if I may ask?”
“Motive, means, and opportunity,” said Eulalie. “Those are what you look for in an investigation. You have the means to have committed yesterday’s attack – access to and familiarity with knives. You have the opportunity, with no one to vouch for your whereabouts at the time of the attack. And you have a connection to the victim. You are presenting a series of training workshops with the man who used to teach Rochelle Chirac. She was one of his favorites. His name has come up several times in the investigation. You must see that it would be remiss of me not to question you.”
Pastor Ellie stared at her for a moment. Then she nodded. She turned back to the range and sent three knives thudding into the long-range target. Her watchful gaze didn’t fail to notice the gleam of interest in Eulalie’s eyes.
“Have you ever thrown one of these?”
“No,” said Eulalie. “I’ve never even held one.”
Pastor Ellie picked up a knife with a double-edged blade, and held it towards Eulalie, hilt first. “Would you like to try?”
Eulalie couldn’t resist. She took the knife and ran her fingers over it. She was surprised to find that it had no cutting edge. The two edges of the blade were narrow, but not sharp enough to cut. The only sharp part was the point, which was wicked.
She balanced it on her outstretched forefinger to determine where the fulcrum was.
“I used to make arrows,” she said. “Those are balanced for velocity and stability in flight. This is different. The weight of the handle provides the force that drives the blade into the target. It is balanced to rotate in the air, right?”
“It is. Try the close target first.”
The temptation was too strong. “Give me a quick tutorial.”
“There are different kinds of grips, but I like to hold the blade between my thumb and my first two fingers. Stand with the knife in your dominant hand with your non-dominant leg forward. Your weight should be resting on your back foot. Resist the urge to throw cross-body, as though you were pitching a baseball. That will make the knife go skew.”
Eulalie copied her stance.
“Yes, good. The closer the target, the more wrist flick you use. You need the knife to do a full rotation in the air before it hits home. The closer you are to the target, the quicker you need that rotation to be, hence the wrist flick. For the furthest target, you would keep your wrist almost stiff. The rotation must be late and slow.”
Eulalie got the idea immediately. She felt an intuitive connection to the knife. It was a part of her, an extension of her hand. All she had to do was guide it home.
Shifting her weight from her back foot to her front she released the knife with a sharp flick of her wrist. It buried itself so deeply into the target that only an inch of the hilt stuck out.
“Sorry,” she said. “Too hard. I’ll go easier with the next two.”
She released the second knife, and then the third, so that they formed a tight little grouping in the center of the target.
Pastor Ellie shook her head. “I knew you’d be good at this. I didn’t think you’d be better than me on your first try.”
“Can I try the other two targets?”
Pastor Ellie handed her three knives. “Knock yourself out.”
Eulalie achieved another tight grouping on the medium-range target, but it was the long-range target that made her feel really comfortable. As an archer, it was difficult to get used to anything closer than twenty feet.
“Were you born being able to do this?” asked Pastor Ellie. “Or did you spend your life practicing?”
“A bit of both. I got lucky with my father’s genes. He has never missed anything he aimed at. And I practiced a lot as a child.”
“Whereas what I lacked in natural ability, I made up for with practice. Let’s do this. I’ll throw a knife at any one of the targets, and you try to get your knife as close to it as you can. And while we do that, you can tell me why you think I tried to kill Roland Chirac.”
As she relaxed into the exercise, Eulalie found that concentrating on something physical freed her mind to make connections it might not otherwise have seen.
“I think that going into business with Cole Richmond was a risk for you,” she said. “I think he’s unpredictable. I think you’re concerned that he might turn out to be a liability. He got too involved with the teenagers he used to teach fifteen years ago. A parent complained. In his eagerness to help, he overstepped boundaries. When I knew him at high school, he was a different person – aloof, remote, detached. He did his job and he went home with no emotional involvement. How am I doing so far?”
Pastor Ellie sent another knife thwacking into the medium-range target. “Keep going and I’ll let you know.”
“I think you and Richmond have both sunk a significant amount of money into this training venture. You are highly motivated to see that nothing happens to mess it up. Whoever attacked Roland Chirac was trying to put him in the frame for Rochelle’s disappearance. That person didn’t count on him surviving. He would have been a convenient corpse who could have been blamed for his daughter’s death. Case closed. That would take the heat off anyone else who was being whispered about in connection with the case.”
As she spoke, Eulalie glanced covertly at Pastor Ellie’s feet. Her robes were floor length, but her shoes appeared when she walked. She was a short woman, just over five feet tall. Her feet were tiny. Nowhere near a Size 8.
Eulalie’s knife landed within an inch of hers. Pastor Ellie put her head back and laughed.
“What’s so funny?” asked Eulalie.
“It amuses me how close your version is
to the truth, but how very wrong you are. I’ve been speaking to Cole about his time as a teacher. I’ve asked him a lot of questions, and I understand him much better now.”
“Then why don’t you set me straight? There’s obviously something I don’t understand. Tell me what it is.”
“I’m not here to do your job for you, Ms. Park. All I can say is that you don’t understand Cole Richmond at all. You’ve got him completely wrong.”
“Then enlighten me. What is he really like?”
“Not to be childish, but that’s for me to know and you to find out.”
“That is the very definition of childishness.”
“Then let me just add that you are too fixated on the connection between the note in the time capsule and Rochelle’s death. That’s all I’m going to say.”
Pastor Ellie was smiling, but there was an air of stubbornness about her that told Eulalie she wouldn’t get any more answers. She would have to figure it out for herself.
“Much as I’d like to stay here all day getting acquainted with these knives, I need to get on. Thanks for the chat, Eleanor.”
“Anytime. We can have a rematch, but I’ll need to practice first.”
Eulalie put the knives back reluctantly and let herself back into the building. The tips of her fingers still buzzed from the metal hiss of blade leaving flesh. She’d have to see about getting her own set to practice with.
An incoming text distracted her as she stepped out into the street. It was from Mrs. Belfast.
Lorelei Belfast: I found an old associate of Luigi Giacomo. He spends every afternoon playing cards at the Elk Lodge on Lafayette. You can catch him there.
Eulalie decided to fuel up at Sweet as Flowers before she confronted an ex-mob boss in his den.
Chapter 22
“Hey, stranger.” Fleur looked up and smiled as Eulalie entered the coffee shop.
“I have been a bit scarce lately, haven’t I? This case has consumed me.”
“Come and tell me all about it. But first, what would you like for lunch?”
“I’ll have that quiche and salad special you’re advertising on your board outside. Sounds like a good deal.”
“It is. And today’s salad is a Waldorf – your favorite.”
“Favorite is a strong word. Let’s rather say I hate it less than all the other salads because it doesn’t involve lettuce.
Eulalie perched in her usual spot at the granite counter near the till. They chatted while Fleur worked.
“I’m interviewing an ex-mob boss at the Elk Club this afternoon.”
“Your life is exciting. I didn’t even know we had a mob on Prince William Island.”
“We don’t anymore. The capo of the Queen’s Town was Luigi Giacomo. He died about fourteen years ago, and the mob just crumbled. The Russians moved in and took over their operations, and now we have the Triads too. They mainly confine themselves to the docks.”
“What happened to the Luigi guy? Was he ‘rubbed out’, Al Capone style?”
Eulalie couldn’t help smiling. “No, he was not. Last time I checked, we weren’t living on the set of Goodfellas. Luigi got cancer and died. He was sick for years, and that’s when his influence started to fade.”
Jethro brought Eulalie her lunch and a glass of sparkling water. She thanked him and fell on it with enthusiasm. Fleur waited until she was a few bites in before resuming their conversation.
“Who’s the guy you’re going to speak to this afternoon? Was he a friend of Luigi’s?”
“His second-in-command,” said Eulalie. “His name is Roberto Chiavelli. Mrs. Belfast tells me he was virtually running the operation in the last couple of years when Luigi was sick.”
“How does he tie into your case?”
“A dealer working for Giacomo recruited kids from Queen’s Town High to get access to prescription painkillers and sleeping pills by faking sports injuries. The kids would then sell the pills to the dealer for a low-ball price, and he would sell them on for their street value, making a huge profit in the process.”
“Was your girl Rochelle one of those kids?”
“She was recruited just a few weeks before she died.”
“Poor girl. None of them would have known what they were getting into. I wouldn’t be too shocked to hear that it was the mob connection that got her killed.”
“That’s what I’ll be looking into this afternoon.
Eulalie finished her lunch and sipped the espresso Jethro had brought her. It was time to go looking for an ex-mafioso.
The Elk Club on Lafayette had been around for as long as Eulalie could remember. It had started out as a gentlemen’s club, but in recent years women had been allowed to become members. The men’s club atmosphere remained almost unchanged, however, because most women had little interest in joining. They sometimes turned up with their husbands for the Sunday lunch buffet table, but otherwise the men were left to themselves. The average age of the members was over sixty, and favorite activities included cribbage, pinochle, backgammon, chess, and various card games for small stakes. Day drinking was the other popular pastime at the club.
Eulalie parked her Vespa in Lafayette Drive and crossed the boulevard to reach the entrance to the club. There was no doorman on duty, so she walked in unchallenged. She found herself in a large recreation room with armchairs set up in front of the fireplace and along the walls, and a central area with tables for cards and games.
As she stood at the door scanning the room, a waiter came up to ask if he could help her.
“I’m looking for Roberto Chiavelli.”
“That’s him over there, playing pinochle.” The waiter indicated two elderly men engaged in a game of cards at one of the tables. Eulalie waited for them to finish their trick before approaching.
“Roberto Chiavelli?” she asked.
The taller man looked up. “That’s me.”
She laid her ID cards on the table. “My name’s Eulalie Park. I’m a private investigator. Do you have time to talk to me?”
He took a pair of spectacles out of his breast pocket and examined her cards carefully.
“Will you excuse me, Alessandro?”
“Sure, Robbie. I’ll go sit by the fire. Call me when you’re done.”
Alessandro shuffled off to find an armchair, and Eulalie dropped into his place.
“Thank you for your time, Mr. Chiavelli. Can I start off by saying that I am not a cop and that I am not interested in gathering evidence to prosecute crimes that happened fifteen years ago. As you know, the statute of limitations on drug crimes in Queen’s Town is…”
“Twelve years,” he said. “I know all this, chicky. Tell me something I don’t know.”
“I’m investigating the disappearance of Rochelle Chirac - a high school senior who went missing fifteen years ago. You were a trusted associate of Luigi Giacomo back in the day. How much did you know about his activities?”
Roberto smiled. “Let’s put it this way. I have an excellent memory for the ones where the statute of limitations has run out, and a less clear one for those that can still be prosecuted.”
“Understood. One of Mr. Giacomo’s low-level dealers recruited high school kids to obtain prescription meds for him. It went on for at least a year. How well do you remember that?”
“Perfectly. I, of course, had no hand in it, just as I have never been involved in criminal activities at any stage. I am merely telling you what I heard.”
Eulalie’s smile was ironic. “Of course.”
“Mr. Giacomo confided in me, and I was aware of his activities. I knew about this one. The dealer was called Leo. He made contact with a junior in the high school by the name of Sheena when she tried to buy drugs from him. He saw how valuable she could be and put her to work procuring prescription medication. In time, he invited her to approach certain trusted friends to see if they too would like to work for him. I believe they called it the ‘club’. Soon there were three of them.” He shook his head. “This probab
ly sounds like penny-ante stuff to you, Ms. Park. You must remember that this was in the days when the potential of prescription medication was just being discovered. Now the opioid epidemic has swept the world. The Russians took over the business from us and made it big. They operate on a much larger scale than we ever did. But the kids were just a sideline for Mr. Giacomo.”
“Can you remember whose idea it was to recruit Rochelle Chirac?”
“Not Sheena’s, that’s all I know. She resisted adding her to the club. But Leo was putting pressure on her to come up with another girl. Her friends persuaded her to invite Rochelle. She did it reluctantly, warning that there would be trouble.”
“And was there?”
“Not as far as we knew. The girl had just got started. She brought in something mild. It might have been a box of sleeping pills. Leo was warming her up slowly and hoping to bring in a fifth kid to increase the volume of incoming merchandise.”
“Did you ever hear anything about Rochelle having loose lips? That she was about to blab to someone about the whole arrangement?”
Roberto frowned. “No. I never heard anything like that.”
“She had only been in the club a few weeks before she disappeared. And she has never been seen since. What did Leo think had happened to her? What did Luigi think?”
“I’ll level with you, chicky. When someone disappears without a trace like that, obviously the mob is the first thing you think of. And if you’re in the mob and you don’t know anything about it, you assume that one of the other branches must have taken care of it. That’s what Leo thought. He thought he was too low-level to have been kept in the loop. But when you’re Luigi Giacomo, the capo of the whole island, and you have no idea what happened, you worry that you’re losing your grip. You think someone in your organization has gone rogue and taken matters into their own hands.”
“Did Luigi genuinely not know what had happened to her?”
The Complete H-Series of The Eulalie Park Mysteries Page 135
