Devil's Food

by Janice Weber

  Philippa was in heat. Nothing short of an atomic bomb would pry her off Franco’s horn. “I’ll call you later,” Emily said. “Congratulations on the movie.”

  “Pretty amazing how things can change from one week to the next, isn’t it?”

  “Remember that next week,” Emily said, hanging up. Then she realized she had forgotten to tell Philippa about Charles Moody. Oh well. Philippa wouldn’t have been interested in more priests anyway. Besides, Augustine had simply brought them into the world, assisted with the production; another man had written the script. Why the bloody ending, though? Why didn’t her mother just go to a hospital to have the twins? Or marry Leo? Her head full of desperate images, Emily drove past miles of barren fields. Then she called Diavolina.

  Ward answered. Emily tried to keep her voice casual, businesslike. “This is Emily.”

  “Major? I’ll be damned. What’s the occasion?”

  “I’m looking for Leo.”

  “What for? He’s not going to hire you back.”

  “I just want to talk to him.”

  “About what? Severance pay?”

  “No, nothing like that. It’s personal.”

  “I haven’t heard from him,” Ward said. “But I’d be delighted to pass on your message, whatever it is.”

  “Just tell him I’d like to speak with him. Tell him to call me. You know my number.”

  “How could I forget?” Ward hung up.

  Too late Emily realized that, instead of speaking with Ward, she should have intercepted Klepp on a cigarette break. Of course Ward would be suspicious of a fired employee suddenly wanting to speak with the boss. But the woman had indeed sounded cleaner, more lucid: Klepp was right, something had changed there. It wasn’t a lover, though. Ward’s voice hadn’t gone softer. Its alcoholic haze had somehow burned off, that was all. Emily drove back to Boston, wondering why her mother would not want to survive with her children.

  16

  Guy Witten’s death had disturbed Detective O’Keefe. First of all, Witten had been murdered. Second, in his gut, O’Keefe knew that it had not been a random act of violence. Third, he knew that unless he got very, very lucky, he’d never find the killer. At Witten’s funeral, he had sensed that diabolical black energy in the room with the corpse and the hundred mourners: who, though? O’Keefe had talked to family, friends, ex-wives, and all had said the same thing. Guy did not have any enemies. Again and again, perhaps because Emily was so often on his mind, O’Keefe found himself thinking about Ross Major, the only suspect with half a motive. But nowadays husbands didn’t murder their wives’ lovers, for the simple reason that a wife was no longer considered a husband’s property. There would be no honor in such an act; rather, it would be seen as a ridiculous display of petulance, like shooting the neighbor’s dog for peeing in your azaleas. Besides, O’Keefe was not even sure that Ross knew about his wife’s affair with Guy Witten. And he wasn’t about to get Emily into trouble by asking Ross nosy, leading questions; the lady had suffered enough. Maybe he should ask Emily the questions instead. But that would be a very delicate course indeed, one to be pursued only in the event that all others failed. Before resorting to that, O’Keefe would browse around the places Guy had frequented and hope that a few shards of hatred, or love, glinted at him from the muck. When money was not involved, people rarely murdered for less.

  He went to Toto’s Gym, where Guy had spent a lot of time hoisting weights. At seven o’clock in the morning, the place was packed with all kinds of bodies in rigorous pursuit of either more muscles or less flab. O’Keefe found Toto, a hefty black man with a gold ball in his nose, at the juice bar watching a girl clamp her thighs around a contraption with springs. Each time her knees got within six inches of each other, the springs would sigh. Toto finally tore his eyes away and asked O’Keefe if he would like anything to drink.

  “Black coffee, thanks.”

  Toto shook his head. “Bad for the kidneys, man.”

  Apparently the leather belt cinching Toto’s waist to Scarlett O’Hara size was excellent for the kidneys. “Never mind, I just had a cup,” O’Keefe said. “I’m investigating the death of Guy Witten, as you know. Could you tell me anything about him?”

  “He was a regular from the beginning. That was about ten years ago. Came here almost every day before work. His place is right around the corner. Did his routine and left.”

  “Were you friends?”

  “We talked about weights and hunting, stuff like that. Guy kept pretty much to himself.”

  O’Keefe watched a well-built fellow amble over to the girl torturing her thighs. She had started grunting with the springs, perhaps unaware of the effect on males within earshot. Seeing the fellow looming over her, the girl slowed the squeaking down to an excruciating whinge as they talked. “Did Guy try to pick up any women here?” O’Keefe asked.

  “Didn’t have to. They were usually all over him.”

  “Did you ever see one with long brown hair, nice eyes, sort of tall and quiet?”

  “Sure, that was his last one. They were nuts about each other.”

  Ouch. “What makes you say that?” O’Keefe asked.

  “I saw them together once or twice. She called him here all the time. He’d drop the weights and run to the phone like Baa-baa Black Sheep.”

  “When was the last time she called?”

  “Oh, two, three weeks ago. It suddenly stopped. He was not a happy camper.”

  “Did another woman start calling then?”

  “Nope. No one.”

  But someone had continued to call Guy at Diavolina, O’Keefe thought. And that person was the key to Guy’s murder. Unfortunately, Toto couldn’t help him there. “Are you acquainted with a woman named Ward?” O’Keefe asked. “She was at Guy’s funeral. Claimed to be a friend of his.”

  “Sure, she’s famous. Went from a hippo to a knockout.” Toto sipped a little celery juice. “Then she went a bit overboard, but that’s only my opinion.”

  “Did she know Guy?”

  “I think so. They were here a lot together. When she’s lifting weights in a little red bikini, she’s hard to ignore.”

  If Ward were Guy’s friend, O’Keefe wondered, why would she steal his chef? But that was naive: Of course people stole their friends’ chefs. Everyone stole anything from anyone they could. That was why he was working an eighty-hour week. “Did Guy have any enemies?”

  “No.”

  “Why do you think he came here?”

  “To stay in shape. He was a model, you know.”

  “For what? Underwear?”

  Toto laughed out loud. “Naked, man! Artist model!”

  “Where did he do that?”

  “Some art school in town.”

  O’Keefe remembered Emily mentioning an art school. Bah, he was losing it. When the girl with the thigh press finally moved on to another mat, he stood up. “Thanks for your help.”

  Toto shook his hand. “You catch that sucker and I’ll give you a year’s membership free.”

  O’Keefe smiled thinly: fat chance. He walked a few blocks to Cafe Presto and got a cup of coffee with a lemon pastry that the new chef had made. “It’s not as good as Emily s pistachio twist,” Lois the cashier told him as he went to pay. “Maybe you’d like a muffin instead.”

  “Next time,” O’Keefe replied. He hadn’t come here to eat. “How’s everyone doing?”

  “Lousy. Bert’s about to quit. He and Lina don’t get along. The customers are grumpy. They liked to see Emily and Guy. I don’t know what’s going to happen to this place.” She gave him a few coins’ change. “I think Emily should come back. Ever since she left, it’s been downhill.”

  “Why don’t you suggest that to her? She’s not too busy these days, I hear.”

  “She’s not at that new place anymore? Great. I’ll tell her to get Ross to buy this joint. Guy would approve, I’m sure.”

  O’Keefe slid the change into his pocket. “I understand he was a model.”

&
nbsp; “Sure. For years. We all kidded him about it. Called him Flasher, Freezeball, things like that.”

  “Why’d he do it? Exhibitionism?”

  Lois looked insulted. “Before he went into the food business, Guy was an art student. He modeled to help his old school out. It was sort of like donating his organs while he was still alive.”

  O’Keefe nodded somberly. “Where was this?”

  “The Academy of Art downtown. Guy always gave the food for their graduation ceremony. He was very generous.” Lois’s lip began to quiver. “Who would hurt him?”

  O’Keefe patted her shoulder and tried to look sorrowful. For Lois, Guy’s death was a personal trauma; for O’Keefe, it was a professional insult. He took his food to a shelf and ate quickly. Lois was right; the pastry was a little dry. Waving at the cashier, he left.

  After a brief walk, he was standing in the dean’s office at the Academy of Art. The unrelieved seediness of the place depressed him. The dean looked as if he had started working here only after flunking out of mortician school. “What can I do for you, Detective O’Keefe?” He smiled, tapping his yellowy fingernails against the desk.

  “I understand that Guy Witten had been modeling here for some time.”

  “Years. His death is a tragedy. We’ll never replace him.”

  “Did you know him well?”

  “I knew him since his student days. He was quite talented. But practical. He knew the artist’s life was not for him.”

  “Did he have any problems here? Make any enemies?”

  “On the contrary. Everyone was crazy about him. Ladies and men.”

  “Any steady girlfriends?” Desperate, O’Keefe added, “Boyfriends?”

  The dean thought a moment. “No.”

  O’Keefe felt like heaving his chair through the dean’s filthy window. His investigation was getting nowhere. Soon he’d have to concede defeat; there were just too many other corpses piling up at the morgue, screaming for attention. O’Keefe stretched his hand across the dean’s desk. “I appreciate your help. Here’s my card, if you think of anything later on.”

  The dean lay O’Keefe’s card next to another one on his desk. From long habit, the detective glanced at it and nearly turned to sand. Ross Major, Architect! What the hell had Major been doing here? “Having some renovation work done?” O’Keefe asked casually. “Major would be the man for the job.”

  “I agree. Unfortunately, he was here on other business.” The dean led O’Keefe to the door. “Ever been interested in art yourself?”

  “Eh—I took a few anatomy courses once.” That was so he’d know where to shoot to kill. “Very stimulating.” O’Keefe walked, squinting, into the September sunlight.

  Ross was sketching at his desk when he heard clinking and gushing at the coffee machine: Marjorie had arrived. He went to his doorway and looked down the hall. She was wearing the houndstooth suit with the short skirt today. Her hair was up in some kind of twist. She had probably daubed her neck with a few drops of that perfume that he would forever associate with her smooth white thighs. Either unaware of him or ignoring him, she stood rinsing out the coffeepot. He walked over, keeping just out of arm’s reach but within sniffing distance of her perfume. “Good morning.”

  “Hi.” Her face was very pale, her freckles almost invisible. “Working hard?”

  They were doing pretty well, all things considered. A casual observer would scarcely detect the stricken undercurrents in their voices. “I have another research project for you,” Ross said. “A while ago, Dana renovated a restaurant in the South End. It’s called Diavolina now. It may have been called something else at the time.”

  “You probably mean Angelina.” She filled the coffeepot with water. “That was about ten years ago.”

  “Where was I this time? Commuting to Jupiter?”

  “I think you were doing office parks for Atkins.”

  That was a shyster developer who had finally gone bankrupt. His wife Janelle was famous for her mink coats dyed to match her little sports cars. “Aha. Would you mind bringing me the files? Thanks.” Ross watched Marjorie’s legs as she walked off. If he were never going to touch them again, the least he could do was look. Already his night with her was receding into the realm of dreams; he didn’t know whether that was good or bad.

  “Here you go,” she said after a while, walking into his office carrying a file and two cups of coffee. “It’s coming back to me now. Someone named Leo Cullen had a statue that he wanted Dana to put in the middle of his dining room. The man was extremely attached to it. Dana finally talked him into putting it behind the bar. Look, there’s a picture of the place when Dana finished. The statue looks nice lit up in that alcove, doesn’t it? Nothing like a naked lady under a few soft lights. The sculptor was”—she flipped a page—“Slavomir Dubrinsky.”

  Ross stared. “Where’d Cullen get it?” he said after a while.

  Marjorie rustled through the papers. “Doesn’t say. But he called it Diavolina.”

  Little she-devil: Ross wondered where the statue had gone. That little alcove was full of highball glasses now. “Did Dana and Cullen get along?”

  “Very well. I remember Dana having a lot of fun with that job. He was at the restaurant all the time. You know what that means, of course.”

  Far, far back in his brain, two tiny cells that had been floating in a sea of billions of other cells suddenly collided. Ross began to feel a little ill. “I hope not,” he said, slowly pushing the file aside.

  Marjorie opened her appointment book and recited the day s events. Ross worked with her until the other employees arrived and the fax machines began raining acid on everyone’s parades. After Marjorie returned to her desk, Ross picked up his phone. He knew Dagmar’s number by heart now. “Would it be possible to get together today? Late afternoon?”

  “I could meet you at Joseph’s apartment,” she said.

  “Your apartment, you mean. Four-thirty? I won’t take too much of your time.”

  He scraped through the day on automatic, visiting a few sites, smiling at all the right faces. Business was booming, as if Dana were still alive. On one hand, it was a relief to stay busy; on the other hand, it was a little insulting to his partner’s memory. Ross spent hours trying to remember what Emily had told him about Diavolina. She had mentioned someone named Leo: wasn’t he the chef who ran away? There was Ward. Ross didn’t want to think about her at all. Then there was Byron, the OD’d sous-chef. There were a couple of rejects floating around the kitchen. They served weird food and were very popular with the smart set. That was all Ross remembered. If only he had listened better, asked a few more questions, while Emily was working there!

  At four o’clock, he buzzed Marjorie. “I have to see Dagmar for a few minutes.”

  “Again? Is she trying to adopt you or something?” Hearing no answer, Marjorie sighed. “You’ve got the Turners coming in at five-thirty. Don’t forget.”

  “I’ll be back in an hour.” Ross walked briskly through the Common. The late afternoon wind was stripping trees with increasing ease and squirrels were beginning to scrap over the acorns. At Dagmar’s building, the doorman led Ross directly to the elevator; by now he knew that whenever Mrs. Pola went upstairs, Ross soon followed.

  “Hi, Dagmar,” Ross said, kissing her cheek. “Sorry to have disturbed you.”

  They went to the big room with the little love seat and those splashy pillows. No coffee today; on the table was a decanter of scotch. “Something’s bothering you,” Dagmar said, pouring a glass. “Tell me about it.”

  “It has nothing to do with work.” Ross swallowed and waited for the soft, warm bloom in his gut before putting the glass down. “Would you mind if I took another look at that statue in the bedroom?”

  Her eyebrows lifted ever so slightly. Maybe her white nostrils flared, as if she smelled something burning. “Of course,” she replied. “You know where it is.”

  Ross crossed the hallway and slowly opened the door to Joe Pola’
s bedroom. The statue of the woman standing at the window had not moved; only the light behind it had changed. The marble seemed to glow in the crepuscular shadows. As he was circling the sculpture for the fifth time, willing it to come alive, Dagmar appeared in the doorway.

  “What do you know about this?” he asked. “Anything at all?”

  “No.” Dagmar sat on the bed, steadying herself against a post. “I wish I did.”

  “It’s got a sister called Diavolina. Inspiring a restaurant of the same name.”

  “I’ve eaten at Diavolina,” Dagmar said. “There was no statue there.”

  Ross pulled the snapshot of the restaurant interior from his pocket. “Same model, same artist, or I’m blind. The pose is a little different, of course.”

  After a long moment, Dagmar handed the picture back. “Where did you get this?”

  “My files, Dana did renovations for a man named Leo Culien. It was his statue. The sculptor was Slavomir Dubrinsky.”

  “Why don’t you ask Culien about it, then?”

  “He’s disappeared. And Dubrinsky’s dead. Did you know that he taught at the Academy of Art? Do you know anything about his pupils? Anything about his models?”

  “No, I don’t know a thing about him. What’s the matter, Ross? I’ve never seen you like this.”

  He sat on the bed and put his face in his hands. After a long time, he said, “A pupil of Dubrinsky’s committed suicide about ten years ago. I need to know about it. It’s very important.”

  “What was her name?”

  “Rita Ward.”

  Ross felt Dagmar stop breathing. “Wasn’t that the girl who jumped off the Darnell Building?” she asked.

  “Yes. It was over a man. I need to know who that was.”

  “Why?”

  Because if it wasn’t Guy Witten, then Ward had avenged herself on the wrong target. “For my own peace of mind.” Ross looked out the window, toward the sailboats, aching for Dana. “Have you ever hated someone enough to kill him, Dagmar?”