Accidental Deaths (A Willows and Parker Mystery)

by Laurence Gough

  “So when the big quake hits, and all those Californian farms we’re dependent on slide into the ocean, we won’t necessarily starve to death. We’ll feast on apples and lettuce and cranberries.”

  “And spuds from the Fraser Valley.”

  “But not sweet potatoes?”

  “Not that I know of,” said Willows. He was in the mood for an apple. The frisky red of the Macintoshes appealed to him, but after a moments reflection he decided in favour of the tongue-shrinking tartness of a Granny Smith. Polishing the apple on his sleeve, he followed Parker into the store.

  There were two people behind the counter; a man and a woman Willows immediately assumed were man and wife. They were in their late forties or early fifties, and had the hunched posture of an avant-garde chess set. She’d washed the grey out of her hair with a blond rinse. It didn’t suit her. Willows flipped open his wallet, let them have a look at his badge.

  The man smiled at him. “What is this, an old movie? You show me your badge and help yourself to an apple? Want a bag?”

  Willows shook his head.

  “It comes in its own bag, am I right? Some people like to eat the whole thing, gobble it down seeds and all. Not me. Know why? Because when I was a kid my dear sweet mother told me I’d grow an apple tree in my gut, the branches would rise up and fill my throat and choke me to death.” He glanced at Parker. “You both cops?”

  Parker nodded.

  “So what’s the problem — more parking tickets Elaine forgot to mention?”

  Willows introduced himself, and Parker. The owner’s name was Tony Minotti. Elaine was his wife.

  Parker said, “Do you sell sweet potatoes, Mr. Minotti?”

  “Yeah, sure. Thanksgiving. Christmas. That’s the best time.”

  “Do you have any in stock now, today?”

  “We got a few pounds.” He grinned at Parker. “You want to take a look at them?”

  “If you don’t mind.”

  The Minottis exchanged a quick look. Mrs. Minotti shrugged and said, “Over here, follow me.”

  The sweet potatoes were on the far side of the store, directly opposite the cash register. Willows picked one up, hefted the weight of it in his hand.

  Parker said, “Do you sell some of these every day, Mrs. Minotti?”

  “No. Three or four days could go by. Sometimes we throw them out, or maybe I take them home and cook them. Like you can see, we only got a few pounds. It’s just to provide variety for our customers. So they don’t go someplace else. The potatoes are cheap and if you take care of them they got a good shelf life.”

  Mrs. Minotti was wearing a green apron over a white sweater and black dress. She wiped her hands nervously on the apron, glanced over her shoulder at her husband, who was watching them closely as he continued to man the cash register. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

  Willows took a bite out of his apple, chewed and swallowed. “Claire, why don’t you explain the situation to Mrs. Minotti while I have a talk with her husband.”

  Parker nodded. She turned to Mrs. Minotti and said, “Do you know a restaurant a couple of blocks from here, called Pale Green Shoots?”

  Willows made his way back to the cash register. He waited until Tony Minotti had finished with a customer and then asked him the same question.

  Minotti nodded. “Yeah, sure. They don’t buy from us. Never. They been closed a long time, since before the spring. I walk down that way at night; there’s a place I go for coffee.”

  “Did you ever eat in the restaurant?”

  Minotti shook his head. “No, never.” He thumped his chest, grinning. “I’m Italian, you can see it? So I eat in Italian restaurants. If I was Greek, that would be a different situation. But I’m Italian.”

  Willows showed him one of Dutton’s gory Polaroids of Cherry Ngo. “Do you know this man?”

  The colour drained from Minotti’s face. He averted his eyes. “No, absolutely not, I’m sure of it.”

  Willows tried another of Dutton’s snapshots. “You never saw him in the restaurant as you were walking by?”

  “Like I told you, it’s been closed for a long time, two or three months, maybe more.”

  “Before it was closed.”

  “I don’t look in there. I make a point of it, you know what I mean? Punks. They stare at you. One time I’m looking and one of them makes a pistol of his hand, like this. He points it at me. His eyes laugh at me and his mouth shapes the sound of a gun. Bang!”

  Willows held the photo up at eye level. “But you’re sure it wasn’t this man?”

  Minotti stared at the picture. “If I saw this man, I would remember him, for sure. Wouldn’t you?”

  “You sold a sweet potato. Maybe yesterday or the day before. Only one. Not to this man, but probably to a friend of his. Mr. Minotti, this is very important.”

  “I didn’t sell no sweet potatoes to nobody.”

  Willows thrust out his hand so the photo of Cherry Ngo was inches from Minotti’s face. “This man is dead.” Willows took a bite of his apple. Crunch. “Somebody shot him. Murdered him.” He watched Minotti’s face.

  Nothing.

  Willows placed the photograph carefully down on the counter. “The shooting took place early this morning, at the restaurant. We found the body on the floor, behind the cash register. Right about where you’re standing now.”

  Tony Minotti glanced involuntarily down at his feet. Willows said, “The killer used a sweet potato for a silencer.”

  “I don’t know anything about this … ”

  “He pushed the barrel of the gun into the potato, and then pulled the trigger.” Willows shifted his grip on the apple, took

  another bite. “The potato absorbed part of the sound of the explosion, cut down the risk of the shot being heard” He turned away from Minotti and said, “Claire, toss me a spud, the biggest one you can find.”

  Parker dug a sweet potato out of the box, threw it underhand to Willows.

  Willows pulled out his Smith .38-calibre snubnose. He held the potato up to his face, pressed the barrel of the gun hard against the potato and said, “This is what they made him do.”

  Tony Minotti stared at him, his mouth open.

  Willows said, “They made him hold the sweet potato, Tony, that we think was bought here, in your store. They made him hold the sweet potato like this, in his hand, up against his face. Can you imagine what the boy must have felt, what he might’ve been thinking about? The killer shoved the barrel right into the soft flesh of the potato and pulled the trigger. The bullet passed through the boy’s hand, and your sweet potato, and blew out his brains.” Willows slipped the Smith back in the clamshell holster on his hip. He handed Tony Minotti the sweet potato. “What time do you open for business?”

  “Seven o’clock.”

  “Were you open at seven this morning?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “We think the murder occurred sometime between eight-thirty and nine-forty.”

  “I didn’t sell no sweet potatoes.”

  “Would it help jog your memory if I took you down to the morgue and showed you the body?”

  “I don’t wanna see no body! What kind of person you take me for?”

  A man passing by on the sidewalk paused to stare at them.

  Willows said, “What about your wife, Elaine. Would she like to see the corpse?”

  Tony Minotti reached for the phone on the wall behind him. “I’m gonna call a lawyer.”

  Willows turned and glanced behind him. Parker and Mrs. Minotti were talking quietly. Parker had her spiral-bound notebook in hand. Willows said, “Put the phone down, Tony. You don’t need a lawyer. Not yet, anyway.” He put the Granny Smith gently down on the scale. The apple weighed in at 62 grams. At eighty-nine cents a pound, that was about ten cents. Willows fished in his pocket for a dime, offered the coin to Minotti.

  “You kidding me — you ate everything but the core!” Willows nodded. Good point. He went over to the bin and chose a
n apple slightly smaller than the one he’d eaten, came back and dropped it on the scale. One hundred and eighty grams.

  “Fifty cents.”

  Willows frowned. “You sure about that?”

  “For one apple, a guy comes in off the street, I always charge the same thing. Fifty cents. Don’t matter if the apple’s a big one or a small one. All the same. It’s simple that way, quick.”

  “Profitable, too.”

  “That’s why I’m in business. To make money.”

  A watertight philosophy. Willows couldn’t argue with it. Willows fished in his pants pocket, came up with two quarters. He handed the money to the greengrocer.

  “Ever see any fifty-cent pieces, Tony?”

  “Once in a while. Not often.”

  “They’re useless in vending machines, I guess. And I read somewhere that pennies cost more to make than their face value. You do your banking nearby?”

  Minotti led with his chin. “Bank of Montreal. On the other side of the block, at the corner.”

  “How late do you stay open?”

  “Eleven o’clock.”

  “You do a night deposit?”

  “Yeah, sure. Otherwise, somebody’s gonna throw a rock through the door, come in and rob you.”

  “Have you ever been robbed, Tony?”

  “Only once. Years ago. Not since then.”

  “Mind if I use the phone?”

  “What for?”

  Willows stared at Minotti as if the man had suddenly begun speaking in tongues. After a long moment, he said, “To make a call, Tony.” He began to walk around to the far end of the counter. “That’s all I want to use your phone for. Just to make a call.”

  Willows had expected a machete or maybe a baseball bat or tire iron, but Tony Minotti’s weapon of choice was a cheap sawn-off shotgun. Willows broke open the barrel and the extractor shucked a single 20-gauge shell into his hand. Minotti stood there, helpless, defiant and ashamed. Willows didn’t need to ask him if he had a licence — the answer was written all over his face. He said, “If this is a first offence, I doubt you’ll do any time.”

  “You’re gonna arrest me? All I wanna do is protect myself, and you gonna arrest me?”

  “Ring up the sale, Tony.”

  Minotti rang up the fifty-cent sale. The cash register popped open. Several shotgun shells lay in the slot reserved for one-dollar bills.

  Willows said, “What happens if some kid comes in here and tries to steal a banana — you blow him away, or just use this thing to threaten him?”

  “No, no! I don’t use the gun for that. It’s only for self-defence. If my life is threatened.”

  “So, if some kid wandered in here and stole a sweet potato … ”

  “I’ll chase him down the street, catch him and beat him bloody. But I ain’t gonna shoot him, that’s for sure. And anyhow, it never happened.”

  Willows said, “Give me the shells.”

  Minotti scooped the shotgun shells out of the cash drawer. They were made of brass and red plastic. He gave the shells to Willows and Willows slipped them into his jacket pocket. He handed Minotti the empty shotgun. “Come with me, Tony.”

  Minotti followed Willows out on to the crowded street. Willows unlocked the unmarked Ford’s trunk. “Put it in there.”

  Minotti put the shotgun in the trunk and Willows shut it and made sure it was locked. He unlocked the car and opened the back door. “Get in.”

  The greengrocer glanced up and down the street. He was being watched. Everyone was watching him. People who happened to be passing by. His friends. What must they be thinking? He got into the car.

  Willows shut the door and went back into the grocery store.

  Tony Minotti sat in the car with his head in his hands. A kid from the neighbourhood pressed his face up against the car window and waved at him and yelled his name, kept waving as he was dragged away by his mother.

  Parker waited for Willows and then said, “Okay, tell my partner what you told me.”

  Elaine Minotti said, “He was maybe twenty years old. He had a friend, but he stayed outside, on the sidewalk. The one who came in, he saw I was alone. My husband was in the back, taking a delivery.”

  Willows said, “This was yesterday?”

  “No, early this morning.”

  “Okay, what happened next?”

  “He went straight to the sweet potatoes, took one and tossed it high in the air and caught it with both hands. Then he smiled at me. His eyes were cold, and I was very much afraid of him. He put a finger to his lips, warning me to stay

  quiet. All this took less than a minute. He was here and then he was gone.”

  “Did you tell your husband?”

  “No, never.”

  Parker said, “Apparently he’s got quite a temper. He used to keep a bat behind the counter. Waved it at a kid last summer and the next day the kid and a bunch of his friends came back with their bats. A month later a store in the next block was robbed and the owner was stabbed in the leg with a butcher knife. That’s when Tony bought the shotgun.”

  “Gotta protect those mangoes,” said Willows, “gotta protect those pears.” He turned and looked out the open door. Tony Minotti was sitting in the back of the police car, watching them. “Could you identify the man if you saw him again?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “Was he from the neighbourhood — had you ever seen him before?”

  “No, never.”

  Parker said, “Mrs. Minotti’s already said she’s willing to come downtown and look at the mug books. But to do that she’d hate to have to close up shop, which would result in a substantial loss of business.”

  Willows, staring hard at Mrs. Minotti, nodded slowly. “If we let Tony off the hook, he can mind the store while his wife helps us solve the murder, is that the idea?”

  “That’s the idea,” said Parker, smiling despite herself.

  12

  Newt Junior sat at his desk in the den of his Laguna Beach house. The den was on the ground floor at the far end of the south wing. It was Newt’s favourite place when he was feeling muddled because it was quiet, the only sane room in the house. Everywhere else, Oprah or Donahue or somebody was yakking away on a portable TV, or there was salsa music blaring out of a portable radio the size of a refrigerator. Newt employed anywhere up to a dozen Mexican houseboys and each and every one of them was crazy about music, liked to play it loud.

  But not in the den. The den was soundproofed and strictly off limits. Not even the maids came in there unless Newt told them to.

  Newt leaned back in his upholstered leather chair. He made a sound deep in this throat, a karate kind of noise, and kicked out. The heel of his shoe knocked a bright splinter of rosewood off the corner of his desk. Son of a bitch! Fortunately the force of the blow spun his swivel chair around two hundred and seventy degrees. With his back to the damage, Newt could forget about it.

  He let his eyes wander over the deluxe custom-made floor-to-ceiling oak shelves that lined three walls out of four.

  The shelves, sturdy though they were, sagged under the terrible moral weight of more than a thousand Gideon Bibles.

  Each Bible had been stolen from a hotel or motel. It wasn’t that Newt was a kleptomaniac — just a way for him to keep score. If he’d had a babe with him, he’d get her to write the date and name and location of the hotel on the Bible’s flyleaf, and then add her autograph. If she cared to mention something about having had a wonderful time, real unforgettable, well, that was fine too.

  Occasionally Newt found himself in a situation where his date had a fairly decent grasp of the spoken language but hadn’t yet mastered the art of the written word. In these circumstances he settled for a signature, skip the adulation. If this too was impossible, Newt’s absolute bottom line was a lipsticked kiss and awkwardly scrawled “X.”

  Newt also kept a memento in the form of a Polaroid photograph, which he also filed in the Bibles. Some of the pics were kind of borderline tasteless,
but most of them were harmless Frederick’s of Hollywood-type lingerie shots or candids of the girls having loads of fun in the motel pool or maybe leaning against the Coke machine or checkout counter or the Porsche or wherever he could get them to hold still for a minute.

  Not that there was a picture or even an autograph in every Bible. Before his father died, Newt had worked hard in the family business, spent a lot of lonely nights on the road. Now that Felix was finally dead and buried, Newt’s road trips had pretty much come to an end. He’d grown up in Los Angeles and felt safe and at ease in the city. Palm Springs was okay, and Vegas. Miami Beach, in a pinch. But the rest of the country, as far as Newt was concerned, was just waste space. So when there were out-of-town chores to be done, he usually sent somebody like Frank, rather than taking care of the work himself.

  Yeah, Frank.

  Newt swivelled his chair around through the remaining ninety degrees, so he was once again facing the picture window with its flawless unimpeded view of the dunes and beach, the restless ocean, empty blue sky and the smudged black triangles squatting on the horizon that were oil rigs.

  Frank, Frank. Hello, Frank. Earth to Frank, where are you, Frank? Come in, Frank.

  He leaned forward in his chair and stabbed with his index finger at the speakerphone’s redial button. A red light flickered as the instrument’s electronic innards digested the eleven-digit number, and spat it out.

  The phone rang twice and then the hotel switchboard picked up.

  Newt said, “Gimme room five-eighteen.”

  “One moment, sir.”

  There was a pause, and then the connection was made and Frank’s phone began to ring. Newt lit a Marlboro. Where in hell was Frank? He adjusted the volume control on the speakerphone, turned it all the way down and then all the way back up, very slowly. And as he turned the volume up, Newt began to shout Frank’s name.

  “Frank? Frank! Where the hell are you, Frank!”

  Newt kept turning up the volume, kept yelling louder and louder, until the shrill ringing of the unanswered telephone filled the room and his voice cracked and he couldn’t shout any louder.

  The operator came on the line and tried to tell Newt that Frank wasn’t answering and would he care to leave a message?