Death of a Butterfly (Sigrid Harald)

by Margaret Maron

  “Is the sun over the yardarm yet?” he asked finally. “I brought sherry. Such a civilized drink, don’t you think? Highballs and cocktails have their place, of course, but conversation is so often impeded after two or three glasses. Whereas with sherry . . .”

  As he fetched and poured and gave her a capsulated history of the difference between amontillado and manzanilla, Sigrid suddenly realized that something about the room was different. He had shifted some of the furniture closer together and over by the window, afternoon sunlight was caught by green glass cat eyes.

  “You’ve finished the chair!” she said. “It’s magnificent, Roman.”

  She was not being polite. Freed of that ugly brown paint, the mellow wood glowed with subtle tones, and the seat and tall back had been reupholstered with surprising skill and taste. She had originally envisioned some fabric in perhaps moss green, but he had found a material of predominately dark red tones that reminded her of a medieval tapestry.

  “Do you really like it?” asked Tramegra. “I know you said plain fabric, but really, my dear, you were made for elegance. Go ahead, do try it out.”

  Sigrid crossed the room with her glass of sherry and sat down. It truly was a regal chair. A chair of state. A chair in which to receive ambassadors. She lifted her glass to his accomplishment.

  “Perfect!” crowed Tramegra. “All you need now is a polished oak refectory table.”

  “A refectory table?” The image appealed to her. “But there’s no space here for a table that big. Besides, most of my things are modern and it wouldn’t fit it.”

  “Nonsense! Eclecticism is in. I sold an article on it to Urban House only last year. And as for more space, it’s odd you should mention it, for that’s what I wanted to discuss. You see—”

  The telephone rang. “Sorry,” Sigrid apologized.

  As expected, it was Tillie. “Marian said you wanted me to call, Lieutenant?”

  “That’s right. Listen, Tillie, did we ever confirm Gilbert Fitzpatrick’s alibi?”

  There was a silence. “Tillie?”

  “Just a minute, Lieutenant, I’m checking my notes. Fitzpatrick, Eliza . . . Elizabeth . . . Gilbert. Here we are. Okay, Jim Lowry interviewed a Taylor Breedlove, who stated that he and Gilbert Fitzpatrick played squash last Saturday morning from ten till twelve at a gym near West Twenty-third Street. Sorry.”

  “It was just a thought,” sighed Sigrid.

  “Anyhow,” Tillie pointed out, “how could he have gotten past Montrose? Your coincidences, again?” His tone was lightly teasing.

  “Don’t be impertinent,” she said, but she didn’t really mean it. Light banter wasn’t their usual style; Tillie must have had a relaxing, buoying afternoon, too, she thought. “One last thing—do you have Mr. Cavatori’s hospital number there?”

  He did and she copied it onto the pad by her telephone. “Thanks, Tillie.”

  “No bother. See you tomorrow, Lieutenant.”

  She turned back to Tramegra and found him refilling her glass. ‘‘I’m sorry, Roman, what were you saying about more space?”

  He swallowed his sherry and blurted, “My dear, you must give me haven. I’ve nowhere else to turn and I simply cannot remain in your mother’s apartment another night. It’s that Stewart woman.

  “My dear, she has no shame! She thinks I’m a guide to American culture. She actually wanted me to let them watch me take a shower so they could get the hang of it; and when I refused, she did it herself! Mother-naked, without the curtain. Water three inches deep on the floor.

  “I approve of the melting pot, truly I do. I know we are all immigrants-except for the Indians . . . American Indians, of course, not East or West Indians—but I’m starting to feel like boiled cabbage.

  “Heaven surely knows they mean well. They nod and bow and smile, but they watch every move I make! And they’re so incredibly tiny. I keep expecting to step on one of them accidentally. My dear, think how you’d feel if you stepped on someone’s grandmother.”

  “But, Roman, where can I put you?” Sigrid said helplessly. “You can’t sleep on the couch. I mean—”

  “My dear, I understand. You don’t wish your privacy invaded any more than I. But it’s only until I find suitable quarters. And I promise you,” he said in his earnest basso profundo, “you’ll hardly know I’m here. Now that the chair is finished, I can tuck a cot into that little workroom. I won’t come out until you’ve left for work and I’ll go in immediately after dinner. Dear Sigrid, please say yes.”

  “Well—”

  “Ah, bless you, child! You won’t regret it.”

  Sigrid was dubious. She lived alone by definite choice and thought she’d left the complications of roommates behind at college long years ago. Evidently there was to be a reprise.

  “After all, you don’t plan to be here very long yourself,” Roman reminded her.

  “Oh damn! That’s right.” Those co-op plans, she thought. Her lease expired in August.

  “Not to worry,” he said. “While I look for my own place, I shall keep an eye out for you. Indeed, I shall repay your hospitality by finding you a new and much better apartment.”

  “Would you really?” she asked incredulously, since the worst thing about moving was first finding a new place.

  “My pleasure. Where would you like to live?”

  “Somewhere within walking distance of work would be nice. Or around Greenwich Village?”

  He nodded. “And how much are you willing to pay?” Sigrid made a quick mental survey of her monthly expenses and gave a figure.

  Tramegra’s eyes widened slightly. “I had no idea that the city paid its police officers that well.”

  “I’ve been moonlighting,” she said in an unaccustomed flight of fancy.

  Tramegra looked startled and she gave herself a mental shake. She seemed to be irresponsibly giddy this afternoon. Was it the sherry? She set the glass down and said, “No, it’s just that I’ve been on the force a long time. Seniority starts to mean something after ten years.”

  Tramegra drained his own glass and stood up purposefully.

  “I’ve already packed, so I’ll just go and pick up my things and be back within the hour.”

  When he’d gone, Sigrid rose and fixed herself a stiff gin and tonic before surveying the logistics of her apartment. The master bath could only be reached by going through her bedroom, but there was a tiny half-bath off the hall. She hoped Roman wasn’t a devotee of long, soaking baths. She brought soap and extra towels and sorted through her linens for sheets and a blanket. If Roman didn’t have his own pillow, he could use one of the little cushions from the couch.

  Odd how things came full circle, she mused. She’d hated her mother’s frequent moves and here she was faced with one herself. Again, throughout her childhood after her father died, their spare beds and couches had overflowed with a succession of sleepovers—Anne’s friends and relatives, just passing through, temporarily jobless or simply waiting out a domestic crisis—yet Roman was the first overnight guest of her own.

  She hoped she wasn’t setting a precedent. She liked her mother, but she really didn’t want to follow in Anne’s footsteps.

  By the time Roman returned, Sigrid had forestalled one of his inedible concoctions by opening a can of tomato soup, grilling some cheese sandwiches and shredding the remains of a head of lettuce that had turned brown around the edges.

  “This is the last supper you’ll have to cook for the next three months,” he promised, and shooed her out of the kitchen after they’d eaten.

  Sigrid picked up the folder she’d brought home from work and pulled a table over to her new chair. Roman was right. A refectory table would be perfect for spreading out her papers. Maybe in the new apartment.

  She tried to concentrate on the data before her, a summarization of other matters for Captain McKinnon; but her mind kept wandering back to Julie Redmond’s murder. There was no avoiding it.

  While Roman clattered pots and pans in the kitchen
sink, Sigrid dialed the number Tillie had given her.

  “Cardiac Intensive Care Family Waiting Room, Mrs. Bazemore speaking.”

  Sigrid identified herself and asked about Mr. Cavatori.

  “He’s doing splendidly,” said Mrs. Bazemore. “Much stronger than they thought. In fact, he was moved into a private room on the seventh floor late this afternoon. One moment, Lieutenant, and I’ll see if I can switch you.”

  There were clickings and rings, then a crisper voice said, “Mr. Cavatori’s room; Miss Levanthal here.”

  Again Sigrid stated her name and added, “New York Police Department.”

  “I’m Mr. Cavatori’s nurse. He’s resting now, Lieutenant Harald, and cannot possibly speak over the telephone yet.”

  “What about visitors?” Sigrid asked, putting equal crispness into her own voice.

  “I suppose if it were official, something could be arranged,” the nurse said disapprovingly. “Tomorrow would be better though.”

  “Is Mrs. Cavatori there?”

  “No, she left about five minutes ago to go home for some of Mr. Cavatori’s things. I expect her back around nine.”

  “Very well,” said Sigrid. She hung up thoughtfully, feeling a little melancholy as she thought of Vico Cavatori’s fragile health. How sad it must be for Luisa Cavatori to go back to an empty apartment.

  Not literally empty, of course. Not with Timmy and the two maids there, but without Cavatori? They seemed so devoted. Like Baucis and Philemon.

  She wondered what it would be like to love someone that deeply and to know how precariously that person’s life is balanced. Unbidden, a fleeting memory of Nauman’s vigorous health spun itself across her conscious mind, but this time she brushed it away.

  There’s no point in getting sentimental or maudlin about it, she told herself, but perhaps everything worked out for the best after all. There were worse ways to die than by a heart attack, and Timmy Redmond might give Mrs. Cavatori a continuing focus for all that overflowing maternalism.

  Children were said to be a comfort.

  Sigrid stood up, stretched and went into her bathroom where she splashed water on her face, unloosed the neat bun at the nape of her neck and brushed out the long dark hair.

  She started to change clothes, had already unbuttoned her shirt, when, from the other part of the apartment, she heard the deep rumble of Roman Tramegra’s solemn voice. She rebuttoned her shirt, stepped into the hall, and listened. Had someone come? She strained to hear the other person, but since the kitchen door was closed, all that reached her were the tones and cadences of Tramegra’s conversation as he spoke, paused for reply, then spoke again.

  Sigrid pushed open the kitchen door and found Roman alone except for the caterpillars on the parsley and the mayonnaise jar that still held the ten larva he’d bought the night before. He had set up his camera and tripod and was constructing a back­drop of twigs upon her kitchen counter.

  “I thought for a moment that someone had come,” Sigrid said.

  “Oh no, my dear, just me talking to the little blighters. I say, have a look and tell me how many of the swallowtails you find.”

  Sigrid obliged. “I only see two—no, wait a minute. There’s a third.”

  “Actually, there are four of them, you know,” said Tramegra, taking a reading with his light meter. “Amazing how they blend into their background. Right under your eyes and you don’t see them.”

  “It is amazing,” said Sigrid slowly. She stood transfixed, comparing the scene in her kitchen with the way it must have happened in the Rensselaer Building last Saturday morning.

  Leaving Roman with his caterpillar herd, she wandered back to the telephone and called Sue Montrose, who was still out in Port Jefferson.

  The questions she asked were clear and to the point, and when she hung up, Sigrid thought she knew how Julie Redmond had been killed. The why was still a muddle. Unless it was for the same motive that had been dogging her thoughts for the last two days . . .

  “Would you like an espresso before I begin shooting?” Roman called.

  “No, thank you,” she answered. “I’m afraid I have to go out again.”

  CHAPTER 26

  Sigrid pressed her back against the service door to apartment 3-A of the Rensselaer Building and looked around the vestibule for a long moment before crossing in front of the elevator to ring the bell at 3-B.

  Luisa Cavatori opened the door with a burst of Italian which died as she recognized Sigrid.

  “Mi scusa, Lieutenant. I thought you were Giuseppina. Always she forgets her key. Come in! Come in! If only for a few minutes. I must go back to the hospital soon. You know about my Vico?”

  Sigrid nodded. “I was very sorry to hear,” she said.

  “Again, we are lucky though,” the woman beamed. “Already he is better. God is merciful after all. Sit here,” she invited, patting the couch beside her. “Would you like a glass of wine, Lieutenant? More I cannot offer, since Maria is out also.”

  “No, nothing,” Sigrid said.

  “Then how may I help you?” asked Luisa Cavatori. “Tell me.” It was an intensely awkward moment for Sigrid, and she gazed across the room to the candle that seemed to burn perpetually on the carved sideboard.

  “I have a friend,” she said. “He talks to caterpillars.”

  “I am sorry, Lieutenant Harald, I do not understand.”

  “Neither did I for a long time. Not until I heard the caterpillars not talking back just now.” She kept her wide gray eyes on the candle. “Until then I wondered if Mr. Cavatori had killed Julie Redmond. Of everyone, he seemed to have had the most opportunity.”

  “My Vico? A bug he could kill, maybe even a mouse, but a person? Julie? Never!”

  “No,” Sigrid said quietly, “but you could. I’m not sure why you did it, though. Will you tell me?”

  Sigrid held her breath and silence grew in the room until it blocked out even the muffled sounds of traffic from the street below.

  When Luisa Cavatori didn’t speak, Sigrid risked a look at her face and was shocked. It was as if a plump, juicy apple had suddenly turned into a withered fig—the vitality and lively animation that had flashed in those gleaming eyes and bloomed in her translucent complexion had drained away. For the first time, Luisa Cavatori looked her full age.

  In the semi-twilight, her voice when at last she spoke was soft and contemplative.

  “Life! It’s enough to make a stone man laugh. The things you want so bad and never get. You get what someone else wants and they have what you would sell your soul for, no?”

  Sigrid didn’t answer, but Mrs. Cavatori didn’t seem to expect her to.

  “We were very poor, Vico and me; and when we came to America, there was money to be made if you worked hard enough. And Vico, how he worked! I’ll make you a contessa, he said, and everything he has given me. Everything!

  “Except a child.

  “At first we were too poor and then came the war. Our family in Italia—Vico and I are cousins, you know?—they had so little. We had so much. Could we forget our own, let them starve? We were still young. Next year, we said; little by little all things come.

  “But when next year finally came, it was too late. No babies could we make.

  “Everywhere I went, to all the expensive doctors and all, all said, ‘Mi dispiaccio, signora. There is nothing we can do.’

  “So finally we say, all right, it’s God’s will; and we write to Vico’s brother who is poor in money but rich in children and we say, you have so many; give us please one child to love and make our son.

  “That is how Paolo came to us.”

  Her eyes sought one of the silver-framed photographs illuminated by the votive candle across the darkening room.

  “He was ten when he came. A baby he was not, but he was of our blood and so gioioso—so laughing—after the long childhood of war.

  “For six years we had a son and such a son he was! Today mothers see their children have a needle or eat a li
ttle cube of sugar and what’s to worry? But in 1952, who ever heard of Jonas Salk or Doctor Sabin? Iron lungs could not breathe strong enough for our Paolo.”

  Mrs. Cavatori sighed and stood heavily to switch on a lamp and draw the curtains across the afterglow which lingered over the city. With her back to the heavy scarlet drapes, she examined the police officer matter-of-factly and Sigrid could see the brisk vitality return to her face.

  “You listen much too good, young woman”—she smiled shrewdly—“but if you expect me to weep on your shoulder and say yes, I murdered Julie because she had a child and I have not; because she abused the child and I wanted to give him love—”

  She shrugged contemptuously. “You waste your time. And mine. I must dress now and go back to the hospital. My Vico will want me.”

  “But you did kill her, didn’t you?” Sigrid persisted.

  “If you think so, prove it.”

  “I can’t, except circumstantially,” Sigrid admitted.

  A flick of Luisa Cavatori’s fingers showed how little she feared the flimsy case woven around her.

  “But there’s motive,” Sigrid said thoughtfully, “and certainly there was opportunity. You went to take the boy to the circus and something had happened. He’d spilled cereal on his pants and had been sent to his room. Julie Redmond seems to have been a self-centered, short-tempered woman who lashed out at whoever was closest when she was angry.

  “Maybe she said Timmy couldn’t go to the circus and when you tried to argue, perhaps she lost her temper with you? Yes, of course! You’re the one Miss Fitzpatrick heard her arguing with, weren’t you? The one at whom she screamed, ‘He’s mine!’