Shallow Graves - Jeremiah Healy

by Jeremiah Healy

  George Yulin mulled that over for all of five seconds. Then he jotted an address on a slip of white paper while saying, "You might just catch her."

  -7-

  THE MUSIC WAS SO LOUD I COULD FEEL IT IN MY CHEST. There had been no one in the waiting area of the photography studio a few blocks from Lindqvist/Yulin, and I could hear a driving beat from behind a closed, inner door. I opened the door and was hit by a rap-reggae hybrid from four floor speakers that topped off above my waist.

  On the far side of the thirty-by-thirty room were four people. The two men wore black mock turtlenecks and black pants, the two women bikinis. The taller man played with his earring behind a long-lensed camera on a tripod, an identical camera lying on the crest of a stepladder beside him. The shorter man brushed the billowing hair of a statuesque blond woman who was physically perfect. Standing next to the blonde was a redhead who looked younger than the blonde but had a similar body. The redhead's hair was short and spiky, a cocklebur with a haughty face.

  The women didn't seem to match, like somebody's older sister running into somebody else's younger sister at the beach, but maybe that was the effect they wanted. It took a minute for me to realize that I was standing in shadow, and probably the models couldn't see me through all the lights shining on them.

  The redhead began pouting, hands on hips, a pair of sunglasses halfway down her nose, eyes searching out the photographer over the rims. Above the music, she shouted, "Chris, these shades are like weird."

  The photographer spoke to his camera. "They look fine, Sinead."

  "I feel like somebody's grandmother."

  "Don't worry about it. They fit the scene, and nobody's looking at your eyes, anyway."

  "They still feel weird."

  George Yulin was right about Sinead Fagan's Medford accent. Weird came out "we-id," grandmother "gramuva."

  The "scene" appeared to be a beach. There was a big striped umbrella guy-wired into the shallow sand, the background wall draped with a blue and white cloth that looked enough like sky and clouds to fool me, and I knew it was fake. The blonde patiently waited through the shorter man's fussing and Sinead's whining.

  Chris the photographer said, "That looks fine, Bruce."

  As the man with the brush moved back out of the scene, Chris said into the lens, "Sandy, hold where you are. Sinead, just a little to the right."

  Sinead huffed out a breath and shifted left. "Awright?"

  Bruce mouthed something into the photographer's ear and grinned mischievously.

  Chris said, "Other way, Sinead."

  "Other way what?"

  "Move the other way, toward Sandy."

  Sinead huffed again but moved the correct way.

  "More."

  Sinead nearly bumped into the other woman, Sinead's sunglasses slipping off her nose and into the sand below. Reaching for them, Sinead lost her balance, plopping into the sand behind them.

  Sandy closed her eyes and broke her pose. The brush man burst out laughing. Chris raised his head from the camera and said, "Bruce, kill the music."

  The shorter man went to the stereo on a side wall and suddenly the room grew still. It was as though the sound instead of the shadow had been covering my presence, because as suddenly everybody seemed aware I was there.

  The photographer said, "Who are you?"

  "John Cuddy. I'd like to talk to Ms. Fagan, if I could."

  "Who?"

  "That's me, Chris."

  Sinead Fagan came off the set, one hand holding the sunglasses while the other whisked her bottom. Sand on her feet squinched a little on the linoleum floor. "What do you want?"

  It came out "Wotchawan?" Posed and silent, she looked poised, mid-twenties. In motion and talking, just another gangly teenager.

  I said, "I'd like to speak with you privately."

  Before Fagan could answer, Chris said, "Tell you what, folks. Let's take fifteen, everybody shake out the bugs, okay?"

  Sandy said, "Fine." Bruce looked like he wanted to laugh some more, but thought better of it. All three of them moved off toward a coffee machine on the opposite wall under a collage of giant lips.

  Fagan watched me warily. Up close and out of the harsh lights, the makeup was heavy, covering a lot of freckles and a little too much sideburn edging close to her jawline.

  I said, "My name's John Cuddy, Ms. Fagan. I'm a private investigator."

  "No shit."

  Fagan said the second word flatter than the first, as though she didn't believe me. I took out my ID folder, letting her mouth what she read on it.

  "What's this for?"

  "The death of Mau Tim Dani."

  The face behind the makeup seemed to cave in, crumbling the caked-on powder. "I don't wanna talk about that."

  "Ms. Fagan, it won't take long. We can talk here at your convenience, or in a conference room with lawyers and a stenographer. Up to you."

  She thought it over, maybe struggling to remember if that's what happened on L.A. Law. "Let me get a robe, awright?"

  Fagan walked, then trotted behind the set, returning wrapped in a short terry cloth, sash undone. And now wearing the sunglasses, something she probably thought of in front of the mirror, to hide her emotions from me.

  I pulled up a couple of folded folding chairs and unfolded them. When we were settled, I said, "You and Mau Tim were friends."

  "Yeah."

  "You lived in the same apartment house."

  "Yeah. You know the answers to all these, how come you gotta ask them?"

  Defiant, not flirty. "I'm trying to make this as easy for you as I can."

  "Big of you."

  "Also, when I get information from one person, I check it with another. That way, I can tell when somebody's lying to me, setting themselves up for perjury down the line."

  Perjury seemed to soak in. Fagan said, "Ask."

  "You were having a party for Mau Tim that night."

  "Right."

  "Do you know where she was before the party that day?"

  "Up in her bathroom, taking a shower."

  "Before that."

  "I dunno. On a shoot somewheres, probably."

  "Where?"

  "I dunno. She did quite a lot of shoots."

  Quite a lot. "George Yulin said she wasn't working that day. Called in, but wasn't on a job."

  "Then I dunno."

  "How did you and Mau Tim come to live in the same building?"

  "She was living there, there was this other apartment open, so she says do I want it and I says yeah."

  "I understand her family owns the building."

  Fagan stopped. Then, "Far as I know. I just give Ooch the rent money, he sends it in."

  "The super."

  "Yeah."

  "You pay him in cash?"

  "That's the deal. What the fuck does this have to do with Mau Tim?"

  "Okay. That night — the night she was killed, when did you last see her?"

  "I didn't."

  "Didn't see her?"

  "No."

  "Did you talk with her?"

  "I called Mau when I got in. She said she'd be coming down for the party later, was there anything I needed."

  "When was this?"

  "When I got home."

  "When was that?"

  "I dunno. It was a nice warm day out, so I walked."

  "Approximately."

  "I dunno. Five, five-thirty, maybe."

  "What did you tell her?"

  "Tell her?"

  I began to empathize with Chris the photographer. "When she asked you if you needed anything, what did you tell her?"

  "Oh, I says no, it's your fucking birthday, for chrissakes."

  "What did she say?"

  Another stop. "Not much. She had to call some people, maybe."

  "Who?"

  "I dunno."

  I didn't see Holt giving me a look at the telephone company's local line records when he did get them.

  "What did you do after you hung up with Mau Tim?"r />
  "I took a shower, trimmed my nails, turned on the stereo. What the fuck — "

  "Did you talk to her after that?"

  "No."

  "Did you hear anything from her apartment?"

  "We're like a floor apart. You can't hear nothing except the water."

  "The water?"

  "The water in the pipes. Mau Tim took a shower, I'd hear it in my kitchen pipes."

  "And did you hear that?"

  "Sure. I was in my kitchen, I can hear the water through the pipes."

  "That night?"

  "Yeah, that night."

  "When?"

  Fagan huffed. "I dunno what fucking time. Look, I don't keep looking at my watch, you know?"

  "Okay. At some point, you hear the water in the pipes."

  "Right. I'm in my kitchen, getting things ready for the party, and I hear the water and then Oz comes in."

  "Oscar Puriefoy."

  "Yeah. Oz."

  "And he comes into your apartment?"

  "Yeah."

  I thought about the raised last flight of the fire escape. "He's got a key?"

  The stop again. "No. No, he don't."

  "Then how did he get in?"

  "How do you think? He rang me from outside, and I opened the door for him."

  "Go on."

  "Awright, so Oz is in my apartment, right? So I says to him, go get us some wine, I forgot."

  "You forgot the wine for the party."

  "Yeah."

  "How old are you, Ms. Fagan?"

  A stop. "Nineteen."

  Underage to buy the wine even if she hadn't "forgotten" it.

  "Then what?"

  "Then Oz goes out and — — "

  "Wait a second. Is the water still running?"

  "The water?"

  "From upstairs through the pipes in your kitchen."

  "I think so. It was just like, water, awright? Besides, I had quite a lot to do."

  Lindqvist's influence again. "So Puriefoy goes out for wine."

  "Right."

  "And you give him your key?"

  "No. No, he don't have no key, understand?"

  "Okay. How long is he gone?"

  "I dunno."

  "Can you estimate?"

  "Ten, fifteen minutes maybe."

  "Then what?"

  "He comes back."

  "And you let him in and all."

  "Right."

  "What happened then?"

  "Oz is in the kitchen, opening the wine, and then Larry Shin comes by."

  "Larry Shinkawa?"

  "Yeah."

  "He rings the bell — "

  " — and I let him in."

  "Shinkawa was invited to the party."

  "Sure. Him and Mau was going out."

  "That night?"

  "No, no. We was all going out after. They was, like, 'dating,' you know?"

  Fagan said the word like I might have heard it back when I was young. I wondered when it had turned sour. "Who else was coming to the party?"

  The stop. "That was it."

  "Nobody else was invited?"

  "Well, this other guy was invited, but he couldn't come."

  "What other guy?"

  "This other model."

  "His name?"

  "Quinn."

  "First name?"

  "That is his first name. Quinn Cotter."

  "Where does he live?"

  "I dunno."

  "How'd you invite him?"

  "Saw him on a shoot. Why?"

  I no longer even remotely envied Chris the photographer.

  "This Cotter work for Lindqvist/Yulin, too?"

  "Yeah."

  "Why didn't Cotter come to the party?"

  "I dunno. Ask him."

  "All right. How about a guy named Shawn?"

  "Shawn?"

  "Yes. I'm not sure which spelling."

  "What do you mean?"

  Fagan seemed blank, and for just a second I wasn't sure she knew what 'spelling' meant. "Did you ever hear Mau Tim talk about a Shawn?"

  "No."

  "Somebody said he was her first boyfriend."

  "News to me."

  "All right. You, Puriefoy, and now Shinkawa are in your apartment. Then what?"

  "Larry Shin says, where's Mau Tim, and I says she musta just got outta the shower, and he says, let's go up and surprise her."

  "Did you?"

  "Uh-unh. He did, not me."

  "Puriefoy?"

  "No, him neither. Just Larry Shin."

  "Then what?"

  "Larry Shin goes up, awright, and like two seconds later he's down the stairs, saying that Mau Tim ain't answering."

  "You remember what he said?"

  "N0, just like he was knocking and hollering for her, and she didn't answer him."

  "What did you do?"

  Chris the photographer called over. "Sinead?"

  "Right." She stood up. "That's it."

  "Wait. What did you and Puriefoy do?"

  "I don't wanna talk about that, awright?"

  I didn't want to see this woman again if I could help it. "Did you ever talk with Mau Tim about anything that was bothering her?"

  "No."

  "How about going to New York?"

  The stop. "Everybody talks about going to New York. It don't mean nothing."

  Chris said, "Sinead, how about it?"

  "Awright, awright." Her sunglasses slipped as she looked down at me. "That's all I can tell you."

  "Sinead, you seem to have been her best friend. Is there anything else she talked about with you? Boyfriends, family, anything?"

  Fagan righted the glasses. Very evenly, she said, "We didn't talk about family, awright?"

  Sinead trotted off to rejoin the others at the beach.

  -8-

  I TREATED MYSELF TO LUNCH AT THE HARVARD BOOKSTORE CAFE, a place where you can think about eating while browsing or think about browsing while eating. A friend of mine named Moncef designed the menu there. He and his wife Donna used to own L'Espalier, the best restaurant in the city. A few years ago, they pulled up stakes and moved to Virginia, to raise their family in a calmer environment. Moncef still comes up to Boston once in a while, and he was there that day. We shot the breeze for half an hour over a plate of perfectly stir-fried turkey and vegetables.

  To walk off lunch, I crossed the Public Garden and the Common to my office on Tremont. I'm in an old building, and my door on the third floor has a pebbled-glass top with "John Francis Cuddy, Confidential Investigations" stenciled on it. Behind the door is a desk, a desk chair, and two client chairs. Two windows overlook the Park Street Subway Station, and my license hangs from a wall I painted myself to save a few bucks on the monthly rent. The rest of the office could be carted off in the front basket of a bicycle.

  I was upstairs for five minutes and in my desk chair four when there was a knock on the door. "It's open."

  A guy came in wearing a knee-length leather coat over a navy blue suit. In his mid-forties, he was five seven and pushing two hundred pounds. A comb had recently slicked his black hair to the sides in a Teen Angel look. The face was pudgy, the complexion reminding me of an all-weather radial. A toothpick stuck out from one comer of his mouth, the corner curling in a half-smile.

  He said, "How ya doin'," as a statement rather than a question and then settled into one of my client's chairs, the leather coat squeaking against the wood.

  I said, "You want to take your coat off?"

  "We ain't gonna be staying that long."

  "So maybe I should put my coat on."

  "You don't want to catch cold on the way to the car."

  "Where are we heading, we aren't going to be here that long?"

  "Some friends of mine, they want to have a little talk with you."

  "And if I don't exactly feel like going with you?"

  A shrug so small the coat gave just one tiny squeak. "I leave, come back with two associates, and then we go see my friends."

  "And if tw
o more aren't enough?"

  The only part of his expression that changed was the toothpick. It rolled to the other corner of his mouth. "Then I come back with four more. Sooner or later, you have that talk with my friends."

  "I step on some toes somewhere?"

  "I don't know. I'm just transportation."

  If he were just "transportation/' he'd be leaning against a car downstairs, and somebody else would be talking with me. I thought over what I'd been doing the last couple of weeks and came up with only one possibility.

  I said, "Where are we going?"

  "You find out when we get there."

  I shook my head very slowly. That brought a good smile.

  "Hey-ey-ey," he said, dragging out the syllable. "Look, we was gonna clip you, we wouldn't send somebody you don't know, would we?"

  "You would if you don't have anybody I know."

  "You raise a good point." He sat back into the chair, folding his hands over his stomach, lifting his shoulders once and letting them sag into the chair, a symphony of squeaks from the coat. When I didn't say anything, he waited thirty seconds or so, then said, "You come now, we beat the afternoon rush."

  "These days, there's always traffic."

  He rolled the toothpick back to where it started, then used the thumb and forefinger of his left hand to pull back the lapels of his coat and jacket. Letting me see he wasn't reaching for anything lethal. He pulled out a long wallet from the inside pocket of the jacket, extracted a plastic card, and sent it across the desk to me.

  "My license. A picture of me and everything."

  I looked at the driver's license. It seemed legitimate. Social Security number, date of birth. The photo was recent, the expiration date four birthdays away. The address was in the North End, Boston's Italian-American section.

  I read off, "Zuppone, Primo T."

  "Yeah, only you gotta pronounce it 'Zoo-po-ny'. "

  "Primo, how many of these do you have?"

  The small shrug again. "Six, seven. But that there's the real one."

  I couldn't help but grin at him. "People underestimate you a lot, Primo?"

  That got the half-smile. "Just once, usually."

  "Primo, what's the license number on your car?"

  "That ain't on there."

  "I know. I want the plate of the car we're going for a ride in."

  He rattled it off, no more hesitation.

  "I'm going to make some calls, Primo. Then I'll decide whether we're taking a ride."