Strange Bedfellows v5

by Paula L. Woods

  “But why didn’t Collins call us if he suspected Mrs. Shareef?”

  “You said it yourself the other day,” Thor reminded me. “Collins isn’t the brightest bulb in the pack, although he is a former deputy with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.”

  “You’re joking!”

  “Worked out of Laguna Niguel for seven years before he went private. I checked him out the same time I checked out Leykis and Ybarra. He probably threw some cop talk at the family and convinced them he could handle the threat without attracting the press—or the heat from Wall Street.”

  I could almost understand the company’s logic, but I still felt that going after Mrs. Shareef was the wrong move.

  “She was the only one not injured that night,” Thor reminded me.

  “And if we bring him in and squeeze her,” Billie added, “she’s gonna pop, especially when we let her know we’re looking at her for Malik’s murder.”

  I finally relented, although, piggybacking off Thor’s information about Leykis and Ybarra, I wondered aloud whether maybe we were all reading the situation incorrectly. “What if Habiba Shareef wanted Alma Zuccari dead? Alma could have uncovered something in her conversations with Malik or her subsequent review of the prototypes for the ethnic dolls that would have jeopardized their deal with CZ Toys. Maybe Habiba wanted her killed to shut her up.”

  “However it turns out, just interview the woman sooner rather than later,” Thor cautioned. “Mario and Gabriella Zuccari got back from New York last night. Mrs. McIntyre’s scheduled us for what I told her would be a brief meeting at one. I want to serve him the warrants and have you two in place to search his residence by no later than two.”

  But when I called Mrs. Shareef’s office, I was told she was setting up a doll exhibit at Broadway Federal Savings & Loan, a black-owned financial institution. When I caught up with her at the S&L’s Midcity branch, she insisted she couldn’t break away. “If you need to talk to me right away, maybe you could come here,” she suggested. “We’re in the middle of setting up for the reception tomorrow night, and some of these dolls are too fragile to leave to the installers.”

  Realizing this must be the event Uncle Syl and my mother were discussing at Aubrey’s, I repeated what she’d said for Thor’s benefit, and suggested I could talk to her at the reception. Do it, now! he mouthed, shaking his head vigorously.

  “We’ll be there within the hour,” I promised.

  Billie and I found her in Broadway S&L’s conference room, standing knee-deep in packing materials, unwrapping a delicate cornhusk doll. A dark-skinned woman with broad features softened by a gauzy black scarf loosely covering her head, Habiba Shareef was surrounded by African fertility dolls that looked to be hundreds of years old as well as antique dolls made of clay, bottles, and unglazed porcelain plus the Francines and Chatty Cathys and other black dolls I recognized from my childhood.

  “Call it our way of giving something back,” she explained after I introduced her to Billie. “After Broadway’s main branch burned down in the Uprising, my husband and I decided that in addition to banking here, exhibiting our collection here would be the right thing to do, another way of helping to rebuild our community. But he was shot before we could get it organized. Then we were overwhelmed by his care, and afterward some of the collection were on loan to the William Grant Still doll show. So, here we are.” She heaved a mighty sigh. “Better late than never.”

  Flyers on the table announced the opening of the Malik Shareef Black Doll Collection the next evening and included a quotation. “What action is most excellent?” I read aloud. “To gladden the heart of a human being, to feed the hungry, to help the afflicted, to lighten the sorrow of the sorrowful, and to remove the wrongs of the injured.”

  “That was my husband’s favorite quotation from the prophet Mohammed, peace be unto him,” she murmured. “And now that he’s gone, it’s up to me to carry out his wishes . . .”

  Habiba Shareef was attired in a flowing black dress, mudcloth vest, and gauzy head covering, and her brown eyes had the gleam I’d seen in so many other black women who were the widows of great men. Coretta Scott King, Betty Shabazz, Ivy Duncan all took on their husbands’ life’s work after their deaths, and Mrs. Shareef was clearly casting herself in that role—the dignified yet saddened widow, carrying on despite a tragic loss. And as moved as I was, I had to ask myself—was she for real, or was this an act of penance to assuage her guilt for having her husband murdered?

  “I heard about the young man who worked for CZ Toys on the news,” she said. “I hoped you’d be getting in touch to give me an update.”

  I motioned for her to sit down in a chair at the conference table and took the chair opposite her. Billie went around to the other side of the table and started making herself invisible by examining the flyer and checking out the dolls. “We’ve gotten another lead that we need to discuss with you,” I began.

  She squared her hips in the chair. “Okay.”

  As I explained the rumor that had surfaced about her husband’s relationship with Alma Zuccari, Habiba Shareef’s shoulders slumped, her arms folded across her ample bosom as if warding off a blow. “Why bring this to me?”

  “Did you observe anything unusual about Mrs. Zuccari’s interest in your husband last year?”

  Mrs. Shareef waved a hand in an attempt at casualness, but I didn’t miss the pained expression on her face. “Women were always flitting around my husband. He was a very handsome, very charismatic man. But he knew where his home was. He knew who had his back.”

  “But Mrs. Zuccari did spend a lot of time with your husband in the months before the shooting?”

  She picked up a carved wooden fertility doll and examined it carefully, lips pursed. “She was very interested in the dolls and in the histories we’d created for them. But why wouldn’t she have been? They were beautiful dolls, and beautifully packaged.”

  “Was she interested in anything else?” I pressed.

  Angry tears gathered in Mrs. Shareef’s eyes as she placed the doll back on the table. “Who’s spreading these lies?”

  “It’s just that Mrs. Zuccari’s interest struck us as unusual, given that she wasn’t employed by her husband’s company.”

  “Don’t you think I knew that?” she said through clenched teeth. “Alma Zuccari took what Malik believed was a genuine interest in our dolls, and talked up the deal with her husband. What were we supposed to do—look a gift horse in the mouth?”

  “But why would she do that?”

  “Maybe you should ask her!” she snapped.

  “We will, but we want to know what you think first,” Billie said from her spot across the table, where she was about to pick up a white baby doll in a red gingham dress.

  Mrs. Shareef reached over and snatched up the doll from Billie, flipping it over to reveal a black doll underneath. “I never talked to her about it, but Malik said that Mrs. Zuccari believed the line we were developing for CZ Toys would be a great success. That the market for ethnic dolls was bigger than even her husband thought it would be.”

  “And you believed him?”

  “My husband is dead, Detective Justice,” she said quietly. “What difference does it make now whether I believed him or not?”

  “It could make a lot of difference if you didn’t,” Billie replied. “It could mean maybe you thought there was some truth to the rumor.”

  Mrs. Shareef pulled herself up to her full height. “And you think I had someone kill my husband over a woman like Alma Zuccari?” Her voice had grown loud as an angry tear slid down her cheek. “As much as I loved Malik, and miss him, I would never have done anything to hurt him.”

  “What about Alma?” Billie asked.

  Mrs. Shareef shook her head. “That poor woman was nothing but a trophy in Chuck Zuccari’s life, nice but completely dependent on her looks. A woman like that was no threat to what Malik and I had.”

  “Mr. Zuccari’s ex-wife probably said the same thing,” I
noted, and watched Habiba Shareef cut her eyes at me.

  “Maybe Alma heard about your previous venture with Malik’s brother and his friend,” Billie added. “That could have made doing the deal difficult for CZ Toys.”

  I expected Habiba Shareef to be surprised at our knowing about SMA Dollworks, but she dismissed Billie’s comment with a wave of her hand. “The legal department at CZ Toys had worked all that out. They were going to buy out Malik’s brother’s and Brother Aycox’s equity position for a fair price. Malik insisted on that. To do otherwise would have violated the Islamic principles of Shari’a, which govern Muslims in all business dealings! We spent a lot of time with Mr. Merrit and CZ Toys’ legal staff making sure our transactions were ethical.”

  “I’m sure you did. Still, some people at the company might have been concerned that your prior business relationship—”

  Mrs. Shareef balled her right hand into a fist. “I know who told you this. It was that horrible woman, Renata!”

  “Renata Lippincott?” I broke in. “What does she have to do with it?”

  “She never wanted to do business with us!” Mrs. Shareef explained, her fist beating softly in her lap. “First, she tried to use our agreement with Rashaan and Brother Aycox to trip us up. Then she tried to say we were making too much of the cultural aspects of the line, that the public wouldn’t be interested in a Muslim doll as part of the collection. Then, when we produced research to the contrary, she called me, asking me why Alma was spending so much time with my husband. With that black man is what she wanted to say, but she caught herself just in time.”

  She glanced at Billie as if looking for sympathy, but all she got back was Billie’s bland expression.

  “I told her Alma was interested in the dolls and the stories behind them, which was a good indication of the strength of the product and the packaging, and she went off, said Alma had no right to meddle in the company’s business, that she was a deceitful little witch—although that’s not quite what she said—who had to be stopped. That’s when I began to wonder whether the ex-wife was just bitter or . . .”

  “If Alma Zuccari’s interest in your company was legitimate?” I said gently. “Why didn’t you tell us this before, ma’am?”

  Habiba Shareef sat motionless except for the heaving of her chest. “It seemed so trivial, and after Malik died, I just couldn’t let anything . . . tarnish his memory.”

  “We understand,” I murmured, as Billie nodded and made a few notes. “Did you ever confront your husband about Alma Zuccari?”

  She nodded sadly. “He denied everything, of course.”

  I heard the note of reproach in her voice. “Did you do anything else?”

  She turned away, too late to hide the tears flowing down her cheeks. “I . . . I was so hurt, so angry, Malik ended up sleeping in the den for three weeks.”

  “But you eventually made up,” I said after a pause. “You forgave him.”

  “Th-that’s just the point.” She dabbed at her eyes, and faced me with her chin quivering. “We—I didn’t! He was shot before we . . . before . . .”

  Billie and I exchanged a look. No wonder Habiba Shareef was so guilty and so intent on preserving just the right memory of her husband and his work.

  “The shameful way I behaved toward my husband is something I’ve got to live with for the rest of my life. So I will not let anyone speak ill of him, or the work we tried to do.” Malik’s widow sighed heavily and wiped her eyes with a handkerchief. “Can I ask you something, Detective? A friend of mine said whoever killed my husband might not be prosecuted for murder, given his death came as a result of complications of the heart surgery. Is that true?”

  “That would be up to the district attorney, ma’am,” I replied, wondering where this was headed.

  “My husband was in perfect health before he was shot,” she insisted tearfully. “I can produce his medical records, if you need them. Just don’t let whoever stole my husband from me get away without paying for it, Detective! That’s all I ask.”

  I promised I wouldn’t, but as we left the S&L I wondered if Habiba Shareef’s jealously hadn’t robbed her of her husband as thoroughly as the person who’d shot him.

  17

  Deceitful Little Bitch

  On the ride to Orange County, Billie wondered whether we should obtain a search warrant for Habiba Shareef’s financial records. “Those big crocodile tears she was shedding could be hiding a shitload of anger,” she contended. “She could have made some big cash withdrawals from her accounts prior to the shooting and paid someone to off her handsome, charismatic husband!”

  “I’d rather talk to Renata Lippincott first, see if she corroborates her statement to Mrs. Shareef about Zuccari’s wife and Malik. If so, it would certainly bolster our request for the warrant, if we decide to go that way. It did sound like something Renata would say, though, especially that ‘deceitful little bitch’ comment.”

  “I’m curious about Mrs. Shareef’s take on Renata Lippincott. Did Chuck’s ex seem like a racist to you?”

  “She acted like she didn’t want me touching her the day we were at the hospital, but I wasn’t sure if it was because I was a cop or I was black. Thor interviewed her after that, but she probably was so busy pulling that ‘richer than thou’ act on him, I doubt if he got anything substantive out of her.”

  “Certainly not that she suspected her ex-husband’s new wife was sleeping with their joint venture partner,” Billie replied. “Maybe she would’ve responded differently to two black women coming at her. That is, if she figured out you’re black.”

  I had a fleeting thought about my mother and certain members of the Curry clan who judged every person they met by the color of their skin—something I swore I’d never do. But I’d danced along the color line before, using other people’s ignorance of my race when it benefited a case, and I was not above doing it again. “If she hasn’t, then we know who the good cop will be if we see her.”

  Billie gave me an impish grin. “Sounds like fun to me.”

  Our first stop was CZ Toys’ headquarters, where we met up with Thor, Perkins, and the Feds, who were jointly serving the Zuccari siblings and other company executives with the search warrants. And although Robert Merritt and the company’s legal team protested mightily, two hours later our combined teams had fanned out to four different locations to search for documents that would tie CZ Toys, Natalie Johnson, or the Zuccaris to the fraud or the payments to Nilo Engalla.

  Billie and I were assigned to search Mario’s home in Newport Beach, one of those Orange County cities where houses in the poorer sections of town cost over twice as much as mine in L.A. Mario’s place, a newly constructed Mediterranean mini-estate, which sat on a bluff overlooking the ocean, was definitely not in the poorer part of town.

  “Not too shabby,” Billie noted as she guided the car into the cul-de-sac and got her briefcase out of the trunk. “First home I’ve ever been in behind the Orange Curtain. I’d better show them my badge, or they’ll mistake me for the maid.”

  Once we were buzzed inside the gates, we walked up the cobblestone driveway to the property, which was landscaped with tropical plants and a burbling fountain. We were intercepted at the door by a young man who identified himself as David Sarkisian, Mario’s personal attorney, although the way he was dressed suggested tennis pro or gigolo. Made me wonder if Mario was hiding something behind that good Christian demeanor of his.

  Our search warrant was inspected yet again before Sarkisian escorted us across the marble entry to his client’s upstairs home office and stood close by while we began to go through the file cabinets. “We really don’t need you hovering over us, Mr. Sarkisian,” I pointed out as Billie and I put on some gloves.

  “I’m here to ensure you confine your search within the strict boundaries of the warrant.”

  “Don’t want us confiscating your client’s porno collection?” Billie deadpanned, turning to give me a mischievous wink as Sarkisian sputtered a reply.<
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  A few minutes later, I found Mario’s home safe, in the closet of his office. “We’ll need the combination for this.”

  “I don’t have it.”

  “Then call your client and get it, or we’ll have to carry it out of here,” I told him.

  “Let me see if I can reach him,” Sarkisian said as he headed for the phone downstairs.

  After he was gone, we moved on to Mario’s desk. While Billie searched the drawers for the combination to the safe, I looked over the photos on Mario’s desk—one that looked like a company party, and a duplicate of the photo I’d seen at the hospital of him, his father, and Alma at that toy convention. Underneath them was a tattered photograph of what must have been Mario as a toddler posing with Chuck and a woman I guessed was Mario’s mother. Next to these was a collection of old letters that appeared to have been written by Chuck Zuccari when Mario was at Stanford and a “Thinking of You” greeting card in which Mario had begun to write a note. I was just reading what he’d written when Billie said, “Got something.”

  “You find the combination to the safe?”

  Billie withdrew an envelope. Addressed to Chuck Zuccari, it was postmarked from Jersey City, New Jersey, on January fourteenth of last year, some six months before the shooting. Inside was a Xerox copy of an article from a 1959 issue of Der Spiegel entitled “Was Wurde Eigentlich aus dem Schneider der Hitlerjugend?” and a letter handwritten in a spidery hand on off-white parchment. I moved aside the old photograph and letters to spread this one on the desktop so we could both read it.

  Until today, I thought the pain your family inflicted on me and mine was behind me. But your evil is far greater than I ever dreamed. If you weren’t so arrogant, you would see what you’ve done is a sin against God. Can’t you see who’s right in front of you?

  Believe me, I will expose you for the liar you are. The enclosed will remind you of the wrongs you have done to me and of the lengths I will go to stop you.