Spiced to Death

by Peter King

  Gabriella turned to me. “And then there were some wrong numbers on a form, you said. Did everybody get involved in that?”

  “They did, you’re right,” I said. “When Simpson said, ‘This is wrong,’ we all crowded around. That would have given a person in the vehicle time to get the sack of Ko Feng, transfer it, return the keys and get back.”

  “I checked on the vehicle in the next bay,” Gabriella said slowly. “The limo—it had been there for some time. Nobody knew if it still ran.”

  “It just looked like a big black car to me,” I said. “I didn’t pay it that much attention.”

  “Bet you a dollar to a doughnut that vehicle was out of here as soon as you guys left in the truck,” said Monty.

  Gabriella picked up a phone from one of the benches.

  “Security?” She identified herself. “A vehicle was here in hangar BLS 12 the day the Ko Feng arrived. Would you check your traffic log? I want to know what time it went out.” She waited a couple of minutes. “Okay, thanks.”

  When she hung up, she read off the time. “Twenty minutes difference. The limo left just twenty minutes after you left.”

  She picked up the phone again. “DMV? I want to trace a vehicle …” She gave her identification and listened. She hung up with an irritated sigh. “The license is a phony.”

  “I wonder who made all the arrangements for this,” I said speculatively, waving a hand to the contents of the bay. She picked up the phone again and when she put it down, she said, “Cartwright. He was out here twice, making sure everything was arranged and picking a place to leave the keys.”

  “And probably putting chalk marks on the floor so he could put the truck just where the space between the limo and the truck couldn’t be seen from where you guys were standing,” said Monty. “Another thing—who prepared the documents that had had the wrong numbers on them?”

  “They were the receiving documents,” I said. “Must have been Cartwright. And,” I added, “he had had goods come in through Simpson before. He would have known what a stickler for details he was. He could have been sure that Simpson would spot the errors right away.”

  “You done good,” said Gabriella. “Thanks, Monty.”

  “Any time,” he grinned. “Well, that’s to say any time after I make sure that I can get this guy out of the sealed tank of water every performance. I keep telling him four out of five is pretty good for an act this tricky but he won’t go along with that. Wants to keep practicing.”

  We went back into the maelstrom of New York traffic and dropped Monty at his theater. It was just past noon.

  “I can see that lunch look in your eye,” said Gabriella.

  “Something simple?” I suggested.

  “And quick.”

  “Any ideas?”

  We went to a tapas bar, which Gabriella told me had become a recent craze in New York. The deliciously tempting little appetizer dishes that are such a tradition in Spain had now caught on here and were ideally suited to the fast food market. We had marinated mushrooms, stuffed mussels and vegetable croquettes. One small dish of each between us was satisfying without being too filling, though we had to pass on the huge triple-decker sandwiches that any tapas bar in Bilbao serves as well as the batter-fried shrimp of Gijón and the savory chorizo pies of Galicia. The Vina Sol from Penedés was the only white wine from Spain on the list, the remainder being Californian but its dry, lemony character went well and a glass each was marginally enough for a quick meal.

  “Sorry I blew up back there,” I said.

  Gabriella smiled. “It would have been suspicious if you hadn’t. Now, if Monty is right, that’s the way the theft was pulled off.”

  “Which means that only Cartwright could have done it. I must admit that I have been thinking of him as owner of the Ko Feng and therefore not likely to be stealing it. But, of course, he isn’t the owner—Marvell is.”

  “This fits in with what we heard from Selim Osman.”

  “Right. It means that Marvell was planning on selling the Ko Feng to the restaurant people. Cartwright realized that there was a far wealthier market out there which would pay much more—the research people who want it for life extension, better health and fitness and”—I was thinking of Gloria Branson—“other advantages.”

  “That’s why the Ko Feng hasn’t shown up for sale yet. The research people are naturally reluctant to buy a stolen property—not for reasons of scruples but because they are suspicious of who has it and they want to be sure it can be assured of being genuine.”

  “And the accomplice?” I asked Gabriella.

  “Well, we’re a step closer to that person—whoever it is.”

  “In the meantime, you can interrogate Cartwright, knowing that he is almost certainly guilty.” I stopped myself just in time—I was about to add that I was sure now that Cartwright had been the one who had tried to eliminate me in the Marvell laboratories but I remembered I had not shared that incident with Gabriella. I went on quickly. “Gives you an advantage, doesn’t it?”

  “It certainly does.”

  “And as for Don Renshaw’s murder, evidently Don remembered the earlier theft of the birds’ nests and in some way tied it to Cartwright.”

  Gabriella nodded. “We’ll be able to confirm that too. Well, that’s eliminated a number of blind alleys.”

  “Coming back to the people who want to buy the Ko Feng,” I said. “As I told you on the phone, I’ve spread the story that phony Ko Feng is being offered and hopefully given the impression that the only way any buyer can be sure of getting the real thing is to have me authenticate it for them.”

  “Hm,” she said, spearing a remaining solitary mussel, “I’ve been thinking about that. You’re making quite a target out of yourself, aren’t you?’

  “Just doing my best to contribute,” I said modestly.

  “Just don’t contribute a third corpse,” she said, looking in vain over the table for something else to eat.

  I told myself it was New York humor and that she really was concerned about me.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  GABRIELLA DROPPED ME OFF at the hotel, but this time no one was clamoring for me. I was pondering my next move when the phone rang. It was Peggy. She spoke fast and her voice was high pitched and excited.

  “That woman—the one you saw here—you know, the one you described to us? Well, she just came in! Maisie saw her too and she agrees it’s the same one. What should I do?”

  “Keep her talking, don’t let her get away,” I said urgently. “I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

  “What if she wants to leave?” wailed Peggy. “How can I stop her?’

  “Lock the doors, say you’ve lost the key, tell her it’s an emergency—do anything you have to do but keep her there!”

  One of the desk clerks had told me that on the corner of the block was a suite of doctors’ offices which had a steady flow of taxis. It was the best place to catch one, he said, and he was right. I got one almost immediately and I was lucky enough to have a driver who was incredibly not only American but a New Yorker. After congratulating him on being the only one of his kind, I offered him an extra twenty dollars if he got me to the Spice Warehouse fast.

  He narrowly avoided losing paint at least three times and left a trail of curses, shaken fists, screeching brakes and terrified pedestrians but he earned his twenty and I dashed into the Spice Warehouse. The door wasn’t locked, several customers were there and I couldn’t see any signs of struggle or commotion.

  Maisie came hurrying toward me.

  “She’s in the office with Peggy.”

  “Well done,” I congratulated her. “Did you have to tie her to a chair?”

  “Oh no, she’s quite nice, really.”

  “Nice! We’ll see how nice she is.”

  I stormed across to the office. Peggy and the woman were drinking from cups that wafted an aroma of chamomile. They sat in the small office that held such unpleasant memories but I was pleased to se
e that Peggy was adjusting so well.

  “Like a cup of herb tea?” she asked.

  “In a minute. First, I want to ask this woman a few questions.”

  I glared at her. She was wearing a neat business suit in dark blue and looked cool and attractive.

  “Remember our last conversation?” I asked. “It was here, a few days ago. We talked about ginger.”

  She nodded, bright and friendly. “Yes, of course.”

  “You have some explaining to do,” I said hotly.

  “It’s all right,” Peggy said. “She’s been telling me about herself.”

  I looked at her. The brown eyes, the firm chin and the straight nose made her face just as pretty as I remembered it. Ignore her looks, I told myself—interrogate her.

  “You were with me … that day,” I said, not wanting to refer to it in front of Peggy as “the day of the murder.”

  “Yes, but I left if you remember.”

  “You left me but I don’t know where—”

  “She’s told me all about it,” Peggy said.

  “Please, Peggy, let me do this.”

  Peggy drank some tea and nodded. She really was being very placid about it all; perhaps it was the tea. The woman turned to me.

  “I left here immediately after I left you. I told you I had another appointment that I couldn’t break. I had to go. I didn’t know anything about Mr. Renshaw’s”—she looked apologetically at Peggy—“well, death, until later.”

  “But you were there just before!” I told her. “Why didn’t you come forward and tell the police that?”

  She stared in astonishment. “I did.”

  I returned her astonishment. “You did?”

  “Of course. I went to my other appointment and finished the day in the office. It wasn’t till evening when I turned on the news. I could hardly believe it but I called the police and told them all I knew.”

  “Didn’t you know you were my alibi?”

  “I wasn’t,” she said resolutely. “How could I be? I had already left.”

  “I was a prime suspect—still am to some extent.”

  “Ah, yes,” she said. “The Ko Feng. I guessed you must be the Englishman who was brought over for the authentication.”

  “She knows more about this than you think,” Peggy told me.

  “I don’t doubt it,” I said, regarding her sternly.

  “She can explain all that,” Peggy said.

  “Peggy, please! I don’t mean just what’s on the television news and in the papers. She also turns up in a lot of places where things are happening.”

  “If you’d just let me tell you,” the woman said in an exasperated tone. “About the Ko Feng, about the Marvell Corporation …”

  My suspicions returned. She might look delectable but she wasn’t off my “doubtful” list yet.

  “You know a lot about it.”

  “Yes, I believe I do,” she said coolly.

  “How much do you know about the Marvell laboratories in Leonia?”

  “I go there from time to time.”

  I goggled at her. “When were you there last?”

  “Oh, several days ago,” she said cheerfully. She scrutinized me and some kind of memory dawned. “That surely wasn’t you there that day … pulling those funny faces … pretending to be trapped in the environmental lab …”

  She looked like she was about to laugh but my face must have resembled the proverbial thunder and she managed to control herself.

  “I thought I saw you down the corridor but I told myself it couldn’t be. Then there was the pandemonium when the alarms went off… That wasn’t really you in there, was it?”

  She had a sudden attack of coughing but she mastered it and had to dab away a few tears.

  “You turn up in a lot of places, don’t you?”

  I wasn’t done with her yet. She couldn’t laugh at me and get away with it.

  “Why were you at the sale in the church?”

  She looked puzzled. “Church? I don’t know what—”

  “The food sale—stolen, dangerous, dubious food and drink of all kinds—absinthe, duck’s tongues, mammoths … Isn’t that enough to identify which sale? I mean, how many sales like that do you go to?”

  She smiled. It was a sunny smile and she tilted her head to one side in the same charming gesture I recollected.

  “I go to all sales like that,” she said.

  “Why?” I asked darkly.

  She opened a small clasp bag with a silvery mesh material over it and handed me a card. It read KAY GRENVILLE and underneath the name was NEW ENGLAND ASSURANCE COMPANY.

  “So that’s how you knew about the Ko Feng,” I said weakly.

  “Of course. We insured it.”

  “So-o-o-you’re not a mystery woman at all.” I was voicing my thoughts.

  “I’m not? What a shame!”

  “Wait a minute,” I said suddenly. “You insured that shipment of birds’ nests five years ago, didn’t you?”

  She regarded me sharply. “You noticed the similarity too, did you?”

  “Don Renshaw noticed it. That was probably what got him killed.”

  “Yes, Lieutenant Gaines asked me about that. We didn’t have anything to add, unfortunately.”

  Another thought occurred to me. “You went to the sale with Tom Eck, didn’t you?”

  She shook her head firmly. “No. I ran into him there. I’ve known him for some time.”

  “I can understand why you’d want to be there—you must pick up some useful tips on stolen items. But why does Eck go to sales like that?”

  “He puts up the financing for purchases of food products. I see him occasionally at various events. He likes to keep in touch with customers, actual and potential, as well as keep contact with the market.”

  “Even the black market?”

  “Yes. It’s not too surprising. You’d be staggered at some of the people I see at those sales.”

  I nodded. I was recalling that Eck had told me he had been approached by restaurant owners wanting financing from him to buy Ko Feng from Marvell.

  “Something else you can tell me,” I said. “What’s the situation regarding the policy that Marvell has with you on the Ko Feng?”

  “Funny you should ask …” Those calm brown eyes were examining me contemplatively.

  Peggy poured more tea and looked at me inquiringly. I nodded. It seemed to have had a calming effect on the two of them so I might as well join in, although Kay’s role now made more sense.

  “Funny how?” I reminded her.

  “Marvell filed his claim today.”

  “Did he! Now that’s interesting.”

  “You know,” she went on and her voice was speculative, “I avoided any contact with you after the murder—after all, I didn’t know you and a few minutes’ conversation about ginger is hardly a basis for forming any judgment about a person. Then during a recent exchange of information with Hal Gaines, he said that Scotland Yard had given you a clean bill—”

  “So now you feel it’s safe to talk to me,” I said tartly.

  It didn’t upset her a bit. “You’re no longer a prime suspect and Hal Gaines is giving you enough leash that you can do a little investigating. So, I see no reason why I shouldn’t tell you about Marvell and his policy.”

  “How much is the policy worth?”

  She smiled candidly.

  “‘Tell you about it,’ I said—that doesn’t mean I’m going to tell you how much it is.”

  “So what can you tell me?” I asked. “For instance, are you going to pay off?”

  “Our immediate reaction is no. It’s too soon.”

  “It’s reaching the police limit. Another two days and it’ll be dropped from the active file. That means they’ll no longer have any faith in the Ko Feng being recovered.”

  “True.”

  “And what’s your policy?”

  “We don’t have one for shipments of this nature. We judge each one on its own merits.”


  “You know, you can be very irritating,” I told her. “You say there’s no reason why you shouldn’t tell me about Marvell and his policy and then you proceed to tell me nothing.”

  “What else do you want to know?” she said, smiling sweetly.

  “You’re judging Marvell’s case on its merits, you said. Okay, what are its merits?”

  “We don’t intend to pay off right now. We’re going to give it longer than ten days. How many days? There’s no decision on that yet. We’ll see what comes to light in the next week or two then look at the case all over again.”

  “Won’t Marvell be yelling for a settlement all that time?”

  She shrugged. “Probably.”

  “Your card doesn’t say what you do. Are you an investigator?”

  “I do some investigating. We have other investigators too—some of them are working on this case.”

  “Any promising leads?”

  “Nothing that the police don’t know about. Naturally, some aspects might get more attention from us than the NYPD might give to them. Our interest is primarily to establish what happened to the Ko Feng—theirs is to solve a murder.”

  “I’m at the Framingham Hotel,” I told her. “Can we keep in touch?”

  “Of course.” A thought occurred to her. “You’re coming to the All-Charities Buffet, aren’t you?”

  “Haven’t heard about it, but it sounds like a function I ought not to miss.”

  “It’s run by the food and restaurant trade and they hold it at the Park Avenue Towers. It’s an annual affair and it’s tomorrow. Everybody comes.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll be there.”

  “I’ll arrange for a ticket at the door for you—be there about noon.”

  There was a tap at the door and Maisie entered. “Sorry,” she said. “I need the duplicate register for the storage rooms.”

  “Right there.” Peggy pointed to a shelf.

  “So it is,” said Maisie with a sigh. “Just where it should be.” She lifted it down. “Things never are in the most obvious place, are they?”

  She went out. Kay was about to say something when she caught the exchange of looks between Peggy and me.

  “The most obvious place …” I breathed. “Do you suppose that’s what Don meant—?”