Evanly Bodies

by Rhys Bowen

  "I gave you enough chances to back out." He ruffled her hair.

  "I should have listened. Now I'm stuck with you, I suppose."

  "Unless you want to divorce me and live the high life onmy assets."

  "Half this cottage, you mean?" she laughed. "I can't decide which is the better half."

  "I have to go." Evan turned to the door. "We're interviewing Professor Rogers's widow at nine. When I say we, I mean Bragg, of course. I'll be in the back, taking notes."

  Bronwen sat up. "Don't let that man walk all over you, Evan. Sometimes you're too nice. He should be damned grateful to have you on his team. And if you don't tell him, I'll come down and do it myself."

  "Bronwen the belligerent," Evan said. "You used to be such a tranquil little thing."

  "It's all the good sex," Bronwen said dryly. "It's got me fired up."

  Evan laughed as he let himself out of the front door.

  Mrs. Rogers looked as if she had come to a meeting with her bank manager when she was ushered into the interview room the next morning. Her hair was in neat waves, she wore a touch of makeup, and she looked smart in her gray wool dress. Yesterday there had been some kind of pearl broach on the dress; Evan remembered. Sharp objects had obviously been removed before she was put in a holding cell.

  "Please sit down, Mrs. Rogers." DI Bragg motioned to a chair with unexpected civility. He leaned across and pressed the record button on a tape recorder. "Saturday October third. Nine thirty a.m. Detective Inspector Bragg interviewing Mrs. Madeleine Jane Rogers. Also present in the room: Detective Sergeant Wingate, Detective Constables Evans and Pritchard. Sorry about that, Mrs. Rogers. Just a little formality to make sure this is all conducted by the book." He smiled at her. Evan had to admit he was being unnaturally charming.

  "I must apologize for keeping you here overnight. I trust it wasn't too unpleasant."

  "Thank you, but everyone was very kind," she said. "I was treated well, and the breakfast was quite edible. In fact it was rather nice to have my breakfast brought to me on a tray for once." There was a hint of a twinkle in her eyes.

  "You do understand that we couldn't arrange this meeting until this morning," Bragg said.

  "I understand perfectly, Inspector. I wasn't born yesterday. You thought a night in jail might frighten me into a confession. However, I'm afraid I have nothing to confess."

  "You have the right to having a lawyer present, you know. That has been made clear to you?" Bragg said.

  Her eyes challenged him. "Does that mean that I've been charged with this murder?"

  "No. Not yet."

  "Then don't you have to charge me or release me? You can't keep me here indefinitely, can you?"

  Bragg leaned forward in his seat. "Mrs. Rogers, there's nothing I'd like better than to let you go. You give us some proof that you did not kill your husband, and you can leave anytime you want to."

  "I'm afraid I can't do that, Inspector," she said calmly. "I have no proof at all, no alibi really, except for anyone who may have spotted me on my dog walk. My only proof is logic-why would I want to kill Martin? What could I possible gain from it? I have no close family anymore, apart from a sister I rarely see. My life was Martin. We did everything as a couple. By taking him away, I've had my whole life taken away from me."

  Bragg continued to lean forward. "Mrs. Rogers, am I right in thinking that your father was in the war?"

  "Yes, he was."

  "And he served on what front?"

  "The war in Asia. He was in Burma and captured by the Japanese. He was lucky to escape with his life. Most of his friends died building the Burma railway."

  "And he brought back a Japanese officer's pistol as a souvenir?"

  "I believe he did."

  "And you own that pistol now?"

  "Certainly not. I have no interest in weapons. I didn't even like those gruesome things that Martin collected."

  "Your husband didn't have a Japanese pistol in his collection then?"

  She smiled at this. "My husband's specialty was eighteenth-century Europe. A Japanese pistol would have been little use in his lectures."

  "Did he ever own a pair of dueling pistols? There's only one in his collection at the moment."

  "Unfortunately no," she said. "He's been trying for years to complete the pair; but they are much sought after these days, and when they've come up for auction, they've been at a price we couldn't afford."

  "So the missing gun in the tray was what?"

  "As I told you, Inspector, I have no interest in weapons. Martin never allowed anyone but himself to touch his collections."

  "Let's move on. What made you decide to mow the lawn early in the morning when the gardener usually does it?"

  "Mow the lawn? When?"

  "On Thursday morning, when your husband was killed."

  "I most certainly didn't mow the lawn."

  "You said you went outside to do a spot of gardening."

  "Yes. I weeded a bed, and I took the heads off some late roses."

  "Your next-door neighbor heard the lawn mower around eight o'clock and was going to complain when it stopped."

  "How strange. I can assure you it wasn't I, Inspector. If somebody used the mower, it was after Lucky and I had left on our walk."

  "Who's looking after your dog at the moment, Mrs. Rogers?"

  "I asked a friend who does the flowers at church with me to come in and feed him last night. Then I had to have somebody phone her to do the same this morning. I expected to be back home by now, you see. It's really not fair on poor Lucky. First he loses his daddy and then his mummy." For the first time she pressed her lips together, and turned her head toward the wall.

  "Coming back to that lawn mower. So you didn't touch it, then?"

  "I said I didn't."

  "But it has your prints clearly on the handle. Yours and only yours."

  "Extraordinary," She frowned and then nodded. "How silly. I remember now. The gardener was here on Tuesday, and he left it out. He's getting old and forgetful, I'm afraid. It was going to rain, so I wheeled it into the shed."

  "And if somebody used it yesterday, why didn't they disturb your nice set of prints on the handle?"

  "I can only presume that they used gloves or they took pains not to touch the handle."

  "And speaking of fingerprints," Bragg went on, "we come to the latch on the kitchen window. That window was closed when we arrived, and yet the forensic team has determined that the shot was fired through an open window. Somebody closed it after your husband was shot."

  "Not I, Inspector."

  "And yet yours were the only prints on the latch."

  "Again then all I can say is that somebody thought this through very carefully and closed the window holding a cloth or a tissue and tried to avoid touching the latch."

  Bragg looked back at the other officers. Wingate was sitting behind him. Evans and Pritchard were standing, leaning against the back wall, about as far from the action as was possible in that small room. Any questions you'd like to add, Wingate?" Bragg asked.

  "Yes. Thank you, sir." Wingate nodded to Mrs. Rogers. "When you took your dog for a walk that morning, you seemed preoccupied and in a remarkable hurry. Why was that?"

  "May I ask who told you that?"

  "The old man with the little white dog you mentioned to us. He said you barely grunted good morning to him and dragged Lucky past before he could stop and greet his little friend."

  "I have no idea what made him say that. We only ever exchange a brief good morning. It's not as if I stop and gossip with him. In fact, I-" She broke off as there was a tap on the door, and it opened to reveal a uniformed constable.

  Bragg bent forward and switched off the tape recorder that had been running. "What is it, Constable? Can't you see we're in the middle of an interview session?"

  "I was sent to fetch you, sir. Important information my boss thinks you should have right away."

  Bragg got to his feet.

  "We'll have to contin
ue this later. I do apologize, Mrs. Rogers. Pritchard, would you please arrange to have Mrs. Rogers escorted to the cafeteria and get her a cup of coffee."

  As soon as she had gone, Bragg followed the uniformed constable along the echoing vinyl-tiled corridor. The others followed in his wake.

  "This better be good," Bragg snapped to the constable. "We were just getting somewhere with her. Just getting her flustered, don't you think, men?"

  "I believe it's very important, sir, or my sergeant wouldn't have sent me to get you."

  There were several uniform branch members standing in the incident room, as well as a senior uniformed officer. The latter stepped forward and held out a hand to Bragg.

  "DCI Neath. How's it going, boys?"

  "We were just interviewing the widow, sir. It's looking promising. We've got her prints on everything."

  "Yes, well you would have, wouldn't you? She lived there," Neath said dryly.

  "What is this, sir?" Bragg demanded. "Don't tell me that some kind of old-boy network is trying to get her off."

  "Nothing like that, Bragg. We've had an interesting development that may well affect your case. There was another murder last night. An Italian café owner was shot through the open window of his kitchen early this morning. It appears to have been done with the same weapon."

  Chapter 14

  DI Bragg blinked, as if digesting this. "The same weapon, sir? Are you sure?"

  "The bullet's been recovered. Again it went in one side of his temple, out the other, and stuck in the wall. Identical bullet to the one that killed Martin Rogers."

  "Well, this is a turn up for the books, isn't it?" Bragg turned back to his team, who were standing behind him. "An Italian restaurant, you say?"

  "I think restaurant would be a flattering name for it. It's more like a little pizza and spaghetti place called Papa Luigi's at the not-so-good end of Llandudno, next to an Indian take-away."

  "And is the dead owner Luigi?" Jeremy Wingate asked.

  "That's right. Luigi Alessi. Found by his wife, Pamela Alessi, when he hadn't come to bed when she woke around three a.m. She went down to the kitchen and found him slumped over the table, just like Martin Rogers."

  "And he's really from Italy?" Evan asked.

  "The genuine article. Been here twenty years, but apparently still spoke with a thick accent."

  "A university professor in Bangor and an Italian café owner in Llandudno." DI Bragg ran his fingers through his close-cropped hair. "What on earth could they have in common?"

  "That's what you blokes get paid to find out." DCI Neath grinned.

  "Unless it was like you said," Evan suggested. "Missy Rogers threw the gun away when she was out walking her dog. Then the second gunman found it in the bushes."

  "And only decided to kill Papa Luigi because he'd fortuitously found a weapon?" Bragg asked scornfully.

  "No, I didn't mean that at all." Evan said. "He was planning to kill Luigi anyway, but finding a weapon with bullets still in the cartridge was too good an opportunity. It meant that he couldn't be tracked down by the weapon."

  "That's not bad thinking, Evans." DCI Neath nodded as he digested what Evans had said. "But the odds of it happening must be astronomical. The right person was walking down a street at the right time to find a weapon at the very moment he was planning to shoot somebody." He went around the table and pulled out a chair for himself. "That really is the ultimate in coincidence. I'm not saying that I haven't seen such extreme coincidences in my career, but we can't risk working from that starting point. We have to assume that one person is out there with a gun, and he's already shot two people."

  "Well one thing, we'll have to let Mrs. Rogers go now, won't we?" Wingate said. "You have to admit she's got the perfect alibi for the second shooting. And I can't see her having a vendetta against a pizza parlor owner ten miles away. What could he have done to her-not put on enough olives?"

  "Don't be flippant, Wingate," Bragg snapped. It was clear that this latest development had really thrown him. He'd been like a dog, homing in on its quarry, and now suddenly to be denied was a bitter blow.

  "Yes, I rather think you'll have to release Mrs. Rogers," DCI Neath said. "But if I were you, I wouldn't let her know about this second murder yet. At least not until we know what we're dealing with."

  They made their way back to the interview room in silence and had Mrs. Rogers brought to them. She looked wary, clearly wanting to find out what this new piece of information might be and how it affected her case.

  "Mrs. Rogers," Bragg said slowly, "you'll be pleased to know that you can go home to your dog."

  Her face lit up. "You're letting me go? Oh, that is good news. It's been such a strain. First finding Martin like that, and then knowing that you thought I might have done it. I can't believe it's over." She pulled a lace-edged handkerchief out of her sleeve and pressed it to her nose and mouth. "I'm sorry," she murmured. "It's all been so terrible. And my poor dog. I've been so worried."

  "One thing before you go, Mrs. Rogers," Bragg said. "Do you eat Italian food?"

  "Italian food?" Her eyes registered her surprise. "What an extraordinary question. And the answer is no thank you. Martin was very conservative in his food tastes. Nothing with garlic or olive oil, no strong spices. Strictly a British meat and two-veg man, although he did enjoy the occasional curry."

  "So you'd have no reason to visit a pizza parlor in Llandudno?"

  "A pizza parlor in Llandudno? What on earth is this about? We very rarely go to Llandudno. The shops there are no better than in Bangor, and it's one of those seaside places with day-trippers. Martin couldn't stand that sort of thing."

  "So the name Luigi means nothing to you?"

  For a moment her eyes lit up. "Does this mean you've found the man who shot my husband? He was Italian?"

  "No, Mrs. Rogers. We haven't found the person who shot your husband, but we may be closer to doing so. And if you could have provided us with any kind of link to a pizza parlor in Llandudno, we'd know better what direction to take."

  She spread her hands in a gracious gesture, still clutching her handkerchief in one of them. "There's nothing more I'd like than to help you, Inspector," she said, "but I can't think of any possible link. I'm sure Martin's students eat pizza, of course. It seems to be a mainstay of the student diet these days, doesn't it? But I don't think you'd have got Martin to touch a slice."

  Bragg nodded. "Thank you, Mrs. Rogers. You've been very help ful. You're free to go, only please don't leave the area without notifying us. We may need to ask you more questions as this inquiry progresses."

  "Thank you, Inspector." She nodded to the officers then left the room.

  For a moment there was silence, then Bragg sighed. "Back to square one," he said. "Damn. I was so sure it was the widow. Damn and blast that bloody pizza parlor. Oh well, I suppose we better get down there and see for ourselves."

  Papa Luigi's was in a row of shops behind the train station. The others were a laundromat, a corner grocery, Yvette's Beauty Salon, and the Taj Mahal Take-out Curries. It was in the old part of town that had been built in Victorian times and probably seen better days. Now it had a seedy air about it. The larger houses opposite were all divided into flats, and some looked in desperate need of a coat of paint. News of the murder had obviously leaked to the population because there was quite a crowd loitering with interest-boys on dirt bikes, mothers with prams, and some scruffy-looking youths with various facial piercings.

  "The couple lived over the shop," Bragg informed the others as they parked on a double yellow line and emerged from the car.

  "Then you'd think the wife would have heard the shot," Evan said.

  "Yes, you'd have thought so. And so should the people above the other shops." He pointed out several brown-skinned faces peering down from above the curry take-out.

  "Perhaps gunfire is so usual in this neighborhood that nobody thinks twice about it," Pritchard ventured.

  "This is Wales, boy, not Chic
ago," Bragg said dryly. "I don't know where you live, but I've yet to find a corner of Wales in which gunfire is a usual occurrence." He looked around at the youths, lounging against a betting shop on the other side of the road. "I'm not saying a place like this won't have its share of drugs and violence and gangs. Hello-" he broke off. "It looks like forensics have beaten us to it this time."

  Evan spotted the white police vehicle tucked in behind a delivery van. There was crime scene tape across the front of the shop.

  "Let's take a look around first, to get our bearings before we go inside," Bragg said. He led them across the street. The crowd watched with interest. Beside each of the shops there was a front door. The one beside Luigi's was open, presumably leading up to the flat over the shop. The curtains upstairs were closed, however. Bragg led them down the side street to the alley that ran behind the block of shops. It was wide enough to take deliveries, and, indeed, there was a van parked behind the laundromat. Each of the shops had a back door that opened onto the alley. On the far side of the alley was a high wooden fence, concealing the small back gardens of the houses beyond. And the toot of a diesel horn and then the approaching rumble was a reminder that the railway lay just on the other side of those houses.

  There was tape across the alleyway. Bragg was about to duck under it when a man in a dark, roll neck sweater stepped out to block him.

  "Where do you think you're going?"

  "Who the hell are you?" Bragg demanded.

  "Police Constable Parry, and this is a crime scene. You need to step away."

  "Police Constable Parry, are you? What's this then?" Bragg pointed at the black combat pants and sweater.

  "New uniform," Parry said. "Now if you'll just go back the way you came."

  Bragg whipped out a warrant card. "I'm Detective Inspector Bragg, son."

  "Inspector Mostyn didn't tell me you were coming." The young policeman stood his ground.

  "Inspector Mostyn?"

  "In charge of this case."

  "The hell he is. Wasn't he told we'd be taking over?"

  "Taking over?"