Another Word for Murder (23 page)

“Ugh.” Belle's frown of perplexity deepened. “I don't mean to sound like an intellectual elitist, but the personality of most puzzle constructors verges on the obsessive-compulsive. We're stubborn; we don't like to lose; we hammer away at lexical problems until we find the answers—even if it takes hours—and those aren't the overriding characteristics of people who loll away their afternoons in bars. And, ‘playing with people's heads' isn't very flattering.”

“How about ‘whipping up their gray matter' or ‘noodling with their noggins'?”

“Better … although they sound more like kitchen activities.”

“And we wouldn't want an ‘egghead' like you to be accused of culinary expertise.”

“Ho, ho …” She sighed again, then shut her eyes tightly as she thought. “‘Sugar and spice,'” she murmured at length. “That was what Carlos said…. He meant Bonnie … but …” Belle opened her eyes and looked at Rosco. “Wait! Could Carlos be our puzzling Mr. Flanagan or Anderson or Isaacs or Everts?”

“I think we're getting too far afield, Belle. Besides, unless Carlos is a different type than the one you described when you came home yesterday, he doesn't seem any more ‘obsessive-compulsive' than the other denizens of the Black Sheep.”

“Darn it all!” Belle fumed in sudden frustration. “For a moment, everything looked so simple…. Now, it's just another jumble of loose ends.”

“Well, dearly my Frank, I don't give a …”

“I'm not even gracing that with a teeny, weeny laugh, Rosco.”

“You're smiling, though.”

“That's a grimace you see on my face.”

“It's a smile, and you know it.”

They'd only just set their two salad plates on the kitchen table when Al Lever knocked at the front door. Belle hurried through the living room and opened it, accompanied by a series of yip and barks, then led their visitor back into the kitchen. “Bonnie O'Connell sure is becoming one unhelpful lady,” Al announced without wasting time on preliminaries. “I drove over to the brother's apartment right after we left Sonny's Autobody. No one home. Landlord hasn't seen the tenant in days. Or
claims
not to have seen him. He's a weird duck, though, so I'm not sure I'm buying his line…. Then I returned to Smile!; Bonnie also insists she doesn't know where dear, old Frankie is.” At this point, Al spotted the food on the table, the two places nicely set, and Rosco, who was now obviously waiting before reseating himself. “Oh hey, sorry to interrupt you two.” Lever peered down at the plates. “What is this stuff?”

“Salad.” Rosco's reply sounded more like a question than a statement.

“Salad?”

Rosco chortled. “Is there a echo in this house? I went through the same routine with Belle about half an hour ago. Belle wasn't listening, but in your case, I gather you don't know what salad is.”

“
Harumph.”
Lever looked at Rosco in disgust. “You can't expect to pack on extra pounds if you eat rabbit food, Poly—crates.”

“Did I say I wanted to gain weight, Al?”

“No, you didn't. But you should. A married man like yourself … you don't want to look like a buff, young bachelor. How do you explain something like that to your wife?”

Rosco's response was another easy laugh. “Sit, Al. There's enough for three.”

Belle walked to the cabinet and retrieved another plate, while Lever sat and gazed searchingly at the meal Rosco had prepared.

“Now, the cheese part I can appreciate … and olives … but the rest of it? It's so … so … so green. If you think about it, green is a very weird color for food—”

“So, what did Bonnie tell you?” Belle interrupted as she began divvying up the salad.

“What she
didn't
tell me is more to the point,” was Lever's grumbling response. “First off, she pretended she was too busy to talk to me. Kept answering the phone while I was trying to question her, then made me repeat myself. Not once, but with nearly every query. Meaning that I did a lot more yakking than she did—which is not the optimal mode for interview procedure. Long story short: Ms. O'Connell insists that she and her brother aren't close. She hasn't seen him in a long time—but couldn't confirm how long—and she has no clue as to where he is. He's a sometime drummer, bounces from band to band, and she has no interest in his career or his whereabouts.”

“Which is the complete opposite of the impression I got when she was talking to Carlos,” Belle said. “She was genuinely distraught that she couldn't find her brother. In fact, she told Quintero she ‘needed Frank now,' and she stressed the last word—just before she barreled out of the place in tears.” Belle's forehead creased in thought. “Frank's disappearance and Rob Rossi's and Dan Tacete's seemed to be vitally connected—at least in Bonnie's mind.”

“Where does Jack Wagner fit into all of this?” Al asked.

“You mean other than being Bonnie's clandestine lover?” was Belle's breezy reply.

“We don't know that for a
fact
,” Rosco tossed in.

Belle looked at him. She looked at Lever. She shook her head. “Come on. It was Al who first made the suggestion. Don't tell me you guys are now insisting on physical evidence. Maybe this is why no one ever coined the term ‘male intuition.'” She arched an eyebrow. “Maybe it's even an oxymoron.”

“I've been called a ‘moron,'” Al stated. “But no one's ever said I was an ‘ox.'”

Belle chortled. “More salad, Al?”

“Not if it's the kind of fodder oxen munch on.”

Belle laughed again while her husband turned to her. His expression had turned serious.

“Okay, Belle, let's say accept that Wagner and Bonnie are romantically involved. Where does that leave our vanished Rob Rossi? Or Frank O'Connell? Or Dan Tacete? And what bearing does any of this have on the Snyder case?”

“I'm just a crossword editor—or a ‘noggin noodler'—in case you'd forgotten.” She dangled the latest puzzle under their noses. “But the answer lies within this puzzle. Whoever created it holds all the solutions.”

CHAPTER 28

After leaving Belle and Rosco's home on Captain's Walk, Al Lever returned to the Newcastle Police headquarters while Rosco drove to a previously scheduled meeting with Elaine Vogel, the attorney working on the Snyder case. Given everything that he and Belle and Al had discussed over their late and impromptu lunch, the timing seemed particularly apt, although Rosco needed to keep reminding himself that he had nothing of substance to share with Elaine. Not yet, anyway. Although he had a sneaking suspicion that he might in the not-too-distant future.

As Rosco parked his car and sat for a moment staring up at the tall and somber facade of the downtown office building that housed Elaine's firm, Al, simultaneously pushed open the smeary glass doors of the NPD station house. It was six minutes past three. By chance, Abe Jones had preceded Lever by less than a minute, and the two men walked in almost perfect unison toward the duty desk. The uniformed sergeant stationed there cocked his head toward Lever's office and uttered a laconic and disinterested, “You've got visitors, Lieutenant.”

Lever gazed past the sergeant's shoulder. The office door with its frosted glass panel was ajar, and he could see a woman who appeared to be in her mid thirties seated opposite his desk; with her was a boy who looked about ten or eleven—twelve tops. The expressions on both their faces were tight and worried. “What's up?” Al asked the sergeant after a silent moment.

“I think you'd better hear it from the horse's mouth, Lieutenant.”

Al turned to Abe. “We'll talk later.”

“I'll be in the back lot,” was Jones's even response. “There's a few more things I'd like to go over on Tacete's Corvette.”

“Check,” Al said. It was his sole reply. Then he turned away, walked past the duty desk, crossed to his office, and stepped in. “I'm Lieutenant Lever. Is there something I can help you with, ma'am?”

The woman stood. She was thin, almost gaunt, and Al could see that she was nervous. She made no attempt to smile or extend her hand or smooth the wrinkles from her navy blue suit, which appeared to be the type of businesslike outfit reserved for occasions when the wearer deemed it necessary to “dress properly.” The jacket and skirt were too big by a couple of sizes, giving Al the impression that visiting homicide detectives was one of those rare occurrences.

“Lieutenant, my name is Carol Moody, and this is my son, Leo.” She looked down at the boy, who had remained hunched and uncommunicative in his seat. “Stand up, Leo.” The boy did as he was told, but then immediately hung his head and stared fixedly at the floor.

Al moved to his desk and said, “Please sit.” The mother settled rigidly into her chair, her son plopped sullenly into his, and Lever reclaimed his own space and thoughtfully regarded them. “What can I do for you, Mrs. Moody?” Al reached for a cigarette, but halted when his eyes finally met Leo's.

“I understand from the officer at the duty desk that you're the detective looking into the death of that poor Doctor Tacete?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

Carol Moody lifted a black purse from the floor and opened it. Then she retrieved a brushed-aluminum object and set it on Al's desk. The metal was in the shape of a squat T; across the top were embossed black letters that read “HURST.”

“I found it in Leo's room,” she stated.

Al recognized the object immediately, but his response was a noncommittal “Do you know what this is, Mrs. Moody?”

“Yes,” she answered uneasily, “it's a shift knob from a car. My husband, Leo Senior, has one just like it in his Chevy.”

“And … where did this one come from?”

“We live near—” Carol Moody stopped herself and turned to her son, who was now slumping deeper in his chair. “Leo, I want you to tell the detective where you got this.”

Leo shifted sideways in his seat, but said nothing.

“Leo …” she repeated in a sterner tone, but the boy remained silent. “I don't need to remind you how your father's going to feel about what you did.” She returned her focus to Al. “My husband is a long-distance trucker; he's been gone for over a week. He's going to be furious when he hears what Leo's done.” Mrs. Moody then gave her son another chance. “Leo, I want you to speak up this minute or you'll have your father to answer to.”

“I think I know where this came from, Leo,” Al interjected. His tone was coaxing and kind. “I'd just like to know how you ended up with it. I don't believe you're in any kind of trouble, son; in fact, you should be commended for coming forward with this. The police department counts on citizens like yourself to help them out when it comes to crime solving.”

The boy gave his mother an “I told you so” look, then said, “I found it.”

“And it came from Doctor Tacete's Corvette, didn't it?”

“I guess … yeah …” He slouched back into his chair.

“Leo,” his mother snapped, “you tell the lieutenant exactly how you got that shift knob this minute—from beginning to end, the whole story. I've had just about enough of this attitude from you, young man.”

Al said, “Just give it to me straight, Leo. You're not in any trouble,” all the while thinking,
Man, this Mrs. Moody can play good-cop-bad-cop with the best of them
.

“I … I … found it,” Leo stuttered.

“Where?” Al asked.

“He didn't find it, Lieutenant; he stole it,” Carol Moody interrupted with a goodly degree of irritation. “Leo, you tell Lieutenant Lever the truth.”

“I wasn't talking about the shifter, Mom,” Leo all but spat back at his mother. “I meant, I found the
Corvette
.”

“In the Gilbert's Groceries parking lot, right?” Al prodded. “That's where you … you …
borrowed
the shift knob, right?”

“No. No,” Leo answered as tears began to form in his eyes. “I found the Corvette at the bottom of that hill near our house.”

“We live out on East Farm Lane,” Carol Moody explained. “About a mile from the site where you found the doctor.”

“But I was there on Monday night,” was Al's perplexed reply. “I didn't see you, Leo. And if you were there before me, how could you have taken the shifter from a burning car?” Lever glanced at the metal object, then looked back at Leo's mother. “There are no signs that this thing was anywhere near a fire.”

“He took the shift knob on Sunday afternoon,” she stated; her mouth was set and hard.

Al sat in silence as he tried to process the information. Finally he said, “Here's the problem I'm having with Leo's story, Mrs. Moody. I'm not saying he's lying, but on Monday morning Doctor Tacete's wife drove the Corvette to the parking lot of Gilbert's Groceries. I have reliable witnesses who have confirmed that fact. So how is it possible that your son removed the Hurst shifter one day earlier at the bottom of the ravine?”

“But I did,” Leo shouted. “I found the car there on Sunday. I swear I did. It was covered with one of those army camouflage tarps. You know, the ones with green and brown cloth hanging on it? Like in war movies? Like someone was trying to hide—?” He looked at his mother. “Okay, I stole the shifter. I did. I did that. I'm sorry. But there,” he pointed at it, “you can have it back.”

“You know a man died in that car, don't you, son?” Al asked. “If you're making this up, you're going to be in an awful lot of trouble. And I won't be able to do anything to help you. You do know that, don't you? You could be prosecuted and placed in a detention center. And I'm very serious about that.”

“I'm not lying. I'm not!”

“And the man's body wasn't in the car when you took the shifter?”