Death is a Bargain (A Kate Kennedy Mystery Book 3) (12 page)

Twenty-Five

Kate believed the best bagel in South Florida—or, at least, to a New York purist, the taste that came closest to the real thing—could be purchased at Einstein’s Bagels, located near an Italian gourmet deli with great homemade ravioli. Two delicious reminders of home in one strip mall.

She and her fellow former New Yorker, Jeff Stein, the editor of the
Palmetto Beach Gazette,
met at Einstein’s every Sunday morning. First by accident, then by design. She missed her sons. He missed his mother. So on Sunday mornings, they met, they talked, they ate, almost like family.

Today was Thursday, but a bagel and a schmear still seemed to be in order. Einstein’s weekday customers, mostly office workers on lunch break, ate much faster than the Sunday morning regulars, who tended to chat with each other or read their newspapers. Right now, the bagel shop’s turnaround time averaged about ten minutes, so Jeff and Kate found a tiny table for two in the back, hoping not to be disturbed.

“I wanted some history on Whitey Ford and Sean Cunningham, and what Carl Krieg might have found out that got him murdered. But now that Freddie’s dead too, I don’t know where to begin.” Kate spoke as she spread strawberry cream cheese to the outer limits of her plain untoasted bagel. Einstein’s bagels were too fresh to toast.

“Let’s start with the latest victim and work our way back.” Jeff, in khakis, pale blue shirt, and a neatly knotted tie—the latter unusual for anyone other than bankers, financial planners, or con men in South Florida—smiled. He had an easy charm, a quick, fertile mind, and tweedy good looks, like a youngish professor who’d removed his jacket. “Want to try some of my cream cheese with chives?”

“No way.” Kate laughed. “Strawberry is as far as I deviate from tradition.”

“I knew Ducksworth,” Jeff said around a bite of bagel. “Great collection of comic books.”

“Are you a collector, Jeff?” Kate again thought of her sons and how they—though they’d swear to the contrary—had never completely forgiven her for throwing out their Marvel comics.

“Yeah, I am.” He blushed. “Since I bought so many first editions from Freddie—he was great about special orders—I had a nodding acquaintance with all the vendors in the corridor.”

“Good.” Kate nodded. “Your impressions of that bunch can only help me fill in the blanks.” She pressed a Twining English Breakfast tea bag against her spoon and squeezed it into her large mug, so the wet bag wouldn’t drip. With no saucer, she laid the spoon on a paper napkin, watching Jeff grin at her fussiness.

“Are you going to write a story for me, or are you just playing detective, Kate?” She heard a slight edge of sarcasm in his voice.

“It’s not that I don’t want to write, I just don’t know if I can.”

“That obit you wrote was damn good. Try a feature article, Kate. If it’s lousy, I’m not shy, I won’t use it.”

She lifted her head and met Jeff’s eyes. “Okay, I’ll write about the flea market murders. And I’ll write about the animal abuse.” The passion of her commitment surprised her. It felt right, like she really could be a newspaper reporter. Hell’s bells, at least she could try.

“Freddie struck me as an opportunist.” Jeff moved the conversation back on track. “And not above bending the law. When you told me he’d tried to blackmail the Jordan mother and daughter team, I can’t say I was surprised. I’ve spent the last hour adding to what I already knew about all the vendors.”

“And?” Kate felt a tingle. The same sort of tingle she’d gotten all those years ago while reading Agatha Christie and trying to guess the murderer before Miss Marple did.

“When Ducksworth was twenty-two, he spent a year in jail in Kansas where he grew up. For a check scam involving old ladies. Though he hasn’t been in trouble with the law since then, a recast customer has been making noise about suing Freddie over a phony first edition of
The Phantom.
Caused quite a stir in comic-book circles.”

“You believe Freddie
deliberately
turned his photography hobby into a blackmailing scheme.”

“Well, yes. Come on, Kate, when it quacks, walks, and looks like a duck—pun intended—it’s probably Ducksworth.”

“Really bad pun.” Kate laughed. “Okay. So Freddie was murdered because he’d taken those photographs of Whitey’s final visitors’ arrivals and departures.” Kate’s voice expressed her doubt.

Jeff shrugged. “Don’t you think?”

“What about the animal abuse? Maybe the killer wanted to prevent proof of the mistreated elephants from arriving at the Humane Society.”

“Kate, that motive for Freddie’s death makes no sense. Whitey called, saying he’d send the photographs, not Freddie.”

“MonaLisa Buccino, who investigated the abuse, never believed Whitey shot those photos. Maybe the killer knew Freddie had taken them.”

Jeff drained his coffee cup. “If the abuse photographs were the motive, why wouldn’t Freddie have been the first victim, not the third?”

“Who killed Whitey and why?” Kate sighed. “Two people may have been murdered because they knew the answer to that question.”

“Since we’re working backward, let’s look at victim number two, Carl Krieg.” Jeff stood. “Let me get another cup of coffee.”

“And tea for me, please.” Kate glanced at her watch. Twelve forty-five. Good. She planned to fetch Billy at two and take him to see Donna. She had a message on her cell phone from Marlene, who must have called while she’d been talking to Katharine. Wondering how the memorial service had gone and what Marlene would learn from Linda, she finished the last of her bagel and stinted on her fruit cup.

Jeff placed a fresh mug of hot water and another tea bag in front of Kate. “Go ahead, do your neat thing.”

“Then Carl died because Freddie shot those pictures from his front window. An eyewitness once removed.” Kate finished her tea bag brewing ritual. “That narrows our suspect list to four. According to Donna, Carl said Whitey’s visitors were Sean, Linda, Olivia, and Suzanna. Unfortunately, Carl was drunk and couldn’t be sure of the timeline.”

“If we could find the photos, Kate, we’d have the timeline.” Jeff shook his head. “I’ll bet the killer has them.”

“What did you find out about Carl?”

“Well, as you know, he was Donna’s uncle. And he and Jocko—real name Joseph—Cunningham have been active members for years in a local bund. In Davie.”

“Bund? You mean like the groups Nazi sympathizers joined just before America entered World War II?” Kate felt repulsed.

Jeff nodded. “Exactly.” He looked bleak. “I don’t know how—or if—that tidbit ties into the murders, but those are the ugly facts, ma’am.”

“What about the four visitors? We know Suzanna’s motive—to protect her daughter. And Olivia’s—unrequited love, or maybe a romantic fling, followed by rejection if Whitey rebuffed her advances. But what about Linda and Sean?”

“Those two share a long and interesting history, Kate. Linda worked as a lap dancer in a men’s-only club Sean owned. The doll lady met her husband there. But before the oil baron, she’d danced in Whitey’s lap. That’s how their love affair began.”

T
wenty-Six

“Son of a b—”

“Marlene, lower your voice. Billy will hear you.” Catching their breath and a few rays of the early afternoon sun on Kate’s balcony before leaving for the hospital, they’d traded tales of their respective investigations. Revelations of Linda’s duplicity had driven Marlene to foul language.

“That lying witch,” Marlene sputtered. “She played me like putty.”

“What intrigues me is why Linda lied. Why should it matter how many years ago she met Sean and Whitey? Or where? Why would meeting Sean at Ireland’s Inn after her husband’s death be okay, but not at the club Sean owned. She’d admitted to dancing there. And to an affair with Whitey.” Kate brushed a stray silver hair out of her eye. “I wonder if Linda knows that Sean already told us about her and Whitey. Of course, he implied their romance had been more recent.”

“Maybe,” Marlene almost shouted, “the affair
was
recent. Maybe it never ended. Maybe Linda and Whitey were sleeping together all through her deliriously happy marriage to George.”

“Is it time to go see my mommy?” Billy stood in the open door leading to Kate’s balcony, Ballou at his side. The dog ran over for a quick pat from both Kate and Marlene.

“Yes, darling, it’s time.” Kate stood. “And if Auntie Marlene promises to behave, she can come with us.”

They drove down A1A in Marlene’s 1957 white Chevy convertible with the top down. Billy, all smiles, dubbed the car “neat.” Donna must say “neat,” meaning so much more than nice. Or could today’s kids be using a slang expression popular decades ago?

An old-model maroon car behind them ran the Oakland Boulevard light, then immediately slowed down. Since you can’t pass on A1A, what was the driver’s hurry? If the idea wasn’t so paranoid, Kate would swear they were being followed by a rank amateur.

When Marlene turned right to take the Sunrise Bridge to the mainland, the old car turned too. Kate tried to get a look at the driver, but the car had tinted windows. By the time they reached the hospital, Kate relaxed. The maroon car was no longer on their tail.

Though they had to park yards away from the entrance, Kate and Marlene walked into the lobby in good spirits. Billy’s rambling reportage of the tango lesson and how Mary Frances’s teacher had danced with him had kept them laughing.

The little boy seemed almost happy. Certainly happier than at any time since being separated from his mother.

Kate accepted—and felt grateful—that the flaky ex-nun had been responsible for Billy’s mood swing.

In the gift shop, after much discussion, Billy selected a pink rose in a glass vase for his mother. Then Kate and Marlene waited in the hall, giving Billy some alone time with his mother.

“Should I ask Donna about the cut-up negative I found in her wastebasket?” Kate worried that an innocent Donna might report her snooping to Nick Carbone and, maybe worse, ban her from seeing Billy. She had no idea how a guilty Donna might react.

“I thought we decided one of Whitey’s final four visitors is our killer.”

“Donna might have expunged herself from that list. And murdered her great-uncle to make sure the complete count never reached the police.”

Marlene looked as if she needed a cigarette. Kate recognized her sister-in-law’s Bette Davis-like nervous hand gestures that so perfectly mimicked smoking. “I bet great-uncle Carl put those pieces in the basket.” Fire and Ice-painted fingernails flew past Kate’s face.

“Why?”

“Well,” Marlene floundered, “well, maybe to cover up evidence of animal abuse.”

“It always comes back to that, doesn’t it?” Kate stared at her own nails, unpainted, and in desperate need of TLC. “Carl could have been covering up Donna’s elephant abuse, right?”

“Okay. Let’s go in and talk to her before Nick Carbone or one of his men show up.”

Kate scrambled through her big black linen bag for a Pepcid AC.

“Mrs. K, Mommy says I can print my name on her cast.” Billy waved a Magic Marker at Kate. “The nurse gave me this. You and Marlene can autogwaph her leg too. That’s what it’s called.”

Donna, smiling through gritted teeth, said, “Don’t press too hard, Billy.”

“Are you sure you should be doing this?” Kate tried to keep total disapproval out of her voice.

“Yes, don’t worry.” Donna nodded at Billy. “Since I’m going to be wearing this sucker for a long time, I want my big boy’s name on it.”

Each, in turn—Kate steadying Billy’s hand—autographed the cast gently, and in silence. There was, indeed, a sense of ritual about the “signing ceremony” as Donna called it.

Marlene placed the Magic Marker on the bedside table, and Donna nodded again. “Good.” She sounded pleased as she focused on Kate. “Mrs. Kennedy, they won’t tell me when I can go home. Billy goes back to school on Monday. Can you keep him till then?”

Even if the child weren’t there, looking up at Kate with those big blue eyes, she’d have said yes.

“I’ll try to make other arrangements for next week.” Donna’s voice broke.

“No.” Billy moved from his mother’s bed rail to Kate’s side. “Why can’t you come home, Mommy?”

Kate put her arm around Billy. “Your mommy will be coming home soon, darling. You’ll stay with me until she does.”

“Promise?” Billy asked, eyes filling with tears.

“I promise.” And now your ersatz grandmother is going to interrogate your bedridden mother. Nice family values, Kate.

“Billy, why don’t you and I go down to the lobby? I saw an ambulance in the gift shop that I want to show you.” Marlene sounded confident her bribe would work.

“I like frucks, not ambulances.” Billy wasn’t so easily bribed. “And I want to stay with my mommy.”

“This one has a really loud siren.” Marlene upped the ante.

“Go ahead, Billy,” Donna said. “Mrs. Kennedy and I have some stuff to sort out.”

When they’d gone, Kate wasted no time. She had to know. “In your apartment yesterday, I noticed cut-up pieces of a negative in your wastebasket.”

“Doing a little snooping, were you?” Donna looked and sounded defiant.

“Someone murdered Whitey and Carl. Photographs showing elephant abuse could have been the motive for Whitey’s death and, indirectly, for Carl’s. So, yes, I snooped.”

“As fond as you are of my boy, Mrs. Kennedy, it must be tough believing his mother’s a murderer.”

Kate met and held Donna’s cold, dark eyes. “I’m praying she’s not.”

Donna blinked first. “While you were rummaging around my apartment did you find a clipping from the
New York Times
?”

It was Kate’s turn to blink; she could feel her face flush. “Were you surprised I read the
Times,
Mrs. Kennedy? Or just surprised I wanted to learn more about the nationwide abuse of circus animals?”

Kate’s stomach burned. “I think you wanted to discover how much the
Times
writer knew about elephant abuse in the Cunningham Circus.”

“You would think that, wouldn’t you, Mrs. Kennedy? Your kind always thinks the worst of my kind.”

“Now, just a minute, young lady.”

“I’m no lady, and we both know it. But that doesn’t mean I have no morals. Women like you get that mixed up, Mrs. Kennedy.” Donna’s voice was both hoarse and harsh.

Kate, stunned into silence, backed away from the bed.

“Did it ever occur to you that I wanted to help the
Times
editor expose Sean Cunningham’s dirty little secret? Or that I wanted to force Sean to admit some slime ball in our circus was abusing Edgar? Or that, for God’s sake, I was the one who posed the elephants for Freddie’s photo?”