Murder Can Spoil Your Appetite (29 page)

“It could be that I’m totally on the wrong track, but Eric Raphael gave us a tip this morning, and I intend to follow up on it. I’ll return here. And if I don’t have any success at this place, there are plenty of other little hideaways in the area.”

I suppose I sounded pretty argumentative because Lou was plainly irritated. “Of course we’ll continue checking out the motels,” he retorted testily. “In fact, I’ll get together a list of every one that’s within about an hour’s radius of Riverton. I assure you I wasn’t suggesting for a minute that we give up on the boyfriend angle. I was only trying to impress on you that Sheila Vincent’s love life may not have any bearing at all on the case.”

“Maybe not, but let’s extend that list to include any motels within an hour-and-a-half’s radius of Riverton. And listen, why don’t I ask the new secretary—I think her name’s Darlene—to draw it up?”

“Fine. And then I’ll put it in some kind of order. Might be a good idea to start with the places closest to the Vincent house and work our way outward.” He reached over and patted my hand. “Have some faith, will you, Dez? One way or another, we’re going to crack this thing.”

After striking out like that at the Breeze Inn, Lou and I shifted gears as planned.

First we stopped off at the law offices of James Sherman, da Silva’s corporate attorney and a close personal friend for many years.

And we promptly struck out again.

Sherman readily admitted knowing Frank Vincent. In fact, he’d attended a few fund raisers for the man. However, he couldn’t shed any light at all on his death. Nor did the names Michael Polansky or Mickey Mouth ring a bell. What’s more, the lawyer made it only too apparent that he resented our intruding on his valuable time.

Following this, we drove over to the showroom of William Dugan & Sons, Linoleum and Tiles. John Dugan, reputed to be da Silva’s third in command, greeted us with an angry lecture.

“Whaddaya mean by showing up so late? I was gonna close early—tomorrow’s Thanksgiving, for crissakes—but I stayed an extra hour on accounta you two. You were pushing your luck, though,” he said, jabbing his finger into Lou’s chest for emphasis. “Another thirty seconds, and I’da been outta here.”

Once he was convinced we were sufficiently contrite, Dugan agreed to hang around for five minutes more. We were only with him for two.

“Michael Polansky or Mickey Mouth? Nah, don’t even sound familiar.” And: “So what if this Vincent guy
was
in politics; I still never heard of him. And I don’t give a crap if you think I’m lyin’ or not.”

Strike three.

Now, as to whether Sheila Vincent could possibly have been romantically involved with either Sherman or Dugan, I’ll leave that to you.

Sherman was a dried-up little fellow who looked to be near seventy. He had greasy, dyed-black hair, bulging eyes, and a nervous habit of incessantly jiggling his leg. Dugan, a large, heavy man maybe fifteen years the lawyer’s junior, was dressed in a badly fitting gray polyester suit that shone like a mirror. What’s more, he accessorized it with a bright yellow shirt and an orange, yellow, and green tie. And to top it off, the guy sweated up a storm.

But as I said, you can draw your own conclusions about the likelihood of Sheila’s pairing off with one of these two prizes.

 

Our final order of business that day was to have a few words with the widow herself.

Driving over to the house, Lou suddenly stuck his right hand up his left sleeve and began to scratch. A moment later he reversed the process.

“What’s with you?” I asked.

“I guess I’ve got a rash,” he admitted, somewhat embarrassed.

“Well, it’s nothing to be ashamed of, for God’s sake. Let’s stop off at a drugstore, and you can pick up some ointment.”

There was a pharmacy only a couple of blocks from Oakview Road, and Lou ran in. He was back a few minutes later with a small silver tube. “You know something, Shapiro?” he said, applying the salve to his arms.

“What?”

“I think I’m allergic to you.”

Very funny
. In spite of all his bravado, Lou Hoffman was, it seemed, just as nervous about our prospects for solving this case as I was.

As we stood on Sheila’s front porch waiting for her to answer the bell, the biting wind that seemed to have come out of nowhere during the last hour easily penetrated what had suddenly become my pitifully inadequate trench coat. In an effort to keep warm I crossed my arms, hugging them to my body, and then I began to bounce up and down on the balls of my feet. All the while my teeth were chattering uncontrollably. I was certain that Lou—and maybe the entire neighborhood—could hear them clicking together.

I was about to press the bell a second time when the door swung open.

“I wish you had called instead of just dropping in like this,” Sheila scolded. “It’s the dinner hour, you know. Besides, I’m expecting company tomorrow, and I have a lot of preparing to do.”

As if to attest to these words, an exquisite blend of cooking aromas wafted in our direction.

Lou asked if we could come in for a moment. In response, Sheila stepped aside, accompanying the action with a sour, put-upon expression that I knew was meant to intimidate us. And glancing at Lou’s face, I had the feeling she might have been at least partially successful.

She led the way into the study, confronting us before I was even properly settled on the sofa. “Well?”

Lou explained—but not without a great deal of hemming and hawing—that only today a witness had come forward who claimed to have seen her at the Breeze Inn motel last month.

“I’ve never in my life been to the Breeze Inn,” Sheila stated calmly.

“Well, the problem is, we can’t figure out why our witness would lie about a thing like that.”

“Who
is
this witness of yours, Lieutenant Hoffman?”

“I’m sorry, but at present we can’t release that information.”

“Fine. It’s not important anyway. To give this person the benefit of the doubt, it might have been a case of mistaken identity. But in any event, what you were told isn’t true.”

“Listen, Mrs. Vincent,” I cajoled, “considering the way your husband knocked you around, you could hardly be blamed for having another man in your life. And it certainly wouldn’t make you a murderer.”

“Are you hard of hearing, Detective? I just said I have never been to that motel.”

“All right. Have it your way. I was hoping you might make things easier for everyone concerned by admitting to what we already know. But no matter. Lieutenant Hoffman and I will be paying a visit to the Breeze Inn, where I’m reasonably certain you’ll be positively identified. However, if the staff there
can’t
recall your having been a guest at their establishment, we will then canvass every other motel in this part of the state—in the
entire
state, if we have to. And I have no doubt that it won’t be long before we obtain corroboration that you had yourself a little something going on the side.”

Sheila’s smile was small, but much too confident for my tastes. “By all means, canvass away, Detective Shapiro.”

I should have left it at that. But the woman just looked so smug, so superior. “And we won’t stop there,” I fumed. “If necessary, we’ll also check out every hotel and restaurant. I promise you that from here on in, our top priority will be to confirm that you, Mrs. Vincent, have been lying through your teeth.”

The words had barely left my mouth when the widow jumped up and showed us to the door.

“Starting tomorrow,” I informed Lou the instant we were back in the car, “you and I are going to question all of the employees at every single—”

“All right. All right. But tomorrow’s Thanksgiving, in case you’ve forgotten. And Jake and I have been invited to my sister-in-law’s for dinner.”

“I did forget. For a minute, anyway. Suppose we confine our questioning to the morning, then. Would that be okay?”

Lou reluctantly agreed that it would.

 

I overslept on Thursday, so I didn’t get to the station house until close to eleven. “We’ll just see how much we can accomplish by noon,” I murmured, shamefaced, as Lou and I set off for the nearest motel.

We had no success at The Haven, our first stop. And we did equally well at Barbara’s Hideaway. What’s more, it was now past twelve. “Look, why don’t you take off for your sister-in-law’s,” I suggested. “I can do a little canvassing on my own, you know.”

“Forget it,” Lou said firmly. “I’ll call and tell her something’s come up, and I can’t make it today. Claire probably won’t mind at all, as long as Jake can be there.” And then, with a grin: “Claire and my wife were sisters, and she’s never been that crazy about me anyway.”

We ended up going from motel to motel that entire afternoon—except, that is, for a brief break for sustenance in a highway fast-food joint. And by six-thirty that evening I was tired and disheartened and anxious to get home. But Lou wanted to have some dinner. “I’d appreciate the company” was how he put it.

“Okay,” I agreed. I’d already loused up his family celebration, so I figured I owed him.

“Listen, I was thinking Italian. Or is that too un-Thanksgiving?”

“Italian is never
un
-anything,” I assured him.

We went to Danny’s, the restaurant we’d been to more than a week ago—you know, the place where I verified once again that it doesn’t take much more than a whiff of the wine cork to render me totally useless.

Tonight, however, I played it extra-safe, ordering a Coke to Lou’s beer.

The waiter set the drinks in front of us about five minutes after we were seated, and Lou wasted no time in letting me know that there was something on his mind. “I was going to let this pass, but then again, maybe you can clarify it for me.”

“What’s that?”

“I can’t understand why you would antagonize Mrs. Vincent the way you did yesterday.”

“Believe me, I hadn’t intended to. It’s just that she . . . well . . . she lies so effortlessly. And did you notice the smug smile?”

“You don’t explode at everyone else who’s a good liar, though, do you?” Lou countered. “Look, Desiree, if Sheila Vincent should ever have the inclination to cooperate with us, your attacking her like that could discourage her from going ahead with it.”

I practically snorted. “You don’t seriously think there’s a chance of her confessing?”

“Well, assuming for a moment there’s anything to confess, it’s always possible that if we can come up with something that really worries her, she might roll over on the boyfriend.”

I contemplated this for a couple of seconds. I was definitely dubious. “I suppose it could happen, but—”

“And did it ever dawn on you that she might be telling the truth? That, just as she claimed, Raphael did mistake her for someone else?”

“No, it didn’t. It still doesn’t.”

“Fine. But at the risk of sounding repetitious, even if Sheila does have a lover, that doesn’t mean she had anything to do with offing her husband. You pointed that out to her yourself.”

“That was a ploy, as you very well know. I personally would regard any extracurricular activity on her part as maybe not proof positive of her guilt, but at least a fairly convincing indication of it.”

“But remember Mickey Mouth. He talked about having something for us on the da Silva bunch. So how does Sheila Vincent figure in
his
murder?”

“Maybe Mickey’s death was a—” I couldn’t keep the word “coincidence” from sticking in my throat, feeling as I did on the subject, so I switched my response in midstream. “Uh, what I mean is, it’s conceivable that there
is
some kind of a connection. We just haven’t uncovered it yet.”

Lou’s expression was one of bemusement. “It’s nice that you have such an open mind about Mrs. Vincent. Listen, I suggest—humbly, of course—that you at least try to be fair and give some consideration to the things we’ve discussed.”

I ignored the recommendation. “Look, Mickey or no Mickey, I still have this . . . this intuition that Sheila is responsible for her husband’s death.” I paused for a sip of Coke, which seemed to make room for a moment of sobering thought. “Umm, Lou?”

“What?”

“You’re right. I shouldn’t have lashed out like that, no matter what. I’ll watch myself from now on, I swear. It’s just that the woman has this talent for rubbing me the wrong way.”

“Really? I never would have guessed it.” Lou flashed me one of his dynamite grins, and I had to fight the impulse to throw myself across the table and squeeze him.

After this the conversation was a lot more friendly. We went on to cover such diverse topics as cop TV shows, the fact that Lou’s friend Pete Peterson was contemplating early retirement, the deplorable condition of my car (with Lou sarcastically recommending that I spring for something manufactured in the last couple of decades), and even Brad Pitt (yes, Brad Pitt). But by the time we’d finished our salads and the entrees came along, I’d latched onto a new way to pressure myself.

I was going to follow Ellen’s advice. I would make a move of some kind with Lou. But it took me until I’d consumed more than half my eggplant parmigiana to work up to it.

“Umm, how was your veal?”

“Excellent. But then, I’m addicted to Danny’s veal piccata.”

“I do a pretty good veal piccata myself,” I informed him. “Damn good, in fact.”

“No kidding. What are your other specialties?”

So now I had to stop and tick off half a dozen dishes before resuming my machinations.

“To get back to my veal piccata, though, I don’t like to brag, but—”

“Oh, no. Perish the thought,” Lou retorted.

“Listen, Lou, I’ll bet my piccata is every bit as good as Danny’s. Maybe better. And don’t look so skeptical. You’re going to have to try it before you can make any kind of a judgment.”