Murder Can Spoil Your Appetite (8 page)

“As I said, Frankie was charming,” Marilyn answered. “Probably one of the most charming men you’d ever meet. Also, Sheila was terribly vulnerable in those days.”

“What do you mean?”

There was a pause before Marilyn murmured reluctantly, “Oh, it was years ago.” Then, after an even lengthier pause: “I guess she wouldn’t mind my telling you about it at this point, though. You see, Sheila had broken an engagement a number of years before she met Frankie. It was a really devastating experience, too, and it took a long, long while before she’d even agree to go out with anyone else. But then when Frankie came along, well, I must say his timing was terrific.”

I wanted to get this straight. “You said
she
broke it off?”

Marilyn flushed all the way to the roots of her hair. “Umm, that’s not exactly how it happened.” I could hear her take in her breath before she confessed a few seconds later—and with obvious discomfort—“Ron was . . . he was the one who actually ended it.”

“Why was that—do you know?”

“Look, Detective Shapiro, I’m aware that you have to get all the facts, but I can’t imagine how something that occurred practically in the Dark Ages could have anything to do with Frankie’s murder.”

“Neither can I. Not at the moment, anyway. But there was a motive for that murder, and right now we don’t have a clue as to what it was—or who ended your cousin’s life. So we’re gathering every bit of information we can, and hopefully, we’ll start making some sense out of things. But we need for you to cooperate. Okay?”

“I still don’t see what—”

“Just bear with me,” I cajoled. And then when Marilyn nodded unhappily I put the question to her again. “Why did Mrs. Vincent’s fiancé end the engagement?”

She sighed. “All right. Ron Whitfield ran off and married Sheila’s older sister the day before the wedding.”

This news prompted me to attempt a whistle, but a pathetic nothing little sound was all I was able to produce. “Are they still married?”

“Separated. He moved out a few months ago. But if you’re thinking Ron killed Frankie so he could get back with Sheila, you’re way off base. Sheila would never take up with him again. Not after what he did to her.”

“Probably not. But you can’t really be sure.”

Marilyn’s chin jutted out to
there
. “I know Sheila,” she insisted.

“Are you certain she’d tell you if she
had
started seeing him again?”

For a fraction of a second Marilyn hesitated. Then she said emphatically, “Believe me, there isn’t a chance Sheila would have anything more to do with Ron.”

“Do you think Mrs. Vincent might be romantically involved with someone else?”

“She isn’t like that.”

“What about Frankie? Even if he wasn’t big on romance or sex or whatever, it’s possible, isn’t it, that he could have met someone who really appealed to him? And if that occurred, from what you’ve told me about your cousin, I don’t think that anything as insignificant as a marriage license would have kept him from pursuing the woman.”

“Listen, Frankie put more ladies in heat than I can count. But even when he was still single, he’d just slough them off. Except maybe on some rare occasions—probably when he got a really bad itch. In those instances, though, one or two dates seemed to be enough to take care of the itch. But once he got married, I can’t imagine Frankie’s having an affair. And it has nothing to do with any marriage license, either. It’s because he was so hell bent on making it in politics that nothing else mattered very much to him—certainly not enough to risk putting his future in jeopardy. Forget it,” Marilyn concluded firmly. “There’s no way Frankie would have even
considered
playing around. Especially since he was never into the pleasures of the flesh that much to begin with.”

Marilyn certainly sounded as if she knew what she was talking about, all right. Still, that didn’t mean she had as much insight into her cousin as she was convinced she did. Which is why I wasn’t ready to abandon the idea of a spurned lover or a jealous husband’s doing Frankie in. At least, not yet. At any rate, there was a brief silence as I thought all this over, with Lou apparently similarly occupied. Marilyn wasted no time in using the vacuum to advantage.

“Listen, if there’s nothing else you want to ask me . . .” She was already on her feet and edging toward the door when she spoke.

We didn’t arrive back at the station house any too soon. It was a quarter to six, and Ross, our second witness, could be dropping by any minute.

As Lou and I made our way down the long room toward our respective offices, I glanced around me. These were entirely different people from the cast of characters I’d seen working here this morning. Some of them turned in our direction when we passed, acknowledging Lou with a nod or a wave or a “How ya doin’?” But if they knew—or cared—about the identity of the full-figured (an adjective I much prefer to some others I’ve been saddled with) redhead who was trotting along beside him, it didn’t show.

We had reached the far end of the room when I remarked, “Well, at least we learned one thing today.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“The victim was charming.”

“You can say that again.” Lou shook his head, a bemused expression on his face. “And again and again and again.” Then just as he was about to enter his office, he began to laugh.

“What?”

“Nothing, really. I was thinking about Marilyn Vincent inching toward that door. Not that she was happy to get away from you or anything.”

“Whaddaya mean
from me
? You were no slouch in the questioning department, either, as I recall.”

“Yeah, but you were the one who put her feet to the fire with your ‘Why did Mrs. Vincent’s fiancé break up with her?’ You made the poor woman feel like a traitor, having to give up something like that about her best friend.”

“Listen,” I retorted, “did you happen to notice her expression when
you
told her we’d like her phone number in case we needed to speak to her again? And just as she had one foot in the hall, too, no doubt figuring that she was home free by then.”

“I still say you were the one who really rocked her.” And with this, Lou patted me on the back in a spontaneous gesture of camaraderie.
Almost as though we really are partners,
I thought. It was the first truly unguarded moment we’d shared. And I had the fleeting idea the man might actually be starting to accept me.

“See you in a little while,” I said. I made a brief stop in my cubicle to deposit my coat and attaché case, then headed for the ladies’ room. A minute or two after I returned, Lou appeared in my doorway waving a pink message slip.

“What’s that?”

“Ross phoned this afternoon. He can’t make it tonight—something about his wife and dinner. He said he could come in Monday evening. All right with you?”

“Why don’t you see if you can persuade him to do it tomorrow morning instead?”

“Hey, tomorrow’s Sunday, in case you’ve forgotten, and I’ve got the day off. I promised to take my kid to the Devils’ game. And I have no intention of disappointing him.”

“Devils?”

“Hockey. The Devils are a New Jersey hockey team,” Lou apprised me condescendingly.

“That’s no problem, Lou. I can see the man myself. After all, you’ve already met with him. I thought I’d talk to some of the Vincents’ neighbors, too.”

“Well, I’d really like to begin looking into things.”

Walking into my space now, Lou sat down on the chair across from me. “You
have
begun,” he observed dryly. “Besides, don’t you think questioning the neighbors is something we should do together?”

“Well, of course, if you can make it, but if you already have plans with your son . . .” The look I was getting was hardly filled with partner-like affection. “Naturally, I’ll write out a complete report for you,” I added quickly. “You’ll have it first thing Monday morning. And if I learn anything really worthwhile—which I tend to doubt—I’ll call you right away and leave a message on your answering machine.”

Lou’s sustained scowl made me feel I should justify myself. “The thing is,” I said—and quite reasonably, I thought—“if I don’t try to catch people at home tomorrow, it’ll have to wait until Monday evening, after the majority of them get back from work. Unless . . .” My voice kind of trailed off; I had had second thoughts about the alternative I’d been about to propose.

“Unless what?”

“Well, we could always do it tonight, if you’d like,” I suggested timidly.

“No, I’d
not
like,” he snapped. “It’s Saturday night, for chrissake. Most everyone’ll probably be out. Even in Riverton people have
lives,
Desiree. Not only that, but I’m bushed. I’ve been putting in fourteen-hour days all week, working a double homicide and a bank robbery, in addition to the Vincent case. Anyhow, those other cases got reassigned so I could devote a hundred percent of my time to this Vincent thing, which seems to take priority over everything else around here. What I’m trying to say is that this is my investigation, too. And, yeah, I know you’ve been brought in by some big politician or whoever. And I know I’m supposed to cooperate with you—something I’m trying my damnedest to do, believe me. But I have to tell you, I resent your taking over and trying to call all the shots like this.” And now he shifted his eyes to my desktop, picked up a pencil, and very purposefully snapped it in two.

I caught myself unconsciously rubbing my neck. I mean, I don’t have to tell you, do I, what he’d have preferred to get his hands on just then.

At any rate, I was all set to respond to this mean-spirited behavior with an appropriately nasty comment (although I hadn’t figured out what it would be yet), when I realized that if I were in Lou’s position, I’d probably be no more kindly disposed toward me than he was. So employing my most conciliatory tone, I said, “I’m not calling any shots, Lou. It’s only that I’m anxious to get things moving, like I said. And it’s always possible their neighbors—particularly that close friend of the widow’s—might have something interesting to tell us about the Vincents. But if you feel so strongly about this, why don’t I just meet with Ross tomorrow, if he can make it. Since you’re already familiar with his information, that shouldn’t be any big deal. I’ll leave the neighbors until after the weekend, when you’ll be available. Okay?” Before he had the chance to respond, I tacked on—but mostly to reassure myself—“After all, it’s not as though any of them witnessed the shooting and might forget the details. So what difference does it make if we question them a day or two later?”

For what seemed to me like a very long time, Lou just sat there, staring down at the broken pencil on the desk. At last he muttered, “Oh, hell. I’m sorry, Desiree. I didn’t get to bed until two o’clock this morning, and I always start acting like a first-class jackass when I don’t get my beauty sleep. Look, I’ll call Ross right now and try to get him to come in tomorrow, preferably in the a.m.”

“I really appreciate—”

“And after we’re finished with Ross, we’ll do the neighbors.”

“But your son—?”

“I’ll just give him the tickets. You want the honest-to-God truth? He’ll be happier going with one of his friends.”

Driving home that evening, I thought about the widow Vincent.

Had I been even a little bit fair to the woman?

Granted, she had this—well, call it a
presence
—that made me feel as though my pantyhose were drooping and my roots were showing and my beige suit wasn’t even fit to be buried in the backyard. But this was
my
problem. Sheila Vincent hadn’t said or done a thing to generate this insecurity in me. And even if she had, that wouldn’t justify my readiness to paint a blood-red “M”—for murderer—on her forehead.

After all, she was honest enough to admit—and without even the slightest bit of prodding, too—that she’d been planning to unload the guy. And why would she have to resort to murder, anyway? Apparently, there wasn’t any financial consideration to dissuade her from terminating the marriage legally—exactly as she claimed she’d been intending to do. Remember,
she
was the one who came from all that money.

Still, my intuition told me . . .

No, I could forget my stupid intuition. It was about as trustworthy as my glorious hennaed hair. (Which tonight, thanks to the most infinitesimal amount of humidity in the air, insisted on going its own way, leaving me looking positively bizarre.)

But an instant later I changed my tune again.

The thing is, when had the mere fact that a woman was good looking and stylish induced me to suspect her of a crime? Never, that’s when. So I couldn’t see myself just dismissing this . . . this uneasiness I had about Sheila.

Okay, so maybe there wasn’t even one sensible reason for my doubts about the lady. But for the time being, I’d be keeping a very watchful eye on her, regardless.

 

At around eight-thirty I dropped off the car at the garage near my apartment. And it was only then that I realized how thoroughly exhausted I was. I’d have loved to go straight home and plop down on the sofa for a couple of years. But I was also starved. And at the prospect of dining on any of the pitiful scraps in my refrigerator (pre that visit from da Silva, I’d planned on doing my grocery shopping this morning), I was willing to postpone that rendezvous with the sofa.

I headed for Jerome’s, this little coffee shop in my neighborhood. The minute I set foot in the door, I spotted Felix, which severely restricted my menu choices. You see, Felix, who must be well into his seventies, is a waiter who takes great pride in his memory. So invariably, as soon as he approaches my table, he holds up his hand. “Wait,” he commands, “don’t tell me.” And he plays back the first order I ever gave him. “The cheeseburger deluxe, you want. Well done. And the fries, they should also be well done. And you’ll have a Coke, but I gotta bring the beverage together with the food—not before.” Then he’s likely to beam at me. “So, am I right?”