Shallow Graves - Jeremiah Healy (13 page)

I was thinking, funny how "upset" almost
rhymed with "covet."

Dani came all the way into the room, taking the part
of the couch that his sister-in-law had used, then shifting his rump
a little, perhaps in reaction to her residual warmth on the seat.

"My brother said you'd like to speak to each of
us?"

"I would, thanks. What law firm are you with,
Mr. Dani?"

"Winant, Terwiliger, and Stevens."

Joseph Danucci had said that his brother had made
partner at an old-line firm. "Old-line" didn't quite do
Winant, et al. justice. A hundred and fifty years in Boston,
principal tenant of a harborside skyscraper, the firm was one of the
five premier hives for attorneys in the city.

"How long have you been with them?"

"Since law school."

"Which was?"

"Eight years ago." Dani crossed his legs.
"Is this line of questioning headed somewhere, Mr. Cuddy?"

"I don't know. I guess I was wondering why your
brother decided to join the family business and you didn't."

Dani bridled. "My brother has an 'i' at the end
of his last name and pictures of Italian-American athletes in his den
and that makes him Mafia, right?"

"Your brother's the son of Tommy Danucci and
sends a guy like Primo to see me, there's a presumption."

Dani's lips auditioned a smile. "Primo said
you'd had a year of law school."

I was impressed. "Primo found out a lot in the
time he had."

"Primo's what my father would call a 'situation
guy'. "

"Maybe he ought to be doing this instead of me."

"No. No, you send in somebody like Primo to
assess things, report back. He lacks what my father would call
'ambition'. "

"Takes some ambition to aim at Winant,
Terwiliger as a target and hit the bull's-eye."

Dani's lips found the smirk line and held it. "I
thought you were looking into my niece's death."

"I am. What can you tell me about it?"

"Nothing beyond a profile of the man who did
it."

"I'm listening."

"Young, poor, probably on drugs, and not well
versed in the lore of organized crime."

Dani seemed awfully cool about Mau Tim's death.
Almost detached. "Why is that?"

"Hitting a building that's 'connected,' Mr.
Cuddy."

"I thought you were one of the trustees,
counselor."

"I am."

"And you filled out the property report."

"Yes."

"I'm wondering about the necklace."

"The necklace?"

"The purple one. Made out of iolite?"

Dani maintained the even expression. "And gold.
What about it?"

"Where'd it come from?"

Dani watched me for a moment. "It was a gift."

"From?"

"After my mother died, my father had a bad
spell, Mr. Cuddy. Heart attack, morose. I'd never . . . nobody had
ever seen him like that. Tommy the Temper in a state of weakness."

"And?"

"And my brother made him comfortable here. I
couldn't do that much . . . I was living in a one-bedroom apartment
in Cambridge, and my father needed round-the-clock care but didn't
want nurses and so on. Claudette was like a slave to him."

"Which changed his mind about her?"

Dani's face stayed neutral. "What do you mean?"

"I was under the impression he wasn't too
pleased about his son's War bride."

Dani sat back, weighing something. "My father
saw Joey following him into the business. Claudette . . . clouded
that."

"How?"

"Mr. Cuddy, my brother loves Claudette. Once my
brother gives his love for something, there's no holding back, no . .
. tempering of the emotion. He loved her, he married her, he was
staying with her. Beyond that, there are some things you really don't
want to go into here."

"Why not?"

"Let me make it clearer: there are some things
you should butt out of."

More the ring of the streets than the boardrooms.
"Okay. Fair to say that Claudette's helping your father changed
his mind about her?"

Dani said, "Yes."

"Then how come the necklace went to his
granddaughter?"

"Mau Tim helped, too. Before and after school."

I was thinking that Vincent Dani used her
professional name instead of "Tina," when he continued.
"Also, my father gave that necklace to my mother on their
twenty-fifth anniversary. It matched the color of her eyes."
Dani bit his lip for a moment.

"You've noticed Claudette's . . . eye?"

"Yes."

"Well, my father obviously couldn't give a gift
with that . . .connotation to Claudette. Through some quirk of the
gene pool, Mau Tim's eyes were exactly the color of my mother's. And
the necklace was also, I think, like a peace offering. A symbolic way
of welcoming them into the family."

"When they weren't originally."

"Look, I told you to butt — — "

"Okay, okay. You listed the necklace as missing
in the property report"

"Why Wouldn't I?"

"It just seems like the kind of thing the son of
Tommy Danucci might leave out to keep him from becoming involved in
it."

The lips seemed to be the only part of Dani's face
that reacted in any way. This time they lost their color. "I put
the necklace in the report in the hope that it might lead the police
to the killer before my brother's contacts found him."

"Your brother seems to think that police custody
isn't exactly absolute sanctuary."

"If the police arrest the perpetrator, he has a
chance. If my brother . .

Dani didn't go on. I said, "Did you know
anything about your niece's life in modeling?"

He sat back. "Not much. She'd call me from time
to time, we'd talk or have lunch."

"I thought she lived with you for a while?"

"Brief1y. About a year ago, when Mau Tim first
came to Boston. But I think she found that . . . confining?

"How do you mean?"

"Well, I put in rather long hours at the firm.
When I get home from work, I tend to stay there. I don't have a great
deal of time for social engagements."

"Did you know much about Mau Tim's social life?"

"No."

"Boyfriends?"

"No," again, a little more pointedly.

"I was under the impression that she might have
lived with a photographer for a while before moving to Falmouth
Street."

Dani's lips narrowed. "That is another thing I
wouldn't mention to my brother, Mr. Cuddy."

"All right. How about her life in the Falmouth
Street apartment?"

"Mau Tim was young and attractive. I assume that
once she had her own place, she was . . . active."

"I notice you call your niece 'Mau Tim.' "

"That was the name she wanted to call herself. I
respected her wishes."

"Why did she change her last name to yours?"

"You have a problem with people changing their
names, Mr. Cuddy?"

"No."

"I didn't Anglicize mine, you know. I kept the
ethnicity, just changed the . . . recognition factor for professional
reasons."

"That your niece's reasoning as well?"

"I assume so."

"She never told you?"

"Mau Tim was at the age where people rebel
against family. I was the one in the family who broke away, who did
something different. She wanted to do the same. I changed my name,
she changed hers to my new one. Simple."

Maybe. "How is it you came to be trustee of the
building?"

"
Limit the liability. It's done all the time."

"That's the reason for putting the building into
a realty trust, Mr. Dani. What was the reason you're the front man?"

Dani's lips narrowed again. "My mother asked me
to."

"The 'A and T' stands for?"

"The Amatina and Thomas Danucci Realty Trust."

"And your mother asked you to be trustee?"

"My father wanted to buy another building. They
already owned a number of properties in the North End. My mother
thought it would be a good idea to have some things in different
parts of the city. So, my father bought the place on Falmouth
Street."

"With you as trustee."

"Correct."

"How long ago was this?"

"Six, perhaps seven years."

He reminded me of something Claudette Danucci had
mentioned. "Just before your mother died."

"Yes."

"I thought you said before that you kind of
broke away from the family by going to law school."

"Look, Mr. Cuddy — "

"I'm just wondering, why did you decide to be a
trustee of a family building when you'd already broken away?"

"Not that it's any of your business, but my
mother asked me, and as a son I was happy to do it for her. She
wasn't too well. . . . By then, my mother had an idea she was going
to die, and she thought my being a trustee of the building would
bring my father and me a little closer."

"Did it?"

"I've told you twice there are some things you
shouldn't look into, Mr. Cuddy. Let me give you an answer that might
save you some pain later on. My brother and I get along fine. Despite
what you think, he runs a legitimate business enterprise and I
represent him legally on it. My father and I are oil and water. Have
been for a long time, no hope of reconciliation. That's family
business, not yours, and if I were you, I'd stay out of it."

When a lawyer like Vincent Dani tells me some things
aren't my business, and especially when he tells me three times, I
wonder why he explains things at all.

"After your mother died, how come you stayed
on?"

"What?"

"After your mother died, why didn't you resign
as trustee of the building?"

"Because she'd wanted me to serve. Besides, it
always seemed like a sleeping dog."

"Until now."

Dani's lips glared at me and left the room.
 
 

-11-

"THIS ONE HERE'S CALLED SHADOWFAX."

The music came over the Lincoln's stereo system in a
series of sounds, each from a different instrument until all had
blended into chords I'd never heard before and couldn't even
characterize. There was something about it that made you want to
merge into the upholstery. Then I thought that might be why Zuppone
was playing it for me.

I said, "How come you're not checking to see if
we're being followed?"

Primo turned to me, then glanced at all the mirrors
to be sure he was still aware of his car's position on the highway
back to Boston. "Who'd be tailing us?"

"The FBI?"

That got a grunt. "The Feebs, I'll tell you
something, they signed off on us a long time ago. Oh, they still root
around, accountants and tax guys mostly. But once that task force
busted the Angiulos and got their citations and all, they started
looking for other fish to fry. Besides, they can't push their luck
too far, asking for too many taps or warrants. Sooner or later, some
judge starts adding up how many times he signed his name and starts
thinking, 'Hey-ey-ey, no more for a while, okay?' Naw, the Feebs,
they ain't a factor anymore."

"What is a factor?"

The toothpick rolled from port to starboard. "What
do you mean, Cuddy?"

"Before you picked me up this afternoon, you
checked me out pretty thoroughly. In the. week since Mau Tim died,
you've been doing the same thing with the people in her life, right?"

A sleepy smile. "Coupla guys said you was pretty
smart."

"What did you find out?"

Zuppone thought for a minute. "I didn't do
nothing like you're gonna do. Go talk to everybody, I mean. I checked
a few things here, a few things there. Spread the word."

"About the necklace."

"Yeah. Somebody tries to fence it, we get a
call."

"But no calls yet."

"Right."

"Kind of a long time for a junkie to sit on a
piece of jewelry."

"Kind of."

I stretched my neck against the headrest. "Somebody
told me tonight you're a situation guy."

"
Somebody was right."

"What does a situation guy do?"

"What it sounds like. I go in, look around, let
people know what's what."

"You checked out the modeling agency before Mau
Tim went to work there."

"Yeah, but lemme give you a tip, Cuddy."

"Sure."