Shallow Graves - Jeremiah Healy (30 page)

"The fuck are you saying here? That ain't some
fucking safe house."

"What do you mean by 'safe house'?"

"Aw, one of the . . . this friend of ours, he
likes the spy novels. The way I go for the New Age music, okay? He
decides we need some new places to stash a guy . . . To keep a guy or
some stuff on ice for a while. In the spy books, they call those
things 'safe houses.' But fucking Mother, Cuddy, only the family used
that second-floor apartment. Nobody's gonna put a safe house under
his own blood."

"I wouldn't think so."

"What I mean is, they don't give the keys to the
building to anybody. Tina didn't give one out, and that Sinead broad
didn't give one out, then only the family has any."

I didn't bring up the front door key Sinead left with
the agency. Instead, I braced myself before saying, "You have
keys to that building, Primo?"

All the blood drained from his cheeks, and he
breathed heavily. "I'm gonna . . . I'm gonna make like I didn't
hear that, okay? Because I don't wanna have to take you to Mr.
Danucci without your face on."

"I think it's — "

"What you're saying here is one of the family
whacked Tina? You got rocks in your fucking head'?"

"You want to hear it or not?"

Zuppone breathed three more times, reining himself
in, the hand shaking as he turned off the music. "I wanna hear
it. Real slow, no big words."

"There are a lot of possibilities, but one keeps
coming around. The killer uses a key on the front door, goes up, and
gets let in by Tina or uses a key on her door, too."

Zuppone seemed about to say something, then shook his
head.

"He kills her, hears Shinkawa at the apartment
door, and then Shinkawa going back downstairs and coming back up with
the others. The killer tries to go down the fire escape, only I don't
think he gets far enough before they break through the door."

"What do you mean, far enough?"

"Shinkawa hears somebody on the escape and
rushes to the window, but nobody's there below him."

I waited for Zuppone to catch up to me. "The guy
that did Tina used the escape there to go down, but he ain't there
when the Jap looks out?"

"Right."

"So the guy goes in Sinead's window. You said it
was open, right?"

"No good. The sash weights aren't working.
Nobody could lift the window high enough to slip in through it."

"So . . . what, the guy drops ten, twelve feet
to the ground?"

"But then Shinkawa would have seen him or heard
him running up the alley."

Zuppone squirmed against the leather upholstery.
"Then how does the guy get away?"

"I think he went in the second-floor window."

Zuppone smiled confidently. "Never happen. The
guy couldn't get out the second-floor door without . . ."

Zuppone chewed on it, shook his head, then kept
shaking it. "Fucking Christ. That can't be it, Cuddy. That can't
be how the guy got away."

"I think it is. So either he had the keys he
needed, Or he planned it pretty long and pretty cool and pretty tight
on the timing?

"What do you mean, he planned it?"
 
 

-23-

TOMMY DANUCCI ASKED ME ME SAME QUESTION AT THE SAME
POINT in the story as Primo Zuppone. The difference was that Danucci
and I were sitting in a tiny espresso shop just off Hanover Street in
the North End. Although we were the only patrons, there were five
tables in all, each a circular slab of gray marble resting on a base
of black wrought iron. The chair seats were round and padded like bar
stools with backs, but they also sat on wrought iron bases. The bases
were so heavy I nearly sprained a wrist pulling mine back.

Primo had to move Danucci's chair out and in for him,
then went to the counter man who waited fervently to hear our order.
Capuccino with whipped cream for Danucci, hot chocolate and no cream
for me. After bringing our cups and saucers to the table, Zuppone
took up some wall space, legs bent out a little.

Danucci said, "So, Mr. Detective, what do you
mean, he planned it?"

"First, let's assume a burglar didn't kill
Tina."

"The fuck you talking about? He stole the
necklace."

"The necklace broke, somewhere in the living
room, during the struggle. How do you explain that?"

"Explain it? The fucking crackhead had it in his
hands and my Tina tried to take it back."

"Take it back from him?"

"Sure, sure. My Tina, she loved that piece. It
was what she had from her grandmother, what I gave her after my
Amatina died. Tina woulda fought for her necklace, anybody tried to
take it."

I went through how unlikely that was, given where the
pendant and body were found.

Danucci sipped his capuccino. "So, maybe she was
wearing it, eh?"

"Wearing it?"

"You're telling me, Tina was strangled with my
Amatina's necklace against her throat. Either the crackhead had it in
his hand, or she was wearing it."

"Why would she be wearing it?"

Danucci shrugged. "Maybe for the party."

"I don't think so. She was just in her robe from
the shower, and the party itself was supposed to be pretty casual, a
little wine before people went out to celebrate."

"Maybe she was trying it on. For the dinner the
next night."

"Maybe. But she was already late for the party
downstairs, and she had all the next day to decide what to wear for
dinner on Saturday."

Danucci looked impatient. "All right, all right.
She wasn't wearing it, then. So tell me, it's not a burglar, what's
your theory?"

"With Sinead in the kitchen near her open
window, I don't think the killer came up the fire escape. He, or she,
came through the front door of the building."

"What's this 'he or she' shit?"

"Okay. Assume it's a man, too. One possibility
is that he has a key to the building, comes in, and gets up to the
third floor, but has the presence of mind, and prior knowledge, to go
to Tina's kitchen and take the pimpled key to the second-floor door
that Tina kept in a drawer. He kills Tina, then goes out and down the
fire escape, ducking into the second-floor window while Larry
Shinkawa is running to the bedroom window and looking down on the
fire escape. Then, using Tina's key from the drawer, the guy lets
himself quietly out the second floor and down the interior stairs and
out the front door of the building, replacing the key in the drawer
some time later."

Danucci wagged his head. "Too complicated."
."/'

"Explain it to me."

"Start with Shinkawa. He could have gotten into
the building if he had a key to the front door, gone upstairs, and
gotten Tina to open her apartment door. He kills her, then leaves the
building and rings Sinead to be let back in. He suggests to Puriefoy
and Fagan that they go up to Tina's apartment, then climbs the stairs
alone to knock and yell at Tina's door before coming back down to get
the others."

"Simpler. What's wrong with that?"

"The chain was on Tina's door. Whoever left her
apartment after killing her couldn't go out her door and leave it
still chained. And Sinead would have spotted him coming down the fire
escape."

Danucci shook his head again, sipping the capuccino.
I hadn't touched my hot chocolate.

The old rnan said, "Same for the colored
photographer?"

"I think so. Puriefoy could have left Sinead's
apartment to go out for wine, but instead he climbs the stairs, gets
Tina to let him in, and kills her. Then he actually goes out for the
wine and comes back all innocent. But with the chain on, he would
have to go out the bedroom window and down the fire escape past
Sinead in her kitchen. Since we know Tina was taking a shower with
the water running through Sinead's pipes just a few minutes earlier,
it's hard to imagine either Shinkawa or Puriefoy could have timed it
just so. Besides, they wouldn't have had to try."

"I don't get you."

"
Tina knew both of them well enough to buzz them
into the building and let them into her apartment. Either one could
have killed her any time he wanted without planning a split-second,
Mission Impossible caper around the party."

The blood started to rise through Danucci's face.
"I'd take it as a favor, Mr. Detective, you didn't use old
television shows to talk about my granddaughter's death."

"Sorry."

Danucci pushed his cup and saucer three inches to the
side. Zuppone immediately came over and asked if he wanted another.
The abrupt nod and Primo was off to the counterman. While he was
gone, Danucci used a low, menacing tone to me. "So, you're
saying it's family?"

"Not necessarily. It could be anybody who didn't
know about the party at Sinead's that night."

"Why?"

"Because somebody who didn't know about the
party wouldn't be trying to time things so closely. If the guy had a
front door key and knew about the second-floor key, he could have
gone to the house that night and opened the building door by
coincidence when Sinead's door was closed and neither Shinkawa nor
Puriefoy were coming or going."

Zuppone brought Danucci his capuccino and leaned back
against the wall.

I said, "The guy then goes up to Tina's
apartment, has a key to her door or she lets him in, then he puts the
chain on — "

"Wait a minute. Why him with the chain?"

"Somebody had to put the chain on, and Shinkawa
said Tina never used it, broke a nail on it a couple of times."

"Broke a nail?"

"Fingernail."

Danucci shook his head. "Okay, okay. The guy
puts the chain on."

"And then kills her. He hears Shinkawa at the
door and probably freezes, then panics and realizes from the noise
that the party is coming to him. So he runs to the kitchen, gets the
key to the second floor, and goes out the fire escape and then into
the second-floor window."

Danucci tasted the new capuccino. "That makes a
little sense, maybe." He set the cup down and watched me, then
seemed to steel himself. "But you still think it's family."

"I haven't seen or heard anything that leads me
to believe that anybody other than Ooch knew Tina kept the
second-floor key in her kitchen drawer. And the key was back there
when I checked on it Friday."

"So, you're saying the guy didn't take that key
with him."

"Or he put it back before I checked the drawer,
which seems tough. If we eliminate Sinead Fagan, too, because of the
close timing problem and plenty of other opportunities, we're left
with family, I think."

"What, because Ooch had his own key?"

"I don't follow you."

Danucci said, "What I mean is, everybody's got
their own keys, Mr. Detective. I got mine, Joey's got his — Hey,
Primo?"

Zuppone came off his wall. "Yes, Mr. Danucci?"

"You got a set of keys to the Falmouth property,
right?"

Zuppone didn't get angry this time. "Somewheres."

Danucci came back to me. Vincent Dani, Esquire, he's
the trustee or whatever the fuck you call it, he's got a set. We all
got keys, but nobody's got no reason to kill Tina. Your theory's all
fulla shit there."

At that point, the door to the shop flew open and
three teenagers came in, jostling and punching each other on the
arms. All were male and black-haired, the sideburns cut half an inch
above the ear, the rest moussed up and combed back. They each wore
baggy athletic pants in different metallic colors and Air Jordan
sneakers. They ordered three espressos as they yanked out chairs.

Tommy Danucci cued Zuppone with his eyebrows. Zuppone
moved toward them.

"Hey-ey-ey, guys, how about you get lost for a
while, huh? We got a little meeting going on."

One of the kids smirked at Primo. Raising his right
hand slowly, its back toward Zuppone, the kid sent his index, middle,
and ring fingers northward. "Read between the lines, zit rack."

If I hadn't been expecting it, I'm not sure I would
have seen Primo's hand moving. It closed around the kid's three
fingers, and I heard a snap. The bravado left the boy's face as he
howled, standing up only to drop to his knees, the three fingers
dangling loosely, like a glove when your fingers aren't in the
sleeves. The other two kids took one look at Primo and took off, the
third kid teetering up and through the door just before it closed
behind his friends. The counterman seemed particularly engrossed in a
saucer he was washing.

Zuppone came back, huffing a little from excitement
rather than exertion. "Sorry, Mr. Danucci."

"An insult nobody could take, Primo." Then
to me, "The old days, their families would of known me and told
them to be respectful. Now .... " A disrnissive wave.

I waited him out.