Shallow Graves - Jeremiah Healy (32 page)

I couldn't understand his attitude. "It is."

The laugh that turned into a giggle. "God-damn.
I'll go to lunch for a month on this one."

"Huh?"

"The hook, John. The cachet of it. I was boffing
a Mafia Princess. This is the best story I've heard in a year."

I stood to go. "Just so the Danucci family
doesn't hear it."

The smile shrank only a
little. "We really don't travel in the same circles."

* * *

I covered the live blocks to the Lindqvist/Yulin
agency in ten minutes. As I pushed open the yellow, six-panel door to
their reception area, George Yulin was just putting down the phone
and standing to see who it was.

"John?"

"Right. That wasn't Larry Shinkawa by any
chance?"

Yulin looked at the receiver. "No. Why, are you
trying to reach him?"

"Just did. You have a couple of minutes?"

The grizzled hair looked stylishly unkempt, the eyes
remembering I could bring him money. "Certainly. Certainly, come
into my office."

The same hodgepodge of magazines and photos were
spread around his desk and director's chairs. He cleaned one off for
me, but this time sat on the edge of his desk.

Yulin said, "Have you finished your
investigation?"

"
Not quite. Still a few loose ends."

An uneven grin. "I hope I'm not one of them?"

Trying to mend our relationship after the scene at
the house in Brookline. "When I was here the last time, you
showed me a card with some phone numbers on it."

"
Right. Mau Tim's casting card."

"The first number was her uncle's, you said."

"Yes."

"Do you remember if you were able to reach her
there frequently?"

Yulin clearly had no idea where I was going. "Well,
it has been almost a year, I think, since she started with us, and of
course, at the beginning, I wouldn't have been trying to call her
that often."

"You remember what times of day or night you did
reach her there?"

Yulin shrugged. "Probably late afternoon, when a
shoot might come in on short notice and I needed somebody I knew was
free. By the time Mau started to hit, she was at Oz Puriefoy's."

"
How do you know that?"

Another shrug. "Just the sense of hearing his
voice more often when I was trying to reach her."

"More often than hearing her uncle's voice?"

Yulin looked at me. "Yes, I suppose so."

I took a chance. "Tell me, George, should your
number have been on that card, too?"

Yulin seemed to think about how to play it, then
smiled, even winked. "Once upon a time."

"Mind elaborating?"

"Well, I'm not one to brag, mind you, but
occasionally some of the younger ones — not the underage ones, no,
never — but the newer models appreciate an . . . older hand at the
tiller?"

"
You ever in Mau Tim's apartment?"

A stiffening. "The one on . . . where she was
killed, you mean?"

"That's what I mean."

"Why, no. I told you that before. It was — the
times we saw each other, it was at my place."

"The house in Brookline?"

"Oh, no. That was later. I mean, I was still
living in my condo here in town then."

"So you never saw any keys Mau Tim had for other
apartments in her bui1ding."

More stiffening. "No."

"Never used the key Sinead kept here to get in
the front door of their building there?"

"
Of course not."

"How about Erica?"

"Erica?"

"Yes. Did she ever use that key?"

"Not that I know of." Yulin tried to get
back to conversational. "What does this have to do with
anything?"

"
You know who Mau Tim's uncle is, George?"

"Some lawyer in a big firm. Look, I already —
"

"Know who her father is?"

Yulin started to look exasperated. "Let me take
a wild guess. Her uncle's brother?"

"Because of the last name."

"Yes."

"Actually, 'Dani' is kind of a stage name. Like
'Mau Tim'."

A deep sigh. "And therefore?"

"I understand that Mau Tim was thinking about
trying her luck in New York."

Yulin seemed confused again. "I've told you,
John. At least twice. We launched Mau Tim. She was loyal to us."

"Like she was loyal to Puriefoy for scouting
her."

"That's different."

"Mau Tim was going to leave Boston and leave
your agency, George. Five hundred thousand is a nice reverse
severance package, don't you think?"

Yulin closed his eyes. Maybe counting to ten. It
never helped me much.

"John, there can't possibly be any evidence
involving me in Mau Tim's death. To think that my going to bed with
her a few times over six months ago could have anything — "

"Mau Tim's birth name was Amatina Danucci."

That last name caught him amidships.

"Her grandfather is Tommy the Temper Danucci,
George"

The mouth gaped open, and something rose in his
chest. An image of Nancy after the vodka came into my mind.

"George, if I were you, I'd hie me to a
bathroom."

Yulin, a hand over his
mouth, lunged out and toward the porcelain facility.

* * *

"Who's throwing up?"

Erica Lindqvist spoke as I was leaving Yulin's
office. Just inside the yellow door, she was stylishly turned in a
sweater dress and reptilian belt. An unlined trenchcoat was over one
arm, a Gucci handbag trailing from the other hand.

I said, "Your partner."

Lindqvist's voice lost the playful tone. "George
doesn't usually do that on company time."

"Something I said didn't agree with him."

She tried to get the light voice back. "Should I
wait to hear it till the bathroom's free?"

"I'm not sure I can stay that long."

Lindqvist reached into her bag, coming out with a
small leather case. "Let's go up to my apartment, then. I know
all the rooms are available there."
 
 

-25-

"WHY DON'T WE SIT OUT ON THE DECK?"

In her living room, Lindqvist laid the trenchcoat
over the back of a barrel chair like the ones in her reception area
downstairs. The handbag landed on the chair's seat. I followed the
cascade of brown hair through a sliding glass door. There was a view
of the Charles River over and between buildings, but mostly there was
a view of the roofs of the buildings across the alley, buildings that
would front on the south side of Commonwealth Avenue.

I said, "Don't you worry about your work getting
too close to home?"

"My work brings me pleasure, John. Today in the
form of you."

The deck was about twelve-by-twenty, redwood made
smudgy by the sooty Boston air. I could see a chaise longue and two
chairs, also redwood, with bright print pads and two side tables. The
furniture and a gas grill pretty well filled the deck surface, which
stopped only a foot or so before the edge of the roof. Around that
edge, the gravelly tar and flashing looked well maintained.

Lindqvist said, "I know it's a little early, but
can I get you something to drink?"

"No, thanks."

She took the chaise longue, reclining to a reading
position.

"I take it, then, that you haven't thought much
about my offer."

"Sorry?"

"You remember. A little . . . smorgasbord to go
with your usual fare?"

"Thanks, but I'm still taken."

Lindqvist watched me, measuring something. "Yes,
you do have that look." She shook her head and sat up straighter
in the lounge. "I think I'd better hear what you said to
George."

"A couple of questions first. You own this
building?"

"In a manner of speaking."

"What manner would that be?"

"It's in a realty trust. You know what that is?"

"Uh-huh. What do you do, rent out the space
downstairs to the agency and other tenants and the space up here to
yourself?"

"That's right."

"
Mind telling me where the seed money came
from?"

Lindqvist gave me the measuring look again. "Quite
a lot of it from that grandfather I told you about."

"Inheritance?"

A nod. "Long time ago. The family always said,
'Invest in the land, Erica. The land will always provide for you.'
Well, there wasn't much land under this building, but like a filet
mignon, what there was is choice."

"Speaking of family, was the lawyer who set up
the trust one Vincent Dani by any chance?"

"
Vincent . . . He was Mau Tim's uncle?"

"That's right."
 
Lindqvist appeared puzzled. "Why ask me a
question like that?"

"He did the trust work for the building over on
Falmouth."

"Where Mau Tim was killed?"

"Right."

"John, I don't get any of this."

"You told me before that the only relative of
Mau Tim that you spoke to was her uncle."

"That's right, I think. I mean, I know that's
what I told you, and I'm pretty sure I'm right."

"But you never met him or anyone else in her
family?"

"No. Why?"

"Like I told George downstairs, Mau Tim was
connected"

"Connected to what?"

"Tommy the Temper Danucci."

"Danucci? The Mafia boss?"

"Mau Tim, or Tina, was his granddaughter."

Lindqvist's eyes flitted left-right-left. "Oh,
God. Oh, my God."

"You and Georgie have a half-million policy on
the life of a mobster's favorite offspring."

She sagged back in the lounge chair. "But we
never . . .nobody ever — what do they do, 'come around'?"

"They came around. Checked you out discreetly.
Thought you looked okay for her. They took a somewhat dimmer view of
Oz Puriefoy."

"Oz? Why?"

"Because he's black."

"
Oh, God." Lindqvist came forward in the
lounge. "What about Sinead?"

"What about her?"

"She's living with Oz. I can't afford to lose
another model right now, John."

A woman who could keep her eye on the bouncing ball
of business. "The family sent an enforcer around to have a talk
with him. About a year ago. I don't see any threat to either of them
that way."

"That's good." Lindqvist sagged back again,
eyes closed.

"That's a relief." Then the eyes opened.
"Mau Tim's . . . relatives. Will they be looking for a piece of
the policy?"

"They haven't said anything to me about it."

"Shou1d that be a relief, too?"

"I don't know, Erica. I don't work for them.
Right now, I'm just trying to work around them."

She seemed to think that over. "They're using
you. To find out who killed Mau Tim."

"I'd hate to negotiate against you."

An attempt at a saucy smile. "You wouldn't feel
a thing. That you didn't want to, I mean."

"You had a key to her place."

"
What?"

"Mau Tim's place. You had a key to her
building."

"Oh, no. I mean yes, yes to her building, but
Mau Tim never — "

"But Sinead did."

"Yes." Lindqvist seemed to be trying to
measure something else, maybe how much I'd found out from the other
people I'd seen. "I guess the owners of her building — Oh,
God, that's the family, right?"

"Right."

"I guess the owners didn't want keys being given
out, but Sinead wanted to be sure that somebody nearby could get into
her place if need be. So she gave us a set."

Nearby. What was wrong with Yulin's explanation at
the Brookline house finally hit me. "I thought Sinead's family
lives just over in Medford?"

Lindqvist's voice turned cautious. "I think
that's right."

"Why didn't she give them a set of her keys?"

"For all I know she did."

Lindqvist didn't sound convincing. "You ever use
your key, Erica?"

A quick "No." Very quick.

"Where are the keys kept?"

"Downstairs. In a lockbox."

"So George has access to the box as well."

A slow "Yes." Very slow.

"George ever make use of that key, as far as you
know?"

"He . . . he went over to see Sinead once."