Shallow Graves - Jeremiah Healy (33 page)

"Once."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Why once?"

"Why at all."

"George fancies himself a . . . mentor of
sorts."

"To the younger models."

"Yes."

"Male and female?"

Lindqvist gave me a frosty look this time. "Not
that I know of."

"I was thinking about him living with Quinn
Cotter out in Brookline."

"Oh. Oh, that's purely economics. Or economical,
if you want to be specific. George was living beyond his means by
quite a lot."

"Because the take from the agency isn't shared
fifty-fifty?"

The frosty look. "I brought more to the agency
than George did."

"Like the office space."

"And I bring more to the agency than he does.
I'm the one who breaks her ass pitching accounts to lechers who can't
wait to get through me to get to the girls. I'm the one who creates
the market for our models. George sits and plays social director over
the telephone."

"And makes house calls."

"House calls?"

"Like on Sinead Fagan."

"Yes."

"But just once."

"Yes."

"We're back to why, Erica."

Lindqvist seemed suddenly tired. "George thought
there was something wrong with Sinead. Something she needed to talk
out. He was wrong."

"In what way?"

"
She'd already talked it out with me."

Sinead and her "quite a lots." I said,
"Little sister to big sister."

Lindqvist looked very uncomfortable. "Yes."

"And when George made a pass at her?"

"I didn't say that."

"Sure you did. What did Sinead do?"

"She threw him out. He was no match for her
Irish temper."

"What did Sinead tell you, Erica?"

"About George?"

"No. About what she ‘needed to talk out'?"

Lindqvist looked even more uncomfortable, the eyes
flitting again. "I'm not sure I can tell you that."

"I'm not sure you can get your half-million if
you don't."

"So." The frosty look turned frigid. "You
turn out to be a bastard after all."

When you're holding the high cards, you don't have to
answer things like that.

"All right." Lindqvist dropped the
attitude, twisting her hands in her lap. "Sinead had a tough
time of it when she was younger?

"What kind of tough time?"

Lindqvist told me.
 
 

-26-

GEORGE YULIN WAS GONE BY
THE TIME I GOT BACK DOWNSTAIRS, so I had to trouble Erica Lindqvist
again to find and write out the address I needed. She added the
telephone number, but I decided to drive over without calling first.

* * *

"The hell do you want here?"

Oz Puriefoy looked at me from inside the front door
of a wooden two-decker in Jamaica Plain. Given the open door behind
him, I figured he lived on the first floor. I also could hear the
tape from Sinead's moving day on a speaker system somewhere inside.

I said, "You two taking some time off?"

"We aren't on any schedule, man. What do you
want?"

"I'd like to talk with your roommate."

"
I think she's about had her fill of that."

"She can talk to me, or she can talk to the guy
who came to see you."

"What guy?"

"At your studio. Leather coat and toothpick?"

Puriefoy swallowed once
and swung the door wide.

* * *

"
Like, I don't see why I have to talk to you
anymore, awright?"

Fagan wore green stirrup pants, a little hole near
the left knee. The striped cotton sweater she wore on top was too
big, baggy at the waist, elbows, and wrists. Her cocklebur hair was
matted here and there. With no makeup, she looked so young.

"Sinead, there are some things I need to know
about Mau Tim that I don't think you've told me."

"So what makes you think I know anything to tell
you now, huh?"

I waited a minute, hoping to let the silence soften
her. Puriefoy had left us alone in a small room off the kitchen, the
place being larger inside than it looked from the street. Fagan
slumped in one of three beanbag chairs. I'd pulled a straight-back in
from the kitchen and tried not to look down at her too much.

"You were her best friend, Sinead."

"So what makes you think I'd tell if I did
know?"

A little progress. "I just came from Erica
Lindqvist."

Fagan pouted. "So?"

"She told me what happened between you and your
stepfather."

"That fucking bitch!"

The last word rose to a nerve-curdling shriek.

"Sinead — "

"The fuck right does she have to tell you shit?"

Puriefoy's head appeared in the doorway. "Hey,
babe. Everything cool?"

"No, it isn't fucking cool, Oz. Get out of my
face, awright?"

Puriefoy showed her both palms. "Okay, okay.
Yell your reads off. The Haitians upstairs, I'm sure they understand
how two white folks got to let loose from time to time."

Fagan ran the forearm of the sweater over her eyes.
"Oz, just go away for a while, please?"

Puriefoy looked from her to me to her. "Okay.
I'll go get us some ice cream for later. Rocky Road?"

I thought it sounded appropriate, but Fagan just
nodded in a "whatever" way and dropped her head.

She waited until the apartment door closed. Then she
waited a little longer, picking at the fabric of her pants near the
knee hole. "Erica shouldn't have told you that shit."

"She didn't tell me much. Just enough to know I
ought to hear it from you."

"Why?" The face came up, tears welling at
each corner of her eyes. I suddenly remembered how truly young Sinead
Fagan was, a woman's body wrapped around a teenager's mind and
emotions.

"Because you told Mau Tim about it, too."

I didn't know that for sure until Fagan dropped her
head again and said, "So what?"

I let out a breath. "Sinead, look. I'm sorry I
had to interrupt your shoot, and I'm sorry I made you go through
finding the body again. But I'm grasping at straws here, trying to
make sense of what happened. What could have happened."

A shake of the head.

"Sinead?"

She drew her knees up to her chest, embracing them
the way a track star does on a cold day.

"Sinead, I'm trying to find out who killed your
friend."

"My life's got nothing to do with that. My
stepfather's gone. He went to California like three, four years ago."

"Please. I promise you it won't go any further
than this room."

A laugh. Sarcastic, cutting. "Yeah, that's a
good line. Real fucking good. You get that from E1ica?"

"No."

" 'Cause that's the same fucking thing she said
to me when I told her about it."

"I forced it out of Erica, Sinead. Nobody'll
force it out of me."

"
Sure."

"Sinead, I promise."

Fagan looked up at me. "Awright. Awright, I'll
tell you what I told Mau, okay?"

"Okay."

"No . . . details. Just what we were talking
about."

I sat back and tried to relax.

Fagan took another swipe at her eyes with the sleeve
of the sweater. "Mau and me were sitting around her place one
night, and we were thinking about maybe getting a video, you know,
except it was raining, almost snowing. So she starts working the
remote and finds a channel showing this Ted Danson movie called
Something About Amelia. Well, like the title rang a bell somewheres,
but I couldn't remember why and Mau always thought Ted Danson was so
boss on Cheers, so she says, let's watch it. And I says okay, and
then two minutes later I remember it's about this guy, this father,
who's fucking his daughter. Like fucking her, and the wife, the
mother, doesn't even know.

"So I tell Mau to turn the thing off. And she
says, but I think Ted Danson is just so boss, and I get up and take
the remote away from her and turn the fucking thing off. And she
says, what's the matter? And I tell Mau how my mom's new husband
always used to hit on me. Always around when I was trying to take a
shower or get dressed for something. And how one night, he . . . he
didn't just hit on me, awright? And how the fucker kept coming back,
like one night a week, trying to get more. And Mau, she's watching
me, with those great eyes of hers? And she's listening to me tell her
about my step' and what I did to get even, why he had to go out to
California and all."

Fagan seemed to run out of steam. I chanced a
question.

"What did you do to get even?"

She looked up at me absently, then just shrugged, a
little girl realizing the worst was over. "My step', my mom told
me he was supposed to get this big promotion at work. She was always
like that, always paying more attention to what was going on at work
with him instead of at home with me. So, anyway, I got the fucker
good. What I did was, I called up his boss and told him my step' was
a baby-raper."

Jesus Christ.

"It got my step's fucking ass in the fucking
sling and even my mom had to throw him out. And of course he didn't
just lose the promotion. He lost his job, too. That's why he had to
go out to the coast like that."

"And you told Mau about all this?"

"Yeah."

"When?"

The little girl shrug. "I dunno."

"You said before it was almost snowing out."

"
Right. It was like, I dunno, a couple months
ago."

"A couple of months."

"Yeah. That's why it can't have nothing to do
with her being dead, see?"

"Did Mau Tim ever say anything to you about it?"

"No."

"Nothing?"

"No. Well, just that night."

"
That night?"

"The night I told her about my step'."

"What did she say?"

"Something like . . . The fuck was it? Oh, yeah,
Mau says, ‘That'd never work with far-far'."

"What?"

"Her eyes got all weird and she says something
like, 'Too bad. That'd never work with far-far.' "
 
I thought back to who had said something like that
to me. Larry Shinkawa, as Mau Tim's play on the sixties expression
"far out."

"What did she mean, Sinead?"

Fagan sniffled once. "Fuck am I supposed to
know?"
 
 

-27-

ON THE DRIVE BACK TO THE CONDO I TRIED TO FIGURE OUT
WHAT "far-far" could stand for. Maybe a pet name, like "Mau
Tim" itself when the girl was growing up. I found the number
Joseph Danucci had given me and dialed it.

"Hello?" said Claudette Danucci's voice.

"Mrs. Danucci, this is John Cuddy."

"Oh. Oh, yes."

"I have kind of a strange question to ask."

"
Please?"

"Does the expression 'far-far' mean anything to
you?"

A pause. "It is America word?"

"I'm not sure. I thought it might have been a
nickname or a pet name your daughter used for something or someone."

"Please, can you spell?"

"I think it would be F-A-R — F-A-R."

Another pause. "No. I do not remember her say
this word."

"Could it be Vietnamese?"

"
Vietnam word?"

"Yes."

"No. In Vietnam, we not have the 'F' letter.
Only the 'Ph' letter, and 'phar-phar' mean nothing."

"
How about Italian?"

"I do not know."

"Is your husband there?"

"No. But he not speak Italy words very much. I
can call Primo?"

"I have his home number. I'll try him."

"No. Primo is in his car. He just leave here. I
can call, ask him."

"Okay. I'll call you back later if I need to."

"Mr. Cuddy, you know who kill my daughter?"

"No, Mrs. Danucci, I don't."

She didn't say anything more, but it did take her a
good five seconds to break the connection.

I pushed the buttons for directory assistance,
getting the general numbers of four local universities. At each, I
asked for the Linguistics department. The first school didn't have
one, the second didn't answer. The third wasn't much more help.

"Linguistics." A female voice, snooty.