Shallow Graves - Jeremiah Healy (6 page)

Behind the guy on the phone was a restored brick wall
and some leafy plants. He fingered one of the leaves and seemed close
to finishing the call when a female voice said, "Can I help
you?"

I half turned and stood up. She was in the doorway to
what looked like the front office. About five five without the
two-inch heels, the woman had lush brown hair drawn back and down her
neck. Maybe thirty-five, her face was a notch to the handsome side of
pretty, with a perfect smile. The shoulders were a little broad for
the body, and her breasts inside a turquoise dress were no more
prominent than the pockets on a lumberjack's shirt.

"Are you Ms. Lindquist?"

"Lind-qvist," coming down on the "v,"
but still beaming the smile.

"Sorry. My name's John Cuddy. I wonder if I
could talk with you for a while."

"About what?"

"I'm representing Empire Insurance on the claim
you have on one of your models."

"The claim — Oh." The smile faded. "You
mean Mau Tim, don't you."

Lindqvist pronounced it "Mahow Tim," just
like Harry Mullen had. As I said "Yes," the man on the
phone said, "Kyle . . .Kyle I have to hang up now and put the
receiver down. He said, "Mau Tim's death was a terrible shock to
all of us."

"Mr. Yulin?"

"
Yes. Yes, George Yulin."

He came around the desk as Lindqvist came a step
further into the reception area. I shook hands with him, then with
Lindqvist.

Yulin said, "I have to admit, I'm impressed with
your service."

"I'm sorry?"

"Coming to deal with us only a week after I made
the call, I mean."

"
I'm a private investigator, Mr. Yulin. I'm
looking into Ms. Dani's death as part of processing your claim."

A different tone came into Lindqvist's voice. "I
thought the police said she was killed by a burglar?"

"A policy this size, we do an independent
investigation."

Lindqvist moved her tongue around inside her mouth.

"Should we be calling our lawyers, Mr. Cuddy?"

"That's not up to me. I'm just here to ask you
some questions, help the people I work for process your claim."

Yulin said, "What can there be to process? We
had a policy for half a million dollars on the girl. She died, you
pay, correct?"

"The company decides that after they get my
report."

The telephone began bleating like a sheep. Then
another line joined in, just out of phase with the first. Lindqvist
made no move for either, Yulin jumping for both.

While her partner covered the calls, Lindqvist said
to me, "If you want to confer with us, this isn't a terrific
time. We're on the phone quite a lot during business hours."

Yulin hung up with identical promises to call back.

"That's okay. I'd rather talk to each of you
separately anyway."

Lindqvist watched me while Yulin watched her. I was
beginning to see why the agency was Lindqvist/Yulin rather than
Yulin/Lindqvist.

She revived the smile. "Fine. Let's start with
me. Come on in."

I followed her into the large front office. In
addition to a desk with computer, calculator, and fax, there was a
long conference table and six chairs in one corner. The office was
decorated in blue and yellow: rug, walls, blinds, even furniture. The
bay window behind the chair that Lindqvist took offered a 180-degree
view of Newbury bustling with foot traffic below us. As I chose a
seat across the desk from her, Lindqvist said,

"I've never been investigated before. How does
it work?"

"I'm not investigating you, Ms. Lindqvist."

"Sure you are. And I can understand it. I just
want to be helpful."

Sure you do. I took out my pad. "We can start
with your first name."

"Erica. Full-blooded Swede, though you'd never
know it to look at me." She pointed to an old sepia photo in a
frame on the corner of her desk. It showed a man with a handlebar
mustache and a little boy with a mop of pale hair, both in homespun
clothes. "That's my grandfather and his grandfather, Mr. Cuddy —
by the way, is it all right if I call you 'John'?"

"If you'd like."

"Fine. Why don't you use 'Erica'? A little
easier to say than the hard ‘v'. "

"
Okay," I said, kind of liking the way
she'd taken charge of the conversation. Sometimes you learn more by
letting the other side ask its own questions.

"Well, John, my grandfather was in retailing,
but his grandfather was an immigrant from north of Stockholm. Came
over on the boat and made his way west to Minnesota, even fought
Indians, believe it or not. Funny, I never thought much about Indians
in Minnesota, as opposed to maybe Montana or the Dakotas. But that's
what he had to do, and quite a lot, too. You ever see
A
New Land
?"

"No."

"
It's a movie with Max von Sydow and Liv Ullman,
all about that time. Terrific piece of work, but then I don't suppose
you need my Swedish heritage for your report."

"Probably not. What I could use is some
background on Mau Tim Dani."

"Background." Lindqvist shook her head.
"That'll be tough."

"Why?"

"You know much about how the business works,
John?"

"If you mean modeling, no."

"Actually, I meant agenting, but let me give you
a little orientation about both. George and I run this agency. We're
both called 'directors,' but basically that means we're both like
vice-presidents when there's no one president."

"With you so far."

"I do the pitching, the rain-making, getting new
accounts from ad agencies or the advertisers themselves. George does
the booking, matching the right models for the right jobs. Sometimes
it's like a little of both. An ad guy will see our book and say, 'How
about Sandy on page ten, I like her. Can you send me her composite,
maybe her mini-book?' "

"Now you've lost me."

"Okay. The composite, that's kind of like a
brochure on the girl herself. Just a fold-over glossy piece, with a
couple of photos of her, her measurements and specialties. The
mini-book, that's a more substantial . . . scrapbook of her, kind of.
Quite a lot of photos, some tear sheets."

The "quite a lot" seemed to be Lindqvist's
catchphrase.

"What are tear sheets?"

"Ads actually run in Sunday supplements or
whatever. We tear them out, put them in the mini-book so the ad guy
or the client can see she actually is a professional."

"You represent only female models?"

"Oh, no. We're a full-service agency here.
Male/female, fashion, corporate. Print as well as runway."

"By runway . . . ?"

"Fashion shows for designers or boutiques.
They'll hold them as a luncheon, invite the big-spenders off their
mailing lists. We'll supply the girls, who show the clothes off on
the runway, then walk through the crowd during lunch, let the ladies
see how nice the merchandise looks up close on a beautiful girl."

"With the price tag still on?"

The beaming smile again. Like Nancy, a bright, direct
woman who became more attractive the longer you talked to her.

"Actually, they do have the tags still on the
garments. Part of the cachet of going to the luncheon is seeing how
much looking great costs."

"Did Ms. Dani do many of those?"

The smile became wistful. "Mau Tim could have
done just about anything she wanted, John. Elegant neck, generous
mouth, perfect skin tone and bone structure. But most of all, those
eyes. The most exotic girl I've ever seen."

"How did you come to represent her."

"The usual way. A scout."

"A talent scout?"

"A photographer who spotted her in a mall. Or
maybe just on the street, I'm not sure. But he spotted her, asked her
if she wanted to be a model."

"Sounds like kind of a pick-up line."

"I know, but it works. Especially on a
fifteen-year-old."

"Fifteen?"

"Not Mau Tim. No, she was at least eighteen when
she first came to us. But the prime age is fifteen to nineteen."

"
Why so young?"

The good smile again. "Unfairness of nature,
John. It's easy to use makeup to make the face look older. It's tough
to use makeup to make the body look younger."

"So the career is over early?"

"Not for everybody. Some of the girls do fine
into their mid-twenties. And after that we can use them as commercial
models."

"As opposed to?"

"Oh, sorry. Commercial as opposed to fashion
models. Mommies selling diapers or businesswomen selling computers
rather than vamps in evening wear. Some even subspecialize as parts
models."

"Parts of the body?"

"Right. Hand model, leg model, even foot model
for shoe ads."

"Do you remember which photographer scouted Ms.
Dani?"

"Sure. But you might make more headway if you
called her 'Mau Tim! That's how she was known in the business."

"Thanks. The scout?"

"Oh, right. It was Oz Puriefoy."

Oz. Short for Oscar Puriefoy, one of the men at the
party. Lindqvist looked at me strangely. "If you need to talk to
Oz, George will have a number for him."

"Thanks. Did you ever meet any of Mau Tim's
family?"

"Never did. That's what I meant about it being
tough to give you any background on her. She was over eighteen when
Oz sent over her test shots and she first signed on with us, so she
didn't need parental permission."

"You ever speak to them by telephone?"

"Her parents, you mean?"

"Yes."

"No." Lindqvist seemed to think a moment,
her eyes Hitting left-right-left without focusing on anything. "No,
I think the only person I ever talked to was an uncle. On the
telephone. I think he owned the building she lived in."

"Vincent Dani?"

"Maybe. I know she changed her name."

"From 'Tina' to 'Mau Tim'?"

"No. No, originally it was even more ethnic —
'Amatina,' that was it. I wanted to change it to 'Violeta,' for the
eyes and all, but there was already a black model with a name like
that. Then I think she checked on the Vietnamese word for 'violet,'
and it turned out to be 'mau tim' which fit her beautifully."

"Do you know how I could reach her parents?"

"
No, but their number might be in her file."

"Her file here?"

"Right. It would have places where we could
reach her, that kind of thing, Might have some family stuff, but
can't you just get that from the police?"

I thought about Holt. "Maybe, thanks. I take it
you didn't go to the funeral, then."

"No. No, we didn't. I think George called the
uncle, but he said — the uncle said that the family wanted to keep
it closed. The funeral I mean, not the . . . well, maybe that, too.
I've never . . . I've never seen anybody strangled before. I don't
know what it does to . . . the features."

Lindqvist spoke more carefully than emotionally about
it. Like she wanted to use the right words, not that she was upset by
discussing violent death.

"Did Mau Tim ever talk with you about her
personal life?"

"No. No, she really didn't, John. We talked a
little once about what growing up in an ethnic Swedish family was
like, but you see, quite a lot of the girls see me as kind of a big
sister."

"Somebody they can confide in?"

"Yes, but not Mau Tim."

"Independent?"

"More . . . insulated. I think growing up
Amerasian must have given her some problems. I don't mean while she
was working. She could be dazzling on a shoot. I mean more that she
kept her personal side to herself."

"Might she have confided more in your partner?"

"George?"

"Uh-huh."

"I doubt it. Maybe Sinead, though if you meet
her, you'll never see why."

"She the model who was having the party?"

"Right. Sinead Fagan. George can give you her
number, too. Only, don't release it, okay?"

"Release it?"

"Yes. Some of the girls use the agency as their
number and address to screen out the creeps."

"Models get approached a lot?"

"You bet. Even agencies like this one have to
avoid them."

"Like by no sign out front."

"Right. And by being on the fourth floor instead
of street level. If they could spot us from the sidewalk, every
pervert with an Instamatic would be in here, trying to hire 'nude
models' for 'private photo sessions.' "

"Did Mau Tim ever have any problems with
'creeps,' Erica?"