The Goodbye Body (34 page)

“Should I hire a defense lawyer?” I asked, gathering up the cards. “If you’re planning to read us our rights, you’re way too late. Nothing we said can be used against us in a court of law.”

“Very good, Mother,” Caron said. “As long as you don’t admit we buried Petti under the gazebo, we’re safe. I just wish we were home free, as well. This place is beginning to feel spooky.”

Her last word caught my attention. “That’s what my science fiction hippie said when he came in the store while Daniel and Lucy were there, and then repeated it while Gary was pretending to rescue me. He must have some sort of radar for FBI agents, a seventies flashback.”

“Just where is Gary?” asked Inez, blinking at Peter. “Madison admitted that he attacked Ms. Malloy. What if he’s in the backyard, waiting for another chance?”

Caron, who’d hours earlier cheerfully told Nick to pummel me until we were both blue in the face, blithely dismissed the threat to her mother’s well-being. “He doesn’t have any reason to hang around Farberville, now that Dolly’s gone once and for all, and those icky FBI agents are after him.”

“If he knows,” Inez said, pulling off her glasses to clean them. “It’s not like any of this was on the local news.”

Peter put down his beer and leaned forward. “Let’s make a deal,” he said to them, his expression intent. “I realize that you’ve both been disappointed that you’ve been kept away from the media—for your own safety. Tomorrow at two o’clock, there’s going to be a press conference in front of City Hall. I will personally introduce you and allow you to tell your story. The story’s already been leaked to the AP, so it’s likely that the national newspapers and cable news stations will send reporters because of the Velocchio connection.”

“The FBI won’t try to hush this up?” I asked.

“They’ve been playing on my turf,” he said, his voice icy. “If they’d bothered to give us one clue about what they were doing, we’d have picked up Dolly and held her in protective custody until they got here. I guess they didn’t think our dinky backwoods department could handle such a delicate matter.”

Caron’s eyes were glazed. “So we can tell the media everything?”

Peter gave her a sharp look. “Unless it’s something you haven’t told me. Have you picked up some bad habits from your mother?”

“We told you everything,” Inez said hastily. “I mean, we told you everything we know for a fact. Everything that’s happened from the first time we found Petti’s body out by the gazebo until Dolly left.”

“She didn’t say anything that might give you an idea where she went?” he persisted.

“Not a word,” Caron said. “She made a call, then gave me the cell phone and asked me to wait fifteen minutes before I called you. I swear I have no idea who she called or where she went after she left through the gate. I just stayed in the bedroom, watching the clock. Then, when Inez showed up, we sat for another five minutes and then called you. She wasn’t a criminal or anything, and it wasn’t her fault all these horrible people were looking for her. She was very nice.”

“That’s right,” Inez added. “She told us to help ourselves to anything we found that could be used as costumes.” She looked down for a moment. “She even told me I could have a bottle of really expensive perfume, but there’s no way I’d dare use it. My father would throw a fit and my mother would make me stay in the shower until it was rinsed off.”

Caron looked inquiringly at me, but I shook my head. “Don’t even think about it. Okay, Peter, you mentioned a deal. What do the girls have to do if they want to be on CNN tomorrow night?”

He politely overlooked the muted squeals. “They have to go upstairs, wash their hair, polish their story for maximum impact, and then go to bed. They will not leave the room until tomorrow morning. Sound fair?”

“Oh, yes,” breathed Inez. “We’re going to be more famous than Rhonda, even if she does win the stupid little talent show. We can skip it and forget we ever tried to learn that ridiculous dance. We’ll be invited to speak to classes about our experience, and not just at the high school.” She took off her glasses and wiped them on her shirttail. “Can you imagine us on national TV?”

“Did you bring mascara?” Caron asked as they left the den. “I have some, but it’s kinda old. Not as old as Mother, though.”

I looked at Peter. “Time for the same trite discussion, I suppose. Shall we have some brandy on the patio while I explain why I didn’t call you in the middle of the night, or why I didn’t tell you about meeting Nick this morning? How it all got out of control? Why I didn’t want to toss Dolly into the lions’ den until I figured out which ones were the lions?”

He caught my shoulders. “Brandy on the patio, yes. While you get snifters and the bottle, I’ll send the officer on patrol to the front yard to commiserate with his pals. I thought we might go for a swim.”

“Did you remember to bring a suit?” When he shook his head, I grinned. “Neither did I.”

Later, as we lay on lounge chairs, pleasantly exhausted from the swim and the ensuing amorous exertions on a towel spread on the pine needles, I said, “I realized something earlier today, when Madison and then Nick were pointing their guns at me “

“That it might hurt to get shot?” murmured Peter, sipping brandy.

“I suppose that came to mind, but what really bothered me was that I might end up dead without ever having …”

He sat up and caught my dangling hand. “Without ever having what?”

“Well, I didn’t want you to remember me as meddlesome Miss Marple. That would make it too easy for you. Before too long, you’d be entertaining a new batch of rookies with stories of my indisputable prowess. I’d be nothing more than a legend around the department.”

“How would you have preferred that I remembered you?” he asked quietly.

“As your meddlesome wife. I didn’t want to end up dead without ever having made a commitment to you. Maybe it would have been a mistake, or maybe it would have been every bit as wonderful as I imagined it. But I’d never have known.”

“Then we’d better correct the situation before Farberville hosts another crime worthy of your attention.” He tugged at my hand until I joined him on the lounge chair, which wobbled alarmingly. “It could happen as soon as next week, you know.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of the end of the summer. That will give Caron some time to adjust to the idea, as well as your mother.”

“As you may have already discovered, I don’t have a ring with me. Tomorrow night, a candlelit dinner, wine, a slightly more formal proposal?”

“If no one gets murdered in the morning,” I said, then gave my attention to returning his increasingly insistent advances.

A week later, I was back in the Book Depot, glumly watching pedestrians wander by without so much as a thought to the wealth of wisdom and solace to be found within the covers of my stock, along with lurid sex on the bestseller rack, travel guides to places one would never dream of going, leather-clad maiden warriors on the science fiction rack, and a disquieting silence surrounding the cash register. Caron and I had moved back to the apartment, where the kitchen appliances were antiques and the only pool was a puddle on the bathroom floor. The tile on the counter was pleasing, and I’d opted for a reliable beige on the walls, as opposed to seashell blush.

Daniel Hood and Lucy Loomis, as I learned was her real name, had won the jurisdiction squabble and departed with Madison, Nick, and Sebastian. Gary had vanished, but I wasn’t especially worried since I had a vague idea what might have happened to him. I had a pretty good theory about where Dolly was, for that matter. There was no reason to tell Peter, since there was nothing he could—or would— do about it.

A bouquet of flowers sailed past the window, and I wasn’t surprised when the doorbell jangled and Cal came inside. “Got something for you,” he said.

“These bugged, too?” I asked.

“Figured that out, huh?” He put the flowers on the counter. “I was thinking we might have a little talk. You have any coffee in your office?”

“I do indeed.” Once we’d settled in the back room, I regarded him coolly. “Do you even have a dog?”

“I sure do. He’s next to worthless, but I’m fond of him. Except when he farts, of course. I have to open every window in the house.”

“Then you didn’t lie about everything,” I said. “Shall I call you Manny or Cal?”

Cal took a sip of coffee, made a face, and put down the cup. “Whatever you prefer. Fellows back in New York took to calling me Cal, on account of the way I could divide up the dinner bill right down to the taxes and the tip, just like a calculator. When I retired and moved down here, I didn’t have much need of that.”

“Retired from the mob, I presume?”

He held up his dark, arthritic hands. “I wasn’t no hitman like Nick or Sebastian. I was nothing but a runner, a gofer, a chauffeur when some wife wanted to shop on Fifth Avenue all day. All I did was hang around saying, ‘Yes, sir,’ and ‘I’ll wait right here, ma’am,’ and ‘Aren’t you looking particularly fine today?’ It wasn’t a bad job, and I had a lot of time to read.”

“You and Bibi were friends, weren’t you?”

“We used to play chess together, things like that. When he got married to Dolly, he wanted me to be his best man, but that was impossible. I drove them to Niagara Falls for their honeymoon. I kept offering to close the screen in the limo so they could have some privacy, ‘cause they sure were acting like a couple of horny teenagers. We stayed friends, though. Some weekends I’d drive them and Petti up to their lake house, and we’d sit around playing cards and drinking half the night. That place up in the Catskills where they won a trophy for their dancing, I was the one with the camcorder. I could have done better if Petti hadn’t kept poking me in the back and making wisecracks.”

“You must have been devastated when Bibi died,” I said, watching him closely. “Did you attend the funeral?”

“It was so crowded that I had to stand in the back of the room. I was hoping to have a word with Dolly afterwards, but she left through a side door.”

I tried to keep a properly somber expression on my face. “Did you drive Petti to the church by the lake house to bury Bibi’s remains?”

“I sure did. Once it was done, we opened a bottle of scotch and toasted him until it got dark. I can hardly remember the drive back to Brooklyn. Guess we made it, though.”

I took a box of tissue out of the bottom drawer and tossed it at him. “Help yourself. It took me a long time to realize that you were the reason Dolly persuaded the marshals to let her come here. Farberville’s a charmingly quirky little place, but it lacks exotic appeal except to those who aspire to tenure at a second-rate college. How’d you end up here?”

“My family had a farm at the far edge of Stump County. Instead of attending one of those summer camps where the offspring of the wealthy learn to sail and perfect their tennis techniques, I was sent here to help out. I rode mules instead of pedigreed polo ponies and fished for crappies instead of rainbow trout, but I always had a fine time. When it came time to settle down, I couldn’t think of a better place. I convinced Dolly to move down here so I could keep an eye on her. It might have worked out better if she hadn’t confided in Petti, but there wasn’t any reason to think the Velocchios would come looking for her like they did.”

“Because of the subpoenas,” I said. “That’s when they got all hot and bothered.”

Cal gave me a broad smile. “Reckon so.”

I rocked back in the chair, hoping I wouldn’t get so carried away with my theory that I ended up in the wastebasket behind me. “When the subpoenas were issued, they realized the FBI had a stronger case than they’d anticipated. A witness, for instance, who could testify about laundered money and overseas accounts. Someone like Bibi.”

“Dead men don’t testify,” he drawled. “Digging up evidence is one thing. Digging up witnesses is a sight harder.”

“I’m not thinking about the urn in upstate New York. The feds must have pressured Bibi until he agreed to cooperate, so they had to keep him alive while they pulled together the case. They staged the heart attack, the death certificate, and the funeral. Dolly dressed in black, sniffled into a hankie, and let it be known that she was moving to Arizona. Did Bibi prefer Florida?”

“She had to stay away from him in case some member of the family got curious. The feds wouldn’t even tell her where he was. Petti was sort of the middleman, getting the word about Bibi from one of his racetrack buddies and about Dolly from me. The feds had promised Bibi that once he testified, he and Dolly could leave the country for good.”

“And buy them a yacht?”

Cal’s eyes shifted away. “Bibi was dealing with more money than you and I can imagine, shifting it from the Caymans to Switzerland to Singapore, then using it to buy floundering corporations and strip their assets. That’s what he did every day for the last thirty years, just played one long game of international Monopoly with real money.”

“While diverting some of it to his personal accounts.”

“Could be he was skimming a little bit here and there, to the tune of something along the lines of twenty million dollars. The FBI said they’d overlook it, but Bibi didn’t trust them not to hand him over to the IRS after the trial. He was staying quiet down in Florida, acting like he was ready to testify when they needed him, but all the while he was figuring out how he and Dolly would make a final exit. Then all of a sudden the subpoenas were issued, and he didn’t know how to get in touch with her. According to what she told me, he was going to finalize plans and then contact her through Petti.”

“Why not call her?” I asked, having always admired simplicity over duplicity.

“He didn’t know who might be tapping the line or getting to her mail. He could have called me, but he was afraid the Velocchios might make the connection. He told me before his so-called death that he wasn’t going to trust anybody except Petti.”

“So Petti gave Dolly his cell phone in case Bibi called. When she didn’t hear from him, she started thinking he must have mailed something to the house, something that looked innocent. Something like a package of CDs from a store in Buenos Aires, so she’d know how to find him. Too bad the package came after she left town. And too bad I didn’t realize its significance. I should have, you know. I looked through all her credit card bills and didn’t see a charge. Somebody paid for the CDs, but obviously it wasn’t Dolly. Is that where she is now—in Argentina?”

“We won’t know for sure until one of us gets a postcard.” He started to stand up, but I waved him back down.

“A few more questions before you leave, Cal. How did the Velocchios find out Dolly was living here? You didn’t tell them, did you?”

“Hell, no! According to what Nick and Sebastian told me, after the subpoenas went out, the capos got to thinking maybe Bibi wasn’t dead after all. They sent some fellows over to the funeral home to have a look through the files.”

“And when they found out the truth, they killed the owner and burned the place down,” I continued for him. “I saw something about that in the
Times.
I suppose at that point they took a hard look at Petti.”

Cal whistled under his breath. “You’re good, Ms. Malloy. They tapped his phone line, bought him plenty of drinks, talked to his neighbors, and kidded him about going to Florida. Then Nick and Sebastian simply followed him. Once they found out which motel he was staying at, they hung around until Dolly showed up. When Petti clammed up, Nick decided to kill him and try to scare Dolly into panicking and calling Bibi. He’s the one who insisted I keep delivering flowers so he could hear what was being said in the house; the fact that you left them in the dining room was driving him crazy—and he wasn’t all that stable to begin with. It’s hard to believe, but Sebastian’s the one who thought it was funny to keep moving Petti’s body. I even heard him plotting to steal it from the morgue.”

“So you decided you’d had enough of this disrespect and took it yourself.”

“Buried him next to my sister. One of these days I’ll put up a stone marker or maybe a brass plaque. I’m real sentimental. Kinda odd, considering my past.”

“You buried Petti. What did he bury in place of the urn?”

‘Two sets of ledgers, one cooked. I imagine Bibi will mention it to the FBI one of these days. He never did approve of the family’s shadier businesses, but he couldn’t have upped and quit. It doesn’t work like that.”

I shrugged. “He didn’t seem to mind putting some of this filthy lucre aside for his retirement.”

“Don’t suppose he did.” Cal stood up and smiled down at me. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I got to go to the office and find out what Miss Groggin’s lined up for next week.”

I walked out to the front room with him. “One last question. Should I be worried about Gary Billings?”

“No, ma’am, you should not. Before Sara Louise was killed, she called Madison’s father and told him what was going on, along with the fact that Gary was using his FBI credentials in hopes of blackmailing Dolly and Bibi. Mr. Hayes didn’t like any of that, especially the way his daughter was being exploited sexually just so Gary could keep track of what the family knew. Nick and Sebastian were very proud of the way they handled that. As long as Miss Groggin doesn’t find a reason to go out back and open a metal drum full of muriatic acid, nobody’s ever going to lay eyes on Agent Billings.”

“Is that why Madison killed Sara Louise?”

Cal nodded. “Madison sure wasn’t happy that her father knew about Gary, and as much as I hate to say it, there were some rumors that Sara Louise went to Atlantic City a time or two with Mr. Hayes. Gary realized what had happened, but he couldn’t exactly tell anyone, could he? He must have thought his only chance was to disassociate himself from the whole mess. He should have known better than to piss off a Mafia princess.” He gave me a wry look. “Or underestimate a bookseller. If you don’t object, I might come by one of these days and pick us some books. Shall I bring my dog?”

I opened the door for him. “As long as he behaves himself.”

“Oh, he’ll promise, but it’s hard to know who to believe these days. Goodbye, Ms. Malloy.”

Keep reading for an excerpt from Joan Hess’s next Claire Malloy mystery
…

Damsels in Distress

Now Available in hardcover from St. Martin’s Minotaur

“Good morrow, Kate, for that is your name, I hear.”

I blinked at the young man in the doorway. “Well have you heard, but something hard of hearing. They call me Claire Malloy that do talk of me.”

“You lie, in faith, for you are call’d plain Kate, and bonny Kate, and sometimes Kate the curst, but Kate, the prettiest Kate in Farberville. Kate of Kate Hall, my superdainty Kate, for dainties are all Kates, and therefore—”

“Mother,” Caron said as she came out of my office, “who is This Person?”

“I have no idea,” I admitted.

The peculiar man came into the bookstore and bowed, one arm across his waist and the other artfully posed above his head. He was dressed in a white shirt with billowy sleeves, a fringed leather tunic, purple tights, suede boots with curled toes, and a diamond-patterned conical cap topped with a tiny bell. His brown hair dangled to his shoulders, rare among the traditionally minded Farber College students. “Perchance miladies will allow me to maketh known myself?”

“This milady thinks you ought to maketh known thyself to the local police,” Caron said, edging towards me. “Start with the Sheriff of Nottingham.”

He stood up and swept off his cap. “Pester the Jester, or Edward Cobbinwood, if it pleaseth you all the more.”

“Not especially,” I said. “Would you care to explain further?”

“Okay, I’m a grad student at the college and a member of ARSE. I was assigned to talk to all the merchants at the mall and on Thurber Street about the Renaissance Fair in two weeks. We’d like to put up flyers in the store windows and maybe some banners. Fiona is hoping you’ll let us use the portico in front of your bookstore for a stage to publicize the event.”