Angel's Verdict (27 page)

“Who did she call, Ron?”

“Craig Oliver.”

“Craig Oliver?” Bree sat back. She had a theory of the case. Finally. “Craig Oliver the actor. The one who’s playing Dent in the movie.”

“Eddie O’Malley,” Petru reminded her.

“Whatever,” Ron said impatiently. “We know who she means, Petru. Flurry called Oliver twice. The first phone call lasted about two minutes. The second one lasted almost an hour. The interval between the two calls was exactly twenty-two seconds.”

“He hung up on her,” Bree said. “And she called him back.”

“Surmise,” Petru said. “But a sensible surmise. Wait one moment please.” He tapped his keyboard, read the screen, and looked up at them with a grim smile. “I asked for the search to cross-reference white Buicks registered in 1952 with all of the names in Florida Smith’s database. Look at this.” He spun the laptop around so that both Bree and Ron could see it.

“Creighton Oliver,” Bree said. “Craig Oliver’s father.”

Petru whirled the laptop around to face him again, and spoke as his fingers flew over the computer keyboard. “The man is sixty-three years old. It is his father, surely. Aha! Aha! This is the break in the case! It is his father. More than that! He is at the time the commissar of the police!”

“The commissioner. Of the police. Dent’s old CO.”

“You seem to know this already.” Petru grumbled under his breath as he read the screen. “If you know this, why am I working? If you know this, why did you not ... Here I will print it out for you. And then we shall see.”

It was all falling into place, with a suddenness that made Bree dizzy.

“Are you feeling quite well, my dear?” Petru asked.

“Is there any way you can check the morgue records for 1952 and find a Jane Doe, age early twenties? She would have died on the fourth of July. Probably African-American. Dr. Warren would have signed the death certificate. She would have been brought in by a policeman reporting directly to the commissioner.”

“Of course. Would you like me to accomplish that now?”

“I would.”

“Craig Oliver’s still registered at the Mulberry Inn, isn’t he?”

“As far as I know,” Ron said. “The police might have gotten there before us.”

“I’m not worried about the police.”

It was dark outside, and cold. The Mulberry Inn was only two blocks from the Angelus office, and Bree decided to walk. She could walk on two legs now, after a fashion, and Petru had generously lent her his cane.

The room was a comfortable suite, right off the main entrance. Bree tapped at the door and waited. Craig Oliver’s voice demanded to know who it was. When Bree told him, he opened up and stood there, a drink in his hand. It clearly wasn’t his first of the evening.

“Is Justine in?” Bree stepped inside without waiting for an answer. Justine sat on the couch, a drinks tray on the coffee table in front of her. She was wearing an elaborate bathrobe—a tea gown, Justine’s generation would call it. The peacock jewel was pinned to the collar. Florida Smith’s manuscript,
Death of a Doxy: Who Killed Haydee Quinn?
, lay in her lap.

“Hello, Haydee,” Bree said.

The old actress looked up at her, stone-faced.

“You wanted to break the contract with Norris because you were pregnant.”

Justine smiled. Haydee’s three-cornered smile. The one Bree had seen in the black-and-white pictures taken sixty years ago. “And wasn’t it lucky that I was?” she said. She jerked her chin at Craig Oliver. “You want to know who killed Florida Smith? Ask him. Ask my baby boy.”

Leave her to heaven,
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,
To prick and sting her.

—Hamlet
, William Shakespeare

 

 

 

 

Antonia, Bree, and EB sat around the small table in the town house kitchen, eating boiled shrimp from Huey’s. Sasha lay at Bree’s feet. Hunter had arrested Craig Oliver for the murder of Florida Smith the night before. It was close to noon, and Bree hadn’t been to bed yet.

“Craig Oliver is Justine Coville’s son?” Antonia said. “And Justine Coville is really this B-Girl from 1952? Haydee Quinn?”

“Craig Oliver is Haydee’s illegitimate son by that police commissioner,” EB said. “That right, Bree?”

“That’s right. Haydee promised to turn the child over to Creighton Oliver and his wife if Oliver helped her fake her own death.”

Antonia shook her head. “Wow. Wow. How come the tabloids never picked up on that?”

“Police cover-up,” EB said succinctly.

Antonia nodded. “Happens all the time.”

Bree was tired and snappish. “It most certainly does not happen all the time. But it happened here. There wouldn’t have been a cover-up if Haydee hadn’t been pregnant. The child she bore five months after Norris attacked her was almost certainly Commissioner Oliver’s. Craig Oliver seems to think so, anyway, since that was the man who raised him. Although unless somebody orders some paternity testing, no one will know for sure. Justine just shrugged when I asked her directly. And she’s lied so much and so often I wouldn’t trust it if she did say so. My guess is she’s not sure who the father was, and doesn’t care much.”

“She must be a cold, cold woman.” EB picked up a shrimp and set it down again. “So there was no murder at all, was there? All this fandango and Haydee Quinn’s as alive as you or me.”

Bree was grim and angry. “Murder was done, make no mistake about that. Three murders. Three innocents. Poor Flurry. Bagger Bill Norris, executed by the state for a crime that wasn’t committed. And Charis Jefferson, whose dearest wish in life was to become a star like Lena Horne. It was her body that Alexander Bulloch burned that night by the banks of the Savannah River.”

“Justine confessed to all this?” Antonia said. “How come she isn’t in jail with poor Craig Oliver?”

“Don’t waste any sympathy on Craig Oliver.” Bree rubbed her eyes with the heels of both hands. “He admitted to having a role in Florida’s death. Hunter may have to reduce the charge to manslaughter. I hope not. As to why Haydee isn’t in jail . . . Hunter doesn’t have any admissible evidence to charge her with a thing. Except complicity in the false reporting of a death, and the statute of limitations ran out on that years ago.”

EB shoved the bowl of shrimp at her. “Eat something, child. You look like death warmed over.”

“And then start from the beginning,” Antonia said.

EB frowned. “She needs her sleep.”

“You’re not tired, are you, Bree?”

“I’m not tired, I’m mad as hell.”

“She’s not tired, EB. She said so herself. I can’t believe this.
The
Craig Oliver arrested for murder. Are you sure he killed Florida Smith? Why did he do it?”

Bree ate a shrimp. Then another one. “I’m sure he did it. As to why he did it? I suppose he’s the only one with the true answer, and Hunter says he’s already lawyered up. So maybe we’ll never know for sure. But I’ll tell you this. I’m convinced that Haydee pressured Craig for the job on
Bitter Tide
so she could keep an eye on Flurry’s research. She couldn’t afford to have the truth come out after all these years—and Craig couldn’t, either. Haydee didn’t want to go to jail, and Craig’s career wouldn’t have survived the scandal.”

Antonia ran her hands through her hair. “All that stuff Justine, I mean Haydee, told you about the sabotage?”

“Haydee herself. Mercury was right. She was trying her best to derail the shoot any way she could. Poor little Tyra was ripe for the suggestion that she was ‘possessed’ by Haydee’s spirit. And it was easy for Haydee to flub her lines, trip and fall, mess up equipment. I almost feel sorry for Vincent White and Phillip Mercury. Almost.”

“And when Flurry started getting too close to the truth?” EB asked.

Bree nodded. “Flurry had to go, too.”

“Thing I can’t get is a mamma turning in her own blood.” EB looked grim. “Can’t believe it.”

“It started and ended with Haydee’s ambition. Her ego. Her arrogance. She wanted to be a star. She grew up poor. Most important, she grew up poor in the ’40s, Tonia, and neither one of us knows what it was like for smart, ambitious women then.

“For Haydee, with her looks, men were the only sure route to success. So that started early, and because Haydee wanted to get up and get out fast, it was often. She must have had some magic that I don’t see now, with age and rampant selfishness having taken their toll on her face and personality, but men fell hard for her. Norris wasn’t the first. Creighton Oliver and Alexander Bulloch weren’t the last.

“Anyhow, she had a violent argument with Norris the night of July 3. She was pregnant. She wasn’t going to be able to dance much longer. He wanted her to get rid of it. She wanted to use the baby for blackmail.

“Norris picked up the knife from the counter and slashed at her breasts. She still has the scars—they’re faint, but they’re there. Her blood was on the telephone at the bar, by the way, so we can confirm that she made a phone call. She called Oliver at home. Hunter can verify that with old records. I think Haydee demanded that Oliver come and get her and help her get out of town. There’s a witness statement from the dancer Charis Jefferson, now lost, that suggests Creighton arrived at the bar around one thirty and picked her up. Craig Oliver claims that Haydee told him his father refused to have anything to do with faking her death. I think that’s true, and that initially, he refused.

“Did Haydee jump in the river in a fit of despair? Maybe. Justine is the only one who knows, and she’s not talking. Did Creighton Oliver throw her in? I doubt it. She was pregnant with his child. My personal guess is that she slipped and fell. And the fisherman pulled her out.

“At the hospital she must have demanded to see Alexander Bulloch senior, and most important, Alex’s mother, Consuelo. I think she told them the price of her leaving her son alone was to help fake her death. Haydee took it from there. She’s nothing if not resourceful.

“I don’t think the Bullochs were involved in the murder of Charis Jefferson. I think Haydee came up with that on her own, although they were certainly complicit in the disposal of the body. She appeared at young Alex’s bedside, having provided a handy corpse, and Alex did what she asked. Whether he knew he was burning the body of an innocent victim or not, the whole affair tipped him into a breakdown.”

“My Lord,” EB said. “That poor Charis. How did Haydee get to her?”

“Haydee had a pretty decent setup. The Bullochs were well connected then. Their family physician was part owner of a funeral home. The physician, Dr. Warren, signed a death certificate, and there’s hospital documents that show a body was transported to the funeral home the afternoon of July 3. Haydee agreed to turn the child she was carrying over to the Olivers after the baby was born, so Creighton Oliver ended up participating in a cover-up after all. Anyhow, Haydee had cash, and Haydee had a bus ticket. All she needed was a body to bury. She had a candidate—the one person who could have blown the whole story apart.

“I think once she had the Bullochs and Oliver on board, she called her best friend at the Tropicana Tide, Charis Jefferson, who had seen the white Buick pick up Haydee after the altercation with Norris. Haydee asked Charis to pack up her things for her and bring them to the funeral home.

“Craig Oliver says his mother planned to leave town on a bus to go north at this point, with money from Creighton Oliver. My guess is that she had a bunch of cash from the Bullochs, too. I don’t have admissible proof that all this occurred, but we have supporting documents. Where it gets tricky is in the area of what happened next. Haydee knows. But Haydee isn’t talking. I think Charis either asked Haydee for money or threatened to blow the whole thing apart. I’m as sure as anything that Haydee killed her, left her body in the funeral home, and showed up at Alexander Bulloch’s bedside. I think she told him to burn the body. I also think she told him the baby was his, and that if he did this for her, they could run away together as they planned. So Alexander burned the body, Haydee skipped town without him, and the poor guy ended up spending a couple of years in what was euphemistically called a rest home.”

“The police can’t prove any of this?” Antonia demanded.

“They can probably prove everything up to who’s responsible for Charis’s murder,” Bree said. “Haydee’s lived too long and is too smart to confess to it now. But I’ll tell you one thing: I’ll go to my grave convinced that Haydee killed her. Haydee’s medical records from the hospital and the autopsy report on Charis’s body show nearly identical wound patterns. Who is most likely to have replicated that but Haydee herself?”

Antonia ran her hands through her hair again. It was beginning to look like a bird’s nest. “Yeah, but Bree, was the autopsy report faked, too? You said Charis Jefferson was African-American. Haydee Quinn was white.”

“Wouldn’t have occurred to a coroner back then that a black woman and a white woman look the same inside,” EB said. “Body was burned pretty good, from what they said.”