Caught Dead (21 page)

“So how does it work?” Liz asked.

“Investors provide the capital, Larry coordinates it, works with AsiaConcepts so that China manufacturers become partners with hundreds of small U.S. investors.”

“How does Larry make money?”

“Like an agent's fee. He takes a percentage off the top, and the rest goes to AsiaConcepts with it international connections via trash dumping. Real clever. There are other subsidiaries in the mix from AsiaConcepts—pharmaceuticals, for one. But Larry was the natural to lead the car deal. He stands to make a fortune.”

“He's already making money from it.”

“Nothing like what he might make down the road.”

“But how does Danny fit into all this?” I asked.

“On the books he's just the banker. Larry's Motorworks, licensed, does the nuts and bolts, handling the invested capital. The money is deposited in a designated Bank of America account. Danny oversees it.”

“Okay,” I said, “that sounds legit.”

“Well,” Jimmy continued, grinning, “that's where the detective part of me comes into play. You see, I did some research on AsiaAuto and AsiaConcepts, and it's a company owned by a young guy named Jack Williamson, whose cousin, by the way, is the NASCAR great that bought lunch in a crash five years back. Anyway, young Williamson, another rich pretty boy, was Danny's roommate at Harvard. I guess his daddy set him up.”

“So you're saying…”

“I'm guessing that Danny brought Larry into AsiaAuto because they needed a credible automobile man, and Danny probably gets a little bit of the cut off the top.”

“The one thousand smackeroos appearing in his savings account,” I concluded.

“Like a finder's fee,” Jimmy said,

I was nodding. “So everyone makes out. Danny and Larry helping each other out. Even if it's illegal. Maybe. I mean, Danny's not a licensed broker, right?”

“Probably not illegal, as it turns out. Business expense. Maybe a little unethical, Danny being the banker and all. But Larry can handle his profits any way he wants—feed money to Danny.”

“Okay,” I added, “maybe not illegal, but maybe a gray area.”

Jimmy smiled broadly. “Shady dealings.”

“I wonder,” I said.

“But it's like a good father-and-son team,” Hank said.

“You laugh.” Jimmy made a harrumph sound. “Everybody in the world is getting rich but us.” He narrowed his eyes. “Larry is raking it in. There is so much money here, I believe Danny has to be making more than the occasional thousand here and there.”

“You think he's stashing it in a hidden account?”

“Gotta be the case,” Jimmy said. “He'd know how to do that.”

“Why would he do it?”

“It's
his
baby, in some way. Larry's already rich, and getting richer. Danny's got to be demanding a bigger chunk of the pie.”

“But would he risk it?”

“The operation is
legit
,” Jimmy insisted. “Who the hell pays attention to ethics these days?”

At that moment the check was placed on the table, and Jimmy reached for it. “Holy shit,” he bellowed. “For lunch? Thank God Rick's paying.”

I waved a credit card. “Someday, Jimmy, you might quality for one of these.”

“Then I might have to pay for lunch.”

***

I was intrigued by AsiaAuto Investments.

Something was bothering me, but I didn't know what. I ran through the morning talk with Jon and through the rambling conversation at lunch. Nothing. I was thinking about our tossing around the words
illegal
and
unethical
to characterize the “alleged” skimming of profits into Danny's bank account. And a secret bank account? Probably. So what? I thought. It
was
his baby. That was business as usual. Danny initiated the deal. His Harvard buddy's company.

Restless, I hopped in my car, as I always did when the ideas in my head sifted and whirled out of control. I drove through hot sticky streets. I ended up in East Hartford, pulling into the driveway of Hank's house. When you're lost, you go looking for family. Hank, I knew, had a date with a girl he'd met at, of all places, a CVS Pharmacy. They were going to get burgers and ice cream at Shady Glen in Manchester, a little mooncalf wooing over cheeseburgers. I had hoped he'd be back early, but his car wasn't parked in front.

Nobody was home but Grandma, my favorite, and Grandpa, leader of the opposition forces. Luckily Grandpa spotted me at the door, belched loudly, and disappeared with a can of Budweiser and a TV guide. Grandma, patting me on the wrist, made me sit down at the kitchen table.

“Hank's not home.”

“I know. He met a new girl.”

She clicked her tongue. “Last week a girl from North Vietnam, and his father loses his mind. This week a different girl. But how can American boys meet girls at a place where you fill your prescriptions and buy shampoo? We want to send him back to Vietnam to meet the daughter of old friends.”

I smiled. “What does Hank say about that?”

She smiled back at me. “You know the answer to that.”

I could imagine Hank's face when he heard that news. A mail-order bride who'd do nothing but serve him.

Of course, Grandma insisted on feeding me, whipping up some diced chicken with ginger slices, served over rice.
Ga kho gung
. I hadn't eaten and now, acutely aware of my hunger, I attacked the food.

“You need a wife to feed you,” she told me gently.

“Maybe you should send me back to Vietnam to find a bride.”

But it wasn't proper for me to say those words to her, so she didn't laugh. A
bui doi
like me, with my white American blood, would not be considered a worthy husband for any pureblood Vietnamese girl. Now, as much as Grandma loved and doted on me, she understood that, in a faraway world that she no longer approved of, I was mongrel, unfit.

“It's weeks now since Molly died,” she began, sitting across from me. “And Mary died. The end of the beautiful Le sisters.”

I got melancholy. “God, I haven't thought of that phrase for a while. The beautiful Le sisters.”

“And they were beautiful. They died beautiful. They would have been beautiful old women.”

“Like you,” I said without thinking, and she shook her head.

“You flatter me when you don't have to.”

I nodded, a little embarrassed.

“Hank fills me in on what's happening. The talks with family, this conversation and that. I never knew—nor wanted to know—the angers and jealousies these four children have toward each other.” She sighed. “American children lose balance.” She searched for words. “
Binh quan
,” she said finally. “Maybe that is what I mean. Everything evens out.” She looked into my face. “It would be hard for Buddha to visit America.” She smiled. “Americans reject pain. They think they can pay it to go away, not understanding it is
in
us. Suffering is necessary. The First Noble Truth. You know that. It comes from being hungry for the things of this world, and, for some of us, things are all that matter. So, of course, the pain can't go away. Desire, want, grasping to hold onto things that have to change. Nirvana? It's an impossibility.”

“The kids only seem to have this world.”

“And so they have nothing. Families at each other's throats.”

“Maybe it's because their worlds are divided so dramatically between rich and poor.”

She thought for a moment. “Holding onto money lets you hold onto nothing.”

“My partner Jimmy says money is the answer to these murders. To most murders.”

She sighed. “Yes, money is what everyone fights for, but I think there are stronger motives for murder.”

“In this case?”

“In
any
case. Money is concrete. People kill for love—because of an idea. Money may be involved but it's the passion
behind
it—behind everything—that makes someone pick up a knife or a gun.”

Passion, I thought,
ai tinh
. What kind of passion?

“One family here has a lot of money.”

“And the other none. They're both halves of the same coin, as you know. One and the same. And so everyone thinks everything is off balance, out of kilter. But you know as well as I do, Rick, that the extremes of poor and rich are balanced, an awful balance.”

“An unhealthy balance.”

“Not unhealthy. Just what it is. Everything tries to find a balance that's already there. It's that people refuse to see it, this balance. So the money is a thing that some hunger for, others try to hold onto what they have, others want more and more of it. That's all a game. Each of these people looks into a mirror and sees unhappiness.”

“But it can lead to murder.”

“Look beyond the money. What do you see?”

“A love of money.” I was a little too flippant.

“You're right. But that doesn't explain anything here, does it? Otherwise you'd have the answers. We already
know
that these people—rich and poor—love or crave or lack money. But that knowledge hasn't helped you find the murderer.”

“So what are you saying?”

“I'm saying that you're looking at the wrong kind of love. Yes, there is a love of money, and it may have killed the beautiful Le sisters. Somebody was trying to guard some money. Maybe. But
that
love doesn't tell the story.”

“What does?”

“Stop looking at the money. Start asking yourself what other kinds of love are there, love that has nothing to do with money. You identify
that
love, and you will know what happened to Mary and Molly.”

Chapter Thirty-one

Grandma's words got me thinking, and I was up through the night, back and forth to the computer, to my note cards, to my diagrams. My mind raced: love love love. Snatches of popular tunes swirled in my head, an unwelcome hum.
Love makes me do foolish things…love love love…love the one you're with…tell me that you love me…love to love you, baby…baby love
…Madness, all of it. I wanted to call Hank but it was four in the morning. Grandma, “Rick, stop thinking of money.”

But I couldn't stop thinking about money. I couldn't. I was bothered by Danny's possible skimming a thousand here and there, most likely from AsiaAuto transactions. Was that the first crack in the golden bowl these people swam in?

Get away from the money, Grandma said. Impossible. But I did, drawing lists on a piece of paper. Two categories: Money-driven love versus other-driven love. The first list went on and on: Larry, Molly, Danny, even Jon, possibly Benny and Mary. And, at five in the morning, I only had one name in column B. Just one name. One name alone.

At nine o'clock in the morning I made phone calls. First I had to deal with the money side of the ledger. Pulling out an old day runner, I flipped the pages until I found the name I was looking for: Harry Jacobi, an erstwhile buddy of mine at Columbia, later an Assistant DA, and then a short-term commissioner of some sort in the Giuliani administration. We'd kept in touch, mainly less than more, over the years. After his messy divorce from a Broadway actress more famous for a TV commercial about some aloe vera cream than for her histrionics, he disappeared. But we always knew where the other was. I'm not sure why.

I caught him at home, where he now worked. He'd invested in dot-com properties, bailed out just in time, and was now free to do, as he said, “whatever the fuck I want to.” That sounded like him. We chatted for a while, and I told him about the case, and what I needed from him.

He got excited. “I've been so bored. I sit here counting money. This'll give me lots to do. I'll get back to you. Soon.” I thanked him.

Then I called Detective Ardolino, left a message, and he got right back to me. I told him a few of my suspicions, to which he made no comment other than his noncommittal but emphatic grunt—and I backed it up with what Grandma had said. I could almost
hear
his eyebrows rise on the other end. Here I was taking advice from an old Vietnamese woman, who had perhaps twenty words of serviceable English at her command, and now, based on that, I wanted his help.

“Think of it. Stop thinking about the money and think of love. Who in this cast of characters seems to be dealing purely out of love—vain, almost juvenile love maybe, but still love?”

“I don't have an answer.”

I told him the name that had popped into my head as I composed my lists last night: “Kristen Torcelli.”

“The dingbat girl?”

“Everything she, Danny, and the others have said points to one thing—she has a wicked crush on Danny. I think she thinks she's in love with him.”

“That ain't love.”

“Well, it certainly comes close.”

I dunno…”

“And she had something to do with her mother getting lost at the mall.”

“How do you know?”

“I feel it.”

“Asian voodoo?”

I smiled. “Probably.”

He finally conceded I might have a point. But I wanted the two of us to sit down with Kristen, just her alone. Not with Hank, her relative. Not only with me, the friend of the family. But with the authority of a detective, the two of us, not bad cop-good cop to be sure, but enough of a presence to have a real conversation with her. And given her limited intelligence, such iconic authority might do the trick.

“What trick?” Detective Ardolino asked.

“Follow my lead.”

“I can't have a private citizen in on my interrogations, even though you're a PI. A little unorthodox. Got to clear this with superiors.”

“A conversation.”

“A conversation,” he echoed.

By noon Kristen was sitting in a small room at a Hartford police substation. When Ardolino asked if she wanted a lawyer, she blinked a bunch of times, then said, “Why? Am I being arrested?” No, she was told, just questioned. “I didn't do anything. Okay?” Did she want to call her father at his dealership? “Oh, God, no. He'll only yell or something. He
can't
know I'm here.”

So she sat in the conference room, ill at ease but oddly happy, smiling her thanks for the diet Coke someone brought her. Dressed in shorts, sandals, and a pink lipstick that matched her nails and the necklace she wore, she looked ready to join friends at the beach. Which, in fact, she was.

“Is this gonna take long? I'm gonna be late.”

“Kristen,” I spoke into her smiling face, “we wanted to talk privately with you because we need to get some answers from you.”

“Sure. Go ahead.”

“Is it possible Danny killed your mother?” I threw the line out so fast she actually sputtered and spat out soda.

“Are you crazy?” She looked from me to Ardolino. “Is this a joke?”

“I'm just asking.”

Ardolino added, “Your mother didn't like him.”

She got serious, and for a second I saw panic in her eyes. “Danny wouldn't hurt a fly. Okay, Mom didn't care for him…”

“Why?” I asked.

She got quiet, looked away. “It goes back a long way. I don't know.”

“Back to prep school and Tommy and the drug arrest?”

She blurted out, “Yeah, that, too.”

“What else?” Ardolino asked.

“She didn't like him.”

“You said that,” I stressed. “Why?”

She half-rose from her chair. She looked toward the door as though she wanted to flee. “I don't know where you're going with this murder crap. Danny is loving and sweet….”

“You love him, don't you?” I rushed my words.

Tears started in the corners of her eyes. Makeup caked, got blotchy. She dabbed at her eyelids. “He loves me.”

“You're a couple?”

“We sort of are.” She was smiling.

“Sort of?” From Ardolino.

“Well, it's a secret, so far. No one knows. Danny said we gotta keep it under wraps. For now.”

“Why?”

“Mom would have
killed
me. Even my Dad.”

“Your father loves Danny.”

“But he doesn't want me to date him.”

“He's told you that?”

“Years ago.” She sighed. “Well, you know, Danny used to be sort of a player. Liked to, you know,
brag
about girls. He used to brag about girls to Dad—to impress him. Well, Dad gave
me
a lecture about Danny and sex. That was years ago. I promised never never never to go out with him
that way
. You know. Danny, he said, was—he called him a cad. Said he'd only bring a girl misery and unhappiness. He'd use me, Dad said.”

“But back in school you did sleep with him?”

She blushed. “God no! Danny was too afraid of Daddy then. Daddy was paying for school.”

“But what happened?”

A smile, oddly beatific, flashed across her face. “You know, after a while it never was a thing to think about. You know. Then last year, Danny gave me a ride somewhere, and then I'm at his apartment in Hartford somewhere where he hangs out, I guess, and we made love.” She closed her eyes a second. “It feels funny talking about it.”

“Why?”

“It's a secret. Danny said it's
our
secret.”

“So you see him a lot?”

“Now and then. He'd like to take me to the movies and dinner, like a real date, but, you know, we
can't
.”

“So you just put out for him?” Ardolino threw out bluntly.

“Put out?” She looked ready to cry.

“Yours is mainly a sexual relationship?” I softened my tone.

“No, we love each other. He's the man I want to marry.”

“How are you gonna marry the dude,” Ardolino said, “if he can't take you out in public? You're forgetting your father.”

“Once Danny is solid at the bank and has tons of money, then we'll tell Dad he wants to marry me. He'll
want
to settle
down
.” She emphasized the words.

“He told you this?”

“Yes.”

“He loves you.”

“Yes.” But the second
yes
was tentative, a little uncertain. She looked around, confused. “He wouldn't lie to me.”

I looked at Ardolino. He was shaking his head. I could read his mind: lowlife Danny using this sad girl.

“Wasn't Danny afraid you'd get caught?”

She frowned. “My mother started to suspect, I think. She made remarks. Mom, you know, was afraid of him. She told me Danny has this mean streak. She said she'd seen it, but I never did. I didn't believe her. Look at him—Harvard, model looks, killer body”—She stopped. “He loves me, that's all.” She stated it as a fact.

“Did your mother say anything to your father?”

“I think she said something but Dad never listens. It was because she found a joint in my room.”

“From Danny?”

“Yeah, we smoked. He likes to smoke when we, you know, do it. Says it brings him—joy. He gets crazy, like. But I took the joint from him even though he told me never never never smoke without him. I took it from his case. I hid it. She went snooping. I don't know
why
I took it.”

“But you're not telling us something, Kristen. Because of that one joint, your mother searched your room, no? She found an envelope of…”

She held up her hand, her face flushed. “Oh God, you know
that
? Mom yelled at me. I made her promise not to tell Dad. I said it was a mistake. I was holding the stuff for someone. I begged her. Dad would kill me.”

“Did Jon know?”

“Know what?”

“That you had that stash?”

“I think Mom told him. She told him everything. He'd never say a word. Mom couldn't stop crying.”

“She blamed Danny?”

She nodded.

Ardolino jumped in. “So tell me, Kristen, if Danny suspected your mom of causing trouble, maybe he killed her.”

She spoke through her teeth. “I told you. You don't kill someone over
this
. A few joints—not crack or something.” A weak smile. “Danny warned me over and over not to do it, but…” She shrugged. “Tempting.”

“What happened the night your Aunt Mary got killed?” I asked.

“I can't remember.” Her voice got belligerent. “I don't know.”

“Your mother went out on an errand,” I reminded her. “She had a note. She went to the mall. She was supposed to pick you up somewhere. She got confused—or lost. She went to the wrong place. What's that all about?”

Kristen fidgeted, bit her lower lip. “I didn't do anything wrong.”

“You wrote that note, Kristen. Right?”

“I don't think…”

“Why would you leave that note?”

“You left that note, right?” From Ardolino.

She nodded, sucked in her breath. “I guess so.”

“What did it say?” Ardolino asked.

“Well, I said a friend was dropping me off at West Farms Mall, and I didn't have a ride home—my car was in the garage—and could she pick me up in front of Ruby Tuesday's. I told her to call me. Let me know. She left a message on my cell phone and said she would.”

“You didn't talk to her?”

“No, I let my machine pick up.”

“Why?”

She didn't answer, just shrugged her shoulders. “I didn't want to talk to her, I guess. I don't know. I was busy, maybe.”

“But she didn't meet you,” I said. “When she got home, she told Jon she must have missed you.”

“I got a ride home later and she went apeshit. Wasting her time and crap like that. I must have forgot that I wrote Ruby Tuesday's. I don't know. Then we learned that Mary was dead and she had other things to worry about. She left me alone.”

“So you're saying it was a simple mistake?” Ardolino asked.

She nodded. “Mom got it all wrong, I guess.”

I'd had enough. “Kristen,” I demanded, “tell me the truth. You were never even near the mall. You were with Danny.”

“I…why…”

“We can ask him, you know,” Ardolino said.

“He'll say no,” she said, a little smugly.

“We can find out, you know.”

She got flushed. “Why else would I leave that note? I needed a ride.” Her voice was tinny, scared.

“Answer me this, Kristen,” I went on. “Why did Danny call your Aunt Mary at her home the night she died?”

“Did he?”

“The phone records show he called Tommy's apartment, the store, then Mary's home. Tommy wasn't there. He talked to Mary. They talked for ten minutes.”

She started scratching her elbows. She looked toward the door. “I don't know.”

“What don't you know?” Ardolino asked.

“Danny didn't call her. He—I think he was with me—at the mall.”

“Then why did you need a ride?”

“He had to leave, I think. I…I…”

I leaned into her: “Isn't it possible Danny called, not to talk to Tommy, but to reach Mary herself. To get her to leave and go into Hartford?”

“But why?”

“You tell me.”

“Danny couldn't get Aunt Mary to do that. Why would she listen to him? My mom poisoned the way she looked at Danny…”

I leaned in closer. “That's right, Kristen,” I said. “Mary would never leave her home to go there. That's preposterous.”

“See…I…”

“But she might if
you
were the one making the call from Danny's phone.”

She sat there, rigid. Her face trembled, one hand searching for the other, then both hands touching her face. We waited. And waited.