Murder Can Ruin Your Looks (40 page)

‘‘but that’s as much as I know.’’

‘‘I don’t imagine you’d have any idea when she’s due home.’’

Another gleeful cackle. ‘‘Wrong again,’’ the little man announced. ‘‘Super says she’ll be comin’ home next Mon

day—the twenty-third—if all’s well. That’s the day before my wife’s birthday, may she rest in peace. She woulda been seventy-seven.’’

‘‘Well, ummm, thank you very much, sir,’’ I said, already moving away from the door. ‘‘I’ll get in touch with her then.’’

‘‘Leo,’’ he said, stopping me in my tracks. ‘‘Name’s Leo. What’s yours, little girl?’’

‘‘Mary,’’ I told him for no reason I can think of.

‘‘Say, you got a husband, Mary?’’

‘‘I’m a widow.’’

‘‘Listen, you like steak?’’ He didn’t bother waiting for an answer. ‘‘My son—he’s a butcher, see?—he brings me the best tenderloin you ever ate in your life. It’s even worth puttin’ in my damn dentures for;
that’s
how good it is. You come up here one night, and I’ll fix you a dinner’ll bring tears to your eyes.’’

‘‘I can’t tell you how tempting that sounds, Leo. Only I’m afraid I just wouldn’t be able to trust myself with you.’’

Moments later, when I was getting into the elevator, I could still hear Leo’s merry cackle reverberating through the hall.

Chapter 40

‘‘We nailed the bastard,’’ the message from Fielding read.

‘‘All
right
!’’ I exclaimed.

‘‘Does that mean what I think it does?’’ Jackie asked, catching some of my excitement.

‘‘You bet.’’ I was grinning from ear to ear.

She jumped up from the chair and ran around her desk to give me a congratulatory hug. Like Ellen, Jackie turned out to be a hearty hugger. And since she’s a pretty fairsized woman, my nose ended up smashed against her shoul

der somewhere, so I had a little trouble breathing. ‘‘I want to hear all about everything!’’ she informed me when she was (mercifully) done with displaying her enthusiasm.

‘‘You will,’’ I promised. ‘‘Just let me make a few phone calls.’’

I left Jackie and hurried down the hall, shrugging out of my coat along the way. As soon as I walked into my office, I dialed Fielding.

He was exuberant. ‘‘It’s the same thirty-eight that was used on the twins, and it’s got Foster’s prints all over it!’’

‘‘Hallelujah! Has he been arraigned yet?’’

‘‘He certainly has. And he’s being held without bail.’’

I was so hyped up by these latest developments, I couldn’t wait to share them with Peter’s machine, which took things in stride. After that, I phoned Ellen at Macy’s, and she, of course, squealed in all the right places. When I finally managed to calm down a little, I tried R. Schmidt, Charlotte Bromley’s super. He was home now—

and barely civil.

After quickly explaining who I was, I said how much I’d appreciate it if he could supply me with Bromley’s Paris address.

‘‘Listen, the police were here about the same thing yes

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terday. And I’ll tell you what I tole them: I don’t have no idea
where
she’s stayin’.’’

‘‘Wait!’’ I put in, just as he was—I know—about to hang

up. ‘‘How did you hear she was operated on?’’

‘‘This friend a hers who dropped off the rent for her a coupla weeks ago—four days late, a course—tole me about

it. Not that it’s any a your business.’’ I was primed to ask another question, but R. Schmidt anticipated it. ‘‘And I don’t know who this here friend is, how to get in touch with her, or even why I’m spendin’ all this time yakkin’

with you when I got so much work to do.’’

It was a little before five that afternoon when another piece of the puzzle fell into place.

I’d just been to the ladies’ room prior to leaving for home, and when I got back to my desk, the message was sitting there. All that was written on it were the name Helen Ward and a phone number. For a minute or so, I drew a blank. Then I remembered: This was the girl Claire Josephs had suggested I get in touch with—that actress friend of Meredith’s who’d been off shooting a movie in some jungle. I returned the call right away.

Helen Ward sounded very bright. And very concerned. She explained that she’d arrived home from Africa that day, and her roommate told her how anxious I was to talk to her. Ward, it seems, was every bit as anxious to talk to me. She’d just heard about the shootings, and she wanted to know how the survivor was and whether she’d been identified yet. I said the victim seemed to be improving but that so far we hadn’t made any headway in establishing who she was.

‘‘Well, I’m relieved that she’s doing all right. My room

mate saved yesterday’s paper for me, but it didn’t say too much about her condition.’’

‘‘Yesterday’s paper?’’ I hadn’t looked at a newspaper in days.

‘‘The
Post
had the story about the police picking Eric up at the airport Sunday night. I’m not surprised, you know—

about Eric.’’

‘‘You’re not?’’

‘‘Not after what he pulled on Meredith’s husband.’’

‘‘Oh, you mean trying to buy him off.’’

‘‘Who told you
that
?’’ Ward scoffed. ‘‘It was just the

MURDER
CAN
RUIN
YOUR
LOOKS

243

opposite. Eric was after Gene, Meredith’s husband—al

though he wasn’t her husband at the time—to pay
him
off. Blackmail. Eric told Gene that if he didn’t come across with twenty thousand pounds, he’d see to it he never married his sister.’’

I was completely thrown. ‘‘Are you
positive
?’’

‘‘Absolutely. Eric had some kind of connections with the

police, and he found out Gene had been arrested for drug trafficking years back. Well, when Gene refused to fork over the money, Eric went ahead and tattled to the Fos

ters—which is what he’d been threatening to do—and the parents put Meredith under a lot of pressure to break off with the guy. It was really a terrible time for Meredith. Things were never the same between her and her parents after that, either. And then, of course, they died.’’

‘‘That Eric is some piece of work, isn’t he? You heard all this from Meredith herself?’’

‘‘That’s right. It’s not something she’d normally talk about, I’m sure, but one night I was crying to her about all this trouble I was having with my sister, who’s the bitch of the Western world. Well, Meredith started commiserating with me about how awful it is when a sister or brother lets you down like that, and then she just opened up to me about Eric. I guess, in a way, my problems gave her an excuse for getting it off her chest.’’

Thanks to Helen Ward, things had suddenly become a lot clearer to me. I could certainly understand now why, even after all this time, Meredith would have nothing to do with her brother. But it
did
make me wonder about Mary Ann. After all, she’d given everyone—including her own fiance´—Eric’s version of things.

It was almost as though Ward had been reading my thoughts. ‘‘From what Meredith told me,’’ she said, ‘‘Mary Ann always refused to believe—on a conscious level, at any rate—that Eric could do anything like that. At first she tried convincing Meredith that Gene had lied to her about the blackmail, that drug addicts
always
lie. Then, after a while, she started insisting that it must have been some kind of misunderstanding, and she’d talk about how Eric was their only brother and how Meredith should at least let him have a chance to explain.

‘‘But Meredith always felt that, deep down, Mary Ann
had
to realize there was no reason for Gene to make up a

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story like that. And besides, Eric’s demanding money wasn’t exactly out of character for him. When Meredith and Mary Ann were growing up, he used to hit their parents up for loans all the time. Loans that, of course, he never paid back. She—Meredith—was worried about how traumatized

Mary Ann would be when one day she was forced to admit

to herself what her brother was really like.’’

‘‘Talk about misplaced loyalty, huh?’’ I remarked then.

‘‘You said it. But tell me, what made him try to kill them, anyway?’’

‘‘It’s sort of complicated, but he stood to come into a pretty nice inheritance if both his sisters died.’’

‘‘
Naturally
it would be money. The man’s a compulsive gambler—the horses, I think. Also, he’s been living with some woman who has very expensive tastes.’’

This girl was full of information! It occurred to me at this point that there might be one more little piece where the rest had come from. I crossed my fingers. ‘‘Did you, by any chance, ever notice Meredith wearing a ring of some sort?’’

‘‘Uh-uh. Not that I can recall.’’

Well, I couldn’t expect her to clear up
everything
for me, could I? Uncrossing my fingers, I thanked her for all her help.

‘‘Shakira—my roommate—thought you’d probably want

to see me.’’

‘‘It won’t be necessary,’’ I responded, thanking her again.

‘‘You’ve already answered more questions than I’d ever have thought to ask.’’

Chapter 41

On the way home that night, I got to thinking about Mere

dith and Mary Ann—about everything, really. And all at once it dawned on me where the rest of Meredith’s millions might be!

It was something that should have occurred to me long before, of course. And I tried to take some consolation from the fact that Fielding had been just as big a blockhead as I was. But it didn’t help much.

Well, anyway, we were getting together tomorrow for that lunch he’d been promising me. I’d talk to him about my idea then.

Knowing that I love French food, Fielding had picked out this lovely—and quite pricey—French restaurant not far from my office. We’d both heard wonderful things about the place, and I was looking forward to a very special meal. Which, I guess you could say, is just what I got. For starters, Tim ordered a bottle of cabernet sauvignon, and as soon as the waiter poured the wine and we made a little toast to ourselves, he leaned across the table. ‘‘I have some news for you, Dez.’’

‘‘Good or bad?’’

‘‘I’d call it ‘interesting.’ I’ve been saving it for when I saw you.’’

‘‘I have something to tell you, too,’’ I informed him.

‘‘Ladies first,’’ he said with mock gallantry.

‘‘Oh, no, after you; you’re older.’’

‘‘That’s debatable,’’ Fielding retorted. ‘‘But okay, I just thought you’d like to know that we’ve located Meredith’s assets.’’

Well,
how
do
you
like
that!
I took a very large gulp of wine. ‘‘Where?’’

‘‘Of course, we were pretty slow-witted about this, I

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admit,’’ he digressed—and I could tell that he was going to milk this thing for all it was worth. ‘‘And by the way, when I say ‘we,’ Shapiro, you can feel free to include yourself.’’

A protracted break in this little monologue to allow me to fully appreciate my own failings. ‘‘But anyway,’’ he finally went on, ‘‘as soon as we found out Meredith was the only one with an inheritance, we started approaching the prob

lem differently—concentrating on where
she
might have put the money instead of where
they
might have put it. Under

stand?’’ He sat back in his chair then, a smile on his face, and looked at me expectantly.

‘‘I understand,’’ I responded impatiently. ‘‘Go ahead.’’

‘‘Garibaldi!’’
he proclaimed. ‘‘Meredith’s
married
name was
Garibaldi
.’’

So I’d been right! Slow-witted—as Fielding had been kind enough to point out—but right. I could take at least a little satisfaction from that. ‘‘Everything was in Mere

dith’s name alone?’’ I asked.

‘‘Yup. More than two million dollars worth, in fact. Be

sides the condo, the only thing in both women’s names was that checking account we came across earlier. Only, on that, Meredith used the name Foster like her sister—to keep things simpler, maybe.’’

‘‘Congratulations, Tim. That was good work,’’ I said graciously.

‘‘What’s important, though, is that we found the will,’’

Fielding continued hurriedly, looking ill at ease. (He takes a lot better to insults than he does to compliments.) ‘‘That should help in prosecuting the slimeball.’’

‘‘The will was made out under Garibaldi, too?’’

‘‘It was. And you were on the money—the woman used Leibowitz, Leibowitz and O’Donnell, just like you said. We ran into a little problem at first, though. She saw some pain-in-the-ass kid over there, and the pompous young jerk refused to talk to us. All we wanted him to do, for chris