Naked Cruelty (10 page)

Steaming, Helen MacIntosh went off to Hartford on that same Tuesday, October 1, in time to join Abe, Liam and Tony for breakfast in their motel; this was one case would not permit a commute, Abe announced, which didn't please the owner of a Lamborghini. Perhaps, she thought, speeding up I-91, I shouldn't have called Lieutenant Abe Goldberg ahead of time to ask for tips and a detailed description of what to expect, but how many women will there be? According to Goldberg, just me. He was curt and unforthcoming—I'd find out when I got to Hartford, why waste his time? He treated me like shit, the scrawny little guy—how did he ever make it into the cops at his size? Well, Lieutenant Abraham Goldberg, you are about to find out that no one from the wrong side of the tracks—or the right side!—treats a MacIntosh like shit. I will make your life such a misery that you'll send me back to Holloman, where I can do the job I'm suited to do—catch the Dodo.

Marcia Boyce drove Amanda Warburton home, Frankie and Winston, on their leashes, sitting royally in the back seat of Marcia's Cadillac. Luckily Marcia knew Amanda's pets quite well enough to know that there would be no “accidents” en route.

Amanda and Marcia loved their condominiums, which were on the eighth floor just below the penthouse, and filled it entirely. They had bought off the plans, which had enabled them to custom-design their kitchens and bathrooms, an en suite bathroom for each bedroom, plus a guest toilet in the foyer. What luxury! What vindication!

As if all that were not enough, no sooner was the block of soaring glass up and its occupants moved in than the residents of Busquash, horrified at how it altered the antique patina of their world, fired the town Elders and put an iron-clad ordinance on the books that forbade the erection of anything over two storeys or modern in appearance. As the condos were dream apartments, they zoomed in value at once. What had cost a hundred thousand was now worth a million—and rising.

Marcia fixed a pot of English Breakfast tea and laced it liberally with cognac.

“Who would want to do such an awful thing?” Amanda asked, sipping with care: it was hot.

“Not high school kids,” said Marcia emphatically. “Drink up, honey. That detective must have been a dope.”

“You really don't think it was high school kids?”

“Too malicious in a plotty, planny way, if you get my meaning. Hank Murray told me that nobody else's shop was touched, and that baffled him. Everyone, even the dope of a detective, thinks the bank robber is a different person.” Marcia sipped her aromatic tea with enjoyment. “Face it, honey, Hank and I both think this was personal, aimed at the Glass Teddy Bear and you.”

Her bright eyes surveyed her friend affectionately—such a doll, Amanda! Pretty too, with her streaky blonde hair and her big blue eyes. Why had she never married? Her figure was good, and her legs tolerated the current above-the-knee hemlines better than most women her age. Marcia herself was a childless divorcee in comfortable circumstances, but, she admitted, her chances of a husband to keep her company in old age weren't half as good as Amanda's. Marcia was plain, dark, and distinctly overweight.

“A lot of my pleasure is gone,” Amanda said desolately.

“Huh?”

“The Glass Teddy Bear is all my dreams come true, but after this I feel—oh, I don't know—kind of violated. I sank all my available money into the Busquash Mall business—the shop and the mail orders. After all, I did well in my shop downtown, even though I couldn't display my better lines,” said Amanda. “I leased off the plans at Busquash, and I was right—I've done amazingly well. Now—this! Why my shop? Why me? Some of the Mall antique stores leave my prices for dead.”

Marcia listened, intrigued. Though they had been friends and neighbors since taking up residence in Busquash over two years ago, today was Amanda's first confidence. So she'd had a shop downtown? Where? My own business has been downtown for ten years, but I never remember a glass shop … Yes! In the arcade that ran through to Macy's. Waterford, Stuart, Bohemian, Swedish glass and crystal, wine glasses, tumblers and vases, and a good price for top quality things.

“Do you have family, Amanda?” she asked, emboldened.

For a moment Amanda's face went expressionless, then she smiled and answered, her tongue loosened by the brandy. “Yes. Robert and Gordon, my late brother's boys. They live in San Diego.” She frowned. “Not very satisfactory—they have such delusions of grandeur they remind me of patients in a book on psychiatry I read once.” She visibly shuddered. “And the—the
affectations
! I dislike them.”

“Oh, poor Amanda!” Marcia cried, moved. “It must be lonely for you.” She looked brisk, smiled brilliantly. “Cheer up, my dear. On Friday you and Frankie and Winston are going to return to the Glass Teddy Bear to find it exactly as it was—a crystal cave of beauty and delight.”

At the mention of their names the dog and cat stirred from their vigilant doze, but when the conversation didn't continue about them, they snoozed again. It had been an upsetting day, and the only cure was sleep.

Amanda Warburton smiled, an enormous effort. “I hope you're right,” she said doubtfully. “The smell! The filth!”

Time to introduce another subject. “Hank Murray is smitten with you,” Marcia said.

But that didn't have the desired effect. Instead of going coy or bridling with pleasure, Amanda looked grim. “I hope not,” she said after a pause. “He hardly knows me. You're mistaking kindness for interest, Marcia—at least, I hope so. I'm not searching for a boyfriend, let alone a husband.”

“Then you damned well should be!” Marcia said, astonished. “I wasn't implying love or marriage, Amanda. I just meant that Hank's a nice guy who'd like to know you better. Wouldn't it be fun to have dinner with a good-looking man at Sea Foam instead of with me at the Lobster Pot?”

“No, it wouldn't be fun!” Amanda snapped.

“But—”

“Leave it, Marcia! Just leave it!”

Marcia left it.

***

Expression flinty, Carmine stared at an unrepentant Helen MacIntosh as she sat on the opposite side of the kitchen table he preferred to a desk, with its drawers, knee-holes, modesty panels and nice wood tops. Who could ruin Formica, already?

Her pose was slightly insolent, slewed sideways on the old kitchen chair, legs crossed nonchalantly, one foot flopping up and down in its Ferragamo flattie, both legs on full display because she was in the shortest miniskirt Carmine had ever seen. A mane of hair flowed loose down her back, she was wearing enough make-up to put Delia in the shade, and her décolletage was—low. All told, his years of police training told him, she was flaunting about $3,000 in clothes, for nothing had been bought off the rack.

“What made you decide to join Lieutenant Goldberg in Hartford wearing exactly the kind of apparel I told you was inappropriate?” he asked, a hard edge to his voice.

“With about seventy cops in my immediate vicinity,
sir
, I figured I wouldn't need sensible shoes to chase any fugitives, or worry about what the public thought of my miniskirts,” she said lightly, foot still jiggling.

“You were more than Lieutenant Goldberg's assistant, Miss MacIntosh. You were in Hartford representing the Holloman Police Department, on duty as a trainee detective, the first in a brand new program every police department in the state is watching. I did not send you to Hartford to model for Mary Quant, as you well know. Instead of looking professional and as unobtrusive as possible, you tricked yourself out as if your function in the Holloman PD is to tease cock, if not service it.” Carmine's voice didn't change. “Who were you impressing? Or rather, to whom were you determined to give a wrong impression?”

Her cheeks were red, her mouth tight. “They stared at me like a dummy in a shop window. I knew they would no matter what I wore, so I decided to give them a thrill.”

“And when are you going to learn that being a cop isn't about yourself, Miss MacIntosh? Did you stop to think what his peers and superiors would think of Lieutenant Goldberg, towing a sex kitten as his personal assistant? Under ordinary circumstances, Miss MacIntosh, there's only one reason a forty-year-old man tows a sex kitten as an assistant. If you'd been in Detectives longer, I would have let Lieutenant Goldberg figuratively strip you in front of seventy men, but you and he aren't acquainted yet. After this, you never will be. I hear tell that he simply looked you up and down, and told you to go home to Holloman. With, after you left, an apology on your behalf.” The amber eyes blazed. “What a fool you are, Miss MacIntosh! I handed you an ideal opportunity to get to know the best detective in the division, and you screwed it up because of your own ambition. No wonder the NYPD did nothing with you. How long did it take them to realize that mentally you're on a par with any spoiled fourth grader? You're puerile! Asinine!”

Her hands were trembling, she had swung to sit upright on the chair, and the beautiful face was rigid—with rage or with mortification was impossible to tell.

“Am I to take it that you didn't understand the valid and necessary reasons for wearing sensible clothing on duty? That you have some scrambled feminist idea that I've put you down to feed my own masculine ego?”

“No, Captain, I got the message the first time,” she said, eyes sparkling with unshed tears. “It's for my own safety and protection, I understand that.”

“You will apologize to Lieutenant Goldberg. In writing, and in person.”

“I'll be back there properly clothed in an hour.”

“No, you won't. Lieutenant Goldberg doesn't trust you. You get your wish, Miss MacIntosh, and stay in Holloman. But not with the Dodo. Nick Jefferson will go to Hartford.”

Her skin lost color, she gasped. “Sir, please!”

“No. The subject is closed, and we won't discuss it again.”

“As you wish.” Her shoulders straightened.

“However, I have a question to ask that I didn't when I interviewed you. What drives you to a police career?”

She had risen to her feet. “I avoided that at interview, sir, I know. I'm attracted to the armed services, but the very idea of trying West Point or Annapolis—brr!” She shuddered. “They really are institutions for men, and I'm not a committed enough feminist to buck those two fortresses. Besides, I have a funny feeling that being a cop is a more interesting life. I like working for solutions, I guess.”

“I see.” He stood, a powerful man whose muscular bulk diminished his nearly six feet of height. The face turned to look at his wayward trainee was both broad and angular, its nose imperious and its mouth's natural sensuousness disciplined into firmness. His eyes, as gold as brown, were widely opened and well apart, and had a fearless quality.

Why did I try that stupid stunt? Helen asked herself as she left Captain Delmonico's office. For the same reason, she decided as she climbed the stairs, that a little kid pokes a sleeping tiger with a stick.

***

“Very true,” said Delia, in a frightful combination of acid-yellow and mustard-yellow with bright blue bows. “But in future, dear, do remember that poking a sleeping tiger is bound to see you squashed flat under one paw.”

“Can't I help you with the Dodo?” Helen begged.

“No, dear, I have no desire to be pulp under the tiger's paw. You're with Paul Bachman in forensics for many days to come.” Delia sighed wistfully. “I scraped into Detectives through the back door—a head for plans, lists, paperwork by the ton—and it didn't hurt to be the niece of the Commissioner, whose secretary I was. Before that, I had ten years with the NYPD in documentary fraud and anything else involving paper. But look at you! It really is a splendid program they've worked out for you. Everything we had to pick up on the job, so to speak, you're being properly taught. So don't you let my Uncle John down! If you do, you'll feel the size of my paw.”

“The cleaners did a wonderful job,” said Hank Murray as he emerged from the service elevator with Amanda Warburton on Friday, October 4. “You'll be able to open for the weekend.” He produced his own keys and opened her back door, one of many on a broad service hall.

As they walked inside he sniffed, smiled. “Smell, Miss Warburton. Sweet yet a tad herby—I hope that you don't mind my picking the fragrance on your behalf. You'd never know that there was ever rotting garbage in here, would you?”

“No,” said Amanda, sagging in relief.

“Come on, take a look at the shop,” Hank encouraged as he steered her toward the shimmering curtain of glass beads. Then he stopped, so suddenly that Amanda cannoned into him.

“Dear God!”

She couldn't help herself. Amanda shoved the Mall manager aside and ran into the shop.

Almost every item had been moved to form a gigantic mound where her sole counter had been; it had been pushed, complete with cash register, against the only free wall, where her array of Lalique and Murano picture frames had hung. They too were in the huge heap displaying a corner here, an edge there. But the “yard” for drinking a yard of beer was still in place on the same wall high above, and below it, the entirely ornamental “half yard” of thick, heavy crystal was intact.