Shallow Graves - Jeremiah Healy (21 page)

"You're kidding?"

"Wish I were. I could never understand how that
didn't come out more when they were going after old Borkie."

I wanted to get Shinkawa back on track. "So you
told Mau Tim about your parents' situation back then?"

"Oh, yeah. Yeah, that and all kinds of other
things. The kid was a sponge for it, asking me if I'd ever been to
Hawaii or any other areas where Asian-Americans were like a
majority."

"And?"

"And I had to tell her, 'Mau, after the war, my
folks moved to the Midwest. I was born and brought up in Madison,
Wisconsin, you know? All of this stuff is just history to me.' "

"She have any enemies you know of?"

"Enemies?" Shinkawa lost his smile
altogether for the first time. "Why ask me that?"

"You were there that night."

"At her apartment, you mean?"

"Yes."

"Sure, but she was killed by some burglar who
probably needed money for drugs and panicked."

"Even so, you mind going over things for me?"

"No." Shinkawa revived part of the smile.
"No, I suppose not."

"The party was for her birthday?"

"Right."

"You know who was invited?"

"Well, originally it was just going to be Mau,
Sinead, Oz Puriefoy — you know who he is?"

"Yes."

"
Okay. And Quinn Cotter."

Sinead Fagan had mentioned him. "He's a model,
too?"

"Right. Pretty popular in the sports lines. You
saw him, you'd know him. Here . . ." Shinkawa opened a file
drawer and rummaged around. "This is his comp."

Shinkawa handed me a black-and-white composite card
of a tall, broad-shouldered blond in his twenties with a cleft chin,
plastered hair, and vapid eyes listed as blue on the back. The photos
showed him in a martial arts uniform with boards to split, swim
trunks with surfboard to ride, and cross-training gear with ten-speed
bike to pedal. He looked like the kind of guy who'd enjoy bungee
jumping.

I handed the card back to Shinkawa. "Why didn't
Cotter come to the party?"

"It's a little involved. I had an out-of-town
meeting, so originally I wasn't going to be able to make the party.
Then the meeting canceled, and Quinn bowed out of the party."

"Why did he bow out?"

"Because I was boffing the girl of his dreams,
John."

I stopped. "Cotter was interested in Mau Tim?"

"And how. Tried to wangle a shoot with her
through Erica, but his look and hers really clashed, you know?"

Not in a way I could appreciate. "So Cotter saw
you as a rival?"

Shinkawa started a laugh that turned into a giggle.
"No, he saw me as the guy she was more interested in. Mau
thought Quinn was kind of a pea-brain, but I think that Sinead felt a
little sorry for him."

"Because of him losing out on Mau to you."

"And also because another model got picked over
him to work on a big running-clothes campaign we're doing this
spring."

"
You have anything to do with that decision?"

The big grin. "Everything. I think Quinn's kind
of a pea-brain, too."

"
You know how I could reach him?"

"Through the agency — wait, I might have . .
." Shinkawa went back to the drawer. "Here. This is the
number and address Quinn gave me a couple of weeks ago."

"When he thought he was still in the running for
the running-clothes campaign."

Just the smile.

The address was on Fisher Hill in Brookline, reading
like a single-family home, not an apartment or condo. "Pretty
spiffy."

"I think the guy house-sits. Good gig for a
model."

"Can we get back to that Friday?"

"That . . . Oh, right. What else?"

"You decided you were going to the party when?"

"Maybe eleven that morning."

"
You call somebody?"

"I left a message for Mau with Sinead. I guess
that's how Quinn knew not to show."

"Sinead calling him."

"Yeah. But I don't really know that."

I said, "You talk with Mau Tim at all that day?"

"No. She'd usually be on a shoot for the morning
into the afternoon."

Yulin said otherwise. "You try to call her that
day?"

"No. I was seeing her that night."

"When did you get to the apartment house in the
South End?"

"I stopped home to change after work, get casual
because Sinead was talking about dancing afterward."

"Where's home?"

"Over on Commonwealth. I've got a condo between
Dartmouth and Exeter."

"Go ahead."

"So I got to the building at seven-thirty, give
or take a few minutes. I rang Mau's bell but didn't get any answer,
so I figured she was already downstairs at Sinead's and tried there."

"You didn't have a key to the front door of the
building?"

"No. Most of the time, Mau came over to my
place."

"Okay. What happened after you rang Sinead's
bell?"

"Oz — or Sinead — buzzed me in, and Mau
wasn't there. Sinead was saying she just took a shower."

"Where was Puriefoy?"

"In the kitchen, opening some wine."
Shinkawa looked off. "So, I guess it was Sinead who buzzed me
in." He came back to me, smiling. "Hey, this is kind of
cool, you know?"

"What is?"

"Reconstructing all this. Getting me to remember
things."

Christ. "Then what happened?"

"Let's see. Oh, yeah. Then we talked about
surprising Mau upstairs."

"In her birthday suit."

The laugh into giggle again. "Right, right. A
nice turn of phrase then too, I thought. But Oz wasn't up for it, so
while he did the wine and Sinead was playing with her stereo, I went
upstairs."

"Then what?"

"Well, I knocked on Mau's door — No, no, I
tried her door first, but it was locked."

"Was it usually unlocked?"

"No. No, usually she kept the bolt on but not
the chain."

"Not the chain?"

"Uh-unh. She broke a nail on it twice and
thought it was a pain."

"You have a key to that door?"

I stopped again. "Then how did you think you
were going to surprise her?"

Shinkawa shrugged. "Just thought I might. Party
mood, you know? You don't always think things through."

I said, "So then you knocked."

"Right. I knocked and called out to her, but I
didn't hear anything back."

"Nothing at all?"

"No. No stereo, no footsteps, nothing. Then I
started yelling, and I guess I must have gotten a little scared for
her."

"Why?"

"Why? She wasn't answering me, and Sinead said
Mau had just been in the shower. I thought maybe she slipped and hit
her head or something."

"So you did what?"

"I ran downstairs and got Oz and Sinead. The
three of us went back up and broke down the door."

"Was the chain on?"

"Yeah. Yeah, that's why we had to break it down.
Sinead had a key for Mau's door, but the chain was on from the inside
and Oz and I had to break it down. Or off, I guess. The door was
still on its hinges."

Pretty consistent with Puriefoy's account. "Before
you broke through, could you see or hear anything in the apartment
through the chain space?"

"I didn't hear anything, the stereo and TV were
off. But . . ."

Shinkawa finally showed something beyond cheeriness.
"I could see like her head and a shoulder, on the floor by the
futon. She had a big futon for her couch. When we broke in, we tried
to save her, but it was . . . too late, I guess."

"Once you were in the apartment, did you see or
hear anything?"

"Yeah. I was the first one to her, and I could
hear the fire escape."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you know how a fire escape kind of, I
don't know, ‘clangs' when somebody's on it?"

"Yes."

"I thought I heard that, so I went into the
bedroom and over to the window. But by the time I got there, the guy
was gone."

"Gone?"

"Well, I looked down at the ground, and up and
down the alley, and I couldn't see anybody."

"Do you remember seeing anything around the
bottom of the fire escape?"

"The bottom?"

"Yes. Below where the last flight would come
down."

Shinkawa closed his eyes. "It was dark, but . .
. No. No, I don't think so."

"Maybe trash cans?"

"No. Definitely not. I would have seen those."

"Rake, broom?"

"No. Why?"

"Anything to pull down that last flight?"

Shinkawa shook his head. "Man, the guy was going
down already. Just his weight would carry that last flight to the
ground."

"Okay. You're at the window. Then what?"

"Then I went back, and everybody was yelling at
once around Mau, and she looked awful, John, her face all . . .
contorted, discolored. So Sinead was calling for the EMTs, and I
tried to help Oz work on Mau, but I could see it wasn't going to do
any good. Then I noticed the jewelry."

"The jewelry."

"Yeah. This necklace, I think, or part of one.
Under the couch, kind of by Oz's feet when he kneeled down by Mau."

"But you didn't see Puriefoy do anything with
it."

"No. No, like I said, the thing was just under
the futon a little by his shoes, which were just about up against
it."

"Anything else?"

Shinkawa stopped and adjusted his horn-rims. "I
don't think so. We just waited for the ambulance, which got there
just before the police, who kind of pushed us downstairs, then
brought us back up after they rushed Mau off."

"You recovering all right yourself?"

Shinkawa looked at me, like he didn't quite know how
I'd intended the question. "I take things easy, John, remember?
Besides, I figured Mau and I were about at the end of the line."

"Why?"

"She was going to New York."

"To live?"

"Yes. The party was both birthday and bon
voyage."

"Mau Tim told you that?"

"Not in so many words, but I could tell she'd
been making up her mind the last few weeks."

"How?"

"She was talking about neighborhoods in
Manhattan, asking my advice on modeling agencies down there, did I
know anybody in them."

"And that didn't bother you?"

"Hey, it doesn't matter which agency handles a
girl. I can still have her in my campaigns."

"Professional1y. How about personally?"

"Mau was fun, John. A little deeper than most.
But we weren't in love or anything. Life goes on, you know?"

"You share Mau Tim's decision on New York with
anyone else?"

"No." The smile. "I figured that was
her business, right?"

"Right." I handed him my card. "You
think of anything else, let me know."

"Sure, sure." He stood up. "Can I see
you out?"

"That's okay." We shook. "I'll find my
way."

At the door, I turned back to him. He was watching me
leave rather than lifting a phone or turning to a file.

I said, "One other thing?"

"What is it?"

"You ever had a visit from a guy in a leather
coat, toothpick in his mouth?"

From the look Larry Shinkawa gave me, I was pretty
sure he hadn't.
 
 

-16-

WALKING BACK TO MY CONDO FROM SHINKAWA'S OFFICE I
THOUGHT about calling Quinn Cotter. Since I was having dinner that
night with Nancy, I figured it was just as easy to drive a few miles
out of my way and find Cotter's place even if he wasn't home.
Brookline lies west of Boston's student ghetto. It's a classy town
that boasts tum-of-the-century brownstones, skyscraper condominiums,
and some of the most impressive mini-estates in the metropolitan
area.

I left Route 9 and did some winding up Fisher Hill
itself before finding the address Shinkawa had given me. The street
number was etched into a stone monument, just above an orange and
black sign that said NO TRESPASSING. I let out a low whistle as I
parked the Prelude in the empty semicircular drive of a magnificent
Tudor mansion. A fieldstone first floor and four gingerbread gables
faced me. Professional landscaping, subtle use of fencing, and what
from the second-floor rear windows would have to be a postcard view
of the Chestnut Hill Reservoir a quarter mile below and across the
road.