SIREN'S TEARS (ALTON RHODE MYSTERIES Book 3) (16 page)

CHAPTER 29 – OBITUARY

The next morning I met Letty Bottomley at her old newspaper office. She’d made a call and one of the new owners met us and let us in and then left. The “morgue” of the weekly
Ocean Falls Gleaner
consisted of several file cabinets of photos and research material, and boxes of old newspapers, all set against a back wall of the unheated and dank basement. A single ceiling light provided barely enough illumination. I was happy to see that the boxes were on palettes and looked dry.

Letty started going through the boxes while I hit the file cabinets, whose rust-stained drawers were labeled alphabetically. In the “M-N-P” drawer I located a thick hanging file labeled “Naulls.” It was full of photos and stories about the Rev. Humphrey Naulls, an obvious publicity hound. I was undoubtedly predisposed to regard him badly, but from looking at his hawk-face in the photos, I had no trouble imagining him as sexual predator.  But there were no photos of his daughter. Since there was the possibility that a photo of her had been misfiled, or was in a file related to the topic of the story about her, I resigned myself to looking through every one of them if I had to. So I was relieved when Letty said, “Got it!”

The paper was dated Monday, January 14, 2002. On Page 3 was a full page story about Dr. Mary Naulls and her scientific work in the rainforests of Colombia. The headline was: “COLUMBIAN GAL GOES NATIVE IN COLOMBIA.”

“Catchy,” I said.

“I guarantee I was away from the office that day,” Letty said with a laugh. “Ben thought he was a genius with headlines. He would never have tried that with me around.”

There wasn’t much copy in the story. It was more like a photo spread.

“Let’s go upstairs,” Letty said, “where there’s some damn light.”

We found a table and lamp, and, blessedly, a magnifying glass for the faded, yellowish paper. There were a lot of photos of trees, frogs, huts and naked Indians sitting around a fire eating something with their fingers. There was only one photo of Mary Naulls, standing with a group of hunters carrying blowguns. It was a terrible shot, blurry and taken at too far a distance. My guess was she asked one of the villagers to try his or her luck with the camera. It was a miracle it came out as well as it did. But the only way you could be sure it was Mary Naulls was because everyone else was brown and only came up to her chest. She was wearing a floppy hat, the brim of which further obscured her features.

“Let me have that magnifying glass.”

Blown up, I could see that she was skinny and pretty, but that was all. The photo, at least 10 years old, was basically useless for identification purposes. Letty took the glass from me.

“Doesn’t even look like the girl I remember,” she said. “She lost a lot of weight.”

“I guess I’ll have to go through all the filing cabinets,” I said. “There may be photos misfiled, or labeled differently.”

“That will take hours. We’d better start right away. I’ll see if I can round up some flashlights or a floor lamp.”

“I appreciate the help, Letty, but I hate to take up so much of your time.”

“Nonsense, it will be fun. I feel like a journalist again. I’ll call up the tavern and have Katie send over coffee.”

I called Buzz the pilot, who said he was having a fine time and wasn’t in any hurry.

***

“I don’t think I have ever seen so many moose, halibut and bear photos in my life,” I said three hours later. We were sitting at a small wooden table the shop owners had set up for us. “And not one damn photo of Mary Naulls.”

“I guess my filing system left something to be desired,” Letty said, apologetically.

“Hey, it was a long shot, anyway. If we found a picture, it wouldn’t have been much better than the one in the paper. Come on, let’s put this stuff away and I’ll buy you lunch at Captain Paul’s.”

“It’s Sunday. Katie calls it brunch. Same menu, though.”

While Katie Paul was broiling our salmon, Letty and I licked our wounds with the help of some Iceberg vodka.

“It’s from Newfoundland,” Letty explained. “Supposed to be the purest. Made from water melted from icebergs.”

“Well, we’ll have to drink some more, before global warming limits the supply.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“Go home, I guess. I don’t plan on interviewing a bunch of headhunters in South America.”

“You don’t seem to be the type to let things go. Sticks in your craw, I bet.”

“You can’t imagine.”

“I’m not too happy myself. No matter what Mary may have become, I liked her. I hope she’s caught, of course, but she needs help. I’m feeling a little guilty about the whole thing.”

Our lunch arrived.

“Doesn’t get any fresher than this,” Katie said as she put down the platters.

I ordered two more drinks.

“What do you feel guilty about, Letty?”

“I was pretty close to Bella. I should have done something. Said something.”

I felt like someone punched me in the solar plexus.

“Bella?”

“Yes. Isabella Naulls. Mary’s mother. She’s named after her. Mary Isabella Naulls. What’s the matter?”

Katie came back to our table and put down our new drinks. I was already standing up.

“Don’t you like the salmon, Mr. Rhode?”

I ignored her.

“Letty, did you run an obituary of the mother when she died?”

“Of course. I wrote it myself.”

“With a photo?”

“Yes, we usually ran photos when we could.”

“The salmon is getting cold,” Katie said, sounding annoyed.

“I don’t remember a photo file for obits.”

“The photos were usually supplied by the family and we typically returned them.”

“But there would be a story in one of the boxes.”

“Of course.”

“Did Mary look like her mother?”

“Damn! She did. Spitting image. They could have been sisters.”

“Let’s go,” I said. “I have to see that obituary.”

“What about the salmon,” Katie Paul said.

“Keep it warm. And the vodka cold.”

***

It didn’t take long for Letty to find the obituary of Isabella Naulls. She handed me the paper. I just stared at it. The resemblance was remarkable, which was not surprising. Isabella Naulls had died in 1989, when she was only 41, only four years younger than her daughter was now.

“How could I be so goddamn stupid?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Rantox.”

“What the hell is Rantox?”

“The Fountain of Youth. And I took her at her word that she was born on Staten Island. I never even checked.”

“Who?”

“Isabella Donner.”

CHAPTER 30 – UNWELCOME WAGON

Buzz wasn’t happy when I called him and said I had to get back to New York. But he rallied and flew me to Vancouver in time for me to catch a plane east. That was the last break I got. My Air Canada flight was diverted to Saskatoon in Saskatchewan because of mechanical trouble and it was almost 4 AM on Monday when my cab dropped me off at home on Staten Island. I was dead tired. So was the cabbie, so I gave him a huge tip.

When I put my key in the lock to open my front door, it turned too easily. The door was already unlocked. I was a bit groggy and was having trouble remembering if I had left by the front door or the back. I typically go out the back because that’s where I usually park, but I’d taken car service to the airport. Did I leave the door unlocked and the alarm off? Not likely, but possible. Since possible is no reason to get killed, I went to my car, which I had left in the driveway in the front to give the appearance that someone was home. I quietly opened up the trunk, where I keep a spare handgun in a gym bag.

It’s a .25 caliber Beretta, commonly called a “ladies gun,” but it’s not pink, very light and certainly better than nothing. I take it jogging, despite the fact that in a recent case it proved less than adequate against a sniper using a high-powered rifle. But it made a lot of noise and attracted a lot of sirens, which allowed me to jog to safety. Well, maybe I ran.

I pushed open my front door cautiously. That wasn’t hard, it barely budged. Something was blocking it. Accumulated mail? Away longer than anticipated, I had not stopped delivery. Same with the newspapers. When they pile up outside, the neighbors shove them through the mail slot so the house doesn’t look unoccupied. I have good neighbors. In any case, both scenarios argued against someone still being in the house wishing me harm.

I put my shoulder to the door and finally shoved it far enough open to squeeze in. It was pitch dark. I went to switch on a light and I tripped over something big and soft. Something that couldn’t have fit through the mail slot. I found the switch. I looked down.

Judging by the gun in his hand, it was indeed someone who wished me harm.

Past tense.

Sprawled on his back with a surprised look on his face was a very dead man.

***

“As alibis go, you have a pretty good one, Rhode.”

I was sitting in the 120 in St. George talking to a couple of homicide detectives. Four hours had passed since I found the stiff in my vestibule.

“You guys ever going to paint this place,” I said. “The wall flakes have flakes.”

“The M.E. says the guy died when you were allegedly in,” one of the cops said, pausing to look at his notepad, “Saskatoon.”

“No one is ever allegedly in Saskatoon.” I said.

“Where the fuck is that, anyway,” the other detective said.

Their names were Benedetto and Teichmann. I had their cards in my pocket. But I didn’t know who was who. They could have been Frick and Frack for all I cared, I was that tired.

“It’s a city in Saskatchewan,” I said. “Canada.”

“I know it’s in Canada. What were you doing there?”

“I’m a big hockey fan.”

“Do you know what time it is,” the first cop asked. “Stop fucking around.”

“All I know is that I got home around 4 AM. You can check the airlines and the cab company if you don’t believe my receipts. The guy was just lying there. I don’t know who it is. I did notice he had a cannon clutched in his hand, so I’m lucky that he was dead. I’ve lived on the block a long time, so I’m pretty sure he wasn’t with the welcome wagon. You guys know who I am. I try not to murder people in my own house. I have that printed on my business card.”

Paul Vocci from the D.A.’s squad walked in to the interrogation room.

“The stiff’s name is Cesaro Casabianca,” Vocci said. “He’d just made bail over in Bergen County on some sort of stolen jewelry scam he was running with his sister.”

“Rosa,” I said.

They all looked at me. So I told them about the sting.

“Call Tim Condon over in the Bergen County Prosecutor’s office,” I said. “He will want in on this.”

Just then Cormac Levine joined the party, looking rumpled, which was how he looked at all times.

“He did it,” Mac said. “And if he didn’t, he probably did something else. Can I borrow a rubber hose?”

***

“What did the M.E. say killed Cesaro,” I asked.

It was late afternoon and we were sitting in Mike Sullivan’s office. Mike had dropped a lot of weight and looked about 10 years older. Losing a wife you still loved after finding out that she was an ex-hooker and had killed someone will do that to a man. Everyone but him was eating Egg McSomethings and drinking coffee by the gallon. My near-death experience must have counted for something because Vocci bought the food.

“He’s stumped,” Mac said. “The only thing out of line was the zinc, which he only looked for because we told him to. It was elevated. But zinc doesn’t kill, he said.”

“I told you what it’s for.”

“Yeah. But it’s not proof. She must be a fucking genius.”

  “Might have been nice if you let us in on the jewelry thing,” Vocci said. “We could have run the bust here.”

“Sure, Paulie. And the wife of every judge on Staten Island would have to return the bracelets they bought. And then they will have to testify. And, of course, there’s the I.R.S.”

“Shit,” Vocci said. “I didn’t think of that. Good job, Rhode.”

“Perhaps we should get back on point,” Sullivan said quickly. “I’m not sure I want to hear about the other thing.”

“The point is, if my flight wasn’t delayed, when I opened my front door, Cesaro would have aced me in revenge for killing his brother and getting his sister arrested. Instead, when he opened the door, he got a snoot full of frog poison, or something similar, by someone who also wanted me dead.”

“You’re a popular guy,” Mac said. “But why did he open the door.”

“I took cabs to and from the airport. My car was in the driveway. Whoever killed Cesaro probably assumed I was asleep, and was persistent. Maybe Cesaro saw her from the window and figured she was a girlfriend. Killing her would be a bonus.”

“You sound sure it was a woman,” Sullivan said.

“I’m sure it was Isabella Donner. Or, rather, Mary Naulls. It’s what she does. And it’s how she kills. She figured I would eventually figure things out. For Christ sake, she knows I had the priest’s computer and cell phone. I even asked her to sneak it them back into the rectory.”

“That’s something else I just didn’t hear,” Sullivan said.

“Do you guys have enough for a search warrant,” I said.

“We still have no proof. Just a grainy photo from years ago, a lot of coincidences and the tainted evidentiary products of a sacrilegious burglary of a Catholic church.”

“Try a Jewish judge,” Mac said.

Everyone ignored him.

“Maybe I can get hard evidence,” I said.

How,” Vocci asked.

“From her house.”

“Burglary is burglary,” Sullivan said. “Anything you find will be thrown out.”

“I’m not a cop. But I don’t plan on breaking in. I don’t even know if she realizes she killed the wrong man. Even if she does, she will want to see me.”

“To finish the job, maybe,” Mac said.

“I doubt she’d do it in her own house. Besides, now that I know what she’s capable of, I’ll be careful.”

“I don’t like it,” Vocci said.

“Gee, Pauli, I’m touched. I didn’t think you cared.”

“I don’t. But I also don’t want you screwing up a case.”

“A case you can’t make unless I get in that house. And I don’t want a cop within a zip code of the house. This has to be completely unofficial if you want it to stand up in court.”

I went home. If I didn’t get some sleep, no one would have to kill me.

Cesaro had died nicely. There was no mess.

My cell buzzed. It was Isabella.

“Alton, I’ve found out something. Can you come out to my house tomorrow morning? We can have breakfast. There is something you should know.”