The Unraveling of Violeta Bell (11 page)

She pressed her palms on the railing and leaned out. Even from down there I could see her jaw muscles tighten. “I’m Mrs. Salapardi,” she said. “Can I help you?”

Eddie filled her in before I could open my mouth. “That, sis, is Bob Averill’s ace in the hole.”

That changed everything. Suddenly Jeannie was smiling like Glinda the Good Witch, beckoning me to come up with both hands. “Maddy, I’ve been dying to meet you.” She said when I reached the top. “Just dying.”

“Bob told you about me, did he?”

Eddie remained perched on the railing. Jeannie warmly shook my hand with both of hers. “He sure did,” she cooed.

I could tell by the twitches at the tips of her phony baloney smile that he hadn’t mentioned how frumpily unimpressive I was. The only way to counter her correct impression of me—and hide the fact that after two weeks of snooping I hadn’t learned a damn thing that would prove her brother’s innocence—was to get right to business. “So Mr. French, is that old bread truck down there the vehicle you allegedly used to haul those antiques from Violeta Bell’s condominium?”

Eddie splayed his hand across his heart. He pushed an opened pack of Newports to the top of his shirt pocket. He bowed his head low and pulled out a cigarette with his lips. A very cool move. “So say the gendarmes.”

“You do own it, then?”

He struck a stick match on his fingernail and lit his cigarette. Filled his lungs with smoke. Suppressed a cough. “No one owns it that I know. It sort of belongs to the neighborhood. Anybody needs a short haul, there it is. Keys in the ashtray. Hopefully enough liquefied brontosaurus in the tank to get you there and back.”

Knowing Meriwether Square as I did, I knew he could very well be telling the truth. “What about the license plates?”

Smoke rolled out of his nostrils. “That is the metaphysical part of the mystery. New stickers appear every April like tulips through the cold, cold earth.”

I knew he could be telling the truth about that, too. “Exactly where did the police find that blood?”

Eddie pointed to a faint chalk circle on the floor of the deck, about a foot from the welcome mat. I kneeled next to it. Inside the circle was a dark brown blotch. When I got my nose close enough, I could see the faint zigzag of tennis shoe treads. I looked over at Eddie’s feet. He was wearing a spotless pair of white Nikes.

Eddie clicked his toes together. “Brand f-ing new they are,” he said, in an exaggerated British accent. “The bobbies in their ‘aste confiscated all me bloody footwear, they did.”

“And was there actually blood on one of your shoes?” I asked.

“I’m sure you can find all kinds of stuff on anybody’s shoes,” Eddie said. “Life being the untidy juggernaut it is.”

“So, there was blood?”

“So sayeth the men in blue,” said Eddie. “But I sternly cautioned them not to jump to conclusions. That if indeed it proved to be blood, then there was a high probability that said blood did not dribble from the veins or arteries of a bipedal primate.”

I was pretty sure I was following him. “Not human?”

“Eddie’s got a cat,” Jeannie explained.

He corrected her. “It ain’t my cat. Sort of a neighborhood cat. I put out a can of tuna every once in a while. And the grateful beast rewards me with a variety of headless beasts. Rats. Mice. Moles. Rabbits. Right here at my door.”

I studied the stain again. “That’s animal blood, then?”

“I’d be surprised otherwise,” Eddie said.

“Why don’t we go inside and talk,” Jeannie said.

The living room in Eddie’s apartment was exactly what you’d expect. Hot. Stuffy. Darkened by cheap, half-pulled shades. There was a plaid sofa decorated with an Indian blanket. A rocking chair stacked with newspapers. A bookcase crammed full of paperbacks. A sisal rug long overdue for the city’s landfill.

Jeannie offered me the rocker. Eddie dutifully removed the newspapers. They sat on the sofa. He with his cigarette and coffee cup. She with her twitching smile. “Bob seems pretty confident you can find the murderer,” Jeannie said.

“For all I know the murderer is sitting across from me, polluting my lungs with second-hand smoke,” I said, rocking back and forth.

Jeannie was stunned. Her voice jumped two octaves. “I thought you were on board with Eddie’s innocence?”

Eddie was merely amused. The result, I suppose, of being interrogated by the police a time or two. “Chill, darlin’,” he said, patting his sister’s knee. “She’s good-cop-bad-copping me, that’s all. Playing both parts with aplomb.”

With no idea what I should say, or should not say, I blundered straight ahead. “Everybody knows about your gun phobia,” I said. “So there’s no need to get into that. And it’s pretty clear your alibi for the night of the murder isn’t worth a hill of beans. Otherwise you wouldn’t have been arrested.”

Jeannie immediately protested. “He was only arrested for the antiques.”

“Antiques from the condo of a dead woman,” I barked. “Your brother has got to take this thing seriously. We may be only a few days from a murder charge here.”

The guilt of blowing smoke in my face finally got to Eddie, apparently. He smashed his cigarette into the cup. He told me what presumably he’d told the police. “Those antiques were gifts. She gave them to me approximately two weeks before her unfortunate demise. Perhaps the reason no one saw me load them into that truck I don’t own is because it was late at night. The reason it was late at night is because the economic realities of my hardscrabble, law-abiding life force me to work from early morning to long after more affluent people are asleep. Hannawa ain’t exactly New York cab-driving-wise.” He sniffed the smoke wafting from his coffee cup. “The long and short of it is that I did not kill the lady and I did not steal her precious shit.”

I told him that I’d seen the police department’s list of the antiques they found in his apartment. “Why would she give you all those expensive things?”

“She knew how excruciatingly dire my financial situation was.”

“So she knew you’d sell them.”

“I imagine so.”

I studied his body language. I couldn’t tell if he was lying or having a nicotine fit. “Given your police record, it’s easy to believe that you might know how to sell those fireplaces and things if they were stolen,” I said. “But would you know who to sell them to if they weren’t?”

Jeannie did not like the question. “I’m sure my brother knows how to use the Yellow Pages.”

I apologized with an empathetic smile. Asked the big question. “So Eddie—if Violeta Bell knew you needed money, why didn’t she just give you money?”

Eddie scratched his hairy chin. “A proposition I have pondered myself. Endlessly without a suitable revelation.”

“Violeta Bell was a very successful antique dealer for many years,” I said. “How much money would you say she had?”

“I wouldn’t have the foggiest,” Eddie said.

“Would you be surprised if I said a million?”

“A million ain’t much in this hyper-inflationary time,” he said. “So, yes, I guess I would be surprised if there was only a one at the left end of those six zeros, and not a number with more curves and curls.”

My brain, thankfully, had adjusted to his convoluted hipster talk. I knew what he meant and went straight to the next question. “Would you be surprised if I told you she was almost broke?”

Eddie’s eyes bugged. “Hell’s bells! You shitting me?”

Jeannie’s reaction was less expressive. “That would explain the antiques instead of money, wouldn’t it?”

“Actually,” I said, “it makes me wonder why she would give your brother so many of her valuable antiques if those were the only assets she had?”

Neither Eddie nor his sister had an answer to that. At least one they wanted to share with me. While they sat like bumps on a log, I laid out the theory bubbling in my brain. “Violeta Bell was a mystery woman. In fact, the Violeta Bell people knew really didn’t exist. She created herself. For reasons that died with her. Apparently.” I told them about her fake driver’s license and passport and all her other fake or nonexistent papers. “She not only lived outside the law,” I said, “she was a big believer in cash.” I told them some of the things Eric Chen had found out about her. “She didn’t own the building where she had her antique shop. She lived in a swanky apartment in Greenlawn. When she closed her shop, she bought her unit at the Carmichael House for cash. That still left her with a lot of money in the bank. Now that’s all but gone.”

If Eddie or his sister knew any of this, they weren’t letting on. Eddie was gently drumming his fingernails on his smoldering cup. Clickety-click-click. Jeannie was studying her pedicure. I continued. “So for the last eight years, she had no money coming in and a lot going out. She also had a condo filled with valuable antiques. So unless she had a big Rubbermaid tub of cash hidden under her bed—and there’s no evidence she did—she’d be forced to sell some of those antiques from time to time. For cash. She was not one to share her good fortune with the government. Which means she’d have to find an equally stingy buyer. Or an unsuspecting one.”

Jeannie’s eyes shifted, from her pretty toes to Eddie’s anything but pretty face.

“Violeta’s condo was big,” I said. “But it wasn’t the Smithsonian. She’d have to replenish her supply. I’m sure she found a few treasures at those garage sales. The tag sales. The estate auctions—”

“She was always buying stuff,” Eddie offered. “More than the other three ladies put together. Tons of shit.”

I went on. “But would that be enough? The other Queens of Never Dull lived pretty high on the hog? I’ve got to wonder if she didn’t have another source or two.”

“None that I know of,” Eddie assured me.

I was coming to the heart of my theory. “We know that Violeta didn’t own a car. Let alone a delivery truck. If she were still dealing in antiques, she’d have to have some help. Somebody to deliver things and maybe pick things up. Somebody she could trust.”

Eddie started waving his cup like a white flag. “Mea culpa! Nolo contendere! Hang me high by my huevos grandes! Yes! Yes! I delivered a thing or two for the old bird—in that beautiful old bread box out there!”

Jeannie’s twitching lips told me she wasn’t happy hearing that. She defended her brother nonetheless. “Nothing illegal about driving a truck.”

“Heaven’s to Betsy, no,” I said. “Not if Violeta truly owned the things she was selling.”

“Or if the driver was oblivious to the pre-supposed illegality of the endeavor,” Eddie added.

I pretended to absolve him. “Just a working man earning a little unreported cash on the side?”

“Nothing more convoluted than that,” said Eddie.

Now I started closing the trap. “Where exactly did you deliver things for her?”

Not surprisingly, Eddie was suddenly opaque. “That, most unfortunately, is impossible for a professional driver like myself to reiterate. I’ve driven to so many places, I don’t know exactly where I’ve been or haven’t.”

I rocked back and forth, drumming on the armrests, letting Eddie stew. Then I let him have it. “You know what I think Eddie? I think you and Violeta were in business together. Buying and selling stolen antiques. Those things the police found up here weren’t gifts. They were a shipment for you to deliver. Maybe to a dealer in some other city or state who didn’t know they were hot. Or didn’t give a damn. You couldn’t tell police that, of course. You’d go back to prison.”

Jeannie’s laugh was dripping with disbelief. Not to mention contempt. “And so he’s risking a murder charge to hide his other crimes?”

I smiled at her like a senile aunt. Turned toward Eddie. He was slowly sinking into the sofa cushions. “That is what you’re doing—isn’t it Eddie? Betting the police won’t find enough evidence to charge you with Violeta Bell’s murder?”

That was the last straw for Jeannie. She jumped up and wrapped her arms around her waist like the sleeves on a straightjacket. She started shouting at me. “My brother did not kill anybody! Bob said you believed that!”

Nobody shouts at Maddy Sprowls. Not without getting double the decibels in return. “Your brother is going to be twiddling his thumbs on death row if he doesn’t start telling a more forthcoming version of the truth—that’s all I’m saying!”

Jeannie stormed to the door. Threw it open for me. “I’ve never heard anybody talk so much bullshit in my life!”

I slowly rocked back and forth, staring into Eddie’s gray eyes until they started to quiver. “Is your sister right, Mr. French? Am I talking bullshit?”

Jeannie suggested it would be better if I left. I agreed. I clomped down the steps as mad as a hornet. Not caring one whit if Eddie was innocent or guilty. If he spent the rest of his life in prison or Paris, France. When I reached the ground I headed straight for that bread truck. I was sure they were watching me. I didn’t care one whit about that either. First I wrote down the license plate number for Eric Chen to check out. Then I checked the driver’s side door to see if it was locked. It wasn’t. I got in. I checked the ashtray for the key. It was there. I put it in the ignition and started the engine. I watched the gas gauge rise. The tank was almost half full. I checked the odometer. There was a string of zeros. When I looked closer I could see that a tiny smiley face had been painted inside each little white aught. Next I looked for that metal strip under the windshield that has the vehicle identification number. It was gone. I crawled out of the truck, got in my Shadow, and drove the hell home.

10

Sunday, July 23

We were on our way to Oswosso Swamp Park, to dine on baked chips and turkey sandwiches from Subway, watch the herons stand perfectly still in the stagnant water, and try not to get trampled by the joggers. Ike’s idea of a perfect Sunday afternoon.

“I think I may need professional help,” I said, as we zipped along West Apple Street.

He slipped his right hand off the steering wheel—the reckless old buzzard always drives with both hands like some kid in driver’s ed—and lovingly scratched the top of my head. “Come on now, Maddy. I know Bob Averill’s got your brain in a twist, but it’s not something that requires psychoanalysis, is it?”