Naked Cruelty Page 29

  “It’s more than the ride. I’ll help you unpack.”

  And so it was arranged.

  Amazing how life goes on, Hank thought as they settled into their customary booth; he ordered broiled scrod, she went for soft-shelled crab, and they both had a vinaigrette dressing on their salads. Their talk was perhaps a little stiffer than usual, but Hank held his end up heroically, and by the time they left for the Mall she was relaxed on one drink more than she normally had. Yes, they would get through this.

  He was kicking himself for trying to move their relationship up a notch, though his sensible side insisted that if the answer was no, there was no propitious moment. The idea of her was stronger in him than her reality, but had it not been, he would never have dreamed his dreams or fantasized about their love-making. And it was true, hope did spring eternal; by the time they reached the back door of the Glass Teddy Bear, he was able to believe that at some time in the future, she would change her mind. Women always did, especially bolstered by the fact that a suitor had declared himself, then stuck around as a friend. What did they call such men? Cicisbeos, that was it. Education, he reflected, keys jingling in the lock, was a wonderful asset.

  He stood back for her to enter first.

  “Oh, bother!” she exclaimed. “The light is out, and I can never find the switch panel for the others.”

  “Here, I know.” Hank pushed her into the back room and flicked at the bank of switches Amanda could never find. “Gee, there must be a major fuse blown,” he said. “They’re all out.”

  The blow fell on the side of his skull and crushed it in the manner of an eggshell—still in one piece, yet shattered to smithereens. Hank Murray was scarcely conscious what had happened, the blood poured into his cranium so rapidly. He was dead even as he hit the floor.

  Dazed by a much lighter blow, Amanda was on all fours and crawling toward the shop when the black clad intruder straddled her, put a gloved hand in her mass of hair, yanked her entire trunk upward, and cut her throat clean to the backbone. The blood jetted out at arterial pressure, fine drops showering boxes and the wall behind them like paint from an air brush. The attacker stepped away to let her bleed out, a matter of scant minutes. Then, the business ended, he went into the shop. There, on a dolly and wrapped in padded cloths, the glass teddy bear waited. He swung the apparatus around and wheeled it through the back room on the far side from the blood, out the back door; glancing at Hank’s keys, he removed them and put them in a pants pocket. Despite the security, there was no one in sight; the attacker made sure his silenced pistol was where he could reach it in a hurry, then went to the service elevators. One opened the moment he pressed its button; he wheeled the dolly in and pressed the basement parking level. Again he was in luck; no sign of a guard.

  Inside the door to the garage was a bank of alarms. Out came a paper; the attacker consulted it, punched one alarm. It was followed by a shriek and squeal of sirens three floors up, but before the guards in the garage could gather, he and his dolly were hidden in the janitor’s closet. As soon as the pounding feet died away, he wheeled his treasure trove through the door and into the garage, where his van stood parked only feet away. An electric platform carried the dolly up to the level of the van floor, where it was strapped into place. That done, the attacker wormed his way forward into the driver’s seat, started the engine, and was a mile away before anyone checked that entry to the garage. False alarm—wasn’t that typical?

  It was noon on Thursday, November 21, before anyone thought to query Hank Murray’s absence and Amanda Warburton’s unopened shop. When Hank’s secretary couldn’t locate him or his keys, she phoned Captain Carmine Delmonico, whom she knew from the days of the Vandal. Oh, pray there wasn’t more trouble!

  “Something’s up, sir,” she said. “I have spare keys—could you check the Glass Teddy Bear for me? Miss Warburton and Mr. Murray are great friends, now neither of them can be found.”

  His detectives were out; Carmine decided to visit the Mall on his own. Why the secretary was so worried he couldn’t work out, except that some people have a nose for disaster, and he couldn’t afford to ignore someone with a nose whose accuracy he didn’t know. Alarm bells were ringing in him too, that was all.

  On his way to the back corridor he passed the Glass Teddy Bear’s window, and his heart sank. The glass teddy bear wasn’t in it, nor were the dog and cat. At the back door he pulled on rubber gloves and examined the lock: no tampering. A turn of the key and he was inside, an almost dark expanse that reeked of blood. When no lights came on he backed out, keeping within his own footprints. Two security guards had turned up; he beckoned them over.

  “Stay here and don’t touch a fucking thing,” he said. “I need a phone. Where?”

  “The shipping desk, Captain—in there.”

  “Where are the fuses for this shop?”

  “In that wall cupboard, Captain.”

  When he opened the cupboard door with another key he found the Glass Teddy Bear’s fuses in the off position; when Carmine did the up-down-up to switch them on, they stayed on. Someone had probably turned them off here.

  At the shipping desk he found a phone. “Stella, tell Dr. O’Donnell I need an M.E. and a forensics tech at the Busquash Mall a.s.a.p. Where are my team?”

  “Nick and Delia are here. Helen’s with the Judge.”

  “Good. Send me Nick and Delia, please. It’s urgent.”

  When he flicked the lights on this time, they revealed a shambles, though it was poor Amanda Warburton who had done the bleeding. Fourth time unlucky, he thought. Amanda had survived three attacks, but they were just the thief softening her up. Hank Murray had died because of his devotion to her. Fifteen big, sealed cardboard boxes said a new shipment had arrived; she and the faithful Hank had probably come in to unpack them. It looked like a huge amount of stock, but undoubtedly wasn’t. Glass came surrounded by relative oceans of packing materials.

  Her face was distorted by terror, mute evidence of her last moments, but he didn’t think she had seen her attacker. He came at her from behind while she was crawling, Carmine deduced. Hank had died without a fight; never saw it coming, in all likelihood. There were no bloody footprints, no marks to say who the Vandal—was it the Vandal, or another, more violent predator?—might be. A different man, Carmine decided. His conviction that he knew the identity of the Vandal hadn’t budged. He went outside to speak to the guard.

  “Was there any kind of fuss last night?” he asked.

  “The alarms went off in Hood’s Antiques about half after ten,” said the guard. “False alarm, Captain. Some clown of a practical joker triggered it at the alarm bank inside the basement garage door.”

  “Did that require a key?”

  “Sure. They’re in a wall cupboard, same as fuses.”

  “And the fire chief is satisfied wall cupboards are safe?”

  “With our kind of fuses and alarms, yes.”

  Patrick came himself, with Paul Bachman in tow.

  “Thanks for the personal touch, Patsy. Anything?”

  “No, nothing. Both attacks were incredibly savage. The temporal and parietal regions on the right side of Mr. Murray’s skull were pulverized, like gluing uniformly small fragments on to a sheet of plastic—it’s only the scalp holding the bone together. Miss Warburton’s throat was cut to expose the ventral surface of the vertebrae—only the spinal column kept her head on her shoulders, poor thing. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more brutal assault, yet it had to have been done in seconds. The fellow wouldn’t have made contact with the blood. He stayed behind her. He used a knife on her throat, not a razor, because he needed a proper grip for traction to go that deep.”

  “A hunting knife, you mean?”

  “Yes, or a military version of same.”

  “He didn’t leave it behind?”

  “If he did, we haven’t found it so far. Want to see his
blunt instrument?”

  Patrick held up a curious item almost two feet long. Made of clear glass, it was a tube that flared at one end into an open, lily-like shape; its other end was a round, closed bulb.

  “By rights the pipe should be a yard long, but this one is only half a yard. It’s a British device for drinking beer, and it’s called, would you believe it, a yard?” He pointed to the wall, where a similar but much longer item sat on a bracket. “The one on the wall is the real thing, very thin glass, but this one is purely an ornament, not intended for use. It’s heavy.”

  Carmine grimaced. “You mean anyone can drink that much?”

  “For a beer drinker, not a problem. Miss Warburton stocked a good range. The shorty would make an efficient weapon if the bulb is used as the club. The glass is thick enough to have weight and durability. The skull didn’t have a chance.”

  “Inventive. Of all the heavy objects in a shop full of them, that half yard makes the best concussive weapon.”

  “The whole set also makes an ideal decoration for a wall you don’t want cluttered with yet more paintings. Designed to appeal to expatriate Limeys.”

  “The killer didn’t have to know its proper function to see its concussive potential,” Carmine said.

  “I agree, I agree! Just tossing theories around. You don’t think he’s an Englishman, Carmine?” Patrick asked.

  “Take my word for it, there are no Englishmen in this case.”

  Delia came up, unable to hide her distress. “Carmine, this is frightful! That poor woman! She didn’t even believe the glass teddy bear was worth stealing.”

  “So why kill her for something he might have gotten by more peaceful means?” Nick asked. “Tied them up and taken it.”

  “That’s the question I ask myself,” Carmine said.

  “Mind you, she loved it,” said Delia.

  “So much that she wouldn’t have parted with it for any sum, Delia. It had other meanings for her than money. After Helen established its true worth, I communicated with my opposite number in the Venice PD, thinking the glass teddy bear had been stolen. But it hadn’t. It was legally Amanda Warburton’s property, bequeathed to her in the will of Lorenzo della Fiori, the glass kingpin. Amanda was his mistress. Unfortunately he had a very jealous wife, who invaded the love nest and stabbed della Fiori fourteen times with a kitchen knife. Amanda was stabbed too, but survived. The glass teddy bear—including its eyes—was made especially for Amanda, and was already en route to America when the fracas happened. His kids inherited his money and all his property except the glass teddy bear. It happened eleven years ago, when the eldest child, a girl, was nine.”

  “Then the kids are grown enough for revenge!” Nick cried, having heard Carmine’s explanation.

  “No, the kids are in Venice too busy with their education to worry about the past. Having a mother in prison is no picnic. The eldest boy, another Lorenzo della Fiori, is now seventeen and determined to be the next glass kingpin. Kids don’t live in the past unless they’re brainwashed, and the only person who would have done that is in prison.”

  “Then where did Amanda’s money come from?” Delia demanded.

  “Sale of other Lorenzo della Fiori pieces. She’d acquired a lot over her years with him, and after his death she sold the lot. They’d never been inventoried, he’d freely given them to her, and it never came out at the time. His work is gorgeous and she got top dollar for every piece,” Carmine said.

  “What about the star sapphire eyes?” Delia asked.

  “Legally an intrinsic part of the work of art. My Venetian counterpart knew nothing about them, and no theft of a pair of star sapphires answering their description has ever surfaced in Europe, let alone in Venice. The theory he offered me was that the stones came from the USSR, which is a source of fabulous treasure and gems. If old Queen Mary of England could buy some of the Russian crown jewels at auction for relative peanuts, who knows what else has been smuggled westward to obtain hard currency?”

  “It sounds like a fairy tale,” Nick said. “How did Queen Mary know the jewels were for sale?”

  “They were auctioned at one of the great auction houses,” said Delia. “She bought diamonds and pearls, as I remember, and used her own money—she was awfully rich, and laden with ropes and ropes of pearls.” She chuckled. “Now the pearls you buy in a cheap shop outshine the real ones!”

  “How do you know all this gossip?” Nick asked.

  “It’s not gossip, Nick dear. Cleopatra thought you could dissolve a pearl in vinegar. Of course you can’t.”

  “Theft of the bear aside, any evidence?” Carmine asked.

  “No,” they said in chorus.

  “He’s crafty and clever as well as shockingly brutal,” said Delia. “He also has luck.”

  “Luck?” Nick asked. “Expound!”

  They guffawed until Carmine’s glare sobered them.

  “Consider! Security here is pretty good, yet this chap—not the original Vandal, is my guess—got in and got out again without ever being seen. There’s a strong element of luck in that. Equivalently, Miss Warburton and Mr. Murray ran out of luck. He seizes his moments, yes, but the moments were there to be seized. Thus far, our killer has led a charmed life,” Delia said.

  “Then we’re going to proceed on the assumption that our luck is more potent than his,” said Carmine. “Are we finished here?”

  “Yes,” Nick said.

  “Did Paul give you her keys, or are they missing?”

  “No, they were on her, I have them,” Nick said. “Mr. Murray’s keys are missing, so every shop in here will have to change its locks, not to mention the Mall itself.”

  “Our killer is not coming back,” Carmine said positively. “He took the keys to create havoc, no other reason. Maybe make us think he’s a valuables thief. He’s not. He’s a killer.”

  “What about notifying her next of kin?” Delia asked.

  “The Warburton twins? They can wait,” Carmine said. “I’m going to inspect her apartment without that pair breathing down my neck. They give me the creeps.”

  “Did they do this?” Nick asked as they used the elevator.

  “Possible, but not probable.”

  “This is gorgeous!” Nick said, gazing around the spacious luxury of Amanda Warburton’s apartment. “If she owns this, we have to reconsider our estimates of her worth.”

  Carmine was already at the desk, which contained no locked drawers or compartments. He held up papers. “Deeds. She owns this free and clear, no mortgages.”

  At which moment a pathetic meow came from the bathroom.

  “Her animals!” Carmine said. “Jesus, I’d forgotten them!”

  They were huddled in the bath as if they knew what had happened to their mistress, the cat pressed into the dog’s belly between its front and back legs, the dog hunched with its nose on the cat’s sleek skull. A water dish was empty; cooing and clucking, Delia refilled the bowl and found canned food in a cupboard. They drank and ate ravenously. Nick, it turned out, was more afraid of dogs and cats than of criminals, and Delia seemed to frighten them; when Carmine went back to his examination of the desk, Frankie and Winston sat at his feet and refused to be banished. He decided to ignore them.

  “Her will,” he said, brandishing a single sheet of paper. “Everything to the twins except the glass teddy bear, which she wills in perpetuity to Chubb on condition that it’s displayed in a suitable manner. Wow! Wait until M.M. finds out! God help us if we don’t get it back.”

  An accordion file held a portfolio of stocks and shares.

  “Blue chip, the lot,” Carmine said. “Robert and Gordon are going to be wealthier than I’d expected, so we move them up on the list of suspects.” A wry grin. “That gives us two names.” He bent down and got a face full of dog hide as well as a sloppy tongue. “Cut that out, Frankie!” To his surprise,
the dog desisted at once. A snide smile his team exchanged irritated him: he lashed back. “Delia, don’t stand there decorating the place! Call Marcia Boyce and get her here yesterday. Nick, go back to County Services and ask for someone from the pound with two animal carrying cages.”

  Nick and Delia scattered, but not before they flashed each other another snide smile. The chief was being conned by two real experts.

  ***

  Marcia Boyce was shocked but not rendered speechless. “I don’t know why, but I’ve been expecting something like it,” she said to Carmine in Amanda’s sitting room, its glass wall showing the tree-filled beauty of Busquash Inlet like a landscape painting, complete to mirror-bright water and dreamy little fishing shacks.

  “Why, exactly?” Carmine asked, pouring her more tea.

  “You’ll laugh at me, but sometimes I see penumbras around people, and Amanda has always had one. Black, laced with the red of fire—or blood, I guess. It’s waxed until lately it’s all but obscured her face and body—kind of like a shroud.”

  I hate people like this, Carmine was thinking. They always have after-visions they’re convinced perpetually existed. I bet Miss Boyce consults a ouija board and goes to séances. But I also bet she never showed this side of herself to Amanda, who would have derided it—and her. “Can you tell me anything more concrete, Miss Boyce?”

  “Only that, from what Hank Murray and I pieced together, she had had doubts about making the twins her heirs. But then she suddenly announced that she was going to leave them as her heirs because she had no one else. She wasn’t too happy about it, I add.” Marcia sipped her tea, then supplemented it with a dollop of Amanda’s costly cognac.

  “How do you feel about the Warburton twins, ma’am?”

  “I detest them! Though I wouldn’t have thought they had the guts or gumption for murder.” She looked down at the dog and cat, glued to Carmine’s feet. “Oh, poor babies! What will become of them, Captain?”