Naked Cruelty Page 9

  “I don’t care what it stinks of, Ike. No real damage has been done, there’s not enough here to put anyone up on charges.” Morty licked suddenly dry lips. “I gotta go.”

  Blinking, Amanda sat listening as if in a drugged haze; she was conscious that Hank’s hand on her shoulder had tightened its grip, and understood that the detective’s indifference had angered him. As Sergeant Morty Jones disappeared, she reached up to pat the hand. Thwarted, Ike and Muley followed Morty out, gazing at her in mute apology.

  “Would you mind calling the cleaning firm for me, Hank?” she asked. “I’ll have to stay to supervise them—they won’t remember whereabouts things belong, now I tore the plan up.” She gave a small squeak of distress. “To think I had to draw a plan even once! But to think I’d need it twice!”

  “First, your insurance agent,” Hank said firmly. “That lazy so-and-so of a detective didn’t take any photographs, and someone should. If anything is damaged, you’ll need proof.” He pressed Amanda’s fingers gently. “From now on the Mall is going to be protected by a professional security company, something I’ve been saying to deaf ears since the Mall opened. But no, the owners didn’t want to spend the money. Now, they have no choice. A bank robbery and a vendetta against a tenant with fragile stock. I mean, what if the Vandal had decided to target Quattrocento, down on the first floor? You can clean the filth off glass, but not off a fourteenth century credenza.”

  “Who would do this?” Amanda asked for the tenth time, unable to get past her own violation.

  “I have no idea.” Hank paused, then said, very delicately, “It’s going to be a very long day for you, and you shouldn’t be alone this evening, Amanda. May I take you to dinner?”

  “Thank you, I’d like that,” said Amanda, sounding surprised.

  The dinner with Hank Murray at the Lobster Pot went so well that the next evening, Saturday, he took her to Sea Foam.

  Though she admitted that Hank was an ideal escort for a forty-year-old spinster, she wasn’t about to let him put his shoes under her bed. An occasional man had enjoyed that privilege, but only one had mattered, and he was long dead. If her heartache was permanent, that was her business. Financially she was comfortable; she didn’t need a meal ticket. Though, she couldn’t say why, she had a feeling that Hank wasn’t nearly as well off as the manager of a famous shopping mall ought to be. He paid the Sea Foam prices without a blink, yet when he fished for his wallet at the Lobster Pot, Amanda fancied that he was relieved she had indicated she preferred classy diners to up-market traps for gastronomes.

  She had acquired Frankie and Winston, now three years old, as a deliberate ploy; with two cute animals in her window, her shop was visited by everyone who came to the Busquash Mall. No one else was allowed to have a pet; that Amanda was, was due to a clever sales pitch she had made to the Mall owners, a bunch of tightwads, combined with impeccably trained animals. At home the dog and cat were great company, though now that Hank had appeared, Amanda realized that no animal was a full-time substitute for a man. Hadn’t Marcia said so? Yes, and had her head bitten off for her pains. Still, Hank might have worked out differently had he been a different kind of man—pushed for an intimate relationship, for instance. But he hadn’t, and wasn’t. Hank seemed willing to keep on an outer orbit, never close enough to get burned.

  On Sunday night she worked late, though she hadn’t told Hank. They hadn’t made any plans for the evening because he was involved in the outfitting of a new shop only three doors down from hers. It had been a dismal, unsuccessful outlet for vacuum cleaners—not the kind of thing people shopping at the Busquash Mall were after. Now it was going to be full of American Indian goods—blankets, ceramics, paintings, silver-and-turquoise jewelry. Hank had high hopes for it, and Amanda understood why. Buying Indian wares east of the Rockies wasn’t easy.

  At eleven o’clock she locked up. On her way to the service elevators she poked her head in the back door of the Indian shop to give Hank a surprise greeting, but the place was a zoo of workmen, materials, tools and noise.

  Only when she reached her neat little black Mercedes did she realize that her car keys were on the edge of her desk in the back room of her shop—oh, darn! How had she come to do that? A rhetorical question: the reason was a brown-wrapped box about the size of a Benedictine box that she’d had to squeeze into her bag, only to find it sitting smack on top of her car keys. She’d taken the box out, retrieved the keys, put the box back—and forgotten to pick up the keys. Darn, darn, darn!

  The security firm was coming on board tomorrow night, but there was so much light and racket from the Indian shop that her journey back to her own shop was shorn of most of its fears. What fears were left? Crates, tools, cables and items of shop furniture all over the service corridor.

  She flicked on the switch that sat alone and illuminated the area just inside her back door; the car keys were there, right where she’d left them.

  Came the unmistakable sound of breaking glass from her shop. Outraged, Amanda never stopped to think. Dropping her big navy leather bag on the floor, she ran for the bead curtain, screaming shrilly to summon help from the Indian shop. A black-clad form wearing a ski mask stood on the far side of her counter, surrounded by the shards of what had been—she knew it well—an Orrefors one-off bowl. Above his head he held a Kosta Boda one-off vase formed like a surrealistic cat.

  What foiled her was the counter. As she ran to one side to get around it he threw the vase not on the floor but at her, turning her scream into a howl of pain as the heavy object struck her on the hip. Down she went, while the black figure raced for the big sliding door at the front of the shop. Men were spilling into her back room as the Vandal tore off down the Mall proper, and was lost in the shadows.

  Hank! Where was Hank?

  “Here, Amanda,” came his voice. “What are you doing here?”

  “Working late,” she panted, and moaned. “Oh, he hurt me! Where were you?”

  “Getting another plan from my office.”

  By this time the lights were on and Amanda realized that her glass stood in more danger from her would-be rescuers than from the Vandal.

  “Please!” she cried, struggling until Hank lifted her to her feet. “Mr. Murray will deal with this now. Thank you, thank you for coming.” I sound like a happy hostess after a dinner, she thought, and cried out in pain. Someone thrust her chair under her, and she sank into it, sitting side on, as the workmen gradually left.

  “Luiz, there’s your plan,” Hank said, indicating a rolled up blueprint on the floor. Then, to Amanda: “Will you be okay while I use your phone to call the cops?”

  “Wheel me with you,” she said.

  For some reason that amused him; he laughed. “Oh, Amanda ! What did he do?”

  “Broke my Björn Wiinblad bowl—a one-off,” she said, her hand grasping his belt as he wheeled her at her side rather than from behind. “He threw the Kosta Boda pussycat at me, so I suppose that’s broken too. Oh Hank, this is awful!”

  “He might have killed you,” Hank said grimly, making her as comfortable as he could. “Ambulance first, then cops.”

  “Make sure the ambulance uses the service corridor!” she cried in alarm. “I won’t have a gurney in my shop.” A small pause, then: “And I won’t have Sergeant Jones.”

  Hank picked up the phone. “Nor will I,” he said.

  The call was patched through to Carmine at home. Though as a captain he was on permanent call, he and his two lieutenants took turns on matters that came in after hours, and tonight chanced to be Carmine’s turn, a double whammy: he was taking Abe’s calls as well until he returned from Hartford.

  “Captain Delmonico.”

  “Oh, thank God, someone senior! Captain, I absolutely refuse to let Miss Warburton have any further dealings with that drunken moron, Sergeant Jones!” said an irate voice. “I understand that a detective will have to come to the
Busquash Mall—just don’t send him. The previous attacks were vandalism and so is this one, but tonight Miss Warburton was injured. I want the bastard caught, and all Sergeant Jones can catch is a cold.”

  Carmine finally managed to get a word in. “Your name, sir?”

  “Henry—Hank—Murray, manager of the Busquash Mall, and a personal friend of Miss Warburton’s. It’s her shop, the Glass Teddy Bear, that’s been vandalized. And the first time the Vandal struck, we had $50,000 taken from the Third Holloman Bank as well. Sergeant Jones is supposed to be dealing with that too, but he’s done nothing.”

  Carmine decided to go himself; if the theft of $50,000 from a bank was being neglected, his division was in big trouble—why didn’t Corey mention it? I’ve seen not a word on paper! What is going on with Morty Jones? “Drunken moron” sounds as if he’s drinking on duty. By rights I should send Corey, but I have a feeling matters have already gone too far for that. Nor can I be sure that Corey would give me a truthful account of Morty’s situation. The only one who tells me anything is Delia.

  “Must you go out?” Desdemona asked in the hall. “If Julian wakes and realizes you’re not here, he’ll get up.”

  “At a quarter of midnight? He won’t wake, lovely lady.”

  “He might.”

  “Think best, not worst.” He kissed her. “If he does wake, tell him I’ll be back in five minutes with a switch.”

  “Carmine!”

  “It won’t happen, Desdemona. Go to bed yourself.”

  I can’t wait for Prunella Balducci to arrive, Carmine thought as he backed the Fairlane on to East Circle. Why didn’t I sense that my wife was as green as grass when we had Julian? She was stuffed full of theories, and that’s what they were—theories. Julian needs far more exercise than he gets, but Mommy is stuck with a second baby. Now she’s lumbered with an under-exercised, strong-willed child who pushes her around because she’s permanently tired. Nag! I never understood that toddlers could nag until I met my own son. Julian the defense attorney.

  By the time he reached the Busquash Mall, Carmine had girded his loins to hear the worst about Morty Jones, and could only be thankful that Mr. Henry—Hank—Murray hadn’t called Silvestri. Not that he, Carmine, was prepared to shield Morty from official retribution; more that he wasn’t as yet convinced that Morty was beyond redemption. “Drunken moron”—an interesting reading of Morty’s character. If he was drinking on the job, it was more recently than when Carmine had seen him ten days ago. That had revolved around Ava’s swearing that the kids weren’t Morty’s. He loved those kids, loved them far more than selfish, nympho Ava did. Why did she screw cops, and no one but cops? But if the poor guy’s inebriated condition was obvious to civilians, it must be obvious to Corey. Who wasn’t lifting a finger.

  Amanda Warburton was shaken and in pain, but quite capable of speaking for herself. “I lost my head when I heard the glass breaking,” she said. “He’d busted my Björn Wiinblad bowl into pieces, and he had my Kosta Boda cat over his head, ready to do the same. Then he saw me, and threw it at me.”

  Carmine stamped the floor with his foot: it was covered with a deep-pile black commercial quality carpet. “I’m surprised the object broke,” he said.

  “It’s concrete underneath, and while a short drop wouldn’t harm it, it would have sufficient momentum if he pitched it from above his head, which is where he was holding the cat.”

  “You know your glass, Miss Warburton.”

  “Yes, it’s been my life. But he knows it too, don’t you think? No short drops.”

  Hank Murray butted in. “That idiot Sergeant Jones kept insisting the culprits were from Taft High,” he said angrily. “None of us agreed with him, even the two patrolmen—now they were great guys. Better detectives too. When he wouldn’t change his mind after the second attack, Miss Warburton and I lost all confidence in him. He stank of booze! So this time I wasn’t going to let Mr. Jones near the place.”

  “I’m taking the case myself, Mr. Murray,” Carmine said, his voice calm. “Any reason Sergeant Jones was so set on Taft kids?”

  “Vandalism in the neighborhood, apparently, but Taft’s neighborhood isn’t anywhere near Busquash apart from its easterly situation,” said Hank.

  “What about in this mall? Apart from the Glass Teddy Bear’s vandalism and the robbery at the Third Holloman Bank, have you suffered any kind of crime wave, as the papers put it? Pick-pockets, bag snatchers, gang hazes?”

  “You’d know if we had, Captain.”

  Or should, thought Carmine grimly. “No, sir, I guess I need to phrase that better. I meant activities that weren’t reported to the police. I presume, for instance, that you have a security company patrolling?”

  “No,” said Hank, scowling. “Finally, after nearly three years and half a hundred requests to the owners, Shortland Security will start patrolling tomorrow, Monday, October 7. It took three vandalisms and a bank robbery to succeed, but at last I have.”

  “I see. Why the surprise that the Vandal broke your bowl?”

  “Because on his two earlier visits,” said Hank Murray before Amanda could answer, “the Vandal never so much as chipped one thing. That was the weirdest part.”

  Two ambulance medics walked through the back door, and all hope of further conversation with Amanda Warburton ceased.

  “I’ll send two forensics technicians over first thing in the morning,” Carmine said as she was wheeled out, “but if by some miracle you’re discharged from the hospital tonight, don’t come in tomorrow. No one is to touch a thing, understood? Mr. Murray, I’ll see you at ten tomorrow morning about the bank robbery.”

  Carmine thought Hank heard, but it was debatable; he was busy assuring Amanda that he’d go to her apartment to feed her animals, and taking custody of her keys. Besotted.

  Before he left at a little after one a.m., Carmine picked up Amanda’s phone and dialed the number in his notebook. A sleepy voice answered. “Miss MacIntosh? Be at Paul Bachman’s lab before eight tomorrow morning. At eight on the dot you will accompany him to the Busquash Mall and a shop called the Glass Teddy Bear, which has been a prey to vandals or a vandal. Paul will take care of the physical evidence, whereas you will take care of the detective’s duties. I expect you to make full enquiries at the neighboring shops, and also ascertain, if you can, the number of vandals involved. Pay particular attention to a shop three doors up that’s being fitted out to sell American Indian goods—there may be witnesses. Take a close look at the Glass Teddy Bear’s goods—how up-market are its lines, for instance? You can report to me later on Monday.”

  She couldn’t not ask it: “Is this connected with the Dodo?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  There! You might have wangled yourself back to Holloman, Miss MacIntosh, but no way are you working the Dodo. In fact, I couldn’t use you on the Dodo if you were a model trainee rather than a pain in the ass. The Dodo case is going nowhere.

  ***

  Carmine’s first task on Monday morning was to visit the County Services property registry, which necessitated a plod up and down several flights of stairs and the negotiation of several halls that made him feel as if he passed from one country to another, instead of from one municipal function to another.

  Without evidence he couldn’t look at Kurt von Fahlendorf’s bank accounts, but there was one way he could check whether the Carew gossip was right about the German’s wealth. How valuable was his property, and did he own it outright? Half expecting the deeds of 6 Curzon Close to be buried under X or Y Holdings, he found them openly listed: K. von Fahlendorf owned 6 Curzon Close free and clear. At one acre, it was a significant Carew property, especially given its extreme age. That antiquity made it costly to maintain, as every rotted board in its siding had to be replaced with a board of the same age and kind, and every roof shingle had to be hand split. A tiny cul-de-sac, Curzon Close, just six houses on it, a
nd two were owned by Gentleman Walkers: Mason Novak owned 4 Curzon Close outright. Dapper Dave Feinman lived first house around the corner on Spruce Street. Coincidence?

  “Ebenezer Curzon had owned and farmed fifty acres of Carew,” said the chief conveyancer to Carmine, delighted to have a captive audience. “It was sold off gradually, of course, all but the farmstead itself. That passed out of Curzon ownership in 1930, when the Depression was at its worst. It’s had a number of owners since, and I’m sorry to see it in foreign hands.” Her spatulate fingers tapped the floor plans of 5 Curzon Close. “Now this one, I’m pleased to say, has recently gone to what sound like real Yankees. Robert and Gordon Warburton.”

  Poised to plead an emergency—the chief conveyancer would talk all day—Carmine propped.

  “Warburton? Robert and Gordon?”

  “Yes. They bought 5 Curzon Close eight months ago.”

  “Do they live in it, or was it an investment?”

  “That, Captain, I do not know.” She leaned across the counter conspiratorially. “However, I can tell you that there was an awful fuss when they started to paint it.”

  Hooked, he leaned forward too; their foreheads nearly touched, like caryatids doing without a lintel. “Fuss, Aggie? Cough it up, or it’s back to dancing in the Rockettes for you.”

  She giggled. “Would you believe, Carmine, that they began to paint it in black and white, board by board,” she tittered. “I had to drive out and see it. Like a zebra! Naturally the Council wouldn’t permit it—we were inundated with protests. I mean, right next door to Busquash, where you can’t even have a colored Christmas light showing outside? Carew is a part of Holloman City, so the ordinances can’t go that far, but they can be interpreted as forbidding black-and-white-striped houses. The Warburtons were livid and tried to launch a lawsuit, but not even Isaac Lowenstein would buck the town ordinances. Well, can you see Judge Thwaites hearing it? In California, the Warburtons said, anything goes. In which case, was the consensus of opinion, go back to California.”