Razzamatazz (A Crime Novel) (3 page)

"Celebrating something?" he asked.

"I thought you might like it after what went on this afternoon."

"How'd you know I was here?"

"I saw your car." She handed him the bottle and corkscrew.

He didn't like that much. Couldn't she open a dinky bottle of wine? She was far from helpless if what he'd observed in the last six weeks was true. His analysis of Babe Parkinson was that she was shrewd, calculating, aggressive, and on the make. For him as well as his job. Or maybe more. Maybe she wanted to be publisher. Nancy would've said he was thinking like a chauvinist pig. Oh, God.

He opened the wine, poured two glasses, and slid one across the desk.

"Should we drink to something?" she asked.

He shrugged.

"How about to Gloria Danowski?"

"Who?"

"Gloria Danowski, may she rest in peace."

Colin was beginning to get the idea that this wasn't just a social visit. "Do you want to tell me about it or are we going to play twenty questions?"

Babe smiled, a glint in her green eyes. "Gloria Danowski, age thirty-one, married to Hank Danowski, mother of Patti, age six, and Danny, age four. Home, One Twenty One Randolph Avenue, East Hampton. Last seen four weeks ago when she left home for a class at Southampton College. Only she wasn't registered for any class. Found today in Mayor Gildersleeve's Olympic-sized pool." She raised her glass, gestured toward Colin as if they might clink glasses, then took a long sip.

Colin stared, not drinking. "East Hampton?"

She took a pack of Kents from her purse and lit one with a silver Dunhill lighter. "East Hampton."

"What's she doing over here?"

"I don't know. Maybe she liked our pools better."

"It's not funny, Babe. It's not a goddamn bit funny. This was a woman, a wife and mother. Have you thought about that?"

"Oh, vicious, vicious," she said.

"You're talking about a human being, not a statistic or a good story."

"You mean it's not a good story?"

"That's not the point. Forget it. So how'd you find this out? Who identified her?"

"I did."

"
You
did?" He was furious. Trying to calm himself, he took a sip of the wine.

"In my trusty file cabinet," she tapped her head with a ringed finger. "I found a story about a missing woman."

"We didn't print it, did we?"

"Nope.
Newsline
. I remembered the husband was stunned, no explanation. Friends said Gloria was happy, loved hubby and kiddies, and would never ever have run away. Don't ask me how I made the connection, Maguire, because I don't know. Just dumb luck, I guess."

Colin toyed with saying that nothing was dumb luck with her, then thought better of it. "Go on."

"I called Danowski in East Hampton, asked if wifey had returned, he said no, so I told him about the floater. I met him at the morgue and he identified her. Simple."

"Simple," Colin said, disgusted.

Babe said, "You know, you're going to have to get a thicker skin, my friend. How'd you manage in the Windy City with that attitude?"

"I managed," he said. "Does Hallock know?"

"About Danowski? Yeah, I told him. Now I'm telling you. Too bad this is a weekly, you'd have a scoop."

"Me? It's your baby, you dug it up."

"It's yours, Maguire, I'm just the feature writer. Interviewing octogenarians who've lived here all their lives, writing pieces about local merchants who hand-dip candles and create art from shells, doing in-depth stories on the couple who turn the old church or schoolhouse into a showplace home. Babe Parkinson, girl grind."

"If you hate it so much, why do it?"

"I don't hate it, I love it. It's much better than sitting home baking cakes for some wimp who wants to play King For A Lifetime."

"You really think a lot of men, don't you?"

She smiled, her eyes going to half mast. "I think a lot
about
them. Especially some in particular." Her implication was clear.

Colin said, "Did the M.E. have anything to say about Danowski?"

"He hadn't worked on her yet." She sipped her wine. "You're not drinking, Maguire."

"I'm not thirsty." He stood up. "I'm leaving."

"It's early."

He walked to the door. "If you're staying, turn out the light when you go."

"I'm not staying." Babe left the glasses and grabbed the bottle by the neck. She snapped off the light and followed Colin down the hall.

On the sidewalk she stood very near him while he locked the door. "Any chance the husband did it?" he asked.

"He seemed broken up. But maybe he's a good actor. I guess they'll question him."

"Whose jurisdiction will this be, East Hampton or ours?"

"Ours. But there'll be cooperation." She moved closer to him, looked up into his eyes. "Speaking of cooperation."

"Goodnight, Babe," he said and started walking toward his car.

"You're a shit," she called after him.

In his car he wondered if he was a shit. From the beginning he'd made it clear he wasn't interested. No, what he'd done was nothing. No encouragement but no discouragement either. Maybe he was a shit.

Starting the car, he thought of Gloria Danowski. And then of her husband. What was he feeling tonight? Remembering, Colin thought he knew. But at least Danowski had his kids.

LOOKING BACK—25 YEARS AGO

An extended period of amnesty through June 30th has been granted to authorized gun holders, to permit them to turn them over to the police department, it was announced this week by Police Chief Charles Gildersleeve. Chief Gildersleeve urges that persons wishing to avail themselves of the amnesty period get in touch with the police department.

FOUR

They'd found her. Just the way he'd planned. It served that asshole Gildersleeve right. Putting her in his pool had been a perfect touch. It was like killing two birds with one stone. There was only one sour note. He wished Gloria's parents had been forced to identify her instead of the husband. After all, Danowski had nothing to do with it. It was the parents he wanted to suffer. And they would. They'd see her—in the coffin. He could picture the mother whining and crying, sniveling and wringing her hands, calling for her baby Gloria. The father would keep it all in, tough it out. But inside, his guts would be aching, like his own had ached all those years. Still ached.

Should he go to the funeral? he wondered. Better not. But he could imagine it. He smiled. When they lowered the coffin into the ground and Gloria's parents watched, that was the part he would be sorry to miss. Sorry to miss the dirt falling on top of the casket, shovelful by shovelful.

He could still hear it even though it was all those years ago— that plopping sound, just as real now as it was then. So maybe Gloria Danowski's parents would dream about it long as they lived, like he did. Plop, plop, plop.

And the kids, too. Why should they have it easy? Now they won't. They'll miss their Mommy. Good. He missed his Mommy, even now. And Daddy, too. He missed his Daddy. He missed his Mommy. I ain't had any satisfaction.

Tears coursed over his cheeks and dripped from his face onto the desk. He put his head down. Thinking of Mommy and Daddy. Crying. Lonely. Little boy. All alone. Crying. Calling for Mommy. Calling for Daddy.

Nobody came.

LOOKING BACK
—50 YEARS AGO

At a late hour Saturday night, the quiet village of Seaville was awakened by the commotion caused by Fred Karenewski, who put up a stiff battle and resisted arrest after his erratic driving had caused him to collide with several other motor cars, driving motorists off the road and finally ending up by crashing through the grape arbor of his own residence.

FIVE

Standing on Richter's dock, looking out over the boats in the bay at six-thirty Sunday morning, Waldo Hallock felt as if he were at a turning point in his life. There'd been other turning points in his forty-eight years, but he hadn't had one in a long time.

In the twenty years that he'd been chief, there had only been two murders in Seaville and both had been solved immediately. One was a transient who'd killed an old lady for a tin can that held twenty- six dollars and forty-two cents, and the other was a guy who'd murdered his wife in a jealous rage.

A cool breeze came in off the bay and a dozen gulls squawked overhead. Hallock sniffed the air. Nothing else was quite like saltwater air. He'd smelled it all his life. Seaville was home; he wanted it to stay that way. And he wanted to remain chief of police.

Hallock watched the ferry from Shelter Island as it made its way toward the Seaville dock. He could see there were only two cars aboard, and only one car waited to take the ferry back. It was a far cry from what it would be like when the season started. By mid- July cars would be backed up for blocks waiting to make the trip to the island, where they'd cross to a second ferry taking them to Sag Harbor and the Hamptons.

Turning his back to the water, his gaze took in the buildings at the foot of Center Street. Most of those on the south side had been built before the turn of the century, clapboard buildings with Victorian arches. Once they'd been homes but now they housed shops, restaurants, and the police station. On the north side of the street, a fire five years before had destroyed all but one or two buildings, and the new ones of brick and wood always jarred him. It was the same with the beach houses people were building now. They looked out of place with their modern angles and walls of glass, like girls at a formal dance wearing miniskirts.

It wasn't that he was against progress, not a bit. But lots of people in Seaville were. There was always some kind of squabble going on at Town Hall about developers wanting to put up condos. One side claimed development would tax local services, drain the water supply, and jeopardize the preservation of open space. The other side invariably pushed the notion of more jobs for the locals. And if that was true, it was a good thing; there were never enough jobs. Especially for the young people who graduated high school or college and left the Fork as fast as they could. No, he wasn't against progress. What bothered him about condos was the way they looked. Dull. Like the bank.

Four years before, the Seaville Bank & Trust, which was housed in the old Gillespie home, was torn down and replaced by a low brick job, characterless and cold. And it was happening more and more all over the North Fork. The new pushing out the old. That was something you expected on the South Fork, where the so-called Beautiful People congregated, but not here.

Thinking of the South Fork brought his mind around to Gloria Danowski. Now he had this damn murder on his hands and the victim wasn't even somebody from town. Memorial Day weekend was six days away. Murder in Seaville could hurt the local merchants. That meant pressure. Who the hell wants to come to a resort town where there's been a murder? An unsolved murder. And goddamn, he knew Gildersleeve would be on his ass.

He smiled in spite of himself, thinking about the mayor huffing and puffing over the woman in his pool. If it hadn't been so serious, he might have had a good laugh about it.

The thing was, Hallock didn't believe that the murderer had chosen Gildersleeve's pool by chance. And that made him believe the perpetrator was a local. As Fran had said before they went to sleep last night, "It looks like this thing is going to be in your lap no matter what, hon."

He'd taken her hand. They always went to sleep that way.

"Don't worry," she said, "we'll get through it."

And they would, too. Like they got through everything. Fran would support him the way she had all those years when he'd been chief over Charles Gildersleeve, Bob Phillips, and Pete Shaw who'd been demoted and stayed status quo because they couldn't pass the damn civil service test. They'd made his life one long misery and there'd been times, plenty of them, when he'd wanted to quit, but Fran had helped him go on.

He'd say, "You don't know what it's like going to work every day with three men who hate your guts."

She'd say, "Waldo Hallock, you weren't made chief of police at twenty-eight because you won a popularity contest. You got that job because you were smarter than anybody else, so don't be dumb now. Anyway, I didn't plot and plan to marry a quitter, did I?"

"Poor guy, never had a chance," Hallock kidded about himself.

It was a game they played. Fran and Waldo were the same age, had gone all through school together, but when he went into the Navy after high school he never gave her a thought. Not so with Fran. She'd always loved him, refused two proposals while she waited for him to come back. She knew someday she'd marry Waldo. And it was she who got in touch with him by inviting him to a party she was giving for a friend. The only reason for the party was so she could invite him. And that began a three-year courtship. It was only after they were married a few years that Fran admitted how she'd schemed to get him. So that was why he always said he'd never had a chance. But he adored Fran; never slept with, or even looked at, another woman since the party twenty-seven years ago.

Now they were up against something once more. At least things at the station were okay. It was five years since the last of the old regime at work had gone. His men liked him now, all good guys.

But even so, last night when he'd held her hand he'd prayed for a break in this case. An unsolved murder wasn't good for anybody: not the town and not him. Fran read his mind, as usual, and told him they'd get through.

And they would. Maybe.

The thing was he could never be sure Fran wouldn't get all involved in one of her causes, leaving little room for him and the kids, Since Cynthia, the youngest of their three, had gone to junior high, Fran had thrown herself into one cause, one march, one protest after another. At first he didn't mind, because he knew Fran was bored at home and needed something. But then she seemed to get obsessive about it, and everything else, like housework and cooking dinner, went all to hell.

When he'd finally said something Fran got furious and called him a chauvinist, telling him to make his own damn dinner. And then the name-calling accelerated, and it turned into one of the worst fights they'd ever had. But that was nothing compared to the time she was arrested protesting the nuclear plant in Shoreham.