Shallow Graves - Jeremiah Healy (26 page)

"Sinead, where did Mau Tim keep the key to the
second-floor unit?"

"Didn't know she had one."

"All right. You're both here. Shinkawa, too,
would be nice, but let me play him. Walk me through what happened
that night."

"Fuck you," said Fagan, Puriefoy keeping
his own counsel.

"You can walk through it with me now, when
you're already here and blowing off the morning, or the cops can pull
both of you from shoots somewhere when it pleases them to do it. Your
choice."

Puriefoy moved his tongue around his mouth before
saying, "You running a game on us, man?"

"No game. Just a simple reenactment."

They looked at each other.

I said, "We're spending more time arguing about
it than it's going to take to actually do it."

Fagan said, "Awright, awright. Let's get the
fucking thing over with. Where do you want me?"

"Where you were when Puriefoy rang you from
outside the building."

"When he came back with the wine?"

"No. Before that, when he first arrived that
day."

Fagan looked around, closed her eyes. "I was
standing by the sink there, washing celery."

I stepped out of the kitchen. "Go ahead."

"I don't got no celery in the fridge."

"Just stand at the sink."

Fagan did it. She was two feet from the fire escape
through the window, a hunk of wood six inches square on the sill.

I said, "Was that window open?"

"Huh?"

"Was your kitchen window open?"

"Yeah. Nice night, I wanted a little fresh air."

"Can you show me?"

"Show you how to open a window?"

"Show me how it was that night."

Fagan turned from the sink. Heaving at the window,
she niggled the hunk of wood under the frame as it came back down.

I said, "The window won't stay open on its own?"

She shook her head. "Something's wrong with the
things inside the walls."

The sash cords were probably broken. "Can I
try?"

Fagan let me replace her. I lifted the old window. It
took a lot to move it another six inches off the sill, the sides
shuddering like furniture hauled over a bare floor. I said, "How
would you get out if there was a fire?"

She pointed behind me. "Door's right there."

"Okay." I looked at Puriefoy. "How
about you leave the apartment and close the door. Then go outside the
building, close the front door, and ring Mau Tim's bell."

Puriefoy spoke evenly. "I didn't ring Mau's
bell, man. I rang Sinead's."

"Please. Just ring Mau's bell first, wait a few
seconds, and then ring Sinead's."

His expression stayed neutral as he left the room,
closing the apartment door behind him. Over the stereo, which wasn't
on loud, I couldn't hear any noise from Puriefoy opening and closing
the building's front door. Then a harsh doorbell sound, muted by
distance, followed by its twin, even harsher, inside the apartment.

I said, "You really can hear the third-floor
bell down here, can't you?"

Fagan said, "Like you was next to it."

"You didn't hear anybody ring Mau that day."

"No."

"What about when Shinkawa arrived?"

"Him I heard. Yeah, I remember thinking it must
be Larry Shin when I heard Mau's bell."

The harsher bell inside Fagan's apartment rang again.

"Well, you want me to answer it or what?"

"Whatever you did that day when Oz rang your
bell."

She left the kitchen, crossed the living room, and
opened her apartment door, leaving it open as she left my sight and
went into the foyer. Listening hard, I could just hear her opening
the building's front door for Puriefoy. She came right back into the
apartment, Puriefoy behind her.

"What did you two do next?"

Fagan started to say something, Puriefoy riding over
her.

"Like I told you at my studio, man. After a
while, Sinead, she remembers she don't have wine, so I go out to get
some."

"But didn't take a key."

"That's right"

"So you leave and Sinead, you still hear water
in the pipes."

"Yeah."

"When did the water stop?"

"I dunno."

"Before Oz got back with the wine?"

"Yeah."

"How long before?"

"I dunno. A couple minutes, maybe. I remember
thinking, good thing Mau's a little late."

"Why?"

"On account of me forgetting the wine, okay?"

"While Oz was gone for the wine, did you hear
anybody else at the door?"

"You mean, like the front door to the building?"

"Right."

"No."

"Could Mau Tim have let someone in?"

"Not by buzzing the door. You can hear that
fucking buzzer like it was next to you."

"Mau Tim's doorbell or the buzzer now?"

"Both. But the buzzer, that's like . . .”
Fagan made the sound of a hundred-and-twenty-pound bumblebee.

To Puriefoy I said, "And you get back when?"

"Wasn't checking my Watch."

"Fifteen minutes?"

"Fifteen, twenty, maybe. Like that."

"Same routine for the door?"

They looked at each other.

Sinead came back to me. "No. No, this time I
just buzzed him in the front door — the building door — then I
opened this one and went back to what I was doing."

"Which was what?"

"Picking out some tapes. I was getting tired of
the crap I was playing, so I tried some Vanilla Ice."

She pointed to the stereo. "That's him on now."

Puriefoy said, "Uh-huh," like there was no
accounting for Sinead's taste.

I turned to the photographer. "What did you do?"

"Brought in the wine."

"Did you close the apartment door?"

"No, man. My arms were full."

"Where did you put the wine?"

"Kitchen there."

"Open it?"

"Yeah. Corkscrew under the counter."

"Okay. When does Shinkawa arrive?"

Fagan looked to Puriefoy. "I dunno."

Puriefoy said, "Maybe two, three minutes after I
got back. Larry, he rings the bell, we let him in."

"Who lets him in?"

Fagan said, "I do."

"By buzzer?"

"Yeah."

"Then what?"

I listened again to the same "birthday suit"
sequence everybody had already told me.

"Sinead, what did you do after Shinkawa came
running back downstairs?"

"I went to my bag and got the key Mau give me to
her place."

"Do it."

"What, now?"

"Yes."

Fagan went into the kitchen and fetched the key from
a handbag that looked like a leather descendant of Davy Crockett's
powderhorn. "Awright?"

"You all rushed upstairs then?"

"Yeah."

"Let's go."

"What?"

"Let's go upstairs, like I'm Shinkawa and we're
going up there."

Fagan said, "This is getting too weird,"
again the word coming out "we-id."

I said, "We're almost done. Promise."

She didn't look convinced, but Puriefoy said, "Let's
get this over with, huh?" and went out to climb the stairs. I
let Fagan precede me.

Even walking at just normal speed, it didn't take
long to get to the third floor. At the door, I said, "Hold it.
Position yourselves like you were that night."

Puriefoy said, "We can't, man."

"Why not?"

"Larry, he was in front, but you're too big for
all of us to be here at once."

"Okay, simulate that."

"Say what?"

"Just make like I'm in front of you. Who did
what?"

"We pounded a little, Sinead started to work the
key."

Fagan said, "Then Larry took it away from me
'cause he was closer on the door."

"Then the door opens?"

"Yeah, but the chain's on, so you can't see
much."

I said, "Unlock the door, but don't open it."

Fagan stopped. "Unlock . . . ?"

"Use the key in the lock., but don't open the
door itself."

She did.

"Okay, now stand back a little."

I moved in front of them, turning the knob and
cracking open the door. I moved it to two inches, then three, then
four. At three inches I could see the corner of the futon couch, at
four probably a quarter view of where Mau Tim's body would have lain.

I said, "Then you broke through the chain?"

"Oz did."

I pushed the door all the way open.

Fagan trembled. "Jesus Mary."

I said, "What is it?"

"
It's just . . . it's like I was gonna see her
all over again."

She turned and started downstairs."Sinead?"

"Fuck you. I ain't going in there."

As Fagan left us, I looked at Puriefoy. "Was
there music on in here?"

"Music?"

"Or television. Anything?"

Puriefoy said, "No, nothing."

Same as Shinkawa. "How about the shower?"

"That was off, too."

"What did you all do then?"

Puriefoy said, "I don't like being here either,
man. Not at all."

"What did you do?"

He walked into the apartment, but gingerly, like he
wasn't sure the floorboards had been nailed down. "I bent over
by Mau, see if I could get a pulse or anything, but she was gone."

"Shinkawa?"

"Like I told you at my place, he took off for
the bedroom, saying he heard something."

"You didn't go with him?"

"Shit, no. You think I'm a hero?"

Not so far. "Then what?"

"
Sinead, she's screaming, and I'm trying CPR."

"
Even though you thought Mau Tim was dead?"

"In the class I took, they said try it anyway."

"All right. Then what?"

"I tell Sinead, 'Call the 911,' but she's like
hysterical, man. Larry, he comes back in from the bedroom and says he
didn't see nothing. I tell him to help me move Mau a little so I can
work on her better. Then Sinead finally goes and calls the
ambulance."

"From where?"

Puriefoy pointed to a Princess phone on a shelf of
the home entertainment wall. "That one there."

"The three of you stay together here all that
time?"

Puriefoy said, "All what time?"

"Till the ambulance arrived."

"Uh-huh."

"Anybody leave the room for anything?"

"No."

I walked into the kitchen and pulled on the drawer
nearest the faucets. Next to a pair of tongs was an odd, pimpled key
like the one Ooch had used on the second-floor apartment door. I came
back into the living room. Puriefoy was squatting at the corner of
the couch.

"Anything else you can tell me about what you
all did?"

"Larry, he saw this piece of necklace under the
futon here.

I think he showed it to the cops, too."

"Beyond that."

Puriefoy stood up. "Like I been telling you,
Sinead, she wasn't in great shape, and Larry and me, we was working
on Mau, but with her face blue and all .... "

I swung my head slowly around the apartment. I didn't
like what I'd already learned, but I didn't think the place had
anything more to tell me.
 
 

-20-

AS I WAS LEAVING MAU TIM'S
BUILDING, A CALICO CAT SCUTTLED under a bush near the iron front
gate. Fortunately, it reminded me to call the vet's from a payphone
and check on Renfield. A female voice at the other end of the line
impatiently confirmed that he'd be ready for pickup any time after
three-thirty and before six. She made a point of telling me they
accepted either MasterCard or a personal check as payment. I thought
that was a bad sign. I asked her how much the bill was for. She said
they hadn't totaled it yet. I thought that was a worse sign.

* * *

The receptionist at Winant, Terwiliger, and Stevens
looked and sounded like Diana Rigg in her Avengers days. She asked me
if I would "care" to hang my coat in the closet. I said I
would and was led regally to an expanse of polished cherry wood.
Trusting me to use the hanger properly, she glided back to her desk,
which would have put the cockpit of a 747 to shame. Moving toward the
woman, I heard her ask the telephone if Mr. Dani could see "a"
Mr. John Cuddy. She waited, fiddling with some pink message slips,
then said, "I'll advise him."