Shallow Graves - Jeremiah Healy (8 page)

"Certainly, Erica."

She nodded and left. Yulin had said "certainly"
like a bank teller asked to count out a thousand dollars in singles.
The man stood. "Excuse me, John." He went behind his desk
and picked up his telephone. By the time he pushed the button on the
console, his voice had a "how can I serve" lilt to it.

"Larry! Great to hear from you, Chief. How goes
it? . . . Right, right. Give me what you . . . Right, blonde and
redhead. The blonde? . . . Young Christie Brinckley, sexy, lots of
energy. Got it. The red? . . . Firm breasts, cup no bigger than 34C .
. . No taller than five ten? . . . Oh, right, right. He's just barely
six feet. Okay . . . What? Oh, shit no, Larry. We've got a drawerful
of them. Any leg shots on the redhead? . . . No, that will narrow it
a little, but let me see if the one I have in mind . . . Right,
right. I will. Thanks, Larry."

Yulin hung up, took a breath, then came back to me.

I said, "Larry Shinkawa?"

"Yes. Yes, as a matter of fact."

I didn't say anything more. Yulin asked if there was
anything else.

"The mini-book?"

"Oh, right." He retrieved the album from
the desk and gave it to me, again taking the chair next to me.

I turned plastic sleeves of Mau Tim in swimwear,
sportswear, and yachtwear. It was hard to just flip through them.
There was something about each that really caught the eye, like fine
paintings of the same subject by different artists. None by Puriefoy.

Then I hit the head-and-shoulders shot of Mau Tim and
the necklace in full color. The purple stones lay perfectly
symmetrically around the throat, the pendant weighing the least bit
heavily toward the cleavage that the dressline suggested but the
photo didn't show. Eyes and necklace glittered in whatever light the
photographer had shone on her.

Yulin said, almost reverently, "That is a
heart-stopper, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"The way I've described the shot to people, it's
as if a man asked her to sleep with him, and she just decided to say
yes."

I tried to picture the broken pendant from Holt's
eight-by-ten of the crime scene. "You know anything about the
necklace?"

"
You mean the way the stones pick up her eyes?"

"I meant, do you know if the necklace was hers?"

"Oh. No, I don't. Probably hers or the
photographer's. I don't think it was an ad shot."

"Meaning it wasn't some jewelry store's
necklace."

"Or manufacturer's. Why, is it important?"

Yulin tried for open innocence, tried hard, but
something made the corners of his mouth twitch just a little.

"You remember where you were a week ago Friday,
George?"

"Well, let me see now . . ." The eyebrows
knitted, giving the impression he hadn't thought about it until I'd
just asked. The brows cleared. "Yes. Yes, I went to an ad party
after work. Just an hors d'oeuvres and cocktails sort of bash, but
enough dinner for me. Then I made the rounds of a few bars I know.
Then I decided to call it a night and headed home."

"When did you leave the party?"

"I don't know. It was winding down."

"Six, seven?"

"More like seven."

"And did you go drinking with someone?"

"My friend, I talk all day with people. I like
to do my drinking anonymously. An atom in the mass society."

"Which bars did you hit?"

He named three, all of them madhouses on a Friday
evening. An uncheckable alibi.

"And after the bars?"

"As I said. Home to Brookline."

"Your partner told me — "

"My what?"

"Erica."

"Oh. Yes?"

"Erica said some of the models confided in you
two. Mau Tim ever do that?"

Yulin turned it over. "No. No, she was really .
. . well, quiet, as I said before."

"You ever visit her apartment?"

"Never."

"Okay. You said Larry Shinkawa was her current
boyfriend?"

"Right."

"And Oz Puriefoy before that?"

"Right, right."

"You know of any other boyfriends?"

Yulin preened his hair again. "No."

"She never mentioned anybody else to you?"

"No. As I said, she was real — oh, wait a
minute. Yes. Yes, one other. Shawn somebody. She said he was her
first."

"Her first?"

Yulin brought out another knowing grin, affecting a
bad brogue. "He who managed to deflower the lass."

"Do you know if it was S-H-A-W-N or S-E-A-N?"

"Beats me. Probably just some Irish kid."

I gave Yulin a longer look this time.

He said, "Uh, no offense meant"

"None taken."

Yulin licked his lips anyway.

I said, "Erica seemed to think that Sinead Fagan
might know more."

"Ah, the Marquesa of Medford."

Medford is a blue-collar town just outside Boston.
Yulin pronounced the name like somebody growing up there would,
Meh-fah. He seemed to like doing dialects.

"Remember what I said about unappreciative
bitches, John?"

"Yes."

"A prime example. Though, with apologies to the
ladies of the night, if Sinead weren't being paid for it, she'd
probably still pose for free."

"Why is that?"

A shrug. "The glamour and the . . . bright
1ights?" Yulin smiled at his industry joke.

"You have a home number for Sinead?"

"Yes, but I'm not sure she's still living at the
same place."

"Where Mau Tim was killed, you mean?"

"Right. I think she's moved in with Oz."

"Puriefoy's dating her, too?"

"No. He's dating her currently, though 'dating'
might be an awfully chivalrous way to put it."

"Do models usually get involved with their
photographers?"

"Some. However, in Sinead's case, it might just
be that Oz is the first man she's known who hasn't thrown up on her."

"There any way I can see her today?"

"I doubt it. She's on a longish shoot."

"Where?"

"Nearby. But it's not a great idea to interrupt
a model on a job."

I folded my pad. "The sooner I see her, the
sooner Empire can decide whether you get paid on the policy."

George Yulin mulled that over for all of five
seconds. Then he jotted an address on a slip of white paper while
saying, "You might just catch her."
 
 

-7-

THE MUSIC WAS SO LOUD I COULD FEEL IT IN MY CHEST.
There had been no one in the waiting area of the photography studio a
few blocks from Lindqvist/Yulin, and I could hear a driving beat from
behind a closed, inner door. I opened the door and was hit by a
rap-reggae hybrid from four floor speakers that topped off above my
waist.

On the far side of the thirty-by-thirty room were
four people. The two men wore black mock turtlenecks and black pants,
the two women bikinis. The taller man played with his earring behind
a long-lensed camera on a tripod, an identical camera lying on the
crest of a stepladder beside him. The shorter man brushed the
billowing hair of a statuesque blond woman who was physically
perfect. Standing next to the blonde was a redhead who looked younger
than the blonde but had a similar body. The redhead's hair was short
and spiky, a cocklebur with a haughty face.

The women didn't seem to match, like somebody's older
sister running into somebody else's younger sister at the beach, but
maybe that was the effect they wanted. It took a minute for me to
realize that I was standing in shadow, and probably the models
couldn't see me through all the lights shining on them.

The redhead began pouting, hands on hips, a pair of
sunglasses halfway down her nose, eyes searching out the photographer
over the rims. Above the music, she shouted, "Chris, these
shades are like weird."

The photographer spoke to his camera. "They look
fine, Sinead."

"I feel like somebody's grandmother."

"Don't worry about it. They fit the scene, and
nobody's looking at your eyes, anyway."

"They still feel weird."

 
George Yulin was right about Sinead Fagan's
Medford accent. Weird came out "we-id," grandmother
"gramuva."

The "scene" appeared to be a beach. There
was a big striped umbrella guy-wired into the shallow sand, the
background wall draped with a blue and white cloth that looked enough
like sky and clouds to fool me, and I knew it was fake. The blonde
patiently waited through the shorter man's fussing and Sinead's
whining.

Chris the photographer said, "That looks fine,
Bruce."

As the man with the brush moved back out of the
scene, Chris said into the lens, "Sandy, hold where you are.
Sinead, just a little to the right."

Sinead huffed out a breath and shifted left.
"Awright?"

Bruce mouthed something into the photographer's ear
and grinned mischievously.

Chris said, "Other way, Sinead."

"Other way what?"

"Move the other way, toward Sandy."

Sinead huffed again but moved the correct way.

"
More."

Sinead nearly bumped into the other woman, Sinead's
sunglasses slipping off her nose and into the sand below. Reaching
for them, Sinead lost her balance, plopping into the sand behind
them.

Sandy closed her eyes and broke her pose. The brush
man burst out laughing. Chris raised his head from the camera and
said, "Bruce, kill the music."

The shorter man went to the stereo on a side wall and
suddenly the room grew still. It was as though the sound instead of
the shadow had been covering my presence, because as suddenly
everybody seemed aware I was there.

The photographer said, "Who are you?"

"John Cuddy. I'd like to talk to Ms. Fagan, if I
could."

"Who?"

"That's me, Chris."

Sinead Fagan came off the set, one hand holding the
sunglasses while the other whisked her bottom. Sand on her feet
squinched a little on the linoleum floor. "What do you want?"

It came out "Wotchawan?" Posed and silent,
she looked poised, mid-twenties. In motion and talking, just another
gangly teenager.

I said, "I'd like to speak with you privately."

Before Fagan could answer, Chris said, "Tell you
what, folks. Let's take fifteen, everybody shake out the bugs, okay?"

Sandy said, "Fine." Bruce looked like he
wanted to laugh some more, but thought better of it. All three of
them moved off toward a coffee machine on the opposite wall under a
collage of giant lips.

Fagan watched me warily. Up close and out of the
harsh lights, the makeup was heavy, covering a lot of freckles and a
little too much sideburn edging close to her jawline.

I said, "My name's John Cuddy, Ms. Fagan. I'm a
private investigator."

"No shit."

Fagan said the second word flatter than the first, as
though she didn't believe me. I took out my ID folder, letting her
mouth what she read on it.

"What's this for?"

"The death of Mau Tim Dani."

The face behind the makeup seemed to cave in,
crumbling the caked-on powder. "I don't wanna talk about that."

"Ms. Fagan, it won't take long. We can talk here
at your convenience, or in a conference room with lawyers and a
stenographer. Up to you."

She thought it over, maybe struggling to remember if
that's what happened on L.A. Law. "Let me get a robe, awright?"

Fagan walked, then trotted behind the set, returning
wrapped in a short terry cloth, sash undone. And now wearing the
sunglasses, something she probably thought of in front of the mirror,
to hide her emotions from me.

I pulled up a couple of folded folding chairs and
unfolded them. When we were settled, I said, "You and Mau Tim
were friends."

"Yeah."

"You lived in the same apartment house."

"Yeah. You know the answers to all these, how
come you gotta ask them?"

Defiant, not flirty. "I'm trying to make this as
easy for you as I can."

"Big of you."

"Also, when I get information from one person, I
check it with another. That way, I can tell when somebody's lying to
me, setting themselves up for perjury down the line."

Perjury seemed to soak in. Fagan said, "Ask."

"You were having a party for Mau Tim that
night."

"Right."

"
Do you know where she was before the party that
day?"