Swan Dive - Jeremiah Healy (17 page)

"Was she thinking about leaving it?
Prostitution, I mean."

"Not that she ever said. Just that . . ."

"Yes?"

Goldberg flapped her hand. "Just that she had
this dream of becoming an actress. That she thought the life had
taught her enough about how to act different than she felt, and that
she thought that was better training for the movies than some drama
school she’d gotten mail about."

"She ever pursue the acting idea?"

"Not that I know of."

"Nino told me that she was . . . wasn’t
involved in anything he’d arranged for the night she was killed.
Does that sound consistent to you?"

"Yeah. You were going to say she was
‘free-lancing’, weren’t you?"

"Yes."

"Thanks for trying to spare my feelings, but I
did know she was a whore, you know?"

“
I know."

"I mean, whether she arranged it or Nino
arranged it never changed what she was doing, did it?"

"I guess not."

Goldberg toned down a bit. "She free-lanced a
lot. I don’t think Nino really cared about that. He’s not exactly
your stereotypical pimp."

"Is that how she met Marsh?"

"I don’t know. I know she was really proud
that she wasn’t just a party girl Nino set up with conventioneers.
I think she . . . I think she had trouble with the law before she met
Nino, and I think she liked the fact that her personal clients now
were in banking and insurance and so on. Like it gave her status."

"Ms. Goldb-"

"Reena, please. Don’t you think by this point
you could call me Reena?"

"Sure. Reena, Marsh didn’t strike me as the
kind of man who would pay for sex. More the kind who’d intimidate
for it. I only met him a few days before he died, but I—"

"I know. The cops tried to get me to say I’d
heard Teri mention your name, but she didn’t used to do that."

"Do what?"

"Mention the name of her clients. To me, anyway.
It was like a professional thing with her. Like confidentiality with
a lawyer."

I considered it. "Then how did you know who
Marsh was when the cops first contacted you?"

"I didn’t. Till the drugs came into it. Then I
knew who they meant."

"How?"

"Teri was into trading, you know? Like, what’s
the word for it, one thing for another?"r

"Barter?"

"Yeah, barter. Right. She didn’t have any kind
of health plan, obviously, and she wasn’t about to go to this
butcher Nino knew, so there was this doctor she used to . . . do
things for in exchange for his treating her. Well, I knew she was
seeing a guy she got drugs from, cocaine, and when the cops asked me
about Marsh, I just matched him up."

"She ever talk about him? The drug supplier, I
mean?"

"No. She really didn’t do that. At least not
with me."

I thought about the next question I wanted to ask,
because I was afraid that it might end her cooperation.

"Reena, you said before that Teri approached you
because you looked kind. She must have confided in somebody about
some things."

"Maybe her sister. Teri never told me her name,
always just ‘my sister? The family lives in Epton, near Lawrence."
Reena stopped, then said, "I don’t think you understand how it
was between Teri and me."

"I guess I thought you were lovers."

Reena’s eyes clouded over, but she spoke past them.
"I loved her, but she came to me for the same reason clients
came to her. To get something they were missing in the rest of their
lives. I wish to God I knew what it was."

"Does Teri’s sister still live at home?"

"You mean in Epton?"

“
Yes."

"No, I don’t think so. She’s younger than
Teri . . . than Teri was. But she’ll be there today, anyway. The
funeral was scheduled for this morning." Reena glanced up to a
clock, and the tears began to come. "It started . . . ten
minutes ago . . . I couldn’t go . . .they’ve been through so much
already. It didn’t seem fair . . . to add me to it."

"It takes a pretty strong person to do something
like that."

"Oh yeah," she said, rallying a little.
"That’s what I’ve always been. Strong, tough even. Well,
I’ll tell you, you know some people are tougher than they look?"

"Yes."

"Well, I’m the opposite. I look tougher than I
am." I left her wiping a cuff across her eyes.
 

SIXTEEN
-
♦
-

I was unsteady getting up from the flowers and caught
my balance by using her stone.

Too much to drink last night?

"No. Too much Terdell."

As the morning sun skipped over the waves in the
harbor below us, I brought her up to date on what had happened.

So what do you think?

"I think I have a sackful of people who knew
either Marsh or Teri but so far no connection between them."

How do you mean?

"Well, whoever hit me on Monday knew I’d be a
good candidate for the frame. That means that somebody trying to kill
Angel would have to know about me and Marsh."

What if just Marsh was the target?

"Then Teri’s side of this is a blind alley.
And I’m left with looking for motives for killing Marsh. I think
his lawyer Felicia bought drugs from him, his partner Stansfield
cashed a quarter-million in key-man insurance, and his wife Hanna
believed she’d get both life-policy proceeds and the house."

The nurse’s father hated Marsh, right?

"Yes, but Kelley seemed pretty quick to yield to
his daughter’s will when I was with him. Also, she alibis him for
Monday night."

The drug pushers are rough enough.

"The problem there is that J .J. would be better
off if Marsh had stayed alive. And none of the cops seem interested
in anything but themselves or nailing me."

What about this Nino guy?

"Harder to figure. No indication that he even
knew Marsh. Nino may have a nose for the stuff himself, or just be
looking for indirect compensation for losing Teri. Or . . ."

Or?

"I don’t know. Maybe he really cared for her.
Her lover certainly did. And would have had the physical strength to
send Marsh out the window."

And shoot the woman she loved in the bargain?

"You’re right. Doesn’t figure that way."

If Marsh didn’t meet Teri through her manager,
then maybe you should find out how they did get together.

"I’ve been trying to."

What are you going to do next?

“
First, try to talk with Teri’s sister."

Couldn’t that wait?

"I don’t even know her name or where she
lives. If I’m going to see her, today at the family’s house is
the best bet."

You said first?

"What?"

You said first you were going to talk with the
sister. Then what?

"Oh. Then I get to have lunch with Nino and his
ladies."

I’d always heard that widowers were corruptible.

"Please."

* * *

The drive to Epton took about an hour. I’d looked
up the family name in the telephone book, and it was the only one in
town. A stop at a gas station pointed me toward the street, and the
center of gravity of the dozen or so cars parked along the road
appeared to be the address.

I slowed down. The shallow lawn rose steeply to the
stoop. The inner door to the house was open but the outer, screened
door was closed, the upper part filled by the broad back of a man in
a dark suit. He seemed to be talking to someone, then swiveled
sideways to let a young woman in a knee-length black dress edge past
him and outside. She clicked down the path in modest heels, face
downcast and palms locked onto elbows. An old woman fussedly came
halfway out the doorway and yelled something at her in Greek. This
one wore black too, only more so: shoes, stockings, long skirt,
sweater, even kerchief on her head. The younger woman ignored her,
the older one giving a curiously European "good riddance"
wave before going back into the house.

I pulled by the younger one. Her features matched the
ones I’d seen in Holt’s mug shot of Teri, but plainer and somehow
less vital, the way a Xerox of a Xerox used to look.

She reached the sidewalk and turned to walk in the
direction I was driving. I accelerated to the first empty stretch of
curb and parked. I got out of the car and came around to the
passenger side while she was still twenty feet away. Drawing closer,
she treated me warily, as though she had just noticed me standing
there. I could see her left hand: no engagement or wedding ring.

“
Ms. Papangelis?"

"Yes?"

I showed her my ID quickly as I said, "My name’s
Cuddy. I’m investigating the death of your sister."

She sighed and closed her eyes. "Again?"

"I’m afraid so."

She opened her eyes and gestured vaguely behind her.
"Today?"

"The sooner we get all the information we can,
the better our chances of—"

"Okay, okay." She looked up the street.
"Would it be all right if we just walked around for a while? I’m
kind of tired of the house and all."

"Sure."

We continued on the route she’d started, past the
old homes with narrow driveways and detached rear garages that could
have been in any blue-collar neighborhood within fifty miles.

"Ask your questions."

"We still don’t know for sure whether the
killer was after Marsh or your sister. Can I call her Teri?"

"Theresa. You can call me Sandy or Sandra, I
don’t care. But Teri was her . . . the name she used with her
customers. I always called her Theresa."

"It might help us focus on who was the target if
you can tell me something about her."

"Like what? I mean, I already answered all the
questions you guys had the last time."

"Tell me what you haven’t said already. What
you think I ought to know."

"God. What you ought to know." She took a
breath.

"There were just the two of us, we had a
brother, but he died while he was being born. Theresa was five years
older than me, and always in trouble. I mean like school trouble,
grades and attendance and that kind of thing. I was always the
perfect student, skipped two grades, my father scraped and saved to
send me through parochial school, you know? He would have done the
same for Theresa, but she didn’t care, and probably didn’t have
the aptitude to do the work. So she went one way and I went another."

"Which way did you go?"

“
Teachers’ college. Framingham State. Got out
last year, now I’m teaching in Salem. Salem, New Hampshire, not
Massachusetts."

"Did you stay in touch with your sister much?"

"Depends on how you mean. She and Mom don’t .
. . didn’t get along too well. When she found out about what
Theresa was doing . . ."

"When was that? That your mother found out."

"Not really till all this. I mean, my father
suspected, for a long time, I think. But my mom . . . do you know
much about Greek families?"

I thought back to what Eleni had told me about the
men she hated in Greece. "Not much."

"Well, it’s no disgrace for a man to go see a
. . . they’d use the word ‘whore.' The men joke about it in the
living room, while the women make believe they can’t hear them from
the kitchen. But it’s a real disgrace for your daughter to turn
into one. That’s one of the reasons I had to get out of the house
just now. I couldn’t stand the hypocritical men standing around
trying to console my parents about what Theresa had become while they
were probably kicking themselves for never trying to . . . never
trying to see her, too."

"Tell me about Theresa personally."

“
Personally?"

"Yes. What was she like?"

"Pretty. No, more flashy, like the kind of girl
the guys would always be watching. She knew it, too. And she had this
great smile and way of talking to you, that made you feel better even
though it wasn’t so much what she said as what she let you say."
Sandra smiled, but it didn’t make her look happy or pretty. "Maybe
that’s why she was good at what she did."

"You ever meet Roy Marsh?"

"No. To be honest, I’d really only see Theresa
when she’d come up to the house for family stuff. Dinner once in a
while, holidays. She never brought anybody with her. Or invited us
down for anything. I don’t think my parents ever even saw her
apartment? She broke off, her expression hardening. "You guys
decided when I can finally get in there and get her stuff?"