Murder Can Spoil Your Appetite (28 page)

Anyhow, right after that phone call, I managed to knock everything out of my head, and I settled down to study my notes. I’d gone through them quickly on Tuesday, prior to leaving the office to meet with Iggy and Davey No-nose—and I’d concluded exactly nothing. But today I would really concentrate.

Lou stopped in before I’d made much headway. “I’ve just been in with the chief, filling him in on Mickey.”

“What did he have to say?”

“He feels it’s a break in a sense, that this gives the investigation some direction. But, of course, he can look at it like that; he didn’t know Mickey personally. By the way, after you left for home yesterday, I went back to my office for a few minutes to check out a couple of things. There was a message from the ME. He estimates that Mickey died sometime between eight and ten p.m.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, ‘oh.’ It doesn’t do much for me, either. Listen, I’ve been weighing whether to talk to da Silva himself at this point or whether it would make more sense to continue to interrogate his lackeys before we tackle him. The thing is, while I still haven’t been able to come up with any kind of a motive for da Silva to off Vincent, it’s conceivable he may have an idea of who did it. And considering his involvement with Frankie boy, he might even be willing to give up one of his own people.”

I countered this in a flash. “If da Silva did know anything, he’d probably have dealt with the perp personally.”

“But if he’s only suspicious, he’s most likely holding off until he’s certain. And it’s possible we can persuade him that he’d be wise to let us handle this, that we’re in a better position to get at the truth.”

“I still think we should meet with the others first. Maybe we’ll find out a few things that will help us put the right questions to da Silva.”

Lou shrugged. “Okay. Why don’t I make some phone calls this afternoon. After all, you’re the boss.”

I couldn’t be positive, but there didn’t seem to be even a trace of hostility in his tone when he said that.

 

I’d just returned from the ladies’ room when I saw the envelope on my desk. Ripping it open, I found an eight-by-ten of Morgan Sklaar’s gorgeous kisser. I was a little sad at the thought that it was highly unlikely I’d be putting this photograph collection of mine to use.

How wrong I was.

It was only fifteen minutes later, right after I’d gotten back to my notes, that I heard from a man who would turn this case topsy-turvy yet again.

“Detective Shapiro?” he inquired.

“Speaking.”

“You gave me your card, remember?”

Almost automatically I was about to retort that I gave my card to a lot of people, and who the hell was I talking to, anyhow? But I thought it might be best just to answer yes. So I did.

“My name’s Raphael. Eric Raphael. I live on Oakview Road. You came over one night to ask my wife and me about the Vincents.”

“Oh, yes, of course,” I responded, although I still couldn’t put a face to the caller. “Have you thought of something you forgot to tell us that evening?” Suddenly my mouth was dry and my heart threatened to burst out of my chest.

“Yeah, I did. What I mean is, not exactly. I didn’t forget. I was just afraid to say anything.”

“Afraid?”

“Look, I didn’t want to admit what I knew because I didn’t want my wife to find out how I knew it.” He laughed self-consciously. “She’s much bigger’n me.”

And here I finally got a mental picture of the owner of this voice. Eric Raphael, I recalled, was a slight, pale man maybe fifty years old, with a few long hairs combed strategically—and ludicrously—over what was on the verge of becoming a totally bald pate. His wife was a large-boned blonde about fifteen years younger and at least seventy-five pounds heavier. “But you’ve decided to come forward anyway?” I prodded.

Raphael sounded totally miserable. “It doesn’t matter no more. Miriam—she’s the wife—got the news this weekend that I been . . . well, cheatin’ on her. What happened was, Chloe and I had this argument—Chloe’s the lady I been goin’ out with—and before you can say boo, she’s on the horn with Miriam, spilling her guts out. Can you beat that? She even complained to the wife that I hit her, when all I did was grab her wrists to keep her from swingin’ at me. Anyways, the very next day—the day before yesterday, it was—the wife just packed up and left me. Took the kids with her, too. So you see,” he summed up with a sort of half-sob, “there’s no reason to keep it a secret anymore—what I saw.”

“And what was that?” I asked quietly.

“I saw Sheila Vincent at the Breeze Inn. That’s this motel all the way out on Route—”

“When was this?” I was so excited I couldn’t hold back the question.

“Toward the end of October, I guess it was.”

“Who was Mrs. Vincent with?”

“That, I don’t know. I spotted her as she was leavin’ one of the rooms there. The man was still inside, because Sheila turned around and said something like ‘Call me tomorrow,’ and he said something I couldn’t make out, and then he closed the door.”

“You didn’t get even a glimpse of the man?”

“No.”

“Did Mrs. Vincent see you?”

“I don’t think so. As soon as she walked out of that room I flattened myself against the soda machine. That’s why I was outside in the first place—getting a Pepsi. And luckily, her car was parked in the opposite direction, so she didn’t have to pass me.”

“One more question. This was in the evening?”

“No, during the day. Maybe twelve-thirty, one o’clock. I can tell you somethin’ else, too. It was on a Monday or a Wednesday, because that’s when Chloe and I mee—used to meet.”

“I want to thank you for getting in touch with us like this, Mr. Raphael.”

“That’s okay. When you and the lieutenant came to the house that time? I wanted to tell you about it then. I didn’t feel right about not sayin’ anything, honest to God. But you understand, don’t you? Anyways, it’s been botherin’ me ever since. Especially because I always liked Frank. I didn’t have much contact with him, but whenever I
was
in his company, well, I liked him. I was in a bind, though, because I had the wife and kids to consider.” And then he added self-righteously, “I’m basically a family man, Detective Shapiro, so, of course, I had to put them first.”

What struck me as truly remarkable was that Raphael didn’t seem to find even the slightest irony in this ridiculous claim of his. But the next words
really
got to me.

“They say that when you do the right thing—which, although granted I’m a little late with it, is what I’m doing now—things’ll work out right for you, too.” He giggled nervously. “So maybe Miriam will decide her and I had somethin’ good goin’ after all, huh?”

I couldn’t believe it! The man had come to us with his information as part of a bargain he’d made with God or the devil or somebody. Of all the lying, cheating, self-deceiving, self-serving, self-centered hypocrites!

Still, at that moment, Eric Raphael was my hero.

I could hardly wait to trumpet my news. I practically flew next door to Lou’s office—only to find Chief Hicks standing on the threshold.

He turned around, acknowledging my presence with a nod and a curt “Miss Shapiro.” He didn’t even try for a smile, which was probably wise, since his smiles never seemed exactly sincere. Not when they were directed at me, at any rate.

Stepping aside so I could enter the room, he called out over my head, “If I don’t see you later, Lou, you and Jake have yourselves a happy Thanksgiving.” Lou wished him the same. It was a good two seconds before the chief’s grudging, “You, too, Miss Shapiro.”

I turned around, stopping the man before he could walk away. “I think you might like to hear this, Chief.” It had slipped out before I could decide whether this was the time to share with him what I’d so recently learned.

Chief Hicks lifted an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“Uh, maybe you’d want to come in and sit down. Somebody just called me with important information on the case.”

Without a word, he marched into the office and drew up a chair. “Go on,” he said when we were seated across from each other, on opposite sides of Lou’s desk.

I proceeded to relate the highlights of my conversation with Eric Raphael, trying to suppress my elation.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Lou muttered when I was through. He smiled broadly.

If the chief was excited by my revelation, he was very adept at concealing it. After a few moments of silence he finally deigned to respond in a matter-of-fact tone. “What we’ve just discovered, then, is that Sheila Vincent had a lover. But whether Mrs. Vincent and this lover of hers are killers remains to be seen. And in the meantime, a valued informant of the Riverton Police Department was run over in an alley only a short time before he was to reveal to Lou here what he knew about the Vincent homicide, this information apparently involving a known New Jersey mobster. Well, I consider Polansky’s death extremely suspicious. Don’t you agree, Miss Shapiro?” He went on without pausing, making it clear how anxious he was for my opinion. “So I certainly wouldn’t abandon that area of inquiry if I were in your shoes.”

 

It had taken a bit of doing to convince Lou to postpone interrogating more of da Silva’s cronies until after we paid a visit to the Breeze Inn. But my status with regard to the investigation, together with a talent for wheedling that had been honed since my pigtail days, eventually did the trick.

On our way to the motel, Lou tried hard to explain his precious chief’s reaction to my news. “John is determined to find out who did Mickey. On the one hand, as I told you before, he views Mickey’s murder as a break in the case. But on the other, he looks at it as something—I don’t know—personal, I guess. A few of us had been working with the little guy for years. And every once in a while he was a real help to the department, so—”

“I can understand that. But Hicks acts as if I’ve crept out from under a rock.”

“A lot of people regard New Yorkers that way,” Lou joked, trying to improve my mood.

A black look rewarded the effort.

“Okay, I realize the chief hasn’t been your biggest booster, but—”

“
Booster!
He isn’t even civil to me.”

“Yeah, I know. But consider how your being brought in has affected him. He feels as if he’s been stripped of his authority in the Vincent homicide. Which, of course, he has. And what’s worse, even though the case is pretty much out of his hands, he’s the one taking all the heat from the politicians and the media to get the thing solved.”

“I appreciate that. Still . . .” Shaking my head, I pressed my lips together angrily.

“If you ever got to know him, you’d find him to be an eminently good and fair man.”

I made certain I slipped in the last word on the subject. “Right,” I muttered as we turned off the highway onto a gravel driveway. A big red-and-white sign over the driveway proclaimed the long, low, white structure straight ahead of us to be the Breeze Inn.

The motel, I saw as we drew closer to it, was slightly ramshackle. Although, I decided, not enough so as to be really off-putting.

“Hey, Dez,” Lou remarked, pulling into the parking lot to the left of the building, “wasn’t that a Burger King I saw across the road?”

“That’s right.”

“What do you say I shoot over there and get us a couple of burgers and some fries while you do the photo thing?” Then he added sheepishly, “I figure I’m about five minutes away from starving to death.”

I glanced absently at my watch: almost two o’clock—it had been close to an hour’s ride out here. I realized then—and it was a very good feeling—that I was hungry, too.

It didn’t occur to me at the time, but this resurgence of appetite was probably due in part to the fact that I was no longer wrestling with my feelings toward Lou—and in even larger part to my finally putting things right with Al.

“I like how you think,” I told Lou, giving him my order.

 

It took less than fifteen minutes to conclude my business at the Breeze Inn. Lou, back in the motel parking lot again, was waiting for me in the car. He was just having the last bite of his bacon burger.

I slid in next to him. “Well?” he demanded.

“The manager looked at the photographs of the three men and said things like ‘Who knows?’ and ‘Maybe yes, maybe no.’ He told me that most of the time the woman waits outside, and he doesn’t see her at all.”

“I take it, then, that he couldn’t ID Mrs. Vincent.”

“You take it correctly. Neither could the chambermaid, but she barely speaks English. She shook her head when I asked if she recognized anyone. I’m assuming that she knew what the question was, though, and that the answer was no.” I heaved a sigh. “Of course, there’s still the assistant manager—he works nights. Plus, they have another fellow who fills in on weekends. Also, there’s the weekend maid. I’ll try them, too, in case the widow and whoever varied their schedule. But I’m not exactly optimistic.”

Lou’s expression was sympathetic. “Here.” He passed me a cardboard tray and started the motor. “Dig in before this stuff gets any colder than it already is. Listen, I’m sorry we didn’t get to dine together. I had every intention of holding out until you came back, but, well, there was this irresistible aroma, and—”

“And you’re weak.”

He grinned as we drove off. “True. Also my stomach had a lot to say about things.” A moment later, reacting to what he saw on my face, he said, “The chief had a point, you know. Whether or not the widow is involved with somebody doesn’t necessarily mean beans. So try not to be too upset that we didn’t get anywhere today.”

“You’re still sure it was one of da Silva’s people, aren’t you?”

“I’m not
sure
of anything, but I won’t deny I’ve been leaning in that direction, all the more so since Mick’s death. And we’ve barely begun to question those guys, to say nothing of not having had a talk with da Silva himself yet.”