Shallow Graves

gold. What about it?“
    “Where’d it come from?“
    Dani watched me for a moment. “It was a gift.“
    “From?“
    “After my mother died, my father had a bad spell, Mr. Cuddy. Heart attack, morose. I’d never... nobody had ever seen him like that. Tommy the Temper in a state of weakness.“
    “And?“
    “And my brother made him comfortable here. I couldn’t do that much... I was living in a one-bedroom apartment in Cambridge , and my father needed round-the-clock care but didn’t want nurses and so on. Claudette was like a slave to him.“
    “Which changed his mind about her?“
    Dani’s face stayed neutral. “What do you mean?“
    “I was under the impression he wasn’t too pleased about his son’s war bride.“
    Dani sat back, weighing something. “My father saw Joey following him into the business. Claudette... clouded that.“
    “How?“
    “Mr. Cuddy, my brother loves Claudette. Once my brother gives his love for something, there’s no holding back, no... tempering of the emotion. He loved her, he married her, he was staying with her. Beyond that, there are some things you really don’t want to go into here.“
    “Why not?“
    “Let me make it clearer: there are some things you should butt out of.“
    More the ring of the streets than the boardrooms. “Okay. Fair to say that Claudette’s helping your father changed his mind about her?“
    Dani said, “Yes.“
    “Then how come the necklace went to his granddaughter?“
    “Mau Tim helped, too. Before and after school.“
    I was thinking that Vincent Dani used her professional name instead of “Tina,“ when he continued. “Also, my father gave that necklace to my mother on their twenty-fifth anniversary. It matched the color of her eyes.“ Dani bit his lip for a moment. “You’ve noticed Claudette’s... eye?“
    “Yes.“
    “Well, my father obviously couldn’t give a gift with that... connotation to Claudette. Through some quirk of the gene pool, Mau Tim’s eyes were exactly the color of my mother’s. And the necklace was also, I think, like a peace offering. A symbolic way of welcoming them into the family.“
    “When they weren’t originally.“
    “Look, I told you to butt—“
    “Okay, okay. You listed the necklace as missing in the property report.“
    “Why wouldn’t I?“
    “It just seems like the kind of thing the son of Tommy Danucci might leave out to keep him from becoming involved in it.“
    The lips seemed to be the only part of Dani’s face that reacted in any way. This time they lost their color. “I put the necklace in the report in the hope that it might lead the police to the killer before my brother’s contacts found him.“
    “Your brother seems to think that police custody isn’t exactly absolute sanctuary.“
    “If the police arrest the perpetrator, he has a chance. If my brother… “
    Dani didn’t go on. I said, “Did you know anything about your niece’s life in modeling?“
    He sat back. “Not much. She’d call me from time to time, we’d talk or have lunch.“
    “I thought she lived with you for a while?“
    “Briefly. About a year ago, when Mau Tim first came to Boston . But I think she found that... confining.“
    “How do you mean?“
    “Well, I put in rather long hours at the firm. When I get home from work, I tend to stay there. I don’t have a great deal of time for social engagements.“
    “Did you know much about Mau Tim’s social life?“
    “No.“
    “Boyfriends?“
    “No,“ again, a little more pointedly.
    “I was under the impression that she might have lived with a photographer for a while before moving to Falmouth Street .“
    Dani’s lips narrowed. “That is another thing I wouldn’t mention to my brother, Mr. Cuddy.“
    “All right. How about her life in the Falmouth Street apartment?“
    “Mau Tim was young and attractive. I assume that once she had her own place, she was... active.“
    “I notice you call your niece ‘Mau Tim.’ “
    “That was the name she wanted to call herself. I respected her wishes.“
    “Why did she change her last name to yours?“
    “You have a problem with people changing their names, Mr. Cuddy?“
    “No.“
    “I didn’t Anglicize mine, you know. I kept the ethnicity, just changed the... recognition factor for professional reasons.“
    “That your niece’s reasoning as well?“
    “I assume so.“
    “She never told you?“
    “Mau Tim was at the age where people rebel against family. I was the one in the