Shallow Graves

dictionaries on my table. It was eerie, finding Mau Tim’s pet word for Oz Puriefoy in the Dutch and another of her expressions with Larry Shinkawa in the Hawaiian. Even her “first boyfriend“ in the Gaelic, striking my forehead with the heel of my harping hand on that one. So clear, once you had the English-version key.
    Then I felt cold. Claudette Danucci had said her daughter looked things up in the Vietnamese dictionary, and everyone had commented on the dead woman’s curiosity about other cultures. Now knowing why that curiosity might have been an obsession, I pictured Mau Tim Dani in my chair at the library, using the English word to go through the books. Just as I was then.
    I sat there, the volumes piled up around me, forgetting to eat dinner.

    Primo Zuppone was out of the Lincoln before I could get to the driver’s side. The car was backed into the narrow driveway, and he was standing in front of the door with the aluminum awning as I walked toward it.
    “I gotta frisk you.“
    Zuppone’s voice didn’t sound right. Strained, like he was imitating himself.
    I raised my arms even though I wasn’t carrying. “He told you I was coming by?“
    Zuppone broke off the pat-down, his eyes getting wide.
    “He told you to frisk me, but not to come up with me, right?“
    Zuppone’s eyes got wider, the toothpick doing a jitterbug as he finished with my ankles.
    I said, “Claudette reached you and when you didn’t know the answer to her question, you asked him what ‘far-far’ meant.“
    Zuppone spit out the toothpick and stepped back, letting me go in the door and up the stairs alone.

- 28 -

    “So, Mr. Detective, you’ll join me in some wine?“
    “I don’t think so.“
    Tommy the Temper Danucci and I were alone in his magnificent dining room. Standing at the head of the table, he was dressed in brown slacks and a brown flannel shirt with a red and green tartan pattern. The model of a modesdy retired man, trying very hard to adopt an attitude of normality toward the current guest.
    Danucci gestured over the decanter and two chalices to the other end of the table. I sat down, elbows on the linen cloth.
    He sank slowly into his throne chair, twelve feet away. “So, you know.“
    I nodded.
    “Tell me how, eh?“
    “The timing that night at the building on Falmouth. It was all wrong because it was so tight. Too tight unless it was planned by a professional.“
    “Which I told you it wasn’t.“
    I nodded again. “If the killing wasn’t planned by a professional, then it was a burglar gone panicked or a crime of passion.“
    Danucci’s blood started to rise past his throat. “And I couldn’t get you to buy the B and E.“
    “The fire escape problem. Larry Shinkawa doesn’t hear the last flight grind and squeal. Instead, he both hears the clanging noise of somebody on it and feels it still vibrating when he gets to it. That means it wasn’t some other fire escape, it was this one, and it also means the killer got only as far as the second-floor landing.“
    “Where only the family had a key to get out of the apartment and down the inside stairs.“
    “Unless the killer used and replaced Tina’s spare key for the second-floor door.“
    Danucci leaned forward, very carefully pouring himself some wine from the decanter. He swirled the chalice, inhaling before sipping from it. “How did you figure it was me?“
    “I didn’t.“
    “Eh?“
    “I thought it was your son.“
    “My son was in Philly.“
    “I meant Vincent.“
    “Vincent.“ A dismissive wave from the hand that wasn’t holding the chalice. “You shoulda known it wasn’t Mr. Vincent Dani, Esquire. That first night with me here, you knew. You said it, remember?“
    “Brains and ambition, but no heart.“
    “Right. No heart, no... passion.“ Danucci set the chalice down firmly. “I never told this to no one. Not my confessor, not Primo, not nobody.“
    I tried to stay as still as I could.
    “I lost my Amatina. That Claudette and Tina, they nursed her as good as they could, as any million-dollar doctor could, but I lost her. Then I had the heart attack, and they nursed me, too. For a while there, I was weak and outta my head, then I got a little stronger but still not right, still a little outta my head. And one night, Tina, she comes into my room in her father’s house. Comes in to check on me.“
    Danucci looked up at one of his religious paintings, a hazy Madonna. “It musta been the light from outside, through the