He was right about that. For some reason I was good at it. “What if I say no?”
Despite his weakened condition, he still had enough sense not to answer my question directly. “To tell you the truth, Maddy, I’ve never cared much for Jeannie. That’s Tippy’s sorority sister. Jeannie Salapardi. She’s full of herself and full of ideas for making me a better husband.”
I’m sure my eyebrows went up about a foot. “Salapardi? Of the Honda-Toyota-Mitsubishi dealership Salapardis?”
Bob grinned a bit. “That’s right. She’s married to Dave ‘Drive You Crazy’ Salapardi-”
Again I finished the sentence. “The paper’s largest advertiser.”
His grin wobbled into a frown. “I’m far more afraid of my wife than losing a million dollars a year in advertising.”
“You’re an honest man, Bob.” I wasn’t being sarcastic. He was an honest man. And almost as afraid of me as he was of his wife. I knew he wouldn’t be asking for help unless he was in a real pickle. I summed things up. “So, you don’t like Jeannie Salapardi, and you want me to prove that her brother didn’t murder Violeta Bell?”
Bob’s cheeks were stuffed full of meatloaf. He nodded as he chewed. “Actually, I’d consider it a personal victory if her brother were convicted. If he’s guilty.”
That surprised me. “If he’s guilty?”
The tortured husband gave way to the truth-loving newspaperman. “When Eddie French was twelve years old he shot his best friend in the foot. With a pellet gun. Accidentally. Gangrene set in and the boy lost half his foot. The boy was the star of the junior high school basketball team. Destined to be a star in high school and college. Maybe even the pros. That’s how good the kid was, apparently. Jeannie says that Eddie was so riddled with guilt that he smashed his pellet gun with a sledgehammer. He developed a physical aversion to guns of any sort. When he was drafted into the Army, during Vietnam, he refused to even touch a rifle. He spent the rest of his basic training shuffling between the psycho ward and the guardhouse. He was eventually given a dishonorable discharge.”
I interrupted with the obvious. “But he’s a convicted criminal.”
Bob was really chewing and nodding now. “Yes, he is. Burglary. Auto theft. Fencing. Bad checks. Dealing the evil weed. But nothing that ever involved guns.”
I did not want to be intrigued. Not for all the Darjeeling tea in India. But I was intrigued. “And Violeta Bell was found shot full of holes.”
Bob didn’t get me back to the paper until three o’clock. I immediately summoned Eric Chen. He dropped into the chair next to my desk and slid down until his neck was resting on the back. “Heaven’s to Betsy,” I barked, “this is a place of business. Show a little professionalism.”
He crossed his legs and wiggled his dangling foot. He stuck out his pinky finger when he took a sip from his bottle of Mountain Dew. “That better?”
“Much better.” I told him I’d just had lunch with Bob Averill. He told me that the entire newsroom was buzzing about it. That the boys in sports were offering odds on when my last day would be.
“I hope you put your money on When Hell Freezes Over.”
He smiled at me like Buddha. “As a matter of fact I did.”
Eric is the perfect assistant. Lazy and loyal. When Bob hired him fifteen years ago, it was not only to oversee the computerization of the morgue, it was to be my eventual replacement. But my refusal to retire hasn’t bothered Eric in the least. He plays with the computers, reads his comic books, drinks his Mountain Dews, and collects a very good paycheck. I got down to the nitty gritty. “Bob’s in something of a pickle.”
“Which means you’re in a pickle, too?”
“And you,” I said. “And probably a whole lot of other people before we’re through.”
I handed him a copy of Gabriella’s story with a lot of names underlined in red. “I need whatever you can find in our files on the four women. Kay Hausenfelter, Ariel Wilburger-Gowdy, Gloria McPhee, and Violeta Bell. There should be plenty on each.”
Apparently Eric had been reading more than his comic books. “Violeta Bell? Didn’t she just get murdered?”
“Yes she did. And the police think the cab driver, Eddie French, did it.”
“But he didn’t?”
“That’s what Bob wants us to find out.” I explained the predicament that Bob found himself in with his wife and her sorority sister.
Eric rolled his Chinese-American eyes. “Women.”
I reminded him that I was a woman, too.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I was including you.”
“Good-I also think it’s a good idea to see what we have on the sorority sister. Check Jeanette Salapardi.”
“Salapardi? Of the Honda-Toyota-Mitsu-”
“That’s the one. And when you’re done checking the morgue files, see what you can find online.”
“I’ll Google the hell out of them.”
I wagged my finger at him. “And you’ll keep your lips zipped. Bob Averill doesn’t want Tinker to know about this.”
Eric finally showed a little enthusiasm. “Oh, baby! When the lid blows on this one there’ll be smelly brown stuff dripping everywhere!”
I tried to remain sour-faced. But I’m sure at least one side of my mouth was curled into a smirk. “Yes, there will.”
As soon as Eric went back to his desk, I swung around to my computer. I checked the metro desk’s budget to see if Dale Marabout was writing a follow up on the murder. He was. Then I clicked over to the file where those stories are kept-the written basket-to see if he’d already filed it. He had.
He was reporting that police had found a single, bloody shoeprint on the landing outside French’s apartment. They were having the blood checked to see if it matched Violeta Bell’s. They’d also found French’s fingerprints “just about everywhere” in Bell’s condominium. There also was this:
Police would neither confirm nor deny reports that they’d failed to find French’s fingerprints in the basement fitness room where Bell’s body was found.
This little, one-sentence paragraph was telling on a number of counts. It meant that police investigators almost certainly had not found French’s fingerprints in the fitness room. And if not, why not? Would French have clumsily left his fingerprints in her condo after taking pains not to leave any at the murder scene? It also meant that Dale was digging into the story beyond what the police were officially giving him. He had already cultivated a source. The obvious candidate was Detective Scotty Grant. Grant was always leaking little gems like that when it served his purposes. But it could be someone else. Someone close to the investigation in some other way. Someone who knew there was something more to this story than Scraggly Cabbie Kills Rich Old Woman.
I printed out copies of Gabriella’s feature and the two police stories Dale had written so far. I put them in a fresh manila folder. I wrote NEVER DULL on the tab. Then I picked up the phone and punched Gabriella’s extension. “I apologize for being snippy this morning,” I said. “I had a lot on my mind.”
She swiveled in her chair and waved at me across the newsroom. “It’s my fault,” she said. “I shouldn’t have been such a noodge.”
I took that proverbial deep breath. “What do you say we start fresh with breakfast Saturday morning?”
5
Saturday, July 15
I had breakfast with Ike at my house then drove to Waldo’s Waffle House for breakfast with Gabriella. I ordered a multigrain blueberry waffle. Gabriella ordered the Big Waldo-scrambled eggs, bacon and sausage, hash browns, wheat toast and three buttermilk pancakes. When the waitress put all that food in front of her I was appalled. “You recently have a sumo wrestler’s stomach implanted in you?”
Gabriella started smearing butter on her pancakes. “We Nashes are blessed with a high metabolism.”