Canary (17 page)

“What's the matter?” Newt asked suddenly. “Thinking patriotic thoughts?”

Valentine glanced back over his shoulder at the jagged rooftops silhouetted against the clear night sky. “Actually, I was thinking about the last necktie murders—those two leather numbers who were friends of B.J.”

“What about them?”

“Which building were they killed in? Can you see it from up here?”

Newt aimed a skewer of beef and onion to his left. “Next block down, other side of the street, fourth house in from the corner. You can see it when the trees are bare.”

Valentine looked in the direction Newt had pointed. “Are they still working on renovating that building?”

“Oh, sure. As soon as the cops gave the go-ahead, the carpenters and electricians were back in there. A friend of mine's on the work crew.”

“Really? Did he say anything to you about it?”

“He wasn't the one who found the bodies, if that's what you mean.”

“No,” said Valentine, “but was there blood or anything?”

“He said that the one found in the front room had urinated when he was killed, but that was all. Urine doesn't make much of a stain, by the way. He said they were lucky it wasn't a stabbing, because they'd have had to rip up part of the floor. He said that the place smelled to high heaven, though.”

“Smelled. From what? Their bodies hadn't been in there long enough to decompose, and urine can't make
that
much of an odor.”

“He said it was some sort of chemical smell. It was some liquid that had been spilled on the floor and in some of the insulation near one of the bodies.”

“Chemical,” Valentine repeated thoughtfully. “Amyl nitrate?”

Newt shrugged. “That's what I figured, because my friend is straight. He wouldn't know poppers if you spilled them in his shirt pocket.”

“You know a straight man?” Valentine asked.

“Somebody has to befriend them.”

“Did your friend have anything else interesting to say?”

Newt looked up and thrust out his right arm, displaying a chrome-studded black leather wristband. Valentine looked from it up to Newt.

“Newt, you're not going to tell me your friend found that and gave it to you instead of to the police.”

“Yep. The cops missed it. It was caught in that insulation where the chemical smell was.” Newt held his arm up and looked at the bracelet. “I never owned anything that belonged to a murdered person before. I used to have a suicide jacket but never a murder victim's jewelry.”

“That could be evidence,” Valentine said seriously.

“Daniel, those two weren't strangled with leather wristbands, for God's sake. Nobody'll ever miss it. Every time I put this on, I'll think of poor old Ruder.”

Valentine knitted his brow. “How do you know it belonged to Ruder and not Cruder?”

“I don't, but I always thought Ruder was the better looking. If I'm going to wear something that belonged to a murder victim, I like to think it was worn by a reasonably good looking murder victim.”

Valentine took a swallow of his drink. “You know, Newt,” he said quietly, “there's no way of knowing for sure who that wristband belonged to.”

Newt lowered his arm. “What do you mean?”

“Maybe it didn't belong to the victim. Maybe it belonged to the murderer. It could have come off in a struggle.”

Newt gazed at the wristband with disturbed, renewed interest. “I didn't think of that…”

“It could have had the killer's fingerprints on it.”

Newt turned the bracelet about his wrist. “It's got my fingerprints all over it now.”

“And if the murderer realizes it's missing and he sees it on your wrist…”

Clarisse thrust herself unexpectedly up through the skylight. Valentine gave her an arm up and over the lip of the opening.

“Okay, you two, form a line to the right.”

Clarisse repeatedly leaned back down and up again as she took and passed on an enormous ceramic bowl of potato salad, lobster salad, Boston baked beans, a mop bucket full of ice and beer, two hot spinach quiches, and a covered bowl of rice and tomatoes.

The first strains of “The Star Spangled Banner” came from the radio. An enormous cheer welled up from the half million people gathered within a mile radius of the Hatch Shell.

The moment was oddly solemn. The four friends stood on the deck, looking out over the river and the standing crowd, and Valentine just managed to resist his Eagle Scout impulse to put his hand over his heart, for at that moment he caught sight—and scent—of Newt's new leather wristband, charring among the coals of the hibachi.

A
T NINE-THIRTY THE
Boston Pops began the “1812 Overture,” the traditional prelude leading to the fabled fireworks display that would light up the entire Charles River Basin. Valentine, Clarisse, Newt, and Niobe sat in director's chairs lined up along the back ledge of the deck facing the river. Now they were all on coffee and liqueurs. They sipped their drinks contentedly and listened to Tchaikovsky's music pouring from the radio on the floor behind them—and from every rooftop and through every open window all around.

Niobe had brought up the small cage containing her canary, Rodan, and fed it shreds of charred pork through the narrow bars. The cage now rested on her lap, though every now and then it jiggled with a sudden violent movement of the bird inside. Niobe looked to her left at the profiled faces.

“I'll bet the police arrest B.J. before the week's out,” she said.

The three profiles turned full face toward her.

“What brought that on?” Clarisse asked curiously.

Niobe shrugged. “I was just thinking about Ruder and Cruder getting killed in that house up the street. Every time I walk down Beacon past that place on my way to work or to the market or the library, I think about them.”

“Just what is it you do think?” Valentine asked.

Niobe shifted in her chair to face the three of them. “
I'm
not one to waste tears on the gladly departed, but B.J. slept with 'em, ate with 'em, partied till she dropped with 'em.”

“What are you getting at, Niobe?” Clarisse asked.

“After what's happened to those two, don't you think B.J. would show
some
sign of remorse? Maybe a few hot tears and convulsions? Oh, no, not that one.”

“I didn't know you'd honed your talons today, Niobe,” Newt said.

Niobe swiped casually at her husband with the back of her hand but otherwise ignored his interruption. “You know what B.J. did after the cops got done questioning her? She went straight from the cops over to Innovations in Leather. She had herself fitted out head to toe in a brand-new black leather outfit. Made 'em do the alterations while she stood there. They won't usually do that, but B.J.'s such a good customer of theirs.”

“She calls that outfit her widow's hides,” Newt put in, and again jerked back from Niobe's swatting hand.

“Leather or crepe, Niobe,” Clarisse said, “a mourning ensemble is a mourning ensemble.”

“So B.J. got this outfit,” Niobe pressed on, “then called up her dealer and ordered about nine pounds of blow.”

“A gram,” Newt corrected.

“Shut up, Newt!” Niobe cried.

“I would like to hear the point of this story before we get the cannons and the bells,” Valentine announced.

“B.J. coked herself beyond recognition. She climbed into a cab and went off to Metro, where she danced herself into a sweaty mess and drank her face off. Then,” Niobe sputtered with indignation, “then she came back across town, picked up five men, and dragged them back to her apartment for the night. That is how she demonstrated her supposed grief at losing her supposed two best friends in the whole world. Is that woman a petrified cookie or what?”

“Well”—Clarisse blinked—“maybe that really was B.J.'s way of working out her grief.”

Niobe gave Clarisse a look of totally disgusted disbelief. “Are you taking EST training behind our backs?”

“You still haven't explained why you think B.J. might be arrested. The police questioned her and let her go.”

Niobe sat back hard. “Because on every other night those two men were like flies and B.J. the flypaper. But not
that
night. Why?”

“She had a date that night,” Newt said offhandedly.

“Newt, you know as well as I do that Ms. B.J. never goes on a date; she goes on
dates
.”

“Just because you don't approve of B.J.'s manner of mourning her dead is no reason to suspect her of murder,” Clarisse pointed out.

“B.J. lets people see what she wants them to see,” Newt said. “You don't know how upset she was when Ruder and Cruder died. You don't have any idea, Niobe.”

Niobe looked at him coldly. “I think she killed them. I think the three of them were in on the necktie murders. I'll bet Ruder and Cruder were getting cold feet and B.J. was afraid they'd squeal so she had to kill them.”

“Really?” Valentine said calmly. “What brilliant motive have you thought up for their committing the murders in the first place? Drug-induced blood lust? Kinks and kicks?”

“Something like that.”

“Niobe,” Valentine went on, “don't you think the cops would have figured that out right away? It's very hard for a killer who's stone-cold sober to murder somebody and get away without leaving any clues. But three killers who are always on drugs? And they haven't left a single usable clue?”

Niobe pushed out her lower lip in a pout as she turned away from Valentine.

Radios all over the neighborhood were turned up suddenly when the orchestra came in with the return of the “Marseillaise” theme marking the beginning of the climax of the “1812.”

“How do you know B.J. had a date on that night her two friends were murdered?” Niobe demanded suddenly of Newt.

“It's common gossip,” Newt answered evenly.

“No, it isn't,” Niobe challenged quickly. “I'd know. So would Valentine and Clarisse. You didn't know it, did you?”

Valentine and Clarisse shook their heads.

“
I
was B.J.'s date that night,” Newt said flatly.

Valentine and Clarisse exchanged an uncomfortable glance at hearing this revelation. Niobe's features realigned into a flickering expression of hurt that swiftly changed to anger.

“Are you telling me…” Niobe began slowly.

Newt took a swallow of his liqueur. “If you launch into your naïve-wife routine, I'm going to barf.”

“You slept with B.J.?” Niobe went on. “You…you did it with her? A woman?”

“Stop calling it
it
. We made love.”

“He's throwing it in my face!” Niobe screeched, gripping the arms of her chair. “He betrayed me with—a woman!”

“You brought the subject up, Niobe, not me.”

Niobe jumped up, and Rodan's cage spilled onto the deck, with a small riot of squawking and yellow feathers. Niobe ran back to the table and feverishly mixed herself a very large gin and tonic.

“What in the world were you doing with B.J. that night?” Valentine asked Newt quietly and, he hoped, out of Niobe's earshot.

“What most men and women do when they climb into the sack together. Plus a few other items that aren't on the standard menu.”

“No, I meant—”

“How long has this been going on?” Niobe demanded as she returned to her chair. She sat down hard. Over the radio the music was pounding toward the grand finale—the Russians beating back the French with ferocity. Rodan's cage still lay on its side; an orange beak stuck up through the bars as if gasping for air.

“Just one little, innocent date,” Newt explained. “That was it.”

“You're lying!” cried Niobe huskily. “I know when you're lying!”

“Oh, Christ, Niobe.” Newt sighed wearily. “I don't know why you're so upset.”

“Were you with her the whole night?” Valentine ventured.

Clarisse jabbed him with her elbow. “Val!”

“This is adultery, Newt!” Niobe charged, backhanding him across his chest with the hand that fortunately was not grasped around her drink. “I can't believe you did this to me. I can't believe you cheated on me with B.J. I am not going to be married to a bisexual. I absolutely refuse—”

“Oh, God, Niobe, you and I haven't slept together in three and a half years. How can you still be jealous of anybody? It's your damned possessiveness that ruined our marriage in the first place. No wonder I screwed around so much behind your back. I'm surprised you haven't accused me of rubbing out Ruder and Cruder so that I could have B.J. all to myself.”