Murder Can Spoil Your Appetite (33 page)

“You’re supposed to have
every
idea.”

“Well, as it happens, I don’t.”

“Okay, then let me enlighten you. You’ve been having an affair with Sheila Vincent, and—”

“Are you
crazy
?”

“—you killed her husband,” I finished.

“I did
what
?”

“Look, I have evidence now that the two of you were involved. The manager of the Breeze Inn identified your photograph. You know, the one in the
Star-Ledger
that you suggested I hang in my bathroom. I didn’t take your advice, but for some reason, I did stuff it into my desk drawer.”

“It’s obvious the motel guy mistook me for someone else.”

“No, Lou, he didn’t,” I corrected wearily. “Accept it. The man made you.”

It was a few moments before Lou responded. “Okay. I admit I was at the Breeze Inn with a woman a few times—I’ve never passed myself off as a monk, have I? But I wasn’t there with Mrs. Vincent. He couldn’t make
her,
if you remember.”

“Oh, but this morning that’s just what he did. I got ahold of a more recent shot of her,” I lied, “and he was able to ID her instantly.”

Lou stared down at his hands in an apparent attempt to collect his thoughts. I watched hypnotically as he clenched and unclenched his fists in an almost rhythmic manner. At last he said, “Okay, it’s true. I
was
with Sheila. But the fact that we’ve been seeing each other is completely unrelated to Frank’s murder. And why did you decide to go back there and show my picture, anyway?”

“It was because of another picture. The picture of the victim with Joe Maltese that’s in the Vincent study.”

Lou’s eyes were wary now. “Go on.”

“I suddenly recalled your handing it to Sheila that evening and questioning her about the man who was with her
husband.
But my first day on the case, you told me you had no idea what Frank Vincent looked like.”

“Is that all?” Lou scoffed. “I saw a head shot of him in the
Gazette
right after our conversation.”

“Uh-uh. The
Gazette
is only published once a week. I read the edition that came out on the Friday after the murder—you gave it to me yourself—and there was no photograph of the deceased. Yet it was on the following Monday that you identified Vincent as the man with Maltese.”

“Then that shot of Vincent must have appeared in one of the other papers. Maybe the
Star-Ledger.
”

“All right. Why don’t I look into that.”

“Listen, maybe I’m wrong about having recognized the man from the newspaper. I don’t know. It’s possible I just
assumed
that was Vincent in the photograph. After all, we were in
his
home.”

“I tried telling myself that, Lou. I didn’t want to believe you were the one who wasted him. I wanted to believe it was just about anybody
but
you. The thing is, though, there was a whole bunch of photos on that desk—I remember checking them out on our first visit to the house, while we were killing time waiting for Sheila. And I just couldn’t accept that of all the faces in that collection, you would correctly pick out that one as belonging to Frank Vincent. Still, do you know what was on my mind when I cut out your picture and took it over to the Breeze Inn? I was hoping to prove to myself that I was nuts and that the manager would swear he didn’t know you from Adam.”

“I’m curious. What made you think about that Maltese business now?” Lou was trying his damnedest to sound nonchalant, but the crack in his voice betrayed his agitation.

“Yesterday evening I finally got around to reading the write-up about me in the
Post.
It mentioned that I was investigating the Vincent homicide, and there was a photograph of Frank Vincent shaking hands with the winner of last year’s State Assembly election. Now, I can’t say exactly how the whole thing worked—most likely the thought had been hanging around in my subconscious all this time—but that photo jolted me into the realization that there was something I’d been overlooking. And, well, I finally made the connection.”

I plunged ahead before Lou could respond. “I’d like to know one thing, though: When did you decide to get rid of
me
?” As soon as I uttered those words, I no longer felt calm and detached. I had suddenly become the living representation of an exposed nerve.

“You can’t think I had anything to do with that!”

“Now, that’s the weird thing. I actually caught a glimpse of you behind the wheel that night.”

Lou’s expression was one of shock—which immediately turned to skepticism. After all, he’d seen me pull that kind of bluff before. This time, however, the statement was delivered with deep regret. And when I spoke again, I looked him full in the face with my sad, sad eyes. (Which, if you’re going to lie, is really the most convincing way to go about it.)

“It was the instant before I was struck,” I went on. “The car was alongside me at that point, you remember, so the headlights were no longer blinding me. When I came to, though, I told myself that it
couldn’t
have been you, that the man just resembled you. I even began to suspect that I’d been hallucinating. At any rate, I forced the whole thing out of my head. It was only today, when I started to put everything together, that I realized I hadn’t made a mistake at all. So I ask you again, Lou: When did you make up your mind to murder me?”

“God, Dez, I—” Abruptly, Lou got up and rushed from the room. I could hear doors opening and closing as he made a hurried inspection of my shoe box-size living quarters.

“I wanted to be certain we didn’t have an audience,” he clarified on his return.

I managed to keep my voice level in spite of the churning inside me. “There’s just the two of us.” But Lou stopped beside his chair, making no move to sit down. “Are you worried I might be wearing a wire?”

“The thought occurred to me.”

“Go ahead, then.” Retrieving my crutches from the floor, I got clumsily to my feet and hobbled over to where he was standing. Then I grabbed his hand and placed it on my shoulder. “I
said,
go ahead.”

Lou’s cheeks were fire-engine red, but he quickly patted me down. The procedure was performed so impersonally that I might have been a Bloomingdale’s mannequin.

When we were both seated again, he mumbled, “Sorry. I’m sorry about that, too.” He waved his hand at my injured leg. “Very, very sorry.

“You know,” he went on a moment later, “it’s funny about that picture—the one with Maltese and Vincent. As soon as I identified Vincent as the other guy in the shot, I realized I’d made a really stupid mistake. But, the thing is, you were in the process of shooting down my drug theory that night, and I was desperate to come up with something else,
anything
else to throw you off the track, to get you to abandon your Sheila fixation. And when I spotted that photo on the desk, it occurred to me that I might be able to take advantage of Vincent’s relationship with Maltese to tie the shooting in with the mob.

“Pretty dumb slip-up for an old pro, though, wasn’t it?” He grimaced. “But you want to hear what was even dumber? When you didn’t mention anything, I figured you hadn’t picked up on it. Hey, by the next day I actually decided I was home free.”

“Not that I’ve got the swiftest brain in the world, Lou, but I think there’s at least a chance that if it had come from anyone but you, a goof like that would have registered before this. But let’s return to my hit-and-run.”

At this, Lou went back to staring down at his hands. And when he looked up, I was stunned to discover that his eyes were moist. “I want you to believe something, Dez. We haven’t known each other very long, but we’ve spent a lot of time together these—what is it, two weeks? Three? Anyway, while initially things weren’t too great between us, I really got to like you. Under other circumstances, I think we could have been very good friends. I—”

“Those warm feelings of yours didn’t discourage you from trying to murder me, though,” I observed acidly.

“I felt that I had no choice, that I
had
to get you to leave it alone. And I’d already tried everything I could think of.” He put his head in his hands, and the next word was so muffled I could barely make it out. “Everything.”

It was a couple of seconds before I caught on to his meaning. “Mickey.” I gasped in horror.

“Yes,” Lou murmured, regarding me somberly. “I didn’t seem to be having any success with the mob angle, but I figured if I could offer you some kind of
proof
that the organization was involved . . .” He hunched his shoulders.

“And Mickey’s death was the proof.” The calm with which I said this contradicted the revulsion I was feeling. “He never called you at all, did he?”

“No. I called him.”

“To kill him.”

“To kill him,” Lou echoed. “It seemed to me this was the one way to convince you that Frank’s death had nothing to do with Sheila.”

“But you were so fond of Mickey.”

“That’s what I wanted you to
think.
The fact is, Michael Polansky was a slimy little weasel who’d have sold his soul for a quarter—if there’d been any takers. Still, my actually resorting to . . . to—” He broke off. I had rarely seen anyone look quite as wretched as Lou did just then.

“So you just ran the man down,” I stated icily, refusing to make things any easier for him.

Lou nodded. “But anyhow, right after I . . . only a couple of days after the Mickey thing, Eric Raphael turns up. And you were hell-bent on investigating Sheila again. And then when you threatened her with all that, well, venom about obtaining the evidence that she’d been seeing someone, I realized I’d whacked Mickey for nothing. That you’d just sniff away until you found out the truth. Even then, though I took another stab at things, trying to convince you to ease up on her, to keep an open mind.”

“You’re talking about on Thursday, at dinner?”

“That’s right. I had to make one last attempt. It didn’t do any good, of course. Just as I knew it wouldn’t.” He looked at me almost pleadingly. “So then I decided there was only one way to stop you, Dez.” His voice dropped to a near whisper. “Forgive me.”

I stared at Lou as though he were a stranger, this man who only yesterday was so dear to me. “
Forgive
you? You tried to murder me!”

“I didn’t actually do it, though, did I?” he pointed out quietly.

“But not because of a lack of desire.”

“Look, right before I hit you, I yanked the wheel around. It was too late to avoid you entirely—and you’ll never know how much I regret the leg—but at least you’re alive.” And now he muttered thickly, “Thank God for that.”

“Amen,” I said sarcastically. “But how could you even
consider
killing three people in cold blood like that? Does Sheila Vincent mean that much to you, for Christ’s sake?”

“She means everything to me. I know you’ll never understand this and that I’m going to sound ridiculous—like a lovesick teenager—but I care for this woman in a way I myself can’t quite believe. I’ve never been a romantic guy. Or, for that matter, an emotional one. I was very fond of Lois—my wife—but it wasn’t a grand, all-consuming passion or anything. I never even thought I was the type for something like that. Then one day a couple of months ago I walked into a supermarket for some Cheerios. And, well, after that nothing was the same.”

“You first met Sheila Vincent at the supermarket.”

“Yeah, we started talking about breakfast cereals, and a couple of minutes later I asked her if she wanted to get some coffee—it just kind of popped out. I was surprised when she said okay.”

“So you and Sheila got cozy,” I summarized in a tremulous voice, “and then, to cement the relationship, you knocked off her husband.”

“Christ, Dez. It wasn’t like that.”

“Fine. You tell me. What
was
it like?”

“Vincent was a pig. A real low-life bastard. He used to beat the hell out of Sheila. At the drop of a hat he’d blacken her eye or punch her in the stomach or split open her lip—God, you should have seen some of the bruises she had. And the thing is, she was afraid to divorce him. You’re not aware of this, but Vito da Silva threatened her with dire consequences if she left Frank before his next run for office. And Sheila was sure that da Silva meant it. That was the
real
reason she didn’t get out of that house. Not because of da Silva’s promise to fund her company.”

“But, of course she couldn’t admit that. So being the extremely clever lady that she is, she twisted the facts a little to make me think it was important to her financially for Frank to stay alive. Which, apparently, it wasn’t.”

“Listen, can you blame her? Who wants to be suspected of murder? At any rate, it was obvious to me that it would have been crazy for Sheila to remain with Vincent for two more years.
Two years!
Forget da Silva’s assurances about Vincent’s behaving himself. The bastard regresses just once, and she could end up dead.”

“Ahh. So you two acted in self-defense. Is that it?”

“ ‘You
two
’? Now, wait a second. Sheila didn’t have anything to do with this. She had no idea what I planned to do.”

“We both know that’s a God-damn lie.”

“You’ve got this . . . this
thing
about Sheila that won’t let you see the truth. Look, I admit I killed Vincent. But it was just me. All by myself.”

“You realize I have to turn you in, don’t you? Unless you intend to take another crack at me here.”

Lou shook his head. “I couldn’t do it. Any more than I could pull it off the first time. Besides, I’ve done a lot of thinking these past few days. The problem was that once you got involved in this case, I began to worry that everything would start closing in on me.” The corners of Lou’s mouth turned up for an instant. “I suppose that’s what happens with a guilty conscience. You were just so . . . so
determined,
though. And then on Wednesday—I don’t know—it all started to come to a head, and, well, I panicked.” Another fleeting smile. “Hey, I even broke out in a rash.