Nice Place for a Murder (4 page)

He listened, perfectly still, following me with his eyes, while I laid it all out for him. “So what do you think about that, counselor?” I asked him when I’d finished. My weary legs told me this would be the right moment to sit down, so I did.

Hector shifted in his chair a bit this way and that as he sorted out what I’d said. Then finally, “Of course you’re right, Ben. I think Ingo doesn’t want to admit there may be something wrong here. Or maybe he just refuses to find out what it is.”

“Doesn’t sound like the reaction of a clear-minded leader to me,” I said. “This is life and death stuff. Why would he stick his head in the sand?”

“There’s talk of Julian Communications going public. Did he tell you that?”

“He mentioned it. Is it going to happen?”

“Let’s say I’d be terribly surprised if the announcement of an initial public offering didn’t show up in The Wall Street Journal within the next ninety days. Barring some disaster, the IPO is a done deal. So Ingo doesn’t want anything to get out that might make the market nervous. Check the arithmetic.” Hector began making his points by tapping the fingertips of one hand with the forefinger of the other. “If the issue is thirty million shares, and the price goes off at twenty dollars, we’re talking about $800 million. Most of that goes into Ingo’s pocket. And he still owns half the company, by the way. But if the market gets shaky over a mysterious death at Julian Communications, he might decide to postpone the issue, possibly even cancel it. And even if he does go ahead, every dollar the market knocks off the price costs Ingo big money, right away. Does that clarify the picture for you?”

“Beautifully.” I said. “Who else has a stake in this? Ingo told me there were other shares out there right now.”

“The company’s top executives.”

“You?”

“Don’t I look like a top executive?”

“All right, who beside you?”

“Most of them. I think.” Hector ran both his hands through his thick, black hair. “Ingo’s kept that to himself. He’ll have to make all the holdings public when the issue goes to market, but at this point, even I don’t know, and I’m the corporate counsel, for God’s sake. I’m fairly certain all of us have equity. That’s why everyone’s so steadfast and dedicated, and why we’re all holding our breaths waiting for the offering. But who’s got how many shares? That I can only guess.”

“Are you telling me we’re talking about large amounts of bucks here?”

“Yes, if you consider two million a large amount of bucks,” he said. “I doubt that anyone’s shares will be worth less than that when the stock hits the market. Some a lot more, maybe. Arthur Brody, the president, he might be in for twenty, twenty-five million. I don’t know. But we can’t sell our shares for two years, and we have to remain with the company. That’s to keep us from cashing out right away and leaving. And to make sure we keep the stock price up, by toiling every hour of every day. Including Saturdays, Sundays and holy days of obligation.”

“So you’ll be a big-time millionaire yourself when all this happens. Don’t you share Ingo’s fear that — “

Hector held up his hand to stop me. “Listen to me, Ben. You have to accept this. Ingo doesn’t fear anything. It’s a strength of his. And sometimes, I think, a perverse kind of weakness. Ingo has concerns, of course. He’s much too smart not to recognize a problem. But afraid? No, I’ve never seen him afraid.”

“All right, then. Don’t you share Ingo’s concern that what went on here today will shake up the market? About the stock, I mean?

It was almost dark outside now. Inside the great room, the lamps cast a warm, flattering glow on Hector Alzarez. Handsome bastard. Did I ever look as good as he does, I thought? No, sorry.

“Sure I’m concerned,” he said. “And my concern goes beyond what happened today.” He leaned forward with his hands on his knees. Lowering his voice, “It might be part of something else. Just between us, I get the sense that all is not right at Julian Communications. Lately, that is.”

“Like what?” I said.

“Something to do with a sudden strain between Ingo and Brody, after the two of them have been so close for years. They barely acknowledge each other.”

“Do you know why?” I said

“No. Neither one will talk about it,” Hector said. “I just thought you should be aware. As you look into this for me.”

“Look into what? You know I’m not in the investigation business any more,” I said.

“I’m expecting you won’t refuse me.”

“You’re forcing me to do this, then? Is that it?”

“You always did understand me perfectly,” he said. “Stay on this for me. Just you. Quietly. Find out who shot at you, who was out there in that boat. See if Kenny’s death could have been — well, make certain it was really an accident.”

I said, “But Ingo wants me out.”

“I’ll talk to him, tell him we have to look into this or it could bite us on the ass. He has to go along with me.”

“If you say.”

“I say. And talk only to me, personally. I want to know everything as soon as you know it. Get to me at the office, at home, anyplace. Whatever’s wrong here, we have to deal with it.” He pulled his tie and unbuttoned his collar, uncharacteristic moves for Hector Alzarez. Maybe Ingo feared nothing, but I thought Hector looked a touch worried. “I’m staying tonight. Ingo, Lisa and I will go back to New York in the morning, early. Check in with me in the afternoon.” We both stood, and he shook my hand. “I’m glad you came,” he said.

“Just one thing,” I said. “I’m curious. You asked Ingo if he was out there swimming with Newalis. Any particular reason?”

“Only that he hadn’t mentioned it to me on the phone. I thought he might have been nearby when Kenny went under, seen something. Ingo swims every afternoon when he’s out here. A ritual with him.”

“Except for today.”

“So it seems,” Hector said.

It was chilly now back on the dock, and a night breeze was kicking up from the northeast. I pulled my jacket out of Elysium’s cabin, put it on and zippered it. The bay was beginning to churn up. I could make out a few whitecaps against the lights of Greenport on the mainland.

I was about to start the single good engine I had left to me, when I heard the soft approach of footsteps moving on the beach toward the dock. In the near-darkness I could see Lisa, back from her run, still ignoring the October weather in her abbreviated bathing suit.

“Had enough running, Iron Woman?” I said

“Not nearly. But it’s getting too dark. There are rocks and chunks of driftwood all over the beach. Don’t want to put myself out of commission with a turned ankle.” She approached and stood with her thighs against Elysium’s gunwale, she on the dock, me in the boat. “Did you tell Ingo about the bullet holes in your boat?”

“You did notice, then.”

“You thought I didn’t?”

“I underestimated you.”

“Always a mistake,” she said.

“Tell me something, as long as we’re being so candid. How come Newalis was swimming and Ingo wasn’t? I heard Ingo goes swimming every afternoon when he’s out here. And he swims right into November, you said.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“I’m not suggesting anything. I’m trying to get a grip on what happened.”

“Why are you bothering? I got the impression Ingo didn’t think there was any need for you to get into this.”

“That what he told you? Even before I showed up?”

She slid her hand around Elysium’s radio antenna. “You were Hector’s idea, not Ingo’s.”

“Why was Newalis in the water and Ingo not?”

“Ask Ingo,” she said.

“I did. He said he was too busy to swim today. But if he was so busy, what was he doing up there on the balcony with you, watching Newalis do laps?”

“Yes, we were busy. We’d met all day long, starting at a six o’clock breakfast. Ingo holds marathon meetings.”

“Come on, Iron Woman,” I said, “the meeting was over. How come Ingo wasn’t swimming, like always? And how come Newalis was out there? Was he impervious to cold, like you and Ingo?”

Lisa perched on the gunwale, swung her legs into the boat and moved into the captain’s chair. “Kenny? Hardly.”

“Oh? So Kenny was not an Iron Man?”

“Let’s say he was more the cerebral type. Didn’t care for athletics, physical pursuits. That trait amused Ingo. He’d rag Kenny about it, sometimes.” She added quickly, “In a friendly way, of course.”

“Of course. So what did he do, dare Kenny to swim in the cold water?”

“It wasn’t like that,” she said. “It was Kenny’s idea.”

“And you two muscular people stood up there watching the wimpy guy try to prove himself.”

“Are you going out of your way to antagonize me, or are you always this rude?”

“Neither, I think. I’m just being direct, is all. I get touchy when people don’t give me straight answers, especially when I’m trying to help. But I wouldn’t antagonize you, Lisa Harper. A smart, gorgeous woman like you. Never.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful. I love cheap flattery. Say it again.”

“You’re smart and you’re gorgeous.”

“So you can utter something civil, after all.” As if in slow motion, she took hold of my jacket and pulled me close, touched her lips to mine. Dry and gentle, nothing that would kindle a fire, but still, I thought, not a bad gift for an older man with a forty-two waist.

“Does this mean we’re friends again?” I said.

“Were we before? Well, maybe now.” She climbed out of the boat, made her way across the dock and disappeared into the darkness.

I started the single engine, untied and motored up the bay toward the lights of the marina. I was tired, but the day was far from over.

CHAPTER IV

I turned Elysium’s spotlight on to search out the channel marker buoys, because there were clouds now, and the three-quarter moon kept disappearing. I crabbed the boat against the wind to maneuver into my slip at Wally’s Marina. Most of the other spaces were empty now, the boats either stacked away inside Wally’s big corrugated metal storage building until spring, or shrink-wrapped in white plastic to protect them from the approaching winter and placed on blocks outside, a less expensive option for their owners. At the end of each season I put Elysium inside, but only when there were no more fish left to catch in Long Island Sound. That didn’t happen until November, or sometimes even into December.

Bare bulbs burned at each corner of the dock, but now, at seven o’clock, the marina was long deserted. Wally sent his crew home early when the season slowed and only the die-hards like me took their boats out to fish.

Mine was the only car parked against the building that was Wally’s office and service shop. I started it up and drove past rows of shrink-wrapped boats, ethereal in the beams of my headlights, to turn onto the Main Road toward Southold, heading gladly to the warmth and comfort of Alicia Bianchi.

Her neat, cedar-shingled ranch house was at the end of a winding gravel drive which led from the roadway past two other houses, then kept on to a grove of immense elm trees. Alicia’s home was tucked there, two hundred feet from her nearest neighbor. For all her sociability, the woman valued her privacy.

Alicia had seen my car approach, and was waiting for me just inside the door. She kissed me decisively, holding my face in her hands. “You got fish?” she said.

“I had two blues, but they spoiled. I had to dump them.”

“Good,” she said. I followed her into the kitchen. The table was already set for dinner. “Enough of bluefish. Enough of all fish. I give my love to a fisherman, I got to eat fish all week long. We make pasta, instead, OK?” Before I could answer, she was into the refrigerator, pulling out raw materials and putting them on the kitchen island’s butcher-block top. “Ritchie at the market made that good sausage today.  Look how nice. And I got broccoli rabe. Bright green. Good. We make a sauce to go with fettuccini. You know, with garlic and wine and broth and the sausage, with the greens. You like that one? Anyway, that’s what I want. I got a taste for it all day, you know?”

“Sounds fine,” I said. Alicia is a complex person with so many facets to her, it’s hard to pick and choose among them. Quick, clever, unerringly accurate in sizing up people. Open, yet mysterious. Black eyes and flawless olive skin from the Mediterranean. All that. The whole package of her astonishes me every day. But most of all I delight in listening to her talk. That husky voice, the delicious accent, the funny stories about her family back in Calabria, that way she has of saying things that make me believe I’ll live forever.

“More enthusiasm about the fettuccini would be good,” she said. She undid two big bunches of broccoli rabe, stripped away the coarse stems and put the leafy parts in the sink, which she began filling with water. “Full of grit sometimes, the greens. Best to soak them completely.” She stood barefoot on the rough brown tile of the kitchen floor. Alicia was always barefoot at home, even in winter. She claimed that what she most looked forward to at night after retuning from her art gallery in Southampton was kicking her shoes into a corner. “Look, you want fresh pasta, the real thing? Instead of dried from the box? Much better for this dish,” she said. “Takes a few minutes only. But you make it. By the time I finish the sauce, you can have it all done.”