The Bright Silver Star (16 page)

“Twenty-four-seven,” Soave agreed, smoothing his former mustache. “You slap her down, she bounces right back up. That’s Boom Boom. She makes me feel middle-aged, you want to know the truth.”

“Rico, you
are
middle aged,” Des informed him as they started their way down the footpath to the base of the falls.

“Between us, the wife can’t stand her. Thinks she’s a scheming slut bomb. Not true. This is a good kid. Tawny’s just jealous, you ask me.”

“Does Tawny have any reason to be?”

“Hell no,” Soave said indignantly. “I’m a happily married man. Me and Tawny just put in an offer on our first house. Besides, Boom Boom’s hooked up with my cousin Richie.”

“The one who works Narcotics?”

“The two of them are real tight. You know what they’re calling her up at the Headmaster’s House?” Soave glanced at her slyly. “The next Des Mitry. How do you like that?”

She didn’t. It made her feel like she’d retired to Boca Raton or died.

“I’m telling you, Boom Boom’s the complete package,” he said, stepping his way carefully over the bare roots in the path. “Plus I never have to worry about her drowning.”

Des shot a cold look at him in response.

He immediately reddened. “Sorry, Des, you know how I backslide when I’ve been away from you.”

“I do know that, Rico. But I still keep hoping for a miracle.”

Tito was in the middle of his final photo shoot as they scampered down onto the rocks. The assistant ME was photographing the star from every possible angle before they transported his body to Farmington for the autopsy, which was automatic whenever there was an accidental or unexplained death.

“What a stupid waste,” Soave said, shaking his head at the dead actor disgustedly. “Okay, what are you selling, Des?”

“I’m not
selling
anything, Rico. I just wanted to point out something about the way he landed.”

“What about it?

“The back of his head took the brunt of the impact. That’s not consistent with a swan dive. He should have landed facedown, not up.”

Soave considered this for a moment, his wheels starting to turn. “So he somersaulted in the air, end over end.”

“If that were the case then his head would be where his feet are. He’s turned completely the wrong way around, Rico.”

“You’re right, he is.” Soave furrowed his brow thoughtfully. “Maybe the water shifted him around after he landed.”

“The man’s dry, and there’s no blood anywhere else. He’s lying right where he hit.”

“So he spiraled in the air. That would explain it. The wind can do that.”

“There was no wind last night.”

“What are you saying, Des?”

“That the position of his body is consistent with someone who was standing with his back to the edge of the cliff and then pitched over backwards.
Or
got pushed.”

He peered at her, his eyes narrowing. “Still can’t get used to the slow lane, can you? You want back in the game.”

“I am totally fine right where I am, Rico. I just thought I’d share my professional concerns with you before you call it. But if you want to blow me off that’s totally fine by me.”

“Come on, don’t get all huffy.”

“I do
not
get huffy. I get riled. I get pissed. I get—”

“Whoa, I agree with you, okay?” Soave said, holding his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “It don’t read right. That makes it a suspicious death. And that’s how we’re going to play it.” He ordered the crime scene technicians to proceed with maximum care, and to relay that up top to Yolie. Then they started their way back up the path toward the gate. It was becoming very hot out. Soave was perspiring heavily. “Good catch, Des,” he said, swiping at his face with a handkerchief. “Thanks for the heads-up.”

“You’re very welcome,” she said crisply.

“You’re in a lousy mood this morning, know that?”

“I don’t mean to be, Rico. These are my people. I know them.”

“There’s going to be a major media feeding frenzy, am I right?” he asked, his voice filling with dread.

“There is,” she said, thinking that this was a new sign of maturity on his part. Earlier in his career, he’d been supremely hyped at the prospect of getting his face on television. But now that he’d gone
before the bright lights a couple of times, he knew just how hot they could get. And had the burn marks to prove it.

“I’m giving them no labels on this one,” he said, steeling himself out loud. “I don’t say suicide. And I for damned sure don’t say murder. Neither of those words comes out of this man’s hole. Not once. All I say is it’s an unexplained death and that we’re still gathering information.”

“They’ll try to get you to confirm that it’s an ‘apparent’ suicide,” Des said. “You say—”

“I say that nothing is ‘apparent’ at this time.”

“Even though they’ll go right ahead and call it that anyway.”

“Damned straight.”

By the time they got back up to the gate the TV news vans were already stacked ten-deep on the shoulder of the road. Cameramen and reporters had swarmed the entrance to the park, shouting questions and demanding answers. The uniformed troopers could barely hold them back.

“How did they get past that roadblock?” Soave wondered.

“They’re like mice, Rico. All they need is a quarter-inch crack of daylight and they’re in.”

Now they heard a car horn blaring. It was Martine’s VW Beetle convertible. She was trying desperately to get through the horde, but couldn’t. Esme finally leaped out of the car a hundred yards short of the gate and ran barefoot the rest of the way. Chrissie Huberman jumped out in hot pursuit. The press people let out a shout. Their cameras rolled.

“I want to see him!” Esme sobbed as she reached Des, the tears streaming down her porcelain cheeks. “I
have
to!”

“I really wouldn’t do that, honey,” Des said, as Soave stood there gaping at the beautiful young actress.

“Tito, why did you
do
this?!” she cried out, her stage-trained voice carrying over the roar of the waterfall. “Tito, where are you?
TITO?! . . .
” Esme fell to her knees, sobbing hysterically.

Chrissie knelt beside her, tears streaming down her own face, Des noticed.

And that wasn’t all Des noticed. Something new about Esme’s look caught her eye: The actress was sporting a great big fat swollen lip this morning.

Somebody had recently punched Esme Crockett in the mouth.

“Girl, I heard
so
much about you when I was coming up,” Yolie Snipes gushed from the seat next to her as Des piloted her cruiser back down the narrow Hopyard Road. “First sister to investigate homicides in state history, cover of
Connecticut
magazine when you were twenty-three—I can’t believe I’m riding in the same car with you.”

“You’re being too kind,” said Des, who was never comfortable with flattery. “Where’d you grow up, Yolie?”

“The Hollow,” she grunted. Frog Hollow was Hartford’s most burned-out ghetto. It was nowhere. “My mom died of an overdose a year after I was born.”

“And your dad?”

“Never even knew who he was. Everyone I came up with was inmate-bound, me included, but my aunt Celia made sure I got out.”

“AC?” asked Des, referring to the portrait on her arm.

Yolie’s face lit up. “That’s right. She kept me together, body and soul, until I got me my four-year ride to Rutgers.”

“You played ball, am I right?”

“It’s all that,” she acknowledged. “My total dream was to play the point for Coach Geno at Storrs. He scouted me, too, but there was no way I was going to beat out Suzy Bird for playing time. Not in this life. So I moved on down the road to Piscataway, played for Coach Vivian. And we scratched and we clawed and we won us a few. Got my degree in criminal justice. Came back home, took the test, and here I am.”

They passed through the roadblock at Route 82, waving to the trooper who was stationed there, and Des started toward the shore now, cruising among the lush green gentlemen’s farms with their fieldstone walls and two hundred-year-old houses set way back under canopies of maple trees.

“I never worked a town like this before,” Yolie confessed, gazing anxiously out her window at the moneyed countryside.

“You’ll do fine. The people here are no different than people anywhere else. They just have longer driveways and better manners.”

“Can I ask you for some advice, sister to sister? It’s about Soave. . . .”

“What about him?”

“He’s a decent man, but my read on him is he won’t be moving up. What I mean is, he’s got the juice but not the smarts. Am I right about that?”

“He’s a good officer,” Des said tactfully. “Don’t underestimate him.”

“I’m not. I’m just, at this point in my career I’m looking to hook up with people who I can learn from. And I’m thinking I’ve gotten just about all I can out of Soave. I don’t mean to sound cold. Just being honest, know what I’m saying?”

“Sure, I do,” said Des, thinking that Soave would probably be reporting to Yolie Snipes in a couple of years.

“I might put in for a transfer to Narcotics,” she went on. “Or maybe the gangs task force. The street’s where I can do the most damage. I
know
the street. That sound like a smart move to you?”

“It does. Just bear in mind that he’ll be really insulted. He’s thin-skinned.”

“Who, Soave? Shut up!”

“And he does have the juice, like you said. Trust me, you do not want that little man for an enemy. Those Waterbury boys are strictly about family and we
are so
not related.”

“You saying he’d trash me?”

“I’m saying be careful,” Des replied as she cruised into Dorset’s business district. Big Brook Road was quiet. The vacationers were still in bed. She turned onto Old Shore at the traffic light and headed for Big Sister.

“This Mitch Berger we’re talking to—he’s your boy, right?”

“That’s right.”

“How is that?”

Des glanced at Yolie curiously. “How is what?”

Yolie raised an eyebrow at her. “The pink of things.”

“So far so good.”

“Myself, I’ve never road tested a nonbrother.”

“I thought you and Soave’s cousin Richie . . .”

“No, we’re just friends. He’d like to get with me, but I’m not playing that game right now. I’m just so damned tired of getting hurt. Word, are they any nicer?”

Des shrugged. “They’re still men.”

“Soave had him a major chubby for you, you know.”

“He
told
you that?”

“Didn’t have to. I can see it in his eyes whenever he talks about you. And he talks about you a lot.”

“Well, it never went anywhere, if that’s what you were wondering. Strictly his chocolate fantasy—you know how that goes.”

Yolie nodded her braided head. “I am, like, uh-hunh. They all want to find out what it’s like to get with Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. What do they think, that we hang from the chandelier by our ankles?”

“What, you mean you don’t?”

Yolie let out a hoot. “Girl, you’ve got you a bad self. We’re going to be okay.”

“Yolie, I never had any doubts.”

Des turned off Old Shore at the Peck’s Point Nature Preserve. The preserve was open from sunup till sundown. There were footpaths, bike paths, a green meadow that tumbled its way down to the tidal marshes, where the osprey nested. The moisture from the night’s rain shimmered on the tall meadow grass in the morning sunlight.

Yolie gazed out the window with her mouth open, overwhelmed by the serene beauty of the place.

Des had grown so accustomed to it that she forgot sometimes just how spectacular it was. She eased her way slowly along the dirt road, passing a couple of joggers who were out with their dogs. The road ended at the barricaded causeway out to Big Sister Island. Des had a key to raise the barricade. Slowly, she eased across the rickety
wooden causeway, seeing Big Sister through Yolie’s eyes as Yolie took in the lighthouse, the historic mansions, the acres of woods and private beach.

“Shut up, girl! No wonder you dig him—man’s got his own private island.”

“It’s not all his.”

“Who
is
this man?”

“He’s just someone who happens to know everything there is to know about every single movie that’s ever been made in the history of the planet.”

“Sounds like a geek.”

“That he is—but he’s my geek.”

Des pulled up in the gravel driveway outside his cottage. Mitch was on his knees in his vegetable patch, weeding with furious intent. Quirt sat right by his side, keenly interested in every clump of fresh soil Mitch was turning over. The lean orange tabby came running to greet Des when he heard her get out. Rubbed up against her ankle, talking up a storm. She bent over and scratched his chin as Mitch got up off his knees, swiping at his sweaty brow, and ambled toward them.

He looked sad and confused and hurt. In fact, he looked exactly the way he had the very first time Des laid eyes on him, the day he’d found that man’s body buried in this very vegetable garden. The only thing different about him now was his red, swollen jaw.

“Hey, Master Sergeant,” he said to her, his jaw clenched tightly shut. It must have stiffened on him in the night.

“Hey, baby,” she said gently, putting her hand on his rather damp shoulder. What she wanted to do was hold him tight, make it all go away. “Say hello to Sergeant Yolie Snipes—she’s Rico’s new partner.”

“We came to ask you some questions about Tito Molina, Mr. Berger,” Yolie said to him solicitously. “Are you okay with that?”

Mitch was fine with it. “Let’s go inside and get a cold drink. Sorry I sound so funny, Sergeant. I feel just like Al Pacino in the first
Godfather
after he got punched by Sterling Hayden. Remember that scene in Brando’s study when Michael tells Sonny
he’s
going to be the
trigger man in the Italian restaurant? The camera moves in on him slooowly as he sits there, commanding the attention of all of the men in the room, and that’s when it dawns on you
that he’s
the new godfather. Man, that was great moviemaking.”

He shlumped inside the house ahead of them, Yolie pausing to whisper, “Girl, does he talk about movies
all
the time?”