C Corwin - The Unraveling of Violeta Bell

Eddie pointed to a faint chalk circle on the floor of the deck, about a foot from the welcome mat. I kneeled next to it. Inside the circle was a dark brown blotch. When I got my nose close enough, I could see the faint zigzag of tennis shoe treads. I looked over at Eddie’s feet. He was wearing a spotless pair of white Nikes.

Eddie clicked his toes together. “Brand f-ing new they are,” he said, in an exaggerated British accent. “The bobbies in their ‘aste confiscated all me bloody footwear, they did.”

“And was there actually blood on one of your shoes?” I asked.

“I’m sure you can find all kinds of stuff on anybody’s shoes,” Eddie said. “Life being the untidy juggernaut it is.”

“So, there was blood?”

“So sayeth the men in blue,” said Eddie. “But I sternly cautioned them not to jump to conclusions. That if indeed it proved to be blood, then there was a high probability that said blood did not dribble from the veins or arteries of a bipedal primate.”

I was pretty sure I was following him. “Not human?”

“Eddie’s got a cat,” Jeannie explained.

He corrected her. “It ain’t my cat. Sort of a neighborhood cat. I put out a can of tuna every once in a while. And the grateful beast rewards me with a variety of headless beasts. Rats. Mice. Moles. Rabbits. Right here at my door.”

I studied the stain again. “That’s animal blood, then?”

“I’d be surprised otherwise,” Eddie said.

“Why don’t we go inside and talk,” Jeannie said.

The living room in Eddie’s apartment was exactly what you’d expect. Hot. Stuffy. Darkened by cheap, half-pulled shades. There was a plaid sofa decorated with an Indian blanket. A rocking chair stacked with newspapers. A bookcase crammed full of paperbacks. A sisal rug long overdue for the city’s landfill.

Jeannie offered me the rocker. Eddie dutifully removed the newspapers. They sat on the sofa. He with his cigarette and coffee cup. She with her twitching smile. “Bob seems pretty confident you can find the murderer,” Jeannie said.

“For all I know the murderer is sitting across from me, polluting my lungs with second-hand smoke,” I said, rocking back and forth.

Jeannie was stunned. Her voice jumped two octaves. “I thought you were on board with Eddie’s innocence?”

Eddie was merely amused. The result, I suppose, of being interrogated by the police a time or two. “Chill, darlin’,” he said, patting his sister’s knee. “She’s good-cop-bad-copping me, that’s all. Playing both parts with aplomb.”

With no idea what I should say, or should not say, I blundered straight ahead. “Everybody knows about your gun phobia,” I said. “So there’s no need to get into that. And it’s pretty clear your alibi for the night of the murder isn’t worth a hill of beans. Otherwise you wouldn’t have been arrested.”

Jeannie immediately protested. “He was only arrested for the antiques.”

“Antiques from the condo of a dead woman,” I barked. “Your brother has got to take this thing seriously. We may be only a few days from a murder charge here.”

The guilt of blowing smoke in my face finally got to Eddie, apparently. He smashed his cigarette into the cup. He told me what presumably he’d told the police. “Those antiques were gifts. She gave them to me approximately two weeks before her unfortunate demise. Perhaps the reason no one saw me load them into that truck I don’t own is because it was late at night. The reason it was late at night is because the economic realities of my hardscrabble, law-abiding life force me to work from early morning to long after more affluent people are asleep. Hannawa ain’t exactly New York cab-driving-wise.” He sniffed the smoke wafting from his coffee cup. “The long and short of it is that I did not kill the lady and I did not steal her precious shit.”

I told him that I’d seen the police department’s list of the antiques they found in his apartment. “Why would she give you all those expensive things?”

“She knew how excruciatingly dire my financial situation was.”

“So she knew you’d sell them.”

“I imagine so.”

I studied his body language. I couldn’t tell if he was lying or having a nicotine fit. “Given your police record, it’s easy to believe that you might know how to sell those fireplaces and things if they were stolen,” I said. “But would you know who to sell them to if they weren’t?”

Jeannie did not like the question. “I’m sure my brother knows how to use the Yellow Pages.”

I apologized with an empathetic smile. Asked the big question. “So Eddie-if Violeta Bell knew you needed money, why didn’t she just give you money?”

Eddie scratched his hairy chin. “A proposition I have pondered myself. Endlessly without a suitable revelation.”

“Violeta Bell was a very successful antique dealer for many years,” I said. “How much money would you say she had?”

“I wouldn’t have the foggiest,” Eddie said.

“Would you be surprised if I said a million?”

“A million ain’t much in this hyper-inflationary time,” he said. “So, yes, I guess I would be surprised if there was only a one at the left end of those six zeros, and not a number with more curves and curls.”

My brain, thankfully, had adjusted to his convoluted hipster talk. I knew what he meant and went straight to the next question. “Would you be surprised if I told you she was almost broke?”

Eddie’s eyes bugged. “Hell’s bells! You shitting me?”

Jeannie’s reaction was less expressive. “That would explain the antiques instead of money, wouldn’t it?”

“Actually,” I said, “it makes me wonder why she would give your brother so many of her valuable antiques if those were the only assets she had?”

Neither Eddie nor his sister had an answer to that. At least one they wanted to share with me. While they sat like bumps on a log, I laid out the theory bubbling in my brain. “Violeta Bell was a mystery woman. In fact, the Violeta Bell people knew really didn’t exist. She created herself. For reasons that died with her. Apparently.” I told them about her fake driver’s license and passport and all her other fake or nonexistent papers. “She not only lived outside the law,” I said, “she was a big believer in cash.” I told them some of the things Eric Chen had found out about her. “She didn’t own the building where she had her antique shop. She lived in a swanky apartment in Greenlawn. When she closed her shop, she bought her unit at the Carmichael House for cash. That still left her with a lot of money in the bank. Now that’s all but gone.”

If Eddie or his sister knew any of this, they weren’t letting on. Eddie was gently drumming his fingernails on his smoldering cup. Clickety-click-click. Jeannie was studying her pedicure. I continued. “So for the last eight years, she had no money coming in and a lot going out. She also had a condo filled with valuable antiques. So unless she had a big Rubbermaid tub of cash hidden under her bed-and there’s no evidence she did-she’d be forced to sell some of those antiques from time to time. For cash. She was not one to share her good fortune with the government. Which means she’d have to find an equally stingy buyer. Or an unsuspecting one.”

Jeannie’s eyes shifted, from her pretty toes to Eddie’s anything but pretty face.

“Violeta’s condo was big,” I said. “But it wasn’t the Smithsonian. She’d have to replenish her supply. I’m sure she found a few treasures at those garage sales. The tag sales. The estate auctions-”

“She was always buying stuff,” Eddie offered. “More than the other three ladies put together. Tons of shit.”

I went on. “But would that be enough? The other Queens of Never Dull lived pretty high on the hog? I’ve got to wonder if she didn’t have another source or two.”