The Bee Balm Murders (21 page)

A man answered, repeating the number she’d just dialed. “May I help you?” he asked.

“I … I … I…” said Maria Rosa.

“It’s okay, ma’am,” the nice-sounding man said. “We’re a firm of private investigators. Do you need some help?”

Maria Rosa took a deep breath. “My husband…”

“Ah, yes,” said the man. “Let me transfer you to one of our infidelity specialists.”

A second later, an equally nice-sounding woman came on the line.

Maria Rosa was too rattled to absorb the woman’s name. “I feel terrible calling,” she said. “Stupid. I’m sure my husband isn’t doing anything.”

“Why don’t we look into his behavior and set your mind at ease?” said the woman. “Would you like to come to the office tomorrow morning?” She said her name again, which was Sharon Knowles, and she gave Maria Rosa directions to the agency. “Bring whatever records you think will help. Phone records, charge account bills, your husband’s work address, photos of him, anything.”

“I feel foolish.”

“Don’t. You’re acting very sensibly. If he’s behaving himself, you won’t need to worry anymore.”

*   *   *

Basilio worked late again that night. He didn’t get home until after ten. He hung his leather trench coat in the hall closet and went into the kitchen, where Maria Rosa, hearing his key in the front door, had turned on the oven to reheat his dinner.

Basilio, or Bruce, as he preferred to be called, took off his suit coat and hung it carefully over the back of a kitchen chair. He was about five-foot-nine and quite heavy. Not as heavy as his older brother, Angelo, but close. His thinning hair was combed back smoothly from his forehead forming a sort of widow’s peak, a rich black that he touched up to cover the gray.

“You must be hungry, sweetheart,” said Maria Rosa. “I waited for you.” She felt guilty now, about her call to the infidelity specialist. “I made chicken scaloppine just for you. With fontina cheese. Your favorite.” She kissed her fingers and waved them toward the stove, where the aroma of Basilio’s and her late-night supper wafted toward them. “It’ll take just a couple of minutes to heat up. What about pouring us a nice glass of wine while we wait?”

He loosened his tie and Maria Rosa got a whiff of unfamiliar soap. Expensive perfumed soap. “Sorry, babe. I’m too tired to eat. I gotta get up early tomorrow.”

He marched upstairs without noticing the two places she’d set at the table with the good silver, the candles she’d lighted after she turned on the oven, the lace tablecloth. All to assuage her guilt.
Her
guilt?

She scowled at the departing essence of expensive soap. She turned off the oven, blew out the candles, and swiveled toward the stairs. She made a fist with her pinky and forefinger extended and pointed the fist toward her husband’s disappearing footsteps in the upstairs hall.

“
Bastardo!
” she murmured.

*   *   *

Maria Rosa was in the kitchen when Basilio came down the next morning. Silently she went about her usual business of pouring his coffee, serving his toast, frying his two eggs over light.

“Something eating you?” he said, elbows on the table, chewing, with his mouth open, his toast and fried eggs. His eyes, once a clear summer-sky blue, looked tiny now, hidden as they were in folds of flesh. His belly hung over the green dollar-sign belt buckle he wore this morning.

Maria Rosa studied her spouse for the first time in a long time. How could this ugly fat man be having an affair? What woman in her right mind would want him to touch her? This was not the Basilio she’d married sixteen years ago.

Basilio took another swig of coffee. “What’s the matter with you, anyway?”

“Nothing,” said Maria Rosa, getting up from the table. “Will you be home late again tonight?”

“You checking up on me?” Indignant.

“Of course not,” said Maria Rosa, feeling a wave of nausea as she thought about her appointment. “I wanted to know if I should hold dinner for you.”

“Forget it.” He forked up the last of his eggs. “You don’t look so good. Maybe you should see the doc.” He mopped up runny egg yolk with his toast, stuck it into his mouth, flung his napkin on the table, and got up, still chewing. “Going through the change, I suppose.”

“Maybe you’re right,” she said, glad for an excuse to go to her appointment with the infidelity specialist.

After she’d cleared away the breakfast dishes and left a note for her daily cleaning woman, Maria Rosa drove to the shopping mall near the airport, parked at the far end, and found the building Sharon Knowles had described. She climbed up to the second floor and, somewhat out of breath, knocked on the door marked
CONFIDENTIAL ENQUIRIES
in gold leaf on the smoked-glass door.

A young man in jeans and a white oxford shirt, open at the neck, answered.

“I’m Mrs. Vulpone. I have an appointment…” Getting this much out, Maria Rosa felt faint.

“Of course. Come in. Sharon’s expecting you. I’m George, her personal assistant.” He led the way through an outer office with a desk, a computer, and a bank of file cabinets, into a large sunny room with an antique wooden desk, an Oriental rug, a conference table with six chairs, and two wide windows overlooking the parking lot.

A large woman with frizzled gray hair and granny glasses rose from behind the desk and extended a hand. “Sharon Knowles, Mrs. Vulpone. Have a seat.”

Maria Rosa sat in one of the six chairs and Sharon sat at the end of the table, so both could view the parking lot.

“I don’t know where to begin. My husband…”

Sharon took off her granny glasses and waited.

“I got a call from someone who said my husband…”

“And you’d like to prove the caller is wrong.”

“Exactly,” said Maria Rosa, relieved. “He’s a good man, good father, good provider…”

“We don’t want his reputation damaged if the call was unfounded.”

“That’s right,” said Maria Rosa, lapsing into the Italian accent she’d lost years ago.

“I understand,” said Sharon. “Let me have whatever paperwork you’ve brought with you.”

Maria Rosa handed it over.

“George will make copies,” Sharon said, rising. “I’ll give you back your originals.”

“My Basilio won’t know that I’ve come to see you?”

“This is completely confidential, Mrs. Vulpone. We’ll hope to prove Mr. Vulpone is innocent, and he never needs to know a thing. But if he’s not, you’ll have whatever proof I find to do what you think is right.”

They finished their business and Maria Rosa gave Sharon a cash deposit. Sharon escorted her to the outer office, where George arranged for her to pick up the results at a post office box set up for clients.

“Call us in ten days,” said Sharon Knowles. “We assume you don’t want calls or mail from us at your home.”

*   *   *

Maria Rosa found a detailed report when she picked up her mail at the post office box. Photos showed Basilio (Bruce) entering a motel room with a dumpy-looking female with badly dyed red hair, Basilio dining at Le Rivage with the same female, and Basilio at the departure gate at the airport with ditto. A dozen other pictures were included in the report along with a sheaf of papers—purchases on his company’s credit card of jewelry, restaurant meals, and flowers Maria Rosa had never received.

Maria Rosa called Sharon Knowles. “The bastard! The cheat! The filth! To think he hoped to father my children! Disgusting! Where did you get all this terrible stuff?”

“Mr. Vulpone didn’t try to hide his activities.”

Maria Rosa interrupted. “So, he thought I was stupid, did he? The ugly bastard. Who’s stupid, hey?”

Sharon went on. “The credit card bills you gave me were for his company’s credit card as well as his own private card. You can come to my office to discuss this further, or you can pay the bill by mail, if you’d prefer.”

“I’ll come to your office. I want to pay cash. Who is this woman? What’s her name? How did my Basilio meet her?”

“Her name is Nora Rochester and she owns a cleaning service that takes care of your husband’s office and studios at night.”

“Empties the trash?” asked Maria Rosa. “A cleaning woman?” A smile in her voice.

“Not exactly. She owns the company.”

Maria Rosa had a sudden image of her Basilio and that woman fornicating in a Dumpster on orange peels and coffee grounds, an image that gave her some pleasure.

How could she face this, this, this slime?

One of the credit card receipts signed by her husband was for an outrageously expensive piece of jewelry bought at a store located in the same mall where she’d met with the infidelity specialist.

With the receipt in hand, she drove to the jewelry store. Behind the counter, a salesman was examining a cameo brooch in a velvet-lined box. He looked up when she entered. His silver hair and mustache matched his sleek, silvery suit. He closed the box and set it aside, then tugged down the sleeves of his suit coat and adjusted his tie. “May I help you, madam?”

“Yes, please. My husband bought this.” She showed him the receipt.

He took horn-rimmed glasses out of his breast pocket, put them on, and examined the receipt. “Yes, indeed. A lovely white gold necklace set with sapphires. I remember this well. The sapphires were to match his wife’s eyes. I hope you’re enjoying it?”

Maria Rosa smiled. “I want a second necklace. Twice as expensive as this.” She tossed the receipt onto the counter. “Platinum with emeralds. Diamonds, too. Here’s his credit card number. You have the billing address. I’ll pick up the necklace.”

“I don’t understand.” He looked up into her brilliant green eyes. “Oh,” he said, smiling faintly. “Perhaps I do.”

*   *   *

When he arrived home after ten, exhausted, Basilio never noticed his wife’s icy aversion to him.

Her next step was to whip herself into shape. It wasn’t that long ago that she was head cheerleader at Our Lady of Notre Dame High. She’d been voted most popular girl in the senior class. Prom queen. She’d modeled in fashion shows for the women’s club. Men on her brother-in-law’s construction sites whistled at her.

She hired a personal trainer and a nutritionist and gave herself six months to lose thirty pounds and get back in fighting trim.

Before that six months was up, someone shot and killed Angelo Vulpone, her husband’s older brother. And Bruce-Basilio was too busy, too exhausted, too involved to notice his wife’s transformation into quite a nice-looking woman.

C
HAPTER
28

After Orion and Finney left Dorothy’s on Wednesday evening, she retrieved her phone from her purse and called Bruce at the television studio. This was an emergency and she had to talk to him immediately.

Bruce would kill her if she invited fifty people to lunch. He’d already informed her, in no uncertain terms, that she’d better ease up on the spending. No way could she deal with this auction item that Orion had set her up for.

And she absolutely, definitely could not drive the Ditch Witch drill from the Yacht Club up North Water Street in the middle of summer, when the Outstretched Palm auction was held. Bruce had warned her to keep a low, and he meant real low, profile. A pink hard hat was not low profile.

The phone rang four times before it was answered. “Triple V Cable,” a young woman with a high-pitched nasal voice announced.

Dorothy snapped at the voice. “Mr. Vulpone, please.” Why did girls think talking through their noses was attractive?

The voice came back on the line after a short wait. “Mr. Vulpone’s left for the day.”

“Did he go home?”

“He didn’t say. Can anyone else help you?”

Dorothy hung up without answering and immediately pressed 2, Bruce’s speed dial number. A mechanical voice told her to leave a message, and she told the recorder it was an emergency, call her immediately. Immediately, she repeated. She then punched in his home number, something she had never, ever done before.

A woman answered. “Yes?”

Dorothy disguised her voice, even though she’d never met Bruce’s wife. “Mrs. Vulpone?”

“Yes? Who is this, please?”

“This is Mrs. Perry from the newspaper,” Dorothy said in her new voice. “Is Mr. Vulpone home?”

“Why do you want him?” Mrs. Vulpone said.

“It has to do with advertising.”

“He’s not interested,” Mrs. Vulpone said.

“I need to speak to him. This has to do with Vulpone’s Vampire Venture’s advertising campaign.” Without thinking, Dorothy had let her voice return to its usual pitch.

“Why are you calling now? It’s after working hours,” Mrs. Vulpone said, then her voice, too, changed, both in volume and pitch. “You his girlfriend? He’s not here for you,” and she slammed down the phone with a crash.

“Damnation,” said Dorothy, rubbing her ear, and then threw her cell phone down on the library table. The cover snapped off and the phone fell to the floor. How was she going to get out of this predicament? How could Orion have been so stupid as to set this up?

Bruce had never intended for her to get involved in the company. That was her idea. In fact, he’d specifically told her
not
to get involved. He’d pay for her cars and chauffeurs and maids, but he’d never, ever pay for a luncheon for fifty. Dorothy groaned. Potential investors in what was about to become her company. What would happen when he found out? She didn’t want to think about it.

She would only need Bruce’s money for a short time longer. Once Finney raised the fourteen million, she could drop Bruce. Until then, she must continue to make him believe she was merely observing Universal Fiber Optics.

She
had
to talk to Bruce, give him some plausible explanation for this, but what on earth could she tell him?

When she had that money in hand, in the bank, the money Finney was raising, she’d kiss Bruce good-bye. She shuddered at the thought of another kiss, even a good-bye one, from that slobbering lard bag. But the timing was all wrong. Finney
had
to get that fourteen million, and fast. Orion
had
to cancel that Outreached Palm fiasco.

*   *   *

Victoria was slicing a banana over her Shredded Wheat the next morning. She had swallowed the very last doxycycline pill with her orange juice and felt celebratory. The phone rang. “Mrs. Trumbull?”