Death of a Butterfly (Sigrid Harald) Page 4

  Sigrid didn’t, but it was a story which had become depressingly familiar these last few years: diamond merchants who still believed it was safer to carry a duke’s ransom around town in their trousers pockets than to hire an armed guard.

  “Half a million dollars’ worth of diamonds he had that day. All gone! And no insurance. Karl tried, but he could not keep the business going with such a loss. All, all poor Karl did lose—father, business, even his wife and home. Like her brother Julie was then, knowing exactly how much she can get from Karl and taking everything!”

  Mrs. Cavatori’s dark eyes flashed disapproval and Sigrid was puzzled. “If you felt that way—”

  “Why did I stay her friend?” She held her smooth hands out helplessly.

  “With Karl, she was greedy, but who knows what happens between husband and wife? With Vico and me she was always very nice, very good.” She sighed. “Could I stop the divorce? No. And we love Timmy. My Vico, you should see his face when Timmy climbs onto his lap. Could we turn our back on him because his mother and father cannot keep their holy vows?”

  The marriage had been stormy from the beginning; and Timmy’s birth, coming so quickly, had only aggravated the situation. In Mrs. Cavatori’s opinion, Julie had literally driven Karl into the arms of the girl so quickly named in her divorce suit. It sounded like taking candy from an unresisting baby the way Julie had wound up with the apartment, custody of Timmy, and an adequate child-support allowance. Especially since Mrs. Cavatori suspected that Julie had broken their marriage vows first.

  “Law is not always justice, no, Lieutenant?”

  “If she had someone else and Redmond cared more for the boy, why didn’t he petition the court for a change in custody?”

  “He has no more money for lawyers. Besides, what can be proved? He lives openly with another, but not Julie. A nun she is since the divorce. Only she and Timmy sleep in that apartment this last year. Who knows what happened? Perhaps her lover does not want her free. Perhaps she does not want him. Who can say?” Her plump, beringed hands sketched bafflement in the air.

  “Or perhaps she does not wish to lose the money for Timmy. No alimony did she get when they divorced. Just a lump sum and the apartment. She was young, able to work. A secretary she was before, yet she does not work. Her lover must be very rich, for she has everything and still—”

  Her words broke off as the door closed in the vestibule and a thin, elderly man hesitated in the archway.

  Mrs. Cavatori quickly rose and went to him, flooding him in rapid Italian as she took his jacket and led him over to the room’s most comfortable chair.

  “Mi scusa, Lieutenant,” she said, introducing him to Sigrid and Tillie. “This is my very bad husband who does not listen to his doctor or to me, who goes for long walks when he should be resting.”

  “Only to the park, Luisa. Only to sit in the sun.” Vico Cavatori smiled at them and his calm brown eyes invited Detective Tildon to share a male solidarity before clucking maternalism.

  The maid had reappeared without being summoned and this time her enameled brass tray held a glass of water and a pill bottle. Still scolding, Mrs. Cavatori extracted a pill for him. It was obvious that she adored him and that her household centered around this emaciated old man.

  In earlier years, Vico Cavatori had been a vigorous, wiry man with glowing café au lait skin. Poor health—heart condition? wondered Sigrid—made him sallow now. Thin white hair lay like soft spun silk on his head and through it, Sigrid saw dark brown age marks on his scalp, a confirmation of those on his face and the backs of his hands. She realized that he probably wasn’t much older than his wife, but his extreme fragility and white hair were in such contrast to her vivid coloring and personality that he seemed years older. Only his eyes, kind and wise, were ageless.

  You could trust those eyes, thought Sigrid, feel safe confiding anything, knowing he wouldn’t judge. Yet you would hesitate to bare your soul completely, so afraid you’d be of disillusioning a man who looked as if he’d walked the earth nearly seventy years and seen no evil. He radiated sheer goodness and his quiet smile was seraphic.

  “They told me of Julie,” he said, speaking lightly accented English as a courtesy to guests in his home. “Is Timmy all right?”

  “He was with me,” Mrs. Cavatori assured him. “And now he plays with his toy clowns in his little room here.”

  “Good, good.” His eyes caressed his wife as she handed him a cup of espresso. Sigrid and Tillie declined refills, and when the maid departed with their empty cups, Tillie unobtrusively trailed out after her, carrying the second tray.

  “I’ll try not to take much more of your time,” Sigrid told them.

  “But you wish to know if I heard or saw anything,” said Vico Cavatori, shaking his head. “I regret that I must disappoint you. Soon after Luisa left, I had a guest. When he had gone, I went out to lunch myself. It was warm, so I stopped to sit in the sun.”

  “Who came, Vico?” Mrs. Cavatori asked curiously.

  “No one of importance, cara.”

  “I’m afraid I’ll need his name,” Sigrid said. “Perhaps he saw something.”

  “I’m sure not,” said the old man firmly. “We spoke in the vestibule until the elevator came and there was nothing to see.”

  “Nevertheless,” Sigrid insisted.

  Resigned, Cavatori sank back in his chair. “It was Karl Redmond.”

  “Karl?” exclaimed Mrs. Cavatori. “Ma perché? Why?”

  “He is starting again with his own jewelry,” he explained, as much to Sigrid as to his wife. “Not real stones or diamonds like his father, but things the young can buy. Costume jewelry. And these.”

  From the pocket of his soft blue cardigan, he took a small box.

  Inside were several colorful plastic and brass discs of a curious design.

  In partnership with a distant cousin, Vico Cavatori owned a quietly prosperous company which specialized in imported sportswear. Since his latest heart attack, all business activities had been stringently proscribed by his doctor and Luisa Cavatori was torn between scolding him for this small disobedience and her natural curiosity.

  “Why, it is our symbol!” she exclaimed, turning one of the tiny oval discs in her plump fingers. “See,” she said to Sigrid, pointing out the intertwined letters which formed the company name. “But what’s it for, Vico?”

  “Zipper pulls on ski jackets to start with. Karl says the young like to wear brand names, on necklaces, bracelets, even tee shirts. Why not ours? So he has made our trademark in a fresher, brighter way.

  “‘Plastic?’ I ask him, and he says, ‘Why not? It is of our times. It is fashion.’ What do you think, Lieutenant?”

  “I do not think the lieutenant is interested in fashion,” Mrs. Cavatori said dryly, making Sigrid suddenly wish she hadn’t changed from the blue-green suit into this shapeless gray pantsuit.

  The older woman was like a summer bouquet in a flowery silk dress that flattered her vigorous coloring. “It is pretty, Karl’s design, but he should have taken it to Mario, not you.”

  “I am his friend, Luisa. He does not know Mario.”

  “And because you are his friend, he thinks to get around you first!” she said scornfully. “Let him show it to Mario. If Mario thinks it will sell more jackets, bene; if not—” She shrugged dismissively.

  “Ah, Luisa,” he said gently.

  But she was angry now. “No! Why should you buy this? Why should he have money from you to support that—that—” She lapsed into a torrent of Italian which even Sigrid understood to be abuse of Karl Redmond’s mistress.

  “Basta!” said her husband sternly. “Enough, Luisa! You embarrass the lieutenant.”

  Instantly, Mrs. Cavatori’s anger evaporated and she held out her hand in contrition. “Mi dispiaccio, caro mio, ma—”

  “Papa Vico!” shrieked a happy little voice and they all turned as a young child danced across the thick carpets in stocking feet to fling himself upon the frail o
ld man.

  “Gently, gently!” Mrs. Cavatori warned, but her husband opened his arms and Timmy Redmond snuggled into their curve and settled himself firmly on Cavatori’s lap.

  He was an attractive child, not quite three, with straight sandy brown hair and clear blue eyes.

  “I saw a c’own,” he confided to Mr. Cavatori. “He had funny shoes.”

  The boy hopped down and lurched across the carpet, rolling and tumbling in high clown style until he suddenly banged into Detective Tildon, who’d returned from the kitchen unnoticed and sat quietly in one of the side chairs just inside the room.

  Abruptly, Timmy cringed away from the smiling detective’s friendly hand up and with a fearful yelp, almost tripped in his terrified retreat to Vico Cavatori’s arms.

  Tillie was crushed. Children had always trusted him.

  “It is not your fault, Detective Tildon,” Mrs. Cavatori explained cluckingly. “Timmy is shy with all men. Only with my Vico does he feel safe.”

  “Have you told him?” Sigrid asked quietly as the old man gentled the child.

  “That his mama has gone away and that he will come live with us for a while, si.” Her dark eyes yearned toward the boy. “He is too young to understand more.”

  At Sigrid’s voice, Timmy peeped around the corner of the chair and she smiled at him diffidently. Children were definitely not her forté and she’d assumed that Tillie would be the one to extract any information Julie Redmond’s son might possess. She took a deep breath and essayed an awkward, “Was the circus fun, Timmy?”

  Immediately, he buried his face in Cavatori’s shoulder and refused to answer.

  Mrs. Cavatori bristled defensively. “You cannot ask him questions!”

  “You and he may have been the last to see his mother alive,” Sigrid said coldly.

  “Then ask me! Timmy is a baby!”

  “Even babies are observant, ma’am,” offered Tillie from experience with his own. “Timmy seems like a bright little kid.”

  “Hear how they talk of you, Timmy,” said Mr. Cavatori lightly with an admonishing glance at his wife, who subsided unwillingly. “They think you can’t remember this morning,” he continued gently. “They think the circus put everything out of your mind. Did it?”

  Timmy’s head was still pressed firmly against Cavatori’s frail shoulder, but they saw it give an almost imperceptible shake.

  “Then tell Papa Vico about this beautiful morning,” he coaxed. “Was the sun shining when you woke up?”

  A faint nod.

  “Did you remember about the circus when you woke up?” A firmer nod and a slight relaxing of tension. Like a flower uncurling in the sun, the little boy gradually released his tight hold and lay against Cavatori’s chest with his eyes fixed trustingly on those finely etched features.

  Soon he was chattering freely about the morning’s adventures. The circus dominated, of course, but under Cavatori’s skillful leading, a picture of Julie Redmond’s last morning emerged.

  They had been alone in the apartment. Mommy had spoken twice on the phone but he didn’t know to whom. The boy was a good mimic. Quite unconsciously came the image of an impatient, short-tempered woman. She hadn’t praised Timmy for dressing himself, only scolded because he couldn’t yet tie his shoes.

  “I can’t,” he told Vico with a troubled mixture of sorrow and frustration.

  “You will someday,” Cavatori assured him. “I couldn’t tie my own shoes till I was this many.” He held up seven fingers.

  Timmy was impressed. “I’m this many,” he said, holding up two fingers.

  There was a brief discussion of how many fingers he would be upon his birthday, two months away, then Cavatori led him back to breakfast.

  Timmy was reluctant to discuss the spilled cereal and Mrs. Cavatori had to help out. “It was an accident, caro, you did not mean to.”

  “‘Timmy, you’re a bad boy! You can’t go to the circus!’” he mimicked sternly. His wide blue eyes filled with tears and his lips trembled, but Vico Cavatori hugged him and patted his cheek.

  “Then Mama Luisa came,” he comforted the boy, “and then what happened?”

  “Clean pants,” Timmy explained, “and ‘Hurry, hurry, Timmy, we’ll be late!’ I said, ‘Bye-bye, Mommy,’ and Mommy said, ‘Bye-bye, Timmy. You be a good boy.’” His voice, imitating, was high-pitched and far away, as if she’d called from the kitchen.

  His blue eyes were blissful as he smiled at Mrs. Cavatori and told Vico that she’d lifted him up to the elevator. “An’ I punched the button myself!”

  “Is that sufficient, Lieutenant?” asked Cavatori. His voice sounded fatigued.

  “Excellent, thank you,” Sigrid told him. “Mrs. Cavatori, could you say when, precisely, you and Timmy left the apartment?”

  “Ten-thirty? Perhaps a minute or two before, who can say? We hurried because the circus was to begin at eleven. Please now, Lieutenant Harald, no more questions,” she said anxiously. The doctors had been explicit after Vico’s last heart attack. “No emotional stress,” they had said.

  She looked at her husband’s drawn face. “These two should both rest before dinner.”

  “Of course,” said Sigrid. As she rose, tall and unsmiling, Timmy shrank back into Vico Cavatori’s arms. “One last detail for now, Mr. Cavatori: What time did you see Karl Redmond enter the elevator?”

  “Around eleven. More precise I cannot be.”

  His mild eyes followed the police officer’s tall figure as she and the detective were shown out. An odd one, that girl. Awkward and graceless inside her body, he thought. Not like his Luisa, who knew herself loved and whose flashing temperament had warmed the long years of their marriage.

  Luisa Cavatori returned from the front door and smiled indulgently. Timmy had fallen asleep in Vico’s arms and Vico looked almost as drowsy. She took the child from him in her own strong arms and whispered to her husband, “Come, caro. A soft bed now for both my men.”

  Vico Cavatori nodded wearily, but instead of going to his own room, he followed her down the hall to the room they had furnished for Timmy.

  The boy whimpered a little in his sleep when she pulled up the soft coverlet and her face grew angry as she knelt by his bed. “It is not right such a young one should cry like this in his sleep.”

  “Shh,” whispered Cavatori, stroking her hair. Still dark and shining it was, with almost no gray.

  Luisa caught his hand in hers and kissed it.

  “What will happen to him, Vico, with Julie dead? He is so afraid of Karl. And that girl he lives with—what kind of home is that for our Timmy?”

  “Don’t borrow trouble, Luisa mia. First we will call Mario, then Karl. He must be told of Julie. Little by little, all things come.”

  Luisa Cavatori smiled at her husband’s familiar phrase and allowed herself to hope.

  CHAPTER 5

  South of West Houston Street and bisected by West Broadway lies SoHo, third-generation Bohemia. Not quite as raffish as Greenwich Village in its heyday, nor as freewheeling as the East Village during the Sixties, SoHo is a yeasty warren of streets, unexpected alleyways, and old two- to five-story brick buildings. These buildings had once housed a variety of light industries whose products were now turned out cheaper in Taiwan or Korea or even in sparsely unionized pockets of the sunbelt far from New York.

  Sporadic rent from a struggling artist is better than no rent at all and landlords had discovered that artists are less uptight about heat, plumbing, and missing window panes; so when Greenwich Village became too expensive, the artists and craftsmen had moved south, hungry for cheap loft space— “and cheap Chinese food,” gloated one destitute potter. There, on the northwest edge of Chinatown, they’d found both.

  While Karl Redmond ran down two flights to answer the telephone in the shop, Bryna Leighton poked around the bottom of one of the cardboard cartons which had held their late lunch and, with expertly held chopsticks, delicately extracted the last prawn from the remaining fried rice. />
  Chinese food wasn’t supposed to be fattening, but if she kept on like this—! At least she’d transferred the cashews from her half of the chicken dish to Karl’s paper plate. He could use the extra calories.

  Worry and frustration—and deprivation, too, she noted thoughtfully—had him hollow-eyed these days. If something didn’t break soon, she’d insist that he share some of her vitamin tablets. She was healthy enough to spare them, even though there had been dull twinges through her lower back all day.

  Ignoring them, she moved heavily to the sink in the curtained-off alcove they called a kitchen and rinsed out two mugs. From the corner of her eye, she saw scurrying legs disappear behind the drainpipes and she reached for the insecticide. A confused fear of fluorocarbons and environmental poisoning stayed her hand. Wait until they get really bad, she decided, and remembered that she’d seen tansy growing wild in a vacant lot off Spring Street. Wasn’t tansy supposed to be a natural bug repellant? And safe?

  She filled the tin kettle and struck a match to the burner. The stove was an enormous gas range salvaged from a Brooklyn aunt’s next-door neighbor and moved here in the back of a friend’s van. “My niece will take anything if it’s free,” Aunt Kitty said; and during that period, the neighbors called her first before they called Saint Joseph’s Mission.

  As a result, this big empty space was as comfortable as castoff appliances and furniture could make it. Bryna had painted everything white—pipes, floor, walls, and woodwork. Worn carpets and makeshift screens defined the areas, separating bedroom from living space. The bed she now shared with Karl was an old sofa bed left permanently open; and over by the windows, three more couches set at right angles to each other made an inviting place for a dozen or more people to sit and talk.

  The teakettle whistled softly. Bryna poured boiling water over their teabags, added a spoonful of honey to Karl’s cup, and carried both mugs back to the solid oak table that they had planned to scrape down and refinish.