Falafel Jones - The Kewpie Killer Page 15

  I felt bad for the man. “Oh, I’m sorry about your wife.”

  “Don’t be. She’s her third husband’s problem now. Be sorry for him.”

  Eddie asked, “Do you know if Bellini was her maiden name or her married name?”

  “Yes.”

  We waited and when the man said nothing else, Eddie asked, “Which is it?”

  “Maiden.”

  “You know if she ever married or where to find her?”

  “Nope. Sorry, gotta go.”

  “Ever hear the name Medici?”

  “My program’s ‘bout to start.” He shut the door.

  We walked out to the car and I asked Eddie, “Now, what?”

  “Let’s head back to the station, have some lunch in town. There’s a new Italian place I want to try.”

  “Sure.”

  * * *

  The woman stood next to our table and wielded a crayon in her hand. “Good Afternoon and welcome to Romano’s Macaroni Grill. I’m Brittany and I’ll be your server.” She leaned over and wrote her name on the paper tablecloth. “Can I interest you in a cocktail? Our signature drink is a Leaning Bellini.”

  Eddie put down his menu. “A what?”

  “We serve it blended and frozen with Bacardi Rum, peach nectar, white wine and champagne. If you prefer, we have our Ultimate Leaning Bellini which adds a twist of red raspberry liqueur.”

  “Um, I’ll have the Eggplant Parm and a coke.”

  “Very good sir. Ma’am?”

  “The Insalata Blu, please, dressing on the side.”

  “Grilled chicken with that?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Be right back with your drinks.”

  Eddie asked me, “Did you hear that? A Bellini is a drink.”

  “Yeah, and when you add the raspberry, it turns pink. Know how to say that in Italian?”

  “No.”

  “Rosa Bellini.”

  Chapter Twenty – Love under the Big top

  Eddie asked, “You mean Rosa Bellini may be a made up name?”

  “Why not?” I said, “Carnivals are show business.”

  “Geez, no wonder we can’t find any records. How do we track down a fictitious name?”

  “What‘s the one thing all performers need to stay on top?”

  “Fans?”

  “And to get fans, you need publicity. Let’s see if the local paper mentions Rosa Bellini. Can you get us access to the morgue?”

  “They don’t keep bodies that long.”

  “No, the morgue at the Achalaca News, where they store copies of old papers.”

  Eddie phoned his ex-partner Dennis and he agreed to meet us in his office at the Achalaca News.

  When we arrived, Eddie said, “Lots of well-lit parking, modern building, near good restaurants, safe neighborhood, seems like a nice place to work.”

  When he didn’t react to my glare, I realized Eddie wasn’t going to give up trying to convince me to move to Florida.

  A woman on her way out the door told us where we could find Dennis. He greeted us warmly and when Eddie explained what we wanted, Dennis said, “C’mon, let’s go down to the basement. We keep the older issues on film.” We followed him to the elevator.

  Eddie asked, “Can’t we see them on the computer?”

  “Not from twenty years ago. We’ve only got the last fifteen years online. The older stuff is still on microfilm.”

  “Microfilm? Like the tiny pieces in the old spy movies?”

  “No, you knucklehead. These are rolls of 35-millimeter film. Each roll has copies of old newspaper editions.”

  “Hmm, So, how do you know which roll to look at? You got some kind of computer index?”

  The elevator doors opened into a dimly lit windowless room. Dennis walked to a filing cabinet and pointed to the label on a drawer. “No, you pick a year and you pick a month.” He opened the drawer and removed a box. “Then you take a roll, load it onto one of these machines and read.”

  “Each page?”

  “Each page. I usually skim the headlines first. It also helps if you know which section you want.”

  “OK, Let’s start with the year the Medici’s died and look in the entertainment section for any mention of the show or Rosa Bellini. We can work our way back from there.”

  Dennis pulled three rolls of film and threaded them onto three film readers. I had used machines like these in school but Eddie acted as if he never saw one before. Every few minutes, he’d swear and Dennis had to get up and rethread Eddie’s machine.

  We read for about an hour and my eyes got tired. Then Eddie said, “High wire performer takes the plunge.” Dennis and I got up to see what Eddie found. “Look here,” Eddie read from the screen, “High wire artist Rosa Bellini, star of the Medici Circus took a second plunge Saturday night and married popular circus strongman, The Great Eroe Forte. A horrified audience witnessed her first plunge last week when she fell from a rope ladder and broke her leg. Ms. Bellini has walked the tight rope since her childhood in Italy where she performed with her twin sister Agnese Medici as the Buongourna Sisters. After Illusionist Orazio Medici performed the ceremony under the big top, the couple vanished in a flash of light. The Circus will be in town until the end of this month.”

  Eddie sat back and sighed. “Finally. Now we have her connection to the Medicis. Hey Dennis, can I print this?”

  Dennis reached over and pressed a button on the reader.

  Eddie asked, “You think Buongourna’s the real maiden name? What about Eroe Forte? I knew a guy named Forte. What’s Eroe, Italian for Errol?”

  Dennis said, “In Latin, Errol means wanderer – “

  “But,” I said, “in Italian, Eroe means Hero and Forte means strong.”

  “So,” Eddie said, “Strong Hero could be another stage name. Let’s run these names anyway. Look at marriage licenses for that date and work back. Dennis. Got a computer I can use?”

  We went back upstairs and Dennis pointed to an unoccupied desk. “This is all set up for our new reporter. You can use that computer.”

  “Oh, so this is where the new hire would sit?” Eddie nudged me with his hip. I hip checked him back and he stumbled a moment before regaining his balance.

  Dennis seemed to be doing his best to ignore our behavior but said, “Umm, unh, yeah. So far, the spot’s still open.”

  “Nice.” Eddie threw me a sideways glance, then sat and reached for the keyboard. “OK. Marriage licenses for the name Forte for the period one week before the article… nope. Forte two weeks prior… one month prior… nope. OK, Buongourna, how’s that? B-U-O-G? Where’s that print out?”

  Dennis handed him the article Eddie found on the film.

  “Oh, B-U-O-N-G-O-U-R-N-A, no wonder she changed it. Let’s see… one week before the big event… two weeks. Wait, here it is.” He clicked the mouse a few times, squinted at the monitor and sat back. “Holy crap. Rosa Buongourna married Viktor Popslowski.”

  Chapter Twenty-One – Some things are hard to swallow

  Dennis asked, “Who’s Viktor Popslowski?”

  I answered, “He runs Kelly’s Carnival. We found one of his patrons in New York dead next to a Kewpie Doll. We need to notify Robby.”

  Eddie said, “I’ll call him,” and reached for the desk phone.

  Dennis asked me, “Who’s Robby?”

  “A detective in Waalbroek, New York handling the Kewpie killings up there.”

  We watched Eddie talk. He hung up and said, “Robby’s up to speed now. He’s going to go talk to Popslowski.”

  I asked him, “What else do we have on Rosa Buongourna? Any current address?”

  “No. Let me check county records.” He typed some more and said, “Wait, here’s a claim she made against the Medici estate. Looks like she surfaced after the State seized everything and then she walked off with a bundle of cash. Set up a trust. There’s an address here for property the estate owned…but again, it’s old.

  Dennis asked, “So, what do you
have?”

  Eddie paused before answering. I expected him to tell Dennis that he couldn’t discuss the case but he said, “Money wasn’t the motivation for the Medici deaths. Except for the Medici’s, the other victims had gold charms and all of the dead had Kewpie Dolls. Rosa Buongourna is Agnese Medici’s sister and Popslowski’s wife. We don’t know whose charm bracelet these gold pieces came from. We don’t know where Rosa Buongourna is now, who’s killing these people, why they’re doing it or why they’re leaving this stuff behind.” He wiped his face with his hand.

  I said, “If the trust address is old, let’s see if there is anything more recent.”

  Eddie turned back to the computer. “No phone listing or DMV for Rosa Buongourna or Rosa Popslowski.”

  Dennis said, “A woman without a car or a phone might as well be dead.”

  Eddie grimaced. “Could be… let’s see. Social Security death index shows Rosa Popslowski died four years ago. That’s the year before Connelly the Clown was killed. She can’t be our killer.”

  Eddie’s cell phone rang. “Yeah…”

  “Shit…”

  “OK. Thanks.”

  He put his phone back in his pocket. “That was Detective Carlyle in New York. He sent a car to the carnival grounds for Popslowski but he wasn’t there. Carny folks told the guys in the cruiser that he went to check out a new location for the show’s next stop.”

  I asked, “When’s he due back?”

  “That’s the problem. He was supposed to be back two hours ago… and his cell phone goes straight to voice mail.”

  Dennis stood up from the desk he sat on and said, “I don’t get it. What connection does Popslowski… or his wife have with the dead men?”

  Eddie swiveled his chair to face him. “That’s the problem. We don’t know.”

  “So why the interest in him and his wife?”

  “We know all of the dead men connect to the Medicis because of the Kewpie Dolls. So, we’re looking into people who knew them. Now, we find the guy that runs the show where we found the dead farmer is a Medici relative. Bears a closer look.”

  “Yes,” I said, “but Pops is missing. What can we do in the meantime?”

  Dennis said, “Me, I’ve got to finish my article before deadline.”

  Eddie looked at the computer and wrote something on his pad. “Well, we’ve got this old address for Rosa from the trust papers. Let’s see what’s there.”

  * * *

  We drove south on the Interstate in silence for about an hour, then exited onto a rural county road. A gas station and a fruit stand stood out at the exit, but no other roadside commerce existed for the next ten miles. We entered what the sign said was Summerfield, and over the next twenty minutes passed two mobile home parks, a few farms, fields with horses or cows, a bar, a church and a restaurant.

  Eddie pulled off the road onto a dirt path next to a rusty mailbox painted with faded numbers. “We’re here.”

  “Of course we’re here. Wherever we go is ‘here’. Don’t you mean ‘We’re there’?”

  “How can we be ‘there’ if we’re ‘here’?” He shook his head as if he was trying to shake something loose. “This empty field… here… looks like it could be where Medici’s show set up.”

  We got out of the car, stretched and walked to the only structure in sight, an antique silver trailer that looked like an airplane without wings. A few steps outside the trailer door, an old man sat in a lawn chair under the shade of a canvas canopy. In his lap, he held a portable radio tuned to a ball game.

  He looked up at us, but didn’t say anything. Each of us waited a few moments for the other to speak. The way the man’s gaze lingered on the badge and gun on Eddie’s belt made it clear he knew the Police wanted to talk. Finally, Eddie asked, “What’s your name?”

  The man said nothing but reached out an open hand. Eddie looked at it for a bit, and then took out his wallet. The man shook his head and pointed to Eddie’s shirt pocket. Eddie put his wallet back in his pants and handed the man his pad and pen. The man wrote something and handed it back. Eddie looked at the pad and asked,

  “Mr. Dragoni, is this where the Medici Carnival used to be?”

  The man made an affirmative nod.

  “Did you know the Medici’s?”

  Another silent confirmation.

  “What can you tell us about them?”

  The man took a long time making clearing sounds in his throat and then spoke with a hoarse, scratchy voice. “What you want to know?” He sounded like every word must hurt.

  Eddie put his pad away, “For starters, how did you know them?”

  “Worked the carny. Sword swallower, fire breather.”

  “You around when Medici killed himself?”

  The man turned off the radio and nodded.

  Eddie asked, “Mrs. Medici, she have a gold charm bracelet?”

  “All the ladies did.”

  Eddie handed him photos of the charms. “Recognize these?”

  The man looked at the pictures of the big shoe, the dice, the dollar sign and the tractor. “Yup. She wanted to add a sword… but I couldn’t do that to Orazio.”

  “Do what?”

  “Sleep with Agnese. He knew she slept around but the poor guy had no clue what those charms meant. Long as she came home, he mostly handled the one-nighters OK… but that sailor… he thought she’d leave with him, final straw after all those men, broke his heart. He killed himself, but not till he killed her.” The sword swallower coughed into a blue bandana. We stood there and waited until he finished.

  When he recovered, he took a sip from a bottle of ABC Brand Dark Rum he had under his faded canvas chair and then said, “Poor baby.”

  Eddie asked, “You mean Agnese?”

  The old man squinted up at Eddie. “No. Cops took son away.”

  I asked, “The Medici’s had a son?” This was new information.

  The old man took another sip with an audible swallow and said, “Three years old. Saw his father kill his mother, then his self.”

  “That’s horrible,” I said. “What happened to the boy?”

  “Don’t know.”

  Eddie asked a few more questions that went nowhere and it appeared we learned all we could. As we drove back to Achlaca, the first few miles went by quietly.

  “Eddie.”

  “Hmm?”

  “What do you think about what the sword swallower said?”

  “You mean that the affair with the sailor being the thing that put Medici over the edge?”

  “No, the fact that Medici’s son saw the killings.”

  “Yeah, that’s gotta screw you up… makes my family seem normal.”

  “How old do you think the boy would be now?”

  “Oh, guess about your age. Why?”

  “Well, in each of the Kewpie killings, we thought the victim had something to do with the Medici Carnival’s failure. Now, we know that it didn’t fail but there was infidelity in the marriage. Could the Medici’s son be avenging his father? Killing the lovers he thinks led his father to kill his mother?”

  “Hmm, could be. Archives must be incomplete, wasn’t anything about a son. Have to check the birth and adoption records.”

  “Robby Carlyle’s parents adopted him. He told me that it’s hard to get records.”

  “It won’t be hard with a court order, just takes some time getting them, but it’s this sailor thing that’s bothering me.”

  “What about it?”

  “If the affair with the sailor put Medici over the edge, and his son is killing folks that wronged the old man, wouldn’t he want to kill the sailor?”

  “Maybe he did?”

  “No dead sailors with Kewpie Dolls on my beat, no little gold boats either. You?”

  “No, none came up in my research. Maybe he’s still alive?”

  “Maybe, but if he is, who is he?” Eddie turned the car around and headed back to the old man and his trailer. When we got there, the old man looked up at Edd
ie and then turned off his radio.

  Eddie asked, “This sailor… you know his name?”

  The old man shook his head.

  “Navy or Merchant Marine?”

  The old man pressed his lips together in thought. Then he said, “Don’t know.”

  Eddie seemed to run out questions so I asked, “Has anyone else asked about this sailor lately?” I thought that if we were searching for the sailor, the killer might be too.

  “Only folks here in months, you and the florist.”

  Eddie perked up, “Florist?”

  “Every year this time. Cemetery out back.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder indicating the dirt path that vanished into the wooded area behind the trailer.

  I looked down the path and saw nothing but the woods. “Are the Medici’s buried there?”

  “Twenty years, this month.” He reached for his bottle of rum.

  Eddie took out his pad and pen, “Which florist?”

  “Dolly’s.”

  “Eddie,” I said, “this is a chance to see if Orazio Medici is really dead.”

  “What?”

  “All of these murders point back to Medici. If he wasn’t dead, who’d be your primary suspect?”

  “He’d be, but he died 20 years ago.”

  “Did he? He was an illusionist. That article said he made the married couple disappear in a flash of light.”

  “You think… naah…you really think he might have faked his death?”

  “Wouldn’t be the first. Can we exhume his body?”

  “Lotta red tape…even if we could do, we have no way to tell it’s him.”

  “What about DNA?”

  “His would have to be in the system or we’d need a known sample… not too likely.”

  “What if we can identify some other body buried there? We’d know he faked his death.”

  “No, all we’d know is that someone else is buried here. Look, we’ve got three good leads now. We have a son, a sailor and whoever’s sending flowers, but, sorry, Raquel,” Eddie broke out in a big smile, “this grave is a dead end.”

  I swung at him but he ducked.

  Chapter Twenty-Two – A flower by any other name