“Yes.” Accident or crime, no matter how the loss occurs, the questions linger.
She waited for a second or two to see if I’d elaborate, and when I stuck with unvarnished, she added, “They make me feel as if I’m somehow faulting my husband’s memory by following his wishes.” Marilyn laughed forlornly. “What the hell,” she whispered and turned her back to us, still mopping her eyes. “You didn’t stop by to listen to all my woes. What do you need to know?” She nodded at the envelope I held but didn’t ask or reach for it. “The neighbors all have questions that they’re afraid to ask. I can see it on their faces.”
I needed to know who fired the bullet through Larry Zipoli’s skull, but that didn’t seem an appropriate question just then.
Chapter Twenty
“Would you like to sit down?” With a last disgusted look at the colorful and soothing brochures from Salazar and Sons, Marilyn Zipoli gestured toward the living room set-one of those matched things that sits empty most of the time waiting for a guest. I settled on the sofa and heard the wheeze of escaping air, I hoped from the cushion. Estelle settled like a graceful feather in one of the singles while Marilyn tried to make herself comfortable on the opposite end of the sofa, hands clasped in her lap.
“What have you found out?” There was no eagerness in her question, just resignation.
“We’re closing in on a scenario,” I said. Marilyn’s eyebrows twitched. “We have a witness or two who heard the shot, and who might have seen something.”
“Something.”
“And that’s about as concretely vague as I can be just now.” I held both hands out palm to palm, forearm holding the envelope on my thigh. “I spoke with Jim Raught earlier.” She didn’t respond. “I have to tell you, Marilyn, nothing in his attitude, nothing he said, leads me to believe that he might have anything to do with your husband’s death. His version of the fence deal was that the whole thing was petty.”
She drew in a long, slow breath.
“And it is Virginia Creeper, by the way.”
“Oh, I know it is,” she snapped. “For heaven’s sakes.”
“What actually happened with the fence?”
“What do you mean, what actually happened?”
“You said they argued over it, that Raught pulled it out of the ground. That eventually he threw it in the dumpster out in the alley. That’s not what he said.”
“The fence, the fence…” She looked heavenward.
“So…what’s the deal?”
There seemed to be something fascinating about the wadded up tissue in her hand, since that’s what she stared at for a long moment. “I would think it would be more important to find my husband’s killer than to worry about a stupid little fence.”
“Amen to that. We spent a good chunk of time interviewing Jim Raught based on what you told us, Marilyn. And you know as well as I do that it isn’t the fence that concerns us. If the two gentlemen had called us to settle a property line dispute, we would have done so. A deputy would have talked with them both, and arbitrated a solution.” I smiled a little. “Well, in the best of all possible worlds, that’s what would happen. So the fence doesn’t worry me. I’m interested in arguments that your husband might have had that could have led to this tragedy. Whether it’s fences, or Virginia Creeper, or tiffs with the boss at work-whatever it might be, it’s arguments that escalate that interest us.”
“You’ve talked with Tony Pino?” She jumped at that opening to change the subject.
“Sure.”
“And?”
“That’s one of the reasons we dropped by, Marilyn.” I rested my hand on the envelope. “Were you aware that your husband had nearly a dozen written reprimands for drinking on the job?” The soft friction of Estelle’s pencil on her notepad seemed inordinately loud in the silence that followed.
“I don’t understand how that’s at issue,” she said. “Are you saying that my husband argued with Tony?”
“It isn’t at issue,” I replied. “It’s just an unpleasant fact, Marilyn. The evidence suggests that it was a common thing for your husband to take alcohol to work in his lunch cooler. Now, why his boss chose to do nothing about it over the years…well, that’s another question.”
She glared at me then, and as she worked to formulate either question or retort, I added, “A dozen written reprimands in the past few years, Marilyn. Several property damage accidents with county equipment. No one injured, but…”
“Mr. Gastner, do you seriously think…I mean seriously… that someone shot my husband because he’s an alcoholic?”
“At this point, I’m not thinking anything.”
That didn’t sound just right, and sure enough, Marilyn actually laughed. “Oh, brother. This is the best we can do?”
“I’m open to suggestions, Marilyn. Was your husband involved in anything that might have led to…”
“Look,” she interrupted, “my husband wasn’t a closet gambler or something like that. He didn’t associate with loan sharks. He didn’t fence stolen cars. He wasn’t into extortion, or blackmail, or whatever else.” She had started to wind down, and the tears started to flow again. “I mean, isn’t that the usual list? Isn’t that what Hollywood has us believe? He wasn’t having an affair, I wasn’t having one, it was just life as usual. He went to work every day, and so did I. The kids are all out of the nest, and fighting their own battles now. So here we are.”
“He argued with the neighbor?”
Marilyn’s grimace was immediate. “Just forget about that,” she said. “Just forget about it. I’m sorry I ever mentioned it.”
“That’s hard to do, Marilyn. If there was friction there…”
“There wasn’t.”
I looked at her in silence for a few seconds.
“So, you made that up? Is that the deal? Why would you do that?” I could guess some reasons, but Marilyn Zipoli just blushed, a nice, deep, guilty crimson, and that was answer enough. “Did you ever have occasion…” I hesitated, realizing that I sounded like a goddamn lawyer launching into his cross examination. What the hell. “Did you have occasion to talk with Jim Raught during the past few weeks? You know, neighbor to neighbor sort of thing?”
“No.”
“Not just in passing, maybe out on the sidewalk?”
“No. “
I hesitated for a fraction of a second. “You know, Jim Raught said that a number of years ago, you showed some interest in him…at least what he interpreted as interest.” I saw her eyes go steely and guarded at my return to what was obviously a sore subject, but she said nothing, and that intrigued me. That doorway was still firmly closed and locked.
“Did you folks ever share backyard barbecues? Pool parties? Evenings in front of the hibachi?”
“It’s not that kind of neighborhood, sheriff.” She dabbed at her eyes. “At least, not those kinds of neighbors.”
“So you really didn’t know Jim Raught all that well…or any of the neighbors, for that matter.”
“Well, as in quiet evenings with a glass of wine in front of the fire? No. Not even getting together for a weekend barbecue. Certainly not a nighttime tryst at the swimming pool under the hibiscus, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Her smile was thin, and entirely without humor.
If there ever had been interest between Marilyn Zipoli and Jim Raught, I wondered who had done the refusing. At least she admitted to knowing about the pool.
“We see a lot of the neighbor kids,” she added. “There’s always an eager gang to go skiing or fishing, that sort of thing.”
“You do that fairly often?”
“We spent a lot of time over at the Butte, sheriff. Like I said, that was Larry’s favorite place, other than in front of the television, watching professional wrestling or boxing. Or golf. Or NASCAR. Or football.”
“And yours?”
That drew her up short. “Elephant Butte is not my choice of paradise. Let me just put it that way. No matter what I do, I end up with a sunburn. I could spend the entire weekend in a sleeping bag, zipped toe to head. I’d still come home burned.”