Death in Paradise

Chapter Thirty-three

When she opened the front door Joni Shaw said, "Oh, oh, the fuzz."

"May I come in?"

"Are you planning to search the place?" Joni Shaw said.

"No, I just want to talk."

She smiled widely at him and stepped away from the door.

The entry hall of Norman Shaw's big house was twenty feet wide with a curved staircase to the second floor. At the turn a full-length window was full of sunlight. To the right of the front door there was an umbrella stand made from the lower part of an elephant's leg, and a dark wine-colored Persian rug lay across the width of the hall at the foot of the stairs.

"Let's sit in the atrium," Joni Shaw said.

She led Jesse through a room lined with bookshelves and scattered with heavy nineteenth-century furniture, into a glass atrium where the ocean was visible a hundred yards below, tossing spray toward the house as it broke on the rocks. Jesse sat on the end of a green leather chaise.

"Coffee?" Joni Shaw said. "A drink?"

"Coffee would be nice," Jesse said.

"That will make it a social call," Joni Shaw said.

"Sure," Jesse said.

Joni Shaw was dressed in black shorts and a white silk tee shirt that stopped short of her waist so that her stomach showed. An Asian woman brought coffee. Jesse added cream and sugar and drank some.

"Is your husband at home?" Jesse said.

"Oh, damn," she said. "I thought you'd come calling on me."

Jesse smiled and didn't say anything.

" Norman is working," Joni Shaw said. "He works every morning in his study with the door locked."

"Here in the house," Jesse said.

"Yes. But it might as well be on Mars," Joni Shaw said. "He is simply not here when he's working."

"Well, maybe you can help me," Jesse said.

"I hope so," Joni Shaw said.

Jesse noticed that everything she said seemed to imply something more.

"Do you know a man named Gino Fish?"

"The gangster?"

"Un-huh."

"Sure."

"Talk about him a little," Jesse said.

"Why do you ask?"

"His name has come up in a case I'm working on," Jesse said.

"Oh my, are we suspects?"

"No. I'm just looking for help."

Joni Shaw was sitting on the couch across from Jesse, with one leg on the couch so that he could see the inside of her thigh. She sipped her coffee, looking at Jesse over the rim of her cup.

"Aren't we all," she said.

Jesse waited. Joni Shaw let him wait.

"Gino Fish?" Jesse said after he had waited long enough.

"You may remember that about five years ago one of Norman 's books was being made into a movie, here, in Boston."

Jesse nodded as if he remembered. Five years ago he'd been in L.A., on the cops, still with Jenn.

" Norman was an executive producer on the movie. He didn't really have to do anything, it was just a title, extra money. Gino used to visit the set. He knew some of the crew. Then when we had some trouble with the union, Gino was very helpful."

"How nice," Jesse said.

Without leaving the couch, Joni Shaw leaned forward and poured him some more coffee. Very flexible.

"Oh," Joni said, "I don't doubt that Gino has done some terrible things. But he's a very interesting person."

Jesse nodded.

"I try to make my own judgments of people," Joni said, "and so does Norman. Gino has been very nice to us, and good fun at a party."

"So he's become a friend?"

"I guess you could say that," Joni Shaw said. "Not perhaps the first circle of intimacy, but certainly more than just an acquaintance."

She made "first circle of intimacy" sound seductive.

"Do you know anyone named Bishop?" Jesse said.

"I don't think so. Is he involved in your case?"

"When's the last time you saw Gino?" Jesse said.

"Oh… two, no, three, weeks ago. In fact he was at the party where you were going to arrest us."

"Anyone with him?"

Joni smiled.

"A very good-looking young man," she said.

"And, I wasn't going to arrest you," Jesse said.

Joni Shaw drank a small sip of her coffee, holding the cup in both hands, like in a television commercial, and looking at Jesse.

"Oh, well," she said. "Can't blame a girl for hoping."