Shallow Graves - Jeremiah Healy by Jeremiah Healy Read Free Book Online

here.
Male/female, fashion, corporate. Print as well as runway."
    "By runway . . . ?"
    "Fashion shows for designers or boutiques.
They'll hold them as a luncheon, invite the big-spenders off their
mailing lists. We'll supply the girls, who show the clothes off on
the runway, then walk through the crowd during lunch, let the ladies
see how nice the merchandise looks up close on a beautiful girl."
    "With the price tag still on?"
    The beaming smile again. Like Nancy, a bright, direct
woman who became more attractive the longer you talked to her.
    "Actually, they do have the tags still on the
garments. Part of the cachet of going to the luncheon is seeing how
much looking great costs."
    "Did Ms. Dani do many of those?"
    The smile became wistful. "Mau Tim could have
done just about anything she wanted, John. Elegant neck, generous
mouth, perfect skin tone and bone structure. But most of all, those
eyes. The most exotic girl I've ever seen."
    "How did you come to represent her."
    "The usual way. A scout."
    "A talent scout?"
    "A photographer who spotted her in a mall. Or
maybe just on the street, I'm not sure. But he spotted her, asked her
if she wanted to be a model."
    "Sounds like kind of a pick-up line."
    "I know, but it works. Especially on a
fifteen-year-old."
    "Fifteen?"
    "Not Mau Tim. No, she was at least eighteen when
she first came to us. But the prime age is fifteen to nineteen."
    " Why so young?"
    The good smile again. "Unfairness of nature,
John. It's easy to use makeup to make the face look older. It's tough
to use makeup to make the body look younger."
    "So the career is over early?"
    "Not for everybody. Some of the girls do fine
into their mid-twenties. And after that we can use them as commercial
models."
    "As opposed to?"
    "Oh, sorry. Commercial as opposed to fashion
models. Mommies selling diapers or businesswomen selling computers
rather than vamps in evening wear. Some even subspecialize as parts
models."
    "Parts of the body?"
    "Right. Hand model, leg model, even foot model
for shoe ads."
    "Do you remember which photographer scouted Ms.
Dani?"
    "Sure. But you might make more headway if you
called her 'Mau Tim! That's how she was known in the business."
    "Thanks. The scout?"
    "Oh, right. It was Oz Puriefoy."
    Oz. Short for Oscar Puriefoy, one of the men at the
party. Lindqvist looked at me strangely. "If you need to talk to
Oz, George will have a number for him."
    "Thanks. Did you ever meet any of Mau Tim's
family?"
    "Never did. That's what I meant about it being
tough to give you any background on her. She was over eighteen when
Oz sent over her test shots and she first signed on with us, so she
didn't need parental permission."
    "You ever speak to them by telephone?"
    "Her parents, you mean?"
    "Yes."
    "No." Lindqvist seemed to think a moment,
her eyes Hitting left-right-left without focusing on anything. "No,
I think the only person I ever talked to was an uncle. On the
telephone. I think he owned the building she lived in."
    "Vincent Dani?"
    "Maybe. I know she changed her name."
    "From 'Tina' to 'Mau Tim'?"
    "No. No, originally it was even more ethnic —
'Amatina,' that was it. I wanted to change it to 'Violeta,' for the
eyes and all, but there was already a black model with a name like
that. Then I think she checked on the Vietnamese word for 'violet,'
and it turned out to be 'mau tim' which fit her beautifully."
    "Do you know how I could reach her parents?"
    " No, but their number might be in her file."
    "Her file here?"
    "Right. It would have places where we could
reach her, that kind of thing, Might have some family stuff, but
can't you just get that from the police?"
    I thought about Holt. "Maybe, thanks. I take it
you didn't go to the funeral, then."
    "No. No, we didn't. I think George called the
uncle, but he said — the uncle said that the family wanted to keep
it closed. The funeral I mean, not the . . . well, maybe that, too.
I've never . . . I've never seen anybody strangled before. I don't
know