Grey Lady

by Paul Kemprecos

  “Where’s your friend? I wanted to thank him again.”

  “John said something about saving the world and vanished into the night. He does that a lot. You’ll get used to him when you know him better.”

  She sat down at the table. “I hope he comes back soon. After what we went through tonight, I think his help would come in handy.”

  I shook my head. “We can’t count on it. In fact, Flagg advised me to get off Nantucket and go into hiding.”

  Her eyes grew wider. “What did you tell him?”

  “That I’ve been hired to help your grandfather, and I’ll stay until the job is finished.”

  She let out the breath she’d been holding. “I think I’m hungry.”

  “That’s a good sign. Let me see what I can rustle up.”

  I found a box of pasta and a can of spaghetti sauce in the cupboard. There was a bag of frozen meatballs, a box of peas, and a container of Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia in the freezer. While the pasta boiled and the sauce and peas heated up, I opened the bottle of wine and Lisa set the table on the deck. Running around the Nantucket moors had drummed up our appetites and unlike the food, the wine was top-shelf. Lisa practically squealed with joy when I produced the ice cream for dessert.

  The wind had shifted and the fog blow had retreated as quickly as it advanced. The stars sparkled like sequins on blue-black velvet. I waited for Lisa to speak and when she did, she said, “Soc, do you know who wanted to kill us back there in the Serengeti?”

  “I think I was the target. You had the bad luck to be with me.”

  “Then maybe it’s time you told me what’s going on.”

  “Maybe it is, Lisa.”

  I started with the newspaper article that sparked Ivan’s ire, the visit from the hired guns, and the destruction of my boat. I leveled with her and said the main reason I took her grandfather’s case was so I could keep an eye on Ivan.

  “That’s an unbelievable and thoroughly frightening story,” she said.

  “No argument there.”

  “Thank you for being honest, Soc. I suppose I should thank Chernko. You might not have taken the case otherwise.” A serious look came to her face. “Maybe your friend Flagg is right, and you should get off the island.”

  “I kinda like it here,” I said. “And right now I have no other place I’d rather be. But here’s my dilemma. I don’t want to place you in danger, so the decision is up to you.”

  Lisa went into her silent mode again, then opened her mouth wide in a yawn and said, “I’m tired.”

  “I’m not surprised. You’ve had a long day. I’ll walk you back to the house.”

  “Thanks, but I was wondering if I could sleep with you.”

  I have spent more time that I should trying to convince pretty women to share my bed, but when the request came from the other side, I didn’t know what to say.

  Lisa laughed at my slack-jawed silence. “For godsakes, don’t look so shocked. I’m not really as forward as I sound. Maybe I should try again. I’d rather not be alone tonight. I’d like to share your bed with you. Sleep with you in the literal sense. As a friend. Like bundling in the old colonial days, when unmarried couples got to know each other with a board in between them.”

  “Oh sure,” I said. “I don’t have a board.” Brilliant retort, Socarides.

  “Then just use your imagination.”

  “I’ll give it a try. Crawl under the covers whenever you like. I’m going to stay up and do some reading.”

  She yawned again, thanked me for dinner, kissed me on the cheek, and went into the bedroom. I read a few pages of the report while I waited until she had time to doze off, then went in and stretched out, fully clothed, on the bed beside her. I could feel the heat from her body. I thought she was asleep, but when I pulled the covers up, she reached down and clutched my hand. So much for the imaginary bundling board. We were still holding hands as we slipped off into a deep sleep.

  CHAPTER 14

  “Sleep well, Lisa?” Dr. Rosen said at the breakfast table as soon as Mrs. Gomes had left the kitchen.

  Rosen had a smirky little grin on his orange tanned face. I guessed what lay behind the smirk. He was an early riser, and it was likely that on his morning run around the property, he had seen Lisa walking back to the house from my apartment wearing her bathrobe and pajamas.

  “Actually, no,” she said. Realizing, when Rosen’s grin grew wider, that she had implied a night of unbridled passion, she blushed and said, “I’ve been worrying about Gramps.”

  “No need to worry, Lisa,” Rosen said in a smarmy know-it-all tone. “I’m keeping a close eye on your grandfather.”

  It was time for me to jump in. “What else are you doing for Mr. Daggett, Dr. Rosen?”

  “I’m not sure—” He knitted his brow as the prelude to a glower.

  I gave him an awshucks smile. “Didn’t mean to sound pushy. I’m just curious about the sort of treatment methods you are using to help Mr. Daggett.”

  “Oh. I see. Well, Mr. Socarides, it’s a complex pathology that’s hard to explain to a layman.”

  “Understandable. I’ll narrow it down to a couple of questions. Are you popping pills into the captain’s food or does he stretch out on your couch and spill his guts?”

  Rosen made a game try at plastering an Eddy Haskell smile on his face. “I’m using proven drugs for Mr. Daggett, and I’m still attempting to establish a rapport with the patient.”

  I glanced over at Lisa and snorted like a winded horse. “Good luck with that, Doc.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Lisa told me that you used to work for a big corporation. Human resources. What they used to call personnel, I guess.”

  “That’s right. I was in charge of psychologically evaluating top-ranked applicants for high-level jobs.”

  “Pretty impressive, but—”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “I can’t help wondering how sizing up Harvard MBAs qualifies you to deal with, what did you call it, a complex pathology?”

  A hard look came to his eyes and his face got even more orange. “If you’ll excuse me,” he said, rising from the table.

  “Wow!” Lisa whispered, when Rosen was out of earshot. “You demolished him. You should be a trial lawyer.”

  “Chalk it up to a misspent youth watching Perry Mason. Rosen was an easy mark, and I didn’t like the way he leered when he asked if you had a good night’s sleep.”

  “Thank you for coming to my rescue, Soc. And thank you for last night. I hope I wasn’t a pest.”

  I wanted to tell Lisa that I hadn’t slept either. I lay in bed and listened to her soft breathing, inhaled the scent of her and felt the heat of her body, thinking before I slid off to dreamland that the bachelor life is overrated.

  The Victorian gentleman in me answered. “No, Lisa. You weren’t a pest at all. I was glad I could help.”

  “Thank you. Now I’d like to help by firing you.”

  “Was it my cooking?”

  “No, it was not your cooking, which was quite, ah, creative. But I think John Flagg was right. You should get off the island. It’s too dangerous for you to be here. Go into hiding until Chernko leaves. That was much too close a call yesterday.”

  “Chernko has connections. He would find me no matter where I went. You know the old saying. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. My best hope is to bring him down before he does the same to me.”

  “You can’t do that alone. Do you think your friend Flagg will help?”

  “If he can. Flagg tends to be busy dealing with international hot-spots. If he’s here, he’ll help. If not, I’m on my own.”

  “Then how do you intend to bring Chernko down?” she said, clearly exasperated with me
. “He’s rich and powerful.”

  “Still working on it.” I glanced at my watch. “I’ve got a ferry to catch. I’m meeting with the lead assistant district attorney on the case. Maybe he’ll toss me something we can use. At the very least, we’ll know what we’ll be up against in the courtroom. I’ll drop by your office on the way back to fill you in.”

  We both got up from our chairs at the same time. Lisa came around the table and stood in front of me. She took my hand, raised it to her face and brushed it with her lips. It was a touching, affecting gesture. The wise guy who lives in my brain and controls my mouth was struck mute. I mumbled something about seeing her later, and headed for the door.

  Despite my reassuring platitudes, I knew that I was over my head when it came to a mano a mano with a ruthless killer like Chernko. I would have to be more than careful. I tensed when I saw a car pulled over to the side of the road, but it was only a couple of tourists taking photos.

  On the ferry ride to the mainland, I sat out on the deck and let the sun cook my face. My tension melted a little with each passing mile. By the time the boat pulled up to the dock in Hyannis, the whole thing back at the Serengeti seemed like a misty dream. As I walked off the boat, I could feel the soreness in my knees from crawling around, and I knew that the adventure in the fog had been very real.

  I crossed the street to a restaurant with a patio that overlooked the ferry dock. Assistant District Attorney Francis Xavier Martin sat at a table holding a cell phone stuck to his ear. He gave me a wave and pointed to the chair opposite his.

  “I don’t care what his lawyer says,” Martin was saying. “We gave his client the plea bargain on the first four charges. The last two stick. We’re giving him a gift. Tell the defendant that if he doesn’t go along, we will pound him into dust.”

  The fact that Martin was smiling pleasantly as he talked didn’t dull the steely edge to his voice. He hung up, put his phone on the table, and extended his hand.

  “Hi, Soc. Great to see you. Read in the paper about your boat. What the hell happened?”

  “Not much to tell. I was on Nantucket and came home to see my dreams of a charter fishing business go up in very smelly smoke. The inspectors are still trying to figure it out.”

  “Electrical?”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “Sorry, Soc, that’s a tough one,” he said with a shake of his head.

  “Yeah, real tough. Looking on the bright side, now I’ve got plenty of time to take on detecting work. Thanks for meeting me on such short notice.”

  He made a show of looking around. “The D.A. would kick my ass if he knew I was meeting with you.”

  I had known Martin ever since he joined the D.A.’s office fresh out of law school. He was a tall, lanky guy in his late thirties. With his Mediterranean features and black hair, it was safe to bet that one of his ancestors was a shipwrecked sailor from the Spanish armada who’d found true love among the Celts of Ireland. I had helped him a couple of times with information that made him look good. A few years ago, I yanked an accused murder suspect out from under the nose of Martin’s boss, proving the defendant was innocent.

  “Your boss still mad at me?”

  “Your evidence made him look like a chump in court and he almost lost the election. What do you think?”

  “I think he is a chump and that I’d better make sure I never get a speeding ticket in this county.” I pointed to the cell phone on the table. “How long have you been pounding defendants into dust?”

  “Ever since the D.A. filed his papers for re-election,” Martin said. “Cases we would have pled out in a heartbeat are getting a hard look.”

  “Tough time to be a criminal in an election year,” I said.

  “It will only last until voting day. Then we get the bad boys back on a plea bargain assembly line.”

  “It doesn’t hurt his political prospects to show that his office is being tough in a high-profile murder case.”

  Martin clutched at his heart. “Do you really think I’m so shallow that I’d turn the heat up on my prosecutorial zeal for political purposes?”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time an aspiring politician used the courts of justice as a stepping stone to the good life, Frank.”

  He uttered an evil chuckle. “And it won’t be the last. Off the record, I’m resigning and will file soon for the state rep job. The basis of my platform will be strict law enforcement. No punks get a break.”

  “As I said on the phone, I’m working for the family of Henry Daggett. Does he come under the punk category?”

  “Henry is in his own category. How’d you get roped into his defense team?”

  “He has a pretty granddaughter. After my charter business burned up, I needed the money. Did I mention he has a pretty granddaughter?”

  “I’ve met Lisa Hendricks. You’re right about the pretty. Smart, too. She got me to agree to house arrest for her grandfather. Caught hell from the boss.”

  “I don’t deny the lady has high intelligence, in spite of the fact that she hired me. What’s the status of the Daggett case?”

  “It’s been fast-tracked. My boss isn’t going to waste an opportunity like this, especially one with a predictable conviction.”

  “Is the conviction a certainty?”

  “What do you think, Soc?” He ticked off his points on his fingers. “The defendant and the deceased argued over a museum acquisition. The defendant’s fingerprints were found on the murder weapon. The defendant and the victim were at an after-hours meeting. Maybe Daggett didn’t have murder in mind, but tempers got out of hand; the result was the same. Daggett grabs the knife off the wall. Coffin ends up in a coffin.”

  “I hope you’re not going to use that clever play on words in court.”

  “Depends on my mood. I’ll decide after jury selection. So what does the ex-homicide cop think about this?”

  “I can guess what a sharp defense attorney might say. The defendant and the victim were good friends who had a few disagreements. The defendant comes upon the deceased and unthinkingly picks up the murder weapon, thus leaving his prints. I’ve seen the boarding knife fasteners; it wouldn’t have been easy for an old guy to pull that thing down from the wall. In the meantime, Coffin could have run for the hills.”

  “Okay, say Daggett waited in ambush with weapon in hand.”

  “Coffin was stabbed from the front. Be a lot easier if murder was the goal, to sneak up from behind. The museum is filled with nooks and crannies where Daggett could have waited.”

  “Maybe Coffin heard Daggett and turned to face his killer.”

  “Still lots of maybes.”

  “None of it matters,” he said with a shrug. “Daggett will convict himself.”

  “Defense will never allow him to take the stand.”

  “He doesn’t have to. There will be testimony to the effect that he thinks he is a fictional whaling captain in search of a white whale with the goal of killing same. We will charge negligent homicide, and get the old guy into a treatment center for the rest of his life. Which everyone will agree is the best possible outcome.”

  “His granddaughter won’t agree. She thinks he’s innocent.”

  “Like I said. Doesn’t matter.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  He spread his hands. “Think of the publicity this will produce. It’s totally bizarre. Moby Dick! Crazy Ahab. The D.A. will look competent and compassionate at the same time.”

  “Which doesn’t hurt in an election year.”

  “Don’t deny it, but I still maintain that this crazy old man is dangerous, and putting him away is the best solution.”

  “Here’s my problem with that, Frank. The D.A.’s case against Daggett says he killed Coffin in a crazed rage, and that the trauma launched him into the world of Moby Di
ck. But there’s also a case to be made that he slipped into a crazy world when he got a blow to the head, after he left the museum. Does that discrepancy matter?”

  He slowly wagged his head. “In a perfect world it would.”

  “But this is an election year.”

  He gave me a quick tight grin. “Taking the fifth on that, pal.”

  “How about the Russian guy cremated in the woods near the airport? Will that help the vote?”

  “I saw the story in the Times. Looks like you sewed that case up, Soc.”

  “The reporter took a few liberties with our bar talk.”

  He laughed and said, “Low priority. The guy wasn’t a local. Hell, he wasn’t even a citizen. Chances are, we’ll never find his murderer, not that anyone really cares. Karpov was up to his neck in drug stuff.”

  “Still, that was a nasty way to die,” I said.

  “No disagreement there, Soc.” He picked up my baseball cap, which I had hung from an empty chair, and plunked it onto my head. “How about those Red Sox?”

  The lesson in contemporary jurisprudence had ended. We ordered coffee and bagels and talked about the changes we would make if we were managing the Boston Red Sox. Martin fielded a few more calls in between, and said he had to get to court. I thanked him, we parted company and I headed for my truck, which must have missed me, because it started on the first try.

  I drove around the harbor to the marina and talked to the dock master. My burned-out boat had been taken off on a flatbed. We walked down to my old dock where a clean-up crew was hard at work. He said the fire inspectors had determined that the fire was arson, started with an accelerant. I thanked him for the update and walked over to Trader Ed’s and borrowed the phone to call my answering machine.