Providence Rag

by Bruce DeSilva

  It’s a little brown-and-white field mouse. The boy thinks it’s cute.

  He runs up the stairs to his room and tugs on jeans, sneakers, and a T-shirt. The shirt has the rap group Public Enemy’s logo, a figure in a rifle’s crosshairs, on the front. He tiptoes down the hall to the den and finds his father’s cigar lighter by the ashtray on the desk. It’s a butane torch lighter, the kind that works like a little flamethrower. He goes down the stairs to the kitchen, picks up the trap, tucks it under his arm, and goes outside.

  The boy is very happy that his father threw out the kill-traps.

  A dead mouse wouldn’t be this much fun.

  A dead mouse wouldn’t scream.

  3

  June 1992

  Liam Mulligan’s earliest memory was of his father returning home from his milk delivery route, collapsing into his platform rocker, and pulling out his Comet harmonica. Later, when Mulligan was in his teens, his dad would fold himself into that chair every night and play along with a scratchy Son Seals, Buddy Guy, or Muddy Waters record, even though the chemo had drained him.

  That’s how Mulligan learned to love the blues—although no one would have mistaken his father for Little Walter.

  Saturday afternoon, Mulligan flipped through his late father’s records, selected Son Seals’s Bad Axe LP, and placed it gently on the family turntable. Then he fetched that old harmonica from its place of honor on the mantel. Settling into that same squeaking rocker, he tapped his left foot to the first few bars of “Don’t Pick Me for Your Fool.” Then he put the harmonica to his lips and honked along with the blues man’s guitar. No one, Mulligan figured, was going to mistake him for Little Walter either.

  The album had wound its way to the fifth cut, “Cold Blood,” when his mother stuck her head out of the kitchen. She paused for a moment to listen, the sound of the harmonica conjuring warm memories of her husband.

  “Liam? You have a phone call.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Some guy from the paper.”

  Probably the sports editor with a question about the last story Mulligan had turned in. The one about Coach Frank “Happy” Dobbs’s struggle to recruit players for the sad Brown University basketball program. He got up and wandered into the kitchen, where the wall phone was mounted beside the wheezing fifteen-year-old Frigidaire.

  “Tell him you’re on vacation,” his mother whispered, and handed him the receiver.

  “Mulligan.”

  “Sorry to disturb your Saturday afternoon, Mr. Mulligan. Was that your girlfriend who answered the phone?”

  “My mother.”

  “You live with your mother?”

  “She needs help with the rent. Who am I talking to?”

  “Ed Lomax, the city editor. Can you give us a hand with a breaking story?”

  “Give you a hand with a story?” Ever since middle school, Mulligan had repeated questions while pondering his answer. It was a habit he was trying to break. “I think you got the wrong guy, Mr. Lomax. I work in sports.”

  “I’m aware of that, Mulligan, but the summer vacation schedule has left us shorthanded. I asked the sports editor if he could spare someone. He offered you.”

  “I just started my vacation.”

  “Then reschedule.”

  Mulligan didn’t say anything.

  “Or if you prefer,” Lomax said, “I could pay you overtime.”

  “Overtime? I could use the money. What do you need?”

  “There’s been a double murder in Warwick. Hardcastle, our lead police reporter, has been at the scene since this morning, but the police are stonewalling him. Meet him there and see what you can do to help.”

  Mulligan wasn’t sure what he’d be able to accomplish aside from standing around looking like a sportswriter. But overtime was overtime.

  “Okay. Gimme the address.”

  * * *

  It was nearly five P.M. by the time Mulligan braked his rusting seven-year-old Yugo to a stop a block from the crime scene. That was as close as he could get. The suburban street was clogged with police cars, TV satellite vans, and a medical examiner’s wagon. He was just climbing out when a uniformed officer bellowed at him.

  “Get that heap of junk outta here!”

  “Please don’t talk to Citation that way, Officer,” Mulligan said. “He’s very sensitive about his looks.”

  “You named your Yugo?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “After a racehorse?”

  “No. After the three speeding tickets I got the first week I owned him.”

  “That clunker goes fast enough to get speeding tickets?”

  “This little honey can do forty in a school zone.”

  The cop chuckled, his face softening a little. “Still gotta move it. No unauthorized vehicles allowed on the street.”

  “I’m with The Providence Dispatch.”

  “Oh. Got some ID?”

  Mulligan pulled out his wallet and flashed his press card.

  “Shoulda showed me that in the first place.”

  Yellow crime scene tape had been strung across the trunks of four red maples that bordered the front yard of a white-shingled ranch-style house. Outside the tape, a gaggle of print, radio, and TV reporters milled around on the sidewalk. None of them appeared to be doing anything. Mulligan recognized Billy Hardcastle, a rawboned redneck who had hired on with the Dispatch after five years as the police reporter at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

  “I’m Mulligan.”

  “I know who you are,” Hardcastle said. “You cover sports. You see any sports goin’ on here?”

  “Mr. Lomax sent me to give you some help.”

  Mulligan extended his right hand. Hardcastle ignored it.

  “I told that SOB I don’t need no goddamn help.”

  “You don’t?”

  “I don’t. And I sure as hell don’t have time to wet-nurse a rookie. Jesus! What the fuck was Lomax thinkin’?”

  Mulligan shrugged.

  “Now that I’m here, is there something you’d like me to do?”

  “Yeah. Leave.”

  “What if I talk to the neighbors, see if they know anything?”

  “You don’t think I thought of that? I’m way ahead of you, kid.”

  “What’s everybody standing around for?”

  “The chief’s gonna come out in a few minutes and tell us what the hell’s going on. I expect you to be gone by then.”

  “Maybe I could—”

  “Maybe you could shut your pie hole and keep the fuck outta my way.”

  “Sure. I can do that.”

  So Mulligan, who’d never been this close to a murder, kept the fuck outta Hardcastle’s way. He stood silently on the sidewalk and scanned the faces gathered around the house. The cops with their drained eyes. The frightened neighbors standing on the other side of the street. The print and broadcast journalists hungry for a headline. Hardcastle was right. He didn’t belong here.

  Forty minutes dragged by before Chief Walter Bennett of the Warwick PD strode out the front door of the murder house and approached the police line. Reporters shouted questions. The chief held up both hands to silence them.

  “Here’s what I can tell you. We have two victims, Becky Medeiros, twenty-eight, of this address, and her four-year-old daughter, Jessica. Next of kin has been notified, so it’s okay to report the names. We have a suspect in custody. That is all I am prepared to say at this time.”

  As he turned away, reporters hurled questions.

  “When were they killed?”

  “Who discovered the bodies?”

  “Were they shot?”

  “Did you recover the murder weapon?”

  “Were drugs involved?”

  The chief turned back to face them.

  “They were killed sometime late last night or early this morning. Everything else is still under investigation.”

  “Hey, Chief!” Hardcastle shouted. “The neighbors say Becky’s live-in boyfriend, Walter Mille
r, was taken away in handcuffs this morning. Can you confirm that he’s your suspect?”

  “We are still in the preliminary stages of our investigation,” Bennett said, his narrowed eyes locked on Hardcastle. “If you print that name, you will never get so much as a head nod from anyone in this department. Do I make myself clear?”

  He turned away abruptly, stomped up the front walk, and disappeared inside the house.

  “Big friggin’ deal,” Hardcastle muttered. “That prick never tells us shit anyway.”

  “That mean you’re going with the name?” Mulligan asked.

  Hardcastle smirked and headed for his car.

  The rest of the reporters sprinted for their vehicles, too. Doors slammed. Engines roared to life. Minutes later, Mulligan stood alone on the sidewalk, a single uniformed patrolman eyeing him warily from the other side of the police line.

  Mulligan turned and looked around. Neighbors who had been watching from across the street were drifting away, scuttling down the sidewalks and slipping back inside their houses. After a few minutes, the only ones left were two teenage boys on bicycles. One was a short, skinny kid in a Boston Celtics T-shirt with Kevin McHale’s number 32 on the back. The other was a tall, heavyset kid wearing a Red Sox jersey with Mo Vaughn’s number 42. The big kid was black, a rarity in this lily-white neighborhood. His wine-red twenty-six-inch Schwinn racer looked like a toy between his thighs.

  What the heck, Mulligan figured. Since I’m here, I might as well ask a few questions. As he crossed the street and approached the two boys, they started to head out.

  “Hey! Hold up.”

  “What do you want?” the short, skinny one snapped.

  “I’m wondering if either of you saw what happened here this morning.”

  “Naw,” the skinny kid said.

  “I did,” the other boy said.

  “You did?” the skinny one said.

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s your name?” Mulligan asked.

  “Kwame.”

  “Kwame what?”

  “Kwame Diggs.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Thirteen.”

  That was a surprise. Mulligan would have pegged him for a high school senior, maybe a starting lineman on the Veterans Memorial football team.

  “You live around here?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Where?”

  “The green house right over there.”

  “Can you tell me what you saw?”

  “You a cop?”

  “I’m a reporter.”

  “He’s lyin’,” the skinny kid said. “Don’t tell him nothin’, Kwame.”

  “You got something against the police?” Mulligan asked.

  The skinny kid didn’t say anything.

  “Look, here’s my press pass,” Mulligan said, pulling it out of his pocket and showing it to them.

  “You gonna put my name in the paper?” Kwame asked.

  “Put your name in the paper? Only if you want me to.”

  “Yeah? That would be fuckin’ cool!”

  “Okay, then. I bet there were a lot of sirens going off here early this morning. Did they wake you up?”

  “Uh-huh,” Kwame said.

  “So what did you do?”

  “Pulled on some clothes and ran over to see what was up.”

  “And?”

  “Couple of cops were putting handcuffs on a guy and shoving him in the back of a police car.”

  “Did you recognize him?”

  “Yeah. Walter Miller.”

  “Walter Miller? He lives there, right?”

  “Uh-huh. He moved in about six months ago.”

  “Did you notice anything unusual about him this morning?”

  “Hell, yeah. He had blood all over him.”

  “Anything else?”

  “He was screamin’ and cryin’ and shit.”

  “He must be the one who done it,” the skinny kid butted in.

  “Anything besides the blood make you think that?” Mulligan asked.

  The skinny kid looked blank.

  “Did Miller and Becky fight a lot?”

  “I don’t know nothin’ about that,” the skinny kid said.

  “Me either,” Kwame said, “but ain’t it always the boyfriend who done it?”

  “Where’d you hear that?”

  “That Law & Order show on TV.”

  With that, the two friends took off down the street. Mulligan watched them go, then walked around the neighborhood to see if anyone else would talk to him. Those who did hadn’t seen anything worth putting in the paper. After an hour he gave it up, walked back to the murder house, and chatted up the uniform behind the police tape.

  “Must be terrible in there,” Mulligan said.

  “So I hear, but I haven’t been inside. If I had, I couldn’t tell you anything anyway.”

  “Bodies been removed?”

  “Hours ago.”

  “Remember anything else like this ever happening in this neighborhood?”

  “I don’t remember anything this brutal happening in the whole damn state. At least not since Eric Kessler butchered the Freeman boy back in the eighties.”

  It was early evening now, the light leaking from the sky. Mulligan was still chatting up the uniform when a streetlight across the road snapped on. It was time to pack it in. He’d have to return to the paper and tell Lomax he had nothing to show for more than three hours of work.

  He’d just fished the car keys out of his pocket when a detective, a tall, lanky guy with thickly muscled forearms, strode purposefully out of the murder house and headed for an unmarked car parked on the street.

  Before he reached it, Mulligan intercepted him.

  January 1990

  It’s a sunny, unseasonably warm Saturday morning, but the boy is planted in front of the TV, transfixed by an episode of Danger Mouse.… He wishes the two crows, Leatherhead and Stiletto Mafiosa, would finally get hold of the little do-gooder and twist his head off.

  But cartoons are never that cool.

  On the front porch, someone is talking to his mother. He mutes the television to catch the gist and hears their next-door neighbor, Mrs. Bigsby, blubbering about something.

  “I’m so sorry,” the boy’s mother says. “I can’t imagine who could have done such a terrible thing.”

  The old bat must have found her ugly little mutt this morning, stuffed in the trash can behind her garage. Muzzle tied shut with twine. Tail, ears, and feet hacked off. And who knows how many stab wounds? The boy doesn’t. He lost count.

  “We had Frieda for seven years,” Mrs. Bigsby says. “She was our best friend. We loved her so much.”

  Friend.

  Love.

  Words the boy hears often around the house. He’s even learned to use them. Still, they are mystifying. He has no idea what they mean.

  He shrugs and turns the volume back up.

  4

  June 1992

  “Excuse me. I’m Mulligan. A reporter for the Dispatch.”

  “I’ve got nothing for you, Mulligan,” the detective said.

  “Look, I know that Becky Medeiros’s boyfriend, Walter Miller, was arrested here this morning, and that he had blood all over him.”

  The detective gave him a hard look and said, “Get in the car.”

  “Why? Am I under arrest?”

  “Just get in the damn car.”

  He opened the front passenger-side door, and Mulligan slid in. The detective slammed the door shut, walked around the unmarked Crown Vic, and got behind the wheel.

  “Don’t put Miller’s name in the paper,” the detective said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because he didn’t do it.”

  “He didn’t do it? The chief said a suspect was in custody. Does that mean you’ve arrested someone else?”

  “No.”

  “Aw, hell,” Mulligan said.

  “Yeah,” the detective said.

  They both sat there
and thought about that for a moment.

  “You look familiar,” the detective finally said, “but I don’t know why. I don’t remember seeing your sorry ass around the station.”

  “You haven’t. I usually cover college sports.”

  “Wait a minute. Are you Liam Mulligan? Didn’t you play for the Friars?”

  “I’m surprised you’d remember. I was Dickey Simpkins’ backup, so I didn’t get much playing time.”

  “I know. I’m a big Providence College fan. Got me a pair of season tickets right behind the visitors’ bench.” He extended his hand, and Mulligan shook it. “I’m Andy Jennings. PC Class of ’71.”

  “Nice to meet you, Detective Jennings. I just wish it were under better circumstances.”

  “Call me Andy.”

  “Well, Andy, you and I have a mutual problem.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “You know Hardcastle?”

  “Yeah. He’s an asshole.”

  “I agree. And I’m pretty sure he’s planning to name Miller as a suspect in tomorrow’s paper.”

  “So stop him.”

  “Stop him? He won’t listen to me. I was sent to help him out, but he gave me the brush-off.”

  Jennings sighed, cranked the ignition, turned on the headlights, and pulled away from the curb.

  “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll find out when we get there.”

  As he turned onto West Shore Road, the detective snapped the radio on and tuned it to WPRO, a local news and talk station.

  “Lincoln Chafee, son of former U.S. senator John Chafee, formally announced his candidacy for mayor of Warwick this afternoon,” newsman Ron St. Pierre was saying. He cued a tape of the candidate’s statement, then cut it short to break in with a bulletin.

  “This just in. Warwick police have arrested Walter Miller, a thirty-four-year-old Narragansett Electric employee, in connection with the overnight murder of his girlfriend, Becky Medeiros, and her four-year-old daughter. We’ll have more on this breaking story at the top of the hour.”

  “Aw, shit,” Jennings said. “I was afraid that was gonna happen. After what he’s been through, the poor bastard doesn’t need this.” He rubbed his jaw and added, “Guess I’m gonna have to call the station—and your editor—to set the record straight.”