Providence Rag

by Bruce DeSilva

  “Two out of three Rhode Islanders read the Dispatch,” Mulligan said, “so it’s the best way to straighten out anything. But there’s still a problem. If all we have is a short statement from you, the story will get buried inside the metro section where most people will never see it.”

  Jennings didn’t say anything.

  “But maybe we can fix that.”

  “How?”

  “If you give me enough details about what happened inside that house, the story might end up on page one.”

  Jennings gave him a sideways glance. “Bet that would get you in solid with your boss, huh?”

  “It would. And it would really piss off Hardcastle.”

  “I’m all for that,” Jennings said, “but I gotta give this some thought.”

  He turned onto Greenwich Avenue and pulled into Dunkin’ Donuts. Inside, they ordered two cups of coffee, black for Jennings and lots of milk and sugar for Mulligan. They found a table, and the detective took a sip.

  “Sit tight,” he told Mulligan. Then he got up and walked outside.

  Through the window, Mulligan watched the detective pull a mobile phone out of his jacket and make a call.

  In April, after the Dispatch’s best advertising quarter in a decade, editors had bought Nokia mobile phones for the entire reporting staff. Mulligan fished the newfangled toy out of his pants and punched in a number.

  “City desk, Lomax.”

  “It’s Mulligan, Mr. Lomax.”

  “Where the hell have you been? Hardcastle got back two hours ago.”

  “I’m developing a source.”

  “Got something for me?”

  “Not yet, but I’m working on it.”

  “Oh, really? Hardcastle says you’re useless.”

  “Useless, huh? Give me another hour to prove him wrong.”

  Before Lomax could reply, Mulligan ended the call and turned the phone off. Outside the window, Jennings was still talking, gesturing emphatically with his free hand. It was fifteen minutes before the detective tucked the phone into his pocket and strolled back inside.

  “You called the chief?” Mulligan asked.

  “Yup.”

  “And?”

  “He says this will have to be off the record.”

  “Off the record? That means I can’t use it.”

  “Oh, right. I meant not for attribution. The chief wants you to say it came from a source close to the investigation. That work for you?”

  “Sure thing,” Mulligan said.

  Jennings looked out the window and composed his thoughts.

  “Becky Medeiros and Walter Miller were planning to get married,” he said. “They already sent out invitations and ordered flowers. Becky picked out dresses for herself and Jessica, her daughter from her first marriage, at Ana’s Bridal Boutique in East Providence.”

  “You know that how?”

  “A little detective work.”

  Mulligan pulled out a notebook and pen and started scribbling.

  “The neighbors never heard the couple fight. They say Miller doted on the little girl, always bringing her presents, playing with her in the yard, taking walks with her around the neighborhood.”

  “So what happened this morning?”

  Jennings ran down what he’d found when he’d arrived at the murder house. Occasionally, he consulted his notes. Mostly he talked with his eyes closed, as if a video of the scene were playing inside his head.

  “Jessica bled out from one slice across the throat. But Becky? In twenty years on the job, I’ve never seen anything like it. The killer really went to town on her.”

  Mulligan dropped his Bic on the table and rubbed his eyes with the backs of his hands. This wasn’t the kind of story he had signed on for. Jennings drained his coffee and ordered another for both of them. Mulligan ignored his. The first cup felt like acid in his stomach.

  “By afternoon, the front yard was full of cops,” Jennings said. “The sidewalk was crawling with reporters shouting questions and snapping pictures of everything that moved. The mayor and two city councilmen showed up to grandstand for the TV cameras. It was a goddamned circus. The chief figured we better make a public statement and announce that we had a suspect in custody.”

  “He thought you had your guy?”

  “At the time, we all did. When you find the boyfriend at the scene of a murder and his hands and shirt are covered in blood, what else are you supposed to think?”

  He took off his glasses, rubbed his jaw, and went on with the story.

  * * *

  Jennings and his partner, Detective Mello, drove Miller to the police station. They photographed him, confiscated his clothes, cleaned him up, fingerprinted him, and asked if he wanted a lawyer. He didn’t. They stuck him in an interrogation room, gave him a cup of coffee, and managed to get him calmed down enough to tell his story.

  The previous evening, he’d helped Becky tuck Jessica into bed, kissed them both good-bye, and headed to his overnight job at Narragansett Electric. He finished work at six A.M. and drove home, stopping off at the Dunkin’ Donuts drive-in window on Post Road to pick up a couple of doughnuts for himself, a toasted cinnamon-raisin bagel for Becky, and two large coffees. He pulled his car into the garage, entered the house through the connecting door, and set the food and coffee on the kitchen counter. Then he turned toward the hallway and saw a scene from a slaughterhouse.

  He rushed into the hall, slipped on the blood-slick floor, and nearly fell. He pulled the sheet aside, saw the bodies, and completely lost it.

  Did he touch anything besides the sheet?

  Miller didn’t know.

  Mello left the interrogation room and got on the phone to check out Miller’s story. It was after six P.M. by the time he tracked down Miller’s supervisor at home. Yes, Miller had gotten to work on time at ten P.M. and hadn’t left until six A.M. He was sure of it.

  * * *

  “About an hour ago, the medical examiner put the time of death at somewhere between one and three A.M.,” Jennings said, “and Miller was released with an apology. Officer Hernandez drove him to Rhode Island Hospital, where I imagine they’re giving him tranquilizers and psychological counseling.”

  “I’ve got some questions,” Mulligan said.

  “Shoot.”

  “Did the medical examiner say how many times Becky was stabbed?”

  “Forty-eight.”

  “Forty-eight?” Mulligan’s stomach lurched. He took a moment to compose himself, then pressed on.

  “You said the killer twisted the bulb over the back door to extinguish the light. How could you possibly know that?”

  “Officer Rubino was stationed outside that door all day to keep unauthorized personnel from entering the house. Around eight o’clock, it was starting to get dark; so he opened the door, reached in, and hit the switch for the outside light. Nothing happened. He figured the bulb might have been loose, so he reached up to fiddle with it. Fortunately, I’d just stepped outside for a cigarette. I saw what Rubino was about to do and shouted, ‘Stop!’ As it turned out, the killer left us a perfect thumbprint on the sixty-watt Sylvania.”

  Mulligan didn’t know much about what detectives did, but that sounded like good police work to him. That Jennings could rattle off the wattage and make of the bulb without consulting his notes seemed doubly impressive.

  “What do you make of the two blood trails in the living room?”

  “One of them was made by size nine dress shoes,” Jennings said. “That was Miller tracking blood as he ran across the living room and out the front door.”

  “And the other one?”

  “After the killer butchered his victims, he walked through the living room in his stocking feet.”

  “He did? What for?”

  “To look out the picture window. He was probably checking to see if Becky’s screams roused the neighbors. He left a blood smear on the curtains and a print of his forehead on the glass.”

  “Why wasn’t he wearing shoes?”


  “We figure he took them off before he broke in so he wouldn’t make as much noise when he creeped the place.”

  “How did he get in?”

  “He found an unlocked window at the rear of the house, pried the screen off, and crawled inside.”

  “Think he left the same way?”

  “Can’t say for sure.”

  “Any idea who could have done this?”

  “Not yet. Any more questions?”

  “Yeah. How do you spell Rubino?”

  October 1990

  The scientific method.

  The boy sits at a school desk that is uncomfortably small for him and pays close attention as the teacher explains it. You form a hypothesis. Then you design an experiment to test it.

  He’s a solid B student. He likes to read, and history intrigues him, but math and science usually bore him. Not today. This concept appeals to him. It’s not something you learn just to get a passing grade. It’s something you can use. He decides to try it himself.

  That afternoon, he thinks up his hypothesis. Then he tests it. He jumps with glee when his hypothesis proves to be correct.

  Cats do burn faster than dogs.

  5

  June 1992

  It was nearly ten P.M. by the time Mulligan stepped off the elevator into the Dispatch’s football-field-size newsroom, where three-quarters of the paper’s 340 journalists worked. The rest were posted in Washington and in nine suburban bureaus that covered local news in every one of Rhode Island’s thirty-nine cities and towns.

  At this hour, more than half of the desks were empty. At the others, reporters were pounding out late-breaking news, copy editors were writing headlines, layout men were dummying pages, and photo editors were cropping the last few pictures for the fat Sunday edition. Lomax, who had started work twelve hours earlier, was still at his post at the city desk. He practically lived there.

  “’Bout time you showed up,” he said. “The murder story’s bare-bones. Got anything we can use to fill it out?”

  “I do,” Mulligan said.

  “Type up your notes and give them to Hardcastle. Be quick about it. We’re already crowding deadline.”

  “Sure thing, Mr. Lomax.”

  “And shoot me a hard copy. I want to see what you came up with.”

  Minutes after he turned in the notes, Lomax and Hardcastle hustled over to Mulligan’s desk. Lomax was grinning. Hardcastle wasn’t.

  “Who’s your source for all this?” Hardcastle demanded.

  “Nearly all of it came from Detective Jennings.”

  “Nearly all?”

  “I also talked to a thirteen-year-old neighborhood kid.”

  “You expect us to use information from a fuckin’ kid?”

  “He told me Miller was covered with blood when the police arrested him. Jennings tried to hold that back, but when I told him I already knew about it, he confirmed it.”

  “Big fuckin’ deal,” Hardcastle said. “I had that already.” Without another word, he turned and stomped back to his desk.

  “Maybe you’re not useless after all,” Lomax said. “Why don’t you head on home now and get some rest?”

  “If it’s okay with you, Mr. Lomax, I’d like to hang around so I can read the story when Hardcastle’s done with it.”

  “Sure thing. And kid?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Your notes put the murder house on Oakhurst Street. It’s Oakhurst Avenue. Don’t make a mistake like that again.”

  Thirty minutes later, Mulligan sat at his desk reading the finished copy. Hardcastle may be a jerk, he thought, but the guy can really write. As Mulligan headed for the elevator, he overheard Lomax and Hardcastle squabbling at the city desk.

  “Why’d you leave Mulligan’s name off of this?” Lomax asked.

  “Cuz there’s no way I’m sharing a byline with a fuckin’ sportswriter.”

  “Fine,” the city editor said. “Have it your way.”

  * * *

  Next morning, Mulligan slept till noon. When he woke, he pulled on a Red Sox T-shirt and an old pair of jeans, trudged barefoot down the stairs from his mother’s second-floor walk-up in the city’s Mount Hope neighborhood, and fetched the Sunday paper from the stoop. The murder story was below the fold on page one. The two-column headline said:

  Killer At Large in Double Slaying

  It carried a single byline:

  By L. S. A. Mulligan

  By the time he got back upstairs, his mother had set the kitchen table with mugs of strong coffee and plates of pancakes and bacon. Together they ate and read the entire paper front to back, passing the sections back and forth. As his mother cleared the table, Mulligan spent an extra few minutes with the sports, where his piece on Coach Happy Dobbs was displayed on the section front. Then he rose and went to the sink to wash the dishes.

  His mother sat back down at the table, cut out her son’s two bylined stories, and stuck them on the refrigerator.

  “I’m so proud of you, Liam.”

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  After drying the dishes, Mulligan stood in front of the refrigerator and studied the photograph that accompanied the murder story. Somehow, the Dispatch had gotten hold of a Medeiros family snapshot. According to the caption, it had been taken a couple of weeks ago at Misquamicut State Beach in Westerly. Jessica was on her knees, her brow furrowed in concentration as she dumped a yellow plastic shovel full of wet sand on top of a lopsided sand castle. Her mother and Miller sat behind her, grinning with their entire beings. Becky’s blond hair, backlit by the sun, looked as if it were on fire.

  Mulligan stared at the photo for a long time. Then he took the scissors from the kitchen table, cut out the picture, folded it, and slipped it into a vinyl sleeve in his wallet.

  He walked into the living room, dropped into the platform rocker, and turned on the Red Sox–Royals game in time to see Frank Viola throw the first pitch to Brian McRae. In the third, the Sox took the lead when Wade Boggs doubled in Ellis Burks. Mulligan didn’t care. He pulled out his cell and made a call.

  “Mom,” he shouted. “I’m going out for a while.”

  “Okay, hon. Can you pick up a loaf of bread on your way back?”

  * * *

  Ten minutes later, Mulligan pushed through the door of Hopes, the local press hangout, and took a seat at the bar. The Sox game was playing on the overhead TV. Boston had fallen behind by a run, and Viola was in a jam with runners on first and third. Not that it mattered. The Sox were going nowhere. If it weren’t for the pathetic Seattle Mariners, they were probably the worst team in the league.

  Lee Dykas, the nightside reporter who owned the place, wandered over and thunked a bottle of Bud in front of Mulligan.

  “Your tab’s getting a little long,” he said. “Want to settle up?”

  “Thursday. Right after I get paid.”

  “Okay. By the way, great job yesterday. The first one’s on me.”

  “Thanks, Lee.”

  “Thought you should know Hardcastle was in here running his mouth about you last night.”

  “That so?”

  “Yeah. Told everyone who would listen how you poached his story.”

  “Doesn’t surprise me.”

  “Don’t let it bother you. Hardcastle’s a dick.”

  Mulligan was on his second bottle when Rosella Morelli came through the door in jeans and a tank top, pausing to let her eyes adjust to the dark. No matter how many times he saw her, he was always thrown by her Sicilian good looks. Huge dark eyes, raven hair cropped close to her head, wide shoulders, slim waist. She glided to the bar, claimed the stool next to Mulligan, and wrapped her impossibly long legs around it. At six feet five, she was an inch taller than him.

  “Need some company?”

  “Yeah. Thanks for coming, Rosie.”

  Mulligan and Rosie had been playmates in kindergarten and friends all through grade school, then dated off and on in their teens. She was the first girl Mulligan ever kissed. She
lied and told him it was her first kiss, too. During their senior year at Providence’s Hope High School, he took her to the prom.

  One summer night after graduation, when Rosie’s parents were out of town, she and Mulligan got sloshed on Pabst while watching When Harry Met Sally at a theater in East Providence. Mulligan squirmed and Rosie giggled when Sally, played by Meg Ryan, faked an explosive orgasm inside Manhattan’s crowded Katz’s Delicatessen. When an older woman diner told a waiter, “I’ll have what she’s having,” Rosie howled. Then she tossed Mulligan a sultry look and whispered, “Yeah. Me too.”

  Later, as they made out in Rosie’s living room, she pulled her T-shirt over her head and unfastened her bra. Then she rose and slid her shorts and panties from her hips. She grabbed Mulligan by the hand, pulled him up from the couch, and led him upstairs to her bedroom. She told him it was going to be her first time. He lied and told her it was going to be his first, too. They giggled as they crawled into bed. But when it was over, neither spoke. They just held each other in the dark until they fell asleep.

  In the morning, they avoided eye contact as they pulled on their clothes. They drove in silence to the diner in Kennedy Plaza. After their coffee was delivered, Rosie raised her eyes from her cup, looked into Mulligan’s eyes, and said, “It wasn’t what I expected.”

  “I know,” he said. “I felt like I was making love to my sister.”

  Nearly five years later, their families were still mystified that Mulligan hadn’t popped the question, but he and Rosie never twisted the sheets again. Now, as he pictured the lithe body beneath the boyish clothes she had always favored, he still felt nothing but, well, friendship. The movie that had inspired them to leap into bed was the story of their lives, but with an alternate ending. Harry and Sally were lifelong friends who finally realized they were in love. Mulligan and Rosie were lifelong friends whose brief sexual encounter had convinced them that’s what they’d always be.

  Dykas dropped a Bud in front of Rosie, checked Mulligan’s bottle, fetched him another from the cooler, and turned to watch the Royals scampering around the bases.