The Stairwell

by M. M. Silva

  With no crystal ball at the ready, I went through some what-if scenarios. Such as…Melanie never had a formal education; she’d learned only from the school of hard knocks. So, if she’d been in Boston a while, and if she was working, she wouldn’t be at any type of professional job. And I didn’t think she’d take a job with a set schedule. She wouldn’t want to get into a predictable routine.

  But who could say how long she’d been here? Or if she had a job at all? She’d need money, but she’d proven herself resourceful in the past. She could have killed, stolen, gambled, sold her body, or God-knew-what to get her hands on some real cash. Trying to pin her down with a place of employment probably wasn’t my best play.

  So fine. She had to be staying somewhere, didn’t she? Maybe she shacked up at a hotel somewhere? But again, did she have that type of money? Maybe at an extended stay type-of-place, or an apartment? But apartments required paperwork—leases, security deposits, references—and that was something Melanie would definitely not risk. I was leaning toward the extended stay type-of-place. Unless she’d really landed a jackpot and holed up at the Ritz or Marriott Copley Plaza. Or maybe she was just jumping around from hotel to hotel, which would make it much harder to find her.

  Colin, the other officers, Doob, David, and I tossed all this around once the walk had wound down. The event had been a tremendous success, and David should have been somewhere celebrating, instead of brainstorming the whereabouts of a sadistic killer. Would the guilt I felt in relation to this man never end?

  As we were forming our game plan for the coming hours, my cell vibrated. Uncle Larry. My heart shot to my throat, and I wondered if she’d somehow penetrated the geriatric frat house.

  CHAPTER 31

  “TALK TO ME, LARRY,” I URGED, ALTHOUGH I WASN’T SURE I wanted to hear what he had to say.

  “Talk to me,” he retorted, sounding as anxious as I felt. “Are you all right?”

  “Physically, I’m fine, but I’m totally freaked out. How are you guys doing?”

  “We’re holed up like Fort Knox, kiddo. There’s nothing to worry about here. If we even smell that bitch, she’s dead.”

  Ummm, great. I’d been denying the Uncle-Larry-as-a-bad-guy rumors that had circulated around me for years, but hearing him now? It made me shiver. But my disappointment in him would be hypocritical, considering I hoped he’d blow her away at the first opportunity. And yeah…there was that matter of me killing a man a couple nights before.

  I guess you realize what you’re really capable of when your family and friends are threatened. Sometimes I wished I still lived in the naïve snow-bubble I’d grown up in. That was a much easier time.

  “Larry, if you think you smell her, see her, hear her—whatever—please call the cops. That’s the right way to handle this. I don’t need you getting thrown in the clink because you got trigger-happy and accidentally shot some innocent young girl.”

  “You handle things your way, I’ll handle things mine. And you got some of your old uncle’s blood running through your veins, missy. When this bitch is out of our hair, you and me are gonna talk about that guy you killed.”

  Oh, lovely. “Larry—”

  “Not now. Another time. Right now, tell me what you know about her whereabouts.”

  “Exactly nothing. I spotted her a couple of times and then lost her in the crowd. She’s still stick-thin, and her hair is long, but it’s blonde now. She was arrogant enough to pose for a picture with David—”

  “What?”

  “Yep. She had a hat and sunglasses on, so he didn’t recognize her. He’s never seen her in person anyway, so it’s not like he could have known. I’ve seen her several times and couldn’t quite process I was seeing her, especially with the drastic change in hair color. Anyway, I saw her pose for the picture with him, but I couldn’t get to them before she scampered off. No one’s spotted her since.

  “I’m with Colin and some of his cop buddies, and we’re circulating her picture among the remaining people right now. So far, nothing, but I’ll keep you posted. If we get really lucky, maybe someone will have seen her grab a cab or go into the subway.”

  “Okay, stay on it. We’re gonna get her this time, I can feel it.”

  “I’m on it, don’t worry about that. And you guys be careful. I highly doubt she’ll come strolling up to the house and ring the bell, but be on alert. She’s smart. She’s a planner, and she’s on a mission.”

  “So am I. Locked and loaded.”

  I paused a beat. Nothing I said would get him off his vigilante train of thought. “Larry?”

  “Yeah?”

  “How’s Vic holding up?”

  “He did twenty-five years in the joint, Meg. It’s gotta be eating him up, but he’s got his game-face on. He’ll be okay.”

  I doubted it, but there was nothing I could do. There was nothing anyone could do. It had to be odd for Vic to be hunkered down with a bunch of old men prepared to kill his daughter.

  Motion to my right caught my eye, and I noticed Colin waving me over.

  “Larry, I gotta go. Colin might be on to something. Be safe, and stay in touch.”

  “I’ll text you,” Larry replied and disconnected. Despite the circumstances, I smiled. Larry prided himself on keeping up with the times, and I could only imagine his big, weathered, Irish fingers fumbling to send me a text. Good grief.

  I jogged over to where Colin and the others stood. His cell phone was wedged between his ear and shoulder, eyebrows knitted in concentration on what was being said on the other end. I waited impatiently until he concluded the call, his chin jutted out in determination.

  “We’ve got a lead.”

  CHAPTER 32

  HE THRUST HIS PHONE IN MY FACE AND SAID, “See that mark on her hand?”

  I squinted. Someone back at the department had enlarged the grainy image of Melanie’s hand to zoom in on some type of black blob.

  “The black thing?” I asked.

  “Yeah. One of the techs noticed it when they were combing over the picture. We’re pretty sure it’s a stamp from The Cat’s Meow, which means she was likely there recently. Probably last night.”

  “Is that the bar on Tremont? I haven’t been there in a few years; it’s kind of a college hangout, I think.” Was Melanie actually bar-hopping in Boston? Living her life like a normal twenty-something?

  “Yep, exactly. Once we confirm it’s the right place, we’ll head over there and question every person who worked last night. It was a Saturday night, so the place was probably packed. If they have security videos, we’ll get a warrant and study them until we spot her. She might be nuts, but she’s also attractive, and the more people we can find who interacted with her, the better.”

  The excitement in his voice was contagious. I couldn’t help but get a little tingly at the possibility of catching Melanie once and for all.

  CHAPTER 33

  WITHIN A FEW SECONDS OF COLIN GETTING ME UP TO DATE, his cell rang. “Burns.” While he listened, his face didn’t give anything away, and I wanted to shake the shit out of him. “Okay, good. Get somebody working on the warrant. There’s probably no judge working on a Sunday, so if not, find one at home. Find one at his country club, the shopping mall, on the toilet for all I care. Just find someone. We can’t sit on this.” He hung up and his eyes danced when he looked at me.

  “I guess we’re headed to the bar?”

  “Don’t get too excited, Maloney. I can’t expense your booze. But yeah, I think you gotta be in on this if you can keep your mouth shut and let us do our job.”

  “Moi?” I held my hand to my chest in mock surprise.

  Colin rolled his eyes. “Your about as French as I am.” He looked me up and down. “I’m going right now. Do you have something to change into?”

  Even though Doob had mocked my overstuffed backpack, I was now grateful for it. “Give me two minutes,” I said and scampered over to one of the porta-johns to change. I hate those things. Holding my breath, I began whipp
ing off my layers. Leggings, sweatpants, tee shirts, sweatshirt. I replaced them with black yoga pants, a gray turtleneck and a different pair of running shoes. It wasn’t runway-model material, but it was better than what I’d worn on the walk.

  A sudden banging shook the flimsy porta-potty door. “Tick-tock, Maloney. You’ve been in there three minutes.”

  I opened the door and gasped for some clean air. “Let’s go find this bitch.”

  CHAPTER 34

  THE CAT’S MEOW IS LOCATED IN A BLOCK OF BUILDINGS OFF Tremont Street, and it’s a place where college students from Harvard, MIT, Boston College, Boston University, Suffolk University, and countless other schools hang out. That mixture generally results in some testosterone-induced fights on occasion, but the place has a good reputation for the most part.

  Colin essentially parked right on the sidewalk and put his little “I’m a cop” emblem on the front dash before we got out of the car. I instantly wanted one of those things; it would be an immense help with parking in this city.

  A few steps from the door, Colin stopped and put his hand on my shoulder. “This is my interrogation, Maloney. I mean it. The other guys are back at the station, ready to do whatever we need. But this needs to go well, so please keep your mouth shut and your eyes open. If you screw this up, I’ll cuff you and book you myself.”

  I glared at him. “We’re on the same side here, Burns. I’m not going to mess it up. You won’t hear a peep out of me.” I twisted an imaginary lock over my mouth.

  He smirked. “That’ll be the day.”

  It was about two o’clock when we arrived at The Cat’s Meow, and the door was locked when Colin went to open it. We cupped our hands on the windows in the wooden doors and saw a bartender wiping the inside of a glass with a towel. He waved us off, yelling something we couldn’t quite understand, and Colin pressed his badge to the window.

  “You can open for us, bub,” he shouted.

  After the man unlocked the door to let us in, we let our eyes adjust to the low lighting within the large space. Empty, it had an almost reverent feel. The calm before the storm. The barkeep locked the door behind us as we continued to take in our surroundings.

  It was a long, narrow establishment with Boston sports memorabilia lining the walls. Televisions were everywhere, and a huge mirror spanned the length of the dark wooden bar that looked to be older than the city itself. Bottles of liquor stood several rows deep along the mirror, and the bar stools were all turned perfectly at forty-five degree angles. Booths rimmed the outer perimeter, and dozens of circular tables ringed the center. An aged pool table and some dartboards waited in the back, and it was easy to picture a bunch of college kids blowing off steam in a place like this.

  What was extra-cool about this establishment was a walled-in staircase that ran along one of the inside brick walls. I peered up the stairs and couldn’t see the top, partially because of the low lighting, but also because the stairs seemed to go straight up to the heavens.

  The man who’d let us in looked to be in his mid-fifties. As he settled in again behind the bar, he looked up, but didn’t say a word. Previous experience with the cops? Who knew? But he didn’t seem flustered or anxious. He seemed like a man content to stay silent for the remainder of the day.

  As Colin continued to take in our surroundings, the man polished a glass and glanced occasionally at a television mounted in one of the corners.

  After taking in a few more sports pictures, Colin approached the bar, introduced himself, and again showed his ID, giving the man a close-up look at it so he’d know it was the real deal. Colin went on to say he appreciated the man opening up for us. Like the guy really had a choice.

  “If you’ve got a few minutes before you open, I’d like to ask you a couple questions. And if the owner is available, we’d like to speak with him, too. We need some help finding a person we believe was in here either last night or possibly the night before.”

  The bartender put down the glass and rubbed his chin with his hand. Finally, he said, “Her.”

  Colin’s eyebrows narrowed. “Excuse me?”

  “The owner is a her. You said him.”

  Colin flushed a million shades of red and said, “Oh, sure. Sorry about that. I shouldn’t have assumed…”

  “I guess women can own businesses, too,” I chirped and gave Colin a thousand-watt smile.

  Colin glowered at me and turned back to the bartender. “Your name, sir?”

  “The name is Liam Connery,” he responded with a bit of drama. “I’ve been bartending across this city since I was old enough to serve a drink. You need information, I’m your man.”

  Colin nodded appreciatively. “That’s good to know. And the owner’s name? Miss, uh, Mrs..?” He was starting to flush again.

  “Meow.”

  “Excuse me?” Colin and I asked simultaneously.

  The man smiled broadly. “I’ve seen her signature, and her name is actually spelled M-i-a-o, which is pronounced Mewo, I believe. But everyone just calls her Meow, and she doesn’t seem to mind. Meow Wong.”

  “Meow it is,” Colin said with a shake of his head as he wrote down the name in his little spiral notebook. “Can you give me a little background on Miss Wong, please?”

  “I sure can,” he said. “I haven’t known her very long, but it’s quite a story, that one,” Liam said with admiration in his tone. “From what I understand, she traveled to the United States by herself as a young Vietnamese girl. She’d come here to live with a grandmother and cousin in Chinatown, but it didn’t go well.”

  “How so?”

  Liam shook his head in disgust. “The cousin viewed her as chattel. It was a shady scene, with drugs and what-not, and he treated her like something to be passed off to his scumbag friends. She turned into a drunk herself, a druggie, too.”

  I couldn’t hold my tongue. “Didn’t the grandma see what was going on?” Colin glared at me for talking, but it was a legitimate question.

  Liam nodded. “It took a while, but the old coot finally couldn’t ignore the fact her granddaughter was becoming a junkie right in front of her. When Meow was forced to become engaged at the ripe old age of seventeen, she rebelled, and the grandmother intervened and sent her to a different set of relatives somewhere in the southwest.”

  Good grief.

  “Her behavior didn’t improve once she moved, but those folks got her some help. She smartened up and got some type of degree; now she’s on her way to becoming quite a business lady. She’s owned this place for about four months.”

  Colin jotted in his little notebook. “I’m surprised she came back to Boston, given what you just told us.”

  Liam shrugged. “The cousin eventually met his maker when he put too much white stuff up his nose one night. That tends to happen when you lead the lifestyle he did. So Meow came back to help with the grandmother; she’s still alive and kicking, but she’s very frail. Evidently they’ve made amends and put the past behind them.”

  “Sounds like a real after-school-special,” Colin remarked. “If you would, Liam, does this girl look familiar?” He thrust an enlarged picture of Melanie from the charity walk in Liam’s face, and the bartender looked at it and frowned.

  “It’s difficult to say, Detective. I mean, with the hat and glasses, this could be almost anyone.”

  I felt my blood pressure spike for the billionth time today. She wasn’t just anyone; she was a stone cold killer who seemed to be slipping away. Again. I couldn’t take it.

  “She’s got long, blondish hair, is probably about five-seven´or—”

  Colin shot me a look, which shut my mouth quicker than if he’d put a clamp on it. But then he finished my sentence. “—or five-eight, slender, in her late twenties, with fair skin and blue eyes. We’re working on getting a better picture of her as we speak.”

  Liam shook his head. “I can’t say I have or haven’t seen her, I’m sorry. That description could be about half the young ladies here on any given night. If you
get a different picture, I can probably give you a better idea.”

  “Not without a warrant you won’t,” came a voice from behind me.

  CHAPTER 35

  I TURNED TO SEE A LOVELY, YOUNG ASIAN WOMAN AT THE BOTTOM of the stairwell who I quickly surmised to be Meow Wong. Her jet-black hair fanned around her heart-shaped face, stopping just above her shoulders. Her skin was porcelain, and her tiny body was lean and toned. If she’d had some hard knocks along the way, she certainly didn’t look the part. The lady was stunning.

  Colin introduced himself, showing his badge in the process, and brought Meow up to speed on the purpose of our visit.

  She spoke in a clear and precise manner, but her speech was a bit stilted. “Detective Burns, I do not want trouble. I hire good people to keep this place an upstanding business, and I pay my taxes. I know my rights. If you want information from me, you must present to me a warrant.”

  “Ms. Wong, I can and will do that, but it’s going to take a bit of time. I don’t think it’s much to ask for you to simply look at a picture?” Colin held up Melanie’s photo, and she studied it but made no move to take it. Usually when people look at a picture, they hold it and analyze it. Meow just looked at it, her face a perfect mask.

  “Is the woman in danger?” she asked, and I immediately wondered how Colin would answer. Given the brief history we had on Meow, I thought it would be prudent to indicate Melanie was in some sort of peril. She definitely would be if Larry or I ever got hold of her. Maybe Meow would feel some type of kindred pull toward Melanie if she thought this young woman was vulnerable.

  “I don’t know that for sure,” Colin replied brusquely. “But she’s a person of interest in a couple of open cases, and it’s imperative we speak with her. If you could just let me know about the picture..?” he prompted.

  “I cannot say if I have or have not seen this woman,” Meow said. “She is all covered.” She moved her focus away from the photo and then looked at Colin evenly. It was clear she wouldn’t offer up anything further.