by Gerry Boyle
I started up the stairs, slowed as I approached the landing. There was a woman’s shoe on the floor, a black stiletto. I stepped onto the landing. The inside of the shoe was flesh-colored.
With a brown stain.
Blood.
I turned. The door to the apartment was open six inches. I put my hand into my pocket and slipped out a pocketknife, pried out the main blade. Holding the knife close to my leg, I eased inside the door.
It was a living room. Couch. End table stacked with books. Plants on a set of shelves by the window, where the shades were drawn. The cat dashed out of a cracked door to my left—the bedroom? It saw me and ran back in, its tail a black plume.
I listened. Took five steps across the room to the door. Held the knife firmly and pushed the door open. My eyes adjusted.
A bureau to the left. To the right, by the windows, a double bed, sheets disheveled. A bare foot poking out from beyond the bed.
Chapter 8
Mandi was on the floor, on her stomach. She was wearing black underwear and the other black shoe. I turned away, scanned the room. Moved quickly across and yanked the door back, knife ready.
There was no one. I did the same with the closet. Empty. I went back to Mandi, crouched over her.
“Hey,” I said. “It’s Jack. It’s okay.”
There were drops of blood on the floor by her head. Her wrist was purple and twisted. Her ankle, the one with the foot in the shoe, was a black-blue bruise and swollen twice its size.
As I took out my phone, she moaned and turned her head.
Her eyes were blackened and there were scrapes on her cheeks and temples. Crusted blood flecked her nose and chin.
“Hey,” I said. “It’s okay.”
She looked at me, squinting as she tried to focus.
“He hit me, Jack,” she said.
“I know,” I said. “It’s okay now.”
I closed my knife and dropped it in my pocket. Took my phone from the other pocket and called 911.
“My ankle,” Mandi said.
“I know. Just stay still.”
“And my wrist. I think it’s broken.”
“When was this?” I said.
“When is it now?”
“It’s about noon. Monday.”
“It was last night.”
The cat rubbed against me, slipped past, and flopped on the floor by Mandi’s side. It purred.
“Hey, Lu,” Mandi said weakly.
“Who was he?” I said.
“I don’t know. He seemed nice. He said he came off a boat. But then he...he changed. All of a sudden he got all angry. He started hitting me. He hit me with my shoe. Where is it? Did you see it?”
“It’s in the hallway,” I said. “What’s his name?”
“His name? Roger. That’s what he said. They’re really nice shoes. Prada pumps. Originally three hundred and fifty dollars. I got them for twenty-two at TJ Maxx.”
“You can get some new ones.”
“Maybe I can wash them off.”
“I think the police will want to look at that shoe,” I said.
A flicker of fright passed over her, and she started to lift herself up, cried out in pain, and fell back.
“I can’t let them see me,” she said, started to try again. “They can’t know. Please. Please don’t tell them. Please, Jack. Please don’t.”
I put my hand on her shoulder.
“Stay still,” I said. “I’ll cover you up.”
I went to the closet and took a blanket off the shelf. Standing over her, I partly unfolded it and laid it across her. There was a weird feeling of déjà vu, putting Sophie to bed one time when she had a fever. I brushed it away. Mandi was starting to shiver and I patted her shoulder again.
We heard a siren, whooping and approaching fast.
“Oh, no,” she said.
“You’ve got to go to the hospital.”
“But I—”
“Mandi,” I said. “Do you have this guy’s number?”
She looked at me, eyes wide.
“For me,” I said.
“For you?”
“I’ll take care of it,” I said.
“My phone,” Mandi said. “It would be on there.”
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know.”
I stood, looked around the bedroom. There was nothing on the bedside table, nothing on the bureau except for cosmetics, some jewelry in an open box. The siren was louder. I went to the living room, saw beer cans on the trunk that served as a table in front of the couch.
A wine glass, half full. A bowl that had held potato chips, just crumbs now. Her bag on the floor in the corner by the boom box.
Outside the siren had stopped.
I went to the bag, opened it, and rummaged. The phone was in the side pocket. I took it out, found the list of received calls. I had called that morning, twice. Someone had called at eight-thirty. Then nothing back to six p.m. last night.
I took out my notebook and copied the six o’clock number and the previous three, all received Sunday afternoon. I heard footsteps coming up the stairs. Dropping the phone back into the bag, I went to the door and opened it.
Two cops, a man and a woman, were coming up. The guy was first, his hand on his holstered gun. He looked at me hard. “You called?”
“There’s a woman here,” I said. “In the bedroom to the left. She’s been assaulted.”
He stepped up to me, pulled me out of the doorway, and put me face-first up against the wall. He kicked my legs out and spread them.
“Stay right there, sir,” he said, his big hand on the small of my back.
The other cop went inside, and I could see that she had her gun out as she passed me. I heard her say, “Oh, honey, it’s okay now,” and then louder into the radio, “We’re gonna need that ambulance ASAP.”
“What’s your name?” the big cop said behind me.
“Jack McMorrow,” I said.
“Got I.D.?”
“Back right pocket.”
He fished my wallet from my jeans. I heard him flipping it open.
“Okay, Mr. McMorrow. Who’s she?”
“Name’s Mandi,” I said. “With an ‘i’.”
“Mandi what?”
“I don’t know.”
He pressed harder on my back.
“You assault her?”
“No, I found her. She didn’t answer her phone. I came by and the doors were open. Just a few minutes ago. She said a guy named Roger did it. Last night.”
“You know this Roger?”
“No.”
“What’s your relationship with her?”
I hesitated. “It’s kind of hard to explain.”
“Why don’t you just give it a try,” the cop said.
“I’m a newspaper reporter. She’s a source.”
“Reporter? Writing what?”
“I can’t tell you,” I said.
I heard a jingle, and then he snapped on the cuffs, first the left wrist, then the right. He patted me down, found the pocketknife, and took it.
“What kinda reporter are you?” he said, turning me to face him.
“Freelance,” I said.
“On the floor, freelance,” the cop said, putting his hand on my shoulder and pushing me down, slowly but firmly, until I sat, back against the wall.
Chapter 9
Mandi went out first, her face gray, an IV in her arm. EMTs lifted the stretcher down the stairs, one of them giving me a dirty look on the way by. The cat started to follow and I said, “Hey,” and it scurried back inside.
“Indoor cat,” I said, and the woman cop reached back and closed the door.
“That right?” someone said, and I turned to see another cop coming up the stairs. Plainclothes.
He stood over me, glanced at the two patrol cops. “Cat doesn’t go out?” he asked.
“She doesn’t like it to,” I said. “Name’s Lulu.”
He looked at me, then at the cops. Forties
and fit, blocky build with big shoulders. Khakis and boat shoes, a dark blue polo shirt. Could have been a wrestling coach except for the 9mm on his hip.
“Shoot,” he said to the cops, and then to me, “Figure of speech.”
“Called it in,” the cop said. “Said he came by when she didn’t answer the phone. Found her on the floor.”
“So why the—”
“Was evasive about their relationship. Had a knife in his pocket.”
“Swiss Army,” I said. “It’s Maine, for God’s sake.”
They looked down at me, all three of them. “Get him up,” the detective said. “Get the shackles off.”
They lifted me by my armpits, unlocking the cuffs. The detective held out his hand, looked me in the eye. I looked him right back.
“I’m Detective Raven,” he said. “Galway P.D.”
I took his hand and gave it a hard squeeze.
“Jack McMorrow. Prosperity, Maine.”
“Says he’s a reporter,” the cop said.
“Him and everybody else, all this blog crap,” Raven said. “Reporter for what?”
“Mostly the New York Times,” I said.
“Bought up the whole coast,” Raven said. “Now they’re bringing their own reporters, too?”
“I’ve lived here for ten years,” I said.
“Married?”
“Yeah.”
“Kids?”
“One.”
“How do you know this young woman?”
“I interviewed her for a story I’m writing.”
“About what?” Raven said.
I hesitated again. “I’m not at liberty to say.”
The big cop looked at Raven, said, “See?”
Raven looked at me, said, “Let’s walk over to the P.D. Make this official.”
I nodded, said to the cops, “Don’t forget the shoe.”
We walked up the block, the skinny kid watching from the doorway of the pizza shop. When people passed us on the sidewalk, they looked at me warily, then nodded at Raven.
“Used to be I knew everybody in town, first-name basis,” he said, strolling with his hands in his pockets. “Grew up here. Went to school and played ball here. There’ve been Ravens around here for six generations. Most of the families were like that. You knew the kids, their grandparents, the name of their long-dead dog. Now I know some people but it isn’t the same. Like you, here ten years you feel like a long-timer.”
“It’s a good place to live,” I said.
“Oh, yeah, but word’s gotten out. People throw up a big house on the water, only use it three or four weeks. How you get to know somebody like that? Then there’s the retirees, general transplants. People coming and going.”
“Times change,” I said.
We stopped at the corner and waited for the light even though there weren’t cars coming. No jaywalking allowed.
“You remember the sardine factory?”
I shook my head.
“Kinda defined the town back then.”
We crossed the street, went left up the block, past a yarn shop, a soup and sandwich place.
“Made a hell of a stink, but you know what? We never noticed. What we did notice was when it closed down, jobs disappeared, and it didn’t smell anymore. Now that stunk.”
I’d known a lot of cops, and some were quiet, some were chatty. Raven was a chatty cop, going on like you were buddies, making you feel you could talk to him because the two of you were practically friends.
We were at the front door of the police station, a two-story brick building that looked like an elementary school. Raven held the door open for me and I went in. He put his hand on the inner glass door and someone inside buzzed it open.
He waved to the cop at the control desk, and we walked down the hall. There was a metal door on the right and he punched in a code and it clicked open. We stepped into another corridor, doors opening off of it. I saw detectives’ offices, metal desks, cops in shirtsleeves drinking coffee and staring at computers.
Raven paused at a doorway, held his arm out. I stepped in ahead of him.
“Have a seat,” he said.
There was a metal desk chair in front of the metal desk. The desk had a computer monitor, stacks of papers. I sat. He came around the desk, leaned toward the computer, tapped at the keyboard.
I scanned things quickly, a reporter’s habit. A statement saying somebody had threatened somebody else, the words “blow his fucking head off” marked in yellow highlighter. An ad for a stun gun, a flyer for a conference in San Diego on Internet crime. On the wall was a framed certificate saying Brian Raven had completed an FBI course on crime-scene inspection at Quantico, Virginia. Another one for a program in homicide investigation at the New England Police Academy, in Providence, Rhode Island.
“Goddamn computers,” he said, staring at the screen. “Control your life if you let ’em.”
He looked away from the monitor and directly at me. “But at least now I know you really do write for the New York Times.”
“I guess that’s why you’re a detective,” I said.
Raven smiled, but only briefly and mostly with his mouth. His eyes stayed fixed on me. “Okay, I’d like to just shoot the shit some more, but we gotta take care of a certain amount of business.”
“Go for it,” I said.
“You say you didn’t beat this girl, Mr. McMorrow. So who did?”
“She said it was a guy named Roger. Said he seemed nice and then he exploded.”
“Where would she meet this Roger?”
“I don’t know. A bar? Wherever young people meet each other, I guess.”
“Or the Internet. These chat rooms. Can you believe young girls trust somebody and all they know is what they read on a computer? Impossible to really know somebody unless you look ’em in the eye, don’t you think?”
I nodded.
“You must find that, as a newspaper reporter. I mean, you can tell when somebody is lying to you, right? You can see it in their eyes.”
“Most of the time.”
“Right. There’s exceptions, the really pathological liars, they don’t know they’re lying half the time. But normal people...”
“Right.”
“Most people are terrible liars.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Like when you say you’re a reporter and you got a wife and a kid, I know that’s true from the way you say it. And when you say you don’t know how ‘Mandi with an i’ would have met this guy, Roger, I know you’re not being entirely truthful.”
I didn’t answer, but didn’t look away, either.
“Which leaves me with only a couple of logical conclusions. Either you know how she met this Roger but you won’t say; or you know there is no Roger.”
“I don’t know that.”
“Maybe you beat the crap out of her, went home and got cleaned up, saw your wife and kid. Maybe just sobered up in your car and came back, see how bad you hurt her. She’s still on the floor, you tell her to make up this story or else.”
“Or else what?” I said.
Raven’s radio squawked. He reached to his hip and turned it down. “Or else you’ll beat her up some more. Or you won’t sleep with her ever again. Or you won’t someday leave your wife and kid so you and Mandi can get married and live happily ever after—take her to New York City, all the razzle dazzle; the restaurants, the shows.”
“Or I can’t tell you because it’s something Mandi told me in confidence.”
“This isn’t the goddamn Iraq war we’re talking about here, Mr. McMorrow,” Raven said. “This is some poor girl who got the crap beat out of her.”
“I know that.”
“You involved with this girl?”
“Not in the way you’re thinking.”
“You like her?”
“Yeah. She seems like a nice-enough person.”
“What’s she do for work?”
“I’m not entirely sure.”
“Ehhh!” Raven
said, making a game-show-buzzer noise. “Falsehood.”
I didn’t answer.
“She deals drugs? That’s how you know her? Buy some coke off her? Just a few grams for a party? You and the missus like to have a few people over, get wired up? Lots of people do it. I know that. Some real respectable types, too.”
I shook my head.
“The missus isn’t like that,” I said. “I’m not, either.”
“Where the hell she come from, anyway? Not from, around here. No boyfriend. Pretty good-looking girl to be living all by herself. You’d think somebody would’a scooped her up.”
I looked at him and smiled.
“That’s what I like about my work,” he said. “Sometimes one little incident opens the door to a whole raft of interesting questions. And answers.”
“That’s what I like about my job, too,” I said.
“Yeah, we’ve got a lot in common. Except I arrest people and you write about them.”
“Right.”
“Your wife know about Mandi?”
“Yes. She knows we met.”
“She know you were gonna stop in at Mandi’s today?”
“Yes. We talked about it this morning.”
Raven looked at me.
“What do you do for fun, Mr. McMorrow?”
I hesitated.
“I don’t know. Hang out with my daughter. She’s almost four. I talk to my wife. I hike in the woods. I like birds. I read a lot of books. I drink beer, but only in moderation. You?”
“I don’t drink. My father was an alcoholic. Hell of a nice guy, too, but it killed him.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
He shrugged. “What I do is I build boats. Wooden boats.”
“Really?”
“I build one, sell it. Start another one. Have a little space in a boat shed, down by the harbor. I’m doing one now. It’s sort of a rowboat called a Whitehall. It’s oak and mahogany and I’m thinking of adding some teak.”
“Good for you. I admire people who can do that,” I said.
“You know what I like about it?”
“No,” I said. “What?”
“You start with one piece and you add another and another. And eventually, if you keep adding the pieces, the whole thing comes together. And something you couldn’t even see, something that was invisible before, is sitting right there in front of you.”