Damaged Goods: A Jack McMorrow Mystery

by Gerry Boyle

  “Okay,” Roxanne said.

  “But on its own, possession of duct tape isn’t a criminal offense,” she said.

  “No, but—”

  “You can ID the guy, Mr. McMorrow?” Ricci said.

  “How many guys have peacock tattoos?” I said.

  “The most important thing is to find him, talk to him, see if we can discern his intent.”

  “He knew I lived on this road,” I said.

  “Possibly,” the trooper said.

  “He wasn’t picking berries back there.”

  “I know that.”

  “If I see him again, I’ll stop him,” I said.

  Ricci looked at me.

  “One way or the other,” I said.

  “Don’t do anything stupid, Mr. McMorrow,” she said. “You have a responsibility to your family.”

  “Exactly right,” I said.

  Chapter 15

  The Jeep had been reported stolen out of Rockland by a guy who’d left the keys in it in the parking lot of a bar on Thomaston Street. The guy was a construction worker, single, twenty-two, said he didn’t know anything about any Satanists, had never had any contact with DHHS. He was upset about the Jeep being stolen because he’d just put in a transmission from a junkyard and it had cost him a grand.

  The cops knew all that within twenty minutes of Trooper Ricci’s leaving my house. Later that night they found the Jeep, burned to a crisp in a gravel pit in Montville Center, about twelve miles south of us. Someone had reported seeing the smoke. The Montville Volunteer Fire Department sent a truck but by the time the boys got there, there wasn’t much left.

  Ricci told me this in a phone message left on my cell a couple days later. She said they hadn’t been able to pull prints off the duct tape, it was a brand sold at Walmart and Home Depot, which wasn’t helpful, either. She said she was working on getting a list of the Wiltons’ known associates, but the Wiltons weren’t being helpful. She’d be in touch.

  When I got the message I was on my way to Galway to pick up Mandi’s cat. It was Tuesday morning, raining in windblown squalls that were warm but stung like glass needles. Roxanne reluctantly had gone into the office after taking Monday off, was supposed to meet with her boss, Sophie was with Clair, Mary, and Mandi.

  I called Roxanne’s office, left a message saying everything was okay, nothing urgent, but to call me back.

  She didn’t call back. Was she in her meeting? Had she’d gotten to Rockland safe? Had anyone followed her? Would anyone follow her home? Sophie would be fine with Clair, wouldn’t she? The questions cycled, running through my mind. Then I started replaying the conversation with the man in the woods. What were his exact words? “So you own all the way—”

  More questions: If he torched the Jeep, how did he get away? Did someone pick him up? Harland Wilton? Someone else? How many people were in this group? More than I knew, Wilton had told me. How many more? Where were they? Did they meet for some sort of worship? Would they abduct a child? Or was it someone else entirely?

  I was coming into Galway, coasting down toward the harbor, where a chunk of bay showed between the downtown blocks. The main drag was busy, cars cruising for parking spaces. I drove slowly the length of Main Street, cars in front of me pulling in when a car backed out.

  At the harbor, I pulled over into the loading zone, got out, and looked out over the railing. Boats bucked on their moorings, bows turned to the gusts. The water was dark gray, whitecaps showing faintly outside the harbor mouth. A lobster boat moved between the moorings, swung into the wind, and eased up to the float to unload. The sternman, a big square-jawed guy in dirty yellow foul-weather gear, stepped off and grabbed the bowline tossed by the guy at the helm. The sternman snugged the line to a cleat.

  “Hey, Roger,” the guy at the helm shouted, then added something unintelligible, the words whisked away by the wind. Roger looked up and caught my gaze, then turned away.

  Could he be Mandi’s Roger? How many Rogers were there around here, guys who would have come off a boat? An old-fashioned name. But would the guy use his real name going to see an escort?

  I walked up the rail toward the restaurant, then turned to see the lobster boat’s stern. The boat was the Mary Vic out of Lincolnville. I walked back, leaned on the railing again. The helmsman was hefting red plastic crates of lobster over the side of the boat to Roger, on the dock.

  “Little rough out there?” I called down.

  Roger turned, lifting a crate. “She’s kicking up a bit but nothing too serious.”

  “How far offshore you go?”

  “Oh, in close, up around Seven Hundred Acre, little south of Islesboro, there.”

  I smiled down, the gabby tourist. “Me and my friend, we were having an argument. I said most lobsters were caught right on the coast because the lobsters hide in the rocks. My friend, her name’s Mandi, she said the boats go way out so they can catch the big ones.”

  Roger looked at me. Her name didn’t make him blink or flinch. “Well, I guess your friend is half right,” he said, still swinging the crates. “Some boys go offshore. Need a bigger boat, a lot of gear to drop traps in deep water. Plus time and fuel to get out and back. Big investment.”

  He walked to the stern, undid the line. The helmsman fired up the motor, eased the boat forward to take off the slack on the bowline. Roger whipped it off the cleat, and stepped on board as the boat moved by. He waved.

  What was it Mandi had said? He seemed like a nice guy.

  I parked across from Mandi’s building, looked up and down Main Street, all very Norman Rockwell. The woman standing on a stepladder outside the real estate office, watering geraniums in hanging pots. A portly cop walking up the street toward me, chalking tires. Two boys on bikes whizzing down the hill toward the harbor, fishing poles crossed over their handlebars, shiny mackerel jigs glinting in the sun.

  The escort’s cat sitting in the window.

  She watched me as I took a cardboard box out of the back of the truck, and crossed the street. I used Mandi’s key to open the door to the stairs. Closed the door behind me and listened. Faint television noise, a talk show. Voices from the clothes shop next door.

  I went up the stairs, paused outside Mandi’s door. There was no mail, no newspaper, nothing to indicate she lived here or that she was gone. I turned the key in the lock, pushed the door open, smelled the litter box. I heard the thump as the cat jumped down from the windowsill. She mewed as she crossed the living room, stopped short when she saw it was not her mistress.

  “It’s okay,” I said, but she made a break for the door, still open behind me. I moved, headed her off, and she brushed my legs, scrambled for the bedroom. I stepped back to shut the door, felt it bump against something.

  Someone.

  The door pushed open.

  “Mr. McMorrow,” Detective Raven said. “What story you writing today for the New York Times?”

  He stepped in, shut the door behind him. Held out his hand and smiled. We shook hands, and stood for a moment. He was in his detective’s uniform: khakis, blue polo shirt, gun and badge on his belt. He said, “Let me guess. The cat.”

  “Right,” I said. “I figured the food must be gone. Water, too.”

  “We would’ve taken it,” he said, “before it died of thirst.”

  “Good to know you’re looking after things,” I said.

  “Didn’t know when Miss Lasell would be back,” he said. “Matter of fact, we weren’t really sure where she’d gone to.”

  “Staying with friends of mine. The stairs, what with her foot and her wrist—”

  “Nice of you. Where might this be?”

  “Prosperity,” I said. “Right up the road from my house.”

  “So you’ll be seeing her,” Raven said, a half smile showing, hands in the pockets of his khakis.

  I nodded. The cat poked its head out of the bedroom, pulled it back in.

  “Tell her to call me. Been calling her cell phone yesterday, this morning. Leaving me
ssages, but she never calls back.”

  “She may not even have it on,” I said. “She’s been a little distracted, settling in.”

  “She’s doing okay?”

  “As okay as you could expect, under the circumstances.”

  “Getting beat up, you mean,” Raven said. “Having to go live with strangers.”

  “Yeah. I think her wrist really hurts. She’s being a pretty good sport, all in all.”

  Raven smiled, said, “Good for her.” He walked across the room, as if looking it over for something he’d missed. “How’s the story coming?” he said, his back to me.

  I hesitated, could feel him smile. “Still working on it,” I said.

  “I was thinking,” he said. “What’s the word for it when the writer has to say he has some connection to the thing he’s writing about?”

  “Disclosure?”

  “That’s it.”

  He was at the front window. Pushed the shade over with a finger and looked out.

  “Was driving me crazy. You know how you have something on the tip of your brain but it won’t come?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  Raven turned back. “Disclosure. You know I’ve been reading the New York Times a little since we were talking. I did a search of the archives, read some of your stories. Some interesting stuff in there. I liked the one on the Mexicans settling way Down East.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “They were good people.”

  “You still see them? Go visit ’em or whatever?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Okay, ’cause I was wondering. In your story, whatever it might be about, you’re gonna have to say you helped Miss Lasell out? I mean, going to the hospital, finding her a place to stay.”

  “I guess I’ll have to. Otherwise, it would be dishonest.”

  “Right. I mean, people who read these stories figure the reporter just wanders around, calls people up, writes the story. They don’t figure the reporter took the girl home, came and got her cat.”

  “Unless you tell them in the story.”

  “Looking forward to that one,” Raven said.

  “Good,” I said.

  “Kind of like a mystery, not knowing what it’s about.”

  “Yes,” I said. “It is.”

  He paused, walked across the room, picked up one of the magazines. People. Lindsey Lohan on the cover, just out of rehab.

  “You know, between us. What do they call it? Off the record?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Off the record, that’s what I figured Miss Lasell was up to. Drugs I mean. No job. Not on welfare, either. Pays the light bill. Pays her rent on time. Not living like a king, or a princess or whatever, but keeping up.”

  “It would appear so,” I said.

  “You know she paid everything in cash?”

  “No, I didn’t know that.”

  “Rent in an envelope, all twenties. Light bill, she paid down at the supermarket service window. Cash. Cash for groceries, too. Cash for gas.”

  “Some people don’t believe in credit cards,” I said.

  “Or checks,” Raven said, flipping through the magazine. “Or bank accounts.”

  “How do you know she doesn’t have a bank account?”

  “Nothing here to indicate it.”

  “Searched the place pretty good, considering she’s a victim,” I said. “Don’t you need some sort of probable cause? A warrant?”

  “Premise search is justified because we’re investigating to try to apprehend her assailant. You don’t see anything wrong with that, do you?”

  “No. Catch him and lock him up.”

  “That’s the idea. But anyway, I changed my mind about the drugs.”

  “Good.”

  “No evidence of anything here at all.”

  “She doesn’t seem like a drug dealer,” I said.

  “People often aren’t what they seem,” Raven said. “But I bet you know that, doing what you do.”

  “Yes.”

  “You know what we did find? Off the record?”

  “What?”

  He put the magazine down.

  “Prints. Lots of prints. I think the guys said it was something like a dozen distinct sets of prints.”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Haven’t gotten anything back yet. It isn’t like TV, two minutes after they dust a place, they’re sitting down at a computer and the IDs are popping up. But I’m curious, because one of the neighbors, she said Miss Lasell was very quiet, a good tenant. But people did come and go, mostly at night. No noise or anything, just people visiting.”

  “Oh, really,” I said.

  “All men,” Raven said.

  “Huh,” I said.

  “You know what I’m thinking? And this might be totally crazy. And you can tell me if you think I am. But I’m thinking she’s a hooker. Doing a nice little trade right here in the center of town. Don’t have to walk up and down the sidewalk in hotpants anymore, not with the Internet.”

  “Huh,” I said again.

  “Now, I know it’s no biggie. Victimless crime and all that. But most women who do this are drug addicts. No evidence of that, though. No pills. No syringes. No spoons.”

  I didn’t comment.

  “But if she’s a hooker, what does that make you, Mr. McMorrow?”

  “I’m a reporter,” I said.

  “Writing about a small-town prostitute? Taking her home with you. Taking care of her after somebody beat her up?”

  I didn’t answer. Raven walked across the room, picked up the picture frame with the model’s photos in it.

  “You know, I should be working on other stuff. Chief’s gonna get after me, I spend too much time on an assault case, especially one where the victim is less than cooperative. Closest thing to a witness isn’t much better.”

  “I told you what I could.”

  “Right. Confidentiality and all that.”

  He put the frame down, turned to me.

  “I’ve read all about these Washington reporters going to jail to protect their sources,” Raven said. “You ever been to jail?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I don’t mean to visit or interview somebody. I mean to stay. Every night, every day, locked in that little place with all those people. Some of ’em are halfway normal. Some are totally insane. And you have to deal with ’em ’cause they’re not going anywhere and you aren’t either.”

  I didn’t answer.

  “I ran you, too, Mr. McMorrow. A couple of assault charges, both dismissed. A firearms charge. Concealing a weapon without a permit.”

  “That was filed,” I said.

  “Play it pretty close to the line, don’t you? What do they think of that at the New York Times?”

  I didn’t answer. He smiled, like this was so much fun. “You know what?” he said.

  “No, what?” I said.

  “Stuff I know doesn’t bother me as much as stuff I don’t know. The stuff I don’t know drives me crazy. I’ve always been like that. When I was a kid, I was always looking stuff up. And this was when you had to go to the encyclopedia. The row of books, not the Internet.”

  He looked around the room. “Just bugs me, not knowing things, like who this young woman really is. I mean, I ran her license.”

  “Sybill Lasell,” I said.

  “Right. Portland address. But the record of Sybill Lasell begins four years ago, when she got that license. I can’t find that name anywhere else. Nowhere.”

  “So she stayed out of trouble.”

  “Could be.”

  We were quiet. Raven was looking away, thinking. I was staring at him, waiting. “Another thing,” he said, and he turned to me. “You’re not gonna believe this, the way her face was all bruised and cut.”

  He paused. “But you know, she looks familiar to me. Like I’ve seen her before.”

  “She’s been here for a few months,” I said.

  “No, not here. I’d remember that. This goes back a ways. I
’ll keep thinking about it, see if it comes to me. It wasn’t her in person as much as it was when I looked at the picture on her license, something started to click. Then it stopped.”

  He smiled. “Showed a few of the other officers and one of them had the same feeling. He’s from out of state. Massachusetts.”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Oh, well, it’ll come. Sometimes it’s best if you put it aside, don’t try too hard. Just let it flow. That’s my experience, anyway.”

  He started for the door. Stopped. “Tell her I called,” he said. Started again, stopped again, held up one hand. “Hey, you know that boat I was telling you about? The one I’m building?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “How’s it going?”

  “Good,” Raven said, with a slow smile. “It’s coming together, piece by piece.”

  Chapter 16

  I yanked the cat out from its hiding place under the bed, squeezed her tightly and stuffed her into the box, then folded the top closed. The box went on the floor of the truck on the passenger side. The cat cried nonstop. Every few minutes, a black paw darted out of the crack, like a hand poking out of a coffin.

  I took a circuitous route across the ridges, between the hills. Four miles outside of town, I took a right on a dirt road that turned to a track through dense poplar and around brush-filled bogs. The road was rutted and mud-holed and I put the truck in four-wheel-drive, pounded my way through. When I emerged on the paved road, three miles later, I took a left then a right and wove my way northwest. The cat cried, but we weren’t followed.

  It was after ten when I pulled up to Clair’s barn. His pickup was out front, the woods truck pulled into the barn door. I heard the clank of tools, the faint strains of Mozart. As I opened the door, Clair stepped out, wiping his hands with a rag. I came around to the passenger side, opened it, and picked up the cat in the box. A paw darted through the top.

  “She wants out,” Clair said.

  “I know. Been crying for half an hour straight.”

  “No, not the cat. Mandi.”

  I stood, looked at him.

  “Where is she?”

  “Last time I looked, in the kitchen. Wanted to call a cab, but Mary told her to wait for you.”