He grinned as Susan noticed the revolver. “I’m fully licensed to carry, ma’am,” he said. “I hope this doesn’t upset you.”
Susan handed him his coffee and sat down across from him. “No, not at all,” she said, smiling weakly. “I’ve been married to a police officer long enough that I’m used to it.” She paused and looked down at her hands. “I’d like to thank you for coming. I don’t think I was up to leaving the apartment.”
“That’s quite all right,” Dornich took a sip of the coffee and then put it down so he could mop the back of his neck with his handkerchief. “Something about my metabolism,” he smiled slightly. “I just can’t keep from sweating.
“Now, just to explain,” he continued as he shifted his body forward. “I’m fully licensed by the state of Massachusetts as a private investigator. My business, Dornich Investigations, has been around for eight years now. Before that I was a Boston police officer for twenty-five years and before my retirement I was head of detectives—”
“Very impressive,” Susan said.
“Yes, thank you,” Dornich wiped his handkerchief behind his ear and then along the side of his neck and under his chin. He leaned forward a little more so he had his elbows resting against his knees. “So there’s no misunderstanding, let me go over my rates. One hundred and twenty dollars an hour plus any reasonable expenses. We won’t charge you for gas or mileage or postage or stuff like that, but if we need to travel you will get charged for the airfare and hotel. By the way, how did you hear of us?”
“A friend recommended you,” Susan lied. Actually, she had picked his ad out at random from the yellow pages. Dornich nodded, having the good sense not to push her for a name. Susan Shannon felt a sense of deflation. “I didn’t know it would be this expensive,” she murmured under her breath.
Dornich reached forward with his stubby arms and took hold of the coffee and sipped it slowly. “Well, it can be expensive,” he agreed. “But we’re the most experienced firm in Boston. All of my investigators are ex–police officers. My chief investigator worked on the Son of Sam cases in New York. Our forensics expert is often called on by municipalities all over the country.”
Susan stared straight ahead as Dornich smiled sympathetically. With his mouth open all she could count were five teeth and a couple of them were nothing more than stumps. She found herself nodding slowly. For a long time she had convinced herself she was saving the money for them to buy a house, but she now knew she had only been kidding herself. The money had been her escape hatch and she had just nailed it shut. “Okay,” she said. “I’d like to hire you.”
“Well, now, that’s good.” He let his lips form a fragile smile. “And what would you like to hire me to do?”
“To find my husband.”
He straightened up on the sofa, letting his head nod in a knowing way. “It happens all the time,” he started.
“No, it doesn’t. Not like this, anyway. My husband’s sick. He’s got some sort of amnesia.”
“How long has he been missing?”
“Since last night.”
“Last night, huh?” Dornich rubbed his face, his thick, stubby fingers kneading into the flesh. “What makes you think he’s got amnesia?”
“Because he gets it every year,” Susan said.
Dornich wiped his handkerchief across his face and then shifted his round body forward as he attempted to broach the delicate subject. “I had a client once,” he began, “whose husband would sleepwalk every couple of months. He’d just get out of bed, hands held out in front of his face, and walk out of the house and then drive off.” He demonstrated briefly, holding out his own two arms and looking ridiculous.
“A couple of days later,” he continued, talking quickly, “he’d come back home completely disoriented, claiming he had no clue where he’d been. Well, one time the wife was worried so sick she hired me to find him.
“I found him shacked up,” he said after taking time to wipe his face. “His girlfriend would come in from Atlanta every couple of months and he’d go through his sleepwalking act. Now, maybe your husband has some sort of yearly rendezvous—”
“He doesn’t have anything of the kind,” Susan insisted, rejecting the idea flatly.
“But—”
“There are no buts here. It’s simple. My husband has amnesia and I’d like to hire you to find him. Do you want the job?”
Dornich sat with his mouth hung loosely open. He started to say something, obviously frustrated, then pushed his mouth closed, nodded and told Susan Shannon that he’d be happy to take her job.
“I’ll need some photographs,” he said. “Preferably a full shot and both sides. Also a list of all bank accounts and credit cards. And a list of his friends—”
“He’s not with any friends.”
Dornich stared straight ahead at Susie Shannon and smiled congenially. “Of course, he isn’t,” he explained. “But maybe he mentioned something to someone or—”
“He didn’t mention anything to anyone.”
“Of course, he didn’t.” Dornich forced a thin smile. He took a notepad from his overcoat pocket. “You said your husband’s a police officer. Which department—here in Cambridge?”
“Yes. He’s a detective out of the Central Square station. He’s been working mostly violent crime cases.”
“Who’s his commanding officer?”
“I don’t see how that could help you—”
“Well, it might. Maybe someone he works with knows something. It’s possible.”
“No one knows anything. If they did, Joe wouldn’t have spent last night driving around looking for him.”
“Joe?”
“Joe DiGrazia. His partner.”
“His partner did that, huh? Hell of a nice thing to do. Could you spell his name?”
Susan hesitated, then spelled it out. Dornich wrote it down and got his home phone number.
“Well, now,” he said, looking up, smiling. “Do you think you could find me those pictures?”
Susan got up. As she left the room the smile evaporated from his face, leaving it drawn, his eyes tired, glassy. He reached for the coffee and sipped it slowly. When Susan came back his smile flashed back on like a neon sign. He took the pictures from her and studied them quickly.
“Good-looking guy,” he observed pleasantly. “How old, thirty, thirty-five?”
“Thirty-three.”
“Thirty-three, huh? That’s nice. I remember the way I was at that age. Boy, you can make real stupid mistakes when you’re young, and probably even stupider mistakes when you’re that good looking. I don’t know about the last, but I do know about the first. You see, the problem is you start thinking with something other than your head . . .” He stopped himself. Actually, it was the look forming across Susan Shannon’s face that stopped him.
“But then what do I know,” he said, shrugging. “Except I’ll need a five-thousand-dollar retainer.”
She wrote the check out for him. As he took it from her, he hesitated and then asked if he should wait a couple of days before cashing it.
“The money’s there to cover it.”
“Of course it is.” He folded the check and slid it gently into his inside overcoat pocket. “I’m planning on handling this job myself. I’ll let you know as soon as I find anything.”
As he started to get up to leave Susan Shannon stopped him. “There’s something else,” she said. “I’d like you to do something else.”
Dornich looked up at her.
“There’s a reason my husband’s acting like this.” She looked away from the detective. “I think it’s something from his childhood. I’d like you to find out what it is.”
She told him the little she knew about Shannon’s childhood, that both his parents were dead and that he had grown up in California.
“You never met any of his family?”
“No. They had died before we met. And he won’t talk about his family.”
“So you think someone
abused him as a kid? Maybe one of his parents? Or another family member?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
“And you don’t know what part of California he’s from? Or when he left?”
“No, I don’t.” A defensiveness edged into her voice. “He won’t talk about it.”
Dornich sighed heavily. “Okay,” he said, “I’ll see what I can find. Some of the stuff like where he went to high school should be on record at his department. We’ll see where it leads.”
He let her escort him to the front door. Once outside a gurgling noise seeped from his lips. He couldn’t help it. He didn’t want to laugh. He felt sorry for Susan Shannon, but it was just too damn funny.
Hell of a partner that woman’s husband had. Hell of a guy, out the whole goddamn night for him.
Dornich didn’t doubt it a bit, at least the part about being up all night for his partner’s sake. The two of them probably spent it shacked up with a couple of hookers and a couple of grams of coke. As he wanted to tell the lady, he’d seen it a hundred times before.
As he walked to his car he gave the matter of how to approach DiGrazia some thought. There were a couple ways to play it out. He could wait until evening and then follow DiGrazia. Odds were their little party was going to last a few more days. The problem with that, though, was he didn’t like the idea of tailing a cop. It’s as good a way as any to get shot at. So it came down to either leveling with DiGrazia or playing innocent. Either way, word would get to the lady’s husband to zip his pants back up and head home. Pretty soon he’d be recovering from his amnesia. Dornich had little doubt about that.
The other part, though, about digging into the guy’s childhood sounded like a wild-goose chase. Well, first things first. He had a party to crash.
Chapter 14
“Oh God—”
Linda Cassen turned quickly behind her. She felt stupid as soon as she did. There was no one following her, no one lurking in the shadows. She was standing in broad daylight in the middle of Newbury Street which was probably the safest spot in the city. The only thing she had to worry about was being gouged in the pocketbook by one of the high-priced boutiques lining the street.
Still, she couldn’t help feeling shaken. The fear was irrational but it was there and it was intense. A cold sweat started down her back. She turned and entered a gourmet coffee shop. Once inside she stood by the door and stared out at the street. People walked past, but no one paid any attention to her. No one looked in her direction. No one was following her. There was no bogeyman out there after her.
She felt even stupider. She ordered a large latte from the cashier and took it back to a table by the front window. As she sipped it she watched the pedestrians walk by. It had been a bitter cold winter so far, and February wasn’t turning out to be any better. With the wind swirling off Boston Harbor it was below zero Fahrenheit outside. People were just about running past the store; men holding their overcoats shut tight around their necks, women moving in short, almost frantic strides.
Linda Cassen finished her drink and headed back into the cold. The air whipping across her face numbed her, making her feel as if her cheeks had been shot with Novocain. An uneasiness, though, swallowed her up quicker and more intensely than the cold did. It didn’t make any sense. There was no reason for it. Stubbornly, she decided she wasn’t going to let it affect her.
She came to the end of Newbury Street and cut across to the Public Garden. The desolation there didn’t help her mood. It looked like a wasteland. The pond for the swan boats had been emptied before winter and the trees scattered around the park were bare and lifeless. An old lady sitting alone threw bread crumbs to pigeons. She smiled blandly up at Linda. As she walked past the old woman she tried to smile back. Her heart skipped a beat as she noticed the street kids hanging by one of the benches along the other side of the park. All of them wearing hooded sweatshirts. They noticed her, also. Their sullen stares slowly drifted past her. She quickened her pace and got to the outside of the park and to Charles Street.
Once on Charles Street she darted into a convenience store. Winded, her heart racing, her legs shaky. A young clerk working behind the counter asked if she was okay. She mumbled something and grabbed a candy bar and bought it. Her hands shook as she peeled off the wrapper. She ate it greedily, as if it were the only thing she’d had in weeks. The sugar rush helped a little.
The clerk, a young kid, looked concerned. He asked if he should call her a cab. She thought about it but shook her head. Her apartment was only four blocks away. She’d feel more than stupid to have a cab take her four blocks. She thanked him anyway and walked to the door and peered outside. The street kids weren’t in sight. They were probably still in the park. At least she hoped so.
The fear had quieted temporarily but was still in her. As she walked it seemed to take on a life all to itself. Making her panic about crazy things. That she’d forget how to breathe. That her heart would just stop on her. That she would collapse on the sidewalk. Then he would get her. She’d be defenseless against him. The thought stopped her. Who would she be defenseless against? Who was she so afraid of? There was nothing but a fuzzy image floating in her mind. Nothing she could really make out. Just a sour, rancid smell and the hint of a wispy, singsong voice breathing lightly into her ear. As crazy as it was, it became real. The panic became full-blown terror.
The terror wouldn’t let her move her eyes. It kept them frozen straight ahead. It crept through her body, pressing hard against her chest. It made it difficult to breathe. She started to run. She couldn’t help herself.
She ran two blocks up Beacon Hill before her legs gave out on her and she fell onto one knee. And then she started to cry. She didn’t care anymore about feeling stupid. All she wanted was to get home. To be safe. She started making wild promises about what she’d do if she could only get safely locked behind her apartment door. About how she’d become a better person and start spending her weekends working at homeless shelters and her nights helping the impoverished. Anything, as long as she could be safe.
She got back to her feet. The terror was now crashing down over her, becoming something raw and primal. She could barely breathe against it. She could barely hear over it as it roared through her head and drowned out the noises around her. It made it impossible to tell if there were any footsteps behind her. But there couldn’t be any footsteps behind her. Deep down inside she knew that, didn’t she? She was simply losing her mind, going nuts, that was all. That’s what she told herself. She was in the midst of a mental breakdown.
As she turned the corner, she saw her apartment building and started racing towards it, her legs rubbery as she pushed herself forward. And then she was at the front door.
She fumbled with her keys. They slipped back into her pocketbook. Then they disappeared among the clutter. A common nightmare of hers was where simple actions became impossible. Like running through molasses. Or trying to find her keys when her life depended on it. Oh God, she screamed internally as tears streamed her face, please help me find my keys! And then, miraculously, she had them and the main entrance door was open and she was racing up the three flights to her apartment. Her heart pounding within her, feeling as if it were going to explode out of her chest . . .
And then . . .
She had the door to her apartment open. The craziness of her fear and terror hit her hard and she started laughing and bawling at the same moment. All the emotion came pouring out of her.
And then something else hit her. Much harder than the emotion. Hard enough to send her sprawling face first across the hardwood floor of her hallway. She felt a dullness as her chin cracked against the floor and then heard a click behind her. Someone was locking her door. Then a knee digging into the small of her back. Her arms were pulled behind her, her hands tied together with some sort of cord, the material biting into her flesh.
It all happened so fast. Before she could utter a sound she was flipped over onto her back. A gloved hand was agai
nst her throat. Pressing hard and then releasing the tension. It made her think of the way a cat entertains itself with a mouse before the kill.
And then there was the knife—an eight-inch cutting knife. Her eyes grew wide as she stared at it. It was held inches from her face.
A soft, wispy, singsong voice breathed lightly into her ear. A vaguely familiar voice. “Go ahead,” it said. “Scream. This knife has to go somewhere.”
Chapter 15
Phil Dornich stood in the Central Square squad room shooting the bull with the desk sergeant. He recognized a few faces but didn’t really know anyone there. It wasn’t likely that he would. Boston and Cambridge police don’t have much to do with one another. And after eight years off the force, the few cops he did know in Cambridge were long gone. Still, after twenty-five years as a cop he felt comfortable in any police squad room and he had no problem shooting the bull with anyone there.
“What about his personnel record?” Dornich asked with a thin smile.
A pained expression formed over the desk sergeant’s face, like he had gas. Dornich pulled out Susan Shannon’s retainer check and showed it to him.
“He just disappeared?” the desk sergeant asked. “Just like that?”
“That’s right.”
“And you think there’s something in his folder that could help find him?”
“I think so.” Dornich shifted his weight so he was leaning casually against the wall. “Maybe he went to his hometown or something. His wife doesn’t even know where he grew up.”
The sergeant said he was going to make some phone calls and he turned three quarters of the way around on Dornich. The first call was obviously to Susan. It was short and polite. The next call was longer. The way the sergeant joked around and by the language he used, it was to another cop. When he got off the phone he turned back to Dornich grinning widely.
“Shannon’s wife said she hired you,” he said, his shit-eating grin growing as he spoke. Dornich just smiled back.
“I also called a friend of mine who works out of narcotics in East Boston. Joe Wiley. He said you were a hell of a cop when you were on the force. That before you retired, you were head of detectives.”
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