And Leave Her Lay Dying
Page 6
“It fits, Jack.”
“It fits your ass, McGuire!” Kavander shook his head and leaned back in the chair. “Damn it, don’t you know when to back off?”
“You going to mark it C and C?”
“Only when you bring me facts. Not opinions. Hell, even the insurance company paid up, didn’t they?”
“They wouldn’t have if they’d known what we know now.”
“We don’t know anything, McGuire. We’re doing a lot of guessing but we don’t know a damn thing. What else are you working on?”
McGuire stared at Kavander in angry silence before turning away to look out the window. “There’s only one other file worth anything. The Cornell murder. All the rest are whores in ditches and drunks in back alleys—”
“I hear Rosen’s suing,” Kavander interrupted.
McGuire swung his eyes back to the police captain. “Suing who?”
“You. For common assault. And the city. For endangerment of a bona fide court official.”
“For Christ’s sake.”
“And he’ll sue the department for harassment and false arrest of his client, Arthur Trevor Wilmer.”
“Why haven’t I heard about this?”
“Because he hasn’t announced it.” Kavander lifted his wrist and glanced at his watch. “He’s holding a press conference right now to formally tell the world. Timed it just right to be the lead story on every TV channel in the state tonight.” He opened his desk drawer for another toothpick. “You got a lawyer, McGuire?”
Kavander’s door opened and a round face peered in, looking with uncertainty at McGuire and Kavander. “Sorry, Captain,” Fat Eddie Vance said in his baritone voice. “Didn’t know you were busy. Hi, Joe,” he added in response to McGuire’s glare.
“What do you want, Eddie?” Kavander demanded.
“I was looking for some files and they told me you had them.” Vance smiled warmly at Kavander. “Thought I’d examine some old cases on the weekend, see what’s worth reviewing.”
“What files are you talking about?” Kavander turned to a stack of folders on the shelf behind his desk.
“Just a few of the grey ones from last year. Silky Pete was one, and that Fens murder.”
“I’ve got them,” McGuire snapped.
Vance’s eyebrows shot up his forehead. “You have?” He paused, waiting for a response. When McGuire provided none, Vance continued: “Well, you need any help, Joe, you just call me, okay?” He smiled at Kavander. “Talk to you later, Chief.”
Kavander stared at the door for a moment before saying: “I know what you’re thinking, McGuire. But Vance is just overloaded, that’s why things are a bit sloppy. Extra work comes along, Vance is the first in line to take it on. When he’s got the time to do it right, Fat Eddie is the best detail man in the department.”
“Maybe,” McGuire muttered. “Just one thing I can’t figure.”
“What’s that?”
“If God created the world, how come he had to make both Vance and maggots?”
“Son of a bitch!” Tim Fox grabbed for his beer and drained the glass in one swallow.
“Bad clam?” Ralph Innes reached into the oversized bowl in the centre of the table and selected another steamed clam. “Gotta expect one now and then, Timmy,” he said, prying open the shell. “Little guy’ll get his revenge on you while you’re sleeping tonight. Just make sure yo mama’s not between you and the john.”
Every Wednesday was Bucket Night at Hutch’s, when six dollars bought all the steamed clams you could eat, with bowls of garlic butter and cocktail sauce set among baskets of crusty bread and pitchers of cold beer.
“You married, Timmy?” Janet Parsons held a small unopened clam delicately between the rips of her fingers. With a deft movement she separated the two halves of the shell and transferred the meat to her mouth. The entire motion, smooth and graceful, was watched with an expression of hunger by Ralph Innes.
“Just six months,” Fox answered. He frowned; the clam had left a sour, unpleasant taste.
“Still on your honeymoon,” Janet smiled at him.
“I was almost married once,” Ralph Innes offered, trying to decide which clam to devour next.
“What happened, Ralph?” Janet Parsons asked. “Did her father run out of shells for his shotgun?”
“Look at this fat little guy,” Innes said, holding an over-sized clam for everyone to admire. “Naw, Janet. I just figured that the screwing you get isn’t worth the screwing you get!” He pried the shell open and looked around at the others at the table, his eyes settling on McGuire. “You’ve been married, right Joe? Couple of times, weren’t you?”
McGuire nodded but didn’t reply. He wanted out of there.
“Janet, you’re married to the luckiest hash slinger in town.” Ralph Innes skewered the clam meat with his folk and waved it in her direction. “Now there’s a guy to envy. A bar full of booze and sweet old Janet to come home to every night.”
“How are those grey files coming, Joe?” Tim Fox was waving a waiter over to the table.
“One down, a million to go,” McGuire replied.
“Have you come across the Cornell file?” Ralph Innes asked.
“The one in the Fens?” McGuire shook his head at more beer. “Just to look at. I’ll start working on it in the morning.”
“Broad gets her head conked over in the Fens,” Ralph Innes began explaining to the others as he sorted through the remainder of the clams. “Falls in the water and drowns. Me and Bernie, we worked on it, looking for her brother. Best lead was her brother . . . Archie, Allen . . . Andrew, that was it. Then we got yanked. The case died after that.”
McGuire looked up from his clams. “Who yanked you?”
“Jack the Bear. Said we weren’t getting anywhere so he moved Fat Eddie Vance on it. Fat Eddie went nowhere, far as I know. Thing’s cold now, worn down like a hooker’s heels. We had three good suspects too.” Innes looked up at McGuire. “Take a look at that one, Joe. You figure it out, you’re Sherlock Holmes, I swear.”
Tim Fox snapped his fingers. “I remember that one now,” he nodded. “Fat Eddie spent maybe two days scoffing some free drinks from a bar where the victim hung out. Did it all alone too. Kept me on the desk scratching my ass. Fat jerk.”
“That’s a case for you if there ever was one,” Ralph Innes said, pointing his fork across the table at McGuire. “I can see you and Ollie Schantz taking that one apart. Old Ollie, he’d sit back, shake out all the garbage, and write it up over a bowl of chowder. Am I right, Timmy?” Tim Fox nodded agreement. “Hell, he was some guy, wasn’t he?” Innes rambled on before launching into a story about Ollie Schantz. The tale had the smooth burnish acquired from being told many times over many bowls of clams and pitchers of beer. The others chewed and sipped in silence while Innes dotted his story with laughter and obscenities, speaking of Ollie Schantz as though he were a legend from a distant era.
The telephone was ringing when McGuire arrived at his apartment near Kenmore Square. He walked briskly to his desk at the bay window facing Commonwealth Avenue and picked up the receiver while watching Janet Parsons back her Honda into a parking space.
The caller introduced herself as a reporter from the Globe. “Do you have any comment on the charges made by lawyer Rosen today?” she asked.
McGuire told her he hadn’t seen them.
“But they were covered by all the television stations this evening,” the reporter noted. “How could you miss them?”
“I was performing my duties,” McGuire said. Down in the street, Janet stepped out of her car and locked the door.
“Your police duties?”
“That’s right.” Janet glanced up at his window and waved.
“Did you assault Arthur Wilmer?”
“I have never assaulted a prisoner in my life.” He leaned for
ward to watch her climb the steps into his building.
“Did you plant evidence that might implicate him?”
McGuire turned to study his apartment door, visualizing Janet ascending the staircase to his second-floor apartment. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said in a tired voice.
“Would you consent to an interview tomorrow?”
“Only if you clear it with Berkeley Street first,” he replied. Promising to get back to him quickly, the reporter hung up.
By the time McGuire had begun to make coffee, he could hear Janet tapping at his door. When he opened it she was leaning against the frame, eying him from behind lowered lids.
“What kept you, sailor?” she smirked.
“Some reporter,” he answered. He checked the hallway, then closed and bolted the door behind them. “Rosen’s press conference has stirred up—”
The telephone rang again.
“She’s back,” McGuire shrugged. “You want to finish making the coffee while I get rid of her?”
He strode to the ringing telephone, seized the receiver and barked his name into the mouthpiece.
There was no voice on the other end. Instead, McGuire heard distant rock music hovering above a soft roar like running water: the background noise of a busy diner.
Finally, a hoarse whisper: “She’s there, isn’t she?”
“Who?” McGuire asked. “Who are you talking about?”
In reply he heard the distant wail of an amplified guitar, and then another wail, closer to the telephone, this one soft and human, before the man hung up.
McGuire replaced the receiver and turned to see Janet watching curiously from the kitchen door.
“Your husband,” he said, answering her unspoken question.
She reacted with a toss of her head. “Was he upset?”
“I guess so.” McGuire sat heavily on the edge of the desk, looking at his hands. “He was crying.”
Paul Desmond’s saxophone floated from the stereo, soaring romantically through the melody of an old and forgotten ballad. Janet leaned against McGuire on the sofa, her legs tucked beneath her, her hands cupping a coffee mug. Such long, slender hands. McGuire had watched those hands squeeze six shots from a Police Special .38 to score the thirdhighest rapid-fire score in the history of the Boston Police Department.
“Anything I can do?” McGuire asked, and she shook her head sadly.
They sat in silence as Desmond wove in and out of the melody, lighting upon it and flitting away like a hummingbird. McGuire loved jazz from the late fifties. It was a time when music fit neatly into a small number of well-defined categories. Jazz was accessible, rock and roll was for hoodlums, and the classics were highbrow.
“I used to be flattered he needed me so much,” Janet said when the music ended. “He was this big, good-looking guy who could handle himself in any kind of situation, and he needed me. I had never been around an independent man who needed me like that.” She sipped her coffee, staring into the darkness. “Every woman wants a strong man to need her. They’re the two biggest attractions for a woman, strength and need. The strong father figure and the weak child, all in one. But the more a man like that needs you, the less appealing his strength is and the less independent he becomes. And that’s what attracted you in the first place.” She turned to look at him. “Can men understand that? How the more someone needs you, the less you are attracted to them?”
McGuire nodded. But he didn’t understand at all.
Before she left they kissed at the door, long kisses empty of passion but suffused with feeling. He watched her descend the stairs before closing the door and walking to his window, where he stood until the tail-lights of her car receded into the darkness. Then he turned and opened the thick grey folder holding details of the investigation into the death of Jennifer Judith Cornell on a soft June morning in the murky waters and tangled gardens that the people of Boston have always called The Fens.
Chapter Seven
PRIMARY HOMICIDE INVESTIGATION REPORT
FILE#: 885–531
INVESTIGATING DETECTIVES: B. Lipson, R. Innes
DATE: 6/11/89
VICTIM’S NAME: Jennifer Judith Cornell
VICTIM’S ADDRESS: 2281 Park Drive, Apt.2A
VICTIM’S AGE: 33
MARITAL STATUS: Single
CRIMINAL RECORD: None
BIRTH DATE: 11/9/56
BIRTHPLACE: Augusta, Maine
NEXT OF KIN: Unknown (see ref. re: A. Cornell)
INVESTIGATING POLICE OFFICERS: T. Whalen, L. Wade
DATE/TIME OF INITIAL CALL: 6/11/89, 7:42 a.m.
REPORT DETAILS: Call received on 911 from two joggers (see witness/report statement) who found deceased under bridge connecting Park Drive and Fenway St. Investigating officers arrived 7:47 a.m. Head was immersed in Fens water, body in prone position resting on bank. Officers observed apparent injury to victim’s head. M.O. Hayes confirmed death at scene 8:15 a.m. (approx.) Fallen branch found at scene with blood and hair adhering to one end (see forensic report #T–55980 attached) (See photos A to L, film strip #89–7639)
INTERVIEWS: (LIST ON REVERSE IF NECESSARY):
Richard Fleckstone, TV Producer
Gerald Scott Milburn, underwriter, Upton Insurance Company
Irene Hoffman, Proprietor, “Irene’s”
Frances O’Neil, Waitress, “Pour Richards”
Marlene Richards, Proprietor, “Pour Richards”
Henry Reich, Superintendent, Parkway Apartments
AUTOPSY REPORT
Attached [X]
Not Attached [ ]
If not, why?
CURRENT STATUS
1. Case reassigned, E. Vance, T. Fox, 7/5/89
2. APB Andrew Cornell, NKA, age 36 (see attached APB #88–99310) for questioning
3. Last Update: 8/2/89
4. Authorized HOLD file status: 9/1/89
Andrew Cornell, the brother Ralph Innes had mentioned. Why focus so much attention on him? McGuire flipped through the pages, pausing at the autopsy report prepared by Mel Doitch. His eyes skipped over the usual clinical descriptions to the paragraph headed “Preliminary Findings”:
Victim expired as a result of drowning while unconscious, said condition the result of a single blow to the posterior of the right squamous temporal, producing a minor fracture and moderate bruising of adjacent parietal lobe. Estimated time of death: 2:00 a.m.
The autopsy report and the statements from the two joggers who found the body gave no indication of a sexual attack, just one blow from behind which, on its own, would not have been fatal. He scanned the rest of the details. Scars on each wrist. Old and properly healed fracture of left arm, apparently during adolescence. Small strawberry birthmark on right hip. Callous on ball of right foot. No evidence of having given birth. No other distinguishing marks or features.
McGuire read on.
She carried no identification, no purse, no keys. A passing neighbour recognized her and directed the police to her apartment building where she was positively identified by the superintendent.
Colour photographs in the file showed the grassy banks of the Fens, brilliant green in the sun of an early June morning. The body of Jennifer Judith Cornell lay under a picturesque stone bridge, hidden from the street above. She had been pulled from the water and, in a close-up photo of her face, McGuire recognized the surprised expression he had seen so often on murder victims.
Other pictures accompanied the report, including three eight-by-ten publicity photographs of Jennifer Cornell. In these professionally posed portraits, the face that looked back at McGuire was almost beautiful. The eyes and smile were a little too wide, the eyebrows too heavy, the shoulderlength hair too perfectly coiffed. Careful lighting had almost hidden the shallow crow’s-feet at the corners of the eyes but failed to conceal the desperation in their studied gaze.
He stared at the face, searching for clues to the de
ad woman’s personality, looking for something in her that could inspire someone with enough rage to commit murder on a night in June. But all he saw was the face of a sensual woman whose expression said she was frightened and whose records said she was dead.
More documentation: transcripts of interviews; a report of items recovered from dragging the immediate area of the Fens (two baby carriages, five automobile tires, one bicycle, several dozen cans and bottles, one typewriter, one drafting table. . . . A drafting table?); a description of the victim’s apartment (neat, tidy, well-furnished). McGuire frowned and reached for a pad of paper. He began making notes.
Her purse was found on a dresser with wallet, credit cards and almost one hundred dollars cash inside. Two sets of fingerprints were lifted from the apartment, both relatively fresh. One set was positively identified as Jennifer Cornell’s. The other, located in the bedroom, on the closet door and the exterior apartment door, belonged to someone unknown. Nothing appeared to be disturbed.
Andrew Cornell, McGuire muttered. Tell me about Andrew Cornell.
TO ALL DISTRICTS
APB # 88–99310
STATE-WIDE: [X]
F.B.I.: [X]
DATE: 6/21/89
B.P. D. CASE#: 885–531
NAME: Andrew (“Andy”) Cornell
SEX: Male
RACE: White Caucasian
ALIAS: None known
AGE: 35 to 38 (approx.)
HEIGHT: 5’8” / 5’10”
WEIGHT: 150-165 lbs.
HAIR: Brown
EYES: Brown
BIRTHPLACE: Unknown
BIRTH DATE: Unknown
SOCIAL SECURITY#: N/A