And Leave Her Lay Dying

by John Lawrence Reynolds

  “And Andy took off.”

  “Yeah. Right out the door.”

  “And when Jennifer came in she was ready to hit you with a bar stool.”

  Milburn nodded. He tossed the paper towel at a waste container and missed. “Anything else?”

  “Two things. Where were you the night Jennifer Cornell was murdered?”

  Milburn leaned on the sink again and stared at his reflection in the mirror. His mouth had grown slack and his grey hair no longer looked premature. “I told you guys last summer.”

  “Not me you didn’t. Where were you?”

  “I went to a movie.”

  “With whom?”

  “By myself.”

  “On a Saturday night? A married man with . . . how many kids?”

  “Two. Two boys.”

  “Name the movie.”

  Milburn closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly. “I wasn’t at a movie.”

  “Damn right you weren’t.” McGuire walked away a few paces, then returned to Milburn in three quick strides. “So where were you?”

  “I went looking for Jennifer. I stopped at the bar and saw her brother, sitting in the corner by himself. I went outside and waited to see if Jennifer would show up. She didn’t, so I went back to her apartment building and rang the bell. There was nobody home, or maybe she just didn’t want to answer the door. But I could hear music playing in there. So I sat on a bench across the street by the Fens and watched the building for a while.” He shrugged and half-smiled in embarrassment. “Then I bought a bottle of booze and took it back to the bench and drank it. I woke up about two o’clock and there were still lights on in her apartment. I went to a pay phone and called her and Jennifer answered. She sounded happy; she was laughing. She told me to call her back early in the week, she couldn’t see me just then. I had the feeling there was somebody else with her. So I went home.”

  He looked up at McGuire with tears on his face. “That’s the truth, McGuire. I swear it. That night . . . That night almost cost me my marriage. The next day I heard she was found murdered.”

  Laughter erupted from the washroom entrance as two men entered, one holding a sheet of paper for the other to read over his shoulder. Milburn turned away quickly, tore off another paper towel and brought it to his face. The two newcomers glanced at him, then at McGuire, and walked in silence to the urinals.

  Distancing himself from the men, Milburn approached McGuire. “What was the other thing?” he asked in a low voice. “You said you had two things. What else was there?”

  McGuire bent to retrieve the ball of paper towelling Milburn had tossed at the waste container. “Pick up your trash,” he said, tossing it in the man’s face.

  The wind had dropped, taking the temperature with it. Outside on Massachusetts Avenue McGuire walked through a swirl of snowflakes. At Newbury Street he trudged east to Dartmouth. The flakes were now no longer melting on contact with the pavement but were beginning to transform the city into a soft white sculpture, clinging to bare tree branches, settling on parked cars and on the heads and shoulders of pedestrians.

  Just beyond Dartmouth, McGuire found Irene’s Dress Shop on the elevated first floor of a restored brownstone. He slipped once on the snow before grasping the cast-iron railing and pulling himself up to the darkened door.

  The letter taped on the inside of the glass was headed “Raymond D. Robinson, Attorney” in flowing script, with an address in the Hancock Tower. All enquiries regarding Irene’s, according to the short typed message on the letter, were to be directed to the office shown on the letterhead.

  McGuire shielded his eyes and peered through the glass into an empty store littered with cardboard boxes, empty display cases and several hundred plastic hangers on metal racks.

  He entered a bar next to Irene’s and used a pay phone to call the lawyer. A woman with a heavy British accent answered, took his name and put him on hold long enough for him to finish sipping his double Scotch, neat. She returned to announce that Raymond Robinson would be pleased to see him in his office at ten the following morning to answer any questions on behalf of his client Irene Hoffman.

  McGuire leaned against the wall and tried to assemble all he had learned about the woman found dead in the Fens two seasons earlier. She had been a frightened woman, unstable perhaps. And yet Jennifer Cornell could also attract the attention of a television producer who used women like he used his video equipment, and infatuate a minor insurance executive to the point where he would risk his family and his career.

  McGuire had known women like her in his life. During a short and stormy second marriage, he had been wedded to one. She hadn’t been unstable, though, only too young and too beautiful, too in love with the thrill of turning men’s heads to be satisfied with the attention McGuire paid to her. It had been his total attention, total devotion. No, he had to admit, not total. And not enough. Not enough to keep her from walking out five years ago, leaving him to work in a Florida nightclub where the patrons weren’t sullen and middle-aged but young and challenging and loved to dance.

  He looked around the bar, searching for the kind of companionship that began with eye contact, and estimated the average age of the patrons at twenty years less than his own. Wasn’t anybody in the world born before nineteen-sixty?

  Leaving the bar, McGuire paused in the doorway to turn up the collar of his overcoat and watched calmly as a small car with its wheels locked glided out of control on the snowy road surface before slamming into the rear of a car ahead of it. The small car’s bumper crumpled; an enormous tail-light on the other car shattered with a delicate musical sound, muted by the snow. The two drivers stepped out of their vehicles to examine first the damage, then each other, with sad resignation.

  “Florida,” McGuire muttered to himself as he turned his back on the scene and walked away. “Florida,” he repeated. “Hell of an idea.”

  He retrieved his car from a parking lot near Pour Richards and drove back to his apartment. The heavy snow and rush­hour traffic would tie up the route to Revere Beach for two hours at least. He’d wait till it let up. That would give him enough time to think about what he had learned, make some notes, microwave a dinner and read the paper before visiting Ollie.

  Fifteen minutes later he was in the warmth of his apartment with a Paul Desmond CD playing on the stereo, two fingers of Scotch and some ice in a glass, and a frozen “Chicken Stir-Fry” dinner in the microwave.

  He sat back in a heavy armchair, sipped the cold smoky whisky and listened to Desmond’s alto saxophone dance through a Cole Porter song. God, nobody plays like that anymore, he thought. Nobody ever played like that. Except maybe Lee Konitz. But Konitz was more experimental, he kept changing his sound, while Desmond polished his like an opera diva who begins singing Aida first as a young girl—the goddamn telephone’s ringing—and then later as a mature woman—why does the fucking phone ring when I don’t want to hear it?—and when she’s older—son of a bitch!

  “Hello!” The bark of an angry and disturbed dog.

  “Joe?” The voice was dusky and warm—and hesitant.

  “Yeah.” He softened his tone and leaned back in the chair. “What’s up?”

  “You okay?”

  “Sure, Janet. Sure. I’m fine.”

  “Joe, I’m at a pay phone.” Before he could reply she added, “I’m being followed, Joe.”

  “Your husband?”

  “I don’t know. Whoever they are, they’re professionals.”

  “Take it easy,” he began.

  “If they’re following me, they’re probably following you, too.”

  “Okay. But there’s nothing to find with me.”

  “I know,” she said. “I just thought I should let you know. Besides . . . I miss you.”

  Desmond’s music was flooding the room. The Scotch warmed him to his toes as he watched snow
sifting down through the night to settle on his windowsill. “Yeah. Me too.” He felt he should add something. “Take care of yourself,” he said finally.

  He could hear traffic noises behind her: the blast of a car horn, the roar of a diesel truck engine. “I will,” she said. She sounded disappointed. “Sounds like you’re listening to Paul Desmond,” she added. “Am I right?”

  “You’re right,” he smiled. “You’ve always been right,” he added before saying goodbye and gently lowering the telephone.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ollie’s room was a warm haven in the midst of the early winter snowfall. He lay propped upright while Ronnie fed him servings of warm strudel, the air throughout the small house rich with the aroma of fresh-baked pastry, apples, cinnamon and nutmeg.

  McGuire sat in his usual bedside chair. On the table next to him was an empty plate scattered with small flakes of strudel pastry, which he picked up and nibbled at as he spoke.

  He recounted the day’s interviews while Ollie nodded or scowled at significant information and his right hand squeezed the tennis ball, tightening and relaxing in a steady, unbroken rhythm.

  When McGuire finished, Ronnie offered the last morsel of strudel to her husband, who opened his mouth dutifully and chewed silently.

  “Sounds like a complicated case,” she said, standing and brushing crumbs from her lap and from Ollie’s blanket. “I’ll leave you two experts to work it out.”

  McGuire turned down Ronnie’s offer of more coffee and waited until she left the room before asking Ollie’s assessment.

  “I want to know who the brother is,” the older man said, staring straight ahead as he spoke.

  “You don’t think they’re related? The birth records could be wrong. He could have been born out of wedlock.”

  “Whoever he was, I’m betting he’ll turn up dead.”

  “And whoever killed Jennifer Cornell killed the brother too.”

  “Something like that.”

  “Doesn’t make sense,” McGuire said, flipping through his notes. “The woman’s murder has impulse written all over it. She’s struck from behind by a piece of wood that’s apparently just lying around. No premeditation there. And the blow doesn’t kill her. Falling into the water and drowning does the job. Whoever hit her just left her there dying. But the brother, he’s gone without a trace. No clothes, nothing but fingerprints. That takes planning.”

  “But it might explain why she didn’t have any keys or identification with her,” Ollie said, turning his head to look out the window. The light spilling from the room shone on snowflakes in the darkness, tracing their paths as they swirled in the air. “Work it out. Killer takes the keys, goes back to the apartment, gets rid of the brother.”

  McGuire nodded in agreement. “Norm Cooper says there were only two sets of fresh prints in the place. He confirmed one set is hers, the other is a John Doe’s.”

  Ollie Schantz rolled his massive head away from the window and gazed up at the ceiling. His wife’s words were still there. They were unavoidable. They spoke to him when he closed his eyes in the evening and they reassured him when he opened them the next morning.

  “Reich, the apartment superintendent, he still bothers me,” Ollie said after a long, thoughtful pause. “Falling off the wagon like that. Hanging around with women. Buying good booze by the case. All just after the murder. Can’t get past that one.”

  “You think he did it?” McGuire asked.

  The other man ignored the question. “By the sound of things, his wife is a tough old bird.”

  McGuire agreed.

  “Probably knew her husband better than he knew himself. Some wives are like that. Especially ones who . . .”

  “Who what?”

  “Who either love you or hate you so goddamn much.” He looked over at McGuire. “You believe the widow?”

  “Yeah,” McGuire nodded. “I believe her.”

  “So do I.”

  “But that means Reich didn’t kill Jennifer Cornell. She died around two in the morning. His wife is sure he got up to check a noise out back around four. Came back to bed a few minutes later. He couldn’t have made it across the street, down into the Fens, do the job and get back into bed. Even if he had a motive. The guy was over sixty years old.” McGuire leaned back in the chair. “You got any ideas?”

  “That’s all I’ve got, is time and ideas,” Ollie said in a flat, toneless voice.

  McGuire reached for his notebook, his pencil poised over the page.

  “Who saw her last?” Ollie snapped. “And who was supposed to see her next? Same with her brother. Who was the last to see him?”

  “Frances, the waitress,” McGuire replied, scribbling as he talked. “She left the bar with Andy the night of the murder. And I’ll talk to Fleckstone again. The brother was supposed to visit him and never showed.”

  “How about the watch?”

  McGuire looked up. “What watch?”

  “The one she bought for her brother. What was it? A Cartier? What are they worth?”

  “Out of my league.”

  “The brother had no job?”

  “Far as I know.”

  “He wants to skip, he’ll need money. Check the pawnshop listings for a Cartier in June. See if any names match up.” He frowned again. “What’s this lawyer want with you tomorrow?”

  McGuire shrugged. “Guess he’s handling the bankruptcy of Irene’s.”

  “The store where the victim worked?”

  “Yeah. I don’t expect anything much to come out of it, but the owner was interviewed by Fat Eddie. Who knows what he dropped through the cracks?”

  The furrows between Ollie Schantz’s eyes deepened. “Seen her bank records?”

  “Whose?”

  “The victim’s, damn it!” Ollie barked. “Are her bank records in the file?”

  “I don’t remember seeing them—”

  “What the hell are those idiots doing down on Berkeley Street?” Ollie demanded. “Bank records are like a diary. Better than a diary sometimes. Mark a case NETGO and don’t check bank records? It’s crazy!”

  “They’re short on staff—”

  “And long on assholes! Try to get her bank records.”

  McGuire made his notes in silence, broken only by Ollie’s laborious breathing; the right hand squeezed and released, squeezed and released the tennis ball at a faster tempo than before.

  “You got inside her bones yet?”

  It was Ollie’s manner of asking if McGuire understood the victim totally. “Let’s get inside their bones,” he would say to his partner when they worked together. “Best way to know the killer is to know the victim.”

  “Not yet,” McGuire answered, closing his notebook. “She was complex. A few people thought she was wonderful, others thought she was a bitch. She had something that attracted men, that’s for sure. And she had the mental thing—three months in a loony bin. She liked her fun, she had a healthy sex drive, she took a few men home with her. She wanted more—more glamour, more money maybe, something to help get her past forty.”

  Ollie looked down at his hand and watched the fingers tighten and relax around the tennis ball. “Where are you going with it from here?”

  “Thought I’d start with the victim’s mother,” McGuire replied, slipping his notebook into his jacket and standing up. “She’s been dead for years, but maybe something happened while she was living in San Antonio, something we can use.”

  “Nice place, San Antonio.” Ollie turned his head back to the window. “Went there once to bring back a crazy dude about twenty years ago. Middle of March. Colder than a witch’s tit when we left here. Snow and sleet everywhere. Arrive in San Antonio and it’s hot and dry, people walking around in shorts eating ice cream.”

  At the door, Ronnie helped McGuire into his winter coat. “He’s thinking
about that case of yours all the time,” she whispered. “He calls me during the day and talks about it. He has me make notes and read them back to him, over and over.” She touched the lapel of his coat absently.

  McGuire nodded and brought his lips to her forehead.

  At the end of the walk, he turned to wave to her as she watched from behind the storm door, the snow falling silently between them.

  Driving home, McGuire remembered Janet’s warning about being followed. He exited at Charlestown, turned into a side street, accelerated quickly to the next block, turned right when he was almost through the next intersection, switched off the headlights and pulled quickly to the curb.

  For five minutes he sat watching the empty street behind him in the rearview mirror before shifting into gear again and making a fishtailing U-turn in the gathering snow to head home.

  The next morning dawned clear and dazzling white. McGuire stood at his window, finishing his third cup of coffee and watching Boston University students toss snowballs at each other. He set the cup aside, reached for the telephone and dialled the direct line to Ralph Innes at Berkeley Street Police Headquarters.

  “Hey, big guy!” Innes almost shouted over the line when he heard McGuire’s voice. “Jeez, if you don’t make it to Hutch’s soon they’ll lose their Kronenbourg franchise, I swear to God!”

  “What’s going on?” McGuire asked.

  “Business or personal?”

  “Start with the personal, what the hell.”

  “Joe, I admit it. I took a date home last night for dinner. Broad was so ugly I made her sit in a corner and fed her with a slingshot. I’m telling you, it’s getting tough to find a good­ looking woman in this town who isn’t married, knocked up, or just changed her name from George to Georgette.”

  “Anything else?”