by Linda Barnes
“Sue me. I thought I mentioned it. We were late—I told you that—’cause my fat partner hates to hustle. Well, the fire guys were late, too, ’cause they were all to hell and gone chasing their tails out to Somerville.”
He planted his feet and leaned back on my sofa, grinning, and I didn’t think he’d go away unless I tossed him some kind of bone. “Look, you were doing Kevin O’Shea a favor.”
“Yeah. And a lot it got me.”
“You could do yourself one.”
“Yeah?”
“You could find out about Dowling’s car. Black TransAm. Mass plates. I can give you the plate number.”
“I can find it.”
“I’m sure you can. If it turns up in a tow lot, I’d appreciate a call.”
“And then?” He licked his lips. He was trying to be serious, but he looked like a puppy who wanted to play.
“And then I might be able to give you another lead.”
“Is there anything else you can tell me now?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Watch out for Roz. She’ll break your heart.”
“It’s okay.” He gave me a wider grin. “I’m a cop. I don’t have one.”
“Call me if you find the car.”
“Call me if you want to have a little chat.”
I ushered him out the door, then kicked off my heels and peeled down my panty hose while still standing in the foyer.
“I’m a cop,” he’d said. “I don’t have one.” The words seemed to echo and reverberate in the small space. Did I still have a heart? I hadn’t called Leon, and I wondered if it was over already, over before it had really begun. I wondered what Sam Gianelli would be doing this evening while I changed into something more comfortable. More comfortable—unless I heard from the rookie cop that the TransAm had been found—for breaking into Dowling’s garage.
CHAPTER 21
I considered wearing all black, top to toe, face mask, the whole deal. I really did. Maybe if it had been winter, maybe if it had been New York. But for Somerville, I figured my best disguise was looking like a totally ordinary person on the street. I didn’t have to debate long. Jeans, sneakers, navy hoodie over navy T. My height’s not a problem; I don’t stick out on the street unless I want to. My hair can be a problem, so I brushed it straight, restrained it with a scrunchy, and plunked a Red Sox hat over it. The ultimate disguise. Officer, stop that thief! What thief? The one in the Sox cap. In Times Square, at La Guardia, a Sox cap might stand out. Near Davis Square, it’s camouflage.
It would have been better if I’d had a buddy to stroll with, a guy to walk with hand in hand. Who looks twice at strolling lovers? Well, I wasn’t going to invite an FBI agent to accompany me on the night’s prowl, so I shoved that regret to the back of the deck.
I parked my car about eight blocks from my destination, and lucky I was to find a legal slot so close. It was past midnight, but porch lights were still on to discourage burglars, occasional cars circled to find spaces, and the never-sleeping students passed in tight knots, bound for the Davis Square subway or one of the bars. I navigated my way toward the house where Benjy Dowling had lived, not too fast, not too slow. Walk too slow, you’re a potential victim; too fast, you draw the eye, as well. Walking too fast at night makes you look nervous, like you’re scared of the shadows, maybe like you’re carrying too much cash.
My chief worry was passing patrol cars. Drivers at night look straight ahead; it’s only cops who give the street the real once-over, who regularly swivel their eyes side to side to take in all the action. If Roz hadn’t pissed me off by trifling with the cop in my living room, I might have asked her to come along and watch my back. Too late now. What the hell, the street was lightly traveled; I’d treat all vehicles as though they might be cop cars. Better that way. Even Somerville has a few unmarked units.
I abandoned the sidewalk when I came to the house directly behind Dowling’s, took to the driveway I’d explored earlier, and vaulted the fence that separated the two yards. Easy and uneventful. No dogs. I reached into my backpack and made sure my cell phone was off. I didn’t want it playing a C scale at an indelicate moment.
The garage lock was not a problem. I’d checked it previously; I’m good with locks. I was worried about the door, about the possible—no, the likely—squeak. I hadn’t heard it raise a ruckus the night I’d watched Dowling open it in the pouring rain, but that night the rain had been bucketing down, obscuring noises. I’d brought a spray can of WD-40, but that wouldn’t ease the initial groan. The way the garage was built, I’d have to lift the door high, then roll under it in order to gain access to the creaky springs.
I studied the back of Dowling’s building, imagining Mr. and Mrs. Hooper safely in bed after a yummy dinner of barley soup. Mrs. Maguire, on the second floor was the one so concerned about the cockroaches. Her lights were out and I pictured the little critters scurrying around her kitchen, partying with her condiments.
As I began easing down the driveway toward the front of the garage, a Somerville cop car cruised slowly by. I pressed myself into a niche behind the chimney of 157 Claremont. Oh bliss. The chances of another cruiser coming down this narrow street in the next half hour? Slim to none. I counted slowly to ten.
One of the things some thieves don’t think about is light. I’d already scoped the neighborhood and knew the location of the closest streetlamp. It was two and a half houses down, distant enough that the garage door area stayed dark, which was good for all purposes except cracking the lock. To that end, I carried a pencil flash cleverly adapted to clip onto a belt buckle. A thief showed me the technique. Most door locks are just about waist level. You pop the flash into position and stand on your toes or bend your knees to aim the thin beam.
I did. Dowling hadn’t shown area burglars much respect with his choice of locks. Really, my high school locker’s combination lock had been about as good as the thing on the garage door. It took me under two minutes, and that’s not bragging, because a real thief would have been home in under a minute.
There was a good chance that even if Mr. or Mrs. Hooper heard the garage open, they’d simply roll over and go back to sleep. After all, Dowling had opened it in the middle of the night, with no reaction from the first-floor tenants. It wasn’t an inherently alarming sound, unless one of them recalled that their tenant was dead and wouldn’t be opening any more garage doors, middle of the night or high noon.
I took a deep breath and shoved upward. Crack. Creak. Groan. It was bad, and I stopped with the edge no more than ten inches off the ground and kicked my waiting backpack into the gap to hold the weight of the door. I’d loaded it with heavy books as well as burglar’s tools for the purpose. I lay flat and inched under the door. Once inside the garage, I used my flash to locate the working parts, sprayed them with faithful WD-40, removed the backpack, and lowered the door.
Easier said than done. The sudden flurry of tasks left me breathing hard. I listened for approaching footsteps, any alarm on the street. Hearing nothing, I released a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. City people haul up the window and yell, “What the hell ya think yer doin’ out there?” before taking drastic steps like calling the cops. Ya call a cop, the night’s sleep is ruined. It could take ’em forever just to show up, and besides, it’s only kids out for a lark, they think, did the same when they were young.
The dark was oppressive, the air utterly still. I was inside a closed black box, crouched, waiting, listening, my leg muscles tensed. If I heard footsteps, if someone opened the door, I’d be down the street as fast as my legs could move. This wasn’t a situation I wanted to try to explain.
No one came and my legs slowly relaxed. I swallowed and tried to moisten my lips with a dry tongue. After three more counted minutes, I opened my backpack and removed a larger flashlight.
I already knew the car wasn’t there. I’d stuck out my foot in the darkness, waved a fully extended arm, felt nothing. The kayak was also a no-show. There were boxes, cardboard cartons, a small workbench, a
Peg-Board hung with hand tools. A rusty kid’s bike, a battered red wagon, a pogo stick. Two cans of old paint, one unused. A semiflat soccer ball, a vintage badminton set, a dead mouse, dirt, leaves, and cobwebs.
I opened every box. Most were cartons for stereo components and contained the foam imprint of whatever gizmo they’d once contained. I untaped the cardboard cartons and sorted through old clothes and clutter. I found a carton filled with papers and my heart took a leap, but on closer examination they turned out to be nothing but the Hoopers’ ancient tax returns. I didn’t find anything a person might have been blackmailed over, or any blackmail notes. I didn’t find any money. I didn’t find anything that looked like it might have belonged to Benjy Dowling.
I stood and played the flashlight beam over the floor. I couldn’t read footprints, but there was a pattern of sorts. Oil stains where the car had once stood, leaves and dirt surrounding the outline of the car, surrounding the boxes. On the left side of the garage, a spot maybe two feet by two feet looked like it had been swept with a broom. Maybe that was where Dowling had stored his things. Gone now, swept away.
I had nothing to show for my night’s labor aside from filthy clothes and cobwebby hair. I returned the large flashlight to my backpack, set the pack in position for a replay of the garage opening and closing trick. The WD-40 made my exit less noisy than my entrance. No car lights caught my less than graceful retreat. The Hoopers lights stayed off.
During the walk back to the car, the backback felt like it was loaded with bricks, not books, and it was hard not to hurry. I passed two men going in the opposite direction. They smelled of beer and cigarette smoke, and one ventured a smile. I didn’t return it.
I drove conservatively, parked deep in my driveway, and went in the back door. The dishes had disappeared from the kitchen sink. Roz must be trying to get back in my good graces, I thought. I opened the fridge, thinking I’d have some milk, or maybe orange juice. I smelled Leon’s aftershave just as he came up behind me. He placed a hand on my shoulder.
“Roz let me in.”
“I hope she didn’t take advantage of you,” I said dryly.
“I’m saving myself for you. Assuming we’re still speaking.”
“If that’s the price, we are. But you might want to back off till I shower.”
He massaged my shoulders, then ran his right hand the length of my spine. Cool air spilled out of the refrigerator, but I realized I wasn’t thirsty after all.
“Room for two in the tub,” I said, grateful it wasn’t one of Paolina’s nights.
He didn’t remind me of my father or my ex. He didn’t ask where I’d been, didn’t ask how I’d smudged dirt over the back of my sweatshirt and jeans, simply helped me shed them quickly and get under the warm spray. One thing I’ve got in my aged house is a modern showerhead, a handheld gizmo that doubles as a sex toy when you’re not washing alone. I love fooling around in the tub. Water is my comfort zone, my element. Broke as I may be, there’s always bubble bath tubside. Bath brushes and fancy sponges, too.
I washed Leon’s hair and he washed mine, carefully loosening the tangles. We compared battle scars: His, on his abdomen, was from appendix surgery; mine, on my left thigh, was from line of duty. He had bite marks on his left arm from line of duty, and he told me the story, making it a lot funnier than it must have been at the time. We laughed and took our time with each other, didn’t rush. It was good and slow and easy, and I never thought about Sam. Well, maybe once, later, in bed, when he spooned in close and kissed the nape of my neck.
I thought I’d sleep like a stone, but I was restless, reviewing the day, wondering whether I should have called Chaney, warned him that Fording knew or suspected. Tomorrow morning, I’d call Geary, find out if he’d gotten the police report on Dowling’s accident, get the lawyer to find out what he could about the lawsuit Fording had mentioned and why Denali’s family had bowed out of it. I was disappointed that I’d found nothing in Dowling’s garage; I’d need to go through what I’d taken from his apartment again. Maybe Leroy had noticed something I hadn’t. And there was something else, something hovering at the fringe of my memory, tantalizingly close but elusive, taking shape one second, infuriatingly shapeless the next.
“Relax,” Leon murmured.
“Have you ever had a case where the facts keep whirling around and around and you can’t—”
“I try not to bring my work to bed.” He rolled slowly onto his side, hoisted himself on one elbow, and said, “Yeah, I know what you mean.”
“So what do you do?”
“I sleep with a good-looking woman. Helps me relax.”
I smiled. “Maybe women are more relaxing than men. Ever think of that?”
“No.” He leaned over me, his teeth white against the darkness of his skin. “Hey, babe, what I do, I get my mind off it, go at it sideways, like a crab. Let your mind wander; go to sleep.” He put his lips on mine to end the conversation.
Still, I couldn’t sleep. I let my mind wander, tried to think of something other than Dowling’s death, Chaney’s peril, and wound up thinking about men, thinking about sex, thinking about techniques and differences and similarities. Same basic equipment, same basic urges; the same parts go the same places, and yet … There are times when you go through the paces, hoping the fire will spark, and then there are the breathless moments when both of you are on the same page, playing the same note. Leon and I were good together. But Sam, sometimes with Sam, it wasn’t simply playing the same note; it was harmony. Close and intricate harmony.
I was thinking about him when it came to me, sideways, like a crab: false alarms.
CHAPTER 22
I came awake with the same glimmer at the back of my mind, false alarms, and rolled over with a strange sense of urgency, prompted not by an event but a memory. The night the Cambridge Fire Department recovered Denali Brinkman’s burned corpse from the partially finished boathouse addition, aid was delayed because equipment was tied up responding to false alarms. Danny Burkett had said so; I was sure of it. And when I’d asked Gloria about police-band activity the night Benjy Dowling died, she’d remarked on the unusual number of false alarms, all the damned false alarms. …
I was alone in bed. The pillow next to mine was dented, the sheet thrown back. Leon’s clothes were gone, no longer piled on the chair, pant legs dragging on the floor. I sighed, showered, and dressed, reacting against yesterday’s meet-the-lawyer suit with jeans and a white scoop-neck T. Instead of panty hose, I chose sandals. I keep a good black suit jacket and black low-heeled pumps in the car. Add the jacket, substitute the heels, and there aren’t many places I can’t go.
I caught the scent of coffee, faint and tantalizing, and let my nose lead me downstairs. False alarms … I didn’t know how frequent they were, or whether the Boston area was currently experiencing a false-alarm epidemic, but the coincidence ate at me.
Leon, dressed in neat khakis and subdued plaid shirt, was in the kitchen, peering into the refrigerator. His jacket was slung over the back of a chair. The coffee—takeout in white Styrofoam—smelled wonderful.
“Bless you, thank you.” I removed the top from a container with difficulty. He’d brought four huge cups, but as far as I knew, we weren’t expecting company. Logy from the night’s half sleep, I thought I could probably down three on my own.
“Damn,” he murmured, head still in the fridge. “I was going to make you my world-famous scrambled eggs. I put chives in ’em, cream cheese, too.”
“No eggs?” The chance of chive or cream cheese, I knew, was remote.
“Two cartons. That’s what fooled me. One’s dead empty and the other’s got one measly egg sitting in the corner. Cracked, too. Your milk’s sour, and the butter—well, I wouldn’t use it to grease a cookie sheet.”
I mumbled something about the case keeping me busy.
“I can understand running out of coffee, but how can you—”
“Leon, hey, I appreciate the thought, but if you’re planning to ma
ke scrambled eggs here, you have to shop first. That’s the way it plays.”
“Do you even know what you’ve got in the kitchen?”
Yes, I know what I’ve got in my kitchen. I have whatever the hell Roz buys. She’s erratic, I’ll be the first to admit, but I’m not fussy. There are basics, like cinnamon-raisin bread, Paolina’s favorite, and slices of Swiss cheese, which she nibbles carefully around each hole, preserving a latticework until the slice collapses. If there’s no orange juice, I’m grumpy; no peanut butter, Roz can’t survive. As for the rest, it’s catch-as-catch-can, and I do a lot of takeout. Usually, there are eggs. Leon was looking at me like I’d flunked seventh-grade home ec. Truth is, I opted for wood shop instead.
“There’s probably some cold cereal—shredded wheat or something.”
“With no milk? There’s stuff in there with sell-by dates older than you are.”
“Leon, why are you going through my refrigerator?”
He glared at me. “I wanted to make you breakfast.”
The false-alarm business was pounding in my brain. “I’ve got stuff to do this morning. I’m not interested in—”
The phone shrilled, interrupting words I’d have regretted later. I grabbed the receiver off the wall and marched it into my office.
“Chaney’s been taken into custody.” Todd Geary sounded flustered, a quality I’m never prepared for in a lawyer.
“When? What happened?” I sank into my desk chair.
“Margo just called. Two plainclothes officers were at their door a little after eight. They asked questions. She doesn’t know what; Wilson wouldn’t let her stay in the room, said it might upset her. She tried to listen in, but she didn’t hear much. They took him to headquarters.”
“Cambridge police? Boston police?” I picked up a pencil.
“Boston.”
“Has he phoned you?” There was no notepad. Where the hell had I put it?
“No.”
“You figure they’re just harassing him?” Maybe the telephone caller had come in and given them a stronger ID, yanked Chaney’s photo from a six-pack.