The Alex Shanahan Series

by Lynne Heitman

  I turned the calendar so that I could see the dates. “Did you tell Molly? Because she didn’t believe me.”

  “Yeah. Neither one of us can.”

  The calendar was from an insurance company, the kind they give out free every year. It had pictures of Massachusetts tourist attractions through the seasons. We were looking at November and Bunker Hill in the snow. Dan had penciled in the three-digit city codes for Ellen’s destinations throughout the year. Most corresponded with an ELS, Molly’s designation for Ellen, and an explanation of a dentist appointment or an off-site meeting or a personal day off. For some, she must have flown out that night and come back the next morning, because there was nothing on the calendar. No time lost.

  “Any pattern or interesting sequence?” I asked.

  “Nothing jumps out at me, but I’m working on it. My next step is to call the GMs in those stations.”

  “If she was sneaking around, flying under cover of another airline, it’s not likely she’d check in with colleagues while she was there.”

  “I know, but I don’t know what else to do.”

  “Is there any connection to the Beechcraft angle?”

  “I thought of that,” he said. “If there is, I can’t figure what it is, other than the fact that we fly them out of here. Big deal.”

  “You said she had questions about the Beeches. What kind?”

  “Like I said, a lot of questions about the cargo compartments, how much weight they can take, position of the fuel tanks, that kind of stuff. That’s why I made the connection to drugs.”

  “But we don’t think it was drugs, right? So what was it?”

  He shrugged.

  “Why don’t you try to find another copy of that Nor’easter procedures manual?” I said. “If we looked through it ourselves, maybe we can figure out what she was doing with it.”

  We stared at each other. We were glum. Stumped and glum. Finally, I reached for the calendar and pulled it into my lap. “When was her first secret trip?”

  He checked his list. “A little over a year ago. Not too long after she got here.”

  I leafed backward through the months, reading the various notations Molly had made and charting the station’s recent history in reverse. Besides Ellen’s travel days, there were employee birthdays and company anniversaries, retirement luncheons, and the annual Christmas party. September of last year had an entry in red with big arrows pointing to it. It was always an event when Bill Scanlon passed through your station.

  “You believe Ellen started her investigation a few weeks ago, right?”

  “A little longer, sometime before Christmas.”

  “If her first trip was over a year ago, then it’s hard to relate the travel to the investigation. In fact…” I flipped a few pages as the idea settled into my brain. I flipped a few more and I knew I was right. “What these look like to me are secret rendezvous, especially those ovenighters.”

  “What, like she was meeting someone?”

  “Someone she didn’t want anyone to know she was meeting.”

  “Why?”

  “What do you mean, why? Why does a woman usually have a secret rendezvous?”

  “You mean like she was having an affair? No way.”

  I knew I was right. It felt right, but I had to figure out a way to convince Dan without telling him that my conjecture was based on my own personal experience traveling through the shadow land of whispered conversations, furtive plans, and hidden destinations. “Dan, we’ve already established this woman’s ability to keep secrets. I think it’s very possible that she was hooking up with someone in these cities.”

  His pained expression, lips pursed and eyebrows drawn together, was one I was coming to recognize, because he displayed it every time we found out something about Ellen he didn’t know or like. He began to roll down his sleeves and button his cuffs. Something under his desk rattled when he bumped it with his foot. He kicked it impatiently and then again before he looked under the desk.

  “Oh, shit.” He checked his watch, then reached under and came up with an overnight bag. “I gotta get out of here.”

  “Where are you going?” As far as I knew, Dan didn’t travel anywhere except back and forth to Logan Airport.

  “Jersey. I’m going down to see my kid.”

  “Michelle.”

  “Yeah, I called her last night and told her I was coming. She’ll be waiting for me.” As he put on his jacket, he couldn’t stop grinning. It was an unabashed, I’m-crazy-about-this-kid-and-don’t-care-who-knows-it smile. “She’s a pisser. I can’t believe some of the stuff she comes up with.”

  I smiled, too, picturing a miniature female Dan racing around at Mach speeds, spewing invectives. “Does she talk like you?”

  It took him a moment to get my drift, but when he did, he was horrified. “No fucking way. I don’t swear around my kid.” He put his hand over his heart. “On my mother’s grave, she has never heard me cuss. Not once. Not my kid.”

  “If you say so.” He unzipped the bag and started loading in files and printouts. I snatched them all back, including the calendar. “I’ll take care of this.”

  “You sure?”

  “If you’re going to be with your daughter, be with her. And by the way, why did I have to hear about her from Lenny?”

  “I don’t know. It never came up.” He closed the bag and looked at me. “You got any?”

  “Kids? No.”

  “Ever been married?”

  “No.”

  “See that? I didn’t know that about you. It never came up.”

  I squeezed back into my shoes and followed him to the reception area. “Hold on, I’ll walk you to your gate.” I grabbed my coat and briefcase, closed up my office, and we started walking. It was hard to talk as we pushed through the crowded concourse, so I waited until we’d arrived at his gate. The agents on his flight were boarding stragglers, so I had a chance to tell him about my tete-a-tete with Big Pete. I kept my voice low so no one could eavesdrop.

  “Am I doing the right thing not bringing back Little Pete?” I asked.

  The bag thudded to the floor as he leaned back against one of the windows. “I think you’re doing the right thing—” He caught himself and started again. “I know you’re doing the right thing. The question is, can we deal with the consequences? And I’m not just talking about here in Boston. Have you talked this over with your boss?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “I’ll tell you what’s going to happen. Assuming we could even get Terry McTavish to talk and we can nail Little Pete in the first place, Lenny is going to find some way to make a deal with the union and bring him in through the back door. Lenny will be a hero and we’ll look like idiots.”

  “If we can prove that the guy was drunk on the job and physically attacked another employee, I can’t see how Lenny could bring him back, if for no other reason than self-preservation. Setting aside all the issues of moral responsibility and self-righteous breast beating, in terms of pure self-interest, knowing what we know—”

  “Suspect. What we suspect. Right now we can’t prove anything.”

  “You’re right, but if we get to the point where we can prove it, we would have no choice but to pursue his termination. And if Lenny was aware of the same facts, he’d be on the hook, too.”

  “You’re going to threaten him?”

  “I’m simply going to make him aware of all the facts. Maybe in writing.”

  “Sneaky, but be careful. Lenny has no problem looking out for his self-interest. It’s your interest I’d be worried about. He’ll find a way to get what he wants and blame all the bad stuff on you. He did it to Ellen over and over.” He checked the activity at the boarding door. “By the way, is next week soon enough on Angelo? I thought I’d call him when I get in on Monday.”

  “Monday’s fine,” I said. “I can’t wait to meet the famous Angelo. In my mind, he’s almost achieved mythic stature.”

  “What are you doing this weekend,
boss? Looking for apartments?”

  “No. And I won’t be having as much fun as you will. I’m going to keep an eye on the operation, and if I have time, I might also go back to Marblehead.”

  “You’re going back up?” He hoisted the bag onto his shoulder. “I thought you gave your word to Lenny.”

  “I only said I wouldn’t go into the house. I’m going to check out Ellen’s athletic club, talk to her trainer. If I’m reading her invoice correctly, she did a training session a few hours before she died, which seems odd to me. I’ve also got this mystery woman, Julia Milholland. If she ever calls me back, there might be something to do there.”

  He was grinning. “I knew you’d come around.”

  “I haven’t come around. I’m simply getting a few questions answered to my own satisfaction.”

  “Whatever you say.” The gate agent motioned to Dan. I walked with him through the boarding lounge.

  “One more thing,” I said. “Remember I showed you that fax I found on Ellen’s machine at her house? The one setting up a meeting? I faxed it back with a request for a meeting of my own.”

  “For when?”

  “Tomorrow night.”

  “Shanahan, you sure you want to do that alone? We don’t know who this is.”

  “If it was someone who was working with Ellen, giving her information, he could be helpful.”

  “What if it’s not that person? What if it’s the person who swiped the answering machine tapes? Ever think of that?”

  Actually, I hadn’t. “I set it up at a restaurant, so it’ll be crowded, lots of people around. Besides, he probably won’t even get the message. I thought it was worth a shot.”

  “We’ve got to go, Danny.” The gate agent was getting nervous.

  Dan went to the podium and jotted a phone number on an empty ticket jacket. “This is where I’ll be in Jersey. It’s my cousin’s place. I’ll be back no later than Sunday morning, but you call me if you need me. I’ll come back.”

  “Nothing’s going to happen, and I don’t want to take you away from your weekend with your daughter.”

  “Just take it, Shanahan.”

  I took the envelope. Then I followed him as far as the boarding door and watched him stroll down the jetbridge, chatting with the agent.

  “Dan…”

  He stopped and turned, while the agent kept going. “Yeah, boss?”

  “Have a great weekend with Michelle.”

  He was wearing that high-beam grin again as he turned to board the aircraft. He went off to see his little girl, and I went back to my hotel.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Marblehead was different in daylight. Twenty miles north of Boston, it was one of those classic New England seaside communities. It had the dense, layered feel of a European village with narrow, winding streets nestled among the hills and tall trees. The houses were immaculate, three-hundred-year-old clapboard boxes painted the perfect shade of peach or gray or blue or yellow with shutters to match, wreaths on the doors, and brick driveways with flowerpots. All of them. They looked more like museums than houses, and I had the impression that the people who occupied them lived among us but not of us, which, come to think of it, was not inconsistent with how Ellen had lived.

  A brunette, milky-skinned twenty-something named Heather was behind the counter at the Marblehead Athletic Club. When she saw me approaching, she laid two big, fluffy towels on the counter. This must be a good club. You could always tell by the quality of the towels. And since they had to be doled out by the staff and not left lying around for anyone to use, it must be a very good club.

  “What locker can I get for you?”

  “I’m here to see Tommy Kerwin. I have an appointment.”

  “Oh.” She whipped those towels back and secured them in a safe place behind the counter. “I’ll page him for you.”

  “Thank you.”

  Ellen’s personal trainer was in his twenties, a solid block of muscle in a forest green Marblehead Athletic Club T-shirt and black shorts. His build reminded me of those Rock’em Sock’em Robots, the kind where the head pops up when you hit them just right.

  “You have her same job,” he said, studying my card.

  “I have Ellen’s job, yes.”

  “Do you know why she killed herself?” I was glad to see genuine interest in his eyes and not morbid curiosity.

  “We’re trying to figure out why. That’s why I wanted to talk to you.”

  “Me?” His eyes widened as he handed the card back.

  “I think you may have been one of the last people who saw her that last day.”

  He shook his head emphatically. “I didn’t see her.”

  The invoice I’d found in Ellen’s mail was in my organizer. I pulled it out and pointed to the PT entry. “Doesn’t this mean she had a session with you that day? I took it to mean Personal Trainer.”

  He squinted as he studied the statement. “She was scheduled, but she canceled that afternoon. She just missed the cutoff by like a half hour and I had to charge her. It’s club policy. She understood.”

  “When was her appointment?”

  “Regular time, seven o’clock on Monday night.”

  “And what’s the cutoff?”

  “You have to cancel at least six hours in advance not to get charged.”

  Which meant she’d probably called from the airport sometime after one o’clock. “Did she say why she was canceling?”

  “No. I asked her if anything was wrong, because she hardly ever missed, and if she did, she always gave me a reason. Not that I needed one. She was paying me. Anyway, she said something had come up and she didn’t want to reschedule, but she’d call me later. That was it.”

  “How’d she sound?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, she did what she did only a few hours after you spoke to her. I wondered if she might have sounded depressed or sad or, I don’t know, anything out of the ordinary.”

  His face tightened as he seemed to consider for the first time his place in the sequence of events leading up to Ellen’s death.

  “She was maybe, I don’t know, distracted. It was hard to tell.”

  A sharp outburst ricocheted out of the racquetball court and bounced around the small lobby where we were seated. Tommy, a man of few words, was staring at me waiting for the next question, and I wished I was better at this sleuthing stuff. I didn’t know what to ask, or even what I was looking for. “What kind of a workout did she do?”

  “It was a killer,” he said, warming quickly to the new subject. “It would all be on her workout card in here.”

  I followed Tommy into the weight room, where two men and a woman were working through the Nautilus circuit and enduring the loud, pounding disco music that seems to be the required soundtrack at health clubs everywhere. While he searched a two-drawer file cabinet, I stood around feeling overdressed in jeans and a sweater.

  “Here it is.”

  I looked down at the stiff pink card he’d handed me. Tommy was right. Ellen’s workout had been a killer, with three reps of squats, leg presses, preacher curls, back extensions, lat raises, and lots more. She even did pull-ups. Twelve of them. On my best day I could maybe do three, and that was only with lots of grunting and cheating. “She worked hard,” I said.

  “No matter how hard I made it for her, she wanted more. And she did everything I gave her.” He pushed the drawer closed and leaned against the cabinet with his arms crossed. “When I read about her in the paper, that’s the part I couldn’t believe. Why would she work so hard to stay in shape, to stay healthy, then … do that?”

  I tapped the card with my fingernail. “I don’t know,” I said. But what I thought was that it was the same compulsion that drove her to work like a dog, to organize and label everything in her life, to try to be perfect in all things. Working out was just another way to try to achieve perfection.

  Tommy’s name came over the loudspeaker for a call on line one. He looked relieved t
o have an excuse to end the conversation.

  I held up the card. “Can I keep this?”

  “I guess. I’d just throw it away.”

  I thanked him, and while he found a phone, I headed out through the lobby and toward my car.

  “Excuse me, miss?” It was Heather calling from behind the front desk, catching me just as I hit the door. “Is someone going to clean out her locker?”

  The trainer was trying without luck to remove Ellen’s combination lock with a set of jumbo wire cutters. They’d sent a female trainer into the locker room with me, and she was not familiar with the tool. The longer she struggled, the more I wilted in the eucalyptus-scented humidity from the sauna. When the cutters slipped for the third time, I reached up and held the lock steady, albeit with the very tips of my fingers. Using both hands, she found the right leverage and, with a mighty squeeze, sliced through the thick metal hook. The lock fell away, I opened the door, and we both looked inside.

  “I’ll see if I can find you some sort of a bag,” she said.

  I started at the top and worked down. On the top shelf was a tray well stocked with tubes, squeeze bottles, Q-tips, cotton balls, combs. Her brush still had strands of her red hair. Hanging on hooks on the walls were sweat pants, T-shirts, and a couple of baseball caps. An old, faded sweatshirt turned out to be from Wharton, Ellen’s business school alma mater. In a strange way, I liked that it felt stiff when I pulled it out, and it smelled of dried sweat. Almost every other aspect of Ellen’s life for me was past tense, but the fragrance of running was so familiar that I could imagine the living Ellen in that sweatshirt, just in from a long, exhilarating run through a bright New England winter morning. Or an evening jog along the Esplanade.

  At the bottom of the locker was a pile of clean socks, a few running bras, and two pairs of neatly folded tights. When I reached down to pull the clothes out, my fingers scraped something hard, something that was definitely not wearable. I pulled it out. It was a video. A video? In her gym locker? And not just any old video. If the cover was any indication, it was pornographic—really pornographic. What in the world was she doing with this? And where was the actual video? When I picked it up, all I had in my hand was an empty box. I hoped to hell we weren’t going to find some dark and twisted corner of Ellen’s soul because I didn’t want to. I had started to like Ellen, at least the parts of her that I could see, and the parts that I could see were helping me understand the parts I couldn’t.