Haunted Hearts

by John Lawrence Reynolds

  “Flanigan’s dead. They found his body in the Charles River, a mile from the ocean. His lungs contained salt water. Myers drove his car to Weymouth and left it there. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “No,” she said. Then: “Yes.”

  “Don’t trust him,” McGuire said. “Whatever you do. Don’t believe anything Myers tells you, okay? Especially if it has anything to do with money.” McGuire turned for the door, then looked back. “If you can reach him, or get a message to him somehow, tell him to meet me at the State House, in the little park that surrounds it. I’ll be there this afternoon, from two o’clock on.”

  The tears flowed freely, and her chest heaved with sobs.

  “I’d like to help you,” McGuire said, his voice softening. “If you want me to stay or something. . . .”

  “No,” she said. “Please go.”

  “You thought I was from Baltimore, right?” McGuire said. “He’s had people come here from Baltimore, threatening you, maybe? Threatening your kids too?”

  “Please go away,” she said. She sank to the floor, the gun in her hand. “Please just go away.”

  McGuire opened the door and stepped into the freshening air. The breeze chilled him, and he realized he had been perspiring. His hands were shaking and, as he walked to the car, he told himself they were shaking not from fright but from anger, from a helpless rage he needed to defuse.

  He drove back into Annapolis and parked the car in the town square abutting the harbour. From a telephone booth near a seafood stall, he placed a collect call to Revere Beach, and heard Ollie’s raspy voice accept the charges through his speakerphone.

  “The hell you up to?” Ollie asked.

  “Planting some seeds.” He asked if Susan were there.

  “Sittin’ here listenin’ to me tell lies about you,” Ollie said. “’Course some of them ain’t lies. I’m lettin’ her guess which ones.”

  “Hi, Joe.” Susan’s voice sounded hollow and distant. “Are you all right?”

  McGuire assured her he was fine, and she made him promise to look after himself. Then he told Ollie and Susan about the waitress Eileen, about the bartender and the beer distributor, about Christine Diamond, and about using the Baltimore bookie’s name as bait to draw Myers.

  “You want a couple ideas?” Ollie asked.

  McGuire said sure.

  “One, if anybody’s been puttin’ pressure on those women, I’m bettin’ it’s Myers himself. He’s gettin’ somebody to do it for him, squeeze whatever he can. You know the drill, Joseph. Bookies and the muscle behind them, they don’t mess with girlfriends and kids. Not their style. They go after the bettor, get him to mess with the girlfriends and kids. Am I right? Susan, am I right about that?”

  “I think so,” he heard Susan say in a small voice.

  “What else?” McGuire said.

  “Susan and I’ve been talkin’, see.” Ollie paused, waiting for a reaction from McGuire. “I figure, from what she’s told me about the guy, he thinks he’s invincible. He pisses away over a half million . . .” Ollie’s voice sounded weaker, as though he had turned his head. “Sorry there, sweetheart,” McGuire heard him say to Susan. “Still got this thing about swearin’ in front of a good-lookin’ woman. Anyway, he gets to burn the money, and somebody else takes the fall for it. You catch him doin’ elbow push-ups on one woman, and he slides you off to another one, who he calls when you leave and gets to cover his ass for him.”

  “He’s cocky.”

  “In a manner of speakin’, yeah. Thinks you’re a bit of junk on the sidewalk he’s gotta step around on the way to his Caddy, and he’ll brush you off like dandruff.”

  “So what’s it mean?”

  “Means you got the son of a bitch right where you want him.”

  “He killed Flanigan.”

  “’Course he did. Flanigan wouldn’t go down to threaten Myers, even if he could find him any easier than you did. He went down to cut off Myers’s supply of cash, warn off whatever woman the creep was usin’ like he used Susan and some others. He figured this Diamond woman was the new patsy, and he was going to let her know what Myers is all about, tell her not to give him a penny.”

  “I could have done that myself. Or he could have put the local cops onto him.”

  “Not a chance. You didn’t know what was up, and Flanigan wasn’t ready to tell you, because it would have meant tellin’ all the stuff Susan put up with. He was protectin’ her, he promised not to let anybody else know about it. Susan told me that. And how’d he know what Myers was doin’ with this Diamond woman? Here’s a bet, Joseph. I’ll bet that Flanigan did a little diggin’ on his own, through business directories and stuff, and found out where the Diamond woman lived . . . what’s that?”

  Susan had said something to Ollie. Now she spoke louder, so McGuire could hear. “Who is this Diamond woman?”

  “Flanigan never mentioned her name?” McGuire said.

  “He just said he knew what Ross was up to now,” she said. “He never mentioned a woman’s name.” Susan lowered her voice. “I think he felt it was better if I didn’t know too much.”

  “Maybe Flanigan found out she was a widow, which would start bells ringin’ and lights goin’ on,” Ollie said. “Flanigan shows up, ready to keep Myers away from his latest meal ticket, which is the widow Diamond. Maybe Flanigan wanted to play like you do, and come back with proof that he was scammin’ somebody.”

  “He wanted to see Ross in jail,” Susan said. “He told me that. ‘He should be locked up for what he did to you,’ Orin said.”

  “If Flanigan’s going to cut off Myers’s supply of cash to pay Myers’s bookies, then either Myers gets rid of Flanigan or he’s liable to find his kneecaps in a different place from the rest of him, right?” Ollie said. “For a guy like Myers, it was an easy choice. All he’s got to do is get Flanigan alone somewhere, bop him on the head, and hold him under water.”

  “He puts Flanigan in the trunk of the car, drives to Boston, dumps him in the Charles, and gets picked up in Weymouth by the waitress.” McGuire was thinking of the dock at the rear of Christine Diamond’s house, and the salt water of Chesapeake Bay.

  “Joe, be careful.” It was Susan’s voice, closer to the speaker phone.

  “I’m meeting him out in the open,” McGuire said. “On the grounds of the State House. He won’t do anything there.”

  “If he shows up,” Ollie said.

  “Even if he doesn’t, I’ve got enough pieces to put the story together. I know where he got the name he gave me, calling himself Rollie Wade. That’s who I asked for when I came back that night, and the bar owner said he’s a good guy. Myers read the name off the beer distributor’s receipt, standing right in front of me. He’s doing something with Christine Diamond. She’s frightened out of her mind. And I know he’s around here, not down in Florida where Donovan’s looking. Although it sounds like he’s getting ready to move on. Whether he shows or not, I’m coming home tonight. I’ll turn everything over to Donovan and hope he’ll have sense to follow up on it. If he interviews the waitress, she’ll put Myers in Weymouth. That may be enough.”

  “You still haven’t said whether he’ll show,” Ollie said.

  “I’m betting he’ll come by to see what the offer’s about. He’s got nothing to fear from me. If he convinces himself there’s no trap, and he thinks I’ve got something that can help him, he might show. Maybe he’ll feed me something. Maybe not.”

  “You just want to look the guy in the eye, is what you want to do,” Ollie said. “You’re not as upset about poor Flanigan as you are about the scumbag makin’ you look like a dummy, sendin’ you off to his lay of the day, who brushes you off.”

  “Maybe,” McGuire said. Then: “You sure you’re okay?”

  “Hell, yes. I got a marine sergeant to change my diaper and a good-lookin’ woman to laugh at my
jokes. What the hell else does a man like me need?”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  McGuire spent the balance of the morning wandering through the old town, among the restored Colonial houses and window-shopping in stores on Maryland Avenue. He returned to the harbour area at noon, ate oyster stew and sourdough bread at a dockside restaurant, retrieved his rental car, and drove back to State House Circle.

  The Maryland State House sits on a hillock well back from the harbour, the proud old building perched like a red brick monument, surrounded by winding paths and small gardens extending down to the road, perhaps fifty feet below. Streets radiate out from State House Circle, leading to the harbour area, to the Naval Academy, and to upper-class residential areas.

  McGuire circled the State House several times, following the paths, his hands in his pockets but his eyes alert. From one side of the hillock he could look down Maryland Avenue towards the Academy Bar, and he watched the building from afar for several minutes before returning to the highest point of the hillock. He chose a bench with a clear view to both sides and down the slope to the street.

  He watched students from nearby St. John’s College wander past in their grungy attire, and naval cadets parade by in crisp whites with close-cropped hair like peach fuzz.

  At two-thirty he stiffened at the sight of a maroon De Ville cruising slowly along State House Circle. It disappeared towards Maryland Avenue, and when the Cadillac didn’t immediately return, McGuire swung his attention to a blonde woman who walked past, looking too carefully at McGuire. He sent her, McGuire told himself. She’s checking me out.

  Ten minutes later the De Ville was back, cruising from the direction of Maryland Avenue. It pulled to the curb in a no-stopping zone on State House Circle below McGuire.

  After a moment or two, the driver’s door opened and a clean-shaven man emerged, his fairish hair little more than a coating of fuzz on his scalp. He wore a black-and-white-checked jacket and black trousers over a white shirt open at the neck, the collar outside his jacket. McGuire felt his pulse quicken and spiders explore the back of his neck.

  Ross Myers closed the car door and looked around before circling the front of the car and smiling through the windshield at someone in the passenger seat. He looked up at McGuire and the smile grew broader as he began to ascend the path, his head constantly in motion, surveying everything and everyone around him.

  Ten feet from McGuire, Myers stopped and slipped a hand into his jacket. McGuire swung his weight forward onto his feet, prepared to move if Myers were armed. Myers withdrew not a weapon, but a gold cigarette case. Still gazing everywhere but at McGuire, he removed a cigarette from the case and placed it in his mouth, dropped the case back into his jacket, slid his hand to an inside pocket, and pulled out a gold Dunhill lighter. He brought the lighter to the cigarette, inhaled deeply, threw his head back, and exhaled. Then his eyes met McGuire’s.

  “What, you love this crummy town?” he said. “Can’t stay away?’

  “You got it,” McGuire said.

  “What’s this crap about Wachtman?” Myers’s eyes were moving again, here and there. When they settled for a moment on the Cadillac parked below them at the curb, McGuire followed their gaze to see the blonde woman smiling up at the two men from inside the car, her lemon-coloured hair falling in waves to her shoulders. The woman waved and Myers returned her greeting with a gesture of his hand. “You working for Wachtman now?” he said over his shoulder.

  “What’re you afraid of?” McGuire asked.

  Myers looked back at McGuire. “Afraid? Are you kidding me? Tell you one thing, I’m sure as hell not afraid of you. I asked around after you left. I remembered you from Boston. Big hero up there, weren’t you? Got your name in the papers, solving murders, playing the big shot. Then, when they kicked you off the force, you started popping pills, right? I got all the goods on you.” He brought the hand holding the cigarette to his mouth, speaking past it, and McGuire noticed a ruby ring on one pinkie finger.

  “You’re afraid, Myers,” McGuire said. “You came here because you thought there might be a chance of getting out from under the debt with your bookie, right? You saw me from the street, sent your newest woman friend up to check things out. You came damn close to having your kneecaps removed by your bookie’s hired muscle. Is that why you’re letting your hair grow back, shaved your little beard off?” McGuire sat against the bench, his arms extended along its top. “I’d say you’re getting ready to get the hell out of town.”

  Myers looked amused. “You gamble?”

  “Never.”

  “’Course you don’t. I can tell. Yeah, I had a little bad luck. But you ride that stuff out, every gambler knows that. You get a bad horse one day, you get a good one the next. That’s what it’s all about.”

  “Christine Diamond a good horse?”

  Myers looked away, tapping ash from the cigarette. “Yeah, Chrissie’s a good one. She sure fooled your ass, didn’t she? I went back, you know. Me and Eileen, after I called Chrissie from the bar and told her that you were some flunky out to borrow money from me. She said she’d blow you off, and then Eileen and I went back and finished what you interrupted, right there on the cloakroom floor. How’s that make you feel, jerk-off?”

  “The blonde in your car, down there. Is she a good horse?”

  “Go to hell.” Myers took a final drag on the cigarette and flicked the butt into the bushes.

  “And Susan Schaeffer,” McGuire said, rising from the bench. “She a good horse?”

  “Susan?” Myers examined the fingernails of one hand, sunlight catching small diamonds flanking the ruby of his pinkie ring. “How do you know Susan?”

  “I knew Flanigan, too.”

  “Never heard of him.” The response was too sudden. Myers dropped his hand and raised his head, finding something fascinating in the trees above and behind McGuire.

  “Sure you have. You arrived to see if I could really help you settle with Wachtman. But you came up here to find out how much I know about Orin Flanigan’s murder.”

  “I came for another look at a loser, that’s all.”

  “Did Orin tell you about me? Before you killed him? Orin was here to get some revenge for Susan, maybe get enough on you to put your ass in jail. Maybe to do a favour for Christine Diamond too.”

  “You seen her? Susan, you seen her around?”

  “Yeah,” McGuire said.

  “She must’ve just got out, right? How’s she look?”

  McGuire took a step towards the other man. “She was just another good horse to you, right?”

  “Naw.” Myers looked almost vulnerable. “She was okay.”

  “You son of a bitch,” McGuire said. “You better get a faster car than that piece of chrome down there on the street. And some track shoes and whatever else you need to run with, Myers. Because I’ll stay on your ass until it’s in jail, or until I take a hot iron and brand you right across the forehead with a big A for asshole.”

  “That’s why you’re here?” Myers looked at McGuire with new interest. “Because you got the hots for Susan?” He waved a hand in the air as though intent on catching a fly. “You got the wrong idea about women. You think a woman can do what I do?” Myers thrust his hands in his trouser pockets and leaned against a tree trunk, his stomach spilling over the edge of the waistband. “How many pimps did you bust as a cop? How many of them had two, three, more women peddling their asses on the street for them? I was never a pimp, never had to be. I just had women who wanted to do things to make me happy. If they want to believe all the stuff I lay on them, whose fault is that, huh? Whose fault is that?”

  He pushed himself from the tree as though to walk away, then stopped and looked back at McGuire.

  “You used to take dope, right? Prescription pills? Am I right?”

  Behind Myers, at the foot of the hill, a gray Volvo pulled to a stop behind
the Cadillac.

  “You think dope’s an addiction?” Myers took a step towards McGuire, an index finger pointing like a weapon at McGuire. “You know what the biggest addiction of all is? I’ll tell you. It’s money. It’s being rich.” He rubbed his index finger and thumb together. “It’s having money, all the money you ever need. It’s going to a casino and dropping more money in one night than jerks like you make in a year, sometimes making more money than you make in a year, and not giving a damn about it, either way.”

  McGuire saw the door of the gray Volvo open. A dark-haired woman stepped out wearing a buff-coloured trench coat and sunglasses.

  “You get a taste of it, and you never want to go back.” Myers was unaware of the arrival of the Volvo behind and below him. “You get on a plane, and once you turn left instead of right, once you go first class, up front with the champagne, maybe sitting with a good-looking broad wearing mink and diamonds, there’s no way you fly economy, you know what I’m saying here?”

  The woman in the trench coat looked up at McGuire and Myers, then walked past the Cadillac, glancing into the window as she passed.

  “And you know something else, McGuire? Some of us, not you, you loser, but some of us, that’s how we get to live. That’s the only way we live, because there’s no way none of us is ready to break our asses paying off a mortgage or driving some rusted piece of crap the rest of our lives, watching our wives gettin’ older and uglier. No way.”

  McGuire’s eyes shifted away from the base of the path, where the woman in the trench coat was approaching, and back to Myers. “I can prove you were in Weymouth, driving Flanigan’s car, a couple of days before his body was found. Not even Marv Rosen will save your ass from this one.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “The waitress at the bar told me. She picked you up and drove you back here, and she’ll testify against you.”

  “The hell she will. Broad’s in love with me.”

  “She’ll do it, Myers. Or face a charge of accessory in a first-degree murder.”