I forced a laugh. “They’ll never buy it.”
“I look like your dead wife, right? Enough to stop you in your tracks that first day at the Beacon. People who knew her see me, they’ll buy it.”
“The woman I’m seeing now. She’s an assistant DA in Suffolk.”
Hagan said, “Jesus.”
I said, “She won’t buy it.”
“We’ll take that chance. Give me the gun, Neil.”
Hagan didn’t move. I waited till Liz got impatient and turned toward him. I pushed backward off the floor hard with both feet, toppling over and tumbling against a table before I got oriented and lunged for the rear stairs.
Rendall screamed, “Shoot him! Shoot him, you idiot!”
I heard a scuffle as I climbed the stairs on all fours, then two shots. The first splintered wood over my head. The second smacked me in the right heel, sending me sprawling at the top step. A third bullet snuffed out a light fixture at the doorway as I heaved myself through it and onto her screened porch deckside.
Hearing someone rushing up the steps behind me, I tried to use the right foot. Numb, it wouldn’t support my weight, and in the near dark, I couldn’t tell if I was badly hurt. I tried it anyway, crashing through a screened panel. Grabbing to break my fall, I gripped and pulled free the spear gun assembly from the gangway next to the porch.
Rolling onto my back, I nocked both slings into the notches on the metal shaft, extending just as Liz came onto the porch. She raised a hand as a shield against the setting sun and fired, the crack of the shot jolting me into pulling the trigger on the spear gun. I felt her slug thump into the bulwark behind me, but I could see where the shaft went.
Gurgling and bellowing, Liz fell to the deck and flailed wildly, the bolt through her throat, the blood cascading between her splayed fingers and onto her blouse. Hagan filled the hatchway, then dropped to his knees, helpless beside her. She was wrenching at the bolt now, the pain keeping her from pulling it free. Liz scrabbled to him, clenching the material of his pants and jacket as she tried, once and unsuccessfully, to climb up off the deck. Then she shuddered twice, and the only sound was Hagan sobbing and a car approaching, brakes squeaking on the dock below.
I edged up so I could look down on Hogueira’s round face. Manos and two other officers I’d never seen before elevated their weapons to cover me.
I said, “You’re a little late.”
Hogueira said, “Traffic was terrible.”
The two new officers clambered up the gangplank and around the gates while Manos kept his gun on me.
I said, “It couldn’t be that having me dead made your case against Hagan stronger, could it?”
Hogueira pursed his lips and shrugged.
Twenty-three
THE BULLET THAT hit my foot put me more in need of a cobbler than a surgeon. Hogueira kept me at the station only a couple of hours. He said he thought Cardwell and the DA could wait until morning so long as I gave him my word I wouldn’t leave the city. He even let me use his office telephone to make two calls: Nancy to assure her I was okay and Emil Jones to confirm a room at the Crestview.
It was about 10:45 P.M. when a cruiser took me back to my Prelude on The Quay.
He seemed surprised to see me. Not the “My God, you’re alive!” look. No, more the “Gee, I didn’t know you were still in town” look. We went into the living room, where he used the remote to turn off the television.
I said, “Mark doing paperwork tonight?”
“I believe so.”
“And partner Cronan home sick again?”
A broad grin. “Relapse, poor guy.”
“I’d tell you what happened tonight, but I’m sure you already know more about it than I do.”
Schonstein resettled himself in the wheelchair, neither hand holding the Browning. “Son, I don’t know what you’re jabbering about.”
“How about we just cut the shit and talk it out, okay? I’m not wearing a wire, and my guess is Hogueira is happy to have half a loaf in Hagan without chasing after you. So why not tell the truth, huh?”
“The truth. Why the truth?”
“Change of pace for you. I spent a lot of time this afternoon putting the pieces together and coming up with Liz Rendall, or Cassy Griffin, take your pick, and your protégé Neil Hagan. And it all worked out, except for one thing.”
“Oh, and what was that?”
“Well, Hagan couldn’t have gotten close enough to Jane Rust to poison her, because she didn’t trust him. She practically accused him of murder in my office the afternoon of the day she died. So that made Liz the one who killed Jane.”
“Never would have thought it.”
“Liz might have had the strength to outwrestle a drunken Coyne and stab him, but there’s no way she could have fooled a derelict who witnessed it into thinking she was a ‘biggish dude.’ On the other hand, the killer crawled over to Coyne, then after the tussle, got up with a knife sticking out of his leg and limped away.”
“And you think that was Neil.”
“No. I thought that was Neil. The problem is that in his office last week, I brought up the Meller boy’s death. Hagan was genuinely upset about it, even after all these years. What happened on the boat tonight convinced me. Hagan’s paralyzed about killing. After accidentally ending Meller’s life, Hagan can’t intentionally take another, even somebody like me who really threatens him.”
He rocked his head back and forth once. “That’s very good, son. I told you once I’d have to keep my eye on you. And you’re proving me right. Go ahead, finish it.”
I felt an unsavory sensation of pleasure, as though I really were presenting all this to get Schonstein’s professional approval. My stomach turned over. “If Hagan couldn’t kill me even though I threatened him, I can’t see him killing Coyne. Or searching Gail Fearey’s house that night. Or trying to run me down on a bridge. Or drowning a derelict in a rain puddle.”
“That last one, the bum, now that could have been an accident, you know.” He rubbed his palms down his thighs, hips to knees. “Anyway, you sure can’t be thinking I did those things?”
“Because of your legs?”
“That’s right.”
“Which is the higher retirement, regular or disability?”
Schonsy grinned.
“You took a brick in the face for your partner a long time ago. Why not a fall down some stairs for a higher pension?”
“Don’t matter why I took the fall. Because of the fall, I couldn’t very well do the things you mentioned.”
“Oh, I’m sure you were injured. Just not as badly as some medico certified to the retirement board. You have something on the doctor? Even on the board members?”
“It’s your story. You tell it.”
“Disability’s not a bad way of life. Just have to restrict yourself here and there around town. Take a vacation once in a while, kick up your heels at a safe distance. Plus it gives you opportunity without suspicion.”
“Disability’s a hard thing to live with, son. But a harder thing to take away. Especially without proof. And you haven’t got any.”
“I know.”
“Then what do you think you’re doing here? Scaring me into confessing to something I didn’t do?”
“No. Just letting you know that I know. The guy who killed Coyne supposedly got up with a knife in his leg. People don’t do that, the pain of the blade grating and tearing would be unbearable. But a man who wanted to cover an already existing limp could rig something. Especially a man who used to do magic tricks for kids.”
“They got trick knives like that in the catalogs. Anybody could order one through the mails.”
“The man who tried to run me down was an experienced driver, a professional at handling a high-speed car. Like a former cop.”
“The staties get to do most of those car chases. Not us poor townies.”
“The man who drowned Vip could have gotten a call from Liz, telling him I was going to meet Vip behind Bun�
��s. That man also might know that the authorities rarely think deaths from different causes are related. Knifing, poisoning, driving, drowning, all different.”
“You thinking about trying one of those ‘causes’ on me?”
Schonstein had managed to slip his hand under the blanket. I said, “No. No, I’d like to, but I’d never get away with it.”
Schonsy sighed amiably. “Alright. What’s your angle?”
“No angle. You’ve got a lot of juice in this town. Some of it got drained off tonight, but not so much that Hogueira’s going to try to buck you, especially if Hagan just clams up.”
“Neil won’t say a word.”
“Assume he doesn’t. That means you just might have enough juice left to think about coming after me. Formally, because I killed Liz Rendall tonight, and a DA might try to make it look like more than self-defense. Or informally, like an apparently overeager mugger a month or two from now. I’m just letting you know that anything like that happens, and you and I go toe to toe. Even if you beat me, you won’t come away with enough to keep Hogueira and the other wolves off you afterward.”
He watched me for a solid thirty seconds. “Done.”
“I wasn’t offering a deal.”
“Sure you were, son. And one that makes sense for both of us. Drink?”
Standing, I said no, and moved to the door.
Behind me, Schonstein said, “You know the trouble with Neil? You’re right about him. He didn’t have the balls to kill anybody after the Meller thing.”
My hand on the knob, I said, “And you consider that a weakness, don’t you?”
“Yeah, son, I do. What’s eating you, though, is that you think the same thing. A flaw you know you don’t share. Yes, I could have taken you a long way, Cuddy. All the way to the top.”
I left before he told me more things I didn’t want to hear.
The light was on in the office. I parked the car in the space for Unit 18 and walked back.
I opened and closed the door, but nobody was behind the desk. “Emil?”
His head snaked around the corner. “Sorry. Didn’t hear you come in. Got the Sox on the tube. They’re in Oakland, and it just started. Wanna watch?”
“I’m pretty beat. Can I just have a key?”
Jones said, “You look like hell.”
He was probably right there.
“John Cuddy, you eaten anything tonight?”
I hadn’t. “Don’t go to any trouble.”
“No trouble at all. Got some frosties in the fridge, and a couple of Sal’s Depth Charge subs in the oven. Picked ’em up just after you called for the room.”
I went in and sat down on and into an easy chair. It felt as though I was never getting up again.
Emil uncapped two Killian’s and handed one to me. “I owe you for introducing me to these.”
He adjusted the TV so that it was equally viewable from both chairs. Sinking into his, Jones said, “So, how was your day?”
Turn the page to continue reading from the John Cuddy Mysteries
One
PART OF IT started as a dare, sort of.
I was thinking how Massachusetts is crazy about giving its citizens days off for events it’s not really observing. For example, the third Monday in April is known as Patriots’ Day. Supposedly, the Commonwealth closes down to honor those who served in war. Actually, it just excuses us from work for the Boston Marathon. I once warned a friend who’d called me from Texas, a diehard Dallas Cowboys fan, that he’d have a tough time arriving here on Patriots’ Day. Awed, he said, “Y’all have a holiday for your football team?” In fact, Suffolk County alone sets aside March 17 for the Wearing of the Green. The Irish pols neutrally dubbed that one “Evacuation Day,” commemorating the momentous afternoon the colonists kicked the British troops out of Boston harbor. I’ve never mentioned Evacuation Day to the Texan; I’m afraid of what he’d think we were celebrating.
Nancy Meagher said, “God, it’s freezing!”
She was standing in front of me, my arms joined around her. Or, more accurately, around the tan L. L. Bean parka over bulky ski sweater over long johns that she was wearing. On a brutal Saturday evening in early December we were waiting with forty thousand other hardy souls on Boylston Street, across from the elevated patio of the Prudential Center, for the lighting of the Christmas tree. A fifty-foot spruce is given to the city of Boston each year by the province of Nova Scotia. The gift commemorates something else, but without a masking holiday, I can never remember what it is.
A man on an accordion platform was adjusting a camera and klieg lights. Several hundred smarter folks watched from inside the windows of the Pru Tower or the new Hynes Convention Center. The smell of sausage and peppers wafted from somewhere near the Paris Cinema.
Nancy said, “Unconscionable.”
“Sorry?”
“It is unconscionable not to start on time when it’s this cold.”
Hugging Nancy a little tighter, I looked around at our immediate neighbors. High school and college kids, not dressed sufficiently for the temperature, stamping their feet and stringing together ridiculous curses in the camaraderie of youth. Parents more my age, rubbing the mittened hands of their kids or wiping tiny red noses with wads of tissues pulled from pocket or handbag. A couple of cops in earmuffs, standing stoic but watchful. The crowd was well behaved so far, but occasionally you could hear coordinated shouting. If the Japanese restaurant behind and below us could have put up sake to go, they’d have made a fortune.
The weather really afflicted Nancy, but I was wearing just a rugby shirt under my coat and over my corduroy pants. Some Vikings must have come over the wall in my ancestors’ part of County Kerry, because I rarely feel the winter.
To take Nancy’s mind off it, I said, “You know, this is where the finish line used to be.”
“The finish line?”
“Of the marathon.”
No response.
I said, “The Boston Marathon?”
She cricked her neck to frown at me. Black hair, worn a little longer since autumn, wide blue eyes, a sprinkling of freckles across the nose and onto both cheeks. “Not all of us are day-labor private investigators, John Cuddy.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning I’ve lived in this city all my life, and I’ve never once seen the marathon in person.”
“You’re kidding?”
“It’s too cold to kid.”
“But the marathon’s a holiday.”
Nancy shrugged off my arms. “When I was little, traffic was too snarled to come over here from South Boston. When I was in law school, I thanked God for the extra day and studied.”
“Nance, even the courthouse closes for the marathon. What’s your excuse now?”
“I never knew anybody stupid enough to run that far.”
“It’s not stupid.”
“It is.”
“Is not.”
She almost smiled. “’Tis.”
“’Tain’t. “
“I suppose you think you could run it.”
“I suppose I could.”
“John, you’re too big.”
“Six two and a little isn’t too big.”
“I meant you’re too heavy. The guys they show on TV are string beans.”
“One ninety and a little isn’t that heavy. Besides, I’d train down for it.”
“John, anyway you’re too …”
Nancy tried to swallow that last word, but I’d already heard it.
I said, “Too what?”
“Never mind.”
“Too old, is what you said. You think I’m too old to run the marathon.”
There was a feedback noise from an amplifier. Some “older” men were fiddling with a tall microphone on the patio under the tree. Then a male voice came over the public address system. “On behalf of the Prudential Center, I would like to welcome you to—”
The rest of his comments were drowned out by the swelling cheer of the crowd.
Over the roar I said into Nancy’s ear, “Now it’s down the street a couple of blocks.”
“What?”
“I said, now it’s down—”
“What is?”
“The finish line of the marathon. It used to be just about where we’re standing. But when Prudential decided to scale back its operations here, the John Hancock agreed to sponsor the race and moved the finish line down almost to the Tower.” I pointed to the Hancock, a Boston landmark of aquamarine glass now known more for its sky deck than for the four-by-ten windows that kept sproinging out and hurtling earthward just after it was built.
Nancy didn’t turn her head. “Fascinating. And still stupid.”
At the mike a priest delivered a longish invocation. I let my eyes drift over to the Empire Insurance building. My former employer. I don’t think Empire ever sponsored so much as a Little League team.
The priest was followed by our Mayor Flynn, who was blessedly brief in his remarks. Then the premier of Nova Scotia began an interminable speech that I couldn’t follow. Nancy huddled back against me.
About ten feet from us, four guys wearing Boston College varsity jackets started a chant. “Light the fuckin’ tree, light the fuckin’ tree.”
I laughed. Nancy muttered, “You’re contemptible.”
Finally, Harry Ellis Dickson, the conductor emeritus of the Boston Pops Orchestra, had his turn. He introduced Santa to much squealing and wriggling among the kids, many of whom were hoisted by dads and moms onto shoulders. Then Harry led the crowd through several carols. “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” “Joy to the World,” “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing.” Everybody knew the first few lines, most of us dah-dah-ing the rest.
Between carols Nancy sighed. “We’ve become a one-stanza society.”
Two slim figures in oddly modified Santa outfits danced up the steps of the patio.
Nancy said, “Who are they supposed to be?”
“Santa’s eunuchs.”
Again she shrugged off my arms. “I take it back. You’re beneath contempt.”
After a few more carols the star on top of the tree was lit, setting off a reaction in the crowd like the first firecracker on the Fourth of July. The long vertical strips of lights came on next. Then, beginning at the top, sequential clumps mixing red, blue, green, and yellow flashed to life, more a shimmer than individual bulbs, until the magic had hopped down the entire tree.
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