Swan Dive

by Jeremiah Healy

  I sat down again. “You ever hear of the National Labor Relations Board?”

  She smiled. “Paul’s position isn’t exactly unionized.”

  And my next line was supposed to be “And what exactly is Paul’s position?” but instead I said, “You and Paulie there are among the few people who knew Marsh and I had mixed it up.”

  “And therefore?”

  “Somebody who knew that set me up to look like his killer.”

  “Oh, John—”

  “I prefer ‘Mr. Cuddy.’ ”

  She took her glasses all the way off and stared at me. “Why?”

  “Maybe I’m not crazy about the way you treat people you call by their first names.”

  “You are a bit different, aren’t you?”

  “Let’s talk about Marsh instead.”

  “Why bother? He’s dead, so the divorce case is over.”

  “The murder case isn’t.”

  “Oh, a lot of people could have known about you and Marsh. His girlfriend the nurse, his friends—”

  “Assuming he had any—”

  “—the police, Christides, Hanna …” Arnold stopped.

  “Because Marsh had no will, Hanna gets everything, doesn’t she?”

  “Roy was rather stupid in a lot of ways, Mr. Cuddy.”

  “Tell me about them.”

  “Look, anyone who lives on the coast up here tends to hear stories.”

  “What kind of stories?”

  “About fishermen whose insurance rates have gone so high they can’t pay the premiums. But the banks that lent them the money to buy the boats won’t let them leave the docks without full coverage. The real estate developers are bidding wharf space so high God herself couldn’t keep up with it. So one night, one dark, rainy night, the lobsterman brings in a few bales instead of a few pots and clears in five hours what it’d take him five years to earn legitimately.”

  “Marsh wasn’t exactly your overwhelmed fisherman.”

  “Everybody has pressure on them. Marsh gave me a handsome retainer, Mr. Cuddy. In cash. Drugs? I didn’t ask. He would have settled, and I … Christides would have gotten Hanna a nice nest egg to start a new life. So instead you have to play El Cid with Roy, and he looks for love in at least one wrong place and ends up dead. Forever. If you just could have waited till he was over the spouse-lock, nobody—”

  “The spouse-lock?”

  “Yes. It’s a term some pop psychologists throw around. It means being fixated on the spouse you’re about to lose, or already have lost through death or divorce.”

  I couldn’t avoid thinking about Beth as Arnold went on.

  “Roy didn’t care about Hanna in the loving sense anymore. Maybe he never did. But he wasn’t about to let her go. Not until he was finished with her. I was like that with my husband. He died, out drinking with the boys and killed in a car crash. I was twenty-one years old. Fortunately we hadn’t started a family yet, and I damn well wasn’t interested in starting one without him. He had a whole-life policy that saw me through law school without any debts. That way I could start on my own, instead of for some potbellied lecher who was the only lawyer interested in hiring a ‘female associate’ back when I graduated. But I couldn’t get my husband off my mind for months afterwards, even though it was his fault that I was alone and without him.”

  I was still thinking about Beth when Arnold said, “Are you all right?”

  I said, “Yeah, fine.”

  “You look a bit weary. How about a drink?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Oh, come on. I’ll bet we have a lot in common.”

  I looked at her a little too long. “No, I don’t think so.” I stood to go.

  “At least bring me the drinks that Paul made.”

  I walked toward the pool edge. She said, “You know, Paul really couldn’t have had anything to do with ‘setting you up,’ as you say.”

  I thought about Chris giving him an alibi, but said, “And why’s that?”

  “Well, for one thing, he’s too proud of his boxing prowess. If it had been him, he would have made sure you had seen him, so you’d know that he had beaten you.”

  I bent over and picked up the drinks. “Any other reason?”

  “Yes. I litigated a lot of criminal cases before I gravitated to divorce practice. His attitude is all wrong. If he had done it, he already would have tasted his revenge and acted smug, not angry, toward you this afternoon.”

  I walked back, setting the glasses on her table.

  She said, “I liked the way you handled yourself with Paul today.”

  “Macho posturing.”

  She laughed, deep in her throat the way some older women can. “Macho posturing can have its place. And charms.”

  Her left hand had been lying relaxed on her flat stomach. Now the fingertips slowly began strumming near her navel. The spider, mending a weak spot in the web.

  “You know you ought to be more careful around Paulie, Ms. Arnold. There’s no worse enemy than one you’ve trained yourself.”

  “Really?”

  “While you think you’re teaching him everything he knows, he’s learning everything you know.”

  Her expression hardened. “Mr. Cuddy, I’ve kept myself looking like this and feeling fine by learning a lot myself. Over the years I watched plenty of women slide from bombshells into craters. I do aerobics and Nautilus three times a week, and I can recline-press as much as the average fifteen-year-old boy. When I need your advice, I’ll ask for it.”

  I turned to go and went about ten steps before I said, “Oh, one more thing.”

  She’d pulled off half of one of the drinks already. “What is it?”

  “How’d you happen to know Roy Marsh?”

  “Oh,” she said, thumb and index dipping toward the slice of lime in her drink and voice supremely casual, “He was my insurance agent.”

  From Marblehead I drove south, angling toward the Marsh house. I wanted to have a talk with Sheilah Kelley, and I remembered Chris mentioning she was off on Tuesdays. There was a car in the driveway, but it wasn’t her little brown Toyota. The brightly polished red Buick was at least ten years old. I pulled to the curb three houses down and walked back up, ringing the bell in front this time.

  A burly older man in a lumberjack’s shirt yanked open the door. He had bushy eyebrows, a longish crew cut, and unfashionable muttonchop sideburns. He gave me a disgusted look and said, “We don’t want any,” as he swung the door closed.

  I put my foot at the jamb and used the palm of my hand to cushion the door’s arcing momentum. My greeter balled his right into a fist and was setting himself when I heard Nurse Sheilah’s voice from inside call, “Who is it, Dad?”

  He yelled to her but kept his attention on me. “Just some salesman who’s gonna need new teeth.”

  I shifted my rear leg for balance and reached for my identification, saying, “Your daughter knows me, Mr. Kelley. I’m a private investigator.”

  Sheilah came up behind him. Her eyes were bleary, her nose so red it looked windburned. She said, “What do you want now?”

  Kelley wedged himself between her and me. “You’re the guy the cops wanted. The one who killed Marsh and the hooker.”

  “Mr. Kelley, I didn’t kill them. But I was involved, and I want to know why. Now we can stand here like this till the leaves turn, or we can talk quietly inside. Your choice.”

  Kelley wanted to try a punch, but his daughter slid her hand inside his free arm and then tightened her fingers over his bicep. “Dad, it’d be easier if we just let him in for a while.”

  “We got a lot of packing to do yet. I wanna be clear of here before the traffic starts.”

  “C’mon.”

  “I don’t wanna be sitting on four ninety-five all day.”

  “Dad, please.”

  Kelley let go of the door and shook his daughter off as I came in and followed them down into the sunken living room. It looked disordered, but not as though somebody was pac
king. More like somebody had only half straightened things after a wild party.

  Kelley stayed standing, ready to brawl. Sheilah crumpled into a chair. “Roy’s dead. What can you possibly want with me now?”

  I sat too, in order to appear less confrontational. “Ms. Kelley, I know you’ve been through a lot, and I haven’t made it any easier so far. But somebody mugged me, then used my gun in the killings, and I intend to find out who.”

  “I don’t know anything about that.”

  “Maybe if—”

  “Sheilah said she don’t know anything. My daughter says that, it’s true.”

  “Maybe your daughter’s a little scared.”

  Sheilah tensed, then tried to feign with a head shake. “I don’t have anything to be scared of.”

  “The room looks ransacked. Were you here when they did it?”

  “She already told you, she don’t know anything. Why don’t you just—”

  “Dad, please.” Sheilah raked her hair with her fingers. “Look, Mr. …”

  “Cuddy, John Cuddy.”

  “Mr. Cuddy, Roy was into some bad stuff, with very bad people out of Boston.”

  “Sheil, for chrissake, you don’t have to be—”

  “Dad, stop! Please?”

  Kelley glowered, folding his arms across his chest.

  “Like I was saying, Roy was in with people. But I wasn’t. I never had any part of it, and I sure don’t want to be part of it now.”

  “Like it or not, Ms. Kelley, you are part of it. Or at least they think you are. Did they get what they came for?”

  “How the hell would she know that?”

  “Dad!” She turned back to me. “Mr. Cuddy, I don’t know. I got here a few hours ago, and it was all torn apart. I ran out right away and called my dad from a pay phone. He drove down, and we came back in. I tried to pull things together again, so she … Roy’s wife wouldn’t think I’ve been trying to get away with something.”

  “She’d better not, or I’ll—”

  “Anyway, I can’t see that anything’s gone except the videotape things.”

  I looked around the room. The television and VCRs were still where I’d remembered seeing them. “You mean from the bedroom?”

  “No, no. Not the playback stuff. The camera Roy had. He was … crazy for the stuff. Camera case, tripod. All that’s gone.”

  It didn’t add up. A burglar should have taken all the portable, fenceable equipment. Even conceding a more particular searcher, why take the camera?

  Kelley rocked a little, heel to toe. “Those all your questions?”

  “No. Ms. Kelley, when was the last time you saw Roy?”

  “She already told all this to the cops.”

  “I last, Jesus, I last saw him Sunday night, when I got home from work. We … went to sleep.”

  “You didn’t see him yesterday morning?”

  “No, I was still asleep. He was gone by the time I woke up.”

  “What else did you do yesterday?”

  “It was my day off, you know? I got up, drove some errands and so on. I went—”

  “Lookit, she had dinner with me last night at home. In Tullbury, awright? She wasn’t anywhere near that hotel. She didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “Mr. Kelley, the cops said they called your daughter at this house.”

  “I was just in the door here when they called. Then I drove back to my dad’s house.”

  “Why didn’t you stay here?”

  “I …” She stopped, resignedly reaching a decision. “All right, I was scared, okay? I knew the kind of people Roy was in with could have killed him, and I was scared they’d be around to see me.”

  “Did you know where Roy was going last night?”

  Kelley uncrossed his arms. “The hell kind of question is that to ask?”

  “Mr. Kelley, she was going to have dinner with you. That suggests that your daughter knew that Roy wasn’t going to be here for dinner. That suggests—”

  “If you’re saying my daughter knew that bum was hanging around with a hooker, I’ll bust your face like—”

  “Dad!” The tears started to flow; she wiped her forearm across her face just once, violently, then turned to me. “Roy was a bastard. He two-timed his wife with me, and me with her … the prostitute. He didn’t deserve all the things he had, but I loved him, mister, I loved him and I’m miserable he’s gone.”

  “Honey, how—”

  “Dad, shut up!”

  “Sheilah, in front of—”

  “Just please shut up!”

  Kelley’s face fell. He looked at me. “She’s upset. She don’t know what she’s sayin’.”

  “Ms. Kelley?”

  I could have poured a beer in the time it took her to say, “Yes?”

  “The Boston police tell me Roy’s connection is a pretty rough character. I think it’d be a good idea for you to stay out of sight for a while. Especially if they didn’t find what they were looking for here.”

  “She’s gonna stay with me. Back home in Tullbury. I was in the department twenty-seven years. Leo Kelley, Engine Company Number One. I got friends all over town. They can’t touch her there.”

  Sheilah Kelley chewed on her lip. She didn’t look too sure.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I DETOURED BACK TO Peabody and found Hanna’s street after only one wrong turn. The lights were on in her apartment as I walked up the path.

  She pulled back the door, surprised to see me. “John Cuddy. You are all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “The police, they said you were … hit?”

  “Mugged. But I’m all right. Can I come in?”

  “Oh, sure, sure.” Hanna turned away. “Vickie is taking the nap now.”

  Since I couldn’t see Hanna’s face, I just said, “I’ll be quiet.” I followed her into the living room and sat down across from her.

  “The new kitten you got for Vickie, it is doing so much good.”

  “I’m glad. Hanna, the police have questioned you?”

  “About the … Roy and the woman?”

  “Yes.”

  “They come here this morning. They want to know about me.”

  “Where you were?”

  “Yes. I was here with Vickie all the night.”

  “The police seem to accept that?”

  “Yes. They say, ‘Who can tell us this?’ And I say, ‘Nobody.’ I did not see Nerida, and Vickie was asleep. But there is nothing I can do about that.”

  “Hanna, I’ve been to Roy’s house.”

  “My house now.”

  “So Chris tells me. The nurse, the woman Roy was seeing, she’s moving her things out.”

  Hanna sighed. “You know, I cannot blame her. Roy was, I don’t know the English for it, but the women always like him. For the wrong reason.”

  “Some people are that way.”

  “Tell me. Do the women like you for the right reason?” She didn’t smile at me, keeping her expression even and open, showing me assurance I don’t think she felt.

  “There’s one in Boston who I hope does.”

  Hanna nodded, a little too vigorously. “That is good. That is the right way.”

  “Hanna, the house, your house in Swampscott, was searched by somebody.”

  “Burglars? I hear they watch the newspapers for the dead, then …”

  “No. At least I don’t think so. I think it was somebody looking for something.”

  “Money?”

  I didn’t answer her. She looked down and twisted her fingers. She said, “The drugs.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I told Chris. He was my lawyer. He didn’t say to tell you. I thought you knew from Chris. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s not the problem now. The problem now is that if Roy’s playmates didn’t find what they were looking for, they may think of other people to ask.”

  “I think I knew that something like this would happen to him. He was such a little boy abo
ut life. He really thought he could do anything and not be punished. …”

  “The police think Roy had some drugs he was supposed to distribute. If you have any idea where they are …”

  She almost laughed. “With the insurance from Roy, we have enough money now I don’t have to sell the drugs.”

  “Hanna, there is no insurance.”

  I wanted to say it that way, directly and suddenly, to see her reaction. Her heart seemed to stop, but her eyes stayed steady. She swallowed and said, “No insurance?”

  I told her what Stansfield told me.

  She hung her head. “Such a little boy. My God, my God, I cannot pay to bury him.”

  I waited a moment, then said, “Hanna, I’m sorry, but I really have to know about the drugs.”

  She looked up, very tired. “I don’t know to help you.”

  “Any idea at all where they’d be?”

  “The nurse maybe. She might know better than me. When Roy and me were together, he used to carry them around in his case.”

  “His briefcase?”

  “No. Roy had a lot of the … video things. He carried the drugs around in the case for the camera to fit in.”

  As I drove back into Boston, I tried to draw a profile of my mugger, at least by minimum physical requirements. Hanna had the strength to send Roy through the window, and a questionable alibi. Firefighters, even retired ones like Kelley, are strong as bulls, but Sheilah said her father was with her for dinner. Lawyer Paul had the muscle and sophistication, if not the inclination, to stage it, but Chris covered him. Felicia Arnold might have been able to force things with my gun, but Marsh would have tried to rush her rather than take a chance with a twelve-story drop. Maybe strength wasn’t a factor at all. Whoever rapped me left me where I fell, and maybe Roy just tripped. So much for the process of elimination.

  I took the Central Artery, skirting downtown on the harbor-side, and got off at South Station. I followed Summer Street into L Street to Nancy Meagher’s address.

  I rang her buzzer, the top one of the three-decker. I heard her coming down the stairs. When she recognized me, she said over her shoulder, “It’s all right, Drew.” The door to the second-floor apartment clicked shut.

  “Still have Drew Lynch as house security?”