Unfortunately, my wondering wasn’t distracting me from the ache in my right side. By the time I reached the BU law school tower, the rib cage was screaming at me. I tried cutting my pace, but it was the impact rather than the effort of running that was doing me in. I gritted my teeth and reached the Fairfield footbridge hardly above a walk.
I crossed back over to the city side of Storrow Drive. Stopped at the red light was an old pickup truck with Wisconsin plates and a cranky muffler. Chugging to life and passing me, it displayed a rear bumper sticker reading WOLSKI’S TAVERN: ADVENTURE, DANGER, ROMANCE.
It would be the last laugh of the day.
Holt kept me waiting outside his office for twenty minutes. To reassert control over the situation.
Guinness came out, said, “Now,” and sort of held the door for me with his foot. I followed him in.
Holt sat behind his desk, clean pad in front of him. Dawkins lounged at the window, his butt half on and half off the sill. No Murphy. I took a chair across from Holt. Guinness made sure the door closed behind him and then stayed standing at it.
Holt said, “You wanted the meeting, so talk.”
“Did Murphy tell you I was contacted by J.J. Braxley yesterday?”
Dawkins said, “He told me. I told the lieutenant here.”
“Braxley and I met at J.C. Hillary’s under a flag of truce. He’s got a step on you guys, because he doesn’t think I killed Marsh or Teri Angel. However, he is three-plus pissed at the loss of his product. Seems he extended credit to Marsh at the exchange, and now he doesn’t have the money or the drugs.”
Holt said, “You tell him to call the Better Business Bureau?”
“He’s got his own ideas about consumer protection, Lieutenant. He said if I don’t find the stuff, he’s going to take it out on Marsh’s wife.”
Holt and Dawkins just looked at me. I couldn’t see Guinness, but I didn’t much care what he was doing. I said, “And on his daughter.”
Holt said, “Where do they live again?”
He couldn’t be serious. “Swampscott. They used to live in Peabody, remember? Then somebody killed the head of the household, and they moved back to the family manor.”
Holt said, “Sergeant, where the hell is Swampscott?”
Dawkins said, “Not sure. Somewhere past Everett, I think. Maybe even past Revere.”
“Revere! Jesus, I don’t think our jurisdiction goes nearly that far, do you, Guinness?”
Guinness said, “Myself, I never been north of Chelsea.”
I said, “What the hell is going on here?”
Holt laced his hands behind his head and leaned back. “I don’t see where this is any of our concern, geographically speaking.”
“What do you mean, ‘none of your concern’?”
Dawkins said, “Lieutenant’s pretty clear on it, Cuddy. You said Swampscott, that sound like Essex County to me. Peabody, too.”
“And you guys are strictly Suffolk County, right?”
“Right.”
I looked at Holt. “You had a double murder here, in your county.” I took Dawkins in as well. “And you’re after a significant mover of cocaine who operates here.” I settled lower into my chair. “So how come nobody’s interested in the victim’s wife and child being intimidated by a prime suspect in the murder and the clear distributor of the junk?”
Holt said, “First off, Braxley’s not a suspect in the murder. Got an alibi four feet thick.”
“Second,” said Dawkins, “ain’t no crimes committed in those other towns linked up with these here.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Take Peabody. Nothing happen there except a little animal abuse. The guy done the kitty dead now. Case closed. Swampscott, shit, only action there was you breaking in on Marsh and threatening him.”
“I wasn’t there, and if I was, I didn’t break in.”
“And if you did break in, it didn’t count, ’cause you had your fingers crossed, right?”
I stopped for a minute and closed my eyes. Holt said, “What do you know? We’re boring him as much as he’s boring us.”
I thought for a moment more, then opened my eyes and looked at him and Dawkins. “You all are going to a hell of a lot of trouble to play keep away with me.”
They didn’t say anything.
“Long as I have the blindfold on, indulge me a little, okay? I get asked to bodyguard the wife in a divorce case. The husband acts nasty, so I call Murphy, and he calls Dawkins here. Boston Narcotics already knows about Marsh’s connection to Braxley, and Murphy passes that on to me, with the warning to stay away from Braxley. Then Marsh dives off the high board, and I get blamed. The case against me has so many holes, you could water the garden with it, but I’m still frozen out of the case, even out of contact with Murphy. Then Braxley and his killer whale come to see me, and maybe thirty minutes after I get away from them, the department’s aware of it without my having to file a complaint or anything. Know what I think?”
No response from Holt or even Dawkins, who’d told me to keep quiet about his visit to me that night.
“I think that Narcotics has had Braxley under surveillance for a while. I think that’s how come Dawkins knows about Marsh, and Braxley has his solid alibi, and the new centurions all know about me getting worked on before the wounds are closing. And that must mean that Narcotics has a hell of a case it could bring against Braxley. But it’s laying back. How come?”
Holt made a sour face; Dawkins smiled.
“Because Braxley is posting up for Narcotics? Not likely. He seems too damned interested in his current business affairs and their continuing vitality to be planning to parachute via some witness protection program. That leaves one other alternative I can see. Narcotics has its sights set on Braxley’s supplier, maybe even the supplier’s supplier. And the murder of two less-than-model citizens and the potential threat to the family of one of them can be tolerated, at least temporarily, as a cost of the larger drug investigation.”
Holt still looked as if indigestion was his main worry. Dawkins brightened his smile a little.
“Well, how am I doing?”
“Brass ring,” said Dawkins.
Holt swiveled in his chair. “Goddamn it, Dawkins, who the fuck told you to confirm—”
“Who he gonna tell, Lieutenant? Just the three of us here, and we back each other when we say we deny it. If we ever got to deny it. And chances are we won’t.”
“Why not?” said Holt.
Dawkins looked over at me and resumed the brighter smile. “ ’Cause hard charger here gonna find J.J.’s snow and make things all better for the widow and orphan.”
“So what do I do?”
Murphy?
“Can’t. His hands were tied by me when I asked him to check on a guy just before the guy’s killed. Besides, whoever’s sitting on Holt would have the juice to sit on Murphy, too. They’re peer officers in the chain of command.”
Nancy?
“I tied her up, too, as part of my quasi-alibi for the murders. And this surveillance has the smell of something planned and coordinated by people her level never even gets to talk to.”
There was a lobster boat, long with the small upright cabin disproportionately forward, plying the harbor below us. I thought the harbor was too polluted to produce edible bottom dwellers, and I made a mental note to lay off seafood for a while.
Does that leave Chris?
“Kind of. He’s her attorney. But he won’t return my calls.”
Can’t you see him in person?
“Yeah, but he didn’t exactly take the bit in his teeth when Marsh tortured the cat. And J.J. makes Marsh look like an altar boy.”
So what are you going to do?
“Go rattle some more cages. If I can find the shooter, I’ll find the drugs.”
But the only way to help Hanna and Vickie is to give the drugs back to J.J.
“That’s the way it shapes up.”
Yes, but John, you can’t do t
hat.
“I know.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
I DIALED MY ANSWERING service from a booth on Broadway. No messages. I tried Chris and drew Eleni, who told me Chris was out but due back after 2:00. I told her it was important that I speak with him and that I would be there at 2:00 sharp. She apologized for his not calling me back the previous evening, but didn’t give me any reasons.
I hung up, called Felicia Arnold’s office, and waited through receptionist and secretary for her soft, breathy hello.
“Ms. Arnold, John Cuddy.”
“I recognized your voice. And please call me Felicia.”
“I was hoping I could see you today. Around noon?”
“I believe I can work you in.”
“At your office.”
“If you insist.”
“Ms.—Felicia, please.”
“All right. Eleven-thirty?”
“Thank you. See you then.”
I got in the Fiat and took Route 1A through Revere, past the Wonderland dog track and the Suffolk Downs horse track. The road breaks over Lynn Beach, then curves north through Swampscott. I found the building again easily, feeling confident that old Bryce would be faithfully manning his computer terminal.
“Oh, Mr. … uh, Curry, isn’t it?”
He looked insecure, uneasy that I’d walked in on him while his fingers were fondling the keyboard. “Close. Cuddy, John Cuddy.”
“Oh, yes, sorry. Names …”
“I’m the one who’s sorry, Mr. Stansfield, breaking in on you again like this. But I have a few more questions that I thought you might help me with.”
“Please, uh, sit down.”
“The last time I saw you, I remember your mentioning that Roy Marsh came to work here about the time your uncle died.”
“That’s right. Well, uh, just after, of course.”
“While you were going through your divorce.”
“Right.”
“Who was your attorney?”
“My … uh, for the divorce, you mean?”
“For the divorce.”
“I don’t quite, uh, see how that’s …”
“Any of my business?”
“Well, y—no, no. I realize, uh, the police have to look into everything, but …”
“I’m not a cop, Mr. Stansfield.”
“But you said—”
“Only that I was investigating Marsh’s death. And I am.”
He looked confused. “The police, they, uh, asked me whether I, whether the firm ever hired any Boston private … you’re, uh, the one they think killed him. Killed Roy!”
“They may have said that, but they don’t believe it.”
“Well, then, why, uh, should I answer any more of your questions?”
“Because I know about you and Teri Angel.”
He was about to say something, but the sound of her name froze his mouth around a syllable like a stop-action photograph.
“Your voice, Mr. Stansfield. Your voice is on her telephone tape machine.”
“But, it’s been over … uh, that is—”
“I haven’t told the police.”
“You haven’t?”
“No. And I hope I won’t have to.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t, uh, understand. I’m sorry.”
“One step at a time. Who was your divorce lawyer?”
He tried to focus. “Felicia. Felicia Arnold.”
“And through her you met Teri.”
“That’s correct. My wife and I hadn’t … uh, for a long time, I was … uh, unable.”
“And Felicia suggested you see Teri.”
“Yes. I didn’t know at the time … I, uh, know this must sound awfully naive of me, but … I, uh, actually thought she was just a sort of …”
“Therapist?”
“Yes. I mean, you could tell just hearing her, uh, speak a few sentences that she wasn’t educated very formally, but she had a way of listening, of bringing out, uh, things that troubled me. I even tried to pay her the first time by check. And I haven’t, uh, hadn’t seen her in over a year.”
“There’s one thing I haven’t been able to figure out, Mr. Stansfield. How did Marsh meet Teri?”
“She called here once, to cancel an, uh, appointment I’d made with her, and I was at the post office, so Roy took the call and, uh, asked me who ‘Teri’ was, so I finally told him after he already guessed.”
“He threaten to expose you and her if you didn’t set something up for him?”
“Yes. Uh, no, not exactly. I think I, uh, just let him talk to her the next time, over the telephone when she, uh, called here.”
And the cops, looking at Teri’s or the office phone bills, would just assume it was Teri or Marsh calling the other all along. “Go on.”
“Go on? Well, uh, there’s not that much more to say.”
“I’m afraid there is. What about the drugs?”
“I called, uh, is it Detective Guinness?”
“Yes.”
“I called him when those two, uh, Negroes came to see me.”
“J.J. and Terdell.”
“I don’t know their, uh, names, but I was terrified of them. They came to see me and asked where the, uh …”
“ ‘Material’?”
“Yes, where the ‘material’ was. I, uh, they were quite polite, really, but here, in Swampscott … uh, anyway, I told them I didn’t have any idea what they were, uh, talking about, and, uh, they left. I immediately called our department here, and, uh, they said to call Boston and speak with Detective Guinness.”
“And you told Guinness about it? J.J. and Terdell, I mean.”
“Yes.”
“I want a look at the files on your insureds.”
I, uh—
“All the ones that Roy-boy brought into the firm.”
“That’s not—”
“Which may save me having to tell the police about you and Teri, and them verifying it with—”
“All right, Mr. Cuddy. All right. I, uh, scare quite easily enough. You can stop there.”
The look on his face made me sorry I’d played so cute toward the end. He turned away from me and toward the keyboard, tapping, pausing, and tapping again. “Can you scroll?”
I stood and moved behind him. “Why don’t you do it. I don’t want to mess anything up, and I’m sure you’d be faster than I would.”
He straightened and steadied a little bit at my compliment. “Here come the A’s.”
Over his shoulder, I watched the screen for twenty minutes. A lot of people buying a lot of arcane coverages. A few names you’d recognize from the newspaper, mainly the sports, business, and government sections. Both my lawyers were telling the truth. Felicia was a big customer, Chris didn’t appear at all.
She unfolded sinuously from her desk chair. Someone once told me that grace is the movement of weight in balance. It suited her perfectly.
She said, “I wondered if our last discussion would have put you off?”
I closed the door behind me and took her outstretched hand, getting close enough to notice she was wearing a little more perfume than usual. Not crass or cloying, just a faint enhancement. When the fish doesn’t bite, sweeten the bait.
I let go of her hand a trifle sooner than she would have and dropped into the client chair without answering her question. She stayed standing and looked down at me.
“You know, you really are an intriguing man.”
“Thanks.”
“No, truly. I’ve seen more than most, and you really are here because of what you’re working on, not because you want some action. This Marsh matter is the cause of, not the excuse for, your continuing interest in me.”
“That’s right.”
She poured herself back into the chair. “I find that exciting, you know? Not being the central figure for a change.”
“I have a few—”
“Let’s go to bed, you and I.”
I stopped, she arched an ey
ebrow and smiled.
“I’d regret it,” I said.
“That depends on whether you say yes or no.”
I didn’t respond; she went on. “You see, if you say yes, the earliest you can regret it is tomorrow morning.”
“You’re probably overestimating me.”
“Whereas, if you say no, you’ll begin regretting it immediately.”
“Sounds like I get depressed either way.”
The eyebrow came down, the smile slid into a disgusted frown, and she said, “I’m not sure I will have time to see you today after all.”
“What if it’s talk to me or talk to the cops?”
She laughed, regaining ground. “Please, don’t threaten me about the killings. I’m a lawyer, remember? We invented threats.”
“Actually, I wasn’t thinking so much about the killings as about the hookers and the drugs.”
She finished the laugh, but smoothly, as if it hadn’t died in her throat. She leaned back with a “Boy, I’ve got you now” look. The best trial lawyer from my days at Empire used to say that was the look he’d put on when the opposition had just harpooned him in front of the jury.
“The hookers, you say?”
“Yeah, like Teri Angel in Boston.”
“The poor girl killed with Marsh?”
“That’s her.”
“Are you suggesting I knew her?”
“Uh, yes, I’m afraid, uh, I am.”
Felicia’s face indicated she didn’t like my imitation. Not even a little.
I said, “Marsh met Teri through Stansfield, and Stansfield met Teri through you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The vagaries of memory. I’m sure the probate court appearance docket and Teri’s phone bills will refresh yours when the time comes. We could probably even find some folks at the Barry who could prove you knew her socially, too, but for now, let’s try the drugs. Remember them?”
Her eyes were glittering, but the voice was still steady. “I thought the police hadn’t found the drugs Marsh was supposed to have had with him.”
“Let’s say they haven’t. Let’s also say that the stuff hasn’t shown up on the street.”
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