Tight Lines

by William G. Tapply

  “I’m available,” I said, “and I hardly ever turn down a free drink. What’s up?”

  “It has to do with Mary Ellen Ames’s will, and I’d rather discuss it in person with you, if that’s all right.”

  “Okay. That’s fine. Where do you want to meet?”

  “Well, you’re in Copley Square, so how about J. C. Hillary’s? That should be convenient for you.”

  “It is. There are booths in the bar. Where are you coming from?”

  “My office is on State Street.”

  “I’ll try to get there early and grab a booth,” I said. “How will I recognize you?”

  “I’ll be the tired-looking redhead.” She laughed. “I’ve got on a lime green suit, which matches my eyes and sets off my hair, which is the color of a pumpkin. I’m about five-ten. Really, I’m hard to miss. What about you?”

  “Oh, I’m a handsome devil. Fortyish. I’ll be wearing a lawyer suit.”

  “Gray pinstripe, huh?”

  “You got it. With a vest. And a blue tie with a school of little rainbow trout swimming on it. So Mary Ellen had a will, huh?”

  “Yes. We’ll talk about it. See you at six.”

  I got to J. C. Hillary’s at quarter of six and slipped into the only available booth by the bar. I sat facing the entry so I’d see Elizabeth McCarron when she came in. A waiter appeared with a menu. I told him I didn’t expect to be eating, but I could use a shot of Jack Daniel’s on the rocks.

  I had just taken my first sip and lighted my first cigarette when she appeared. As promised, she was hard to miss. None of the businessmen at the bar missed her. They all swiveled around and stared. The little narrow lime green skirt stopped several inches above her knees, leaving what looked like several yards of slim, shapely leg showing below. Her magnificent mane of red hair flowed over her shoulders. It was burnished brown, not really orange—more the color of autumn oak leaves than pumpkins. She had a wide mouth, snub nose, and lots of freckles. In her high heels she looked as if she’d be able to stare Kevin McHale straight in the eye.

  She paused in the doorway, frowning myopically. I waved. She smiled and came over. She held out her hand to me. “Liz McCarron,” she said.

  I took her hand. “Brady Coyne. Come on. Sit down. You look beat.”

  She slid in across from me. “Boy, you got that right. I was in court all afternoon. Old Judge Crocker had a hair up his ass.”

  “Crocker usually does,” I said. I held up my glass of Blackjack. “I already started. What’ll you have?”

  “Scotch.” She looked around.

  The waiter was already staring at her, so when she caught his eye he came instantly to our booth. “Ma’am?”

  “Cutty on the rocks.”

  He left. She put her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands. “So. You’re a smoker, huh?”

  I glanced down at the cigarette that was smoldering in the ashtray. “Yes. Afraid so.”

  “Ugh.”

  “I’ll put it out if it bothers you.”

  She waved her hand. “Naw. Give me one.”

  I held my pack out to her. She plucked one out. I held my Zippo for her. She steadied my hands with hers and lit up. She blew out a long plume of smoke. “Ahh, this is evil,” she murmured. “Damn, I miss these things.”

  The waiter slid her drink in front of her. She picked it up and sipped. Her tongue slithered out and touched her upper lip. “This, too,” she said. “Evil. Delicious.” She looked at me. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Brady Coyne.”

  “Oh-oh.”

  “Nothing bad.” She waved her hand. “Seems like every lawyer in town knows you except me. You’ve got an, ah, interesting reputation.”

  “Interesting?”

  “You’ve managed to corral the wealthiest folks in Greater Boston for clients. Most everyone I know envies you.”

  “That just makes them work harder to beat me,” I said. “Being envied is not such a good thing.”

  She smiled. “Well, you and I aren’t likely to be adversaries here, so we needn’t worry about envy.” She sipped her drink, puffed at her cigarette, and cleared her throat. “Mainly, I just was hoping we could smooth out some things.”

  “Good. I like things smooth.”

  “Here it is. I did a will for Mary Ellen Ames about three years ago. As you know, she has died. The main beneficiary is her mother, Susan Ames, who is your client. I spoke with her secretary this afternoon, a Miz Fiori?”

  I nodded. “Yes. Her general factotum. Terri Fiori.”

  “Okay. She referred me to you. She indicated that Mrs. Ames is unwell.”

  “She’s dying.”

  “Right. Which complicates things.”

  “It sure as hell does, since Mary Ellen was the primary beneficiary of Susan’s estate, too.”

  “Yes. But if you and I work together, we should be able to simplify it. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” I said. “But not over drinks.”

  “No. Of course not. I just wanted to meet you and make sure we were on the same wavelength.”

  The waiter came to the booth. “Another round, folks?” he said, looking only at Liz McCarron.

  “Not me,” she said. “One more’ll put me on my ass.”

  I waved my hand. “I’m fine.”

  The waiter hesitated, then left with a show of reluctance.

  “You said Susan was the main beneficiary,” I said. “There are others?”

  She nodded.

  “Can you tell me who they are?”

  “I don’t know why not. You’ll see Mary Ellen’s will soon enough. There are two others. A Sidney Raiford and a Sherif Rahmanan. Mary Ellen had many assets. These two gentlemen stand to inherit one hundred thousand pre-tax dollars apiece from this.”

  “No shit,” I muttered.

  “No shit, Counselor.” She was grinning. “You know them?”

  “Raiford and Rahmanan? A little. I wonder if they know about this will.”

  “I have no idea. They’ll find out soon enough.”

  “Did you know Mary Ellen well?” I said.

  She shook her head. “I didn’t really know her at all. She came to us for a will, as I said, about three years ago. Somebody referred her, I guess. Can’t remember who, if she ever mentioned it. It was a just a will, no big deal. They gave it to me. She had a lot of money, but it was a very simple will. As I said, everything went to her mother except for the cash to the two other guys. I haven’t seen her since then.”

  “Well, we ought to get together soon,” I said. “Best if we clear away the underbrush while Susan’s still alive.”

  “Yes. Good. I’ll call you and we can set something up.”

  “Want some supper while we’re here?” I said.

  She shook her head. “It sounds delightful, but I’ve got a desk I haven’t seen the top of in a month waiting for me.”

  “You’re going back to the office at this hour?”

  “I go back to the office at this hour every day,” she said. “Except on those days when I haven’t had an excuse to leave it in the first place. Then I just stay there. Saturdays and Sundays, usually, too. Sometimes by the time Sunday evening arrives I actually get to see a little patch of desktop. Of course, by Monday morning it’s covered up again.”

  “Why,” I said, “does anybody want to be a lawyer?”

  “They think their practice will be like yours,” she said. “You’re probably going home now. You don’t have a desk piled with half-written briefs and volumes of precedents and correspondence, overflowing manila folders, unopened mail, right?”

  I smiled. “Nope. I’ve got a very efficient secretary. Mostly, my desk is piled with L. L. Bean catalogs.”

  “See?” she said. “That’s why every lawyer in town envies you. I’d love to have dinner with you. Hell, I’d love to have another Scotch, and a couple more of your cigarettes. But I can’t.”

  “Well,” I said, “another time, maybe.”

  She smiled. “I’d like t
hat.”

  She reached into her pocketbook and took out a couple of bills. She put them on the table.

  “I’ll get it,” I said.

  “My invitation,” she said, “my treat.” She smiled. “It was a treat.”

  I shrugged. “Okay. Thanks. Next time’ll be mine.”

  After she left I decided to have another Jack Daniel’s. I tried to imagine how Susan would feel when she realized that Mary Ellen had bequeathed most of her estate to her.

  25

  WHEN I CALLED CHARLIE McDevitt the next morning and asked him to meet me at Marie’s for lunch, he must have detected something in my voice, because he didn’t give me a lot of shit about who owed whom a favor, or how much busier than me he was, or how much more important his work was than mine. He didn’t tell me a rambling joke or cautionary tale or shaggy dog story.

  He just said, “Sure. Of course.”

  And he was waiting at our table nibbling a breadstick when I got there.

  I slid into the seat across from him. “Boy, thanks,” I said. “It was short notice.”

  He shrugged. “Does this have something to do with that phone number I got for you?”

  I nodded. “Yes. The way it started, I was just looking for the daughter of one of my clients. They’d been estranged for about eleven years, and the mother’s got terminal cancer so she wanted to reconcile with her daughter. Now it looks like the daughter’s been murdered.”

  Charlie arched his brows. “Whew,” he breathed.

  “It’s complicated,” I told him. “Let’s order. I’ll tell you about it.”

  Charlie ordered the calamari, the way he always does at Marie’s. I had the stuffed ziti. We declined Marie’s standard complimentary carafe of wine. We both had an afternoon’s work facing us.

  And while we ate, I tried to summarize what I was coming to think of as the Mary Ellen Ames Case for him. Talking about it to Charlie, trying to be logical and sequential in my recitation, identifying the connections that I recognized and pinpointing the gaps as they appeared, all helped me to see things a little more clearly.

  And Charlie, good listener and good friend that he was, didn’t interrupt. He nodded here, frowned there, and pursed his lips at the other places.

  We were sipping coffee when I told him about my tête-à-tête with Liz McCarron. Then he started grinning. I guess I embellished her physical appearance more than was necessary for the smooth continuity of my tale.

  “Anyway,” I concluded, waving my hands, “it looks to me like someone murdered her.”

  Charlie nodded. “You do tend to overthink problems, Coyne.”

  “You don’t agree with me?”

  “I follow your logic, all right. But you keep forgetting the first rule of all science and philosophy.”

  I frowned.

  “Occam’s razor,” said Charlie with a shrug.

  “Huh?” Charlie had a way of making me feel ignorant sometimes.

  “The first rule. It states that the simplest explanation for any unknown phenomenon is preferable to a more complex one, and that you should attempt your explanation on the basis of what is known rather than assuming there are unknowns that need to be discovered.”

  “Indulge my ignorance,” I said. “But, if you will please, apply Mr. Occam’s wisdom to the present conundrum.”

  Charlie grinned. “Okay, Counselor. Answer me this. What quacks like an accident, waddles like an accident, flies like an accident, and lays eggs like an accident?”

  I nodded. “Sure. Except—”

  Charlie held up his hand. “Hey, Brady?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What does this not quack like?”

  “It does not,” I admitted, “quack like a murder. No physical clues. No witnesses. No single outstanding suspect.”

  “Nevertheless…”

  “If it’s murder,” I said, “it’s a cleverly plotted and executed one.”

  “Which,” said Charlie, “is the least simple explanation of all. As you know.”

  “Nevertheless,” I said, “I think one of these folks murdered Mary Ellen Ames.”

  “You are a stubborn son of a bitch,” he said. Then he nodded. “However, sometimes Occam’s razor doesn’t apply.”

  “Right,” I said. “It’s just a matter of figuring out which one of these people stands to gain the most from her death.”

  “Or,” said Charlie slowly, “the other way ’round.”

  “Huh?”

  “You know. Who stands to lose the most from her living.”

  I stared at him for a minute, then nodded. “Sure. You’re right.”

  We talked about it some more while we finished our coffee. Then I paid for our lunches and we walked out. We turtled into our trench coats against the slicing wind that swirled around Kenmore Square. A miniature tornado of brown leaves twisted down the sidewalk. An odd sight, inasmuch as no trees grew in Kenmore Square.

  Charlie waved down a taxi. “What’re you going to do?” he said to me.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Shake a few bushes, see what flies out quacking.”

  “Watch out something doesn’t fall on your head, Counselor.”

  “Thanks for the advice.”

  The last time I had eaten at Marie’s was with Gloria a couple of weeks earlier. That day I had taken the T to Central Square in Cambridge to visit Sidney Raiford in his bookstore. I did the same thing this time.

  Head Start Books still had its sooty windows and its hand-lettered signs. Inside, it was gloomy and empty of customers, just as it had been the first time I was there.

  I worked my way through the narrow aisles between the bookshelves, pretending to peruse the merchandise. As I approached the back of the store I saw Raiford. His long gray ponytail was tied back with a pink ribbon. He was seated at a messy desk talking on the telephone. He glanced up when he saw me, held up one finger, and went back to his conversation. I picked up a book on Eastern religions and paged idly through it.

  A minute later Raiford came up to me. “We still got nothing on fishing, man. Did you try the Coop?”

  “You remember me?”

  He grinned. “Shit, guy, you’re like one of my best customers.”

  I held my hand to him. “I’m Brady Coyne.”

  He grabbed my thumb in what I took to be an alternative handshake. “Sid Raiford. Sole proprietor. Listen, man. I can order something if you know what you want. You don’t see it, I can get it. New, used, whatever. Dig?”

  “I dig,” I said. “What I’m really after, though, is some information.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Ah, fuck. So you’re a cop, huh?”

  “No.” I fumbled a business card from my jacket and handed it to him. “I’m a lawyer.”

  He glanced at it and shrugged. “Six a one, half a dozen a the other. Look, mister. I’ve been clean a long time, okay? I don’t even hang around with those dudes anymore. Who is it this time, anyway?”

  “Mary Ellen Ames.”

  Up close, Sid Raiford looked even older than from a distance. He was over sixty. His face was crosshatched and weathered like the sheer side of a rock cliff. He had a high sloping forehead. The hair that was pulled straight back over his head was thin, so that his skull shone through. And when he attempted to smile, his teeth showed gray and stubbed.

  “Who?” he said.

  “Come on, Mr. Raiford,” I said. “I’m not a cop. But I know many cops. I just want to talk with you about Mary Ellen.”

  He shrugged stubbornly. “Sorry, man.”

  “She’s dead, you know.”

  His head jerked back. “Say what?”

  “Mary Ellen died a couple weeks ago.”

  “What happened?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me.”

  He cocked his head and stared at me for a moment. Then he said, “I can’t tell you what I don’t know. But you want to talk, I’m cool. Come on out back.”

  He went to the front door and flipped around the sign that hung
there, so that potential patrons would know that he was out to lunch, expected back soon. Then he led me through the store to a back room. It was piled with books of all descriptions, cardboard boxes, old magazines, empty Coca-Cola cans, and a large coffee urn. There were two threadbare upholstered chairs. He gestured for me to take one.

  “Coffee?” he said.

  I nodded. “Sure. Black.”

  “Black’s all we got, man.”

  He handed me a styrofoam cup of coffee. Then he took the other chair. “You’re jiving me about Mary Ellen, right?”

  I shook my head. “No. She’s dead. She drowned.”

  “Damn,” he muttered. “She was a nice little chick.”

  “How well did you know her?”

  He smiled at me. “I wasn’t boffing her, if that’s what you mean. Shit, man, I coulda been her grandfather, practically. I gave her a job a long time ago. She was one messed-up little bird, I can tell you that. Too much money, too little of anything else. She wanted to do something, you know? I let her handle the cash register. In those days, we actually got a customer now and then. She lasted a couple months. Then she stopped showing up.” He looked at me and flapped his hands. “Sayonara,” he added.

  “You haven’t seen her since then?”

  He shook his head.

  “How long ago would you say that was?”

  “I dunno. Six, eight years.”

  I stood up. “Thank you, Mr. Raiford.”

  He looked up at me. “That’s it? That’s all you wanted to know?”

  I nodded. “I just wanted to know whether you intended to tell me the truth. Since you don’t, I’m not going to waste my time. I expect you’ll be having other customers coming around pretty soon. I’ll recommend your place to some of my friends.”

  “Wait a minute.”

  “No, that’s okay. Have a nice day, Mr. Raiford.”

  “Hey, shit, man. Sit down, huh?”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t need any cops coming around, okay? Lawyers either. Come on. Sit down. I’ll talk to you.”

  I sat down. “Okay. Talk to me, then.”