by Linda Barnes
Leland Walsh stood alone under an umbrella, half-sheltered by the tent. I joined him, using his umbrella, and my lack of one, as an excuse.
“Glad to see you,” he murmured.
The priest spoke of the resurrection sure to come to whosoever believeth in Him, and Fournier’s family wept along with the sky. I counted the crowd and tried to place a name on the burly figure next to Harv O’Day. He had buzz-cut light gray hair, posture more erect than the soldier brother’s. I didn’t think I’d seen him on-site. There must be bigwigs present. Dig officials and union bosses. PR flacks. I identified a reporter from the Herald, another from the Globe.
I’d gone through news files online last night, searching for previous Dig accidents, looking for patterns. Two carpenters had had their legs smashed at the bottom of an excavation pit under Atlantic Avenue near Beach Street. Two workers had died: one in ’98, when a backhoe trapped a man against a concrete barrier; one in ’99, just last year, from a fifteen-foot fall. A forty-two-year-old woman working the roof of a highway tunnel near South Station had fallen thirty feet, survived.
An insignificant number considering the project’s size. That’s what the papers would say, but I didn’t think any of the reporters would try to tell it to Kevin Fournier’s mother.
Fournier couldn’t have fallen more than twelve feet.
As the coffin was lowered into the pit, Leland Walsh swallowed audibly. The man standing near O’Day took a seat next to Liz Horgan, muttered something in her ear. She lowered her head to her hands. I hadn’t thought her face could turn any whiter, but it paled.
“Who’s that?” I asked softly. Leland Walsh had been watching, too. I was very aware of his eyes, his movements, his strong bare hand clasping the umbrella handle.
“New night watchman. I don’t know why he’s here.”
“Friend of the Horgans?”
He shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe he knew Kev from another job.”
The priest stopped speaking. Mrs. Fournier stood shakily and tossed a white rose into the grave. The military brother sent a spadeful of dirt after it, returned the spade to the pile of upturned earth with a crunch.
“Was there an old night watchman?” I murmured.
“What?”
“If he’s the new night watchman, how did they handle the watch before?”
“Three, four sites share a man. Old guy, does a few rounds, probably sleeps most of the time. Nobody worries much because of the detail cops.”
It’s Massachusetts law: Any construction site that intersects auto traffic must pay an off-duty policeman to caution drivers and direct the cars. With so many cops so close at hand on the surface streets, the contractors would feel safe.
A sudden gust of wind caught the umbrella, tilted it. I reached to steady the handle at the same time Walsh did. Our hands touched. I felt the fine hairs on the back of his dark wrist, and an almost electric tingle.
“I won’t be coming back to work,” I whispered.
“Why? What happened?”
I shrugged as if to say it was too long a tale. Which it was. I didn’t want to meet his eyes.
He lowered the umbrella to cut us off from the crowd. “You busy tonight? Someplace we can get together, have a drink?”
“You know a bar named Raquela’s?” I asked.
“How about seven? We can have dinner. It’s that place on the pier, near the site?”
I nodded.
“Yeah, close by. That’ll work out real well. You want to borrow my umbrella, give it back tonight?”
I shook my head and he moved away, falling into conversation with a man in an expensive topcoat. I stayed till the end, watching the mourners file by the site, some shoveling a farewell spade of earth. I took note of who got into which car with whom, tried to sort the suits from the workers, the family from the friends. The new night watchman, Jason O’Meara, whose name I’d entered on the payroll, left without speaking to the Fournier family or Gerry Horgan. I kept an eye on Leland Walsh, but he didn’t get close enough to the grave to toss any mementos after his friend.
I didn’t pay my respects to the family. I didn’t know them. Instead I threw a handful of dirt on the coffin after everyone else had gone, remembering the man who’d wanted to speak to Liz Horgan so badly, remembering his angry voice on the tape. I’d pay my respects by going over the post-mortem with a fine-toothed comb. Whether Eddie sent it or not.
Chapter 21
By 11:52 I was back in my car, drenched to the bone. I gunned the engine, punched the heater on full blast, felt an answering trickle of lukewarm air. I could go home, change clothes, watch the minutes and hours pass till Eddie sent the autopsy report, or failed to send the autopsy report. I flipped on the windshield wipers, glanced over my left shoulder, and pulled into traffic. Cops know it, PIs know it. When you investigate, you can change the course of a case, roil the waters. Observation alters the process observed.
I’d gone to the Horgan site to check out anonymous phone calls. A worker on the Horgan site had died. The two weren’t necessarily connected. Even if Fournier’s death hadn’t been an accident, it might have happened whether I’d poked my nose in or not. He might have simply slipped, lost his balance, fallen.
I’d taken on Veronica James’s disappearance, visited Raquela’s and Charles River Dog Care, the two places she worked. Then her mother got a phone call from a stranger, assuring her that Veronica was okay, asking her to pass the good word along to the woman who’d hired me. Coincidence? I slid a Chris Smither CD into the deck, flicked a switch to increase the speed of the windshield wipers, and tried not to let the shivers affect my driving. The Toyota’s heater was hopeless. Rain slicked the roads, salt smeared the windshield, and traffic crawled, giving me plenty of time to inspect the three black Jeep Cherokees that crisscrossed my path like cats. None had the right license plate.
I’d spent nearly a week as Carla Evans, two weeks as Kate, the laborer, three weeks as Kitty, the truck driver. The relief I felt now, behind the wheel, as Carlotta, me, myself, a semi-independent PI, was palpable, gritty as the salt on the windshield. No more curb on my tongue, no guard in my mind. I was more than ready to give up my assumed name, but I wasn’t ready to give up the Horgan case. Eddie was too damn eager to close it, for one thing. I felt a keen sympathy for Liz Horgan, for another, even though she’d fired me. She was trying to do it all, raise a kid, handle a non-traditional job. Plus, I admitted, I was interested in Leland Walsh. When I met him for dinner tonight, I’d need to make a decision: Carla or Carlotta? Would Walsh, attracted to Carla, the secretary, be put off by Carlotta, the PI?
Names change. Route 128 is now Route 95, although locals still call it 128. Veronica James, Ronni to her dad, was Veejay to Dana Endicott. Was Veronica as adept as her lover at keeping her personal life secret? This business, this art, of deception, of keeping daily secrets, hiding a side of your personality, intrigued me. Was the flowery bedroom on the top floor of the Endicott mansion the one place where Veronica could relax and be at ease with who she was? Did hiding get easier with practice? Did the guard on your tongue slip into gear automatically?
I pictured the Horgan site, the long trench covered with decking, the buzz of secret activity beneath, wall building, dirt removal, welding. I drove ribbon-straight Route 3, but I couldn’t have described the scenery. Behind the metronome-like wipers, I saw Veronica’s photograph. What lay beneath the surface of her dark and placid eyes?
Veronica’s oldest sister was Elsie Lerner now, her home a Chelmsford ranch with pretensions, no larger than its lookalike neighbors, but with the garage enlarged to house three cars. Garden ornaments lurked in the shrubbery, small gnomes and even a gaudy pink flamingo shivering on thin legs. Before ringing the bell, I checked the garage for the black Cherokee.
She answered the doorbell with a faintly inquisitive air, bordering on suspicion. Her eyes approved of the long coat I wore over my funeral suit. Maybe I wasn’t from Greenpeace after all; she wouldn’t have to decide w
hether to fob me off with a check or tell me to scram. She looked like her sister in basic ways, eye color, hair color, skin tone.
I handed her my card and watched her jaw clench. She was going to have killer wrinkles if she kept that up, but for now, her face was pleasant enough if you didn’t note the incipient lines of dissatisfaction. She wore charcoal slacks, a maroon sweater that stretched across her chest.
“I don’t have to talk to you,” she said sharply.
“Won’t cost you a nickel.” My foot got ready to move. For a minute I thought she’d slam the door, but she shifted her eyes left and right and her mouth tightened further. “You’d better come in. I don’t want the neighbors to—”
Like parent, like child. The Jameses seemed more concerned with what the cops would think if they reported their daughter missing than with any harm that might come to her.
Elsie’s living room was formal and stilted, the white sofa covered with see-through plastic. I chose a chair, shuddering at the thought of plastic against my legs. She didn’t ask to take my coat, didn’t offer coffee.
“My husband will be home any minute, and I don’t want you saying anything in front of my kids.”
Grandma must have made copies of her photos, doled them out. The sisters’ high school graduation photos had the same brass frames. The children, beribboned and bow-tied, looked unhappy. Elsie had placed her younger self dead-center on the wall over the laminated sofa.
“Who’s paying you?” I didn’t have to get the ball rolling. Elsie preferred the role of inquisitor.
“Dana Endicott.”
She made a sniffing noise.
“You know her?”
“I know about her, Veronica must have come to her senses and moved out. The way they live, it’s—” She searched for a word, her nose wrinkling with distaste, and finally came up with “unnatural.”
“Your sister left most of her clothes, her shoes. Makeup, jewelry. Her dog.”
“You went there?” She looked like she wanted to demand a detailed description. She also looked like she wanted to question me about my sexual preference, inquire whether I was “natural.”
“Has your sister been in trouble before—juvenile runaway, drugs?”
“Why would you think so? What makes you ask something like that?”
“Your parents won’t file a missing persons report. I thought they might have a reason.”
“We’re private people.”
“Your mother told me she got a reassuring phone call.”
“If she says she did, she did.”
“From Peter.”
“I told you, I don’t know any Peter.”
“What if the call were from Pamela instead of Peter. Would your mother change the name, to protect her daughter’s reputation?” Better a missing daughter than a lesbian daughter?
“I think you should leave before my husband—” She pressed her lips together and stared at the photos on the wall. “Haven’t we suffered enough?”
I followed her gaze, lifted my eyes to the brass frames, and found myself experiencing the same sensation of shifting puzzle pieces I’d felt in Dana’s bedroom. Four daughters, four grandchildren on the Jameses’ wall. Elsie, Jayme, Veronica, Jackie. I double-checked the graduation shots on Elsie’s wall. None of them seemed to be the same sister, photographed twice, in different poses.
“How many sisters do you have?” I asked.
Elsie’s eyes were on the carpet now, counting the tweedy threads. “One of my sisters is dead. She … died. You have to go. My husband will be back, and I haven’t finished putting the groceries away—”
Three things had happened since I’d taken on the James case: Mom had gotten a phone call; someone had attacked Dana Endicott. Someone had removed photos from Veronica’s bedside table. If I’d been a thief in that mansion, I’d take paintings, silver.
“When did your sister die?”
“I’m sorry, you’ll have to leave now… The groceries. The milk will spoil.”
“Which is her photograph?”
She hesitated before pointing. The fifth sister’s hair, long and parted in the middle, gave her the air of an old cameo. She had unusually narrow eyes, a high-bridged nose, and for an instant she seemed familiar, as though I might have seen her in a shop or a restaurant.
“What was her name?”
Elsie stood. “If you’re not out of this house in thirty seconds, I’m calling the police.”
I felt the urge to shove her aside, search the place, steal the goddam picture off the wall. When the flash of anger receded, I got to my feet and Elsie practically ran down the hall to hold the door. I made my way to the car, turned on the engine, flipped on the heat.
The Jameses hadn’t rearranged their photo wall simply to accommodate more grandchildren. The central constellation had changed with a daughter’s death. They hadn’t mentioned it, but so what? Maybe they never did. How would you bring such a loss into casual conversation? Would Mrs. Fournier, when asked, say she had a son in the army? Or would she say, always, I have two sons, but one of them died. I debated ringing Elsie’s bell again, asking to borrow the dead girl’s photo. I considered driving to Tewksbury High School. Yearbooks have graduation photos, but the high school would be closed on Sunday.
Sunday. Gloomy, rainy Sunday.
Police stations don’t shut down on weekends. I drove to Tewksbury Center.
Officer Ralph Danforth wasn’t impressed by my credentials, and didn’t see how it was any of my business. Good family, the Jameses. Lived here a long time. Girl died in a traffic accident. He had a bland smile as effective as a mask and I couldn’t rile him or get past him, so I drove back to Boston wondering what the true story was. If she’d died in a traffic accident, why wouldn’t he give me the day, date, and time? If she’d died in a traffic accident, why had her parents taken her photo off the wall?
I drove past my Cambridge home, followed Storrow Drive inbound to Clarendon, circled the Public Garden, cruising Dana’s neighborhood, looking for the black Jeep. I didn’t think I’d find it, and I didn’t, but I found a parking place, that elusive rarity, and took advantage. I banged doors, asking Dana’s neighbors whether they’d noticed a black Jeep parked, maybe double-parked, on the street the evening before.
Ask any cop: Sometimes the job feels like door-to-door sales. I knew a cop banged a door once in search of a witness to a hit-and-run. Man wearing a T-shirt and cutoffs answered the bell, stuck his hands in the air, and turned over a quarter million dollars worth of cocaine.
If you look, you could find, my grandmother used to say in Yiddish.
Tenants were out, owners knew nothing. People in the high-rent district kept themselves to themselves. An elderly woman regarded me with suspicion, as though I were a robber casing the joint for my crew. After a frigid hour and a half I realized I was wearing out shoe leather, freezing my hands, simply to blunt a feeling of failure. No way to deny it; I’d been fired off the Horgan site.
Chapter 22
Back home, I shivered and stamped my feet, trying to restore feeling to my toes as I steamed open Marian’s note. I made cocoa from boiling water and a packet of mix, sat at the kitchen table to read.
“Honey, you mad or what? Maybe you think I pushed you too hard about learning to type. Whatever, I’m not mad at you! Call or come see me.
Miss ya, M.”
The first postscript read: “How are all the stiffs at Goldsby?” The second: “How’s Tess? She’s soooo cute.” I was glad I’d made cocoa; at least I’d gotten something from the steam. Why on earth had Marian been secretive about a few scrawled sentences? Why would such an innocuous note need to be delivered directly into the girl’s hand?
I curled my fingers around the mug, let the warmth seep into my palms. I’d brought the contract bid into the kitchen, the one I’d Xeroxed and stashed under the Yellow Pages. I took out the seven photocopied pages, worked my way through sentences chock-full of contract-specific RFPs, DSCs, and permanent IPCS
signage. Performance bonds. PERT schedules.
“Is that chocolate?”
Roz, my tenant, appeared in the doorway, lured by the smell. Other people show up with their hair wrapped in a towel, you assume shampoo. Roz, you assume hair dye. I wondered what shade she was attempting. Sometimes she experiments with her own dye blends, with unusual and unexpected results. She opened the fridge, regarded the contents solemnly before yanking a jar of peanut butter from the cupboard.
“There’s more cocoa, if you want it. What do you think of this?” I handed her the note.
“It’s in code,” she guessed.
“I doubt it. Did I get anything by messenger?”
She shook her head. “No calls, no packages.”
Shit. I’d have to call my man at the morgue, use up more favors, the valuable coin of my trade.
I said, “You talk to those EMTs?”
“They’re very cool.”
“Fournier.”
“Man who fell. Didn’t say a word.”
“What else?”
She’d been busy with the Dun & Bradstreet. I glanced through her report, stopping to run a finger over the officers of Horgan Construction. Gerald Horgan was listed as CFO, Elizabeth as CEO. Leonard Horgan, Gerry’s dad, headed the board of directors. The company was closely held, and the smallest venture to assemble a large number of Dig contracts. That meant they had bid low; the process was competitive.
When I say small, I don’t mean a mom-and-pop operation. The other players were huge multinationals like Bechtel/Parsons/Brinkerhoff, national firms with New England roots, like Perini. Modern Continental, a direct competitor, was the largest contractor in New England.
I read on. Horgan specialized in state-of-the-art equipment designed for confined work spaces. They had become slurry wall specialists by virtue of their Dig work, now had road and tunnel contracts across the New England states, a bridge project in New York.