“It’s surrounded by butts, Dennis, and the grass is worn away.”
“Yeah, well. Yeah, I sit here a lot. I’m the only marine mechanic for miles. I ain’t got a union but I got coffee breaks.” He headed for the tuck shop. “I’m gonna tell Gibbs. If I’m not out in ten minutes, chief, pull out that pistol and come and get me.”
“Are you really worried?” Though, having just spent ten minutes with Gibbs, he knew what Thompson meant.
“He’s got a temper—always had one. He’s what you’d call a first-class badass.” The mechanic chuckled to himself as if he’d cracked a line in a cop show. “The place used to be run by his wife and she was a gem. But when she died, Gibbs took over, and he just seems angry all the time.”
As Thompson went to tell Gibbs about the auger, Vertesi opened his notebook and made his summary:
Gibbs aggressive, uncooperative—will definitely require warrants.
Gibbs likely knows much more than he’ll be willing to say.
Check the house too. Gibbs may be on something nasty.
Ruvola was “an old customer”—maybe it wasn’t all about boats!
10 in. hole in the cedar strip was probably done with an ice auger.
A 10 in. ice auger is missing from Gibbs Marina, purchased in October of last year.
Gibbs may have a serial number and registration for it.
Probability: this auger’s augured into the bottom of the lake.
Enjoying his small joke, he put his notebook away, stamped the dust off his shoes and got into his car. He took his cellphone off the dashboard, heard the screen door slap angrily and saw Gibbs walking quickly in his direction, Thompson following like an old mutt some distance behind. Gibbs’s head was down and he had the look of someone who’s just about had enough. Vertesi rolled the window down. “Can I help you, Mr. Gibbs?”
“You tell Denny here that my auger is likely in the lake, Officer?”
“Detective, Mr. Gibbs. Yes, I did.”
Gibbs put his hands on the roof of the sedan and leaned closer to make his point. “Detective, I’m out a cedar-strip, a damn fine motor, a five-gallon gas tank and a couple of oars. Now I find out I’m out a brand new auger too. I don’t need a smartass slick-suit wop from the city making wisecracks about my missing property—I need someone who’s gonna find out where my property is at.” He slammed the roof of the car with both palms.
“Well, Mr. Gibbs, I was ready to slap the cuffs on you when you got to smartass—but wop? Step away from the car, sir.”
Reluctantly Gibbs moved back a few feet, clenched his hands and tucked his thumbs into the aging belt that held up his baggy fatigues. Vertesi opened the door and stepped out. Thompson’s eyes were popping.
“Dennis,” Vertesi said, “don’t you love it when a cop says ‘step away from the car’? I know I do.” With one hand he was reaching into his inside jacket pocket for his badge and with the other for the weapon in the belt holster. He produced both and showed them to Gibbs. He then tossed them onto the driver’s seat and turned to face the older man.
“Mr. Gibbs, I have no idea what happened to your auger, but I am getting a good sense of what happened to your boat. Still, the one thing that has seriously messed me up today is being called a wop.” Vertesi took off his jacket and tossed that into the car as well. Gibbs unhooked his thumbs from his belt and let his hands hang down. Vertesi rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and took a step towards the man, who shifted slightly as if he was expecting a blow.
“I’ve got a witness here.” Gibbs nodded in Thompson’s direction.
“Same witness I have, Mr. Gibbs, and he heard you calling me a wop. What you’re going to do, Mr. Gibbs, is you’re going to apologize for uttering a slur against me, my father and my ancestors, or I’m going to smack you about—as a citizen, not as a smartass detective.” He took another step towards Gibbs.
“You’d hit an older man?” Gibbs kept looking over to Thompson for support. The mechanic had taken a rag out of his jeans pocket and was wiping his forehead nervously, smearing grease across his brow.
“As a citizen, ordinarily, no. As a cop, never. Honestly, I can take lots of abuse, and I think you can tell that I’m not even angry. I’m just one of those guys who has an invisible trigger, and you just pulled it.”
As Vertesi took his next step forward both his hands came up, and Gibbs knew there was no more talk to be talked.
“Denny, go inside and call the cops. Now!”
Thompson looked back and forth between Gibbs and Vertesi. “Mr. Gibbs, he is a cop.” He stepped back to make it clear this wasn’t his fight.
With no ally watching his back, Gibbs finally made the only move that would keep him from a beating. “I—I was upset, you know, about what the—about the boat and auger, and what you said. I’m sorry, Detective, sorry I insulted you.” Gibbs had his hands raised in surrender.
Vertesi dropped his own slowly, looking straight at Gibbs, who was breathing as if he was going to have a heart attack or a stroke or something like that. “You’d risk a beating for an ice auger, Mr. Gibbs?” Deliberately he began rolling his sleeves down and then buttoned each cuff.
“It’s been rough—well, losing the boat, now the auger. And I don’t know if Denny told you, but I also lost the missus a while back. I’m pretty strung out, I guess, is all I can say.”
“I accept your apology, Mr. Gibbs. Now this wop’s going back to police work. Ciao, gentlemen.” He opened the door to the Chevy, put on his jacket, and tucked the weapon into its holster and fastened it before clipping it onto his belt. He put the badge back into his inside pocket. Gibbs and Thompson were still frozen to the spot as he eased the car into reverse and backed out of his parking spot, then pulled away slowly without kicking up any gravel. He looked back through the rear-view mirror before he turned out of the marina lot; they were still standing there but Gibbs was now yapping at Thompson and waving his arms about. He caught his own eyes in the mirror and said, “That was for you, Pop.”
During the drive back, Vertesi wondered what Gibbs was trying to hide. He seemed too old to be acquainted with a bad actor like Ruvola, who didn’t strike him as a sport fisherman. Maybe Ruvola had been supplying him with dope, and now that source was gone.… He was less than a half-hour from the city when his cellphone rang.
“Vertesi.”
“Michael. Mac. Give me an update.”
“I’m just coming back from Gibbs Marina. That guy has some serious anger issues, boss, and I’ll have to get a warrant to look at his records and receipts. Anyway, the drill that went through that boat is called an auger; they use it for ice fishing. It’s likely that it came from Gibbs’s place, since he had six and one of them is gone.” Vertesi pulled off the road so he could concentrate.
“Killing Ruvola would have been easy. Why would they do it in such an elaborate fashion? Anything else?”
“Well, you may have to cover for me if Mr. Gibbs lodges a complaint. He was pissed off enough about losing the boat and the auger to make a discriminatory remark.”
“What, he called you a wop?”
“Exactly, sir.”
“But everybody calls you a wop.”
“Yeah, but they know me. We can call each other names and it’s not an insult. Anyway, I didn’t touch him. I would have touched him—a smack or two—if he hadn’t apologized, but he did.”
“You threatened him?”
“Yeah, but I’d taken off my badge and removed my weapon—they were both in the car. You know, the guy is seriously wound up and just generally pissed off.” There was what seemed like a long pause, with only static on the line. “Sir?”
“I’m here; I’m just buckling up. If they ask me I’ll have to say, ‘We’re here to serve and protect,’ but I do take your point.”
“Thanks, sir. What’s been happening at your end?”
“Have you had dinner?”
“No, I was going to go back to the office and see if anything’s come in on the guy
who owns the cottage.”
“Let’s eat. There’s a lot to talk about before Aziz and I go over to Petrescu’s house.”
“Who’s Petrescu?”
“Exactly. Meet us at Marcello’s.”
“I’m there.” Vertesi ended the call, tucked his cellphone into his jacket and, pulling back onto the highway, powered onto the three-lane leading into the city.
TWELVE
—
MACNEICE LOOKED ACROSS the table at Aziz sitting very erect next to Vertesi, who was rounding up crumbs on the table with his middle finger.
“Lydia Petrescu was pregnant,” he said to Vertesi. “Mary Richardson told Aziz when they went to view the body. I doubt that her father knew, or he would have said something.”
“Or he knew and he was purposefully saying nothing. What if he was hoping it wouldn’t be discovered?” Aziz said, looking down at the tiny circle of crumbs in front of her colleague.
“Meaning what? That he’s a suspect? No way, not after the way you say he reacted to her death. No way, Aziz,” Vertesi said.
“No, meaning that he possibly knew she was pregnant and possibly knows who the father is.” Her delivery was flat; it was difficult to tell if she believed this or not.
“We don’t know anything about this woman and we don’t know anything about her father’s circle. Are they assimilated, or do they stay close to their own?” MacNeice glanced up at Marcello, watching from the bar, who nodded—a shorthand way of asking, You need something? MacNeice shook his head. “I’d also like to know more about how Antonin Petrescu makes his money.”
“I can look into that,” Vertesi said.
“I called the Conservatory,” Aziz offered. “No one’s in the offices till Monday morning. But I thought maybe we should speak to some of her fellow students and the professors.” She looked at MacNeice. “If someone there—another musician, or maybe a professor—was her lover, and her father found out …”
“Are we talking honour killing here?” Vertesi shoved his crumb circle off the end of the table. “Because I don’t get honour killing with this one. Why the needle, why buddy in the boat, the music in the cottage? None of it fits what we know about that shit.”
“No, it doesn’t. But it might fit what we don’t know about that ‘shit’.” MacNeice waited to see if they understood him. They did. They both remembered him telling them the Miles Davis anecdote, the one where he was auditioning a new musician and stopped him while he was playing with, “Don’t play what you know—I don’t care what you know. Play what you don’t know.”
“Well, here’s all I got. The only person anyone saw at the marina was Ruvola. He was on the bottom in a boat about thirty yards off the nearest shore, so I think we’re looking for another boat—one that Gibbs hasn’t mentioned.” Vertesi drew a boat with a sail, little choppy waves and a shark’s fin on the paper table cover.
“Who’s the shark?” Aziz asked.
“I don’t know. But using the boss’s play-what-you-don’t-know method, I’d still say we’re dealing with foreigners.” Vertesi drew a happy face on the sail of the boat with crossed bones beneath it. MacNeice and Aziz exchanged glances and smiled.
“Right. Well, on that note—and I’m not necessarily disagreeing with you, Michael—Fiza and I have to go and see Mr. Petrescu.”
Vertesi put his notebook and pen away. “Do we still have tomorrow off?”
“I don’t expect either of you to give up your day off.” MacNeice meant it, but when he looked up from signing for dinner, he caught the two younger detectives playing hairy eyeball.
Aziz was sheepish at being caught. “I can work it,” she said.
“Me too.” Vertesi was less convincing.
“Take the day off, both of you. I wasn’t kidding. The people who did this are either long gone or they’re still here. They’re not worried about whether the three of us are working Sunday, and I’m certainly not.”
They could see it was a genuine offer—he never said things he didn’t mean—but MacNeice qualified the thought. “Sad fact is,” he said, “no matter what you do on your day off, this won’t be far from your thoughts.”
“MAKE YOURSELVES COMFORTABLE. I know this cannot be a pleasant task for you. Madeleine has already made tea; she will not join us unless you feel it important that she does.” Though his face was pale and his eyes red-rimmed, Antonin Petrescu was composed and dignified. “Milk or sugar, Detective?”
“No, thank you. Just black.” Aziz sat nearest the window in the library, where she could see the garden.
“And you, Detective MacNeice?”
“Milk please, no sugar.”
Petrescu poured and offered the tea, then poured a cup for himself and eased down into the chair opposite Aziz.
“Sir, while our questions will be difficult for you, I know you understand their importance.” MacNeice opened his notebook to signal the start of the interview; Aziz’s pen was already poised above her page.
“I am desperate to discover what happened, or rather, who did this to my daughter.” Petrescu picked up his cup and saucer, perhaps just to occupy his hands, as he didn’t take a sip.
“The pathologist has discovered that your daughter was three months pregnant. Were you aware of that?”
Petrescu’s cup shivered in its saucer. He quickly put it down on the table and looked out to the garden. Aziz could see that his eyes, already swollen with grief, were spilling more tears down his cheeks. She nodded at MacNeice; it was clear that the man was hearing this news for the first time. MacNeice waited. Petrescu’s chest rose slowly and sank with a shudder, but in a few moments he’d composed himself enough to turn back to them. He used a floral paper napkin to wipe his eyes, then folded it slowly into a neat rectangle and laid it beside the saucer. He shook his head—no—at MacNeice.
“Did Lydia have a boyfriend?”
“Lydia, my daughter, is a good girl. She is—I—I’m sorry—was …” His faced flushed as he held his breath in an effort to keep his composure. His eyes filled again, and he turned towards Aziz as if pleading for something only a female could provide. Aziz lowered her eyes and bowed her head in what MacNeice took to be a sign of respect and compassion. The tears rushed down Petrescu’s cheeks.
“Sir,” said MacNeice softly, “we can come back another time.…”
Petrescu raised his hand, seeking a pause, not an end to the meeting. Once again he took the napkin and wiped his eyes and face. “You see … I loved her very much. She—Lydia was a brilliant musician … poised and confident. Her life, in so many ways, was just beginning.” He looked out to the garden before continuing, “She grew up without a mother.… I never remarried after her mother died. I put Lydia ahead of everything else in my life … she’s such a beautiful daughter—” He waved his hand just above the table as if erasing the mistaken tense of his statement.
“Did she bring her friends home?”
“Not often, no. In her final year at the Conservatory she wanted to have a place of her own downtown. I understood that. Her bedroom”—he looked up to the ceiling—“is just above us. She had this beautiful garden to look out at … but I understood.” He stared again at the garden, and after another deep sigh he said, “I rented an apartment for her, in a safe neighbourhood, not far from the Conservatory.”
“Is this the key, sir?” MacNeice held out his snapshot of the key from Lydia’s bag.
“Yes, that’s it. LP.”
Aziz looked up from her notebook for a moment. “Can you give me the address, Mr. Petrescu?”
“Yes, of course. It’s the big new condominium building on Strathearn Avenue, number eighty-eight. Her flat is on the sixteenth floor—1604. It faces south, very bright. Lydia loved light.” He sat up straight in the chair and looked at MacNeice.
“Do you know who she was seeing—?”
“Yes, you wanted to know who her boyfriend was. I don’t know, but I was to meet someone she said was ‘special’ this weekend. She said, ‘It’s a
surprise, Daddy.’ ”
“You were very close to her,” MacNeice said. He found it odd that her father hadn’t known how close she was to someone else.
“Yes, terribly. But you know, Detective—do you have children?”
“No.”
“Alexandrina, my wife, was thirty-two when she died of pancreatic cancer. Lydia was only four. She grew up feeling, I think, that she was both a daughter and a mother to me, as I was also without my son.” MacNeice noticed his jaw tighten for a moment. “I encouraged both roles.” Tears again filled his eyes. “When she began studying at the Conservatory, I could see she wanted something more from life, and I encouraged that also.”
“Does your son know what has happened?” Aziz asked.
“Not yet. I’ve called Bucharest and left messages with his adjutant to have him call at any hour.”
“What is your son’s role in the military?” MacNeice asked the question idly, as if he were just mildly curious.
“Gregori is a microbiologist. Romania is a poor country, and many people leave to work elsewhere in the European Union. Some, like my son, go into the military, where they can get paid for their skills while they protect the country.”
“What is his interest in microbiology, Mr. Petrescu?” Aziz asked.
He turned to her. “His doctorate is in plant mutation and his focus is what you would call infectious disease control. Where are you from, Detective?”
If Aziz was offended by the question, she didn’t show it. “Why do you ask, sir?”
“I mean no disrespect, but your name intrigues me.” Petrescu seemed as detached as Aziz. MacNeice felt like he was observing a dance between ancient peoples, and he was curious to see where it would go. He sipped his tea and scrutinized the library shelves as if he weren’t paying attention.
“I see. Although I grew up in the U.K., my family is from Lebanon.” Her smile, he thought, was enigmatic but benign.
“Then you have an understanding for what I’ll loosely call our part of the world. It is dangerous and largely poor, and there are many ancient quarrels that determine the destinies of millions today. My son has chosen to remain part of that world.”
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