“Steven said it was a BMW, but I thought Japanese.” We look at the door as if East Asia conspires against me. “Before Jo died, Stark, did she say anything about a ‘deal’ with Steven? Anything at all?” He says no. “Did she mention his name? Or anything about any younger man in her life? Steven worked at a business called Corsair Financial. There’s nothing in her files. I’ve been through them twice. Did she ever mention that name?” Again, no. “Did she talk about her ship coming in?”
“What ship?”
“I don’t know. A couple of people heard her talk about her ship.” We agree it doesn’t sound like Jo. I check the time. “The cleaner is due, Stark, and I have to trace the door mark. About Biscuit—”
“She stays here. You need her.”
“And I’m thinking about a gun course. The timing’s wrong for motorcycle lessons. Anyway, I’m bruised and banged up from that fall in the street.”
“Show me.” I thrust my purpled elbow. He laughs. “Not even a decent case of road rash.”
“What’s road rash?”
He laughs and tells me that I’ll find out. “About the gun course, Cutter, you need to be clear-headed.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning this isn’t prime time for you and your .38. Or the John Wayne .44 either.”
It’s a moment when I wish Stark didn’t know about the guns. He found out one midnight last summer. It couldn’t be helped.
He pulls out the Harley ignition key. “I’m heading out for now. If you hear Fatso in the middle of the night, take it as a lullaby. If you hear Fatso roar, Cutter, turn over and sleep well.”
Chapter Twelve
Sleep? It’s unimaginable. I complete the ghastly tracing of the blood mark, fold the tissue with utmost care, and slide it into my bureau drawer with my bras. The rustling noise, it’s from my trembling fingers.
The door knocker sounds—Right True Clean, half an hour late. It’s two guys in jumpsuits with equipment. Quickly I show them the door and lead them upstairs and into Steven’s apartment, my breath short and heart pounding as we step in. The playful furniture, the bright colors made for fun—all are shoved and upended as if the police search was a rampage. The cleaners lift a blond oak boomerang table upright, and I put the Lava lamp on top.
Somehow the primitive domestic order helps. The imprint of the search is clear—the drawers pulled out, contents rifled, the papers, envelopes, shirts, socks, kitchen implements, two computers, both hard drives ripped and taken as evidence. The blood-soaked rug. The bloodstained floor.
There’s no sign of the drill, which doubtless is also secured in an evidence bag. The nail holes look like pores.
Worst of all, however, the smell, like spoiling meat. I rush to a window and stop myself from apologizing—typical female reflex.
“Ma’am,” says the thickset one, “we’ll take it from here.” He’s pulling a Mylar bunny suit and respirator mask from a duffel as I go back downstairs, then spend half an hour coaxing the water-soaked Ferragamos back to life for sheer distraction. Wrecking a pair of good shoes isn’t exactly like exposing a Steinway grand to the elements, but the mindless soap circles are soothing. The rain stains recede. The shoes look damaged and rescued both.
I stuff them with paper wads and go next door to ring the bell of unit 2 at 25 Barlow Square, a town house nearly identical to my own. The upstairs flat marked “Pfaeltz” is directly adjacent to my own rental flat, meaning Steven’s. Three rings, and here comes Trudy Pfaeltz in slippers and a pink belted chenille robe with “Mary Kay” over the pocket and a parakeet on her shoulder. She rakes a hand through dark blond hair. Her pug nose is sprinkled with pale freckles, her eyes red-rimmed today. I’d guess she’s nearing forty, and I hope against hope she can help me.
“Trudy, I’m really sorry to wake you up.”
“’S’okay, Reggie. Kingpin was chirping so loud I had to get up and cover his cage. Damn bird. Anyway, we night shift workers take our chances on decent sleep. And I meant to call you. My God, a murder on Barlow Square.”
“Did you see the police next door, the squad cars, yellow tape? I rang your bell a couple times yesterday.”
“I haven’t been home for two days. The hospital’s so shorthanded I worked double shifts, plus restocking my vending machines. I’m losing sales because people buy bags of Halloween candy at the supermarket and skip the machines. Oh God, a man is murdered, and I’m worried about candy bars. Me, a nurse.”
“So you weren’t home the night of the murder.”
“No.” She shivers and pulls her robe tight. “Thank God the hospital needed me. The post-op floor, it’s almost home-sweet-home. A lab technician saw TV news and told me. It hit me: one brick firewall away from my apartment, a guy was murdered. You must be a wreck. Want a few Valium?”
I shake my head no. “But could I ask you a couple of questions? I went around to the alley. It looked okay, but I want to make sure. Would you walk back there with me, just to check?”
“No time like the present.” She sees me scan her outfit. “Listen, Reggie, I sold Mary Kay and Tupperware to half of Barlow Square. A woman in a pink robe with a parakeet with orange feathers on one shoulder, I’m local color. Let’s go.”
So we stand in the alley behind 25 and 27, looking for signs of disturbance while gazing upward at Boston’s idea of fire safety. It’s a setup from another era. An iron balcony crosses from my upstairs rental flat to Trudy’s. Should fire break out in either unit and the inside stairwell be blocked, the occupant is supposed to exit a back window onto his or her balcony, then calmly walk across it and knock on the neighbor’s window. Ideally the neighbor opens this window and welcomes the fire victim inside. If nobody’s home, the escapee is entitled to smash the neighbor’s window and climb in. It’s a friendly pyrotechnic break-in of sorts. As a deterrent to criminals, there’s no ladder down to the ground.
We stand in silence. Trudy says, “Everything looks normal.”
I agree. “That’s a big drop to the ground. Trudy, did you ever try an actual fire drill on your balcony?”
“Not once in my twelve years here on the square. Who would?”
“My dentist tenant almost backed out of the lease when he saw this.”
“Dr. Tooth, that pain in the neck? Where is he, Bora Bora?”
“Africa. He’s testing dental pain medicine for a pharmaceutical company.”
“Ah, Big Pharma’s dirty little game.” She sees the question mark on my face. “It’s drug trials on human guinea pigs in the so-called developing world. Innocent subjects sign up, all dark-skinned. Informed consent, forget it. It’s probably a really dangerous drug. Your dentist will probably make a ton of money. What’s his name—Forest?”
“H. Forest Buxbaum, D.M.D. My high-maintenance tenant.”
“And if he hadn’t gone fortune hunting for six months, there’d be no sublet… no murder.”
No blood mark on my door? Or could my son be right, that Jo’s town house is somehow a targeted address?
“Believe me,” says Trudy, “I thought twice before buying on the second floor. Plus, hauling my merchandise, lotions by the case. And I never got the Mary Kay pink Cadillac. If I’d sold more Spot Solution or Lumineyes—those are the high-end items. Anyway, it looks the same as always back here, no signs of break-in. So the killer came through the front door?”
“Most likely.”
“Right past your own door?”
I shiver, fold my arms, and nod in silence. We walk around to the front of the square, the parakeet riding her shoulder. “Trudy, how well did you know my aunt?”
She sighs. “With my schedule, I hardly socialize, so mostly it was about who’s bringing potato salad or slaw for the square’s block parties. Your aunt organized them. She always made a vat of her incredible chowder, better than Legal Seafood’s. I told her, ‘Ms. Cutter, this is marketable.’ She just laughed. We were, you know, just good neighbors.”
“You didn’t know Steven Damelin?”
“The victim? ‘Know’ is a stretch. I saw him at the curb when I got home from work a couple times in the last month. That time of the morning, there’s nobody out on Barlow Square. We said hi. He was waiting with a suitcase and a garment bag over his shoulder. The cabs came. Off he went.”
“Any particular cab company?”
“In Boston? Among the million? Very hard to break into the cab business, tons of red tape. I looked into it. And the birdseed project fizzled. For now, it’s Hershey and PayDays.”
“Trudy—” I pause to get her attention. “Two days ago, a small blue car nearly ran me down out front here at about two o’clock in the afternoon. I was crossing the street, and it sped at me. Do you know anyone with a little blue car? It clipped my calf.”
“People on phones, worse than drunk drivers. I don’t mean to sound flip, Reggie. It’s just so awful that you can’t take it in. I see everything in the hospital. I’m supposed to be shockproof. Another stupid myth.” She stares at Steven’s window, shudders, and tells me to take care of myself as Kingpin says, “Pretty bird, kiddo, pretty bird deluxe.”
It’s almost 3:00 p.m. Back in my kitchen, I grab a quick sandwich. Somebody knocks, and I jump like a scared rabbit. It’s Right True Clean, all done, including my door. Mercifully neither man comments on the blood marks. “You want to let the upholstery and rugs dry out for about twenty-four hours. We put wood fill in the holes in the floor. It matches pretty good. We found this behind the fireplace mantel.”
He holds up an envelope. “We think it slipped back there. The police probably worked that area, so I don’t know what you want to do.”
I stare at the white envelope as if expecting blood to seep through in front of my eyes, a time-release hemorrhage. No, it’s snow-white. “I’ll see the police get it. Just put it on the table.” I write the check. Huge. Worth every penny. Right True Clean loads up and departs.
The envelope isn’t sealed, and so I peek at the single letterhead sheet from Corsair Financial, Steven’s employer. It’s just a piece of paper with handwritten numbers and abbreviations in pencil. Holding it, I begin to feel dizzy. It’s that screen thing, the water and log. The swirling currents. Steven—
Drop it. Drop the paper. I let it go. It falls to the floor, and I jump back and stand clear as if a whorl will suck me under. Please, God, give my balance back. I wait. Tight throat, tight chest, stinging eyes. The drowning scene, I’m there again. And crying, my cheeks wet with salty fat tears.
But I don’t weep for Steven now. These tears are shed for me, for the vertigo and the visions that overtake and drive me to find out who killed him.
Chapter Thirteen
Where did Steven go in the cabs? A month’s early morning fares from Barlow Square… maybe the cops can trace his whereabouts through the labyrinth of taxi companies, not me.
I take Biscuit for a short walk to drop off my roll of film at One Hour Foto, then phone Harvard’s Department of East Asian Languages and Civilization. The receptionist coolly informs me that professors are busy with the new semester, but she will take my number and my request for a consultation in case any interested faculty or graduate students care to call me. Ditto the departments of Asian studies at Boston University, Boston College, MIT, Tufts, Northeastern, and Wellesley. None are really helpful. May they all nibble dim sum and sip tea at the Great Wall.
What now? An hour’s work on my column. As ever, the deadline approaches, in the newspaper meaning of the word “dead.” Stark’s notion of tipping everybody in sight… I’m dubious. Aren’t employers responsible to pay decent wages? Won’t workers get overly dependent on dollars at the drive-thru window?
Yet jobs aren’t what they were. A few of Molly’s friends are temping. One of Jack’s pals, a programmer, is clerking at Home Depot after several layoffs. Maybe Stark has a point. I’m drafting “Tip Jar Tactics” when the mail arrives, a reminder of my police errand. Imagine Maglia slipping me a dollar for every report on Steven’s mail: Reggie the McMail clerk.
Sorting through, I make two piles. For me, a subscription renewal reminder and specials on cosmetics with a free tote bag. No card from the Middle East.
For Steven Damelin, a menswear sale, Visa offer, Save the Children. And a blue postcard from something called the Apollo Club, with an image of classical Apollo, his marble abs cut sharp, a small fig leaf over ample endowment. “Entertainment, dancing, valet parking.” Penned at the bottom is, “Hey, Steve, hope to see you soon—Matt.”
It’s definitely mail the police should know about. I start for the phone to call Maglia. Then I stop. Not so fast. Is this message personal or only personalized? A rub of a thumb across the signature, and the ink blurs. Okay, it’s for real… but suppose Matt jotted a few hundred cards for a batch mailing? If I call Maglia about a promotional ad, he’ll demote me even further. Devaney will chortle. For now, the Apollo Club card goes into the junk mail envelope, which I’ll send to Maglia as promised. A deal’s a deal.
With fingers crossed, I’m off to pick up my door photos, this time without Biscuit, because if they’re clear enough, I’m heading to Chinatown, a twenty-minute walk at a brisk pace. I pay the clerk, then riffle through the photos. Yes, the three blood mark snapshots are underexposed but clear. They look more than ever like Chinese characters.
It’s nearly five when I get to Stuart Street, then over to Harrison and the side streets where Vietnamese, Thai, and Chinese groceries abound. The windows of golden Peking ducks, the bok choy in bushel baskets, and packets of five-star anise beckon for occasional cooking sprees. Now they’re for language drill.
Inside the Lu Wan grocery, boisterous talk among a group in the back comes to a sudden halt when I enter, a Caucasian intruder. A wizened man in a fedora comes forward as if to guard his real clientele. This is definitely not Tsakis Brothers. I show the photos and ask, “Can you say what this means?” His eyes go blank. I nearly shout, the stupid tactic across a language barrier. “What-does-this-mean?” He looks at the photos and says, “Door. You door. You want wonton wrap?” I’m not yet outside when the conversation bursts anew.
Next stop, a produce vender, an aproned woman with wispy bangs who tumbles ginger into a bin while her little boy stacks some sort of fuzzy root. She smiles broadly. A mother, good. I flash the photos. She nods, looks closer, takes one photo out into the sunlight and studies it closely. Her son looks too, and they exchange words. Frowning, she returns and says, “Not have this.”
“But what does it say? What is ‘this’?”
“Not have.” Her bangs move as she shakes her head no and turns back to the ginger.
At the corner, I go into a gift shop featuring satin pajamas and the black cotton slippers my Molly loved as a child. No clerk appears, however, so I’m down the block to another grocery where a young couple uncrates what look like charcoal briquettes but are salted duck eggs. This is the Ling Pan store, in which I’m the sole customer. Once again, the photos. Once again, the conferring in Chinese. Then much discussion, debate, hand gestures, and pointing at the photos, followed by further debate worthy of the U.N. To my ears, there’s not a familiar syllable. Finally agreement is negotiated between the couple. Both smile, nod yes, and fetch me a pineapple.
“Pineapple?”
Beaming, they nod. They insist. The decision is final. My best effort to decipher the blood marks from Steven’s murder gets me one overripe pineapple.
“Reggie, sit yourself down. You get light duty today, no heavy lifting.”
“Nicole,” I say, “I’m fine.” Which isn’t really true because it’s been wrenching to describe the murder, also wrenching to see horror deepen on the face of Nicole Patrick, my boss. We’re in StyleSmart, the Roxbury clothing store where I work two days a week. It’s Thursday, just past ten. I’ve summarized the last two days for Nicole.
“That poor young man, and Jo not gone a year. What a vicious thing, an evil thing. May justice be done. May God have mercy. You need some tea right now.” Nicole bring
s me a cup of Earl Grey from our refreshment nook, her stance and stride confident in slingbacks, an ankle-length black skirt, and carnation-pink silk jacket. She’s about five-eight, hair up in a braid arrangement that sets off teardrop gold earrings. Her features are broad, her figure ample. She’s somewhere in her forties, her skin between milk and bittersweet chocolate.
“Sip it slow, Reggie.” Nicole’s gaze is empathy itself. “You feelin’ the psychic spirit about this?”
My still-sore head is too much to go into, so I say no.
“I bet you haven’t slept a wink all week.”
Not true. The sound of a certain motorcycle circling Barlow Square in the depths of last night lured me into deep slumber, as if the crackling exhaust of Stark’s Harley played Brahms’s lullaby. “Actually I feel better today.” We’re in the sofa area, Nicole on a tufted chair.
“How ’bout getting iron bars for those first-floor windows of yours? Locks are good, but bars mean business.”
“I don’t know, Nicole.” Her goodwill makes my heart sink. StyleSmart, like every other business here on Warnock Street, has a steel front grate for nighttime lockdown because of Roxbury’s crime rate.
“Nowadays they make ’em decorative, Reggie. Vines and leaves hide the bars. I can recommend a welder. You owe yourself the best protection.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Police, you can’t just count on them. They got too much to do. You got to protect yourself. You hear?”
“I do.” I nod and set my cup on the coffee table with current issues of Working Woman, Jet, Essence, Ebony. I’d hoped for an escapist morning. StyleSmart, you see, outfits women who are recently off the welfare rolls. Nicole and I are fashion consultants for women entering the workforce full-time for the first time in their lives. They need wardrobes, and we provide them at low or no cost. The inventory is donated. StyleSmart is a not-for-profit.
“What’s up for today?” I try to sound chipper.
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