All in One Piece

  “Remind me about your home security situation.”

  “I have new locks. I have dead bolts.”

  “This handbook is classifiable as assault. Do you know that?”

  “I wasn’t attacked.”

  “You don’t have to be. The threat constitutes assault. Our lab needs to go over these documents. You’ll surrender them?”

  “Along with the .38?”

  He massages his neck. “In my line of work, Reggie, you better try not to second-guess yourself. Tests are important. The law is important.” His eyes lock on mine. “To verify: you were not aware until very recently that your late aunt’s household contained firearms, isn’t that correct?”

  “I…”

  “Yes, it’s correct. And you resorted to a firearm in self-defense, isn’t that right?” I pause. “Not to injure or to kill, but to neutralize a threat to your life. Isn’t that right?” I blink, trying to follow. “Because, Reggie, it is unlawful to discharge a firearm with the intent to kill. That would constitute an intent to commit homicide. Self-defense means that you perceived a threat to your life and discharged a firearm in order to neutralize the threat. Do you understand me?”

  “I get it: I didn’t shoot to kill. I fired the gun to neutralize the threat to my life.”

  “Good. Good that you understand that. Because we’ll have to submit a report.” He tucks the shoe box under his arm.

  “Frank, there’s more. I believe that Steven Damelin ran a racket called Helping Hand. It was a phony personal services business. Elderly people invested and were robbed.”

  “Elderly people… not Jo?”

  “Yes, Jo. The deal Steven talked about the day before he died—it was the Helping Hand scheme. Jo got sick before he could fleece her. I don’t know the specifics, but he goaded his victims by phone. And he made a promotional film or video. His former landlady’s in it. So is Luis Diaz.”

  “The Dominican kid?” I nod. “You’ve seen this film?”

  “No. Luis asked about it, and the landlady played the part of a financially overwhelmed retiree. Her name’s Alice Collier. She’s in assisted living at Silver Ridge Village in Brockton.” He makes a note and begins to stand. “Frank, what about the tugboat yacht, the Shanghai?”

  “What about it?”

  “It could be a big break in the case. I told Maglia, maybe Steven drowned in the hot tub. That log I see in my vision . . . it could be a wood sculpture I saw on the yacht.”

  “You got a psychic vibe?”

  “No.” He frowns and shakes his head. “My sixth sense doesn’t turn on like the radio, Frank. You know that.”

  “But you were up close, right? Close enough to feel something.”

  “I didn’t get to touch it. You know I work best from physical contact.”

  He sighs. “Reggie, I’ll say this much. Grappling hooks are found on boats and ships. A grapnel is a small anchor. A lifeboat on an ocean tug has an anchor just the size of the hook your assailant used. The Coast Guard works with the police.”

  “So you’ll investigate?”

  “Absolutely. That’s my point: we’ll investigate. Law enforcement will do the job. You, Reggie, you need to take it easy. Clean up your place, take care of your dog, go about your business. You’re planning the memorial service, right?”

  “It’s next Wednesday.”

  “I want to be informed about it. We’ll have a detail there. But you take it easy. We’re stepping up security on Barlow Square.”

  “Patrols?”

  “And surveillance. Because you’re targeted. Or maybe there’s something inside the house. Maybe it’s you. Maybe it’s both. Somebody’s after something, and the stakes are high. You take care of yourself. You play it safe.”

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Safe? To close my eyes for a split second is to see the crowbar and gloved hand thrust from the depths of perpetual night. Yes, you can get window glass service in the wee hours in the cold rain and howling wind. And yes, the ER vet at Angel Memorial Hospital will examine your trembling beagle. She’ll test her hearing and eyes and inspect the coat and tween toes to pronounce her unharmed—this after you wait your turn beside a nun with her ailing pet iguana.

  Then you can return to the crime scene, a.k.a. your home, take notice of the police cruiser that’s parked on your block, fasten each and every chain and bolt, and bundle yourself in blankets on the front room sofa and face the mind’s crowbar while you wait for the dawn that never comes.

  Until, at last, it does come, the pale gray first light that yields itself to a morning so clear, bright, and blue that it’s surreal. In jeans and a sweater, I sweep up tracked-in dirt and glass that’s scattered like shrapnel both upstairs and down. As if to banish the night, I throw the sopping floor towels into the trash.

  From the front window, I glimpse Trudy Pfaeltz loading her van. I grab a jacket and dash outside. “Trudy, were you home last night?”

  “Night shift, remember?”

  “Somebody tried to break into my house.”

  “You probably heard storm noises, Reggie. One of the doctors swore the wind reached hurricane force.”

  “No, you don’t understand, my house—”

  “Just look at that poor tree over there, those downed limbs.”

  “Trudy, listen to me. Somebody climbed down a rope from Steven Damelin’s fire escape and knocked out my bedroom window.”

  “While you were inside? Holy shit.” She pauses. “It’s because the apartment’s empty. Crooks have that radar. We’ll all feel safer when your new tenant moves in.” Trudy thrusts a handful of Almond Joys into my jacket pocket. “Help yourself. Coconut’s not selling.”

  “Have you noticed anybody around the square? Anybody hanging around?”

  “Funny, I thought about calling a cop over here yesterday afternoon at about two. I had my eye on somebody in a baseball cap in the alley.”

  “Male?”

  “I thought so. He walked back and forth. That’s why I noticed, back and forth for nearly an hour. I couldn’t see the face.”

  “Did he look like a dancer, muscular, erect posture?”

  “I couldn’t really tell.”

  “Or maybe a kid, a big lumbering teen?” She shrugs. “How about tall with blond hair? Did you see the hands? You’re a nurse, did you see red marks on his hands, like cuts that are just healing?”

  “Reggie, a person can’t see much looking straight down. I think the cap was brown. You can’t report everybody. You’d get sued.”

  “So the cap is all that you saw? That’s it?”

  “Yep, that’s it. How about a Xanax, hon? I have samples. It’ll calm you down, get you through the day.”

  “No thanks. I’m on high alert.”

  “We call it acute stress disorder.”

  I ignore this, reminding Trudy of the memorial service.

  “I’ll be there. If you want candy bars at the reception, give me a buzz. Is your pup okay?”

  “She’s fine. It’s a miracle she wasn’t cut. Glass flew everywhere. She’s a great watchdog.”

  “Studies show that dogs help keep their owners’ blood pressure down. They have fewer heart attacks.”

  How about fewer bludgeonings by crowbar? Back inside, I put out clean towels and try to work on “Ticked Off.” Impossible. My concentration is wrecked.

  Suppose there is something targeted in the house… though Jo had no good jewelry and no family silver, and my own pieces aren’t worth an aerial trapeze burglary. The handguns, of course, are a good bet. I can’t think of anything else.

  Except… there’s the Corsair Financial sheet that the cleaning guys found in Steven’s apartment behind the mantel. I couldn’t make sense of it days ago, but maybe I read it wrong. Maybe it wasn’t about microcap stocks or the SEC fine.

  Back to my lingerie drawer, I grab the xeroxed Corsair sheet and stare at the column of abbreviations and numbers. Are they account numbers? They’re not Social Security because each has ten d
igits… like an area code plus the local number.

  Yes, that’s it. Suddenly the column makes sense: it’s so obvious, they’re phone numbers run together. And the letters? They’re not alphabetized, but midway down the list I see “CDA.”

  Is this Alice Collier, surname first, with middle initial D? Grabbing the city directory, I once again look up H. Collier on Deary Street and match it to the numbers by the abbreviation for Alice D. Collier.

  Ta-dah! I’m looking at a list of Helping Hand victims.

  Do I call Devaney? Or Maglia? First, Reggie, make certain, or the detectives will go ballistic. Devaney’s test question always lurks: do you feel psychic vibes?

  I hold the paper, close my eyes, and try to concentrate. Alice Collier’s face comes to mind, but memory isn’t the same as a psychic vision. As hard as I wish for it, this is simply a piece of paper with a column of handwritten numbers and initials. No, it’s not psychic.

  But it’s dynamite.

  Who’d know the mechanics of the Helping Hand scheme—my ex, Marty? When hell freezes over.

  Who else? My Silicon Valley son, Jack, an e-generation wizard. I wake him up. “Jeez, Mom, I just got to sleep.”

  “Sorry, Jack. I forgot you’re a West Coast owl. There’s a money puzzle I need help with right now. It’s part of a scam called Helping Hand. It victimizes older people.”

  “Mom, is some scumbag cheating you?”

  “Older than your mother, Jack. I mean, the trifocal and hearing-aid and dentures generation. Not me. Not nearly. Are you awake? Are you listening?”

  “Totally.” He goes un-huh while I tell what I know about Helping Hand. “Mom, you’re describing a Ponzi scheme. You’ve heard of them.”

  “Robbing Peter to pay Paul?”

  “Sure. It’s named for an Italian guy, Ponzi, back in some other century. The victim believes it’s a great investment, but it’s actually money from some other fool suckered into the scheme.”

  “Peter’s money paid out to Paul, and vice versa.”

  “Yeah, until the Ponzi character cashes in. He waits till the victim gets greedy after a few rounds of big returns. Then, wham, he shuts it down, then starts all over again with another mooch list.”

  “Mooch? The list of victims?”

  “You got it.”

  “I’ve literally got it, Jack. I’m looking at a mooch list right now. Here’s my question: could a Ponzi scheme be conducted mostly by phone?”

  “Sure.”

  “How? Can’t numbers be traced?”

  “Think phone cards, Mom. Or stolen phones. Best of all, you’d phone your victims from outside the country.”

  “From Mexico? Or Canada?”

  Jack chuckles. “All of the above. Get a special-offer phone deal, call the mooch, and tell that person they’ve been selected for something special, like their name came up for a rare opportunity and it’s a once-in-a-lifetime. Canada’s really good. Say Canada, and people think its rock solid. Nobody’d cheat you in Canada. Tell them to send a cashier’s check. Make your calls and ditch the phone for new ones.”

  “Or keep the old phones as souvenirs? Or trophies?”

  “Whatever.” In Jack’s pause, I hear keyboard clicks, my son’s pulse of life. “Mom, you’re not… I mean, nobody’s hit you up, right?”

  “Am I a mooch? No, dear, your mother is not a mooch.”

  “What about that murdered guy?”

  “The police are working night and day, dear. And there’s a cruiser outside round the clock.”

  “So what are you doing with a mooch list, Mom?”

  “Decoding it for the police, dear. And getting ready to go buy some new towels. Someday I want to hear all about this data mining that you do. Go back to bed now. Sleep tight. Stay in touch.”

  An hour later, Biscuit goes into raptures. An engine outside has roared and ceased… loud enough for two engines. That means one thing. I go to open the front door and call, “Stark.”

  He’s not alone. The man beside him has muttonchop whiskers and thighs and shoulders out of an NFL beer ad. Two Harleys are backed against the curb behind them, the Fatso and a bike with skulls and flames. “This is Oliver. We’re gonna move the sofa from upstairs.”

  The next half hour becomes a stairway wrestling match of muscle and bone vs. upholstery and the steel innards of a three-seat pullout. I myself tote the three down-filled pillowback cushions. By 10:15 a.m., Steven’s sofa is settled in the basement beside the blue chest. “It’ll go to his sister in Lawrence,” I say.

  Oliver, who has not broken a sweat, tugs his whiskers, says no thanks to beer or coffee, and won’t accept a “teamster” tip. He takes off with a blast that’d rupture eardrums. Stark lingers, and frankly I am glad. He’ll take Biscuit for a quick run until the coffee’s ready.

  “Stay out of the alley, Stark. There’s broken glass.”

  Twenty minutes later, I fill the Bruins mug and pass him the sugar crock. Stark spoons in his five and straddles the same kitchen chair that Devaney occupied hours ago.

  “So the storm busted your upstairs apartment window, Cutter. Is that the story?”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because there’s fresh putty around the window glass up there. It was a helluva wind last night, Cutter, but not enough to smash out a window. You got busted glass only under your place, no neighbors’, and a cop car circled the square twice while I was out with the dog. Twice.” His eyes lock on mine. “Is that a coincidence?” I shake my head. “What’s up?”

  So I tell him.

  “Let’s take a look at your bedroom window.” We go in. He looks it over, grunts, raises the new window to look down into the alley and peer up at the fire escape. Window closed, we go back to our coffee. “So you shot and missed? Or maybe wounded the guy?”

  “Either. The rain washed away any visible blood on the ground below my window, but the cops took some samples for the lab, so we’ll see.”

  “You think the crowbar was the dancer?”

  “The shoes were the giveaway. They looked soft and pliable, like dance slippers. Detective Devaney agreed. I mean, he didn’t disagree.”

  Stark wraps his fingers around the mug and again fixes his Atlantic-gray eyes on mine. “Cutter, have you ever seen climbing shoes?”

  “No. What are they?”

  “These old town house bricks have deep grooves. For a climber, they’re a piece of cake.”

  “So what are climbing shoes?”

  “They got high arches and cupped heels for edging and bouldering. They look like slippers.”

  “Like slippers?”

  “That’s what I said.” He studies my face. “You got a rock climber friend, Cutter?”

  “You mean… the break-in wasn’t the dancer? It was somebody else?”

  “Figure the odds. Hedge your bets. I mean, it could be a dancer, but maybe not. What about that crowbar?”

  “I told you, it smashed the glass.”

  “A small mallet would do. And be easier to handle. A crowbar means business.”

  “Overkill?”

  The word hangs between us. “You mean the crowbar was meant for more than… property damage.”

  “I’d think so.”

  “But why? Why would anyone come after me?”

  “What about that car that knocked you down last month?”

  “It could have been a joyrider.”

  “You didn’t think so when you hit the asphalt.”

  “I was upset.”

  “Shit, Cutter, another minute, you’ll say it’s the man in the moon. Get real.”

  “I am real.”

  “Get out of your trance.”

  “Don’t insult me.”

  Our voices rise, and Biscuit looks from one of us to the other and barks. We watch, silent, as she jumps to the middle of the kitchen floor, stance wide, chest out facing the two of us, then barks, barks, barks.

  “She’s pissed,” says Stark.

  “Upset,” I say.

&nb
sp; We both extend contrite hands to Biscuit, who turns, tail down, disgusted, and walks out on us both. We lower our voices.

  “For the life of me, Stark, I don’t know why I’d be targeted.”

  “For the life of you, Cutter, you better try to figure it out.” He drains the mug and stands. “I gotta go. Do me a favor. Pick up the glass in the alley. Do it today.”

  “Why?”

  “So Fatso doesn’t get a flat when I ride back there at night. Call it the Stark patrol. See ya later, Cutter. Take it easy. Dress warm.”

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Stark goes, half rough rider, half my caffeinated guardian angel. My ears ring all over again. Climbing shoes, not dance slippers? Should I call Devaney to tell him that I don’t know a dancer from a… a boulderer?

  Suppose it wasn’t Alex gripping that crowbar.

  Suppose the crowbar was meant for my skull. Was it Xian? When the Shanghai left Long Wharf, did Xian stay ashore to finish the job he began with Steven’s murder? The climber went first into Steven’s empty apartment. Was he looking for the mooch list behind the mantel? When he found it was gone, did he guess that I’d got hold of it and climb down after me?

  Suppose Sinclair Wing sent him. Suppose that Steven called his Helping Hand victims from the Shanghai and gave the yachtsman a cut of the money. Maybe something went wrong between them, murderously wrong for Steven. The superrich can be greedy, thrive on sleaze and crime, and respect murder as a regrettable necessity. Or a hobby.

  Or am I clutching at straws? At chopsticks? The memorial service is looming, almost here, countdown to launch. Steady, Reggie, stay on course.

  Laundry. Nothing grounds a woman like a mundane load of wash. With household help a mere memory, I gather an armful from the hamper and head to the basement and start the machine. The setting for a second rinse feels somehow virtuous. While down here, I’ll throw a dustcover over Steven’s sofa. I drape an old sheet carefully, avoiding the center seat cushion where I’d sat in the emptied upstairs flat just before Meg showed the apartment to Mackenzie Carruthers—and just before I got covered in chimney soot. In the center cushion, I’d felt the water of Steven’s drowning, and the log… the log of his concussion? Was he knocked unconscious before he drowned?