Shallow Graves - Jeremiah Healy

by Jeremiah Healy

"The death case. Here in Suffolk County?"

  "Right."

  Nancy nodded. She had her professional obligations, I had mine, and we both knew it was best not to mix them.

  Going back to the lamb, I said, "You still on for the conference in Dallas?"

  She smiled without showing teeth. "Convention. I confirmed it this morning"

  "They still want you to talk?"

  "Uh-huh. One of the panels at plenary session."

  "What does 'plenary' mean?"

  "Before the whole convention in the big auditorium?

  "Quite a feather in the young prosecutor's cap."

  "It'll hold me till you do."

  By the time we were ready for dessert, the pianist had taken a break. Over the hushed talk and clinking of cutlery, I said, "You know, I thought about embarrassing you with a cake and singing."

  Nancy looked up, horrified. "You didn't?"

  "Picture it. The Great Nancy Meagher, the center of attention at her convention, unbearably self-conscious in the best hotel restaurant in Boston."

  "That would be cruel, John."

  "Cruelty has its place. Instead, though, how about a chocolate mousse torte?"

  "You memorized the menu?"

  "That one kind of jumped out at me."

  Our waiter wheeled over the dessert cart anyway. Nancy picked a seven-layer walnut cake and a tea I couldn't pronounce. I went with the torte and the last of the wine. Pointing my fork at her cake, I said, "There's still time to stick a candle in that."

  She looked up. "Want a taste?"

  We exchanged forkfuls, making appropriate "ummm" sounds.

  The pianist came back on just as we were finishing. I said, "We could order some brandy, hear one more set?"

  Nancy seemed to consider it as he began playing again. Then she frowned. "What is that?"

  I looked at the piano, thinking it would help me. "Something with words, but . .

  "A theme song, like from television."

  "Yeah. Sure. 'The first mate and the skipper, too . . .' "

  Nancy put a hand to her mouth. "Gilligan's Island!"

  I said, "Maybe it is time for the check."

  We walked up Commonwealth to Fairfield and then over to Beacon and the condominium I was renting from a doctor doing a two-year residency in Chicago. We got only as far as the parking lot because Nancy wanted to sleep home in South Boston to be fresh for battle the next morning. My silver Prelude, 'old' but reliable, took us to Southie, finding as always a spot on the street near her place.

  I climbed the stairs behind Nancy. Drew Lynch, a cop whose parents owned the property, opened his door on the second floor, just to be sure that she was okay. As we reached her door on the third, I thought for a moment about the model in Holt's photo. Mau Tim Dani died in an apartment on the same floor in a probably similar building across town in the South End. Nancy turned the key and pushed the door. A ball of fur swirled around her feet, biting me at the sock line of my shoes.

  I said, "Can't you teach him not to do this?"

  "He's an attack cat, John. Aren't you, Renfie1d?"

  At the sound of her voice, Renfield backed off. A gray tiger, the yellow eyes seemed to move independently as he looked for any exposed flesh. Nancy had named him after the Englishman in Dracula who eats small mammals. A few months before, he'd been declawed up front and neutered, but at almost a year old, he was still a terror with his teeth and rear claws.

  I said, "Do they make cat muzzles?"

  Nancy swung her briefcase onto the kitchen table. "I don't know why you two don't get along better."

  "He senses I'm a competitor for your affections."

  "He's a eunuch now. Maybe I should take him for therapy."

  I moved in behind her. "Depends on what affections he's competing for."

  Nancy arched back into me just a little. "I think we left off with your thumb pad."

  "Shall I start making the rest of me accessible?"

  "No. It's my birthday, I get the bathroom first."

  "And in the meantime?"

  "You get Renfield. Try to tire him out so he doesn't bother us."

  "You have any tranquilizer darts?"

  Nancy moved into the bedroom and closed the door behind her.

  I sat down on one of the kitchen chairs, unbuttoning my collar and tugging down my tie. Renfield hunkered onto his haunches, eyeing the end of my tie with bad intent.

  I said, "Don't even think about it."

  Renfield suddenly looked up and past me. I fell for it. As soon as my head was turned, he was on my lap, the rear paws pedaling for purchase, the claws sinking through my suit and the teeth sinking through my tie.

  I yelled and stood up, prying him off and dropping him from about waist height. He hit the floor on all fours, but cried out, slinking away and favoring his right hip in a limping circle. Nancy's head and bra-strapped shoulders came around the bedroom door. "What was that?"

  "I don't know. I just dropped him and — "

  But she'd already spotted Renfield, now lurching near the pantry shelves, trying to scuttle under the lowest one. "Renfield? Renfield, what happened?"

  "Nance, I told you. He — "

  She was out in the kitchen now, trying to corner him gently.

  "Jesus Mary, John! He's just a little cat. What did you do to him?"

  "Nothing. Like I said, he jumped on me and I dropped him."

  "It looks like his leg is broken."

  "It can't be. I just let him go from like here."

  Nancy glanced at my hands in front of my belt, then finally got Renfield bracketed. He let her pick him up, a little at a time. Once in her arms, Renfield hissed at me.

  "John, he's hurt."

  "He probably just pulled something."

  "Pulled something? The marathoner's a vet now?"

  "Nancy, give me a break, okay? I dropped him from like three feet in the air, and he landed on all fours. He's a cat, he ought to be able to take that."

  "Well, obviously he couldn't." She shifted him carefully to hold him more easily. "I should never have had him declawed."

  "Nance, he was shredding your furniture. And spraying it, too. Were you not going to have him fixed now, either?"

  That got me the steady, even voice. "It's my birthday, John. It's my birthday, and you crippled my kitty."

  "Nancy, he's not crippled. His leg looks fine — "

  "He was limping!"

  "His leg seems okay. It's his hip, like it's out of joint, maybe."

  "First he pulled something, now he's got a dislocated hip?"

  I put up my hands. "Okay, okay. We'll take him to the vet's. Right now." I started digging in my pants for the car keys.

  "No. No, let me call first."

  I waited while Nancy, using just two fingers of one hand, found the animal hospital's number in her address book and dialed it. The half of the conversation I heard was: "My cat just fell from about three feet above the floor and . . . No, no, he didn't land on his back or head. He landed on his feet . . . No, it just seems to be his leg. Or hip, maybe . . , Well, I don't know if he's in pain. He's limping around and . . . No, he cried out once" — Nancy looking to me, me nodding to her — "but that's it. Now he's just hissing and . . . No, no, not at me. At — just hissing a little, now and then . . . You do? You're sure? Well, I guess that makes sense . . . Yes, yes, thank you. I appreciate . . . Right, right. Bye."

  Nancy hung up the phone. "A family just arrived with a collie who'd been hit by a car. The vet's covering by herself, so she had to go."

  "So should we bring Renfield in?"

  "The vet said no. She wants me to wait until morning because he might just 'walk it off.' "

  I thought about saying, "See?" Instead, I said, "That sounds like a good idea."

  "She said to pay a lot of attention to him, to make sure he's comfortable. If he seems to be in constant pain, though, I should call her back."

  I couldn't think of a good way to ask the next question, so I didn't. Nancy
answered it for me by moving forward with the cat. Renfield growled, burrowing his head into her crossed arms.

  "John, I really think he has to sleep with me tonight."

  "I understand. I'll take off."

  "No. No, could you stay here, on the couch? If he has to go in at three A.M., you could drive and I could hold him."

  "Sure, Nance."

  "I'm sorry about this."

  "Same."

  Nancy carried the cat into the bedroom. Over her shoulder, Renfield snarled at me, his two front teeth like the fangs of his namesake.

  -4-

  I THINK THE SOUND OF A VERY LIGHR RAIN WOKE ME UP. THE DIGITAL clock on Nancy's VCR said 8:20 A.M. Now 8:21. I sat up, my back creaking. The night before, I moved past her bedroom to the living room and tried the couch. Fine for sitting and cuddling, a tad short for sleeping. I'd taken the seat cushions off and spread them on the floor, covering myself with an afghan Nancy's mother had crocheted two years before she'd died. Even so, my kidneys felt as though someone had forgotten to hinge them.

  I got up and put the couch back together, folding the afghan on an armrest. At the bedroom door, I knocked, got no answer, and knocked louder. Opening it, I saw a made bed. I didn't hear any water running in the bathroom, so I moved all the way back to the kitchen. There was a note propped up between the salt and pepper shakers:

  John,

  I woke up early and took Renfield to the vet's. I looked in on you but you were asleep. I'm sorry you got the floor and I'm sorry I got mad at you.

  Call me later,

  Nancy

  I read my kidneys the part about the floor, but they weren't much comforted. Raiding the refrigerator, I had a couple of English muffins and orange juice.

  In the bathroom, the scent of Nancy's potpourri was zingy in the air. I weighed myself on her scales. It was an old building, and depending on where I put the scales, the needle moved a little more or a little less. I liked by the sink best, coming in at just under one ninety there.

  I wanted to see the Dani woman's apartment house before talking with the people at the modeling agency. Given the time, I couldn't really go home, change, and run for a while first, so I decided to make a short visit instead.

  "I got to Mrs. Feeney's just as she was putting the carnations out on the sidewalk."

  But I get roses instead?

  I straightened back up, almost using the headstone to steady myself against the stiffness.

  "Transference, Beth."

  Fight with Nancy?

  "Not exactly." I told her about Renfield.

  So, the question is, did the cat jump or was he pushed?

  "Not funny, kid."

  I'm sorry, John, but it was an accident, you can't let it get you down.

  "I know."

  The rain had turned to mist, the mist curtaining a rainbow that vaulted over Logan Airport across the harbor and down to the foot of her hillside, almost touching two men in a small boat, fishing. The convex edge of the rainbow was red, then yellow, and finally blue-green near the concave edge.

  Is Renfield all that's distracting you, John?

  I looked back from the rainbow. "No. Remember Harry Mullen?"

  At Empire?

  "Right."

  Sure. Is he all right?

  "Sort of." In a way I couldn't do with Nancy, I caught Beth up on the case so far.

  And you smell a rat.

  "I don't know. I can't see Harry suckering me, but Brad Winningham was never exactly my rabbi, and Holt should have told me to hit the pike."

  Maybe you're looking for a reason not to take the job.

  "Because I'm still bitter over what Empire did to me?"

  A pause. And maybe over when they did it.

  I thought back to Winningham coming into my office, now Harry's office, with the jewelry claim. Sign off or sign out. It was Christmas time, two months after a priest and I had buried Beth. My leaving the company, the boozing, a kid on a bike that I nearly turned into a hood ornament.

  John?

  "I'm okay. And you're probably right. I'll see you soon, huh?"

  I'll be here.

  We laughed together as the fishermen below us upped anchor and putted off. I wondered if they could see the rainbow. Or even feel it.

  * * *

  The apartment house at Number 10 Falmouth Street might still be taken for the single-family town house it probably once was, one of many in a part of the South End where the byways were named after towns on Cape Cod. From the front, the building itself was dull red brick, bowfront rather than bay windows on all three floors, trapezoid lintel blocks over each bowfront section. The front entrance was the height of a ten-step stoop above street level. The elevation of the entrance gave the basement a daylight effect, a separate smaller door leading into it. A low iron railing, painted black, enclosed the front of the house, separating it symbolically from the sidewalk. I say symbolically because there were no bars on the windows, not even across the openings at basement level.

  The South End never quite caught on during the yuppie boom. Back Bay, where I lived in the doctor's condo, was the first to be renovated, followed by the waterfront around Faneuil Hall and then Beacon Hill below the State House. But there was always a damper on the South End. Too many drugs, too many fires, too many homeless long before they were everywhere. As a result, you had one block of rehabbed town houses straight out of Mary Poppins bordering another block of dehabbed crackhouses straight out of the South Bronx.

  I opened the gate and climbed the steps. Four doorbell buttons, three of them labeled. The front door was locked, but from the handle it looked like a spring job, no bolt. Through a glass panel I could see it was the only secured entry, the staircase to the second floor lying behind an opened, inner door. Probably an internal buzzer system tied into the bell buttons. I was thinking that Empire should be glad it didn't have the landlord on this one when I remembered the building was owned by the dead woman's family.

  I examined the bells. The top button was captioned "Dani, M. T." Expecting nothing, I tried it and got what I expected. Next was the unlabeled one. Nothing again. Next was "Fagan, S.," which I took to be "Sinead," the other model Holt had mentioned. Still nothing. The bottom button said "Super." A four-unit building probably didn't need its own superintendent, but landlords had a tendency to own several properties in the same neighborhood and to put the manager up in one of them. I pushed the bottom button and got nothing a fourth time.

  I walked down to the super's separate entrance and knocked. No answer. I climbed back to sidewalk level and looked up at the building. No shade or drape moved abruptly. I went out the gate, then down the block and around to the alley behind the building.

  A lot of South End houses have postage stamp backyards, with patios off the basement door. This block was more like Back Bay, with the house almost abutting on the alley itself. No parking, maybe ten feet between where the fire escape's raised last flight would come down and where two big trash cans stood covered against the wall and near the back door. The escape itself was black except for rust spots here and there. My eyes followed it up the rear wall. The raised last flight retracted to a landing outside the window on the elevated first floor. The escape then switchbacked to a landing at the second floor window, a third flight ending in a landing outside the third-floor window. Mau Tim Dani's apartment. There were no bars on any of the back windows either. Christ, these folks were asking for it.

  Somebody nine feet tall probably could reach and pull down the raised, last flight of fire escape. The green trash cans were ribbed plastic and looked sturdy enough to support my weight. I had just positioned the second can under the escape when the basement door opened.

  A man dressed in droopy pants and a strappy T-shirt put one foot over the threshold, keeping the other inside the door. Maybe five six, he had the face of a pug from the club lights at union halls in Dorchester. Both eyebrows had divots missing, and the nose detoured more than once on its way to his mouth. The lef
t ear was cauliflowered, the right loppy, like the Velveteen Rabbit. His hair was black, thinning unevenly at the crown, scruffy around the sides. Pushing fifty, his head flicked right, like he was ducking a punch, and he sniffed twice in quick succession through his nose.

  "Whaddaya think you're doing?"

  "You the superintendent?"

  "Who wants to know?"

  "John Cuddy." I reached into a pocket for my ID. "I tried the buzzer and knocked."

  He brought the other foot outside and stood in front of me. I handed him the holder, open. He stretched out his arms and studied it.

  "I'm a private investigator, Mr .... ?"

  He looked up from the ID, then down again, although there was no picture on it to compare against me.

  "Whaddaya want from me?"

  I extended my hand for the holder, which he gave back carefully. "I represent the company that insured the life of the woman who died here."

  "The . . . ?"

  "She was a model. Mau Tim Dani?"

  This time he winced before flick, sniff/sniff. "I don't know nothing about that. Nothing."

  "That's okay. I'd appreciate your letting me see the apartment, though."

  "What for?"

  "She was killed there, Mr .... "

  "Don't mister me, pal. Okay?"

  Not my best start ever. "Okay. You got a first name?"

  "Yeah. Carrnine."

  "All right. Carmine--"

  "But everybody calls me Ooch."

  "Ooch?"

  "Yeah. From when I was in the ring. The other guy'd hit me, everybody went 'Ooch! You see that shot?' "

  I laughed politely. "You fight, you're going to get hit, right?"

  "You can take it from me."

  "So, can I get a look at the place?"

  Flick, sniff/sniff. "No way."

  "I have a letter here from the company."

  "I don't know from no letter. The owners told me nobody gets in without they say it's okay."

  "You let the police in, didn't you?"

  "No. The others let them in. I wasn't here."

  "Where were you?"

  "Over to the gym. They was going to have a party up there."

  He gestured toward the elevated first floor. "They get loud, the music, you know? I get itchy, gets too loud down there." He gestured back toward the basement door.