What links us is Biscuit. What divides us, among other things, is also Biscuit. I’ll never know why Aunt Jo saw fit to name both Stark and me guardians of her dear beagle. Doubtless Stark is as mystified as I am.
“I’ll call her sweetie if I want to. Pets deserve pet names.” I blow my nose.
Stark gulps down coffee that would scald ordinary mortals. “Today in the open field,” he says, “she figured out her nose beats her eyes.”
“Perfectly good eyesight. The vet checked.”
“Next step, rabbits. She won’t be gun-shy.”
He’s baiting me. I reach for the tissue box. “Biscuit,” I say, “is a house dog, not a gundog.”
He gulps again. “How about you, Cutter?”
“Me?”
“How’d you like to learn to hunt? Teach you how to field-dress a deer.”
“To butcher dead animals in the woods? No thanks.” He’s goading me. I give him a stony stare.
He stares back. “Okay, then, learn to ride. Give your driver’s license a big upgrade.”
On this particular subject, the goading is a try at persuasion. He’s brought this up before. “My license is perfectly adequate.”
“Adequate for your girlie car.”
My preowned VW Beetle is parked down the block. Its dashboard bud vase sports a silk rose. “The Lexus is a thing of my past, Stark. You know that.”
“I’m not talking about your deluxe four-wheelers, Cutter. Your Beetle either. I thought you were hot for adventures. You disappoint me.”
In truth, I am hot for adventure. I have pamphlets on scuba diving and white-water kayaking and hang gliding too. I have in mind a certain man—no, not this dog partner, but a man who appreciates the outdoors and whose return from an international trip I await. I won’t say his name here, but cards postmarked Hong Kong, then Cairo, promised he’d call by the first of May.
Today’s the fourth.
So, yes, a woman can be keen for adventure but have no pamphlets whatsoever for Harley-Davidson motorcycles.
“Boots and long sleeves, that’s the gear to start off,” Stark continues. “You already got the helmet.”
On the top shelf of the hall coat closet sits a spare motorcycle helmet, courtesy of R. K. Stark. Stolen, for all I know.
“Coupla weekends of school, you’ll get your certificate. We’ll start you out in empty parking lots.”
Enough of this. “On a totally different subject,” I say, “do you happen to know anything about old crimes in the South End near the Mass Pike?”
“Happen to? You mean, was it me?”
“On a block on Eldridge near the turnpike?” I give him the dates, try out the names Peter Wald and Henry Faiser.
Stark shakes his head. “I was on the Vinson. The Indian Ocean is a few miles east of Boston.”
Imagine this man in his Marine Corps uniform on an aircraft carrier. “Maybe you know somebody who remembers those names, someone here in the city. There was a crack house and a chop shop on the same block.”
His shrug is nonchalant. “Maybe I could ask around.” He eyes me over the rim of the coffee mug. “What’s this all about, Cutter? Wait, don’t tell me. You got another psychic gig with the cops, right? Am I right?”
Not that I’m hiding it. “Maybe.”
“It’s that buddy of yours from Homicide, isn’t it?” He puts down the emptied mug. “So which one was offed? Faiser?”
“Peter Wald. The son of Jordan Wald.” Stark’s face shows nothing. “The Wald who’s running for lieutenant governor.”
Stark shrugs. “Crooked pol.”
“He’s an environmentalist. He’s green.”
“The color of money. If it’s Boston politics, it’s gotta be crooked.” Pure cynic, Stark. I should have known.
He says, “And Faiser? He’s doing hard time?”
“He is.”
“Black guy?” I nod. “So the case is officially reopened?”
“More like informally.”
“I see.” He smooths his mustache. “Sounds to me like somebody’s leaning hard on the cops.”
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe a reporter. Maybe prison reformers are breaking new evidence that’ll make the cops look racist. Maybe a DNA test is coming up. The Homicide guys want to get there first. Especially with the election.”
“Stark, you have a suspicious nature.”
“I’m a city guy, Cutter. I never did time in a candyass suburb.”
“I happen to think ethics plays a part. I believe in conscience.” Somehow my statements sound like prissy teatime chatter from my former life as Mrs. Martin Baynes.
He scoffs. “All the better reason to learn to ride. Take your mind away from all that junk.”
“Stark, why would I want to ride a motorcycle?”
“Because it’s the most fun a human being can have. Sex aside.” He cants one hip forward. “Admit it, you like Fatso.”
His Fat Boy model Harley, on which I have had two rides, one of which was to the emergency room at Boston City. In my moment of dire need, Stark roared to my side, and the Fat Boy was my ambulance.
“The thing of it is, Cutter, a passenger ought to be able to take over if anything goes wrong.”
“Copilot a motorcycle?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
I pause to absorb this, a statement that presumes future rides on the Fat Boy.
And also presumes that Stark stands ready to pilot while I am the copilot. Never again will I let myself be mistaken for a passenger. Never again. I say, “You owe me nothing, Stark. Jo— bless her—Jo wouldn’t expect it. You’re a free man.”
“That I am.” He reaches into a back pocket, produces a folded, crinkled sheet. “Application form,” he says. “Just fill it out and send it in.”
The Motorcycle Safety Foundation. Weekly courses at a local community college campus, weather permitting. Tuition about the same as scuba in a Y pool.
“Think about it. Oh, before I go—here, Biscuit. Here, girl.” He digs in a pocket. “Dog treat.”
The dog bites, ecstatic. “What is that thing?”
“Pig ear.”
“Cute. But what is it really?” As Stark goes to the door, I look closely at the dried, wrinkled yellow-tan triangle. Good God, it is an actual pig’s ear. “Disgusting.”
“Better than bones. Easy on her stomach. Pure protein. Bye, Cutter.” He’s outdoors at the curb. The engine roars. He’s gone. I’m left hoping he keeps Peter Wald and Henry Faiser on his mental “ask around” list.
A dog on a leash is excellent cover. By noon, I separate Biscuit from the vile chew-toy ear and head to Eldridge Place, which claims a whole city block and rises ten stories in pinkish granite that glints in early afternoon sun. Turnpike traffic murmurs in the background. Islands of evergreens soften the main entrance of glass and columns. The security cameras are concealed in stonework niches.
I walk halfway down the block and back again. Not a sign of a former crack house, a chop shop, a murder. Every trace of the violent past that Devaney described is long bulldozed. Eldridge Place now means city living for the right sort of people. Ironic that I myself might have lived here in my former life.
A familiar scenario plays out when two bulky men in crested navy blazers burst from the lobby to meet a Lexus. The taller one opens the driver’s door and takes packages from a honey-haired woman in a slate linen suit. The thickset one slips behind the wheel to take the car to the underground garage.
To think that such synchronized blazers once pampered me.
I slowly stroll past. Too slowly, because here comes yet another blue blazer, a wiry redhead with eyes the color of seaweed. “May I help you?”
I assume my Regina Baynes expression. “I’m tracing an ancestor who lived on Eldridge Street long ago. I’m looking for the house where he once lived.”
“Sorry, there’s no houses on Eldridge. We’ve got both sides of the whole block.”
The borrowed �
�we” of the staff. He looks at Biscuit as though she might squat and foul his grounds. I pick her up. Twenty feet away, a slender man in khakis prunes pine branches. “Do you know anyone who might remember the street from years ago? Perhaps a groundskeeper?”
“We sub all that out. What did you say your name is?”
“I’m Regina Cutter.”
“Well, Ms. Cutter, I’m sorry we can’t help.” He escorts me across the cobbled drive. The pruning clippers bite, and the air smells like Christmas trees.
I’m not through. The sidewalk runs the whole block, and I put Biscuit down and stroll past the entrance, stopping to put on sunglasses against the glare. I’m three-quarters down the block when I feel it—the heat at my ribs. Warm, then hot. Bearable but insistent. So very there. I’m alongside the Eldridge Place pink granite wall. A small stand of bone-white birches marks the spot where the burning sensation rises. I cross slowly, pass the spot, feel my ribs cool. Back to the birches, and I feel the burning heat.
This is the spot. I know it. Literally speaking, I know in my bones that this is where Peter Wald died.
This is my own knowledge, personal carnal knowledge. My fiery ribs are the divining rod for murder thirteen years ago. The burning tells me young Peter Wald was gunned down right here. He fell, bleeding, to this very ground. And a possibly innocent man has been wrongly imprisoned all these years. If so, it’s crime piled upon crime, the loss of two lives. Both the prisoner and the victim were younger than my son, Jack, is now. And these birches, merely a landscaper’s accent—they’re an accidental shrine. Fitting for an environmentalist.
But a secret shrine. The Eldridge Place residents don’t have a clue. Who else knows this is a death site?
The killer? Accomplices?
I’m supposed to sit at home and wait for Devaney to call. No, that’s too passive. And all too familiar. The story of my life, waiting for men’s cues.
I tug the leash and head down the first side street, which has no sign. So typical Boston, as if everyone’s supposed to know the street names. Shingled triple-deckers with sloping porches line the block, with clustered mailboxes of apartments quarried from every floor, a sign of transience. It’s trash day, with mounds of junk piled curbside, including stained rugs, mattresses, a single ski.
At midblock, a shopping cart brims with plastic bags and a filthy yellow suitcase. I veer around a figure who rises from the curbside mound. “Don’t touch my cart.”
She wears a black coat and striped knit scarf, which drags on the walk. She’s clutching a frayed doormat. “Don’t you touch it.”
“I won’t.”
Glaring, she throws down the mat, picks a torn lampshade with chapped fingers, mumbles.
I tug Biscuit’s leash as she grabs my arm. “Got a dollar?”
She looks sixty-something, and one of her blue eyes wanders. One cheek is discolored purple. “What about a dollar? I could use a dollar.” Her sunken mouth is a smear of fuchsia lipstick, and the sun glares on her coat collar pin, which is a bird in flight.
In a bizarre way, this woman got herself together with a scarf, pin, and lipstick, accessories for a day of trash picking. She’s about twenty years ahead of me. What happened in her life? Suppose somebody like myself ended her days collecting cans for nickels? What are the guarantees against street life with shopping cart?
Suppose that destitution is contagious?
Biscuit’s tail wags, and I dig for the dollar. Not one single in my wallet. She smells of sweat and a foul rose perfume. Biscuit is keenly interested. I hand the woman a five.
She thrusts it deep inside her coat, and the wandering eye fixes on me. Never mind thanks, I want to go.
“You look like somebody. You work at the shelter?”
“No.”
“Like a volunteer? You look like her.”
“Come on, Biscuit.”
“Jo. Her name’s Jo.”
“Jo Cutter?” My Aunt Josephine? “She got me a bed when they were full. Snow on the ground. I could’ve froze.”
“The weather’s warmer now.” Dumb remark. “Biscuit—”
“Where’s she been, Jo? She don’t come to the shelter now.” She turns sideways so the wandering eye can fix on my face. “Where’s she at?”
“If it’s Jo Cutter, she was my aunt. She… passed away last February.”
She blinks. “Dead?” I nod. A car drives by. She wipes a coat sleeve across her eyes.
My eyes water too. I can easily imagine Jo finding a bed for this woman. Jo, the Jane Addams of the South End.
And me, keeping my distance. “Good ones go first. God almighty.” She sets the torn lampshade carefully on the cart and kicks at the mound. “Used to be you got something good.” She taps her yellow suitcase. “Got it off a pile way back. Shuts real tight. Samsonite.”
“You know these streets?”
“Lived inside all my life. Good heat all winter, me and the old man. Forster Street.”
“How about Eldridge?” I catch the wandering eye, hold its gaze. “Do you remember Eldridge? An auto body shop? Houses?”
“Can’t go near it now. They run you off.”
“I mean years ago.”
“They burned it down.”
“Who’s they?” Her lips move as if sampling the question. She shrugs. “I hear Eldridge Street had an auto body repair.”
“They’d give you a sandwich. Tasted like paint.”
“And a drug house next door. A crack house.”
She spits. “Forster was my street.”
“What about the crack house on Eldridge? Next to the auto shop.”
“Golden rule, live and let live. They kept to themselves.”
“Who lived in the house?”
“Young ones, babies. Take it from me, their trouble was music. Day and night, burst your eardrum.”
“Musicians?”
“Boom box radio. Religion, they said it was. I didn’t care. Summer or winter, earmuffs for the music. The big Doc in charge, he waved you off. I waved back.”
“The leader was a doctor?”
“Big Doc?” She snorts. “Never saw a doctor with hair like ropes.”
“Dreadlocks?”
“Ropes.”
“Was he black? An African-American?”
“Never saw a doctor wear a red robe. Big like a giant. Stood on the porch to preach. Boom box music or that preaching. Morning, noon, and night. Most nights, though, I’m inside.”
“Was the auto shop open at night?”
She darts me a look. “You don’t listen good. Nights, you don’t want to be out. Cops come out at night.”
“Were the police around back then?”
“Never when you want them.”
“What did Doc preach about?”
“Poison.”
“Poison?”
“His people were poisoned. The car garage was poison. The air, the ground, tunnels, and pipes. Poison everywhere. Doc never gave me a sandwich. None of them in the house did. Take it from me, Doc belonged in Bible times.” She draws herself up straight and flicks a hand over a shoulder as if brushing lint. “It wasn’t no crack house. More like religion. Like whatsis, a cult.”
Does she realize what she’s saying? “A young man was killed there, shot to death.”
“No flowers. The candles blew out. Rain washed the blood.”
“Do you remember a young man named Henry? Henry Faiser?”
“What’s he look like?”
“He’s African-American. Black.” I realize that’s all I know. His features, his skin tone, hairstyle, I haven’t a clue. “Henry Faiser,” I repeat. She shakes her head. “But you remember the killing?” She half nods, half cringes. Her scarf sweeps the pavement. “Were you there?” I ask. “Did you see it happen?”
“Police cars like a funeral. Big Doc preached, then the fire. Cinders flew to Forster Street. We stamped the hot cinders. How ’bout another dollar?”
“I gave you a five. What’s your name?”
>
“What’s yours?”
“I’m Reggie. This is Biscuit.”
“Me and the old man had a dog once. He ran it off.” She pats her scarf in place. “I’m Mary. Suitcase Mary. They all know me. I got to get moving before the city truck beats me to it. You talk too much. Don’t touch my cart.”
“Okay.” I watch her go down the block to poke at the next pile of refuse, reluctant to let her go, the closest thing to a witness. If necessary, can I find her again on trash pickup day, or at night in a shelter?
Whichever shelter.
I cross and head back toward the pink granite of Eldridge. There’s no corner store or church in sight, meaning no neighborhood store owner or minister with a long-term memory of what happened here. The turnpike traffic is louder, and Suitcase Mary is out of sight. The redhead in the navy blazer eyes me from the Eldridge Place entrance.
I pull the leash. “Biscuit, this way, sweetie. We’re going home.” Past the stand of birches, my rib flares as I picture the chop shop, then the house where, unless Mary is demented, a red-robed giant with dreadlocks ranted about poison from a porch while music boomed at all hours. And the residents were crack addicts? Members of a cult? Both combined?
Was Henry Faiser one of the residents? One of the disciples? What was Peter Wald doing here? Buying drugs?
Devaney told me none of this. Could Stark be right to think the police have their own particular reasons to reopen the Faiser-Wald case? Why didn’t Devaney tell me more? Why is he the one behaving like a silent partner?
Chapter Four
TV’s afternoon news reports a zoning squabble in the Back Bay, though anybody who was slugged and dragged away last night in the fog on Dartmouth is unaccounted for.
An unnamed suspect, however, is wanted for questioning in connection with the murder of Sylvia Dempsey, whose death by the Charles River last month has created a media feeding frenzy. In this TV teaser, there’s no hint about the identity of the suspect, though footage of the murder scene by the Charles is replayed. Then it’s on to the mayor’s budget and the weather. I turn off the TV as the phone rings.
“Hi, Mom.”
My daughter usually calls at nighttime. Something must be up. “Everything okay, dear?”
Now You See Her Page 3