Mating Season

by Jon Loomis

  “Pants first?”

  “Yep. It’s a guy thing.”

  “I can’t argue. If he was the kind of guy who’d check, he’d also call the cops when he found her dead.”

  “Bingo.”

  Poblano finally worked his right hand free, then, quickly, the left. He stood, stepped into his slacks, then hid in the closet. He stayed in the closet long enough that the camera’s motion sensor shut down, putting the DVR to sleep. The screen went dark. When it lightened again after a few seconds, Poblano was out of the closet, still shirtless, tiptoeing into the hallway. He was back almost immediately. He tugged his T-shirt on, buttoned his dress shirt, pulled on his socks, tied his shoes, put on his watch, grabbed his tie and stuffed it into his pocket, felt for his wallet, then fled. After a couple of minutes, the screen went dark again.

  “There’s more, right?” Lola said.

  Coffin nodded. “Whoever took the computer should be on it.”

  “Any bets?”

  “Could be anybody,” Coffin said. He shrugged. “McCurry? Ramos?”

  The screen lightened. A man was in Kenji Sole’s bedroom, peering at the clock radio. His back was to the camera. He set the radio down, stared closely at the thermostat, then shook his head. He turned and approached the camera. His face filled the screen, huge and distorted by the wide-angle lens.

  “Oh my God,” Lola said. “It’s Boyle.”

  The picture tilted and yawed; for a moment the camera focused on the floor. Then the screen went dark.

  “Wow,” Coffin said. He set his drink down, picked it up again, and took a large swallow.

  “Boyle’s toast,” Lola said.

  Coffin nodded. “Yep,” he said. “He sure is.”

  Chapter 22

  The meeting with Priestess Maiya and her lawyer took place in an interrogation room at the Suffolk County Jail on Nashua Street. The jail was relatively new and stood near the banks of the Charles River, a stone’s throw from Boston’s Science Museum and a few short blocks from Massachusetts General Hospital and Beacon Hill.

  Priestess Maiya looked small and plain in her prison jumpsuit: She wore no makeup, and her hair was pulled back into a loose bun. She seemed bored. Mancini and Priestess Maiya’s lawyer did most of the talking.

  “That could have been anybody’s monkey,” the lawyer said. “The fact that there’s a monkey in the video doesn’t prove anything.”

  “We’ll see what CSS comes up with,” Mancini said. “It may take a few weeks, but if there’s any of your client’s DNA at the scene—I mean so much as a flake of dandruff—we’re going to trial for murder one.”

  The lawyer shook his head. He was tall and thin and had enormous hands and feet. “You’ve got nothing,” he said. “No prints, no witnesses, no timeline. My client was at home with her companion at the time of the murder, to which he will testify. No deal. Trial it is.”

  “J. Hedrick Sole?” Mancini said. “That companion?”

  The lawyer nodded. “An unimpeachable witness.”

  “I’m glad you think so,” Mancini said. “Because he’s changed his story. He says he doesn’t know where she was at the time of the murder. He says she didn’t come home until almost 4:00 A.M.”

  The lawyer wrote something on a pad of paper and slid it in front of Priestess Maiya. She read it, then looked up, eyes flashing. “I don’t deserve this,” she said. She stood, her chair tipping over backward. She pulled the top of her jumpsuit open with both hands, snaps popping like a tiny string of firecrackers. She wasn’t wearing a bra. Her breasts were small and pert, the nipples erect in the air-conditioned room.

  “She threatened to cut Priestess Maiya’s tits off,” Priestess Maiya said, shaking her breasts in Mancini’s face. “Cut. Them. Off. That’s what she said. She tried to hire someone to hurt me, did you know that?”

  The lawyer was tugging at her jumpsuit, trying to get her attention. “Well, nobody hurts Priestess Maiya,” she said, brushing his hand aside. She set her chair upright and sat back down. “Nobody.”

  The room was silent. Everyone was looking at Priestess Maiya’s breasts. The lawyer whispered in her ear, and she smiled, then slowly snapped up the top of the jumpsuit.

  “My client will agree to manslaughter two,” he said. “No more than eight years. She was suffering from diminished capacity at the time of Ms. Sole’s death. At the very least.”

  “Ten,” Mancini said.

  The lawyer pursed his lips. “With the possibility of early parole.”

  “Done,” Mancini said.

  The lawyer closed his briefcase. “A pleasure doing business with you. Good day, gentlemen.”

  “Spit it out, Coffin,” Mancini said. “What’s eating you? Balls still sore, or what?” They were driving through downtown Boston in Mancini’s Lexus.

  “Ten years?” Coffin said. “That’s really the best you could do?”

  Mancini shrugged. “All we had was the monkey,” he said. “You know how many monkeys there are in Massachusetts?”

  “What about J. Hedrick changing his story?”

  “The testimony of a crazy, senile meth head? Maybe the jury buys it, maybe they don’t.”

  Coffin shook his head. “You heard her. It was cold-blooded murder. She drove three hours from Boston to Provincetown to settle a score.”

  Mancini smiled and looked out the window. “What do you think would happen,” he said, “if she flashed her tits like that in a courtroom? On the witness stand, say.”

  Coffin sighed. “Chaos. Mistrial. Insanity plea. She’d get sent to Tewksbury for a couple of years and then released as ‘cured.’ Then she’d write a memoir about getting away with murder and sell it for millions.”

  Mancini nodded. “Sometimes you take what you can get in this business,” he said.

  Coffin said nothing for a while. They were crossing the Zakim/Bunker Hill suspension bridge with its tall concrete pylons and angled array of steel cables. It was a beautiful bridge, Coffin thought, even though it looked like a strong wind could knock it down.

  “What about Poblano?”

  “He’s changed his story once or twice,” Mancini said. “First he said what he told you—that Duckworth was in P’town investigating cyber crime. Then we told him we knew about the blackmail notes, and he said he sent Duckworth to look into it, but with strict instructions that no one would get hurt.”

  “Any background on Duckworth?”

  “About what you’d expect. Ex–Special Forces, Iraq vet, possible PTSD. A couple of suspensions for inappropriate behavior. On the verge of getting shit-canned when Poblano scooped him up and put him on the cy-crime task force.”

  “What about the two goons that tossed Lola’s place?” Coffin said. “Who sent them?”

  Mancini fiddled with the radio, settling on a classic rock station—Aerosmith singing “Janie’s Got a Gun.” “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Coffin,” he said. “Absolutely no idea.”

  Coffin sat in his mother’s room at Valley View, watching her big TV. “C’mon, Ma,” he said. “You have to talk to me sometime.”

  She glared at him, arms crossed over her chest, black eyes full of feral rage.

  “We haven’t talked to anyone in three days,” the plump nurse said. “We’re just so mad at everybody, aren’t we, Sarah?”

  “Thanks, Natalie,” Coffin said. He couldn’t stand her. “I’d be mad, too,” he said, “if I had to stay here.”

  Natalie looked at him for a moment, as though she were about to say something. Then she picked up the untouched breakfast tray and left the room.

  “I hate that fat bitch,” Coffin’s mother said after a minute had passed. “All that we shit all the time, makes me want to kill her.”

  ______

  Three days later, Mancini called Coffin at home. “How’s your balls, Coffin?” he said.

  “Better,” Coffin said. “Thanks for asking.”

  “That’s not really why I called,” Mancini said. “I’ve got some new
s about Bobby Cavalo.”

  Coffin sat on a kitchen stool. Talking on the phone made him want a cigarette, but he’d promised Jamie he’d quit. Again. “Okay. Let’s have it.”

  “We found his body in the trunk of an abandoned rent-a-car in Hyannis. Your pal Duckworth did some pretty fancy carving on him.”

  “Can’t say I’m surprised,” Coffin said. “So what’s it look like for Poblano?”

  “Don’t know yet,” Mancini said. “The Worcester office is talking accessory, but I’m guessing they’ll cut a deal. It’s too bad—I liked Poblano. I figured he’d probably be governor some day.”

  “Less competition for you if he’s out of the picture.”

  “You make a good point, Coffin,” Mancini said. “Hey—one question for you.”

  “Shoot.”

  “How come you and Winters didn’t wait for backup before you went into the dildo room? You trying to get yourselves killed?”

  “It was a calculated risk. We were afraid there might be civilians back there.”

  “Sure you were,” Mancini said. “Lucky for you Winters was wearing her vest. Otherwise I’d have you up on charges.”

  “That would be the least of my worries.”

  “I’ll keep you posted on the Poblano thing. Odds are pretty good he’s going down.”

  Coffin hung up. Jamie was upstairs putting on her makeup. In a few minutes, they’d walk over to the Art League to check out the opening of the annual erotic art show, where Kotowski had a piece on display. There would be grapes and cheese cubes and white wine, but Coffin needed something stronger. He took a glass from the cabinet, pried a couple of ice cubes from the tray in the freezer, dropped them in, and poured a double shot of Johnnie Walker. Then he walked out to the screen porch, sat in the swing, and lit a cigarette. His eyes were still badly bruised, and he couldn’t breathe through his nose: He’d probably need surgery, the doctor had said.

  “Frank?” It was Jamie. She was beautiful, Coffin thought—long skirt, tank top, sandals, a short necklace made of red coral from Ecuador. “What’s up? How are you?”

  “I’m still trying to sort the whole thing out,” he said. “Not so much the murder—murder I can understand. It’s Poblano and Boyle I can’t figure out.”

  Jamie nodded. “I read somewhere that men fear public humiliation more than death,” she said. “Maybe it’s true.”

  “How do two people just step over the body of someone they’ve been intimate with, without so much as calling 911? Not one—two! It’s un-fucking-believable.” Coffin swirled his drink and set the glass down.

  “Things get weird when people start to make bad choices,” Jamie said. She took a sip from Coffin’s glass, then another.

  “Usually all it takes is a whole lot of stupid,” Coffin said. “One stupid action leads to another, and next thing you know, out come the guns. This was different. Maybe too much weird sex makes people crazy.”

  Jamie smiled and kissed the top of Coffin’s head. “Maybe too much. Maybe not enough,” she said. “Come on, Frank. Let’s go look at some erotic art. It might take your mind off things.”

  Coffin laughed. “You’re kidding, right?”

  Jamie took his hand, pulled him to his feet, and kissed him on the mouth. “Sort of,” she said.

  “Ow,” Coffin said.

  The Provincetown Art League was an odd architectural hodgepodge, part old Provincetown sea captain’s house in white clapboard, part hypermodern new construction: boxy and fortresslike from the outside; big, vaulted gallery spaces inside, with skylights and climate control. It was an awkward marriage, Coffin thought, of the old and new—an apt metaphor for Provincetown and its blind stumble into the future.

  The show was pretty much what Coffin had expected, lots of paintings, photographs, and sculptures of naked men: naked men alone, naked men together, naked man eating a sandwich. There were naked women, too—naked women in combat boots, naked women with shaved heads, naked women lifting weights. Gemma’s piece was there, as was Gemma herself, resplendent in cowboy boots, sequined hot pants, and a see-through top. She waved; Coffin waved back.

  Some of the images were funny: a photo of little army men rappelling down a giant breast; a velvet painting of dogs dressed up in S&M gear. The most disturbing piece was Kotowski’s: a large, dark painting of a woman in a black leather bustier and plumed black leather mask, violating a balding, hairy man with a big strap-on dildo. The man wore a ball gag and seemed to be crying out in ecstasy, or pain, or both. He looked very much like former Provincetown police chief Preston Boyle.

  Kotowski was there, drinking a beer and admiring his own piece. “God,” he said. “Is this embarrassing, or what? Have you ever seen so much godawful crap in your life?”

  “Oh, look,” Jamie said. “It’s Lola.” She waved. “Who’s that pretty girl she’s with?”

  “Her name’s Kate something,” Coffin said. “I haven’t really met her.”

  Jamie poked him in the bicep. “Are we a little bit jealous?”

  “We are not,” Coffin said. “We are a lot jealous.”

  “Now I’m all curious. I think I’ll go over and say hi.”

  When she was gone, Coffin turned to Kotowski. “You really think it’s that bad?” he said.

  “It’s a catastrophe,” Kotowski said. He sipped his beer. “At least there’s no anthropomorphic driftwood this year.”

  “I don’t know,” Coffin said. “I kind of liked the bald ladies.”

  “Photography,” Kotowski sneered. “Instant art for the literal-minded.”

  “Don’t be such a snob,” Coffin said. “Not everything has to be an oil painting. What about that sculpture of two women kissing? That wasn’t too bad, right?”

  “The good news,” Kotowski said, “is that it’s probably breakable.” He sipped his beer. “Say, your uncle came by last night, trying to sell me his Bollock.”

  “His what?”

  “That painting he thinks is a Pollock. Where’d he find that thing, anyway?”

  “Wait a minute—are you saying it’s not a real Pollock?”

  Kotowski snorted. “Of course it’s not. It’s a Bollock. One of several I painted in the seventies, as a joke. Damned if they don’t keep turning up.”

  “A Bollock?”

  “Yep. That’s how I signed them. Funny, huh?”

  Coffin laughed. “Poor Rudy,” he said. “He must be devastated.”

  “Well, it’s not worth what he’d get for a real Pollock,” Kotowski said, “but it is an authentic Kotowski.”

  “You and your mystery collector,” Coffin said. He nodded at the painting of Boyle. “I take it you’re over your block.”

  “Well, this one was a no-brainer,” Kotowski said. “I’m still working on the title, though.”

  “How about Lawsuit Pending,” Coffin said.

  “He can’t sue,” Kotowski said. “It’s satire.”

  “If you say so,” Coffin said.

  “So,” Kotowski said. “How goes the spawn?”

  “Still swimming upstream,” Coffin said.

  “You breeders fascinate me,” Kotowski said. “Months of humiliation, thousands of dollars down the drain, and if it works, what do you get out of the deal? A squalling brat, that’s what—a noisy little crap machine. What the fuck are you going to do with a baby at your age? Do you know how old you’ll be when the kid gets out of high school?”

  Jamie stood across the gallery, elegant in her long skirt, hair up, backlit and golden. She was smiling, animated, talking to Lola and Kate.

  Coffin shrugged. “You’re right,” he said. “I’ll be ancient. But it’s what Jamie wants. Really wants. What am I going to tell her? No?”

  “I see your point,” Kotowski said, looking at Jamie. “She’s way out of your league. Anyplace else, I doubt she’d have anything to do with you.”

  “Exactly,” Coffin said.

  Kotowski stared, then squinted. “Wait a minute,” he said. He looked at Coffin, then pointed
at Jamie. “She’s knocked up, isn’t she? She’s got that freaking glow you people are always babbling about.”

  Coffin shrugged. “She thinks she is,” he said. “Too soon to tell.”

  Kotowski shivered and made a retching sound. “The whole business gives me the heebie-jeebies. Preggo! Christ on a fucking cracker.” He finished his beer and set it down on a pedestal next to a wood sculpture of a fat man with a gigantic erection. “What’s going to happen to Boyle, do you think? And that Poblano cat—he’s really screwed, right?”

  “Boyle’s probably going to plead guilty to a couple of misdemeanor charges: theft, failure to report a death. He might do a few months, pay a fine. Of course, he’s done in law enforcement—outside of Wal-Mart security guard, or whatever.”

  “What about Poblano?”

  “He says he never hired Duckworth to kill anybody—just to recover the video of him and Kenji Sole. Mancini thinks they’ll cut some kind of deal. We’ll see what happens.”

  “Why do these guys get the kid glove treatment?” Kotowski said. “What the fuck is up with that?”

  “No trials, no evidence, case closed,” Coffin said. “Less work for everybody, the state saves money, Boyle and Poblano do a little time, lose their jobs, their wives divorce them. Justice is served.”

  “Justice? You call that justice? Look at you—you almost got killed. Again.” Kotowski frowned. “You think Mancini was sleeping with Kenji Sole? Is that what this is about?”

  “He’s not on the DVR,” Coffin said. “More likely he’s just protecting his colleagues. What goes around comes around, and all that.”

  “One hand washes the other, you mean,” Kotowski said. He shook his head. “They’re all fucking crooks—the system’s rotten from top to bottom.”

  “That’s it?” Coffin said. “That’s your big insight? The system sucks?”

  Kotowski waved a dismissive hand. “You’re an optimist. I can’t take you seriously.”

  “I am not an optimist,” Coffin said.

  “Of course you are,” Kotowski said. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be trying to have a kid. I mean, my God—you’ve got global warming, economic collapse, war everywhere you look, bird flu, energy shortages, food shortages, that crazy particle accelerator in France, the honeybees dying off—you know what Einstein said, right?”