Cliff Walk: A Liam Mulligan Novel

by Bruce DeSilva

  “And they did?”

  “Yeah. It’s the kind of call they would normally blow off, but Wayne’s an important guy, and the family has been a big donor to police charities; so they sent a two-man patrol car to the house. The officers found the back door jimmied, called for backup, went inside before it arrived, and found Wayne slumped in his desk chair in the den. He’d been shot once in the back of the head.”

  “Was there a computer in the den?”

  “A desktop, yeah.”

  “Anything interesting on it?”

  “Besides Wayne’s blood and brains, you mean?”

  “Yeah, besides that.”

  “No note left on it for you, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Anything on the screen?”

  “It was dark. I didn’t want to mess with it until the crime scene guys finished their evidence collection, but they should be done about now.”

  “Mind if I tag along?”

  * * *

  The medical examiner’s wagon, two of the state police Crown Vics, and one of the city squad cars were still parked outside the house, but there were no TV vans in sight. Our crack local TV reporters hadn’t gotten wind of the story yet.

  Parisi led me around back, and we entered through the rear door, its jamb splintered where a pry bar had done its work. We walked down a short hallway and passed through open French doors to a large sunny den that smelled like the Chad Brown death house. I’d been at enough murder scenes to know that dead bodies often smell of expelled body fluids, but here the acrid smell of urine seemed unusually strong.

  To our left, floor-to-ceiling mahogany bookcases were filled with thick medical books, a couple of them with Wayne’s name on the spines. Straight ahead, hanging plants, most of them in bloom, dangled from the ceiling in front of a bank of jalousie windows. To the right, a lab tech wiped a swab across the splattered screen of Wayne’s desktop computer.

  “You about done here?” Parisi asked.

  “With the evidence collection, yeah,” the tech said, “but I’ve gotta disconnect the computer and take it back to the lab so the nerds can look it over, see what’s on it.”

  “Okay if I take a look at it first?”

  “Long as you glove up.”

  Parisi tugged on a pair of latex gloves and touched the space bar on the keyboard. The computer screen lit up, displaying a paused video that was partially visible through the bloody mess. We looked at each other and both said the same thing: “Aw, fuck.” Then he moved the cursor to the play button and left-clicked.

  48

  “Jack Daniel’s, rocks,” Parisi said.

  “Yes, it does,” the waitress said.

  “And make it a double.”

  “Killian’s for me,” I said. I needed whiskey, too, and my stomach seemed to be getting better; but I didn’t dare risk the hard stuff yet.

  We had reconvened at Hopes after he’d finished up at the crime scene and I’d filed my story, and we were sitting together now at a table in back. It was nearly nine o’clock, and the Celtics-Knicks game I’d placed a small bet on was playing on the TV behind the bar. An off-duty fireman whose nickname, Hose Hogan, had nothing to do with his occupation, slipped some coins in the jukebox, and B. B. King’s Lucille cried out with the opening licks of “There Must Be a Better World Somewhere.”

  We stared at our hands and waited silently for the waitress to return with our order. I studied the ropy scars on the middle and index fingers of my left hand, reminders of compound fractures from a time when the only villains in my life were the kids who played hoops for Syracuse and Georgetown. Then I slid my gaze to Parisi’s thick, knife-scarred fingers and saw that his knuckles were red and swollen, as if he’d recently punched something. Neither of us looked up as the waitress placed our drinks on the table, but we both turned to watch her ass switch as she traipsed away. Some habits are hard to break.

  We were natural enemies, reporter and cop, but we’d been getting along pretty well lately. Now we were trying to decide how much of ourselves to share. We reached for our glasses and drank deeply. Then we looked over the rims and caught each other’s eyes. I wondered if I looked as haunted as he did.

  “Recognize the girl?” he asked.

  “It was Julia Arruda.”

  “Did you put her name in the story?”

  “Hell, no,” I said. I took another pull from my beer. “You gonna tell her parents about this?”

  “Not on your life.”

  “At least they didn’t kill her,” I said.

  “Maybe they’re saving that for later.”

  We drained our glasses, and I signaled the waitress for two more.

  “Captain?”

  “Um?”

  “You look like shit.”

  “You too.”

  Something buzzed in his breast pocket. He reached in and drew out a smartphone.

  “Parisi,” he said, and then listened hard. “Aw, hell. Well, keep working on it, and call me back immediately if you get anywhere.”

  “Bad news?” I asked.

  “We fucked up. Wayne’s computer is password protected. The crime scene tech unplugged it and took it back to the lab, and when he turned it back on, he couldn’t get past the screen saver.”

  “Call him back,” I said, “and tell him the password is Dark Knight.”

  “How in hell do you know that?”

  “Reporters know all kinds of stuff.”

  He stared at me hard, then made the call.

  “Conner? It’s Parisi. The password is Dark Knight.… Never mind how I know. Just type it in.… Great. Call me as soon as you figure out what else is on it.”

  He clicked off, downed his whiskey, noticed my glass was nearly empty, and signaled the waitress for another round.

  “You’re gonna have to tell me how you knew that,” he said.

  “Confidential source,” I said, “but let me see if she’ll talk to you.”

  Peggi picked up on the third ring.

  “Hi. It’s Mulligan.”

  “Is it true? Is Dr. Wayne really dead?”

  “Where’d you hear that?”

  “There was something on the TV news at six.”

  “It’s true.”

  “Somebody shot him?”

  “Yes, somebody did.”

  “Do they know who?”

  “Not yet, no.”

  “Does this have something to do with the bad stuff you said he might be into?”

  “I think so.”

  “Oh, my God!”

  “Yeah.”

  “I never knew anybody who got shot before.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “A little shaky, but yeah. I’m all right.”

  “Have the police talked to you yet?”

  “No.”

  “They’re going to be talking to people who knew him, and you’ll be near the top of the list.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’m with Captain Parisi of the state police right now.”

  “The one that answered the phone when I called the house?”

  “That’s right. He wants to know how I learned the password to Dr. Wayne’s computer, but I didn’t want to involve you without your permission. Do you think you could tell him about it?”

  “Will it get me in trouble?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Okay, then,” she said, so I handed Parisi the phone. He listened for a few moments, asked a couple of questions, and then clicked off.

  “We square now?” I asked.

  “Not quite.”

  “How come?”

  “She said you told her Wayne might have been involved in some bad stuff.”

  “I did.”

  “So where did you hear that?”

  “Can’t tell you.”

  “Another confidential source?”

  “Yeah.”

  I held his stare for about ten seconds, then picked up the phone, called McCracken’s cell, and listened to it ring
five times before going to voice mail.

  “He’s not answering,” I said. “I’ll try again tomorrow, see if he’s willing to talk to you.”

  “Think he will be?”

  “I think so, yeah.”

  We leaned back in our chairs and finished our drinks.

  “Another, Captain?”

  “Better not. I’ve got to drive back to headquarters.”

  He dropped a twenty on the table and was about to get to his feet when his cell buzzed again.

  “Parisi.… That right? How many?… Anything else?… Well, keep looking,” he said, and clicked off.

  “Developments?” I asked.

  “You could say that. The techs found over two hundred child porn videos on Wayne’s computer.”

  “Any of them snuff films?”

  “Don’t know yet. The techs are still looking at them, the poor bastards.”

  We fell silent and stared into our empty glasses.

  “Captain?”

  “What?”

  “Got somebody you can talk to about all this?”

  “Been talkin’ to you, haven’t I?”

  “Not really, no.”

  His shoulders slumped. Suddenly, he looked smaller.

  “I’m not much of a talker,” he said.

  “Me either.”

  “Guess I could talk to the department shrink if I really need to.”

  “Couldn’t hurt,” I said.

  “What about you, Mulligan? You got somebody you can talk to?”

  “Matter of fact, I do.”

  I dropped a few bills on top of his, and we walked out of the bar into a bitterly cold night. He got into his Crown Vic and headed for state police headquarters, his work only begun. I got into Secretariat and drove to Swan Point Cemetery to talk things over with Rosie.

  49

  Friday morning, Lomax plucked a McDonald’s breakfast sandwich wrapper and an empty coffee cup from the corner of my desk, dropped them in my wastebasket, sat on the freshly cleared space, and read from a printout of the obituary I’d just filed.

  Raymond “Pisser” Massey, 46, of 102 Plainfield Street, a reckless daredevil and rabid “Jackass” fan, died suddenly Wednesday evening after living longer than he had expected and twice as long as he deserved. His last words were, “Hey, Shirley! Watch this!”

  “Pretty good, huh?” I said.

  “No, it isn’t,” Lomax said.

  “No?”

  “It’s inappropriate.”

  “I think I’ve captured him to perfection. This is the way Pisser would want to be remembered,” I said, pronouncing his name the Rhode Island way: “Pissah.”

  “But is it the way his family would want to remember him?”

  “I gotta think it is. I got most of the details from his mother and sisters.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Huh.”

  “So we can go with it?”

  Lomax scowled, removed his glasses, wiped the lenses with his shirttail, put them back on, and silently read the obituary through from beginning to end.

  “All right,” he said. “Let’s do this. Take out the part about him living twice as long as he deserved. It’s too judgmental.”

  “Fine.”

  “And remove the nickname. No way I’m printing ‘Pisser.’”

  “Will do.”

  “And take out all the references to public urination.”

  “You sure? Pisser took great pride in his ability to piss twenty feet in the air.”

  “I don’t care. Take it out.”

  “Okay. You’re the boss.”

  He gave me a curt nod and shuffled off, leaving me pleased that my campaign to make the obituary page more interesting was making a little headway. It was past noon before I finished the day’s obituaries and pointed Secretariat toward the little bayfront town of Warren.

  * * *

  “So who shot him?” McCracken said.

  “Wasn’t you, was it?” I asked him.

  “No,” the private investigator said, “but I don’t plan on sending flowers to the funeral.”

  “Then it’s gotta be the same people who hit the Chad Brown snuff film factory.”

  “And its customers in Wisconsin and New Jersey?” he asked.

  “I think so, yeah.”

  “State cops got any idea who the shooters are?”

  “Not a clue.”

  “How about you?” he asked.

  “I’m beginning to get an inkling.”

  “Want to share?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I wonder how the shooters knew what Wayne was mixed up in,” McCracken said.

  “I’ve been wondering that, too. Did you mention your suspicions to anybody else?”

  “No. You?”

  “Not a soul,” I lied.

  McCracken swiveled his office chair and studied the framed photos of the PC basketball stars on his office wall. Then he turned back to me and changed the subject. “Have you given any more thought to coming to work with me?”

  “I’ve been considering it, yeah.”

  He checked his watch. “Come on. I’ll buy you lunch, and we’ll talk about it.” So we walked to Jack’s on Child Street and kicked the idea around over clam chowder and littlenecks.

  “Way things are going, you’ll probably clear eighty grand the first year,” McCracken said.

  “That much?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “More than I’m making now,” I said.

  “Yeah, I heard the paper cut everybody down to a four-day week.”

  “More than I was making before that,” I said.

  “Really?”

  “By a lot.”

  “Ouch.”

  “So what’s your medical plan?” I asked.

  “Don’t get shot.”

  “Dental?”

  “Don’t get shot in the mouth.”

  “Retirement?”

  “Buy lottery tickets.”

  “Good plans. What about parental leave policy?”

  “Don’t have kids.”

  “I guess that about covers it,” I said.

  “So how about it?”

  “I love being a reporter,” I said.

  “I know you do.”

  “But the paper is failing.”

  “So I keep hearing.”

  “I can’t see myself working in TV.”

  “’Course not. You’re not pretty enough.”

  “Not dumb enough, either,” I said.

  “Maybe you could start a blog or something.”

  “Know anybody who makes a living doing that?”

  “No.”

  “Me either.”

  “Tell me again what you like about reporting,” he said.

  “I like sticking my nose in other people’s business,” I said. “And then I like telling everybody in the state what I find out.”

  “As a P.I.,” he said, “you’d still be sticking your nose in other people’s business, but you’d have to keep your mouth shut about it.”

  “Half the satisfaction for twice the money,” I said. “Not a bad trade-off, I guess.”

  “Want to stick it out at the Dispatch a while longer?”

  “I think so.”

  “Then let’s revisit this in a few months,” he said. “There’s no rush.”

  “Thanks,” I said. Before I left, I remembered to ask him if he’d talk to Parisi. He said he would.

  It was after three by the time I hit the road for Providence. I’d just pulled onto the Wampanoag Trail when “Bitch” started playing on my cell phone. I let it go to voice mail, but she called three more times in two minutes, so I pulled to the side of the road and dug the phone out of my pants pocket.

  “Mulligan.”

  “Hi. It’s Dorcas.”

  “I know who it is.”

  “How are you?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You sure? I’ve been reading your stories about all the murde
rs. It must be horrible for you.”

  Dorcas being civil? This was new.

  “Hey,” I said, “it keeps me on the front page.”

  “Well, that’s something, I guess.”

  “It is.”

  “Well … uh, I’ve got something to tell you.”

  “Yes?”

  “I’ve been seeing somebody.”

  Seeing somebody? Must mean she finally went to a psychiatrist. To be this nice to me, she had to be on some heavy meds.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “His name is Doug, and he’s really sweet. Treats me like a queen.”

  Oh. “How nice for you.”

  “He’s an older guy, owns his own construction business.”

  “I see.”

  “Are you okay with this? I was afraid you might take it hard.”

  “I’m happy for you, Dorcas.”

  “You are?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Mulligan?”

  “What?”

  “He’s asked me to marry him.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “Doug’s doing real well, so I won’t be needing alimony after all.”

  “That’s good to hear.”

  “So I was kind of hoping you’d be willing to expedite the divorce.”

  “Sure thing.”

  “You can have the house if you want it.”

  “I don’t,” I said. “I wouldn’t be able to make the payments.”

  “You could sell it.”

  “The housing market has collapsed, Dorcas. Selling it could take a long time, and it probably would go for less than we owe on it.”

  “You want me to keep it, then?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Okay. I’ll have my lawyer draw up the papers.”

  “Good.”

  “You think you could sign them right away? We want to get married next month.”

  “I can do that.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You bet.”

  “You’re sure you’re okay with this?”

  “I’ll survive.”

  “Well, okay, then. Good-bye.”

  “Good-bye, Dorcas.”

  As I clicked off, I had the fleeting thought that I should warn poor deluded Doug; but I stifled it. I pulled back onto the road, cranked the prostitution playlist up loud, and sang along with the music. At one point I think I may have shouted, “Yippie!” But as I crossed the bridge over the Providence River, I felt suddenly deflated.