The Marlboro Man: A Moira McElvaney Mystery

by Derek Fee

  ‘You’re not a professional.’

  ‘But I learn quick and I’m good at what I do.’

  Moira gestured at their surroundings. ‘Obviously.’ Shea’s Boston residence looked like something out of Homes & Gardens magazine. Everything was so damn perfect, but it didn’t look like anyone lived there. She glanced across at Shea. She’d met him three days ago and knew virtually nothing about him. Except that he is Brendan’s friend, is rich, has homes that appear unlived in and has been to prison but was innocent. At the dinner in the Red Cat Kitchen he had been the master of ceremonies crafting the conversation around subjects that interested him. He gave off an image of supreme competence and confidence. But the unlived-in homes painted another picture. She marked down Frank Shea as a man who is lonely and alone.

  ‘Call your cousin and tell her we’re on our way over. Don’t take any excuses about things she has to do. We’re two and a bit weeks late into this investigation. We don’t need to waste any more time.’

  Shea stood up and went into the house. Moira could hear him on the phone.

  ‘Finish your coffee and let’s go,’ he said when he returned. ‘She’s waiting for us.’

  The Gardiners lived in a three-storey one-family house on 1st Street in South Boston. It was an affluent area as attested by the quality of the housing. Shea parked his Audi A5 Cabriolet directly in front of the house. They mounted the three steps leading to the front door, but before Shea could press the bell the door opened and Jean Gardiner stood aside to let them in.

  As Moira entered Jean grasped her hand. ‘Thank you.’ She continued to hold Moira’s hand as she led them into the front parlour. ‘Please sit down and tell me what I can do.’

  Although the house must have been more than one hundred years old, the interior was completely modern. In the living room, two couches faced each other across a glass-topped coffee table on which there were several illustrated books in pristine condition. There was a collection of impressionistic paintings on the walls, which to Moira’s untrained eye looked expensive. But she was no expert on art – her flat in Belfast was adorned with posters of heavy metal bands. There were lots of posed family photos or photos of the Gardiner children looking handsome and clean-cut. The whole effect was one of a stolid family home.

  As soon as they were seated, Shea looked at Moira. So I’m to be cast in the role of senior investigating officer, she thought.

  ‘Frank and I have made an agreement,’ Moira began. ‘I’ve agreed to help look for your husband for one month. I have no idea what we can add to the efforts of Miami PD, but we’ll try. I notice that Gregory doesn’t have an online presence.’ She saw from the look on Jean’s face that a certain level of explanation was needed. ‘He doesn’t have any accounts on Facebook or any other platform, neither do you.’

  Jean tried a tired smile. ‘We missed the online revolution.’

  Moira continued. ‘The police have access to all kinds of databases that we don’t. If we’re going to have any chance of finding Greg, we’re going to have to get to know him better than he knows himself. We’re going to have to look into every aspect of his life, and that will include every aspect of your life together. We may find out things that will be embarrassing. We’re going to look under the bed and in the closets. Are you ready for that?’

  Jean’s pale cheeks reddened. She nodded.

  Moira was on a roll. ‘I want you to dig out all your photos from the oldest to the newest. I want to see and hear about all your relatives. I want to take away all the bank statements you can find. I want to read any letters you have. In fact, I want to pry into your life. No piece of information you possess is either irrelevant or sacred. You are not to hold anything back. Ideally I’d like to see a record of all telephone calls over the last three months. Are you quite sure that you’re ready for this?’

  Jean nodded.

  ‘OK, we’ll start with the photos.’

  Morning slipped into early afternoon and boxes of photographs littered the floor and the coffee table. If the photos were a fair reflection, the Gardiners were indeed a happy family who seemed to enjoy each other’s company. They added a new dimension to the word ‘normal’. Moira let Jean explain all the photos. In the course of the conversation, she elicited information on their courtship, their marriage and the birth of their children. She heard details of Greg moving from a salaried position with a major accountancy firm to opening his own firm. She learned that Greg likes a pre-dinner martini, and twice a week he and Jean share a bottle of wine. They don’t frequent bars and their idea of a good time is sitting together watching their favourite TV shows.

  Jean was appalled when Moira enquired whether the Gardiners had ever been arrested for even minor misdemeanours. She pointed out that people in their circle were honest, God-fearing and hard-working. Their children don’t do drugs. Their son, Michael, had attended the famous Roxbury Latin School and had been a National Merit Scholar. He is now top of his class at Carnegie Mellon University and has a girlfriend who also appears to be a high achiever. Their daughter, Lucy, attends the Winsor School and will be graduating shortly. She has been accepted at both Harvard and Stanford. The family currently spend more than seventy thousand dollars a year on tuition fees alone, but much of that is drawn from a college fund that Greg had set up when Michael was born.

  It was a five-hour walk through the life and times of Gregory and Jean Gardiner. And so far there was nothing in Gregory Gardiner’s life that pointed to a desire to disappear and start over again. Nothing on the surface at least.

  CHAPTER TEN

  F rank Shea’s respect for Moira increased as he watched her plough through the hundreds of photographs with Jean Gardiner, making notes throughout. He admired her professionalism but found the whole procedure boring. He already knew Jean and Greg as well as anyone. When they broke for lunch, he told Moira that he had an idea for how they could gain access to the databases she required. That access came from his time in prison and the road he’d travelled.

  Shea carried the trappings of wealth easily, but that wasn’t the way his life had begun. He was born in the Old Harbour Village project in South Boston, which was an Irish enclave. When he was five, his father went to work one morning and didn’t come home that evening. Shea never saw him again, although he later discovered that he had moved to Florida and changed his name. Shea’s mother raised him and his sister by working a variety of jobs to pay their bills. The Old Harbour Village was the kind of area where you became either a criminal or a priest. Shea had a liking for neither, although he was to become one. He started his school life at Boston Public Schools. From an early age, he discovered that he didn’t have the same interests as his classmates. He didn’t like sports, never played truant and took quickly to both reading and mathematics. His liking for schoolwork led to him regularly being bullied. Money was so tight in the Shea household that he never received lunch money, which was a blessing in disguise since he would certainly have been beaten up for it. When the school bullies realised that young Shea was poorer than them, they decided to leave him alone. He excelled at school and was encouraged by his mother as much as their means would allow. Shea and his sister would never complain about their childhood. Their mother was their god, working her fingers to the bone to ensure that her children were well clothed and fed.

  Shea progressed quickly through school and was well ahead of his classmates by the age of twelve. The Shea family were staunch Catholics and regular attendees at St Monica–St Augustine Church. Their mother was a helper at dressing the altar and was close to the parish priest, Father Francis. Patrick Guilfoyle was also a parishioner at St Monica’s and by some form of osmosis a scholarship was arranged for Frank Shea to attend South Boston Catholic Academy, where Guilfoyle’s son Brendan was also a pupil. The teachers immediately realised that they had a talented pupil on their hands and although Shea didn’t contribute to the sporting reputation of the school, he was widely recognised as one of the most brilliant pupil
s in Boston. So much so that when it came to college, he received scholarship offers from MIT, Harvard and Yale. By the time he reached eighteen, his mother’s health had declined due to overwork and the Shea family’s finances took another dip. His sister had opted to become a nun and was already off the family payroll. It looked like college would have to be postponed. Then Patrick Guilfoyle came to the rescue and offered Shea a part-time job. The rest is history. Shea went on to become a financial whiz-kid who ran his own money-making machine.

  He didn’t regret a day of his rise and fall. Even when the government took away most of his money, he was always sure that he would make it back again. His mother often said that she had given one child to God and the other to Mammon. Shea’s one and only reason for making money was to pay back his mother. Before she died, he had moved her into the best retirement home in Boston. His only regret was that he had spent her last years in prison. It was the one thing that he would never forgive the men who put him away for.

  After he left Jean’s house, Shea drove north through Boston on the MA-2W before heading northwest. His destination was the small town of Ayer, which housed the Federal Prison of Devens where he had been a resident for almost three years. It was the first time he’d made the one-hour drive since his release. In terms of his education, he included Devens alongside MIT and Harvard. In fact, to be honest, he learned far more about life in Devens than he did in either of the two elite institutions. When he was incarcerated in Devens he was a pasty two-hundred-and-fifty-pound hedge fund manager whose idea of a life was sitting in front of several computer screens with a telephone set on his head. When he left, he weighed a trim one hundred and seventy pounds, had a black belt in judo, could play the piano and had taken up painting. But they weren’t the only changes. He had learned more about people and what made them tick by talking with bombers, scam artists, mob bosses, state senators, judges and even sex offenders. They were the kind of people he might have run into earlier if he had stayed in the public school system.

  Devens has two distinct sections. The Federal Medical Facility houses prisoners who have severe mental problems and require psychological help. The Camp, where Shea served his sentence, was more of an open prison where inmates were sometimes allowed to have outside jobs. But Devens was no holiday camp and many tough memories flooded back as Shea arrived outside the facility and made for the Jackson Gate. He parked his car and walked to the main entrance of the facility.

  Shea had already put in a call to the prison to organise a visit with one of the inmates. The guard at the entrance checked his ID before calling inside. ‘Deputy warden’s goin’ to meet you at the entrance. Appears that you know the way.’

  Shea nodded, took his ID and walked ahead without comment. The first thing you learn in jail is to keep conversation with the guards to the minimum. He headed for the main entrance, a white two-storey concrete-and-glass block that looked like a cheap office building.

  ‘Good to see you, Frank.’ Deputy warden Steven Blair extended a large black hand towards Shea.

  ‘Thank you, Warden.’ He took the extended hand.

  ‘Drop the warden shit.’ Blair ushered Shea inside. ‘We’re just two civilians. You did your time, so call me Steve. I didn’t expect to see you back.’

  ‘I need to talk to Makara Sin.’

  ‘I heard.’ They walked towards the reception area. ‘I’d hate to see you back here, Frank. You were one of the good ones. I always believed that you were set up.’

  ‘I was. And I have no intention of ever being the government’s guest again.’

  ‘So what do you want with Sin?’

  ‘Just visiting an old friend.’

  ‘Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, Frank. But knowing you I don’t suppose I’m going to get a real answer.’

  ‘How’s your portfolio performing?’

  Blair smiled. ‘I get the picture, Frank.’ He pushed open a door and ushered Shea inside. ‘Wait here. Sin’s on his way. Remember what I said – we don’t want to see you back here.’

  Shea had never been in the interview room before. It was bare except for two chairs on either side of a wooden table. All three pieces of furniture were bolted to the floor. During his incarceration, Shea had been visited by only three people, his sister, Brendan Guilfoyle and his butler, Justin. There were no visits from the ‘friends’ of his previous life. They had disappeared into thin air. Since most were in the financial sector, he assumed they feared contagion.

  He had been seated for only a few minutes when the door opened and a small rotund man in an orange jumpsuit entered followed by a warder. He sat on the other side of the table while the warder took up station at the door. A smile lit up Makara Sin’s face, giving him the appearance of a kindly Buddha.

  Sin had been born in a Cambodian refugee camp before his family made their way to the US. Although he had never harmed a living soul in his life, he had the distinction of being classified by the US government as one of the most dangerous men in America. Sin’s crime was that he was a computer genius who managed to hack a security firm working for the government. For that crime he was sentenced to ten years in a federal prison. The judge had tried to send Sin to a maximum-security prison, but his lawyers fought to have him placed in a minimum-security facility. Sin was lucky that he ended up in Devens.

  ‘How’s the outside?’ Sin’s voice was barely audible.

  ‘You’ll be there soon and I’ll be waiting,’ Shea spoke as low as he could. Even if the guard had incredible hearing, he would have difficulty monitoring the conversation.

  ‘You’re a good friend, Frank. My mother told me what you did for her.’

  ‘It was nothing. Normally I would have called.’

  ‘It’s cool. What do you need?’

  ‘I have a friend who needs to access databases.’

  ‘If I touch a computer keyboard, I think they’ve arranged for a bolt of lightning to hit me.’

  ‘Not you, someone you recommend.’

  ‘You like Cambodian food?’

  ‘Sure.’ Shea couldn’t remember whether he’d ever eaten Cambodian.

  ‘There’s a restaurant over by Fenway Park called Khymer Kitchen. You should drop by there some time. I’ve got a cousin working there. Skinny little fucker calls himself Ricky Sin. Ask him to recommend something from the menu. They say he’s quite something. They also tell me that he’s going to end up keeping me company in here if he’s not careful.’

  ‘Thanks Mak, how are you doing?’

  ‘Countin’ the days, Frank, just countin’ the days.’

  Shea stood up. ‘When you get out I’ll have something for you. In the meantime, if there’s anything?’

  Sin shook his head.

  ‘I’ll visit soon.’

  Sin stood. ‘Don’t forget the food.’ He moved towards the door.

  As soon as Sin was gone, Shea followed and went back in the direction of the reception. He was surprised to see Blair standing at the door.

  Blair extended a hand. ‘Take my advice and stay away from here.’

  Shea shook the big man’s hand. ‘Devens is part of my life.’

  ‘See you, Frank.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  B y early evening, Moira had sucked the well that was the memories of Jean Gardiner dry. She had examined every room in the house, looked in every drawer and scrutinised every piece of paper in the room that Gregory Gardiner used as a study. The Gardiners were exactly what it said on the tin. They were the all-American nuclear family. The photos, the state of the house and the well-behaved children all confirmed it. Lucy Gardiner had returned from school at four o’clock. She resembled her mother down to the dark bags under her red-rimmed eyes. The happy teenager in the photos was now a worried adolescent. The hug she gave her mother when she entered the living room had a little more intensity than would be usual. The two females were clinging to each other in the face of what was probably the first adversity they had encountered together. Moira decided that the young
Gardiner could add little to the plethora of information she had gathered on the family and their friends. She still had misgivings about agreeing to be part of this investigation, but she could see that Jean and her daughter were already depending on her to go further than the police in locating the husband of one and the father of the other.

  It was approaching five o’clock and there was no sign of her supposed partner. Brendan, however, had called twice, ostensibly to see what progress she was making but asking a few too many questions concerning the whereabouts of Frank. On the one hand, Moira was touched that Brendan was jealous. On the other, she knew that jealousy can quickly lead to obsession and the need for control. She’d been down that road.

  Just after five, the doorbell rang and Shea arrived without a word of explanation as to where he had been. Lucy dived on her uncle as soon as he walked in the door. ‘Whoa!’ Shea peeled her off. ‘You seem to grow more every time I see you.’

  ‘I’m sure you’ve got homework, young lady,’ Jean said. ‘You’ve seen Uncle Frank, now upstairs and get your work done.’

  Lucy pouted but picked up her backpack. She turned to Moira. ‘I hope that you find my dad. We really love him.’ There were tears in her eyes.

  Moira smiled. No pressure there, she thought. ‘We’ll do our best.’ She would like to have added ‘but don’t hold out much hope’, but that might have been more than the teenager could handle.

  ‘Are we finished here?’ Shea asked.

  ‘We are.’ Moira placed a heavy emphasis on the ‘we’. She turned to Jean and held up a recent six by four inch photo of her husband. ‘May I borrow this?’

  Jean nodded.

  Moira dropped the photo into her bag. ‘Also, we’re going to need the keys to Greg’s office. Does he have a secretary?’

  ‘Jamie Carmichael,’ Jean said. ‘Boston PD interviewed her and I think that she spoke to the police in Miami by video link.’