by G. M. Ford
“Probably explains why the files are permanently sealed,” Mickey said.
“From what I hear, it was a very unpopular decision. Legally sketchy, at best. Caused a big ripple in the local legal community.”
“Not enough to fix it,” Mickey groused.
“The Women’s Law Center appealed the decision.”
“And?”
“The judge gave them a court date a year and a half down the line.”
“Meanwhile the two girls . . .” Mickey let it trail off. Something about sexual abuse turned his blood to ice water.
“Yeah,” Jen said.
“Thanks for the tip,” Mickey said.
“I find out anything else, I’ll give you a jingle.”
“Yeah . . . thanks.”
Mickey thumbed the ringer to “Off” before returning the phone to his pocket. This was going to be hard enough without being interrupted.
The young woman at the reception desk was round in all the right places. She looked up from her nails and smiled as Dolan stepped inside. “Welcome to Western Security,” she said through perfect teeth.
The place looked like the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. All computer screens and colored, blinking lights. Dolan wondered if any of it was functional.
Mickey pulled out his police credential and flopped it open. “Detective Sergeant Michael Dolan,” he said. “I need to speak with whoever’s in charge.”
“Why don’t you let me see if perhaps I can—” she began.
Dolan cut her off. “What you can do is get me whoever’s in charge. I’m here on police business.”
She checked her watch. “Mr. Hellman’s in a meeting, he’ll be available at—”
Dolan cut her off again. “Mr. Hellman’s first name is Charlie?”
“Well . . . yes . . . Charles,” she stammered.
“You tell Charlie that Mickey Dolan is outside and needs to see him right now.”
Charlie Hellman was a retired cop. Not a particularly good cop, but one with enough sense to know when it was time to hit the bricks. About the time the mayor appointed a civilian review board to investigate police corruption, Hellman pensioned out and segued into the private security business. One of those glossy firms whose primary function was to keep the poor from eating the rich. Did quite well for himself, from what Mickey had been told. Big house out on the lake. Boats. Kids back east in good schools. All the shit that didn’t come with a cop’s salary.
Mickey watched the syncopated sway as the receptionist put one foot directly in front of the other on her way to the door at the end of the hall. One of the shapely feet came off the floor as she leaned into the room and whispered something.
Charlie Hellman emerged from the doorway as if he’d been shot out of a cannon. He’d gained about thirty pounds since the last time Dolan saw him, but the extra cargo didn’t seem to have slowed him down a bit.
“Mickey,” he called. “Mickey . . . Mickey . . .” he chanted as he hustled in Dolan’s direction. “You finally piss off the powers that be and get your ass canned?” he asked half jokingly. “’Cause we could use a guy like you around here. I’ve always got a place for a guy like you.”
“Naw . . . I’m still pounding the pavement,” Mickey said.
The receptionist had returned to her desk and was doing her best to appear busy. She was so bad at it that Mickey knew right away that Hellman must be banging her on the side. With those nails, she sure as hell didn’t type.
Dolan leaned around Charlie Hellman. Spoke directly to the girl.
“Could you give us a few minutes?” he asked.
She didn’t move, except to pout. Charlie Hellman cleared his throat.
“Why don’t you take a little break Maggie,” he wheedled. “Maybe get yourself one of those sweet rolls over at the deli.”
“You know I can’t be eating that crap,” she whined. “I’m pre-diabetic.”
She took her sweet-ass time leaving. Mickey waited till she’d sashayed out the door and closed it behind her.
“You better hope your old lady don’t find out about her,” Dolan said when she was gone. “Be a damn shame you have to give up half of all this.”
“What . . . about what? Her? Oh . . . I . . . we don’t . . .” He stopped talking. His eyes ran over Mickey’s face like ants at a picnic. “Is it that fucking obvious?”
“Only to the sighted.”
He started to say something, but Mickey cut him off.
“I’m here about the two guys you had watching the Yale Street Bridge.”
Looked like he thought about playing dumb, but had a sudden spasm of lucidity.
“What’d you do, pinch them again?” he joked.
“No.”
Suddenly, Hellman was cagey. Something about Mickey’s demeanor put him on his guard. “What about them?” he asked.
“I’ve got some bad news for you.”
“Such as?”
“Such as I regret to inform you that they’re both deceased.”
Hellman opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
“This some kind of a joke?” he said finally.
“If there’s any humor in there, I must be missing it.”
Mickey watched as Hellman’s florid face turned the color of oatmeal.
“Dead? No . . . you . . .”
“Somebody shot them in the head, Charlie. Right in the middle of Wentworth Street,” Mickey said. “They were pronounced dead at the scene. The bodies are down at the ME’s office. Next of kin can probably pick them up sometime late tomorrow. The car will be with the lab boys a while.”
“You’re shittin’ me.”
“Wish I were.”
Hellman ran a hand over his suddenly sweaty head. “I’ve got to make some calls,” he said after a moment. “I’ve got . . .”
Mickey reached out and put a hand on his arm. “First,” he said, “I’ve got some questions I need answered.”
“We never lost anybody,” Hellman said. “I mean accidents . . . but . . .”
“What were they doing out there?”
Even in the face of disaster, Charlie wasn’t giving anything away for free.
“I’m sure you understand,” he started. “Most of what we do is strictly—”
Mickey headed him off at Confidentiality Pass: “I’m sure you understand, Charlie. There’s no privilege for private dicks. You know that as well as I do.”
Hellman shrugged and turned his head.
“This isn’t going away, Charlie. You’re not going to be able to take a dump around here until we know what was going on. Might as well tell me now, and then you can get on with what you need to get on with.”
A young guy burst out into the hallway. His narrow, unlined face was a mask of concern. “Mr. Hellman?”
Charlie looked his way but didn’t answer.
“I just got a call from—”
Hellman waved him off. “Robert,” he said. “Get the Operations Team together in the conference room. I’ll be right along.”
“Is it true? Both of them?”
Hellman nodded. Robert began a wobbly backpedal. Half a minute passed before the corridor came to life. The sounds of tears and whispers, of clacking keyboards and shuffling feet suddenly became the background music.
“So?” Mickey said. “What were they doing out there?”
Hellman huffed a couple of big breaths. “First off—I guess you could say it was kind of a punishment detail. You know, for getting themselves busted yesterday.”
“And?”
Hellman was inclined to get cagey again, but thought better of it.
“And—you know—we’re on retainer. We need to be able to document our expenses. Our clients expect weekly reports.”
Mickey barely contained a sneer. �
�Billable hours,” he said. “You were creating some billable hours for the firm. Something you could charge Royster for.”
“It’s how the game is played,” Charlie Hellman said with a semi-repentant shrug. “Surveillance pays ninety bucks an hour, per man.”
“Why there? Why Wentworth Street?”
“The Pressman women,” he said. “It’s not just the Royster family investigation. This isn’t the first time we’ve been retained to get a line on those Pressman women. Usually the daughter. She’s supposed to have—”
“The whole Silver Angel thing,” Dolan interrupted. “People wanting her to wake loved ones from comas.”
He seemed surprised that Dolan knew. “Yeah,” he mumbled. “The one in the wheelchair—”
“Eve.”
“She’s down there at that women’s joint making trouble every day.”
“So?”
“So, nobody ever sees her come or go. All of a sudden, in the morning, she’s just there. Same with the blondie daughter. She appears someplace in the city and then just disappears.” He snapped his fingers, as if to add “just like that.”
“So you think they stay out on the island?”
“Possibly,” was as far as Charlie was willing to go. “I mean, Mickey, we’ve put some serious man-hours into finding those two honeys. I don’t want to brag but—you know, with the resources available to us, if you’re out there, we’re generally gonna find you pretty damn quick.”
“If it’s any consolation,” Mickey said. “I can’t find ’em either.”
Hellman looked Mickey in the eye. “We were trying to get a line on the traffic pattern on and off the island. Hoping maybe we could get some idea how they get back and forth.”
“Any luck?”
Hellman shook his head. “Garbage trucks, trade vehicles, delivery vans—damn near no private traffic. We’ve got bubkes.” He made a pained face. “And Edwin Royster’s not a patient guy, if you know what I mean.”
“Nilsson thinks it’s impossible. Says they wouldn’t last five minutes.”
Hellman shrugged again. “Unless Vince Keenan wanted ’em to.”
“Why would Keenan give a shit about a fucked-up family and a couple of bigmouth women’s libbers?”
“Got no idea,” Hellman said.
Over his shoulder, Robert made his second appearance. “Sir,” was all he said.
Hellman straightened his shoulders. “I gotta go,” he said to Mickey.
“I think of anything else, I’ll be back,” Mickey said.
“I think we need to get something permanent for Cassie and the girls as soon as possible,” Grace said as she slid the van into the right-hand lane. “That woman is a disaster waiting to happen. Given enough time, she could screw up just about anything.”
“This one’s hard,” Eve said. “Edwin Royster’s got so many connections and so much money, we can’t do it the way we usually do.” She waved an angry hand in the air. “It’s a much more complex relocation than anything we’ve done before. Usually we provide a safe respite. These people need a whole new life.”
Grace put on her signal and took the Terry Street exit.
“You know what Gus asked me?” Grace said, as she wheeled around the cloverleaf and rolled toward a line of cars at the stop sign at the bottom of the hill. A motorcycle cop had dismounted and was blocking the intersection. He held up a black-gloved hand. Grace braked to a halt.
“What did Gus ask?” Eve said.
“He asked me how long I’d been doing this.”
“What did you say?”
“I said I felt like I was born doing it.”
“In a way, you were.”
“What way is that?”
“You were born into a male-dominated world. A world where domestic violence is the rule, rather than the exception.”
Eve looked up and checked her daughter’s eyes in the rearview mirror. Lately she didn’t like what she saw. Grace had run aground on the shoals of doubt. Eve could feel it. Her voice rose. “Look at me,” she said. “All the years I’ve been sitting in this damn chair because some idiot thought he had the right to hurt me anytime he wanted to, just because we were married.”
When Grace didn’t say anything, Eve went on. “If I can help it, this”—she gestured down at the wheelchair— “this kind of tragedy isn’t going to happen to other women, just because some idiot thinks he owns them, and can do whatever he wants.”
Three police motorcycles came inching past the intersection. Riding in formation, lights ablaze, sirens groaning. Then a couple of shiny black flower cars, filled to the brim with blossoms of remembrance. Then the hearse, all stolid and solemn. Then two long black limos, probably the immediate family. More motorcycles zipping in and out, riding shotgun alongside the procession. Half a dozen smaller, rented Caddies, before the first of the regular cars began to cross in front of the windshield. The procession seemed to go on forever.
“We’re fighting the good fight here, Grace,” Eve tried.
“You’re sure of that, are you?”
“As a matter of fact, I am.”
“I mean—who died and left all this to us? How’d all this good work end up being our job?”
Eve heaved a sigh. “That’s the same question the new cop asked me yesterday.”
“Maybe because it’s a damn good question.”
“Maybe,” was as far as Eve was willing to go.
“I mean, what happened to you—to us—was a tragedy, and somehow it turned into a career.” She pointed out through the windshield. “You suppose that’s how he got so many friends?”
“Who?”
“The dead guy.” She waved an angry arm at the funeral parade. “I mean—look at this. There’s hundreds of people following this guy’s dead body down the road. It’s like some remnant pagan ritual. All that’s missing are the torches.”
The cop got back on his motorcycle and started the engine.
“You figure the dearly departed is such a popular guy because he spent his life doing the right thing? Fighting the good fight?”
“What kind of a question is that?”
“You think—you know, when it’s our turn—you think this many people are going to show up to send us off?”
“I have my doubts.”
“Me too,” Grace said.
“Sometimes there’s a price to pay.”
“So why is it that we always have to pick up the check?”
“The legal system is broken,” Eve snapped. “The minute it involves lawyers, it’s the old golden rule—whoever’s got the most gold, rules.”
“It works for some of the people, some of the time.”
“That’s not good enough for me, and I certainly hope it’s still not good enough for you either.”
Must have been over fifty cars altogether. Seemed like half an hour before the final pair of motorcycle cops brought up the rear. Their cop roared away from the intersection in hot pursuit of the procession. Grace sighed and dropped the van into drive.
“You don’t seem quite yourself,” Eve commented as they pulled out onto Terry Street, leaving the grief and the flashing lights behind them.
“Who else would I be?” Grace asked bitterly.
“I keep telling you Sergeant. We don’t take people out there. Not ever. Last guy drove a fare onto the island got his head busted and his ride stolen. Also got his ass fired. It’s against company policy to take fares to Coaltown.”
His name was Ben Thayer. He was the general manager of The Sunshine Cab Company. Hadn’t seen either his belt buckle or his hairline in a couple of years, but still looked like he could maybe go three rounds in a pinch.
Unlike the futuristic Western Security office, the place was The Wreck of the Hesperus. Cleaning lady must have died. Looked like it hadn’t been so much as s
traightened up in the past twenty years or so.
Dolan again looked down at the photo on his cell phone screen. The blowup of the cab medallion had arrived in his inbox, along with a brief note saying they were going to have to stabilize the paper in the diary, whatever the hell that meant, before they could pull the pages apart. Be at least several days, they figured.
Sunshine Cab Company. Number 76354. Dolan turned the phone in Thayer’s direction. “About seven thirty last night. Four hundred block of Harmon Road. Directly across the street from Memorial Hospital.”
Thayer began to poke a thick finger at his computer. “Friggin’ thing takes forever,” he groused as the screen came to life.
“Remember when computers were supposed to save us time?” Mickey joked.
“Yeah—what happened to that shit, huh?” The computer screen blinked and rolled. “76354 was out with Barry last night.”
Dolan pulled out his notebook. “Barry who?”
Thayer was shaking his head. “That’s just what we call him. He’s an Indian guy—you know, like a Bombay-type Indian. Real name’s”—he squinted at the screen—“Bharat Agnihotri.” He spelled it. Dolan wrote it down.
Thayer pointed at something on the screen. “Signed out for dinner, between seven thirty and eight.”
“Where’s he now?” Mickey asked.
“Drivers’ meeting.”
“Let’s get him in here.”
Thayer scowled. “Hey man,” he said. “I don’t want to make any trouble for the guy. He’s a solid citizen. Wife and kids. Never misses a shift. Never short with the money. I should have six more like him.”
“I’ll be gentle,” Mickey promised with a malicious grin.
Thayer looked grim as he pushed himself to his feet and disappeared out the office door. Three minutes later, he was back. Barry, as they called him, was a short, stocky Indian guy in his midforties, sporting a handlebar mustache and an orange turban.
He took a seat at the table, directly opposite Dolan.