by J A Whiting
The two chatted for a few more minutes about the case and then discussed their training schedule for the rest of the week.
“I’d better get going.” Claire stood and stretched her arms over her head. “I need to get the dogs from Tony. See you in the morning?”
“You bet.” Ian started up the walkway towards the gold-domed State House. “Stay out of trouble.”
Claire smiled and waved and headed to Tony’s market hoping Augustus might be there for his afternoon coffee. When she opened the door, Bear and Lady hurried over to greet her wiggling with joy to see their owner. Claire patted the two happy Corgis and lifted her head to see Tessa standing next to Augustus’s table.
“Hi.” Tessa’s face lit up when she saw Claire. “I came by to pick up a couple of things on the way home from work.”
Claire gave the woman a hug. “Where’s Tony?”
“I talked him in to going for a walk with me. He’s gone to change.”
“Tony? A walk?” Claire’s face looked blank. “Is he feeling okay?” she kidded.
Tessa’s laugh sounded like a tinkling bell. “Is a walk out of the ordinary for him?”
Claire and Augustus exchanged a look and said in unison, “Yes.”
“I walk.” Tony’s voice boomed from the store room as he came out dressed in pressed chinos and a light blue buttoned-down shirt. His silver-gray hair had been carefully combed.
Claire smiled at the tall husky man. “You look nice.”
“Shall we?” Standing across the room near the door, Tessa’s eyes sparkled at the store owner.
As Tony passed by Claire on the way out of the deli-market, she winked at him and whispered, “No kissing on the first date.”
Tony rolled his eyes at Claire, gave his employee some instructions about what needed to be done, walked over to Tessa with a joyful expression on his face, and opened the door for her. The two stepped out into the late afternoon sunshine.
Claire sank into the seat opposite Augustus. “Well, well. Someone looks bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, doesn’t he?”
“Indeed, he does.” A little smile played over the older man’s mouth. “It is a pleasant sight to see Tony so happy. That said, tomorrow morning, I plan to tease him mercilessly about his crush on the woman.”
“Wait until I get here.” Claire smiled a wicked grin. Getting herself a tea from the little coffee bar, she returned to her seat. “I was hoping you were still here. I have a bunch to tell you.” Claire proceeded to report all that had gone on over the past days related to Grace Dodd and her fall from the window.
Augustus listened with interest, asking an occasional question, but allowing Claire to lay all the information out for him.
“I admit I got scared when the detective told us they were placing a police car outside the Dodd’s house. I was glad to get back home to my own place.” Claire rested her chin in her hand. “Do you have any news from your contacts about the case?”
Augustus put his coffee mug on the small rickety table. “Some. Not much. Conjecture, at best.”
Claire waited for some details.
“There are some rumors going around that Dr. Dodd was seen going into Victoria Lowe’s townhouse on the morning of her death. It is believed Dr. Dodd had a key to her home.”
Claire sat straight. “Did he? So he went in and what? They argued? He pushed her down the stairs?”
“Dr. Dodd told the police that he had nothing to do with Ms. Lowe’s death.”
“He told the police he was in her house? How can he prove he didn’t hurt her?”
“The coroner pinpointed the death within a window of four hours. Dr. Dodd arrived at the woman’s house within that window.”
“That means he could have killed her.”
“It also means he may not have.”
Claire exhaled loudly. “They didn’t find any evidence in the house that could point to Dodd as the killer?”
“His fingerprints are all over the place.” Augustus lifted his mug and sipped. “Not surprising since he was having an affair with the woman.”
“Where are the answers?” Claire leaned back in exasperation. “This thing is going around in circles. Wait.” She pulled out her phone. “Look at this picture. Ian told me the man with Dr. Dodd is a private investigator named Bob Cooney.”
Augustus took a close look and returned the phone. “Ian is correct.”
“You know Cooney?” Claire’s eyes widened.
“I know who he is. I don’t believe he does much investigating these days, but if the money was right….”
“Why would Dr. Dodd be meeting with an investigator?”
“They could be friends,” Augustus said. “But I doubt it. Cooney isn’t quite the right social match for Dr. Dodd.”
“So you think it was a professional meeting? Maybe the doctor hired him for something?”
“If I was a betting man, I might wager that Dr. Dodd paid Cooney for his skills.”
“What’s this Cooney like?” Claire narrowed her eyes. “What kind of skills does he have?”
“Remember I have never met the man.” Augustus tilted his head and looked Claire in the eyes. “My understanding is that Cooney is not always ethical in the jobs he takes. He does do work for insurance companies investigating fraud, but he also does other things. He’s careful. Nothing sticks to him.”
“What do you mean other things?”
“Drug dealing, some high-paying jobs in white collar crime. This is all through the grapevine, of course.”
“If I talked to him, would he tell me things or would he keep client confidentiality?”
Augustus tried to suppress a smile. “Investigators are not required to maintain confidentiality unless doing work for a lawyer who is bringing a case to court. Even if he was obliged, I don’t believe Mr. Cooney would hold to keeping a confidence.”
“How can I find him to strike up a conversation? Do you know anyone who could point me in the right direction?”
“I do. Me. Mr. Cooney is known to have a drink each day at 4pm.” Augustus told Claire the name of the bar in the South End where the man could be found.
“He’s there every day?”
Augustus nodded.
“You think he’d talk to me?”
“Without question.”
“I think I might pay a visit to that bar someday.” Claire grinned. “I’ve never been there before.”
“Take Nicole with you.” Augustus cleared his throat. “Mr. Cooney fancies himself a ladies’ man. I wouldn’t want you to be alone when you strike up a conversation with him.” The former judge leveled his eyes at the young woman sitting across from him. “Be on your guard, Claire.”
21
Wearing summer dresses and with their long hair falling over their shoulders, Claire and Nicole entered the bar-pub at 4:30pm and the establishment was a far cry from the rundown, seedy place they expected. The place had brick walls with carefully chosen artwork, polished wood floors, a granite bar, bottles lined up on shelves running along a wall of mirrored glass. The vibe was warm and welcoming. A few people sat at wooden tables scattered around the room and several men and women perched on bar stools.
Noticing that the man they’d come to find was sitting at the bar, Claire nodded at Nicole and they headed over.
“Are these taken?” Claire smiled at the thin, wiry man wearing a fitted dark blue shirt and black slacks.
When Bob Cooney turned away from his conversation with the bartender to see who had spoken to him, his eyes brightened when he saw the two young women standing next to him. “Absolutely not, please have a seat.”
The bartender took the girls’ orders.
“Bob,” Cooney introduced himself.
Claire and Nicole told the man their first names.
“Names as lovely as the women they belong to.” A wide smile showed perfect white teeth against the sun-tanned face. Cooney had dark brown eyes and jet black hair, but not a single gray strand showed in the thick lock
s and Claire guessed the fifty-something man must get his hair dyed. “What brings you to the South End?”
“Shopping, mostly.” Nicole took a sip from the drink the bartender had placed in front of her.
“Tourists or locals?” Cooney asked.
“Locals,” Nicole told the man. “Although Claire has only been here for a year and a half.”
Cooney made eye contact with Claire and the look on his face gave her a feeling of distaste. “Where’d you come from?” the man asked.
“I lived in New York and on Nantucket.” Claire forced a smile.
“Nice places. What brought you to Boston?”
“I needed a change.” Claire shifted in her chair to better face Cooney. “How about you? Local?”
“Born and bred.” Cooney took a long swallow from his beer glass, allowing his eyes to linger over Claire’s body.
The conversation covered the pros and cons of living in the city, local politics, the weather, and what they did for a living - Cooney told them he did consulting … and then Nicole brought up the suspicious deaths of Grace Dodd and Victoria Lowe. “Any guesses as to what’s going on?”
Cooney exuded bravado helped along by his consumption of alcohol and he latched onto the subject Nicole brought up, clearly intending to impress the young women. “I know the guy.”
“Dr. Dodd?” Claire asked with mock surprise.
“Yeah. I did some work for him.”
“What sort of work?”
“I’m also a private investigator.” A smug smile crossed Cooney’s mouth.
Claire and Nicole leaned forward with interest.
“Really?” Claire said. “I’ve never met an investigator.”
Nicole asked, “You did some sort of investigative work for Dr. Dodd?”
“The guy’s a piece of work. Not bad looking for an older gent, I guess, but really not any great shakes in the looks department. The guy’s kind of flabby, probably from years of doing nothing but hunching over a patient, but I guess money talks. The doc is loaded, made tons of money in investments.” Cooney’s eyes sparkled. “The old doc has plenty of extracurricular activities to keep him busy, if you know what I mean.”
Nicole’s eyes widened. “What do you mean? He was having more than one affair?”
“I don’t think you’d label his escapades as affairs. He had the one affair going with the Lowe woman. What she saw in the doc I can’t even guess. She was loaded, too, so is her husband. Anyway, the doc is a busy man, likes to go to the bars and pick up women. He has an apartment in the city.” Cooney chortled. “I’m sure the wife didn’t know how many visitors her husband was entertaining.”
Afraid to inhibit Cooney’s revelations, Claire and Nicole stifled their impulse to rail against how disgusting the doctor and his activities were. Instead, Claire showed interest by saying, “It’s like a movie or a television show. Full of intrigue and suspense.”
Cooney responded to Claire’s comment. “I don’t know how the guy had time to work.” Shaking his head in almost an admiring way, he went on. “Then comes the wife’s death and on top of that, the death of the woman he’s been seeing on the side. The doc knows how to get himself into trouble. Dumb dope, he had it made in the shade until these two things happened.”
The bartender brought over another round of drinks.
“What work did you do for Dr. Dodd?” Claire asked, hoping to get some specifics.
“The doc was sure his wife was cheating on him. Isn’t that rich? The pot calling the kettle black. Anyway, he wanted me to investigate his wife, see what she was up to.”
“Was she having an affair?” Nicole asked eagerly to keep Cooney talking.
“Nah. The doc imagined the whole thing. The woman was straight as an arrow. Maybe he hoped she was fooling around, too. Maybe in his mind that would excuse his busy lifestyle.” Cooney stared into his beer glass for a moment. “I get the feeling the doc isn’t that mentally stable.”
Claire asked, “Why do you say that?”
Cooney looked up and gave a shrug. “He says crazy things like suspecting the wife of an affair.” The man shook his head. “He told me he thought someone was after him.”
Sitting at attention, Claire questioned, “What? Who?”
“The doc said someone wanted to hurt him … for something he’d done.”
“Maybe one of the women he was stringing along.” Nicole snorted. “I’d think he might have an army of women who would love to hurt him.”
“Not a woman. The doc always said ‘he.’”
“What did he say about the person?”
“He’d mutter stuff like ‘I know he’s out to get me.’ I asked if he wanted me to look into it and he nearly jumped down my throat. He told me to stay out of it, it would only make it worse.”
“You think he was imagining it?” Nicole asked.
“Who knows,” Cooney said. “I wouldn’t be surprised. The guy seemed distracted, paranoid.”
“You met with him before and after Mrs. Dodd died?”
“Yeah.”
“Did he act strangely before his wife died or only afterwards?”
“Both.” Cooney chuckled. “I sure wouldn’t want him doing any surgery on me. The guy was violent, too. He claimed he and the missus had plenty of fights.”
Nicole leaned forward. “Physical fights?”
“Yeah.” Cooney gave a nod. “The doc had cuts on the sides of his face and I asked what happened to him. He told me his wife did it. I laughed and that seemed to annoy him. He told me they had regular arguments that ended with the two of them using each other as punching bags. Sounds like a barrel of laughs, doesn’t it?”
“What were they fighting about?” Claire asked.
“The wife found out about the affair. The good doctor had been hiding money away for years. The wife found out, I guess. She was planning to divorce him, but was biding her time to get the finances in order.”
Claire’s heart beat sped up. “Do you know that from your investigation into Mrs. Dodd?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you report that to Dr. Dodd? That his wife knew he’d been hiding money?”
“Of course, that’s what I got paid to do.”
“When did you tell him she knew about the money?”
“The day before she died.”
They were quiet for almost a full minute, and then Claire asked, “Do you think Dr. Dodd killed his wife?”
One of Cooney’s eyebrows went up. “I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“Did you know the doctor before he hired you to look into his wife’s activities?” Nicole hoped Cooney knew the doctor before Mrs. Dodd discovered her husband’s affair and financial manipulations because she wanted to know if he’d thought the doctor’s behavior had changed over time.
“I only met the guy when he wanted to hire me.”
“How did he find you?”
“There’s plenty of ways to find what you want. Ask around, you end up finding what you need. It ain’t hard.”
Claire asked, “Did the police question you about Dr. Dodd?”
Cooney sat upright and narrowed his eyes. “Nah. The cops don’t know I dealt with the doc. All my work is done strictly in cash. I meet with clients outside. We make our arrangements verbally. No cell phone, no email. No trace.” The man’s lips turned up at the corners. “You gotta know how to run a business.”
“I guess that’s true,” Nicole said.
As Cooney drained his glass, he let his eyes rove over Nicole’s chest. “Enough gibbering about that old goat. He’ll get what he deserves. How about I take you two lovely ladies to dinner? My treat.” Cooney leaned close and his boozy breath almost made Claire recoil. He leered at the young women. “Then after dinner, maybe, who knows? I could show you my place.”
Nicole’s face paled at the thought. “It’s been nice talking with you, but we’re already late to be somewhere.”
“It can’t be more important than this.” Cooney smiled. “W
ant some company?”
“I don’t think you’d enjoy it.” Claire fibbed, “We have to go take care of Nicole’s aunt. She’s bedridden. Her caretaker needed the night off.”
A look of distaste covered Cooney’s face. “Well, aren’t you two angels of mercy. Bless your hearts.” He nodded. “Nice to talk to you.” The man got up and headed to the end of the bar where a group of attractive young women were laughing and talking.
“I guess we’ve been dismissed.” Claire rolled her eyes. “Anyway, we got some information. Mission accomplished.”
“Thank heavens.” Nicole slid off the stool. “Let’s get out of here. I’ve had quite enough of Mr. Cooney.”
22
Nicole drove along the quiet streets of Greendale as Claire watched out the window at the houses shrouded in darkness. Bear and Lady sat in the backseat of the car each one looking out with their noses sniffing the evening smells coming into the vehicle through the slight openings at the top of the windows. During the ride to the Dodds’ house, the young women had been going over the conversation they’d had with Bob Cooney trying to figure out what it might mean for the case and they decided not to discuss Cooney or his findings with Vanessa or Maddy just yet.
“Dr. Dodd sounds like he’s losing it.” Nicole turned the wheel of the rental car to head down a side street. “Cooney made him sound crazy and paranoid.”
“Something’s wrong with the man,” Claire agreed. “His insatiable need to be with so many women points to some desperate need in him that can never be fulfilled.”
Nicole smiled and kidded her friend. “I didn’t know you’d studied psychiatry.”
Claire chuckled. “It seems like common sense. Striving to be the best, entering a demanding field, the desire to accumulate wealth, the need to attract women, it all seems to spell out a man who needs constant adulation and attention. He must have a hole inside of him that can never be filled.”
“All of that would be really sad if Dodd’s behavior wasn’t so awful.” Nicole sighed as she pulled into the driveway of the Dodd house and headed to the end of the long drive around the back of the house. “There’s the police car.”