by Linda Barnes
“Let’s start with the office.” Mooney, who had grabbed a pad of paper and a stubby pencil off Thurlow’s kitchen desk, made a meaningless squiggle. “How long have you worked there?”
“Wow, since forever, since high school. I was an intern there. My mom was a law office secretary. She liked it a lot, so I thought I’d give it a try. I’m a demon keyboarder. I like being in the front room, meeting people.”
“Is it a big firm?”
“For this town, I guess. It’s the biggest.”
“And what do you handle?”
“Realty, wills, all that stuff. We represent the local tribe, too, the Nausett nation.”
“How many lawyers, besides Hastings?”
“No Muirs anymore, but there’s two other guys, Joe Kepple and Blake Ganley. Blake only comes in part-time. He’s about ninety.”
“Support staff?”
Amy shifted her legs. “Look, I don’t have much time. You want to know about Danielle, ask.”
“Okay. How long did she work there?”
“She got hired after me. But she got to travel. Washington and New York, and tons of other places.”
“You handle real estate in other cities?”
“I think it was all to do with the tribe.”
“So Danielle was involved with the tribe?”
“Not so much. She just liked to seem more important than she was. The whole thing with her getting killed, I keep thinking how much she’d enjoy all the fuss. She’d be the one angling for a big movie star to play her onscreen. She always had to be the center of attention. You don’t take many notes.”
“I have a good memory.”
“You have stuff published?”
“In the pipeline.” Damn Thurlow. Mooney had no idea how familiar she was with authors or publishing houses. He thought he ought to have written something, for credibility’s sake. “Where were you when you heard about Ms. Wilder’s death?”
“At the office. Nobody got any work done.”
“People were shocked?”
“Hey, we all warned her. A woman dates a mobster, what does that say about her?”
“That depends,” Mooney found himself saying. He forced himself back into character. “You knew about that? Knew his name?”
“Oh, yeah. Her Sam, her sweetie. She liked the money he spent on her, that’s one thing. Danielle was an expensive girl. She really got off on glamour. She always wanted you to think she knew stuff you didn’t know. I mean I’m a secretary; I’m not a paralegal, and she made all this big deal about how she understood shit I didn’t understand and she was gonna be a lawyer and I was gonna be nothing.”
“I heard the thing with the mobster was over.”
“Who says a guy like that is gonna take no for an answer? But yeah, it was over, as far as she was concerned.”
“Was she dating somebody else?”
“She wasn’t the knitting-a-scarf-on-Saturday-night type.” The claws were out. Amy was the first person Mooney had met who was obviously glad Danielle Wilder was out of the way.
“Did Danielle hang out anyplace? A bar, a club?”
“That December, she was totally devoted to work. I mean putting in extra hours was nothing to her. Shining up to the lawyers, and boy, did it work, them paying to put her through law school.”
“They have a program for that?”
“They’re not sending me to any law school if I bust my ass for a thousand years.”
“But she wasn’t dating anybody in particular?”
“Oh, there was a guy. At least one. She was extremely available, you know what I mean?
“And this guy?”
“I don’t know that I’d call him ‘anybody.’”
“Another lowlife?”
“I don’t really know who he was.” The admission cost her. “I saw Danielle at some store, at Radio Shack, yeah, and she didn’t see me, or if she did, she didn’t bother saying hello. She was with this guy, very cute. She called him Kyle, I think. Yeah, Kyle, and she was like ordering him around, hold this, hold that, and he’s following her around like he’s in heat, you know? She had him holding cords and gizmos, like maybe she was going to have him set up a new stereo.”
“Could he have worked there, at Radio Shack?”
“This was definitely not a clerk. Nice overcoat, good haircut. A girl can tell.”
“You ever see this Kyle around town?”
“Nah.”
“But you figure him for a boyfriend?”
“A fallback guy, maybe, the way she bossed him. So she didn’t get cold at night, like a blanket or something. Probably wasn’t worth the effort, finding a man who could stand on his feet when she knew she was leaving town.”
“Kyle have a last name?”
She shrugged.
“You have any idea what she was working on? Before she died?”
“She was just showing off, putting in extra time like that.”
“Did she seem worried about anything, different in any way?”
“She was always stuck up as hell. Oh, you’re going to hear nothing but flowers and lace now she’s dead, and how good she was to her old granny, but I think somebody oughta tell it like it is. What do you suppose happened to Rob? I better honk the horn or something. I get in big trouble I take too long a break. Danielle never did. No, she was a ‘professional.’ Me, I’m dirt.”
“You’ve been very helpful, Amy.”
“Just don’t use my name in the book.”
TWENTY-NINE
“She’s something, huh?” Thurlow watched his girlfriend trot back up the walkway to Hastings, Muir, balancing her takeout coffee in one hand and waggling the fingers of the other over her shoulder in farewell.
“She gave me a name: Kyle.”
“A player?”
“Possible boyfriend, post-Gianelli.”
“Must be young,” Thurlow said. “My momma’s generation didn’t name their babies Kyle.”
“No last name.”
“First name doesn’t chime, but I don’t have a lock-box memory. Let’s see if he comes up in any of the friends-and-family chats.”
“I didn’t see any family interviews.”
“Wilder girl didn’t have much: only child, Dad dead, Mom traipsing around Europe, some stoned leftover hippie, didn’t even come to the funeral. Grandma’s in a nursing home in Falmouth. Told her Danielle was dead, but she’s got that Alzheimer’s so she’s probably still waiting for her little girl to visit. Kyle, huh? Least it’s not John or Pete.”
“Jason or Alexander.”
“Yeah, I’m sure behind the times.”
When they pulled into the police station lot, Mooney said, “You go ahead in. I want to see if I left something in my car.”
The thing he’d left was his portable phone charger. He thought about phoning the commissioner or calling in sick with some phony complaint that would explain his absence, excuse his reckless behavior, but he didn’t feel like lying. Pretending to be a writer had taken it out of him. He’d had enough lies for the day.
He tried Carlotta’s number, waited out the message and the beep, left a terse “Call me.” He figured Gloria would have phoned him if Carlotta had been picked up by the Macs and tossed in jail, so he tried another number instead.
Even though he was on the list of approved callers, it was a struggle to get through to Paolina. Miss Fuentes could call him, a cool-voiced receptionist informed him, when she felt like it and had time to do so. He could not expect to get through whenever he felt like it. Mooney bit his lip and listened to the long hours and frustration behind the receptionist’s tone. He didn’t want to use his rank, doubted it would work. Instead he sympathized with her difficult job, emphasized how deeply he’d appreciate her taking personal responsibility to put the call through, promised he’d never break protocol again, and breathed a sigh of relief when he was finally switched to her room.
“Paolina?”
She sounded groggy. He hoped they weren’
t keeping her on some medication that made her voice so flat and dull it was barely recognizable.
“Who is that?”
He identified himself.
“How are you, honey?”
“Okay, I guess. Are you coming to see me?”
“I need your help, babe.”
“My help? I can’t even go outside without permission. They watch me all the time.”
“Carlotta calls you, right? Calls the desk, anyway.”
“Why?”
“Paolina, do you trust me?”
Her voice got so quiet, he had to strain to hear her. “You came and got us in Miami.”
“You know I’ll always come and get you, the same way Carlotta will always come?”
“I didn’t ask her to. I didn’t—”
“You didn’t want what happened to happen. I know that and Carlotta knows that. Nobody has that power, Paolina, to make things happen the way they want them to happen. But you do have one power right now that I need.”
“What?
“When Carlotta phones, take the call. Put her on the list of acceptable visitors. Tell her you need to see her now. As soon as she can get there.”
“I … Mooney, I can’t … I don’t …”
“You won’t have to see her if you don’t want to, but I need to talk to her. I have to see her, and you’re the only one who can bring her to me. You know I’d never hurt her, right? I’d never hurt you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Please.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Set it up. And when she calls, tell her to come.”
“Can I tell her about you?”
“Paolina, I can’t make you do what you don’t want to do. But if you mention me, she might not come. And that would be bad.”
“I’ll think about it, Mooney.”
“I’ll come see you anyway. Soon.”
“Where are you?”
He glanced at the low buildings and windswept trees. “I’m near the ocean, honey. On the Cape.”
“It’s too cold for the beach.”
“How about I bring you some seashells?”
“Bring them soon.”
Mooney hung up. If Roz wasn’t so maddening, he might have tried her again, but she wouldn’t tell him where Carlotta was even if she knew.
The civilian receptionist was talking on the telephone so Mooney pointed to his chest, then pointed down the hall to let her know he was expected in the chief’s office. At the bulletin board, he paused reflexively to take note of the wanted posters. The yellow sheet he’d picked up last night at Mitch Farmer’s house was affixed nearby, its VOTE YES! headline partially obscured by a salmon-colored VOTE NO! The Citizens for Good Cape Government handout had a more professional look than the Indian flyer. Mooney untacked the negative broadside, folded it, and stuck it in a pocket to study later.
“Your car still there?” Thurlow asked. “Good. I hate it when crooks boost cars from the cop lot.”
Mooney settled into a chair. “That old Indian guy, Farmer, the one who said he had something to tell you, he call?”
“I’ll go by and visit later, once I check with the Boston ME about his granddaughter.” Thurlow opened a file drawer and started rummaging. “Kyle, right?”
“Your Amy sure didn’t have much use for Danielle Wilder.”
“Yeah, but don’t go looking at her for the killing; she has a great alibi.”
Sleeping with the chief, Mooney assumed from the wink. “People at Farmer’s house last night, most of them Indians?”
“Hard to tell, huh?” Thurlow seemed amused.
“Lay off about the feathers, okay?”
“Remember those seven federal criteria I was talking about? For being a tribe? One of them goes something like this: All those on the current tribal roll must have documented their descent from people identified as Nausett Indians by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts back in the 1800s when the Nausett nation was administered as a tribe. Okay? Well, you can imagine, there are problems.”
“With the documentation part?”
“Hell, yeah. See, lots of folks intermarried with the Indians back then, but they weren’t proud of it. Changed their names, so people wouldn’t guess, so the kids wouldn’t be called half-breeds. Wasn’t real fashionable to be an Indian then. Not like now when they got claimants coming out of the woodwork because everybody knows how much money the Connecticut Pequod are raking in. But the government’s got it figured. You have to be one-sixteenth Nausett to qualify.”
Mooney shook his head. “Sounds like octoroons down in New Orleans.”
“Worse. I don’t even know a name for one-sixteenths. And I don’t see anybody named Kyle in these files.”
“Me neither,” Mooney said. “But I never got to read anything from the feds.”
“That makes two of us,” said Thurlow.
“I wonder if the DA feels like sharing.”
“Doubt it.”
“Still …” Mooney let the word hang there.
“Haven’t I paid off that favor yet? Let’s go through these one more time before you get me in more hot water. And then we’ll ask Rosemary.”
“The receptionist?”
“Hell of a gossip. Usually, I try not to encourage her.”
They were almost three-quarters of the way through Nausett’s accumulated paper on the Wilder case when the phone rang. Thurlow picked up and his head snapped back. He said yes and no, hung up, blurted, “Hang on to your hat.”
Heavy footsteps pounded down the hallway, followed by a knock on a door that opened before Thurlow had finished saying, “Come in.”
Today’s suit was gray, not blue, but Mooney recognized the first man anyway; he’d been at Mitchell Farmer’s house, supposedly paying his respects to the bereaved Indian. He was closely followed by Dailey, the red-faced special agent from Boston, and Thurlow’s big office seemed suddenly too small.
“Can I help you?” Thurlow said. “My receptionist—”
“We asked her not to bother you.”
“That’s her job, bothering me. You Boston or Washington?” Thurlow, bristling, wanted them to know he knew who they were, men dressed like that, shoulder holsters bulging their left armpits.
The man in gray said, “Washington. Agent Farrell. Indian Affairs.” Farrell not only displayed credentials, he doled out business cards as well.
Dailey didn’t have the chance to introduce himself, because Thurlow stood and said, “Let’s go to the conference room. That way you can sit down.”
“We don’t mind standing.” The beefy Dailey shifted his feet to a wider stance. He looked like an offensive lineman gone to seed.
“I mind,” Thurlow said. “Hurts my neck looking up.”
To help the police chief seize control, Mooney stood, too. He eased out the door and hung a right, figuring the others would follow, figuring the conference room would have to be farther down the corridor. It was two doors down and looked like it did double duty as a lunchroom. A small refrigerator hummed in the back left corner.
The four men stood, one to each side of the rectangular table, and finished the introductions. Thurlow asked whether anyone wanted coffee. No one did, but the dynamics of the situation had changed. The visitors subsided into squeaky metal folding chairs. Thurlow and Mooney did likewise and the tension eased slightly.
“Now, what can I do for you gentlemen?” Thurlow asked.
“We’re a little curious about BPD’s involvement.” The Indian Affairs man had a voice as bland as his accent. A cookie-cutter of a man, he seemed to have no oddities. If he turned to crime, Mooney thought, he’d be a shoo-in; no one would be able to identify him.
Dailey said, “What he means is what the hell do you think you’re playing at?”
Thurlow said, “I thought Washington was running this, not Boston.”
Dailey said, “I asked him a question.” Meaning Mooney.
Mooney ignored the Boston fed, focused instead o
n Gray Suit. “How’s this? I’ll tell, if you’ll tell. What’s BIA’s interest in Wilder?”
“You don’t owe him any fucking explanation.”
If Dailey hadn’t protested, the BIA man might not have told. Dislike of Dailey registered in Gray Suit’s eyes, and his voice grew even blander. “Hearings are currently under way in the District concerning the legitimacy of the Nausett tribe. A Miss Julie Farmer requested a meeting. And since she said she was a close friend of Danielle Wilder’s, we intended to listen to what she had to say.”
“Why is that?” Thurlow said.
“You don’t know?”
“Too many secrets around here.”
“Danielle Wilder was scheduled to testify before a Senate committee.”
“State senate?” Thurlow sounded surprised.
“U.S. Senate. Washington. Concerning the influence of organized crime in Indian affairs. Originally, Miss Wilder was scheduled to appear as a witness for the tribe, to assure the senators that there was no mob influence in the Nausett nation.”
“Originally.” Mooney caught the man’s emphasis and tossed it back.
“Miss Wilder had changed her position. Mid-December she said she could produce evidence that certain mobsters were working to gain control of the tribe. Real evidence. Possibly tape recordings.”
“Shit,” Mooney said under his breath.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“What happened to Wilder makes it difficult for us to accept that the Farmer girl was in the wrong place at the wrong time.” The Indian Affairs man looked straight at Mooney. “I assume Boston Homicide must have a hot lead, sending in somebody of your stature.”
“A hit and run is a wrongful death,” Mooney said.
“Yeah, well, your boss seems to think you went AWOL,” Dailey said. “He wants you back in harness. Now, as in today. And we don’t want you mucking around in our case.”
“That doesn’t include me, does it?” Thurlow said. “Mucking around? Our case? Seems to me both these girls were Nausett girls, my girls, and now you’re telling me they were both killed by organized crime? Both by this Gianelli bastard?”