Goldilocks (35 page)

“Nobody’s fault, Mrs. Mennick, except maybe nature’s. Where is he?”

“Back in the hospital. Somebody had to sign him in. I signed your name, Mrs. Baker. I didn’t know what else to do.”

“You did right. How bad is he?”

Mrs. Mennick sobbed. “He’s catatonic.”

“Like the last time he went in?”

“Worse.”

The telephone cord was snarled. Louise straightened it and asked for the number of the hospital, which she presently jotted on the face of her mother’s electric bill, along with the office number of the doctor who had previously treated Ben.

“There’s something else, Mrs. Baker. Nothing to do with Mr. Ben, but I think I should mention it.”

Louise waited.

“Two men came to the house, one black. They showed me identification and asked questions.”

“What kind of questions?” Louise asked.

“About you, Mrs. Baker. I told them nothing.”

Louise folded the electric bill in half and slipped it into the side pocket of her bag. “Anything else, Mrs. Mennick?”

“I might give my brother a few groceries now and then, but I’m loyal to you.” There was another sob. “And to Mr. Ben.”

Louise’s mother was waiting in the shade of a red maple that throbbed with birds. Together they walked toward the Porsche, which was baking in the sun. “That call bring you problems?” her mother asked.

“No, Mama, no problems.” She slipped an arm around the old woman’s frail shoulders.

“Too hot for that,” Mrs. Leone said, and shrugged her off.

• • •

Kit Fletcher still held the dead phone. Deliberately she hung it up with a bittersweetness that matched his. “Pullman and Gates is a big firm, Barney. It has a chummy relationship with the government. Several members have held high positions in the Justice Department.”

“Yes, I know.”

“No, you don’t. In their world, everything’s hardball.”

“I know that too. The big leagues. Curves and sliders.” His smile had turned rigidly polite and eerily understanding. “The feds wanted you to do them a favor. I assume that after some quick thought you said no, but your bosses put pressure on you. Of course they didn’t want to make it seem they were forcing you into anything, so they added a sweetener. Senior partnership, which you deserved anyway, should’ve been yours a long time ago. Am I in the ballpark?”

“More or less,” she said negligently, as if details did not matter, only intentions. “But in no way did I agree to hurt you. Information on your friend was all they wanted, and after all, I am an officer of the court.”

“Yes, I’ve heard the argument.”

“I always went out of my way to protect you, and there was little enough I could pass on about her. You saw to that.”

“But every little bit helps. A piece that doesn’t fit now can fit later. We lawyers know that, don’t we?”

“You’re a good lawyer, Barney, but I’m a bigger one. With the stakes involved, I had no choice.”

“Sure you did.”

“No, I didn’t. My life’s on a course.” Her eyes were a deepening blue and declarative. “Your friend’s on a course too. She’s a smart lady. She’ll be all right.”

Cole altered his voice, make it slightly more responsive. “Nobody’s that smart. Enough people want you, they get you.” He stepped into the kitchen, past her, to the telephone. “I think she’s had it, Kit. With a little bit of help from me and you.” He called the Mobil station on South Main and asked for a tow truck. Then he began flipping through the directory.

“Don’t call a taxi,” she said. “I can give you a ride.”

“You have your own schedule.” He rustled through the Yellow Pages. “By the way, you played your part well.”

“I didn’t want you to know. I hoped you wouldn’t.”

“Blame my automobile. I should’ve traded it in months ago.”

“Barney.” Her voice took on a softer quality. “Before you come to any final judgments, any decision, I want you to know I still feel we can have something fine together. For what it’s worth, I love you.”

“It’s worth a lot,” he said.

“But?”

“But your terms are too high. Too much fine print I didn’t know about.”

“Why don’t we wait and talk about it tonight? As we planned.”

“Why don’t we give it a rest?” he said.

“You don’t want to see me tonight?”

They gazed at each other affectionately. He said, “Not tonight.”

“What are you telling me, Barney? You might as well say it straight.”

He lifted the receiver and called for a taxi.

• • •

He was riding the elevator to his office when he learned from two other lawyers that Chick Ryan had been shot to death. He went pale and pressed for details, but they knew only what they had heard on the radio, a sparse report of a double killing off Park Street, the other victim a male Hispanic. “You knew Ryan pretty well, didn’t you, Barney?” one of the lawyers said, and Cole nodded. His stomach turned. When the doors wheezed open, he stepped out like a pallbearer in need of directions.

Later, at Dolce’s, he learned more. Arnold Ackerman, who had friends throughout the police department, said in a near whisper, “Something’s funny about it. He wasn’t on duty. Told his wife he was going to the Hibernian Club. That’s where she thought he was, tipping a few. The question is, what the hell was he doing alone in a Spanish neighborhood with a known pusher. Rafael Somebody?”

Cole took a chew of a doughnut and cast it aside, no appetite. “Maybe he was undercover.”

“Captains don’t do undercover. Certainly not Chick.”

“Maybe the guy was his snitch.”

“Look me straight in the eye, Barney, tell me you believe that.”

“He could’ve been trying to bust him.”

“Sure. Alone? That sound like Chick?”

“You tell me, Arnold.”

Arnold picked up the doughnut Cole did not want and nibbled on it. “We both know the reputation he had. Some guys at the station speculate he went in with his hand out, something went wrong. He got too greedy, is what they think.”

“What do you think, Arnold?”

“I think it was a shame, whatever it was.” He abandoned the doughnut, not to his liking, not a honeydip.

Cole said, “Any idea how his wife’s doing?”

“How would you be doing, situation like this?”

Cole drew himself erect, feeling another turn in his stomach. “Can I borrow your car?” he asked.

“Where’s yours?”

“Towed, I hope.”

Arnold produced a mass of keys. “It’s got no dents. Bring it back that way.”

“Where’s it parked?”

“Judge’s spot. I do it to get his ass.”

It was a ten-year-old Cadillac, mint condition, the radio tuned to the classical music station. Cole listened to Mendelssohn as he drove up Common Street. He crossed Broadway and maneuvered up rising streets to Chick’s house, where he saw a cruiser parked in the drive, a uniformed officer behind the wheel. Unmarked cars, official-looking because of their sameness, were parked in front. He pulled into the first free space and walked back. The district attorney emerged from the house.

“What are you doing here, Barney?”

It was too hot to stand in the sun. They sidled into the shade. Cole said, “I thought I’d talk to Chick’s wife, see if there’s anything I could do.”

“I wouldn’t disturb her right now,” the district attorney advised. “Too many people in there as it is.”

“How is she, Chugger?”

“Nothing’s hit her yet. She still thinks he’s coming home. Christ, I didn’t know Chick had nine children.” He shook his head sadly. “Doesn’t look good. We found a briefcase hidden in the attic. Fifty grand in it, used bills. If it was up to me, I’d have left it there for the family, but too many people are involved now. State police narcotics squad have come into it, and those two feds have taken an interest. You just missed them.”

“Any conclusions yet?” Cole asked warily.

“Theories. Narcotics guys think he was taking drug money and got involved in a shoot-out. They don’t know yet, but they think it was Chick shot the other guy. The feds got their own theory, I don’t know what it is.”

“Can you guess?”

“I’m not even going to try. I gotta go, Barney.”

They walked along the sidewalk together. Each passing car, even dirty ones, blazed with sunlight. Neighbors looked out their windows. The district attorney, stopping, stripped off his suit jacket and rolled up his sleeves.

“What a dumb way to die. He had no business doing that to his family, Barney. What the hell kind of cop was he, anyway?”

“He considered himself one of the best.”

The district attorney tossed his jacket through the open window of his car and pulled open the door. “You know what the greatest pleasure in life is? Bet you think it’s sex. That’s second maybe, but not first.”

“I’ll bite,” Cole said. “What’s first?”

“Lying to yourself.”

• • •

Two Springfield police officers, one a woman, rousted John Rozzi from bed in the fleabag hotel where he maintained a permanent residence. It was two in the afternoon. A fan whirred from the ceiling, agitating the heat of the room. The room was threadbare but surprisingly neat; the only clutter was dirty laundry heaped in a corner and empty beer bottles on the bureau. The male officer, gazing about, said, “Guy with your money, I’d think you’d live better.”

John, whose boxer shorts hung to his knees, held a hand over his crotch. “You busting me or what?”

“Or what,” the officer said. “Come on, get dressed!”

John groped for his clothes. “Tell the cunt cop to turn her head.”

The woman, a bit of a thing who wore her cap at an angle, stepped forward as he struggled into his trousers. “I’m Officer Mary Finn,” she said smartly, and with a quick swing laid a baton against his knees. He doubled up with a yelp.

“One thing you never do is talk smart to Mary,” the other officer said.

John reeled to one side, gripping and rubbing his knees, cursing foully under his breath. “I can’t walk.”

“You’ll learn.”

They threw the rest of his clothes at him, dumped his shoes in front of him. “I got to go to the toilet,” he said.

The male officer, again gazing about, said, “I don’t see one.”

“It’s down the hall.”

“You want Mary or me to go with you?”

“Not her.”

Mary Finn said, “Piss your pants.”

They drove him to the station, escorted him in through a side door, and left him in the interrogation room where he had been questioned before. He hobbled painfully to a chair and sat at the bare table. He was soon joined by the detective with the plump and jovial face. The detective was wearing, he noticed, the same knit shirt with the scruffy little collar curled at the points and the same pants with the defective fly zipper. The only difference he observed was the detective’s manner. It reminded him of a cardplayer who had filled an inside straight.

“I got bad news for you, John. It’s about your buddy Botello. We found the body.”

He had no comment, no reaction other than a glance at the suspect mirror on the wall.

“Nobody’s behind that glass, John. It’s just you and me. In case you think I’m bluffing about the body, I’ll tell you where we found it. That piece of swamp behind the place used to be a tannery, then was a plastics factory, now is nothing. Nobody goes there because everybody thinks it’s loaded with toxic waste. Except kids go there. Kids go everywhere.” The detective smiled. “You slipped up, John.”

John reached under the table and massaged his knees. The left one hurt the worst, though not as bad as his bladder.

“I know what you’re thinking,” the detective said. “You think we can’t identify it. What did you use besides lime? Acid? The face and fingers are gone, but the teeth are there. You’d be surprised what we can do with teeth.”

John said, “Seems to me Sal had false teeth.”

“Caps and crowns is what he had. Three minutes ago I was talking to his dentist. See how easy this is going to be?”

“If that’s Sal you dug out of the swamp, I’m sorry to hear it. He was a pal.”

“You saying you don’t know anything about it?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

The detective regarded him with a display of disappointment and regret. “Sorry to say I got more bad news for you. Day Sal disappeared a lady friend of his, Mrs. Reynolds from across the lake, was strolling over to see him. What she saw instead was somebody stuffing something into the trunk of Sal’s Lincoln. Something big in a blanket, she said. She took her time coming forward because she’s a married woman, but her conscience got the best of her. Plus she thought a lot of Sal. Pretty woman, wouldn’t you say, John? We got her in protective custody, which she didn’t like at first. Now she finds it exciting.”

“Sounds like a flake,” John said. “That the same woman Sal and her used to swim bare-ass in the lake?”

“Could be.”

“Yeah, she’s a flake.”

“I’d be more worried, I was you, John. No matter how you cut it, we got you.”

“You got me, bust me.”

“I got to ID Sal first, then I’ll bust you. And then I’ll go all the way with it. No deals. Only deal you might get is from the feds. If they’re still willing.” The detective pawed his shirt and produced a slip of paper from the shapeless breast pocket. “I got a number here, you want to call them.”

“Guess you didn’t hear me the other time,” John said. “I don’t deal.”

The detective suddenly looked bored. “It’s your life.”

• • •

Barney Cole got home a little after six. On the table was a note from Kit Fletcher. Warm and touching. He read it twice and then tossed it away. With no appetite for supper, he drank a bottle of German beer in the sun room, shady at that hour, the bare suggestion of a breeze traveling through the screens. The early evening was painted bright, but he viewed it with a drab eye. Across the way a young woman and her daughter cavorted on their lawn. The child, golden-haired, did a cartwheel, and the mother, lemon legs flying out of white shorts, did a better one. The sight, which should have stirred him, dug at him in a spiteful way. Moments later he phoned Louise Baker.

They met in the downstairs lounge of a restaurant in Andover Square and sat in low comfortable swivel chairs at a tiny table. They talked of Chick Ryan as if his body were laid out on the bar in full uniform. Cole, gripping a glass of Harvey’s, said, “I can’t get him out of my mind.”