Sudden Mischief (13 page)

"Close the door," he said.

I did.

"Civil Streets is a dead end," Quirk said when I sat down. "We went up there last week with the Stoneham cops and tossed the office. There's nothing there. No books. No computer. No paper. Nothing at all."

"So they cleaned it out," I said.

"Maybe," Quirk said. "Or maybe there never was anything there. We talked to the building owner. He said it was rented for a year by Carla Quagliozzi, paid on time every month with her personal check. I think it was just an address."

"That's what it looked like the day I went there," I said.

"So we figured we better talk to the president, and day before yesterday Lee Farrell called Carla Quagliozzi and asked her to come down with her attorney," Quirk said. "She was due here at ten in the morning. She didn't show. Farrell called. No answer. He called couple more times. Nothing. This morning we called Somerville and asked them to send a cruiser by. The cruiser guy found the front door ajar. He yelled. Nobody answered, so he opened it and looked in. She was in the living room. Somebody had shot her in the head, and cut her tongue out."

"Jesus Christ."

"Medical examiner says it was probably done in that order."

"I hope so."

"ME was pretty sure," Quirk said. "No evidence that any of the kitchen knives were used, assumption is that he brought his knife with him."

"Hasn't this gotten ugly real quick," I said.

"It has."

"Did you, ah, find the tongue."

"No."

"So he took it with him," I said.

"That's our assumption," Quirk said. "He had to carry the tongue away in something. It would be kind of messy to stick it in your pocket. There's no sign that he got a Baggie or Saran Wrap or whatever from the kitchen, though it's possible. Assumption is he came prepared."

"He knew ahead of time he was going to cut out her tongue and take it away," I said.

"That's our guess."

"I hate talking about this," I said.

Quirk said, "I know."

"So, why would he take the tongue with him?" I said.

"Got a guess?"

"He was going to show it to somebody."

Quirk nodded. "As a warning," he said.

"Which is probably why she was killed."

"To shut her up," Quirk said.

"And to shut other people up," I said. "No need to cut her tongue out to keep her quiet."

"And they left the door open," Quirk said.

"Because they wanted her to be found soon."

"Before we got to anyone else," Quirk said.

We thought about it for a minute.

"But you'd figure the tongue"-Quirk made a face-"would work pretty well as a warning."

"If they could show it to everyone they wanted to shut up," I said.

"So maybe there's more than one," Quirk said. "Maybe they left the door open to be sure we'd find her and word would get out and people they couldn't show the tongue to would hear about it, and know what it meant."

"Somebody they couldn't find," I said.

"Somebody missing."

Quirk sat back in his chair, his thick hands folded in front of his chin, the thumbs resting in the hollow under his lower lip.

"Like your client," he said after a time.

"Just like my client," I said.

"Who is Susan's ex-husband," Quirk said.

"Well put," I said. "No wonder you made captain."

Quirk tapped his thumbs gently against his chin. He looked at me silently, shaking his head slowly.

"So you figure her death was at least partly to be a warning to Brad Sterling?"

"Maybe," I said.

"All because somebody might have scammed some money from a charity bash?"

"Maybe."

"And they might have cut out her tongue to drive the point home," Quirk said, "but there'd be no need to take it away to show it to Sterling if they didn't know where he was."

"This is true," I said.

"So it wasn't for Sterling."

"Maybe just the fact of it, when he heard about it," I said.

"Then why take it away?"

"Good point," I said.

"So who's the tongue for?" Quirk said.

"Here's what I know," I said. "Carla is formerly married to Brad Sterling. I'm not sure which wife, but after Susan, who was the first. She is connected to Richard Gavin, who was a director of Civil Streets, who was also Cony Brown's lawyer, and Cony was killed in Sterling's office."

"You're thinking out loud," Quirk said, "and it's not a pretty sight. Tell me something I don't know."

"Couple days ago Hawk and I saw Gavin having lunch with Haskell Wechsler."

Quirk's head lifted slightly and he let his chair come forward so that his feet touched the ground. For Quirk that was a reaction approaching hysteria.

"Haskell the rascal," he said. "He spot you?"

"I sat down with them," I said.

"You would," Quirk said.

"They weren't pleased."

"They wouldn't be."

"Haskell said I was going to be tended to later."

"Haskell would mean that," Quirk said.

"If he can," I said.

"Anyone can kill anyone," Quirk said.

"I know that's true," I said. "But if I'm going to do what I do, I have to act like it's not so."

"You've gotten this far," Quirk said. "What's the relationship?"

"I don't know," I said. "Gavin acted as if he were Haskell's lawyer."

"He'd do that anyway," Quirk said. "Makes it a privileged relationship."

"Haskell could have somebody's tongue cut out," I said.

"Haskell probably would have done it himself twenty years ago," Quirk said.

"He's an executive now. Had a couple of subordinates at the next table. One of them was a little shrimp with long hair. The other one was a big guy named Buster."

"Buster DeMilo. Haskell rules with an iron fist. Buster is the fist. I don't know the other one."

"So there's an ugly murder and there's a connection to Haskell Wechsler. What's the presumption."

"The presumption is that Haskell did it, and we can't prove it."

"Right you are, Captain Quirk," I said.

"Don't do anything fancy," Buster said, "or the broad gets it too."

"Susan, this is Buster," I said. "Buster, Susan."

"Stand over there, Susan," Buster said. "And stay quiet."

Susan stepped aside. Buster's associate kept the gun on me. He was a short guy with small eyes narrowly separated by a sharp nose. His hair was long and he wore an earring. The gun was a semiautomatic, nine millimeter, probably. Maybe a Colt. The short guy seemed comfortable with it.

"You got a beatin' coming," Buster said.

"No doubt," I said. "This one from Haskell?"

"Mr. Wechsler can't allow people to embarrass him like you done. Been any worse and I'da had to kill you."

"You going to do the beating?" I said.

"Yeah."

"And Needle Nose with the gun? He's here to be sure you win?"

"They tell me you're always heeled," Buster said. "Shorty does most of the shooting."

"He shoot Carla Quagliozzi?"

Buster was putting on a pair of tan leather gloves. "We ain't here to talk, pal," he said.

Buster feinted with his right hand and brought in a pretty good left hook. I half slipped the punch and shuffled back and a little sideways. Buster was big. Bigger than I was, and he looked in shape, and he knew what he was doing. He shuffled after me in a way that told me he used to box. If he used to, then he knew I used to by the way I'd slipped his punch. Buster grinned at me.

"Done this before, ain't ya," he said.

"Both of us have."

"I can take you anyway," Buster said. "But you make too good a fight of it and Shorty will dust the broad:"

He did the same feint with his right and came around with the hook again. I blocked the hook and put one of my own over his lowered right hand and banged him on the chin. It rocked him back a step. He grunted. Shorty stepped closer, looking for direction, and while he was looking, Susan picked up a brick from its pallet and, holding it in both hands, hit him on the back of the head like someone driving a fence post. Shorty went down without a sound and the gun skittered into Linnaean Street. Buster turned at the sound and I kicked him in the groin. Buster yelped and doubled over. Susan got the gun and turned it toward Shorty before Buster had fully sunk to the ground. He lay on the ground, his hands pressed in to his crotch, his knees up. Susan had the gun in both hands as I'd shown her. It was cocked.

"You sonovabitch," Susan said. "You sonovabitch."

Shorty paid no attention. He was out. Buster wasn't out but probably wished he were. I went over and took the gun from her.

"You cock it?" I said.

"No."

"He had it cocked," I said. "Amazing it didn't go off when he dropped it."

"Yes," Susan said. "That is surprising."

Her voice was perfectly even, although she was trembling slightly. As I stood beside her the trembling stilled. Her voice was calm as iron. After great pain, a formal feeling comes.

"Is he alive?" she said. "The one I hit."

"Probably," I said.

"Oddly, I wouldn't care if he were not," she said.

"Why don't you go in and call 911," I said. "And I'll stay here and guard the casualties."

"Certainly," Susan said.

"That was pretty good, Wonder Woman."

"Yes," she said steadily. "It was."

She turned and walked unhurriedly into her house. Shorty had rolled over onto his back and his eyes were open but unfocused. Buster was sitting up, still clutching himself.

"We might want to try this again someday," I said. "Just you and me, Buster, without any guns, or a tough Jewess to tip the odds."

Buster had nothing to say to that and we were quiet the two or three minutes it took for a Cambridge cruiser to come whooping down Linnaean Street with its siren on and the blue light flashing.

"Who fought your battles before you met Susan?" Farrell said to me.

"I used to run," I said.

"You just visiting," Kearny said to Farrell, "or has Boston got an interest?"

"Boston has an interest," Farrell said. "You people got the piece that Susan took away from one of the alleged assailants?"

"Yeah, a little bang-bang named Kenneth Philchock."

"Somerville's got a homicide, woman named Carla Quagliozzi."

"Broad got her tongue cut out," Kearny said. "I heard about that."

"She got shot first. Be good to know if it was Philchock's gun."

"Call Lieutenant Harmon about that," Kearny said. "Why is Boston interested?"

"Got a case that ties in," Farrell said.

"You want to share it with me?" Kearny said.

"Call Captain Quirk about that," Farrell said. "How are you, Susan?"

"I'm fine, Lee."

"People get shaky sometimes, after the fact."

"I know, but I'm fine."

"DeMilo and whatsisname made a statement?"

"Philchock," Kearny said. "I don't know, Lee. I'm trying to get a statement from these people, you know?"

Farrell nodded.

"I'll call Central Square," he said. "Okay?"

He nodded at the phone on Susan's desk.

"Of course."

"Awful polite for a cop," I said.

"But not for a homosexual," Farrell said.

"Oh yeah," I said. "I forgot."

Farrell dialed a number.

"Okay," Kearny said. "I got what happened. Either of you got a theory about why?"

Susan shook her head.

"You know either of the assailants?" Kearny said.

"No." Susan's voice was firm.

Kearny looked at me. "You know them?"

"Nope."

I didn't look at Farrell. He didn't say anything. He was busy telling somebody at Cambridge Police Headquarters who he was.

"You make a lot of enemies," he said. "Anybody mad at you?"

"Hard to imagine," I said.

"Yeah," Kearny said. "Anybody?"

"Can't think of anybody," I said.

Farrell hunched the phone in his shoulder and looked at me while he waited to be transferred to the proper department. But he still didn't say anything and I saw no reason to get too many footprints on the problem until I figured it out better than I had.

"Guys like these two don't usually assault strangers on the street for the hell of it," Kearny said.

"I know," I said. "Doesn't make any sense, does it."

"It would make a lot more sense if this was related to you nosing around in somebody's business who didn't want you nosing around in his business," Kearny said.

"It sure would," I said.

Open and earnest, a law-abiding citizen eager to help the police. Kearny looked at me like he didn't think I was so open and earnest, and maybe even like I wasn't helping the police. Cops get cynical. Farrell had gotten connected to the proper person and talked for a moment and listened for several moments and then hung up.

"I got the feeling you're not leveling with us," Kearny said.

"I'm sorry you feel that way, officer."

"Yeah, I'll bet you are. You think he's leveling, Farrell?"

"Probably not," Lee said.

"You know anything he's holding out?"

"Nope. As far as I know, he always holds something out."

"Yeah. They got a statement from the perps?"

"They wouldn't make a statement. Just yelled for their lawyer."

"He show up?"

"Uh huh. He says there will be no statement at this time."

"Who's their lawyer?" I said.

Farrell grinned at me. "Guy named Gavin," Farrell said. "Richard Gavin."

"I'm shocked," I said. "Shocked, I tell you."

"You guys want to let me in on it?" Kearny said.

"Gavin's very active in philanthropic causes," I said. "He's on the board of a prominent charity. Hard to figure him representing these two toads."

Kearny slapped his notebook shut in disgust.

"The hell he is," Kearny said. "He's a mob lawyer. For crissake he's Haskell Wechsler's lawyer. All he ever represents is toads."

"Well, maybe he does charity work to make up," I said.

"Don't shit a shitter," Kearny said. "I don't know about you, Dr. Silverman, but you and Farrell got something you're not telling me. And you're not going to. Okay. We don't do rubber hoses anymore, so I'll eat it and go write up my report and mention that I think you're concealing evidence."

He stood up.

"Any of you got anything else to tell me that you think might be useful?"

None of us spoke. Kearny shook his head.

"Okay," Kearny said, looking at Susan and me, "we'll be in touch."

He looked at Farrell.

"Thanks for the help, Boston."

Then he put his notebook into his side pocket and went out of Susan's office. Susan looked after him.

"He's right, isn't he," she said.

I shrugged. Farrell shrugged.

"I heard the big one mention somebody that you had embarrassed."

"Haskell Wechsler," I said.

"You knew this too," she said to Farrell.

"Yeah, Quirk told me."

She looked back and forth between us.

"So why didn't you tell him what you know?" Susan said.

I shrugged. Farrell shrugged.

"I know he never tells anybody anything he doesn't need to," Susan said to Farrell. "But you're a policeman yourself, Lee."

"Maybe Wechsler's a lead for the guy got killed in your-in Sterling's office," Farrell said. "Maybe he's connected to that woman, Sterling's ex-wife got killed in Somerville. Cambridge goes after him for assault and they may screw him up for us."

"Well," Susan said. "So much for interdepartmental cooperation."

"Suze," I said. "If we can get him for murder, rather than assault, he'll go away a lot surer for a lot longer. The world is a better place with him away."

"Do you know he's the one that did the murders?"

"Or ordered them," I said. "No. Unless Lee knows something I don't know, we don't know he's guilty. But it's a good guess."

"Because?"

"Because," Farrell said, "if there's something bad going on and Haskell Wechsler is connected to it…" He shrugged.

"Haskell is a really genuinely bad man," I said.

"So you're both willing to let these two hoodlums, who assaulted us"-Susan was frowning-"you're willing to risk letting them slide in order to maybe get this Wechsler person for something worse."

"I'd trade those two jerks for Haskell Wechsler anytime," I said.

She looked at Farrell. He nodded. Susan looked back at me and wrinkled her nose.

"Not a very fragrant business," Susan said.

"Not very fragrant at all," I said.